Latest / The Two Authors’ Podcast / Substack and Autopsies with JT Ellison

Transcript

Substack and Autopsies with JT Ellison · The Two Authors’ Podcast

• 0:00
  I went to jail with Margaret Outwood.
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  It was kind of fun, you know, and asking.
• 0:03
  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
• 0:07
  Stop.
• 0:07
  Get back.
• 0:08
  You said.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the Two Authors podcast, an entertaining chat
• 0:15
  show hosted by bestselling mystery and thriller
• 0:17
  authors Douglas Pratt and Nicholas Harvey
• 0:20
  in lively, humorous, and informative conversation
• 0:24
  with distinguished guests who share their thoughts
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  an experience about forging a successful author career.
• 0:33
  Oh, welcome to this week's show brought to you as always by
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  vellum the absolute most wonderful formatting solution in the
• 0:41
  whole world. The bestest. Bestest. The bestest of bestest was
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  better than bestest.
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  That below so that's what
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  so weird.
• 0:55
  - No, vellum, though.
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  You know what though?
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  I've got to tell you, the other day I had an issue
• 0:58
  with vellum, not a really issue,
• 0:59
  'cause it was just me, it was a me issue,
• 1:02
  which is not a surprise.
• 1:03
  (laughing)
• 1:04
  - I think we all took it as being that way, don't worry.
• 1:06
  - Yeah, I know, worry, though.
• 1:07
  But I got on there, asked the question,
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  you know, they had, I was like, ah, I'll take a break.
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  And nope, those bastards got to act to me so fast,
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  I didn't even have time to go pee.
• 1:15
  - That's the biggest problem with vellum.
• 1:17
  That is the problem we have with vellum.
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  - I wanted to take a break.
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  I was like, if I can't do anything,
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  'cause I'm gonna stand still, then I can take a break.
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  But no, they had to fix it right away, so.
• 1:28
  - Halfway through the end,
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  down the road, back to the announcer.
• 1:32
  - It was ridiculous, but no, you got it.
• 1:34
  I love that about them.
• 1:35
  I just love the fact that it was, it's so fast.
• 1:38
  It was so quick, they came in, they did not come in
• 1:41
  and say, "You sure are a dumb fuck.
• 1:44
  "Why'd you do it this way?"
• 1:45
  They just came in, told me how to fix it.
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  And I don't even remember, it was just, it was crazy.
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  - It's classy of them to keep that chatter
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  amongst themselves.
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  Right, so that's the thing.
• 1:57
  I'm sure they're like, "You won't believe what this idiot tried to do."
• 2:01
  It's Doug again.
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  They're like, "He's got his own line straight here.
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  Why does he keep calling me?"
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  You want to stress test yourself, man?
• 2:12
  Let Doug and Nick try it.
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  Let me try it out.
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  That for sure will do it.
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  So, also, big thank you to all of our Patreon supporters.
• 2:19
  If you guys feel you are getting any value from the show, you enjoy listening to us.
• 2:23
  Yammer on you can support us over at patreon.com/thetooauthorspodcast and just like $3 a month you get to keep us fed and watered and
• 2:34
  Full of just energy and vitamins. It's all the good stuff that couple podcasters need so I feel like we're a couple of couple of the poor
• 2:42
  folks that are at the intersection of the roads with their tin
• 2:52
  couple of dollars sponsor us on Patreon, please.
• 2:54
  We need we need somebody to do a little background song like that sad song that Pita does for
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  that has Sarah McLaughlin sings behind and you go, oh, those poor animals and this is
• 3:05
  just me and you. And that's it.
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  Oh, we need to get the right.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  That song and everybody just turned off this podcast. That was the quickest point.
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  That was the fastest anybody's ever went. Not the you again.
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  No, they're gonna sing.
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  Stop them.
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  All right, let's move back on track because we have a really great grass today.
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  We have a New York Times best-selling author JT Allison.
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  Woo!
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  Yes, it's gonna be a fun talk.
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  She's a local Tennessean, so she's not gonna chat about local stuff while you're over
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  there in the...
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  You're summer storms and heat.
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  You're summer storms and you watch yourself in the humidity.
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  Pretty much.
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  Yeah, that's what we talk about.
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  That's all we talk about around here.
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  But before we get to talk to her, we have a listener guest from our recent guest.
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  That'll be a listener question from our recent guest.
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  A listener question from our recent guest.
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  Yes, see, I mean, thankfully you're here to like pull me back out.
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  We have a listener question from our recent guest, Tess Garrison.
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  Tess Garrison, thank you so much.
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  You're a glutton.
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  You're sticking around for it to ask us a question which we're nervous and excited about.
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  What have you got?
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  I'm always curious about how writers handle writer's block and what is it?
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  So you guys tell me what to do.
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  I've never had writer's block where I just cannot think of a plot or can't think of
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  a concept.
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  I've had block in terms of if I've written myself into a corner or I'm not sure quite
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  how to get from A to B and my best solution is always to exercise in some way, shape or
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  go for a walk, get on a treadmill, do the elliptical.
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  Normally I'll run off to the gym and get on the elliptical.
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  And nine times out of 10, something about it
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  is like a pallet cleanser, and I'm able to come away
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  with it with an idea.
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  That works for me.
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  What about you, Doug?
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  - Well, I'd say it's kind of something,
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  I don't really have a lot of writer's block.
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  A lot of what I consider writer's block
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  is procrastination.
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  (laughing)
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  I mean, I am an Olympic level procrastinator.
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  (laughing)
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  I think that that's part,
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  I do sometimes get the same problem where I'm like trying to work out a storyline and I'm trying to figure and so I do have a
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  How do I get how I get my character out of this?
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  You know I got put him in this situation should I thought about it before I did that?
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  You know and so I'll often go for a drive or I have a lot of grass so we
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  Will the tractor and track, you know, he smokes a lot of grass
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  But when it gets like really they just I'm stuck and I'm like I need I don't feel like writing or I'm feeling
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  procrastination, sometimes I just have to force myself to write the next word, even
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  if it's a shitty word, you know, just try to write, oh, just write the next word.
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  As long as you write one, one more word, even if it's really terrible, you know, I'm
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  going to come back and I'm going to edit it out later on, but at least maybe I get
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  my brain and my gears working, you know, and get myself out of that.
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  Because I do like it, even though I procrastinate.
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  It's just weird.
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  Procrastinate things we love doing.
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  I love writing.
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  Sometimes I'm like, yeah, but it takes a little effort.
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  I'm tired afterwards or something like that.
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  What about you, Tess?
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  Well, I get it with every book because I don't outline.
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  And so I'm always just plunging in and seeing what happens.
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  And the problem I have is like with Nick, because I write myself in a corner, I don't
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  know how to get out.
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  Oh, I don't know who the killer is.
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  That's often what happens.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  It's like, okay, well, I have all these characters, which one did it?
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  I don't know why.
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  But yeah, I do the same thing that actually, I drive.
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  I think that a long, boring drive is really good for writer's block.
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  drive that you know very well or that just doesn't require your full attention because
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  there's something about it that shifts your, you know, your mental energy.
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  You're physically you're doing something, but you're relaxed and that's when your brain
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  goes to work on creative things.
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  And then nobody in the car with me or nobody talking.
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  Nobody talking.
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  Radio off.
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  Radio off.
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  Right.
