Latest / Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences / #0042 From Courtrooms to Fantasy: Richie Billing’s Leap into Storytelling, Struggle & Hope

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#0042 From Courtrooms to Fantasy: Richie Billing’s Leap into Storytelling, Struggle & Hope · Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences

• 0:00
  Welcome to Whereabouts Sales. Today's episode features Richie
• 0:05
  Billing, a former lawyer who left the courtroom behind for
• 0:08
  New Calling, as a fantasy writer.
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  We'll talk about Richie's journey, the bold choices and
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  struggles to let him here, and dive into the themes and
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  inspiration behind his latest book.
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  If you love stories about creativity, hope, and following
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  your passion even when the pet is uncertain, this conversation
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  is for you. Let's get started.
• 0:31
  So Richie, hi and welcome to the Whereabouts Tales podcast.
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  I fall. Thank you very much for having
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  me. I'm happy that you're here.
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  I'm happy that you take the time I have to start with this.
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  You walk away from a from a legal career to get yourself
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  into the fantasy writing domain. Yeah, that's right.
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  Do your characters know how lucky they are to have you?
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  Maybe I'm lucky it was a big, big decision to do that.
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  I was hating the job though. I don't know if you've ever done
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  this where you've just hated the job for you just carry on and
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  you carry on and there's other things that you want to be doing
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  and in the end just cable trying to resist and just suck the
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  plunge and went for. What was the what was the
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  decision that the, the the the breaking point when you said now
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  I leave. I think at the time there was a
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  bunch of us going to make our own law firm, and that fell
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  through. So at that point I was just
• 1:38
  like, I can't be bothered anymore.
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  I don't want to carry on working for these guys.
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  So I was thinking was only 2323244.
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  Yeah, why not? I'm young, got no commitments.
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  Give it a shot. Then I ran out of money after
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  six months. So OK, the dream died.
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  Did have you start before quitting with writing?
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  Did you already start experiencing?
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  Yeah, I mean, I absolutely love writing.
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  I think that was probably the biggest motivation, that when I
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  was working as a lawyer, I completely fell in love with
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  writing and I just wanted to do that and nothing else.
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  So when it was sort of down to making a choice between the two,
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  it's quite an easy one. I just thought, you know what,
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  we're not to lose. I can always go back to this job
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  for I love writing, and if I can do something that's a bit closer
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  to what I enjoy, then I might sort of be able to tolerate a
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  day job. So yeah, I saved up some money,
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  went for it. I studied really hard, use that
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  time to basically school myself on how to become a better writer
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  and I didn't, I didn't get anywhere really.
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  I wrote a lot of fizzy rubbish, rubbish stuff.
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  But you've got, you've got to do that.
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  You've just got to practice, practice, practice, learn, try
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  things, fail, go back at it. And yeah, I don't regret it at
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  all because I invested all the time in myself and I love and
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  yeah, I I never look back. That's the that's really nice.
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  That's really nice. I think at the end, I think the
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  decision is really important. It's a bold step for sure, for
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  sure. It's a, it's a huge step because
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  you are going out out of safety, shitty and being miserable, but
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  safe. And you go into a world that you
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  do, a world that you don't know. Have you had something public
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  before you quit? Like something on the Internet,
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  something on blogs or something. Yeah, I think I had one short
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  story published and I still remember getting that acceptance
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  because it you you get so many rejections with short stories
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  and with it being your first one, it's like, oh, it's
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  actually, I could actually do this.
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  It gives you belief like someone actually likes it.
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  I just don't get that now when I get short stories accepted.
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  Like I can't believe someone actually likes that.
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  But come on, you, you like them as well.
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  So it's, yeah, exactly that someone else, someone else would
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  like them as well, right? Yeah, Unless, well, I'm a bit
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  weird, so not many people like the things I like.
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  Everyone is weird in their own in their own way, and I think
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  the fact that we don't fit into the common rhetoric of the world
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  doesn't make us weird. And what, What if the others are
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  weird? I just, I, I heard the nice
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  thing today that if you, if you, if a bunch of apples are meeting
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  orange, they will not say, look, this is an orange.
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  They will say it's an apple with a active colouring.
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  Because because you can never say like they are, they someone
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  is different. It's hard to accept that someone
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  is different than you. You will never tolerate that.
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  And at the end, we don't come on it's there's nothing normal and
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  nothing a normal. Have you ever read the book The
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  Outsider by Coming? No.
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  It's a really it's only I think it's a novella and it's
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  basically looks at what you've just described like see in the
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  world in a different way to everybody else.
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  And this this person saw what we would like, probably agree with
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  and empathize with for everyone else around and thought he was
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  weird and treated them like the outsider.
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  So yeah, it's a brilliant book. Or if anyone doesn't listen to
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  read it before, I'll bear Camel. I will, I will.
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  I mean, it's important. I think it's important lessons,
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  that lesson that we're learning these days all around the world
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  because we are becoming less and less tolerant with the with the
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  other persons. And I think this is a lesson
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  that everyone should learn, that we should, we should accept
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  everyone as they are. As long as they don't do
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  anything to to bother you, to offend you, nobody cares.
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  Nobody cares about about how you are and what you do.
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  And we hate each other so much these days that it's getting
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  critical and critical to learn how to love each other, how to
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  accept each other as as we are. Yeah, that's really well said.
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  Did fantasy play a big role in your childhood, Richie?
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  It did, yeah. I think I was about 11 years old
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  when the Lord of the Rings movies came out, so that just
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  blew me away. Absolutely understandable.
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  Yeah, and then I was also around the quite young gauge when Harry
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  Potter was out on the silver screen for the first time.
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  And then I loved reading books as well.
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  I've read all the Harry Potter books about the hobbies and
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  there was a lot of other like fantasy, sort of younger adult
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  fantasies like Artemis Fowl always sort of tends to involve
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  grand adventures, underdog characters.
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  And it does it doesn't have shape the kind of stuff that you
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  like. And then if you found the same
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  like the stuff when you you liked when you were a kid as
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  very heavily inspired, what you do now.
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  Absolutely. Absolutely.
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  Was someone in your family also attracted to to fantasy or just
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  something that you were the only one?
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  Not, not really. And I was a bit of an escapist
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  child. Like I didn't really.
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  I like to just go off and do my own thing and explore my own
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  world and like live out my own stories.
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  Like my father was a footballer, but I I never kicked the
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  football so I was like. This is this is crazy.
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  And especially we just discussed before starting recording, we
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  have to say that I ask you what you said, you are coming from
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  Liverpool and being from Liverpool and you never kicked
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  the football. That's so interesting.
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  Yeah, especially because we'd obviously my dad was a
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  professional footballer and I'm one of them kids.
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  That or one of them people generally know if if all if the
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  flock goes one way, I'm going to go the other way.
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  So everyone love football, like everyone love Liverpool FC, like
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  everyone knows The Beatles. So it took me.
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  I don't I didn't get into the listen to The Beatles.
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  So I was like 25, which is like the from where I'm I'm from and
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  I really love and appreciate them now.
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  But because everyone growing up was like hard Beatles, this The
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  Beatles are, I was just like, no, I'll listen to the old
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  thing. But I think also it's hard to
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  appreciate because when you're under 25, I have to be honest, I
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  think, yeah, I think it's a kind of music that you don't, are not
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  really able to appreciate when you are young.
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  Yeah. But there is a can which for
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  which team did your did your your dad played?
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  So actually he played for Everton for a little bit, which
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  is the other team in Liverpool, but he played most of his career
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  at Coventry, which is team. Yeah, yeah.
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  So yeah, they used to be good. Nice.
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  And yeah, you played in the top divisions and stuff, which is
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  pretty really cool. And it's got to like every now
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  and then you see the odd video clip from the 1980s.
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  How was it? How was it grow being the kid of
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  someone famous? Well, I mild fame in it, really.
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  Like I have never really experienced this.
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  You go to like events when I was a bit younger and people come up
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  and ask for autographed support. It's a bit weird when you're a
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  kid, you don't really understand what's going on because you've
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  never supposed. You've never really been in that
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  position to idolize someone. So go mad and get autographs and
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  stuff. Yeah, never really don't see
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  much, was it? But one thing was quite
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  interesting is because we did have to move around quite a lot
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  playing for different teams, correct.
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  And I'm always someone who like sort of studies, like the room
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  when a walk into a kind of thing.
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  And I was interested. I was speaking to a former FBI
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  special agents. He's OK.
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  He's an expert in body language. And I interviewed him for my
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  podcast and he said children who move around a lot when they're
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  younger tend to be more perceptive because they have to
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  be more alert, more aware of the new surroundings.
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  So the the more observance, the the looking for threats and
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  dangers basically. To identify, to identify danger
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  makes sense. Makes a lot of sense.
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  He said this was like something he realized because he was
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  originally from Cuba and they had to leave Cuba and move to
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  America and he couldn't speak English.
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  You could only speak Spanish. So a lot of the way that he
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  would learn and communicate with people will be looking around,
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  seeing how they respond and how they say things.
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  I just think it's really interesting because if you can
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  get that sort of nuance in writing and stories, it just
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  brings everything to life in a whole different way.
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  The awareness, like the the awareness of the characters at
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  the end, also in the in your story, that's that's really
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  interesting. Yeah.
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  What was the reaction of your family when you told them, you
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  know what, I will quit my day job and do this for a living.
