Latest / WriterCon / Live from WriterCon 2026! William Martin, Dan Martin & Dani Pettrey

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Live from WriterCon 2026! William Martin, Dan Martin & Dani Pettrey · WriterCon

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This week on the WriterCon podcast.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Perseverance. I think you study your craft, you write and
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: write and write, and you do not quit no matter what,
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: no matter how many rejections. You just need one person
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: to say yes. If you believe in it and that
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: your stories are stories of your heart, you just keep
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: going with them.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to WriterCon, a gathering place for writers to share
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: their knowledge about writing and the writing world.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Do you have a desire to write?
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Jesse Ulrich. Thank you.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Hey there, writers.
• 0:56
  Speaker 5: We are coming to you live from WriterCon 2026. We
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: have assembled in Oklahoma City with over 300 people who
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: care about books, literature, and the art and craft of writing.
• 1:14
  Speaker 5: This is the third day of a jam-packed schedule that
• 1:17
  Speaker 5: includes contests, pitching to agents, talking to publishers, and, of course,
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: attending more than 100 sessions led by some of the
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: top authors and industry pros.
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: In the nation.
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: It's been an amazing experience. Jesse, of course, is the
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: only way we make this possible. He's handled the sound
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: for this event. He's recording all the sessions. And Friday night,
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: he made what I think is his debut as a
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: single DJ. Was that a good fit for you, Jesse?
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: It certainly was. There's nothing I love more than running
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: a joke into the ground.
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: You have immortalized the battle of Bilbo Baggins.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: Hell yeah.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: I heard about that.
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: Nimoy had an okay run with it, but yours is better.
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: I found my people.
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: And Laura, last night we got to hear you sing
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: like a princess. And this afternoon you're officiating at WriterCon Jeopardy.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: So fun.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: What's your favorite part of the conference?
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I'm going to have to say my favorite part.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: Is seeing all my people. I love making connections here.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: I love seeing the older, the people who come back.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Again and again, the repeat visitors. And then I like
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: welcoming in all of our new attendees.
• 2:35
  Speaker 6: We just grow every year and it's a bigger family
• 2:38
  Speaker 6: every year.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: It feels like a family reunion to me.
• 2:40
  Speaker 7: I love it.
• 2:41
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: Well, this is a very special episode of the podcast
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: because we have not one. not two, but three major
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: luminaries with us. We have, of course, tonight's keynote speaker,
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: the number one New York Times best-selling historical novelist and
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: screenplay writer, William Martin. We have USA Today best-selling thriller
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: and romance writer, Danny Petri. And Dan and Martin, who
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: writes for games and much, much more, and all.
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: Of us are with us today.
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: We'll talk to all of them, I promise. Bill, Martin,
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: this is your second time to be a WriterCon keynote,
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: and I believe you are the first person to ever
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: hold that distinction. What caught your attention this year? We've changed,
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: haven't we?
• 3:31
  Speaker 8: Well, I would say that it's much bigger. There are
• 3:36
  Speaker 8: people from how many states did you tell me?
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: Twenty-nine. Twenty-nine states, along with a few other countries.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Seven countries.
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: Not to brag. Right, right.
• 3:48
  Speaker 8: But with all the size, the thing that hasn't changed
• 3:53
  Speaker 8: that I really like feeling here is the positive energy component.
• 3:59
  Speaker 7: Uh, the vibe is very happy here.
• 4:02
  Speaker 8: Everybody really, uh, is enjoying themselves and I hope learning
• 4:07
  Speaker 8: something about writing and, uh, and we'll bring that particular
• 4:13
  Speaker 8: positive energy back to their desks and their libraries and
• 4:17
  Speaker 8: their quiet places wherever they sit down and beat their
• 4:20
  Speaker 8: head on the wall for two, four, six, or 18
• 4:25
  Speaker 8: hours a day, whatever it takes to write the books because, uh,
• 4:30
  Speaker 8: What an event like this does is inspire people with
• 4:34
  Speaker 8: that kind of positive energy and give people a sense
• 4:39
  Speaker 8: that they can do it too.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: That's, I think, what we're trying to do here.
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: Dan, you are also back to both the podcast and
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: the conference.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Impressions? Notice anything different?
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: Different?
• 4:53
  Speaker 6: I say it's got the best parts of it continuing
• 4:57
  Speaker 6: on because I.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: I kind of want to echo what Laura said.
