Latest / WriterCon / Getting Cranky with Steven Joseph

Transcript

Getting Cranky with Steven Joseph · WriterCon

0:00
This week on the writer Con podcast. You know people always ask you word,
0:06
they say, oh, you're not going to make money writing books?
0:11
And I always tell people when you write, and my response to that comment
0:17
is that I'm making me. I have to make me. And when you're
0:22
writing, you're making yourself and really having that. If you're thinking about I'm
0:29
just doing it not to make me but to make money, well why are
0:32
you doing it? You're making yourself. So Welcome to writer Con, a
0:37
gathering place for writers to share their knowledge about writing and the writing world.
0:41
Your hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of the Red Sneaker
0:45
books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, Award winning author of the want ln
0:50
Files book series. Hey they're writers. Thanks for joining me and Laura and
0:55
Jesse. This episode is going out on Oscar Sunday, so many minds may
1:00
be turning to the movies rather than books, but since this is the writer
1:06
conon podcast, you know I'm not going to go that direction. Here's a
1:10
fact you may or may not have known fully. Seventy five percent impact a
1:15
little bit over seventy five percent of all films that have ever won the Best
1:19
Picture Oscar were based on books or plays. That's seventy five percent, which
1:26
might make you wonder why these glam movie awards get so much attention and the
1:33
books they are almost completely dependent upon. Do not, Jesse, Do you
1:38
have a theory on this? Yeah, because the way movies are created writing
1:46
wise, is never designed to actually make something that is great. Well,
1:49
books are designed to be made great, and so using those as the source
1:53
material is going to make a better story because it has a direction, it
1:57
has a beginning, as a middle, has an end. Yeah. But
2:00
you know, I like film and I was interested in school too. But
2:05
at the end of the day, I thought, make a movie you need
2:07
hundreds of people. I can write a book by myself. So I'm gonna
2:10
write books. Remember, people get excited about the actors that they feel like
2:19
they know those actors come into the theater with them and into their homes with
2:23
them, and they hear them talking. When do we see writers? Authors
2:28
are not the ones who were coming into your living room talking to you.
2:34
I was talking Laura about this yesterday, wasn't not Because I'm a tiny bit
2:38
older than she is, and I remember when talk shows tended to go ninety
2:44
minutes long. You know, merv and Johnny Carson originally, and they would
2:47
bring on writers in the last half hour after they'd gone through the stars and
2:52
things were getting a little slower, you might see. I remember seeing Robin
2:55
Cook and Michael Crichton and other people, and that helped boost their careers.
3:00
But of course you don't see that at all anymore. We will be watching
3:06
the Oscars tonight, though, won't we. Are you watching with me?
3:08
Of course absolutely. I might even wear a red carpet gown, you never
3:13
know. Oh, and we'll make tons of snacks. Well, if I
3:17
can't take pictures of the gown, not the snacks, then that'll be on
3:22
the next podcast for sure. Okay. Our interview today is with Stephen Joseph,
3:28
who has a rep for being cranky, but fortunately his books will leave
3:34
you laughing your cranky little head off. In his latest book, Cranky Superpowers,
3:39
Steven dives into the quirky, unexpected aspects of life that get under our
3:46
skin. We're going to take a deep dive into this book and his related
3:51
other cranky books, and his theories about crankiness and how that relates to writers.
3:57
But first the news. Our first news story relates to romanticy and in
4:20
particular to the use of the word smut. Yes, you heard me right.
4:26
Smut used to be bad, but gen Z is reclaiming it in a
4:31
positive way. Let me remind you first. During our New Year's Prediction show,
4:35
remember we forecast the continued rise of the romantic genre, which you know,
4:42
to be fair, it didn't really require a crystal ball. But the
4:46
genre has ballooned to such an extent now that New York publishers cannot buy it
4:51
fast enough, and some people are wondering if they're buying anything else. There's
4:57
also been a fascinating response to snob critics continued use of the word the one
5:03
I just said smut to describe these books, basically people saying, well,
5:10
all you're really saying is that it has sex scenes, and what's wrong with
5:14
that? Okay, here's my romanticy one on one. As you probably already
5:18
figure it out, even if you didn't know already, that word is a
5:23
portmanteau of romance and fantasy, applied to novels that blend elements of both genres.
