Latest / Buying Local Podcast / How Jay Ingleston Emotionally Connects With Readers | Buying Local #74

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How Jay Ingleston Emotionally Connects With Readers | Buying Local #74 · Buying Local Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome everyone to Buying Local.
• 0:01
  I'm your host Mike Nelson from 5 Towers Media, joined today by.
• 0:05
  I don't even know how many times you've been on the show now,
• 0:07
  Jay, but Jay Engleston, writer, author extraordinaire.
• 0:13
  Is this your sixth time? 7th time coming on the show.
• 0:16
  I think I'm 6th. I think it's sixth, yeah.
• 0:19
  That might be a record for the show.
• 0:21
  I don't know. I get, I get some Grueshack
• 0:24
  coming on next week though. He, he, he's in, he's in
• 0:26
  contention for it. We we get him on all the time
• 0:29
  too, so. Oh geez.
• 0:31
  Oh gobble gobble. That's what I call them.
• 0:33
  Yeah. So Jay, we're we're going to
• 0:36
  talk about a couple things, but before we get into it, maybe
• 0:39
  just, you know, introduce yourself to the audience for
• 0:41
  people that haven't seen you previously on the show, just
• 0:43
  kind of tell them we are and and some of the things that you get
• 0:45
  up to. My name is Jason Ingleston.
• 0:49
  I usually go by Jay, not by Jayce.
• 0:53
  That's my grandmother's thing. Wasn't a big fan of that.
• 0:57
  Yeah, written. This is my 6th book.
• 1:02
  I've got 7 and 8 coming out, hopefully within the next couple
• 1:06
  months. I'm an audio book that I've been
• 1:09
  trying to record, but that's been a a thing in itself.
• 1:14
  What else? Can you just use that for that
• 1:17
  these days? I can but, and here's the thing,
• 1:20
  I I was going to go that route, but everybody I talked to like
• 1:23
  you got to use your own voice, just you got to be the one to
• 1:26
  read it. I think it would come across so
• 1:29
  I my pot with like my microphone, my whole setup is
• 1:32
  like around me. I, I, I got a whole condenser
• 1:36
  thing. I got a whole, a whole studio
• 1:39
  here. I've got the the thing on my
• 1:41
  laptop. So that's been interesting,
• 1:43
  learning that well. Isn't there an AI that allows
• 1:46
  you to use your voice? There is and the thing that I've
• 1:51
  I've been doing research and stuff on it.
• 1:53
  Yeah, AI can have an issue with live and live So to to get that
• 2:02
  type of stuff down when words have two meanings or, you know,
• 2:06
  two different, two different pronunciations.
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  I I, I was in a group talking to a different couple authors and
• 2:13
  they're like, yeah, we want to use AI, but you run into some,
• 2:16
  some hiccups. I mean, now there could be some
• 2:18
  programs out there that will that can recognize that, but the
• 2:23
  majority from what I from, you know, the information that I've
• 2:27
  learned about their they have issues still with that.
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  So yeah, I. Definitely.
• 2:32
  I haven't gotten into that part of things too.
• 2:34
  I mean, we use AIA ton for all sorts of things, but and I was
• 2:38
  playing around the other day with making a buddy of mine say
• 2:42
  things that he didn't actually say.
• 2:43
  So that was fun. That's very possible.
• 2:48
  And but the one thing was the voice, it wasn't his voice.
• 2:52
  It was like an AI voice, almost like a, a, a Siri, but like the
• 2:56
  guy version of Siri. And and I looked in a little bit
• 3:00
  about using your actual voice and then like, because we were
• 3:04
  like for commercials and stuff for this show.
• 3:09
  I screw up the live reads all the time.
• 3:12
  So like when I try to record them, I'm like it, it ends up
• 3:15
  being 20 takes before I get the final commercial done.
• 3:18
  So it ends up being a 2 hour thing for me.
• 3:20
  And I, I tried to get into using the AI stuff a little bit, but
• 3:23
  it just, I don't know, it was rough.
• 3:25
  It was like inflection and tone and sometimes it would like, you
• 3:30
  know, trail off or it would make an abrupt ending to things and I
• 3:34
  it just didn't sound it, didn't it?
• 3:36
  Wasn't yeah, I, I screwed around with a little bit on Capka and
• 3:40
  it it will use your voice, but it will stop a sentence where it
• 3:45
  shouldn't be a can't articulate. I mean, it's still in the the
• 3:49
  early infant stages technically. So I think within the next
• 3:53
  couple years it it'll be no problem.
• 3:55
  Like, and it's funny that you bring up like reading.
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  I have a TikTok channel called Nostalgia Time and I do older
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  eighties, 90s movies and I basically do backstories and
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  blah, blah, blah, blah. It just for a one minute 32nd
• 4:09
  read. I will have to do like sometimes
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  20 takes, sometimes 10. Sometimes I'll get them out
• 4:15
  pretty fairly easy. But I tend to like try to make
• 4:20
  up words as I'm reading and that aren't there.
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  So I have to like jump back. And that's part of my like my
• 4:26
  dyslexia, I guess, and trying to like insert words that don't
• 4:29
  exist. But yeah, it it's, it's
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  something like, I might be an author, but reading is not my
• 4:35
  strong suit. Neither is punctuation and
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  spelling. So.
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  I I'm a comma guy. I I put commas everywhere, bro,
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  when I am writing. It's so funny because thank God
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  for AI know it proves absolutely everything I write.
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  But Oh yeah, when I was writing my own blogs and writing my own
• 4:54
  articles, and then I would hand them to the perfect that our
• 4:58
  editor or to the person doing the proofing, they're like, hey,
• 5:01
  did you want to put another comma in there somewhere, bud?
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  And I'm like, I'm like, I don't know.
