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Disco and Danger with Marty Ludlum · WriterCon

0:00
Speaker 1: This week on the writer com podcast.
0:03
Speaker 2: Well knowing as I do the woes of life that
0:08
Speaker 2: we see every day on daytime television. The most important
0:12
Speaker 2: crisis you have is whether or not you have an
0:14
Speaker 2: extended car warranty, and if you don't, your life is
0:19
Speaker 2: destined for ruin.
0:20
Speaker 3: Welcome to writer Kon, a gathering place for writers to
0:23
Speaker 3: share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
0:27
Speaker 3: hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
0:30
Speaker 3: the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, award
0:34
Speaker 3: winning author of the want Ln Files book series.
0:41
Speaker 4: Thank you, Jesse Ulrich, Hey, they're writers. Thanks for joining
0:45
Speaker 4: us today. Now, if you're a regular listener, you know
0:49
Speaker 4: last time we talked about movies made from books, but
0:52
Speaker 4: since today's interview guest has a musical theme in his books,
0:56
Speaker 4: I thought i'd ask about music, like what music do
1:01
Speaker 4: you like to listen to when you're writing or doing
1:04
Speaker 4: other kind of works. Some people I know, listen to music.
1:07
Speaker 4: Some people don't. Laura, as if I didn't know, what
1:10
Speaker 4: about you, do you listen to music when you're writing? No?
1:14
Speaker 5: I don't.
1:15
Speaker 6: I actually find that distracting. So when I have music playing,
1:19
Speaker 6: I just want to sing along to it, and my
1:22
Speaker 6: mind is very focused on words, and so instead of
1:26
Speaker 6: generating my own I'll be listening to that. So I
1:30
Speaker 6: did that question a lot. People ask me a lot
1:32
Speaker 6: like what kind of currently music do I listen to?
1:34
Speaker 6: But I don't like listening to music?
1:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I don't get I mean, I love listening
1:38
Speaker 4: to music but trying to write because like you were saying,
1:43
Speaker 4: then I'm going to start listening to the music and
1:45
Speaker 4: singing or thinking huh, I wonder if I can do
1:47
Speaker 4: that on the piano, and pretty soon I'm not paying
1:50
Speaker 4: attention to my book anymore exactly. Jesse, this may not
1:54
Speaker 4: be a fair question for you, but because you probably
1:57
Speaker 4: can't listen to music when you're doing sound engineering.
2:00
Speaker 1: Oh just makes me sad. It makes me sad.
2:05
Speaker 3: Something when I'm driving or when I used to do
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Speaker 3: I used to have a lot of like entry level jobs,
2:10
Speaker 3: or I was doing a lot of data entry and
2:12
Speaker 3: that was a lot of music listening and podcast listening times.
2:14
Speaker 3: So yes, it is good to have something going on
2:16
Speaker 3: when you're doing something either creative or mundane even.
2:20
Speaker 4: Right, or something that doesn't take uh, you know.
2:24
Speaker 1: Doesn't take all of it. Yeah, so yeah, no, I've
2:27
Speaker 1: I can't.
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Speaker 3: There are some audio this this question has come up
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Speaker 3: in like audio engineer Facebook groups I'm in and whatnot.
2:33
Speaker 3: Like some people are actually able to listen to music
2:36
Speaker 3: when they're editing, not necessarily mastering. So like when you're
2:39
Speaker 3: just like removing ums and yeahs and whatnot, sure you
2:41
Speaker 3: could have like some classical music or things without lyrics playing, right,
2:46
Speaker 3: But when you're mastering, you have to focus all of
2:49
Speaker 3: it on what you're hearing.
2:50
Speaker 4: So sure that makes sense. That's sad for me, well,
2:53
Speaker 4: as I have already pretty much hinted. Today we are
2:56
Speaker 4: interviewing a debut author, first book, and it may take
3:00
Speaker 4: you back a few years to the glorious era of disco.
3:04
Speaker 4: We're interviewing Marty Ludlam, who is a lawyer and a
3:07
Speaker 4: professor and now the author of the first in a
3:11
Speaker 4: series of mystery novels set in Vegas and featuring the
3:15
Speaker 4: disco divas led by Detective Donner Donna summer Wyzinski. And yes,
3:24
Speaker 4: she was named after exactly who you think she was
3:26
Speaker 4: named after. So of course the title of this first
3:29
Speaker 4: book is at first, I was afraid Are you singing already? Jesse?
3:34
Speaker 4: I mean, you can hear it in your head, can't you?
3:36
Speaker 2: How you not?
3:38
Speaker 4: We will, well, that's the idea. I'm sure get people's attention.
3:42
Speaker 4: We'll talk to Marty about his new book, which was
3:45
Speaker 4: just released last week.
3:47
Speaker 7: But first the news.
