Latest / Inspiring Stories / T Alan Horne Author of Advent 9 a Neuro-Diverse Super Hero

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T Alan Horne Author of Advent 9 a Neuro-Diverse Super Hero · Inspiring Stories

0:04
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the picture of the Radiant.
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Speaker 2: Rat.
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Speaker 3: You readything to me? Oh well, well say, oh well.
0:57
Speaker 4: Not a bad stop. I just see so shupashion start.
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Speaker 2: Along, is it all right?
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Speaker 1: Welcome back everybody, while you get that last cup of
1:41
coffee and your snacks together. Just before we start listening
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to h t alan Horne joined us in the show.
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This is what t Allen had to say about himself
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in his introduction. I am an award winning author of
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two books, Avid nine and Secret Skuy The Young Universe.
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He is the most recent book has won. Us won
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multiple Gold Awards at the ib PA Awards. It won
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gold for Best Science Fiction and it also won the
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Best Audiobook for Children or Young Adults. It won the
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twenty twenty five Reader's Favorite Gold Medal for Children's Adventure Fiction.
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And he was t Allen Horn's mentor was David Farlane,
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the New York Times best selling author, a writing teacher,
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and literary critic for the The New York Times. So
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it was quite an honor to be mentored by by
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David Farland. For uh Ti Allan Horn to have such
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such a great literary mind, an American literary mind, help
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him watch his career and help him guide, guide him
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and how to write and tell a story. So why
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don't we bring uh Ti Allen Horn onto the show
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and hear more about Avant nine, Secret Sky and maybe
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some tips himself about how to make that literary work
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take off so that it can be known across the
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country and around the world. Okay, no, welcome to the show, Alan,
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And and you know, first off, it's like you were
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mentored by a great literary mind of America. Uh yeah,
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I'd have to say that. And what was it like
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being mentor bias.
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Speaker 4: Well?
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Speaker 5: David Farland is uh Well, for those who need a
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little bit of an introduction, he is a best selling
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author himself, having offered the Rootwoord series. He was a
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writing teacher at Rham University, where he taught Brandon Sanderson,
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Stephanie Meyer, Brandon mull and James Dashner, among others. He
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was widely regarded as one of the best editors in
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the world. He was the chief editor and judge of
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the writers of a Future Contest for anyone who knows
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what that is. And when I was writing my first book,
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Vont nine, I knew that he was the only editor
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I wanted I didn't want to show my manuscript to
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anyone else, and once I finally worked up the guts
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to ask him, you know, I pate his fine. He
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agreed to edit the book, and upon editing it, he
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was so impressed that he gave me a free second
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pass edit and agreed to help me publish it. He's
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a great guy overall, knows more about the craft writing
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than pretty much anyone best, probably the greatest writing teacher
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in the world after Harlan Ellison, who has already passed. Yeah,
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David decided to help me publish vent nine, and he
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hooked me up with an audiobook narrator and a cover
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artist and an illustrator, and he wanted to take it
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even further. He wanted me to do a graphic novel
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adaptation so he could start selling it out to movie companies,
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which he was familiar with, and use the graphic novel
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as like a springboard to get you know, at least
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the book optioned. And he had so many things planned
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out for this book, and you know, then eleven, just
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like ten months before the book was to come out,
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he died and I was left in a very bad place.
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He was darkest week of my life is that week
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after he died, and eventually picked myself back up, and
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I went to the audiobook narrator and I said, Okay,
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David Farland, who arranged this is dead, let's keep going anyway.
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And the audiobook narrator, Michael Kramer and his wife Kate Reading,
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agreed to read to give me some pointers, helping me
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to know exactly where to send the finished book too,
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and how to self publish. And I eventually made it
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through that and I continued writing books. The latest book
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is Secret Sky of the Young Universe, and that book
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won several awards. And I owe tons of my career
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to David Farland. And being mentored by him was relatively
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hands off approach. He was the editor first, but then
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when it came to publishing, you know, we would get
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a we would meet occasionally to talk ideas. I met
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him in person once and most of our communication was
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over the phone, and just yeah, he was there supporting
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me most of the way. I hate to think about
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all the things, all the mentoring experiences I might have
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had with him, more than I got if he'd only lived.
