A Geek History of Time - Episode 165 - Interview with Theresa Halvorsen

Episode Date: July 2, 2022

And while we have a through line that states, Authorial intent means dick, right? I don't want to have to have the same haircut, you have dad. Sorry, I'm pretty Oh, dude. Aww. So was this before or after the poster and you vomiting all over the couch? For those of you that can't see, Ed's eyes just crossed. It is fucked up. But it's not wrong. Oh. This is a history of time when we connect letters to the world world.

As you hear, I am not Ed Laylock. I am not a middle school English teacher or history teacher this week because Ed, he's on assignment, he's hurtling toward the earth at 30,000 feet above sea level currently, and we're hoping that he touches down in Bokeh, over tone. But I am here. I'm Damien Harmony. As you know, you can tell by the voice. Unless this is your first time in which case, I'm still Damien Harmony.

I am a Latin and drama teacher next year to be another history teacher again up here in Northern California. And the biggest update I have for you right now is that as of this recording, we have probably come very close to or are about to hit our six year anniversary of my pun tournament, capital punishment, which has been going on since July of 2016. So I'm pretty proud of that.

It's nice, It's paid for Christmas for the last four years, which is the only thing that I kind of brag about it because other than that, it's just a lot of fun doing puns. So that's what I'm doing. Now, in order to continue to bring you the stellar or sub-stellar content that we normally bring, I'd actually lined up an author friend of mine because we had such fun with we normally bring. I'd actually lined up an author friend of mine because we had such fun with the other ones. I'd lined up an author friend of mine to come talk. And so Ed is super kicking himself,

which is causing him to spin out. I can see it right now. He'll probably burst his eye on the way and to book a retone, but you know, he's still gonna get to a good place with chicken wings. But I have an author friend of mine who has come to join us tonight. She has written a number of books, which we're hopefully gonna talk about tonight. So I'm gonna turn it over to you, Teresa Halverson. How are you tonight?

I'm good. I'm good. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Absolutely. So we normally start with just kind of what's going on in our world so that people know that we're real people. Anything cool, new and exciting to report in your neck of the woods? Oh, cool and new. Well, I'm in Southern California, so, you know, we're on fire. So that's always right. It's in Fernow season. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I saw what 200 acres burned up and that was a total of 20 structures, one of which was a resort. Yes. And it was a real exercise for me in trying to still engage my humanity and caring about these really rich people's homes getting burned up. Like I got to admit, like the class warrior and

me like kind of overstep overstepped the the compassion is like, oh no, they'll have to live closer to people like me now. You know, I have to admit, I did see something on a new site about like, here's how you can help the victims of the Orange County fire. And I'm like, um, yeah. Good. Like, I mean, I feel bad. I do. I feel bad. I mean, I feel bad. I do. I feel bad. Her homes are destroyed, but it's not a demographic that I would say we need to rescue.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Well, I'm even, I'm an equivalent with homes are destroyed. Structures and houses were destroyed. How many of them were there permanent homes? Like, oh, that I don't know. And it's funny because I'm usually against means testing,

but I think going this way, it's okay. Like, there's a part of me that's kind of okay. Maybe it's the ancient historian in me, I don't know, but it is terrible. I mean, there's really cool stuff that got burnt up and nobody was hurt, thankfully, from everything that I've read. Yes. But also, the fire hasn't started

because you said you're still on fire. What? Well, you said things are on fire down there. Yes, things are burning. Is that one out? I don't know. Sorry, I don't know. We had some, because where I have my day job is an ocean side is kind of close to Orange County.

Also, we had some smoke today and we were like, oh, that's probably the Orange County fires. Yeah. Oh wow. Okay. I really said to me how commonplace those things have become like, oh, yeah. Yeah. It's this whole community is burning down. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, look, the said the sun is a weird orange. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I look the sun the sun is a weird orange. Yeah, yeah, I remember when like that would happen maybe once every couple of years This is like back when I was doing temp jobs So I'd be outside for my my break And I would notice like the sunlight that was hitting the concrete was just a little orangeish and I was like Oh, something's on fire somewhere. So that's weird and it was weird and now it's like many days are we going to lose to smoke now? Like, yeah, we have the equivalent of snow days with smoke now. It's it's yeah. And you guys up in Sacramento had it so much worse the last couple of years. Because of the house Sacramento sets in that valley where the smoke just fills it.

Exactly. Yeah, it looks like those experiments that kids did with dry ice. You know, you put the dry ice in a bowl and then pour some water over it and the whole thing just Yeah, yeah, looks like that from space. It's a it's awful. So yeah, but on the upside of God, air filter now. So that'll hey,... Hey, you know, saves you from cancer. Sure, there you go. I'm a fan of being saved from cancer. I... We all are.

Good, yeah. So, although we don't get giant crabs up here very often, so that's one of the coastal things. Good, that was good. Thank you. Thank you. That was fast. I, you know, I, I, I, I tore us through it and, um,

it's like, do you have like a pun show or something? I don't know. Matter of fact to do. I do. Come on up. Six years now. I should absolutely. I had a coworker say today because they were planning the next social

event for, for where we work. Um, and she said, I said, oh, yeah. And after we do that, y'all could come to my punch show. And she's like, I went there, I remember. And I was like, good, what'd you think of it? And she's like, there were a lot of puns. I'm like, wow, that's diplomatic. I mean, she's like, I'm surprised.

I'm like, it's in the name. We capitalize the first three letters on purpose. Like, the name itself is a pun. So, but anyway, enough about me, more about you, Teresa, you are a not just a writer, you are an author, you are published author. I am. I am. What do you have to five books now? Is that? Yes, five books. Yeah. Because I know there know the first one you did was a guide for accepting families, right? Yeah, yeah.

And edit this if it's not okay. Oh, it's fine. Okay, cool. Yeah, it was the dad's playbook to labor and birth and your story was in it. It was, it was. If you turn to the back and find a guy named Snake or Cobra, that's right.

Cobra. That was my pseudonym, my nom deburth. Yeah. So it was, but yeah, that was, that was a fun little read. Not just because I was in it, but like it, it, it certainly helped because it was, it read very much like a how to read very much like a, kind of a hitchhiker's guide. Don't panic here. This honestly, it red like go boil some water.

You know, just to get you out of the room so you like wouldn't panic the women, like you just go boil some water. That's what it red like and it was, I liked it. So I still get it for my guy friends whose partners are expecting. So that's good. That's good. Yeah.

Yeah, but no, I liked that book. I was in a, I mean, that was book. It came out in 2012. So it was 10 years old. And I wrote that when I was very, very much in the childbirth scene, you know, and going to births and doing childbirth education and everything else. And then in 2012, when the book came out, moved to Southern California and took on a totally different job. And kind of stopped writing for several years.

And then when I picked it back up again, it was, it was for fiction. So. Yeah, and I saw it like that's the other four books that you've done. Now in order was the collaborative one the first one that you did? No, my first book was Warehouse Dreams. Oh, okay. Yeah, so what's funny about Warehouse Dreams is that so I'm going to backtrack by many many many years. Please do, please do.

I'm always wanted to be a writer. I really think most fiction writers start off as kind of day dreamers. They start off as just that they like to read. They like to make up stories in their head. Oftentimes the stories they make up in their head are set in the worlds that they're reading with the same characters and everything else,

especially as children. It's early fanfic. Now, how old were you when you were fanficking in your head? I can't remember not. Oh, wow. Yeah, really and truly. My first, my first written story was about a princess whose plane crashed and everyone died.

She was a princess who she didn't care. And then, you know, in the forest, she met a whole bunch of animals and she was able to talk to them and they were able to get her back to her capsule. You tarzaned it. You basically tarzaned it. I like it. I like that. Yeah. You know, and you don't you don't remember how old you were for that one? No. I only asked because my daughter is super into writing too. And she's a fourth grader now. And like I have to go out and buy her a new box because the box of journals that she writes

her stories in has broken. There are so many journals in it. Oh, that's so awesome. Oh, it's rad. And she like I never I never read them. I never go through them or anything like that. Cause that's hers. I always say, whatever you want to share,

I'm happy to read. But if you don't, I completely understand. So she feels very respected in those right. I will ask her what she's writing about. And she's almost always writing about, well, she is her father's daughter. She, her teacher last year, because it was during the COVID times,

emailed me and said, your daughter's computer has been going to a lot of websites about breeding rabbits and sexing rabbits and determining if rabbits are boy or girls and all these kinds of things. And I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. We just watched Watership Down.

She's writing a story. No, yeah. And so she learned all about warrants and the politics that go into rabbits living in warrants. And so she did a whole bunch of warrants stories and rabbit stories. And then she did, she loves writing about thrall, the world that the gulflings and the skecs

and the mystics live in. And she wrote, she's got tons of stories about that. She's, she anthropomorphizes cats all the time. She like, she just is always, always, always writing. And so I've opted her out of testing because I'm a teacher and I know better. So she doesn't have to do these stupid tests. But I did tell her, I'm like, you don't get to disrupt anything. So what are you going to bring to school? And she's like, Oh, I've got like four or five stories I'm working on. And I was like, I do not have to worry. For her. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. So you, you were, did you ever get like things in

your report card like Teresa is a very bright student, but her mind tends to wander and she gazes out the window for her. No, no, I know honestly I didn't have that problem because I just was able to stay focused in school. I was one of those kids, you know, when you read aloud, I would read ahead. I did that too. Yeah. And then people would think you weren't keeping up. And you're like, yeah, behind me, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then you weren't keeping up. And you're like, yeah, behind me, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then you know, they'd call on you to read and you're like, hang on, let me flip back. Yeah. Yeah. Where are you? Where's the rest of you? So, but I figured out really, I figured out school real easy. And you know, you just have to pay

attention. And the other half, you get to do what you want. Yeah. Yeah. I daydreamed. Yeah. Okay. So you you started daydreaming early on like you can't remember not and you started writing and you can't remember not. Right. Um see because I remember the first pun I ever wrote. Uh, okay. Well, what's it? It was a first grade. In first grade, we had these like fill in the talk bubble comics that we had to do. And long time listeners know the story already, but I don't mind indulging myself

because Ed's not here to stop me. But there was a bird talking to a wormhole. And then the next panel, the bird is talking to the wormhole. And then the next panel, the bird is still talking to the wormhole. And then the last panel, the worm has popped up and is wearing like a night's helmet. And so the first one is just the bird talking.

