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Barry Friedman Goes to Portugal—and Writes · WriterCon

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This week on the writer Con podcast.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: So you want to write, you sit down and do it.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: And then once you do it, once you call yourself
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  Speaker 2: a writer. Once you are a writer. If you're only
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: motivation is to keep writing, and you keep writing, there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: no getting tired, there's no burnout, there's no blank page.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: That's your job.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome to writer Con, the gathering place for writers to
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
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  Speaker 3: the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, Award
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: winning author of the want Ln Files book series.
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Jesse Ulrich. Hey, they're writers. Thanks for joining
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: us today and welcome. Welcome to twenty twenty five. I
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: hope you've settled into the new year today. As we
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: are recording, it is bitter cold outside with snow flurry
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: and so much wind. Buster first little cadio practically flew
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: across the yard. Did you notice that, Laura, so bad?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, feels like eight degrees.
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: And if you hear it, if you hear Baxter the
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: dog barking, it's because it would just be cruel to
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: put them out in this So I apologize and if
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: you hear a noise that sounds like a banshee, that's
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: the wind I thought they're in this. We need to
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: make predictions for twenty twenty five, guys, for the book
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: world predictions. Let's what do you got, Lara? What is
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  Speaker 4: one thing thing's going to happen in the book world
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  Speaker 4: in or to whatever one thing you think is going
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  Speaker 4: to happen in the book world in twenty twenty five.
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  Speaker 5: I predict for sure that I will continue to be
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: irritated by the rise in AI people trying to use
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  Speaker 5: AI to cut corners, which I just don't love it all.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I.
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  Speaker 5: Won't go into it that That's my big prediction. And
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  Speaker 5: then my my hope for twenty twenty five is that
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  Speaker 5: my next book is a huge hit.
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  Speaker 3: To share this, I like, that's a good that's a
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  Speaker 3: good prediction. I predicted this year I'm going to be
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  Speaker 3: incredibly successful, now.
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  Speaker 1: Is it. Let's manifest that.
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  Speaker 4: Let's manifest like, yeah, the secret it's possible, thinking, yes,
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  Speaker 4: what about you, Jesse? You got predictions for us?
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  Speaker 3: I do, and listeners of the show, we'll know. We've
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: talked about how like Barnes and Noble has been trying
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: to like not reinvent itself but give each of its stores.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: It's the ability to sort of like customize itself to
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: the region in which it lives. My prediction is there
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  Speaker 3: is going to be a sort of resurgence of either
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: like quasi regional or national book chains like another one's
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  Speaker 3: going to appear.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like, for wanting to go, I think.
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  Speaker 3: People are going to want to go to a place
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  Speaker 3: they want to go to a place has curated. When
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  Speaker 3: TikTok gets shut down in March, I think there is
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  Speaker 3: going to be a desire for places people can go
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  Speaker 3: to see a curated list of books. And I feel
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  Speaker 3: like either either like local bookstores are going to have
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  Speaker 3: more of a resurgence, or one of the maybe chains
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  Speaker 3: that's shut down or one of the regional chains that
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  Speaker 3: sort of still exists is going to start expanding.
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  Speaker 4: I hope you're right. Or maybe we should pool our
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  Speaker 4: pennies and we should just start one.
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: Maybe we should do it.
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  Speaker 4: What's her bookstore going to be called? Writer con of course? Okay,
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  Speaker 4: I'll make it come.
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  Speaker 1: From prediction everything.
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  Speaker 3: But James Patterson, Yeah, yeah, and no, just.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: No Patterson, there we go, No Patterson.
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  Speaker 5: Did you guys predict though, that I will continue to
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  Speaker 5: be greatly amused by Ralph's songs that he makes with Ai,
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: which come from Ai AI that I'm amused by.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you guys read the statistics about
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: Spotify and basically now they're selling more audiobooks than ebooks.
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  Speaker 4: That's the first time this is I mean, not just Spotify.
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  Speaker 4: That's across the board. We're selling audio books than e books,
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: but people are attributing it to Spotifying, Spotify doubling down
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  Speaker 4: on audiobooks. As far as predictions, I'm going to predict
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: that the price books is going up because that's not hard,
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  Speaker 4: especially since, as you probably know, books print books often
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: have paper in them, and most of our paper comes
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: from Canada. So if the yeah, there's some paper, there's
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: so if the predicted tariffs that somebody keeps talking about
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: going to place books are certain to go up because
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: the cost of paper is going to go up. I'm
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: also going to be even more bold and predict that
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  Speaker 4: romanticy has plateaued or as close to it. I don't
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  Speaker 4: know if you guys have looked at the sales figures,
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  Speaker 4: but Rebecca Arris and others had a great twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 4: and I'm twenty four, and I bet they do all
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  Speaker 4: right this year. But I can see that things are
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  Speaker 4: shifting and there's an opening for something else to become
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  Speaker 4: the next big thing.
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  Speaker 1: I have a prediction.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So if you remember in twenty four we talked about
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  Speaker 3: the the hockey romance, you know, Jean, right, I think
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  Speaker 3: I think twenty five is gonna be a year of
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  Speaker 3: pickleball romance novels. So I think it's time.
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  Speaker 5: I thought you were going to say that the hockey
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  Speaker 5: was going to just grow and go maybe feel that.
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  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's brilliant. Yeah, has anyone written one? We
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  Speaker 4: should do that? We should know.
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  Speaker 5: Our daughters are reading right now ice Breaker.
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  Speaker 4: And it's a pickleball romance.
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  Speaker 5: No oh hockey, and they want me in on this.
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  Speaker 5: We're gonna we're gonna read this together and discuss it.
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  Speaker 5: But we maybe we need to branch out.