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But yeah, being mentored by David Farland great experience. I
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would totally recommend it to but of course you can't
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do it anymore.
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Speaker 1: Well, it it falls on that the bow our heads
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and may he rest in peace.
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Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I mean I attended his funeral just out
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of respect and his family. At the funeral, his family
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was all very you know, very chipper about it, like
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he let's celebrate his life and what a great person
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he was. The person who was crying in the audience
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was me because I didn't know how I was going
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to keep doing this without him. Thankfully, I muddled through,
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I kept publishing, and now I am just trying to
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do my best honor honor the man through my own works.
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Of course, he has many other students who have done
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him honor so.
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Speaker 1: Well. Well The Secret Skuy won several awards already, so
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I say that he's doing a lot of honors towards
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towards what he has taught to you. So, what what
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is it that you go through when you when you
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actually like start writing and finishing a book. What what
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does that process look like for you?
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Speaker 2: Well?
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Speaker 5: I am an outliner, so I always have third a
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book of a plan in mind, going never stick with
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the plan. So yeah, usually when I usually every book
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starts as a kernel of an idea for Evan nine.
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The kernel of the idea was, you know, there's just
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a strange parallel between superheroes and autistic people because they
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have like the they have like secret parts of themselves
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they can't show to people. They adhere to certain codes
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very strongly. They they are very isolationists and often, you know,
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cut off from the rest of society. It's just like,
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these are the weird parallels between what a superhero is
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and when an autistic person is. And I'm like, I
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wonder if anyone's ever explored that in a book. And
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so I wrote a book that was about the last
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superhero on Earth as he battles you know, monsters, mad
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scientists in the Apocalypse, and the big mystery hanging over
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his life is why he's the last superhero left. And
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he eventually has to team up with a super villain
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in order to fight the apocalypse, and that super villain
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is a doctor who used to be a medical doctor
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and who hates Abbitt Nine's guts. But as they are
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forced to spend time together, he starts noticing symptoms and
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starts noticing behaviors about a nine that even the superhero
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himself doesn't realize he's doing, and he begins to suspect
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that a mind might be might have autism. And eventually,
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you know, he figures, you know, this this kid who
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I hate, He saved my life. Though the least I
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can do is, you know, tell him what he's dealing with.
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And so that became the premise for the two central
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characters in the story, Sorry Admon nine and his nenesis,
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doctor Anti World. And how uh fate kind of throws
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them together in this interesting way. And uh and just
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I can't tell you much about the ending, but I
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can't tell you it's explosive and magical and wonderful.
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Speaker 1: Wow. Uh well, it's kind of interesting because autism itself
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has become the center of a lot of of controversy.
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Speaker 6: Oh yeah, and.
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Speaker 1: It's I subscribed to the theory that hey, it's just
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a new and wonderful way of wiring a brain so
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that you get affects surface to the top.
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Speaker 5: There are Yeah, people are coming to acknowledge no autism
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as a as a neurotype, just you know, another facet
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of humanity, much like say, ey shape, nose shape, skin color,
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things like that. People then also have different neurotypes, and
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people begin to understand that, they begin to understand autism better.
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But I just thought it was weird that the basic
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superhero personality type was essentially autistic in nature. So I'm like, Okay,
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I'm going to write about an autistic superhero who doesn't
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know he has autism, and he the only one who
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can tell him is his worst enemy and create tension
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that way to create a story.
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Speaker 1: I giggly because that's that's just a brain idea.
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Speaker 5: M h.
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Speaker 1: I think that that's a wonderful insight towards a group
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of people that may not always be celebrated. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
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but I hadn't thought at that when you think about, uh,
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the superheroes, how they have to stick to a certain
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code and they.
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Speaker 5: Have routines and they and they don't get normal people
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even while they try to help and rescue them, and
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it's just yet, Yeah, there are so many parallels there,
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And it's not like this is the first person who
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has ever written an autistic superhero. The comics have tried
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stuff like that, although whether or not they succeeded as
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another story. But even in book, even when other people
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have written autistic heroes, they never point out how similar
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having autism is to being a superhero, and it's weird
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that nobody that that nobody really kind of spells that out.