The second one is the bird responding to something coming out of the wormhole. And there's a back and forth. And the next one and the third one, it's just the worm with the night helmet talking. And so it's worm. Why don't you come out and play? No, you'll eat me. No, I won't. In fact, you should come out and rescue your friends. And the worm, you know, what? Yeah, it's like worm war one out here. And then the worm pops up. Yeah. So, and then the worm pops up. And it's where are they? I'll kill those Nazis, but I spelled them N O T S E Y E S. Wow. Yeah. That's awesome. It's a first grader, you know. But I was already

I was already showing my antifa leanings and my inability to keep separate historical events in my head. So wrong Germans. Yeah, so but yeah, but yeah, so I have evidence, written evidence of punning. So, but okay, so as you grew into adulthood, as I grew into adulthood, I kind of kept on writing. And in high school, you kind of start falling in love with words, with how like different words evoke different emotions, and even though they made the same thing, they don't and symbolism and colors and names and places and dates, and you know, how all the stuff ties together.

And at that point, I was like, okay, this is cool. I really, I really want to do this. But it was interesting because I really kept it very private. Like if people asked what I wanted to do, I was like, oh, I want to be a veteran marine biologist. And then I'm in my mind, I'm like, but I secretly want to be a writer. Because it felt like, it felt like that wasn't a real career almost.

And I don't know why I felt that way. Maybe it was too artistic. Maybe it didn't, it wasn't high real career almost. And I don't know why I felt that way. Maybe it was too artistic, maybe it wasn't high brow enough. You know, I was always the smart one, you know, the straight A students, you know, maybe being the writer wasn't, it was too creative. Were you afraid of being told no? Possibly. Okay. Yeah. Was was your family like a working class family?

Like hard working to make sure that you had what you needed? Or... To some degree. I mean, my dad was a lawyer, my mom was a teacher. You know, my dad was the first to go to college. Okay. But, I mean, but you've got, that's some middle class background stuff. Yeah.

You don't normally think like, oh, I better hide the whimsy thing from the middle-class family. But okay, my parents don't, aren't going to listen. So this is okay. No, listen to this. Fine, my parents don't listen. You know, my- It doesn't listen. Well, bad listens.

I do too. My dad has asked for girls. You know, now I get it's I don't my mom is definitely neurodivergent I don't know where that is but they're very very black and white people very black and white people okay this is a rigidity there yeah and I probably interpreted, you know, Teresa so smart, Teresa's into science, Teresa's into math, as in I can't be creative, I can't be a writer. And that's probably- Exactly. And that's probably how I just interpreted it.

You know, people had expectations. Sure. Are you an only and oldest? I'm the oldest. Ah, there you go. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Are you an only and oldest? I'm the oldest. There you go. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, and again, going deep, my youngest brother born in the 80s with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalitis, he's a paraplegic. And so our entire family structure was around him. Was around supporting him. Yeah. It was around doctor's appointments and hospitals. And, you know, he's sick again and I have to pull you out of school

because we gotta go back to the doctor again for him. So it was a lot of, and my parents weren't this way, but a lot of don't bother us, we're busy. But that's not how they meant it. No, no, but that vibe concerned, like you learn pretty quickly that like, look, there is a real existential threat over here.

Mm-hmm. You know, why are you tardy too many times where I have to sign something? What are you doing? Like real problems. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I can totally get that. Yeah, yeah.

I was also an oldest, but like I knew that I wanted to be a history teacher since fourth grade. So, which apparently is weird. When I got to college, I met people who still didn't know what they wanted to do. And I thought that was weird, but then I did the math and looked around. And I was the only one who had known for so long. I was like, oh, I'm the one who's off. Okay.

But like, so like nobody ever was worried that I would blow my ride as it were, that I would not live up to my potential because I'd already said, this is what I'm doing. Yeah, I'm going to be a history teacher. Everyone was like, are you sure? Oh, okay. Yeah, and it's, oh, that's a solid profession. That's a growth industry. That's always going to exist.

So nobody had to worry about me. I think with artistic people, because I know a lot of comedians, it's not that their parents don't want them to do well, it's that their parents worry. Yes. You know, and we're going way off on a tangent here, but I have, I have heard the show.

I have, I have. I have, have you heard, have you heard by podcast? We go off on weird tangent. Yeah, and there's more of you too. So there is more tangents. Yeah, but I have a very good friend, she has sent her sons my sons age and they hang out together. And he is a drummer. And in band his thing, he loves it, loves it, loves it. They are super supportive of him. He has a drum set in his room.

They used to live close. I could hear him sometimes on, you know, quiet evenings. Sure. Super supportive. She was a band mom and everything else. But they were very rigid in that. That's cool.

That's a fun hobby for you. You will become an engineer. You'll be an engineer who drums for fun. Exactly. Exactly. So he did the program. I can't remember the name of it, but the program where you can graduate high school with your associate's degree. degree, they pushed, they pushed, they pushed, they pushed, he failed that test, did not get his associates degree. He went to, he went to a good college, but not necessarily the, you know, the college that they were hoping for him to go to. Not the brag worthy one, but the one that he was fine. Exactly, exactly. COVID happened. He came back home again, tried to do the distance learning, did not work, and he finally had a full breakdown. And he finally said, I don't want to be an engineer.

You forced me into this. I don't want to do this. I want to drum. That's what I want to do. I want to be a drummer. And it took them a lot to listen to him, but they finally were like, okay, it's your life. But it's nice to get there before that.

Exactly. Again, I understand parental worry too. Sure. Sure. You know, and if he is a teacher of drumming and you know, drums on the side and everything else, he's not, it's a lifestyle change. He may not be not be able to buy a house and have that financial support that parents, it pay for it. We worry. Yeah. And not even selfishly, don't come back. I finally budgeted for just two,

but more like we want you to go out into the world and and like have a stable life. Exactly. Happy comes next but stable. Yeah, stable. I fully understand that. I get that. So okay, so you, you, I'm not going to say you hid your love away because that's Beatles and I don't want to get sued. But although I don't know who owns the rights of those songs anymore. I don't know who but you cannot use them. I know that much. Yeah. Yeah. Because I worked with an author that tried to and I was like, no, no, I did research on this. You can't. That's a bummer. Yeah, it was because it was really perfect and just this beautiful scene with a couple of lyrics. I'm like, nope, don't even do it, don't do it. I'm dying. Well, that's sad. But anyway, so you hid your desires to be a writer away.

Did you admit it to yourself, though, yeah? Oh, yeah. Okay, so you were living in kind of parallel worlds. Very, very much so. You cocooned that and carried it through like the yolk in the egg. Okay. Okay. Okay. And so then you got to college. Got to college. Did you have classes or teachers in high school that that recognize that or did you keep that from all of them? No, I pretty much kept that. Yeah. I did have, I did have a couple of friends that knew. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, but and it's also it's hard to like share, especially early on. It's really hard to share your writing with others because you're like it still really sucks And yeah, and you're worried about being judged. Yeah, it's a very vulnerable thing too Yeah, yeah, and and please read it and tell me that you love it, which is not realistic. Right, and I want you to

love it for itself, not because you want me because I want you to love it. Yeah, which wow, it's triggering all kinds of codependent stuff in me. Right. Okay, so you get to college. Get to college. Yeah. Happy secret safe. My secret safe, I started to take some creative writing classes there. Oh, okay. Yeah. Now, was that always the plan? Like, once I get to college, I can unfurl this. Or did you feel like you still had to keep it?

I think I still kind of kept it. Yeah, I still kind of kept it to close the best. Started kind of, and I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to write a novel. I wrote a novel in, yeah. I wrote a novel in college and kind of the first year of the boys life. And then I started to try to shop it around to having no freaking clue what I was doing. And that was when you would shop it around to agents, you would mail it to them. Right.

And then you do include your self-adjusted stamp down below to get your rejection. It was always fun. And of course didn't really go anywhere because now I would say that that book was terrible, but I didn't know any better. I didn't know that I needed to like get some beta readers and other people to like be like, so you got some developmental problems for this story. I don't know, okay. So I kind of was like, oh, okay, that was nice. I tried that. Then I did the first iteration of warehouse streams, worked on that for a while, and it wasn't, you know, I just wasn't really getting anywhere.

