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A Trip to the Doctor's Office with Christina LePort · WriterCon

0:00
Speaker 1: This week on the writer Con podcast.
0:03
Speaker 2: You have to really be passionate about writing, because writing
0:09
Speaker 2: is a process that you have to do mostly for yourself.
0:13
Speaker 1: Welcome to writer Con, a gathering place for writers to
0:16
Speaker 1: share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Do
0:19
Speaker 1: you have a desire to write? Every successful writer started
0:22
Speaker 1: with their first book. All it takes is determination and knowledge,
0:26
Speaker 1: and writer Con can provide that knowledge. Your hosts are
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Speaker 1: number one national best selling writer William Bernhardt, author of
0:32
Speaker 1: more than sixty books, including The Superman Wars, and Laura Bernhardt,
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Speaker 1: Award winning author of the Wantlan File series and Shadow
0:40
Speaker 1: of the taj.
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Speaker 3: Wow.
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Speaker 4: Thank you, Jesse Ulrich, Hey their writers, thanks for joining
0:48
Speaker 4: us today. Lots of news in the writing world lately,
0:53
Speaker 4: including the big bombshell for this week, a New York
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Speaker 4: Times story about a short story that is won a
1:00
Speaker 4: major literary prize the Commonwealth and was published online by Granta,
1:05
Speaker 4: a major literary magazine, and now appears to have been
1:09
Speaker 4: written at least in part by Ai. This of course,
1:13
Speaker 4: comes on the heels of the story we featured in
1:16
Speaker 4: a previous podcast last month about Shy Girl, the novel
1:20
Speaker 4: that was yanked by Hashet after again the New York
1:24
Speaker 4: Times pointed out that it had been written at least
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Speaker 4: seventy percent by AI. So I'm just wondering, Jesse, is
1:32
Speaker 4: this like the real sky Net? You know, it's not
1:36
Speaker 4: that they're going to be terminator robots. It's first the
1:39
Speaker 4: AI takes over our entertainment, and then they can take
1:42
Speaker 4: over the world.
1:44
Speaker 1: It's just another reminder that, like, I give other people
1:48
Speaker 1: too much credit in detecting what's real and what's not right,
1:54
Speaker 1: because not only are there tools to help you detect
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Speaker 1: if what, whether something's aar or not. You know, after
2:00
Speaker 1: something has won at least one award, you don't think
2:02
Speaker 1: someone would be like, hey, who wrote this? Let's talk
2:05
Speaker 1: to that person, Like who accepted the award for these
2:12
Speaker 1: you know, for these awards that this thing won, but
2:14
Speaker 1: they didn't have ceremonies, Like how did this happen?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, well, a person I'm sure took credit for it.
2:21
Speaker 4: But it's like, yeah, shy girl, remember her. That author's
2:25
Speaker 4: response was it must have been an editor. My editor
2:29
Speaker 4: must have done something. Okay, whatever, Laura, are you beginning
2:36
Speaker 4: to wonder how you, or for that matter, any writer
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Speaker 4: can compete in the world where books apparently capable of
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Speaker 4: winning prizes and getting published, are being generated almost instantaneously
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Speaker 4: by computer programs. We were hearing on the news the
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Speaker 4: other night. They were talking about new AI programs that
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Speaker 4: very capable of growing and learning and expanding even without
3:01
Speaker 4: human intervention or human assistance, and I thought, yep, that's
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Speaker 4: sky ned all right. I mean, how do you work
3:09
Speaker 4: as a writer?
3:12
Speaker 3: If we could be real for a minute. I really
3:15
Speaker 3: have been feeling pretty discouraged lately. I've had some.
3:20
Speaker 5: Health issues over the past few years.
3:22
Speaker 3: We've had some family health issues that we've been dealing with.
3:26
Speaker 3: There's just been a lot going on, and it's kind
3:28
Speaker 3: of a heavy world that we're living in. Finding that
3:31
Speaker 3: time to write is challenging for sure, and then you
3:36
Speaker 3: add on things like this, You add on things like
3:40
Speaker 3: we talked in another podcast about how four million books
3:44
Speaker 3: are now being published every single year and there are
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Speaker 3: people just churning out garbage one after another.
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Speaker 5: So is it discouraging?
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, because my time is very limited and stretched very thin.
4:00
Speaker 3: When you've got that time, if you manage to carve
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Speaker 3: it out, and you sit there thinking is anybody even
4:07
Speaker 3: going to read it now? Because it's so difficult, I
4:10
Speaker 3: will agree how a people I'm still writing good And
4:15
Speaker 3: they talked about how you have to be very you
4:18
Speaker 3: have to be very passionate, and I think to make.
4:21
Speaker 5: It you you have to just not be able to
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Speaker 5: not write. Does that make sense? That's too many knots
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Speaker 5: in one sentence.
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Speaker 3: You have got the idea, you have to write, or
4:31
Speaker 3: you're just restless and uncomfortable and miserable.
4:35
Speaker 5: If you can do anything else, do it.
4:38
Speaker 4: Some writers are still breaking out though we both read
4:41
Speaker 4: or you might be in the middle of yesteryear. That's
4:44
Speaker 4: the trad trad Wife novel that we covered, and it's
4:49
Speaker 4: you know, doing huge business. Romanticis doing very well, but
4:56
Speaker 4: you know, I think it's getting a lot harder to
4:58
Speaker 4: get attention. You know, you go mine and wave your
5:00
Speaker 4: hands in the air, but everybody else is doing the
5:03
Speaker 4: same thing.
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Speaker 5: Yes, and then well.
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Speaker 3: And then you have all of these people crawling out
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Speaker 3: of the woodwork promising that they're going to help you
5:11
Speaker 3: be seen and trying to convince.