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  Yeah, I think 54 the questionable, but I've always
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  been quite lucky that the main people around me have been quite
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  supportive and just go along with the mad things that are
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  caught with. I have, but yeah.
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  Because it's AI mean it's hard for someone to understand that
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  though they don't have this passion why you are doing this.
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  And I think that's if you have people around you that are, that
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  are supporting you, I think that's, that's amazing.
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  Yeah, definitely, yeah. What's your biggest influence?
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  Influence that you have in from literature?
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  What do you think? What do you get?
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  Do you think you get their influence?
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  I have a very love obviously fantasy stories, but I'm not so
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  only as big on the sort of almost like cartoon fantasy.
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  So it's like the hero is always going to win.
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  Like almost like, I don't know, maybe like sort of cliched
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  Dungeons and Dragons. You stuff from like the 80s and
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  90s that our people grew up with, which thankfully now is
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  we've moved on a lot from that in the genre is.
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  And the kind of stuff that I like to write is more aligned
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  Game of Thrones. So quite character driven and
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  focusing on like real world issues, but just put in a
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  fantasy setting. I think that really makes it
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  interesting and people can engage and relate a lot with
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  issues that step away from reality as well.
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  I think I just write in sorts of real people, gritty, the shades
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  between light and dark. I think most of us linger in the
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  grey and I like to sort of explore that the most.
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  I think the combination that you have between between the, the
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  gritty realism and the high fantasy, it's it's impressive.
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  And I think was that in from from start on your voice or did
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  did it evolve somehow? Yes, to be honest, high fantasy,
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  I love it. But when it comes to writing it,
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  I'm not a big massive fan of like Dragons and magic and stuff
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  like that. Like some people really love to
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  sit down and work out our magic system offering.
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  Game of Thrones destroy all the writing.
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  And like, fair enough, if you want to do that.
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  That bores me. And if it bores me, it's going
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  to bore the reader. So I like magic.
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  I think magic's been mysterious because if it's too set out, it
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  becomes less like magic and more like a science.
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  And I like the mystery. It's makes sense.
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  I never thought about this but really makes sense.
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  Yeah. If you leave it, if you leave
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  the reader to to get some, to get some own ideas inside, I
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  think it makes it more interesting.
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  Someone said like as an examples, like Star Wars, like
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  the first Star Wars films were all about the Force and it's
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  quite mysterious. And then in the second
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  generation they started trying to define what the Force was.
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  And it was not interesting anymore.
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  I mean, it was interesting because they had better the
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  better special effects, but that was it.
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  Yeah, Andres, I have to be honest, I stopped watching Star
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  Wars after the after the third episode, all the sequels and
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  prequels. I have just finished Andor.
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  Andor is fantastic and Rogue One is a fantastic film as well.
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  They're the two things I would basically it's it's all the same
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  story, so it starts with Andor. So watch Andor, then roll OK and
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  then 4-5 and six and then don't watch anything else.
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  That's too late. I watched 123 as well after 4-5
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  and six that makes it that makes it not so good.
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  I did. I haven't.
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  I like the connection, the crazy connection that the that Lucas
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  made in the movies because the there are a lot of references
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  that are used in 456 that are coming up in the in the one in
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  123. So I think how he managed to
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  connect the stories is really impressive.
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  So there is a, there is a part, I think, I don't remember if
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  it's, I think it's 5 or 6 where they mentioned the War of the
• 17:05
  clones. The clones were, and it's
• 17:07
  actually what they, what is happening.
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  Then in the, I think in the second, the second was the war
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  of the yeah. And I like how the how it
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  connected. Did you, did you try to, because
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  you know, there was a, do you know, there was a contest for
• 17:21
  everyone who was willing to write prequels or sequels for,
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  for Star Wars. Do you know that?
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  So does they carry on like with Disney not paying people that
• 17:30
  wouldn't be fancy and that? Disney, Disney wrote the open.
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  They made an open book thing which in which they say everyone
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  can send their prequels or sequels for Star Wars.
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  Then we will select the better. And I think could be that Rogue
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  One is one of those winners. Oh, really?
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  Yeah. Yeah, I, I don't know exactly
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  which of them I might be mistaking, but one of them is
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  one of those, those winners. So they, they made it open.
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  I said whoever wants to write stories, just send them through.
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  And we we take the the, the good ones.
• 18:02
  I forgot to take the the the most important thing.
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  Oh, you got a coffee? Nice.
• 18:07
  I like reading so. Nice, nice.
• 18:11
  Thanks very much again. Don't have to think, I will.
• 18:14
  I plan to do to give it as a giveaway at the end of the
• 18:17
  episode. Let's see, Let's see how we
• 18:20
  tried, how we plan to do it. But let's talk about Tervia.
• 18:25
  Is it Tervia? Have I said it right?
• 18:27
  Tervia Yeah, yeah, Perfect. How did it start?
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  I decided when I was writing short stories that I didn't just
• 18:37
  want to scatter gun, I wanted to actually build something.
• 18:42
  And I decided to create a world to sort of place all these
• 18:48
  stories in. And over time, I think probably
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  done about maybe 10 or 12 different short stories and the
• 18:55
  novella, they're all set in this one world.
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  And I'm slowly sort of advancing the overall plot of what is
• 19:06
  going on in this world at this particular point in time.
• 19:10
  And that is basically the forces of evil, forces of goods.
• 19:15
  They're all war on the sort of higher level that most people
• 19:19
  don't see. And it's the balance of starting
• 19:24
  to shift and evil start to take hold.
• 19:28
  They've just found magic again and they're wielding it in quite
• 19:33
  a dangerous and effective way. And the the good guys are dying
• 19:38
  and they're not really growing in number.
• 19:42
  So it's it's looking pretty dire.
• 19:45
  And that sort of battle, which is sort of in hidden amongst the
• 19:50
  why the population for so long is now began to spill out and
• 19:54
  and affect more and more people as the bad guys taking control.
• 20:01
  So that's the sort of overall story.
• 20:03
  And I like to zoom in and focus on these little stories going
• 20:07
  on, these little struggles between everyday people who are
• 20:11
  up against these first nasty, evil bastards.
• 20:16
  So it's been quite fun. And you do see a bit of that in
• 20:20
  Together We Rise in the final chapter.
• 20:22
  You get us your first taste essentially of who these bad
• 20:26
  guys are. What kind of?
• 20:28
  Power they've got and what threat they pose to the wider
• 20:32
  world. How do you manage to keep the
• 20:37
  the story consistent across short stories, across novels,
• 20:43
  novellas. So you have the main story and
• 20:46
  then you decide to do a zoom in in one of the parts, but you
• 20:49
  keep in mind still the main story of the.
• 20:52
  Yeah. So the way I look at this, I
• 20:54
  mean, the reason why I love fantasy so much is because of
• 20:58
  this sort of exploration of what is good and what is evil.
• 21:03
  And what I try to do with the sort of fantasy world I've
• 21:09
  created is, is keep that as the central point.
• 21:13
  And this sort of battle, it's, I say as like a struggle between
• 21:19
  life and a struggle between nothingness, the opposite of
• 21:24
  life. So these little struggles take
• 21:29
  place in everything, every living thing, because everything
• 21:34
  lives for at the same time, once it dies, becomes nothing.
• 21:38
  And it's like 2 forces at work. And I've always really
• 21:43
  interested in like the random things that people do.
• 21:46
  Some people might do something really randomly evil, like in
• 21:50
  Liverpool. I don't know if you had couple
• 21:55
  of weeks ago, guy just seems like a normal guy just randomly
• 22:01
  drove into 80 people. Everyone thought it was an
• 22:05
  immigrant, but it wasn't, right he was.
• 22:07
  Oh no, he's from this from where I'm from.
• 22:11
  So why do people do these things?
• 22:13
  It's weird. And obviously there might be
• 22:15
  just probably like circumstances building up to it.
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  But in split second moments, I'm always fascinated by the
• 22:20
  decisions that people make and the forces that work.
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  And that's what I try and do. And we fantasy, well, I look at
• 22:28
  these little split second moments, these massive decisions
• 22:31
  that people make, and you can genuinely sort of get
• 22:34
  interesting character moments. How do you balance the fantasy,
• 22:47
  the magics, and the politics in your writing?
• 22:50
  I think the politics is filtered through a lot more in the last
• 22:54
  few years just because I'm getting so pissed off with
• 22:56
  everything in the world. Like everyone.
• 22:59
  Everyone from us. It's hard to to really turn off
• 23:05
  from it now because it's getting so bad.
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  I don't know how you feel about things, but I mean it's affected
• 23:12
  your writing and what influences you.
• 23:16
  It affects it affects you in general and even though you
• 23:22
  know, I hate this popular opinion and they say I don't go
• 23:24
  to vote because anyhow, my first my vote doesn't count and 2nd,
• 23:30
  it doesn't influence me. I have a good job, I have a good
• 23:32
  salary, but it doesn't influence which is, which is absolutely
• 23:35
  wrong because it influence our life.
• 23:37
  And I and I think that the for me, it was shocking when I read
• 23:47
  that you finish the book in the day or you said you send the
• 23:51
  fullest version of the of the book in the day when the big
• 23:55
  Orange ended up being president in the United States.
• 24:00
  I don't really believe in coincidences.
