Latest / WriterCon / Page, Stage & Screen with Andrew Kooman

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Page, Stage & Screen with Andrew Kooman · WriterCon

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This week on the writer kN podcast Today, my answer would be to start
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a sub stack if you haven't, and so that you own your email list
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and so that you will just enjoy life as a writer in this day and
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age. I started one a year ago and it's just changed my world.
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I love it, and I always encourage writers now to start a substack again.
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Welcome to writer kN a gathering place for writers to share their knowledge about
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writing and the writing world. Your hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist
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and author of the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Renee Gutteridge, best
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selling author of over thirty novels and screenplays. Hey, they're writers. Special
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shout out to Oklahoma City Writers, our local writing group where I have the
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pleasure of speaking last weekend. There is no substitute for a great group of
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people who share your interests and goals and dreams. And Father's Day is also
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just behind us. My kids and I played a bunch of board games and
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saw the flash Jesse, how do you celebrate Father's Day? Well, since
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I've recently got my dad into sports, I might take him to like like
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a baseball game or watch a classic I got him into basketball recently, and
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which has been my love. I've loved basketball SINTI like a four since I
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was fourteen, and just like last year, I was able to get him
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into basketball. And so maybe maybe I'll show him some classic games because he's
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always asking me questions about like what was it like to watch check player Jordan
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or whatever. So maybe we'll watch some classic games on a cologomer on YouTube,
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and we'll probably take him out, and we just won't tell him where
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because it's hard for him to make a decision, so we'll just take him
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a Chinese food somewhere here in town. Sounds perfect. Yeah, yeah,
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Renee, I'm always talking about the ryder Con Small group Retreat, which of
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course is coming up pretty soon July nineteenth through twenty third in Branson, and
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of course the writer Con conference every Labor Day weekend in Oklahoma City. But
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you're launching a new writer Con offering offering. Yes, yes, yes,
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so okay, So we are going to offer an online workshop, I guess
2:16
you would say, to help those who are have not come to writer connor
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have never been to a conference, or just want some tips and tricks to
2:25
make the best and the most out of a conference, So it's free to
2:30
sign up and we will be getting information out about that on how to sign
2:35
up for this will online workshop. I think it's invaluable and I would highly
2:40
recommend it if you've never been to a conference or just want some tips,
2:44
because when you go to a conference, you want to be prepared. You
2:46
want to know the tips and tricks on how to do things right, how
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to make the most of it. And it can be overwhelming if you just
2:54
show up and you don't have a plan. So we'll walk you through all
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that and get you ready for writer kN or whatever conference you choose. Hopefully
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it's writer Con, but it will work for any conference that you go to.
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Yeah, and we're thinking this is the first of a continuing series of
3:12
webinars, so find out about it science upsite. You always get noticed.
3:17
Two suggestions. You can always go to the writer kN website, which predictably
3:23
is writercon dot com. You can also, while they're sign up for our
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newsletter, which you know will always keep you up to date on this sort
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of thing. And I had another way, Oh of course Facebook. You
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can join the writer kon Facebook group and then you really will know before anybody
3:45
else what's going on, So check out this webinars. I think you might
3:49
find them pretty useful. Okay, Our interview today is with Andrew Koman.
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He's a Canadian author who writes for the page, the stage, and the
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screen. His writing has been translated into more than ten languages and published all
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around the world. His stage plays have been produced in Canada and the United
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States, including an off Broadway production in of course, New York City.
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His critically acclaimed play She Has a Name has been made into a feature film,
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and his most recent book, just released last month, was Popcorn Helmet.
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We're going to talk to him about both of those projects and much more
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after the news segment, and a brief word from our friends at draft to
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Digital. Hi, this is Kevin Thominson with Draft to Digital. E books
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are amazing, but there's just something about having your book in print. That's
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why we built d t D print. We take care of you with free
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full wraparound print cover automatically. Come check out d D print and all the
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cool tools we built for you. Find out more at draft to digital dot
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com. All right, well, this is sort of a special edition of
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the news segment. Those of you who are regular listeners will remember a couple
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of podcasts ago when we just threw together all this stories bubbling about AI and
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chat GPT and how it's gonna replace writers, which it isn't and so forth.