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And so I thought, Okay, I'm going to I'm going
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to write an autistic superhero from the point of view
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where where learning that he has autism eventually explains some
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of his superhero behaviors. So when he understands that this
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is why he has a hard time sticking around people
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after he saves them, and this is why he finds
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it so easy to just get into a routine of
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waiting for a cry for help and then solving it
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and this ends. So yeah, they eventually comes as a
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revelation to him, and the revelation explains, you know, not
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only his behaviors as a person, but as his behaviors
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as a hero. And it's yeah, it's a touching moment
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when it happens. But yeah, you'll have to read the
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book to find out.
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Speaker 1: I highly recommend it. Hey, start clicking on Amazon. Wait, no,
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don't click on Amazon yet. Let's listen to more about
14:47
what Tellen actually has to say about about more of
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his books before we start clicking on the by buttons.
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But for me, it's a great reason to go buy
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the book or at least download with the audiobook because
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you said it's on audio, right, Yeah, Michael.
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Speaker 5: Kramer does the audio. He does a fantastic job with
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Admitt nine. I highly recommend it, especially for people who
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just you know, love audiobooks and just listen to them,
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you know, during their commute, or who just always looking
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for a new audiobook to listen to. I highly recommend
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Michael Kramer's reading of Admint nine.
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Speaker 1: Cool. So we'll be sure to check that one out.
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So tell us more about A Secret Sky a Young Universe.
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Speaker 5: Right, Secret Sky the Young Universe my second novel. I Uh,
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I have an an in world universe that I've been
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developing since a teen I was a teenager, and Secret
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Sky was kind of like a prequel to that, and
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I originally intended to write it last, but I ended
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up writing it first. Secret Sky the Young Universe takes
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place on an earth like planet in the early so
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early that all the stars are pretty close together, and
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the night sky of the planet he lives on is
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so thick with stars that you can't really see the
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darkness behind them. It doesn't really get dark on his
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planet it just changes color from day colors with lots
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of warm reds and yellows to night colors where everything
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changes to like purples and blues. And if you look
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up into the sky you see these twelve giant galaxies
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that dominate the sky, and the smallest one is about
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twice as bright as hour full moon here on Earth.
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And it just affects the way people live. People are
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able to work longer, a lot of a lot of
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things are done at night that normally wouldn't be done
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in an ordinary medieval Iron Age world, and people live.
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It's a very low technology setting. But what makes it,
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what makes it really amazing, is that the main character,
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when he goes to sleep at night, he dreams that
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he's a sapient starship that cruises through the sky and
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he is able to talk to the stars, and the
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stars promise him that if he makes it to the
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end of the universe in his dreams, if he can
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fly all the way to the end of the universe,
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his real life family who was murdered will be returned
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to him, and so he's and so he's forced to
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keep his secret in the waking world. He doesn't want
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to tell anyone that he's having these night time adventures
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in his dreams, but he knows that the dreams are
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more than just you know, not inconsequential dreams, because every
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time he has one of these dreams, he wakes up
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with a new magic power that he can use to
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protect himself or the people who are protecting him. And
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so he's forced to live in yeah, and so forced
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to live under the same king who ordered the extermination
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of his village and the murder of his family. He
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assumes a false identity. The knights who destroy the village
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take him in and they hide him and they say,
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now he's the night captain's nephew from a distant city.
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But of course the king is also a child of
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the same age, and he is looking for a best friend,
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and so he kind of orders this this poor orphan
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boy into being his best friend, and they're forced to
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go on adventures together, even though one of them really
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really hates the other but can't ever tell him that.
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Speaker 1: Wow, you have a great way of building relationships between people,
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as you're right, don't you know?
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Speaker 5: The most common thread between both of my published books
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right now is that the main characters start out really
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really hating each other.
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Speaker 1: He can see a lot of room, uh with that
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to to build a relationship between the two of them
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that yeah, where they were, they they be could be
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conjoined not by heat, but by other by a common
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common camaraderie or something like that.
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Speaker 5: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: So uh, it's.
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Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. How uh did you starting off with
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it with it that way? Yeah. I also like the
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description of the of the early universe.
