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FECKing Around with Chaz Ebert · WriterCon

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This week on the writer Con podcast. My one piece of advice would be
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to write, write every day. Just write. Welcome to writer Con,
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a gathering place for writers to share their knowledge about writing and the writing world.
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Your hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of the Red
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Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, award winning author of the want
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ln Files book series. Thank you, Jesse all Rich and hey they're writers.
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Thanks for joining us, Jesse. Question for you, You watch too
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much television these days? I do, but I don't like where this question
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is going. What you read the notes or something I might have read the
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script ahead of time, Jesse. Exciting news. There's a new TV series
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out there, Unsolved with James Patterson, your guy. It's a three part
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series hosted by the best selling author, the best selling author in America,
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examine unsolved homicide cases because you know that hasn't been done before. And here's
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what I particularly liked. This murder Mommy sounding show is going to be on
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the new subscription streaming service Fox Nation. Here's the quote. For decades,
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Patterson has captivated the country with his best setting selling titles, and we are
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thrilled to bring the incredible talents in storytelling and suspense to Fox Nation. So
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I assume, Jesse, given your passion for James Patterson, that you will
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get a subscription to Fox Nation just for this or to find out about unsolved
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mysteries. I don't know what's your plan at this point. All right,
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for the people watch on YouTube. I want you to look at me.
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I'm looking at you. Absolutely not. Do we need to go into it?
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I think if do I remember correctly your problem with James Patterson, like
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started on the cruise boat last year when we did the podcast. Yeah,
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I was just I was I was tired of him publishing books that he wasn't
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writing, and I'm like, that's not fair. And now a year later,
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we're about to go on the cruise again, and I'm still hassling you
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about it. But listen, it's our running joke and eventually he'll have to
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respond. Eventually someone will pick this up and ask him about it, and
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then it will be our moment. And why is he getting unsolved't I write
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mystery novels, I've solved all kinds of fictional homicides. Why is he getting
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this show? Yeah? Well, because he's not busy writing books. I'd
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be happy to do that for him too. Whatever. All right, our
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interview today is with Chaz Ebert, a businesswoman and now author. She is
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the CEO of Roger Ebert Digital, name for her late husband, the Pulitzer
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Prize winning film critic. Together they established the Ebertfest Film Festival and the Robert
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Ebert Center for Film Studies at the University of Illinois. And now she has
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a new book. Listen carefully to the title, It's time to give a
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fec that's feck Elevating humanity through forgiveness, empathy, compassion, and kindness.
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We'll talk to her about that and so much more. But first the news.
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All right, first news story for the day. This just broke like
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forty eight hours ago. As we record this, Meta that's what we now
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call the company formerly known as Facebook, Meta considered buying Simon and Schuster.
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Some of you have been who have been listening to this for a while,
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or you're just familiar with the book world, will know that Simon and Schuster
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was on the auction block for a long time. For a while File Random
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House, Penguin Random House was going to buy it, and then the Department
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of Justice said no to that, and now it has actually been bought by
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a private equity fund. But you know, obviously, you know it's those
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equity funds that are the biggest supporters of the arts, not but somewhere in
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between there. Apparently Facebook was thinking about buying the publishing house wait for it,
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not because of their passion for publishing books, but to train the company's
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artificial intelligence tools, in other words, for AI scraping. This comes from
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records of internal meetings which were shared with The New York Times taking place in
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March and April of twenty twenty three, discussing how they could get hold of
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more data to train AI models. Here's the deal. If they bought the
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company, they wanted to set the price, not according to what it's worth
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as a publishing company, but at least some people were debating paying ten books
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per book for the licensing rights, meaning the scraping rights AI to new titles.
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And this is from Simon and Schuster, which just remind you is still
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one of the five biggest major supposedly New York publishing houses in the English speaking
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world. Jesse, now you know a lot about tech. This could indicate
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something about the future of publishing or maybe about the future of AI and books.