I was really stuck on the ending of that book. I kept rewriting it and rewriting it and rewriting it and rewriting it. And then I got into doing internet content. Back in the day when Google had less control over SEO, search engine optimization, and you would be like, how do I paint a wall? And you'd have all these weird random articles written by people who had no idea how to paint a wall. They just said Google it themselves and regurgitating the information because you could get $10 or $15 an article

for writing 500 words. Yeah, I did that for a good year. Okay, so like a knockoff version of Shelton's online. Yes. So, okay, but you were getting paid to write. I was getting paid to write. It was nonfiction. And then that took me into, and at the same time,

I was doing childbirth education and doing the duolist stuff. And then that took me into becoming a quote unquote expert. And I was on babies and childbirth education and pregnancy. And I started doing a lot more internet stuff for that and getting paid even more for that. And then I decided to write the dad's playbook to labor and birth. Okay. So now, let me, let me back you up just a little bit there. So did you find that as you were finding success, material success,

doing a thing that is writing, did you find that that was stealing your drive toward the novel stuff? No, I still had that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, I still had that. I just knew that the novel was going to be much harder. That was much harder to write. And I find that that's true in general.

Nonfiction easy to write. Fiction very, very difficult because you're layering in so many different things to it. Oh, sure. Sure. Yeah. Again, you know, I'm historian here. Like I maybe I had a friend tell me once he's an English teacher so you'll see the grain of salt that comes with it He said why don't you like poetry because I famously can't stand poetry I don't like there are I think four poems that I've ever enjoyed Two of them are by Langston Hughes one of them because of its historical context one of them because of a sucker for parallel structure

One was by a friend of mine who it was called Might as a Ball be speaking Portuguese. And it's his entire internal monologue. When the girl he has a crush on comes up to him and asks him if she can borrow his homework to copy it. And he goes through all the ways that he could talk to her and all the things that he could say. And at the end of it, she just walks away to her friend

like did you get the homework? He's like, no, he just kind of stood there staring at me. That's, like, that's the story. It is. It's awesome. Yeah, it's a snow globe of a story, you know, and then the fourth poem, I forget, which one it was. So there's really only three that I remember. My friend said, why don't you like poetry? I'm like, I don't know. I just, it doesn't vibe with me. I assume the problem is with me because the world has gotten by on poetry since writing was a thing. So it's clearly me. And then I was going on and on about this essay that had read by Adelae Stevenson on women's

education in the 50s and how clever it was and how he was turning things on their side and he was advocating for women's education because it was in 1950s, but at the same time how he's still inhabiting this other, you know, kind of showvinistic worldview and stuff like that. And he's like, you'll talk like that about essays, but not about poems. And I was like, well, yeah, because their essays are great. And he says, a poem is just an essay without all the blanks filled in. I was like, well, that explains why I don't like it. I love this. You know, and so same thing with fiction very often.

Like I'm a lazy reader in a lot of ways, like the books that I like to read are Star Wars books. I already know the world. Yeah. And otherwise, I like to read history books, because I also live in that world. Like, but to read a fiction book, I mean, I have to invest in learning the world first,

and then the characters, and that's a lot of effort for my tired brain. It is. Yeah. So that's why it's interesting that it's so hard to do. It is hard, but I was going to say, but that's why series sells so well. That's why you know, you see in like television shows, you're like, why are you on the 15th book?

And and you know, like you read it and you're like, this book was not for oh my god, yes. Yeah, supernatural. Yeah, I'm still going through it for the first time actually. I'm a season 11. Yeah, I didn't start reading or watching read listen watch that watch. Yeah, I didn't start watching it until Ed. We had an episode of how it should have ended. And he made a very passionate case that it should have ended after the fifth season before you get to the right. Okay, so yeah, actually, I have something to say about that. Good. They actually want the author that the author's the writers that was it was supposed to end at the fifth season. It's an obvious arc. Yeah, that was they designed it that way. And they had said they did not want CM and Dean to be old. You know, still like, you know, chasing demons and you know, everything else. They wanted it to end. But that fifth season, that's when it took off.

Right. Because after that, they started actually getting licensed to music too. Yes. The license to music was huge. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, there are entire episodes where, you know, he sees teasing him using a very known song, you know, Night Moves and stuff like that. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that happened when they took off, because I like Supernatural and I like Misha and Jared and Jensen and all of them. The other thing that happened is that they started to make the convention circuit more and more and more and more. Those guys are hilarious. They clearly love talking to folks. They do.

Yeah. And that made people be like, I want to watch the show because of you guys. And that's the other reason it took off was that's just great marketing right there. It really is. I can see why they wanted to get to a fit season because that's the magic number for syndication

rights. Right. Right. And then, so, I mean, good job on the writers of being like, well, we wanted to be five seasons because, you know, we get passive income. But then, yeah, I mean, it lasts literally triple that time. I think it goes to 10 seasons. It does.

And it gets, and I love supernatural. It gets ridiculous. It doesn't. Oh my god, yes. OK, but that's OK. Yeah, the whole premise is fairly ridiculous. Yes. But yeah, I mean, there's certainly so in wrestling,

there's a thing called a let me up match. So you will have, on a wrestling card, anywhere from six to eight matches. And very often, to get the audience involved and invested, you have to do more than just have a title be at stake. So you have actual feuds, you know, where this is the culminating. They've been ducking each other. One of them is almost one, like three times, depending, you know, no, no, no, no, no, and it will be this

like explosive catalytic, um, or not catalytic, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Um, catastrophic, um, uh, ending of, of a match and the audience is just spent. Well, you can't go from that to the next match on the card being the championship match because they're exhausted and they won't be involved. So you do what's called a let me up match. You do in the past, you did women's wrestling for that or you did what they called midget wrestling, it's little people wrestling. You did those things or you would do some sort of goofy gimmicky match or something that'll let me up and let me up can sometimes just be a two-minute squash match

where just a guy comes in and beats him. But then you you've reset the audience. And now they can go. And I really like let me up episodes in TV series, deep space nine, I think did this masterfully. Yes, I know. Yeah. Yeah, the one where they did the heist, you know, yeah. Right after dealing with dogs, PTSD from losing his leg. Like, and next, shouldn't that did great jobs of that too with the holodeck of just ridiculousness? And actually, I mean, the original Star Trek did that too. Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right.

Although I don't know if they were self-conscious about it. Probably not. I mean, if you heard how Jean-Ran Mary wrote, that's like, it was literally like they were like, if you if you heard how Jean Roddenberry wrote, that's like it was literally like they were like, dude, we need the script. Everybody's here. Finish the script. Yeah, he's like, well, I'm busy banging this. Right. We did. We did. Well, his wife was on sets. Yes. Oh, yeah. We did a three-parter on Jean Roddenberry and how it was utopian penis fulfillment, basically. And that was, it's a lot of fun.

So it turns out it's because he didn't like baptism. He was Southern Baptist and he didn't like that God got more say in things than he did. I mean, it really was back to his ego the whole way. It's wild. But okay, so yeah, I liked to let me up matches that they would do in supernatural so far. And again, I'm only in season 11. So we'll probably end up doing an episode of Damien finally finished supernatural. Oh, there you go. Yeah. We'll listen to that one. Yeah, good. listen to that one. Yeah, good. Okay, so back to what you do. So you knew that fiction would be harder to do. And was it just you felt like there is a place for this book, the dad's guide,

or was it just I need to make money? Or why don't you get your name out there too? No, I was, I need to make money and I think I can make this work. Although I will say, and again, knowing what I know now, I'm absolutely embarrassed. I was like, hey, I should write this book. And then I went and did research on like publishing houses that would be interested in it.

And I found one and then they were like, okay, here's how to submit to us, do a book proposal. I did a book proposal and I wrote the book. And then I was like, great, that was fun. Without knowing how big of a deal that was because to me, that was easy. Now I know how freaking hard that is. Can you expand on that a bit?

Like what do you mean? I wrote the, I just wrote the book and kind of said, hey guys, I have a book. This is really cool. And I didn't do any marketing or anything else around the book. It sold over 10,000 copies at this point. I know. I really didn't do any marketing. I really didn't do any marketing.

I really didn't do any promotions of it. I just was kind of like, cool, I did this. This was awesome and amazing. And that's not how it works anymore. Book sales are so incredibly driven by the author, not the publisher. And I think the fact that it's sold as well as it did, really is due to just that really cute cover that it had of the little boy with that.

A little baby with the football hat. A football hat, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Because again, it was easy. And I didn't realize it was hard for most people. Okay. Yeah.

I can understand that. Like that, you know, the things where you're like, wait, that's a difficulty. Like, yeah, that was hard. Yeah. I did that easily. Right. How long did it take you to write that one?

I had two years to, I will know, no, my deadline was nine months to write that. So I took the nine months. Did they do that on purpose? No, I'm sure not. No, I'm sure that was just their production schedule. That's that's that's, well, that's most people's reproduction schedule. So right? Exactly. Exactly. That's awesome. The other thing that happened when the dad's playbook came out was that we moved to Southern California and I took on I started working for a community clinic. I took on a leadership position that don't tell anyone I was not qualified for in any semblance of the world. Oh, so you did what men do? Yeah, I bullshititted through the interview. Yeah, we regularly apply for jobs. We're not qualified for. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I was shocked they gave it to me and that my first year was

so phenomenally rough because I had no idea what I was doing whatsoever. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Because it was so, and the community clinic model is also a very stressful and challenging environment anyways. I bet. And I was in women's health. Yeah, it was just very, very difficult and very, very stressful. So I didn't write at all.

Okay. And at that time, looking back, I'm like, duh, you idiots. My anxiety and depression went through the roof. Sure. I had health issues related to it, but I was like, it's work, it's work, it's work, it's work, you know, this is a very stressful environment.

I left that job, went to a different job that I obli-n-up, I thought would be less stressful. And the depression and anxiety kept following me. It was so bizarre. And then I was like, I don't know, this is the job. Change jobs again. Depression and anxiety kept getting worse. And again, I was still in leadership. And leadership is very difficult, especially in the local. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Exactly. It's, yeah, it's stressful and hard.

And yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. It's yeah, it's stressful and hard and yeah, but anyways, um, it got to the point where I had I had a full breakdown. I had a full and absolute breakdown. And this absolutely changed my life to where the people, you know, I was I was like I have to quit. I can't do this anymore. And people were like, okay, what do you want to do? And this is this was the only word that just kept coming was I want to write. And I've never had anything feel so sure in my entire life was that every part of my being was like, I want to write. It was, I mean, absolutely incredible. And it was a horrible time. I never, ever want to go through that feeling

of that anxiety and that depression ever, ever again. I got it. But it was absolutely life changing because I said, okay, I'm going to make this happen. Gotcha. So, and then, okay, so, so. I, there's a couple different ways I want to go with this. I historian, so I love the chronology. I love the chronicle of it. So let's plan forward that way and I'll just do a little side side missions here. So okay, you you come to that

moment and you've kind of already gone through the process of submitting a book previously and you've gone through the process of submitting a book and being successful at it previously. Are you able to port that over to? Yeah, it's nice. Well not in some ways yes. So So being having been published in nonfiction and then trying to switch over to fiction, it helps a little bit with your queries, but not not hugely. More that you've just kind of had the experience and you understand how the editing process is going to go the publication process. And that's, you know, to me, I thought this was going to be pretty easy. Sure. Turned out that to be.

Okay. Okay. So how many, we've interviewed Bishop O'Connell on our show. I don't know if you've read his stuff, but it's American fairy tale stuff. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I think that down too. Yeah. But he, the first book I think of his trilogy was called The Lost.

Nice. But I have problems with chronology sometimes. But he actually just came out with a book just this couple weeks ago called The Two Gun Witch. And so it's a Western. Yeah. That sounds like fun. Yeah. But his like fun. Yeah. So, but he, his,

his experience was decidedly different than most normal people's and he fully admits it and stuff like that. But it did come to question, how many different houses did you try to get your stuff published through? Or did you, because some people like, they'll take a completed work and then shop it around. That's how you have to do it with fiction. So fiction, fiction right now is of there's a lot of different paths that you can take. If you want to get your book traditionally published and into the big force, the big four publishers, you need an agent. So your first round of queries is trying to get an agent. And that can take years. Then the agent will try to get you in with an editor at one of those big publishing houses.

Okay. Then the editor will decide from there. We'll try to edit your work, work with you on that, and then depending on that, may try to get you a book deal. So this all makes perfect sense to me, like just I'm actually able to visualize it. You know, it almost feels like a talent tree in old playing games. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So that all makes sense. Your chances of even getting an agent are infinitesimal. Honestly, agents get thousands of queries every week. So. And you can only read so many books.

You know, only read so many. Yeah. You know, I read so many. So they've got, they've got readers going through the slush pile, just trying to find kind of those diamonds. And then, and then, And then, And then, Yeah, so that part is really hard. So to answer,

so you can go that route. Sure. You can also that route. Sure. You can also query a small press and roll the dice with them. Small presses, pros and cons, with small presses, you often get a little bit more control over what's going to happen to the book, you know, more control over the editing process, the covers and everything else. But publishing is a very, very thin line business. And small presses will often close at the drop of a hat. Oh, okay, so we're from the margin. Yeah. Oh, yeah, huge, huge tip. Make sure if you get a contract with anybody out there, any writers that are listening,

make sure that if the publishing house closes, you get your rights back because a lot of times, the books are gone. They're gone. The publishing house is closed. They've taken the book with them, and it's gone. You cannot, you cannot republish it. Do they, I mean, do they sell the rights off to offset costs? Or it just... Often not. They're just, they just disappear. Vaporize. Wow. Yep. And there's nothing that just says in the event of this reverse back,

like legally, that doesn't happen. You have to put it in the contract. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So... Safety tip. Thanks, Eva. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, okay. So, you, you, did you get into one of the big four? Oh, God, no. Oh, okay. No, but I did. No, no, but thank you. I appreciate that. Sure.

No, I didn't. So I queried, I, I queried a couple of agents, but honestly, the, the idea of the agent really didn't speak too much to me. And I wanted to get this done. I wanted to get my books out there. Right. So I queried small presses and ended up getting two, almost immediately. So I was like, dang, my book's good. Went with SNH publishing. They were great. And then they closed their doors.

Because they reverted back to C&H sugar. Exactly. Yeah, you got it. Yeah. Yeah. That's why they were slow as molasses. Yeah. Actually, they weren't. They were fast. But But it was basically, and I had good talks with the owner, but she was like, I just, she just feels like I just don't want to do this anymore. And I'm like, he valid reason to quit. Okay. Yeah.

Fair enough. Okay. So I got my rights back. Um, and then I was like, and this is still for warehouse streams, right? So for warehouse streams. And then I was like crap. I don't want to requery again. Querying, it's the most stress is so stressful. Because you have to do all this research,

you have to query the way that the person wants you to. And that may mean, like, please give us two pages of the work of not more than 1,000 words. Please include a three-page synopsis, and a teaser of what the book is. And then the next person's like, please include a one-page synopsis, and the first 50 pages. Please make it out, please do your research and make it out to the agent or editor

or whatever. Be most likely to wrap your work and then you're like, I don't know. Right. Right. It's terrible. And then every time you get an email, every time you get an email when you're querying, you're like, I'm scared to look. Yeah. Every time it's, it's, yeah. So I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to re-query this again. So my friend, S. Fax and Sarah, she, she'd been playing around with the idea of doing an imprint, so self-publishing. And I said, can I jump on to that with you?

And so we created no bad books press, published warehouse streams on there, published River City Widows on there, which is was my second book. She and I co-wrote, I couldn't think of the name, Lost a Board, which is a creative nonfiction piece about the ghost that are bored star of India. We've done an anthology released. Sarah has her own books, animal court, foreign and domestic affairs, origins and tiny dreadfuls. So and and we've now taken on another author too. We've got the gold jumpers and in a, we'll have 4.5 billion people. So, and we've done this in a year and a half.

Wow, that's, now it's clearly aberrant to the normal process of, I never got my stuff published. Right, so exactly. And it's also aberrant to, I want a contest and I am now a published author with a major house. Yes, be careful with those. Be careful with those contests because sometimes they're not real. Hmm, okay. Also, also pro tip. They're not saying that contests where you have to put in money are

fake. A lot of times they're not. Right. Just do your research on them because a lot of times they are. times they're not. Right. Just do your research on them because a lot of times they are. Yeah. The easy way to get your money. Yeah. Yes. It's kind of like world, world series of comedy type stuff. I, I kid, but like the, the comedy festivals, you always have to apply. And it's always money. And then you get rejected. Unless you have, you know, the cache and some way or you know someone, etc, etc. It's it's yeah. Okay. So, uh, so you you made that happen. So let me. Hmm. What? So side side quest here. Your work is described many times as speculative fiction.

Yes. So again, guy who knows nothing. This is why Ed loves telling me about Heinlein and He seems to stick to H authors and I just heard to me that you're another H author. Yeah, he did he taught me about Robert Robert Heinlein and then the guy who did doon Which I don't remember, it's not a gel man, either. But, but anyway, like all these, he's gonna be kicking me through the void. But, so what is speculative fiction? I don't know what these things mean.

So spec fiction is basically asking what if? So what if tomorrow you woke up and there was zombies. What if an asteroid? Not counterfactual history. Okay. Oh, it can be. Well, you mean like parallel universe, like history went off in a different direction. The standard one is what if Hitler, what a one. Yeah, that can be spec fiction. Oh, it can be. Okay. Yeah, so spec fiction is horror sci-fi fantasy and all of the sub all of the sub genres in there.

But set in our world or. No, doesn't have to be. Yeah. How's that different than fiction then? It is fiction. It's spec fiction. Specular fiction. It's just.

I'm breaking here. Go on. It's a subjandra of fiction. So it's basically it's not it's not women's fiction. It's not primarily romance. Those spec fiction tends to have a romance element too. It is just developed that way. It's not contemporary. And it's not literary. I don't know what. I don't know what.

I don't know. I don't know. I's not literary. I don't know what. So literary fiction. Literary fiction is going to be like what you read in English classes. Ethan from. Do you guys still read Ethan from? guy who I fun fact, I when we moved to Florida in fifth grade, I was given a reader. And I said, Oh, that's my second grade reader. Can I get the, you know, I was at this level. Can I get the next one? They said, that's your fifth grade reader. So the answer was clearly no. Wow. Yeah. Now this is the town was 804 people, 800 when we left. They they they they did have two different cemeteries because they didn't want black people and white people rotting together. Yeah, no, we can't have that. No, like you do. But that killed my desire to read for from from 11 until 19. I can totally see that. Yeah. And then, and this is the thing that I tell my

my students, saying I tell my children is do not get by on being smart, because that's exactly what I did. It turns out that, you know, you don't have to have read Phantom of the Opera to know what's going to happen. You don't have to have actually read. So in my entire from 11 to 19, I read maybe 10 books. Wow. That was it. Still had no problem writing essays on them and, you know, doing all the rhetorical flourishes to make you think that I knew what I was talking about.

Still was able to take place or take part in most conversations. Now, the ones I did read were because I had teachers who would my ass, figuratively. Good for them, good for them. Yeah, Beth first and thought, she is amongst the ones, actually I'm friends with her on Facebook too. Now, I am both grateful to her and still mad at her that I had to read the great Gatsby.