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Speaker 5: That's how I mean, because because science tells us that
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the universe used to be smaller than it is now.
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It's like, I'm like, on an early universe and on
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an early Earth in the young universe, you would look
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up at the sky and it would be so thick
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with stars and galaxies that it would be a completely
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different experience towards than living on our Earth right now.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's pretty cool. How how you're writing that
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into into into your book. That's a I'm I'm a
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big fan of of of astronomy and and all that
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kind of stuff. So so yeah, that's that's pretty really
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pretty interesting how you're doing that. So, I mean, when
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when you're writing a book, I mean, do you do
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a lot of research or a lot of outside reading too,
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So that you can funnel some of that stuff into
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your own novels. How does that work well?
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Speaker 5: All writing requires some research. In speculative fiction like science
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fiction and fantasy, or especially fantasy, you can fudge things
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a little because magic and that allows you to skip
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some research, but not all, not nearly all. I need
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to know how Iron age people live. I need at
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least the rudimentary understanding of what like their homes are like,
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and what kind of transportation they have access to, what
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kind of technology that they have access to, and if
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there are anachronisms, then I like to point them out.
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A Secret Sky does have an omniscient narrator, so if
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there are things that don't make sense according to the
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time period and are intentionally not meant to make sense,
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the narrator can point it out, and often wrapped in
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a joke so that it's easier to digest. And having
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a fun omniscient narrator is one of the Secret Skuy's
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best qualities. And I just love talking about the book
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because you know, I love it so much. I want
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to I want to get the sequels written as quickly
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as possible, so I have this nice little trilogy that
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I can use as a flagship series to get people
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started and then you know, have them branch out to
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my other books.
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Speaker 7: Cool.
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Speaker 1: I mean, so far you've got me Hope to and
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well and this Secret Sky I'll have to look for
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it as an audiobook, you know.
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Speaker 5: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: My favorite way of digesting books audiobooks.
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Speaker 5: So the only the only downside of audio books is
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that they don't come with illustrations, and both Admitt nine
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and Secret Sky are illustrated, so it's a bit tough
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luck there. But the performances made by Michael Kramer for
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Admont nine and Andrew Iden for Secret Sky are both
22:32
phenomenal and both need to be heard. You just need
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to hear them.
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Speaker 1: It's you now to go along with the whole audiobook
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thing because a lot of of authors think that, oh, yeah,
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I can just read the book myself. And and when
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you're talking about Michael Kramer, you're saying that he's acting
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the book out. Yes, it is.
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Speaker 5: A performance, it is voice acting. There are a lot
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of audiobookook narrators are part of a company or union
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that gives them jobs. Some are in the Screen Actors Guild,
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and you kind of have to negotiate that way. But yeah,
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audiobook audiobook narration is a performance, it's not merely a
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reading text, and good audiobook narrators really bring a book
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to life. There are some authors who are talented enough
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to narrate their own books, more power to them, but
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it's incredibly time consuming and if you want to do
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it right, and it also requires a lot of sophisticated equipment,
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and often it's just easier to hand that off to
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an audiobook production company that has its own audiobook narrators
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on staff, and who can you know, make it happen.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree on that one. So what are some
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of your favorite things to read?
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Speaker 5: My favorite things to read? I read a lot as
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a child. I read Red Wall, I read Princess Bride.
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I read Patricia Reid's Dragons Chronology. I've read lately. I
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read a lot of Brandon San's Sanderson's early stuff. A
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lot of his newer stuff doesn't excite me quite as much.
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I read uh I've read James Dashner's uh May's Runner
24:43
was pretty amazing. I I do like reading popular books
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if everyone else is reading them. I've read, you know,
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Harry Potter in The Hunger Games. It's like, well, if
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everyone else is gonna read them, I might as well
24:53
keep up. I like Dan Brown and the Da Vinci
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Codes type stuff. I love conspiracy and government secrets, and
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there's just so much fun to be done there. I
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don't really I don't really go for heart science fiction.
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I'm more of a sci fi fantasy blend, like Andy,
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Where's the Martian? You know, I never picked up just
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because I do like a little magic in my science.