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What are you taking away from this, Like, this is one of
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those things where if like if this is allowed, that means like the you
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can't buy the rights to someone's piece of art to then use it to replace
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something that's going to then make art, right, that's not see without paying
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somebody licensing fee. Yeah, Like if they want to pay ten dollars a
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book, yeah, then they must also allow live raised to buy more than
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one copy of author's ebooks. Yeah, ten dollars instead of like a thousand
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or whatever they charge. You know, this is a terrible idea and they
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should not allow this. Well, you know what, at least what I
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think is gonna end up happening. They're gonna end up paying ten dollars a
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book for the books they want. They're just not going to buy the publishing
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company. They're going to buy the rights from this private equity fund or whoever
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ends up. You know, these New York publishers are basically floating on backlist
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that is, books they published in the past, not the presence at present,
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and then stuff like this. It just I mean, these are just
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looking like typical corporate takeovers. Where people buy a big company and sell off
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the good assets and cannibalize the thing. Yeah, listen, while they just
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buy all the rights to James Parson's books and run those through their scraping paying
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and then we'll be fine. They'd have to switch publishing houses. But I
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think you're about the solution. Actually, all right. New story number two.
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This has to do with a new app called story of Verse. If
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you're on YouTube watching this, Jesse just put up a graphic that stories that
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spells that out. But it's about what you'd think. Story I a Verse.
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It's an app and really interesting. I looked at that this afternoon.
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But they're providing basically kind of animated stories. There's text, but there's also
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limited animation, and they are looking for writers to write essentially short stories for
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this app, although I think they're hoping to build toward multi parters. And
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you know, Story's a bigger scoop. But right now, and I'm quoting
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right from their website, unique climactic. You'd think all stories are climactive,
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but whatever, unique climactic and visually stunning original stories from the best writers and
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animators. The versatility and artistry in our stories means we have something for everyone,
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whether you're a reader or a watcher. Okay, Jesse, I was
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aware that you would be here when I chose this story. I think you
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watch more anime, not saying I don't. I think you know more about
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mengan anime, may and maybe even short stories. Who knows than I do.
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I'm catering to your tastes because most of these stories, though not all.
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Most are science fiction and fantasy, but not all. There were some
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thrillers and even romances and other kinds of stuffs. Have you looked at this,
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Jesse? I haven't looked at this, but when you said this to
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me for to put it on the slide show, I'm fascinated by it because
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this sort of build off an idea I had a long time ago that was
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going to match books with pieces of music to listen to while you're reading it,
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just because you know, to make something more immersive, right right?
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Soundtrack? Yeah, soundtrack? Some people, some people see better than they
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read, and so anything that makes reading more engaging for those people, I'm
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one hundred percent on board for. I'm very excited to see where this goes.
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Yeah, it's off to a fun start now, Here's what I couldn't
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find out from their website or even after I emailed them, which is,
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you know, okay, they're looking for writers. What are they paying writers?
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Which I've I think it's been established on this podcast that I think writers
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are entitled to be paid for their work. And what the rate is I
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don't know, but particularly for somebody who you know likes henre fiction, good
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storytelling, this might be something to look at. And I'm I'm excited for
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this. Sound like our last story. All right, all right, Jesse,
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cue up the music. I am very anxious. Let's talk to Chaz
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Ebert. Chaz, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Bill? Or
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actually, is it William? I'm going to call you. Is it William
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or Bill? God? Bill is fine for you? Thank you? All
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right. We have a traditional first question on this podcast. If you could
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offer writers one piece of advice, what would it be. If I could
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offer writers one piece of advice, it would be to write, Just write,
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don't try to edit before you finished, just right, right, write
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consistently, right, every day, right, even if you don't feel like
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writing. It's it's good to have a consistent routine. But I have to
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admit I didn't always have a consistent routine. I used to. You know,
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some of the things that I actually learned about the discipline of writing I
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learned from my late husband, Roger Ebert, because he would he wrote.
