Latest / The Bubble Lounge (Highland Park & University Park Texas) / Secrets Behind a Crime Novelist’s Mind - with author, Harry Hunsicker

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Secrets Behind a Crime Novelist’s Mind - with author, Harry Hunsicker · The Bubble Lounge (Highland Park & University Park Texas)

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• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bubble Lounge.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I'm Martha Jackson and it is Halloween this week, and I was trying to think of who would be the perfect guest to have this week, and it turns out we have this amazing author in the neighborhood who has written nine crime thrillers.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: In his new book, the Life and Death of Rose Doucette, he recounts a very interesting story of two detectives, one who was married to Rose and one who is currently married to Rose.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: The two have to collaborate together and try to solve her murder.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: If you've ever watched the movie LA Confidential, you are going to love the way this story comes about.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I am so excited to introduce you to bestselling author and longtime Highland Park resident, harry Hunsicker.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Harry, thank you for being here today.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: So you grew up longtime Highland Park resident, harry Hunsicker.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Harry, thank you for being here today.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: So you grew up in Highland Park.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Tell us about that experience and how this environment and the community influenced your storytelling.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: So I grew up in Highland Park.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: I actually live in the house I grew up in, which is a strange thing.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: I'm not the only person I know who lives in the house they grew up in, though.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I know a couple, three other people.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: But I love the Park City.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: It's such a small town environment and everyone's so friendly.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Go to the parade every year and just the community traditions.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Now, that did not inform crime writing very much, but it was a good base to be started from.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Which.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: How's that for?
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a convoluted sentence.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask if any of the local elements show up in any of your books.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: So there are some Park City's.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: The Park City's does show up.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: I had a scene, a couple scenes in.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Well, actually there's scenes in this book, I forgot, I forget.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Write them in the go out of your mind, but I usually set a scene in Highland Park.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: In the last two or three books I've done that.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Your latest book, the Life and Death of Rose Doucette, just came out this month.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Can you give us kind of some information about it and tell us a little bit about the book?
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I sure will.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: It came out this month.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: It's a crime thriller and the story is about a private detective forced to partner with a man who broke up his marriage oh, wow.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: And he's forced to partner with that man because he's trying to find out who killed his ex-wife.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: And whoever killed his ex-wife has framed the murder on the hero of our story, the private detective, and the villain is coming after the private detective, as well as the man who broke up the marriage.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: So these two guys have to put aside their considerable differences and work together to figure out what the woman they both loved was into.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow, that sounds intense.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Well, you've written nine crime thrillers, numerous short stories and even a short screenplay.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Even a short screenplay, that is a lot.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: How do you balance writing across all these different avenues?
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: I have no idea.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: The voices in my head are very busy.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: That's what my wife likes to say.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: She said are you talking to those people again in your head?
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: I go yes, I am.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what it takes to be an author.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I started writing the screenplays as a way to stretch a different muscle between writing novels, because writing a novel to me is like running a marathon, sure, and so there's like a cool-down period, so to speak.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: So I kind of write short stories or screenplays as that cool-down period.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Well, that makes sense.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite?
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: A favorite?
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: What?
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Novel or screenplay or Of all these different things that you work on, do you have a favorite?
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: So that's like asking your favorite child.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I think I really kind of went deep into the character on the Life and Death of Rose Doucette.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: So right now, that's going to be my favorite.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say that's my favorite book.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: That's going to be my favorite.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say that's my favorite book.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: That's subject to change.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: But right now the new one is the Life and Death of Rosie Sett is my favorite.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: She's your favorite.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Well, that makes sense.
• 4:50
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• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, true crime and crime thrillers are really having their moment right now and have been for quite some time.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: People just love that genre and it really explores the darker side of humanity.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: What draws you to that genre?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I grew up reading crime thrillers and detective novels and mysteries and spy thrillers and things like that.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: So I filled up with a lot of stories like that and at some point I decided I wanted to let them out.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And then I am, for whatever reason.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: I just like kind of dark things, dark funny things, coen brother type things.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: So that has informed a lot of my storytelling too.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Well, how do you keep things fresh when you've worked on so many different things?
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: How do you keep it fresh and alive?