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  Speaker 3: Quick quick Google search says some people have already done it,
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  Speaker 3: but they don't look great.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, good.
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  Speaker 3: Pickleball second chance romance colon, a romance mystery thriller that's
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  Speaker 3: clearly an AI written novel if I've ever seen one.
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  Speaker 4: So that's the new trend. When you people listen their
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  Speaker 4: books on Amazon, they give it a long, windy description,
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  Speaker 4: and so.
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  Speaker 6: The more true.
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  Speaker 5: I'm irritated by AI written books. It's happening, yeah, already,
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  Speaker 5: all right.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: Today we have the pleasure of interviewing a longtime friend
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: of the podcast and longtime friend of me, and that's
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: Barry Friedman. He has been a prominent professional stand up
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: comic for decades, and in recent years he started writing.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: He's got six books published to date, including his warm
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: and witty series about his father. We talked to him
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: last year when the first volume came out, and now
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: there's a second one. Plus he's a humor and a
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: political columnist. He's got a newsletter and he does geography.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: Let me say that again, geology writing. Okay, don't turn
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: it off for skip yet. It's going to be a
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: lot more interesting than it sounds. I promise. We will
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: talk to Barry about all that and more. But first
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  Speaker 4: the news news story number one, deluxe editions of books
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  Speaker 4: are hot. Here's one I never thought i'd be saying.
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  Speaker 4: I can remember, like not that many years ago when
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: people were predicting that print would all be disappear, But
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: it seems that like Vinyl gen Z is bringing it
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  Speaker 4: back because it's old fashioned and quaint and not just
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: winning any criminole paperback book or whatever. They are in
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  Speaker 4: large numbers, buying fancy hardcover sometimes slipcase, almost always with
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  Speaker 4: sprayed edges, and interior illustrations are decorated in it, decorated
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: in papers. That's what we call the deluxe editions. So
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: I mentioned Rebecca Yars a minute ago. They did the
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: second book in her series, The Iron Flame. This way,
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  Speaker 4: they printed one hundred and fifteen thousand copies, and they
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  Speaker 4: sold out, and these are higher priced deluxe books, and
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: then only if it sold out, they sold out quickly.
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  Speaker 4: The publisher complained, eh, should have should have printed more,
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  Speaker 4: But that's what publishers always say. It's either I should
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: have printed more or I should have printed fewer one
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: or the other. It's not limited to romanticy, though, although
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  Speaker 4: it did seem to me to focus primarily on books
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  Speaker 4: written by women for women. But for instance, Kristin Hannah,
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  Speaker 4: who I've known forever and you know, not writing romanticy,
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  Speaker 4: but very prominent, and she's got a beautiful deluxe edition
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: of her new books, so you know it's going all
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: through the publishing industry. You know what I mean by
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  Speaker 4: the patterned edges when you can look at the side
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  Speaker 4: of a book and it's just as pretty as the cover,
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: or metallic foil covers, which I should have. Do I
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: have one here? I'm sorry, I shouldn't look away from
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  Speaker 4: the microphone. I remember when my first book came out
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  Speaker 4: in ninety one and that was all the rage. Then
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: that embossed with foil covers, and I got one the
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: first time out. I don't really think it sold books,
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: but whatever, it looks cool. Some people doing reversible dust
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: jackets or more elaborate artwork, seeing more artwork on the
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  Speaker 4: end papers. You know what's inside the hardcover before you
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  Speaker 4: get to the pages. Sometimes people put maps there and whatnot.
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: People are even doing like ribbon bookmarks, you know, like
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: you saw in really old times bookmarks. It's attached to
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: the spine so it can go inside, and other kinds
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: of bonus content, and they seem to be sweeping the industry.
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  Speaker 4: So thanks again, gen Z. You got me back to vinyl,
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  Speaker 4: and now I guess you're going to get me back
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  Speaker 4: to lots of books. Laura, is this going to be
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  Speaker 4: good for publishing?
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: I think it already is. It's a big hit. And
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: of course you've got those boxes that come periodically too.
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  Speaker 5: I think maybe that's what helped spur this on initially.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: Perhaps when you have the very loot box that comes
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  Speaker 5: to you regularly, grade edges in them. Who could resist?
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  Speaker 4: Who could resist?
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: We have a lot of books in our house, but
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: my goodness, you see something that beautiful you can't help
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: but want a copy of it.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think that's the theory, isn't that they're in
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: a way they're trying to get people to buy the
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: book a second time. You liked it, Now you want
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: the fans exactly what they do in the comic book world.
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: Right with there's the new issue with fourteen variant covers.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Right do you know?
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Do you know how many versions of the Lord of
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: the Rings movie trilogy I have bought in my life?
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: It's like seven, Because like, technology gets better, and so
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: there's a newer version, and then there's a special version
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: that's got cool like you know, you know, book holders
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: or like a cool you know, hobbitant statue or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, fine, I'm right again.
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  Speaker 4: Yest's like, well, you got to have the latest and
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: greatest right.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: That's right. Now.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: When James Patterson gets his eight Edges Deluxe book.
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  Speaker 3: How jeez like, there'd be so many books this law book.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: It's a book.
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  Speaker 4: It depends on how many words you put on the page.
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  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: That's true, right. News story number two, this one is
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: also happy making. An Arkansas judge struck down the statewide
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: book banning law. This was we talked about it on
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  Speaker 4: the podcast. I remember Arkansas law that could literally have
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: sent librarians and booksellers to prison for providing material that
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: supposedly might be considered harmful to minors. Of course, who
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: gets to decide that, you know, nobody's really well anyway,
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: it was a misdemeanor, but you can still get up
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: to a year in prison plus a huge fine if
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: you are found to have distributed a harmful item to
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: a minor. But the federal judge struck it down, saying
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: it was overbroad and violentce to the First Amendment. That
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: will of course be appealed, But in the meantime, the
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: thought police, do not fear, have taken control in Arkansas.
