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The Children Of The Black Glass Trilogy Continues With The Law Of Solitude From Tony Peckham · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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  Speaker 1: It's been a great adventure creating Arrow dot Net. Twenty
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  Speaker 1: are waiting for you on Arrow dot net A R.
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  Speaker 1: R oe dot Net. Enjoy your exploration. Headlo and good
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: morning everybody.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Good morning Arrow. How are you. It's Tony Peckham here. Man.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, mister Tony, you have You have
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  Speaker 1: written a book here that is you know what, this
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  Speaker 1: is more than just a YA book. My wife gets
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  Speaker 1: into these books and I swear to God that you
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  Speaker 1: have you have bridged all genres and it's like, oh
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  Speaker 1: my god, I get to watch him grow forward like this.
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  Speaker 2: Well, thank you. That's wonderful to hear, because when I
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  Speaker 2: started writing it, I didn't have an audience in mind,
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  Speaker 2: in the sense of an age group, because you know
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: end this game is that is that an YA book?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Not sure? You know so just because it has children
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  Speaker 2: and doesn't mean that it's so true only for children.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and yeah, because look at stranger things. I
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  Speaker 1: mean that was that was all young adults as well.
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  Speaker 1: And look how many older people really brought on in
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  Speaker 1: themselves into this storyline as well. So know your spot
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  Speaker 1: on with where we want to grow as readers agreed.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, I just tried to write a story
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  Speaker 2: that I wanted to read. You know that I grew up.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: You know, I grew up in South Africa when we
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  Speaker 2: didn't have TV. It was it was banned as the
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  Speaker 2: tool of the devil. Literally, that's what they called it
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  Speaker 2: when I grew up, and so all we had was reading,
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  Speaker 2: and I just I wanted to write a book. And
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  Speaker 2: then it turned into three books that just took you away,
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  Speaker 2: you know, into another world that made you stay up late,
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  Speaker 2: that made it, you know, turn, made you turn the pages,
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  Speaker 2: got you into trouble. That is for reading.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: That is so funny that you say that. And the
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  Speaker 1: reason why is because I will sit there and I
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  Speaker 1: have been. I've been reading your book until my eyes
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  Speaker 1: shut and I go, oh, I just had a brown out,
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  Speaker 1: meaning that I basically just closed my eyes and and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I got to tell you something, though, Tony,
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  Speaker 1: is I put myself inside the book and I just
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  Speaker 1: and I love it when an author can do that
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  Speaker 1: where I feel like I am a part of your story.
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  Speaker 2: Oh that's cool, that's cool. Well, you know, Children of
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  Speaker 2: the Black Class is my first novel, but not, you know,
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  Speaker 2: not the first professional writing I've done since I was
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: just I'm been a screenwriter for a long time, and
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  Speaker 2: so I'm so bad, you know. It started as as
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  Speaker 2: a bedtime story on a road trip with my kids.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: We were traveling in the Eastern Sierras in California and
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: traveling and camping, and we came upon this mountain of obsidian. Literally,
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  Speaker 2: there's this place that's just a mountain made of obsidian.
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  Speaker 2: I'm covered with trees and dirt, but all the rocks
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  Speaker 2: are black glass. And then we discovered that and all
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  Speaker 2: obsidian has its own mineral signature, his fingerprint, so to speak.
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  Speaker 2: And we discovered that where we lived on the California coast,
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  Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty miles and a mountain range away,
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  Speaker 2: they found arrowheads made from the obsidian from this mountain.
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  Speaker 2: And the kids, you know, turned to ice and went,
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  Speaker 2: how did those arrowheads get all the way to the coast,
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  Speaker 2: And that's how the story started. I started making up
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  Speaker 2: a story about a brother and a sister, because that's
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  Speaker 2: who was in the car with us with our son
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  Speaker 2: and daughter, and started making up his story. And kids
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  Speaker 2: are ruthless audiences, and so you know, they just check
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  Speaker 2: out the second you're uninteresting, and so I kept it
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  Speaker 2: interesting to the point that it kept them up my wife,
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  Speaker 2: and you know, I kept making twists and turns and
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: trouble and you know, I'm missing mom. And my wife
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  Speaker 2: came in and said, this isn't working. They're not going
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  Speaker 2: to sleep. You've got to stop this. Write it down.