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: It's like, see, I'm, I'm seeing all these friends that
• 5:04
  Speaker 6: I made two years ago and there's, I'm seeing their progress.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: I guess that's the difference is that.
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: Two years on the people that I was talking to
• 5:11
  Speaker 6: two years ago, they've, uh, they've.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Written their books, they've published books, they've grown their business.
• 5:16
  Speaker 6: Uh, and so it's nice to see that, but it's, uh,
• 5:20
  Speaker 6: it's also, it's a family affair for the Bernhards I know. And, uh,
• 5:24
  Speaker 6: it's nice for it to be something of a family
• 5:26
  Speaker 6: affair here at my, my, Parents were not here at
• 5:29
  Speaker 6: my last stop.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: We kind of switched off, and my wife is here.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: So we've got the whole game.
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: Right. Yeah, right. And, Dani, first time at the conference
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: and on the podcast.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: I am loving it.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: It has been the most welcoming conference I've ever been to.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: People are so willing to just say, let's go sit
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: down and talk. And I've met a lot of writers.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: It's their first conference, and they've said the same exact thing.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: So the classes are phenomenal, but meeting people has been
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: the absolute best.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: Great. That's what I love to hear.
• 6:04
  Speaker 8: All right.
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: We're going to talk to all three of these prestigious people,
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: I promise. And I have some especially tough questions.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: I'm kidding.
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: I don't really. And we've got a special event from
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: Jesse as well.
• 6:20
  Speaker 9: But first, the news. News story number one.
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: If you listen to the podcast regularly, you'll recall that
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: a U.S. federal court several months ago ruled that Tracy
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: Wolf's Craig series, published by Entangled, did not infringe on
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: Lynn Freeman's vaguely.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: Similar fantasy couple.
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: The two stories share fantasy tropes But according to the court,
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: that's it.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: After the ruling, the defendants, which include the.
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: Author, sued Freeman to recover their legal fees, which, by
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: the way, totaled more than $ 3 million. The court has
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: now ordered Freeman to pay those fees.
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: Worse, Freeman has to put up a bond of $ 150, 000
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: just to cover the legal fees while the appeal is pending.
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: And if that sounds harsh, I kind of think that
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: was the idea. I should point out that Freeman is
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: herself a lawyer, which may have added to the judge's irritation.
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: The judge thought the suit was brought in bad faith,
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: and awarding attorney's fee or attorney fees might deter other
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: people from filing similar frivolous lawsuits. I should point out,
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: this judge had to read over 6,000 pages of a
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: romantic scene to determine if there was any.
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: And afterwards she said that the.
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: Allegations were things like, well, the protagonists in both books
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: smell good.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: She did not feel that was a copyright infringement.
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: In fact, the court said that that trivializes copyright law.
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: Laura, are you disturbed? that a lawyer, that an author, rather.
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: Has been slammed with a huge judgment she will likely
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: never be able to pay.
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: My heart is still racing. I could stop for a
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: second when I heard $ 3 million. That's a huge amount.
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: I would be horrified if that was a judgment imposed
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: upon me.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: But then again, I probably wouldn't have brought that lawsuit.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: Yes, you wouldn't.
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: But, yes.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: You have better legal counsel than that. Absolutely.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: I have in-house counsel who would have told me, don't bother.
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: Danny, I have to ask you because I know back
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: in the day you wrote some romance.
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: Did your leads smell good? I would have to say
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: the male leads did smell good. Good to know. News
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: story number two.
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: Some of you may have read recently that debut author
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: Jerry Balad, apologies.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: If I'm mispronouncing your name, had.
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: His $ 2 million book deal canceled because his agents, not
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: the publisher, but the agents came to believe that his
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: manuscript was, this is a quote, substantially AI-assisted, end quote.
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: This book was circulated to 14 editors, building up to
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: this huge auction until someone read the manuscript.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: And flagged science of AI.
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: Then they used some AI detection software and decided that, well,
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: they virtually confirmed that AI was used.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: For at least part of the book.
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: And that's how you see your $ 2 million deal go away.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: My question, of course, was, do.
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: These guys read the stuff they're bidding on?
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, this should have been I would think, apparent.
• 10:01
  Speaker 10: I don't know.
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: Bill, you've been around, I think, doing this even longer.
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: Than I have. What's your reaction to this?
• 10:08
  Speaker 8: Well, the reaction to AI is that I'm glad I've
• 10:14
  Speaker 8: been around a long time, and my career is in
• 10:17
  Speaker 8: its final years, I would suspect.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: Because I don't want to have to be.