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  Radio off.
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  I can get radio a little bit, no talking.
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  Don't have a conversation when you're on a mom out of it.
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  I need to be in my own zone.
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  your relative open the door and go, "Hey, Tess, ride his block again."
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  But you know that "aha" moment?
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  You maybe you feel it when you finally get past that.
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  It's wonderful.
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  It's like, "Oh, that's what happened.
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  That's how I did it."
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  That's a great feeling.
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  That's when I did it, yeah.
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  Then you wish you took your laptop with you.
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  It's like an hour and a half from home now and you've got to drive all the way back.
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  All right.
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  Brilliant question.
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  Thank you so much and thanks for sticking around for the extras.
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  Thank you.
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  (upbeat music)
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  - Welcome to the show, JT Ellis,
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  and it's so great to have you here today.
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  - Thank you for having me.
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  It's nice to be here.
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  - Yeah, it's nice to have another Tennessee in here
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  in the house for me.
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  - Absolutely.
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  - Go Vols.
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  - Yeah, absolutely.
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  Listen to Nick talk about how he's in paradise.
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  (laughing)
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  - Whatever.
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  - He's not in Tennessee, so.
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  - Yeah, I'm not in the cool kids club.
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  - No, you don't have an SEC team down there to root for.
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  - No, he doesn't.
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  - Go, Caimans!
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  (laughing)
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  - Hey, we have a really mediocre football team.
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  - All right.
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  - Yeah, but you got a great view to go with it,
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  so you're like, "Oh, yeah, that's really terrible."
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  Well, JT, let's just kind of get started,
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  kind of tell us a little bit how you started
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  into writing and publishing.
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  What was this, a dream you always had,
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  or is it something you just fell into later on in life?
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  - A little bit of both.
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  I always wrote when I was a kid.
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  I wrote really bad poetry.
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  I'm actually looking on my wall.
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  I've got a poem that I wrote that won a contest when I was in third grade, you know, that
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  kind of childish kind of aspirational short stories and poems and stuff.
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  But I did go to school and I got a degree in political management and a degree in creative
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  writing.
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  And my creative writing thesis advisor said I wasn't good enough to get published and
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  would not give me a referral for an MFA program that I wanted to go to.
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  So I quit.
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  And I went the other direction.
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  I did the politics route and everything.
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  So I met my husband first night of graduate school and he was from Nashville and to Nashville
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  he wanted to return.
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  So after we got married, he had a job with Gannett and moved back here to work for the
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  Tennessean and I turned into a bad country music song.
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  Our cat died right after we moved here three weeks and my 19 year old, Siamese, died.
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  I kept getting lost.
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  There's a road called Old Degree that's on all four sides of Nashville.
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  And it's not the same road either.
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  It's not the same road.
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  Yes, you got to turn.
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  They don't connect.
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  It's really confusing.
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  And I couldn't get a job.
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  I didn't have any friends.
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  And so I finally went to work for a vet.
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  We adopted a new cat.
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  The cat was sick.
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  The vet healed her and he was looking for somebody and I thought, "All right.
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  I've gotten a master's degree in political management.
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  I should go mop floors at the vet."
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  - I could be a vet assistant.
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  - I could be a vet tech.
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  This'll be great.
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  And the first day I was like, yeah, no, this is not my path.
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  And so I was gonna give him a whole week
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  'cause that was only fair, but when the Wednesday,
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  started on Monday on Wednesday,
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  I picked up a golden retriever and herniated a disc in my back
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  and had to have surgery.
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  - You were on a roll.
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  - I really was.
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  I'd say a Bad Country Music song.
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  And then I, during recovery, went to the library
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  and they gave me a John Sanford book
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  like crime fiction. I read the first three books in the praise series and went, "Oh my god, I really
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  want to do this again. This is what I want to do." And I told my husband I'm going to write a book
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  and he was like, "My god, do anything. I don't care. Whatever. Anything." You are so bored. Just
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  sure have at it. And I wrote that first paragraph of that first book and I burst into tears because
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  I was home. I was home. And that was in 2003. I wrote a book that I thought was a book. It
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  was really a novella. And I mailed it all over New York to every editor. And I got a
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  stack of rejections because I had no idea how the industry worked at all. I was such
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  a noob. And then I fell in. I went to a book signing. John Connolly came to Nashville
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  and I went and saw him. He was a huge fan. It was my first author I ever met. And there
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  There was a woman there who had a critique group and she said, "Why aren't you ancestors
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  in crime?"
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  I'm like, "What is that?"
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  And so it just started to build from there.
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  By 2005, I had rewritten the novella into an actual novel and got an agent.
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  And he took the book out and it got rejected by every house.
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  And I got that voice, right?
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  That voice from my thesis advisor, "You're not good enough to go out there."
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  But my agent said, "No, write me another book."
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  They all had the same complaint about the book, which was really interesting.
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  He said, "Write me another book.
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  Don't kill the main character at the end."
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  Which is your franchise character.
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  And so I did.
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  I wrote, which is now called All the Pretty Girls.
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  And it came out in 2007 and actually just re-released again last month, which is kind
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  of fun.
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  20 years.
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  20 years in a month.
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  20 years, wow.
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  So, with it being re-released, I mean, is there some...
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  Now, that's a huge deal.
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  Like, is there some lessons that you look back on on that first one that you're now saying,
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  Okay, I wish I'd done this differently then versus now.
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  Or did you, or did you used to go,
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  I'm not reading that book ever again?
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  Cause that would be me.
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  You like, do I have to read my own book again?
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  - So I did, I did some edits on a couple of them
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  because back in the day when we had women writing
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  crime fiction, it was very divergir to use the F word
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  like every other word because, you know,
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  the wire was really big and it made us sound more masculine.
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  into the editors. I literally, the second book 14, I took 14 or more f-bombs out when
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  I did the edit on it because it just didn't need it, right?
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  Yeah, right. Yeah.
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  That was, so that was really the big change. But I got the rights back, which is really
• 12:59
  hard to do, but I've been carving the rights back to that series. And so I sold it again
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  to my new publisher. And they're the ones that are bringing this all out and it's got
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  new covers and it's just really fun getting a book that is 20 years old into the hands
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  of new readers because all things old or new again right now.
• 13:19
  That's true.
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  Serial killers are getting popular in fiction.
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  Everything is so cyclical.
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  It is really neat to see them getting new readers and having new life.
• 13:28
  Yeah.
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  And it's interesting.
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  Like you said, everything does kind of turn.
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  So people who have these long careers are going to be like, "Well, I'm going to be back
• 13:35
  into serial killers again."
• 13:36
  Right.
• 13:37
  more long we'll be writing vampires again. So that'll be the whole.
• 13:40
  Oh, vampires are like an every five to seven year thing.
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  Oh yeah. That's a cycle.
• 13:45
  Right? Serial killers, everything cycles in and out. So, you know, if you're in this
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  long enough, you're right. You're gonna revisit your earlier work.
• 13:52
  That's right. So one of the things we really want to talk to you about is that you seem
• 13:57
  to like research a lot. Like from what we're reading, you've studied forensics, you've
• 14:02
  worked with the national PD. Somewhere you said you did some autopsies, which Nick said
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  he didn't want any part of, but...
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  I'd be like...
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  Done.
• 14:15
  I'd be laying on the floor.