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Well, right now we seem to have the same thing going on,
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but we're talking about book banning, right, which seems to be all across
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the country. And you know, as a writer and somebody who often says
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he grew up on the library and learn to love books in a library,
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that's concerning, even when you don't get into any of the politics involved.
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So anyway, so what I've put together is some stories about book bannings.
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Who we can talk about it all right? News story number one. I
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wanted to start with one that you might not have seen. And here's the
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headline. The sales of LGBTQ fiction reaching all time high. Yeah, you
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heard it right. Despite all that's going on in the world and the book
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banning and whatnot, the fiction has reaching an all time high according to Circana
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BookScan. We're printing that print unit sales, not online, but print sales
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for LBGTQ fiction grew eleven percent during the past year as composed to the previous
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year. One of their analysts said, quote, it is important to note
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that the growth in LGBTQ fiction has outpaced the overall market for fiction sales including
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adult and kids and young adult fiction combined, which remains relatively flat. Here's
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something else you might not have guessed, as you can see the growth of
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LGBTQ fiction and the real sales spans various genres, but the category with the
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most significant gains is adult romance. Sales of LGBTQ romance novels grew over forty
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percent as compared to the previous years seventeen percent for the next category, which
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is general adult fiction, which you could mean anything. I don't know,
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Jesse. What do you think you think book Bands of hurt or helped sales
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or been completely irrelevant. I think it's a it's like a timeline. I
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think it helps, it likes. It depends on which also, which perspective
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you're looking at. I would say it the people calling for the boycotts fail
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at the beginning because drawing attention to them draws people who want to support them
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to buy the books. Thus the sales increase The issue then becomes what happens
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a year, three years, five years later when those books are not in
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school libraries and harder to find depending on where they've been banned. And then
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then it's almost like the boycotting can win over time, but it always hurts
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at the beginning because people always want to be like anytime we try to boycott,
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well again, look at prohibition in this country and what happened there,
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Like, we don't. Americans do not respond to boycotts in the way people
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think they're going to. We're gonna do the opposite. We're gonna be like,
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now I want that thing that I didn't want before because someone says I
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can't have it, right, don't tell me what I can't Yeah, right,
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yeah, or an a. I hope you don't mind me saying it.
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But I know for a fact that you are a very spiritual person.
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I know you've written many novels published by Christian publishers. Is you know I
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think sometimes people make well, now I'm trying to, as lawyers would say,
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give a leading question. Isn't there really any antipathy toward LGBTQS books in
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that community? Well, my goodness, I don't know. If I want
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to speak for a whole community, you know, I'm I haven't published there
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in a while, but I okay, let me let me just speak,
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let me speak for myself. Then if that's fair, that's definitely fair.
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Okay. So you know, I think I think book banning should scare all
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of us because it's you know, if it's not you now, it may
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be you later. And so you know, you think that's where we have
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to put our mindset. You can certainly anytime speak out against a book,
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you know, that's our right too in this country, but when you start
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to get into banning, it's just kind of at another level, right,
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So, um, you know that's that's my personal view. So I don't
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want to speak for an entire community of people, but I would imagine in
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that entire community of people there is a a a large group of varying opinions
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on it, and so in every other community too. But yeah, I'm
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starting to wonder if maybe the wrong people aren't getting blamed, which leads me
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to news story too, which involves a Washington Post article. Well, they
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did a lot of research and tracked a lot of detail to try and find
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out, well, we're hearing about all of these book challenge who's doing it?
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And the upshot of this piece is that most, like a large plurality
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of all of these book challenges that we're hearing about in the news have been
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brought by eleven people, oh, eleven people, and most of the objections
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are related to sexual content and LGBTQ community, although those are two separate categories,
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and the first one is larger. I'll wait for a moment so that
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Jesse could get that slide up. But anyways, so here's what they did.
