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Singer-Songwriter Cindy Morgan on the Art of Storytelling · The Daily Writer

0:06
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: I've said it many times before, and I'm sure I'll continue to say it.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: One of the huge benefits of hosting a podcast is the opportunity to have conversations with amazing people.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is no exception because I was able to talk to a singer-songwriter whose music I have admired for a long time.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Her name is Cindy Morgan, and in addition to being an amazing musician, she's also an author who weaves her incredible gift of storytelling into everything that she does.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: Cindy is a two-time Grammy nominee, a 13-time Dove Award winner, and a recipient of the prestigious Songwriter of the Year Trophy.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: She has 21 number one radio hits to her credit, and has written songs for notable artists including Vince Gill, India Ari, Rascal Flats, Ricky Skaggs, Amy Grant, Glenn Campbell, Mandisa, Natalie Grant, Michael W.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Smith, Point of Grace, Sandra McCracken, and many others.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I basically cut this list in half.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: This is from her official bio.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: She's written songs for so many people I couldn't include them all in this uh bio here in this podcast.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: As you can see, she's really talented.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: She pretty much knows everybody, and she's worked with just about everybody in the music industry, and she's really an amazing person.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, in addition to all this, in 2017, Cindy's song Bird in the Cage was performed by Robert Redford and Sasha Lazard in the movie Blind, starring Alec Baldwin and Demi Moore.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: She's also authored three books, Barefoot on Barbed Wire, Dance Meet Daddy, and her memoir, How Could I Ask for More, in addition to being a co-creator of the charitable Hymns for Hunger Tour, which has raised awareness and resources for hunger relief organizations across the globe.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Now I just realized there was actually a mistake in what I just said.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: She's actually authored four books because we're going to talk about the fourth book here on this podcast today.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Her brand new novel, which just released yesterday, is called The Year of Jubilee, and she was kind enough to come on the podcast and share about her storytelling process.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Cindy and I talk about her process of writing the novel, her publishing strategy, where to begin and end a novel, the unique soundtrack she developed for her novel, and a lot more.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: This was a really wide-ranging conversation, and no matter what type of writing that you do, you're going to come away with some amazing insights into the storytelling and creative process.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Now, before I get to the conversation though, I want to mention make sure and grab Cindy's new book.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: It's called The Year of Jubilee, and there is a link in the show notes.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Make sure and grab that and also check out her website, which is Cindymorganmusic.com.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Alright, let's get to the conversation with the amazing Cindy Morgan.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Cindy, it is a massive honor to have you on the Daily Rider podcast.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned before, I hit record.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: I've been listening to music literally for decades.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you hear this all the time whenever that's been the case with somebody, and then they get to talk with you and get to meet you.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: But it really is an honor.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: I I told my wife yesterday we were doing this interview, and I was like, I can talk to Cindy Morgan.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: She was like, Oh, that is so cool.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: So it is really cool.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: And thanks for taking the time to be a guest today.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, thank you.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm excited to talk to you.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: And I was we were talking a minute ago about how I've just enjoyed your book, Um The Faith of Elvis.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: And that's been just so sweet to hear the other side of that story from from siblings from his brothers.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: And I I just love that.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: So um I'm I I'm really have just enjoyed that book.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: So I I think that's kind of what brought us together.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh the song when I released the song the day Elvis died, and then you you reached out.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just thought that that was such a beautiful song for a lot of different reasons.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: But I I saw that and I thought, man, I just I should just send her a copy of my book.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Maybe she'll reply to a random message that this guy sends from the internet, and lo and behold, you did.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: So here we are.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, I try and pay attention to those because you know it's it's amazing through the years, just getting because those messages come straight to me.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: And um, so and it takes me a minute sometimes to get to them, but but uh I've always just loved uh you know, hearing the stories from people about how something that I've you know released, maybe connected to them in a personal way.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: So, and here we are, you know, like I got to read your amazing book, and then we're we're having this interview.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm grateful when people reach out.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm I'm excited to dive in about your book because I've been diving into this uh over the last week or so, and I have a lot of questions.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, but first of all, I just want to say thank you for writing a really beautiful novel.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: A lot of novels, they tell a great story, but they're not beautifully written.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, as a songwriter and as a an artist, you have a way with words that is so it's so obvious, even from like the first page.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: So I just I well, I want to let you know I appreciate the fact that this book is so carefully crafted from an artistic perspective.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: I just think it's it's a beautiful story.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: And and thanks for putting the time into this.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, thank you, Kent.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, I read I read a book by Stephen King, Stephen King on writing, you've probably read it.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: And um, and when people ask him why he wrote that book, he said that of all the books about novel writing, people rarely talked about the language and how important the language of a book is.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: And I remember this one thing he said where he said, I tend to leave the parts out that people skip, which I thought was so awesome.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: But so I I appreciate that.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm I mean, I think being a songwriter, being a professional songwriter for almost 30 years, um has probably helped me in that way, and that um I like to say it's like the 350-350 rule.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: And you know, in the music business, if you're writing a song, especially for radio, they would like for you to deliver that song in about three minutes and 50 seconds, under four minutes.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: Uh, whereas this novel is actually 349 pages long.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: So it's let's say 350, it's 350 pages.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: It is, which I didn't I didn't plan that, but I just think that our the irony of the 350, 350 for me.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: But you know, if you're gonna take somebody on an entire journey through uh, you know, a a journey and a song in less than four minutes, then every word has to really pack a punch and economy of words as they as we say, you know, in the in songwriting.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I think in a way, the just years and years of lyric writing helped me to try and I mean, but even still, oh my gosh, I mean, you know, every draft, I would just, you know, hit myself over the head and go, why did you, that line is terrible, you know, and rewrite it.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's like you could just rewrite until your brain falls out, it'll just never be good enough.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: But I know you know that as a writer, but anyway, so thank you.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for that.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And I just I just looked as you were talking.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: It is 349 pages.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's that is such an irony.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: Let me back up just a bit and and ask you at this point in your life with so much success behind you, why a novel now?