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Speaker 5: You to part with your hard earned money.
5:19
Speaker 4: It's a lot well. The AI slop email, which is
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Speaker 4: basically three paragraphs of flatter you about how wonderful your
5:27
Speaker 4: work is and the which they can do convincingly because
5:31
Speaker 4: the AI has already scraped your books or an interview
5:34
Speaker 4: or something and followed by some big con job.
5:39
Speaker 3: I had one that read almost exactly like my book description,
5:44
Speaker 3: like from you know, from sales platforms. It just looked
5:48
Speaker 3: exactly like my book. I'm like, that's my book description.
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Speaker 3: You didn't read anything.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I didn't know this was going to launch
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Speaker 4: on such a happy note. But just in case any
6:00
Speaker 4: video is still listening today, our interview is with Christina Laporte.
6:05
Speaker 4: She's a cartiologist but also a writer of medical thrillers.
6:10
Speaker 4: Her novels, which include Dissection, Change of Heart, and Defrosted,
6:17
Speaker 4: offer a unique blend of suspense and medical insight, and
6:22
Speaker 4: we will talk to her about all this and much more.
6:26
Speaker 4: But first the news all right, news story number one,
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Speaker 4: Courry Richins is sentenced to life. If that doesn't mean
6:47
Speaker 4: anything to you yet, cast your mind back a couple
6:51
Speaker 4: of years, when I hope you recall the story. We
6:56
Speaker 4: cover it on this podcast, but it's been a long
6:59
Speaker 4: minute since then. About this woman, Corey Richards, who was
7:03
Speaker 4: accused of murdering her husband and then writing Actually it
7:07
Speaker 4: turns out it was ghost written a children's book to
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Speaker 4: help her children overcome the grief, which she then appeared
7:14
Speaker 4: on television to promote. And some people thought this was
7:18
Speaker 4: all very suspect. I remember when we discussed it, Jesse
7:24
Speaker 4: commenting that, you know, if you're going to murder your husband,
7:27
Speaker 4: don't write a book about it. That just seems really unwise.
7:31
Speaker 4: Good advice. Well, this story is back and attracting really
7:37
Speaker 4: very little attention. I thought, given how much you know,
7:40
Speaker 4: her arrest got all kinds of attention, but now that
7:43
Speaker 4: it's resolved in courts, not so much anyway. The prosecutor
7:47
Speaker 4: say that Corey Richards, who was a Utah member of three,
7:51
Speaker 4: was in terrible financial situation when she ate bad financial
7:57
Speaker 4: situation when she fatally poisoned her a very wealthy husband
8:02
Speaker 4: with a fentanyl laced cocktail. She tried to deflect suspicion,
8:07
Speaker 4: prosecutor said, and make money by commissioning a children's book
8:11
Speaker 4: about grief ghost written for her. A forensic accountant testified
8:15
Speaker 4: it that her testified that her financial situation was this
8:19
Speaker 4: is his word imploding prior to her husband's untimely death,
8:25
Speaker 4: because she borrowed millions of dollars to support her failing
8:28
Speaker 4: real estate business. The prosecutor told judg Ures that she
8:33
Speaker 4: asked her a house cleaner to buy her quote illicit
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Speaker 4: street drugs end quote and get this, she left her
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Speaker 4: husband a poisoned sandwich on Valentine's Day and an attempt
8:46
Speaker 4: to kill him for money. I mean, I almost have
8:50
Speaker 4: to It's all right, honey. I trust anything you give me,
8:55
Speaker 4: especially on Valentine's Day, but other people might want to
8:59
Speaker 4: look out. This is my favorite part of the story, though.
9:02
Speaker 4: Another man who said on the witness stand he was
9:06
Speaker 4: having an affair with this woman at the time, testified
9:10
Speaker 4: that she asked him if he had ever killed anyone
9:14
Speaker 4: and how it made him feel. The important part, Yeah,
9:18
Speaker 4: seems to me like a red flag maybe something you
9:23
Speaker 4: should cover before you get into veterans.
9:24
Speaker 1: I would say, the reddest flag. Well, whatever you now,
9:33
Speaker 1: and how did it make you feel?
9:35
Speaker 4: Did you enjoy it? And would you like a sandwich?
9:38
Speaker 5: Yeah?
9:41
Speaker 4: Jesse. Other than the obvious takeaways here about not eating
9:46
Speaker 4: Valentine's Day sandwiches, what can we learn from this story.
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Speaker 1: Is just another example of rich people thinking they can
9:53
Speaker 1: get away with anything and not being good at it,
9:56
Speaker 1: Like the amount of forethought not put into this crime
10:00
Speaker 1: is staggering to me. The amount of breadcrumbs she left
10:05
Speaker 1: that lead directly to her, Yeah, is like three different.
10:09
Speaker 4: Yeah.
10:10
Speaker 1: Has she never read like a murder mystery novel?
10:13
Speaker 4: A good one?
10:14
Speaker 3: Not?
10:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, not seriously, not one like telling people about it,
10:20
Speaker 1: like having a witness to the drug buying, like all
10:23
Speaker 1: the things, just like that. Don't do that.
10:25
Speaker 3: Don't do that.
10:25
Speaker 1: If you're trying to get away with a crime and
10:29
Speaker 1: then writing a book about it, it's just it's truly insane.
10:34
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to the maybe maybe HBO or Showtime
10:37
Speaker 1: movie about this at some point.
10:39
Speaker 4: Oh sure, if they don't, this should be my next
10:42
Speaker 4: nonfiction book. Yeah, seriously, this is a story. I could
10:45
Speaker 4: make up some of this stuff. This is different. Yeah.