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  I just, I write the way I think. So when, you know, when there's
• 5:11
  a pause and it's not the end of a statement, I'm like, well,
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  there should be a comma there. And I also like to put things in
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  parentheses. I love parentheses, brother.
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  I like it's like I'm saying something, but then I'm thinking
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  aside, thought about it. So that's got to go in
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  parentheses. Like or throw the exclamation up
• 5:29
  where it really doesn't need to be.
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  Like, yeah, yeah, I do. I do the grade.
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  School and and high school teachers would not be happy
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  with. With my grade, so you're the
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  you're the opposite of me. My first couple books don't have
• 5:41
  any punctuation or anything in them, and I did it that way
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  because I really didn't know where to put stuff.
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  So I wanted to be like, you know, it's my baby.
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  So I just made sure the lines ended where they're supposed to
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  end. They didn't cut down, but I'm
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  starting to learn the use of commas and punctuation where
• 5:58
  needs to go, especially with this.
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  Oxford. Oxford comma or no Oxford comma?
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  No Oxford comma. No Oxford comma, so I I use the
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  Oxford comma. I feel like it changes the
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  meaning of a sentence quickly. Oh yeah, it makes it look.
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  It makes it look prettier. Comma.
• 6:17
  Yeah, that's it. Commas are just pretty, man.
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  We just, we like to put them everywhere we can.
• 6:23
  I and I know we're going to talk about the books, but I said
• 6:26
  we're just going down this tangent.
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  What about as you're writing now?
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  So obviously, you know, this is your, I think you said what this
• 6:34
  is book six that we're about to talk about and then, and you're
• 6:38
  working on 7 and 8. I'm curious.
• 6:41
  I, I have two questions about the evolution of your writing
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  style, kind of like what we're talking about, you know, now
• 6:47
  you're 6 books in. So you, you know, obviously
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  learn things as you go, you change, you know, you're growing
• 6:53
  as a writer. But I'm also curious if you're
• 6:56
  using AI at all. And I hate to keep talking about
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  AI, but it's just such a constant part of everybody's
• 7:03
  life. And I, I think it's a valuable
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  question. Are you using it for proofing
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  and editing? I am yeah, I I sure am They I
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  like before I would have my friend Erica like proofread
• 7:14
  stuff or I would, you know, give it to certain people.
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  Now it's just the file. Hey, can you put whatever it
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  needs to be wherever and let me know blah, blah, blah, blah.
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  And I pay for the the pay portion of ChatGPT.
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  So I named my ChatGPT Polly after my grandfather.
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  So Polly basically knows me now and knows my writing style.
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  So if I don't have something in the right place, Polly will tell
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  me after he proofreads it and says, oh, maybe a period here.
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  But I would kill that that word. Maybe put a different word like
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  that's to me. That's just it boggles my mind
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  that we're in that that whole space now.
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  But it's also cool that I can bring Paulie up like I spooked
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  my mother out big time because he knows my back story.
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  He knows like, I've told him about my grandfather.
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  And I'm speaking to him like I'm talking about him like he's a
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  fucking person. So I'll bring it to my mother
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  and like, hey, Paulie, tell, tell, tell mom about, you know,
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  my grandfather Paulie, which was her father.
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  And he goes on the whole Polly was on the tugboats for this
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  many years and it's blah, blah, blah, blah, and you're his
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  daughter. And he had blah, blah.
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  And like goes off and she's just sitting there going, wow, that
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  is that's kind of scary, but cool at the same time, so.
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  It's wild. I so I'm not a ChatGPT guy
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  anymore, I use Claude. I just like the interface
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  better. I, I don't know that 1 is better
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  than the other, but I, I whenever like I use Claude so
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  much for so many different tasks Now that I'm like, I talk about
• 8:53
  Claude like it's a person, which is funny that you're saying that
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  you named it Polly because I'll, I'll be talking to my team about
• 8:58
  something. I'll be like, hey, so I was
• 9:01
  talking with Claude. Here's what we came up with.
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  I'm not sure Claude's right on this.
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  I wanted to get your input on it.
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  You know, like, like it's another member of the team, but
• 9:09
  she pretty much is. But.
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  Yeah, that's and that's where they're going.
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  And at first I was kind of hesitant, but with the
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  proofreading and all that stuff, it can be done in a matter of
• 9:21
  2-3 minutes. Put it in there and comes back
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  with change this, put that in there as to go back to like my
• 9:29
  writing style and stuff, how it's changed.
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  I touched on this before. My first couple books were stuff
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  that I used to like. I would write and have no
• 9:38
  forethought about it and then read it back after and go, oh,
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  that's what I was thinking. They're like everything would
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  just pop into my head and I just write it down.
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  Now I'm more cerebral with it. I like I attack things or before
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  I would just let them flow. Like if I come up with it like a
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  concept, like the the whole grief book, me and my buddy
• 9:56
  Justin Baker talked about about wanting to do it and and I had
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  written like I'm, I'm constantly in my phone writing on notes
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  like I'll something pops in my head in the middle of night.
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  Sometimes my wife will be like, what were you doing?
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  So I, I, that happens all throughout the day.
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  I'll come up with stuff. So I had a lot of like grief
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  quotes that didn't fit into anything else book wise.
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  Or even if there weren't grief quotes, they could be like
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  changed around. And that's the other thing that
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  I learned when I would write a quote, it was like, I couldn't
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  change it. Like I couldn't go in and I
• 10:31
  don't want to change what that cuz that mean It's like to me,
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  it's like my baby or whatever. Now I'll go in and go, all
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  right, then don't they don't fit now just change.
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  You know what that means. I've learned to do that now like
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  my writing styles more like I want everything to fit piece by
• 10:49
  piece and I want the reader to be able to pick it up.
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  And I think you've even said this to me.
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  Reading is easy when it's my book because you can just pick
• 10:58
  it up, go read a couple things and put it back down.