• 10:21
  Speaker 8: Worried about AI either supplanting me or making it appear
• 10:28
  Speaker 8: as if I'm using AI in my research or someplace else.
• 10:32
  Speaker 8: And I think it's pretty scary, the potential for editorial
• 10:44
  Speaker 8: organizations and for movies and movie producers and a lot
• 10:48
  Speaker 8: of other people begin to tell themselves, well, we can
• 10:51
  Speaker 8: do without the writers.
• 10:55
  Speaker 7: No, you can't.
• 10:57
  Speaker 8: There are certain human skills that we're going to bring
• 11:02
  Speaker 8: to any project that a computer can't. No matter how
• 11:06
  Speaker 8: many ways they find to steal our work, the work
• 11:13
  Speaker 8: of everybody up here has been fed into a computer somewhere.
• 11:18
  Speaker 8: and that computer has begun to spit out our style,
• 11:24
  Speaker 8: you can type in, like chat GPT, write me an
• 11:29
  Speaker 8: opening scene in the style of Bill Bernheim, and it'll
• 11:35
  Speaker 8: come back and you'll say, wow, don't I sound like myself?
• 11:40
  Speaker 8: And it's kind of scary, think about it. And then
• 11:44
  Speaker 8: they will use that mimicking process in order to create
• 11:52
  Speaker 8: fictions that have been written by machines.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: And then we'll be moving into the days of Terminator games.
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: Dan, I have to ask you, because you work in games,
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: which is sort of digital.
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: What's the attitude toward AI there? It is very conflicted.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: It depends on what department you ask and what you're
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: asking about. The way I look at it, and people
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: in my department, is that we still beat the machine.
• 12:26
  Speaker 8: The machine can't know what we do.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: And even if they get closer, the machine will never
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: have a point of view. And that's what people.
• 12:37
  Speaker 6: Even if they can't articulate it, that's what people want
• 12:40
  Speaker 6: from their art and entertainment.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: Here's a quote. Hugh Howey commented on this on his website.
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: He said, quote, Most readers will care about machine versus
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: meat as much as they currently care about publishing imprints,
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: which is to say almost none. Book series will go
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: viral and readers will get wholly absorbed in And where
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: the story came from won't matter, end quote.
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: But he did add, he did.
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: Add, to be fair, there will be meat book fanatics,
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: people who care about the stories behind the stories. The
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: author will matter to them.
• 13:20
  Speaker 9: Jesse.
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: Speaking as a meat reader, are you interested in meat writers? Yes,
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: I do care who the author is.
• 13:28
  Speaker 11: I care about the life they have lived. I care
• 13:31
  Speaker 11: about their work. I'm not going to read something that
• 13:33
  Speaker 11: I know is written by a machine. And I feel
• 13:36
  Speaker 11: like most readers will eventually care about that.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: I think there's.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Enough AI negativity in the ether.
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: Right now that people actually do care about this. I
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: think you're right.
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: All right, before we proceed to Craft Corner today, I
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: understand that Jesse has something special prepared for us.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: I do. A very fun game.
• 13:59
  Speaker 9: But first.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: In the middle of the earth, from the.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Land of the stars, a brave little hobbit we all
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: admire and love.
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: I just wanted to include that in the podcast. Thanks, everybody.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: Continue to run it into the ground. Into the ground.
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: All right. This game is called Is It Real?
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Time to test your knowledge of writer-comic podcast number one enemy,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: even though he seems like a really good dude who
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: donates money to worthy causes, James Patterson. There's going to
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: be a list of ten books that he has co-authored
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: with somebody. And you're going to tell me whether it's
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: real or fake.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: Now, let me go through the rules. I always skip this.
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: So obviously I will show you a list of ten books.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: You will tell me whether they're real or fake.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: And if you all win, I will be punished by
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: reading whatever James Patterson book you want me to read.
• 14:55
  Speaker 10: Because my father-in-law.
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: Has all of them.
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: Okay. We should explain to the panel that Jesse has
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: a long-standing Patterson fixation.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 15:04
  Speaker 10: I do.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: And his writing mill that he runs.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Even though he seems like a really good person who
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: does a lot of good things, we've just decided this
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: is how we're going to get, you know, hits at.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: Some Google Analytics and whatnot until he comes on the podcast.
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: I will keep calling.
