Imaginary Worlds - You Are Lone Wolf: A Father/Son Quest

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

When Joe Dever died in 2016, he hadn’t written the last several books in his Lone Wolf series. The Lone Wolf books take place in a deeply rich fantasy universe, and they’re written as a combination of choose-your-own-adventure stories and role playing games like D&D. Joe’s final wish was that his son Ben would finish the series for him. However, Ben was unfamiliar with his father’s books, and the legions of Lone Wolf fans he would have to please. I talked with Ben Devere (who spells his last name differently) about the creative, practical, and personal struggles he went through as a writer, and how he was able to get to know his late father by immersing himself in his father’s fantasy world. Jonathan Stark, co-host of the official Lone Wolf podcast Journeys Through Magnamund, explains why Lone Wolf means so much to fans like him, and how he ended up fulfilling his own dreams of writing a Lone Wolf book. Today's episode is sponsored by Henson Shaving, Magic Spoon and Miracle Made. Visit www.hensonshaving.com/imaginary and use the code IMAGINARY to get two years' worth of blades free with your razor – just make sure to add them to your cart. Get your next delicious bowl of high-protein cereal at www.magicspoon.com/imaginary and use the code IMAGINARY to save five dollars off. Go to www.trymiracle.com/imaginary and use the code IMAGINARY to claim your free 3 piece towel set and save over 40% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky. In 2016, Ben Deaver was working as a music festival organizer in the UK. Did that for about 15 years and kind of started becoming a bit groundhog day and I was looking for something else to do. Around that time, his father, Joe Deaver, was struggling with medical issues. They thought his condition was manageable.

But then, all of a sudden... This is going to sound like total nonsense, but I had a feeling something was wrong. And I called his half-sister and asked her to go check on him, which I've never done. Never had a feeling like that. And she kind of saw this shape through the frosted glass and called an ambulance. And they said that he would have died within a few minutes if they hadn't got there. And without that, I wouldn't have had, we wouldn't have had that month in the hospital. And it was during that month,

his father made a request, which seemed to come out of nowhere. So it was a death, actual death bed request, which is pretty nuts. I think the exact words were, take the gold, fly to Poitiers, find Vincent, and finish the saga, which I thought was the most Indiana Jones thing he'd ever said. And how can you turn that down? As cryptic as that sounded, Ben knew what his father meant. Take the gold was not a metaphor.

His father actually had gold in a safe for currency. Fly to Poitiers, find Vincent meant get in touch with Vincent Lazari, a French paleontologist who was a huge fan of his father's work. Joe Deaver was a writer. He wrote a series of fantasy books called Lone Wolf. Vincent Lazari had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Lone Wolf universe and all the lore. Finish the saga meant that Joe wanted his son to collaborate with Vincent to write the last three books in the series, which Joe realized at that moment he would not be able to finish. We spent the last few days of his life taking notes, taking dictation from him to get the finish of the story out with Vincent on one end of Skype, me at his bedside, taking probably 20 hours of dictation,

how he wanted the story to end, the final three books, so that me and Vincent could do it. So the content of the message made sense. But Ben didn't understand why his father asked him to do this. They did not have a close relationship. And Ben was not familiar with his father's books. I never really read them. He never pushed it on me. He never gave me any of his books to read. And I just never really found them as a kid. I mean, did you have any thoughts about them? Yeah, I think there's a kind of, as a kid. I mean, did you have any thoughts about them? Yeah,

I think there's a kind of, there's a magnetic repulsion sometimes with your parents business, like their private business, which is, I guess how he presented it because he would disappear into his room for weeks. And then he was in there writing books, obviously.

And when he came out, I, we just wanted to spend time with him and not talk about work. And I guess he didn't want to talk about work either, so he just never did. Ben had dabbled in screenwriting before, but he had never written a book.

Now he had to write three books, set in a richly imagined fantasy universe that he knew very little about. His father had legions of fans around the world who had been waiting decades to read the final books in the series. Could he wing it? Would the fans accept what he wrote? And why had Joe asked him to do this? Ben is still trying to figure out some of those questions, but he found answers. Answers which surprised him. I remember when I was a kid, we'd talk about things that only kids talk about.

Like, how does Superman shave? His hair is too strong to be cut by a razor blade. Well, there's an answer to that. He uses his heat vision to hit the mirror and the lasers reflect back on his face. Seriously, that's in canon. If only real life was that easy. Razor blades can be expensive and they break down quickly. And the issue isn't about having the sharpest blade. It's a manufacturing issue. That's where Henson Shaving can swoop in to save the day.