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He was a fast writer, and he would write. He wrote both long
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hand and on a typewriter, but on a typewriter and I'm saying typewriter not
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computer, because it really was a typewriter. And he would do this one
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finger typing, peck peck, pack backpack, but really quickly. And he
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said the consistency was it for him. For me, it's I've learned that
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you think that there are going to be thoughts that you're going to remember,
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and that's not true. Sometimes you have a thought and if you don't write
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it down at that moment, you may not be able to recapture it,
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and it could be something that's very profound, and so you have to I
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totally agree. I hear sometimes people say, now, I wouldn't write it
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down because if it were meant to go in my book, then I'll remember
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it exactly. I think, well, I won't because I forget everything.
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I want to lose a great idea just because I was napping but you have
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clearly done some writing, and you've got this new book from Simon and Schuster
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called and I have to be careful now with my diction. Yeaw there it
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is. It's time to give a fec yes. And the subtitle of the
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book is Elevating Humanity through Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion and Kindness, and that
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is a fect is an acronym for those four principles. It's time to give
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effect. And it was you know, it's being distributed through Simon and Schuster's
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Forefront publications. And I only hesitate because in the beginning we went around a
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little bit and a little bit like is this title too much in your face?
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And I thought, well, I don't know. I don't think so
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these fecht is a something that I put together for forgiveness, empathy, compassion,
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and kindness. And so when I say it and when I think about
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it, I don't think anything wrong. Except I will tell you what happened
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recently to me, Bill. I was at a dinner with a Catholic priest
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and it was a dinner party with some friends and we were all sitting around
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the table and they were saying, oh, Chas just wrote a book,
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and the Catholic priest said, what's the name of your book? And everybody
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got really quiet, and they looked to me to say it, and I
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got quiet. I said, it's time to give a fact. And I
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don't know why I had to emphasize fact. Uh and and and uh.
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Then I was saying, well, it's really about forgiveness, is about encouraging
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more empathy and kindness and forgiveness in the world. And I have to admit.
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Uh. The Catholic priest for a second, did you know, you
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know, he reacted a little bit, But then when we talked about what
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it meant, he said, oh, well, that's actually great, great
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thing to do. You should just start saying. The title is it's time
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to give forgiveness empathy. I forget about that, yes, but oh but
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I have to tell you the other thing we did. You know, these
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days, you know, people like to do surveys, So I think we
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surveyed about two hundred people on the title should we change it to uh,
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bringing more love into the world or you know, there were a few five
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or six of different titles, and the overwhelming majority of people's surveyed said,
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do not lose that title. That is the best titles time to give effect
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elevating humanity through Now here's my my question. You don't have to answer if
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you don't want to, Okay, but did you come up with that title
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or did somebody at the publishing house or maybe somebody else I don't know,
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No, no, no, I no, I came up that was yours
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from Yeah, it was my title. Time to give effect, well principles?
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Yes and well I asked because for many years I was with Random House
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across the street literally from Simon and Schuster, and they were constantly changing my
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title. Sometimes I didn't even know what their titles really meant, but they
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were just spooky adjective and spooky noun for a thriller. And I thought,
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Okay, you guys are the experts. But I agree with your friends who
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said that this book title is just perfect. Yeah, thank you. So
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you've written so many books. I can see if they say, I mean,
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for me, this is the first I've written my entire life. This
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is the first time I'm published a book because most of my writing I would
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write just for myself, not to be published, and so it was important
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to me to have I don't know, well, I've had the pleasure of
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reading it, and you did a great job. What were you hoping to
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accomplish? What was your goal here? My goal is really simple. My
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goal really was to just encourage more kindness in the world, to have to
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allow us to forgive other people so that we don't feel a victim, and
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so that we say that perhaps somebody was doing the best they could under circumstances.
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Because if we forgive people, we can maybe develop empathy for them.