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: Here's a quote from Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, governor of Arkansas,
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: as everybody probably already knows Republican and she said, quote,
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  Speaker 4: schools and libraries shouldn't put obscene material in front of
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: our kids in quote, but I don't think anybody ever
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: accused anyone of putting obscenity in front of it. Nobody's
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: gonna put obscenity in the kiddgarten. All the challenges are
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: most were about race or LGBTQ issues. Weren't they?
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yes they were.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: So that really is kind of content based censorship. I
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: don't know, Jesse, what do you think you can go happy? Sad?
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm happy. Like again, it's one of those
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: things where the words they're using to describe the problem
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: they're trying to fix is are not describing the things
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: that are actually happening and are unnecessary in our current system.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Like one again, have people never met kids? Like you
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: tell a kid they can't read something, that's all they're
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: going to want to read, first of all, second of all,
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: like they're in search of a problem that doesn't exist.
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, yes, exactly, which makes it such a waste
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: of resources. We saw a news article on a case
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: in Florida where there's one person every day filing day
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: after day a book bin request over and over and
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: over again, and it's taking up valuable resources time. It's
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: incredibly frustrating, and it's going after a problem that, as
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: you said, doesn't even exist. He's determined that he's going
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: to decide what children should read. I don't want that
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: for my I wouldn't want that for my children. Parents
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: interviewed and it didn't want that for their children. Why
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: does one person think they Why would one person think
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: they get to decide what everyone's children should read.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Get a hobby, do something something anything.
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: What I said, exactly what I said. That guy could
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: be putting all of that time and effort into something
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: truly beneficial, and instead he's wasting time and resources.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: He must have been one of those people who would
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: like back in the back in the day, would have
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: like typed on a you know, on a typewriter, like
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: a note to a TV show complaining about something that
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: was on that episode.
• 15:34
  Speaker 7: Right, yes, yes, their letters and yeah, this is this
• 15:39
  Speaker 7: is the point where I once again brag because one
• 15:43
  Speaker 7: of my books was banned in Florida from the schools.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: This is one of my thrillers, Dark Eye. I want
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: f Yi Lar, I want that on my Tombstone band
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: in Florida.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: The point is there's nothing remotely racy in this book.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: And why would people have a thriller in a junior
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: high school anyway? I mean, that doesn't belong in the library.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Again, you don't think teenagers this day are seeing much
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: racier things on the internet than in a library.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Let's announce with ourselves here.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. All right, let's turn to Kraft Corner today.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: In Craft Corner we have John Myers and Emily Brooks.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: They're the authors of Write Better Together, and they will
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: be discussing the best approaches to narrating your authors experiencing experiences.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: And you know, you've probably heard that old adage about
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: show don't tell which. First time I heard it, I thought,
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: you're going to write a whole book without telling anyone anything.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: That is not going to work. What does this actually mean? Well,
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: they're here to explain it. Take it away, John and Emily.
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  Speaker 6: Quarter Welcome everybody to writer CON's Craft Corner. I'm Don
• 17:05
  Speaker 6: Myers from Write Better Together. Hey, look, everybody's Emily Brooks.
• 17:07
  Speaker 8: Hello John Myers. We're going to be talking about narrating
• 17:11
  Speaker 8: your character's experiences. You don't always have to say in
• 17:15
  Speaker 8: your narration when your character sees, feels, or even thinks something.
• 17:20
  Speaker 8: While it's okay to do that every once in a while,
• 17:23
  Speaker 8: it creates a deeper point of view for your character
• 17:26
  Speaker 8: if your narration simply shows us what they are experiencing
• 17:30
  Speaker 8: in the narration. So I have this example from Frederick
• 17:33
  Speaker 8: Bachman from a man call called Uva. I have altered
• 17:37
  Speaker 8: his paragraph. I'm going to read the altered paragraph, and
• 17:41
  Speaker 8: then I'm going to read his original paragraph. I'm added
• 17:44
  Speaker 8: language to describe his seeing things and thinking things. Ouva
• 17:49
  Speaker 8: spotted the cat sitting there with a nonchalant expression in
• 17:52
  Speaker 8: the middle of the footpath that ran between the houses.
• 17:55
  Speaker 8: He noticed it had half a tail and only one
• 17:57
  Speaker 8: ear patches of fur we're missing here there, which made
• 18:00
  Speaker 8: it seem to Uva like someone had pulled it out
• 18:03
  Speaker 8: in handfuls. He thought it wasn't a very impressive fee line. Okay,
• 18:07
  Speaker 8: so notice the words he spotted. He noticed made it
• 18:11
  Speaker 8: seem to Uva, and.
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: He thought, I noticed the noticing.
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  Speaker 8: I'm going to read the original version now and hopefully
• 18:18
  Speaker 8: you'll notice the difference. The cat sat with a nonchalant
• 18:21
  Speaker 8: expression in the middle of the footpath that ran between
• 18:23
  Speaker 8: the houses. It had half a tail and only one ear.
• 18:26
  Speaker 8: Patches of fur were missing here and there, as if
• 18:29
  Speaker 8: someone had pulled it out in handfuls. Not a very
• 18:31
  Speaker 8: impressive feeline.
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: It actually strengthens the descriptions. Right by doing it properly,
• 18:37
  Speaker 6: the pros is more impactful because the descriptors are stronger.
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  Speaker 8: That last line I think is especially important. It says
• 18:44
  Speaker 8: not a very impressive fee line. That's not in italics.
• 18:46
  Speaker 8: It doesn't say he thought that. It's just part of
• 18:49
  Speaker 8: the narration. I think that brings you closer into the
• 18:52
  Speaker 8: point of view of the character who's being narrated.
