Latest / Books4Guys / From Voice Actor to 50 Books | Aaron Ryan on Storytelling, Faith, and Creativity

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From Voice Actor to 50 Books | Aaron Ryan on Storytelling, Faith, and Creativity · Books4Guys

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: But Seattle is no one knows where that is.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you just say Seattle and they go, oh, okay, good West Coast top.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Are you?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I know you ride a lot.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I a lot of you know speaking hobbies and such, but are you a sports fan too?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, I mean, but I'm very fair weather.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: So Seahawks, you know, woo-hoo, you know, was so excited about that.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we got a hundred-inch TV.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, it's if you can watch the Super Bowl on a screen like that, and it's your team, it's so much the better.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Mariners were doing really well uh last year.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: They're doing horrible right now, but uh they were doing really well for a while.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I get excited and ride the wave, and then I've got 10 and six-year-old sons and my wife and church and life, and that's what I'm like yeah, busy with.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're in that that time of your life where that should be the focus.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I was curious though, my my dad's a big Seahawk fan.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we've been to a game up there, and it was awesome.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, this past Super Bowl was a lot of fun to watch and experience because I've been like, hey, I've seen that team in person.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've been to the stadium, I know what the fans are like, some of the best in the NFL, so it was a really cool experience.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But no, Aaron, man, super pumped to talk to you.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's I I can already tell.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love talking with people who like bring excitement and energy.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I was telling you, I didn't I I knew you've written a lot of books, and I want to get into that because you've written on all I mean, you've written fiction, nonfiction, kids' books.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a a few book series out that are very popular, which is which is exciting.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't realize either until I started digging into your website a little bit about the motivational speaking and and just coaching and stuff that you do.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, dang, Aaron wears many hats and and seems to enjoy doing a lot of different things.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, no, man, share your story a little bit because you've been doing you've been doing a lot of this for a while, um, as far as speaking goes and writing.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned with me, I'm not gonna like spoil too much, but you're you're working on book number 50, which is incredible.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I haven't talked to too many authors who have written that many books.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh man, what what is your story?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Man, well, so my parents conceived probably when I was no, I'm kidding.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's going back a little too far.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just gosh, when I was a little guy, I remember three origin stories that that led me to writing.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've always wanted to do and kind of been immersed in different creative pursuits, whether it's been writing, music, drama, poetry, dancing.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Can't do dancing anymore, just don't have the figure.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'm just old, old, old, old.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: But um uh second grade, Mrs.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Walker, hi, Mrs.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Walker, gave us all an assignment.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is back in like 1981.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, predates most most rocks.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um uh it was an assignment to write a short novella.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time, E.T.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: was out, and so I totally like plagiarized and ripped off uh a copyright-infringed Alan Dean Foster's novelization of E.T.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: to write The Electric Boy.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And just a little novelization, crude stick figure drawings, college rule paper, three-hole punch, construction paper cover.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember going, like holding it when I was done, going, look, you know, look what I made.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I did this.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it was such a watershed moment for me.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Next, reading Lord of the Rings blew my mind.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, massive rings fan right here.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I want to clarify this is not the one ring.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: See, I'm still here, still here.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: But it really blew my mind and opened me up, uh, opened my mind to the prospect of world building because nobody does it like Tolkien.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: That was just, you know, insane.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then and read it every every winter.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I read it every year.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally, was I completely forgot about this, but my my mom had made an album of memories that she gave to my soon-to-be wife in 2011.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it contained newspaper clippings, articles, certificates, you know, book reports, grades, report cards for me as a kid.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things was an article from North Bend, I don't remember the year.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I was in a young author's club and completely forgot about that.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember back that far.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And seeing the newspaper, like, my gosh, you know, I'm like holding on for dear life as these memories are sweeping over me.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Big time memory lane.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: So those three are super formative, and it's it's no wonder I'm an author.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Man, that's incredible.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I always ask, like, you know, growing up, were you a reader?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like you were like you you got in at an early age, and um, I, you know, my story's a little bit different.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: I I talk about my friends who were like you, they were reading fantasy books and Lord of the Rings, and they were super into it.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish I would have been.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I picked it up later and I was like, dang, why didn't I like this like five, 10 years ago?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is awesome.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: But better late than never.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Better late than never.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: But no, so I mean, obviously, you've book number 50.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: You you you have several interests, you've written, like I said, a couple different series, fiction series.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious to know because, and I was kind of gonna go this direction.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I saw where you did a lot of speaking at different churches, you know, man of faith.