• 24:04
  Yeah, it's it's scary at the I worry that there's just not
• 24:11
  enough on the other side. It's fighting back that's my big
• 24:16
  worry. Are you afraid that we are going
• 24:18
  to do the same mistakes? Yeah, I think we've already made
• 24:23
  them most. Of them, you're right.
• 24:25
  Yeah, it is. It's it's annoying and
• 24:28
  frustrating for me. I don't know about yourself.
• 24:30
  Just see us repeating it over and over and over again.
• 24:33
  There is a book which I read. I read eight years ago.
• 24:37
  I will never forget. I was in a holiday and I was
• 24:40
  laying on the beach and I still had no kids, so it was easy to
• 24:44
  read. And there was a book which was
• 24:47
  called Why Don't We Learn from History?
• 24:50
  And that book, book got me scary in 217.
• 24:54
  And I think it's it's getting worse than worse than worse.
• 24:59
  Yeah, that's, it's strange, the human fascination with just
• 25:03
  fighting. I call for human history.
• 25:06
  It's just lettered with conflict.
• 25:10
  What scares? Me, what scares me as well is
• 25:12
  that the capacity of humans to to do evil.
• 25:17
  And I'm not talking about the small cases, like you said, the
• 25:20
  guy from Liverpool. I'm talking about the big cases,
• 25:22
  the big killing, the big bombing.
• 25:26
  That's. I don't understand the
• 25:28
  background of it, but yeah, so it's influencing all of us.
• 25:32
  And for sure the right thing is getting is getting a small
• 25:36
  influence because whenever you are able to understand that
• 25:39
  everything what's happening at the moment is bad and the social
• 25:42
  networks are dividing us more and more, this is this is
• 25:49
  really, really hard. Yes, it's, and when you look at
• 25:53
  it like the way you just described, it is like we're
• 25:56
  fighting against ourselves more than anything.
• 26:00
  And it's this sort of battle, this internal battle that is
• 26:05
  like what I'm sort of most keen to write about now.
• 26:09
  Like why? Why do people side one one way
• 26:13
  or the other? Why do people think these
• 26:14
  things? And it's, I don't know,
• 26:19
  sometimes you may you wonder whether someone reads it and
• 26:23
  enjoys it. Like together we rise.
• 26:25
  I mean, one of the, I don't write stories with like, I mean,
• 26:31
  with this one, I'm critical of a system like built on capitalism
• 26:37
  that just does not care about people whatsoever.
• 26:42
  So that's what I wanted to do in Together We Rise.
• 26:45
  But that's not, that doesn't mean I'm coming from a like a
• 26:47
  right wing or a left wing perspective because the issues
• 26:50
  affect everybody. And one of the best things that
• 26:53
  came out Together, We Rise is someone wrote back after reading
• 26:58
  it, and they were a Trump supporter and they loved it so.
• 27:06
  That's so nice. So it's amazing, like I like
• 27:10
  this is what books should be about.
• 27:11
  It shouldn't be about absolutely being tribal.
• 27:14
  It should be able just laying out things and saying this is
• 27:18
  this is affecting all of us. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 27:22
  And I think it's even not important, Richie, if we are on
• 27:26
  the left, on the on the right, on the left side, then maybe
• 27:29
  that's what's something that we should stop doing.
• 27:32
  Yeah. Because it's like, you know,
• 27:35
  before you talk to someone, you ask me if it's a Trump fan or
• 27:38
  not or if it's, I don't know, a Biden fan or or Harris or
• 27:42
  whomever. And this is not something that
• 27:45
  represents us. I'm sorry.
• 27:46
  This is just something which is a temporary thing.
• 27:49
  And at the end, you know what I just want to say before, instead
• 27:53
  we are fighting against each other.
• 27:54
  There's going to be no winner out of this.
• 27:56
  Yeah, no one wins fighting do. They no one, no one wins.
• 28:00
  You've already lost if you're fighting.
• 28:02
  Absolutely, absolutely going to to together realize when I have
• 28:09
  to tell you one thing that I had to that I struggled with was the
• 28:12
  name of the characters I'm there's.
• 28:15
  A few as well if you can. Absolutely.
• 28:18
  And I had, I went so much back and forth.
• 28:22
  So. Because I couldn't remember the
• 28:25
  names and, and I don't know if I thought that maybe it's because
• 28:28
  of being no native English speaker, but I think, I think
• 28:33
  it's something, it makes it interesting though, because it's
• 28:37
  it's making you like read back and forth, understand who's whom
• 28:41
  and who's doing what and, and made it really, really
• 28:46
  interesting. What made Delia at the heart of
• 28:49
  the story for you? Well, I actually created Hair as
• 28:53
  a character a long time ago, maybe 10 years ago when I first
• 28:58
  started writing. And she was one of the
• 29:02
  characters I loved most. And I ended up including her in
• 29:06
  a novel and I ended up just ditching the novel.
• 29:10
  I can't, can't leave that. That's like the best story.
• 29:13
  And in the story, she, she leads a revolution.
• 29:16
  She becomes a vigilante and leads a revolution.
• 29:20
  And I was like, what? This is exactly what I want to
• 29:24
  write about now. It's perfect.
• 29:26
  So I was really thrilled to be able to bring that back.
• 29:30
  But I was like, because that was originally a novel.
• 29:33
  That story was, it was 100,000 words.
• 29:37
  And that particular strand was probably about 4050 thousand
• 29:41
  words, maybe more. And I was like, I just don't
• 29:44
  want to be fuffing about with like all that back story.
• 29:49
  I just want to tell a nice fast story, get to the steps of the
• 29:52
  actual revolution. So it starts on the morning of
• 29:56
  the revolution and it's just told over 24 hour period.
• 30:02
  And you find out all of the back story that cut out along the way
• 30:07
  and you just get the essential information, which I think
• 30:11
  people prefer that. I mean some people like the in
• 30:14
  depth well building and the info dumps and stuff for I don't
• 30:20
  know, for this kind of story it didn't feel needed.
• 30:26
  Men 8 main characters. Yeah, it's more like a short
• 30:32
  story collection because they're all individuals, but the.
• 30:37
  Different agendas, different voices, everything.
• 30:42
  How did you how did you manage to balance them or how do you
• 30:47
  plan? How did you plan to balance
• 30:49
  them? What I tended to look at was
• 30:52
  each character because I was like looking, thinking about the
• 30:56
  perspectives first, because I'm critique in a system that
• 30:59
  affects everybody in different ways especially, and the purpose
• 31:05
  of each character is to look at how they've been impacted.
• 31:10
  So you've got the healer who's basically repairing people after
• 31:14
  they get caught up in the cogs in the machine.
• 31:19
  You've got the worker who's fighting a losing battle every
• 31:24
  day to survive and live a decent life.
• 31:27
  You've got the drug dealer and I thought is quite important
• 31:31
  character because they're very symptomatic of this sort of
• 31:35
  corrupt and Harper's system where it's all built on the
• 31:41
  profiting from the misfortunes of other people.
• 31:43
  So that character also offers like an economic perspective of
• 31:48
  like how capitalism works, which I thought was quite interesting.
• 31:51
  And then one of my favorite characters is probably the
• 31:55
  police officer, where the equivalence of the police
• 31:57
  officer who's gets sent out to stop the rise and protest and
• 32:02
  basically is told to go out and kill people and and do whatever
• 32:07
  you need to do. And he has to sort of decide
• 32:09
  whether to stick fight for the police in the state or switch
• 32:15
  sides. And then you've got all the
• 32:19
  characters as well, like tell we mentioned till before.
• 32:21
  She's the sort of main strands that runs throughout the whole
• 32:25
  story. And the reason why she wants to
• 32:29
  do this revolution is basically she through various
• 32:35
  circumstances to be admired to a very abusive and controlling
• 32:39
  man. He was also high up in the
• 32:43
  police. And as part of this corruption
• 32:45
  that's just like riddled the city.
• 32:49
  And she realizes that after doing a bit of vigilantism, it's
• 32:53
  not enough to just kill a few people and be beyond be done
• 32:59
  with it. Like it's just an ongoing
• 33:01
  problem and the whole system needs to change.
• 33:04
  And that's why she starts planning a revolution and she
• 33:09
  gets the help of a Gen. an old general who's also sees the the
• 33:14
  way things are going. And he sort of helped arm the
• 33:17
  revolutionaries. I see the, I see the story
• 33:21
  existing and evolving in your in your head, and I think there's
• 33:26
  going to be a lot of follow up to this.
• 33:29
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've written a novel
• 33:31
  that carries on OK, not a few months later.
• 33:35
  Basically, it's in a different part of the world, but some of
• 33:40
  the main character, like my Della, she's in both and she
• 33:44
  carries on that story and the struggle with the Chira here
• 33:47
  with them, just the main bad guys and in the story.
• 33:54
  Every of your main characters has a horrific characters has
• 34:00
  his own music. This is I found it really
• 34:04
  interesting. I have to say that the partially
• 34:05
  the book or the first part of the book that I read, I read in
• 34:08
  an airplane. So I was kind of caught on the
• 34:11
  wrong foot because I couldn't listen to the music.
• 34:14
  The first the first part that I read, but then the second part I
• 34:17
  read at home and I have to say it was an interesting
• 34:19
  experience, but it's really rare.
• 34:22
  I think it's I don't know any other book that that has done
• 34:26
  that or any other author that has done that.
• 34:28
  How? How did the idea came came up?