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And one book I read recently that I was really
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surprised by how much I liked is The Complete Life
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and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa. He did
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Disney comics for a long time, and he had there
25:38
were like fifty years of Scrooge McDuck comics from Disney,
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and he said, you know, I'm going to take each
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of these antidote anecdotes that Scrooge says in the stories
25:48
about his young life, and I'm going to create his
25:50
young life in comic book form in such a way
25:53
that doesn't contradict any of the comics that were already written.
25:57
And so he did amazing research, like on the Klondike
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and the South African gold Rush and just these various
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enterprises that Scrooge McDuck was involved in and even though
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you know it's a comic book and it's obviously aimed
26:12
at young readers, it's very sophisticated. Like it's amazing how
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much research was poured into this project. And it was
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like the it's like the number one comic anthology in
26:24
several places of Europe, like including Italy and stuff like that.
26:27
Doubt sells like Watchmen and Superman all the time, and
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it's just incredibly weird, and it was you know, I
26:34
took a risk reading it, but it was just an
26:37
amazing story. And even graphic novels and comic books, I
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think they have there, they have a certain grace to
26:44
them that not enough people appreciate.
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Speaker 1: Well, it's still okay because I'm I'm also a big
26:55
stan Lea fan, Okay, oh yeah, all right, it kind
27:01
of labels my genre of of of comic books that
27:05
I read coming along. But there's still really good storytelling
27:14
to be done. Even though it's a graphic novel. It
27:17
is like you still have the artwork that has to
27:21
follow that story as well as what's written in in
27:26
all of the bubbles has to make sense as a
27:31
story or else why bother reading comic book, both.
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Speaker 5: Text and visual storytelling, and so where Yeah, there's a
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lot of ground and graphic novels. With the rise of
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manga and the spread of manga throughout the world, a
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lot more people are reading graphic stories, and I think that,
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like David Farland said, he wanted me to adapt At
27:57
nine as a graphic novel because it's easier to say
28:00
all that to movie studios and so and so, you know,
28:04
graphic novels. I still may adapt Advent nine once I'm ready.
28:09
I'm working on Secret Skuy right now. But once those
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three books are done, I'm going to dive back into
28:13
the world of ad and nine, work on a sequel,
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maybe get a graphic novel commissioned, and we'll see what
28:18
good where that goes.
28:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, creating a graphic novel, it takes takes a
28:26
lot of work, layouts and things like that to to
28:29
make them come along. It's not it's it's two different
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ways of telling a story, right.
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Speaker 5: While they're an infant in the number of ways for
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telling stories, Yes, the number that you can tell a story.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a matter of when you when you
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want the story told to you. What's your favorite way
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of doing it and when you're telling the story, which
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way is your your favorite way of doing it?
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Speaker 6: Right? Yeah?
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Speaker 5: Audiobooks also just really really popular these days. People are
29:05
rediscovering their love of reading through audiobooks, and so that's
29:08
why I work hard to make sure that all of
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my books have an audio version because you know, you
29:13
got to meet the people where they're at.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well are you selling just for the sake
29:24
of getting this out of the way the business end
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of it, because hey, we're telling stories, but we got
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to make we gotta we got to pay the rent,
29:32
put some food on the table whenever writing supplies we need,
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you know, that sort of thing. It's so we got
29:41
to talk some monetization. Is it which is helping you
29:47
the most? Is it the textbook or the.
29:51
Speaker 5: Honestly, audiobook contributes the greatest amount of sales. I always
29:56
love to see hardcovers purchased because I know somebody is
29:59
probably going to read that, maybe with a loved one
30:02
or give it as a gift. I love. That's why
30:04
I like to see hardcover sales. Ebook sales are very convenient,
30:08
and there are some people who do very well with ebooks,
30:13
But as far as pure bulk is concerned audiobooks. I mean, people, Uh,
30:20
audiobooks are a great way of fitting reading into your life,
30:23
no matter what shape your life is. And we all
30:26
know these days lots of the shapes of many people's
30:28
lives don't have many pores in them or holes where
30:32
you can put reading. So audiobooks are just the way
30:35
of feeling those gaps. Apps very convenient, right.