8:02
SPEAKER_00: You've written nonfiction books before, obviously, you've had a lot of success in the world of music.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people kind of stay in one lane through their whole lives, but I love how you have you just keep adding these other new things to what you're doing as an artist.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: So why a novel?
8:17
SPEAKER_00: What was it about writing a story that that you felt like such a compelling thing to do that you wanted to invest the time and resources into this particular kind of art form?
8:28
SPEAKER_01: Well, I 17.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: Let me see here.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: So right here.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: This is the this is the photograph of my brother uh Samuel.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: Um he's holding he's holding his parho.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: The one that's in the book.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: That's the one.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: So I this has been sitting on my um my bookshelf for a long, long time.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: But um 17 years ago, I could not shake uh this memory, which was my first memory as a child.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: And you know, the the science says that first memories can impact your life if they are um something of gravity.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: And so my very first memory was uh holding Rojo up to the hospital window so that Isaac could see him and me one more time.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: And before he died.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: And I think that just looking in at him in the hospital bed as a three and a half year old, that moment um I just you know, I I didn't know I just there was something about it that wouldn't let me go.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: And even um, you know, the process of watching you know and being so young, but uh Isaac and I, he was a year and a half older than me.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I said Isaac, didn't I?
10:01
SPEAKER_01: I meant Samuel.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: It all kind of weaved together.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a problem with the job, but anyway, but but I uh but Samuel and I were playmates, you know, because we were so close in age, but I was so young that I don't remember us playing together, even though there are all these pictures of us playing together.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: But that's what I remember.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: And and just my parents and what they went through and the loss of him, and um and my mom, you know, just going through so much and um bringing in some faith healers that did not were not that that made promises they couldn't keep, you know, and that all only God can keep, right?
10:52
SPEAKER_01: And um, and so I think that growing up under the umbrella of a child who died completely changed the way I saw the world and and certainly the way my parents saw the world, and I think it's why I became a writer, and so that moment would never leave me alone, and um and I and I just didn't know what to do with it.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: And so my friend Wayne Kirkpatrick, you probably know Wayne.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: Um he's just a he's he's a hero of mine.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: He's he's been a mentor of mine for you know almost 20 years.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: And um, but he had written, he's written two amazing novels that I've read but have never been published.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: Um and so I see your face there.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: You're like wait, wait, wait.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're like, what?
11:46
SPEAKER_01: Wait, what?
11:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you know, because Wayne, of course, who will you should tell your audience, we'll tell your audience, like so he he's produced, he produced and wrote all the songs on those amazing Susan Ashton records.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: And I adored that.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so good.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, just so amazing.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: And then he also developed and produced the first several Little Big Town records and then went on to become this like amazing artisan and has sold all of these like artisan pieces of like clocks and guitars.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's just such a he's such a renaissance man.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: And then he and his brother Carrie um wrote uh Something Rotten, which is a musical based on Shakespeare, and it was nominated for 17 Tonies, and then they also adapted um the uh the movie Mrs.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: Doubtfire for Broadway.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: And I mean I didn't know that, yes, and so anyway, so he is just such a creative giant, and so I I went to him, we were writing, we write all the time, and I just said, Hey, I've got this thing in my head that I can't get out of it.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I I think it's a novel, but I don't know.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I said, I don't know what I'm doing.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: Um and the irony is that at that point I was married to Sigmund Brown, who's a novelist, he's a prolific novelist.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: But you know how it is, it's like you you don't want to I I just kind of wanted to keep it to myself, and you know, and um so Wayne said, um just write what you see.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: Just write what you see, don't worry about anything else, just write everything you see.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I did.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: And as I did that, what I realized was that in order to really tell a story that felt complete, I had to create a world.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, sometimes people believe that fiction is really, even though fiction is not true, but we write fiction to tell the truth.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that um from the very beginning it was a work of fiction.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: It was not a memoir, even though I've included the story of Samuel in in in one of my mem memoirs, but um in How Just Remoir, that's a memoir I did a few years ago.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: The story of him is is in there, but but um I don't know.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: I it just was it always had to be a work of fiction because I think I needed that world to be created to work through um the complexities of what happens to a family who who the worst possible things hap thing happens, which is I think the death of a child.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: Um yeah.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: Wow, there's so many my mind is just swirling with questions about 50s 50 things right now.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Um and I guess as a as somebody who works with writers a lot, and of course I do this podcast and I'm a ghostwriter, and so my world is kind of books all the time, you know, 24-7.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to novels, especially, because I've never written a novel, I'm super curious how that process worked for you in terms of did you sit down and just do a whole draft over time, and then you go back and you know, let's say you want something to happen in the later part of the story, then do you have to find a way to bake that into an earlier chapter?
15:29
SPEAKER_00: And what was kind of your process for building this novel from the ground up?
15:35
SPEAKER_00: And then how did you go back and and shape it into what you really wanted it to be?
15:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's the million-dollar question.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Let me just tell you.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, so the magic of they call them pants or plotters, right?