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  And it's not a dive in and have to read, you know, in depth.
• 11:05
  It's they're all easy reason and and the more that I write, even
• 11:09
  the not like the novelization that I'm doing with the thriller
• 11:12
  book, it's gone from 200 pages to 300 down to 250 down to 200
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  to 180. Like the the book was finished
• 11:19
  the last time we talked. So I thought, well, I went in
• 11:23
  and totally like gutted it and changed things and now it's kind
• 11:28
  of not like a novelization. It's kind of like a short story
• 11:31
  novelization. So I think I'm going to keep it
• 11:33
  around 182 hundred pages because I think it's some of the best
• 11:38
  stuff I've written. Like, and I've never written
• 11:40
  fiction. I've never written psychological
• 11:42
  thriller, but I had the concept to the beginning and I had the
• 11:46
  concept to the end. And now it's just like trying to
• 11:48
  fill everything in, to make everything, you know, meshed
• 11:51
  together the way I want to. But I'm so I guess I'm so anal
• 11:55
  retentive about it that I wanted to be perfect.
• 11:58
  And every time I read it, I'm like, so then I pull something
• 12:01
  out and then I'll add something. And then yeah, that that book
• 12:05
  should have technically been out before this one, but this one
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  just came together so easy because I had a backlog of like
• 12:10
  50 something quotes and then I just wrote 30, I think 35 more
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  so. Yeah, it's, it's, it's
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  interesting to say about the reduction.
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  I, you know, when in some cases when I'm writing things, I might
• 12:24
  start with three pages or 4 pages or whatever it is, or 1500
• 12:29
  words. And then I go through and I
• 12:32
  start pulling pieces and I sometimes worry I'm pulling too
• 12:37
  much out. Do you, as you're going through
• 12:39
  and editing this fiction book, are you worried about that?
• 12:42
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 12:44
  And it's I done it to where I had this.
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  There was a conversation in a diner between the between 2
• 12:53
  characters and the dialogue I thought was too in depth and I
• 12:59
  pulled a lot of it out. And then when I went back in and
• 13:02
  I'm, I'm reading it, I'm like, well, now it's like, it don't
• 13:06
  make sense because we, I should have kept that so the audience
• 13:10
  could actually put a visual. And then the visual disappeared.
• 13:13
  And it was kind of like two people talking were before I was
• 13:16
  like, and they're sitting in a diner and they're talking
• 13:18
  conversation wise and they bring up, you know, high school when
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  they're blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when I took certain
• 13:24
  parts out, I'm like, the beat wasn't there.
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  It kind of went beat, beat and then like flatline and then took
• 13:31
  back up again. So that was one of the first
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  things I changed and put that back in.
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  And then of course, when I change that, I change sections
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  down the line. So now I got to go all the way
• 13:40
  back in to fix that. Yeah, it's been, it's like I
• 13:45
  always picture Criminal Minds when they're on the board and
• 13:48
  they're circling things and this goes here and that goes there
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  and I'm like, oh shit, I got to cross that back out, pull that
• 13:54
  back here. It's been very, I don't say
• 13:57
  taxing, but writing fiction's a lot harder than writing everyday
• 14:02
  stuff that I can feel emotionally.
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  But I think fiction writing is more, I think it's more
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  gratifying 'cause I look at it and go, all right, I just made
• 14:11
  this up in my head and I was telling my wife the other day we
• 14:14
  were watching that movie project till Mary, and I'm like, this
• 14:20
  came out of this came like it was a popular book and they made
• 14:23
  it into a movie. But I'm like this came out of
• 14:25
  somebody's mind, like this is any movie watches comes out of a
• 14:31
  writer's mind like that is manufactured and put into, you
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  know, into, you know, the zeitgeist or whatever you want
• 14:37
  to call it. And like that to me is like the
• 14:40
  coolest thing that and that's why I like there's been days
• 14:43
  like where I go, I don't I don't want to write no more like I'm
• 14:46
  I'm all pooped out here. And then I go no, because the
• 14:50
  gratification of putting things on paper and then like I've said
• 14:54
  100 times, having one person come up and go, Hey, that that
• 14:59
  was that really got me like that, like the dad clock book.
• 15:02
  I'm still like getting messages and that and that's one of the
• 15:05
  best selling books that I've put out so far besides the first
• 15:08
  one. But it's just that I don't know
• 15:11
  that relationship you have with the audience that not a lot of
• 15:15
  people can understand. And, and it's kind of hard to
• 15:19
  articulate, but the words touch people.
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  And if you can make a difference again in somebody's life for
• 15:27
  just one person, like that's to me is like, I don't want to say
• 15:32
  it's like a religious experience, but it's like an
• 15:35
  experience that not many people can can hold in their hand and
• 15:38
  go, yeah. Like so, yeah, I try to, I try,
• 15:43
  I try to make it make sense, but yeah.
• 15:45
  Well, and it's, you know, I think about, well, a couple
• 15:49
  things, like 1, like I love Stephen King, especially his
• 15:52
  older stuff, but like Stephen King would go into explaining
• 15:56
  the texture of the curtain on the wall.
• 15:59
  Like, like it was wild to me sometimes the universe of detail
• 16:06
  that he created in his mind and then put on paper.
• 16:09
  So to your point, right, of like having detail in there.
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  But also sometimes I'd be like reading it.
• 16:15
  I'm like, all right, Steven, like I don't need all that
• 16:18
  detail on the damn curtain. OK, like so I get I, I can't
• 16:23
  imagine how hard, excuse me, it is to filter it enough, but
• 16:27
  still give it context and continuity and character and you
• 16:32
  know, like something that's tangible, right.
• 16:37
  And then, but also like from a continuity standpoint, like when
• 16:40
  you were talking about like if you remove something here, then
• 16:43
  it affects something downstream, which your other books, like you
• 16:48
  said, like, I mean, I could pick it up.
