Latest / Mixed Perspectives Podcast / Embrace the Madness: The Chaotic Reality of Writing | Ep 4
Transcript
- speaker-0: I like the idea of writing. I like the thinking about the writing. I like having finished writing. Yeah, she has don't come home until you have something for me to read. Like like, okay. So yeah. speaker-1: I could not spell mountain and I tried like mountain mountain mountain and I just like I got so pissed I think I just stopped because I was like I can't figure out so I couldn't finish the last line of the stupid boy because I could have spelled mountain. Welcome everybody to our podcast, The Mixed Perspectives. I am your host, Aaron, and this is a jiggly man, Emmanuel, who's our brother. we are also the brothers who convinced Mike Tyson to get a face tattoo. So that was a really funny April Fool's joke. So today we are gonna talk about speaker-0: That was good. I appreciate I I was we're not supposed to tell anybody that. I mean, but 'cause everyone should know that you know. Yeah. It was supposed to be Mike Tyson's decision, but we you know, Saper Fools. speaker-1: We may or may not have something to do with the ear biting too, but I mean that that was on the NDA. We can't really talk about that at one point actually. So he took it a little too far in in my in my fence. I didn't think he would actually do it. anyways. So this This podcast we are gonna talk about our writing processes, why did we embrace the madness of writing and we're both writers. he also does screenplays, so that's a whole different world that maybe he'll discuss. So we're just gonna talk about, you know, our writing process and what's that like. And then, you know, like the if you if you're in the writing world of you never written or have written, you could listen to us and see if that was like, Well, that's dumb, I'm never gonna do like them or like, that's smart, never thought about that. So No, we're all in this together. We're all learning. We all don't know anything. We're just two dudes on the internet and we're just glad that you're here. So Emmanuel, you've written quite a lot of things. You've written other things that you've never finished and I have stolen, and you have written screenplays which I've never touched. So tell us a little bit about briefly tell us about. speaker-0: You've never written a screenplay? You've never like written a s like I think when you were at Mr. Jewels class? Like you speaker-1: Yes, okay. When I okay. I take that back. I have written screenplays, but none professional. I've written stuff where like we're gonna say this and then we act it out and we have swords and we we f film stuff. Or things for like work that I used to do. But I don't I don't really consider those like real screenplays. Like real screenplays is like you have people who pay you money to do this. Usually my my screenplays is like, here are some questions, we're gonna film your testimony and go. So speaker-0: Well that's not a screenplay, that'd like yeah, like a quest like an outline. speaker-1: I mean I have I did do some green plays back in high school and stuff. speaker-0: Yeah, I thought you'd I thought had to. Yeah. speaker-1: I had. I did. But it wasn't like, you know. So E Man's a professional. People actually pay him for his beautiful writing of screenplays and they do not to me. So you can talk about screenplays, you can talk about writing. Maybe maybe start a little bit of what was your first I mean we briefly talk about this, but what was your first like, you know, kind of book and what has one what's the one that you started writing where you're like, I'm actually getting the hang of this whole writing thing? speaker-0: I mean, I d I still don't feel like I'm getting the hang of this writing thing, but speaker-1: I I'm glad you finally got there. I I didn't want to say it's awkward. Just kidding. speaker-0: I love you. Well, I think there's there's the old expression, or maybe it's not an old expression, but I don't like writing, but I love having written. like that's for me. Like I I don't like writing. Like I I don't like it. I d I don't like it at all. I like the idea of writing, I like the thinking about the writing, I like having finished writing. There are moments where I actually might like the writing. speaker-1: So it's pretty much just like eating healthy. Eating healthy and working out. like speaker-0: I like but I know speaker-1: it. speaker-0: But I like the feeling afterward but I know there are writers who love writing, like speaker-1: Like it. I enjoy it. speaker-0: Yeah, don't like it. I don't I I for me it's very frustrating 'cause I have and this is why I tend to do more screenwriting than novel writing, even though novel writing is way easier than screenwriting. 