• 34:31
  I actually think I could be the only one or maybe the first ones
• 34:35
  who have done it. Yeah, I know, I know.
• 34:39
  It's quite cool. I mean, one of the decided the
• 34:42
  ones to publish this independently.
• 34:44
  So you're automatically up against a competition because so
• 34:50
  many books got published. And I'm always looking for ways
• 34:53
  to how can I make this book stand out from everyone else,
• 34:56
  offer a better experience and a unique experience.
• 34:59
  And personally, for me, I don't know why you Lord of the Rings.
• 35:03
  Going back to Lord of the Rings, the soundtrack takes it to a
• 35:07
  whole other level and it stares emotions in.
• 35:10
  Yeah. And I don't know, I just love
• 35:13
  music so much. And if you get it right.
• 35:15
  It's a movie. That's a movie is not a book.
• 35:17
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 35:19
  And I was like, well, why? Why can't books have that same
• 35:23
  experience too? And it might not work for I
• 35:28
  wants to try. And I've had I think a lot of
• 35:31
  people I've liked the music. I think people have found that a
• 35:35
  bit they're not not too sure when to listen to me.
• 35:38
  Like do you start listening to it and then start reading?
• 35:42
  And because the the songs are like the same length as the
• 35:46
  chapter for the idea of the song is to mirror the emotional
• 35:52
  journey of the characters goes through.
• 35:55
  So there's going to be highs, there's going to be lows at
• 35:58
  dramatic points where there's action scenes and stuff like
• 36:00
  that. So it gives you an idea of that
• 36:04
  emotional, the emotional peaks and troughs of of the chapter
• 36:10
  that comes. Have you?
• 36:18
  I'm fully with you with the music first because I'm I'm a
• 36:23
  huge fan of music as well in general.
• 36:25
  I still have the theme song of The Hunger Games in my head
• 36:29
  which I think it's something which is hanging there a long
• 36:33
  time. I still have talking about Game
• 36:37
  of Thrones, Jenny from the old Stones, the song which is
• 36:40
  played, if I remember you correct, before, before the Long
• 36:43
  Night episode at the end of the preparation episode.
• 36:47
  This how they they finished the the the episode of the last
• 36:49
  season. And that's that was impressive.
• 36:51
  I have to say there was there was a moment in which that song
• 36:54
  fitted like, I don't know, like it perfect, like perfect.
• 36:58
  That's why I think if you find the right music, it's it gives
• 37:02
  you the right the right, the right state in which you can you
• 37:08
  can enjoy, you can better enjoy the the process.
• 37:10
  It it depend of its movie reading?
• 37:14
  Have you? Were you listening to those
• 37:18
  songs during writing or just ideas that came during writing?
• 37:22
  Now, when I was editing, especially, I was listening to
• 37:25
  them songs a lot because again, it was helping me like get in
• 37:32
  the characters head, put me in the scene, like especially in
• 37:36
  them dramatic moments and find them the sort of crescendos that
• 37:41
  the sort of readers can like attached to and feel what the
• 37:46
  characters feeling like. I did listen to the musical law.
• 37:51
  So I do think there's the very much connected, but it's hard to
• 37:56
  do. It's not easy to get.
• 38:01
  It's a sort of macho what the characters feel at the sort of
• 38:06
  in that sort of same sequence of events.
• 38:09
  If you get, I mean, but it's fun.
• 38:12
  It's fun and it's difference. And.
• 38:15
  If some readers find it more enjoyable and it's a whole new
• 38:19
  reading experience that no one's ever had before, so yeah, so
• 38:25
  it's a try. I think it makes it unique for
• 38:28
  sure. If the readers would take away
• 38:35
  one idea or emotion from together retries, what would it
• 38:38
  be? Suppose hope that it doesn't
• 38:43
  always have to feel like this and that we do have the power.
• 38:48
  Like as powerless as we feel and as helpless as we feel like, we
• 38:54
  do have the ultimate power. It's just hard to mobilize and
• 39:00
  to encourage people. Hope is such a hard time man.
• 39:05
  Yeah, it is. It's all we cling to.
• 39:07
  It's the only reason we get off our breath every more.
• 39:10
  True, true. That's correct.
• 39:13
  Was this the, was this the most? Because you mentioned
• 39:16
  frustration before, Was this the most personal story that you've
• 39:19
  written? Yeah, one of them, the most
• 39:23
  personal story, is the first story that I've ever had
• 39:26
  published. That's called forgotten.
• 39:30
  So that was about my grandmother.
• 39:32
  My grandmother had dementia and I was looking after her.
• 39:36
  So that story is well hair, but it's it's set in fancy world.
• 39:41
  So it's a little bit difference. And so that that's that'll
• 39:45
  always mean a lot to me because of the meaning behind the story
• 39:49
  for together You rise. It's definitely something I'm
• 39:52
  passionate about was like I absolutely love writing it.
• 39:56
  It didn't feel like an A short editor because I was enjoying it
• 40:00
  and I'm really keen to share. The story and I wanted to make
• 40:05
  it like a really like a book that I was happy to share with
• 40:09
  people. And that's why I went all out on
• 40:12
  the front cover and the artwork inside.
• 40:14
  And I made sure I was working with like the best artists
• 40:17
  around who could bring the vision to life.
• 40:22
  So the front cover is done by a guy called Stuart Bash and he's
• 40:26
  done covers for Stephen King. And I think he gets the vibe
• 40:31
  really right. It's it's, it's definitely a
• 40:34
  revolution vibe. The map, the map is, is cool
• 40:40
  because the idea what I wanted the map is it's like it's an
• 40:45
  official city map. And then there's a second
• 40:48
  version at the back of the book where you can see the
• 40:50
  revolutionaries version where these scribbles notes and it
• 40:56
  shows you the sort of path that they take to overthrow the the
• 41:01
  government. So I'm the guy who did that, has
• 41:05
  done all the maps for Joe Abercrombie's first.
• 41:08
  What's their challenge? So that was really cool, like
• 41:11
  working with him and Eve didn't have to do an amazing job to
• 41:16
  bring the city to life and like a really interesting way.
• 41:22
  A little wide, the self-publishing.
• 41:26
  For this one, I didn't want to wait and I wanted complete
• 41:30
  control of the project. I do want to be published by
• 41:37
  more traditionally traditional avenues, but it takes so long
• 41:42
  and I have stuff bubbling away like working on that side of it.
• 41:48
  And then the other time while you're waiting and you might as
• 41:51
  well do something yourself. So that's why I try and do a bit
• 41:54
  of a hybrid approach and just trying to produce stuff like
• 41:57
  connect directly with readers, like we're in an age and when we
• 42:01
  can do that and I prefer to connect with readers.
• 42:05
  And that's why I've started Patreon and now I do like
• 42:09
  regular. I'm doing a fantasy novel at the
• 42:13
  moment, that New Chapter of your Week, which is quite fun because
• 42:18
  it's like a fun, funny comedy about useless monster hunters.
• 42:32
  Yeah, pretty much, yeah. So like, I mean, I love all
• 42:36
  monsters and stuff like that. And this is like a fancy world
• 42:39
  where there's basically too many monsters and there's like a
• 42:42
  bounty system that's been established where crews of
• 42:47
  hunters go out, take on contracts.
• 42:50
  And these guys, these guys were the we're all part of like one
• 42:54
  of the best crews around. And they decided that they
• 42:57
  didn't want to be. They wanted to do it themselves,
• 43:00
  but they're all a bit stupid. That's so funny.
• 43:03
  That's all. The plot is so funny.
• 43:05
  The plant plot is really funny. Yeah, and I've just designed it
• 43:09
  so I want to feel almost like a TV show.
• 43:12
  Like every week there's a new episode, this week they're going
• 43:16
  to fight this monster, trying kill this monster.
• 43:18
  There's loads of twists and turns, loads of sharp and witty
• 43:21
  dialogue. So I'm hoping that people like
• 43:24
  it, and I'm having a lot of fun writing it, especially after
• 43:26
  something a bit more politically lean and like, together your
• 43:30
  eyes. Yeah, I think the fun part makes
• 43:35
  makes a book the the the small left that you have while reading
• 43:40
  it makes a book even even funnier.
• 43:42
  Yeah, it's hard to make people laugh in the book, I think.
• 43:45
  Absolutely. I was talking to one of my
• 43:48
  guests and he he has a podcast where he's commenting or trying
• 43:55
  to discuss fantasy shows, TV series and so on.
• 44:01
  But and I asked him the question, why books?
• 44:03
  Why not books? Because everyone is doing this
• 44:06
  with movies, but nobody's doing this in in the trial and of
• 44:10
  interpretation with books. And he mentioned really
• 44:14
  something really interesting for me, said the other book usually
• 44:17
  don't don't leave you a lot of room for interpretation because
• 44:20
  it describes the situation really good.
• 44:22
  And I was thinking, yeah, but like you said, in your case, if
• 44:26
  you do it, if you do it, do it, doing it perfectly.
• 44:30
  It's science. It's not fantasy.
• 44:32
  It doesn't leave any room for imagination.
• 44:34
  Because I think the the amazing part of reading is building your
• 44:40
  own characters in your head, building the building, the way
• 44:43
  they look, the way they behave, the way they act.
• 44:46
  So I'm, I'm not a fan of, for example, Alan.