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  I thought so too. I thought so too. That was the most wild experience. It was the most
• 14:20
  spiritual experience in my life, which you wouldn't think, you know, seeing people cut
• 14:24
  open would be spiritual, but it is. Once you realize that we are all the exact same inside,
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  There is something that makes us who we are.
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  There is a spirit, there is a soul, there is something.
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  And that I discovered that day really was fascinating.
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  But I too, I was like, I'm going to pass out or throw up or both.
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  And they said, no, you're not.
• 14:45
  You're going to be fine.
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  And I'm like, no, I'm not kidding.
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  They're like, well, if you feel faint or, you know, step away, just step back.
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  And I started, you know, I started the day about 15 feet away.
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  Yeah.
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  And by the end, I literally was had my head in a head.
• 14:59
  in a chest cavity. So it is fascinating. And I was pre-med for a while until I found out about
• 15:06
  the whole cadaver thing. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not doing that. So I resisted. I resisted
• 15:10
  doing the the autopsies for a very long time, but I was writing a medical examiner. And I was
• 15:15
  getting things wrong, because I hadn't been there. And it changed everything. I mean, the research,
• 15:22
  all the research I've done has changed the course of the books in an effortable way.
• 15:26
  when I first started, the sum total I knew about being a cop is what I'd seen on law and order.
• 15:32
  Yeah. Right? So I call my local homicide office and I said, "Hey, has Nashville ever had a serial
• 15:38
  killer?" And they're like, "Why don't you come do a ride along?" Because I think they wanted to make
• 15:41
  sure I wasn't like really auditioning for the job. Are you a serial killer?
• 15:50
  You're a little too enthusiastic about this. We'll tell you about it, but first we just
• 15:55
  - Of course. - Have you ever killed anybody?
• 15:57
  - Can you finger print it and get your DNA on file?
• 16:01
  Yeah.
• 16:02
  - Just in case, yeah.
• 16:03
  - Just in case.
• 16:04
  They ended up, the homicide detective
• 16:06
  who answered the phone is a writer.
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  And so he was actually very interested in my process
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  and what I was doing.
• 16:13
  So we kind of traded trade secrets.
• 16:15
  And I ended up doing eight ride-alongs with homicide.
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  I did overnight patrol.
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  My first overnight patrol, we got called out to a stabbing.
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  we were still getting our evening briefing
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  and we got called to a stabbing and I'm like,
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  "What do I do?"
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  And he was like, "Just stay on my six."
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  And he got out of the car and I ran out of the car behind him
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  and there's this guy there and he is dying.
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  And it was, we caught the guy who did it.
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  We got the knife, we did the chain of custody,
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  all this.
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  And then we went for hot chicken at three in the morning.
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  (laughing)
• 16:46
  As you apparently do.
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  - But you can move.
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  And natural, yeah, that's what we got.
• 16:49
  - As you do.
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  And you know, I'm looking down at my cowboy boots
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  and I've got this guy's blood on my shoes.
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  - Nice.
• 16:56
  - And it got really real after that.
• 16:59
  I changed the tenor of my work.
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  I wanted to be sure that I was honoring the spirit
• 17:04
  of what the police were doing
• 17:05
  and the horrors that they were dealing with
• 17:08
  on a daily basis.
• 17:09
  I mean, our police forces have their problems,
• 17:12
  but what they do and how they do it
• 17:17
  is for the most part remarkable.
• 17:19
  And I wanted to honor that
• 17:21
  And there's nothing better than when I get somebody who is an expert in any of the books
• 17:26
  of something that I've written, writing me and saying, "You nailed it."
• 17:29
  That makes my day.
• 17:30
  That's why I do it.
• 17:31
  There's quick questions.
• 17:32
  I found this in one of my books, "Police Procedural," and I've kind of taken what is a small town
• 17:37
  police department.
• 17:38
  I had to shrink it down a little bit just for character size.
• 17:41
  I mean, do you find the same instance?
• 17:43
  Like, you know, anytime you watch any TV show like Law and Order, Castle, whatever, their
• 17:47
  little police units are very small and that's not really the way it is.
• 17:50
  So, I mean, if you find that you're doing the same thing, you're like, "Oh, okay.
• 17:54
  This is a much bigger thing than I can actually portray on page, so I've got to find a way
• 18:00
  to funnel it into the page."
• 18:02
  Absolutely.
• 18:03
  And the way I did it actually was modeling.
• 18:05
  We had a cold case unit and it was a small group of a few detectives.
• 18:11
  And so I modeled my group on them.
• 18:14
  And that helps the interpersonal relationships, but there's also so much that goes on just
• 18:20
  with bosses and the regulations.
• 18:23
  And you have to be in uniform this weekend and be downtown.
• 18:27
  Just all the little peccadillas that go along with being a cop.
• 18:31
  But you do.
• 18:31
  You have to shrink it down.
• 18:33
  You have to make it into bite-size greetings.
• 18:35
  - Make it, keep it interesting, because the bureaucracy would bore most of the people.
• 18:41
  - We wouldn't, yeah, we would never be able to get away with it, right?
• 18:44
  You know, they saw how much paperwork is involved.
• 18:47
  I mean, we have all these great car chases and foot chases
• 18:50
  and they're out detecting, no, 99% of the time
• 18:53
  they're sitting at their desk typing up a form.
• 18:55
  - Yeah, and the DNA can come back in like 24 hours
• 18:58
  whereas normally it's, you know,
• 18:59
  it's really gonna be like nowadays, yeah.
• 19:02
  - Now it can.
• 19:03
  That's the big problem now for me
• 19:05
  with the police procedural.
• 19:07
  So I basically have to go and relearn everything
• 19:09
  because it's changed so dramatically.
• 19:12
  - But so much of the, that's the one thing
• 19:14
  with TV and books, you can't do the time,
• 19:18
  the realistic time frames on some of it.
• 19:20
  I mean, DNA is back quicker now,
• 19:21
  but most of the forensic evidence that gets studied,
• 19:23
  it's back listed, it's months, and you can't,
• 19:26
  the book doesn't work on a timeline like that, right?
• 19:29
  You can't just have these long pauses
• 19:30
  where they go back to it.
• 19:32
  You know, they typically solve cases very quickly,
• 19:35
  meaning the guys like the one you ride along.
• 19:38
  - Please hold there.
• 19:38
  - The guy holding the knife.
• 19:40
  - The guy's literally there, or it's gonna be months.
• 19:44
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's a slog and there's no yeah, there's no good accurate representation of what it really is
• 19:51
  My big problem. I will confess this to you
• 19:54
  I got so used to being able to compress the time frame for the thrillers that now that I'm writing standalone
• 19:59
  I can't move the story past a few days or a week
• 20:03
  Everything does happen so fast and in a standalone. It's a completely different pace, right? That's my biggest challenge
• 20:10
  Good problem to have I guess
• 20:12
  I cannot make time pass. It is so hard to make time pass.
• 20:17
  That's what people say when they read my books. They're like, "Oh."
• 20:22
  A quick word from this episode's sponsor.
• 20:25
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• 20:45
  Let's talk about your sub stack. So you have the creative edge and you've got a bunch of resources in there for writers
• 20:52
  We'll put a link in the in the show notes so people can find it over there
• 20:55
  So tell us a little bit about it
• 20:56
  Why you chose sub stack as the as the place to house this and what people butting right writers can expect to find there and
• 21:05
  I got to know about this brave venture you had of
• 21:08
  writing a live novel, you wrote it live on your sub-stack, you're crazy. Tell us about it.