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I grew up in church, my dad's a pastor, and I read the Bible from front to back last year for the first time, so that was really cool.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I love so you write about, you know, aliens.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I've recently gotten into learning more about like the book of Enoch and like some of these things where it kind of goes back into I don't know, I talked to my dad about it, and it was an interesting conversation because he's like, Yeah, man, there's there's these books, and you know, they're not really part of what we've, you know, gone through, you know, through your life and what you've experienced, but they're there.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But is that I guess I'm just curious to know, like, with you talk writing about aliens, but then also like being a man of faith, like, is there any correlation there of like your interest of digging further into both of those topics, or or are they both totally separate for you?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, yes and no.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because I wrote an alien invasion saga.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's up here, dissonance, and uh, and I and I I I'm out there selling it at vendor markets and craft fairs frequently.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've got one coming up this weekend.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I'm asked often, because it's an alien-related saga, do you believe?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it, you know, I I don't quite know what to say.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I would like to believe that they exist, that they're out there, that they're friendly, non-nefarious, more E.T.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: than the predator, more E.T.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: than the Gorgons, which are the aliens in my story, which just they find you quite delicious.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd like to think, though, that regardless of how I feel about their existence or lack thereof, I do believe in a God who is big enough, far bigger than I could ever imagine or conceive.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: And with all of the planets that we're just even now finding uh pictures of and records of way out there, the Trappist One system 39 light years away, and Proxima Centari B and all of these crazy distant worlds and and nebulae and you know star systems.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's what is the new, what's the new spacecraft that's out there?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I forget its name.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know what you're talking about, but I forgot that I don't know the name off the top of my head.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the NASA satellite that's bringing back images that are just way bigger, high resolution than what we used to have.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think that God is certainly big enough to multitask and manage several star systems in several worlds.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Are we the apple of his eye?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the Bible says so.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Are we a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: His eyes on the sparrow.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: He we know he watches us.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: All of that is true.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: But could it be true that his eye is also on the gorgons on Trapast One?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: All these other life forms out there, he's God.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Who am I to put him in a box?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd like to believe that they exist, but I really hope they're friendly.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's all I'm gonna say.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, and I was just, I've been so interested in that lately.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And just again, with you having books with aliens, then I also saw your background, you know, speaking at churches and stuff.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, I bet I bet Aaron has discussed this quite often, maybe with people and questions.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're right.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's how that's how I approach it too.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, why would I box God into just this one thing?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: If anything, I believe more than ever, but I also believe like what I've learned is just a speck of of what maybe the possibilities are.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's how it's supposed to be.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I don't know anything.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm consistent continuingly seeking, which I think is the purpose of all that.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: But the more I read, I was like, man, I think there's so much we just don't know, and we shouldn't probably pretend to know because there's just like you said, I when you think about the galaxy, I'm like, we're just one little speck in this grand scheme of things.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what what are the possibilities, you know?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's the multi, that's the universe.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: We're not even taking into account the multiverse, you know, and the omniverse beyond that.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I love the the verse.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: This obviously is a little out of context, but no eye is seen, no ear is heard, no mind can ever conceive the glorious things he's prepared for those who love him.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: The same type of like in our limited little man brain, we cannot possibly conceive of the grand scale on which God operates.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we're always in a journey of discovery and learning.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the things I love about being an author is I I'm a pantser.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's two styles of writing.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: For those who don't know, there's generally there's a pantser, they fly by the seat of their pants, they're very organic.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's the planner or the plotter, and they are, you know, they dot their T's, they cross their I's, they dot their I's and cross their T's.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: They uh have index charts and flow cards and flow charts and uh bullet lists and all that stuff.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm much more organic, so it's a journey of discovery when I write, and I'm learning my story as much as you're learning it when you're reading it.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love the organic nature of it.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do you, this perfectly leads into my next question for you, actually?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, with you writing so many different types of books, how do you go about, I guess, determining your next book?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Is it just what you're interested in at that time?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have ideas that you're you're jotting down and like, yeah, I'll get to that when I feel like I'm ready for it?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how do you determine this story is where my time is going to be spent, you know, today or for the next three to six months?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thankfully I write a lot quicker than that.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I I love uh I'm a indie pubbed author by trade, by choice.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a self-published author.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: If a traditional publisher came to me and said, Hey, your book has done very well in self-published status, dissonance volume one reality, for example, and we'd like to take it to the next level and reach a higher market, and here's a check.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, who am I to no thanks?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, seriously, yeah, I would take that.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I I prefer self-publishing because of the many trade-offs that you would make in order to be traditionally published.