4:05
Speaker 4: News story number one sad news for fans of Kindlvella,
4:11
Speaker 4: except I'm not sure there were actually any or many
4:14
Speaker 4: fans of Kindevella Kindlevella, which is why it's going to
4:18
Speaker 4: close in February of next year. Vella, as most of
4:22
Speaker 4: you probably already know, was Amazon's in house attempt to
4:27
Speaker 4: build an audience for serialized fiction that is released chapter
4:32
Speaker 4: by chapter, like you know, the old Saturday Morning Cereals
4:35
Speaker 4: or whatnot. It hasn't even been around for four years,
4:39
Speaker 4: but they're already shutting it down and stories on it
4:44
Speaker 4: are going to be SIPHONDOCT to some other program. Maybe
4:48
Speaker 4: they can go to Wattpad or Tapas or something like that.
4:51
Speaker 4: But apparently it just was not working out, So Vella
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Speaker 4: is now going to join the tomb of failed Amazon
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Speaker 4: initiative like Kendall Scout. Laura and I can both talk
5:03
Speaker 4: about that when or Kendall Worlds, which was their attempt
5:08
Speaker 4: to create shared worlds that other people could write in,
5:11
Speaker 4: but it never actually took off, and actually the reaction
5:16
Speaker 4: to this was pretty muted. I think most people thought
5:20
Speaker 4: it was going away before it actually went away. Laura,
5:24
Speaker 4: why do you think vella failed?
5:28
Speaker 5: I'm not sure why it didn't catch on with readers.
5:31
Speaker 6: I actually hopped in very early on, right when it
5:35
Speaker 6: first started, and I did see some traction, but I
5:42
Speaker 6: don't think people wanted to pay for it. Something about
5:44
Speaker 6: the system just wasn't working. My free episodes got lots
5:49
Speaker 6: and lots and lots of attention, but I didn't see
5:53
Speaker 6: people moving beyond that right to the episodes that were then.
6:00
Speaker 5: Pay to read.
6:01
Speaker 4: Right Well. I mean, I think it was supposed to
6:03
Speaker 4: compete with like what Pad, but unless you're in the
6:07
Speaker 4: paid section, people can read entire books that what Pad
6:10
Speaker 4: for free. It's not like, Okay, now that you're hooked
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Speaker 4: on the story, you've got to start paying for it.
6:16
Speaker 4: I did a boy this is way back when it started,
6:19
Speaker 4: but the book that has now been published under the
6:22
Speaker 4: title Plot Counterplot I started as a kindle vella, but
6:27
Speaker 4: after eight episodes or so, I just thought this is
6:31
Speaker 4: a waste of time and killed it and just published
6:33
Speaker 4: it as a book like all the others. I don't know, Jesse,
6:37
Speaker 4: you have any thoughts on this. Why what's the reason
6:40
Speaker 4: for the latest Amazon wash out?
6:43
Speaker 3: Well, it was one of those things where sometimes companies
6:45
Speaker 3: like Amazon like launched something with authors already partnered to
6:50
Speaker 3: do a thing, and sometimes they don't, and this is
6:52
Speaker 3: one of the times when they didn't. And so if
6:54
Speaker 3: there wasn't somebody, you know, playing with this new medium,
6:58
Speaker 3: it was going to be very hard for it to
6:59
Speaker 3: take cothic. It was a good idea, but again, like
7:03
Speaker 3: shuffling it off to just Kindles and just Amazon stopped
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Speaker 3: a lot of people from engaging with it the way
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Speaker 3: they would like to.
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Speaker 4: So yeah, I think a lot of people never heard
7:13
Speaker 4: about it and never really engage. Plus, Russell Nority has
7:17
Speaker 4: talked about this and has called him the author's stack
7:19
Speaker 4: and said he was basically surprised it lasted as long
7:23
Speaker 4: as it did because it didn't look to him like
7:25
Speaker 4: anybody was making money off it, not Amazon and not authors,
7:30
Speaker 4: so it just didn't find its audience. I guess, okay,
7:34
Speaker 4: News story number two. This is a big event for
7:38
Speaker 4: me every year when Written Word Media releases its author
7:42
Speaker 4: survey and the survey for twenty twenty four has just
7:45
Speaker 4: been released just to explain Written word Media terrific outfit,
7:50
Speaker 4: mostly specializing and helping small presses and self published people
7:57
Speaker 4: find ways of marketing their books online. So you need
8:00
Speaker 4: to understand that their survey is one all volunteer. It
8:06
Speaker 4: probably attracts more attention from people at small presses or
8:10
Speaker 4: self published than otherwise, and that you know, if it
8:16
Speaker 4: has any validity, that means you have to trust what
8:18
Speaker 4: authors say in closed. You know nobody's going to see
8:22
Speaker 4: what they said. There's no reason to fib about it.
8:25
Speaker 4: But at any rate, I think it's a terrific survey.
8:28
Speaker 4: It's the best information I see every year about what's
8:32
Speaker 4: really going on in the book world and what's working
8:36
Speaker 4: and what's not. The good news is the indie author
8:41
Speaker 4: community is going like gangbusters. Seventy six percent of the
8:45
Speaker 4: respondents said they were self published sixteen hybrid, meaning that
8:50
Speaker 4: they have their fingers in both self publishing and traditional publishing,
8:55
Speaker 4: but only seven point eight percent were fully traditional published.