• 21:13
  I am. I am crazy. So that's why I ended up at sub-stack because I like it when things are
• 21:19
  pretty. I've known how to code for a long time, so I've always built my own websites and had a
• 21:24
  blog and all of that. I used to be the Friday blogger in a group blog called Murderati many,
• 21:29
  many years ago. And I got in that habit of writing a Friday blog. I find that writing about writing
• 21:35
  helps me write. It's just part of my process. If I can kind of deconstruct what I'm doing
• 21:41
  whilst doing it, it helps a lot. So I decided, you know, if I'm going to do Substack, it's
• 21:47
  got to be value added, right? I certainly wasn't planning to charge for it. But then
• 21:51
  I decided, well, heck, you know, I might as well write a writing book and people can,
• 21:56
  you know, that can be my subscription. And so I live wrote the process of writing my
• 22:01
  book last seen, which was last year's novel, it took almost 18 months of going through.
• 22:08
  I realized as I was just kind of setting it up, there were 22 steps in the process of
• 22:13
  writing a book.
• 22:14
  And so I kind of laid those out and here's what I'm going to cover and I did.
• 22:18
  And I went through the 22 steps of writing a book and the seven sub steps and this thing
• 22:23
  over here and that thing over there.
• 22:25
  But I had to learn how to outline and to write about outlining.
• 22:28
  I had to learn how to explain my process and my thinking process, which I'm an organic
• 22:35
  gardener of a writer.
• 22:37
  There's got gardeners and architects.
• 22:39
  I am a gardener.
• 22:41
  I till my soil and I put my seeds down and I fertilize in water and we see what happens,
• 22:46
  what comes up and what doesn't.
• 22:47
  And that's what I work with versus an architect who is going to build that blueprint before
• 22:52
  you even, you can't build a house without the blueprint.
• 22:55
  I'm currently writing a book.
• 22:57
  My analogy of the book I am currently writing is I am flying the plane as I am still building
• 23:03
  the air lawns.
• 23:05
  There you go.
• 23:06
  Yeah, it's, you know, in danger of crashing and burning every second.
• 23:10
  We've all been there at some point, I'm sure.
• 23:13
  Yeah, so, well.
• 23:14
  The last scene was, it was very fun to just really bring people into the thought process,
• 23:22
  the actual thought process.
• 23:24
  This is how I came up with this idea.
• 23:27
  This is why I made the choice that I made.
• 23:30
  This is the problem that I'm having.
• 23:31
  I have to change the character's names.
• 23:34
  I have to change the character's age.
• 23:36
  I got to age them up 10 years because a 24-year-old is a boring character.
• 23:40
  A 34-year-old has had some life experience and is going to be more fun.
• 23:45
  And I've literally detailed every step of that for 18 months.
• 23:51
  It is a complete series.
• 23:52
  I'm putting it together as a book and I will put it up eventually.
• 23:55
  - Sure, that's brilliant, yeah.
• 23:57
  - Yeah, it was really, really a great experience.
• 24:01
  And I miss actually not having those touchstones of,
• 24:06
  "Okay, here's the step that I'm at,"
• 24:08
  and being able to explain it to myself
• 24:10
  as much as to somebody else.
• 24:12
  - Right, right.
• 24:12
  - And I also have my monthly newsletter there on Substack,
• 24:15
  and I've had that newsletter for 20 years.
• 24:17
  - It's interesting what you say about,
• 24:19
  'cause teaching, I've done some teaching
• 24:21
  of something completely different in the past,
• 24:22
  and when you're teaching,
• 24:24
  You have to think through that process and you think how you have to communicate it to somebody else and get that point across
• 24:29
  It really does affect the way you do that the same thing yourself. It's a great learning process, right?
• 24:35
  Yes, because I'm not a teacher. I was like nothing like learning that you've been doing something wrong even though it's working
• 24:40
  Like there's like well, we all do things that are not the correct way of doing it
• 24:44
  But it works so when you teach it you got to learn how to do the proper way of doing it and then you start if you're smart
• 24:50
  I'm not always smart, but if you're smart you might pick up on what you're teaching and actually do it
• 24:55
  I've gone back and reminded myself, you know, hey, you're at this step
• 25:00
  What do I normally do at this step and I'm able now I've got a record of it
• 25:04
  I can go back and say oh, hey, why don't you try this you can take your own class
• 25:12
  It's gonna be called many ways up the mountain because I think that was the theme of the whole thing is there is no right way to do this
• 25:19
  There's only what works for you and gets you to the finish line. Yeah, we're big about the whole your mileage may vary
• 25:24
  Idea like it could vary every advice got a different way to go as long as you're going I guess that's about it
• 25:30
  So yeah, I think if somebody is telling you you have to do it like this run
• 25:34
  Big figure at flag every time if they're like this is this is how you must make you always tell me that and I knew I should have run
• 25:41
  No, it's not you must do it this way. You must not do it that way
• 25:48
  You and my wife
• 25:55
  The book that Doug and I are gonna write don't do these things don't do
• 26:00
  Want to know what to do go see someone like JT Allison
• 26:07
  So let's talk about you have so a very bad thing and you know why you both are polished with those with Thomas and Mercer, correct
• 26:14
  Mm-hmm and lessen. Yep. Oh, okay
• 26:16
  Yeah. So you've launched a very bad thing, launched in 2024. Tell us about the business
• 26:22
  decision because that's kind of an important thing for writers to remember this as a business.
• 26:27
  What the business decision of going with an Amazon-owned Thomas and Mercer and how that
• 26:32
  experience differs from working with one of the more traditional publishers?
• 26:36
  It's really funny. So my old publicist at Harper Collins got promoted this morning. I
• 26:46
  related them and he was like, "I hope they're treating you well."
• 26:49
  And like, "Yeah, this is a whole different world over here on the Amazon side of the
• 26:55
  fence."
• 26:55
  And then when I wrote back, I'm like, "It is so different, but it is the same.
• 26:59
  It's publishing, right?
• 27:00
  Publishing is publishing.
• 27:02
  You're trying to get your story into the hands of readers and the publisher is the mechanism
• 27:07
  for which that happens, whether you're doing it yourself or doing it through Amazon or
• 27:11
  if you're at a big five.
• 27:13
  I've written for everybody but has shut.
• 27:15
  It's the only house that I haven't been published by at this point.
• 27:18
  Well, they need to get their gear in order.
• 27:20
  Yeah, right.
• 27:20
  Come on.
• 27:21
  Come on.
• 27:23
  Shake it loose.
• 27:25
  Shake a leg here.
• 27:27
  And all of them are different.
• 27:30
  It's a grasses greener kind of scenario, but the problem is the grass tastes the same,
• 27:37
  right?
• 27:37
  The grass is greener wherever you aren't, and it tastes exactly the same.
• 27:41
  So all you can do as an author is write the best damn book you possibly can, write the
• 27:47
  book they can't ignore, and then you'll get the readers.
• 27:51
  And it doesn't matter what the publisher is.
• 27:53
  Moving from Harper to Amazon, it was a big decision.
• 27:57
  I mean, it was a really, really big decision.
• 27:59
  And not one that I took lightly, and it was one that we had discussed for years.