'Cause the rules in screenwriting are just the worst. Yeah. because usually for me it's a very visual tactile story and the process of trying to translate that on paper is brutal. So like it's almost like I want to just ex Nilo it out of my brain like God and just make it, you know, make it a visual. But you can't. So for me, I think there's a frustration that comes into writing where it's like the medium of writing is not the end result. And so you have to go almost like especially screenwriting. So you have to go through this process of writing a screenplay that no one's ever gonna read other than your team. And the only reason they're reading it so they can make something that doesn't look anything like a screenplay. It's a movie or it's a short film or whatever, an animation. But if I'm not writing, I'm not expressing a story that way, I go crazy. Like my wife basically is like, You need to write, you gotta go write. Like if I go s a season without writing, I just get I get mean. I don't get mean. I think I get really grumpy like mopey and like Yeah, so yesterday she literally sent me away from the house. She like kicked me out for like three hours and it's like you just gotta go write. speaker-1: I wish I had that problem. That would be amazing. I have the opposite. speaker-0: Yeah, she has don't come home until you have something for me to read. Like, okay. So like speaker-1: Yeah, so speaker-0: so I got five pages. There are garbage pages, but I got five pages. speaker-1: Can I come in now? speaker-0: Yeah, like and I actually came home without telling her I was gonna come home 'cause I just was tired of being a wedding. It's like it was So that has nothing to do with their process. But yeah, I just I I find all the excuses to not write because it's so difficult. But Paul, for example, like I do. He's my my writing partner in most screenplay stuff that we do. And he's a fantastic writer. He can just I have to be by myself. I have to usually either I'm writing before anybody wakes up or after all the kids go to bed. Or I'm going to a coffee shop where I don't know anybody with headphones in and I'm writing. But if there's any activity anywhere, I can't write. Like I just I can't do it. that somebody I know. But Paul can just we can be sitting at the table. We have a so I'm working at the office, we have a conference room. And he can just start writing and like, how do you write? Well, I'm sitting right here, like I can't I can't do it. But but he enjoys writing. Instead, you enjoy probably writing. I like the idea of what happens after something's written. So I don't know, that's just me. speaker-1: I like my six packs, I just don't like doing the crunches. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. But some people love doing the crunches. Some people really enjoy that. That's true. Yeah. speaker-1: We call those people sadistic. I I like I mean I enjoy I enjoy writing. So I have like I I can turn in my brain like to granted I'm also a drummer. I don't know about anything to do with it, like I literally can do like, you know, drumming you have to do two different things at once. Like fourth if, you know, I have my feet and my hands. So like and as I've drummed, I can have a conversation with somebody and still stay on beat what's happening. Cause I've d I had to do that before many times. so I Especially now like before kids, my writing was I write when I I you know, I'd sit down, I just write, you know, I just do a typey. one time I remember like COVID I mean, Emmanuel, you you said that like, like I have an idea for doing this thingy, can you write, you know, what was it like a it was like a twenty thousand word or five thousand word blurb, you know, thingy. I was like, sure. And so I it was at like nine or ten and so I just wrote until like one and I got all done. Never nothing ever g came of it, but cool with cool cool magic systems, that was fun. And so like I I used to be able to just like you know sit down and write. But now with kids, it's like I had to take every opportunity to write and it's always chaos. So I've been writing a lot on my phone, which is not ideal. But like, or I'll do voice voice to text and stuff, which is also really hard to do when you have like names like Malekist and stuff. But now there's AI voice to text that's really good. Like it, like if you speak a certain thing, it actually gets the phrasing. And like, you know, with voice like with Siri, I mean, she's Ridiculous. speaker-0: So which what now we're getting to the tools, but what are you using? Like speaker-1: Whisperflow is one I started. okay. Whis Whisperflow, I is the whole name, or is it just Whisper? so I started that recently. and it's it's really good. and so and and even if I'm sitting down, like because I work with video editing and stuff, and so sometimes I'll be exporting something. It takes like five, six minutes, and I I just can't do anything until it's done. And I'll like take on my Google Docs and just like I'll do a voice to text and I'll just do like a quick thing and then I write a second and then I do a voice to text again because I have a limited amount of time. like my mentor book that I was talking about last. The last podcast, I mostly like I want to say like seventy percent was all on my phone. I did that at night and just wrote it. That's cool. Yeah. And the and it sucks because the Google Docs spell check is not the best. So when I go on to the actual thing and I just see it bleeds, you know, it only gets the big ones. and Rivers speaker-0: The blood too. speaker-1: Yeah, dear listeners, if you don't remember from the other podcast, I am terrible at spelling. horrible. So like that is also annoying. But like so I'm the opposite where I can I can write pretty much anywhere 'cause I've learned how to. and like 'cause I just don't have time to sit down in my own zone. at least 'cause my