9:02
Speaker 4: This will surprise no one. Romances by far the most
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Speaker 4: popular genre. But here's something I did think was interesting
9:11
Speaker 4: and Jesse, I think you've got a chart on this.
9:13
Speaker 4: Amazon is generating over eighty percent of the author's profits,
9:19
Speaker 4: and that's primarily through Ku. That is, people who are
9:23
Speaker 4: exclusive to Amazon and ebooks Kindle unlimited. But if you
9:29
Speaker 4: look at that chart, you see that little blip, I mean,
9:32
Speaker 4: it's barely even visible compared to the Amazon tower. But
9:37
Speaker 4: the number two column is direct sales. I've never seen
9:41
Speaker 4: that before. In other words, that's authors selling books directly
9:45
Speaker 4: to readers, presumably from their websites at least in most cases.
9:50
Speaker 4: And after that you see Apple, Cobo. At this point,
9:55
Speaker 4: the line is getting so thin you can barely see it. Kickstarter, Google,
9:59
Speaker 4: and Nook meaning Barnes and Noble. In other words, Barnes
10:01
Speaker 4: and Noble is sixth and number one is Kindle and
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Speaker 4: number two is direct sales. Laura, did any of this
10:09
Speaker 4: surprise you?
10:11
Speaker 6: No, not really really reflects what I see in my
10:14
Speaker 6: royalty statements pretty pretty closely.
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Speaker 4: Well, you are you thinking about adding direct sales maybe
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Speaker 4: to your website?
10:23
Speaker 6: Well after seeing this yet, I suppose maybe the one piece.
10:29
Speaker 6: And I have looked into this and I've seen some
10:32
Speaker 6: ways to get it started, but I haven't carved out
10:35
Speaker 6: the time to implement it.
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Speaker 4: I think that maybe the big takeaway or one of two,
10:41
Speaker 4: maybe because I know more authors or you know, at
10:44
Speaker 4: one point. I know when I started thirty plus years ago,
10:48
Speaker 4: authors would always say, oh, I write books, I don't
10:51
Speaker 4: sell them and wouldn't even you know, like bring books
10:53
Speaker 4: to an event or whatever. But that world has changed
10:57
Speaker 4: and a lot of people are now selling direct from
10:59
Speaker 4: their way website, and especially if it's just an ebook,
11:03
Speaker 4: why not. I mean, Brandon Sanderson has a huge warehouse.
11:08
Speaker 4: He can ship print books. Most people probably don't want to,
11:11
Speaker 4: but sending ebooks out is easy. What about the Ku part?
11:18
Speaker 4: I've said on this podcast before that I choose not
11:20
Speaker 4: to be Ku exclusive, not really because it makes monetary sense,
11:25
Speaker 4: but because well, my books be available everywhere. But it
11:29
Speaker 4: looks like the people making the most money are in
11:32
Speaker 4: fact KU exclusive. Is that the way to go?
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Speaker 6: Well, it's interesting that you bring that up. I actually,
11:42
Speaker 6: just in time for Halloween pulled back my want onn
11:46
Speaker 6: Files series and did put it back in Ku. I
11:50
Speaker 6: had a big burst last year after it hit hard
11:54
Speaker 6: after a book bub deal. That was a benefit I
11:58
Speaker 6: think of having it wide very well, but it had
12:01
Speaker 6: really dwindled to virtually nothing and since I've put it
12:03
Speaker 6: back in, I'm seeing daily sales again. So I do
12:08
Speaker 6: think that it was it's better for a series potentially
12:12
Speaker 6: to be in KU.
12:15
Speaker 4: Eventually, or are you saying release it wide and then
12:18
Speaker 4: when sales inevitably start to diminish, then take it k
12:21
Speaker 4: you exclusive.
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Speaker 6: Kind of what I've done in this case, although I
12:26
Speaker 6: have another series that I'm going to be writing, and
12:30
Speaker 6: at this point I'm thinking maybe I just go KU
12:33
Speaker 6: from the start. I think KU can really benefit a
12:36
Speaker 6: series because you're getting a lot of pages read that way.
12:40
Speaker 5: My women's fiction is still wide.
12:44
Speaker 4: Okay, Jesse, outside of the writing, pray you buy ebooks?
12:49
Speaker 2: I do?
12:50
Speaker 4: How do you find your books?
12:52
Speaker 2: Well?
12:52
Speaker 3: It's okay, So first, like, as a non author, let
12:55
Speaker 3: me ask this this bar graph, Yeah, that Amazon.
13:00
Speaker 1: That includes that includes both like people.
13:03
Speaker 3: Just buying ebooks off Amazon, and that also includes like
13:06
Speaker 3: money that comes from books that are in Kindle Unlimited.
13:10
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, although the you know, the text and the
13:13
Speaker 4: report makes it pretty clear that the big money is
13:16
Speaker 4: coming from KU. But anyway, go ahead.