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: Thank you, William, Laura and Jeffie for having us on
• 18:58
  Speaker 6: writer Gun.
• 18:59
  Speaker 8: We couldn't have done it without you.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much, John and Emily Jesse. It's time
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: to get zesty. Take us to Barry Friedman. Barry Friedman,
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: Welcome back to the podcast.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Do I have the record?
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: I want to be the one who's been on the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: broadcast more than anybody.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't be surprised. We need I think I said
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: this before. We need those jackets like they have on
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: SNL that you know, if you've hosted five times, then
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: you get a special jacket or something. But because there
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: anybody who's been on more than Barry, you think, so, yeah,
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: well that's it's always interesting, fun profound. I think I
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: am probably Yes.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Anybody get close to my record, just call me up
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: on the show again. Okay, deal, Okay, trying to make
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: cookies right.
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: We're going to talk about a lot of things. But first,
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: you know traditional first question. If you could offer writers
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: one piece of advice, what would it be?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: All right?
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Remember the director Jose Cantero.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: No, and I know a lot of directors. Who is that?
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Gen O'Neil He directed Eugene o Neil and Jason Robarts
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: on Broadway a million shows. He came to Tulsa. He
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: does a conference, He does a symposium, and somebody asked
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: him about acting, and he said, look, you want to act,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: you act, You find friends, you find the garage, and
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: you act. So you want to write, you write. You
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: sit down and you write.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Bill.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: You've talked about this a million times. It really is true.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: You just sit down and you do it. And if
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: you're lucky enough to actually make a living at it,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: and you can't be motivated to keep writing, you lose me.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: So you want to write it down and do it.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: And then once you do it, once you call yourself
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: a writer. Once you are a writer. If your only
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: motivation is to keep writing, and you keep writing, there's
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: no getting tired, there's no burnout, there's no blank page.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: That's your job.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: Okay, So we got so many things we can talk
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: about with you, we should have him on more than once. Laura,
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: I'm just thinking, but first, you worked for you still
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: work decades as a stand up comic, and you've also
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: written what we're up to about six books now. But
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: first let's start at the beginning. How did this idea,
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: this dream of being a stand up comic? Where did
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: that come from?
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I was driving on I forty four with my first
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: wife and there was a message board in one of
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: the hotels that said comedy contest, first price one hundred dollars,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: and she said, you seem kind of bored. Why don't
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: you try it, really write it?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: And I won.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Not a big deal, but I won. Next week, same billboard,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: same hotel, another contest, another one hundred dollars, entered that
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: one one again by a third week.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: I'll let you just keep coming.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Well after they stopped doing that after a while, so
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: I went to the comedy club and started working on
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: an act because I had open mic nights, amateur nights,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: no talent night, whatever you wanted to call it. And
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: I went and started coming every week writing material, trying
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: to do it, and about maybe three four months later,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: a comedian who I met that week said, you want
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: to open for me and Rapid Soup Fall South Dakota.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: So I had my first gig in Soup Fall South Dakota.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Did a bunch of one nighters in Kansas and Missouri
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: and Iowa for a year or two or three that
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: I auditioned for a club in Las Vegas and I
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: got into the club that catchurizing started Bally's, and then
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: I started working at Balle's every four or five weeks,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: and then that led to another gig to another gig,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: and by the nineties I was on this level anyway,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: probably appearing in Vegas more than anybody else, because there's
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: three or four hotels that I was working.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: I think you were at the Excelsior when I saw you. No,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: not the ex Caliber, that's what.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was. That was one of the hotels,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: and Bally's was in the MGM and the Riviera and
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: the old Maximum Hotel and dunes and a little bit
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: of the tropicanas. So that's how it all started, and
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: then from that we got into You to NSK. But
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: that's where the writing came from. The more you write,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: that's where the first book came from, just writing about
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: the list the previous twenty years of the first twenty
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: years being a comedian.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean you already were a writer because
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: you're writing this material, right, you're not writing books. But anyway,
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: go ahead, Lara.