kids are also younger than yours. So mine, you know, mine's four, my oldest is four, my youngest is one. And so I can't just like I'm gonna leave for X amount of time. And I mean it'd be fun if my wife kicked me out for a little bit and so I write and stuff, but then I'd feel bad. But like So usually I just learned how to do that. and also like when I was in middle school, I had an hour bus ride. So I learned how to read and blare music. Like tune out everyone. So maybe that had something to do with it too. so, anyways, that being said, when you are let's talk about a little bit of your writing journey. Well, your first book, you briefly talked about your last podcast. I think your rifting series or your wannabe dune one. I know you like you pretty much you you mooched and cheated and copied everything that you did. What was your first book that you wrote that was yours? That was like not a dune. speaker-0: like Picasso says, great artists steal, so I have no shame in stealing. Salvador Dolly, one of those two guys. speaker-1: They probably stole it from each other. speaker-0: There is a great book called Great Artist Steal by Austin Cleon. If anybody wants to understand what that means. But well, every story is an inspiration from something else. But the first book I started read so freshman year of high school, I'd actually forgotten about this. For they called it like honors English or something I it was, but like you had to write like a fifteen page double space story. It was like that was the first semester. you had to do this thing. So I started writing the story that I was I mean, it was very much a dude inspired story, but it was ended up being thirty pages single spaced. And it was my first real writing, like of a story that was I don't know, my own. Like it was, you know, I had this characters and there was action and blah blah blah. it wasn't well written, but it was in ninth grade, so whatever. but it wasn't until after that novels class in senior year of c college, I so I worked at Walmart pushing carts. and during that summer, this is after graduating high school, between grad high school and and college, I started kind of writing writing. And so I created this one of the I I love ta like the history historical world building. Like it's one of the reasons I love Lord of the Rings so much is because he invented so much world in history that you never read Or see anywhere any of the books. It's just this thing that's in the appendices of the third book of Lord of the Rings. But I love that stuff. I love history. Like I just think that's so fun. So I for me, one of the things that really excites me is like it is not just is this a story of what's the world, and I think that's why I like the genre, but that was the first thing I really started reading or writing that was I again I never actually came up with a name for it. I it's rift something. It had thousands of years of history and I had all these book ideas and I started writing I think I got I don't know. I got to like page eighty a few times and scrap it and start over and scrap it and start over. my speaker-1: Yeah. Ratting as we rattle. speaker-0: first my first my first entry in for A and 'cause every I'd reread I'm like, I'm not very good. So I'd have to start over speaker-1: The key is not to read it. Well it's here. I briefly talked last time, I think I've heard postcast, but like I did my first one that actually technically finished was a total ripoff of Lord of Rings. I mean like and I came up with rent like, you know, there were there were orcs and I had elves and I had I made up a few races, you know. I had a race there's monsters like this shows how young I was. Monsters Inc. You remember the guy who would turn invisible like in Monsters Inc. I I took that guy and I made him a whole race. Like he was he was one of those races and stuff. So like I I mean that was I don't know what year that was, but I was young enough and old enough to be like, that's cool, I'm gonna take it. That one I think I randomly, you know, armies of five hundred thousand. I didn't know what the heck, you know, any of that logistics wise. and, you know, it was one of those like super action heavy, every every chapter was a fight, I think. and they f defeat the bad guy and then boom, ended. Ironically, I remember the last line of it. was like and then they saw smoke coming back from the mountain. But I could not spell mountain and I tried like mountain mountain mountain and I just like I got so pissed. I think I just stopped because I was like I can't figure out how this I could have finished the last line of the stupid book 'cause I couldn't spell mountain. True story. I remember that. I remember speaker-0: even why the hard words. speaker-1: No you're trying to say it. I think it was just trolling me. But No. Now you understand my my struggle. but so that was like the first book. The first book I feel like I actually started getting my feet under me and knowing what I was doing was like the one that originally was a Naruto knockoff. Then it was a Naruto Avatar Last Airbender knockoff. and then like I mean I rewrit that like six or seven times. I think actually no, I'm on version nine. I have like a V on it, so I see what version it is. Because I've scratched it so many times. And eventually writing that