• 16:50
  I could read a couple pages and I could put it down.
• 16:52
  And like page 57 really didn't rely on page 23, you know, like
• 16:57
  they were all individual quotes. So I can't even be like, those
• 17:02
  are such two different styles of writing at jumping over to the
• 17:07
  fiction writing from what you've been doing that that sounds
• 17:10
  sounds pretty overwhelming, bro. Oh yeah.
• 17:13
  Yeah, I mean, I've been writing this book.
• 17:15
  I think it's coming up close to a year that like the original
• 17:20
  title was Echoes in the Walls and then I switched it to
• 17:23
  Welcome Home and then I changed the whole concept of like, I
• 17:29
  can't, I'm no spoilers, but the original concept I was the guy
• 17:33
  moves back to his hometown, buys a house with his teenage
• 17:38
  daughter, but then I change it till he moves back home to that
• 17:41
  the house he grew up in. And then, you know, that has to
• 17:45
  be changed in the beginning, and then certain parts of the book
• 17:49
  have to be changed because you're still going on.
• 17:52
  He just bought a house and moved back to town.
• 17:54
  But you want that. You want that subplot underneath
• 17:58
  of this is the house he grew up in.
• 18:00
  And these are the people that he knows.
• 18:02
  And then he can walk into this room and that's his old bedroom
• 18:05
  and talk to his daughter about this.
• 18:06
  And so again, that's where the continuity and your character
• 18:11
  development, even though people don't get it right off the hook
• 18:15
  is if you change it wasn't his house to it was his house.
• 18:21
  There's so much more plot you can add as opposed to he just
• 18:25
  bought a house. And it's just them tiny little
• 18:27
  things that change. The whole like the whole the
• 18:31
  whole beat of the book. Like I'm constantly thinking of
• 18:33
  beats like, and it's weird, 'cause I'll go to like
• 18:37
  professional wrestling in the way they tell stories and you
• 18:41
  have your characters, you have your heel and you have your baby
• 18:44
  face. You have to have some sort of
• 18:48
  chaos if you want you know everything to to bump off each
• 18:52
  other. And that's like with this book,
• 18:54
  I made sure in the beginning I knew what the beginning was and
• 18:57
  I knew the huge plot twist at the end.
• 18:59
  And I'm like so excited to make the middle and now making the
• 19:02
  middle has been. Fun.
• 19:06
  Not real, but. Yeah.
• 19:08
  Well, I'm sure that it's, you know, it's kind of like working
• 19:12
  out, right? Like you don't necessarily enjoy
• 19:14
  it sometimes while you're in it, but overall you enjoy it, right?
• 19:19
  Like is that, is that fair? Oh, oh, yeah, yeah.
• 19:23
  And, and it's sometimes you work out and you want to take a break
• 19:25
  for like a week. So I took, I haven't touched my
• 19:27
  laptop. I haven't opened that file
• 19:30
  because I'm like, I'm going to get into this and I'm going to
• 19:32
  look up and there's seven hours gone and I'm looking at it and
• 19:36
  I'm like, all right, I rewrote that four times and then I'm
• 19:39
  going to rewrite this five times.
• 19:41
  So I just, I needed to take a break.
• 19:43
  I think if I go back in, I've got it maybe a good 50 pages to
• 19:48
  finish up, change a little couple things and I think I'll
• 19:51
  be good to go. Well, don't take too long I I
• 19:54
  know I've read about. Some.
• 19:55
  Authors that'll they'll start a book or even finish a book and
• 19:58
  then put it on a shelf for 10 years and then pull it back down
• 20:01
  to like, all right, I think I'm ready to finish this thing and.
• 20:04
  Publish it my my my psyche and my definitely won't let me do
• 20:08
  that. Like I caught leaving like
• 20:10
  coming into this. I'm like shit, I like I really
• 20:12
  wanted to have this book ready because I know Mike would would
• 20:16
  get a kick out of it. But then I'm like, yeah, it's
• 20:19
  got to be, it's got to be perfect for me.
• 20:21
  I mean, not perfect, but it has to be where I can read it and
• 20:23
  go, wow, that's going to hook. That's going to make somebody
• 20:27
  go. That was pretty cool because I
• 20:29
  think I let I'm a huge fan of like the M, not M Night
• 20:33
  Shyamalan and like endings and the way it flip stuff.
• 20:37
  And I think I, I did a really good job of not copying, but
• 20:43
  honoring the way he does stuff like that to my own, my own kind
• 20:50
  of universe that I've created in in this book.
• 20:52
  Because I think after this one, I'm going to sit down with
• 20:56
  myself and think about if I want to, you know, do another quote
• 21:01
  book. I've been really, really, I've
• 21:03
  already started. Actually, I probably should just
• 21:05
  pick one thing and go with it, but that's not how my mind
• 21:08
  works. So I have a a sequel to the dad
• 21:12
  clock and it's going to be, you know, the dad clock was all
• 21:17
  these moments and then the sequel is going to be like the
• 21:22
  acolytes and going to certain things and you know, only so
• 21:26
  many softball games or getting in depth to to kind of like that
• 21:30
  whole structure type stuff, because I like that look like
• 21:34
  out of any book that I've written, that's the most
• 21:37
  personal and most I think the most emotional book definitely
• 21:42
  by far. And to have people like openly
• 21:48
  tell me like they don't read like, I know I won't throw his
• 21:51
  name out there. This, this guy bought the book
• 21:55
  and a day later, two days later he bought 8 more because he's
• 22:01
  not a reader, but it made him emotional.
• 22:04
  And it seems like everybody that I've come in contact that has
• 22:07
  bought the book is had a really good emotional experience with
• 22:11
  it. And every time I read it, I
• 22:13
  can't get through it. Like I, you know, truth be told,
• 22:16
  I haven't read the book cover to cover in book form, but when it
• 22:21
  was in like the transcript phase, I think I said something
• 22:25
  on the last podcast. I I.