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We can put ourselves into their shoes and say, well, you know,
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see what it's like to be a person of a different age or race or
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socioeconomic circumstance. Maybe that will want us to help alleviate the suffering of another,
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to have more compassion for someone, to do acts of kindness. And
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so really it's so simple, it really is. Those four fat principles are
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so simple because I do think that that is something that we need to do
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in order to Okay, this is the part that I need to learn to
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talk about better, Bill, Okay, we'll work it out, go out,
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okay, Okay. At the bottom, it's all about love, it
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really is. It's really about love. I do think in the in the
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you know, and the dedication to the book, I say, I dedicated
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to Roger, whose capacity for empathy knew no bounds, and to the universal
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source of love that binds us all together. And I have to tell you,
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I don't know where that dedication came from. Roger I knew. And
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then the universal source of love that binds us all together is something that I
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really feel is the over Really, that's the umbrella of everything that if we
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are if we respect each other, if we are more compassionate and have more
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empathy for each other, the things will get better. Yes, yeah,
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well there's a lot going on in the world right now that needs to be
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fixed. And as I read this, I felt like she's giving us a
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blueprint here. This is the blue print. People talk about making the world
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a better place, but this is how it actually happened. What do you
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what? This is kind of in the book, but I'll ask what advice
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do you have for people who might have the desire or potential to be game
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changers, to be future leaders. I at the end of each chapter,
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I actually have some exercises that for and and you know what which is which
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was a different This is different than what I actually envisioned in writing this book,
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and that's something that the publisher said, why not have something at the
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end of each chapter, And so I actually do have exercises, some of
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them that I actually had to do myself in order to get better, and
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especially in forgiveness. Forgiveness, to me is one of the most difficult things
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to do. And in the chapter unforgiveness, So this is another thing that's
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hard for me. You're there my first really big long interview. I've had
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some shorter ones, and so I have to learn how not to be so
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emotional when I'm talking about this. But in the chapter on forgiveness makes me
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weep. It makes me weeps when I think about those women who were in
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that church in South Carolina, who you know, the white supremacist walked into
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a church and shot those people, and the women, the wives of some
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of the people who were killed, found it in their hearts to forgive the
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shooter, right, you know. I talk about the Nickelmine Amish community where
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the man had gone in and shot these kids in a school. Before that
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night was over, the parents of the kids who were shot, some of
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the kids were still on the floor and they went to the what the house
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of his of the wife and told her that they forgave her husband. How
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is that possible? This affected me so deeply that even all these years later,
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I still, you know, for the nickel minds years later, the
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South Carolina was really not that many years ago. But still when I talk
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about those I have to learn how to talk about them without getting so emotional.
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I don't think anything anybody is bothered by you getting emotional, So don't
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worry about it. These are emotional subjects, and so forgiveness is one that's
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that I think the thing that it's the starting place, it's the place,
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that's why it's the f right. It comes first. Archbishop Desmond Toutu told
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me I visited with him in South Africa, and then we brought him to
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America where we gave him a thank you, excuse me, where we gave
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him the Lincoln Abraham Lincoln Award, and when we were sitting in the vault
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where he was handling Abraham Lincoln's letters, and he was talking about how when
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he and Nelson Mandela were putting together the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, and they
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had to set forth a path for redemption for the people under the old apartheid
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system, who had been some of their jailers or some of their you know,
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some of the people who just would had done some horrible things. And
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he said, he lost so many friends, he said, and I said,
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how could you? How was that possible to do without bloodshed? He
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said, you have to forgive, because if you don't forgive, you remain
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a prisoner. And I thought about forgiveness differently after that, and he's right,
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you know, and the others all said the same thing, that you
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forgive as much for yourself as you do for the other person. And I
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had never thought of forgiveness like that before. It's so, you know,
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and it's not just a biblical precept. It's not just you know, it's
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a real thing, and it lifts that weight off your shoulders and it allows
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light to come in and allows you to be able to find the humanity in
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yourself and and other people. Again, it is so that one, you
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know, I'm sorry to go on and on about it, but that one
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I will now. I know, never start talking about forgiveness first, but
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it's the f in the infects. You almost have to. But you know,
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people love talking about, you know, compassion, kindness, those are
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are are? Are? You know, maybe a little easier to talk about.