story, I started getting better and better. But then I think the story that really nailed it, and it's the first book I officially finished that I count, is my Maladan Remnants story, which when I was reading Mistborn, it kind inspired me. And that's the one where it has the magic system is phasing, which is like short transportation. and then there's different levels of like one person can go really fast, one people go long, one people can go through things. and That one I finished and it's like I think it's like two hundred one hundred and forty thousand words. It's it's a biggin. and that one was the one that I like I'm like I officially finished that one. And then I remember you told me about S Brand Sanderson, and that's when I got into him, and you said all of his stuff like in the Cosmere. It's all connected. And I'm like, I could do that, but I could do one better. So I have it all in the Solemn Solar System. So later I started writing I wrote a sci-fi one. I wrote I made the link of the my Ninja Naruto one that I later changed. that one's on the same solar system. So they're all these planets that don't know each other until like the sci-fi world, which takes place like two thousand years later, and now it in integrates all the magic systems that I have and then there's like links of different races. So that's like my masterpiece one that I'm working on. so that's one's fun. so those are my writing ones and everything. so that's what kind of been been doing. also, dear listeners, just a little bit of Laura brother stuff. I always tease Emmanuel about like never finishing 'cause he always has great ideas and then he'll move on to a different one. And like I would remember them because I I just a story guy. So if someone tells me a story, I can remember someone like in high school, telling me a story. And I'm like, if you don't finish, I'm gonna steal it. And and so like I would tell I'd warn him, like, all right, you got five years to finish the story or I'm gonna take it or whatever. and I remember telling you like one time about I think it was the one that like the they they like go through this riff kind of thing and then they come out the monsters, but they're actually humans and stuff. And I remember that story, and then like I told you about like Told you about 'cause I'm like, I wanna you gonna repeat this one and I told you like yes this this is this is that you're like, I totally forgot about most of that. Thanks for reminding me kind of thing. So yeah, that's just speaker-0: Yeah, the mycha line story. Yeah. Couldn't figure where to go with that one. I had three books. It was gonna be like a three book thing. speaker-1: Always is. It's always. speaker-0: And yeah, always yeah. Well I have one that's five books and another one that's I don't know, but speaker-1: Yeah, kind of. Have you officially finished a book? Have you finished a book yet? speaker-0: I don't think so. Have you put I've shit speaker-1: The end. speaker-0: No, no, absolutely not. I've written the end on screenplays. that's fair. No, because usually what happens is I will get Yeah, usually what happens is I get about eighty thousand words. this has happened many times. 'Cause I used to do the nano Rhymo. So listener, reader, reader. Nobody's reading this viewer. speaker-1: The readers. speaker-0: there Yeah, I think they closed it, which is a bummer, but For years there is this thing called Nano Rhymo national writing national novel writing month. And it was in November. And it was this like competition where you'd write fifty thousand words. and so I did it a few years and I'd get to fifty thousand words. It's a l it's like twenty five hundred words a day, I think is the math, or twenty three. speaker-1: Nano's officially dead. I just looked. speaker-0: Is it? that's a bummer. Yeah. I mean, you didn't get anything. You didn't you just got a badge. You had a profile and you get to put a badge on it. But it was really fun because you would it kind of forced me into writing consistently every day. And this is before I had kids. But one of the things I realized though, I'd get to fifty thousand words and realize that the story hasn't even started yet. Like there's there's no there's no inciting incident. It was just like words. So for me, that was around the era and the time when I really started studying story as like a craft and as a like form, not formula, but like what is story? When does the story start? Like Aaron, I was telling you I reading whatever book it was. The story didn't start until almost the end of the book. Like there was no beginning to the story. Things happened. The story isn't start. When is the freaking story gonna start? And so I it drives me nuts. but I was that writer. I didn't want to be so for me. I kind of took a pause from writing novels because I realized I need to learn more about the craft and for and also at that time I started realizing I wanted to get more into filmmaking and like actually writing movies, which is all structure, so it's just kind of forced like they call it script economy. So it's like you just don't have time literally on the page to meander. You have to get really tight with the story. So that's helped a lot. I do miss writing long form prose though. Like I speaker-1: Make it imp speaker-0: have an Yeah, well I have an Evernote