10:49
Speaker 4: I just want to say that, if there's ever a
10:51
Speaker 4: time when you desperately need money, just tell me. We'll
10:57
Speaker 4: figure something out.
10:58
Speaker 3: Yet so much more challenging.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, well, rest assured. I don't have millions of dollars
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Speaker 5: in loans.
11:06
Speaker 4: So she says that is yeah, right, but it's.
11:09
Speaker 5: Something a murderer say. Yeah.
11:14
Speaker 4: Okay, new story number two, and this relates to our
11:18
Speaker 4: opening story about the AI short story and all that
11:21
Speaker 4: kind of stuff because thanks to a new company, Human Writers,
11:25
Speaker 4: you remember them, Human Writers can now verify that they
11:29
Speaker 4: are human, just in case there is some doubt, Like
11:34
Speaker 4: you know, AI work is winning contests, it's getting publishing contracts,
11:39
Speaker 4: and I assume that at this point everybody in publishing
11:43
Speaker 4: is on high alert. So how can we human writers
11:46
Speaker 4: prove we're human? Well, happily there's a new company called
11:50
Speaker 4: Human Intelligence, which appears with a little tea for Trade
11:55
Speaker 4: March today. Yeah, can you really trademark human intelligence? It
12:00
Speaker 4: seems anyway, that's exactly what they're going to do. They're
12:03
Speaker 4: going to provide authentication tools and services that help you
12:08
Speaker 4: prove your humanness and certify that your work is also
12:13
Speaker 4: one hundred percent human. Of course there's a fee. I
12:18
Speaker 4: took this blurb right off their website. Listen to this.
12:21
Speaker 4: AI is now sweeping the world seventy four percent of
12:25
Speaker 4: all content maybe AI generated in the years to come? Maybe,
12:31
Speaker 4: I mean, are they predicted? How can you have a
12:34
Speaker 4: percentage about what may happen in the future. Anyway, they
12:40
Speaker 4: say Human Intelligence has created a patented algorithm incorporated into
12:46
Speaker 4: a platform that can reliably authenticate human content across multiple
12:51
Speaker 4: content types. So Jesse, tell me if I'm wrong. But
12:55
Speaker 4: I think what they're saying is they've created an AI
12:59
Speaker 4: program to search for AI. Is that right?
13:02
Speaker 1: This sounds insane. This is insane.
13:05
Speaker 4: This is insane.
13:07
Speaker 1: They're using AI to prove to you that you are human.
13:12
Speaker 1: I guess, like I see the marketing tool, like, so
13:15
Speaker 1: so that you can they'll give you some report that
13:17
Speaker 1: you can send to a publisher to be like, hey,
13:19
Speaker 1: I'm a real person, which again they could figure out
13:22
Speaker 1: if they just called you.
13:23
Speaker 2: On the phone.
13:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm the most useful thing here. Yeah, the
13:29
Speaker 1: most useful thing here I think would be if somehow,
13:32
Speaker 1: whatever tools you're using, even if you were trying to
13:34
Speaker 1: avoid AI, if some part of it somehow made its
13:39
Speaker 1: way into your story, maybe this would find it out
13:41
Speaker 1: and then you could fix that. But the fact that
13:43
Speaker 1: they're using AI to do it, Yeah, the wat they're
13:46
Speaker 1: using AI to do it is just it's just it's
13:49
Speaker 1: like looney Tunes, right, this is like I'm.
13:52
Speaker 4: Crazy to me. Yeah, I don't know would anybody do this? Laura,
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Speaker 4: You've published seven books. Have you ever had anybody question
14:01
Speaker 4: whether your work was actually your work?
14:08
Speaker 5: Have not?
14:09
Speaker 3: And I don't think although I kind of quit reading
14:11
Speaker 3: reviews a while ago, but I don't think.
14:13
Speaker 5: Anybody has tried to call me out.
14:15
Speaker 3: But I've heard other authors that I know and I'm
14:18
Speaker 3: friends with, I've heard that they get complaints in their
14:21
Speaker 3: reviews about readers accusing.
14:25
Speaker 5: Them of it being AI.
14:27
Speaker 3: And I do use the M dash, which people are
14:30
Speaker 3: trying to claim as a signifier of having used AI.
14:35
Speaker 5: So I suppose it's just a mess.
14:37
Speaker 4: Nobody else can learn that three finger macro.
14:40
Speaker 3: That's that is like normal, and we're all trained in that,
14:42
Speaker 3: So that's just lunacy. That's one of the most ridiculous
14:45
Speaker 3: things I've heard of. Everyone public service.
14:48
Speaker 5: Notice, like you can use an m dash.
14:50
Speaker 4: It's okay you can use an m dash, and in
14:53
Speaker 4: some circumstances.
14:54
Speaker 3: You absolutely should. We're trained to do it.
14:59
Speaker 4: All right. Craft Corner this time comes from big surprise,
15:05
Speaker 4: our own Laura Bernhardt. I mean, why not I hugged
15:08
Speaker 4: the interview last time, so now you can have craft corner.
15:11
Speaker 4: It seems only fair, or perhaps this means we have
15:15
Speaker 4: no friends, but actually we do. Lara has a lot
15:20
Speaker 4: to say, based on her own experiences about the value
15:24
Speaker 4: of writing contests, right, so take it away Laura.
15:32
Speaker 1: Craft Corner.
15:33
Speaker 3: One of the most daunting things we face as aspiring
15:38
Speaker 3: authors is how do we get started. Even if you've
15:42
Speaker 3: got the best manuscript ready to go and you think
15:46
Speaker 3: you're ready to publish, how do you get that foot.