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: I just I'm jealous that you got to see him
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: when he was in Vegas. I think that sounds like
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: a blast.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I think I even appeared in one of Bill's early books,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: don't I.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, at least one, yeah, probably one of the Yeah,
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: it's in one of the Susan Pulaski books, because they're
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: SI in Vegas. And so she goes to see a
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: show and it's you.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: That's right, Or she couldn't go because somebody was shot
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: and killed.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: Oh well, that's worse, but she was headed to one
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: way or another. You're in the book. Oh okay. So
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: as a result of course, everybody expects everything you write
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: to be funny, and some of it is and some
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: of it isn't explain that to us.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Well, what's that great line about the difference between the
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: comedy is or drama is comedy plus time? I think
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I heard that somewhere from somebody, and.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: That's what I would have thought. Comedy is tragedy plus time.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: That makes sense.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: I knew i'd miss it up. That's it. There's time
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: in their distance and something to do with each other.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: So what happened was after the Road Cooma came out,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: and the one after.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: The follow that.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I think the third fourth book was about my son
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: who died, as you know, of drugs, and I thought, well,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: if I was a if I had any real skill, I
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: would build him something or plan something or do something
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: like that. But I didn't, and I thought, let me
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: see if I can write a story about his life,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: particularly specifically the last four days five days right after
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: he died. And I wanted to see if I could
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: actually write that. And there's some funny things in that,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: but obviously it's the aftermath of his death, and I
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: wanted to see if I could actually tell a story
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: about what it's like to experience the aftermath of somebody's
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: death who shouldn't die. Twenty four year olds are not
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: supposed to die, and you were nice enough to publish it.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: So at that point I realized.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Well, I can actually do this. I mean I can
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: do this because you can do it because you're looking
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: at It's one of the things about being a writer.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: You know, the difference between writers who were publishing writers
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: who aren't published is that somebody has published, and then
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: your whole perception changes of yourself. You know, a writer,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: you look on the shelf, there I am, and that
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: changes how you write. That changes how you think about
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: yourself as a writer, and the changes the perception of
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: people when they know, oh, you're a writer. You write comedy,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: and you write about your son, you write politics, you
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: write geology, whatever it is, and then the ball starts rolling.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Terrible cliche there, but it does happen that you then
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: start becoming this thing called the writer.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Ye you want to.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Put turn on on low because it's very pretentious, but
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: there is something to that. And you both know this
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: that you know when you write, when you sit down
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: and you do it, you realize there's a thing to
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: doing it. It's not just impulse and it's not just
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: the light from above that hits you. There is an
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: actual thing to doing it, and you have to honor
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: that thing about doing it. Whatever you're writing and wanting
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: to be a writer is kind of easy. Calling yourself
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: a writer is kind of easy, but actually doing it.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: So the more you do it, the more I felt.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: The more I did it, the more I felt like
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: I could actually call myself a writer. Interesting about that
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: was I knew a guy who was a toll take
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: toll taker back when they had toll takers.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: I think, I know the guy you're talking about.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Go ahead, and I remember thinking, I can't wake up
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: tomorrow morning and call myself a toll taker, because you
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: got to get trained, you got to get hired, you
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: got to get placed. But he could wake up and
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: call himself a writer the next day. I thought that
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: was tremendously unfair. You were just allowed to do that, right.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: At some point, I thought, you need to treat it seriously,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: and you need to however you need however that seriousness
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: becomes your life.
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: That's the thing.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: You didn't ask any of this, sorry, but that's how
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: that's really how it happens. You know Bill Martin, right,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: that great story about when he came and we're at
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: the same conference and he told the writers that you
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: you get up every morning and you go to your workspace.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: But before you go to workspace, you have breakfast, you
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: get dressed, you put on shoes, and you go to work.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: I remember thinking, shoes. Nobody wears shoes. That's the whole
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: point being a writer. You don't have to wear shoes,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: but he's dress that helps you take this seriously. You're
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: going somewhere to do this thing that you want to do,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: that you love doing, that you think is important. So
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: if you don't know how to get started as a writer,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I would just tell you to put shoes.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: On, yeah, the most important, and then maybe write something. Yeah.
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: I don't, you know, I don't for that matter. I
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: never put on shoes. But I know people who are
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: very successful, but they still like take the train downtown
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: and go to their office and were and I think
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: I do that in my recliner every day. But it
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: works better for them if they like you're saying, if
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: you don't like a job, Okay, speaking of jobs, you
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: have just released this book Covering Over My Head, it's
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: the second book in your ongoing series of hilarious and
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: warm and witty tributes to your father, featuring a word
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: in the title that we can't say without getting banned
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: by the podcast police, but anyway you can probably figure
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: it out. It's Jack Blank two, which is appropriate. It's
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: an appropriate title for this book right.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Right, because the whole Jack series is about the last
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: twenty years of my father's life. And as you know,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: and you coined the phrase, it will be the only
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: four part trilogy in the history publishing that The the
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: first section, the first segment was his years in Las Vegas.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: The second segment, over your shoulder, is the years in
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Tulsa before he went to the Tulsa Jewish Community retirement center,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: which he calls the Hebrew Home. Be Part three that's
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: coming out this year, and then Part four will be
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: the last year of his life. I could not figure
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: out a way to join that with Part three, so
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: chapter four is just going to be the actual last
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: year of his life. And the thing about the book,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: this serious part of the book is even from the beginning,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: you know this man is going to die. There's no
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: and the problem or the obstacle was is that important,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: and I found it really wasn't as important as those
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: last twenty years of his life. And it hit me
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: that the last twenty years of his life wasn't about
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: waiting to die. It literally was about going to buffets
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: and gambling and going to the bagel place. That really
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: what mattered were the moments, and those moments involved him
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: usually winning the conversation, usually having an insight, which now
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: seems a lot more profound than it was then. Just
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: a quick example about that he was doing. He was
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: an accountant and did accounting long after he should have stopped,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: and at one point he was doing he was ninety
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: three at the time. He's doing an eighty five year
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: old Yugoslavian doctor's tax return who was also a landlord
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: in New York. These tax returns can be like twenty
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: pages long. My father had seven items filled out on
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: the seven lines of twenty pages. I said to my father,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: the irs is going to audit Peter. You cannot send
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: him this tax return. And my father said, so they
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: don't like it, they'll send him a letter. That's your
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: quality control, all right. So what's funny about that? Was
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: I do that bit on stage and somebody comes up
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: to me an actual CPA and says, I got to
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: tell you some because I enjoyed that joke as much
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: as anybody. But that's exactly what the irs is gonna do.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: They're not gonna send somebody out, they're not gonna arrest them.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: They're gonna send him a letter. And I thought that's brilliant.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: And it hit me that my father, in all these
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: comments and all these stories and all these absurdities and
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: these these weird connections he was making, was never entirely
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: wrong m hmm. And while it was going on, it
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: played for laughs. It was funny. It was my father's world.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: The rest were just we're just visiting. But that's what
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: hit me ever since he died, that how close he
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: was to the truth and the insights all along. And
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: I thought I had captured most of those moments and
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: understood most of those moments, but even I missed it.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: And the whole book, with the whole series, is about
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: not missing moments because you know he's not going to
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: be here soon. I don't know what soon meant, but
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: even then I missed it, and that's what hit me.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: And that's what I did that Ted talk was that
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: The idea was to capture the person and not my
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: grief about the person dying trying to do that. Look
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: about Paul as well, The important thing was him, not me.