5:30
And romanticy authors are selling well, very well right now, in part
5:36
because of their huge popularity on social media, particularly TikTok. Sarah J.
5:43
Mass's publisher, which is Bloomsbury, says that the videos with hashtags connected to
5:48
her books have, wait for this, more than fourteen billion views on TikTok
5:56
alone, Yes you heard me use the B word. Fourteen billion. Of
6:00
these romanticy novels are typically set in fantastic worlds with fairies and dragons and magic
6:08
and the like, but they also feature what I will call classic romance plotlines.
6:15
But they also often have explicit sex scenes, which you're referred to online
6:23
as spice or maybe that reclaimed word smut. Another author of this genre,
6:30
Carrie Meneskulko, she's written a book called Throne of the Fallen, says that
6:36
spicy books allow quote a safe space for readers to explore their own fantasies in
6:44
an unapologetic way. So, Lara, of course, I'm going to turn
6:47
to you first. What's your take? Why are they reclaiming smut and basically
6:54
saying, hey, what's wrong with that? I want to know if smut
6:59
was ever a lied to a book written by a man, why are we
7:03
reclaiming that it's take it? Yeah? The question, the answer, the
7:09
answer is no, Jesse is absolutely correct. Thank you Jesse for answering that
7:13
question for me. Did we see this applied to Game of Thrones those books
7:18
in his series? Absolutely not. And what they're talking about here is in
7:25
the romance books, where the women are more empowered and the sex is consensual,
7:30
this is a safe place for us to explore this aspect of our life,
7:35
whereas in Game of Thrones we very often see sexual violence within it.
7:41
So why is it that that's that's considered more okay? And yet these Roman's
7:46
books are smut? I'll point out as well, the word smut originally referred
7:53
to the black mess left behind in the chimney that you'd have to clean out
7:58
of that. So the the dirty, the dirty residue that was left over,
8:03
so trying to make it into something dirty and gross. And I love
8:09
that we're taking that back and saying that's right, whatever, smut author,
8:13
smut reader, whatever, we can be okay with female sexuality. Everyone,
8:18
It's okay. It's okay. All a matter of opinion, isn't it.
8:22
I mean this, I don't know if anybody used the word smut, but
8:26
I do very much recall that, you know, when Ulysses by James Joyce,
8:31
now often considered the greatest book of the twentieth century, but it initially
8:37
couldn't be published in the United States because it was considered pornographic because it had
8:45
sexual content, and Bennett Surf, owner of Random House at that time,
8:50
actually had to go to court to get a declaration on this subject. And
8:54
the judge. You can read the opinion in most copies of You Listen Sees
9:00
Now. The judge basically says it's kind of boring but pornographic. No.
9:05
I actually I actually did read about that case in the paper that I wrote
9:11
in my legal class when I was working on my degree, where I was
9:16
talking about book banning and why it's unconstitutional. And that's actually one of the
9:20
very first times that that book banning was challenged here in this country. So
9:24
I probably should have stipulated that I was referring more to current current. Well,
9:33
even then, I don't. I mean, I think it's change.
9:35
Things change. But you're totally right though about the smut. That's that's something
9:41
people say. That's something some critics say about romance novels because, let's face
9:46
it, despite the fact that romance is the most popular genre. It is
9:52
never treated well by critics. It is completely ignored by some publications like the
10:00
New York Times, which are now struggling to have a decent bestseller list when
10:05
they don't want to acknowledge the existence of the books that they're actually bestsellers.
10:11
But you know why has romance fiction always been trashed? It's because it's women.