15:50
SPEAKER_01: So you write by the seat of your pants or you plot.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, for me, I had to write it by the seat of my pants because if I would have tried to be a plotter, then I think that there are so many things that I would not have discovered along the way.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: And so, but the re but the what happens when you are a pantser, when you write by the seat of your pants, is that that means you're going to have to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: It's just it's so the the the arc that you're holding is the 21st draft.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: 10 years, 21 drafts.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: 10 years.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: 17 years since I wrote that first the prologue, which has changed almost not at all.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: But but I but like I I I didn't really, I remember when I first started 17 years ago, and I wrote the prologue, and then I wrote a few scenes, but then I was like, oh, I don't think this is right.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know where those pages are.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: But then I stopped, then I stopped.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: But then about 10 years ago, I started again.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: And I worked with a couple editors in Nashville that kind of tried, I kind of tried to talk through here's what I think could happen.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: And and I and so I wrote kind of a first draft, um, which was much shorter, and um and about, you know, a third of it stayed in in from that draft.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that as I and then I and then I worked with a second editor uh who helped me a little bit more.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: Um but but then I was recommended to uh to a serious hardcore editor in New York, Katherine Clavarius, um, who was a fiction editor for Simon and Schuster in New York.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: And let me just say uh that's uh the the uh the the bar just got raised.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: And so she she she read what was probably my fifth draft.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: And um and so then I mean, and it's it's like the onion.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: So she said, okay, let's have a conversation about what works and what doesn't work.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: And so we talked about the world, you know, of and at that point the novel was called Rojo.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: Um as a matter of fact, somewhere here in the house I have my first draft of Rojo typed out with a cover on it.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: Um anyway, but but we just started talking about that title and how I because it seemed like it it was the right title at the time.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: But then as I but then she said, okay, let's address the big issues, and then I addressed the big issues, and then she said, Okay, now let's move in.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: And then I figured out I want this town to be a character in the book.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: I want the town to be a part of of the story, you know, like Jabra Crow and uh Portsmouth, I'm saying it wrong, Portsmouth, but anyway, and um Wendell Berry's novel.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the town is a character in the novel, or even like the Andy Griffin show, Mayberry.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: Mayberry is a character in that story.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: And so I yeah, I went a Jubilee, and then my mother is a is a um is has attended a messianic congregation for years, and there's a lot of Jewish history in our in our roots, and my mom always talked about the year of Jubilee, always talking about it.
19:49
SPEAKER_01: And um it probably wasn't until um I was like seven drafts in that I was like, oh, I I want this to be, I want this to be in a part of history where that title, where Jubilee will really mean something.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: And of course, what else could there be but 1963, which was the biggest year for the civil rights movement.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: And um and so I think that um the plotting of it, you know, when you asked that question about if you want to put this in the, you know, in the the third act, then you know, obviously it's like you have to have the setup, the foreshadowing of that and the first act and and uh all things that I didn't know.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: I read lots of books on novel writing, I watched documentaries about it, and but really I learned from Catherine.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: Catherine really taught me so much, and um and and so she's amazing, and really I just have I really owe it to her because without her guidance, I don't this book would not have happened.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: She was just so patient with me.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, but I I think that in terms of the plot, I started really digging into because I like books with a plot, I love narrative books, and that I mean to kill a mockingbird is obviously I mean, that's that's the OG.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: That's my favorite novel.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, I love Jaber Crow because of its narrative, beautiful style.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: Now, it's not really a plot-driven book at all, it's really a book about nothing happening, but how everything happens in the nothingness of life.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: And it's just so beautifully written.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: The language is so amazing and it's just so heartbreaking.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, but honestly, I also love John Grisham books and so I love I love John Grisham books, especially the early ones like A Time to Kill and And even Sycamore Row, which is a is a return, you know, to the the small town that he he has three or four novels that happened in that same small town, which I I love that.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: And then but anyway, but I love that he always had a plot, um, and it was clean, and you didn't have to worry about, you know, if you were gonna get kind of blown away by a scene that you weren't ready for.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, I felt like he was always um, he was never gratuitous when there was like a sex scene or something like that.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: It just always felt like he he kind of kept it PG for the most part, and I and and I appreciated that.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: And so I thought I really want to put something in this novel that gives the reader at the end a oh, you know.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm not sure if it's a aha, but it's a oh, I didn't see that coming, you know, and um because I love it when that happens.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: I love it when um when I've got when you you go, oh, I didn't see that.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: Oh, they got me.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, have you read the pay this the silent patient?
23:10
SPEAKER_00: No, I I think I've heard of it though.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: The silent patient and um uh oh well it's okay.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: It's a book called The Silent Patient.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: He has two books out.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: Another one is called Um The Maidens, The Maidens and the Silent Patient.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: Those books, those the works of fiction, oh my goodness, there is like the end of those is like, what?
23:37
SPEAKER_01: You know, I just love it when it when you you know, you just there are so many great red herrings and you never see it coming.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: So I I did want something like that to happen.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: So I had to go back to the first act, and you had to you have to kind of thread that all the way through, which means you have to throw out all this stuff and all these characters, and you know, kill your babies, as they say.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Kill your darlings.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: I'd rather say that.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: How did you keep your your persistence going through this process?
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Not not probably knowing when it would be published, how all that would come about, who the publisher would be.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're you're talking a years-long process here.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: How do you, as a writer, keep invested in this thing and it's and at some point just not throw it all away and just go, this is too hard, it's taking too long, is it even worth it?
