Latest / Most Things Kenobi - A Star Wars Podcast / Episode 122: An Interview With Beth Revis, Author of The Princess and the Scoundrel, Rebel Rising, and Night of the Witch

Transcript

Episode 122: An Interview With Beth Revis, Author of The Princess and the Scoundrel, Rebel Rising, and Night of the Witch · Most Things Kenobi - A Star Wars Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello there. It's time for most things
• 0:02
  Kenobi. Hi everyone, Welcome to another
• 0:19
  episode of Most Things Kenobi, a podcast about Obi Wan Kenobi and
• 0:22
  all things Star Wars. I'm your host, Lauren, and I'm
• 0:25
  sorry to say that my cohost Leanne isn't able to join us
• 0:28
  today. She had something pop up that
• 0:30
  called her away. But we still have a great show
• 0:34
  for you because today we are joined by someone I am thrilled
• 0:38
  to talk to. She's the author of multiple
• 0:41
  Star Wars books including the novels The Princess and the
• 0:44
  Scoundrel and Rebel Rising and short stories in both from a
• 0:47
  Certain Point of View and a certain point of view, The
• 0:49
  Empire Strikes Back Edition. She also wrote the comic book
• 0:53
  Star Wars Forces of Destiny, Asoka and Padme, and in the non
• 0:57
  Star Wars realm she is the author of numerous novels
• 1:01
  including but by no means limited to the Across the
• 1:04
  Universe series, Give the Dark, My Love, Bid My Soul, Farewell,
• 1:08
  House of Hex, Museum of Magic, and the upcoming Night of the
• 1:12
  Witch Beth Rives. Welcome to most things, Kenobi.
• 1:17
  Thank you so much for having me. I pronounced your last name
• 1:21
  correctly. Now I forgot to ask you.
• 1:23
  It's it's actually Ravis, but everybody behind it.
• 1:26
  I'm so sorry. I usually remember to remind
• 1:31
  people. It's very common.
• 1:33
  I'm so sorry. I have one of those last names
• 1:35
  that everyone always mispronounces, so I I'm sorry to
• 1:37
  kick off on that incorrect. Doesn't bother me.
• 1:41
  It's my husband. So I'm like, ah yeah, his people
• 1:43
  are just weird. It's fine.
• 1:47
  Well, thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:49
  I really appreciate you making time.
• 1:50
  I know you have a busy schedule and you've got like a travel and
• 1:54
  tour coming up. So thank you for coming on.
• 1:59
  Absolutely. My pleasure.
• 2:00
  I want to start with something that I think a lot of our
• 2:03
  listeners kind of need to hear right now.
• 2:05
  And a lot of our listeners are creative souls.
• 2:08
  They have a lot of creativity in the bunch.
• 2:10
  But also for those who aren't creative, I saw on your, I think
• 2:14
  it was on your Instagram the other day you posted something
• 2:17
  that said bet on yourself, and it was kind of talking about how
• 2:23
  you became a writer. And now you're like a
• 2:25
  bestselling writer. And I kind of just want to start
• 2:28
  with your take on that. What does that mean?
• 2:30
  Bet on yourself to you. I I'm really glad you brought
• 2:34
  that up. That was actually I also have a
• 2:35
  Patreon and that was the post for today, was more about what I
• 2:39
  meant by that and how, especially when it comes to your
• 2:42
  creative career, it's almost like a lottery.
• 2:45
  Because there's a lot of luck involved and nobody wants to
• 2:48
  admit that. Because if you're successful and
• 2:51
  you admit that you have luck, then that's kind of downplaying
• 2:54
  the actual work that you put into it.
• 2:56
  If you're unsuccessful and admit that there's a lot to do with
• 2:59
  luck and that kind of says was out of your control, it's it's
• 3:03
  by chance. And in reality a lot of creative
• 3:07
  careers are kind of like a lottery.
• 3:10
  But if you bet on yourself and you keep entering that lottery
• 3:12
  and keep making more and more art.
• 3:15
  Hopefully the luck will fall in your favor eventually.
• 3:18
  That's so interesting. And it's true because I I hear
• 3:21
  so many people say, oh, you're an overnight success.
• 3:23
  It's like, no, you worked your butt off for a really long time
• 3:27
  and then achieve success, but no one sees the hard work.
• 3:32
  Oh yeah. No, my publisher for Across the
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  Universe. He actually went and did like a
• 3:36
  big speech to some writing conference.
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  And was calling me an overnight success and kind of described it
• 3:42
  as like, we found this little country bumpkin.
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  But she had written this book about space and all this stuff.
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  And I'm like, that's not overnight.
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  That's my tenth novel or 11th, actually, I had 10 novels before
• 3:54
  across the universe, none of which sold.
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  I'm like, that was not an overnight success.
• 3:58
  It was just overnight for you, But that's that's your body of
• 4:02
  work is extensive. Like, you have a lot of novels
• 4:05
  under your belt, and I was curious, when did you decide you
• 4:08
  wanted to be a writer? I think I always wanted to be a
• 4:12
  writer. Like I I always loved reading.
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  Like I was the little bookish girl who would stay up all night
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  with a book, like reading underneath the cover.
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  So I always wanted to read and write, but I never thought it
• 4:23
  was a viable career because everybody told me it wasn't
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  anytime I would say I want to write stories or books.
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  People say okay, that's great, get a day job.
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  And I took that to heart and I'm kind of glad I did because I
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  needed a day job. It took me a decade to break
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  into this career, so it did help to have a day job, but it did
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  sort of limit the dream for a while and made me think like
• 4:45
  it's not really a viable dream. Real people don't do this.
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  But they didn't clearly. Clearly it's possible.
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  So what was that journey like, that getting your first book
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  published? Was it really exciting or did it
• 5:01
  have some disappointments in it? I mean, how?
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  How was that process like? Having the first one published
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  was great because I really had been trying to get published for
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  literally a decade. I had 10 novels, more than 1000
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  rejections from literary agents and then across the universe
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  was. I just totally, I got lucky in
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  the lottery of publishing in that I had an agent who really
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  liked it. I had a publisher who
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  specifically wanted a scifi and there wasn't any and I had all
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  the publisher support. So I got super, super lucky in
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  that moment. But having a decade of failure
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  kind of grounded me a little bit.
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  And I was like, I'm not sure if I'm going to trust this is
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  really thing. I got to keep working on this
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  and in the long run I'm kind of glad that I had that failure to
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  sort of give me a balance and. Not make me think that I was
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  like hot stuff. I knew that this was just a job
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  and happened to get lucky that one time.
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  But but yeah, it was, it was a good, a good change and it did
• 5:58
  change my life because I was able to quit my day job and
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  focus on writing full time, which was an amazing, amazing
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  thing. I still can't believe like this
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  is my full time job. I'm like how, how?
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  And I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.
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  But it's been more than over 10 years, so I think it comes from
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  it's yes, it's luck. I I'm sure part of it is luck,
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  but also you have to have the skill to keep it up.
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  Well, skill can be learned, absolutely.
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  That's the that's what I tell people all the time.