10:16
It's fiction by women for women, right, I believe it, and
10:22
so it became a disparaging term. Absolutely. Yeah, you hear people talk
10:26
about trashy romance novels. I mean compared to what I'm going to say,
10:30
a trashy legal thriller. I mean, some of them are, but you
10:33
don't hear people saying that. Right, all right. News story number two,
10:41
which has to do with AI audio books, something I think both of
10:45
you can relate to. There's been a lot of talk lately, of course,
10:48
about AI and we in the book world are wondering how that's going to
10:52
be used in the world of books, but clearly its first prominent appearance is
10:58
going to be in the world of audio books. AI audio books, that
11:03
is, books narrated not by a human being but by an AI voice are
11:07
actually gaining popularity both with authors and readers. FYI, if you don't know
11:16
this already, there are various places where you can get one of these AI
11:20
narrated books. You can get them at Apple through draft to Digital, or
11:24
you can go to Google Play and other places, usually at no additional cost,
11:30
thus giving you an audio book without paying for or sharing royalties with a
11:35
narrator. And now, just to put the final clincher on this, AI
11:41
narrated audio books are being permitted and officially being sold on all Big five retailers,
11:50
all five of them, and many many others. Of course, what
11:54
everybody really wants to know is what about Amazon? Since Amazon owns audio,
12:00
which commands about depending on the genre, between sixty or seventy five percent of
12:05
US and UK audiobook market sales. And the answer there is yes, they
12:13
are already selling AI narrated audio books and now they've opened a new program it's
12:20
in beta right now, to help you, you the author, create your
12:24
own AI audio books for youth through Amazon and Audible. I'll put the links
12:30
to the beta site in the show notes so you can see it there a
12:33
bit. Laura, I'm going to start with you on this since you are
12:37
an actress, and you have narrated many audio books, So what do you
12:43
think about this step which seems to sidestep human narrators. I am currently ai
12:52
narrated audiobook curious I have been looking into this. I'm half embarrassed to admit
13:01
I've worked very closely with the narrator, who I absolutely love, and I
13:07
find myself thinking if I was if it was me narrating my own books,
13:13
I'd switch in a heartbeat. Would save me a ton of time, and
13:18
that would be a great thing. I would just get that audiobook out there
13:20
so much faster with her in the mix. It makes me wonder, though,
13:26
like I don't. I feel like we've developed a friendship, and I
13:30
feel bad about cutting her out of that. Sure, not that she's playing
13:35
a guesthouse or a you know, vacation home with the earnings from it,
13:39
but you know, she's She's an integral part of my process. But there
13:43
are other there are other projects that I think could perhaps benefit from this.
13:54
I'm very interested. I'm intrigued by the idea, and I've been listening to
13:58
some of the samples and I was pretty impressed some of the samples. I
14:01
thought, if I just heard that you didn't tell me that was an AI,
14:05
I wouldn't have believed it. Well, that's good, that's you know,
14:11
that's the highest compliment you could give something like this. So you didn't
14:16
think it sounded metallic, or you note where each syllable goes. It doesn't
14:22
sound like it's connected to the previous one. Granted the it's just a few,
14:28
it's short clips, and I think I would maybe want to hear what
14:33
the whole thing sounded like. But I had some books where she and I,
14:39
you know, they're set in other countries, and she and I went
14:41
back and forth and back and forth, what do we do with the characters
14:43
who are different ethnicities and we don't want to mimic that we we we put
14:52
a lot of time and discussion and how to handle that effectively. This would
15:00
enable you to just have it read in that particular voice, right, And
15:07
to be clear, there are some legit business reasons for doing this. Obviously,
15:11
it's going to decrease the cost of creating the audio book. Yes,
15:16
and it also I assume I haven't done it either, but I assume it'll
15:22
be much quicker since it's all automated. Jesse, you listen to an AI
15:26
narrated audio book. Well, first of all, I don't listen to audiobooks,
15:31
so that's a tip of question, So that's a no. But as
15:33
an audiobook editor, I will tell you I have concerns about this, Like,
15:37
yes, it will make one part easier, but it's not going to
15:41
make the second part easier, which is editing the audiobook because especially with like
15:46
fantasy and science fiction, what is it going to do with like the made
15:48
up words? Right, You're going to have to go back and phonetically spell
15:52
that out. And also how many voices? How many voices are available?
15:56
Are there voices that either speak in other language or speak with the accents of
16:00
other languages? I have a guess it's very English speaking centric at the moment.