• 22:26
  Was going to call you out on that actually.
• 22:28
  My wife, I couldn't get through it and she like videotaped me
• 22:30
  crying, like reading it. But and then it like dedicated
• 22:37
  to my daughter, like like long after I'm gone, she can put that
• 22:41
  book up and say, you know, that's my dad or anybody that
• 22:46
  has kids can pick it up and, and immediately go to hey, that's a
• 22:49
  good, that's a good memory there.
• 22:50
  And like, again, like we get fixated on time not and like a
• 22:56
  construct of where it's endless, but unknowing to us.
• 23:01
  That's the way we really do think about it 'cause we don't
• 23:04
  think about it. The the brick wall at the end.
• 23:07
  And you got to get as much in before the brick wall as
• 23:11
  possible. And I like lately that's kind of
• 23:14
  been my mantra is not to be not to hang on the outcomes of
• 23:21
  things and not, you know, not to be fixated on what can be, well,
• 23:26
  almost not my desk over here, but to not be attached to an
• 23:30
  outcome. So if I write a book and it
• 23:33
  doesn't track well, guess what? I can write another book, you
• 23:37
  know, if my, the way I perceive something today might not be the
• 23:41
  way I perceive something tomorrow, like not being
• 23:44
  attached to an outcome. I, like, I've been trying to
• 23:46
  tell people like I freely say, like I had a counseling meeting
• 23:50
  the other day and my counselors, like they're very interesting.
• 23:54
  And I said, well, about 3-4, five months ago, I decided that
• 24:00
  I had to change things 'cause, you know, I haven't had
• 24:03
  depression or anxiety in quite a while.
• 24:05
  But once I like kind of let go of outcomes and being attached
• 24:10
  to things like whatever happens, happens and you roll with it.
• 24:14
  And, you know, again, we're almost, I'm almost 50 years old.
• 24:19
  I don't know about you, Mike, but anyway.
• 24:22
  I am also almost 50, I just turned 49 a couple of weeks ago.
• 24:26
  I know. And then that, then I hit 49,
• 24:28
  and then we'll celebrate our 50s.
• 24:30
  Again, that sounds good to me. What?
• 24:32
  And you know what's funny about what you're saying, too?
• 24:34
  I don't. I don't know if you're familiar
• 24:35
  with the, the Baga bhaga gavida gavida, Jesus, I can't even say
• 24:39
  it. Anyway, in the in the Gita,
• 24:43
  there is a line where the main character is being talked to
• 24:48
  essentially by God and and God is saying to them like you're
• 24:52
  entitled to the work, but you're not entitled to the fruits of
• 24:56
  that work, right? That's when you're talking
• 24:59
  about, that's what it made me think about, right?
• 25:00
  It's like you're entitled to the labor, but you're not entitled
• 25:03
  to the fruits of that labor. Which just means like, yeah, you
• 25:06
  need to do the stuff, but you, the outcome is completely not up
• 25:09
  to you, and worrying about it isn't going to do anything.
• 25:11
  Like you're not owed. You're not owed the outcome you
• 25:14
  want, right? But you.
• 25:17
  Are and it went from a monster syndrome into this whole like
• 25:22
  deconstruction thing. And it and it like my uncle
• 25:24
  passed away in November and he left me all his musical stuff,
• 25:29
  like everything around me that you can't see.
• 25:32
  There's massive amount of guitars behind me, but it was
• 25:37
  the first kind of the first death and we were we were close.
• 25:41
  We didn't speak for like 2 years, but like he was my hero
• 25:44
  growing up, like music wise, amazing guitar player, loved his
• 25:50
  family, love my daughter, whatever.
• 25:52
  But when he passed, it was it was the first first time
• 25:57
  somebody passed away where I wasn't like my life didn't stop.
• 26:01
  Like I wouldn't I didn't hang on the I'm going to be depressed
• 26:04
  and I'm going to because I knew again, don't be attached to the
• 26:10
  outcome of things. Life goes on.
• 26:12
  He would definitely want not me to not sit on my ass and you
• 26:16
  know, and grieve every day in this, you know, I'm like, you
• 26:21
  know what, for this book, I'm going to finish it for him.
• 26:27
  And I make sure that there's some things in there that I know
• 26:31
  he would be flappy that I put in there.
• 26:37
  But again, it's again, we can't just sit and, you know, and and,
• 26:43
  you know, cry in our hands, even though it's good to do that.
• 26:47
  But I didn't want it to because I'm had desk like I've lost some
• 26:50
  of my best friends and it's just like it takes you completely
• 26:52
  out. But I knew with this, I had
• 26:54
  booked the book, a book in mind. I wanted to do it.
• 26:58
  I really can't play guitar as long as I I used to be able to
• 27:01
  do it because of my shoulder and my bicep tendon.
• 27:04
  But there's some songs that I learned for him and I'm just
• 27:07
  like, see, this is a positive thing instead of what was me
• 27:11
  type stuff getting stuck in the grief.
• 27:15
  Yeah, getting stuck in the grief cycle.
• 27:17
  And that's why I like with this book.
• 27:18
  He can pick it up and if you're feeling a certain way.
• 27:22
  Every quote, man, like I made sure everything made somebody's
• 27:27
  day a little bit better. Like I like I'll do.
• 27:31
  I got a couple samples of every. So page 19.
• 27:36
  You don't owe anybody a strong version of yourself, your
• 27:39
  person. You're not a performance.
• 27:41
  That's my favorite one of probably top five quotes I've
• 27:44
  ever written and it's my favorite in the book because we
• 27:49
  are a we're a person. We're not a performance.
• 27:52
  And I know people that put the smiling face on and you can tell
• 27:56
  there's just rumbling underneath and there's sadness.