• 15:19
  Speaker 10: Him our enemy.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: He's our nemesis. Yes, he's our nemesis. Even though, again,
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: he seems like a good dude.
• 15:24
  Speaker 9: All right.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: Book one.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Sing Me Home, co-authored with Dolly Parton. True or false,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: is it real or fake?
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: I'll say true because I know he did a book
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: with Dolly.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure that's the title. I was going to
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: say fake. All right, it is false. False.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Rose Run was the one he co-authored with Dolly Parton.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: Aha, I got you.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: But if you're curious about what the plot of Seeing
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Me Home is, it is a country star gets entangled
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: in a high-profile Nashville murder mystery when.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: A stolen demo tape reveals a dark secret.
• 16:04
  Speaker 9: Of course.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: I came up with plots for all these fake books.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: That's what it got me right on. So it's Grillo, Nashville?
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: All right. Book two, The Most Dangerous Game, co-written with Mr.
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: Beast.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: Awesome. I know we did something with Mr. Beast, so
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: I'm saying thumbs up. It is true. This book just
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: came out. It came out five days ago. Its pre-orders
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: were only tracking only the four digits.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: What?
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was not tracking well because James Patterson's audience
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to read it and Mr.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: Beast's audience doesn't read, so.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: If you're curious about.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: The plot of the most dangerous game, it is set
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: in a.
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: World on the brink of collapse.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: A thousand strangers receive a confidential invitation, but only a
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: hundred make the cut to compete.
• 16:53
  Speaker 9: In what?
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: We don't know. All right.
• 16:55
  Speaker 8: I said a little while ago that I was glad
• 16:58
  Speaker 8: that my career has been around for five decades, so
• 17:01
  Speaker 8: it's probably getting late in the game. And I realize that.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: I'm probably the only one up here who doesn't have
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: the foggiest idea of who Mr. Beast is.
• 17:16
  Speaker 10: Congratulations. You live a blessed life. It's always candy bars
• 17:21
  Speaker 10: at Walmart. Listen, his videos are incredibly compelling. He's very
• 17:24
  Speaker 10: good at making them. All right, next book. Overtime, co-authored
• 17:27
  Speaker 10: with Shaquille O'Neal.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: Real or fake? I haven't heard about that. I'm going
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: to go false.
• 17:35
  Speaker 10: That is sadly false.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: But.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: Can you imagine a micro-something like this?
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: An NBA legend turned detective works to solve the kidnapping
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of a franchise owner's child during the finals.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: Alright, next one.
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: Eruption, co-authored with Michael Crichton.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: True.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: I remember that. Oh, Bill. It is true.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Now, it's a disaster film based on an unfinished manuscript.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: That's not the same thing. As game master, I say, wrong.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: The book is real.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: I was hoping that was going to be with Eddie
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: Van Halen. That would have been a great book. That
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: would have been a great audio book. Alright, next one.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: Hell's Kitchen, Deadly Order, co-authored by Gordon Ramsay. Real or fake?
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: At this point, I don't feel I know anything, but
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: I'll say false. Everyone say fake. You are all correct.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: That one is fake, but it would go something like this.
• 18:46
  Speaker 10: A fiery celebrity chef discovers a high-profile dining guest poisoned
• 18:49
  Speaker 10: at table one, thrusting the kitchen staff into a high-stakes
• 18:51
  Speaker 10: murder investigation.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: Terrible book idea. No one wants to know but hear
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: about murders in restaurants. All right. The President's Daughter co-authored
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: with Bill Clinton. True. I figured you would all get
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: that one.
• 19:06
  Speaker 8: And it's unlikely that I, interrupt, wrote a single word.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I'll think either one of them wrote a single
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: word about one. Show of hands, how many people read it?
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: Oh, there we go. Over or under on the amount
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: of ghost writers on that book.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: I'm going to say five.
• 19:24
  Speaker 9: All right.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: That one is true.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: It is one of two books he wrote. He wrote
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: with Bill Clinton. With Bill Clinton.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: There we go.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 19:34
  Speaker 10: Next one.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of air quotes on that one. Deep Freedons,
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: co-authored with David Balducci.
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: Former writer, kind keynote.
• 19:42
  Speaker 10: Yes.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I'm going to say true.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: True.
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: We got some false. Alright, that one is not true.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: But it would go something like this. A former special forces.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Operative turned lone wolf investigator uncovers a treasonous plot. Frozen
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: inside an abandoned Arctic research outpost.