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: Well, that's what I love about these books. It's such
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: a it's a topical issue, it's weighty subject matter, and
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: yet they're delightful to read and very informative. I mean,
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: we're all just getting older, that's we're all going to
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: face this. And look how he continued to live to
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: the very end. He was he was enjoying himself and
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: making the most out of every day. That's what I
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: took out of the books, and I love it and
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: tell it so well.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: That's that's really what The last thing he said to me,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: the last words he said to me, he was he
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: was in the hospital. He was aspirating, so he couldn't
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: have any walk her. He was you know, but if
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: he had any water, he drowned to death. This way,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: he was just going to suffocate it. It's a terrible
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: way to die, but it was only a two days worth.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: And I said, look at I cannot get you any water.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: I couldn't explain to him, but I cannot get you
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: any water. He goes, what good do you get the
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: hell out of here? I said, you're throwing me. He said, yeah,
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: get out. I said, let me let me get the nurse.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe she'll be able to get something for you cold wash, Gregg,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: maybe you can bite into it or something. And he said,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: she's not going to do anything. She's a Republican.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Was a joke.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: It's brilliant.
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: Runs from the family.
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: I understand that there's actually going to be four books.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Four books, Yes, four books, so.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: We're going to have the four book trilogy. So, just
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: like one of my favorite authors, Douglas Adams his Hitchhiker's
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: Hide to the Galaxy, it's a four book trilogy following
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: excellent footsteps.
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, or five maybe. I seem to remember Adam saying
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: that the this is the fifth volume in the increasingly
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: inaccurately named trilogy something like that.
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure that one was. I'm not sure it
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: was finished before.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: This one.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Doorish it. And again, Bill, thank you for letting me
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: do the fourth one because the third one could not
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: fit everything I wanted to put.
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: In that well, it's better break it up than have
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: some huge, long thing. That's you know, that's part of
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: growing up at the moment when we realized that our
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: parents aren't quite as clueless as we thought they were
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: when we were younger. My dad, who passed a couple
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: of years ago, maybe the only person on earth who
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: actually benefited from an irs at audit. I mean, I
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: don't know why they came out, but they spent like
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: a month at our house messing around with the receipts
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: and finally not only did not find anything wrong, but
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: found a couple of deductions he'd missed. Hed he benefited
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: about fifteen thousand bucks as a result of ignat it.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: That's one of them.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: The other thing is that you probably got from your
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: father and mother obviously, but your father, is that at
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: some point, like in my father's case, that him being
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: my father wasn't as important as him being Jack Friedman.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: That these people actually had lives before they had any
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: connection to you, before you were tethered to them. He
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: was Jack Friedman, and in his mind, there's a good
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: part of him that was always Jack Freedman, not Barry's
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: dad or Florence's husband, And that was something that it
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: took me a while to realize that's who I'm dealing with.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: Here because at some point the parent child thing gets
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: discombobulated and you realize, I'm talking to a grown man
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: who's ninety three, who knows more than I think he does,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: but can also understand that things are not working as
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: well as they used to.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. In addition to this book, you've also got
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: a newsletter, Yeah, distributed through substack, which is doing really well.
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: It's a sort of a blend of humor and politics
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: and sometimes other things.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Tell us about that again, it's it started out as
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: a political blog, and then it morphed into some comedy
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: and some weekly features like a Friday list where I
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: just have the ten craziest things that happened that week.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: And also lately I have been featuring an author every
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: day with a quote from his or her work, and
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: I'm up to about ninety seven authors now. Started a
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: couple of years ago, and like last week, I did Momonodes.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Next week I'm going to do I think Tennessee Williams,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: and then there's Gordoma, and then there's I mean, obviously
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Joseph Heller have done and Philip Roth, Nolan Mayler, and
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: I try to find authors either that I have read
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: more likely should have read I should know their work,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: and I actually just featured their work from five or
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: six of their books every week. That starts off the
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: week every morning. Then on Mondays I do a story
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: of something that happened in the news, and depth Wednesday
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: I do a sort of a fake headline list called
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: heads or Tails t a l e. S. Thursday I
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: do something with Thursday I do something with Charlie Peers
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: at Esquire. I submit something and he publishes it. And
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Friday do my Friday List. And every other week I
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: do a political column that I wrote for publication called
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Progressive Populist. So it seems to be working pretty well.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: But again, as we talked earlier, that's pretty much it.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: There were weeks I don't have a lot to say,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: and I realized, wait a minute, people are paying money
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: now to hear you, to read you, so you can't
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: be motivated to sit down and write them something.
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: At this job.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: This is what you wanted to do, and you can
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: do it, and you can't sit down to do it.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: You can never complain about anything again. And it takes
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: me about, you know, ten minutes to get down there.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: And interestingly, I hadn't really tracked this. Every time I
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: decide to post something, when I don't really feel like
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: posting something, I will invariably pick up a subscriber or too.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: I don't think you see that's why you picked the
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: subscriber up. But he or she read something that they liked.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: And so yeah, yeah, a big success. Though. Go ahead.
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: After living for decades in Tulsa, I hear you're contemplating
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: a move overseas.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Contemplation about that?