• 27:59
  But if you get it out there and you, you put it into the, you
• 28:03
  know, put it into the air, a lot of stuff gets let it just falls
• 28:08
  off your shoulders. At least in, in, in my sense of
• 28:10
  stuff. I got a couple other ones here.
• 28:14
  I, I got little pink posty notes that I put on it.
• 28:22
  Anger is part of grief. It is love with nowhere to go.
• 28:26
  You know, that's it's kind of a take out of our quote that's
• 28:30
  already been put out there. I just put my spin on it.
• 28:32
  But you know, we get angry because people leave us.
• 28:36
  But there again, we have the moments, we have the memories
• 28:41
  and till the day I die it, that's going to be my mantra.
• 28:46
  Memories and moments and people don't understand until you know,
• 28:53
  some people on their deathbed don't understand.
• 28:55
  But that's all we got at the end.
• 28:59
  This is another one. Your loss does not need to be
• 29:01
  smaller for other people. It mattered to you, it mattered.
• 29:06
  So that's the cover of. Just for today, because that's
• 29:12
  what I was going to ask. This is the current book and is
• 29:16
  this it's similar to to to the previous books where it's, it's,
• 29:22
  it's a series of quotes throughout the book, right?
• 29:26
  Yeah, I can't. I don't know if my blaze right
• 29:29
  here. Showing up.
• 29:32
  Yeah, and then I I have a whole basically a forward in it.
• 29:35
  I have dedications. I actually have a whole back
• 29:39
  thing. I can read you.
• 29:40
  Grief does not follow timeline. Some days feel manageable,
• 29:43
  others arrive with the weight you didn't expect.
• 29:46
  Just For Today is a quiet companion for anyone learning to
• 29:50
  live with loss inside a short reflections meant to open up at
• 29:54
  any moment in the morning during a difficult day or late at night
• 29:58
  when memories feel close. No instructions, no pressure to
• 30:01
  move on, just simple words to help you breathe and make it
• 30:04
  through the day. I figure it's one of them things
• 30:09
  you wake up in the morning and I want to just read it and just,
• 30:14
  it gives you some sort of clarity of the day or just to
• 30:18
  make you understand that we're not alone.
• 30:20
  There's other people playing the same way, carrying the same
• 30:24
  weight. And it's OK to be, it's OK to be
• 30:29
  vulnerable and it's OK to talk about it.
• 30:32
  You know, some, some people are afraid to get their, their
• 30:36
  emotions out and, and that's something I really never been
• 30:40
  afraid of. So.
• 30:42
  Yeah. Again.
• 30:44
  I'm curious, Jay, you know, with the the books that you've done,
• 30:48
  so this is the 6th 1 like do you just wake up 1 morning and say,
• 30:53
  I want to I want to write a book up on on to deal with grief or
• 30:57
  about grieving? Me and my my buddy Justin, we're
• 31:01
  having lunch one day and his whole life could be a story,
• 31:07
  could be a book. And we're talking about losing
• 31:10
  people and losing best friends. And he's lost friends and I've
• 31:12
  lost, you know, my best friends and stuff.
• 31:16
  And we started talking about grief and I'm like, you know
• 31:19
  what I have? I have a bunch of quotes that
• 31:23
  directly would fit into a grief book.
• 31:27
  And then one day I just sat down and I think I wrote like 20.
• 31:32
  And then I wrote another 20 and I wrote another 15 and it all
• 31:36
  matched up. And then there's, I think
• 31:38
  there's, I want to say there's 85 in here.
• 31:40
  I can't remember you get there's 80.
• 31:46
  So yeah, it's just my mind never shuts off with how to string
• 31:53
  words together to make, I don't want to say put a picture in
• 31:58
  your mind, but quotes are like, I'm constantly thinking of them.
• 32:04
  Like I will be driving and just pull over, go.
• 32:09
  I got to put that in the note thing.
• 32:10
  Like I could pull up my phone. Well, I'm on my phone right now,
• 32:12
  but just there's quotes that I had like half, half written and
• 32:17
  I'll go back in and try to think of something else.
• 32:20
  There's poems. I mean, I think there's 1800 and
• 32:23
  something in my notes right now, just that that I need to either,
• 32:29
  you know, finish or put into something.
• 32:30
  But again, it's my mind doesn't shut up.
• 32:34
  Like I was talking to the council the other day.
• 32:36
  I'm like explaining all I got this book and then I'm trying to
• 32:39
  I got to do this and I'm going to do that.
• 32:41
  And I got two other books in the can, but I'm finishing this one.
• 32:43
  She's like, it seems like you don't really have a lot of time
• 32:46
  to think. I'm like, well, lately I've been
• 32:48
  like trying to trying to calm down on all this stuff all going
• 32:53
  on at the same time. So I've been I've been doing
• 32:56
  good like that. Like I said, I put the computer
• 32:57
  down. I didn't picked it up to go into
• 33:00
  that file. These are some other stuff, but
• 33:02
  I mean, this, this book ended up the IT reached #20 on the the
• 33:10
  new release chart for grief, Grief and bereavement books.
• 33:14
  Yeah. So that was cool.
• 33:17
  Again, at any given time, there's usually 13 million books
• 33:19
  on on Amazon and all total. I think this debuted in like in
• 33:27
  like 63,000, which might not sound good, but it's with 13
• 33:32
  million books at any given time. That's it.
• 33:35
  It tracked good and to get all the way up to #20 in the first
• 33:39
  week and I I can't complain. Yeah, I, well, it's, I mean,
• 33:46
  forget about any kind of monetary compensation or, you
• 33:50
  know, or it, but it's got to like feel pretty good, pretty
• 33:54
  validating, right? Like, yeah, you put these things
• 33:58
  on paper and like other people are experiencing them.
• 34:01
  And, and obviously if it's make, if it's climbing the charts,
• 34:03
  that means that people want it, right?
