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Never-Ending Battles with David L Robbins · WriterCon

0:04
Speaker 1: This week on the writer Con podcast, I would.
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Speaker 2: Say ignore most, if not all, the advice you've been given.
0:11
Speaker 1: Welcome to writer Con, a gathering place for writers to
0:14
Speaker 1: share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Do
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Speaker 1: you have a desire to write? Every successful writer started
0:20
Speaker 1: with their first book. All it takes is determination and knowledge,
0:24
Speaker 1: and writer Con can provide that knowledge. Your hosts are
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Speaker 1: number one national best selling writer William Bernhart, author of
0:30
Speaker 1: more than sixty books, including The Superman Wars, and Laura Bernhardt,
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Speaker 1: Award winning author of the Wantlon File series and Shadow
0:37
Speaker 1: of the taj.
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Speaker 3: We thank you, Jesse Ulrich, Hey, they're writers. Thanks for
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Speaker 3: joining us as this is being released. We are only
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Speaker 3: six days away from the release of my new nonfiction book,
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Speaker 3: The Superman Wars. This, of course, is the story of
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Speaker 3: Superman's originator, Jerry Siegel, the eleventh grader from Cleveland who
1:05
Speaker 3: came up with the idea, refined it, spent years trying
1:09
Speaker 3: to get it published, and then sadly spent years trying
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Speaker 3: to acclaim it after both the credit and the character
1:15
Speaker 3: and his credit for the character was taken from him
1:19
Speaker 3: by greed and dubious business practices, leading to almost seventy
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Speaker 3: years of litigation. But this book is not primarily about lawsuits.
1:29
Speaker 3: I know that would not be appealing. It's about people.
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Speaker 3: It's about artists and creators and this ongoing problem we
1:38
Speaker 3: have of not supporting the creators who make our lives
1:41
Speaker 3: so much richer. Or to put it differently, this book
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Speaker 3: is not just about a comic book character. It's about
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Speaker 3: how we can make the world a better place for
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Speaker 3: creatives in the future. Laura, you're one of I think
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Speaker 3: only three people that I know have actually read the
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Speaker 3: book at this point. Do you remember any part that
2:02
Speaker 3: surprised you or stuck with.
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Speaker 4: You so many? But for one thing, what you just
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Speaker 4: mentioned how very young these boys were when they first
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Speaker 4: came up with this idea brilliant and then also I
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Speaker 4: was shocked by how they were more or less scammed
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Speaker 4: into giving away their rights.
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Speaker 3: I should explain that she's saying, you.
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Speaker 4: Can argue that they signed it. I mean, I get
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Speaker 4: that you can argue that, but you can you can
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Speaker 4: argue that anybody who pulls a fast one like you,
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Speaker 4: if you're not aware of what it is that you're doing.
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Speaker 5: I don't think that's fair.
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Speaker 3: No, they were young, Jerry had lost his father when
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Speaker 3: he was seventeen. He had no one to advise him,
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Speaker 3: and he made a mistake.
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Speaker 1: He scammed.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, at least there was no AI involved.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: I explained that La.
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Speaker 1: Talking human powered scam.
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Speaker 3: The guys meeting Jerry Siegel, who came up with the
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Speaker 3: idea and wrote it. But as soon as he had it,
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Speaker 3: he ran nine blocks across the way to his friend
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Speaker 3: Joe Schuster's house. Joe was an artist and of course
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Speaker 3: drew Superman originally, so that's why the credit say Siegel
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Speaker 3: and Shuster. Jesse. I really tried to get star Trek
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Speaker 3: into this book somewhere, but it just didn't fit. I
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Speaker 3: don't know, have you ever done comic books or does
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Speaker 3: that interest you at all?
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Speaker 1: It did for some reason, like actually reading physical comics
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Speaker 1: just like wasn't part of my nerdy teenage upbringing. But
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Speaker 1: I also came of age with the the Great Batman
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Speaker 1: animated series and the X Men cartoons, and so I
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Speaker 1: was getting I was getting comic book stories delivered to me,
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Speaker 1: and so I didn't have to go out necessarily. But
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Speaker 1: I have read the classic like big sort of graphic
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Speaker 1: novel types like The Watchmen and the whatnot. Like, I've
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Speaker 1: read those.
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Speaker 3: Good stuff, but none of which would exist had it
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Speaker 3: not been for Jerry Siegel, not only creating the first superhero,
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Speaker 3: but giving the sales spike that this brand new industry
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Speaker 3: the comic book needed.
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Speaker 1: I have read the great fiction book that's sort of
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Speaker 1: based off of their story, The Adventures of Kevalier and Clay,
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Speaker 1: a great book.
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Speaker 3: Oh oh great, so again, And many people think Cavalier
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Speaker 3: and Clay are based on Schuster and Siegel, And there
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Speaker 3: is a lot of comment. Something's different too, but a
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Speaker 3: lot of commonality. That's a great novel, all right. Today
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Speaker 3: our interview is with David L. Robbins, who was a
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Speaker 3: theater major and a lawyer who's somehow gravitated into writing.