of this I call it first words. It's like literally just the first scene or the first sentence of a potential story. So I'd like to get more into that because I have a few that I've started and gotten gotten pretty far. So like the Wizards in Space book that I was telling you about or that we're talking about last episode. I think I got to probably eighty thousand words in that one. I speaker-1: It's always a speaker-0: realized, shoot, this based on the pace I'm taking, this isn't like a two hundred forty thousand word book. Like that's a first book I can't No one's gonna read something that's that long. speaker-1: That's that's the thing though. Like so like with my 'cause I wanted to finish a book and so my Maladine Remnant series, which is the tran you know, one, I determined like, I'm gonna finish this book. And so I didn't care how long it was getting. I didn't care if I came up with cooler I if I came up with a cool idea, 'cause then you know, we're writers, so we come up with ideas all the time. I was like, Okay, if it doesn't fit this world, I'm gonna put it aside and or make it fit. And if it doesn't fit, I'm just gonna keep going. And then eventually I finished it. And And now like I finally accomplished it. And then since I accomplished it, now I've I've finished like five books, I think, or four books. and so it's one of those like it's it's like the the person whoever broke the four minute mile, that like nobody thought humans could do it until they did it. And then now like high school kids can do it. So it's like that mentality of like was finally shattered. And so like that's the five minute mile. I mean people have done it four minutes. Like they speaker-0: Yeah, you're right. speaker-1: do right, you're at five minute mile. And so Yeah, and so was that concept. And so I I was determined to like, I'm gonna do it. And I think I was in college when that happened. So I was in my twenties. and I finally finished it. And then since then now I can finish books. but I do still have like all these different ideas and go back and forth. And another thing with really helped me narrow down stuff, 'cause I was like you, like my my ninja story, which I always c say a lot, it's not really ninjas, but they're kinda ninjas. They used to be that book, which I said in the first podcast, I got to like I like I was like eighty thousand easily or you know, seventy five thousand. And then I like realized that books should only be, you know, like a hundred thousand words, maybe, you know, and then I was like, and it was like equivalent of like being like a third or a halfway, not even a halfway, a third of the story done. I'm like, okay. So I had to like scrap it all. and one thing that has recently helped me, which I've told you a little bit about manual, but is scrip scribfile, I believe it's called. Scrib of yeah. So scriptophile.com, which is not this is not a paid podcast, but if Scrippophile wants to pay us, we'll talk about it. it's a app that actually has really helped me. Yeah. Cause that's the thing with writing, writing is one of those things. I was actually listening to other like booktubers talking about this. Writing is one of those things where people like how you train in writing is a terrible way how to train anything. Because we always get feedback whether the process is already done or like a loved one is reading it. and so like and like It's hard to get feedback because a lot of writers like either if you're doing a publication, the book is done. You sent it in. And if there is a problem with character A, it doesn't even need to exist. You gotta redo everything. but then like some people when it comes to reading groups, which one, they're kind of hard. Nowadays it's not as hard. But with reading groups, like some people are super susceptible of like, he said vampires. I have vampires now. And this action, now I have to have swords. So like if you're not kind of person who'd like, I guess, stay focused and just don't chew the meat, spill out the bones kind of person. and so a script of file I found was a amazing pod website that it is like a reading group that's online, but it's people you don't know. And so what you do is you have a limit of four four thousand words, and you put it up like your your story and then people critique it and you get like a poding system. So like if you critique someone's work, you get like a whole point and the more words you write on that person's critique, you get X amount of points. You get like five points And you could post your own work. So it's like a kind of a tit for tat thing. And I found it super beneficial because you're you're you're guaranteed three because it's in the spotlight and that's when people get points to read it and stuff. And people have like read my stories and like my my funny Ragnar story that has like the proteges that always die. That one is one of those like I find it funny. I sent it to Emmanuel, he finds it funny, but we're also related. So what we find funny, maybe everyone else thinks it's stupid. So I put it on this website and people like gobbled it up and thought it was hilarious and amazing. And I'm like, well, that makes me feel good. And then I put other stuff up. And it's and it was one of those things where it's like the people don't know me. They don't know, they don't