• 28:03
  Amazon does an incredible job of pulling the levers with a whole new audience of readers
• 28:11
  who are rabid and they can read a book a day and they want a book a day and they just,
• 28:17
  they will do anything for it, right?
• 28:19
  And to have the kind of hybrid that I have my relationship coming from being a big five
• 28:26
  author, being in the stores, being in Barnes, being in the Indies, you know, getting all
• 28:30
  the usual stuff, merging with this digital first, I'm still coming out in hardcover and
• 28:38
  I'm still selling a lot of hard covers.
• 28:40
  So I'm kind of hybrid in that scenario where other authors might not be because I was so
• 28:45
  established before I moved over.
• 28:47
  But they're incredibly professional.
• 28:50
  The schedules are absolutely sacrosanct, which for somebody like me who is performance
• 28:56
  driven and likes deadlines is wonderful, right?
• 29:00
  There's a little more structure to it.
• 29:01
  And I'm a structural kind of writer.
• 29:04
  I like those kinds of things.
• 29:05
  And they do beautiful work.
• 29:07
  I mean, I know the readers can't see it.
• 29:10
  Oh, no, yeah.
• 29:11
  You know, here's the spectacular book.
• 29:15
  Oh, yeah.
• 29:16
  You know, the case art and just all of this stuff, they just do really nice work.
• 29:20
  And I love my editor.
• 29:21
  She's super smart.
• 29:23
  She makes my books better.
• 29:24
  And that to me is 90% of it, you know?
• 29:27
  And then I just want to get the book into the reader's hands, a price that they're comfortable
• 29:32
  paying and sell a lot of them.
• 29:33
  Yeah.
• 29:35
  a challenge sometimes right now getting the price that people want to pay.
• 29:38
  Well, you know, pricing is interesting, but it's also just this, this, the abundance and
• 29:43
  the paradox of choice. These poor readers are being inundated, right left and center
• 29:49
  with thousands and thousands and thousands of choices. So being, you know, being their
• 29:55
  favorite author, that is a responsibility I take very seriously. And I try very hard
• 30:01
  to give them the best possible book and experience that I can't.
• 30:05
  And, you know, that's, you know, so far so good.
• 30:08
  And those are the ones that are going to buy your book today.
• 30:10
  It comes out and make you, they always email me.
• 30:14
  Yeah, love them.
• 30:14
  Yes, love them.
• 30:16
  They're keeping the cat in treats.
• 30:18
  So that's why.
• 30:20
  That's cool.
• 30:21
  So you know why it comes out as we talked about on August the 25th?
• 30:26
  So which is today as we're talking to, if you're listening to the day that the show
• 30:30
  dropped.
• 30:31
  on the release of your new book because we can talk in the future. So without giving too much away,
• 30:36
  tell the listeners a little bit about it. What's the story?
• 30:39
  So this is a two prong story. It is about a woman named Brooklyn Locke whose husband
• 30:44
  surprises her with a trip to Italy and disappears from their connecting flight.
• 30:50
  And the other side of the story is a woman who sees her sister's murderer from 10 years earlier
• 30:56
  on a flight and then he disappears. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Okay. So we have to figure out who this guy is
• 31:04
  and why he has disappeared and the two women work together to figure this out in some ways. And in
• 31:11
  some ways, they have all kinds of problems. As you would imagine. I can imagine. Great premise.
• 31:17
  That's a really good premise. Yeah, that's, that's brilliant. So yeah. So I mean, what, so what was
• 31:21
  like one of the, as you're writing this, did you have any of those moments like, and I always love
• 31:25
  hearing what authors say when they come across that moment in their book they're like, "Ooh,
• 31:29
  I've got it." And especially as a organic gardening writer, you're writing along trying
• 31:34
  to figure it out. It's kind of like, we both are kind of like in that same realm, but you write
• 31:38
  along and something like, "Oh, this is brilliant. Did you have one of those like really just rewarding
• 31:43
  moments as you're writing, you know why?" Yes. And that was figuring out why you left.
• 31:49
  I didn't know. I just knew the premise, right? I just knew the premise. I had seen a couple
• 31:55
  fight on a plane having a fight and I was really upset with them because they're
• 31:59
  his gorgeous beautiful couple and they're two kids and they're just sniping
• 32:03
  they were coming home from the islands actually and they're sniping at each
• 32:06
  other and I'm like come on you know you got this great life you just left a
• 32:10
  ruga your tan why are you bitching each other?
• 32:14
  Yeah quit complaining and then I have always had this idea in my mind watching
• 32:20
  people in the airport you know the guy that says hey I'm gonna go get a water
• 32:23
  and then never comes back. It's just into marrying those two stories. And so I pitched
• 32:29
  it to my editor and she was like, "That, write that next. That's, yes, and that's as far
• 32:33
  as we got." I had to figure out why he would leave. Why would he leave those kids? Why would
• 32:39
  he walk away from this family? Why would he surprise them with this trip to Italy and
• 32:44
  suddenly disappear?
• 32:45
  It's disappear, yeah.
• 32:46
  You know, what would make you as a father walk away from your family? It had to be something
• 32:53
  pretty bad, right? And it took me forever to figure out what it was and why he did it.
• 33:01
  But when I did, then everything came together, right?
• 33:04
  Right. And it was a cat, right? It was a cat?
• 33:07
  It was a cat. He saw a cat and he followed her out of the airport and he adopted her
• 33:12
  and brought her home and happily ever after, everybody's back.
• 33:16
  That's exactly how I lose my wife is assuming a random dog comes by, she's going to walk
• 33:22
  often follow it. I want to look around and where'd she go. I can't do not. We're in England.
• 33:28
  We just got back from England and we were in Canterbury. I come by with this big beautiful
• 33:32
  German shepherd and actually turned around and started following the dog. I was like,
• 33:35
  "Where are you going?"
• 33:35
  There she goes. That's me with the cats. Cats find me on trips and stuff. I'm like, "Oh,
• 33:43
  you go to Greece and all of them look. It's a cat." No, you're supposed to be looking at
• 33:47
  the Parthenon. Come on.
• 33:47
  Also, I do love that like you're on the airplane and you're thinking, "Huh, like these people
• 33:52
  are arguing.
• 33:52
  They could kill each other."
• 33:55
  That's the way we thrill our writers who are always like, "Hmm, I don't know how we
• 33:58
  can make this work."
• 33:59
  Oh, it's an argument.
• 34:00
  What could be worse?
• 34:02
  Why are you fighting?
• 34:03
  Why are you've got everything?
• 34:05
  Why are you fighting?
• 34:06
  I mean, that's what we as crime fiction writers and suspense and all of that, that's what
• 34:11
  we're doing, right?
• 34:12
  We're looking behind somebody's closed door.
• 34:15
  curious and we're trying to open the door to their house and find out what is really
• 34:19
  going on.
• 34:20
  And that's, you know, that drives all of my books, being a nosy neighbor.
• 34:27
  And now we're here from this episode's sponsor.
• 34:29
  Hey, it's Jamie Davis, show manager for the Author Nation conference that's coming up
• 34:33
  here before we know it.
• 34:35
  I know we're going to get to see each other there.
• 34:37
  Definitely come up and say hello to get your daily dad joke when you're in Vegas.
• 34:43
  And with that in mind, what happens when you give a book a camera?