Henson Shaving is a family-owned aerospace parts manufacturer, and their aerospace background has enabled the creation of razors with laser-like precision. They've been able to manufacture a blade extension that is less than the thickness of a human hair. And once you own a Henson razor, it's only about three to five dollars a year to replace the blades. It's time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that will last you a lifetime. Visit hensonshaving.com slash imaginary to pick the razor for you and use the code imaginary and you'll get two years worth of blades free with your razor. Just make sure you add them to your cart. That's 100 free blades when you head to h-e-n-s-o-n-s-h-a-v-i-n-g.com

slash imaginary and use the code imaginary. I listened to several interviews with Joe Deaver. My favorite one was his appearance on the Fantasy podcast hosted by Oliver McNeil. Joe went on the show a year before he died. In that interview, Joe said the inspiration for the Lone Wolf books began in 1977. Back then, he was into tabletop battle games. They were a big influence on Dungeons and Dragons. But D&D had not taken off in the UK yet. Joe was working in California, and he came across a very early version of D&D. And I still remember vividly that Eureka moment when I flicked through it and suddenly it dawned on me what I had in my hands here, how absolutely amazing this thing was.

Joe became such an avid D&D player. In 1982, he won the Advanced D&D Championship of America, even though he was British. And he did it by killing all the other players, although that was not his plan from the start. He picked the character at random before it started. And I chose a 13th level mercenary thief. So it was pretty clear to me from a nanosecond after I'd read the brief what I had to do.

And that was to look out for number one and try and get out of there alive and with all the loot. And the situation was that I managed to do the dirty on the other players. It was like Indiana Jones. I grabbed the loot, got out of the tomb, and set off all traps behind me. It was quite a fait accompli, really. Who else could they award it to? I was the only survivor, and I played my part perfectly.

That perfectly sums up the way that Joe was a game master at heart. He could adjust on the fly and set up things which would pay off way down the road. He wanted to develop his own role-playing game, but he had serious competition. A lot of people were trying to create the next D&D. So I thought, I don't really want to get lost in the mix. And then I had another wonderful eureka moment when I realized that there are an awful lot more book shops in the world than there are game shops. And then I decided, yeah, what I need to do is a solo role-playing campaign in book form. And my unique selling point, as the jargon goes these days, is the fact that nobody had done it before. What he meant was that he took the format of

a choose-your-own-adventure book and he added game mechanics to it. Jonathan Stark is the co-host of the official Lone Wolf podcast, which is called Journeys Through Magnamund. And Jonathan says, before you even start reading the first Lone Wolf book, you actually pick numbers to set up your strength and your endurance, your health. set up your strength and your endurance, your health. You pick abilities that are going to help you through the book. Some are combative abilities. Some are more neutral, like sixth sense, which actually gives you hints throughout the book of danger or paths you might want to take. For instance, in the first book, the narrator says, you turn away from the ruins and carefully descend the steep track. At the foot of the hill, the path splits into two directions, both leading

into a large wood. If you wish to use your kind discipline of six cents, turn to 141. If you wish to take the right path into the wood, turn to 85. If you wish to follow the left track, turn to 275. In a traditional choose-your-own-adventure book, if you went to pages 85, 141, or 275, the book has already decided what's going to happen to you. But in the Lone Wolf series, you're more than a passive reader. You're a player with statistics. You've got a fighting chance. You have combat, so you're going to fight monsters and other creatures as you go along, face dangers, and you can die. You can actually die before you make it to the end. And then you have to start over and try new paths, try new character abilities, see if you can make it this time.

It was really innovative. Reading the books was like playing a D&D campaign by yourself. And Joe wanted to build out the lore of this world. He didn't want to write a D&D knockoff or run-of-the-mill fantasy adventure. Although the land of Magnamund, where Lone Wolf takes place, originally started as a world that Joe created to build his own D&D campaigns. So there are similarities. But he threw in other influences like King Arthur, Norse mythology, and Lord of the Rings. Other people have compared it to Star Wars. The main character is called Lone Wolf. He's part of a sect of magical warrior monks called Kyloids. The Kyloids are these like almost, you know, fantasy Jedi.

They have all these powers. They protect the land. And here you are, you're 14 years old, and the book begins with you being sent into the woods to chop firewood because you weren't paying attention in class. You couldn't sit still in class. And as it turns out, because you're sent off into the woods, you're the only Kai Lord not present when the Dark Lords descend and murder all of the Kai.