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Uh, and and empathy right well, putting yourself in the shoes of
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another. I was about to say that may be the hardest of them,
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all of the four, I think when I see the least of sometimes in
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the world. Your book is full of heartwarming stories, some involving famous people
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like Desmond Tutu or Colon Copernic, and some just regular people with some wonderful
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stories. Now you just told us one. Do you have another favorite story
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in the book? I do? Should we talk? No, I'm only
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telling you break Okay. I'm going to be interviewing someone next week because I
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want to get some of these people that I talk about. I want to
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get them on video. And I wish there was a way that these zoom
24:18
things. I want to be able to look at you. I know I
24:22
should look in the camera so it looks like it's so hard, okay,
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but I want to look at you. Well, I'm talking to you,
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and I guess I'm an impath, so I want to look at you when
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I'm talking to you, but I should look at the camera. I'm glad,
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you know, I'm glad that it's more of a podcast than a visual
24:40
but I'm a very visual person too, So I actually went and watched your
24:45
podcast on YouTube because I like to see the people talking as as they're going
24:51
back and forth. All right, let me get back to the story.
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One of the stories that I love is Candice Pain. She is a woman
25:00
in Chicago who, and I think it was in twenty nineteen, we had
25:04
a polar vortex. Now have you noticed, Bill, that each year meteorologists
25:11
come up with terms we've never heard before. I had never heard of a
25:15
polar vortex, you know, in fifty years, and then all of a
25:18
sudden, it's not just cold, it's not just frost. It's a polar
25:23
vortex. But we had a polar vortex in Chicago and the temperature dropped to
25:30
below like thirty degrees below or some really really really chilling, chilling temperature.
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And so Candice was a small business owner and on her way to work,
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she went outside. She saw how cold it was. She went back in
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and called all of her workers and said, do not come in, Do
25:52
not try to go outside. It's too cold. You know, you know,
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frost is freezing in the air. Uh don't you won't be able to,
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you know, there's too much snow, there's too much ice, just
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just so then she thought, oh my god, there are people who have
26:11
no homes who are living on the street. What are they going to do
26:14
during this polar vortex? And so she decided to go and save some homeless
26:21
people. So she knew where there was a shelter, she knew where there
26:26
was a bridge where some people were sleeping under. It was called like kind
26:30
of a tent city. And she said, those people in ten City are
26:33
not going to survive this day or if it's a week. And so she
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went and started gathering up people, and she then there were too many,
26:44
and so she had a van. She was going to put them in her
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van. And she realized where am I going to take them? So she
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started calling hotels and saying, will you I have a credit card and I
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will pay for these people, but they are homeless and they and you know,
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and the big chains said no, but they had They said no,
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we just have a rule. You you have to have your own ID and
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you have to have your own credit card. Now, I don't know if
27:22
that's always the rule or not, or if that was a polite way to
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say no. Don't. Don't gather up a lot of homeless people and bring
27:30
them here. But so she thought, oh my god, I've got to
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do something. So she started calling hotel after hotel. Finally she found a
27:38
hotel owner who said, yes, it's okay, bring them here. And
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it's maybe the opportunity because the weather was so bad that people were canceling at
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this particular hotel, and so it turned it into an opportunity. So she
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thought, okay, her credit card, how many people can I save?
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So then she put out a call on social media, please help me.
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I need somebody to help me get a van to transport these people. Can
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you help me? And people started helping. Not only that, people started
28:14
saying, I'll help you pay for them. How many people can we gather?
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I will help you bring food. They're gonna need food to eat,
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they're gonna need clothes to wear. And before it was all over she was
28:29
able to help. She thought it was gonna be like five people. She
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was able to help like one hundred and twenty five people, and this hotel
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took them in. Some of it is things that we don't think about,
28:45
you know. So some of the people said, okay, I'm in a
28:48
hotel, I can take a shower. I hadn't had a bath or a
28:52
shower, but I don't want to put on those same dirty clothes. So
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she had to go to Kmart and buy clothes, and Kmart did donate some
29:00
clothes. I mean, everything about this story I love and the thing,
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and so I thought, Okay, the story itself is fascinating enough. And
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then I started interviewing my phone Candice Pain, and she told me some things
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about herself as a kid. I said, where did you find that?