• 34:47
  Well it'll definitely take a shelfie.
• 34:49
  And back to the show.
• 34:51
  People are always asking, "Where do you get your stories from?
• 34:53
  Where do you get your ideas from?"
• 34:54
  Every day, all day long.
• 34:56
  I mean, it's just a comment here, a movement there, an action there.
• 35:01
  Someone reacts to something in a certain way.
• 35:03
  You just register that, right?
• 35:05
  You carry it.
• 35:06
  Absolutely.
• 35:07
  Yeah, there's no turning it off.
• 35:09
  There's no turning it off.
• 35:10
  As soon as you see it, you're like, "Oh, that's f-"
• 35:12
  We were just talking about it with Lisa Gardner when we said, like,
• 35:14
  "Yeah, I sometimes I'll be watching it and it's like somebody does some crime."
• 35:17
  And I'm like, "Oh, that's horrible, but how did he get away with it?"
• 35:19
  You know? Or, you know?
• 35:20
  Yeah.
• 35:21
  Or, "Oh, I hope they don't catch him yet, because then it's more interesting.
• 35:25
  I don't want anybody to die, but at the same time, my story-driven part of me is like,
• 35:28
  "Ooh, what's gonna happen now?"
• 35:29
  So, when you were talking about doing the ride along with the police,
• 35:32
  I was thinking at the time, I was like, "The question you want to ask is,
• 35:35
  now how did they get away with that?"
• 35:36
  And the question came back.
• 35:37
  I'm from a
• 35:40
  Right. Like, oh, I know like 90 different ways to murder and dispose of my husband.
• 35:45
  And you know, my husband always says, if I go missing, you know.
• 35:50
  You're gonna be in the first place.
• 35:52
  Everybody's gonna walk in and slap the cuffs on you.
• 35:54
  That's right away.
• 35:56
  Clearly, it's always the spouse, especially if the spouse is a mystery writer.
• 36:00
  Oh, for sure. Yeah. So.
• 36:01
  So also, we're going to talk a little bit because we're, of course, interested in
• 36:04
  interviewing people. So you have this great show, Word on Words, which I was
• 36:09
  I was actually going to say you were our first Emmy winner, but I don't, you guys won a regional
• 36:14
  Emmy and we had another.
• 36:15
  Regional Emmy, yeah.
• 36:15
  That's pretty awesome.
• 36:16
  So we love interviewing authors.
• 36:18
  It's been one of our favorite things that we do.
• 36:20
  So what's one of the most surprising things you've learned from interviewing other authors?
• 36:24
  You know, something that might have changed how you did your own work or how you approached
• 36:28
  something.
• 36:29
  Just that I can do it, right?
• 36:32
  I mean, when they asked me to do it, I said, "No."
• 36:35
  times because the whole idea of me being on camera asking, "Now we're 12 seasons in and
• 36:42
  it's no big deal." But everybody has their own way up the mountain. Everybody does it
• 36:47
  different. And you can do something I call chasing OPP, chasing other people's process.
• 36:53
  And it's really easy to do because it does sound great and it does work for them.
• 36:57
  And it works for them. So why was it a little work for me?
• 37:01
  I'm interviewing giants in the field, intellectual giants.
• 37:06
  I, you know, Margaret Atwood, I went to jail with Margaret Atwood.
• 37:09
  It was kind of fun.
• 37:09
  Um, you know, and asking.
• 37:11
  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
• 37:15
  Come back.
• 37:16
  You said.
• 37:18
  Her book, it was for her book, "The Heart Goes Last" and the, we used to shoot,
• 37:23
  we now shoot back in the studio, but we used to shoot on site thematically linked
• 37:27
  to the books.
• 37:28
  So, Debra Harkness came, we went to a winery.
• 37:31
  Margaret Atwood came we took her to jail and we taped the show in a jail cell yes you can look it up on a word on words dot org
• 37:38
  Just look for Margaret Atwood and you will see me looking like a deer in the headlights with Margaret Atwood in a jail cell
• 37:44
  I had to take an out of van before that one because i'm like
• 37:47
  terrified of being incarcerated
• 37:49
  For something i didn't do it's like a personal scare thing
• 37:53
  So yeah, I went to jail with Margaret Atwood and you know talking to her talking to John Grisham
• 37:57
  Grisham's been one of my favorite authors for a really long time and being able to sit down with him
• 38:02
  and ask him, you know, point blank, he doesn't need the money. And I said to him, I'm like,
• 38:08
  why do you do this? You don't need the money. You don't need to come back out on tour after 20
• 38:13
  years away. Why are you doing this? And he looked at me and he says, you know why. And I said, I do
• 38:19
  know why you love it. And he said, I love it. And that is the thing I think throughout every
• 38:24
  interview what has come away with is we love what we do. We love writing books,
• 38:31
  whether they're nonfiction or fiction. We love writing them. We love getting them
• 38:35
  into readers' hands. We love connecting with people. And this is how introverts
• 38:39
  connect, right? We write books. I mean, that's the way we are. We're
• 38:43
  about and we tend to connect like that. And it's like suddenly we're like this
• 38:46
  community that builds together. One of the things we love about doing this is
• 38:50
  is the fact that it is a community.
• 38:52
  And we've met, you know, now we've met you.
• 38:54
  We meet all these wonderful people and we've met some,
• 38:57
  like you said, you sit with some people who are just huge.
• 38:59
  Like I can't even imagine sitting with Margaret Atwood.
• 39:01
  You'd be like, "Oh, I've met John Grish before."
• 39:03
  And he's such a delightful individual.
• 39:05
  So I can imagine.
• 39:06
  But everybody that we've ever talked to on here
• 39:10
  has always been, it doesn't matter how big they are,
• 39:13
  whatever, it's such a great community that authors have.
• 39:16
  And it's kind of neat that we kind of
• 39:18
  blend it all together like that.
• 39:20
  - Yeah, no, I agree 100%.
• 39:23
  It is the coolest thing ever is this community.
• 39:26
  - So you had to tell, was it any of John Gray's,
• 39:27
  or anybody really big that you were like,
• 39:29
  "Oh, I can't believe I get to meet them
• 39:31
  "and interview them."
• 39:32
  So.
• 39:33
  - I mean, those two were biggie's.
• 39:35
  - That's pretty big.
• 39:36
  - Yeah, yeah.
• 39:37
  - One, oh, somebody like, you know.
• 39:39
  - Yeah, they were, you know, but every season
• 39:41
  I'm meeting new people and, you know,
• 39:44
  I get a lot of debut authors.
• 39:46
  - He's wanting you to say Douglas Pratt is here.
• 39:48
  - I was fiction.
• 39:49
  Yeah, you were the guy.
• 39:49
  You're his bathroom wife.
• 39:50
  I even picked up on the hint there.
• 39:52
  So it's like.
• 39:53
  (laughing)
• 39:55
  The one we're really hoping to get.
• 39:57
  It's a guy from Memphis.
• 39:58
  A guy from Memphis.
• 39:59
  A asshole from Memphis.
• 40:01
  That's probably Mark Groeney, not me.
• 40:03
  Oh, Groeney's a good guy.
• 40:04
  I like him.
• 40:05
  Groeney's a great guy.
• 40:06
  Groeney just had, what was I watching?