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  Speaker 2: It was much more the getting the kids to sleep
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  Speaker 2: at night. If you're a parent, you will appreciate that
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  Speaker 2: getting the kids to sleep at night is more important
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  Speaker 2: than anything. So so anyway, I wrote it down and
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  Speaker 2: as far as I'd got it and put it in
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  Speaker 2: a draw and continued with my screenwriting career. And then
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  Speaker 2: COVID came along and shut down a TV series I
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  Speaker 2: was working on in Baltimore and never started up again.
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  Speaker 2: COVID basically shut down Hollywood forever, in my in my
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  Speaker 2: in my opinion. And I came home and I was
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  Speaker 2: all burned out from the movie, from the business, and
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  Speaker 2: stressed out and pacing around the house muttering and my
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  Speaker 2: wife said, please go write something. Go in your office
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  Speaker 2: and write something, something long and difficult, and that keeps
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  Speaker 2: you in your office. And so that's I pulled those
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  Speaker 2: I didn't want to write another screenplay because it seemed useless,
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  Speaker 2: and I pulled these pages out of my draw and
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  Speaker 2: started reading them, and they were not as bad as
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  Speaker 2: I expected. And so I continued and wrote Children of
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  Speaker 2: the Black Glass and loved every second of it.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, please don't move. There's more with Anthony Peckham coming
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  Speaker 1: up next, and you can call him Tony if you
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  Speaker 1: want to. The name of the book, The Law of Solitude,
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  Speaker 1: book number three in his trilogy. We are back with
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  Speaker 1: Anthony Peckham. I got to tell you that what I'm
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  Speaker 1: feeling as a published author and somebody who studies Native
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  Speaker 1: American spirituality. First of all, I'm going to say that,
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  Speaker 1: but I don't want to ruin it for the readers.
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  Speaker 1: I know how those arrow heads got there, because that's
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  Speaker 1: what we study in Native American spirituality. But the thing
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  Speaker 1: is is that what I love most is that you
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  Speaker 1: talk about the mountain, which is the mountain of rock.
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  Speaker 1: So therefore and then and then you come across those
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  Speaker 1: pages which then are the trees, dude. The greatest storytellers
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  Speaker 1: on the planet are the rocks in the trees. So
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  Speaker 1: I'm sitting back here smiling like a child because you
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  Speaker 1: are living everything that I've ever studied.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you're preaching to the quay. I'm pretty much such
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  Speaker 2: a pagan. And the trees and the rocks and the
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  Speaker 2: rivers and the ocean they there, they speak, they speak.
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  Speaker 2: You know, we live in Hawaii on the Big Island,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: and the and and the Big Island is still being made.
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  Speaker 2: Actually this very day is still being made, and it
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  Speaker 2: is an in place of incredible creative energy. Wow.
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  Speaker 1: So when you're writing a book that becomes a trilogy
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  Speaker 1: and you come from the world of moving pictures, do
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  Speaker 1: you foresee it inside your visions? And if so, do
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  Speaker 1: you label it stream thinking as well? Because I know
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  Speaker 1: how thoughts come to me, And most of the time
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  Speaker 1: it's because I just happen to be in the moment
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  Speaker 1: of stream thinking.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean I can't help but write visually, yes,
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  Speaker 2: and but but but at the time I had sort
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: of PSD a PSTD about the movie business. So I
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  Speaker 2: was just trying to write a story. It's just that
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: I was a screenwriter trying to write a novel. So
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: now I know how to do structure. I know how
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: to put a hook at the end of the cat chapters,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: and I know how to make twists that are unexpected
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: hopefully and and you know, have the darkest night before
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: before dawn, the darkest part of the night before dawn.
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  Speaker 2: And so I but yes, I got in the flow. Man,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: I got in the flow. About halfway into the novel.
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  Speaker 2: I realized it was not one novel but.
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  Speaker 3: Three, and that and that I could expand because the
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: screenplays are really kind of circumscribed, limited thing and.
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  Speaker 2: Expanding into the story and I, you know, I'm comfortable
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  Speaker 2: enough with my cross that I didn't plan too much out.
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  Speaker 2: I know how my stories end. I don't know how
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  Speaker 2: they get to that end, because I don't like I
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  Speaker 2: like painting my characters into a corner and then seeing
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: how they'll get out. And once and once they start
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  Speaker 2: getting out of those corners in ways that I didn't anticipate,
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  Speaker 2: then I know it's alive in some way, So that
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  Speaker 2: all happened.