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: One of those trade-offs is um is unfortunately the really lengthy time to market.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: I am on my 50th book and all 50 or or 49 of the 49th, whatever, is publishing next uh Monday on my birthday.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Birthday present.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm excited.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's totally just not my genre, but it's an artist, an artist, and an author has to stretch themselves.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: But man, if I had been traditionally published, the overwhelming majority of those books would not be seeing the light of day yet.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: They would still take a long time to get out there.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Self-published, I can, you know, I can get them out there.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I will never use AI to write my books.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I do not use AI.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I just I'm a voice actor, full-time voice actor, and full-time author.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I have the nine to five day job that everybody else has.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And part of it is writing a lot, and I type very fast, thankfully.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: And part of it is is is voiceovers.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to get them out there, you know, quickly.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I've totally forgot your question now that I've kind of gone on this endearing rabbit trail way over here.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: What was your question again?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it was, it was just how do you determine what you want to write?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, you have series too.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, like you said, Panzer, like when you wrote dissonance, did you expect it to be as many books as it was, or was that organically done as well?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to write one, chapter three or four, I can't remember which.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I realized there's a greater story here.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's a subtle undercurrent of another timeline, another story running.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I remember sitting back and going, Oh my gosh, wow.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it just blew the story wide open.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And thus, you can see up here, it it morphed fairly quickly within the span of a year to six books.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: It became, and I had to learn all these terms.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, I'd never heard of tetralogy and pentalogy and hexology.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: But now I'm just tossing them about, like, yeah, I wrote a hexology.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: But it ballooned into a, I wanted to write a trilogy, one at least, and then I was like, okay, I'll write a trilogy.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then it demanded two prequels and a sequel.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: There was so much richness and depth to mine, so it it just ballooned.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: But the Talisman saga is my most recent saga that I released, and that's uh down here in the corner.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's three books.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I intended it to be a trilogy, but man, book two and book three were the hardest books I have ever written.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: I found myself in the multiverse and I don't know how I even got there.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I don't know where to go.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I I paused, put the kibosh on that for a while, shifted gears, and this is what I do.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: When these don't work and these don't work, my heart and mind and my fingers, I'll take a nonfiction off-ramp and I will write something I'm passionate about, which in this case was my kids, and that's this book behind me, You Are My Whole Earth, A Daddy's Love for His Sons.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I just I love my kids, I love my boys, and it just it flowed out of me.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: It reminded me these fingers still work, this heart and this mind still work.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's do this.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, let's get back into talisman now that we're done.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I do follow these breadcrumbs where they wherever they lead.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh your other book that I was really caught on to, The End, which I think it does have to do with the end times, correct?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and okay.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, explain that.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Explain it a little bit.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because when when I first saw it, it kind of reminded me of back, and I had to look it up real quick.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Left behind uh Left Behind series.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so growing up, I remember reading those books and then watching that movie, and then I saw that.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I wonder if there's like some inspiration or correlation there at all.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I loved the Left Behind series.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: I never actually completed it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think I read through uh Nikolai, uh was one of the later ones.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: But no, no referendum on the quality of the books, I just got busy, whatever.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I I did love them.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um I wanted to write something that was end times related, but it's essentially it's a cruel twist on the end times.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh 1 John 2.18, I believe it is, says, uh even now many antichrists have come.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is a totalitarian despot who is a megalomaniac, he's completely deluded and thinks he is the Capital A Antichrist.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: So he's deliberately calling out God, he's putting Christians on the spot.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Under the guise of a census, he has Christians report, everyone report to their hometown.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: And he's in power.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: We put him in there after a a virus wiped out 50% of the of the earth's population.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: We needed somebody.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: He's got resources, he's charismatic, he's rich, he's powerful, he's he could do this.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we didn't know he had an ulterior motive.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So his name was Constantine Jedediah Goodfellow.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: That was his given name.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Constantine means steadfast, Jedediah means love to the Lord, Goodfellow means goodfellow.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So how can he be bad?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: So he reveals his ulterior motives, though.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: We go, we report for the census.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: We are uh, if we identify as Christians through a tablet linked to a gun to check for traces of the virus, it scans our brainstem for traces of the virus, but if we've identified as Christians or Protestant or Lutheran or whatever, we are uh marked.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he has an army of mechanoid robots known as guardians that are trained to hunt for one thing, and that is your mark.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so we are under siege.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's a second, it's an apocalyptic book, but it is the second Holocaust this time of Christians in the year 2113.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: It is filled with so much redemption.