24:31
SPEAKER_00: What was it about this project that just kept you plotting along in all those hours, those hundreds of hours of just waiting through and doing the work?
24:42
SPEAKER_01: I think um, I mean, I think this book especially, well, first of all, I'm a it's a bit of my personality type.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, I if I start a book, I'm going to finish it.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if I'm reading a book, I am going to finish that book.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, honestly, that's one of the things that when I was talking to Wayne Kirkpatrick about the creative process, and he said, it's not the projects you start, it's the projects you finish.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he and one of the rules of thumb that he adheres to uh in the creative process is don't start something that you don't think you can finish.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: And because I think there's so much the the ideas, oh my goodness, I love ideas.
25:33
SPEAKER_01: I love I love ideas, I love cooking up new ideas.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: But how many ideas can you actually see all the way through?
25:46
SPEAKER_01: And so I um and there are lots and lots of songs that I've started that I haven't finished, but I but I I think I do try and finish most of them if if they seem worth finishing.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: And so for me, this book obviously it's very meaningful on a personal level for me, for my family, not just for me.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think I wrote this book as much for my family as I did for myself.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: And I wrote it for Samuel.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I wrote it for his memory.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Um in that someone like I think I think he left such a mark on my family with his with his very short years.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: Um and I I think I think I just couldn't let it it would not let me go.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't let me go.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: And so I just kept going.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, 10 years and 21 drafts is a long time, but long time, you know, to do it around, and and of course I was so busy, you know, I was touring and writing full time and a mother of two, and you know, a lot of things happen in in those years, like I got divorced, and now I'm a single mother, and my kids are you know going to college.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, all of these things that even I think about Katherine, how my editor, how she our work, the evolution of that book through my life and what happened all along the way.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I got and I also got remarried.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I don't know, but um it just wouldn't let me go.
27:37
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28:25
SPEAKER_00: Now let's get back to the conversation with Cindy Morgan.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: What was it about your I feel like this is a really big and complicated question, but maybe it's really not.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: What was it about your experience in the music field?
28:38
SPEAKER_00: So you've done music a long time, you've had a lot of success with it, you you know probably everybody in Nashville and and beyond.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: What was it about your experience in that field that helped you when it came to writing this novel?
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Or on the flip side, was it such a different different experience that were there some points where you thought, okay, this is a really, really totally new kind of thing that that maybe isn't at all related to the process of creating music and recording and touring?
29:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious what the relationship between those two things is.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I I think that's a great question.
29:11
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a definite relationship for me.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: Um in a lot of uh writing scenarios that I've been in, I've been called in to be the lyricist, even though I write both music and lyrics.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: But um, but I get called in a lot to be the fundamental lyricist.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: Um because sometimes it's for for younger artists who haven't kind of figured out how to kind of give voice to their thoughts.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I learned from one of the masters, Tom Douglas, who's, you know, the Steinbeck of country music, written uh Little Rock, The House That Built Me, Um, Take the Drunk Girl Home, Make Him Wait.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's so many God's Will, so many amazing songs he's written.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: And he and I have have written uh quite a bit.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: And he, I remember him saying, a lyric should read like a story.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: You should be able, even if it's not a story style lyric, you should be able to start at the top of that verse and read, and like, you know, the verse, which is like tells you where you are and what the furniture is in the room, and then that pre-chorus, which is the connecting point between the verse and then the chorus, it should all just feel like you could read it, and it's so cohesive.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: And I think um, you know, um, I've I've tried to do that in lyric writing, especially in the last 10 years, and that it's like it getting that bird's eye view as a lyricist takes a long time, and I think I've really only had that for the last 10 years to where I can zoom out and I can look down on the lyric and see what's missing and see where the holes are.
31:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that helped me in terms of like the plot and uh making, okay, that you know, this can't happen to this person by coincidence.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: There can be no coincidences because coincidences equals bad writing.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: So, so why would this happen?
31:36
SPEAKER_01: Why would this person uh experience that, or why would this person react to this person in this way?
31:43
SPEAKER_01: What is their history?
31:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, so it's really the research of understanding human um our our kind of how things make us feel or why we react in certain ways or what motivators we have.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, the whole motivation, what motivates writers.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's you you have to do your due diligence in that.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: And I think I did that, I tried to do that in songwriting.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, and not all songwriters do that, and that I've been in a lot of rooms where you'll have great conversations about a song.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: And like, why, you know, why would this person so say you're writing a song about a broke someone who's like in a breakup?
32:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, why'd they break up?
32:35
SPEAKER_01: Well, what are the details of the breakup?
32:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, what started it?
32:40
SPEAKER_01: You know, were they once in love?
32:41
SPEAKER_01: Where did they get married?
32:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, what did they wear?
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Like all of these details that are world-building in a song, right?
32:50
SPEAKER_01: That's the they to call it the furniture in country music.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: What is the furniture in the room that makes that that verse feel like I can see it, you know?
33:03
SPEAKER_01: Do you Sufian Stevens?
33:07
unknown: Do you know what I mean?
33:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you probably would know.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: He's he's pretty avant-garde and like in kind of underground, you know, of taste maker circles of songwriters.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: He's a darling, but um, he wrote this record years ago called Illinois.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: He was doing these records based on um states and a interesting things that happened in certain states.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: And he was gonna do one for every state, but he didn't, he did like three or four.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: But his his record, Illinois, he has this song called Wayne Gacy, and it's about Wayne Gacy Jr., who was one of the most infamous serial killers and um in Illinois.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: And so the opening line is his father was a drinker and his mother cried in bed.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like that's a great line.