16:07
How would it know unless you told it somehow? But yeah, and
16:11
it's pretty well I know the answer to your question. There are some voices
16:15
in different languages and there are accents. But do you think you can tell
16:21
the AI Okay, this voice should have a Spanish accent and this one should
16:25
be French? And I mean maybe, like yeah, I just as someone
16:29
who's used some AI voice stuff like I would be okay with the author training
16:33
the AI and their voice and then having it produced the audiobook from the text.
16:37
What I don't like is the made up voices that who knows where they
16:41
came from? Whose whose voice that actually is, because again most of the
16:45
AI voices are based off someone's real voice, and that was a hesitation of
16:48
mine. Just like we've talked about scraping for graphics and scraping for producing samples
16:56
of writing, I had the same misgivings about that as well, scraping somewhere
17:03
and stealing someone's If that's the case, I can't really support the idea to
17:07
get behind it, I think. I mean, there are definitely tools out
17:11
there that you can use to like, for example, one of the programs
17:15
I use to edit podcasts called descript, and you can train it to make
17:18
an AI model of your own voice to fix like small mistakes, and I
17:23
like sort of that model than just a random voice I don't know where it's
17:26
coming from. And also there is there is truly an art to an incredibly
17:33
well produced audiobook, like with like either multiple narrators or one of those great
17:37
narrators who can do all different kinds of voices. And I just feel like
17:41
there are some things like with all art that. Like, yeah, it
17:45
might be easier and it might be cheaper, but I feel like it takes
17:48
away from the magic that is an audiobook, which is really like someone reading
17:53
to you. Do you want an AI voice reading to you? If you're
17:56
okay with that, then go ahead, But like I like to know it's
18:00
a real person. Yeah, it doesn't sound warm to me at the same
18:03
time. I know, for instance, you know, my youngest Ralph does
18:08
listen to audio books, but he listens at them at one and a half
18:12
sometimes two time speed because he thinks audiobook narrators talk too slowly and if you're
18:19
already listening to and he's talking, you know, really fast. How much
18:23
worse can an ai? I mean, even if it's a human being,
18:29
you can't tell it at that speed? Right, So yeah, all right,
18:33
okay, DJJSE queue up that music for us. Let's talk to Stephen
18:38
Joseph even. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, oh,
18:51
thank you for joining us. Okay, we've got a standard first question on
18:55
this podcast. If you could offer writers one piece of advice, what would
19:00
it be? Uh? I have lots of advice, but but one one
19:07
one? So oh no, there there's uh, there's I want to give
19:11
two a really really best one, the best one. The best one is.
19:17
You know, people always ask you or they say, oh, you're
19:22
not going to make money writing books, you know, uh and and I
19:26
always tell people when you write, uh, And my response to that comment
19:30
is that I'm making me. I have to make me. And and when
19:37
you're writing, you're making yourself and really having that if you're thinking about I'm
19:44
just doing it not to make me but to make money, well why are
19:47
you doing it? You're making yourself. So so that that's I think that
19:51
is probably the most important thing for a writer to uh to focus in on,
19:57
because you're creating, uh and making yourself. Wow, it's it's pretty
20:03
good when you have all these books you know that you never thought would happen,
20:07
and now you created these books, so that that would be my first
20:11
one. I have others, but that would be my one. You want
20:15
me to give you one? Yeah, yeah, it's totally on me.
20:18
I made you carve it down to one. So and I know you've written
20:22
many books too, but tell us about cranky Superpowers. What's that all about?
20:27
Well, it's a follow us. So I have a grown up Guide
20:30
to Effective Crankiness to crank It source method and I followed Jesse on the cover
20:34
show us that again what was okay? I still think it's Jesse, but
20:41
whatever, Maybe I don't know. So so Cranky Superpowers is to follow up
20:45
a book to that and uh. The first book is how to be Effectively
20:52
Cranky? Uh, and I call it you have a Do we need a
20:55
book for that? Yes? You have effectively exactly cranky, so creamy,
21:03
and I talk about in that book, like you what you know? You
21:07
think about it? You walk into let's say your grandmother's home and they say,
21:11
oh, William Laura, take off your shoes. I just paid twenty
21:15
five dollars for this rug. I don't want to make the drug rug dirty,
21:18
and you take off your shoes respectful. But what we let out of
21:22
our mouths sometimes it's like puking on each other. So so being you might
21:29
be cranky and you're saying things that it's not really thoughtful. So so that's
21:36
where it all starts. Cranky Superpowers is more about really funny stories that have
21:45
a message about how you use your crankiness to create your own superpower. U.