You're the sole survivor. But he doesn't become a hero right away. The next thing that happens is you spend a lot of time running from trauma. And the arc that you experience is over the course of 20 books, the first 20 in the series, you're playing this same character and growing this character, both mechanically, like literally you're getting new skills every book, but also you start switching from fleeing from trauma to facing trauma and facing your fears. Jonathan discovered the books when he was a kid.

At that age, he was struggling in school. He felt like an outcast. And the way the character Lone Wolf would methodically work through his trauma and level up felt very empowering to Jonathan. In life, while we do, you know do change and hopefully improve and gain experience, we rarely get to look back at a roadmap of our life and say, oh, this is the tangible change, or it's very hard to do that, at least. And so this simplifies that process. And I think, especially for a child, that was exceptionally comforting.

There's another element which helped him identify with the main character. The story is told in the second person. You are Lone Wolf. This was like virtual reality before we had that. So these books, these weren't just books we read. These were stories we lived. And the choices we made mattered. So there are stories.

My story might be a little different from somebody else's, but we both know the bones of the story. So we get to come together, and it's not just a, oh, I read this book, but I lived this. It's like we all went on this road trip together. And he thinks that's why the fan base grew so quickly. The first few books were released in 1984. And those sold in their first week, each book sold over 100,000 copies. Joe was quickly signed for more books. And initially he had a plan for 12 books, but eventually this grew into the plan to do 32. Joe had a good run for about 10 years.

The books were translated in over a dozen languages. But in the mid-1990s, the market for game books hit a rough patch. It was a time where game books were being seen as these niche things that were no longer going to be profitable. The publishers that had them actually kind of started degrading them.

They would sell them for cheaper and cheaper. They were making cuts. For instance, in the U.S., we got books 13 through 20 of the Lone Wolf series abridged, and they didn't even do a good job of abridging them. There's sections that go to nowhere because they forgot to fix the pathings when they made these cuts. The Lone Wolf series was canceled by its publisher in 1998. At that point, Joe had reached book 28 out of a planned 32-book series. Honestly, Lone Wolf probably would have disappeared then. But always the game master, Joe figured out another solve. He gave permission to put the Lone Wolf books online for free with hyperlinks so you can jump to whatever section

you need. And the Lone Wolf fan forum became a gathering place for people around the world. And because of that, Joe was able to go to other publishers and say, there's still a Lone Wolf market. Maybe we could do something with this. But publishing continued to be a challenge. He went through several different publishers to get the series reprinted with new editions. And he finally got Book 29 published in 2015, 17 years after the original series had been canceled. He was also able to expand Lone Wolf to other markets. He licensed the books to be adapted into video games

and tabletop role-playing games. Joe was never someone who was going to give up. If there was a win condition, he was going to do everything in his power to make that win condition come true for him. And then Joe Deaver died at the age of 60. The fans were mourning the loss of their favorite author and probably the end of the Lone Wolf series.

Joe had made it to book 29 with three left to go. And then the fans learned that Joe had figured out another way to keep it going. And that's where his son Ben comes in. I have a dilemma every afternoon. I get really snacky. I work at a co-working space where they have a big basket of candy and other options that I know I'm going to regret later. But Magic Spoon has designed the perfect,

convenient snack. Remember the marshmallow-y treats that we used to love as kids? Well, they've reinvented those bars to be chewy, delicious, and surprisingly light. They come in four flavors, marshmallow, chocolatey peanut butter, blueberry muffin, and double chocolate. Each bar has one gram of sugar, two grams of net carbs, and 11 to 12 grams of protein. And of course, Magic Spoon also makes cereals. They taste just like your favorite childhood cereals, but they reinvented them to have zero grams of sugar, 13 to 14 grams of protein, and four to five grams of net carbs per serving. Head to magicspoon.com slash imaginary to grab a custom bundle of cereal and try the magic for yourself. And don't forget to add their tasty treats to

your order. Be sure to use our promo code imaginary at checkout to save $5 off. And Magic Spoon is so confident in their product, it's backed with a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you don't like it for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember, get your next delicious bowl of high-protein cereal at magicspoon.com slash imaginary and use the code imaginary to save $5 off. save $5 off. It's interesting to hear Jonathan Stark talk about Joe Deaver. He never met him, but he was a fan. And Joe gave a lot of love back to his fan base. Ben has a different perspective on his father. Their relationship was cordial, but strained. So yeah, it was fine. I'll go so far as fine.