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Where? Where did you Yes, we all want to help people, but
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where does that deep seated need that you have come from? And she said,
29:29
when I was a kid, my mom and my dad were here,
29:32
old with addicts. Me and my brother had sometimes no food, no gas,
29:37
no light. Her brother didn't want to go to school wearing the same
29:44
clothes. They were like, they had to pass around. There were so
29:48
many things, and she said, that's not the way I wanted to live.
29:52
And I know no one wanted to live like that. I'm sorry,
29:59
no, So I have to tell you this book. Sometimes I wonder why
30:10
I even wrote it, because it's hard to talk about. Some parts are
30:18
really joyous to talk about. Yes, I agree, but the thing that
30:25
gets me is that that people have this capacity I believe. You know,
30:32
in graduate school, I took philosophy Western philosophy, and you know, some
30:38
of my classmates used to make fun of me because I was more like,
30:42
you know, in the Rousseau camp that man in the state of nature is
30:47
good. That's what I always thought. That's what my mom would say.
30:49
You know, people are good if you if you give them the opportunity to
30:56
be good, they'll be good. And people say no, no, you
30:59
know, like maybe Hobbs or you know Locke would say no given a choice,
31:07
and without rule, man would be any chaos. No one would look
31:11
out for themselves. I mean for other people, they look out just for
31:15
themselves. I don't believe that. I do think that there's something about us.
31:21
I do think that there's something about us in our DNA. That's I
31:26
do know about, you know, survival of the fitness and all that kind
31:33
of stuff. But I do think that there's something a goodness in people that
31:41
sometimes it just needs to be unlocked. Okay, I don't know. HM
31:48
wonderful book with a lot of heart in it. Obviously, I'm sorry.
31:53
Let me stop already. It's wonderful. And let me tell you, for
31:59
people or listening to this and maybe getting a little choked up to you need
32:02
to read the book because it's this Time's five thousand, really powerful and I
32:09
could relate to it. You know, here we we're on the writer Con
32:14
podcast. We do the Riter Gun Cruz and the writer Cons at least in
32:19
part about supporting the next generation of writers. But I know you have also
32:23
done a lot of nurturing and work to generate the next generation of film critics
32:31
and writers and filmmakers through the Roger Ebert Fellowship and other programs. Can you
32:37
talk about that a little bit? I can't, and I love it because
32:39
I call them my ambassadors of compassion. The students who have come through the
32:45
program, they're usually either at universities, at the University of Illinois and Champagne
32:52
or Banner. We have a year round program of fellows Fellowships. Some of
32:55
the others were started at film festivals. Robert Redford at the Sundance Film Festival
33:01
started an Ebert Fellowship the year after my husband passed away, and the one
33:08
at the University of Illinois. Like I said, it's a year round program.
33:12
I started one in Hawaii at their Hawaii Film Festival. It's not a
33:19
year round program, and it's this kind of occasional We've done it at Tell
33:22
You Ride Film Festival and in Chicago at the Chicago Film Festival. But what
33:30
I do I try to encourage emerging writers and technologists as well. People say,
33:37
why do you think about technologists? I said, because I think,
33:40
first of all, because our society has run so much on technology these days
33:46
and it's not going and it's going to be run more on technology than less.
33:52
And there are some technologists who really like to think about how can I
33:59
have For instance, there's a an engineering student named Jason You, and Jason
34:05
You said that he's going to put together UH, an app that encourages kindness
34:12
and compassion. I haven't seen it yet. I would love to see that
34:15
and see how do you do that? How do you do that? What
34:17
do you what do you do? What? What you know? What buttons
34:20
do you push to to program empathy? But like I think, like the
34:27
Wizard of Oz and he's going to put something together and it's going to,
34:30
you know, make you a kind person or make you forgive. But these
34:34
students are amazing to me. And some of them have gone on to graduate.