21:53
So I take a lot of different stories. I do Cinderella where she
21:59
does not get the horse, the beautiful dress, the carriage, the slippers,
22:03
whatever. She gets a megaphone, and she gets cranky because he's expecting
22:08
the dress and all that stuff. But with the megaphone she finds her voice.
22:14
So I have the three little pigs, Inky, Pinky, and Stinky,
22:21
and they're all going to university. Inky and Pinky didn't turn out too
22:25
well for them, but Stinky was in class and was watching a lecture putting
22:30
lipstick on a pig. And Stinky was saying, what a stupid topic for
22:36
a pick Why would they want to put lipstick on a pig? And Steve
22:40
started daydreaming and came up with the idea of a brick house and thinking about
22:44
how much fun is playing the mud, you know, so and took care
22:49
of a big bad wolf that way, and they named the town stinky Town
22:53
after which was which is really good. So I have I have Crankosaurus menoplause
23:00
a chapter and I talk about my own relationship, where where I say,
23:08
in our relationship, you're allowed to be twenty percent crazy, five percent normal,
23:14
but no five percent insane, but seventy five percent normal. And the
23:18
thing about that you might think this is crazy, like twenty percent crazy and
23:22
yes, like seventy two days, it's over two months. I can't do
23:25
that. But the thing, it's counterintuitive because if I told you you're allowed
23:30
zero percent crazy, no crazy for you. So when you become crazy,
23:34
you can't say I'm crazy. You say I'm not the one who's crazy.
23:38
You're the one who's really crazy. And me because I don't like hearing crazy
23:44
people telling me I'm crazy makes me crazy, and then we have this big
23:48
insane fight. So by giving you permission and wow, I can it's okay
23:55
now, so prompt. And if you're crazy, yeah you have twenty percent,
24:02
you're only using one percent. Fine, no big deal, and you
24:04
end up using less crazy than if you're not permitted to be crazy. So
24:11
that that's kind of like like a thing. Again, you're cranky superpower.
24:15
It's like almost like a calming thing. Even though you're cranky, it's like,
24:18
oh, I'm allowed to be cranky, it's okay. So and even
24:22
my first book I talk about cranky sour is kryptonite, where everybody has their
24:27
own kryptonite, and and oh you're Superman and you're you know, we're you
24:33
know, we're Lowis Lane and Kimmy Olsen. It's like, oh Superman,
24:36
that kryptonite thing again? What meaning? And a new superhero. It's it's
24:41
about like we all have our kryptonite and being empathic about it and giving permission
24:48
and again you allows your Superman powers to come out, you know. So
24:55
and so I just keep coming up with different stories and different things that expose
25:02
how when we're cranky we could accomplish a lot we do when we're feeling cranky,
25:07
how do we harness that and turn it into a superpower? Notice it?
25:12
Notice it as an opportunity. Uh, and and notice if it keeps
25:18
repeating, if you're having the same cranky moment and yeah, yeah this really
25:25
you know sucks. You know, I don't like it. So that would
25:29
be an opportunity to say, hey, you know, it's like the like
25:33
The Incredible Hulk where it's like nothing and all of a sudden, like the
25:40
muscles start going and you know, just like, uh, it's really it's
25:42
really an attitude. And when you're reading these stories, when you're reading so
25:48
many different stories, you know, with two books is over seventy chapters,
25:52
and there's there's a lot of stuff there I find the stories are are teaching
25:59
guy. So uh so one one chapter in my my more recent book is
26:06
uh, hoping for the best cranket source and and there and this is all
26:11
like you know from being an attorney, where I hear I manage our lawyers,
26:15
and we hope for this for that, we hope for this wheel for
26:18
that, and and I retell the story of or make up a story where
26:25
uh, the Keewish people left Egypt to go to the land of milk and
26:29
honey. And there's a bro sure that says, please be forewarned. While
26:32
we hope for the best, we've only prepared for the worst. So so
26:37
of course, you know, they get to the to the Red Sea and
26:41
the Egyptians are coming with their caryots. And where's the cruise ship? I
26:45
heard you great great great grand uncle Noah had this wonderful cruise ship even had
26:49
a zoo on it. Can you imagine that? And no, no,
26:53
but while we hope for the best, we only prepared for the worst.