34:08
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: Folding John Wayne's t-shirt when the swing set hit his head.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's the first verse.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just like so it he just packs so much into those three lines.
34:24
SPEAKER_01: And um, but you don't get those lines without doing your homework, without doing research.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: And so I think research is is huge in both songwriting and in in novel writing.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have a uh I have a granular songwriting question.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: I've always wondered about this.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you you're probably somebody who knows the answer.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: When you are when I'm looking at songwriting credits, okay, remember back in the days when we used to have cassettes and CDs and you could see who all the songwriters were?
34:52
SPEAKER_00: You can't see that on Spotify or anything, it's not that I know of.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: But when you see who gets credited as the songwriters, how does that work?
34:59
SPEAKER_00: Because if you have, let's say, five people in a room and somebody comes and they have written 80% of the song, but yet some guy over here pipes in with one or two words or maybe just one chord change, does everybody still get equal credit as the songwriters, or how is that divvied up or how do you assign who actually is listed as the songwriters?
35:22
SPEAKER_00: I've always been curious about that.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it does it's such a case-by-case situation.
35:27
SPEAKER_01: So traditionally, um, you know, if you if if you show up for a songwriter, songwriting appointment and there are three people on the right, that means no matter what happens, we're looking at thirds, 33 and third for everybody.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you show up and an artist who is the one of the three writers has showed up and they have a lot of the song developed, then sometimes the other two writers will say, Hey, you should get 50%.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: We'll take 25, 25.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: Interesting, okay.
36:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's that's but some writers won't do that.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: I am like, I'm a bit of a a stickler for if I don't believe if someone shows up and they've done the work, I don't want to take what I don't feel like you know, I earned, and if I didn't earn it, I don't want to take it.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: And then um, like for instance, I um I had a a writing appointment with an artist a couple weeks ago, and um we were talking about an idea, and she threw out an idea of a title or of for a song from which a title I knew someone who had that title for a song that they'd written, and it was a very meaningful song to them.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: And even though you can't copyright a title, I thought, oh, you know, I think that's the direction we should take this song, but I think we need to cut that person in so that they don't feel slighted.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: And so we did, and so we said, hey, we want to, we're gonna use this title, which is your title from this other song that has nothing to do with this song.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: There will be no similarity to this song.
37:16
SPEAKER_01: There'll be two separate works, and actually they have two different titles now.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: They have they have a different title, but because I had knowledge of the fact that you had written this song, we will uh we just feel like we just need to give you something.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: So we gave them 15.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: And uh, but sometimes it's also that top line style, like in LA.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: So top line writing, you probably know what that is.
37:41
SPEAKER_01: It's like when someone sends a track and then you put the melody and the lyric on top of the track.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: So the track already exists, they call it top line writing.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: It's like it's a LA, like a lot of pop music, that's what people do.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: So, well, what what could have happened was that track was the the track was written by two people, so it's already two people on that, and then it gets sent to you, and then you can add a lyric and a melody, and then they might send it off to the artist who then might take what you've done and add yet another aspect of you know, change it up, add their own lyrics, and so at that point you may have the the fundamental you know, track guys, you're like, Well, we get 50, so so whatever you guys want to do, and then the artist may say, Well, I want 25, you want 25, or it's so different based on every scenario, but yeah, there are times when, like, for instance, I there was a song that I wrote, like I wrote it with a producer and an artist who's a very well-known artist, and um, and then that that artist, when she went to record the song, her producer added a couple little things, and she's like, I think we should cut him in.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: We're like, of course.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: And so he got 15%, you know, and so so it it is like a case by case.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: You I mean, I think people uh once the song is mostly done, if you add a little something, like I had a song that would that um that I produced for Point of Grace, um, and it the song was written, but I changed it and I added a pre-chorus and I added a post-chorus, and you know, I added on in these hooks, and I was like, hey, I didn't get invited into this ride, so I'm not gonna ask for anything, but it feels like it needs it based on what's happened.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, the the writers, the the other writers were friends of mine, and they were so sweet, and they called and said, Okay, you're taking 20%.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: Don't even, don't even say anything, you're just taking it, okay?
39:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, so I was like, Yeah, you just wanna you just wanna just do what's right by people.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: But how is that kept kept track of?
40:09
SPEAKER_00: Is that like an ass cap thing or BMI or how does how does all that work?
40:14
SPEAKER_01: And the publishers, so when you turn in at the end of a song, you turn in the song.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: So I'll turn in my song to my publisher, and they'll say, okay, what are the splits on this?
40:25
SPEAKER_01: And then you say, and then if there's an addendum to those splits, and that just gets updated with the publisher, and then the publisher is the one who registers it to ASCAP BMI.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
40:37
SPEAKER_01: So that happens in that happens before it gets to ASCAP.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have, if you don't have a publisher, then you do that, and then when you upload that to ASCAP or BMI, then you verify all of the publishing information from the co-writers, and then you agree on the splits, and you know, it's like an email like, hey, is everybody cool with a third or you know, whatever, and uh or 50-50, and so because technically a copyright is a lyric and a melody.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: That's what it is.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: It's really not the chords, it's the it's it's the lyric and the melody.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: That's what can be copywritten because so many chords are recycled, you know.
41:20
SPEAKER_01: It's saying chords, right?
41:21
SPEAKER_01: And obviously, we know about all sorts of court cases where people are like, Yeah, you know, that's that's my that's my melody.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: That's you know, and but there's also a rule about how many notes in a melody before you've stolen something, and uh it's and sometimes you have people in the legal system who are not musicians who are deciding these kinds of things, and that's right.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it gets gets very hairy.
41:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I know, I know it.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to respect your time.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: I I feel like I could talk to you forever because so many questions I'm just about to book but about what you do and and music and the music industry.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: And I've been such a massive music fan for decades.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: And again, have uh I I mean, I was a huge Christian music fan from the time I was a kid, you know, back in the mid-80s.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: So I followed all this stuff for so long, and just to get to talk to somebody like yourself is a real honor.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, well, I'm I'm honored to talk to you.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: So, where can people find out more about your book?
42:23
SPEAKER_00: Where can they find all of your music?
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we'll have links in the show notes, but I always like to ask at the end, just so everybody can have a clear idea of here's where to go to find out about Cindy's book, music, and all the things that you're doing.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
42:36
SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so I well, I will say that uh it's the book is published by Tyndale House.
42:43
SPEAKER_01: And so my website, if they go to my website, which is Cindy Morganmusic.com, then they can see all the different links where they could buy the book right now.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: You can pre-order the book, um and you can pre-order it, and there's some good deals on the pre-order right now.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, but you can find it at Amazon, you can Tyndale House, you can find it at Amazon, um, Christianbooks.com.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, like really anywhere books are sold, you'll be able to buy it online or or hopefully in physical copy.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: And um, and then um uh I was gonna tell you that I couldn't not add something musical to this process.
43:29
SPEAKER_01: And so I did a um soundtrack for the novel, and it's called The Sounds of Jubilee.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: And so what I did was I asked all my heroes, my musical heroes, to write songs with me based on the care character from the perspective of characters in the book.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: So Tom Douglas is is the voice of John Mockingbird.
43:56
SPEAKER_01: So he so we kind of are doing duets, but he is doing Voice of John Mockingbird.
44:01
SPEAKER_01: We wrote a song um called Wings.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, and oh my goodness, he is Tom is just such a so brilliant.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't seen um his documentary called Love Tom, uh it was on um it was on Peacock, um but Love Tom, and it's just this incredible documentary about all of the songs he's written in the music industry, but it's it's presented in such an artful way.
44:32
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: He's so amazing.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: So he did a song, Tommy Sims, who is just such an icon in the in the in the liner notes of music, is written.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: He has played and produced and performed with just some of the biggest stars.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: Stevie Wonder, um Bruce Springsteen.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: Um my goodness, uh just so he's just such an incredible writer and musician and producer, an artist in his own right.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: So he wrote a song.
45:06
SPEAKER_01: We wrote a song that really he was the lead writer on that song without a doubt.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: But we wrote a spiritual in the style of Robert Johnson.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: And then Wayne and I wrote a duet together with the protagonist and the love interest.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: And um, anyway, it's just so fun.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so they allowed me to kind of create a musical landscape for the novel.
45:29
SPEAKER_01: And so there are all these moments of music, instrumental within the book itself, that come in and come out and like important moments, and all that music is drawn from the soundtrack.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: And then we have two songs at the end and a um and an interview segment from The Slow Work, which is uh Sandra McCracken's podcast.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: Um we have you know a bit of an interview at the end of that, and and a couple of bonus songs from the soundtrack.
45:59
SPEAKER_01: So that will be, you know, wherever you get your your audio books, if it's audible or or wherever, there's gonna be an enhanced audio book attached to this.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: I cannot wait to listen to that.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: That is that sounds so cool for a whole bunch of different reasons.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: I just love it.
46:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, it was fun doing it.
46:19
SPEAKER_01: It was it was really fun to kind of you know find those little moments where it's like, oh, like if there were music right here, I'll let it be, you know.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: So you never know.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: You may have a you may have a brand new career as an enhanced audiobook producer.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: That could be a thing.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: That would be fun.
46:39
SPEAKER_01: I would love it.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: That could totally be a thing.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: I could absolutely see that.
46:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, thank you, man.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: This has been a blast.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for taking time to do this.
46:48
SPEAKER_01: Hey, what a great conversation.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: We never talked about your book as much as I wanted to.
46:54
SPEAKER_01: Can I ask you a question about your book before we say goodbye?
46:58
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: Um do you feel like the Elvis novel or the Elvis movie did a good job in terms of what you know from you know your research about the faith of Elvis?
47:14
SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
47:16
SPEAKER_00: Boy, that's a really great question.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, I've actually talked to Billy Stanley, uh, of course, Elvis' stepbrother, quite a bit about this.
47:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: And his perspective basically is that the movie has a, of course, a lot of inaccuracies, as any movie does based on somebody's life.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: And it really presented kind of an Elvis who was kind of depressed, uh, had a lot of problems, which of course Elvis did have.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, that there were a lot of things he worked through in his life.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: But the the bottom line is, and I think this is such a cool perspective, is that Billy has expressed being really thankful that the movie helped bring about awareness of Elvis, especially the younger generations.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: And that the music was so well done and Austin Butler did such an incredible job for playing Elvis.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's such a great perspective because you can pick apart any movie based on somebody's life.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: But just the fact that it did so well in theaters and it was up for some Oscars, of course, it unfortunately didn't win any that I it should have.
48:16
SPEAKER_02: It should have.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: Definitely should have.
48:19
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I I think it's great that it it made people a lot made a lot of people way more aware of Elvis and who he was in his contributions.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: And it was a fun movie.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: It was very kinetic, very energetic.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: What about what what about par Carnel Parker?
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
48:37
SPEAKER_00: There was I don't know what was going on with the accent with that.