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They requested copies of all book challenges filed in basically the past calendar school
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year, with one hundred and fifty three school districts. They tracked the requests
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to remove to remove books from school libraries in total official and more than one
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hundred of those school systems across thirty seven states responded, providing over a thousand
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complaints over twenty five hundred pages worth of stuff. The article had some really
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interesting charts, listing, for instance, the reasons given for banning. The
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top category was sexual, which could mean a lot of different things, but
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sixty one percent gave that as the reason for the banning, and another chart
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indicated that forty two percent of all books banned, not all requests, but
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all books actually banned, did contain LGBTQ content. So a small number of
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people were responsible for most of the book challenges over forty percent. According to
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the Post, individuals who filed ten or more complaints were responsible for two thirds
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of all the challenges. We know that in some cases, these what are
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you going to call them? Serial filers relied on a network of volunteers to
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gather, you know, sometimes in conservative parents groups like Moms for Liberty to
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do all this filling out forms and filing and whatnot. Renee, you may
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know more about this than I do. Is and you, like me,
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are very concerned about this trend of book banning. Is this a widespread concern
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or is it just eleven radicals somewhere? I guess you know, these eleven
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parents or whoever they're they're making a challenge and their right to do so for
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senergetically, very energetically, and they're are you one of the eleven? Renee?
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Come clean? I have to leave the house and use of the you
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know, But no, no, I'm not one of them. But it's
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it's fascinating to look at how honestly, how people can work a system if
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they understand how it works. And these people of if this is accurate,
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this is really interesting. It's interesting too that somebody has dug into all of
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this and rooted out all of all of this information too. That's why I
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think investigative reporters, This is just a side note, Investigative reporters are going
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to save our country because they really do very good work in finding facts and
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rooting out well. I agree, and particularly here I was, like I
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was saying when I talked about it, almost nothing in this is what I
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would have guessed it would be. Jesse. Yes, I'm not gonna I'm
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judging that expression and trying to decide if I think you're one of the eleven.
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Let's probably not. Hypothetically, if I was, it would only be
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the James Patterson books. That's the only one you agree only banning case you
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agree with hypothetically not a fan. This is We're gonna have to do some
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sort of podcasts this on this, but that's another story. Now I'm going
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to clip that and see if you're going to the podcast coming for you,
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James. Yeah, all right, Jesse, you up the music. Let's
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talk to Andrew Poman. Thanks for having me, Oh, thank you for
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being here. Okay, usual first question, if you could offer a writer
15:39
is one piece of advice, what would it be today? My answer would
15:43
be to start a sub stack if you haven't, and so that you own
15:48
your email list and so that you will just enjoy life as a writer in
15:54
this day and age. I started one a year ago and it's just changed
15:58
my word world. I love it, and I always encourage writers now to
16:02
start a substack if they can. Well, that's when we haven't had before.
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Tell a fill of a bit more about substack and what you're doing there.
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Sure, so, I'm sure a lot of writers have like contact or
16:15
mail Champ kind of use email services like that. Sub Stack is a newer
16:19
platform. A lot of writers have moved to it. A lot of like
16:22
newspeople have moved to it kind of in this age of censorship. And it's
16:26
a it's a platform where you really can own your own mailing list, and
16:30
it's just like super user friendly, and it's it's really designed for writers,
16:36
and so it's it's like a newsletter slash website. You can publish podcasts,
16:41
you can have video just everything is embedded, and so what it's really done
16:45
for me is allow me to focus on my craft and not have to worry
16:48
about like doing the blog posts and then connecting it to the mail Chimp email
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list and like promote, like doing all these separate things. It's all integrated
16:56
and it's just been a delight. And I love writing regularly in a new
17:02
way with my subscribers. It's sort of just like lit my fire. Wow,
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that is great advice. I don't think we've ever even talked about it
17:11
on the podcast Bill, So that's obviously that's how we should do the writer
17:15
khon magazine. But we'll talk about that later. Yeah, exactly, my
17:18
minds up. Okay, okay, Andrew, back to you. Back to
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you. So, So, Andrew, I've known you to write quite a
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bit of different things as we've gotten to know each other through the years,
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and I've interacted with you actually through plays and stage scripts. But what you
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do film television, film, So tell us how you got into that.
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Yeah. I think my story as a writer is just really in a way,
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it's like working out my faith but also my passion for writing. I've
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had incredible opportunities that I couldn't plan for and so I have two younger brothers,
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and years ago I don't remember the magazine called Ads. I'm from Canada,
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so it was a popular magazine here and it kind of looked at advertising
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and was provocative, and there was an article that just juxtaposed a child in
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the States. So I think, like kind of like an iPod commercial when
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the iPod was coming out, this like really trendy, awesome African American child
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and then it was juxtaposed with a child who's like basically that kind of awful
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image of like the gut pushed out with hunger malnourished, and there's just side
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by side. And the provocative question in the magazine was imagine a new way
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of being, and so it was really kind of like a exposing um sort
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of corruption and capitalism and all like the evils of excess, I guess.