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Speaker 3: You'll hear all about it, mostly on military subjects. He's
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Speaker 3: written many novels, including his first book, War of the Rats,
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Speaker 3: a huge bestseller set during a critical World War II
5:01
Speaker 3: battle between Germany and Russia. He also helped launch the
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Speaker 3: Mighty Pen Project, an intensive writing program for Virginia's military
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Speaker 3: veterans and their families. We will talk to him about
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Speaker 3: all that and more, but first the news news story
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Speaker 3: number one. Guess how many books were published last year
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Speaker 3: four million. Yes, I'm not kidding. The total number of
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Speaker 3: books published in the United States alone in twenty twenty
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Speaker 3: five with ISB numbers jumped over thirty two percent over
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Speaker 3: the previous year to more than four million books. The
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Speaker 3: increase was led, obviously by self published books, which soared
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Speaker 3: to soared up thirty eight to more than three point
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Speaker 3: five million from the two point five million the previous year.
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Speaker 3: So if there's five three point five million self published,
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Speaker 3: that only leaves about half a millionaireor so that we're
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Speaker 3: not And also bear in mind that that only includes
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Speaker 3: books with ISBN numbers, which is important because a lot
6:19
Speaker 3: of people who are simply uploading their own work to
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Speaker 3: Amazon don't worry, don't bother to get I spend BN
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Speaker 3: numbers because you don't need them on Amazon. This information
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Speaker 3: comes from Baker Services. Their product marketing manager Andrew Kovic said,
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Speaker 3: quote the fact that every aspect of the publishing process,
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Speaker 3: once available only through traditional publishers can now be obtained
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Speaker 3: from the self publishing service providers at a comparable level
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Speaker 3: of quality, and that's the likely the key driver in
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Speaker 3: this huge sore and output. So it's pretty dramatic. Ura
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Speaker 3: does this help you understand why it's so tough to
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Speaker 3: get any attention for anybody's book.
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Speaker 4: Absolutely, I had heard before that we were reaching about
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Speaker 4: two million.
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Speaker 5: Books a year.
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Speaker 3: It probably was last year.
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Speaker 4: Jumped to four million. It's mind boggling. But also I
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Speaker 4: think probably partly influenced by some of the AI slops.
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Speaker 1: That we well, we don't know because those probably don't
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Speaker 1: get IBN numbers on Amazon.
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Speaker 3: Probably is maybe maybe not.
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Speaker 4: We've talked about an author who was self publishing, and
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Speaker 4: if even if you are presenting it as serious work
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Speaker 4: and trying to present it as though it was written,
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Speaker 4: you might well get an ISBN. You might present it
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Speaker 4: and market it as though it were written. You might
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Speaker 4: not want to have it look that amateurish.
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Speaker 3: So hard to know, Jesse. I know you read a lot,
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Speaker 3: and sounds of it like you get through books more
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Speaker 3: quickly than I do. How do you discover new authors
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Speaker 3: in the midst of this deluge of stuff?
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Speaker 1: Combination of your word of mouth from friends, sort of
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Speaker 1: Reddit book searches. I'm trying to give any of the
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Speaker 1: sort of book videos that have been shown to me
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Speaker 1: if I actually listen to any of them, because no,
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Speaker 1: they're usually showing me books I've already read, and a
8:26
Speaker 1: lot of you know, probably honestly put together by AI.
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Speaker 1: But like occasionally when I just google for different genres
8:34
Speaker 1: of books to see if I've read everything that's supposed
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Speaker 1: to be like in the you know, canon of those categories,
8:39
Speaker 1: you know, some of the I'm like, oh, I there's
8:41
Speaker 1: some like there's some science fiction book that I have
8:44
Speaker 1: never read that it is supposed to be important, and
8:46
Speaker 1: so like, you know, I'll read it that way, and
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Speaker 1: then you know it's really it's really word of mouth.
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Speaker 1: And occasionally, very occasionally, just just randomly on Amazon, I
8:57
Speaker 1: will see something that intrigues me and I will read
9:00
Speaker 1: the description. I'll be like, okay, I'll get a shot.
9:04
Speaker 3: Good for you. Have you read Project Hail Mary.
9:08
Speaker 1: I have read Project Hill Mary. I've read it right
9:10
Speaker 1: before the movie came out, Oh right before.
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Speaker 3: Oh wow, pretty faithful, wasn't it?
9:15
Speaker 2: Yeah? I was.
9:16
Speaker 1: It was great the book. I mean, the guy knows
9:18
Speaker 1: how to write a guy stranded in something science The
9:23
Speaker 1: guy his lane and his lane is very he's very
9:25
Speaker 1: good at that. And the movie was incredible, and you know,
9:29
Speaker 1: of course the Rocky Puppet was amazing. So we're gonna
9:32
Speaker 1: give someone a hilarious sidekick. Make sure they're they're funny.
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Speaker 3: So good advice, all right. News story number two, which
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Speaker 3: also serves to remind me that the publishing world today
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Speaker 3: is nothing like what it was when I started. Book
9:49
Speaker 3: Talk now has its own bestseller list. Yes, there is
9:53
Speaker 3: an official book talk bestseller chart set to launch later
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Speaker 3: this year in the UK. It's already debuted in Germany.
10:01
Speaker 3: It's going to be a monthly rundown of the most
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Speaker 3: popular titles on TikTok. Now, you might be wondering, since
10:08
Speaker 3: people don't buy things on TikTok, how do you generally?
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Speaker 3: I think you can actually now, but how do they know?
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Speaker 4: So?