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: Is that? Is that fair to share with the world.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going next month. I am moving to Portugal
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: University down there. And the adventure of it hit me
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: and Melissa, my wife, back in March. That had no
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: to do with politics, or very little to do with politics,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: and we started the process and they have a really
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: attractive retirement visa which I could get and it was
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: all approved back in December last month and February fifteenth,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: I go, and we'll see how it works.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Good thing.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: You can still stay connected with people. But I'm going
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: to try and do it over there. Politics, you know,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: since the election, has something to do with it, but
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: mostly it's just this window in my life. I guess
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: we all have these windows where you think I got
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: to do this now, because I wasn't going to do
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: it when my father was alive. I wasn't going to
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: leave Tulsoll he was here. I couldn't see having the
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: strength or inclination to do it when I was seventy
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: five or eighty. This just seems to be the moment
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: to do it. So we're going to try it. And
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: it may be a really stupid decision, but at least
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: we won't regret it.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: You won't spend the rest of your life saying darn,
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: we said gone to Portugal, you know.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: But I don't think I'm going to spend the rest
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: of my life thinking damn, I should have stayed in Tulson.
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: You can always come back, right, It can always come back.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right, can always come back.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: But there is one very important thing we've not discussed yet,
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: and that, of course, would be your geology writing.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been writing.
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: Everybody listening right now is saying, what what's geology writing?
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Go ahead.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: A dear friend of mine thirty thirty five years ago
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: was the editor of the American Association of Petroleum Geologist
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Explore magazine, and he thought I could write, and he
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: started giving me some features to write. And these associations
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: pretty much exist to give old white guys awards. That's
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: really why they have any reason to live. And they
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: all get awarded something and then there's features written about them.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Well I can do those, and I do other stories
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: that have involved too much scientific jargon. And you know,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: really thank God for cutting paste, because I'm not sure
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: how I would lest otherwise. And you put this story
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: together and you understand what's allowable what's not. And it's
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: formulaic writing. But what I like about it is you
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: ever find either one of you when you write about
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: something you don't really care about viscerally, you find yourself
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: writing some of your best work. Does it ever hit you,
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: just the objectivity of it, that you're here and it's there.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Somehow your writing becomes more focused, certainly less self conscious,
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: and just you tackle the issues surprisingly even to yourself.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've written some articles then I haven't thought
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: anything of I mean, the editor will call and say
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: I how to change your lead to go?
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I don't care.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, I really don't care. You do good, junt,
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: contentious job. But you know, if they don't like the
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: lead about these rocks, change the lead. But when people
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: have written I've written about will write me and say,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: nobody's ever written that about when, or no one ever
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: dealt with that topic really, So it is kind of
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: a nice exercise for me to sit down and write
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: about something I don't really really care about. And I
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: guess the other reason, let's be frank about this is
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: that it pays a lot of the bills.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: That's always helpful too.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: You know, you do this writing so you can do
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: the writing you want. But do I know anything about geology.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: I know that when you have dirt you put water on,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: it becomes mud. That's pretty much what I know about you.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: Some of this is oil and gas related. I'm guessing
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: it's all oil and gas related, right, Yeah.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: So I get to write about, you know, carbon capture,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: and I get to write about geologic plays, and I
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: get to write about the Gulf of Mexico and try
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: and stay away from politics, which is impossible when it
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: comes to oil and gas exploration. But it's one of
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: these gigs that I've been known for a long time,
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: and every month he calls and says, do you have
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: any room on your plate for these articles? And I
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: have plenty of room on my plate to make money
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: as a writer, So I write them, and I always
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: write the geologist an email. I could talk to them,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: but I would be lost if they talk back to me.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: So if I send them a list of questions, they
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: answered me in the email, and then I have two
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: screens opening and I can actually move their words back
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: and forth. So yeah, it's one of those gigs that
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I fell into, and I am amazed as anybody's still
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: knowing of.
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: See, this reminds me of the writing I used to
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: do when I was practicing law, you know, and you're
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: having to write briefs and all that kind of stuff
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: every day. And not only do I not think that
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: was my best work, I kind of tremble at the
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: thought that someday I become so famous that some researcher
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: digs all that garbage up. Let it lie, guys.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: Well, the one time I actually tried to insert something
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: in one of these articles, they were doing a story
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: about offshore drilling, California offshore drilling, and I remember reading
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: that Joan Didion once had a quote that the quote
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: was that one gets the feeling when one moved to
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: California the things had better work out there because there
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: we run out of continent. It was a great lead
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: for offshore drilling.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: We run out of continent.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: So I write that in. I actually weaved it in.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: I thought it was a great lead to the story.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: And when the story came out they dropped the whole
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: Joan Didion reference, even though her father was a jology apparently,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: And I said, why would you drop it? It was
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: actually made sense, gave some color to this otherwise dry story.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: And the editor said, because the higher ups had no
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: idea who she was.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: So there you go, There you go, Laura, I've been
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: totally hogging this interview. What's the one question you've always
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: wanted to ask? Barry?
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: What does your writing process look like? You talked about
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: treating it like a job, and we absolutely are on
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: the same page that that's how the writing gets done.
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: And I think when I hear from people that are
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: stalled out, they don't they expect. They like the idea
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: of being a writer, but not actually sitting down and writing.
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: So what is your process like from day to day?
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: Obviously it's probably different when you're writing a geology article
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: or working on one of your books, but how do
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: you keep yourself moving forward on that.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Just a quick story. My daughter asked me one time,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: she said, when you write, do you ever just write
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: just to write therapeutically or just to get through a moment?
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: And I said no, and she said, you'd be surprised
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: how many people write for just that very reason. Shaid,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: everything you write has somewhere to go, and that changes how.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: You look at your writing.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: You know, you actually say to yourself, I have to
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: get this to them. I have a deadline, and so
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: that is essentially what motivates me. And the other is
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: just simply if you look at your output. Now, Bill,
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: you have how many hundreds of books? You have sixty
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: books out?
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: I think we're at sixty five published.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: You have ten seven seven.