• 40:08
  Oh man, I was just watching something
• 40:11
  and on the bookshelf carefully placed right there
• 40:13
  was a Mark Groeney.
• 40:14
  Widow's Bay.
• 40:15
  Widow's Bay.
• 40:16
  Widow's Bay.
• 40:17
  Widow's Bay.
• 40:18
  Yeah, sitting in the bookshop van or something and there's a Mark Green he's sat right there really really nice nod.
• 40:26
  Yes really cool. He is just one of the nicest guys in the industry to you really is.
• 40:31
  Yeah he's really nice guy. He's super nice. Yeah, we've got a cross path with Gary now and again here in Memphis but that's been about it.
• 40:39
  It's great and national's got a great you got a great author scene up there.
• 40:43
  We have a huge community. We have a huge community. I mean so many professionals and so many indies
• 40:50
  And we all kind of commingle and it's just so much. Yeah, I keep trying
• 40:54
  I'm just like I'd like to go to like I like Memphis
• 40:57
  But I'd like to go to national and do all my writing stuff because it's a more creative come for a southern
• 41:02
  Festival come up for something festival. I didn't either I am I might be up there for a killer national in a couple of weeks
• 41:08
  So I've not done that one before, which is like right here.
• 41:11
  So it's always come.
• 41:12
  You will love it.
• 41:13
  It's really fun.
• 41:15
  Because of book launch and everything, the timing is great and awful.
• 41:20
  And we've got some family stuff going on.
• 41:22
  So I haven't been able to books a lot of stuff because things keep having to be canceled.
• 41:26
  And I didn't want to have to pull out at the last minute.
• 41:29
  Like I had to do all year long.
• 41:31
  Well, it happens that way sometimes.
• 41:33
  Yeah, sometimes it does.
• 41:34
  So let's kind of talk a little bit more about like thrillers and stuff.
• 41:37
  Like one of the things that we've talked a lot about,
• 41:38
  we're all, we all write thrillers and stuff.
• 41:40
  And thrillers have kind of gotten shelved next to each other
• 41:43
  for years, but the kind of the range of what thrillers are
• 41:46
  has spread out a little bit.
• 41:48
  So I guess where do you feel at most at home in that spectrum?
• 41:51
  Cause you write a little bit of the domestic
• 41:53
  and you got some other stuff that gets a little darker.
• 41:56
  So what do you feel is your sweet spot on that spectrum of?
• 42:01
  Your subgenre, yeah.
• 42:02
  - My sub-sub-subgenre?
• 42:04
  - Yes, sub-sub-subgenre.
• 42:06
  I always dig a Gothic, right?
• 42:07
  With a big set piece, that's really fun.
• 42:10
  And I like these stand-alones where I like
• 42:14
  to have multiple points of view.
• 42:16
  Mysteries are incredibly hard for me.
• 42:19
  Incredibly hard for me.
• 42:21
  I don't like being stuck in one person's head.
• 42:24
  Last scene is a mystery and I struggled with it.
• 42:26
  And I mean, blatantly, openly online,
• 42:29
  struggled with telling that story because it was a mystery.
• 42:32
  I'm using my hands, I'm Italian.
• 42:34
  - Oh, okay.
• 42:35
  Yeah, that should explain it to anybody who's listening.
• 42:38
  I am the call.
• 42:38
  My hands are all over the place right now.
• 42:41
  jazz hands, the whole idea of being able to manipulate the characters, very bad thing,
• 42:48
  Columbia Jones, dead author at the beginning of the book, she dies in the beginning of
• 42:52
  the book, it's not a spoiler.
• 42:54
  She is the spoke of the center of a wheel and all the characters are spokes on a wheel,
• 43:00
  right?
• 43:00
  All of my books have a shape.
• 43:02
  And so that one was the wheel.
• 43:04
  And it worked really, really well because I had eight points of view and every single
• 43:09
  one of them was how they reacted and interacted with this person who was already dead.
• 43:14
  Those are the most fun for me.
• 43:15
  When I can hop around and tell bigger stories, it becomes a bigger story even though it's
• 43:20
  suspense.
• 43:22
  I like the thriller.
• 43:23
  We're trying to stop something bad from happening.
• 43:26
  The books I did with Catherine Coulter, those were big time, big set piece international
• 43:31
  thrillers where we're trying to stop the world from ending. But once you save the world,
• 43:36
  where do you go from there? Then the series is over. You've saved the world.
• 43:40
  Yeah, somebody else is going to come along.
• 43:41
  You've got to be careful.
• 43:43
  As James Bond has taught us, they've got more people coming to destroy the world.
• 43:48
  You've got to wait for the next villain.
• 43:49
  So those are really fun. I mean, I like that I have been afforded the honor of having a
• 43:57
  career for this long that I can experiment and I can try different genres and I can hop
• 44:02
  around.
• 44:03
  Usually I'll do a smaller, more insular book and then I'll do a bigger and then a smaller
• 44:07
  and then a bigger just to keep me excited about what I'm doing.
• 44:12
  This has been fantastic.
• 44:13
  There's lots of things we didn't get to.
• 44:15
  So we'll do this again sometime.
• 44:17
  Awesome.
• 44:18
  I would love that.
• 44:18
  And have you back on.
• 44:20
  But we have a couple of questions to wrap up here.
• 44:22
  And the first one we ask everybody is, what do you think your author's superpower is?
• 44:27
  Description I think I can set a stage pretty well
• 44:30
  I've been called cinematic and that to me is a compliment because I feel like I do a lot of like
• 44:36
  Screenplay game in the book like this is the scene that I'm seeing. I'm very very visual and so I think that translates
• 44:43
  I like that. That's a it's a fundamental building block
• 44:46
  Yeah, setting is huge well setting is huge. It should be a character. It shouldn't just be a name
• 44:52
  Well, I think, yeah, we both kind of, he uses the Cayman Islands as a character because
• 44:57
  it's all flashy and sexy.
• 44:58
  So, I know.
• 44:59
  Yeah.
• 44:59
  I mean, it's important and you can...
• 45:01
  Important to...
• 45:02
  You know, what you're sharing with the reader is the experience that they could have if
• 45:06
  they were there, right?
• 45:07
  Right, absolutely.
• 45:08
  And if you're doing it right, then they are experiencing it.
• 45:10
  Well, and especially in series, which we both write in series, so it's key to have people
• 45:17
  feel like they're back home again when they open, when they start one of your books, they're
• 45:21
  coming back to a place that's now familiar to them.
• 45:23
  And nothing better than a reader who's like, oh, I've been to that spot.
• 45:26
  I know exactly what it is.
• 45:27
  And it makes them feel in his broad end.
• 45:30
  Grounded.
• 45:30
  It grounds them in the story.
• 45:32
  Yeah.
• 45:33
  Yeah.
• 45:33
  Very much so.
• 45:34
  Okay.
• 45:34
  We have another question for you, which is going to be random from our wheel of
• 45:38
  questions, wheel of questions that we have.
• 45:39
  Oh, I love it.
• 45:40
  No expense spared.
• 45:42
  Do you have this kind of, these kind of props on, on words, on words?
• 45:46
  No, but if, if I ever teach, I do have a frisbee that has the
• 45:51
  have an elemental plot and you get to spin the wheel of plot. So I feel very much at
• 45:55
  home. Oh, there we go. Ceci, we should definitely
• 45:58
  bring your wheel of plots on and our wheel of questions can go together. We should...