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Speaker 3: This top twenty chart will be compiled by Nilsen IQ
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Speaker 3: book Data, which don't ask me how is going to
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Speaker 3: identify titles generating significant engagement on TikTok and then rank
10:27
Speaker 3: them according to presumed sales volume. TikTok will provide data
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Speaker 3: on engagement, while a group called Media Control will apply
10:37
Speaker 3: an algorithm, of course weighted more towards book sales than engagement,
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Speaker 3: to try and come up with some idea of how
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Speaker 3: books are actually selling. As everybody listening probably already knows
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Speaker 3: book Talk is a community of readers who share recommendations
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Speaker 3: on TikTok, and it's become a huge, powerful force in
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Speaker 3: publishing during the last few years. A lot of authors,
11:03
Speaker 3: particularly in the romance and fantasy genres, owe a great
11:07
Speaker 3: deal of their popularity to book talk, like Sarah J.
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Speaker 3: Moss and Colleen Hoover and the aforementioned Rebecca Yarros and
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Speaker 3: a bunch of others. Laura, do you think this chart
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Speaker 3: will be at all useful or instructive? I mean, book
11:25
Speaker 3: talk obviously prefers some genres over others, and I would
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Speaker 3: guess it probably prefers one age demographic over others.
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Speaker 4: I was going to mention age in my response. Will
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Speaker 4: this be instructive for me? Probably? Not for our youngest
11:46
Speaker 4: daughter more so definitely. I think the people who are
11:51
Speaker 4: paying attention to book talk and getting their book recommendations
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Speaker 4: from there and hearing about new releases in genres that
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Speaker 4: they want to read, will find this helpful and instructive,
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Speaker 4: although they have already found it by that point, if
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Speaker 4: it's already gaining popularity on TikTok, do they need a list?
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Speaker 2: I don't know.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.
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Speaker 4: Well, I start the audience.
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Speaker 3: He's looking for a list. And if you're reading Romanticy
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Speaker 3: and your gen z, I don't know, Jesse, You're probably
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Speaker 3: going to start going to this to figure out what
12:26
Speaker 3: to read next.
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Speaker 1: Right, Well, I like the idea, like there's a difference
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Speaker 1: between engagement and purchasing, and so it's nice that they're
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Speaker 1: trying to track. They're actually trying to track, like whether
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Speaker 1: people are at like, is it TikTok that's directing people to,
12:39
Speaker 1: you know, Rebecca Yarros and Colleen Hoover, or is it
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Speaker 1: since people are talking about on TikTok, it is spreading
12:45
Speaker 1: via word of mouth. It'd be interesting to see where
12:48
Speaker 1: where the engagement's actually happening. So, because yeah, you can,
12:53
Speaker 1: you can make TikTok videos about anything, and there are
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Speaker 1: TikTok videos about everything everything else doesn't mean people are
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Speaker 1: buying it.
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Speaker 3: So if Ralph can make a video of me in
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Speaker 3: a superhero suit flying with my cat who also has
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Speaker 3: a cape on my shoulder.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, are they both holding copies of your book and
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Speaker 1: that video.
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Speaker 3: The book is in there somewhere. If he can do that,
13:18
Speaker 3: then you can promote anything. All right, no craft corner
13:22
Speaker 3: this time our interview ran a little long, but it
13:26
Speaker 3: will be back next time, so stay tuned and we'll
13:29
Speaker 3: be right back at you. But for now, let's talk
13:32
Speaker 3: to David L. Robins. David L. Robbins, Welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 3: All right, here's our usual first question. If you could
13:52
Speaker 3: offer writers one piece of advice, what would it be?
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Speaker 2: You know, I have to refine that question if you
14:00
Speaker 2: don't mind, because there's a spectrum of writers. There's writers
14:03
Speaker 2: who are accomplished, who always want to get better, could
14:07
Speaker 2: perhaps benefit from some advice. And then there's writers who
14:11
Speaker 2: are aspiring their students or their confrees. They haven't published yet,
14:15
Speaker 2: they're still honing their craft.
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Speaker 3: So can you narrow that or do you let's say
14:20
Speaker 3: the last one, let's say the latter, the aspiring people,
14:23
Speaker 3: what would you say?
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Speaker 2: I would say. I would say, ignore most, if not all,
14:31
Speaker 2: the advice you've been given. Truly, I rarely, rarely, rarely
14:37
Speaker 2: hear good advice from at conferences and from writing teachers.
14:42
Speaker 2: I hear write what you know, which I think is
14:44
Speaker 2: just abhorrent, because why write something? Why not be excited
14:49
Speaker 2: about learning something? Why not wander away from what you
14:52
Speaker 2: know and capture that excitement and get it on the page.
14:56
Speaker 2: They say, I've heard grab me in the first page.
15:00
Speaker 2: I like, no, don't knock on my door and grab me.
15:02
Speaker 2: Introduce yourself, acclimate me to you, and you to me right.
15:06
Speaker 2: Pull out a cheese plate, get a CHARCOOTERI you know,
15:09
Speaker 2: see if you like a dark beer or a white wine.
15:11
Speaker 2: Introduce yourself and then we'll play wee tennis and talk
15:14
Speaker 2: about our past lives. But I would tell aspiring writers
15:20
Speaker 2: to study the craft, that the craft itself, that writing
15:26
Speaker 2: is not unlike ballet or piano, or sculpture or painting.