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  Because I love writing as well and I've been writing my whole
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  life, just like you. It's kind of something you were
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  born into, I think sometimes, and I've heard so many people
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  like Francis Ford Coppola said if you want to be a good writer,
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  write every day. And Margaret Atwood said if you
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  want to fail, fail better so that you improve every time.
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  It's like it. It is a skill to be learned, but
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  clearly you have refined it and have turned it into a viable
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  beautiful. By the way, your your writing is
• 6:57
  just so beautiful, I have to say.
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  Well, I think it comes down to really practice, because it's
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  not necessarily that I have a skill.
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  I just had the desire that was enough to make me want to
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  practice on my own, and so I just kept practicing A lot of
• 7:11
  people, if you use the example of like painting, nobody expects
• 7:15
  your first painting to wind up in the Met.
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  But a lot of people assume that if you spend a year writing a
• 7:19
  book, it should get published. And the reality is, is we have
• 7:23
  to learn how to write and we have to learn how to write every
• 7:26
  time we write a book. So it's it's very much a long
• 7:29
  journey. Yeah.
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  When you have the series, the Paper Heart series, isn't that
• 7:33
  help for writers, right? It is kind of like not a guide
• 7:36
  book, but some career advice or writing advice.
• 7:40
  How did you come to start doing that particular?
• 7:43
  Is it a passion of yours to help other writers, or just something
• 7:46
  that you wish you had had when you were kind of starting out?
• 7:51
  A lot of it is what I wish I had had when I was starting out.
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  The Paper Hearts, the first book of it, came about because I was
• 7:57
  blogging about my journey and like what I had learned on the
• 8:00
  way and and everything. And I was just blogging it.
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  And several of my readers said we really like your blog, but we
• 8:06
  want to take notes in the margins.
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  Can you print it for us? I was like, oh, I could.
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  Organize this and like separate it up into categories of
• 8:14
  everything because I had had years and years of blogging by
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  that point. So I really just compiled it
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  into blogging. And the the 1st 3 volumes are
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  writing, querying and getting into the market and then
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  marketing. So those are the 1st 3 volumes.
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  And then after that, I started teaching classes because I
• 8:28
  actually really like teaching. And a lot of the worksheets that
• 8:31
  I was making for the classes I was teaching people were like,
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  oh, I want another copy of this for later.
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  And eventually I was like, well, I should just make a workbook.
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  And so I took all the worksheets and jammed them together into a
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  workbook. And now there's now there's
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  three workbooks, the journal 3. Nonfiction, like books.
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  So it kind of exploded. That's actually, that's really
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  amazing. I love that it kind of started
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  organically. That's something I think that's
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  so important with creators and creativity.
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  Sometimes if you're trying too hard, you're you're squeezing
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  life out of it a little bit. And if you're doing it
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  organically because it's something that you love and that
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  you're passionate about, you draw those kind of people to
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  you. And it helps you build like a
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  loyalty in your fan base from a marketing perspective.
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  But even more than that, just like a community around you that
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  that is sustaining. And I think a lot of people
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  don't realize writers are kind of responsible for their own
• 9:24
  marketing to an extent. And a publisher doesn't really
• 9:27
  market you until you've reached a certain, I guess, dollar
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  amount. Is that correct?
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  I mean, it depends on the book. One of my lowest paid advances
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  has gotten great marketing and one of my highest paid advances
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  got no marketing and it just kind of depends with the the one
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  that didn't get any is because my editor left and then the
• 9:47
  editor that came after her also quit and it was just shuffling
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  in house and I kind of got lost in the massive corporation.
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  But it's just it depends and I always try to supplement my own
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  marketing because I also kind of just enjoy it very much Taipei
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  personality. So if the T v's on, I'm like.
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  I can't just sit here and watch television.
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  Let me come up with a bookmark design or something like that.
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  I'm always multitasking. It's good for success, right?
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  That's so good for relaxing sometimes, but.
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  I do need a little help with that one.
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  So do you have any like writing rituals when you sit down to
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  write? Do you have a process you follow
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  very specifically every time, or is it kind of just wherever,
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  whenever? Wherever, whenever.
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  I mean it really is it. It sort of takes some of the
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  magic away from it, but it is a job.
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  And so I'm like, oh, I don't really feel like being creative
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  today, but I would also like to get paid.
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  So I guess I'm going to work. And I mean, sometimes I'll
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  parcel it out, like if I'm really not feeling it, I'm like,
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  OK, today is the day where I'm going to go through my emails
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  and do the admin and. The brainless stuff.
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  And so it comes and goes, but I'm I'm just going to sit down
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  and do it. I have an 8 year old here at
• 11:03
  home and like, there's no chance of planning anything.
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  There's no chance to have sweet little rituals because if I
• 11:10
  light a candle, he's going to come and blow it out.
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  If I try to put music on, he's going to like, drown it out.
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  With Lego Movie, there's there's no hope here.
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  Well, it just shows the strength of your mind to be able to still
• 11:21
  do all that with that distraction around you.
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  It's all chaos all the time. How do you get anything done?
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  I don't know. It's amazing.
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  I just ignore my family and there's not a single clean
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  clothing in the house and we're getting out of trouble.
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  Where is? Fine, That's totally fine.
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  I mean, it's important to get the books done.
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  Honestly, I would. I'm sitting in a pile of chaos
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  right now because I spend my time doing the creative stuff
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  instead of the technical stuff. So I mean.
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  That's the fun stuff, right? Exactly.
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  Life is too short to do dishes. Exactly.
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  So do you have like a workspace at least?
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  Or do you have to just kind of carve out a little spot for
• 12:05
  yourself wherever you can? I do have a workspace now.
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  I've only had it since about six months into the pandemic, where
• 12:14
  I realized that I would murder literally everybody in the
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  vicinity if I could not shut my office door.
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  And we originally had like a game room and it had like, you
• 12:23
  know, we had a spare couch, old relative that we had passed me
• 12:27
  down couch and it was just kind of a junk room.
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  And I was like, OK, clearing everything out.
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  And I'm buying Billy bookcases and this is going to be a thing
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  now. I said that was my big pandemic
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  project. That's great.
• 12:40
  Like it helps to sometimes have that environment, you know,
• 12:42
  separate. It really does.
• 12:45
  Do you mind if we chat a little about your Star Wars writing?
• 12:48
  I never mind chatting about Star Wars.
• 12:51
  I was going to say. Were you always a fan, even
• 12:53
  before you wrote for Star Wars? Always a fan, actually.
• 12:57
  The whole reason why I wrote Across the Universe, my debut
• 13:00
  was because of Star Wars, because I had an idea for for it
• 13:04
  was basically a murder mystery that had to be contained.
• 13:07
  And I was like, oh, I think I want to put this on spaceship.
• 13:10
  But I was like, I don't know how to write scifi.
• 13:11
  I don't even like scifi because my husband will read really like
• 13:15
  hard military scifi. And that's not my cup of tea.
• 13:18
  And I was like, there's no sci-fi, I can't write a sci-fi.
• 13:21
  And he was like, well, you like Star Wars.
• 13:23
  And I was like, well, yeah, he was like, well, that's sci-fi.
• 13:25
  I was like, yeah, I guess it is. That kind of gave me the courage
• 13:30
  to write a book about space. That's so cool.