• 44:52
  I don't want to butcher his name, but I think it's Alan
• 44:54
  Pross research of the last time because the the description is
• 44:59
  doesn't live in. It's amazing, but it doesn't
• 45:01
  leave you any any space to imagine something in your head.
• 45:05
  You can picture everything, but I want to have my own touch in
• 45:10
  the imagination. Yeah, I agree.
• 45:12
  Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm someone who only I might just point out
• 45:15
  the most distinctive feature about that person and then the
• 45:19
  rest is entirely up to you. It's just like I'm trying to
• 45:24
  keep it natural. Like if you're walking down the
• 45:26
  street, someone's walking towards you naturally.
• 45:29
  What are the things that you notice first about them?
• 45:32
  You might notice that the body shape of the tall, the small,
• 45:36
  wide hair. Yeah.
• 45:38
  And then as you get closer, you look at the face and there's
• 45:41
  usually one feature that will jump out at you.
• 45:44
  Scar, distinctive eyes, a beard, something like that.
• 45:49
  And that's all you need. Everything else is left to the
• 45:52
  reader. Absolutely.
• 45:57
  Rich, you mentioned a few times your your podcast and I think it
• 46:00
  was mentioning that you're not just a writer, you're a guide
• 46:04
  for other writers as well. What made you start the podcast?
• 46:12
  I started a while ago back with a friend of mine called JM
• 46:17
  Williams, a very good writer. And we were and working together
• 46:24
  a lot of the time on different writing projects.
• 46:26
  And we decided just to try a podcast and we did it together
• 46:31
  for about a year or two. And then JM went to take a step
• 46:34
  back. And it's not something that I
• 46:36
  really pay the much attention to.
• 46:38
  But when I was faced with this dilemma of do a stop or carry
• 46:43
  on, I was looking at the figures and I was like, how do people
• 46:46
  listen to this? So I thought I'm going to, I'll
• 46:50
  try and keep it going because it's got a lot of satisfaction
• 46:54
  also finding things, learning things and sharing it with
• 46:58
  people. And that's the sort of ethos
• 47:00
  between behind a lot of the sorts of writing based things
• 47:06
  that I do and in terms of like helping people with creative
• 47:10
  writing. So I have a website, I've got
• 47:12
  lots of guides and resources and tools on there for writers.
• 47:16
  And the podcast is like an extension of that.
• 47:18
  And what I like to do is just get guests on who are really
• 47:22
  knowledgeable or experts in the field.
• 47:26
  So I mentioned the FBI special agent before.
• 47:32
  He was great for body language, So we were told you were saying
• 47:35
  that yourself about folks not always leaving things open to
• 47:41
  imagination. And one of the best things about
• 47:43
  TV and film is like observing characters, body language,
• 47:48
  behavior, how do you respond to things The best actors are
• 47:52
  really good at it, best for. Best actors, they have to be
• 47:55
  really good to be able. To, yeah, but in writing, it's
• 47:58
  not as used, I think. So we can definitely, definitely
• 48:04
  take a lot from that style of storytelling and inject it into
• 48:09
  our stories, written stories, because it people love it.
• 48:14
  And yeah, I want 4. So he wasn't one example.
• 48:18
  Speak to well by best selling writers.
• 48:22
  And you learn so much because everyone does things in their
• 48:24
  own way. So yeah, I'll try and be as
• 48:28
  helpful as I can. That's the main aim.
• 48:32
  During your podcast, did you? Did you had any bench me moments
• 48:37
  like you said, you have the the FBI special agent, you have best
• 48:39
  selling authors. They had like moment in you said
• 48:42
  this is this is not real. Yes, the the main one was when I
• 48:47
  interviewed as sci-fi and fancy writer called Adrian
• 48:51
  Tchaikovsky. And he's someone that I've read
• 48:56
  his books and I really love them.
• 48:59
  I really admire the way he writes.
• 49:02
  And I'm met him a fantasy con for the very first time.
• 49:07
  And it was during COVID, so everyone was wearing masks and
• 49:10
  it was really awkward. No one knew how to behave and it
• 49:14
  was so, so weird. Anyway, we sort of had a mumbled
• 49:18
  conversation and I thought, you know, I'm just going to ask him
• 49:22
  if he if he'd like to be on the show.
• 49:25
  And he came back and he was saying I'd be delighted to be on
• 49:28
  the show. And he was really nice and the
• 49:30
  episodes really interesting, covered all kinds of different
• 49:35
  things mainly, but well, building because he's such a
• 49:37
  brilliant, well builder. And yeah, I was like, I was
• 49:41
  really, really nervous to ask him.
• 49:44
  I was, I was scared to open his response.
• 49:49
  And I'm like all like in preparation for the, the
• 49:53
  interview as well, I was really, really like nervous.
• 49:55
  But once you've done it, I mean, you've probably done it
• 49:58
  yourself. Like once you've interviewed a
• 49:59
  few people, you sort of find your flow.
• 50:02
  And like since then, like I've interviewed Jennifer Almond
• 50:07
  trousers. She's arguably as big as like
• 50:10
  Sarah J Maas at the moment in terms of like how popular she is
• 50:13
  and races of races like it. We're all quite similar and like
• 50:21
  you sort of think this person's had all the success and you
• 50:24
  build them up in your head. But we're all just humans and we
• 50:28
  all, we all have fears, we all have hopes and dreams, and it's
• 50:32
  nice just to talk to people in the normal conversational way.
• 50:35
  Absolutely, absolutely. This is, I have to say, it's
• 50:39
  always hard when you until you break the ice and you don't know
• 50:41
  if sometimes you're just, you're just fighting with the wall
• 50:46
  because you don't get the feedback to your questions.
• 50:48
  And this is really hard to cope with at the beginning.
• 50:50
  But when you realise that there is a discussion, there is a
• 50:52
  natural discussion that is flowing.
• 50:54
  It's, it's so nice and it's, it's hard for the 1st 5 minutes,
• 50:58
  but then it's a natural force discussion.
• 51:00
  Nothing is coming in anymore and it's so enjoyable.
• 51:03
  I do, I do like the format. I don't like meeting new people
• 51:05
  like this because I think it's you take the time like there's
• 51:08
  nothing that is hurting you up. Exactly.
• 51:11
  Yeah, it's great to to connect to someone like yourself on a
• 51:16
  week, nights and different parts of the world and get to know
• 51:20
  each other. It's fantastic.
• 51:21
  Other people learning, learning stuff about writing and books
• 51:25
  and stuff as well. It's cool.
• 51:27
  Absolutely, absolutely. And it's I think it's a, as I
• 51:31
  mentioned before, hate and I think the Internet is yours
• 51:34
  mainly for hate today. And I unfortunately, there are
• 51:37
  less, less people like you and me, like coming from completely
• 51:41
  different worlds, coming from completely different work areas
• 51:45
  and meeting together. And of course, we are both
• 51:48
  podcasters because now everyone can do this if they want to, to
• 51:51
  be honest. But coming from a different life
• 51:53
  spectrum and getting to have the normal conversation in which we
• 51:56
  exchange experiences, this is this is amazing, I have to say.
• 51:59
  Yeah, it's probably becoming more important than ever that
• 52:03
  we've got this positive source of culture and so come combat
• 52:09
  the sort of negative toxic stuff that's for the Internet.
• 52:12
  And like the Internet, it's been used a lot for bad things, but
• 52:16
  at the same time it's good and it cracks us and like doing
• 52:21
  things like this. This is what we need to be
• 52:23
  should be shown good examples so the people.
• 52:25
  Absolutely, absolutely. I don't like to brag about
• 52:28
  myself, but I think we are. Yeah, exactly.
• 52:37
  How do you how do you handle the creative born out as Steve Bars
• 52:43
  as well because he was also a musician and also doing his
• 52:46
  podcast. You have as well your writing.
• 52:49
  You have your you have your podcast.
• 52:51
  How do you handle the? How do you manage to do them and
• 52:58
  still to make fun to do them? Yeah, I think there come a time
• 53:04
  when, like for the podcast, for example, I was doing too much of
• 53:07
  and I wasn't enjoying it anymore.
• 53:09
  So for that, I didn't cancel it. I just scaled it back and
• 53:15
  devoted more time to the things that I was getting more
• 53:18
  enjoyment out of because my interests, I mean, I there's a
• 53:22
  lot of things that I like to do and around writing and I don't
• 53:28
  sort of time yourself down to a project.
• 53:31
  So like for example, at the moment I'm enjoying writing this
• 53:34
  web series and I keeping it a bit loose and open because if I
• 53:39
  commit to a series, like I see some writers doing web series
• 53:44
  and they're on like chapter 274, like I don't want to be doing
• 53:48
  that, but it might get to that level.
• 53:51
  So I. Don't want to like a soap opera?
• 53:56
  Yeah, exactly. Yes.
• 53:57
  I don't want to get to that level, you know what I mean?
• 53:59
  But I don't want to say it might get to that level, I might not.
• 54:03
  So I just try and see where the creative interests take me and I
• 54:11
  kind of know when I'm satisfied or if I feel like something's a
• 54:16
  chore. Basically it's a good sign I'm
• 54:19
  not enjoying it and the need to take a step back away from it.
• 54:23
  And luckily I don't get much burnout.
• 54:27
  I do times where you come from work and you're meant to be
• 54:30
  doing something and you just don't feel like doing it and
• 54:33
  there's no point sometimes. But then other times it's worth
• 54:37
  powering through because then you get to the juicy flow.