15:31
Speaker 2: Somehow or another mill it's become, it's become legend, that
15:37
Speaker 2: writing is reliant upon inspiration and talent and imagination and
15:43
Speaker 2: some kind of natural gift. And I think that that
15:48
Speaker 2: is true at a different level. But I mean, I
15:51
Speaker 2: can teach you right now to dance ballet badly, but
15:54
Speaker 2: I could teach you I could teach you to play
15:55
Speaker 2: Guaranty badly. What I'm saying is, but after two hours,
15:59
Speaker 2: you would know pa from position to you would know.
16:02
Speaker 2: I can teach you the piano eight eight whites, five blacks. Now,
16:05
Speaker 2: talent and inspiration come into play later, but you rarely
16:10
Speaker 2: rarely run into writing mentors who say to beginning writers,
16:15
Speaker 2: learn the craft. And and this is of course heretical,
16:22
Speaker 2: but I say that your story is the least important
16:24
Speaker 2: part of that. I say, what you're writing about is
16:28
Speaker 2: the absolute least important thing. And if you'll allow me
16:30
Speaker 2: thirty more seconds, because I am, as you're probably guessing,
16:35
Speaker 2: a teacher. Imagine a painter and he has in abandans
16:41
Speaker 2: because it's video a palette right here, and on this
16:44
Speaker 2: pallet their colors, and here's the canvas over there. And
16:50
Speaker 2: this is not this is just the story. This is
16:55
Speaker 2: the telling of the story. This is just paint. That's
16:58
Speaker 2: the painting. They're not the same. And so much advice
17:02
Speaker 2: is what you hear. And I when I talk to
17:04
Speaker 2: aspiring writers is they focus on their plot, and they
17:06
Speaker 2: focus on their characters, and they focus on I'm like, no,
17:09
Speaker 2: focus on the craft. Focus on the telling of any story,
17:13
Speaker 2: from the quotidian to the majestic. Because you can learn
17:17
Speaker 2: to paint in any color. You can learn to paint
17:19
Speaker 2: in black and white, red, green and all the basics.
17:21
Speaker 2: You can learn to paint any medium. Doesn't matter what
17:25
Speaker 2: the paint is. What matters is your ability to handle
17:27
Speaker 2: the brush. Then when you have an understanding of passive
17:32
Speaker 2: voice and profound then absolute truths and POV and dynamics
17:36
Speaker 2: and pace and the integration of setting with character on
17:41
Speaker 2: you know, many, many, many geodesic dome facets. Right, Once
17:45
Speaker 2: you have an understanding of them, then pay attention to
17:47
Speaker 2: your plot. Then pay attention but deciding who your character
17:52
Speaker 2: is without the ability to understand how that character integrates
17:55
Speaker 2: into the setting, or knowing your ending a big surprise
17:59
Speaker 2: ending without knowing how to create the proper slope to
18:02
Speaker 2: get there. Sure, that's the advice I would give. I
18:05
Speaker 2: would say most of the writing teachers and conference mentors
18:09
Speaker 2: that I see give elementary advice. They I've heard them
18:15
Speaker 2: say things like.
18:16
Speaker 3: Well, you got to grab I need to come to
18:17
Speaker 3: writer con because that would not be true.
18:20
Speaker 2: There is one reason I have not come, and that's
18:22
Speaker 2: because I have not been invited.
18:23
Speaker 3: Ah, now we are getting to the heart.
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Speaker 2: To wrap that up, you'll hear things like you got
18:28
Speaker 2: to grab me on the first page, and they won't
18:30
Speaker 2: be able to articulate how and what means.
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Speaker 3: But you understand the problem. Because today attention spans are
18:39
Speaker 3: short and people can download a new book to their
18:42
Speaker 3: iPad in five seconds. So if you're not entertaining people,
18:47
Speaker 3: you may lose them.
18:48
Speaker 2: Right, I'm not advocating not entertaining. I'm advocating know what
18:51
Speaker 2: the terms mean. I'm not saying don't grab. I'm saying,
18:55
Speaker 2: know how, know what grab means, and grab them with what,
18:59
Speaker 2: grab them with entregu grab them with action, grab them
19:01
Speaker 2: with violence, grab them with empathy, grab them with sex,
19:05
Speaker 2: grab them with what, and then grab them how. It's
19:08
Speaker 2: not just grab Right there? You a lot of technique
19:12
Speaker 2: inside that phrase that most of the people who say
19:15
Speaker 2: it don't know how to execute it. They'll say, show,
19:18
Speaker 2: don't tell, and I'll say why, I know why, but
19:21
Speaker 2: they'll say because it's better, and I'll say why and
19:24
Speaker 2: they can't articulate.
19:26
Speaker 3: You've worn a bunch of hats. You just mentioned being
19:28
Speaker 3: a teacher, but you were a theater major. If I'm
19:31
Speaker 3: not mistaken, and you were a lawyer for a little while,
19:34
Speaker 3: how'd you end up getting started writing?