• 13:33
  I love well, and to kind of branch out into something you
• 13:37
  weren't sure you were familiar with and that was your debut,
• 13:40
  like, that's that's pretty cool. That's awesome.
• 13:43
  Everyone of the other 10 novels I had written were all fantasy.
• 13:46
  I was going to say your your other stuff like Night of the
• 13:49
  Witch and everything like that. It seems very fantasy based, but
• 13:51
  Star Wars is that great combination of scifi and fantasy
• 13:54
  really because it's about Wizards, but in space so.
• 13:57
  Exactly. It's it's it really is the
• 13:59
  perfect blend of both. It's the best of all worlds.
• 14:05
  And all galaxies? Yes, exactly.
• 14:08
  So how how did you end up writing for Star Wars?
• 14:11
  Even our patrons, we opened up some questions at the end.
• 14:13
  They were like, how did how? How does it happen?
• 14:16
  How do you become a Star Wars writer?
• 14:19
  Everybody always asks that, even people who don't want to be
• 14:22
  writers, they're just like, but how I I actually asked my
• 14:27
  publicist for Rebel Rising. I was like, how did you guys
• 14:30
  find me? Because whatever I did.
• 14:31
  Like, thank God I did it, but have because they came to me for
• 14:34
  it. And So what?
• 14:36
  Let me let me back up a little. I'll say that I got a phone call
• 14:39
  from my agent and it was before Rogue One had been announced.
• 14:42
  It was still being called a Star Wars Anthology story.
• 14:46
  There was No title. Nobody.
• 14:48
  I think. I think Felicity was attached
• 14:50
  but maybe that was it. Like there was no like character
• 14:53
  names, no plot, nothing had been released.
• 14:56
  And my agent calls me and she's like, would you ever like to
• 14:58
  write for Star Wars? And I was like, yes, I will do
• 15:02
  it for free. Just let me go.
• 15:04
  She was like, okay, don't tell them you'll do it for free.
• 15:07
  And meanwhile, they want you to do this thing that's it's not
• 15:11
  going to be like Han, Luke and Leia.
• 15:13
  It's going to be this totally different thing.
• 15:15
  I was like, I don't care. I'll do it.
• 15:16
  If it's Star Wars, I'll do it. And it ended up being the Rogue
• 15:19
  One Rebel Rising novel. And I got to fly to San
• 15:22
  Francisco and go to the Lucasville publishing offices.
• 15:26
  And then they took us and all the other people who are writing
• 15:29
  in. For the Rogue One movie, they
• 15:32
  took us into this little room and we each got a copy of the
• 15:34
  script and we couldn't take our cell phones out.
• 15:37
  There are no, I don't think there are any windows in the
• 15:39
  room. And we just had to sit at this
• 15:41
  little conference table and read the script because it could, the
• 15:44
  papers could not physically leave the room.
• 15:46
  It was like, Oh my God, high security.
• 15:48
  I I could imagine it's like a Cold War bunker down there.
• 15:52
  It was like that. It was so crazy.
• 15:55
  Meanwhile I I know sure hand and so I was like.
• 15:58
  Pulling direct quotes in my notebook and like I was like
• 16:01
  scribbling as much as the script.
• 16:02
  I was like Oh my God, this is so good, this is so good.
• 16:04
  And I at that point I didn't even know what book I was
• 16:06
  writing. I was just like I have to know
• 16:07
  the whole script. And then I met with my editor
• 16:11
  and she was like, we want you to write a prequel.
• 16:13
  So you don't really need to know anything about the script except
• 16:15
  for the 1st 5 minutes. I was like, OK, well, gosh.
• 16:19
  I'm glad I know the whole script.
• 16:20
  Anyway, it's really cool. But like it very clearly tied in
• 16:26
  very well. Like you even had the
• 16:27
  characterization down of gin. And like, I don't know, it
• 16:30
  seemed pretty flawless, like you already knew what was coming.
• 16:36
  It it was a lot. I mean, I definitely, I did know
• 16:38
  what was coming. So that that was very helpful
• 16:40
  and I could. It was almost like working in
• 16:42
  reverse with a character like I knew where she ended up and I
• 16:45
  knew how she started off for her first seven years of life.
• 16:50
  And I just had to fill in the middle and connect those two
• 16:53
  dots. And so it was a fun challenge to
• 16:55
  try to show how she became as jaded as she was.
• 16:58
  But yeah, it was. It was a once in a lifetime
• 17:01
  experience and I'm still pinching myself over.
• 17:03
  I it's one of my favorite Star Wars books.
• 17:06
  I'm I'm actually very picky Star Wars book reader and it it just
• 17:09
  blew me away. It was and it broke my heart.
• 17:13
  It was so good. And so like it was just that's
• 17:17
  we say this all the time on our podcast Star Wars is pain.
• 17:20
  Like it's just that is how it is.
• 17:22
  It was very in character. It's have it be poetic and
• 17:25
  beautiful and sad and awesome. She was a badass at the same
• 17:29
  time. And I loved that you had the
• 17:32
  Wobani stuff, like the back and forth between her prison and
• 17:35
  then what her Oh gosh, it was so good.
• 17:37
  That was so cold. Thank.
• 17:39
  You. That it was.
• 17:41
  It was really just such a dream to write and I loved it, even
• 17:45
  though I had to end up rewriting most of it.
• 17:48
  So when you get a Star Wars project, do they give you
• 17:52
  parameters that you need to hit, or are you kind of just given an
• 17:55
  overview and you kind of fill in the blanks or?
• 17:58
  Star Wars is no good to work with, and I'm not saying that
• 18:01
  just because I want to work with them for the rest of my life,
• 18:04
  but they sincerely are great people to work with.
• 18:07
  So for for this one, for Rebel Rising, they were like, OK.
• 18:11
  You start here when Jen's a child and you tell us what
• 18:13
  happens and they're like, we know what happens here.
• 18:16
  We know what happens here. You feel in the middle.
• 18:17
  You have free creativity and free reign.
• 18:21
  And so I could come up with anything I wanted to within
• 18:23
  those parameters. And then some of the script did
• 18:27
  end up changing and that sort of changed the parameters.
• 18:30
  So they didn't like, make me rewrite it or anything, but to
• 18:32
  make everything fit, I did have to do a lot of rewriting there
• 18:35
  at the last sort of the last second on it.
• 18:38
  But but yeah, they just basically were like here's.
• 18:41
  Here's this block of time. Fill it with whatever you want.
• 18:44
  And so like with as we all know, there's like Star Wars Canon
• 18:48
  kind of violence in in the Star Wars universe.
• 18:51
  But yours was definitely, I don't want to say it was
• 18:54
  heavier, but it was definitely more mature, especially
• 18:57
  considering that she had all these different heartbreaks that
• 18:59
  she goes through. And then the prison was pretty
• 19:02
  dark and bleak. Did you get any push back on
• 19:05
  anything like that or did you kind of push it as far as you
• 19:08
  felt like they would less you or?
• 19:10
  I don't think I was very conscious of it.
• 19:13
  I mean, I guess it is pretty bleak, but I didn't think I was
• 19:17
  bleak at the time. I was just like, well, this is
• 19:18
  what's gonna have to have to happen to her character.