13:18
Speaker 3: Well, I asked that because like, I joined Kindle Unlimited
13:21
Speaker 3: when it makes economic sense. For example, when I was
13:24
Speaker 3: reading the murder Bot Diaries. Like six of the seven
13:27
Speaker 3: of those books we're in the Kindle unlimited, So I
13:29
Speaker 3: was like, okay, I will join Kindle ulimited for a
13:32
Speaker 3: month or two, however long it takes me too to
13:35
Speaker 3: read these, And then I bought the seventh book, so
13:37
Speaker 3: like from Amazon, and you know, so.
13:42
Speaker 1: It's it's how do I find books?
13:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a lot of like word of mouth recommendations
13:49
Speaker 3: on Reddit or from people I know, or every once
13:52
Speaker 3: in a while when I'm like, am I up to
13:54
Speaker 3: date on like all of the best fantasy or sci fi?
13:56
Speaker 3: I will do a like a you know, top ten
14:00
Speaker 3: fantasy sci fi blog posts to see make sure that
14:02
Speaker 3: I haven't missed somebody.
14:05
Speaker 4: So you're the savvy shopper, but it's clear that you're
14:09
Speaker 4: you'll use ku if it's beneficial, but not, Yeah, get
14:14
Speaker 4: hooked on it.
14:14
Speaker 6: No.
14:15
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of times I use the library
14:17
Speaker 3: if I can so, especially if.
14:18
Speaker 4: It's a we love library.
14:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of times I can't get the first
14:22
Speaker 3: book of in a series on the library because it's
14:25
Speaker 3: usually the most like requested one, so I'll buy that
14:27
Speaker 3: one and then maybe read. I like to give authors
14:30
Speaker 3: money at some point though, so like I will eventually
14:32
Speaker 3: buy them anyway.
14:34
Speaker 1: But sometimes I want to Right now.
14:35
Speaker 4: Let's see. Okay, well it's time for Craft Corner. But Jesse,
14:39
Speaker 4: now that we've done this three times and i've heard
14:43
Speaker 4: the what do you call that? Is that a sound effect?
14:46
Speaker 4: Segue the thing you're doing?
14:48
Speaker 3: So for our listeners if you're curious, it is one
14:51
Speaker 3: a sound effect called the DJ airhorn, followed by my
14:54
Speaker 3: voice run through a series to make me sound scary.
14:57
Speaker 1: So do we?
14:59
Speaker 4: I mean, couldn't you just do that live? It would
15:01
Speaker 4: be more entertaining.
15:02
Speaker 1: I could you want to do a live take of
15:04
Speaker 1: it right now?
15:04
Speaker 2: Yes?
15:05
Speaker 4: For today's Craft Corner, which is gonna feature. All right,
15:09
Speaker 4: let me introduce it first and then you can do
15:10
Speaker 4: your sound character. Okay, So today in Craft Corner, we're
15:14
Speaker 4: bringing it back home because nobody does it better than
15:17
Speaker 4: my sweetheart, Lara Burnheart. I have heard her give a
15:21
Speaker 4: fabulous talk on imagery for an hour at Ryder Con. Well,
15:25
Speaker 4: now you've got two minutes or less, Lara, what could
15:28
Speaker 4: you do? Let's find out? Lara after Jesse take off,
15:33
Speaker 4: Jesse take it away?
15:35
Speaker 1: All right, i'mna see if this works. Let's try this
15:37
Speaker 1: hold on craft corner. I don't know if you heard
15:43
Speaker 1: the airhorn.
15:44
Speaker 4: If you didn't, we definitely heard it. That was good.
15:48
Speaker 7: Yes, Lara, go for it, okay.
15:53
Speaker 5: Imagery is.
15:55
Speaker 6: A way of bringing an emotional connection for your reader
15:59
Speaker 6: to your story.
16:02
Speaker 5: It is.
16:04
Speaker 6: A term that we use to describe evoking the five senses.
16:07
Speaker 6: Why do we want to evoke the five senses in
16:10
Speaker 6: our stories?
16:11
Speaker 5: Because that's how.
16:12
Speaker 6: We bring that emotional quality to it. We tie a
16:16
Speaker 6: lot of our memories and our emotions to our senses.
16:22
Speaker 6: Think of something that you smell but immediately takes you
16:25
Speaker 6: back to a memory or maybe causes nostalgia because it
16:29
Speaker 6: reminds you of some one or some time in your
16:31
Speaker 6: life that was very important to you for some reason.
16:37
Speaker 6: We use rhetoric, which is the intentional use of language,
16:43
Speaker 6: in order to achieve imagery in our books, and we're
16:46
Speaker 6: talking about things like similes and metaphors. This is language
16:53
Speaker 6: that you might associate more often with literary fiction, kind
16:58
Speaker 6: of a heightened level of language. But I find that
17:02
Speaker 6: it's very effective in anything because it can add more
17:06
Speaker 6: complexity and more resonance in your readers than just describing
17:12
Speaker 6: what's happening. When you give them something to wait their
17:16
Speaker 6: emotions to in your work, They're going to be far
17:20
Speaker 6: more engaged and more interested in what it is that
17:23
Speaker 6: you're trying to say.
17:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great tip. I mean, when people are
17:26
Speaker 4: developing characters, they think about backstory, they think about to
17:30
Speaker 4: show or tell, but I think they often don't think
17:35
Speaker 4: about imagery. And you're so exactly right, So thank you.