He says the Lone Wolf books were part of the reason why he felt a distance from his father. They were more than just a passion project. Yeah, beyond a passion project. It was a world that he wanted to be in, I think, more than he wanted to be in the real world, is the impression we got. He was quite a, he's a very private insular person

even with his family i think it's a generational difference as well especially in england men in that generation don't really talk about their feelings but it was his safe place and that came from his childhood his dad died when he was nine and then when my grandmother remarried his stepdad died very quickly after the wedding of a heart attack and so he got used to just dealing with stuff himself being very he was very self-reliant emotionally he apparently my grandma told me he disappeared into the shed after his dad died for three days and didn't come out but when he came out she said he came out a man which i just thought i think she was trying to pay him a compliment but i thought that was incredibly sad so he found it very difficult to relate to me as a child and his work was where he would disappear off to

and so there there is still a little bit of a resentment to his work that i have i think that's interesting given that you ended up taking over yeah isn't it he got the last laugh sorry i haven't read any of your books dad well here you go son thanks dude yeah i mean was there ever like a moment where you tried to avoid it and be like you know what even though my dad told me to do this maybe i should just like hire someone 100 it's the first thing i thought was get a ghostwriter i can't do this who am i to think that i can write a book let alone a book set in a universe that's got dozens of published works and really really keen fans you know everything about it i'm gonna just stand up like a sore thumb talk about imposter syndrome so i did i tried i tried having other people write

them but it just never it never felt right i think it was vincent that said that the stuff i wrote sounded much more like his tone of voice just naturally once you started reading the books and like and you started getting into it i mean did you start to get to know your dad better through reading his books yeah that's been the nicest part of it was getting to know his inner universe and a side of him that I didn't appreciate. So I knew that he was successful. I knew that his fans were into it. But like I said, I had never brushed up against the world proper. the world proper and then i had to dive in at the deep and i had to go to a big conference in italy and meet all of these people who kind of hero worshipped him which was really hard but i really

got to appreciate firsthand how much he meant to people which was incredibly lovely and when we announced that he died on facebook the kind of outpouring of love and respect from all the fans was pretty overwhelming. Crashed the computer that I was on. There were so many comments coming in. It's tough when you read a comment, oh, you know, what I'd have given for Joe Diva to be my father. Wow. I mean, have you ever thought about, like,

what if you had been co-writing this with your dad? Like, how that would have been different? Oh, God, yeah. Kidding. I wish I could talk to thought about like, what if you had been co-writing this with your dad? Like how that would have been different? Oh God, yeah. Kidding. I wish I could talk to him about it because it would be a lot easier. Especially dialogue. Because I haven't lived with the characters so long, I find it really hard to write true dialogue for the characters.

And I want to say, does this sound like Grey Star? You know, is this something he would say? That's where I struggle most. Oh God, I'd have, I have i'd have the thing the questions would stop me writing and then he'd just write it and he would he would yeah i think he would he would struggle more than me well was there ever a moment that you decided to like to make a choice that you're like you know even i don't think my dad would choose this but i'm gonna make this choice oh god yeah yeah like what i don't know it's it's interesting isn't it? I often think, is this what dad would do? Or what would he think of this choice? Because he was so play,

he was very playful and could be incredibly childish. So whenever I think maybe I'm making something too silly, when I'm going back and reading his stuff for reference, I'm reminded that he did so many still made so many silly choices. And then I what I found now, weirdly, is I'll go back and i'll read his books and i've started editing them in my head and thinking i wouldn't have made that decision or that sounds a bit rusty or or this is dragging but he was the ultimate fanboy of his own universe i guess so he there are times in his books where you know you get into a tavern and you're supposed to be searching for some murderer or something and you get distracted and start playing dice. And there's this whole long section

where you're playing a dice game. And I'm like, Dad, what happened to the murderer? You know what I mean? I'd be like, screw the dice game. Let's get on with it. It's possible that in writing the Lone Wolf books, Joe Deaver was looking for a childlike sense of wonder that he had denied himself in the real world after his father and his stepfather died and he had to become the man of the house. And as Ben went through this process of reading his father's books and working with Vincent to write the next one,

he kept mulling over that deathbed request. He made it sound like he had always planned for me to take over, but had never vocalized that. We'd never talked about it. Makes me wonder, maybe it wasn't all planned. Maybe it was another improvised move, a sudden shift in strategy. I mean, there is a history of sons taking over their father's literary work. Brian Herbert continued running Frank Herbert's Dune series.