• 19:21
  And so I just did the thing and handed it to him.
• 19:23
  And they're like. Yep, that's cool.
• 19:24
  It was so good. And it's realistic, I think.
• 19:27
  I mean, if you're going to get a character who's as jaded as she
• 19:29
  is, there's kind of a natural progression.
• 19:32
  This could have to happen to get to that point.
• 19:35
  Yeah, that. That was the thing.
• 19:36
  It really was about breaking someone's spirit, but not all
• 19:39
  the way because she still has to have the ability to see Hope
• 19:43
  again. Yeah, Did you find any of the?
• 19:47
  Because you've also written Princess Leia and Ha and Solo
• 19:50
  and all the amazing characters of The Princess and the
• 19:54
  Scoundrel, did you do you find any of the characters are
• 19:57
  easiest to write, and some that are much harder to write?
• 20:01
  Or do you just kind of enjoy playing in the sandbox, so to
• 20:04
  speak? I I love playing in the sandbox,
• 20:07
  Leia and Han. There's a lot of pressure to get
• 20:10
  those right because when I wrote Rebel Rising, nobody knows, or
• 20:14
  at the time, nobody knew who Jin was.
• 20:16
  Like. She was a blank slate.
• 20:18
  And so nobody could tell me I got it wrong because there
• 20:21
  wasn't a right yet. But literally everybody on Earth
• 20:24
  knows Han and Leia. And if I messed it up, everybody
• 20:28
  on Earth will hate me forever because that's the normal
• 20:31
  reaction that would happen. That's how I would be.
• 20:34
  So there was definitely a lot of pressure, but I I just had so
• 20:38
  much fun with it that I was able to sort of push it a little bit
• 20:41
  to the side. I will see the character that's
• 20:44
  hardest for me to write is Luke and all the scenes with Luke and
• 20:47
  the Princess and the scoundrel I had to rewrite.
• 20:50
  And the reason why is because growing up I had a brother named
• 20:54
  Luke and the whole reason why I have really long hair is because
• 20:57
  of Princess Leia. So growing up my brother played
• 21:01
  Luke and I played Leia and we would like attack each other
• 21:04
  with PVC pipes and like the whole thing, but like that was
• 21:08
  my brother. So of course I'm going to make
• 21:10
  him be an annoying idiotic brother, cuz that's the Luke I
• 21:15
  knew. So the real Luke in my head kept
• 21:18
  matching up with the Luke in fiction.
• 21:21
  And so like always I would get notes back, like why is Luke
• 21:24
  such a wet blanket and why doesn't anybody like Luke?
• 21:27
  And I'm like, well, cuz he's an annoying brother.
• 21:33
  Oh my gosh, that's so funny. It's so common.
• 21:35
  Though honestly, Luke is often portrayed as kind of like
• 21:38
  whining and complaining. Just a little bit of a wet
• 21:42
  blanket. Can't be, Yeah.
• 21:44
  I mean, like, who wants to go to Tashi Station and pick up his
• 21:47
  power converters? And then he.
• 21:50
  I mean, he becomes a Jedi Knight, but he's just kind of
• 21:52
  like, too chill about it, like. Come on.
• 21:55
  It's like we know. We know where you came from,
• 21:57
  Luke. Come on.
• 21:59
  Moving. Anybody.
• 22:01
  It's all you drinking, blue milk.
• 22:04
  I know, I love. He's always portrayed as like
• 22:06
  drinking hot cocoa. He's really he's he's very much
• 22:13
  like cottage core. Like if this was real life, like
• 22:17
  Leo would be a punk and Han would just be like a country.
• 22:20
  He would be like the country farmer guy, but Luke would be
• 22:23
  just cottage core. Like I just want to gratitude.
• 22:27
  Wrapped in his homemade quilt. I know, right?
• 22:32
  I mean, I love him, but he doesn't really get bad ass until
• 22:35
  the last dead eye. This is true, yeah.
• 22:37
  I mean, he kind of. It takes a while.
• 22:39
  It takes a while for him to get there, yeah, but I mean, it
• 22:42
  definitely is superseded in my head, like both Luke's in my
• 22:46
  life, so separating them is very impossible.
• 22:51
  So how do you then, like how how do you get into the characters
• 22:56
  voices? Do you have a process for that?
• 22:58
  Like I have a tendency to absorb as much material and then put it
• 23:02
  aside and then let it kind of filter.
• 23:04
  But you know, you're like you said, you're working with
• 23:07
  characters everybody knows and has an opinion about.
• 23:10
  So how do you get into their head before the Princess and the
• 23:14
  Scoundrel? I did watch the movie, or for
• 23:17
  the last two movies primarily multiple times, just
• 23:20
  back-to-back. I was taking like notes on every
• 23:23
  bit of banter and try to capture some of that wit without reusing
• 23:27
  the same words and that sort of thing.
• 23:30
  But actually for that one specifically, it got to the
• 23:32
  point where, like some of the some of the things that Han Solo
• 23:36
  says he gets away with because it's in Harrison Ford's mouth
• 23:40
  and Harrison Ford is sexy enough that we will forgive a little
• 23:44
  bit of misogyny. Because I'm there were a few
• 23:48
  times and I was like, this might be pushing it like on text.
• 23:52
  If you look at what he's actually saying, this might be
• 23:53
  pushing it. So what I would do is I would
• 23:56
  read for Princess Leia and I would make my husband read for
• 23:59
  Han. And we would go back and forth
• 24:01
  to see if we could get the voice where it would still be like fun
• 24:03
  banter instead of mean banter and sort of draw that line
• 24:07
  because banter can, it can go either way.
• 24:09
  So the way I got their voices was literally speaking aloud
• 24:13
  their lines in the book with my husband.
• 24:16
  That's so interesting because you're right, like tone can be
• 24:20
  lost in text, right? Like, yeah, like if I could just
• 24:23
  have Harrison Ford read it, everything would have been fine
• 24:26
  and nobody would have said anything and we would all just
• 24:28
  swoon. But but if really like black and
• 24:31
  white pages, you gotta. I wanted to make sure he didn't
• 24:34
  come across as like a jerk. I know.
• 24:38
  More of a jerk than Laya would have, yeah.
• 24:41
  Yeah, I mean, he has his moments where he's not terribly
• 24:43
  pleasant, but we, like you said, you've got to forgive it because
• 24:46
  it's it's also kind of charming when it's hair set forward,
• 24:50
  right. And as long as you know where
• 24:51
  it's coming. From Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 24:55
  He's a diamond in the rough, right?
• 24:57
  Exactly. OK.
• 24:59
  Well, let's transition then to your new work.
• 25:02
  I am very excited and very curious about your new book
• 25:07
  that's coming out The Night of the Witch.
• 25:10
  It's coming out really, really soon.
• 25:11
  So can you give us like a like a mini synopsis for our listeners
• 25:15
  so they can get intrigued and go out and buy it right away?
• 25:19
  Yeah. So now The Witch is a cowritten
• 25:21
  book. I wrote it with Sarah Rosh, and
• 25:24
  it's about a it's about the real witch trials of Trier, Germany,
• 25:28
  which a lot of Americans don't know about.