48:40
SPEAKER_00: It was a little weird.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: But he was Dutch.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: Was he Dutch?
48:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what he was exactly.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't from the United States, I don't believe.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: Um the accent I couldn't really quite replace it.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, okay, so the reason I kind of glommed onto it is because my ex-husband is his he's Dutch.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: And so his whole family, they were Dutch immigrants.
49:05
SPEAKER_01: And so his accent was spot on.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: Wow, really?
49:10
SPEAKER_01: That Dutch accent was spot on.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you said that.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: I had no idea.
49:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because uh Yeah, I mean, I I was like, oh, okay, he's he's Dutch.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: He like he fled from Holland.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean, I think in it it said that somewhere in the in the liner notes about or like I read something about him being Dutch.
49:31
SPEAKER_01: And uh so I thought that was fascinating.
49:33
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I I thought he did a great job.
49:37
SPEAKER_01: And I think what I loved about it was you see, and I don't know if this is true based on what you know from your research, but I thought, man, he just that whole thing about that he was in a prison, he felt trapped and he didn't know how to get out of it.
49:54
SPEAKER_01: And his dad, oh my goodness, you know, and his dad didn't know how to help him either.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, he didn't know he he they they were sweet to me.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: It's like were these just sweet people that just got conned by the masterful con artist.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: He was very good.
50:11
SPEAKER_00: Colonel, the colonel was very, very good at what he did, and he really he ripped off Elvis big time.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, that that's my perspective and understanding.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I think that what most of us, you know, in 2023, sometimes we forget that there was nobody before Elvis who did what he did.
50:29
SPEAKER_00: He totally invented this idea of a music superstar who was also in movies, who was also on television, who uh was doing all these incredible things, who was doing a residency in Vegas.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: There wasn't anybody like him before Elvis.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: So he was the first.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, he and I mean uh I guess that I know there were other creatives who were helping in that process, but um, but uh but I will say, I mean, even that early scene uh in the carnival where he's making a spectacle, uh like Colonel Colonel Parker just knew how to make it a thing, I guess.
51:07
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, my goodness, but he put together a show.
51:11
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
51:12
SPEAKER_00: Melvis would not have had a career without Colonel Parker.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not the career that he did, so it's kind of uh there's a there's a good side and a bad side to it, of course.
51:21
SPEAKER_00: Probably like like a lot of manager artist relationships or like any kind of partnership.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, and it's true, you see artists that are huge and then they leave management and they never find good management again and they kind of disappear.
51:36
SPEAKER_01: So management is key.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: There's no question it's a tough, tough job, but anyway, so well, I um but I I do think that after watching that movie and and being a big fan of that movie, listening to your book, I thought, oh, this makes me feel so much better because his heart was in the right place.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to do the and I think you know, it seems like, you know, based on what I've read in your book, he wanted to take care of his family and he wanted to take care of everybody, and he and that weight, that pressure to do that maybe caused him to make decisions for himself that weren't very good.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because at some point you have the basically the Elvis machine going.
52:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've got all these people you're supporting who are on the payroll, you have this lifestyle you have to keep up because you are who you are.
52:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: People expect that, and you have this, you have this massive mechanism you have to keep going and you can't stop.
52:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, that this this was this for me was more than a kind of a typical ghostwriting project.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: This very much was a book that impacted me personally.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: It really did.
52:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
52:48
SPEAKER_00: I came away with a much greater love for Elvis.
52:51
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I hope I get to go back into Elvis World sometime because yeah, um, it was such a wonderful place to be.
52:57
SPEAKER_00: And Billy, I could not ask for a wonderful, a more wonderful collaborator, truly.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I was thinking when I was when I was uh reading your book that I thought, oh, I'd love to include Elvis in a novel.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: I'll have to go get it for research.
53:14
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't that be a cool novel?
53:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, have there been novels written about Ellide?
53:19
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there have.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
53:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure, I'm sure, but you know, even a little cameo could be cool.
53:25
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I was gonna show you that I just got this in the hardback, it's coming in a couple days, but I just got I got my first congrats.
53:36
SPEAKER_01: So sweet.
53:37
SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, but so but I wanted to tell you that they uh Tyndale did such a sweet job.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: They sent me this like super sweet um package in a box, and they they sent this um this little weather vane, you know, this rooster at the top, you know, because you've got the rooster at the top of the of the novel, kind of that's that's like that's that's a nod to Rojo.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: But but anyway, they sent me this bookmark, and for your like for your fan, for your writers that are probably follow your podcast, I thought this was such a great bookmark that they put in the book, and it says uh a book too can be a star.
54:19
SPEAKER_01: A living fire to light in the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe, Madeline Lingle.
54:26
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that great?
54:27
SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
54:28
SPEAKER_01: I know so yeah, yeah.
54:31
SPEAKER_01: Good words.
54:33
SPEAKER_01: Good words.
54:35
SPEAKER_00: So the book is coming out in hardback and paperback, or is it just hardback?
54:38
SPEAKER_00: As far as the printing.
54:39
SPEAKER_01: Hardback and paperback.
54:41
SPEAKER_00: And okay, wow, that's fantastic.
54:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, you gotta get that.
54:46
SPEAKER_01: You gotta have the cheaper option.
54:49
SPEAKER_01: But I'm glad I'm I'm excited they're doing a hardback.
54:51
SPEAKER_01: That's really cool.
54:52
SPEAKER_01: I didn't expect that, but um, but yeah, but I'm glad that there's the the less expensive option.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, I can't wait to go to uh I can't wait to be the first person to go into my local Barnes Noble.
55:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh you see it there on the shelf.
55:05
SPEAKER_00: So sweet.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: So it comes out in is April 17th?
55:10
SPEAKER_01: April 18th.
55:11
SPEAKER_00: 18th, okay.
55:11
SPEAKER_00: I was wondering.
55:12
SPEAKER_01: April 18th, yeah.
55:14
SPEAKER_01: And I will say, so if if folks want to kind of come come see me on social media on Instagram or Facebook, I mean Instagram is probably gonna be my favorite mode to for communicating, but we're gonna do like some fun giveaways and we're gonna we're probably gonna do a book club on face Facebook.
55:34
SPEAKER_02: Oh, awesome.
55:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, so anyway, you can look out for that.
55:38
SPEAKER_01: I think I think my my social media handle is Cindy Morgan Music as well.
55:42
SPEAKER_01: It's the same as the website.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
55:45
SPEAKER_00: I'll put all that in the show.
55:47
SPEAKER_01: All right.
55:48
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
55:49
SPEAKER_00: Thank you again for taking time to do this.
55:50
SPEAKER_00: I know you have a lot going on, and they've got you really busy doing all these interviews.
55:54
SPEAKER_01: So well, I enjoyed this.
55:56
SPEAKER_01: I could have talked to you all day.
55:57
SPEAKER_01: It was we'll have to do part two.
55:59
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: I would I would be completely honored.
56:02
SPEAKER_00: I really would.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: We should do it.
56:04
SPEAKER_01: We should do it.
56:04
SPEAKER_00: That would be a blast.
56:05
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you again.
56:06
SPEAKER_00: This has been so much fun.
56:08
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Kent.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: All right.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: Well, you have a great day, and thank you for the interview.
56:11
SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed it so much.
56:14
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I hope you enjoyed listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed doing it.
56:18
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, this was a massive honor for me to be able to talk to Cindy because I've been listening to her music literally since I was in college.
56:25
SPEAKER_00: And I started college in 1992.
56:27
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking like a 30-year journey from being introduced to Cindy's music to having the opportunity to interview her on the podcast.
56:34
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is one of the reasons why I do a podcast, not just to be able to talk to people and have these cool conversations, but to be able to share this with you in the process.
56:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, I do have a small favor to ask you, but this is not a one-way street favor.
56:46
SPEAKER_00: This is a two-way street favor.
56:48
SPEAKER_00: I get actually it's three-way because Cindy gets blessed, I get blessed, and you get blessed too.
56:53
SPEAKER_00: So the favor is I would love for you to go to Amazon and purchase Cindy's brand new novel, The Year of Jubilee.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: That is my favorite.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, secondary favor is make sure to go to her website, check out all the cool stuff she's doing at cindymorganmusic.com.
57:07
SPEAKER_00: But the main favor is go buy her book because it is really, really good.
57:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me just take kind of a side note to be, let me take just a second to be really honest with you.
57:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't read a lot of fiction.
57:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, and when the publisher sent me a copy of Cindy's book, I was like, well, of course I'm gonna read this because she's gonna be on my show.
57:25
SPEAKER_00: And you know, a lot of times whenever I have guests on the show and you know, I read their books, particularly if it's fiction, because I don't read a lot of fiction, it's not something that I get super, super excited about.
57:35
SPEAKER_00: Of course I want to support my guests and I want to support what they're doing and and all that.
57:39
SPEAKER_00: But here's what was so interesting in this process.
57:41
SPEAKER_00: Um I started reading her book just kind of as an exercise in preparing for this podcast, but what I found was that I was really, really drawn into it, even from like the first few pages.
57:52
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think I mentioned this to her either in our podcast conversation or just in the kind of the the conversation we had before we hit record on the interview, is that there was there were a couple things in the first few pages of the book that took me way back to grade school and brought up things in my memory that I had not thought about since I was a kid.
58:13
SPEAKER_00: Her writing is really powerful, the storytelling is amazing, and it doesn't really matter if you're not really a fiction reader or if you are a fiction reader, this book is really powerful, it's really, really good.
58:26
SPEAKER_00: So please do me a favor by going to Amazon and grabbing this book.
58:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't get any royalties from this, so this is not like a kickback kind of a thing.
58:34
SPEAKER_00: She's not a podcast sponsor, she's not asked me to do this.
58:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm um I'm mentioning this because I think you're really, really gonna enjoy the book.
58:42
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna give you a breath of fresh air in your creative life, and it's gonna take you on a storytelling journey that's unexpected, that's emotional, and I think you're really, really gonna like.
58:52
SPEAKER_00: So please do me that favor and consider buying her book.
58:56
SPEAKER_00: Also because I want to support other authors, and because those sales within the first few weeks of release are really, really critical.
59:02
SPEAKER_00: So make sure and do that.
59:03
SPEAKER_00: Again, there's a link in the show notes uh to do that.
59:05
SPEAKER_00: I think you're gonna enjoy the book, and I would love to know what you thought of it.
59:08
SPEAKER_00: And then after you read it, post a review on Amazon.
59:10
SPEAKER_00: Those are really, really important as well.
59:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
59:13
SPEAKER_00: This has probably been a really long outro here, but nevertheless, I wanted to encourage you to do that.
59:17
SPEAKER_00: As always, thank you so much for listening.
59:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't take your time and your attention for granted.
59:22
SPEAKER_00: It is an honor to have you with me on this podcasting journey.
59:25
SPEAKER_00: As always, thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.