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: So I have become in recent years a big proponent of Julia Cameron's book the Artist's Way.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you're familiar with that.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: No, it's a great book for anybody out there listening who has any kind of creative bent and they're having trouble getting started.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Uh, she's got a program, uh, about how to overcome your resistance to being creative and one of the main things she advocates is writing morning pages, which are three long hand pages.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: You write by longhand every morning about anything you want to and it kind of gets, it taps into your subconscious sort of.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: It's a little new age woo-woo-y for me, but I'm a big believer.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know why they work, but they work for some reason.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Writing these morning pages, three pages every morning, by longhand.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: That sounds really interesting.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: I just think this longhand writing I don't like that.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: It's kind of been phased out because you get so much more out of it when you're actually physically writing.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: There is a connection.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: There's a deeper connection to yourself, to the page and all that stuff, than there is when you're typing.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Sure Right, like I'm constantly taking handwritten notes Sometimes.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I don't ever look at them again, but I think it helps me remember things better, without a doubt.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Well, you've been shortlisted for both the Seamus and the Thriller Awards, which is an amazing achievement, thank you.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: How has that recognition impacted your career as a writer?
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: So everybody thinks I won them, which is awesome.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: I get that a lot.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: I say, oh, you've won all these awards.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: I go.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Well, yes, I have.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: No, I haven't.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: No, I go, I've been nominated, but thank you.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: I just think it adds something to the resume and shows that people, my work has resonated with people.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're recognized.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I think that's incredible Harry.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I want to hear more about your new book.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Just how did you come up with this concept?
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: What inspired you?
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: So at the heart of the book is these two guys who have to put aside their differences to work together to solve, to figure out who murdered the woman they both loved, I mean.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: And they have considerable differences because one took the woman away from the other man.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: So that is kind of the crux of the story.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Well, it's not the crux.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: That's a significant part of the story.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: The idea came from an element of LA Confidential.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you've seen that movie yeah of course, Great movie, great book.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: But there's a part of that story which is about three police officers in LA in the 50s investigating a single murder, and they're all coming at it from a different place, None of them like each other because they all have a different form of corruption pushing on them.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: But they realize the murder is bigger than what they are thinking.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: It's.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: It's, it involves more than they think, and so they have to put aside their differences and work together to help each other out.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: And so I I that idea resonated with me, which is people who are opposed to each other, diametrically opposed to each other, having to work together for the greater good.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: And so that is what kind of is at the heart of Rose Doucette.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, well, I'm always impressed with authors and I always like to ask just about character development.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: You know, because you have to go so deep to really make people feel like they know each of these individuals, tell me about your process for character development.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: So character development is a strange thing.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Developing a story is a strange thing.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: It's a weird thing.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: I've done it nine times that have been published.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: There's others that have not been published, but I've done it nine times and every time the gestation period for the story is different.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I wish I could say there's some standardization that comes that after nine times you kind of well, I know how to do this time, but it's all.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Every time it's different Story coming up with a novel, a story, it's a chicken and an egg thing and it's they have to interlock together at the same time.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: But you can't really do the character independent of what the story will be and you can't do the story independent of what the character will be, at least in my experience.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: So I typically will come up and then there's the setting, the world you're going to occupy, and so you have to look at all that and kind of think about what first of all, what world and what type of characters you're willing to spend a year with, which is.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: You know, that's an important part of it, because there's a lot of work to writing a 300-page novel, believe it or not.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I would think so.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: So the characters, characters usually come first and I looked, certainly with this one.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: I looked for a guy who had something missing inside of him and it turns out he was missing his relationship with his wife because she divorced him out of the blue and he didn't really understand.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: And as the book goes on, we kind of understand that he is grieving the death of his marriage and then he's not.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: He's not over.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: There's still an empty piece of him, piece of, there's still something empty inside of him that she filled.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: He doesn't even know that.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: I didn't really know it until I started writing, but that's what there is and so he is.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: He's trying to work around that and that's that's how his character came to be.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Well, that's how his character came to be.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, tell us about Rose.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: What made her so compelling that he couldn't seem to get past his relationship?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: So they were both police officers, oh, okay.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: And he resigned from the force right after she divorced him.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: He didn't want to be a cop anymore and she stayed on as a police officer and she spoiler alert she dies very soon, like in the second chapter of the book, what's called the life and death of Rose Doucette.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: But she is a doesn't mean she's not a fully formed character throughout the book, because we see her through the eyes of her ex-husband, her current husband or widower and friends and family who know her, and so we're, in one point of view, the main character and he just keeps investigating.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: But each layer of the onion he peels back we see another aspect of Rose's character and she's a deep character, and I can't tell you why she's so deep, because that's a spoiler.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: But she has some stuff, she is connected to some stuff that has damaged her.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow, okay.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Things that he probably didn't know about.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: He did not know about, oh wow.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Neither did her current husband.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow, well, this is getting interesting.