• 34:05
  And so they're they're looking for it.
• 34:07
  And I mean, it's just got to feel really good.
• 34:10
  Yeah, and I just realized, well, I, I have my authors page on
• 34:14
  Amazon and I can go in and look at the analytics for all my
• 34:17
  books. And I didn't realize that until
• 34:19
  like 2 weeks ago. My first book, Scribbled
• 34:21
  Letters, which came out six years ago, almost the Kindle
• 34:27
  version is still tracking in like what like a like 12101
• 34:33
  category. So it's still, I'm like, it's
• 34:35
  still up in the category and I still get, you know, I enrolled
• 34:40
  that in the Kindle, forgot the name of the thing.
• 34:44
  Anyway, we get it, if you pay for like a monthly subscription
• 34:47
  to Kindle, you get that book free or whatever.
• 34:49
  My first two books are actually like that.
• 34:52
  I'm thinking about doing a Kindle version for this at some
• 34:56
  point because I have the the software now where I can just
• 34:59
  transcribe it over pretty quickly.
• 35:00
  Before I had to do a manually, which was one horrible
• 35:04
  experience. But I'm constantly getting
• 35:08
  better with, with the things I'm doing, especially with writing
• 35:12
  and be able to put like, you know, I came up with the concept
• 35:15
  for the art of the, of the front of this, which was, I just
• 35:18
  wanted basic, did that with Canva.
• 35:23
  And then like putting the copyright page together and all
• 35:26
  that type of stuff. Pretty, pretty easy.
• 35:30
  But there's no, there's nothing on the spine of this.
• 35:35
  There was, but Amazon rejected it 6 times because it wasn't the
• 35:41
  right spacing, it wasn't the right size.
• 35:43
  And finally I go, you know what? I don't need 1.
• 35:47
  So. Yeah, it's funny to say that I
• 35:49
  think we talked about this on the last episode.
• 35:51
  We we've helped a couple people publish books now.
• 35:53
  I don't know if we'll ever do it again.
• 35:55
  It it's just the Amazon. Yeah.
• 35:57
  I mean, it's a it's an amazing thing, right?
• 35:59
  Number one, it, it's to be able to give people like yourself the
• 36:04
  ability to publish books without having to go through a
• 36:07
  publishing house. And the old system that was very
• 36:10
  gatekeeper kept a lot of people off the market, right?
• 36:14
  So to be able to go straight to the consumer without that middle
• 36:17
  person and using Amazon publishing is I think is
• 36:20
  amazing. However, wow that it is not the
• 36:24
  easiest system sometimes. And I'm sure the more you do it,
• 36:27
  the better you get at dealing with it.
• 36:28
  But like it, it was hard. It was.
• 36:32
  Yeah. Format in the book is I got that
• 36:34
  down to a science now, which before was my heart like hardest
• 36:37
  part because I was thinking about doing this in a hardcover
• 36:40
  too. Because believe it or not,
• 36:42
  there's not a lot of hardcover books out there in the in the in
• 36:47
  the self-publishing space, especially on Amazon.
• 36:50
  So when you do put one out, they tend to stick pretty good and
• 36:53
  they, they track pretty good on on the charts.
• 36:58
  But yeah, As for getting it, the, the sizing, the spacing,
• 37:01
  boom, I'm, I'm good with that. But for some reason the spine
• 37:04
  thing is just the every book that I've done has been a pain
• 37:07
  right in the butt. The dad clock.
• 37:10
  I just, I don't know if that was, I rolled the dice and three
• 37:13
  time was a charm and they accepted it.
• 37:14
  But six times on this. Yeah, my wife would come home
• 37:18
  from work and I'm like, yeah, that was 3 hours on the spine
• 37:22
  today. And.
• 37:24
  And nothing and nothing. And.
• 37:26
  Nothing. I shrunk it down to where I'm
• 37:29
  like, all right, this is the specs that they want.
• 37:31
  And then I kick back. I get kicked back.
• 37:34
  Nope, it's it's bleeding into whatever.
• 37:36
  And I'm like, all right, never mind.
• 37:40
  Hey I got to ask you still got the how are the numbers on
• 37:44
  TikTok? The last time you were on the
• 37:45
  show, you blew my mind with this monstrous TikTok following you
• 37:49
  have. Well, I, I, I haven't really
• 37:51
  done a live or a face like your actual video of me talking on
• 37:55
  TikTok. I've been taking my quotes,
• 37:58
  putting like nice backgrounds and throwing them up there.
• 38:00
  I'm still hanging around 59,200. I I dropped like 100 followers,
• 38:05
  but I'm still hovering around that space.
• 38:09
  I've been told by because I'd be in having that many followers
• 38:13
  TikTok, they'll send me messages.
• 38:14
  Go live. You can make you can do this, do
• 38:17
  that. But I don't know what I would do
• 38:18
  if I went live to talk to people about, you know what, am I going
• 38:22
  to run to read my book? No, I want you to buy it.
• 38:26
  But that's why I. Was going to say I, I, you
• 38:30
  inspired me because after the podcast, I, I got a hold of
• 38:35
  Taylor that's our producer and does 99% of the work and for
• 38:41
  buying local. And I was like, Hey, I'm like, I
• 38:43
  think we need to be on TikTok. So I, I'm pretty sure we're on
• 38:46
  TikTok. I'm not on TikTok.
• 38:47
  I. I, I think, yeah, I think I, I
• 38:49
  think I follow it. Nice.
• 38:51
  Thank you. Yeah, and then I I started the
• 38:54
  second TikTok for nostalgia, which I think I got 1100
• 38:59
  followers and one of the top video I got is or was enemy
• 39:03
  Mine. I did a whole breakdown of enemy
• 39:05
  mine, but I did The Secret of Nim and that's got like 18,000
• 39:09
  views, a bunch of comments, but I did that just for because I I
• 39:14
  love I love old nostalgia things and like it's not just movies.