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And my friend was looking at that and we were all just blown away by
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this ad and we we said, I think we should we should make a
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film about this. Start asking questions about, like, you know, why
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is there such disparity in the world, and kind of you know, asked
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that question, questions about you know, we always hear like people in countries
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where there's less affluence are often happier or more joyful, right, so,
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you know, we're getting young and maybe naive, and we thought, like
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we were thinking about going to film school, and we said, why instead
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of going to film school, why don't we just do a film. And
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so we ended up doing a documentary. Film took us around the world.
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We asked the same questions of people in areas of extreme wealth and poverty.
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We traveled to Kenya, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Europe, in Canada
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and the US. We self funded it. We kind of committed to work
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construction for six months and became like indentured, you know, servants for a
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number of months after we did our trip, but we got the money upfront.
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Anyway, long story short, that was kind of my gateway into filmmaking
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and and kind of as we were doing that documentary, I started to find
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my voice as a writer. As I was seeing these incredible issues of disparity,
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seeing poverty up close and personal and in a new way, I found,
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yeah, my voice to write and to ask like penetrating questions, and
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that really kicked off almost probably for the last fifteen twenty years, I've done
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some writing and activism around issues like human trafficking, slavery, gender based injustice,
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and so my entry into into writing kind of like um in that way,
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was kind of through the film and that's how I entered filmmaking, and
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then also my writing craft started to kick off simultaneously. That's so interesting.
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So okay, so we're going to talk about your movie. She has a
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name here at a second, but it's based on your play that you wrote.
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And when did you write that play and how did it feel for it
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to be adapted into a film? Oh, it was such a life changing
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experience. And don't hold me to the numbers because you know, like I
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like remember time, like based on where I was, and so like my
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I think my dates will be accurate, but you might have to fact check
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me. So twenty twelve, I think was when I wrote that stage play.
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And I started writing for the stage through a beautiful workshop and read dar
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Alberta called Scripts at Work, and it was just like at a local community
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college and there's sort of like a playwrights guild and playwrights workshop that gave new
21:11
writers an opportunity to try their hand at writing for the stage. So I
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had never done it before. It's when I saw a poster and it was
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like and I had this deep sense of a story in my gut. And
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when I write, it's typically it comes from kind of like you know,
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it's maybe embarrassing for me to name drop like Alexander's Soulsion it's in, but
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he he had the statement, it's like the you have to kind of keep
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your soul available for that one word of truth that outweighs the world. And
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like, intuitively I understand that I kind of when I write a story,
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I have like a sense in my gut of like what the story's about,
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even before I have the plot. So I was at this place that I
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had this sense of like a story, but I didn't know what the story
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was. And I saw this poster in on the college campus. Its like
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do you have a story to tell? It's like, yes, I do.
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And then the next question and the poster was have you ever written a
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play? And I was like, I've never written a play? And then
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the like call to action was joined the workshop and write a play. So
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I submitted, and that I submitted, it was accepted. I got to
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work with like these this incredible group of professional playwrights to develop the script,
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and then that in the next two years I submitted and She has a Name
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came out of that workshop. So, long story short, that was in
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twenty twelve. Kind of totally a baby in the play in writing plays,
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but I just found I really love the format to get people talking, to
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kind of go into a dark room with people and turn on the lights and
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really explore. I think it's a location where you can explore deep, deep
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ideas, deep truths, and get people talking about them. Yeah. Well,
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well, let's talk a little bit about She has a Name. This
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play and movie concerns human trafficking, right specifically trafficking children into sexual slavery.
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Did you find any resistance on stage or a Hollywood to you know what?