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• 13:32
  Speaker 1: So you're married to Allison, your wife.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: I am yes.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Who is?
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: also an attorney.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, she is.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm not an attorney.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Who is?
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Who is an attorney?
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: yes, I play one on TV, but I act like an attorney all the time.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: But I'm not there.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: You go, there you go.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Do you guys ever collaborate, especially in regards to murder mystery?
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: No, but she is always my first reader and she always has great advice, she has great input.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: She's a big reader, so she has a lot of wisdom on how stories should go and she kind of keeps me on track and kind of dials back.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: I tend to get carried away with a lot of the one-liners that the detective author says and so she says, yeah, you might need to dial that back a little bit there.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: And so she has.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: She has great story instincts so she kind of dials in your creativity.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Just sometimes creative people, they can get carried away with certain things, yes, we can.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: That's what makes you guys so unique, and special, that's right, and that you're good at your craft.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you for special.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Thank you for saying we're special.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: We are.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Something.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So tell me about the writing process.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Earlier, you mentioned that you spent a year with this.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Is that typically how long it takes to write a novel?
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean the writing itself is maybe six months, but there's a.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: As I've gone on, as I've continued to write, the more important.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: I realize how important an outline is, sure, and so I spent a lot of time coming up with an outline on the front side, and then you write it, and then there's a lot of revision because there's stuff that you don't get right.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: And then you've got I'm I'm obsessive about getting the writing itself, the phrasing and the word choice and the everything exactly perfect.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: So I spent a lot of time on that.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: So a year ish all in.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: It's pretty typical, right?
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Well, that was going to be.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: My other question is I would imagine, when you're releasing something as important as a novel, that you do get kind of OCD about it and you do want it to be perfect.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: How do you make yourself stop and be like, okay, it's time to move on, it's time to get this out there.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: That is not the hard part.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Stopping is not really the hard part.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: I know people say, oh, I could keep going, I don't know when to stop.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: I know when the story ends and I can revise.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: And I get to a point where I've revised so much that I'm like I really am at the place where I am not going to make it any better.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: And then I've learned that my eyes don't see the story or the writing with freshness that I need.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: So I have an agent and then a publisher that looks at it.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Sure yeah, After spending a whole year with it.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it is hard to really see things that an outsider with new eyes would see.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: So I mean, I don't know why people ask these questions Like you just released the book, you're relishing the moment, you're doing your book signings and promoting it and everything, but do you know what's next after this?
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: So I do.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I'm working on a draft of another crime novel.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, good Okay.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: So it's in the revision stage, it's in the obsessive revision stage, it's all obsessions.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: It sounds like you stay really busy.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: You just go from one to the next.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I do yes.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure, as we've talked about you, have done a lot of things.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about some of your past work, like your short film.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, so I write screenplays, kind of between the books, as we talked about, and I wrote I don't know when, maybe five years ago I wrote a short screenplay and I was fortunate enough to get it produced and it came out in, I guess, early 2023.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: We took it on the festival circuit and it won some awards awards and won best screenplay at a film festival in Idaho, of all places.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: So I had a great time with that.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: I always ask on something like this if you want to hear about it, because it's a little, the title's a little.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I do want to hear about it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: You do want to hear about it, okay.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: So the story of the short film is the story.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: The story is about a uh hit man with irritable bowel syndrome.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Everybody gets a laugh out of that and the title of course is how could it be anything else?
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: But this title is shit squad, oh my, and the s is in parentheses.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: So it goes shit hit squad.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: What now?
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: So it's a funny, it's a it's a.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: It is funny, it is funny.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: So I got a lot of.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: I poured a lot of my humor, humorous stuff into that.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: I had a good time.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I can tell you have a very good sense of humor.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: That's pretty funny.
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• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Well, what about all your other books?