Yeah, that's not one of my favorites. And I've tried it a couple of times and I'm like, I don't get why people love this book. From what I remember, it was really well written stuff about terrible people. Yeah, that's um, that's literary fiction. Okay, and what makes it literary fiction is just it's the test of time. No, it's a it's the style of writing. Oh, so it's a style thing. Okay. Yeah, it's not it's it's a style of writing and it tends to take itself very, very seriously. Um, it's more flourished.

It's more artistic. Um, it's not, it's not horror. It's to me, it's not fun. You know, I want horror. I want, I want aliens. I want ghosts. I want, I want, you know, a vampire, I don't read vampire fiction, but you know vampires. You know, you want the kickbutts girl that, you know, is casting spells and, you know, is casting spells. And you know, there's fairies running around Chicago and that type of thing that I want that.

That's not literary. I don't know what makes it not literary. But again, I'm also a guy, I didn't read anything literary. So it's entirely like, I just missed it all. But okay, so speculative fiction is largely just asking what if? Starts with a what if. Okay. So and I never want to ask authors to give away their stories in terms of like plot and things like that, but it feels like based on what I've read from warehouse

streams and I have not gotten all the way through it, forgive me. I appreciate you even reading it, thank you. I tried, but I felt too much like I was, I'm a teacher and I'm in a union, and I was like, oh shit, it's like when people said, you should watch parenthood, I'm like, no, the hell I shouldn't. Yeah, but one of the kids has autism, I know, I don't care. That's why I'm not gonna watch it.

I live this, you know. So, it's cool that it's kind of got an X-Men vibe to it. There's, you know, there's that kind of thing. It, the fact that I also think I'm still tripping over the title, just the idea that it's all in warehouses feels a little too close to home. I know. But is the fact that it's about teachers struggling with their jobs and

it mirrors our reality so much? Is that what makes it dystopian? No, what makes it dystopian is the whole bread's versus wild thing. So we live in a dystopian society. Okay, so the answer is yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because my drama class this year, I in order to keep them safe, I switched things around so it kind of became a film appreciation class and none of them appreciate film. No, but I let them pick their genre every week, but I took them through. Here's what a genre is and here's this and this and this. And so when we did sci-fi, we talked about dystopian sci-fi. And so then some of them really liked the idea of dystopian stuff. So I found the movies that were dystopian, you know. Yeah, no, and that's that's good. And a lot of people, because because of Hunger Games and Hunger Games is described as a dystopian. And it

absolutely is. A lot of people think dystopian is post-apocalyptic and it's not. Right. Dystopian is a society where one group is held above another, which is why I say. To me, dignity is crushed beneath the boot of whoever can charge. Yeah, yeah, which we live in a dystopian society.

Let's completely do. Yeah, so I, sorry to step on your punch line there. But yeah, I fully agree with that, whereas post-apocalyptic is shit fell apart. Yes, I'm trying to rebuild it together. Right. And dystopia may be a part of that. Sure, sure. Or there's also utopian, where it's usually, it's the same boot, but it's painted nicely. Yeah. So again, I get most of mine from movies. So I, you know, I can't speak to the, to the books, but yeah, I don't think humans can be utopian. The only ones that have were the ones that said, oh, and also you shouldn't breed, which means like after a generation, they're wiped out anyway.

Yeah, so not really cool craft. Yeah. So they got really cool craft work. Although I would say that maybe they're onto something because I have often said that the number one thing to ruin families is children. It's fair. It's fair comments. We spoke of Jessica Jones. I don't know if it was on air or off air, but I even I read some of the reviews and somebody said, if you like Jessica Jones, you'll like this book. Do you, were they pinging off of things that are themes that are through the novel or are they, it also is a novel, but um, it is. Okay, cool. Are they pinging off things that are through the novel or are they it also is it a novel but it is okay cool

are they pinging off things that are through the novel or just the supernatural aspect of it um they're pinging off of um that Jessica and Kendall are both very very flawed characters um they you know curse curse up a storm um with Jessica Jones because we are observers of her because it's a TV show, well a comic, but a TV show and either way we're observers of her. That is harder for that character to lie to the viewer about what's going on. Yeah, Kendall's an addict, but because it's in first person and and she's not gonna admit that, it's harder to see that. She views herself as a hero.

So like a lot of her dumbass decisions are based on, I'm a hero, I'm a save everybody. I must work myself to exhaustion. I'm stand up to society. And that's a flawed view of her world. I got you. You know, her view of Stephen, you know, the poor man really does just want to help.

And she's just like, no, get the fuck out of here. What are you doing? So, you know, from that perspective, she is like, she's just very flawed like Jessica Jones says, Okay. Did you have fun writing this? I did. Okay, good. What was fun about it? Because clearly, that's not you that you're writing. No, no, I did. So what was interesting was that I did at the time when I was writing it, I was still really in recovery from anxiety and depression. And so I funneled a ton of that into candle, a ton of it. That is a little life kind of thing. Yeah.

Gotcha. But I did have a lot of fun writing it. I just honestly, I just love to write. I just do it. It's like the best thing you can do, even when it's going horribly. And you're like, I don't know how to fix this. Why do you know?

And you're like, because as a writer, you have to decide how much control your characters have. So sometimes you're writing and you're like, because as a writer, you have to decide how much control your characters have. So sometimes you're writing and you're like, okay, you're like, okay, we're going to go this direction. We've got the plot. We've written out the plot. We know where this story is going to go. And your character's like, no, going to go that way. And you have to decide how much control you're going to give them because sometimes them going off that direction is the best thing. Right. Most of the time it's not. And most of the time you have to be like, no, no, come back.

Sure. But that, let me go off on that direction, can be like the best feeling in the world of you're just like, I don't know what's happening anymore. Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do So it's it's euphoric. So that was a question I was going to ask you because I also want to ask you about your other two two books there as well. But I did want to ask like in terms of your process. And I don't like using that word much anymore just because it's been weaponized. But in terms of your process for lack of a better term, because again, not the literary one. Do you start with a character? Do you start with a scene, a series of scenes? Do you start with a plot? Do you have an outline? Like how, how much, because you, you just talked about like the tension that exists between so that tells me that you you do have a plot in mind like how written in your head is the story and how similar to that does your story become

like how do you how do you do this because I different people have different ways it depends on the story honestly really okay yeah so I'm um I'll probably, another two months, I'll have a collection of short stories that will be out called Tiny Gateways. The reason I don't have the date is because I thought I was done with it, sent it out to my beta readers, and my beta readers came back with some edits for two of the stories that basically I have now completely rewritten. So they need more fish food or different tanks. They need a different tanks, yeah, they care. You can't have beta readers next to each other, because they'll tell you.

Yeah, exactly, exactly, you got it. But, and those stories, I had hardcore plotted out. Okay. And I probably didn't let them breathe enough because when I saw their comments, I was like, oh, yeah, that is a problem. Oh wait, I can fix that. And just by kind of allowing the characters

to breathe a little bit more, I was like, oh, this is so much better. So it really depends on the story. And then I have a wild, a weird western in that one. It's all the stories are about our portal stories. That's why it's tiny gateways. So it's either people have fallen, fall into a portal, and either want to get back out,

or they're like, I want to stay here. This is the best thing ever. Can I pause you real quick, Luther? Did you growing up, Because you and I are roughly the same age, I believe. We are. Okay. Growing up, there was a TV show of two guys wearing jumpsuit type things. I barely remember this. And they would go into basically a stargate, but as long before stargate, this is back when like Buck Rogers in the 24th century was on.

I watched Buck Rogers. Okay, so it was contemporaneous with that. And I don't know what it is. And Ed would remember, because he's older than me, but they would go into portals. And I think they would end up in other worlds. And I assume that like you watch sliders growing up

or what not. Oh yeah, I watch sliders. Yeah. So man, no but different sliders in years. Really? Yeah. Oh man, I was just talking the other day about how I wanted like little hamburgers.

I mean, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle should be a slider's episode. Oh yeah, that would be good. Yeah. It's a little hollow in the middle, a slider's episode. Oh, yeah, that would be good. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little hollow in the middle, but that's okay. I lowered it. I get this a lot. So did those things influence your idea on this portal story?

No, I just always wanted to go into a portal. Oh, okay. Yeah. I was wanted to go to Oz. I always wanted to go into a portal. Oh, okay. There we go. I always wanted to go to Oz. I always wanted to go to Narnia. Yeah. Got you. Little Faye comes up and offers you soup.

You're like, yes, please. Well, yes. Oh, yeah. Why wouldn't you? Yeah. Always, yeah. Always, you know, opening up the front door, being like, I got to go to work.

Nope. I definitely don't still have to go to work. There was magic little entrance there. Okay. So you just always little entrance there. Okay. So you just always like that idea. Okay, so you're in that idea. Just portal stories. Yeah, portal stories. And then but my weird western,

which honestly is probably the strongest of all of the stories. And the one that my beta readers are like, this is the best story ever. We want more of this character. That one, I had an idea for it and it went completely off the rail and it was fantastic. Because it was a western. And there's a train. Yeah. That was good. Yeah, I'm learning. I know my western genres. So, you know, because I like samurai films. So,

so but I have also, I've also struggled writing stories that I don't know the ending for. And I've gone off on crazy tangents because I let the characters do that. So it's always, you always just have to try to find this balancing act of having a plot, but letting your characters breathe enough to where they can break the plot if they want to. That seems remarkably holistic. There's not one thing driving the other more or less and that they're all kind of, I don't know, it almost feels like that picture that you see in the Avengers movie of Jarvis is his intelligence.