17:40
Speaker 6: I love to use the example, even I Douglas Adams
17:43
Speaker 6: use this. I love to use example of his the
17:46
Speaker 6: spaceships hung in the air exactly the way bricks don't.
17:50
Speaker 6: That's imagery right there, and that's sci fi and humor.
17:55
Speaker 6: So it's not just literary fiction that benefits from from imagery.
18:00
Speaker 4: Fantastic, Thank you so much, Laura. All right, let's talk
18:03
Speaker 4: to our guest, Marty Ludlam. Marty Ludlam, welcome to the podcast.
18:23
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you great to be here.
18:25
Speaker 4: Okay, our traditional first question, if you could offer writers
18:29
Speaker 4: one piece of advice, what would it be?
18:33
Speaker 2: Well, knowing as I do, the woes of life that
18:38
Speaker 2: we see every day on daytime television, the most important
18:42
Speaker 2: crisis you have is whether or not you have an
18:45
Speaker 2: extended car warranty, and if you don't your life is
18:49
Speaker 2: destined for ruin. I know we had a presidential election,
18:54
Speaker 2: but it seems to pale in comparison to the worms
18:57
Speaker 2: about your car warranty.
19:02
Speaker 4: We've never had that answer before. I got to say,
19:04
Speaker 4: that's an all time first. Thanks. All right, Marty, you
19:09
Speaker 4: are secretly, maybe not secretly, you are like me a
19:14
Speaker 4: writer a lawyer was what I meant to that. We're
19:18
Speaker 4: both writers too, but you're a lawyer, you're a professor.
19:22
Speaker 4: I've done that too, And now your first book has
19:25
Speaker 4: been published. I mean, first, where do you find the time?
19:29
Speaker 4: And second? Why?
19:32
Speaker 2: Well, to be honest, I've been working on this since well,
19:37
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four. We had well, we had a child
19:43
Speaker 2: born in ninety two and another one in ninety four,
19:47
Speaker 2: and until they came of age and got independent and
19:51
Speaker 2: no longer wanted any money from me, I didn't really
19:55
Speaker 2: have a.
19:55
Speaker 4: Whole lot of spirit that start.
19:56
Speaker 2: What I don't know, sometime after age thirty. It just
20:01
Speaker 2: kind of falls out.
20:03
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, but I've been.
20:05
Speaker 2: Working on it. It just never got a huge amount
20:10
Speaker 2: of attention until the parenting responsibilities decreased and completely relatable.
20:16
Speaker 6: At that first book, I had been working on her
20:20
Speaker 6: well over a decade before I got really serious about it,
20:24
Speaker 6: and kind of the same thing.
20:26
Speaker 5: My other responsibilities were kind of peering out and I
20:31
Speaker 5: was able to focus.
20:32
Speaker 2: Oh yeah that. You know, life gets in the way,
20:36
Speaker 2: especially of writing, because if it's not your career, everybody
20:41
Speaker 2: looks at it as oh, that's you know, like watching TV.
20:45
Speaker 2: You know, you could pick it up put it off anytime,
20:48
Speaker 2: and there's no big consequence to missing a day of TV. Yeah,
20:55
Speaker 2: writing it's a little bit harder to carve out that
20:57
Speaker 2: time for you.
21:00
Speaker 4: All right. Now, let's talk about your book, which has
21:04
Speaker 4: just been released. It's your first book, and I got
21:07
Speaker 4: to say that this disco themed mystery series is one
21:12
Speaker 4: of the genius ideas I've come across in a long time.
21:16
Speaker 4: How did you come up with that?
21:18
Speaker 2: Actually sort of I didn't more it was a I
21:25
Speaker 2: started out with a Again, see if this sounds familiar.
21:30
Speaker 2: My first character in the first book was a lawyer
21:33
Speaker 2: that works in small town in Oklahoma, and that's just done. Yeah, yeah,
21:39
Speaker 2: that just didn't take off. And then I had my
21:44
Speaker 2: second version of it was an African American woman that
21:50
Speaker 2: became a police officer, and she's basically the same as
21:54
Speaker 2: my Donna character. And then when you know, we had
21:59
Speaker 2: some aspects of cultural acquisition and all those kind of things,
22:04
Speaker 2: especially using a lot of humor, it might not be
22:09
Speaker 2: taken the right way. And so really from the ryder
22:14
Speaker 2: Con cruise that I did, I got a whole bunch
22:18
Speaker 2: of feedback and they're like, hey, change a character and
22:22
Speaker 2: instead of making you know, don't make her black, it
22:27
Speaker 2: doesn't need to be, but certainly make her female. And
22:30
Speaker 2: I think one of the key things was also a
22:34
Speaker 2: Melanie suggested. It's like the first version of Donna was
22:40
Speaker 2: she had huge food issues because she was overweight. She's like,
22:45
Speaker 2: women hate that. It's like every woman can relate to it,
22:48
Speaker 2: but every woman hates it at the same time. Yeah,
22:51
Speaker 2: and so I'm like, okay, I don't know the opposite way.