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: Alright.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: These are good, Jesse.
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: All of these, they all sound very believable. Thank you.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: All right, book eight, The Lost Codex, co-authored with Dan Brown. False.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Every father-in-law's dream book.
• 20:20
  Speaker 10: That one is indeed false. A cryptographer and a homicide detective.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Team up in Rome when a murdered cardinal leaves behind
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: a cipher pointing.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: To a centuries-old conspiracy.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: So really, just a Dan Brown book.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: But can you imagine?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine a Dan Brown book that's just like
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: 200 pages long?
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: That's what that would be. Alright, next one. Judge Stone,
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: co-authored with Viola Davis. I think that might be real, actually.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: That one is real.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: It also came out this year, because James Patterson releases
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: 20 books a year. This also came out earlier this year.
• 21:02
  Speaker 10: It is a respected Alabama circuit judge with her safety
• 21:07
  Speaker 10: and career when she presides over the high-profile, explosive trial
• 21:10
  Speaker 10: of a doctor charged with performing an illegal abortion.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: Jerkstone.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: All right, book 10, The Last Frontier, co-authored with Bear Grylls.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: Real or fake? Everyone knows who Bear Grylls is. All right, good.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: That's true. The audience needs to split and count 50-50.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: All right. Give me some more thumbs up. That one
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: is false. You got us. You got us. A wilderness
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: survival expert.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: And a drowned pilot race to stay alive in the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Alaskan wild while fleeing armed mercenaries.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: So, all right. That's the end of my quiz. You
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: all did great. Thank you.
• 21:51
  Speaker 9: Did we?
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Listen, I'm going to read you a passing book just
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: for fun now, and I will review it on our
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: next WriterCon recording.
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: So it'll take me five minutes to read. I'm a
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: very fast reader, and I read a lot of books.
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: Is it all those real books that came out in
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: the last few months?
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really hard to find ones that were
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: older than four years old.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: I'm like, dude, slow down.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Leave some for the rest of us. You will knock
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: that out, though. You're used to Brandon Sanderson. Yeah, that's right.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: I'm reading Neil Stephenson's The Broke Cycle right now, which
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: is three 1,200-page books.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: In a row. I'm in book three. Well, you'll be
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: busy for a while. Oh, it's good stuff.
• 22:32
  Speaker 9: All right.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: Well, thank you. That ends my portion of the podcast.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Jesse. Now, let's talk to William Martin, Danny.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Petri, and Dan Martin.
• 22:53
  Speaker 9: All right.
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: Since two of you have been on the podcast, you
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: know what I'm going to say. So just to be cruel,
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: I'll start with you, Dani, since you don't. Traditional first question.
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: If you could offer writers one piece of advice, what
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: would it be?
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Perseverance. I think you study your craft, you write and
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: write and write, and you do not quit no matter what,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: no matter how many rejections. You just need one person
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: to say yes if you believe in it and that
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: your stories are stories of your heart. You just keep
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: going with them.
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah, great. What about you, Dan?
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: Well, I don't want to steal one of his because
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: that's where most of my material comes from.
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: So I'm going to pull something.
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: From my talk this morning about writing for Interactive, which
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: I didn't expect to be my answer today. But if
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: you have an opportunity as a writer, you should avail
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: yourself of your local acting class. Um, because actors look
• 23:51
  Speaker 6: at scenes and characters in ways.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: That you don't as a writer.
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: And if you start to see a, just a new
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: angle in on how a character thinks by taking the
• 24:03
  Speaker 6: approach of an actor, just even if, you know, as
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: an exercise in your mind, you're going to find ways
• 24:07
  Speaker 6: to make your scene stronger because gosh, darn it. They
• 24:10
  Speaker 6: ask you some questions you don't want to answer sometimes, uh,
• 24:13
  Speaker 6: when you're working with an actor. And, uh, if you can,
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: Think ahead of the time and have a better answer.
• 24:18
  Speaker 6: It'll be easier on the day on set and the
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: scene will be better.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: That makes sense.
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: Bill, what about you?
• 24:24
  Speaker 7: Well, I'll play off of that.
• 24:27
  Speaker 8: One of my early mentors was a famous Hollywood script doctor.