How it's all this kind of intermeshing and constantly in motion. Yeah. That's cool. I mean, I don't do anything like you do, and that's cool. I mean, I, you know, I don't do anything like you do, but I translate Latin. That was the other poem that I really liked. There's a wonderful poem about like you will dine well if you bring, and then he just says, like, bring all the food, like, bring all the cool stuff, because I'm poor. And if you do that, and then there's some question as to whether it depends if you read it with George to Kay's voice or not. But if you read it with George to Kay's voice, it's clearly about,

and I will give you my girlfriends underwear to sniff. If it's not with George to Kay's voice, it's, here's this wonderful perfume that the gods gave my girlfriend. And it's a very funny poem because Latin word order is such that you can like stack it at the end. So it's like, it's, it's, it's almost like Pauli Shores reading it with anticipation, you know, and you can do that through the whole thing. So it's a fun. So that's the fourth poem.

But when I translate, I tell my students all the time, okay, I want you to highlight all the nouns this way, highlight all the verbs this way, all the gerunds this way, all this, and then once you get all your parsing done, then you can start doing your translation because that'll start informing your translation better. And the dirty little secret is, if I get them doing that, they get really good at it to the point where it becomes second nature, and then when they're translating, it just feeds into the translation and the translation feeds

into the parsing. Yes. And so it becomes my hope is it becomes that Jarvis type thing. So it's cool to hear an author actually has that, has, you know, I don't know if that's a process then is it? It's just, it just is. It just is. And it's creativity. And if you try to, try to be too rigid about creativity, it doesn't work anymore. You're not being creative, right? Right. Right. Exactly. You're not being creative right? Right.

Right. Exactly. You're being too rigid. It's not correct. Right. Wow. I feel like I'm talking to an ex girlfriend now. She told me once a, you could see a sunset and you'd be categorizing where it ranks in top five sunsets that you've seen.

And I'm like, well, that's true. I got nothing. But okay. So, how do you come up with the idea of of I don't have a problem with ideas. They just constantly just come at me. Okay. I actually keep on my phone. I keep a Google docs up. And then as they come to me, I'll just try to write it out. Sometimes it's an image. Sometimes it's a character. Sometimes it's a line or a scene. It just comes to me.

It's interesting. Because comedians, there's very often some of them will come up with a punchline first. Some of them will come up with a premise. And some of them, just various things. They're kind, and we all kind of keep a document on our phone. Exactly. We can do the same. Yeah. I mean, Stephen King said in his book on writing, and I'm going to butcher the quote, but basically you have to teach your brain to misbehave as a writer. So you have to teach your brain to, as you walk by a bush to be like, is there

something in that bush? What if there is something in that bush? What would be in that bush? Would it be a fairy? Would it be an alien? Would it be a dead body? Would it be a zombie? And then like, oh my god, there was like a crackle in that bush. You'd have to teach your brain to do that constantly, to get ideas. And then it's also really frightening too. You know, you scare yourself all the time. Yeah, well, especially given what you write, speaking of which, that's a great segue into your next novel, River City Widows.

River City Widows, which faced in Sacramento. That's gonna say. And I, for the longest time, thought it was River City Windows. I know everybody does. Okay, well, it doesn't help that the cover, you know, has, you know, it certainly it be speaks the idea of Windows. So, but okay, so River City Windows, it seems a lot I have not read this one at all, even though it's the most Sacramento. So first of all, it's been called a horror novel,

or it certainly seems like one, but I've also seen it called a paranormal mystery romance, which I'm like, okay, that seems pretty niche, but I bet you that there's still subgenres of that. Oh yeah, there are so is. So I wouldn't horror to me is like blood and gore and, you know, people are dying everywhere. This is more kind of paranormal of like there's ghosts. And it's frightening. And yes, there's stakes, but I never made it go to the point where people's lives were at risk.

but I never made it go to the point where people's lives were at risk. People are legitimately scared that they do get a little bit hurt, but I never took it to the point where people thought they were gonna die. Okay, despite the name being widows. Yes, yes. Well, it's about a widow who finds out that her the previous owner of her house was also a widow. So it's

about both of their stories. Meet. Okay. So generational did so you obviously lived up here for a while? I did. Yes. So how much how Sacramento is this book? It's very Sacramento. Okay. I actually based it on I went and saw a friend in the East Sack and I actually based the house kind of on her house. And so she, the main character, she lives in East Sack. They go to the Sacramento Zoo, they go to Fairy Tale Town, they go to Folsom Lake. I brought in as much from Sacramento as I possibly could without getting into trouble but with any businesses.

Oh wow. Oh yeah, I guess you could. So instead of Cordy Brothers, it's like, you know, Torney. It's Cordy Brothers still around? Yeah, yeah, it is. Specialized meats, apparently our pandemic proof. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Man, I remember going to Cordy Brothers and getting a cookie. I guess they gave us free cookies. Oh nice. This is as a child. Mm-hmm.

Oh, okay. Yeah. I was like, that's a little odd to do that, like as an adult. Like I go to Taylor's market if I want a really good cookie. But. Yeah. Yeah, no. No, no, this was I just remember

Cordy brothers and cookies. And like I like the taste in my mouth. I remember, because it was like a sugar cookie. Right. Right. And still have the smell of, you know, specialized means in the air. I don't remember them having specialized meat. No, well, they, they, my friends who love sandwiches, like meaty, meaty sandwiches, they brag all the time about Cordy Brothers. And I might be mixing it up with another place

that there's a sign that it says, you read the book, now eat the cast, and it was, they were selling rabbit. And they mentioned Watership Down, which I thought was pretty fun. It's fun. Yeah. So, all right, so you write a book, And they mentioned Watership Down, which I thought was pretty fun. It's fun. Yeah.

So, all right. So you write a book. It's not about Dorothy Appuente. No, it's not. Okay. So this story's got bones too. But so paranormal mystery romance makes sense widow in a different thing. Yeah, trying to figure out why her house is haunted.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. And so how to put this, um, when did this one pop into your head? And how long did you let it percolate before you read it? Because you clearly wrote it once you got down to Southern California. I did. Yeah. So oddly enough, I was visiting my friend in East Sacramento and we were chit chatting and she said, oh, I'm talking about her next door neighbor. And her next door neighbor had a granny unit on the property and she just rented it to a guy. And she was like, and you know, and she was basically like, you know, I think they're, you know, they might be getting together. And I'm like, to many years.

Yeah, yeah. And I was like, that'd be a fun story. I said, I should have ghost to it. And that's where it came from. Wow, that's wild. like one of the first pages, I forget what it's called. It's not a splash page, but it's like it's a panel page. So on a comic book, it takes up both pages. And it's an overview of this post-apocalyptic city. It's clearly the, you know, Sac River and the Gold Bridge and Old Sac sack and it's so very clearly that and so I asked him. I was like, did you? He's like, Oh, yeah, I took a camera and I just spent a day down town, you know, because his is a visual medium too. So how long did that one take you to to six months? That was fast. Yeah, that one was fast. Okay. And that's that's from putting the paper in the typewriter to getting it published. Yes, and the typewriter.

Yes. To getting it published, getting it through editing and everything else is probably more like not. Yeah, to nine months probably. Wow. Yeah. But the writing itself, the writing itself is pretty fast. Yeah.

Wow. Okay. Yeah. Cool. And did you publish it through the same group? I did it through no bad books press. Yeah. Okay. Cool.

And then that brings us to a lost aboard, which again, my brain went lost abroad. You must see words weird. I, you know, I pun all the time. Yeah. And I wonder if the two things are not related in someone. It might be. It might be. I see words is very mobile things.

And I can use them as a Latin, then you. Yeah, also that. Yeah. So, but yeah, they, so you, you, this was your collaborative piece. It was my collaborative one, yeah. With S-Fax. And I didn't bother to look for S's first name.

Sarah. Oh, okay. Because I figured if she didn't want us to know it, then we shouldn't know it. But you know or so. There you go. So that's an interesting thing that she decided to do. And a lot of female, you know, we'll go off on a tangent. As we keep doing. Yeah, this is how we fill time. It is. Yeah. A lot of female writers will use their first initial or their first and their middle initial. Yes. For marketing purposes. Right. Especially if they write fantasy or horror or sci-fi or

something like that because they want, they want to, you know, their books to help sell. My opinion, I said, fuck that. And the only way we as women are going to fight that is to say, I am a female author and I wrote for Ancestry and Fantasy. That's the only way we're going to fix that. Yeah, you sister owned it. They told him he should change his name when he got to Rome

to a great name. He says, no, I'm going to make my own name great. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, but anyway, going back. So yeah, lost a board is creative nonfiction about the ghost that are aboard Star of India. Star of India is this tall ship and the San Diego harbor. It looks like a pirate ship.

It truly just looks like a pirate ship. And it is so incredibly haunted. It's where we got the term clippers for the basketball team, correct? I think so, yeah. Yeah, because yeah, I've seen that thing. I have family in San Diego. And so I've seen that thing. It's kind of it's akin to, but it's hella tall.

You're right. It's yeah, that is it's called a tall ship. Yeah, because I was thinking in the Bay Area in San Francisco, there's one called the CA Thayer, which is a clipper ship, much smaller, but it's part of national parks, et cetera, or state parks. Everyone's trying to save these boats, because they're incredible.