26:57
And oh do you have a map? Now? Well, we hope no
27:00
map. So again it's that attitude. Hey, maybe I should start preparing
27:07
for the best. What can they do to prepare for the best. I
27:11
have another chapter just as an example. Can't make this stuff up cranket source
27:18
and and my profession I have crazy cases where I tell the story and people
27:26
say, oh, you can't make that stuff up. And you can't.
27:29
You really can't. But when you think about it, and I like turning
27:32
things upside down, it's more of that rut. Like you wake up in
27:37
the morning and you have a cup of coffee, you go to the bathroom,
27:40
and then you sit in front of the computer and do the same thing
27:42
you did the last twenty days in a row. And that would be Wow,
27:47
you can't make that stuff up. Of course nobody would read it,
27:51
and maybe that's the spur you on to be creative and make stuff up.
27:56
Hey, you mentioned that you were an attorney as am Ice, so I'm
28:00
particularly intrigued by this quote I found attributed to you in a negotiation arguments always
28:08
take away your power. What do you mean by that? Oh, that's
28:14
what lawyers do. We argue, right, I know, I know,
28:17
I know. It's like uh uh, And I've written articles on that in
28:23
the New York Litigator. I here the Dispute Resolution Committee for the American bar
28:27
association. And I talk about that, and I love, I love I
28:32
listened to the trance we're gonna argue this, We're gonna argue that, we're
28:33
arguing this. And the thing about that is when you make this argument to
28:38
the and like I do negotiation and we're in the mediation, and if I'm
28:42
making an argument, it's I don't expect somebody to say, Oh, I'm
28:48
so surprised. I didn't expect that. I'm gonna pee you in my pants.
28:52
Oh this is the most terrible thing. Oh no, what what they
28:56
they they knew that they knew your arguments coming, and they're not even paying
29:02
attention to they yes to extend that. Yeah, I know my response to
29:06
that. So I'm not giving you value for that wonderful argument you made.
29:11
And uh so it's not that we don't argue, it's how we textualize what
29:17
we're saying. And I talk about like I talked about like in terms of
29:22
like the facts, like when I have X, I do want, when
29:26
I have this, I'm not arguing with you. I just happened to have
29:30
have a case. This is this, I have I have these facts.
29:36
So again, when when I'm saying this is what I have. This is
29:41
what I do. This is a conclusion I make when I have this again,
29:47
I'm taking it out of the argument this and and I also talk about
29:52
again you're getting into the lawyer stuff where I talk about looking at things from
29:55
a micro standpoint and a macro standpoint, and the micro standpoints just the facts
30:00
of this case. The macro is a bigger world. And so I moved
30:03
from micro to macro to from the bigger world to try to take it out
30:08
of that argument, saying this is not the first time we had this,
30:11
This is when we have this, this, this is how we react this,
30:17
this is the conclusions we make. This is the position I will have.