• 25:30
  But it was the bloodiest massacre of human life outside
• 25:34
  of war in Europe ever. So it was, it was a matter like
• 25:38
  we know about Salem witch trials, but hundreds of years
• 25:41
  before Salem there was Trier. It really is one of the ones
• 25:44
  that really kicked off the whole witch hunting European
• 25:46
  experience. That's not the right word, but
• 25:49
  it was one of the first really, really bad ones.
• 25:52
  And Sarah and I were just, we have both written different
• 25:55
  historical novels and we started talking about witch hunts and
• 25:57
  that one specifically. And it's all sort of evolved
• 26:00
  into the story of what if there were real witches and a real
• 26:05
  witch hunter who and then they fall in love.
• 26:08
  Like the ultimate crux of the story is like the witch hunter
• 26:11
  falls in love with the witch he's been assigned to kill.
• 26:13
  And it it sort of brings in real magic and like how bad a witch
• 26:18
  hunt can be and extrapolates it from there.
• 26:21
  So we start in true Germany in 1599 and we end up in the Black
• 26:25
  Forest. So they have a little medieval
• 26:27
  road trip with real magic and witch hunters all around and
• 26:30
  it's really fun. That's awesome.
• 26:35
  Well, and I was you kind of tie into one of my questions.
• 26:38
  I know that you write fantasy, but how do you research for
• 26:42
  this? Was this based on something
• 26:44
  real? So that is because I I knew that
• 26:46
  there were obviously we know the Salem witch trials, but there
• 26:49
  were also crusades in Europe, not just in, you know, the
• 26:53
  Middle East, there was religious crusades against Protestantism.
• 26:57
  But that, I mean that doesn't even tie into things like the
• 27:00
  witch hunting in Europe, so. When did this take place, this
• 27:04
  actual purging that you you're referencing?
• 27:08
  Yeah, the real one took place in the late 1500s in Germany and
• 27:12
  you're the Protestant and the Catholicism and that was at its
• 27:16
  height of of issues in the late 1500s.
• 27:19
  The true diocese was a very Catholic and then the further
• 27:22
  east and West, things shifted around a lot.
• 27:25
  So there was a lot of research of like, where can they go and
• 27:28
  should they pretend to be Catholic or should they pretend
• 27:30
  to be Protestant here, Like which, which route are we going
• 27:32
  on that one. So it was a lot of research in
• 27:35
  those lines and we brought in as much real things as we could
• 27:39
  because I'm very much the history nerd.
• 27:41
  Sarah did the magic and I did the history.
• 27:43
  And so it is to the point. The first part of the book is
• 27:46
  basically a heist where the witch hunter and the witch team
• 27:49
  up to free the innocent people who have been like caught up in
• 27:52
  this this net. And there's a real plan to blow
• 27:57
  up part of the streets and the aqueducts and specific
• 28:00
  buildings. And I'm not saying that if you
• 28:02
  got a bunch of dynamite it would work, but I am saying that I
• 28:06
  researched it really really well and that the tunnel system I
• 28:09
  found was accurate and I did the math to figure out how much
• 28:13
  gunpowder you would need. So.
• 28:15
  There you go, folks. Let's put it at.
• 28:17
  That an overnight sensation. This is the work we're talking.
• 28:21
  About. Did you get to go in person to
• 28:25
  do any, like in person research for this or was it mostly
• 28:27
  online? Well, Sarah and I started
• 28:30
  writing this as sort of a pandemic project, so we
• 28:34
  absolutely could not travel during that time because we
• 28:36
  wrote it at the height of the pandemic to the point where we
• 28:39
  couldn't even like e-mail museums because all the museums
• 28:42
  were closed. So everything that we were
• 28:44
  researching we just had to whatever was public domain and
• 28:48
  whatever we could get access to without actually meeting humans.
• 28:52
  But before the book came out, I did get a chance to go to Trier
• 28:56
  and sort of like double check everything.
• 28:59
  And it was it was really an amazing experience because I it
• 29:03
  was to the point where I was using Google Street View and
• 29:06
  clicking to see how many steps it would take to get from
• 29:08
  building to building because most of those buildings are
• 29:11
  still there. And so I wanted to make it
• 29:13
  really accurate because you could literally visit almost
• 29:16
  every site we mentioned in the book.
• 29:18
  And then being there in real life was just mind blowing.
• 29:22
  So I was like, oh, if I turn left, there's the apothecary and
• 29:25
  I would physically turn left and it was right there and I was
• 29:27
  like whoa, it was just mind boggling.
• 29:30
  It was also the first time that's ever happened.
• 29:33
  But the second time that's ever happened was when I got to go
• 29:36
  backstage at the Galactic Star Cruiser and see that because I
• 29:41
  had to write this in the scoundrel without before the
• 29:45
  before the Star cruiser hotel was built, the book was done
• 29:47
  before the hotel was open to the public.
• 29:49
  And I never got to go inside. And fortunately in April, I was
• 29:55
  able to like, pull some contacts and sneak aboard and actually go
• 29:59
  in the physical space. And I was like, where's the
• 30:01
  deck? And there's the place where they
• 30:03
  carved their initials in the engineering room.
• 30:05
  And like it was. It's so hard to have something
• 30:08
  that was in your brain become like a real place you can stand
• 30:11
  in. That is, that must have blown
• 30:14
  your mind a little bit. It's so crazy to have it be
• 30:17
  something that you're so into mentally you're you're you know
• 30:20
  as you're working on the project for an extended period of time
• 30:22
  and then to have it come to life around you that must be so
• 30:25
  surreal. It it was mindful, like, I can't
• 30:29
  even describe it. It's the most real experience
• 30:32
  ever. Like the two of them happening
• 30:35
  within a year of each other, going to Trier were not as,
• 30:37
  which was. And then going to the galactic
• 30:39
  star cruiser with with Teapats and seeing what what existed
• 30:44
  really in my imaginations. Like it's a physical place that
• 30:47
  I can touch and there's other people here and they're all
• 30:49
  seeing it too. So wild.
• 30:54
  OK, so I I read you you posted the other day the the dedication
• 31:00
  in your new book The Night of the Witch, and I want to talk
• 31:03
  about it because it gave me chills, honestly.
• 31:06
  Thank you. Do you want to read it, or do
• 31:09
  you? Do you know it by heart?
• 31:12
  Oh, you've got your book right there.
• 31:15
  That's why I have the book. Here.
• 31:18
  Sensation is to every witch that burned and every witch that
• 31:22
  watched and every promise they made in the smoke.
• 31:26
  Literally just gave me goosebumps again.
• 31:28
  I just that is, first of all, it's beautiful, but second of
• 31:32
  all, it just evokes so much of the history and also the
• 31:36
  emotion. And what is not spoken about
• 31:39
  those time periods and all that happened?
• 31:42
  But is there any kind of hidden meaning?
• 31:44
  I mean, you don't have to tell us if if there's a hidden
• 31:46
  meaning there, but why did you choose that as the dedication?
• 31:50
  I think a part of it is because I so I wrote the character of
• 31:54
  Otto. It's dual point of view.
• 31:55
  There's Otto and Fritzy, Autos to Witch Hunter and Fritzy's to
• 31:58
  Witch. I wrote the point of view of
• 31:59
  Otto, and you eventually find out in his back story that his
• 32:03
  mother was burned as a witch and like he knows she was innocent.