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: I get chills just talking about it.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's filled with so much redemption, so much scripture.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: You will cry.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care if you're a man, it is absolutely powerful.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so you just want the good stories to come to you, and I'm so glad I got that one.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Man, that's awesome.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can hear your passion and excitement behind it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got to read it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've got me amped up for it.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: When you when you write, I'm assuming, well, I guess there's just I'm thinking as somebody who's never, never really written a book.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Does it get easier?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because you said you write fast.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, like from I guess your your personal journey as an author, thinking back to book one, two, three versus 45, 46, 47, how much easier is the process?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is it easier to come up with things and sit down and crank out a book?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or just what what does that look like in the difference between your early writing and then today?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is easier in some respects, sure.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: You learn more about formatting, you learn about cliffhangers and segues, you learn more about character development and world building.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: However, I I can look back and I can identify not the entirety of the piece, but I can identify so many partitions of Dissonance Volume 1 Reality, which was my first real Odyssey back in fiction in only 2023.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And there are segments of that book, there are partitions and chapters of that book where I'm going, dang, that was good writing.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the the same is true of Volume 2 Reckoning, Volume Three Renegade, uh, you know, the other ones.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's some excellent prose in there.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there is excellent prose in the end.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: I do freely confess that I'm on a journey that's somewhat propelled by urgency.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: So as a voice actor, we are under threat by um, we've always been under threat by um uh the economy, the low-balling clients, the underbending colleagues, the sag after strike, the COVID pandemic, you know, blah, blah, blah.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but then in in 2023, when ChatGPT and OpenAI made their foray into the open market, now we're under threat by AI severely.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I've seen our income drastically erode.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen um cherished, beloved, longtime uh voice actor, producer relationships sever because either they've been removed, because now they're just gonna have C dance to it, or their mucky muck higher-ups have said, we no longer want to use uh human voice talent.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just go through 11 labs or whatever.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and I miss those relationships.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: So our income's gone like this.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, well, I'm a storyteller.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know what I'll do, I'll write stories.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I I've been really trying to develop a diverse and expansive library, that's what you see behind me.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that is legacy, but it's also something that should one of those books catch fire and I promote them heavily, should one of them just catch fire and go crazy?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Look at this bounty of other material.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Dissonance Volume One Reality has been adapted for the screen.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's being pitched to streaming networks right now.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: If they take that one, they're gonna take all six because it is a rich, robust story, and there's a lot of material there.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I'm trying hard.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, brother, we'll speak that into existence.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to watch it on Netflix one day.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Me too.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it'll be on Netflix, full disclosure.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's a story there, but like some platform.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Optimistic, knock on wood.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, love that.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I find, you know, I love talking with, and I haven't talked to many, but I love talking with authors who have written books, either a lot of books or over a long period of time.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I got into a deep discussion.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot who I was talking to about it, but we were talking about how even with fiction writing, how different it potentially can look just based off what's going on in your life, in the world right now, just just things that can influence your thinking, thoughts, what you want to say.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm always curious, like, you know, what was going on in your life at this time versus now, and and what what's some differences you see, or you know, just what do you catch where you're like, huh, I wrote that because of this, or I wrote this because of that.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I find it just interesting on how influences outside of what's going on in your just your head-down world, but how it can influence what you're putting on paper.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't intend anything I write to be a referendum on anything, but it is so funny how you have to come up with a log line to pitch your book to people at vendor markets, craft fairs.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, what's this one about?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I say, there is a diluted techno-trillionaire, and I don't even get to finish that sentence.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they go, Oh, Elon Musk.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, ugh, you know, no, it's not Elon.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing political.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is an apolitical book.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: However, uh, that's the end.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Dissonance Volume One reality, the very word dissonance means lack of harmony.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: And there are political overtones in there, but not as a referendum on um uh on 2023, four, five, six.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing uh against Trump, um, anybody in office, Biden, nobody in office.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but there are actual events mentioned uh in the book that happened around that time, such as the Ukraine-Russian war, so I should say the reverse order, the the Russian invasion into Ukraine and that ensuing war, the Gaza war, and you know, everything that's happening right now uh is mentioned in 2023 in Dissonance Volume 1 reality.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Part of the reason for that is I really pride myself on verisimilitude.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want the people who read my book to go, wow, this feels real.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: This feels very tangible.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And going back to the end, people had left reviews and said, like, wow, bad guy rises to power, Christians being hunted and persecuted, blah, blah, blah.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're saying this sounds like it could all happen.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this isn't far off the mark without, you know, using a pun on the mark.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: But uh it's it's crazy because I didn't intend it that way, but people will perception equals reality, and that is how people uh they take it the way they want to.