30:21
And you again, when I'm putting in that that context. So if
30:29
I'm negotiating a case, but it's I've had the same case five hundred times
30:33
before, I can't act in a different way. And that way, you
30:37
can't argue what I've done five hundred times before. Oh, Steve, basic,
30:42
remember I remember two hundred and thirty fifth case before that. You didn't
30:47
you do something else slightly? No, First of all, you want to
30:49
know that. The second of all, my answer is no, I didn't
30:53
know. I'm being consistent. You've referenced Crankosaurus a couple of times. I
31:00
think you're maybe referencing your children's books, Is that right? Yeah, so
31:06
the first book was Yes. So the first book was the last surviving dinosaur,
31:11
the tyrant to cranked Soaurus. And the word and not saurus, buts
31:15
saurus is uh the Yiddish word, Jewish word for problems. And some I
31:23
talk about like, oh, you, I think you have saurus. If
31:26
I had you at Sourus, I would be doing cart fields. Nobody could
31:30
outdo my soaurus. And it's always these eighty year old women who talk about
31:34
doing cardinals, which is kind of funny. But that was that was a
31:37
story about the smallest dinosaur on the planet who kept cranking out of her soaurus.
31:44
So all the other dinosaurs vanish except new Men's evolved from this tiny dinosaur,
31:48
the tyrant to cranked source. And that's why when you were born and
31:52
we cried because we were cranky, we'd come to this planet cranky. So
31:57
it's because of that tyrant cranket source. Steven. One last question, what
32:02
are you working on next? Well, I'm soon to release uh so I
32:08
have my kid books, my Snoodles series, Snoodles, Cadodles, Poodles and
32:14
lots and lots of Noodles and studles in Spacedoodles and one happy Shoodle coming out
32:20
stools in Space. Episode two, The Zoodles Strike Back, which is a
32:25
take on on Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, except the bad kids.
32:32
And it's it's about shaming, you know, where like you like you think
32:37
of a Charlie and Chocolate Factor where it's like like the media was there and
32:42
the TV stations and newspapers and these poor kids they made the wrong choices and
32:46
they probably got shamed. And I make them the heroes I have from Pip
32:52
for Winey whoel Frimp from Prudle has a fitzy wissy popadoodle and he fits in
32:55
wits and pop and wimpy Winey Woodle has a Swiss twistly slim into it.
33:01
And first she swizzled and then she twizzled and she turned into a bucket of
33:05
slim. But they become heroes in the end. It all works out.
33:09
That's great, Hey, Steven, thanks so much for joining us on the
33:13
podcast today. Well, thank you for having me. Okay, bye bye
33:16
now fine, just a few parting words. Let me remind you one last
33:32
time about the Writer con Cruise, and I don't mean to be fatalistic,
33:37
but the deadline for registering is fast approaching because the cruise itself is in April
33:43
twenty first to twenty eighth, leaving out of Galveston. And I really hope
33:47
that you will think about joining us. One, I can just about guarantee
33:52
it will boost your writing career. Two, if you're concerned about money,
33:57
and who isn't, take a look at the website. It is probably way
34:00
less expensive than you think it is because we've kept this you know, our
34:06
part of it. I can't speak for a Royal Caribbean, but our part
34:08
of it is bare bones because I want people on the immun in terms of
34:14
markup, because I want people on this boat listening to people like Laura talking
34:19
about women's fiction, or Jesse about audio books, or RJ about horror and
34:23
science fiction, and Tamma Grantham about romanticy and Catherine San's one of the best
34:30
agents in the business. She was on the podcast just a few weeks ago.
34:34
She's going to speak to She's been an hour with everybody there. I
34:37
mean, if you want to. You're not going to force herself on you,
34:39
but anybody who wants to have a one on one with her or anybody
34:44
else can And that's in addition to over twenty hours of instruction, some of
34:50
it classrooms, some of its small group some of it assuming you want to
34:53
do this one on one, which is what I really like. You know,
34:57
you can give talks at conferences and that's fine, but I feel like
35:04
when I'm really helping someone is when I've actually read their work and maybe marked
35:07
it up and consit across the table and talk to them about their book.
35:13
That's what I really like doing. And of course that's what we're going to
35:15
be doing on this cruise and many other things, both work and fun related.
35:21
So please consider joining us for the cruise. The website to get more
35:25
information is writer con dot com slash cruise slash and they'll be that'll be in
35:34
the show notes too, so you don't have to memorize it all right,
35:37
Okay, until next time, everybody, keep writing, and remember you cannot
35:44
fail if you refuse to quit. See you next time. A spent bastagnas
36:06
the past A spent