34:38
And I ask what I said, did any of these four principles make
34:45
any difference to you? I have there's one student name, uh, well
34:51
she's not a student anymore. She's graduated. But her name is suell and
34:53
Cheatuna and she's from Zimbabwe. And she would take when whenever she would go
35:00
back home, she would go around to people, and she lived in La
35:05
and she would ask her friends, can you donate just some gently worn clothes,
35:09
gently worn shoes that I can take home and donate to orphanages or to
35:15
you know, even to just not necessarily just orphanages, to some people who
35:20
may need them. And every time she went home, she would take this
35:23
package to do things and this is just. And she said compassion and kindness
35:30
were the easiest of the four principles for her, she said, to this
35:36
day, the hardest one forgiveness, she said, please, please, she
35:40
said, I need to do that over and over again to remember how to
35:45
forgive or why forgivening is so important. So right, I think I mentioned
35:53
before this is your first book. I know you've written things here and there.
35:57
Yeah, well you're a lawyer, so you must you know? Yeah,
36:00
you know that not writing for publication? How did you get started?
36:06
How did you do it? So there's a movie called Vicky Christina Barcelona,
36:14
and I don't know if you've ever seen it. It's a great movie.
36:15
It's a Woody Allen movie and it has I think, I think a Penelope.
36:25
Oh my god, I'm forgetting the names of the people in the movie
36:29
Cruse, Penelope Cruise. And uh, the father is played by maybe Anthony
36:37
not Anthony Quinn. Yeah, I think I think the Father's played by Anthony
36:40
Anthony Quinn, and because I think it takes place in Spain. But the
36:45
father is this famous writer and when his son, his son says, dad,
36:51
I hear. Javier Bardem is the son. He says, dad,
36:55
I hear that you just wrote this great book again. And he says,
37:00
yes, this is a great book and no one will ever read it.
37:05
And he says why, he says, because they don't deserve to read my
37:09
words. And so it's funny. I would laugh. Roger would tease me
37:15
about that because I've written my entire life, and he would say, why
37:20
don't you publish some of that? I said, because I'm not writing,
37:22
I'm writing for me. I'm not writing for anyone else. And it's a
37:28
really strange thing. It's not that I, of course my writing is not
37:32
too good for anybody to read. But it's just a strange thing that how
37:37
you can write and still want it to be private. I don't understand.
37:44
It's something that I don't understand. There's some psychological thing going on there that
37:47
I don't understand. But so finally, it was finally Roger who said,
37:52
you've got to publish a book. You've got to publish. He said,
37:57
you've written so much stuff, you've got to take some of this and put
38:00
it in a form to publish. And it was as he was sick,
38:04
and as we were going through the period where he was you know, well
38:09
we knew that, you know, he may not have very long to live,
38:14
and he just started encouraging me to write and to write its application And
38:21
now what's happening here. Yeah, that's wonderful, Chaz. This has just
38:25
been a delight talking to you and really very warm and moving. One last
38:31
question before I let you go, though, what Okay, you've got a
38:34
book, you've got the foundation, you're doing about sixteen other things. What
38:37
are you working on next. Okay, my next project is it's like a
38:47
rock opera, sort of like Jesus Christ Superstar, but it's about Mary and
38:54
it's about how the divine feminine consciousness comes into the world to help us in
39:01
our times of trouble. Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom.
39:07
Let it be. That's what my project is about. You're writing the book
39:13
for the musicals. Actually, yes, it's a it's a whole we have.
39:16
It's a whole production that I'm having. It's all right. It just
39:22
makes it all so much merrier working on and that's something that's super exciting.
39:30
Of course I love musicals, so you trigger that's fantastic. So I have
39:35
to tell you this. It's when I always thought that I wasn't a creative
39:43
person. But during the pandemic, I wrote a song that is that was
39:49
performed by a tenpiece band. Before then, I wrote a play that was
39:52
performed by the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. I've written, I mean a
39:57
lot of things, and then I discovered, hey, actually I am creative
40:00
and now this I'm working with professionals to help me bring this to life.
40:06
But I hope to see it on Broadway one day. So oh, me
40:09
too, Man, I'll be first in line. Oh I know, I
40:14
couldn't. Yeah, I want to ask you one thing. Can I ask
40:16
you one thing before you go? Can you? I want to ask you
40:20
two things? Number one? Can you you have written so many books?
40:25
What is your What is what is a tip that you have for writers?