• 32:06
  Like he he knows absolutely his father wanted to get rid of her,
• 32:09
  he wanted a different wife. It was easiest to accuse her of
• 32:11
  witchcraft like he was a child at the time, but could see what
• 32:14
  was happening. And that sort of powerlessness
• 32:17
  in the face of apathy became a huge motivator for him.
• 32:21
  Because even as the witch hunters, like many of the witch
• 32:25
  hunters, as in real history, they knew that these people were
• 32:29
  not real witches. They were the outcast of
• 32:31
  society. They were the people in the way
• 32:32
  they were the protesters. They were easy to get rid of,
• 32:37
  but they knew they weren't real witches.
• 32:38
  Like some people probably were caught up in the hysteria, but
• 32:41
  there were too many people who profited from it for that to be
• 32:44
  the case. And so knowing that there was
• 32:48
  apathy, but also knowing that you couldn't say anything
• 32:50
  without then becoming a victim yourself, became a foundation
• 32:54
  both for the story and for that dedication.
• 32:57
  Yeah. The people who watched, you
• 32:59
  know, there was both a mixture of family who had to be silent,
• 33:02
  but also betrayers who maybe put that person in the flames
• 33:06
  themselves and had to stand and watch and see what their
• 33:09
  consequences were, isn't it? It's just like such a chilling
• 33:13
  time period where you had no autonomy and to think, I know
• 33:18
  people say that. You know, times are hard now,
• 33:20
  and they are. I'm not discrediting that.
• 33:22
  But these people aren't being burned at this stake for just
• 33:26
  existing, you know, especially when you add up who the victims
• 33:31
  generally were like. They were generally women who
• 33:34
  had very little power, who were either spinsters or widows,
• 33:38
  usually poor. So poverty had a big role in it,
• 33:42
  and then anybody who was different.
• 33:43
  So if you were born with any sort of abnormality or anything
• 33:46
  like that, it was 900 times more difficult just to stay alive.
• 33:52
  Yeah, yeah, that's it's so chilling.
• 33:55
  The fact that these things were done in the name of religion
• 33:58
  also when it was so cold hearted and not loving, the kind of the
• 34:04
  opposite of what we think of as religious action, you know, it's
• 34:08
  that's one of the things I love about this kind of writing is
• 34:11
  because it is a way of educating people while telling a really
• 34:16
  great story. You know, and it's like this is,
• 34:18
  it's an emotional story, it's a human interest story, but it's
• 34:21
  also something that really kind of happened.
• 34:23
  I know there's magic in the story as well, but so you said
• 34:27
  that you wrote, you wrote auto, Is that right?
• 34:30
  And so how did that work to cowrite a book with somebody?
• 34:35
  What was the process like with with that?
• 34:37
  How did you guys do that? Oh, it was so much fun because
• 34:41
  because it was during the pandemic where we were trapped
• 34:43
  at home. And I would write, well,
• 34:45
  actually she wrote the first chapter and then she sent it to
• 34:47
  me. And then I would edit hers and
• 34:49
  then write mine and then send it to her, and she would edit mine
• 34:52
  and write hers. So we went back and forth and
• 34:54
  the end result was that we basically edited the book as we
• 34:58
  went, and we automatically had a second set of eyes on our words.
• 35:01
  So the draft we made was a lot cleaner than a normal draft that
• 35:04
  I would make on my own. But also like, I'm super
• 35:08
  competitive. Like I tried.
• 35:11
  I tried to keep it on the low but like, I will competitive
• 35:14
  Y'all. And so she had a kissing scene.
• 35:17
  I was like, well, I'll make a kissing scene even hotter if she
• 35:20
  had like body horror. I was like, I will make that
• 35:23
  even more horrific. We just played off of each other
• 35:28
  and we constantly want nothing. I don't even know if she
• 35:30
  realized how much this this was a competition to me, because
• 35:33
  Sarah was probably just like, well, I'm writing my little
• 35:35
  story and I was. Like I will do it too and like
• 35:41
  and it worked out. We ended up with a great book.
• 35:44
  That's amazing. But that's tricky, right,
• 35:47
  because especially because you might have different voices and
• 35:50
  you might have different styles. So to kind of blend that all
• 35:53
  together and be competitive at the same time, it's pretty.
• 35:57
  I think we cared about also worked out pretty well because
• 36:00
  some things I would care like passionately about.
• 36:02
  And she was just like, OK, you can put that historical detail
• 36:05
  about the Romans in there. It's fine.
• 36:08
  Some of the stuff that he cared a lot about.
• 36:10
  I didn't. So, like, by pure accident we
• 36:12
  made all of our characters blonde because we just weren't.
• 36:16
  I didn't keep up with it. I never put your person.
• 36:18
  I don't keep up with it. And when my editor pointed it
• 36:21
  out, she was like, you know, maybe not have everybody be
• 36:23
  blonde. Sarah was just like, Oh my God.
• 36:26
  But Fritzy is blonde. I don't know what to do because
• 36:28
  she is blonde. I can't.
• 36:29
  I was like, I don't care. We can make Otter brunette.
• 36:32
  She was just like, Are you sure that's such a major decision.
• 36:34
  I was like, I just made him pretty mad at mine.
• 36:40
  Well that's perfect that you're like the perfect mix and match,
• 36:43
  right you've yeah, we had a good balance.
• 36:45
  That's really good. That's so funny.
• 36:49
  Well, Speaking of those saucy kissing scene, I saw that you
• 36:53
  revealed some some saucy artwork on your Instagram.
• 36:57
  Yeah. Does that come with a preorder
• 37:00
  or was that just for patrons? So that was going to be the
• 37:03
  preorder campaign that Source Books had, but they deemed it a
• 37:07
  little bit too saucy. And so now they're going to get
• 37:10
  a new art print. So if you were like, sorry, if
• 37:16
  you submitted your preorder in like that one weekend window,
• 37:19
  they're going to honor those. But I I think that's going to be
• 37:21
  it. And they're going to get a
• 37:22
  different art print. Why is it?
• 37:24
  Is it for? Is it YA?
• 37:27
  It is. It is a YA book.
• 37:28
  Yeah, I think people were starting to mention the report
• 37:31
  today. It was all romance.
• 37:33
  And it's not all romance. Like there is definitely like
• 37:36
  the scene is in the book, but it's not the whole book, so.
• 37:38
  Yeah, yeah, that's right. Well, it made me kind of wonder
• 37:42
  how much say do you have over that kind of stuff, especially
• 37:45
  like the book covers, like you have a beautifully consistent
• 37:48
  kind of art style, especially for the last like couple of
• 37:51
  books that you've done. I mean actually even just within
• 37:54
  your other series that you have. So as an author, how much say do
• 37:58
  you have over that kind of stuff?
• 38:01
  None at all. None at all for the books that I
• 38:04
  self published, because I do self publish as well, I do both.
• 38:08
  I get to dictate everything about it.
• 38:09
  So like Museum of Magic is self published and I hired my own
• 38:14
  artist so I was like here's my vision and she made it even
• 38:18
  better than because I'm not a graphic person.