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At least is listed online as a thriller, but one that concerns a very
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serious, if not heart wrenching subject. Yeah, I would say we we
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did, especially when we like I adapted the stage play to the screen,
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and so we when he was independently produced, we said, let's let's just
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try this and burn Thicket Theater out of Calgary took a risk with the production
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and we sold out every show in that first week and we're like, wow,
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people are responding to this, and then we like over time, we
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said we got to bring this across Canada because the message is important. So
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we ended up doing across Canada. Canada is a big country. At twelve
23:33
thirteen thirty tour, we kind of tried to use fringe festivals and piggybacked off
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of it. Audiences were always receptive to it and it kind of surprised us,
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but I think because the play was hard hitting and it brought people to
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the edge, but it didn't push them over. And my hope through it
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was always to not exploit or we like, not exploit in any way the
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people who are subject of this terrible issue. So it was a really eye
23:59
opening kind story for people. But where we found resistance was when it was
24:03
adapted to the screen and we brought the production to Thailand to film and the
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film commission like everything has to be approved by the government film commission, and
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yeah, there was just a real resistance and we had been approved, and
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then as we were basically pressing play on spending all the money, bringing the
24:25
actors, over all the things around producing the film, the film commission said,
24:30
you can't you can't film it anymore. So it was stopped like two
24:34
or three days before production, and we really had to scramble to kind of
24:40
find a way to make it happen. So I did have to adopt the
24:41
script. We really kept it true to the story, but we did have
24:45
to tweak it a little bit to kind of make it a little less generic
24:49
about Thailand and more about Southeast Asia, and so there's some kind of Yeah,
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that was a challenge, like artistically, you don't want to compromise your
24:57
message, but at the same time, we were like, we're here,
25:00
we got to do this thing, and if we want to do what we
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have to, we have to adapt. So that that was really interesting.
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And to answer early question, Renne, it was like so surreal to bring
25:08
it from stage to screen and to see it embodied in a different way,
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and all the challenges of making something that was so raw on the stage into
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something like bigger for a bit, like a wider audience, and it is
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really wonderful. Yeah, it is a strange feeling too, because I've had
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a book adapted, a couple of books adapted into film, and it is
25:29
a strange feeling to have that happen. And see your words sort of come
25:36
into three three D. So it's hard to describe it, but I can
25:41
relate to that. So I understand that you had to have had and done
25:49
a lot of research for this, because you don't want to just pretend like
25:53
you know something. If you're going to write about something, you want to
25:56
really understand it. So talk about that kind of research. How do you
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go from just generally understanding a topic to really pressing in and getting details and
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understanding what you're writing about. Yeah, so I've I try to do good
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research when I whenever I write, especially if it's about a historical subject or
26:19
an issue like that, especially like when you know, in the real world
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human trafficking happens around us every day everywhere. So I had through through the
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play, like mounting the play, producing the play, but also traveling around
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the world and working in areas of extreme poverty. I was able to see
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certain things up close, so I could recognize it in a certain way in
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certain contexts. And the play because it's focused on Southeast Asia, and because
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I spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia, I felt I could be
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true to the subject matter. But then also really did need to require it
26:52
required research, so I reach out to NGOs, talk to people who worked
26:56
with victims and survivors of trafficking also, like not only people in an overseas
27:02
context, but also locally, and I did a lot of reading about the
27:07
subject matter to bring it hopefully like for it to ring troope. So I
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think that is really important. It's it's easy to sort of jump in kind
27:18
of with the hypothesis of what it looks like, and that that changed over
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time. I did base the sort of the inciting incident for the story was
27:29
a real life incident about of trafficking that took place on the time Alasian border,
27:33
a water truck incident where people were being brought across the border and the
27:38
truck ran out of gas and then the people who were driving it just abandoned
27:44
the truck and then I think fifty six of the people that were in the
27:47
back of that truck did die. And so that was a story that I
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learned from someone who was working with an agency in Southeast Asia and kind of
27:56
had that sense of the story a story about just it's about, you know,
28:00
doing right in the world. And when I heard that story, it's
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like, Okay, I think this is the this is the plot point that
28:07
can open it up for me. So it was kind of it was based
28:08
and grounded in reality to start. And I think whenever I write, you
28:12
know, whether it's about an issue like that or something else, I look
28:15
for those kind of human moments or historical moments that are like tangible that you
28:21
can embody and explore in that way. Sure did you have to deal with
28:27
any blowback or criticism? I mean, you talked about some of the obstacles
28:32
you've had, but I'm guessing that when you're dealing with as such as serious
28:37
and potentially controversial subject there might be some criticism, am I right there?