• 24:34
  Speaker 8: His name was Robert Tom. And he wrote for a
• 24:41
  Speaker 8: lot of... Directors in the 50s like Robert Aldrich didn't
• 24:45
  Speaker 8: have screen credits on a lot of movies but wrote
• 24:47
  Speaker 8: a movie about Leopold and Loeb called Compulsion, which you
• 24:50
  Speaker 8: might have seen. Wrote a lot of movies about movies
• 24:54
  Speaker 8: for Roger Corman. More on him later in the afternoon.
• 24:58
  Speaker 8: And he once said to us, you should all be happy.
• 25:06
  Speaker 8: This was a writing class at USC Film School. You
• 25:09
  Speaker 8: should all be happy that you're writers. because you've always
• 25:13
  Speaker 8: got something to do. If you're an actor, if you're
• 25:18
  Speaker 8: not working, you don't know who the hell you are.
• 25:22
  Speaker 8: And when you sit down as a writer, remember that
• 25:29
  Speaker 8: you have an opportunity to go into hundreds of heads,
• 25:36
  Speaker 8: hundreds of sets of consciousnesses in order to understand people.
• 25:41
  Speaker 8: you have a, you've been given a great gift and
• 25:44
  Speaker 8: a great opportunity. And while it might be, uh, tiresome and,
• 25:50
  Speaker 8: and tiring and frustrating and all of the things that
• 25:54
  Speaker 8: Danny has just said, don't quit because it beats real work.
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: So, well, that leads to the next thing I was
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: going to ask you, Bill, when did you know you
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: wanted to be a writer?
• 26:08
  Speaker 8: Um, when, uh, when I realized that that was going
• 26:14
  Speaker 8: to be the easiest way for me to become a
• 26:16
  Speaker 8: movie director. I never became the movie director, but I
• 26:21
  Speaker 8: became the writer. I wrote screenplays. And all of this
• 26:26
  Speaker 8: had been born back when I was a kid wanting to,
• 26:30
  Speaker 8: I was in love with the movies. And at some
• 26:34
  Speaker 8: point in my development, and I think it was probably
• 26:38
  Speaker 8: just after the curtain opened on the movie How the
• 26:41
  Speaker 8: West Was Won in Cinerama in March of 1963. Not
• 26:46
  Speaker 8: that I'm planning to write an autobiography or anything. In
• 26:51
  Speaker 8: March of 1963, and before James Stewart had left the
• 26:56
  Speaker 8: screen in the first five minutes of that movie, I said,
• 26:59
  Speaker 8: I know what I want to do with the rest
• 27:01
  Speaker 8: of my life. And that movie is a big multi-generational saga,
• 27:08
  Speaker 8: and years later, I wrote A lot of big multigenerational sagas.
• 27:14
  Speaker 8: And so the process was, I guess, inspired by my
• 27:20
  Speaker 8: love of storytelling. And it was crystallized by those movies
• 27:26
  Speaker 8: of the early 60s.
• 27:28
  Speaker 7: A lot of them are pretty good. They still last.
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: Dan, how about you? Of course, you grew up with
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: this guy probably typing all the time.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so I knew that it was a career.
• 27:38
  Speaker 6: I probably had the wrong idea of what kind of
• 27:42
  Speaker 6: career opportunities it presented because it was a bit skewed
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: with the New York Times best-selling list and whatnot hanging
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: up in the house. For me, history does repeat a
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: bit in that it was USC, but for me, it
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: was that I found I didn't like trying to secure
• 27:58
  Speaker 6: locations on a student film with no budget, and I
• 28:00
  Speaker 6: didn't like waking up at 4.30 in the to go
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: to God knows where to work on a location shoot,
• 28:09
  Speaker 6: and I didn't like using a portalette. So I figured
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: I wanted to work at home. Been doing it since
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: before it was.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: Cool, as has he. And that was really where it was.
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: And also I think it's just sort of that's where
• 28:24
  Speaker 6: you get to write the first pass of the movie.
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: The movie gets written three times, when you write it,
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: when you shoot it, and when you edit it. And
• 28:32
  Speaker 6: why not be at the start of the process?
• 28:35
  Speaker 8: You forgot to mention the part where all of the
• 28:37
  Speaker 8: kids were marched up the stairs every Sunday to my
• 28:41
  Speaker 8: office with candles to bow and genuflect before.
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I would have wanted to hear that story.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: And that's why he paints pictures with his words.
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: Danny, how about you? Have you always wanted to write?
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: I got Murder on the Orient Express when I was
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: eight for my birthday. And I loved putting the puzzle
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: pieces together. And I've loved doing that ever since. Knew
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: it from that age.