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, for sure.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: They do.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the amount of times I hear people say, We're in the end times, and I'm like, Yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: But we also it also says we'll have no clue of when that happens.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: So like who could be again, we can project project, but we're probably wrong.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: But now, so do you edit your own work too, or do you have someone else look over that and do that part of the process for for you?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Both.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: So nonfiction works, I will usually just edit those myself.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're much shorter, they're much more personal.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I wrote them from a place of arguably more passion and vulnerability and authenticity than uh a fictional work.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Fictional work, you never want to have a plot hole.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to have a whole lot of typos.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to have, you know, they have brown hair here, blonde hair there, you know, green eyes, brown eyes.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a man, and now it's a woman.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, ah, what's going on?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I have a very beautiful, sexy editor who wears the match to this on her hand.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And my wife is just, she's a wordsmith.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's weird because I'm the author and she's the wordsmith.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: She really places a high premium on words.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: She'll be the one who will structure an email to you and will hover her finger over the send button for a week.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure it's perfect.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, she can't get it back and she realizes the power of words.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: But man, she's really, she's just twisted my stuff inside out and helped me to find great ways of saying things more concisely, more expressively.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, however, she's been on a backlog.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: I write far too fast for her.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And she is an editor of not just Alien Invasion.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: So she's working on other things too.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: So she comes back and she edits mine, she re-edits mine.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: I make sure there's no typos and all that.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then if she wants to come back and work her magic on it later, she'll come back and then put her stamp on it.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: She she's giving you a taste of what it's like to work with a real big publishing group.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Really slow, take their time, make sure everything's perfect.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're maybe steps in that direction.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Favorite steps.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: What's your favorite part about writing?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: What's your least favorite part about writing?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And more about the process of start to finish.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a part of it that while it's you know, writing is enjoyable, there's an annoying part.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then is there a part that you just find, like, I love doing this?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is this out stamps anything that could be negative and annoying to me.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: So as a creator, I'm out here in an 880 square foot shop removed from our home that's been converted into two-thirds playroom and and rec area and one-third office and voiceover booth.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: And this is mine.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's my haven of creativity.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I love coming out here.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: I love sitting down in front of this ultra-wide and crafting stories over here and editing voices over here.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: I love just the sheer process of creation.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: It is such a rich, exquisite privilege from the creator that I get to mirror that.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's just amazing.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: He he is the creator, and I get to create.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love, I think it's Ecclesiastes 8:10, if I remember right.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: These type, um, and and I do it with all my might.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love writing stories.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Every major vocation I've had for the past 20 years has all been about storytelling, all of them.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking not like a job for someone else, but all my different iterations of self-employment.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: They've all been about storytelling.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm naturally a storyteller at heart.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: The hard thing is um is the coin flip of that, where man, I love this story.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: I love this saga so much, and you get crickets.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Or, excuse me, you don't get crickets, you have to contend with the sheer overwhelming amount of spam and scam mails, emails you get every single day.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's deflating.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: I get all these people every single day that are that are coming up with new ingenious ways to scam me, and you cannot block them.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: The phrase I like to use comes from the terminator.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: That terminator, that scammer, is out there.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with, it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear, and it absolutely will not stop ever until you are dead.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've even gotten death threats from these scammers because I foolishly replied to one of them with an antagonistic, you know, you're a pathetic charlatan, you know, leave me alone, blah, blah, blah.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Never should have done that.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's deflating to to put a Christmas gift under a tree and have no one open it.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the you put your heart and soul and mind and and love and passion into these stories, and it's really hard when uh they fall on deaf ears.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to just continue to try.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I I'm a little unflappable.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I've learned to be unflappable, uh, except for this.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: This this is flappable.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I just I I've sworn it off.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: I've said no more.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is my last book, I'm done, I've had it, and you know, a few hours later I'm back right in my next saga.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: It it's a I have a problem.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: It is a disease, it is authoritis, it is incurable.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, but I'm I'm I'm so glad you shared that because I that's the main reason of this platform of Books for Guys and the podcast, is it's easy to to look at someone like yourself and go, Aaron's written 50 books, like how successful and how awesome, and everything great, and everything he publishes out there, people are probably loving it.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: But that's never the case.