15:48
Speaker 5: In the door.
15:50
Speaker 3: In previous Craft Corners, we've had people talk about using
15:54
Speaker 3: writers' groups to connect with others and network. We've talked
15:57
Speaker 3: about attending conference so that you can meet agents and
16:04
Speaker 3: publishers and maybe editors, maybe somebody who can give you
16:07
Speaker 3: another little boost and help elevate that manuscript even more.
16:13
Speaker 3: But something that I'd like to talk about today is
16:16
Speaker 3: writing contests and how writing contests can actually help you
16:20
Speaker 3: as you're trying to get that start. When you submit
16:25
Speaker 3: to writing contests, you don't want to send in that
16:27
Speaker 3: first draft.
16:28
Speaker 5: Do you want to.
16:28
Speaker 3: Have a polished, publishable manuscript. You want to get good,
16:34
Speaker 3: solid feedback on your very best writing because a lot
16:38
Speaker 3: of writing contests do offer that benefit that the judges
16:42
Speaker 3: will send specific information back to the author about what
16:48
Speaker 3: worked and what could still use some help. If you
16:54
Speaker 3: advance onto the finals, though, if you maybe even take
16:59
Speaker 3: first place and competitions, that's something that can let you
17:03
Speaker 3: know your writing has really come a long way that
17:06
Speaker 3: you are at the point where you probably are ready
17:10
Speaker 3: to be published. Somebody else has read your work and
17:13
Speaker 3: found real value in it. When I was first getting started,
17:18
Speaker 3: entering contests with maybe the first chapter of some of
17:23
Speaker 3: my work was very helpful to me. It is very
17:27
Speaker 3: validating when you get that positive feedback. I won quite
17:31
Speaker 3: a few contests when I was first getting started, before
17:35
Speaker 3: I reached the point of having an agent and then
17:38
Speaker 3: attaining publication. That's another way that you can realize that
17:44
Speaker 3: you have made it to the point that you're ready
17:47
Speaker 3: to take that step. But in addition to helping get
17:51
Speaker 3: your name out networking, validating your work, it's another way
17:56
Speaker 3: to show in your credential that you have been read.
18:02
Speaker 3: You're not completely new. If you can put down when
18:06
Speaker 3: you're trying to land an agent, or maybe even when
18:10
Speaker 3: you are talking about yourself to potential readers, if you're
18:13
Speaker 3: able to say I won this competition that competition, maybe
18:18
Speaker 3: I took the top prize at another competition. When these
18:21
Speaker 3: writing contests consistently single your book out as being in
18:26
Speaker 3: the top of their entries, that's a good thing that
18:30
Speaker 3: communicates to people that you're not just any writer, not
18:34
Speaker 3: just somebody who's thrown something together and you're tossing it
18:37
Speaker 3: out on Amazon. That's going to show that you are
18:40
Speaker 3: a real committed author and that you've taken all the
18:44
Speaker 3: steps that you can to craft an excellent reading experience.
18:49
Speaker 3: And I think that can sometimes nudge people a little
18:53
Speaker 3: bit into giving your book a chance. And that's something
18:56
Speaker 3: that we all need these days, when there's so many
19:00
Speaker 3: books being published. We need that edge to convince readers
19:04
Speaker 3: to go ahead and try our work. I'll have to
19:07
Speaker 3: go ahead and mention that we have writing contests as
19:10
Speaker 3: part of writer Con and if you have your manuscript
19:14
Speaker 3: ready to go, that might be something that you want
19:17
Speaker 3: to consider. It might be time to take that next step.
19:20
Speaker 3: I know it's scary, but you can get your work
19:23
Speaker 3: out there, let other people read it, see what happens.
19:27
Speaker 3: Sometimes good things happen. All right, keep writing. I'll talk
19:31
Speaker 3: to you soon.
19:36
Speaker 4: Thank you, Laura Bernhardt. Now let's talk to Christina Laporte.
19:46
Speaker 4: Christina Laporte, welcome to the podcast.
19:50
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me.
19:52
Speaker 4: It's great to have you here. Okay, we have a
19:55
Speaker 4: traditional first question. If you could offer writers one piece
19:59
Speaker 4: of advice, what would it be?
20:03
Speaker 2: It's interesting. I actually there was a famous the very
20:09
Speaker 2: famous author who did that, and actually they give some
20:13
Speaker 2: advice to someone what to do for a writer, and
20:17
Speaker 2: the number one thing for a new writer would be
20:19
Speaker 2: to give them The Element of Style. That's a very
20:23
Speaker 2: important book. And they said she said that the second
20:27
Speaker 2: best advice is to shoot yourself before while you are
20:32
Speaker 2: still happy.
20:34
Speaker 4: Oh out, But that's recommending that.
20:37
Speaker 2: That is a famous author who said that. But that's
20:41
Speaker 2: not my advice. Just in to mind. My advice is
20:45
Speaker 2: that you have to really be passionate about writing because
20:51
Speaker 2: because writing is a process that you have to do
20:55
Speaker 2: mostly for yourself. And then of course if you want
20:58
Speaker 2: people to read what you're own, so it's not just
21:00
Speaker 2: for yourself. You need absolutely need readers. But you have
21:05
Speaker 2: to be very passionate because the road to publication is
21:09
Speaker 2: very hard to us and it requires a lot of perseverance.
21:13
Speaker 2: And so unless you actually enjoy the process of writing
21:17
Speaker 2: and everything, I mean, you have to get up from
21:20
Speaker 2: a lot of rejection and go home. And the only
21:23
Speaker 2: thing I found that actually helps with rejection because they
21:27
Speaker 2: always hurt. They are all of them. I mean, I
21:30
Speaker 2: had hundreds of rejections altogether, and the only thing that
21:33
Speaker 2: helps is to go home and write some more, because
21:36
Speaker 2: then you can say, well, that one you didn't like,
21:39
Speaker 2: you're rejected, but this one is new, this one yet,
21:44
Speaker 2: so this could be the best ever.