• 54:42
  It just depends on how much motivation and inspiration
• 54:46
  you've got on on the day, how much creative energy because
• 54:50
  it's weird like writing. I mean, you might know yourself
• 54:52
  like it's a use in a different parts of your brain and
• 54:57
  sometimes it feels like you've got a stab on a bar and the more
• 55:02
  you go on it stamina Vargas depleted.
• 55:05
  And there comes a point where you just like sage bands out.
• 55:11
  That's, that's something we're all afraid of or we should all
• 55:13
  be afraid of that. The stamina bar is, I know it's
• 55:16
  from FIFA. I played a lot of FIFA.
• 55:18
  The stamina bar was really important.
• 55:20
  Like I was friends. Yeah, exactly.
• 55:24
  I think the like you said, as as long as it makes fun, it's
• 55:28
  important. But do you?
• 55:31
  Do you believe in the muse? I do probably people to find it
• 55:39
  probably in different ways, but I do absolutely I do have like a
• 55:42
  sort of run monologue, just constantly chatting away.
• 55:47
  And I think so it was in the news recently.
• 55:51
  Wasn't that like some people just don't have this ongoing
• 55:54
  sort of voice just commentating on everything.
• 55:57
  And I'm one of them people who does, and thoughts and story
• 56:03
  ideas pop in and pop out and just try and make notes of
• 56:08
  everything. There's always something that
• 56:13
  you figure and you end up kicking yourself that you
• 56:15
  forgot. The worst thing.
• 56:17
  I was writing it down and losing or forgetting where you vote.
• 56:22
  That's more frustrating. Did you happen to wake up in the
• 56:26
  night and have an idea and say I will for sure remember it until
• 56:29
  in the morning and you forgot it?
• 56:31
  Yeah, that. No chance to remember, honestly.
• 56:37
  There was a just wishful thinking.
• 56:39
  Yeah. What's the most, what's the most
• 56:41
  rewarding part of mentoring all the writers?
• 56:44
  Richie I. Have mentors of the writers.
• 56:47
  It's just seeing them grow like I've been actually does one
• 56:51
  person that do mentor and we've just been editing her novel
• 56:56
  together probably for about 6 months and probably we're about
• 57:05
  chapter 15 now, Chapter 4, the last chapter anyway that she
• 57:09
  does. It was really, really good.
• 57:11
  Didn't really have to make any notes or anything like that.
• 57:13
  And I was sitting there thinking, ah, she's actually
• 57:16
  done it. She's, she's listened to all the
• 57:19
  feedback, she's applied it, she's thought about it and
• 57:22
  she's, she's writing good stuff now.
• 57:24
  And I was like, if you compare, that's how she started.
• 57:30
  Yeah, it's, it's light and day. And I mean, I've, I do enjoy
• 57:33
  that sort of side when my day job I do, we do have a content
• 57:37
  team. And I started out as an editor
• 57:39
  and it was that same kind of thing is that you bring all
• 57:42
  these sort of raw writers in and you just help refine the sort of
• 57:48
  style and, and the sort of understanding of grammar and
• 57:52
  sentence structure and stuff like that.
• 57:54
  And it's really satisfying to see people grow and improve.
• 57:57
  I don't know if you've ever seen that in your, any of your job
• 58:01
  sport. You might find that equally
• 58:03
  rewarding. It's, it's even more rewarding
• 58:07
  than, than the things that you see in yours, in your working,
• 58:13
  in your work, because you realize someone who was
• 58:15
  listening to your advice and and not only that, but you realise
• 58:20
  also that your advice was actually a good one.
• 58:23
  Like this is because you, we, we all like to talk a lot and we
• 58:28
  all like to, to share our opinion about stuff, but didn't
• 58:30
  realise it was a good time. I think that's a that's a nice
• 58:34
  moment. Yeah.
• 58:35
  Yeah, for sure. You seem to to wear many hats.
• 58:42
  So you're, you're a podcaster. You're you're a writer, you're a
• 58:46
  teacher. I would say you are an editor,
• 58:48
  you're a marketer, you're a musician and you are also a
• 58:52
  basketball fan. Yeah, I do like basketball.
• 58:55
  Yeah. Don't get much time for
• 58:56
  basketball anymore, though. Funny enough, for all them other
• 59:00
  things, we are. You're a basketball fan.
• 59:06
  Yeah, I'm a basketball fan. I'm, I've, I was a hard watcher
• 59:11
  of NBA. They are the playoffs now, but I
• 59:13
  kind of lost track to be honest because of the same reason like
• 59:16
  you are saying. I'm quite sad about that.
• 59:19
  I just think I sorry. Who's your team?
• 59:22
  Lakers I I start watching basketball when Kobe and Shaq
• 59:28
  were there. Nice.
• 59:30
  And not really started, but that was the moment in which I chose
• 59:34
  my favorite team. But but I love I love Kobe and I
• 59:38
  like check as well and I like the combination of both was was
• 59:41
  impressive at. Lakers.
• 59:44
  Nice, Very nice. And I think now the fact that
• 59:47
  LeBron played with his son in the same game, it's a piece of
• 59:50
  history that I think not many people get to leave it alive.
• 59:54
  Yeah. And Oh yeah, it's really cool.
• 59:56
  Is that? Yeah, it's interesting.
• 59:59
  It's something that you would not be able to see in football,
• 1:00:01
  I think. No.
• 1:00:05
  How we end up talking about sports.
• 1:00:12
  What do you what would you say would be the the dominant head?
• 1:00:19
  I'd say writing is my biggest passion and I wouldn't be doing
• 1:00:24
  any of the other things if it wasn't for writing because you
• 1:00:27
  get into Marks and to promote your books, you get into
• 1:00:31
  podcasts. And again, because it's, it's a
• 1:00:34
  bit of sharing things, bit of promotion, connecting with
• 1:00:39
  people. So I think a lot of it all stems
• 1:00:42
  from writing. So that has to be the main one
• 1:00:44
  for sure. Makes sense.
• 1:00:48
  Makes makes a lot of sense. What does nature play in your in
• 1:00:54
  your writing life? I heard you often walk the the
• 1:00:59
  Tolkien Trail does that. Yeah, I do like.
• 1:01:02
  To drink new ideas. As you can tell, I'm not really
• 1:01:05
  bothered about nature. But that's that's how's nature.
• 1:01:10
  I don't call it necessary nature.
• 1:01:12
  That's domestic nature. Oh, that's bringing nature
• 1:01:14
  indoors. Absolutely.
• 1:01:16
  I love, I love that lives basically.
• 1:01:19
  So I love being on the countryside and I'm very much
• 1:01:25
  inspired by the sorts of countryside that's around me.
• 1:01:28
  So I live Liverpool's, quite lucky, it's on the coast and
• 1:01:34
  it's quite close to like the Lake District, which is an
• 1:01:36
  amazing place full of lakes as the name suggests, lots of big
• 1:01:41
  hills and amazing views. Just there's a southern place.
• 1:01:46
  And then Wales as well, very similar, few less lakes or just
• 1:01:53
  an amazing sort of wild landscapes.
• 1:01:56
  And that's what I love. And I love the idea of just
• 1:01:59
  getting off there and explore and being free.
• 1:02:03
  And as part of the big draw when it comes to fantasy adventures,
• 1:02:07
  I think it's the source of stepping out of the comfort zone
• 1:02:11
  of your front door and seeing what the world has to offer.
• 1:02:15
  Correct. And this is how you get new
• 1:02:17
  ideas actually, right? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:20
  Goodwill building. It's inspiration.
• 1:02:23
  Correct. How do How do your writing these
• 1:02:27
  actually look like now? If I get a full day to write to
• 1:02:32
  myself, usually working sessions, so I wake up and I'll
• 1:02:37
  get straight stuck in and I might work till like lunchtime.
• 1:02:41
  Then I'll have like a break for maybe an hour or two then do
• 1:02:44
  another session till like tee time and then have another
• 1:02:48
  break. And then I'll usually do an
• 1:02:50
  evening session 7 till maybe midnight and we'll just whenever
• 1:02:55
  I get tired. So yeah, usually about I forget
• 1:03:00
  a full day to myself. I'll probably work maybe 10 or
• 1:03:02
  12 hours just split up over the course of the day.
• 1:03:08
  I don't know. I just like say it's the stamina
• 1:03:10
  bar. That's the stamina bar, I guess.
• 1:03:11
  Oh, you need to just have a little break, top up, go back.
• 1:03:17
  I think the the the the interesting things are the
• 1:03:20
  midnight session. Do you still do midnight
• 1:03:22
  sessions? So like really to.
• 1:03:24
  Be sometimes when I'll be like, I'll be be like 12:30 maybe I
• 1:03:31
  could need to go to bed now, but I feel like I can write.
• 1:03:34
  I could get a few words out. I like working at that time and
• 1:03:38
  ice because there's no one around, not into the structure.
• 1:03:42
  They're quiet. So I'm very much a night out.
• 1:03:47
  Plus the NBA is on that time, so.
• 1:03:50
  You said you're not watching it. NBA is amazing.
• 1:04:00
  If you could do a collaboration with the with the musician or a
• 1:04:06
  band to to turn one of your books into an album, what who
• 1:04:11
  would it be? Oh that's is a Gazan.