They're amazing. Yeah. So we did a school field trip to state the night on it, and we had to be the crew. So all kinds of fun for a fourth grader. Yeah. So, okay. So you you saw again very locationally based. I got asked was warehouse streams were you walking through the meat packing district of Oakland or something or? No, I based that one in Chicago and here's so I just I wanted an urban. I wanted it to just be a straight urban winter place.

Okay. And so I just kind of I will do it. Stuff a straight urban winter place. And so I just kind of will do it. Stuff up in in the map. Sure. Okay. Did you go there to do any research on the place? Or did you look at the absolute? Not to do research, but I've been to Chicago.

Okay. So yeah. This is an interesting theme that kind of winds through. And maybe it's because that's what I'm focused on. But also I'm noticing that the you know, the locations are iconic in in some way, shape or form and they're real places. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, okay. So you how do you divide the work with another author? Do you go chapter by chapter like Fox and the Hound felt like or and that was just one offer by the way. Yeah. Wow. Um, what we did. I have these really weird deep eddies that like like, I don't know deep. Yeah. But you know, I next next thing,

you know, we got black cultured coming up. I mean, right. Yeah. You know, but you know, you asked me who wrote doing them. Like, I don't know. It starts with an H. Ed told me once. So I don't know, it starts with an H. Ed told me once. So, okay. So. Anyways, okay. Come back. I don't remember the question. Well, we always be best friends forever copper.

Yeah. Oh, yes. Oh, okay. Yes. Okay. How serenade were you? I did by the word. So what we did was we,

we each took a, we each took a section, wrote it out, and then we switched and then we edited it. The only caveat to that was that there were some nautical terms that I was like, I don't know what this means at all, because I read the log books. I read the log books, and well copies of them, not the literal ones. Right, right.

And some of the stuff I'm like, you did what to the chipploon? I, and I'm like, I can't even visualize that. Sure. Like, I don't even know what part of the ship that would be. Right. So because Sarah worked for the Maritime Museum for so many years,

she knew those terms left right and center. So she was able to be like, no, no, I know exactly what they're talking about. Or Port Starbird and Maine. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so how well did it hang together, though? I mean, did we're, were you both involved in, I assume you're both involved in the initial discussion of like, here's what we want to do. Here's where we want it to go. I'll take it to here and you take it from there. Yep. Okay. Yeah. And then the other thing too is you have to,

A, you have to take your ego out of the equation. Absolutely. You have to, you have to just, any time that you're like, hey, wait a minute, you have to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, I'm going to take a deep breath here. I'm going to go edit this part out. Right. Exactly. Right.

Right. I really like the idea of that. You should buy my favorite part out of it to your favorite part out. Yeah, no, that's, that's not appropriate. I kind of like that as a, as a premise of a story, though, like a stranger than fiction part two, where she's writing with someone else and they haven't been dead against each other. And so the person they're writing about their life is just really uneven in parts.

Okay, that'd be a funny book. That would be. That would actually, that's actually a really good idea. And then you actually do a, you have, you have a multi layer story where you've got the story itself and then you've got the author's lives underneath that. Yeah. It'd be like big dog little dog. You could like bring that into it, you know, both sitting there pantless and uncomfortably short green and red shirts. So yeah, not the direction I was going, but you know, you know, it can be added it out. I'm, you know, I don't have my ego in this, but I could absolutely see them like, like doing some like, like really messing with Harold Crick or whoever the next character is and just you know he has a

lot of near-death experiences or he's a spy like to write a spy novel together and not realizing that it's a real person so. I will tell you too I'm actually working on another book not with Sarah but with two other authors. Okay. Yeah so it so the three of us are writing, are the three of us who did four there. The three of us are writing a book about fairies in space. It is tentatively, and this will not be the title anybody's trying to sue us, it is tentatively titled The Love Cruise because we thought that was funny.

And it's about fairies going on a cruise into space to try to find true love. And it is a murder mystery because then they all start dying. Okay. And so we're doing the same thing. Each of us have a character. Murder on the Orion Express. Something like that. Yeah. That would be a good one. So the way we're doing that each of us have a character and then we're writing each, we're writing a chapter from the character's point of view. But we've plotted it out so that each chapter pushes the plot forward. So we're like, this is what needs to happen in this chapter

in order. So the next person can then take over the narrative. Wow. Okay. So that one's gonna be interesting. That reminds me a lot of how Star Wars books again, the only knowledge I have on fiction, which I still maintain. I don't know that it's fiction. It was ancient history and geography. Have a long time ago. Yeah, it's totally ancient. I mean, that's how it starts a long time ago and a galaxy far far away. I knew you'd understand. Of course I understand. What do you call it? Where they have, there's a 19 book series in the Star Wars books that I swear I'm the only person who has ever admitted liking them. The arc is wonderful and all that and most people hate it. It's

the Yu-juan Wang invasion arc. And all these authors are sitting at this round table saying, okay, so I have this story and they're like, we need you to get the character from here to here. We need you to do this and And it feels very much like a booking meeting and wrestling quite honestly. You have four minutes You need to get this spot in you need to get this emotion conveyed and then you need to have this finish How you get there is up to you, you know and on and on and on so it's it's kind of cool to see that these These are very clearly. They're things that work. They work in other media. So it's it's kind of cool to see that these these are very clearly there are things that work they work in other media. So it's interesting to see it, you know, being done out in real time. So so it's just a single book that the three of you were writing though. It's a single

book because I'm not sure well, well, well, we'll see we'll see where this one goes. Okay. And yeah, we're very much still in the rough, rough draft area of it, but it's fun. I bet. I bet. Okay, so I want to go back to lost a board. Creative nonfiction. I'm going to ask you to unpack that term for. Okay, so creative nonfiction means that we have taken the true historical events, the true historical lives of the people. And we embellished them and imagined what it would be like. So created dialogue and created movement and actions that they may not have actually done. But we just imagined them doing it.

How does that differ from historical fiction? Because we're not sure that, well, it is pretty similar. Well, is it the supernatural aspect of it? No, because with historical fiction, these were like legit real people. It's not like, oh, George Washington. George Washington, Hamilton. That's historical fiction. They took.

Perfect. The 100%. Yeah. I love it, but it's historical fiction. They took the 100% yeah. I love it, but it's fanfic. Of course, yeah. James Madison didn't look like me size wise. He was five foot four and 105 miles. Yeah, no, I give you. You could add. So because that was a really, really embellished.

It's historical fiction, it really is. Creative nonfiction means we tried to keep it as close to the original as we could. Okay. And we did a lot of research to try to make sure that we were as historically accurate as possible. Okay, that makes that makes some sense. Yeah. And then the other thing,

the nonfiction piece with it as well, was that we interviewed Casting Crew and the volunteers. And then we imagined what actually happened to them. And again, we kind of embellished it a little bit. So we had a story from a docent. And the only story we had from her was that she had reports of people down below

who had SS traced on their backs. And so they assumed that that was Johnny. Johnny's one of the tricks, Johnny's a trickster and seems to be very intelligent and aware that he's dead. And he likes to mess with people. And that was the only story we had. But what we did was we took that story of a dosant that it was a dosant that,

you know, it was a nice sunny day and she was sitting there waiting to answer questions and then she saw this couple come running up that appeared to be frightened and so she asked them what happened and then they were like nothing happened and she's like no, you have to tell them. And, you know, that's the creative nonfiction piece

is that it happened, but we stretched. OK. OK, so this is going to indulge me here, because I'm still trying to parse the difference between that and historical fiction. I don't think the idea that I have of Caesar was in Gaul fighting zombies is historical fiction. No.

That would be creative nonfiction though, if I kept it. No, did I mix it up? Yeah, I think you did. Damn it, okay, because I'm like, okay, if I keep everything as true to the culture as possible. And add zombies. You're right.

Assuming that yeah. And really just substitute zombies for certain characters. Yeah, no, that's your, you're at historical fiction. That's historical fiction. Yeah, because unless you're positive, the zombies happen and you can prove it's, I mean, you might be able to stretch it out to create a list. You never let the Germani speak in anything but the subjunctive.

And that's an unreal mood. So the human's. Well, okay. All right. So, I'll say history. Yeah. Yeah. That's wonderful thing about ancient history.

It's all made up anyway. Um, but okay, so. Okay, I think I get that. So like if I was gonna like do a detective novel, but set in a very real historical time, that would be historical fiction because the character didn't exist. Correct. But he interacts with characters who did exist. Yes. Because I'm thinking of this mechanic. That's historical fiction. Okay, cool.

So how fun was that to write? I mean, that was a lot of fun. I've done a lot of research too. I loved it. It's so cool to talk to people that have had these paranormal experiences because they can't explain it. So they're just like, I don't know. It was like this weird feeling and you know, it creeps me out and you know, we heard, you know, the person, the person that heard footsteps running up and down the deck. And then they would go to try to find it. And then the footsteps would almost basically like spring over them and then be in a totally different part of the ship. steps would almost basically like spring over them and then be in a totally different part of the ship.

Oh, like they can't explain it. And so then they're trying to they're trying to use logic to explain it when it's really an emotional event. Right. I mean, meeting a meeting a ghost is an emotional events. Okay. You're using, if you believe in that, you're using sense, you're not using your five senses, you're using other senses.

Sure. But you're talking about translated. You're talking about guy who doesn't get poetry. So the odds of me, you know, being able to hang with the ghost thing, but I get what you're saying there too. Like there's definitely more than five senses. There are. Yeah. So, okay.