30:40
Speaker 1: Well, kind of what I like about audiobooks personally is
30:46
the fact that I can my wife and I we
30:50
can we can be cooking, doing doing some sort of
30:55
house chords or whatever, and it's easier for me to
31:02
work and listen to an audiobook because hey, I'm sitting
31:04
in a sound studio. Yay. My wife she's a hairdresser,
31:08
so it's a little more difficult for her to deal
31:11
with a client and listen to audiobook at the same time.
31:14
But you can do. There's a whole bunch of things
31:18
you can do while listening to the audiobook that if
31:22
you have the textbook, your hands are kind of tied
31:27
to that. But with that being said, there's just some
31:31
authors you just can't put down right now.
31:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, but as long as people are ingesting these books,
31:40
it really, I don't think it particularly matters which form
31:43
they consume it in, just as long as they get it.
31:45
And you know, I'm always trying to reach a wider audience,
31:50
and so I'm always leaving for a new ways to
31:52
connect with people or a new ways to present my book.
31:55
Like you may have heard, I'm working on a second
31:58
version of The Secret Sky audiobook that is fully orchestrated
32:02
and has sound effects in order to create a more
32:05
immersive experience. And I would like to sell this new
32:07
audiobook alongside the first one so that people can have
32:11
their choice of which one they want to listen to.
32:15
I know a lot of people like to read listen
32:17
to audiobooks that accelerated speed, and for those people, maybe
32:20
the raw audiobook is better. But for people who want
32:23
a more immersive experience, especially young children, which my books,
32:26
you know, which are theoretically my books are, for having
32:31
something that gives a more immersive experience might be useful,
32:35
and so that's what I'm working on right now. I'm
32:37
just I'm just trying to give everyone who wants who
32:43
would be interested in my book, and trying to give
32:45
it to them in the form they would be interested in.
32:47
Receiving it.
32:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, because we discussed this earlier that audiobook is
32:55
a performance. It isn't just somebody reading word for word
33:02
what what you wrote that if you there's a whole
33:09
lot of room for a performance with production there. There
33:16
was one particular book that I read. It was a
33:20
horror book and it had uh and it had this
33:24
this based demon in it that was that was terrorizing
33:29
the town and and did it pretty much so once
33:32
a year, right, And when that demon spoke, they used
33:38
effects to stretch the voice out and they made it
33:43
go from because hey we can add a dimension to
33:48
sound now, and it made it go from ear to
33:51
ear and you were like, you actually looked over your
33:54
shoulder like, okay, is that damn thing in the room
33:59
you're looking.
33:59
Speaker 5: With phones or with surround sound, you can do fun
34:03
things with that.
34:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, so so so full production, that's that's got to
34:11
be some fun to actually to actually watch that progress,
34:15
even as the author hearing how it all comes out.
34:21
It's got to be quite an experience for you.
34:26
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah. As audiobooks, you know, you know, I there's
34:33
lots of different things you can do with audiobooks. It's
34:35
still a very young art. Form. I mean before there
34:39
were books on tape, and those were you know, expensive
34:43
and bulky and hard to store. But since the digital
34:46
age has come, audiobooks have really, you know, reinvented themselves
34:51
as an art form, and I think that as we
34:53
see years and eco aids go by, we're going to
34:55
see more and more experimentation with them.
34:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would, I would agree with you on that.
35:05
Speaker 5: What.
35:06
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're you're looking to expand Secret Sky. Yeah,
35:13
you gave a little bit of a premise of the
35:15
relationship that they could happen there, and you said that
35:23
you outline things, you have a plane that didn't Usually
35:26
the plant goes tossed over. Yeah.
35:28
Speaker 5: Anyway, Yeah, I have to outline everything first, but you know,
35:33
I can never stick keep to it. Some new things
35:36
always just end up cropping up. But then it's weird
35:40
how some things stay the same, Because there are times
35:43
when I write the manuscript and I'm sure that something
35:46
I've written is completely new and I didn't plan for.
35:49
But then when I go to look back at the outline,
35:51
which I do after the book is finished, the thing
35:53
that I thought was new was actually in there, and
35:56
I had just forgotten about it. So you never know.