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  Speaker 1: You know, My wife and I are convinced that that
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  Speaker 1: I mean, she she's the one that brought it up.
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  Speaker 1: And I totally agreed with it. When she laid it out,
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  Speaker 1: we we go, oh yeah, this is the third of
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  Speaker 1: a trilogy. But there's going to be spinoffs. There's I
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: just we together. Oh we we felt it. We both
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: sat there because we will read the same book and
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: then we talk about it. It's like our own little
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: marital book club, is what it is. In my mind,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going, he ain't done yet. There's there's gonna be
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  Speaker 1: other people that that Tell and Rin met up with
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  Speaker 1: along the way that is going to serve as a
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  Speaker 1: different path, which is going to explain why this happened
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  Speaker 1: in book number one, why that's going to happen in
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  Speaker 1: book number two. And and all you got to do
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  Speaker 1: is just pay attention to the chron you know the chronology.
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  Speaker 2: Well, h from your lips to the ears of all
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  Speaker 2: the gods. But I'm I've moved on for now. We'll
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  Speaker 2: we'll see what happens. So, so you have you read
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: the Law of Solitude?
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  Speaker 1: That is the one that my wife and I just
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: picked up. And the reason why is because and I
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  Speaker 1: have to tell you that the third one is the
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  Speaker 1: one where we met you. Now we're going back. So
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's almost like like, you know, instead of
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: doing a sequel to a book, we're we're getting the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: prequel to the book. And that's how we're treated this
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and that's what I want readers to do too. You
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: don't have to start with book one. If you if
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: this is the one that's got your attention, start there,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: but then treat it like a prequel. Don't feel like
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: you're ever behind this off there that that you that
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: you are right there with them the entire way and
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: you're learning their storyline.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's it's meant to be that way. Each one,
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  Speaker 2: each one's should stand alone. Yes, and is and is connected.
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  Speaker 2: And the truth is it's the three books are one
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  Speaker 2: big book, and each one picks up where the other
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  Speaker 2: one ends. Yeah, and so, oh, I'm so happy you
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: did that. That's that's exciting. Now. Did you that that works?
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  Speaker 1: Did you decide to make it into a trilogy because
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: of the same reason why I chose to do, you know,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: with two books, is that it's like, oh my god,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: it's seven hundred pages long, I'm gonna have to break
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: this up. And and because there was so much information
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: from the first one, it's like I gotta I gotta
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: do it. What was that one decision for you to say,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I got to make it into several books.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, the sersion happened one day, wow, when when
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: I was because what I've always done is keep a
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: separate folder on my computer next to the one I'm
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: writing that. You know how when you're writing, ideas hit
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: you from different angles, hit you from different angles, right,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: and then you just have to put them somewhere and
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: keep going for the day. And I started putting more
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: and more and more ideas into this folder and realized
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: that I was never going to get to the end
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  Speaker 2: of this story in one book, and that I didn't
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  Speaker 2: want to because and I'm not spoiling anything for you
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  Speaker 2: or for anyone else who starts with three and then
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  Speaker 2: goes back to one or goes backwards, it doesn't matter.
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  Speaker 2: Is that the first book, in my mind, always was
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  Speaker 2: about a family. The second book was always in my
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  Speaker 2: mind and not entirely about their village, always centered on
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Tell and Rent, the brother and sister. And the third
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  Speaker 2: book is about the city. No, and yeah about halfway,
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  Speaker 2: and and that that I always sort of wanted to
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  Speaker 2: build from a family to a village to a city
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: in terms of scope, even though all of that's in
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  Speaker 2: then all the books. But so that's so, that's always
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  Speaker 2: how I thought about it.
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  Speaker 1: So when you break it down like that, are you
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: doing a deep rag journal like I do, in the
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: way of saying, Okay, I've got this idea, I want
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: to incorporate it. Why do And you ask those questions
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: like an architect would do. Why do I want to
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: do this? What path am I going to take? What
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: will be the twist in the story if I elect
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: to go this direction? And if I make a mistake?
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  Speaker 1: So what erase it? Do you do? You face the
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: same thing?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and yes. And it's funny how once you
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: stop and I honestly was writing for myself, right and
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: to entertain myself and also to sort of, you know,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: almost heal myself from the catastroph of catastrophe of the
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: movie business and COVID and taking my taking myself to
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: another place every every day, and so once so I
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: had no fear, you know, I wasn't trying to please
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: a producer or a director or an actor or a studio.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Once you start writing without fear and like, okay, this
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: may not work, but let's go for it. It doesn't matter.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: If it doesn't matter, if it doesn't work, you know,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: just go for it. If this excites you, go for it.