So, to shift kind of to head toward wrapping this up because I do have people who are aspiring writers who do listen to this podcast fairly regularly. The current media landscape and in that there are so many devices, so many sites, so many, it feels like it's it's incredibly democratized and at the same time. It's overly democrat, democrat, yeah, To the point where it's impossible for anybody to get it, anybody to get in because everybody's at the entrances now. Yes. Even though the entrances are almost infinite,

because of that, you have far less. Is there an impact that you felt that that has had on your ability to be a successful author in that now there are more than one way to do it, because I mean, there's the convention circuit. I'm sure you work that very much. Yeah, is that ultimately a help or is that, well, this is the next step? They can, okay.

Can I go back? And does that matter? Let me also ask this. And I recognize that it's like a five level question, but, but also does that matter to the fact that you are a woman doing this? Wow, that's a lot of a lot of a lot of different questions to Yeah, 50 words are left. Okay, 50 words are less. There we go. Okay, so how, so you were right, that the the field has definitely been leveled in that all you have to do to be a published author is click publish on KDP Amazon or any of the other ones. Right. The Amazon's kind of the easiest one. It's the most popular by far.

Amazon's kind of the easiest one. It's the most popular by far. How has that now that, how has that changed kind of my ability to write and get out there and everything else? You have to spend so much bloody time marketing. It's ridiculous. So much time marketing because you are right. So many people are at that starting point.

There's a really good group out there that's called 20 books to 50K because you're not gonna make a living until you have a good 20 to 30 books. And maybe not even then. Because it's so easy to publish now. It's flooded the channel. So that nothing stands out

because everything is covered. Everything is there. Yep. And because again, it is so easy just to click publish. Right. There are some quality issues now as well. Of course we're. And what that unfortunately has done is

there are plenty of people out there who want to read. And there are plenty of people out there who want to read. And there are plenty of people out there who, you know, enjoy reading the B and the C level stuff. But if you give them kind of the F stuff, they might be more like, I didn't really enjoy that book, I'm good. I don't wanna read anymore. So, you know, we need to raise a quality up of this

and put some quality controls in place. I'm saying some word of comedy. So, you know, we need to raise a quality up of this and put some quality controls in place. I'm saying some word of comedy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's a really good analogy. Okay, the woman thing.

So. Yeah. A lot of this is genre based. So 75% of, and I actually just look this up, 75% of the authors out there are women. Right. But your best sellers are still the same for men, the same for men. Right. And that's the public, the publishing houses have done that. So the big four publishing houses, they have, they are banking their money on the top 20 authors. You've got Stephen King, Dean Coons,

Grisham, and they're not all met. And you know, you've got Nora Roberts. I mean, we all know the names, Daniel Steele, all of them. Right. And in doing that, they're pushing all of their marketing money towards those authors, which leaves it makes it much harder for other authors to be found.

And again, you're set that level playing field. So. It feels like that's kind of a perversion of the studio system of Hollywood for the longest time, where it was like, we've got these stars, but what they then did was, so then we'll get to make art movies and not have to worry about taking losses.

But that doesn't exist anymore. You've got these stars, and maybe if you wanna do something on the indie circuit, you can. Yeah, and then you may end up, and this happens with authors too. They end up spending all of their money like in Hollywood, trying to do a quality book,

you know, pay that money for that cover, pay the money for the editor, pay the money for the proofreader for the formatting, and then start paying for advertising and not even close to break even. Right. And that can be very, very disheartening for writers too, because they're like, I just wanted to write.

They just wanted that moment in love actually with Colin Firth. He's sitting there by the lake, writing, he's got the beautiful woman that brings in snacks to take off her dress to go jump in the water. That's what author's wants. I mean, they just want to sit by the lake and have beautiful people and bring in snacks. Right. And then use their power relationship

with them to convince them to marry them, despite not knowing any of the same languages. I knew I should have brought up love, actually. I knew better. I knew better. There was that place that I had that was like, don't do that. Don't do the go. I mean, the title is is love-splaining. I know. I know. But no, I get what you mean. And that scene is not as bad as the stalker one. Yeah, God dang.

There are so many problems. That's a movie that did not age well. No, no, but modern sensibilities, no. No, no. And yeah. So, okay. So when, when do you think you you're gonna break even as an author? Oh, I don't even know.

Actually, because of no bad books and because I've started taking on editing stuff, that I'm doing well on. The book selling part, it's still trying to get out there and be like, these by my books. Right. It's hard. That's the comedy circuit too.

Like the most successful comedians financially are the ones who are producing. Right. But they're not the most talented comics that are out there going out there. They're not passing at the clubs. They're, they are putting on shows where the people who pass at the clubs do their show. Right. And they make money off of that. But it's right. Wow. So it's the clubs do their show. Right. And they make money off of that, but it's. Right.

Wow. So it's the behind the scenes stuff. Mm-hmm. Which I actually love. I love it. I never thought I would. I love editing. I love it, love it, love it.

Yeah. Yeah, I love. That's cool. It's, I love sitting there and talking with authors. And when I'm like, so, you know, I notice this one thing and they're like, oh, that's a really good point. Wait, what if I dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, and their eyes and their face just light up.

And it's, it's so, it's so great. It's so incredible to give that to them. Oh, that's, that's a wonderful feeling. Like I, I love booking people and having faith in them and then seeing them just shine on stage. Yeah. So it's, that's cool. OK, so sadly, you got to keep your day job.

But at the same time, you're still doing the thing that you love. Still doing it. Yeah, I mean, I'm exhausted. But, sure. Yes. Yeah. Does it help that the nest is a bit emptier?

No, that's very much so. Very much so. Yeah, very, very much. So I don't think I could keep this level of work up without that. That's why my comedy careers. I'm going to tell myself that's why my comedy career is stalled. So, so then, okay, then what's next for you? Like you've got the little portals book. Yep, I've got tiny gateways. Tiny gateways.

We've got four and a half billion people, which I didn't write, but I edited four and a half billion people is coming out June 15th. Wonderful, wonderful book about a family that's reeling when their oldest son is accused of mowing down the mayor's husband, 1978. And as it turns out, the son is neurodivergent and has Eminem is pronounced as synesthesia. And so much of that book is written from his perspective, and it's beautifully written. I've had a couple of teachers read it that are like, I'm going to give this book to special ed teachers. Yeah, it's a fantastic book. So that's what your publishing group is coming out with. That's what my publishing group is coming out

with. Yep, but that's not your... I just edited it. I didn't write it. Okay, yeah. That's twice you've got a very unreliable character that's skiedness through. I love unreliable characters. guidance through. I love unreliable characters. Any any so another tip of any writers out there. Yeah, any first person characters are always liars always. Okay. And the fun is deciding when and where and how. Yeah. Cool. Okay. What about you? Do you have another book in the hopper? Or do you have another idea of brewing besides obviously the one that I just gave you that you can yes, I only want 5% for that, you know, that's fine. I'll give you that. That's fine. You got it. Um, by binding contract.

Um, I, we have dozens of witnesses. We did. Yeah. Yeah. I never intended for warehouse dreams to have a sequel. But I've had so many requests for us. And I have written it now twice. And I still hate it. So I'm giving it, I was giving it six months to just really cool cool down. And then I'm going to try again with it. Because I've got some really good ideas. I know where I want it to go. I just can't get the middle figured out. So that's kind of my next big thing. Then I've got several editing projects too, and that's taking up a lot of time. So yeah.

So do you have a title for the sequiner now? No. Okay. Our joke when I did River City widowsows and I talked about it on my podcast. We called it Sacramento Ghost House romance. I'm so bad with titles. I love it. So warehouse streams, obviously there's warehouse nightmares. There's warehouse daydreams. Warehouse night terrors warehouse wedding the bed. Um, warehouse sleepwalking. Um, or we just make it another kind of house storehouse dreams, storehouse. Yeah, storehouse dreams, mansion dreams, mansion dreams, horror house dreams, horror house. Yeah. Yeah. Um, cat house, obviously, if you want

it more classy. Uh, so the, the, the Dorothy Appuente House dreams, I think I will let you just keep on going. Yeah, it's got bones. Cool. Well, geez, I look forward to just hearing about that. So tell you what, normally we tell everybody where they can find us and what have you. But everybody knows the first ride of every month, my show, Capital Punishment, is at Luna's in Sacramento for $10. You got to be fully vaxed.

So I'm not going to bother telling them that, but I would love you to close a show by telling us, plugging any and all the things that you want to plug your podcast, your books, your publishing house, the your favorite books, that kind of thing. Oh my gosh. Okay. So I've talked about all of my books, but we've got warehouse streams, we've got river city widows, we've got lost a board, and we have a wonderful anthology called released. For my podcast, my podcast is the semi-sages of the pages, really fun podcast by writers, for writers, and the reason that we are the semi-sages is because we are still learning. Oh my god.

Yes, we are all truck drivers. And then my publishing house is no bad books press. So you can come check us out if you're interested in being published. And all of this stuff and more is under my website, which is www.teresa-author.com. And that is Teresa with an H. So T-H-E-R-E-S-A. And then an H after that. And then an H after that. Okay. Yeah. Cool. And that's where you'd prefer we buy your books from. I don't care as long as you buy, I might don't care. Oh, okay. Okay. Excellent. I don't care as long as you buy. I don't care. Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah. Excellent. Well, for the absent Ed play lock and a geek history of time, I want to thank you very much Teresa Alverson for being on our show.

I love talking about things that I don't know anything about. And you certainly have done that today. So Well, thank you for having me. This was a lot of fun. Awesome. So thank you very much. And to everybody out there, Geek Timers, Damien Harmony, signing off for Ed Blaylock. And as he always says, always roll critical, I don't listen to him at the end, really. It's kind of sad.