21:46
Speaker 4: That's great.
21:47
Speaker 2: You have to be passionate and then you have to persevere.
21:51
Speaker 2: But you can only persevere if you're passionate.
21:53
Speaker 3: Right.
21:54
Speaker 4: I have a good friend who always, when when he
21:56
Speaker 4: hears writers, you know, complaining about this or that, says, hey,
22:01
Speaker 4: you finished up those monthly inventory reports. Yeah, the point
22:05
Speaker 4: being no, because you don't have to do that kind
22:07
Speaker 4: of stuff because you're a writer, right right, That is
22:11
Speaker 4: the best answer. So, as our listeners have probably already guessed,
22:15
Speaker 4: you were born in Italy, right, yes, and you started
22:19
Speaker 4: you lived there for many years and started a university there,
22:23
Speaker 4: right yes.
22:25
Speaker 2: I graduated from medical school in Bologna, Italy, my hometown,
22:31
Speaker 2: and then I came to the United States to do
22:33
Speaker 2: my specialty. I was in New York for my internship
22:38
Speaker 2: and internal medicine specialty, and then I was in Los
22:41
Speaker 2: Angeles for my cardiology specialty. Much later, actually I did.
22:46
Speaker 2: I had like a midlife crisis, you know, I did
22:48
Speaker 2: my specialty twenty years after I practice. I practiced internal
22:51
Speaker 2: medicine for twenty years. Then I went into cardiology.
22:56
Speaker 4: And then you made another pivot. Some people might have thought,
23:01
Speaker 4: I'm a cortiologist, this is enough, But you decided to
23:04
Speaker 4: pivot into writing novels. How did that happen?
23:08
Speaker 2: Actually, while I was waiting to try to get into cardiology,
23:11
Speaker 2: which was very hard thing to do in my late forties.
23:16
Speaker 2: We have to match a program and this and that,
23:18
Speaker 2: and everybody was younger, you know. So while I was
23:21
Speaker 2: doing that, I was reading different things. And it's interesting
23:25
Speaker 2: because up to that point I actually never liked writing
23:29
Speaker 2: because the only writing I did I done was you know,
23:32
Speaker 2: during my schooling year in Italy, we had this thing
23:35
Speaker 2: that it was called the theme. You know, they gave
23:40
Speaker 2: you a theme and then you had to write for
23:42
Speaker 2: two hours. That was the assignment. And it was the
23:45
Speaker 2: biggest nightmare for me because I hated what they assigning
23:49
Speaker 2: all the time. But while I was waiting to get
23:51
Speaker 2: into cardiology, I started reading and I read. I came
23:54
Speaker 2: across this book by the author Iron Ran and I
23:59
Speaker 2: Ran wrote all out of course novels, but she also
24:02
Speaker 2: wrote a small book called the art of fiction, right,
24:07
Speaker 2: And I got to tell you, if you know everything
24:09
Speaker 2: in that book, you actually are very good. You're a
24:12
Speaker 2: very good writer, very good author. So I read and
24:16
Speaker 2: it just came as almost like a relation. If you
24:19
Speaker 2: are an author, you can invent a world and enter
24:23
Speaker 2: it your world, and then you can make up all
24:27
Speaker 2: these characters that you want to meet, and then you
24:30
Speaker 2: can make anything you want happen. So I was just
24:33
Speaker 2: I said, this is wonderful. You're just in your own world,
24:37
Speaker 2: all by yourself, you know, but with your characters. And
24:40
Speaker 2: so I just decided it was I was in my
24:44
Speaker 2: late forties. I said I'm going to try to write
24:46
Speaker 2: a novel, and of course I did, but that was
24:49
Speaker 2: my first The book does not didn't even come out yet.
24:52
Speaker 2: But of course I had no training, no formal training writing.
24:56
Speaker 2: So one thing is when you read a book, you
24:59
Speaker 2: don't really care a first character, first person, third person,
25:03
Speaker 2: all those things you know, but if you want to publish,
25:07
Speaker 2: you need to know all those things. So it took
25:09
Speaker 2: me a long time because I you know, when I
25:12
Speaker 2: got serious, I had to write. I have to hire
25:17
Speaker 2: a writing coach because I didn't have time to go
25:19
Speaker 2: to groups and I was older already the crash course
25:24
Speaker 2: in writing, and so for three years we went over
25:27
Speaker 2: the novel over and overs for me to learn basically,
25:30
Speaker 2: you know, the trick of the trade. You know, the
25:33
Speaker 2: story was there, but not the technique. So it took
25:36
Speaker 2: me about three years. And then after that, you know,
25:41
Speaker 2: try to get an agent and this and that. That
25:43
Speaker 2: took me several years, and finally I hear it, you know,
25:47
Speaker 2: I finally found an agent and eventually a publisher. But
25:51
Speaker 2: it was a very difficult and road, you know, with
25:56
Speaker 2: many many rejections.
25:58
Speaker 4: And we host an writers conference called writer Con and
26:02
Speaker 4: of course we always have agents there, lots more than
26:04
Speaker 4: it does in this year, because I know how hard
26:07
Speaker 4: it is to make that connection. I'm curious, though, Okay,
26:11
Speaker 4: you could have writen a million things someone might have
26:13
Speaker 4: expected you to write, you know, a memoir about cardiology
26:17
Speaker 4: cases or something. Why medical thrillers.