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: You have quite a few of them.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: So I've done eight other crime thrillers I've done.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: They're all set in Texas.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Seven of them are set in Dallas.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: One is kind of sort of set in Dallas, but not really it's more of a road trip story set.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: It goes from Dallas to far west Texas.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: I wrote a book that I really enjoyed called the Devil's Country.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: It came out oh golly 2018, maybe.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Country.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: It came out oh golly 2018, maybe.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: It's about a ex-Texas Ranger whose wife and children have been murdered and he is emotionally devastated by that, as you can imagine.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: He ends up in this little dinky town and he finds he encounters a woman and her two children who remind him of his dead wife and dead children.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: And the next day the woman is dead and the children disappeared and the sheriff tries to arrest him for the murder.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: And the next day the woman is dead and the children disappeared and the sheriff tries to arrest him for the murder, and so he has to extricate himself from that situation, because not only does he not want to go to prison for the murder he didn't commit, but he realizes that no one is looking for those missing children.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: So he needs to find them, and the story works on that level, which he's trying to not be framed for this murder and find these kids, but it works on a kind of a deeper emotional level.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: He's trying to make amends for what happened to his own family.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: And so that was an interesting book.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: It was published by a division of Amazon publishing a division of Amazon and they made it into something called Kindle in Motion, which I don't know if you've ever heard of.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: They don't do it anymore, but it's really an interesting thing.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: It's for the e-book only and they took the book and they made a short film that went with the book.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: So if you read chapter one and it says he walks into a smoky bar on your Kindle, on one side it'd be that text he walks into a smoky bar on your Kindle.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: On one side it'd be that text he walks into a smoky bar.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: On the other side there'd be an image of a looping video short looping video of the character walking into a smoky bar.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, I like that.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: It's weird because they didn't do it very long, because people want to read or they want to watch movies, but it was a lot of fun.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: They shot a very abbreviated short film based on that book.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Amazon did, and I got to go on the set.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: I'd never been on a movie set before, so that was a lot of fun, and I have a cameo in it.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: I play a bartender.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it's a lot of fun.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: So if anybody buys the e-book edition of that, you can see the Kindle in motion.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: And seeing you have your big moment on screen, my big moment as a bartender, right.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: It was a ton of fun and I never understood the.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't understand that my brain does not work that way.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: I want to read a book or watch a movie.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I don't want to kind of do both at the same time, but it was a fun thing to do.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: I go out to be on set.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: We filmed it outside of Las Vegas, which was really cool, and they used a bar.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: This is interesting.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: They filmed it mostly in a bar outside of Las Vegas and it was where Clark Gable waited, while he sat and drank and smoked cigars, while he's waiting to hear about whether Carol Lombard died in a plane crash.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yes Wow.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: And so I'm like well, how in the world did I end up in this bar outside of Vegas that?
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: is interesting.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: It was fascinating, yeah, yeah.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Well, you mentioned that Texas gives you a lot of inspiration.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I do feel like we kind of have more than our fair share of murders and things like that that happen in the state.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: We have a lot of interesting outlandish characters.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: I will say that, yes, we do, yeah, and in Dallas too, in the Park City, there's all kinds of interesting people in the Park City.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Why do you think they come to Texas specifically, right, right.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I wonder what the draw is.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: It's a big state, a lot of opportunity and just the wide open spaces.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, plenty of things that can happen.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: So, speaking of our area in Highland Park, you know we call it the bubble and it's this beautiful, pristine little, almost Norman Rockwall type of a community.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: And it's sometimes it's hard to believe that anything bad does happen here.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: In fact, my own kids.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: When I'm like, set the alarm, lock the door, they're like mom, we live in one of the safest neighborhoods.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I'm like there's still stuff that happens every now and then.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Have you ever thought about writing more about our community?
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: First of all to your kids do set the alarm and do lock the door.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: But yes, I have thought about writing something set in the Park Cities.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: I think it'd be a great place for a murder mystery Kind of not really a cozy mystery, but not quite as hard-boiled as I usually do.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: But I think there's a lot of interesting characters, that there's a lot of story gold to mine here in the Park Cities?
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, for sure.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, we'll put that on your list.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I will, yes, in the near future.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: In the near future, we would love to see that.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: So I am a huge fan of the Highland Park Lit Fest.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: It is coming up this February and it's such a wonderful opportunity for people like yourself to get out there and just educate the high schoolers on all the things that go into being an author.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: What kind of advice would you offer these kids so?