22:54
Speaker 2: And instead Donna has to eat constantly everything in sight
23:00
Speaker 2: to keep up her ninety seven pound frame. And so
23:04
Speaker 2: that makes her kind of a quirky female character. Yeah.
23:09
Speaker 6: Absolutely, yes, And it's important to note.
23:11
Speaker 5: So that's that's Donna. Donna Summer with.
23:14
Speaker 2: Necky after the disco Queen.
23:17
Speaker 6: Yes, after the disco Queen, give us can you give
23:20
Speaker 6: us a little more insight into her.
23:25
Speaker 2: Well, she's a Las Vegas police officer, newly minted detective,
23:31
Speaker 2: just been promoted to detective, and has to deal with
23:36
Speaker 2: especially in the police force, it's it's a sea of testosterone,
23:41
Speaker 2: strongly male oriented. You've got to be super macho, only
23:45
Speaker 2: the most violent survive, and you've got to be the
23:47
Speaker 2: tough guy. And now we've got an undersized woman who's
23:52
Speaker 2: competing and doing well and that kind of very very
23:59
Speaker 2: hostile and vironment, I guess we would have to say, right.
24:02
Speaker 2: And she deals with, you know, not only having to
24:05
Speaker 2: solve crimes, but deals with the love life that's pretty
24:09
Speaker 2: much a dumpster fire, and deals with a family that's
24:14
Speaker 2: pretty much any psychiatrist's mad dream about having perpetual customers,
24:20
Speaker 2: and you know, having it also said in modern Las
24:24
Speaker 2: Vegas allows you to have a set of eclectic supporting casts.
24:31
Speaker 2: That we've got a woman who's a Shirley Temple look alike,
24:35
Speaker 2: I got a part time psychic, got raincoat Ronnie, which,
24:41
Speaker 2: of course the name tells you that it's going to
24:44
Speaker 2: be weird. And then her partner who's seven foot tall,
24:49
Speaker 2: former NBA player who's retired and become a policeman. And
24:53
Speaker 2: so now You have a little bitty donna, almost like
24:56
Speaker 2: a father daughter duo everywhere they go, and they got.
25:02
Speaker 6: Those other ladies that you mentioned, those are her disco divas, right.
25:06
Speaker 2: Disco divas, because it turns out that they actually won
25:11
Speaker 2: a trophy in the police, a trophy case. It's usually
25:15
Speaker 2: reserved for softball and flag football and all these kind
25:19
Speaker 2: of events. They've got. They want to dance off at
25:23
Speaker 2: one of the Las Vegas clubs with the disco theme,
25:26
Speaker 2: and so they've been teased forever as the disco divas,
25:29
Speaker 2: but she embraces it.
25:32
Speaker 5: Nice.
25:33
Speaker 4: You mentioned the writer Con Cruise, which I appreciated beyond
25:39
Speaker 4: the obvious reason because as you were talking about the
25:42
Speaker 4: evolution of your character, I thought some of this sounds
25:45
Speaker 4: familiar to me. Yeah, you were there on the very
25:49
Speaker 4: first ever writer Con cruise, weren't you, And now in a.
25:53
Speaker 2: Few years twenty twenty, I think, yeah, right before, yeah,
25:58
Speaker 2: right before the life we got lucky. In fact, when
26:04
Speaker 2: we were out on that cruise, we check the news
26:06
Speaker 2: every day to make sure they were going to let
26:08
Speaker 2: us leave the boat. And we had friends who were
26:12
Speaker 2: on a cruise two weeks later and they were the
26:17
Speaker 2: last ones to get out after that, it just closed
26:21
Speaker 2: and if you're still at sea, you stayed at sea,
26:24
Speaker 2: and it's.
26:24
Speaker 4: Like, wow, yeah, I remember the security. Yeah, when we embarked,
26:29
Speaker 4: they said, have you been to China recently?
26:31
Speaker 2: No?
26:31
Speaker 4: Okay, and that.
26:32
Speaker 8: Was the yeah, complete honor system. Yes, yeah, it's life
26:39
Speaker 8: and death. But we're just gonna let your wing it.
26:41
Speaker 8: You know, if you want to tell us the truth,
26:43
Speaker 8: it's okay. But if not, we're really not going to
26:46
Speaker 8: double check. You know, it's not that big deal.
26:49
Speaker 4: Well, beyond COVID, can you talk about the writer con
26:53
Speaker 4: cruise experience? I mean only if you have good things
26:55
Speaker 4: to say, but.
26:56
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, talk about it. Well, I do have
26:59
Speaker 2: two pages that stuff you paid me to say, so
27:01
Speaker 2: I'll read some of that.
27:04
Speaker 6: Now.
27:05
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding, and he didn't pay me yet. But
27:09
Speaker 2: to be honest, there's kind of two different things for writers.
27:13
Speaker 2: There's a conference, which is more you as a sponge,
27:17
Speaker 2: absorbing all kinds of content from a variety of speakers.
27:22
Speaker 2: On a retreat like the cruise, it's more in reverse.