26:22
Speaker 2: Well, I never really thought of doing anything else. First,
26:27
Speaker 2: I love thrillers. I always love thrillers. I read thrillers
26:31
Speaker 2: most of the time I read fiction. And also, you
26:35
Speaker 2: know that you have to write what you know. And
26:38
Speaker 2: so my world, there was a medical world. There was
26:41
Speaker 2: a medical world for like already two decades, so you know,
26:45
Speaker 2: and if you think about it, if you want to
26:47
Speaker 2: write thrillers, the medical world is a wonderful backdrop because
26:52
Speaker 2: it deals with the pressure of time all the time.
26:55
Speaker 2: You know, you have to find the dinosis, you know,
26:57
Speaker 2: otherwise the patient dies. And the same thing when you
27:00
Speaker 2: write a triller. There is always the pressure of time
27:02
Speaker 2: because something has to happen or otherwise otherwise you know,
27:06
Speaker 2: people fall asleep. And then of course and then of
27:10
Speaker 2: course you have to have very high stake. Well, what's
27:13
Speaker 2: higher stakes than life or death? So you know, medical
27:16
Speaker 2: world is always life or death and uh and and
27:20
Speaker 2: there are actually there there is an overlap between the
27:23
Speaker 2: quality of an author and the quality of a doctor
27:27
Speaker 2: because like you know, first of all, we both have
27:30
Speaker 2: to know how to read people, because that's how the
27:34
Speaker 2: doctor makes a dinosis. You have to read people, and
27:37
Speaker 2: and the author has to be people to create characters.
27:41
Speaker 2: And so that's another big of a lap. And and
27:45
Speaker 2: then again you know the pressure of time and all
27:48
Speaker 2: these other things there are. And then of course also
27:51
Speaker 2: the ability to uh integrate clues. You know, the doctor
27:56
Speaker 2: is inte great clues to make a dinosis, and the
27:58
Speaker 2: author to create a mystery and then you know the
28:01
Speaker 2: solution of the mystery. So I guess because of this
28:04
Speaker 2: over lapp and the fact that for two decades and
28:07
Speaker 2: then I also wanted to when I retire, which I
28:10
Speaker 2: am retired now, for a few years, I wanted to
28:12
Speaker 2: stay in medicine, but not with the same very high
28:15
Speaker 2: pressure of being responsible for true life of that. So
28:19
Speaker 2: now I just kill people on in the books.
28:23
Speaker 4: Safer. You know, the whole American healthcare system has been
28:28
Speaker 4: the subject of a lot of attention in recent years,
28:31
Speaker 4: some good, some less. So do you get into that
28:34
Speaker 4: in your books, like what's right, what's how could we
28:37
Speaker 4: do it better? That kind of thing.
28:39
Speaker 2: I tried to stay away from politics in the book
28:42
Speaker 2: in a sense because fiction is not it should not
28:47
Speaker 2: be teaching anything really. I mean, it could be a
28:50
Speaker 2: bit of very important subject I try to write about
28:52
Speaker 2: important subjects, and some of them are political and all that,
28:55
Speaker 2: but it should really, Billy, the purpose is not teaching
29:00
Speaker 2: or making a big point, is to entertain you. So
29:04
Speaker 2: I try to say, of course I'm influenced by my
29:08
Speaker 2: by what I think is right or wrong, strongly influenced
29:12
Speaker 2: and so, but as long as it's integrated, completely integrated
29:15
Speaker 2: with the story. It's not just like you're proselitized and
29:18
Speaker 2: just throwing it in to make a point, you know,
29:20
Speaker 2: to to just to try to to you know, prosaltize
29:26
Speaker 2: or to teach something to the readers. You're just if
29:29
Speaker 2: it's integrated story. So you show characters doing something and
29:33
Speaker 2: then the reader has to come to the conclusion. And
29:36
Speaker 2: of course if you're good enough that you actually make
29:39
Speaker 2: them do the right thing for the reader to write
29:42
Speaker 2: to the conclusion, you would like the reader to write
29:45
Speaker 2: to then, But it's something as a process, it's like
29:49
Speaker 2: a second part. You know, there are two parts. The
29:52
Speaker 2: author has an idea and then there's to pick concretes
29:56
Speaker 2: according to the idea, put them in the book. All
29:58
Speaker 2: this concrete, and the reader it is not passive. It's
30:01
Speaker 2: active to see the concrete and then arise to some
30:05
Speaker 2: conclusion that might actually be sometimes sometimes different than the
30:09
Speaker 2: original idea, but at least it's going to think about it.
30:12
Speaker 2: So I have to be very integrated. But it cannot
30:16
Speaker 2: just be thrown in as a you know, as a
30:19
Speaker 2: as a psychast. Then it's just not gonna it's gonna
30:21
Speaker 2: it's gonna be very flat, and they're either going to
30:24
Speaker 2: put the book down and they're going to be you know,
30:27
Speaker 2: not interested at the very least, maybe even you know,
30:33
Speaker 2: not happy.
30:35
Speaker 3: Well that's a good segue into my next question. I've
30:38
Speaker 3: read the description of your book to section and I
30:42
Speaker 3: have to ask you where did you get the idea
30:45
Speaker 3: for that book?
30:46
Speaker 2: Oh? Really, now that you ask for this section, this
30:50
Speaker 2: is what I got. There was the card, yes, and
30:55
Speaker 2: this was a commercial about aspiring. Okay, I was very
31:01
Speaker 2: I was very depressed because my original book wasn't going
31:05
Speaker 2: anywhere and I did, you know, I got editors everything,
31:09
Speaker 2: I did everything right. It was years and hundreds of rejection.