owe me anything. and they liked it. Or if they didn't like it, they would, you know, critique it and stuff. And that was like really helpful. And then I usually always write like I used to do like 10 pages, which is around 10 like 7,000, 8,000 words per chapter. but since you can only do 4,000 words on here, I have to break it up. But then I realized like, Maybe I should just start trying to write shorter and more concise. So I started another story, which is like a steampunk story, and that's the one I've been doing. And I've been trying to keep every chapter under four thousand, which is stupid hard, at least for me. And like that has gotten like my practice of what's precise, what's actually needed, does this need to be there kind of thing. So if you never like looked at Scripophile before, if you're like me where like no one around you cares about writing, it's a great website. You can get a free thing or you can buy a thing. This is also not a paid podcast. but it's it's amazing. so it's really it's really been beneficial and that's helped me chisel down those writing skills and stuff like you're kinda saying with keeping it precise. 'Cause it's hard. I mean that's a that's an art form to speaker-0: Scribble how do you spell scribble file? speaker-1: So it's script it's technically it's called script S-C-R-I-B-O-P-H-I-L-E. speaker-0: Scribophile like somebody who okay. Scribophile. speaker-1: Yes. I got so I I always taught like my internal dialogue it's i I always call it scribble because like I don't I don't remember how to say scribble file, so speaker-0: Okay. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, you showed me before. It sounds pretty cool. I'll give it a shot. Yeah, because that's true. I mean, that's so when I first started writing, it was like twenty twenty sorry, twenty thirteen, some friends and I were in a writing group. we were in it I I think it lasted until we started having kids. Two or three years, but it was great because we it was I think there was six of us, six or seven of us, and we would just write And then share each other our stuff and then we everyone would read it and give feedback. And none of us were writing really anything in the same genre, so it was kind of nice where we're kind of just getting somebody who's not into fantasy or sci-fi or horror or whatever. I one of our guys was really like he would write these horror thriller, like crime stories that were just super vivid. But anyway, yeah, it w I've missed that time though, because to be able to just have people who can It's hard. Really good at critiquing work and it's really hard. So that's cool. All right. Sc right, scribo file, you're gonna have to maybe c be a guest on one of our guess. Yeah. speaker-1: It's really cool and and most people were really nice. So it's it's a great great niche. I've only I've only encountered a few just like not cool people, but most of it is real friends. I have friends from the Netherlands that writer there and people from Australia read my stuff. So it's it's really cool. So speaker-0: That's cool. That's awesome. speaker-1: Yeah. So I mean we're coming at the half an hour mark, but so dear listeners, if you have tell us a little bit about your writing journey in the comments. You know, put in like I started at this age and now I'm still writing. If you have been writing when you were younger and then you life happened, kids happened and you cut off, I challenge you to write little bit. I mean if you if you have to go write in the bathroom for fifteen minutes, you gotta do what you gotta do, you know. I mean that's I do that a lot actually. I used to speaker-0: That I had a Blackberry. Remember Blackberry with the little buttons? yeah. I used to raise so much on that thing like in the in the bathroom 'cause, you know better than this is before Instagram, so before people would scroll through the few things. Yeah. It's legitimate. It's legitimate. speaker-1: You gotta do what you gotta do, man. And and maybe next next podcast we'll talk about maybe the difference between like, you know, plotting or or winging it or whatever. but yeah, so when you're you do that, dear listeners, if you have dropped off in writing, I challenge you to pick it back up, you know, come up with something. And if you have never finished a story, try to finish one within a year from now. You just like I'm gonna finish by this date, find whatever it is and just stick to it and then finish. And 'cause I trust me, dear Emmanuel, once you get that line And you hit the end, whether you could spell mountain or not, it it feels satisfying. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. Now there's a whole conversation of does screenplays count as writing finishing a story or not? And that's a whole different conversation. But I mean obviously it is because I can't do the whole speaker-0: Yes. It's a very yeah. It's very different and it's speaker-1: I was I was trying to be mysterious. speaker-0: No, Mr. E. speaker-1: But yeah. It's a skill that I can't do. So it's it's definitely it's his own it's his own thing. And I tip my hat. but yeah, so there listeners, thank you for going on this wild ride. I hope you appreciate it. I hope you see you next time on Mixed Perspectives. And I just can't wait to see you next time. So have at it. Peace out.