28:45
Yeah there was? And like, okay, so I did with the play
28:47
I did um I loved I'm going to forget the exact name, but this
28:52
idea of like a Greek chorus. I just was fascinated by it. And
28:56
you know, this is early in my playwriting career. So I worked in
28:57
this sort of mysterious Greek chorus of like ghosts that kind of haunted the play,
29:03
and they were like former trafficking victims. And that audience is really like
29:08
that a lot of people really like that. The Calgary CBC theater critic did
29:14
not like that, So there's like, you know, like sometimes it got
29:18
hammered by certain critics, but for the most part, like what was amazing
29:23
And like, I don't know if I call it theater as activism. I
29:26
think it was just like exploring like an important important truths through drama. But
29:33
what this, what this play did is it brought so many different people together,
29:36
like police, human trafficking agencies, survivor groups, people that would never
29:40
come at the table and talk to each other, politicians, like faith based
29:44
communities, like just the general public. And so I think that was you
29:48
know, I wish I could write like that all the time, where you
29:49
know, just brought people together and it was there's something about it, But
29:53
it did bring people together in a way that was interesting. And I think
29:57
what I really learned through that is that story is such an effective tool to
30:02
open people's hearts and capture the imaginations the people's hearts to start a conversation.
30:07
You can get into like this argument of like creativity for affect and like,
30:12
you know, I don't necessarily always want to write just to like stir emotions
30:17
or about an issue, but I think there is a way to do it,
30:19
to like bring people together in a purposeful way to not only entertain,
30:22
but then also to activate and engage people beyond that. So, for whatever
30:29
reason that really worked for she is a name, and try to do that
30:33
again, right, absolutely? Well, okay, so turning a corner to
30:40
something lighter, because what wouldn't be right? But but I mean amazing that
30:48
that you're tackling that. And I agree that these kinds of stories can start
30:55
the conversation away that they would normally get attention, and so bravo for that.
31:02
And but you also have a kid's book called Popcorn Helmet, and we've
31:08
already discussed that. You you write across the board on everything. I'm not
31:14
sure there is something you don't write, but this is exciting. It's cute
31:18
as can be. And so tell us about your kid's book and where you
31:23
got the idea. Sure, okay, Well, so I'm a dad.
31:26
I have two young kids, a six year old to three year old.
31:27
Every night I need a book to read, and I admit sometimes it's like
31:32
when I read the books I have Oscar Worthy performances, you know that they
31:36
do deserve awards, and some nights it's like I'm like Calvin's Dad and Calvin
31:40
and Hobbes, how can you read Amster Hue and the Gooeyka Louie one more
31:42
nine and I just want to go. You know, I think I've talked
31:47
to a lot of parents are like, I could write a kid's book,
31:49
right, So there's a little bit of that going on here, not to
31:52
minimize the form, Like, it was just a joy to write this.
31:56
And you know, based on what we just talked about talking about trafficking,
31:59
I tend to be drawn to like the dark, hard hitting issues, and
32:01
so it's nice to sort of mix things up with the lighter fare. And
32:06
so Popcorn Helmet really is that for me. I've done some y A writing,
32:08
like young adult novel stuff, and it's just a delight to kind of
32:13
leave the dark world of global issues behind and explore kind of just be imaginative
32:19
and light. And so this was really writing a book that I would want
32:22
to write for my kids, that I would want to read for them at
32:24
night, that I think other parents are people who have the honor of reading
32:27
to children would enjoy reading. And so far I'm discovering that, yeah,
32:31
people are responding to it in that way. And the idea really came.
32:36
I love popcorn, and my they were just kind of joking, and I
32:39
was like, the problem with popcorn is you got to you gotta keep filling
32:44
up, you know, like it's I could just like scarfs and just keep
32:46
going right. So I thought, what is a way where I could be
32:50
hands free and eating popcorn and not you know, and not have to have
32:54
that barrier, that friction point back into the bag. So that's kind of
33:00
where it came from. A helmet. Yeah, oh and maybe some tubes
33:07
that bring the diet coke down. I love popcorn too so much, I
33:15
mean so much, and I'm so particular about it, and it could be
33:20
a whole podcast of popcorn and what it means to us and how it changes
33:24
our lives. But um, okay, So a lot of our listeners are
33:29
writers themselves, emerging writers or have some experience, and they usually want to
33:35
know what other writers days look like, the habits, how you get into
33:42
it, how do you get out of it, What time do you write?
33:44
What's your favorite drink when you write? That's a very popular question.