• 46:04
  All right. So what is one food that you hate that everyone else likes?
• 46:11
  Tomatoes. Oh, I find them disgusting. But I will eat anything made of tomatoes.
• 46:16
  Oh, I was going to ask you, do you eat ketchup on your fries?
• 46:19
  I like ketchup, I like sauce, I like salsa, but I cannot eat a raw tomato.
• 46:26
  I will vomit.
• 46:27
  Is it a texture thing?
• 46:29
  It's texture, it's taste, it is just there's something about them that is just...
• 46:35
  I always said they were onomatopoeic, really.
• 46:38
  Mine is mushrooms, but kind of for the same thing.
• 46:40
  Mine's a texture thing, like it could be eaten long and you could slide a mushroom in there
• 46:45
  and I don't know about it and I'll just bite into it and I'll be like, "Eeeh, oh."
• 46:50
  Yeah, no.
• 46:50
  I would like to like mushrooms, but no, I just can't.
• 46:53
  I don't mind the flavor.
• 46:54
  I'm the fussiest eater in the world and I like mushrooms.
• 46:58
  How's that?
• 46:58
  Isn't that weird?
• 46:59
  Because they are something that, you know, people...
• 47:02
  You either love them or hate them.
• 47:03
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:04
  And I actually love mushrooms, but I'm super fussy.
• 47:08
  So I eat barely any vegetables.
• 47:10
  I think they're really bad for you.
• 47:12
  I think the science is wrong.
• 47:13
  It's just...
• 47:14
  Science is wrong.
• 47:17
  I'm gonna go with that.
• 47:18
  You're a carnivore.
• 47:18
  You're a carnivore.
• 47:18
  Oh my God, I'm trying to.
• 47:19
  No, he's British.
• 47:21
  They don't have any vegetables over there anyway.
• 47:23
  We do.
• 47:23
  We have potatoes.
• 47:25
  You have peas.
• 47:26
  We have peas and potatoes.
• 47:27
  We have mushroom peas.
• 47:28
  Mushroom peas?
• 47:28
  Yeah, well, that would put you on peas for life.
• 47:30
  Yeah, I think you put gravy on top of it.
• 47:32
  So, yeah.
• 47:33
  I'm the weirdest eater in the world, so if it's not my...
• 47:37
  If I could live on French fries and cheese, I would...
• 47:41
  I'd be happy.
• 47:42
  I mean, you can live on French fries.
• 47:44
  I used to work in restaurants.
• 47:45
  That's what was my entire meal was we had a big cheese thing
• 47:49
  where we put the cheese dip and we walk by
• 47:50
  and pick up a fry and dip it and walk.
• 47:52
  That was how you just ate all night long.
• 47:53
  - There you go.
• 47:54
  Lee Child only eats hamburgers and drink champagne.
• 47:57
  - Yeah, he smoked a lot of weed though too.
• 47:59
  (laughing)
• 48:01
  - That too.
• 48:02
  But yeah, he's pretty single tracked on his food.
• 48:07
  - Yeah, that's cool.
• 48:07
  That's good to know.
• 48:08
  All right, this has been the--
• 48:09
  - That makes Nick feel better.
• 48:11
  He's like, "Oh, I'm not the only weird one."
• 48:14
  - Yeah, an exposing Lee Child,
• 48:15
  we should probably end on that note.
• 48:17
  (laughing)
• 48:19
  Hey, JT, thank you so much.
• 48:21
  And best of luck with the release of the new book.
• 48:23
  I'm sure it's gonna go ballistic like the last one did.
• 48:26
  And go out and read it.
• 48:28
  - Thank you, guys.
• 48:30
  (upbeat music)
• 48:36
  - Thank you, JT, that was awesome.
• 48:38
  I love a good talk like that, but man, that was great.
• 48:41
  - She's, you know, she's been in a jail cell
• 48:44
  happened. That's what she said. That's crazy.
• 48:48
  She was just skipping right past that, just like throwing it out there as I
• 48:51
  mentioned, I'm like, oh, reel that back in.
• 48:54
  Stop that right there. Yeah, it's amazing. Like, it's, you know, we should do that.
• 48:58
  We should have a, you know, onsite in jail. It would be just us in jail, probably.
• 49:02
  But, you know, I was going to say, we just got to call someone up.
• 49:06
  Get arrested the next time and they can come and be outside and then we'll
• 49:10
  recorded or I was hoping it was going to be some you know story of a drunken
• 49:15
  night out in Nashville and they ended up in jail cell but still it was pretty
• 49:19
  cool. Yeah well in Nashville does bring about some weird things so you never
• 49:22
  know but you know what it's great you know yes out there looking for
• 49:26
  information like her sub stack is full of some stuff I mean the first of all you
• 49:31
  get to see a step-by-step process of how you write a novel. Is that crazy? Live
• 49:35
  writing the whole novel through sub stack. Oh that's selling novel at that so
• 49:39
  you might as well, if you're going to look for somebody to follow, you might as well
• 49:42
  follow somebody who's doing a best selling model.
• 49:43
  That's pretty freaking impressive.
• 49:44
  But I also love the point that she made is like, "Here's how I'm doing it and here's
• 49:48
  some different ways."
• 49:49
  But I was thinking when she was saying that stuff, it's like a menu.
• 49:52
  What you're doing is just accumulating information to fill out your menu.
• 49:57
  Then you pick and choose from the menu what works for you, right?
• 50:01
  So if you don't like mushrooms, Doug, then don't choose the mushrooms, right?
• 50:05
  You've got something else to choose from.
• 50:07
  Yeah, and if you don't like vegetables, you might want to go get some vitamins or something.
• 50:11
  Skip straight to the zone.
• 50:13
  Straight to the zone.
• 50:16
  Also, don't forget, her book came out today if you're listening to this on the day of
• 50:21
  launch, but it is out now.
• 50:22
  You know why?
• 50:24
  I do not know why, but she chose the day.
• 50:26
  So, you know why it's available today.
• 50:28
  So make sure you go get it on Amazon or at your bookstores or wherever.
• 50:33
  So be awesome.
• 50:34
  Very cool.
• 50:35
  So support and thank you guys for supporting our show over on patreon and your kindness helps cover the cost
• 50:40
  And if you want to thank you thank you join our club over there hit us up at patreon.com
• 50:46
  Ford slash the two authors podcast. Oh, you got my kids
• 50:50
  There's a little chat feature over there. You can chat with us and make comments on the show. So it's always worth doing
• 50:56
  Yeah, those questions big thanks as always to our friends at vellum for their support. Thank you so much
• 51:01
  Make sure you guys go check them out. Go to trivellum.com/twoauthors.
• 51:06
  Trivellum.com/twoauthors to find out more about us.
• 51:10
  And you'll find the notes as well as links for our guest information,
• 51:14
  her sub-stack and her thing.
• 51:16
  So we make sure you check all that out and we will be back next week with a new
• 51:19
  episode of the Two Authors Podcast.
• 51:21
  Until next time, be cool to each other.
• 51:23
  Fair wins and following scenes.
• 51:26
  You've been listening to the Two Authors podcast with Nicholas Harvey
• 51:30
  and Douglas Pratt.
• 51:32
  Subscribe on your favourite platform
• 51:34
  for new shows coming every week.
• 51:37
  (upbeat music)