• 38:20
  But then with the books that are traditionally published like the
• 38:23
  publisher just it's like here's your cover, hope you like it.
• 38:26
  But I will say the source books, they they also do a lot of
• 38:29
  trials. So they came up with multiple
• 38:31
  different ones and they did consider our our input up.
• 38:34
  It wasn't completely blase, but, but that's part of the thing
• 38:38
  with traditional publishing you you hand them some power because
• 38:41
  you trust that they know better and they generally do.
• 38:44
  Yeah, yeah, They're hopefully, you know, people do judge books
• 38:48
  by their cover and absolutely, it really look good.
• 38:53
  Yeah, yeah. So you kind of, I guess you
• 38:58
  touched on a little bit, you said self-publishing.
• 39:00
  I saw on your website that you do serial novels.
• 39:04
  Yeah. Can you explain a little bit
• 39:06
  like that just immediately made me think of Charles Dickens and
• 39:09
  like Alexander Dumas, who would like publish a chapter every
• 39:12
  week in their newspapers. But is it similar to that?
• 39:15
  Is that can you explain? That's the same concept, exact
• 39:18
  same thing. Yeah, I started with Kendall
• 39:20
  Vella, and because Kendall Vella is still America only, I wanted
• 39:24
  to like widen it. So I also do it on Patreon now.
• 39:28
  But I do one chapter a week for Museum of Magic and House of Hex
• 39:32
  to sequel to that. So those were all published one
• 39:34
  chapter a week. But I also, so I started Museum
• 39:37
  of Magic also during the Pandemic because my Dungeons and
• 39:40
  Dragons team split up because we couldn't meet each other in real
• 39:43
  life because of the pandemic. And we're like, I missed my
• 39:47
  dices and so I would take one, needed the fix.
• 39:52
  So I started the serial as a way to do Dungeons and Dragons with
• 39:56
  my readers. And So what I do is every week I
• 40:00
  have a little outline and what the character will, the choices
• 40:04
  the character will face. And then I roll the dice to find
• 40:06
  out the outcome of all of it. And I do that on video for my
• 40:10
  Patreon. And then at the end, my Patreons
• 40:14
  get to vote on one major decision.
• 40:16
  So they get to have the input and decide basically either how
• 40:19
  that chapter ends or how the next one will begin.
• 40:21
  And I wrote the entirety of Museum of Magic that way.
• 40:24
  And we're almost done with House of Hecks, and I wrote it that
• 40:27
  way as well. That is so interesting and and
• 40:31
  what like a fun exercise for your brain too.
• 40:34
  Because like yes, we can come up with story beginning, middle end
• 40:37
  and write you know all the bits in between.
• 40:40
  But to have to make it up as you go and kind of have a little bit
• 40:42
  of a guideline or a rule with the whatever the the voting
• 40:47
  results are, that's really interesting.
• 40:49
  How fun It's been a lot of fun and it's really made me have to
• 40:53
  think about how I write and make sure that I have really strong
• 40:56
  choices. Because I I was very honest,
• 40:59
  like I do all the dice rolling on camera so my readers see it,
• 41:03
  they know I'm not faking it. And multiple times they printed
• 41:05
  out, like we could tell from your face that's not where you
• 41:08
  wanted the dice to roll. And like some of the times they
• 41:14
  have made these votes from like you guys, I could not have been
• 41:17
  more obvious that this was not a good choice.
• 41:19
  And yet they still voted that way.
• 41:22
  You need to release like a director's cut where you have
• 41:25
  your version of it that comes out.
• 41:28
  The whole reason why there's a sequel is because they made a
• 41:30
  terrible vote, because it was, it was such a I thought I was
• 41:35
  being so obvious. Like the whole theme of the
• 41:38
  first book is you don't trust the Fay.
• 41:41
  And then they voted to trust the Fay.
• 41:43
  And I was like, what? I had to write a whole another
• 41:48
  book for it. OK, let's see.
• 41:52
  Where am I? My questions list.
• 41:54
  Oh. People can preorder now, right?
• 41:57
  The book comes out soon, like October 3rd I think.
• 42:00
  Is that correct? Which is also my birthday.
• 42:03
  Is it really? And I'm not just saying that the
• 42:06
  people are buying it, but if it works, you can totally buy it.
• 42:11
  It's the best birthday gift you could give.
• 42:13
  Exactly. But people can preorder now
• 42:18
  correct? So why is it so important to
• 42:21
  preorder books? For authors, preordering books,
• 42:25
  especially for traditionally published books, is a huge deal
• 42:28
  because it basically tells the publisher how many books to
• 42:32
  print. And so if they get a lot of
• 42:34
  preorders, they're like, oh, this is going to be a big deal.
• 42:37
  We'll print more books, we'll do more marketing, we'll send it to
• 42:39
  more stores. We can tell the stories that
• 42:42
  people want it. It could get picked up by Indy
• 42:45
  list and things like that. And so it is very, very vital.
• 42:48
  And like, nobody wants to say it, but Amazon ranking and
• 42:51
  Barnes and Noble ranking, it all kind of goes into it.
• 42:54
  And especially with a debut or like the first week of a book,
• 42:58
  that's your greatest chance for hitting the New York Times.
• 43:00
  So everybody wants all the orders to come in at once to
• 43:04
  give it like the biggest launch possible and hopefully like
• 43:06
  shoot it towards the stars. But yeah, the printers.
• 43:10
  Really. Really.
• 43:10
  Really. Really.
• 43:11
  Do help? Yeah.
• 43:13
  So everyone listening, go preorder your book.
• 43:15
  Where can people preorder it? Then do do you have a specific
• 43:18
  spot that's best? Oh, anywhere is good.
• 43:20
  Like honestly, anywhere you want to preorder is great if you'd
• 43:23
  like to get a signed copy by both me and Sarah and get all
• 43:27
  the preorder swag. The first tourist stop we're on
• 43:31
  at Malaprops is arranging that, so if you want to order a signed
• 43:35
  copy that has both signatures, tons of extra swag in it, you
• 43:39
  can get it from Malaprops and get all the bonus goodies.
• 43:42
  And they ship international. Oh, awesome.
• 43:45
  Malaprops is the small is the small bookshop, is that correct?
• 43:48
  Yeah, it's a book shop in Asheville, NC.
• 43:51
  Oh, oh, that's oh, that's so great.
• 43:53
  It's so important to yes, Amazon is convenient and all of that,
• 43:56
  but to support local book shops is just, Oh yeah, I know
• 43:59
  everyone who works in that store and they are all really, really
• 44:02
  good people, so. I used to work.
• 44:04
  I I worked at Borders back when that existed.
• 44:07
  And the people you work with at a bookstore, they're amazing.
• 44:09
  You always already have something in common, and you all
• 44:12
  spend your paycheck right back at the store.
• 44:15
  So it's just an endless circle. I I joke all the time that
• 44:18
  people need to buy my books so I can go buy other people's books.
• 44:21
  But it is literally true. There's always so much book
• 44:25
  money and we just swap it around with each other.
• 44:27
  That's it. It's true.
• 44:29
  And then your to read pile just gets taller and taller and
• 44:31
  taller until it's taller than you.