31:14
Speaker 2: So finally one day I was kind of, you know,
31:16
Speaker 2: really down, and I was watching television and this was
31:19
Speaker 2: this commercial and there was a man in a suit
31:24
Speaker 2: and his secretary brings him a card and he reads
31:26
Speaker 2: the card and the car says, your heart attack will
31:30
Speaker 2: arrive tomorrow. And of course they say, well wouldn't be
31:32
Speaker 2: nice to do that, but to know so that you
31:35
Speaker 2: can take aspillian. That was the commercial. So I look
31:38
Speaker 2: at that. I said, my god, that's my book. That's
31:40
Speaker 2: the one that's going to get published. And so I
31:43
Speaker 2: said to your heart attack will arrive in one hour.
31:47
Speaker 2: And then I created the entire plot around this one
31:51
Speaker 2: card in this section.
31:53
Speaker 5: I don't know we've ever had.
31:54
Speaker 2: People tell three months, why would I send this car?
32:00
Speaker 2: Would they cause a heart attack? What would be the reason?
32:02
Speaker 2: And then not just one man, but expands because you know,
32:06
Speaker 2: and then what if it happened to somebody in a
32:08
Speaker 2: high power and who would do that? For what purpose?
32:13
Speaker 2: But that's what it.
32:13
Speaker 4: Sounds like something the Joker would send to one of
32:16
Speaker 4: his victims. Your heart attack will start in one hour.
32:19
Speaker 3: Ah, that's amazing. Inspiration can come from literally anything. I love.
32:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to keep your eyes open.
32:28
Speaker 5: Is this with this book? Is that when you.
32:32
Speaker 3: Started using a writing coach or had you already been
32:35
Speaker 3: in contact with that.
32:36
Speaker 2: The writing coach was with my very first the very
32:40
Speaker 2: first book I wrote. And that one is gonna come
32:42
Speaker 2: out next year.
32:43
Speaker 5: Okay, fantastic.
32:46
Speaker 2: Then it's gonna come out next year. Is gonna you
32:49
Speaker 2: know if you want to, it's going to be dying
32:52
Speaker 2: to remember. And but that is for the first written book.
32:58
Speaker 2: That's going to be the prequel to the other two.
33:01
Speaker 2: But there's nothing to do with the frost. The frost Is.
33:06
Speaker 2: I have a little series of three books, but the
33:08
Speaker 2: frost Is by itself is a little bit sci fi.
33:11
Speaker 2: It's like unique, Okay, fantastic.
33:16
Speaker 5: How did you? How did the writing coach help you?
33:18
Speaker 5: How did how what was that process like for you?
33:22
Speaker 2: We went through sentence by sentence of my very first book,
33:27
Speaker 2: and basically she told me everything I was doing wrong technically,
33:33
Speaker 2: Like I said, you know, when you read a book,
33:35
Speaker 2: you don't care about the first person, third person or whatever.
33:40
Speaker 2: But when you are trying to be published, you can't
33:42
Speaker 2: switch person. There are rules then you have to follow
33:46
Speaker 2: unless you're very When you're very famous, you can kind
33:49
Speaker 2: of break them. But when you're when you're trying to
33:51
Speaker 2: get published, their rules, you can't. You can't switch person,
33:56
Speaker 2: for example, within the within the chapter unless you put
33:59
Speaker 2: those so those lines and there's a different session. You know.
34:04
Speaker 2: That's one example. And then you have to know how
34:06
Speaker 2: to do the tags. You know, tags are those things
34:09
Speaker 2: that are in between dialogue, and then you know all
34:12
Speaker 2: all those little nitty gritty things that when you write,
34:16
Speaker 2: you know, you have to pay attention to. When you read,
34:20
Speaker 2: it just flows, you know, but but you are if
34:23
Speaker 2: you read something and it changes person all of a sudden,
34:26
Speaker 2: you feel jarred to some sense talking sometimes you sometimes
34:30
Speaker 2: you read books and you don't know talking you know,
34:32
Speaker 2: because they don't tell you. And it's like you have said, okay,
34:35
Speaker 2: this is the twentieth thing, let me count, so the
34:37
Speaker 2: even words, you know, I mean, you have to do that.
34:41
Speaker 2: You may as well good to sleep, because.
34:43
Speaker 5: You've been popped out of the book.
34:46
Speaker 2: To the story and you're writing a thriller and you
34:48
Speaker 2: and the readers do that not good?
34:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, but what does your writing day look like?
34:53
Speaker 2: Now?
34:53
Speaker 5: You mentioned that you are retired.
34:56
Speaker 2: I'm retired, so I have a lot more time. Right now.
35:00
Speaker 2: I'm trying to work on the launch of the new book,
35:04
Speaker 2: The Frosted, who's coming out you know, in June, in
35:07
Speaker 2: just a couple of weeks. And and also i'm you know,
35:12
Speaker 2: editing some of my future books. But so that's basically
35:18
Speaker 2: my time is divided. I'm not right now presently, I'm
35:22
Speaker 2: just editing something written already and then the launch. But
35:27
Speaker 2: obviously there are times when I have, you know, something
35:29
Speaker 2: you know, but I try to have some some hours
35:33
Speaker 2: maybe they're not exactly set hours, but I try to
35:35
Speaker 2: devote it. Obviously, sometime every day to finish the things
35:40
Speaker 2: I have to do so that then I can dedicate
35:43
Speaker 2: go into my world, which is always nice.
35:47
Speaker 4: Christina, I warned you that toward the end some of
35:50
Speaker 4: my questions would get kind of woo woo. So settle
35:53
Speaker 4: in now, if you could go anywhere, if you could
35:56
Speaker 4: do anything, what writer would you most like to sit
36:02
Speaker 4: down and have dinner with?