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  Speaker 1: See it always. It always reminds me of the song
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: let it Be from Paul McCartney, where he called it
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: scrambled Eggs and when he first put it down, it
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  Speaker 1: was it was basically was just sitting there, just putting
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: words out there until he went back to fine tune it.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: And that's what I love about your stories. I feel
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  Speaker 1: like that you've crafted the new you know, let it Be,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: that you had all of these ideas and oh my god,
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  Speaker 1: now it's three books in a trilogy.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, and uh and you know I had
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: to unlearn unlearned screenwriting.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I bet, I bet you did.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Oh my god. That's that's a whole different conversation. But
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: it's because it was difficult, much more difficult than I thought,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: you know when I started. And when I started, I'm like,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: I can put words together. Storytelling is storytelling. And then
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: only as I did draft after draft with my super editor,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: with you know, basically my coach that I did, I
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: realize how far I had to go before I could
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: really call myself a novelist. So and much to you know,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: I had to unlearn a lot of stuff, but it
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: was exciting, you know, all the way, and so luscious
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: to have my words be d words and to be
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: able to go into memory and go into fantasy and
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: expand the world and put people I loved in immense
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: peril and see how they got out of it through
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: the fortitude within themselves. You know that sort of thing.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: And that's the reason why I said there's gonna be
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: spanofs because I know that it's inside your head and heart.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: There's no way you're gonna let go of tail and rin.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: You're gonna come up with different ways to keep putting
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: them out there.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Well well, you know, I mean I don't give away
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: too much, right, but you know Wren's journey has just begun, yes,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: And you know, all three books just take place over
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: a year in the life of this brother and sister,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: this village, in this city, and and this land, and
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: now we're going beyond the land. You know what's out there.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: And that's what's fun about being an author is that
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: you get to paint that picture without those pictures moving.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: It's almost like, in fact, I've got it in words here.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: My wife and I talked about this. It's like you
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: have got the graphic novel approach, but you're allowing us
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: to read the words and paragraphs which create the pictures
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: inside our own imaginations. Did I say that too long
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: that you understood that?
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Right? No, no you didn't. And I'll tell you what's
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: amazing is you're not the first person to say that
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: this should be a graphic novel as well. That would
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: make a killographic novel. But it's you know, I'd love
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: for it to find its way to Hollywood, Yes, if
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: that's if that's a possibility, because I think I think
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: it would be an amazing you know, eight episode, three
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: season series. You know, it's eight episodes a season. It's
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: so we'll see. But yeah, there's more to come, you know.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Austin Scott card right with Anders game spun spun you know,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: spun off Bean, he span off everyone. It's it comes
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: out a character if you want the characters, if you
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: want to see the characters grow, you know, is tell
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: coming back? M M?
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Where can people go to find out more about you?
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Because twenty minutes with you flew by so freakin' fast
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: that they just need to know more about you.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Dude, I agree. I get the sense that if you
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: and I said at the end of the day, with
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: whatever the libation of choice might be, we'd be talking
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: for a long time.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I can do that.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: But they can find me on my website Anthony Peckham
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: dot com that you'll see a version of who I am,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: and that'll link you to my install which is whatever
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: it is, showing a version of what I am. And
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: really read the books. That's who I am. That's who
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: I am. Man.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: You have got to come back to this show anytime
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: in the future. The door is always get You are
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: the epitome of what an author really is. A visionary,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a doer, somebody who makes it work and gives us
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: things out here that we never had until you took
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: a chance.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much. Well I yeah, catnip man,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: And you know how cats rolling catnip? Yes, well that's
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: me right now. I'm rolling in the catnip your catnip.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: So thank you, and I'll come back anytime you wonder
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: if you want to have a discussion after you've read
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: the other books.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, and then we'll get my wife involved in this too,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: because she always comes up with that. With that wife
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: kind of view of the world. I'm going, Okay, that's
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: why we're married. So you know it's mine too, Mine too,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: by the way, so.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: My wife too.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today? Okay, sir, you
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Too, you too, And thank you so much for helping
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: spread the word on this