33:47
So tell us a little bit about what your writing day looks like. Okay,
33:52
so coffee let's just start with coffee. Always drinking coffee. I like
33:58
like it's strong. I like it every hour of the day pretty much.
34:02
And yeah, like it's kind of different. I like to write. I
34:07
have notes everywhere, sticky note scrap pieces of paper. I journal almost every
34:13
day, like just part of my kind of spiritual formation practice. But I
34:17
tend to kind of wait for an idea to be ready to go, like
34:20
I don't try to force it, and I have that sense like for me,
34:22
especially the bigger projects like a film or like a long form content,
34:27
it's sort of like it accumulates and I'll kind of I've learned to know engage
34:30
when I'm kind of ready to actually sit down and do it in earnest.
34:35
But I do whenever I have an idea, try to capture it and store
34:37
ideas I found and I want to get back to this because pandemic children and
34:44
all that kind of stuff. When I'm the bit at the busiest moments of
34:49
my life is said, when I typically tend to be the most flourishing as
34:52
a writer, which is a total paradox I don't understand and kind of don't
34:57
love. So what I try to do, especially in the bus times I
35:00
set aside a Thursday evening and I've done this throughout my life, and I
35:04
kind of put a note on the door. It's like, do not disturb
35:07
me unless like someone needs to be taken to the hospital like those that's just
35:10
the rule. And then I can I have a space that's like I have
35:14
a door that's closed, you know, maybe be candles or things in the
35:17
room that kind of encourage me to have creativity and then almost make an agreement
35:21
with myself that I'm not going to put It's like I'm not going to put
35:24
pressure on myself to produce, but it's almost like inviting myself to have that
35:29
space to kind of be curious about content or read or research or put something
35:35
down on the page. And typically by just kind of giving having a few
35:39
of those rules and clearing some of those mental barriers that would be barriers to
35:44
writing, it sets up an environment where I feel free to actually just write.
35:49
And by not forcing a project, it kind of it facilitates like an
35:54
environment where if I'm ready to write, then I can get into that time
35:59
and just go. But for shorter from content like Renee with the skit guys,
36:02
it's like I'll think of a funny idea, kind of write it in
36:05
like a Google keep note, you know, to capture the things so it's
36:08
not forgotten, and then I'll go back to it's I kind of use notes
36:10
as a way to like reference and go back, but then otherwise try to
36:15
just facilitate an environment for myself that encourages me to write. And that's what
36:20
I've learned. It's like giving space and not putting pressures sets me up well
36:23
to right. Fantastic, well, very good advice. So our final question
36:32
always is, and I'm guessing there's something. What are you working on next?
36:39
Okay, yeah, well I have so Ramsey p Heaton, who is
36:44
the protagonist of Popcorn Helmet, I have a Christmas book that I'm working on.
36:47
I have a few other kids book ideas, so for that in that
36:52
realm, so I'm working on that. And then right now for film,
36:54
we're actually working on a biopic on the profit Dan in Babylon, so we're
37:01
kind of just starting some work on that. And then I have like a
37:05
dream project that's kind of I'm always working on in the background. I've called
37:09
Theophilist. That's like the working title, and it's like a Sherlock Holmes.
37:15
If Sherlock Holmes and Gladiator had a love child, it would be like it's
37:21
like a forensic um Roman story and the Roman American investigator in Rome. Yeah,
37:27
oh my goodness, that sounds great. Yeah, I'll read that,
37:30
but probably true of popcorn helmet too, broad Bays Dreamer. Hey, Andrew,
37:39
thanks for being on the podcast. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for
37:43
happening. Just got two things to say on the way out. Writer Cohn
37:47
Retreat US July nineteen from twenty thirds small group feedback and instruction and a great
37:53
group of people in Branson, Missouri and writer Con. The conference is Labor
38:00
Day weekend that's September one through four in Oklahoma City. Almost seventy prisoners.
38:07
I'm trying to recruit one more at least, just so I can say seventy.
38:12
But we got a lot of presenters and the greatest slot roster slate of
38:20
agents that I've ever seen anywhere, including a book and movie and TV agents
38:25
and publishers. So if you're interested in taking your writing career to the next
38:31
level, think about coming to writer kN Our website is writercon dot com.
38:37
All right, until next time, writers, keep writing, and remember you
38:45
cannot fail if you refused to quit. See you next time.