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Speaker 2: I have often described my entire professional career and all
19:42
Speaker 2: my iterations as as as For instance, I was a lawyer,
19:47
Speaker 2: and I call law the great catch basin of the
19:50
Speaker 2: unfocused over achiever. You know, like I grew up. I
19:54
Speaker 2: knew I was smart, right. I knew I wanted to
19:56
Speaker 2: be on one side of the law. I wanted to
19:58
Speaker 2: be a good guy. I wanted to help. I know
20:01
Speaker 2: how I wasn't going to be able to stay on
20:03
Speaker 2: medicine and I don't have a brain for engineering and things,
20:06
Speaker 2: and so you go to law school. But when you're
20:10
Speaker 2: when you're a performative kid like me, and you get
20:14
Speaker 2: in college and the pretty girls are at the theater department,
20:17
Speaker 2: you don't you go, And next thing you know, you're
20:20
Speaker 2: having fun. You're in plays and you're I did a
20:23
Speaker 2: lot of writing when I was as a theater major.
20:25
Speaker 2: So I did a lot of play writing. And I
20:29
Speaker 2: tell you, if you want to learn, here's Could I
20:31
Speaker 2: back up and give that advice?
20:35
Speaker 3: You got thirty seconds go?
20:37
Speaker 2: Okay, I would say right to play. And the reason
20:40
Speaker 2: why would say right to play is because because plays
20:42
Speaker 2: are not dependent on interiority. If it doesn't happen on
20:46
Speaker 2: stage or get said on page, it don't happen. And
20:50
Speaker 2: that's the most powerful way to write is write through
20:53
Speaker 2: action and dialogue and forget back away from these long
20:57
Speaker 2: narration narrative passages, these long interior pass is telling the
21:01
Speaker 2: reader that you know, he was angry, she was sad.
21:04
Speaker 2: Her face was a mask of horror. Learned to write
21:08
Speaker 2: a play and learned dialogue and action that integrate into character,
21:12
Speaker 2: and then take that to your prose. It's magnificent.
21:16
Speaker 3: That's a good piece of advice. Now you seem to
21:19
Speaker 3: be drawn to military subjects. Your first book, I think,
21:23
Speaker 3: was We're of the Rats, Right, which was a big hit.
21:26
Speaker 2: Tell us about that complete mistake. Should never know.
21:31
Speaker 3: Other than the massive sales. You mean, it was a
21:33
Speaker 3: big mistake.
21:34
Speaker 2: Here's what happened, and I was I was very, very
21:38
Speaker 2: fortunate to become a good friend of his Tom Robbins,
21:41
Speaker 2: who passed away last year. And Tom and I met
21:44
Speaker 2: many many years ago. Were not related, yeah, but years
21:48
Speaker 2: ago he was up for an award that I was
21:50
Speaker 2: up for an award. We met for the same award
21:52
Speaker 2: he won, as he should always and we got to
21:55
Speaker 2: be friends. It was the last name that kind of
21:57
Speaker 2: linked us, and we got to be close pals, and
22:00
Speaker 2: we talked at least every two weeks for fifteen years.
22:05
Speaker 2: And I reviewed his books for the Washington Review of
22:08
Speaker 2: Books and Things, and he always gave me blurbs and
22:12
Speaker 2: as a child, as a kid, as a young person
22:14
Speaker 2: aspiring to do this, I wanted to be Tom. I
22:17
Speaker 2: wanted to write fabulous things like he did. But I
22:24
Speaker 2: wrote a book called War of the Rats because it
22:28
Speaker 2: was a love story. It was It took place at
22:31
Speaker 2: the Battle of Stalingrad with a million men trying to
22:33
Speaker 2: kill a million men, and.
22:34
Speaker 3: There in the middle of the wall was Germany and
22:36
Speaker 3: Russia each other.
22:38
Speaker 2: And I wrote this book because because in real life
22:41
Speaker 2: Vesily's heites have fell for Tanya Schernova, a female sniper
22:45
Speaker 2: played by Rachel White's in the movie. But and I
22:49
Speaker 2: was moved by the love story. But it did such
22:53
Speaker 2: a good job apparently researching and telling the story of
22:55
Speaker 2: snipers that the military people, the history, the history people
22:59
Speaker 2: went crazy and they said, I'm like, God, this is
23:01
Speaker 2: the definitive Stalingrad story. I'm like, no, that it's a
23:04
Speaker 2: love story. I said, this is the definitive snipers story.
23:06
Speaker 2: It's a love story. And then what happens, And you
23:09
Speaker 2: know this that when you when you're a beginning writer
23:13
Speaker 2: and the publishing industry says wow, and then they say
23:16
Speaker 2: do that again. You go okay, you say, but I
23:21
Speaker 2: want to write crazy things. Okay, So you know, eighteen
23:25
Speaker 2: books later, all of them invading Europe or something. You know,
23:31
Speaker 2: I became an historical writer, and I'm proud to say
23:33
Speaker 2: that I did well. I mean I was I was
23:36
Speaker 2: mentioned well, and people were compared to my work. I
23:40
Speaker 2: was in a pretty good cohort, uh and and was
23:44
Speaker 2: pleased to be on the New York Times list a
23:46
Speaker 2: couple of times. I openly brag about that might as
23:49
Speaker 2: well well, but it was it was pretty accidental. It
23:54
Speaker 2: did a lot of stuff that first book, and then
23:56
Speaker 2: the next couple did the same ish, And then you're
24:00
Speaker 2: they don't want to hear from you unless you're writing those.
24:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. Just to be clear for the people listening.
24:06
Speaker 3: The movie you reference with Rachel Weiss, that's Enemy at
24:09
Speaker 3: the Gates, right, yep, yeah, which stems from War of
24:14
Speaker 3: the Rats. Yeah, some way that only you could explain. Probably.
24:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I don't want to get hives.
24:22
Speaker 3: Yeah that's what I thought. Let's switch gears. You've actually
24:27
Speaker 3: you've started several nonprofits, but tell us about the Mighty
24:31
Speaker 3: Pen Project.
24:33
Speaker 2: I live and thank you for bringing this up, because
24:36
Speaker 2: I this is really the I think the force of
24:39
Speaker 2: my life. These days these works. I live a mile
24:43
Speaker 2: from the Virginia War Memorial, which is the largest and
24:46
Speaker 2: I think inarguably the best war memorial in any of
24:49
Speaker 2: the fifty states. Every state has one. The state of
24:53
Speaker 2: Virginia has the third highest per capita veteran population and
24:57
Speaker 2: the highest per show of veterans in America. We're very
25:03
Speaker 2: big veterans, with a lot of bases. Norfolk is the
25:06
Speaker 2: largest naval base in the United States, et cetera. And
25:10
Speaker 2: I've been teaching writing at the university level while I've
25:13
Speaker 2: been writing my own work, but I've also been a
25:16
Speaker 2: university professor. And I saw a newspaper article that Fordham
25:21
Speaker 2: University was giving veterans a weekend writing retreat, and that
25:25
Speaker 2: to me seemed weak beer for both that you could
25:28
Speaker 2: teach anybody anything in the weekend, much less give veterans
25:32
Speaker 2: what they deserve in a weekend. I thought, well, that
25:35
Speaker 2: just seems uncommittal on both ends. So I book it
25:37
Speaker 2: up to the war and war Well, they knew me
25:39
Speaker 2: because of my work, and I said, Hey, how about
25:42
Speaker 2: if I start a university type writing class for veterans
25:47
Speaker 2: And they said sure, and I just want to host
25:49
Speaker 2: it here, So I ran it for three years as
25:51
Speaker 2: a nonprofit with boards and raising funds and things, and
25:54
Speaker 2: then people at the warm and Oil started taking the class.
25:58
Speaker 2: And then they came to me and said, we want
25:59
Speaker 2: you to close your nonprofit and let us make this
26:02
Speaker 2: a program of the War Memoril, which I said yes to.
26:05
Speaker 2: And here we are, like nine years later. We run
26:09
Speaker 2: three classes, we have one act plays. We have an archive.
26:15
Speaker 2: If you google VCU Mighty Penn, You'll go to an
26:19
Speaker 2: archive of over twenty stories that I've been working on.
26:22
Speaker 2: In editing and posting. I only post one of every
26:24
Speaker 2: ten or fifteen stories. I only post the ones that
26:27
Speaker 2: are that describe something about the military that I want
26:31
Speaker 2: to be archival, you know, because you know, imagine Bill,
26:36
Speaker 2: if there was this written archive of Korea or World
26:39
Speaker 2: War two, or the Civil War, the revolution. So as
26:42
Speaker 2: you say, once it's online, it's in perpetuity. This will
26:46
Speaker 2: be a magnificent research tool because the people I'm getting
26:49
Speaker 2: are a lot of the women were the first to
26:51
Speaker 2: do what they did in a cockpit and a helicopter,
26:53
Speaker 2: behind a gun, behind behind a yoke and a jet.
26:56
Speaker 2: A lot of the I have the first female chaplain
26:59
Speaker 2: in in American military history except for some women in
27:03
Speaker 2: the Civil War in the Union. But she just said,
27:06
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go chase Saddam and she just made orders,
27:09
Speaker 2: got on truck and crossed into combat lines. And she's
27:11
Speaker 2: one of my repeat writers. I've had every description. I've
27:16
Speaker 2: got guys that have dropped bombs on Hanoi, I got,
27:19
Speaker 2: I got cats from from Afghanistan, Iraq, be rout everything.
27:25
Speaker 2: A guy flew a pilot in the Cuban Missile crisis,
27:29
Speaker 2: and so we've developed an archive the class. The thing
27:33
Speaker 2: about the class is, as it started out by me,
27:36
Speaker 2: just to be something that I could do for veterans.
27:39
Speaker 2: Come from a veterans family, and my brother was in Vietnam,
27:41
Speaker 2: and I guess I should have gone, but didn't, and
27:44
Speaker 2: I don't hide that. And then over the years I
27:48
Speaker 2: began to notice that they were getting catharsis and healing
27:52
Speaker 2: from this, and they would say things to me like, well,
27:55
Speaker 2: I haven't told my therapists, and I haven't told my wife,
27:57
Speaker 2: and I've told my my friends, but I told you
28:01
Speaker 2: on the page. And I was hearing this, but really
28:04
Speaker 2: is regularity dawned on me that they were that this
28:07
Speaker 2: class was also therapeutic for them on being unqualified to
28:13
Speaker 2: be a therapist. It began to become intentional about it.
28:16
Speaker 2: So I did my own sort of research, and I
28:18
Speaker 2: began to be very conscious that in the class of
28:22
Speaker 2: guiding them towards therapy or towards healing, towards whatever they
28:26
Speaker 2: wanted without getting caught at it, because if I say
28:31
Speaker 2: this is therapy now, then they why would they come?