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: You know, I love puzzles too. And I think that's
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: part of it, particularly if you're writing crime fiction or
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: this is like a big, Puzzle you're putting together.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: It is, yep.
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: Okay, now we're going to have a tougher, more controversial
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: question because you've all written many things. Do you have
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: a favorite? Dani, you mind starting?
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Favorite book or favorite genre?
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: Book.
• 29:33
  Speaker 7: Book, okay.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: I would say my favorite book was the one that
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: came out last, called Two Seconds Too Late. I have
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: one coming out on the 15th of September that's.
• 29:45
  Speaker 7: A follow-up to it.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: But Two Seconds Too Late was a thriller, but there
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: were a lot of deeper issues within it in the protagonist.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: And I just really loved writing that book.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: Yep. Dan, how about you? Do you have a favorite thing?
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: Well, Tom Brady usually says my favorite ring is the
• 30:05
  Speaker 6: next one. And I'm very excited about what I'm working
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: on right now. But I'd have to go with my
• 30:09
  Speaker 6: last one for now, which is Star Trek Resurgence.
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: I played that.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: I loved Star Trek going into it.
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: It was a passion project that I got paid for,
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: which is pretty unreal.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: That's good.
• 30:22
  Speaker 6: And I was happy with how it came out, which
• 30:24
  Speaker 6: isn't always the case when you're working on a group
• 30:27
  Speaker 6: project the way that video games are.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: And Bill, how about you? Of all those bestsellers, do
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: you have a favorite?
• 30:36
  Speaker 8: Well, the next one is always the favorite because you
• 30:40
  Speaker 8: need to muster the energy, that positive energy I was
• 30:44
  Speaker 8: mentioning a little while ago. But when I ask myself
• 30:47
  Speaker 8: which of my books got me as close as I
• 30:51
  Speaker 8: wanted to get to a particular objective as a storyteller,
• 30:57
  Speaker 8: it's usually... the book that I.
• 31:01
  Speaker 7: Would carry with me to the pearly gates. So that
• 31:04
  Speaker 7: when St. Peter says, what have you been doing all
• 31:06
  Speaker 7: your life? I said, well, I wrote this.
• 31:10
  Speaker 8: It would be Citizen Washington, biographical novel about George Washington,
• 31:14
  Speaker 8: which managed for me to bring me as close to
• 31:20
  Speaker 8: my objectives as I could hope to get. But occasionally,
• 31:25
  Speaker 8: And I've done this in preparation for my master class
• 31:29
  Speaker 8: tomorrow here. I occasionally read things that I have written
• 31:34
  Speaker 8: in the past, and I come away thinking, not bad.
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: That's a nice feeling.
• 31:42
  Speaker 7: So as long as I can have that feeling, I'm happy.
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: I remember one time my car broke down and I
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: was stuck on the side of the road and I
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: didn't have anything to read except a box of my
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: own books in the trunk. And so I sat there
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: and read my ending. I thought, oh, that's not bad.
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: I'm getting a little misty-eyed here.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: I forgot.
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: All right, now I have some weird, what I think
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: of as Jesse-esque questions. And you've each got a different one,
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: so there's no point worrying about it in advance. But Bill,
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: for you. If you could steal something from any library
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: or museum in the world, what would it be?
• 32:24
  Speaker 8: It would be the first book ever printed in America,
• 32:33
  Speaker 8: the Bay Psalm book, because in my next book, I'm
• 32:37
  Speaker 8: going to steal the Bay Psalm book.
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: So it'd be nice to have one. Yeah. Dan, how
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: about a different question?
• 32:46
  Speaker 7: That was a good setup, Bill, by the way.
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: Dan, if you could change any book or game ever written,
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: what would it be? How would you change it?
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go with a movie. Okay.
• 33:03
  Speaker 6: And I would cut 15 minutes out of Die Hard 2.
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: And there are two characters I'd combine. And it would
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: be It would get halfway there to the first Die
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: Hard if you just cut a little bit of time
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: out of it and combine two characters, and that's the difference.
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: Isn't that interesting? But I think that kind of micro-editing
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: really does make a huge difference to movies.
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: That's how sharp the margins can be when you're trying
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: to create something that's going to have an impact.
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it makes a big difference to books, actually, too.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: That's what I was thinking.