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: Well, eighth manuscript is with my agent right now, being shocked.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, now, both of you, if you decided you were
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: going to write just when you were motivated, just when
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: you felt like the light from above came to you,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: I would say to you, you could do that. Look
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: at your output. However you've been doing this, this works
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: for you. I used to joke that if Bob Dylan
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: wrote mister Tambourine Man on Monday, he could take the
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: rest of the week off, you're done, done to work
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: for the week. So I think people if they don't
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: know whether they should sit down nine to five and
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: write or wait for that kind of strange impulse. That's
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: strange encouragement to look at your output and see what
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: you're writing and if you're writing and publishing or doing
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: the work and you're waiting for that impulse, and keep
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: doing that. But if your if your input output is
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: not there, excuse me. If your output is not there,
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: then sit down and make a schedule and treat it
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: like a job. So in my case, mostly I write
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: because I have things that need to be done, even
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: though it's a lot of it's my own deadlines. I
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: don't really write a certain amount every day unless I
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: have to, And invariably, when I will write something, it
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: will take much longer than I wanted to write, but
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: at least I know where it's going. So I have
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: a column coming out tomorrow which shouldn't have taken me
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: six hours, but it has because I can, and it's
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: not due till tomorrow, and it's mine and I want
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: it to be what it is. So I don't know
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: if that answers your question, but really depends on what
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: you want to do. If you're writing your first novel
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: and it's not working, or you're not having any time
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: to write because you're waiting to sit down for when
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: you feel like writing, then get up at five o'clock
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: in the morning before you go to work and write.
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: I like that.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: If it's not a board of you, then it's not
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, nobody's waiting for your book. But if you
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: really want to get that book done, you know, find
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: the time to do it. If you can't find the
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: time to do it, then you make the time to
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: Luckily.
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: I like that. I've had people tell me that they
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: they can't follow this schedule or that schedule. My advice
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: is find the schedule that does work for you and
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: then stick to it.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: And when you think about how much time people spend
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: watching TV and being on Facebook or doing whatever, there's
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: probably an hour or two during the day where they're
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: doing other things besides writing, and by all means do it.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: But if you want to write a novel, you're probably
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: gonna need that time. It's like reading, you know, It's like,
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: how do you read a book anymore? With there's so
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: many distractions. And I've decided there's a formula. So you
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: read two chapters, then you go check your email, you
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: get to then you get to read a chapter, and
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: then you can check Facebook. You cannot spend all your
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: time on social media or talking about writing and not
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: actually sitting down and doing it.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, Berry. One last question, what can we
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: look forward to seeing from you from the other side
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: of the Atlantic Ocean in the future.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm actually thinking it's a great question. I'm actually
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: thinking that it would be too cliche to write my
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: first year in Portugal.
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: No, I would think a lot of people have done
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: more with less, And I bet you would be a
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: sensational travel writer.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah so, I think Mark.
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: Twain was a humorist. His biggest hits, though, were his
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: travel books best sellers.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think I'm going to do think about that. Uh.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: I guess the political angle with that would be I
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: actually got out. I mean, there are people who do
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: want to leave the country, and a lot of it
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: is just that first impulse I hated here, I'm leaving.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: But there's a whole process you got to go through.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: Even though my process went pretty smoothly. It's it's it's
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: a it's a deal, it's a thing. So I think
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: that would be my first thought about Portugal. It's just
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: I'm here, my life is there. I know nobody in Portugal, nobody,
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: which means there's going to be nobody who knows me,
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: which means there's no restaurant, there's no table, there's no
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: special sandwich, nothing. And I think that could be an
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: interesting story about how you actually make it in a
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: foreign land. Or that's somewhat of a cliche, but I
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: think that's what I'm hoping for if I ever get
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: rid of the jack.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: Sounds so good to me. Hey, if you're leaving, can
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: I have your table at the Babel bagel shop because
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: we get.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: We'll get it remade for it. Yea, for sure for
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Barish people or Burry.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: Here you Bury in company. Yeah, Barry, thanks for being
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: another podcast again. We really appreciate.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: It, my pleasure.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Enjoyed it as always.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: Let's see you both, bye bye.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Now by.
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: Just a couple of parting words, I'm going to remind
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: you again that we've got the writer con Cruise coming
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: up in just a few months at the end of May.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: I think, isn't it Laara April? Yeah, yeah, yeah, And
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: and you can read all about it at the website.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: That's writercon dot com slash cruise, but it's an Alaskan
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: cruise leaving out of Seattle, and I think this is
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: going to be a blast. Plus when the boat's not in,
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: you know, in a port somewhere, we're going to do stuff.
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: We're going to be holding The writing classes will have
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: more than twenty hours of writing instruction. That's big group,
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: that's medium sized, that's very small, critique groups. Whatever you
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: are looking for, that's what we're going to provide because
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: we keep the group small so we can very much
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: tailor the presentation to the people who are there. Right
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: go to the website. If you have any questions, email me.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: You know it is, you know, more complicated than I wish.
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: You got to pay for the course and then you've
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: got to call the cruise line and book your room.
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: But that's the only way we could do it. Use
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: the code that we provide on the website. Tell them
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: it's your part of writer Con. But uh, there is
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: you know, there are so many room choices. That's if
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: we did it, we'd have to give everybody the same room,
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: and everybody doesn't want the same room. Some people want
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: single double, some people want a balcony. Some people don't care.
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: So go to the website. If you have any questions,
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: email me W I. L L B E. R N
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: at gmail dot com. Would love to hear from you,
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: and I would especially love to have you on this
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: cruise because we're not only going to talk shop all out,
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: we're gonna have a great time. Let me also remind
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: you that writer Con has its own newsletter and magazine,
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: and man, you don't want to miss out on that
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: because they are both fabulous and the newsletter is completely free.
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: So go to substack, search for writer Con and join today.
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: All right, until next time, keep writing and remember you
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: cannot fail if you refuse to quit. See you next
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: time
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: And