28:33
Speaker 2: They just go therapy. I see, what it is is
28:36
Speaker 2: a writing class. And here's the trick. When they're ready,
28:40
Speaker 2: when they decide that that hard day is something that
28:42
Speaker 2: they have the skills and the confidence and the community
28:45
Speaker 2: to write about, they do and they will. But nobody
28:49
Speaker 2: in the class. I tell them on night one, I say,
28:52
Speaker 2: I'm not the grim reaper. I'm not here to collect
28:54
Speaker 2: your stories of woe. I'm here to teach you to
28:57
Speaker 2: write well. And I'm going to just unfalsely proud I
29:01
Speaker 2: can teach an anvil to write. And so I say,
29:05
Speaker 2: I'm gonna teach you to tell your stories. You choose
29:09
Speaker 2: what to build with those tools, and inevitably, if they
29:12
Speaker 2: have that burdens some stories somewhere in their heart, they'll
29:16
Speaker 2: tell it. And then I stay out of the way.
29:19
Speaker 2: Mostly I stay out of the way in the class
29:21
Speaker 2: embraces them and gives them the group and gives them
29:24
Speaker 2: the support and the normalizing for their trauma. And I
29:27
Speaker 2: give them a piece of art. I say, here's how
29:29
Speaker 2: you build a piece of art out of that. And recently,
29:33
Speaker 2: within the past year, I'm very proud to say that
29:35
Speaker 2: Virginia Comwealth University, the university I teach at VCU, has
29:40
Speaker 2: written a grant received a grant to study our work
29:44
Speaker 2: with the Mighty Pen as a way of understanding therapeutic writing.
29:50
Speaker 2: I think a great many therapists prescribe therapeutic writing, but
29:54
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that there's a science that binds it all.
29:57
Speaker 2: I'm not sure they know exactly how to manipulate at
30:00
Speaker 2: that tool, what they're looking for when to use it.
30:03
Speaker 2: Our goal is to study what we do at the
30:06
Speaker 2: Mighty Pen. We create it, and then create a conference
30:11
Speaker 2: and the faculty and actually have an institute at VCU
30:13
Speaker 2: for the study of trauma and form writing. All h
30:19
Speaker 2: all rooted in the Mighty Pen. And I'm I'm humbled
30:21
Speaker 2: beyond words that that, but that's actually happening.
30:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a crazy word.
30:26
Speaker 2: There's money and I'm a schmuck in the middle.
30:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's fabulous, amazing, amazing work there.
30:37
Speaker 5: Can you describe for us when you're when you're writing,
30:40
Speaker 5: when you're working on your books? What is your writing process?
30:44
Speaker 2: Like?
30:44
Speaker 5: Are you a pants or a plotter? How do you
30:48
Speaker 5: how do you find your time to work on your books?
30:52
Speaker 2: Can you plot your pants?
30:56
Speaker 3: No, it's either or it's really not, but one of
30:59
Speaker 3: the other.
31:00
Speaker 5: It's your process.
31:02
Speaker 4: And I find that I get a different answer to
31:04
Speaker 4: this question from every author, which I think is wonderful
31:07
Speaker 4: because it lets our aspiring writers know that there's no
31:11
Speaker 4: one thing that results in a good book exactly right.
31:16
Speaker 2: I have described it as baseball writing, and I'll tell
31:21
Speaker 2: you what I mean by that. So think of home run.
31:26
Speaker 2: Somebody throws this spheroid at another person holding a cudgel,
31:32
Speaker 2: and the person with the cudgel hits the spheroid a
31:35
Speaker 2: prescribed distance in the air, and it goes over a barrier.
31:39
Speaker 2: And when that happens, that person that touches things we
31:41
Speaker 2: call basis, first, second, third, and the back what we
31:43
Speaker 2: call home. Not until all of these conditions precedent have meant,
31:47
Speaker 2: do we have a home run now? It's not deligable
31:51
Speaker 2: and it's not mutable. Every home run is that, But
31:55
Speaker 2: everybody who hits a home run hits it in a
31:57
Speaker 2: different situation. Mickey Mantle would just kind of jog with
32:03
Speaker 2: his head down because he's a humble Localhoma boy, there
32:05
Speaker 2: you are, or many Sammy Sosa would do a Catholic
32:09
Speaker 2: catechism between home and first, and Barry Bonds would growl
32:13
Speaker 2: and some steroidal rage at the picture. But they all
32:17
Speaker 2: did the same thing. So it's my process is to
32:22
Speaker 2: hybridize extemporan eighty with a locked down home run. Once
32:28
Speaker 2: I tell my characters what they're gonna do, I don't
32:30
Speaker 2: brook any argument. Right, you're gonna do that, But I
32:33
Speaker 2: let them do it the way they see fit. So
32:35
Speaker 2: I run alongside my character who just hit home run?
32:38
Speaker 2: You hit o run? How do you feel? How that
32:40
Speaker 2: feel in your hands? And what's the situation? No, it's
32:43
Speaker 2: tie ball game and you just won the game, or
32:46
Speaker 2: you're a rookie and it's your first at bat, and
32:48
Speaker 2: but I don't but I don't negotiate the home run.
32:54
Speaker 2: And some writers will say, well, my plot ran away
32:57
Speaker 2: with me, and my character ran away with me. I'm like, well,
33:00
Speaker 2: that means your character was not solid enough. So I
33:05
Speaker 2: let my characters alone. I listened for their voices, but
33:11
Speaker 2: they damn we'll do what I tell them to. How
33:13
Speaker 2: they do it is up to them. If that helps.
33:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that sounds really on the nose. David, Are
33:21
Speaker 3: you working on anything now? What next? Between two covers?
33:25
Speaker 3: Can we see with your name on it?
33:28
Speaker 2: Well? My hopes are so so. I had this long
33:36
Speaker 2: and very gratifying, very frustrating career writing historical novels. But
33:45
Speaker 2: you guys know, people of a certain age, we're all
33:48
Speaker 2: still the children that come in when our moms call us.
33:51
Speaker 2: We are and that kind of never goes away. And
33:55
Speaker 2: the kid that I wanted to be was the kid
33:57
Speaker 2: that read Skinny Legs and all and Another Roadside Attraction
34:03
Speaker 2: and my favorite hit Bug Perfume and I and Vonneguts
34:07
Speaker 2: and and yeah, yeah, I read Clavel and I read
34:11
Speaker 2: all all the great historical ones too, But but man,
34:14
Speaker 2: you give me the Hobbit, or give me even even
34:20
Speaker 2: Alice in Wonderland and uh and Gulliver and you know,
34:25
Speaker 2: the swift things. And I I wanted to be Tom.
34:28
Speaker 2: I always wanted to be a social commentarist rue satire.
34:33
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, Tom's talking about faith and and
34:35
Speaker 2: mankind's good and bad angels and even while he's making
34:38
Speaker 2: you laugh or you're amazed at the pyrotechnics of the language,
34:41
Speaker 2: and man, I aspire to that, but I didn't get
34:44
Speaker 2: to do it. And so I'm kind of writing my
34:48
Speaker 2: Tom book.
34:50
Speaker 3: Oh fantastic, good for you.
34:54
Speaker 2: I think I can capitualize the plot real fast.
34:58
Speaker 3: Okay, So if you want to give it away, it's
35:01
Speaker 3: up to you, and.
35:02
Speaker 2: I'll probably end up giving it away. But no, the
35:06
Speaker 2: so if you there are over two hundred flood myths
35:12
Speaker 2: through history. Only a very few major cultures didn't have
35:16
Speaker 2: a flood myth, and they were all ones that were
35:18
Speaker 2: born very deep inland. But you know, the everything everybody
35:22
Speaker 2: from the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, because the Mesuitamian flood myth
35:25
Speaker 2: is Gilgamesh, but the Semitic blood myth is Noah, and
35:29
Speaker 2: they're the same flood. And so there's two hundred of
35:32
Speaker 2: them throughout time, and they all have two things in common.
35:35
Speaker 2: One a deity or deity's got sick and tired of us.
35:39
Speaker 2: And two hit the reset button, and that reset button
35:42
Speaker 2: was a flood, and you they're there throughout history, there's
35:47
Speaker 2: that myth is there. So I thought, the only culture
35:52
Speaker 2: that really has the ability to destroy life land life
35:56
Speaker 2: on this planet is us, and we got three ways
35:59
Speaker 2: to do it, you know, obviously warfare and weaponry, obviously
36:02
Speaker 2: disease and pestilence and the things we design and labs,
36:05
Speaker 2: and obviously climate change. So I'm literally writing the flood
36:09
Speaker 2: myth for our culture. Fantastic, and my protagonists are three
36:15
Speaker 2: animals walking to Noah's ark.
36:18
Speaker 3: I can't wait to read that one. All right, David,
36:23
Speaker 3: thanks so much for being on the podcast. Really appreciate
36:26
Speaker 3: you being here today.
36:27
Speaker 2: You're very welcome. It's been a pleasure and those are
36:29
Speaker 2: great questions, and I hope this has been useful for
36:32
Speaker 2: your audience.
36:33
Speaker 3: Thank you too, Thank you see you soon.
36:36
Speaker 2: I hope.
36:47
Speaker 3: Just a few parting words. First of all, of course,
36:50
Speaker 3: I have to put in another plug for my book,
36:52
Speaker 3: The Superman War Is. I don't know, perhaps you've been
36:55
Speaker 3: thinking this looks interesting, but I don't want to pre
36:59
Speaker 3: order why for something I can't have yet I get it.
37:02
Speaker 3: I do the same. I put it in my cart
37:05
Speaker 3: and wait till they can actually ship it. But if
37:08
Speaker 3: you order now, you can have it first thing on Tuesday.
37:12
Speaker 3: And if you're listening to this April twenty eighth, you
37:15
Speaker 3: have or later. You've got no excuse. So give yourself
37:18
Speaker 3: a little present, and let's face it, a little present
37:21
Speaker 3: for me too, since I've worked on this book for
37:24
Speaker 3: about two years. Remember this book is about a writer,
37:28
Speaker 3: Jerry Siegel, just like you, which is why I want
37:31
Speaker 3: to write his story and why I hope you'll be
37:34
Speaker 3: interested in reading it. Also, remember that the writer Cons
37:38
Speaker 3: Small group retreat is July fifteenth through nineteen, and our
37:42
Speaker 3: annual conference this year is Labor Day weekend, September fourth
37:46
Speaker 3: through seventh in Oklahoma City. You can get more information
37:49
Speaker 3: about all those programs at our website writer con dot com.
37:55
Speaker 3: Until next time, keep writing, and remember you cannot fail
38:01
Speaker 3: if you refuse to quit. See you next time.
38:24
Speaker 1: Sh