• 1:04:14
  I have a good question. So I did start writing a novel
• 1:04:20
  and I do want to finish this novel and it's I call a Scouse
• 1:04:25
  crime fantasy. So it's basically a Crime Story
• 1:04:28
  set in Liverpool with like strong cultish flavors.
• 1:04:34
  So a bit of an occult vibe and bit magical realism, a little
• 1:04:39
  bit fantasy as well. It's just a bit weird.
• 1:04:41
  But it's all set in Liverpool and there's a bands that I
• 1:04:47
  really love called Hermanos Gutierrez and they tell you what
• 1:04:52
  I will probably describe as desert, desert rock, desert
• 1:04:57
  Blues. Maybe it's just two electric
• 1:04:59
  guitars. So if you have like the good,
• 1:05:04
  the Bad, the Ugly, that kind of music a bit more rockier for I
• 1:05:09
  think that sort of Western twang to a sort of crime fantasy and
• 1:05:14
  like a sort of gritty city will be quite cool.
• 1:05:20
  I think I know the band. I'm not 100% sure, but I think I
• 1:05:23
  know the band. I have to check it out after
• 1:05:26
  after the after we record this. Yeah, very cool band.
• 1:05:32
  You build the you build the life around storytelling, Richie, but
• 1:05:36
  what do you think the the stories, and especially the
• 1:05:39
  fantasy stories give us what the real world cannot give us?
• 1:05:44
  I think sometimes it's it's hard.
• 1:05:46
  So we sort of take things in when the source of throne.
• 1:05:50
  So this was so when so much is thrown when I was and sometimes
• 1:05:54
  fantasy is a good barrier to sort of take a step away from it
• 1:06:00
  and reframe things in different ways that people from find
• 1:06:06
  sometimes maybe more relatable and they can engage with more.
• 1:06:11
  And I think that's that's a really powerful storytelling
• 1:06:15
  device essentially because we do see a lawful law like Gaza, for
• 1:06:22
  example, was pretty horrendous. What's going on there?
• 1:06:25
  And like, as writers, there's not much you can really do.
• 1:06:29
  And I ended up writing a story, a short story about it and
• 1:06:36
  reframed. So it was almost like a fantasy
• 1:06:39
  story, but the fantasy element came about because of the
• 1:06:44
  character's trauma that like Life of Pi, Life of Pi was
• 1:06:47
  clever to do that. And I find that people can
• 1:06:51
  engage things or engage with things more sometimes when it's
• 1:06:58
  when it's when they feel like it's a story and it's not real
• 1:07:02
  life, even though very much as. The inspiration is there, but
• 1:07:08
  they you put a pinch of fantasy there and everyone is thinking
• 1:07:12
  is not real life anymore. Yeah.
• 1:07:18
  So it's a hard on though. I, I really enjoyed this
• 1:07:23
  conversation. I, I loved it before, before we
• 1:07:27
  wrap, before we wrap it up. I have my, I call it the rapid
• 1:07:32
  fire on, but it's never rapid fire because nobody's giving me
• 1:07:35
  the rapid fire answer. So I just have some questions.
• 1:07:40
  Thank you. I I have some questions that I
• 1:07:44
  prepare always for every guest or modelled on the on every
• 1:07:48
  guest that I have pen, paper or laptop.
• 1:07:53
  Pen and paper. I had to stop because it took
• 1:07:57
  too long. Don't have that much time but I
• 1:08:00
  love pen and paper. It's interesting.
• 1:08:04
  It's really interesting. I think it.
• 1:08:06
  Does you you prefer? It's hard because the the
• 1:08:12
  problem is that you are. I find it more comfortable on
• 1:08:18
  laptop but you have more more time catchers on the laptop.
• 1:08:24
  Yeah, distracting. And I I realized that my
• 1:08:28
  handwriting went to shit because I'm not able to really good
• 1:08:32
  handwrite anymore. I'm so sad about this.
• 1:08:35
  Yeah. Do you know, I've, I've, I have
• 1:08:37
  actually gotten used to is writing on my mobile phone.
• 1:08:44
  So I get like I've got like a Google doc.
• 1:08:47
  I just have Google Docs on my phone so I can start a story on
• 1:08:50
  my computer. And then if I'm in the park and
• 1:08:53
  I'm sitting down on the park bench, like today at lunch, for
• 1:08:55
  example, on my lunch break at work, I had 20 minutes.
• 1:08:58
  So I just wrote 300 words on my phone.
• 1:09:02
  And actually, I actually find it quite easy to get in the flow
• 1:09:06
  when it's on my phone. I don't know why.
• 1:09:10
  Well, that's interesting. Yeah, few distractions because
• 1:09:14
  once you're on your phone, you're on your phone.
• 1:09:15
  There's not an Ulsteria structure.
• 1:09:18
  Correct. That's a good one.
• 1:09:20
  The the main distractor you don't.
• 1:09:22
  You cannot pick up the phone because you already have it in
• 1:09:24
  hand. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:26
  So it's put on silence, just take away.
• 1:09:33
  Favorite fantasy trope? Love it or hate it.
• 1:09:37
  I love a love hate relationship with the mentor figure, like
• 1:09:45
  Gandalf for example. There's some of my favorite
• 1:09:47
  characters, but as someone who who didn't have a sort of
• 1:09:52
  presence father, I do feel like there's a lot of people who have
• 1:09:58
  to bring themselves up on their own without any figures and I
• 1:10:02
  think that is not done enough. There's always some convenient
• 1:10:07
  mentor who just solves the problem, points them in the
• 1:10:11
  right direction, whereas for a lot of people in the world,
• 1:10:15
  you've got to do it yourself. So I have a love 8 relationship
• 1:10:20
  with. That's a really good one and
• 1:10:23
  haven't thought about that, but you're writing.
• 1:10:24
  I think Star Wars is the same everywhere.
• 1:10:27
  There's a mentor which is doing this further feature, but in the
• 1:10:30
  real life is never like this. You have to.
• 1:10:33
  Convenient plot points. That's what our mental figure
• 1:10:36
  is. Absolutely your favorite
• 1:10:39
  antagonist, but not your own. Do you ever remember Sephiroth
• 1:10:44
  from Final Fantasy 7? No.
• 1:10:50
  He's quite specific in niche ball.
• 1:10:52
  Again, there was a mute. The other an amazing scene shoe.
• 1:10:56
  It's a Final Fantasy. They were really great for
• 1:10:59
  making good music, fancy music, and still listen to it now, but
• 1:11:03
  set her off. He's probably one of the most
• 1:11:05
  iconic characters. You have this really long sword
• 1:11:08
  called, I kind of what it was called, like a Cortana, but it
• 1:11:11
  was bigger. I got this long blue hair and he
• 1:11:15
  was just a really ominous dark figure.
• 1:11:18
  And I just, I played that when I was younger, probably wasn't
• 1:11:22
  really aware of the nuances of his antagonism for I just
• 1:11:28
  remember him being a really formidable and oh, cool, cool in
• 1:11:34
  his own way. You know the bad guy is going to
• 1:11:36
  be a little of a cool. Always the bad guy is cool.
• 1:11:39
  Always at the beginning at least.
• 1:11:43
  Most underrated fantasy author. I'm going to say a guy called
• 1:11:48
  Daniel Polanski. I don't know if you've ever
• 1:11:51
  heard of him. I interviewed him on the podcast
• 1:11:54
  and I hadn't read any of his books before then, but he's from
• 1:11:59
  Baltimore and he heavily influenced by the wire like
• 1:12:04
  myself. And Baltimore was also very
• 1:12:08
  similar place to Liverpool, like a die in port city.
• 1:12:13
  And when I read his his series low town, like 3 books and set
• 1:12:22
  in like a gritty city where there's like Motown, the high
• 1:12:25
  town and there's a lot of like corruption and sort of scheming
• 1:12:29
  and stuff like that. I just loved it and it was like
• 1:12:32
  this is like working. It feels like working class
• 1:12:35
  fantasy. If if I can say that like it's,
• 1:12:38
  it's written by a working. Class Person.
• 1:12:41
  It's about working class people. And it's just, I mean, one of
• 1:12:47
  the biggest gripes I've got. Like I'm a very working class
• 1:12:50
  person, like brought up in pretty poor area and stuff like
• 1:12:54
  that. And when it goes to fantasy
• 1:12:56
  conventions and meet fantasy authors and stuff like that,
• 1:12:59
  there's no one really like from me, from my background, very
• 1:13:05
  aware of it sometimes because people almost make you feel
• 1:13:09
  aware of it. So I always try and encourage
• 1:13:15
  the underdog perspective, show the greatest reality of the
• 1:13:21
  everyday man and I really admire people who have done this.
• 1:13:27
  Thank God he painted pictures of our peasants work in the fields.
• 1:13:32
  No one wanted that. He didn't sell a Peyton in his
• 1:13:35
  life, but he was true to what he was passionate about.
• 1:13:38
  And look at the look at those now we Revere.
• 1:13:43
  He doesn't know about it, but. Exactly, it's crazy.
• 1:13:46
  And another one is Kafka from Kafka.
• 1:13:49
  So he is working class check spent his whole life writing, no
• 1:13:55
  one really giving a crap. And now we Revere him as this
• 1:13:59
  amazing sort of forward thinking writer.
• 1:14:01
  So there's there's a lot of working class people who don't
• 1:14:04
  get the attention and the credit they deserve for the simple fact
• 1:14:08
  that the work in class. But like that doesn't mean that
• 1:14:10
  the stories are any less important.