27:27
Speaker 2: You examine each writer individually and you go into a
27:30
Speaker 2: whole lot of detail about your project, what you're working on,
27:34
Speaker 2: and you know, it's a smaller group environment, and so
27:37
Speaker 2: it's a really very different experience. And that's why I
27:40
Speaker 2: think once you've gone to several conferences, you want to
27:44
Speaker 2: go to retreat and concentrate on one specific work, and it'll
27:48
Speaker 2: really rocket it far ahead. It really will.
27:53
Speaker 6: I was really impressed with you talking about how this
27:58
Speaker 6: book and even your character has changed.
28:02
Speaker 5: Completely while you've been working on it. I think that.
28:04
Speaker 6: That's just such an admirable, just really professional and committed
28:11
Speaker 6: approach to the writing. This isn't working, but how to
28:15
Speaker 6: make it work, and being being open to constructive criticism
28:21
Speaker 6: and advice that you were getting and then being willing
28:24
Speaker 6: to make those changes to me.
28:27
Speaker 5: Says a lot about how professional committed you are.
28:30
Speaker 2: I think. Can you talk about Yeah, A lot of
28:33
Speaker 2: it comes from I have a lot of writing and
28:35
Speaker 2: academic environment, and there you get a lot of criticism.
28:40
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say much of it is constructive. A lot
28:43
Speaker 2: of it is we don't like it, and that's that's
28:47
Speaker 2: your whole comment.
28:48
Speaker 4: That's as it gets.
28:50
Speaker 2: And so a lot of that you have to parse
28:53
Speaker 2: it out from sharing it with friends and say hey,
28:55
Speaker 2: read this oversee which think and you'll get ten different
29:00
Speaker 2: bits of feedback that have ten different directions about what
29:03
Speaker 2: they think needs to be fixed. And I think that's
29:07
Speaker 2: kind of toughened me up a little bit about taking
29:10
Speaker 2: the criticism still hurts when you get it. You know,
29:13
Speaker 2: when you get a review back and somebody looks it
29:17
Speaker 2: over and there's ready ink all over it, It's like,
29:20
Speaker 2: I'm just going to set it down for a day
29:23
Speaker 2: and think about something else and then I'll come back
29:25
Speaker 2: and now I just kind of treat it not as
29:29
Speaker 2: these are criticisms, but instead this is a to do list.
29:34
Speaker 2: These are ways to make it. These are ways to
29:37
Speaker 2: make it better.
29:39
Speaker 4: No one's book was ever improved by friends saying, oh, Bill,
29:43
Speaker 4: it's terrific. Exactly make you feel good doesn't improve the book.
29:49
Speaker 2: No, you need that critical view. And you know, I
29:53
Speaker 2: tell my students kind of with their writing assignments that
29:59
Speaker 2: you know, you you're always the last person to notice
30:02
Speaker 2: your pants are unzipped, and everybody will notice it before you,
30:07
Speaker 2: and some won't say anything, some will. But why again,
30:12
Speaker 2: you think to yourself, well, of course my pants are zipped.
30:15
Speaker 2: They have to be zipped. I always zip my pants,
30:19
Speaker 2: and it's the same way in your writing. The stuff
30:21
Speaker 2: that's absolutely so crystal clear to you. When another person
30:26
Speaker 2: reads it, goes, hey, there's two pages here. I can't
30:29
Speaker 2: figure out who's talking. It's like you just need to
30:34
Speaker 2: look inside my mind because I know exactly who it is.
30:37
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you.
30:40
Speaker 2: Take those criticisms and you figure out Okay, yeah, I
30:43
Speaker 2: really didn't identify who was speaking, or I was real
30:47
Speaker 2: vague about it, And here's ways to make it more clear.
30:51
Speaker 5: That's great. So what does a typical writing day look
30:55
Speaker 5: like for you? What's your process?
30:58
Speaker 2: Well? I usually get up very very early some days,
31:05
Speaker 2: by nine or ten, easy, and try to try to
31:09
Speaker 2: hit it hard, to be honest. Monday through Thursday, I
31:14
Speaker 2: still got the professor thing going on, so I can
31:18
Speaker 2: still do some minor editing and that kind of stuff.
31:23
Speaker 2: But Friday, Saturday, Sunday, big points.
31:29
Speaker 4: Your book's been out like a week and a half.
31:31
Speaker 4: I thought you'd be a millionaire by now.
31:33
Speaker 2: I know that.
31:34
Speaker 4: That's of all my illusions about writing.
31:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was my.
31:39
Speaker 5: Yeah.
31:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. A big task today was to move away the
31:44
Speaker 2: bails of money out from in front of my computer
31:47
Speaker 2: so I could get to the microphone. It's a difficult task,
31:51
Speaker 2: but it's something I'm willing to do for the good
31:54
Speaker 2: of the cause.
31:56
Speaker 4: Well, we appreciate that. Let me ask you one last quest.
32:00
Speaker 4: My impression is this is the first book in a series,
32:02
Speaker 4: am I right?
32:03
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, yeah, So I love Donna like her next tale,
32:12
Speaker 2: which should be done I think by Christmas time or so.