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: We, you know, we always see the highlight real and we don't really pay attention to all the struggles until we take the time to read about somebody or or listen to a long-form, you know, conversation to better learn about those struggles.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I always want people to hear that, to, for one, to maybe realize, like, hey, if they're going through something similar, you can always overcome it, you know, or or if you're trying to get somewhere and do, you know, if you're trying to write 50 books, well, follow Aaron.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: What his blueprint and what he's doing might work for you too.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had similar thoughts.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: I I'll have great conversation and I'll post it out there and I'm thinking, like, oh, this is the podcast that's gonna get it's gonna run.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the best conversation and the most, I think it can help the most people, and then yeah, it won't get very many views.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what the heck?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's so impactful, you know, but it's not up to me or you, or you know, it's just you got to show up every day and chip away at it, and it'll think will lead where they need to lead to.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's about the work, the journey, the company you're with along the way.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: It always, as you do this more and more, I think people realize that that's more important than the ultimate destination.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's one daily process of it all.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: It is the grind.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: One of the best quotes I ever heard, and I think it was from Jim Rohn.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna just, for the purpose of this podcast, I'm gonna attribute it to him.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: But he said, success is not a destination, it is a journey.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so people always like to use this phrase, you know, I've arrived, or when will I know that I've made it and all that stuff.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you you make it every single day.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: You arrive every single day when you arrive.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: When I arrive right here, and I continue to push forward and create.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I love this story.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'll try to make it really quick, but it was like World War II, this plane called the Lucky Bill got shot so many times, riddled with bullets, should not have remained aloft.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: It deposited its ordnance or its payload or whatever, came down, landed, and they're assessing it.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, oh my gosh, you know, this thing should not have logistically, logically been able to fly.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Riddled with bullets.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's Swiss cheese.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they determined after an examination, it had more structural integrity than it had bullets to bring it down.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that's so important as a creator.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: We have to have structural integrity.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in and I've got great quotes to share to that effect.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you ask me about mantras later, so many people fall and fail and give up because boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: They they take those hits and they internalize them and personalize them.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: You can't.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: You you have to just keep moving forward.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Rocky said it's not about how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Love that quote.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Love that movie.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Love Rocky.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: I love I love a good quote, too.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're probably like Eric, I got one more question for you, man.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: This has been so awesome.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I ask everyone this question as I'm just I'm curious to know what people are reading or what they're recommending.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm always want to ask, you know, what's a book or two that has meant a lot to you, personally or professionally?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what's a book or two you love to recommend to other people?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so I do a daily devotional, and one book that I've just absolutely taken by because there's so much wisdom in it.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um the guy has a great name.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: His name is Ryan Holiday.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Ryan Holiday wrote a book called The Daily Dad.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I go through it every single morning.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is full of practical advice.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Some of it is touches on the Christian approach, but the overwhelming majority is just good common sense and logical, good behavior, dad stuff.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: That was a horrible synopsis.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, read his synopsis on Amazon and everywhere else.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a good book.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's nonfiction.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Fiction, I just, you know, I will come back to it every single year because it is so rich in world building and depth and character development and stakes.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the Lord of the Rings.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like it or not, Tolkien detested allegory, but like it or not, he actually states that in his foreword.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like it or not, though, you know, G Gandalf, G, God, S, Sauron, S Satan.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: The ring is like the epitome of evil and corruption.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to get rid of it.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: You have to purge, you know, purge it.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you can see the effect of what sin, the ring, does to people, i.e., Gollum.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's oodles of allegory.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, Tolkien, but you know, it's your your fault, not mine.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just, it's so rich and it's so robust, and I just love it.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Every page, I love it.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: I and I'm sure it's very inspirational to how you write, you know, because that's your interest and passion.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm the same way as like a there's a nonfiction book I read every January because it just gets my mindset right for the year.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I love knowing what people are reading and interested in and what the correlation is there.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: But Aaron, man, thank you so much for taking the time to do this and congrats on on all your work so far.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh can't wait to see the next 50 books that you publish.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to see, you know, shows and movies and motion pictures at some point of what you've put out there.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so you definitely have my support and books for guys support, and thank you for being a part of our journey now, as it means more than you know.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: But man, keep up the good work, Aaron.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm excited to see what all you do.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we'll do.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's a privilege, you know.