• 39:17
  I did like RadioShack and did a whole thing on that and they're
• 39:22
  all a minute, minute 30. Like I I just breakdown movies.
• 39:25
  Stand by me, back to the future and I do like wave blockbuster
• 39:32
  Wednesday. I'm done on a while, like
• 39:34
  blockbuster movies. I did.
• 39:36
  What were they thinking with the Garbage Pail Kids, the movie,
• 39:40
  that type of stuff? But again, my mind's still
• 39:44
  going. And then my my big TikTok
• 39:47
  account, I've been doing the I just throw quotes up there, ones
• 39:50
  I haven't even published. I just throw that up up there.
• 39:54
  They're starting to track. But it's funny because you have
• 39:57
  so many followers, but you're only getting like 203 hundred
• 40:00
  600 views because of the algorithm.
• 40:03
  But the algorithm changes so much that it's like some days
• 40:07
  I'll get a lot, some days I'll get a little.
• 40:09
  But I'm I'm I'm constantly getting, hey, do you want this
• 40:13
  for free from companies? But I think they blind test
• 40:17
  because I, I think I've already said this hair products woman's
• 40:21
  woman's makeup like no, I don't want it.
• 40:25
  My my daughter's might. But now.
• 40:28
  I'm good that's. Fine, like true Classic.
• 40:31
  I'm wearing a true classic shirt right now.
• 40:32
  They sent me free shoes so. Nice.
• 40:36
  Thanks. True classic.
• 40:36
  Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. We got to wrap it up.
• 40:40
  But one more time, give a give the audience the name of the
• 40:43
  book and where they can find it and where they can find you on
• 40:47
  the social media. Name of the book is just for
• 40:50
  today. Small words for heavy days.
• 40:55
  Good companion book to bring anywhere if you need just a good
• 40:58
  pick me up if you're missing somebody available on
• 41:02
  Amazon.com. I didn't do expanded with this
• 41:06
  because expanded takes a little bit more percentage of what I
• 41:11
  can, what I can make. You can find me on social media,
• 41:17
  Poet Jay on Instagram and Facebook.
• 41:20
  My regular Facebook is Jay Angleston TikTok.
• 41:23
  I'm at Jay Angleston and my other one is nostalgia time 50.
• 41:30
  I don't know why they gave me the 50, but that was my my
• 41:32
  handle. I got some book signings in the
• 41:36
  works and then talks with Whitehall High School about
• 41:40
  doing a book signing for the dad clock, hopefully with the next
• 41:44
  couple months. And I think that that'll be the,
• 41:48
  the icing on the cake for that book.
• 41:50
  I mean, again, the the the feedback and the sales and the
• 41:59
  overall take for that book is gone well above and beyond what
• 42:04
  I would have ever imagined. So the other books, hopefully
• 42:11
  the the psychological thriller Welcome Home will be out
• 42:15
  hopefully within the next couple months and July I.
• 42:19
  Am I like I'm looking? Well, I'll.
• 42:21
  I'll send you the transcript via via e-mail like I did this one.
• 42:25
  No, don't do that I I want to I. Want you want the actual
• 42:28
  physical? All right, I'll, I'll wait for
• 42:30
  that. I want to touch it, feel it.
• 42:32
  I want to open the pages and smell it, but I'm, I am, I'm
• 42:36
  really excited about reading it. You know, I've enjoyed all the
• 42:40
  books that you've put out so far and.
• 42:42
  I appreciate. It and this being so, so
• 42:44
  different, I'm really excited to see I'm, I'm excited to hear the
• 42:51
  story, but I'm also just excited to see how you do with it and
• 42:55
  how it comes out. So I'm I'm pumped.
• 42:58
  I just got to let go of the my concept of wanting to be
• 43:03
  perfect. But I think, I think I'm through
• 43:05
  that. I just need a little bit break
• 43:06
  because, you know, again, people tend to think that, you know,
• 43:11
  this is a 45 minute to an hour thing a day.
• 43:15
  And sometimes it like I've been, I've written for 9 hours
• 43:18
  straight before, take a little break to eat, go to the
• 43:21
  bathroom, sit back down and, and just let it all out.
• 43:25
  And then yeah, it's both cathartic and it can be a pain
• 43:32
  in the ass, but that's the the best.
• 43:35
  It's it's the best, the best form of self torture I think you
• 43:38
  can give yourself because at the end it's gratification.
• 43:41
  So I can't complain and I'm never, if I ever complain, you
• 43:46
  can choke me out. OK, that's fair.
• 43:50
  I did probably the only way I could choke you, Jay.
• 43:52
  You'd have to let me do it. So listen, man, I I appreciate
• 43:56
  you. I love what you're doing.
• 43:58
  I really enjoy your books, you know, and I appreciate coming on
• 44:02
  the show and talking about him, man.
• 44:04
  And I appreciate you having me on here and I appreciate our
• 44:06
  friendship and the support. Can't, can't beat that, man.
• 44:10
  And, and having just be able to talk to you and having other
• 44:14
  people see our conversations and, and, and know what's going
• 44:17
  on. And, you know, anybody's life
• 44:19
  is, it's cool to me. I'm always been a podcast fan.
• 44:21
  And, and it's cool when the podcaster is your friend and you
• 44:24
  can get down to the nuts and bolts and not have to worry
• 44:27
  about saying something that you probably should have said
• 44:29
  because I feel comfortable enough with you there.
• 44:34
  I'm like, oh. I shouldn't have said that.
• 44:38
  Well, it's good. It's good because I never felt
• 44:40
  that way after I left one of these, so we're good on that.
• 44:43
  Good, good, good. Hopefully the next one we can we
• 44:45
  can do in person here. Sounds good, brother.