Christopher Tolkien edited J.R.R. Tolkien's notes into the Similarian book. When people ask what I do, I tell them I'm the Christopher Tolkien of game books. And I met with Luke Gygax recently. The son of Gary Gygax, co-creator of D&D. I think me and Luke, we both agreed it was a net positive. That's as far as we would go. I have another theory, which I ran by Ben. What his father put him through reflected the hero's journey, the classic template made famous by Joseph Campbell and used in countless fantasy stories. This was probably not intentional on Joe's part,

but everything that happened to Ben followed the hero's journey almost beat for beat. There's the call to adventure. In this case, you must finish my quest. The next step is the refusal of the call. In this case, trying to figure out if he could get a ghostwriter. And then there's a stage where he gathers allies and meets with a mentor. In this case, it was his father's apprentice, Vincent, who encouraged Ben to keep writing because his style sounded like his father. And then after that, the hero goes into the cave of innermost doubt. To get even more meta, in the books,

once the character of Lone Wolf has completed his story arc, about two-thirds of the way through the series, he takes on an apprentice who becomes the main character for the rest of the books. I wouldn't put it past him if that was subliminally what was happening. Yeah, makes sense, right? I mean, especially if you lived in that world. Yeah, yeah, it does make sense. Near the climax of the hero's journey, the hero must go through an ordeal.

In real life, that's when Ben released the book that he wrote with Vincent into the world. Will the fans accept him as the new supreme master of the Kai? Or will they see him as a pretender to the throne? A throne he wasn't even sure he wanted. I am a finicky sleeper. I often wake up too hot or too cold, and then it takes a while for me to get back to sleep. That's why I love Miracle-Made thermoregulating sheets. Miracle-Made uses silver-infused fabrics inspired by NASA to keep you at the perfect temperature all night

long. Their sheets are also super comfortable. They feel luxuriously silky without the high price tag of other luxury brands. Their silver-infused fabrics also prevent up to 99.7% of bacterial growth, leaving their sheets cleaner and fresher three times longer than other sheets. their sheets cleaner and fresher three times longer than other sheets. Go to trymiracle.com slash imaginary to try Miracle-Made sheets today. And whether you're buying them for yourself or as a gift for a loved one, if you order today, you can save over 40%. And if you use our promo code imaginary at checkout, you'll get three free towels and save an extra 20%. Miracle is so confident in their product, it's backed with a 30-day money-back guarantee. So if you aren't 100% satisfied, you'll get a full refund.

Upgrade your sleep with MiracleMate. Go to trymiracle.com slash imaginary and use the code imaginary to claim your free three-piece towel set and save over 40% off. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash imaginary to treat yourself. Let's go back to the perspective of the fans, because I can imagine if I was a fan of Lone Wolf, there would have been a part of me that would have wished somehow I had been chosen to write the last few books. I know what it's like to invite a fantasy world so deeply into your mind that you're creating your own fan fiction and head canon that you would love so much to see put out there. Ben Deaver may be Joe's son, but in this

world, he's an outsider. Jonathan Stark says among the fans, I will say when it first started, there was skepticism until we saw the first of the definitive edition books, which are a reprinting of the entire series from book one, and it's going to be finished by book 32. There were new rules that the community had been asked to be a part of crafting. There was new maps, beautiful hand-drawn maps. There were sections at the back that taught you how to speak Giak, the dark spawn language. There were lore appendices. It was like this whole product that had been put together in this beautiful hardback version of the adventures. And we looked at that and said, okay, this is a publisher who's not just trying to make a quick buck on this series. This is somebody who understands the legacy. The publisher he's talking about is Home Guard Press.

Not long before Joe Deaver died, he set up Home Guard Press to publish the 29th Lone Wolf book. That was the first book he was able to publish after the series was canceled in 1998. He was always on top of new technology, and he realized this was the best way to distribute his books directly to the fans. So Ben didn't just inherit the mantle of writing the books. He also took over Home Guard Press. And they may have won over the fans with the way they reprinted the older books, but now it was time to publish the first book written by Ben and Vincent.

Book number 30 was called Dead in the Deep, and it came out in 2019, three years after Joe had died. You can imagine being terrified to publish it. First posthumous book. I was convinced everyone was going to hate it. And the reaction was amazing. Everybody loved it. And they voted it their second favorite Lomolf book,

which, thank God it wasn't number one. That would have been embarrassing. Jonathan was blown away. It's incredible. It's so good. The scenario is exciting. There's a deep central mystery. Characters come back that you don't expect to come back. And the writing was really good.