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I can cut, what, 30,000 words out of my
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: last book, which was painful, but you know what? It's
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: a lot better now, so that was good. Danny. Yes.
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: If you, what writer would you most like to sit
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: down and have dinner with? And that could be living
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: or dead, so.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, this might be.
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: Including none of us.
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: Yes, including no one on this panel.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: I was gonna say, now, okay, I am, ironically enough,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: a classics fanatic, so I would love to sit down
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: with Jane Austen. I felt she was like before her
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: time and I loved her wit. I just thought it
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: was fascinating. So I would love to sit down and
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: just chat with her with what life was at that
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: time and how she was able to write those books
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: back then.
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: You know, I asked Lou Burney the same question on
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: the podcast a few weeks ago and he said the
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: same thing. So the Janeites are still with us. All right.
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: One last question for each of you. What's coming next?
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: What should we look for from you in the future? Bill,
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: you wanna go first?
• 34:43
  Speaker 8: A book about the Bay Somme book that is stolen
• 34:46
  Speaker 8: in a rather dramatic way.
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: Oh, I've heard about that.
• 34:49
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and it leads.
• 34:50
  Speaker 8: Us into a novel that brings my main character, Peter Fallon,
• 34:56
  Speaker 8: who appeared first in 1980 in Back Bay, a book
• 35:03
  Speaker 8: about the history of Boston. who appears in what will be,
• 35:08
  Speaker 8: I think, his eighth adventure, which will be his return
• 35:12
  Speaker 8: to Boston.
• 35:13
  Speaker 7: He's been all over the world.
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: Nice, full circle.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 35:17
  Speaker 8: And for the last 25 years or so, since he's
• 35:22
  Speaker 8: been appearing in subsequent novels since Back Bay, he has.
• 35:29
  Speaker 7: Managed to maintain... an age that is.
• 35:33
  Speaker 8: About 10 or 15 years younger than I am. And
• 35:37
  Speaker 8: in this one, he'll probably have to be about 20
• 35:39
  Speaker 8: years younger than I am because he still has to
• 35:43
  Speaker 8: fight hand to hand on occasion. And I gave that
• 35:46
  Speaker 8: up a long time ago.
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: He's not aging in real time.
• 35:50
  Speaker 7: Right. Exactly.
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: Okay, Dan, how about you?
• 35:55
  Speaker 6: I'm working on a game for Sony Interactive Entertainment and
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: PlayStation that I'm really excited about. It is a great team,
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: and it is kind of the video game equivalent of
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: working on a blockbuster movie.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: So it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of work.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: It's a lot of time, so it's a ways off.
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: But I really look forward to coming back on the
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: podcast when it's announced or released.
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: We can make that happen.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: And you get to experience it for yourself. I'd love that.
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: Dani, how about you?
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: So the book I mentioned, Three Steps Behind, is coming
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: out September 15th, and it features a forensic biologist and
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: a private investigator with a crime that appears very simple,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: but we all know they are far more complex. And
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: then I have a new series coming out with HarperCollins
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: that will start next year called The Locke Chronicles, and
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: they're far more thriller-based, which I'm really excited to kind
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: of make that shift.
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: Cool. I know you brought copies, advance copies of Three
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: Steps Behind, and they sold like that.
• 37:02
  Speaker 7: That's awesome.
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: Brought them to RyderCon, where all the good stuff happens. Right.
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: I should point out. Thank you guys all very much.
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: Just a few parting words. No point in really talking
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: about the next WriterCon conference. It's a year away, but
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: that's September 3rd through 6th, by the way, Labor Day
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: weekend 2027. Let me also remind you that WriterCon has
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: its own newsletter, and you don't want to miss an issue,
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: especially since it's free and covers breaking issues like AI
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: and other similar things and audio books and so much more.
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: Just go to Substack, search for WriterCon.com, and it's totally free.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: Sign up.
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: For that matter, if you haven't joined the WriterCon Facebook group,
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: do it now. What you got to lose? That's where
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: you get like day-to-day updates on what's going on in
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: the writing world. And we would love to have you,
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: and we'll put a link in the show notes.
• 37:57
  Speaker 7: Okay?
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: And if you're enjoying this podcast, of course, please subscribe, rate, review,
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: Wherever you get podcasts, it actually does help and make
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: this podcast easier for other writers like you to find,
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: all right? Until next time, you know what I'm going
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: to say. Keep writing. And remember, you cannot fail if
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: you refuse to quit. See you next time.