36:05
Speaker 2: WHOA? But there's to be alive, right, I said you
36:09
Speaker 2: could do anything. Well, I mean, I really on my
36:13
Speaker 2: I ran so.
36:14
Speaker 4: I thought you much.
36:15
Speaker 2: I could talk to her because I've never met her.
36:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, the novels as well as the art of fiction
36:20
Speaker 4: that you love.
36:21
Speaker 2: Yes, but the novel as the philosophy. I know she's
36:25
Speaker 2: very controversial, but I like the philosophy she There is
36:29
Speaker 2: definitely a deep influence in the Frosted because there is
36:34
Speaker 2: a clash, you know, between independence and submission and in
36:40
Speaker 2: the Frosted and you know controls uh, you know is
36:43
Speaker 2: a dystopian government that controls everything, and so she wrote
36:48
Speaker 2: obviously about something like that.
36:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, sounds like, oh, definitely, I would.
36:52
Speaker 2: Like to sit down and talk see if she likes
36:55
Speaker 2: my book.
36:58
Speaker 4: Blur, Well, you may have any answered this but what's
37:01
Speaker 4: coming next. You mentioned that your first book is now
37:04
Speaker 4: going to be your fourth book, right, and beyond that.
37:08
Speaker 2: Beyond well, I have this series it's called the Minor
37:12
Speaker 2: and the Malville series. The Minor is is a PI
37:16
Speaker 2: private investigator who has a special brain is almost Sherlock
37:19
Speaker 2: Holmes and doctor Watson in one head because he had
37:21
Speaker 2: some experimental surgery and his brain was damaged. And that's
37:26
Speaker 2: the story in the next book, which would be the
37:28
Speaker 2: prequel that was the very first book. And then of
37:31
Speaker 2: course I have the two of the books which are
37:33
Speaker 2: i out. You know, Dissection is in Dissection and it's
37:37
Speaker 2: also in Change of Heart, which is background heart transplant.
37:41
Speaker 2: He's trying to investigate the.
37:44
Speaker 4: Fantastic some mobster there.
37:46
Speaker 2: And then I have two other books that are coming
37:49
Speaker 2: out also with Minor and movies. I really like those
37:53
Speaker 2: two characters. But this one, the Frosted, the one that's
37:58
Speaker 2: coming out now, is a very special book because it's
38:01
Speaker 2: independent and it was a second book I wrote, and
38:05
Speaker 2: I'm very excited about that coming out, and it's about
38:09
Speaker 2: people getting frozen now and defrosted in the.
38:11
Speaker 4: Future and so interesting.
38:14
Speaker 2: It's all about cryonics. Yeah, it's not science fiction, very
38:19
Speaker 2: much science fiction, and so I'm excited about it.
38:24
Speaker 4: We'll be looking forward to that. Christina, thanks so much
38:26
Speaker 4: for being on the podcast.
38:28
Speaker 2: Really well, thank you, thank you for having me. There's
38:30
Speaker 2: a lot of fun.
38:44
Speaker 4: Just a few parting words. Surely you didn't think you
38:47
Speaker 4: were going to get out of here without me urging
38:50
Speaker 4: you to check out my new book, The Superman War
38:53
Speaker 4: is a battle for truth, justice, and an American icon.
38:57
Speaker 4: It's the story of Jerry Siegel, guy who came up
39:01
Speaker 4: with the idea for Superman, and his and his families
39:05
Speaker 4: fight to retain to regain control of his creation. It's
39:13
Speaker 4: it's a story that I think is important just well
39:18
Speaker 4: beyond the world of comic books. It's important to all
39:21
Speaker 4: creators because you've got to make sure this doesn't happen
39:26
Speaker 4: to you, which is one of the themes we stress
39:29
Speaker 4: every year at Writer Cotton, Right, Laura.
39:32
Speaker 3: Absolutely how to protect yourself and your work in progress, yep, yep.
39:39
Speaker 4: And a chance to meet other writers and we got
39:42
Speaker 4: more than sixty speakers, we got more than a dozen agents.
39:46
Speaker 4: Never be a better chance to sit down and talk,
39:49
Speaker 4: not for some severely limited one minute or two minutes,
39:53
Speaker 4: but basically as long as you need to to pitch
39:56
Speaker 4: your book to agents, publishers, or others. Contests. You know,
40:02
Speaker 4: we do it all. Not that I'm you know, immodest
40:05
Speaker 4: or anything, but I think we put on a good
40:07
Speaker 4: conference and it seems to grow every year. So if
40:12
Speaker 4: you're looking for a way to make connections in the
40:15
Speaker 4: writing world or to boost your knowledge about what's going
40:18
Speaker 4: on out there, consider writer Con. It takes place in
40:22
Speaker 4: Oklahoma City every Labor Day weekend. Our website is writer
40:26
Speaker 4: con dot com and we've got a small group retreat
40:30
Speaker 4: coming up in July, a much much smaller group of people,
40:33
Speaker 4: so we can work with you both in small groups
40:36
Speaker 4: and one on one actually reading your manuscript pages and
40:40
Speaker 4: trying to give you useful feedback. So the perfect lineup,
40:44
Speaker 4: lar right is, first come to the retreat, perfect your manuscript,
40:48
Speaker 4: then take it to writer Con and sell it.
40:50
Speaker 5: That would work.
40:52
Speaker 4: That would do. That's the perfect scenario. All right. Until
40:56
Speaker 4: next time, people, keep writing, and remember you cannot fail
41:02
Speaker 4: if you refuse to quit. See you next time.
41:38
Speaker 3: H