And it felt like Joe. It really felt like having Joe back among us. Ben has now settled into his new career as a caretaker of his father's legacy. Right now, he and Vincent are working on the final book that Joe Deaver had planned in the series. In fact, it's going so well. We were in the middle of writing it when we realized that it was going to be way too big and we had too much story to fit into one book. So we've split it into two volumes and we're about halfway through volume one. At the end of the hero's journey comes the reward.

But this is not the point where Ben realizes he was destined to be a fiction writer. The actual day-to-day business of being a writer, of putting in the hours and the word count every morning is as lonely and difficult as writers like to tell people that it is. And it's not like I have stories burning a hole in my head that need to be told. That said, we do have some really cool ideas of what to do with the world when we finish the last book. Can you talk about what those ideas are? Like what kind of things you like to do?

One of them is a prologue, a prequel series. We're doing a junior edition as well this year, which means that the rules are much more simplified. So all you need is a dice. And instead of there being 20 pages of preamble of stats to fill in, it's just two pages. It maintains the integrity of the stories and the writing and the game, but it just makes it much more accessible for people who aren't gamers. It does need to be broadened

out though, that it's quite inaccessible. I found game books in the English speaking world are still regarded with a kind of slightly snooty down the nose air from the literary community. They're not really considered real books. Whereas in France or Italy, that you will find them in a petrol station. There'll be a game book section. But even when I go into Forbidden Planet, which is supposedly a, you know,

it's like the ultimate geek base, they even, they don't stock them. So we've really got a job to do to bring them back into the mainstream. They seem to have been a flash in the pan for the publishing industry. So we're kind of out there on our own, which I like. When Ben talks about the writing process, he sounds like a knight on a solemn quest. But when he talks about building the business, he seems much more comfortable. He's in his element,

working on brand awareness, forging partnerships. He'd also like to develop an animated series. His father took on this aspect of the job with enthusiasm, but it didn't come as naturally to him as writing. Well, I was a promoter, so yeah, it comes more naturally to me than the creation of the stories. But we have, like I said, we've got amazing writers on our staff who, that's what they do. One of those writers is Jonathan Stark. Besides working on the Lone Wolf podcast, Jonathan was hired by Ben to write a spinoff series, a trilogy of game books set in the same universe as Lone Wolf. It's called the Huntress series.

And as you can imagine, this was a pretty big deal for Jonathan. It still is a little bit like being in a dream. This is a world that took me in when I did not feel safe or like I belonged in our world. And now here I am coming in as a excavator or a builder. But it was meaningful in another way. In some ways, Jonathan's father was the opposite of Joe Deaver. His dad wanted to be a fiction writer, but he gave it up to focus on his family.

The only time he got to be a storyteller was when he made up stories to tell his kids. Jonathan once asked his father if he ever regretted that decision. His dad said no. But I also knew just personally that there had been this dream of publishing for him. And I kind of took that on, not as an obligation. I just thought it would be really cool if one day I could bring my dad a book that I published and said, your stories have come through me and influenced me, and a bit of you is in this book. A bit of you is here. So look, you've been published in a way. Stories can be powerful tools to make sense of our lives and our families.

But they're not solid. You may have a very clear idea of what your story is, and then it gets bombarded with life events. And suddenly your story has to be revised with a new beginning, middle, and end point. When that happens, our stories can feel surprisingly malleable. You may wonder, am I just trying to make sense of random events and circumstances? Is this all in my head? Every one of us is a lone wolf in that regard. But in nature, a lone wolf isn't alone for very long.

And they're not outcasts. Lone wolves break away from the pack and wander into the woods so they can form a new pack. It's a way that they can declare, this is who I am. This is now going to be my community. We choose our own adventures. We tell our own stories. The flexibility of our stories isn't a weakness. It's a strength.

That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Ben Deaver and Jonathan Stark. It's a strength. the show. The best way to support Imaginary Worlds is to donate on Patreon. At different levels, you get either free Imaginary Worlds stickers, a mug, a t-shirt, and a link to a Dropbox account, which has the full-length interviews of every guest in every episode. You can also get access to an ad-free version of the show through Patreon, and you can buy an ad-free subscription on Apple Podcasts. You can subscribe to the show's newsletter at imaginaryworldspodcast.org.