36:02
I I there is no one size fits all rule
36:06
for writing. I tend to think more people ought to outline.
36:10
But I do think that you shouldn't treat an outline
36:13
like a Bible, because it's not gospel. It's not going
36:18
to be the finished product. If the outline was the
36:20
finished product, then you would just publish the outline and
36:23
call it a day.
36:26
Speaker 1: That's a good point. So would you advise anybody who's
36:30
looking to start writing just find a way to immerse themselves.
36:34
However that works outline, no outline.
36:39
Speaker 5: Well, the first thing you gotta teach every prospective writer
36:43
is that you need to read. You need to read
36:46
books until your eyes bleed, and once you're and once
36:48
you've achieved that, you you can't really start being a
36:52
writer until you have mastered being a reader. And eventually,
36:57
once you start reading enough, you'll start reading with eyes
37:00
that can see. Okay, this book is good for this reason,
37:03
and I can see how the author did this thing
37:06
that made the story go this way, that created this
37:09
feeling in me when I was reading it, And the
37:14
kind of invisible calculus of how to write a great
37:17
book kind of distills into you from reading MM.
37:21
Speaker 1: Hm, that kind of makes sense. If you want to
37:27
tell a great story, you got to read great stories.
37:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, so you need to read them and tell you
37:35
can at least know what a great story is and
37:38
have a conception of what makes the story great. So yeah,
37:43
that's pretty much the first thing you got to teach
37:45
people to want to be writers is that you got
37:47
to read. Yeah, I have books like these behind me.
37:51
Your audio listeners can't see them, but there are bookshelves
37:54
behind me.
37:57
Speaker 1: Go stuff. I read three bookshelf although the first thing
38:01
I noticed when the first time we ever spoke was
38:04
the three bookshelves, of course fulled with books with a
38:08
dragon sitting on top.
38:10
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, here's a plushy dragon sitting on top of
38:13
one of the bookshelves. He was a He was a
38:17
mascot for Utah Fantasy Con back when that was a thing.
38:22
I think it only ran for one year. But yeah,
38:24
I bought the dragon. I got the dragon from the
38:27
Fantasy Con and he just lives there now, on top
38:29
of my bookshelf, pair of on top of a pair
38:34
of agate geodes that serve as bookends.
38:40
Speaker 1: He looks comfortable sitting there.
38:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, well it's his perch and he gets to watch
38:46
the whole world from there.
38:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, you.
38:54
Speaker 1: Have a what would be kind of a modern would
38:59
have it nine kind of a modern kind of superhero.
39:05
You who you described probably has autism and just doesn't
39:10
know it, and then you have an iron age hero.
39:17
How do you How does how does that surface up
39:20
that you that you're going to go to time frames?
39:24
Speaker 5: Well, you know, obviously there are things you can do
39:28
in one tier time period that you can't do in another,
39:31
and the limitations are going to change, and it's really
39:34
not the same. Anyone who tells you that it is
39:36
the same and that people are always the same regardless
39:39
of what period they live in, uh is they're lying
39:42
to you. There's always going to be differences based on
39:45
the world that the story is taking place in.
39:48
Speaker 8: But the the idea of being able to live in
39:55
a different time and place than the one world you
39:57
live in right now, and to be able to inhabit
40:00
different life than the one you the reader are currently living,
40:03
that is the soul of literature.
40:06
Speaker 5: That's why it exists. So every place you write about
40:13
is going to be different. Every world you create is
40:15
going to be different. But the appeal of going to
40:19
a world you don't currently live in is basically the
40:23
same for each reader. Each reader wants to read about
40:28
a life that they are not living right now. They
40:32
want to see how they want to be able to
40:35
make believe an experiment with how a life could be
40:38
different from their own. And that that's why, you know,
40:41
studies have shown that people read a lot of books
40:43
tend to have greater empathy, greater understanding, They tend to
40:48
be more patient with other people. And it's because the
40:52
miracle of reading is that it gives you insight into
40:57
the light a life that you are not living in problems,
41:00
could never live and so that that helps you have
41:05
a perspective like it's like the old saying that you
41:10
sometimes see on the internet and has become a meme.