40:31
Generally? You know you already gave my usual tip at the top of this
40:36
interview. I'll just really sit down to write and don't start rewriting until you've
40:40
got at least a draft down because it's a waste of time. And beyond
40:45
that, I would just the most important tip is perseverance. Because this is
40:50
a work a The book will not be written overnight. Even if it were,
40:54
you're not going to sell it overnight. So to just understand that you're
40:58
in this for the long haul and try to be patient, work hard,
41:02
be pushy, but be patient too. And the second thing I have to
41:07
ask you this so you must be really smart. I heard that you were
41:13
like a winner on Jeopardy? Is that the test? It used to be?
41:17
People interview me and say and he actually created crosswords for The New York
41:22
Times. I'm like, yeah, never mind, that he's written sixty books.
41:27
He did crossword and that was the same thing he went on Jeopardy.
41:31
But that was pretty cool. I have to admit that was a life I
41:35
mean, I literally remember watching Jeopardy at home with my mom when I was
41:38
like four, So it'll finally be on the show fifty years later. That
41:43
was a streat. Well, I'm going to go to one of your conferences
41:46
one day. I bet that I would love that and would just be in
41:51
a surrounded by other people who love to write too. Thank you so much,
41:53
likely, Oh, thank you for joining us, and good luck with
41:57
the book. Thank you, bye bye. It's time to give afeck yes
42:01
exactly bye by just a few parting words. As we record this, Jesse
42:15
and I are literally just about ready to drive down to that big cruise ship.
42:20
But our next writer cond event after that will be the Writer con Retreat,
42:24
which is July seventeenth through twenty first, and I have big news about
42:29
that. We have, for various reasons, move the location and that is
42:34
now going to take place at the gorgeous and I'm not exaggerating when I say
42:38
this is a fabulous luxury resort. It's called Cane Break It's about forty five
42:45
minutes outside of Tulsa in Oklahoma, so it's not hard to get to no
42:51
matter where you are, and it's just absolutely so fantastic. I mean,
42:57
they have everything you'd want, the pool, the spa, they got hiking
43:00
trails and fishing and golf and all that stuff you would normally like. Plus
43:06
of course we're going to be there breaking people down into small groups for at
43:10
least part of the day. What's unique about their retreat is that we get
43:15
the opportunity, because the groups are smaller, that we can actually read your
43:20
work, and at some point other people in your group can read the work.
43:24
So you get actual feedback, not general talk about books, but feedback
43:30
on your manuscript, which can sometimes be enlightening, sometimes painful, but it
43:36
is always beneficial. No writer is an island, and you not only need
43:43
that to improve your work. But what I find year after year is people
43:45
end up sticking together, you know, those retreat groups, and they become
43:50
future beta readers and critique groups and friends that they carry on throughout their life.
43:55
So think about the writer kind of retreat, especially now that we've secured
44:00
this wonderful location you can learn more about it at our website, which of
44:05
course is writercon dot com, and then click on retreat at the top toolbar.
44:10
One last plug. I got to mention my new book coming out.
44:15
I think I said last time. The last one was Partners in Crime.
44:17
That was Daniel Pike seven, and the next one, Daniel Pike eight,
44:22
will come out in late May, and that's going to be called Justice for
44:27
All. This time, Daniel Pike teams up with my lead series character from
44:32
the Splitsville series, Kinsey Rivera. So now we've got two courtroom titans for
44:38
a knockdown, drag out courtroom battle like none you have ever seen before.
44:45
I'll tell you more about the plot later and when you can pre order it,
44:49
But Jesse's already got it up on the screen. There is Justice for
44:52
All. You can see. This is cover reveal week. You can see
44:57
it right there in the eighth slot. I think it looks good with the
45:00
others, don't you, Jesse. I like it. It fits they all,
45:02
they all, they all are of a piece. Yes, well that's
45:06
really too. And there's a lot of other cool stuff about this book too,
45:09
like Jesse wait for it original comic book art. But I'll tell you
45:15
more about that next time. All right, thanks for tuning in everybody,
45:20
and remember until next time, keep writing, and remember you cannot fail if
45:28
you refuse to quit. See you next time.