• 44:35
  I have a shelf that is just for my stuff I haven't read yet.
• 44:38
  Because I was starting it was all mixed in and I'm like I need
• 44:41
  to separate it so I can visually see what I need to do here.
• 44:45
  I I cannot separate it because then I would feel way way too
• 44:49
  guilty. The whole bookshelf this is not
• 44:53
  knowledge that I need. Putting extra pressure on
• 44:59
  yourself? That's like answering the door
• 45:02
  to the Faye. You just don't do it.
• 45:07
  So you're going to be on a tour then, is that you're going to go
• 45:10
  around and to other bookshops that?
• 45:13
  In different states, right? You're not just going to stick
• 45:15
  in North Carolina, so where can people see you?
• 45:22
  I do not have the tour memorized.
• 45:24
  We're going to be in Asheville, Atlanta, Baltimore, St.
• 45:30
  Louis and Cincinnati. I'm not sure what order that's
• 45:36
  in, but we will be in all those places and I will show up where
• 45:39
  my publicist tells me to show up.
• 45:43
  Can they get the info? Is it?
• 45:45
  Will it be on your website or where?
• 45:46
  Where can they find that? On my website at bethrevis.com.
• 45:49
  It's also on all my social media, so I will be shouting
• 45:53
  about it with the specifics. Like the specifics are all done,
• 45:56
  I just don't know them. Yeah.
• 45:58
  I mean, I can put you on the spot there.
• 45:59
  So even if you had told me to prepare like that's dates and
• 46:05
  times and my brain doesn't hold. Mine doesn't really either.
• 46:09
  I have trouble remembering just normal things from day-to-day.
• 46:12
  Now the file is full. Everything is filled in there.
• 46:16
  There's words in there, no numbers, none.
• 46:21
  So where can people find you then?
• 46:23
  On social media and website? And Sarah as well I guess
• 46:27
  because she also Co wrote yeah so I'm at bethrevis.com, she's
• 46:30
  at sarahrosh.com and we both have Instagram, TikTok, Twitter
• 46:35
  which I will only ever call Twitter.
• 46:38
  I technically have a Facebook so if you need to track me down
• 46:40
  there I will eventually check it there.
• 46:42
  So we're basically on all the socials.
• 46:46
  OK, great. That's awesome.
• 46:47
  So everybody, you have to go follow her and preorder that
• 46:51
  book right now because we it's very important to support
• 46:54
  authors in my opinion. I think it's important I approve
• 47:02
  of that. OK, so when we wrap up, we
• 47:08
  usually do like some rapid fire questions, Star Wars questions,
• 47:11
  Would you be game to do a few? Sure.
• 47:13
  All right, some rapid fire. Here's open.
• 47:17
  Are you a Jedi or a Sith Jedi, OK.
• 47:21
  Do you want to appreciate the doubt on your face at that it?
• 47:27
  Was a doubt, I swear. Well, no, no, you're pretty
• 47:30
  close with the thing. You might be Sith.
• 47:34
  You and me both then. OK, so this is most things
• 47:39
  Kenobi, so we do have to ask you some Obiwan questions.
• 47:42
  So which version of Obiwan's hair is your favorite?
• 47:47
  The Padawan, the BG Mullet or the Revenge of this We love your
• 47:53
  face and Obiwan like we don't need the rat tail.
• 47:58
  Like, no, the the Obi Wan haircut in the Obi Wan
• 48:02
  television series. Like.
• 48:04
  Ohh yes, I like that too. All of that.
• 48:10
  It redeemed the mullet. Really, It did.
• 48:12
  Hmm. OK, if you could wear just one
• 48:16
  Star Wars costume, what would it be?
• 48:19
  You know, I I kind of feel like the Jedi Rose would be really
• 48:22
  comfortable. Like I'd love to be as hot as
• 48:24
  Leia, but I'm not. And that metal bikini does not
• 48:27
  look comfortable, but like a Jedi robe is just like cloth
• 48:31
  lounging up. You know, we hear that a lot.
• 48:35
  People always say Jedi Robe's so comfortable.
• 48:38
  It's like, that's what I want. What special power would you
• 48:41
  like to have? I would.
• 48:43
  I would like to be able to have the Jedi mind trick the you will
• 48:46
  do what I say. Like I said, I'm competitive and
• 48:50
  bossy. You're like, if I could just be
• 48:52
  like you will clean your room, son.
• 48:54
  That would be nice. I was gonna say it might come in
• 48:57
  handy for parenting. It is your turn to do the dishes
• 49:01
  again like. OK, and what color lightsaber
• 49:06
  would you have? Oh yeah, purple would be
• 49:09
  awesome. But I feel like I'm not as cool
• 49:11
  as Mace, so I can't do that one. So I guess I would just have
• 49:15
  blue. And I mean, to be fair, I do
• 49:17
  have. The blue one.
• 49:21
  Oh my gosh. Yeah.
• 49:23
  Is it customer or is it? Is that somebody Specifically?
• 49:28
  It's. It's a custom one from Galaxy's
• 49:29
  Edge. That's.
• 49:30
  So cool, I still haven't made what I want.
• 49:34
  I It's on my like life bucket list.
• 49:38
  So what you need to do is you need to tell your son it's his
• 49:40
  birthday gift and then tell him that it's too fragile for him to
• 49:43
  have and it needs to go up on Mommy's bookcase.
• 49:47
  That worked out real well. You need to write a parenting
• 49:51
  book. Next is what you need to do.
• 49:54
  I mean not as I say that. I do admit that calling me a
• 49:57
  Seth might be more accurate, but it was the closest I had to a
• 50:03
  Jedi Mind truck. It's really.
• 50:06
  Oh, that's good. Oh, well, that is all my
• 50:13
  questions. That wraps us up.
• 50:15
  Do you have anything else you would like to add or say before
• 50:18
  we sign off? Thank you for having me.
• 50:21
  And Star Wars people are the best people, so I just love
• 50:24
  being a part of the community. So thank you for letting me live
• 50:27
  in this world a little bit longer.
• 50:30
  Thank you so much. Again, thank you for making
• 50:32
  time. Good luck on your tour.
• 50:34
  Good luck with all the book sales.
• 50:36
  I'm really excited to. I can't wait to read this book.
• 50:39
  Honestly, it's the Night of the Witch.
• 50:41
  Sounds sounds awesome and kind of like what I need in my life
• 50:44
  right now actually. I mean, I think it's a good life
• 50:48
  choice, so not biased at all. No, not at all.
• 50:53
  It's fine. Well, thank you again for
• 50:58
  everything and we wish you well. May the Force be with you, but
• 51:02
  thanks, may the Force be with y'all.
• 51:09
  Thank you so much for joining us here in the Most Things Kenobi
• 51:11
  Podcast. We appreciate every single one
• 51:14
  of our patrons and are grateful for your support.
• 51:17
  If you'd like to support the podcast and become a patron as
• 51:19
  well, head over to The Most Things Kenobi Patreon.
• 51:23
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• 51:25
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• 51:28
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• 51:31
  free to rate us on Spotify and Apple.
• 51:33
  And if you need just one place find all of these, head over to
• 51:36
  most things kenobi.com. So until next time, my friends,
• 51:41
  may the Force be with you.