32:16
Speaker 2: Uh it's called she Works Hard for the Money and
32:20
Speaker 2: involves Donna disco references and uh, Donna is signed to
32:28
Speaker 2: tell you the baby.
32:30
Speaker 4: Before you finish this, that I was in high school
32:33
Speaker 4: when disco happened and I hated it, but I loved
32:36
Speaker 4: your first book. So yeah, disco appreciation is not required.
32:41
Speaker 2: I'm just oh, no, no, no. We look at it
32:44
Speaker 2: very much as a cheeky little moment of our culture.
32:49
Speaker 2: But right right when I was mentioned to my kids,
32:52
Speaker 2: I'm like, just to be sure, you guys know what
32:55
Speaker 2: disco is, like, oh my god, yes, we we're going
32:57
Speaker 2: to have a disco party and all these kind of
32:59
Speaker 2: things because of them. They think of it kind of
33:02
Speaker 2: the way we think of like square dancing and stuff.
33:05
Speaker 2: It's just way back in the ancient days. Yes, But
33:10
Speaker 2: everybody right.
33:14
Speaker 4: Now, please tell us about the next book.
33:16
Speaker 2: The next book again has Donna and her same eclectic cast.
33:21
Speaker 2: But in the second book, she is a babysitting she's
33:26
Speaker 2: relegated to babysitting a VIP's kindergarten daughter, and she wakes
33:32
Speaker 2: up she'd been poisoned and somebody took the little girl.
33:38
Speaker 2: And so now everybody wants to find the little girl,
33:42
Speaker 2: and everybody wants to beat Donna for a bit for
33:46
Speaker 2: you know, messing up this incredibly simple police assignment.
33:52
Speaker 7: Mmm.
33:52
Speaker 4: Sounds good. I look forward to reading that.
33:55
Speaker 6: Our listeners probably noticed that Marty's pretty funny and book.
34:01
Speaker 6: The book, even though it is a detective mystery, is
34:06
Speaker 6: absolutely a lot of fun, very funny.
34:10
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's kind of my goal. It's not a stay
34:14
Speaker 2: awake and have nightmares kind of story. It's a it's
34:17
Speaker 2: a laugh out loud kind of bit of escapism and
34:22
Speaker 2: and I think everybody could use just a touch of
34:25
Speaker 2: that right now, especially.
34:27
Speaker 4: Sure, Marty, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
34:31
Speaker 4: Hope to see you at writer Con next year. Absolutely,
34:46
Speaker 4: since Marty was nice enough to mention during the interview
34:49
Speaker 4: that he'd been on the writer concreute, well nice is
34:52
Speaker 4: probably pushing it, since I fed him a question on
34:55
Speaker 4: that very subject. But I wanted to say that the
35:00
Speaker 4: website is ready to take your reservation for the writer
35:03
Speaker 4: Con Cruise next year. That's May thirty, first sailing out
35:07
Speaker 4: of Seattle on a beautiful Alaskan cruise. Now, when you
35:12
Speaker 4: get to the website, which of course is writercon dot com,
35:15
Speaker 4: I don't want anyone to be disturbed or feel like
35:17
Speaker 4: we're hiding something because you can't immediately tell what the
35:21
Speaker 4: price is. What you'll see is the price of the
35:23
Speaker 4: writing course part of the cruise. The reason we don't
35:26
Speaker 4: list the cruise part of the cruise is because it
35:30
Speaker 4: all depends on what room you want. Do you want
35:33
Speaker 4: double occupancy or single, or interior or exteriraor balcony. There
35:37
Speaker 4: are way too many possibilities. So we give you all
35:41
Speaker 4: the information so that you can book the room yourself
35:45
Speaker 4: or email me and I will happily do it for
35:49
Speaker 4: you once I know what you want. I will say
35:52
Speaker 4: this though, a double occupancy interior room is not that expensive.
35:58
Speaker 4: I mean it's all relative. But if you're sitting there thinking, oh,
36:01
Speaker 4: I could never afford this, I bet you would be
36:04
Speaker 4: pleasantly surprised when you check it out. We have worked,
36:08
Speaker 4: and I mean this, we have worked double hard to
36:10
Speaker 4: find something that will be not only a beautiful, memorable experience,
36:15
Speaker 4: but also affordable. Plus, of course, you get twenty hours
36:18
Speaker 4: of writing instruction scheduled while the boat is at sea,
36:22
Speaker 4: not when it's in port. And you'd rather go see
36:24
Speaker 4: glaciers or whatever, so consider the writer Con Cruise and
36:30
Speaker 4: for more info go to the website writer con dot com.
36:35
Speaker 4: There'll be links in the notes, and you're always welcome
36:38
Speaker 4: to email me at Wilburn at gmail dot com.
36:42
Speaker 5: All Right, I hope we get to see whales. I'm
36:45
Speaker 5: so excited. I can't wait.
36:48
Speaker 4: Well, don't you always get what you wish for? I mean,
36:51
Speaker 4: come on, I'm not gonna ask until next time. Keep
36:59
Speaker 4: writing and remember you cannot fail if you refuse to quit.
37:05
Speaker 4: See you next time,