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: yeah, I love Highland Park Lit Fest.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: I appeared there years ago for first or second book, I can't remember.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: But I speak fairly often on the creative process and writing and stuff.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: So the best thing I can tell you is to get started.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Somehow, there's a lot of people who want to write.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: I talk about writing, think about writing.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: I'm going to write, I'm going to do it, but you need to get started.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: There's any number of books and courses you can take, and some help, some don't, but really the biggest advice I have is to never give up.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a matter of persistence.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Writing is a matter of persistence.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Well, it's just like if you play a sport or anything else, just keep practicing.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Repetition, repetition right and the more you do it, the better you'll get at it.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: You got a Malcolm Gladwell, that stuff, 10,000 hours.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: You know you got to put the time in, you got to get started.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Not saying you need 10,000 hours before you can write a book, but I mean you've got to stretch those muscles.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just get in there and get going.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Well, let's go just a little bit deeper and talk a little bit more about the process, like frameworks, and share your opinion about chat, gbt.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Do you use index cards?
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: How do you do this?
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: So I write from an outline.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Now, I do not use index cards.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: I just start an outline in a Microsoft Word document and go from there.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: I know people that do index cards.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: It does not use index cards.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: I just start an outline in a Microsoft Word document and go from there.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I know people that do index cards.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: They don't.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: It does not work for me, just not your thing.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: That is not my thing.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: I do essentially the same thing in a word processing document.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Not a fan of ChatGPT, I mean.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I think most authors are not.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: There is some use to it and it's going to be here.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it's ever.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: I don't think in our lifetime it's ever going to replace actual writers.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Good, it doesn't.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I just don't.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: I don't see it doing that.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: There's still an art to it that a human being brings to the table.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I asked Chet GPT about a year ago to write a bio of me and it had me five years older than I am.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Hello, what's wrong with that?
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: That's rude.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: It had me having children that I didn't have and being a TV producer where I never was, and writing books that don't exist.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: So, I'm not really thinking it's the bomb, I don't know.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Call me crazy.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: So I have studied, I've read every book there is on writing and I've taken a bunch of courses over the years and I've really tried.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: All of that informs the creative process for me.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Most books, most stories follow the three-act structure to some degree, because that is something we've all been exposed to and I think it's innate in us.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: There's some DNA thing, I think the cavemen back, you know, 10,000 years ago.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: They're talking about killing the woolly mastodon.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: They're telling it in the three-act structure and so I don't.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: When I talk to people I don't say, no, you have to write in the three-act structure Outline.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Do your outline in the three-act structure, the in 3x structure and the hero's journey and all that stuff.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I mean you're gonna do that naturally, because that's innate in.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Most people understand it, know about it, read, book.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Read uh vogler's book on that, um, but I also love uh stephen king's book on writing.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: That is a great book to help you get started on the writing process but but, uh, you know what I tell people is, they know more about creating a story than they think they do.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, so, uh, it's, it's a.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: It's a Star Wars, star Wars kind of thing.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: The force is in you, luke Skywalker.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, it really is so right.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Um, kind of trust your instincts.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Uh, read the books, take the classes, let that inform you.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: And then I made the mistake, when I was writing my first book, of holding I think it was Vogler's book next to the keyboard as I was typing and I'm like, oh, that doesn't work.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: So I had to put the books down, all the notes down, all that stuff, and just kind of go with the flow, kind of go with what was in me.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And it worked out.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: So don't ignore all that stuff, but don't feel wedded to it either.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Bound to it Right, right.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for being here today.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: You have been such a pleasure to talk to.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: And how can people learn more about you and buy your book?
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: They can buy my book wherever books are sold, but please buy it at Park Cities.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: It's not really in the Park Cities, but Dallas' only independent general interest bookstore in Tarabang on Lovers Lane, right by 8C's.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: You can also buy it wherever you want to online and if you want to reach out to me or follow me on any of the socials or get on my newsletter or send me an email, you can reach me at my website, harryhunsickercom.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: That's H-A-R-R-Y-H-U-n-s-i-c-k-e-rcom and I will include that link, you guys, so you do not have to memorize that.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Well, that's been another episode of the bubble lounge.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I'm martha jackson and I'll see you next time.