• 1:14:12
  And they should be told so because they speak to the
• 1:14:15
  reality of a lot of people. And that's a big challenge that
• 1:14:20
  writing's going through at the moment because no one's there
• 1:14:23
  and enough to make a living. So that means the only people
• 1:14:26
  that can really afford to do the rich people I.
• 1:14:29
  Think that's the point, that it was always seen as an
• 1:14:31
  aristocracy drop, not because of the money that you make for it,
• 1:14:35
  but the money that you need to leave because you don't think
• 1:14:38
  anyone out of it or you don't make enough money to leave from
• 1:14:41
  it. And that's why I think it was,
• 1:14:43
  it was always the forbidden fruit for everyone coming from
• 1:14:46
  the working class. I had someone else from I had
• 1:14:50
  another author, a few a few last week or two weeks ago.
• 1:14:53
  I interviewed her, Jay Wol, who's doing fantasy and she's
• 1:14:57
  also coming with from a from a working class environment from
• 1:15:00
  Detroit. And she has a she's she built a
• 1:15:03
  fantasy world around the areas that she was coming from.
• 1:15:07
  It's really, it's really an interesting, it's interesting
• 1:15:10
  perspective. And she also build a build a
• 1:15:12
  fantasy, a fantasy world. And it's, she already published
• 1:15:16
  her second, second book and from the from that fantasy world,
• 1:15:21
  really interesting. I think there are more and more
• 1:15:23
  coming because there are more and more people having the
• 1:15:26
  courage to take the slip towards self-publishing, towards doing
• 1:15:30
  whatever you love and not striving for a job that you
• 1:15:33
  don't necessarily like. Yeah, it's become a lot more
• 1:15:36
  accessible now with technology, correct.
• 1:15:39
  It's just a matter of knowing how to do it.
• 1:15:41
  And that's one of the things I'd like doing, is showing people,
• 1:15:45
  giving people the courage and the confidence to do it, and
• 1:15:50
  then showing them how. And then we get more stories
• 1:15:54
  from working class people out there.
• 1:15:56
  That's great. Now for sure, what's always on
• 1:16:01
  your writing playlist? Oh, it has to be.
• 1:16:04
  Imagine Final Fantasy. Always Final Fantasy, Lord of
• 1:16:08
  the Rings, if I'm not listening to more classical stuff.
• 1:16:13
  I like a lot of psychedelic rock, particularly like
• 1:16:17
  instrumental psychedelic, which is a bit more progressive or
• 1:16:20
  I've started getting a lot into almost like dance music.
• 1:16:25
  This this one particular guy called Ron Trent and he just he
• 1:16:31
  does like almost like mixes of like dance music put down like
• 1:16:35
  jazz, funk, bit of rock, bit of psych.
• 1:16:40
  And I really love that because it's got that sort of steady,
• 1:16:43
  repetitive beat that can help you stay concentrated and
• 1:16:46
  engaged in something. But then it's got like the cool,
• 1:16:49
  quirky sounds as well. But I like.
• 1:16:54
  If if together will Rise would be a net trick series, who would
• 1:17:02
  play Delia? That's a really good question.
• 1:17:07
  Oh, I don't know, maybe someone like just after this is off the
• 1:17:11
  top man. So I like Natalie Portman or
• 1:17:13
  something like that, but she's probably a little bit too old
• 1:17:16
  for till now. Correct.
• 1:17:20
  So I don't know someone like Nancy Paul and just 20 years
• 1:17:23
  younger. Makes sense.
• 1:17:26
  Makes sense. Time Machine.
• 1:17:28
  Yeah. Would you rather live in a
• 1:17:31
  fantasy you wrote or in one that you read?
• 1:17:36
  Oh, I don't think I'd like to live in my world.
• 1:17:38
  It's a bit musty, but I thought most fancy worlds, like there's
• 1:17:46
  always something bad happening, so there's this.
• 1:17:47
  You wouldn't want to live in Game of Thrones.
• 1:17:53
  They were. Dying.
• 1:17:54
  They were dying young and they were filthy, all of them.
• 1:17:59
  Yeah, so I don't know. I don't think I've read the
• 1:18:01
  fancy book and thought, yeah, I'd really like to be here.
• 1:18:05
  Have you come across any that you like?
• 1:18:09
  I think we are not far away from Hunger Games.
• 1:18:12
  Yeah, it's not far, yeah. I find it interesting.
• 1:18:17
  I come from a communist country for a for from a former
• 1:18:22
  communist country, Romania. And it was still again, not far
• 1:18:25
  away from Hunger Games. Like you had these districts,
• 1:18:28
  you had that. Of course, we're not killing
• 1:18:30
  each other yet, but most probably this would have
• 1:18:33
  happened. But it's it's still an an A
• 1:18:38
  resemblance that comes pretty often in my mind.
• 1:18:41
  Yeah, that's tough. What?
• 1:18:46
  What book changed your life? I think that probably the main
• 1:18:51
  one was the sad Game of Thrones book.
• 1:18:58
  I can't know what's called The Feast of Crows, maybe, and it's
• 1:19:03
  the only book that's ever really like, hooked me so much that I
• 1:19:10
  didn't notice the passage of time.
• 1:19:13
  So there was one night where I couldn't sleep.
• 1:19:16
  I started reading this book about 1:00 AM and I was up to
• 1:19:21
  the past just before the Red Wedding.
• 1:19:25
  And the next time I checked the time, it was 7:00 AM.
• 1:19:31
  And I'm like, well, this has never ever happened.
• 1:19:34
  Like I just sat there six hours, just read, read, read, read,
• 1:19:39
  read and didn't even realize how much time I was reading, how
• 1:19:43
  much time was passing by. And I sat there, I was like,
• 1:19:46
  this is like magic. This is this is something
• 1:19:49
  special that's like that George RR Martin's done.
• 1:19:52
  And I think at that point and I realized like, this is what I
• 1:19:57
  really want to do myself. I want to create things that
• 1:20:00
  people are going to enjoy this much, and that's why I probably
• 1:20:05
  decided that I wants to be a writer.
• 1:20:07
  That's impressive. I, I haven't read the Game of
• 1:20:11
  Thrones. I have to be honest.
• 1:20:12
  And I, I somehow wanted to before I watched the series.
• 1:20:17
  I, I only, I watched the series real late.
• 1:20:20
  What life happened and you didn't get the time.
• 1:20:24
  But now it made me really curious because I think they are
• 1:20:26
  going on different, completely different plot in comparison
• 1:20:29
  with the with the with the movie and that's why.
• 1:20:32
  Yeah, as it goes on, yeah. It's that the the TV show starts
• 1:20:36
  to leave things out that are arguably the best parts of the
• 1:20:39
  story. They don't fit in the narrative.
• 1:20:45
  Yeah, it's a shame. Richard, thank you so much for
• 1:20:51
  sharing your story with us. Thank you.
• 1:20:56
  I, I appreciate the time that you took.
• 1:20:58
  I, I, I think that these kind of stories have to be told because
• 1:21:01
  everyone should get the courage to do what they like and not
• 1:21:05
  wait for the perfect moment, because there is never a perfect
• 1:21:08
  moment. No, you're waiting a long time.
• 1:21:12
  Exactly. And life.
• 1:21:13
  Life moves on. Where should our listeners read
• 1:21:18
  your work, listen to your podcast or join your community.
• 1:21:22
  Best place to go is Patreon. Now I've put all of me writing
• 1:21:26
  and stories onto Patreon so just literally search Richie billing
• 1:21:31
  Patreon. There's not many people called
• 1:21:34
  Richie Billing, so I. Will link it anyhow.
• 1:21:37
  Amazing. Yeah.
• 1:21:38
  And Richie billing.com mean if you just Google Richie Billing,
• 1:21:41
  there's only one of me, I think. So you should find everything
• 1:21:45
  he's. The He's the son of a famous
• 1:21:47
  football player. There you go.
• 1:21:52
  Richie, final question. What's the next mountain you're
• 1:21:55
  looking to climb creatively? The next mountain I would like
• 1:22:04
  to finish this novel for I've not come back.
• 1:22:06
  So yeah, I'm just doing everything else for editing this
• 1:22:09
  novel and I haven't decided what to do with it.
• 1:22:14
  There's various problems with it and it's creatively it feels
• 1:22:18
  like a mountain and I do need to climb it eventually.
• 1:22:21
  So yeah, that's that's on the To Do List.
• 1:22:27
  If the commitment commitment is there, I think it will happen.
• 1:22:30
  You just have to find for the right meals to come.
• 1:22:33
  Yeah, I absolutely hate editing novels at the moment because
• 1:22:36
  they just take too long. So when I feel like I've got
• 1:22:40
  more energy to do that then I'll probably do it.
• 1:22:43
  But at the moment it's all short projects, sort of ongoing stuff,
• 1:22:48
  and I'm enjoying a lot, so I'm gonna carry on.
• 1:22:52
  Thank you again and I hope next time you you have something to
• 1:22:55
  share you just drop me an e-mail and we can.
• 1:22:58
  I would love to do this again sometimes.
• 1:23:00
  Me, Sir, thank you very much. It's been an absolute pleasure.
• 1:23:02
  It was a pleasure for me as well.
• 1:23:04
  Thanks a lot, Richie. See you soon.
• 1:23:05
  Bye. Bye bye.