41:12
I read not because I have no life, but because
41:15
I choose to have many.
41:18
Speaker 1: That's a good one.
41:21
Speaker 5: Yeah, And being able to switch gears from a near
41:25
future setting where where they're starting to experiment with quantum
41:30
entanglement technology to an iron age setting where people you know,
41:37
have to haul loads of wood by hand. There's Yeah,
41:43
it does require you to change gears, it requires you
41:46
to get into a new mindset, but you're always doing
41:50
it with the intention okay of okay, I'm going to
41:52
take the reader into an adventure, into a life that
41:55
they you know, could never live themselves, but is going
41:58
to set their imagining on fire. And so that motivation
42:03
is going to be the same no matter what you're writing,
42:07
unless you're writing like reference books or recipe books, but yeah,
42:15
novels you are. The goal is to put someone into
42:19
the shoes of someone else, wow, and create experiences for them.
42:25
Speaker 1: Cool. So yeah, you actually literally create I usually I
42:33
usually ask people this question, if you were to create
42:36
the perfect world, what would it look like? But your
42:40
words and your mastery and craftsmanship of those words actually
42:48
do create worlds for people, for them to find that
42:51
world that that that they can escape to, that they
42:56
can find different things to live by.
43:00
Speaker 5: Yes, so though the worlds I create are definitely not perfect,
43:05
I wouldn't create a perfect world literary world if I
43:10
had the power to, because perfect worlds tend to be
43:13
boring and they also tend to be unhelpful. I mean,
43:19
if I could give someone a simulated experience that would
43:22
put them in a perfect world, that wouldn't really help
43:25
them recontextualize their life, or if it did, it would
43:30
make them just feel worse about the lives they live,
43:33
which are imperfect. I think letting people see a different
43:38
kind of imperfection than the ones they deal with on
43:41
a day to day basis is the value proposition of
43:45
you know, reading great books.
43:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, best ways to sit down and snuggle up
43:52
with one of your books.
43:54
Speaker 2: And well, the ebooks.
43:58
Speaker 5: The e books are available on every platform, hardcovers. You
44:03
are only going to be able to get them from
44:05
Amazon or from me personally if you're at an event
44:09
I'm attending. The audiobooks are also available on every platform,
44:13
and the enhanced audiobook with the music and the sound effects,
44:17
even though it has not been published yet, the first
44:19
twelve chapters of that are available are available for free
44:23
on YouTube and I don't know if you have any
44:27
visual listeners if they do. If you do, they can
44:30
just scan that QR code and go there. For the
44:33
people who can't see that QR code, just go to
44:36
YouTube and search for Secret Sky the Young Universe. One
44:40
of the first entries you'll see is a playlist of
44:42
all the enhanced chapters. They have a little bit of
44:45
a visual element with them too, so you can watch
44:47
and listen to the first twelve chapters of Secret Sky
44:50
for free. Probably not ad free though it is YouTube
44:54
after all, but if you want to there there for you.
44:59
Speaker 1: Awesome, you know what. It was great meeting you and
45:03
speaking with you. So I look forward to seeing more
45:07
of your work and maybe having you back to talk
45:09
more about the next few books as they come out.
45:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely. I'm hoping you get the next Secret skybook published,
45:16
hopefully next year.
45:17
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens, all right, awesome, Okay, So anyway,
45:25
t Alan Horne, everybody Avant nine and Secret Secrets by
45:30
the Thank you for joining us, and we'll talk to
45:35
everybody later.
45:37
Speaker 5: Okay, thank you so much for having me.
45:40
Speaker 6: Bye bye.
46:05
Speaker 4: I don't know, so I wi is your gon action?
46:14
Speaker 7: So why.
46:19
Speaker 2: That this is?
46:23
Speaker 4: Says I reason.
46:34
Speaker 3: Shady cho.
46:40
Speaker 7: SHOs.
46:43
Speaker 4: We can't truait.
46:48
Speaker 2: So pas.
47:16
Speaker 7: Yes, she go to its start stook she stuff I
47:39
know m starts.
48:04
Speaker 1: The show has been produced by Depictions Media. Please contact
48:09
us at depictions dot Media for more information.