SpeakerCone: Clawson Smith - On Writing

Clawson Smith joins the program to discuss his writing development, the literature scene, and his new book "Prey for the Birds".

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello and welcome to the program.
My name is Michael Finney. Today I am joined by Clawson
Smith. Would you like to say hello,
Sir? Yeah, what's up, man?
Hey, good to have you on. We're going to talk about
writing, we're going to talk about books.
We're going to talk about the scene surrounding that, maybe

(00:22):
even algorithms. But let's start at the
beginning, you know? Tell us about your background in
writing, maybe what drew you to it, what interests you,
influences, anything along thoselines.
Where'd you start? Yeah, well, First off, I never
thought I would write. So there's that.
Kind of took me totally by surprise.

(00:44):
But the long and short of it is,I started in college.
I was a art school, just like anart school loser kind of.
And I was just for fun writing like a few little like things
here and there and running like a short story.
And my professor, I got a 2D professor who's actually an

(01:06):
accomplished professor, accomplished artist, I should
say, like 2D3D design. And I mean like 3D is since like
he's like a 3D artist, but he taught 2D design and he really
liked my stuff. And I end up sending him like a
beta copy of like my short stories.
And he just fly out told me thatI should just like drop out of
college and write. And I didn't like take his, I'd

(01:29):
take his advice like super seriously.
And then the longer I stayed andthis is like for graphic design.
So that was giving my my fill mycareer.
I quickly realized that a lot ofthese guys were just like
monkeys, like graphic designers,just like they're monkeys
working for somebody else, you know, dance, monkey dance kind

(01:50):
of thing, which like ironically,analysis has been replaced with
AI. So I end up taking his advice
and kind of taking a break, likea leap year working full time as
a graph designer, which was ableto get an entry level job.
And I just wrote on the side, published my first book in 2017
and then kind of subsequently written like anthologies, like

(02:12):
wrote a few books. And then I kind of took a break
in about 2019-2020. I wrote another series of books.
I wrote Goon Hood, which is a non fiction book, sort of kind
of like a just like my version, like an esoteric approach to
life. Like I read a lot of like

(02:34):
Nietzsche. And I just was really inspired
to write something like that. And so I end up writing this
book in 2020, publishing it. It kind of got big on like micro
niche, sort of right wing Twitter and then and not like
not super big, but I mean I solda couple 1000 copies I wrote up.

(02:55):
I broke and published a sequel to the book a few years ago.
Didn't really get as much traction.
And then I just have been swept up in other stuff.
So I just really haven't writtenas much in the last year or two.
I decided to kind of step back in with my original kind of
inspiration, which was fiction, but this time a little bit of a
different approach. So as far as inspiration goes,

(03:19):
like I've been a huge reader since I was a kid.
So I, I, I wrote, I read all theHarry Potter books I think like
in first grade, like the ones upup to the point they've been
published and then I read them as it came out after.
So I've just been like, always been like a book fiend.
Who are some of your favorite writers besides JK Rowling?
Back then I have no idea. Well, it doesn't even have to be

(03:39):
back then. It could be.
It could be now even. You know I'm.
I'm thinking, I'm thinking back then, like I read like tons of
young adult fiction, I'd say back then.
I mean, everyone, like every kidlikes Tolkien.
Not every kid, but I really likeTolkien.
I read Tolkien really early on, probably way earlier than I
know. Like a teacher of mine didn't

(04:01):
believe me that I read The Two Towers and she actually like
pulled my parents aside and saidI was like lying or something.
And she got really mad at me, which is cool because I got to
like dunk on her at her parent teacher conference and tell her
like about the ends and stuff. I really enjoyed the Red Wall
series by Brian Jacques. That was like, probably, I'd say
probably the three major influences of my writing were

(04:25):
the Red Wall series, like Brian,Brian Jacques or Jack's Brian
Jacques Hatchet. Classic.
Yeah, the classic hatchet, like I was a Boy Scout and loved
hatchet love like survival books.
And then the third one was probably, I'd have to say just a
collection of like, like military history books or like

(04:48):
and just history in general. I took a huge liking to Bernard
Cornwell when I was like in highschool and he just kind of blew
my mind as far as like how you could write something that was
like more or less like real or like it was like a fiction, but
said in a historical setting, like his Archer's Tale series,

(05:09):
his Burning Land saga. I, I kind of have dabbled in his
other series like I know he did.Sharps rifles is super popular.
There's like a there's like a Revolutionary War one.
I read a little bit of. I'm trying to think of what
else. Definitely I'd say Bernard
Cornwell for sure. He was, he was huge.

(05:31):
That got me into I started in high school.
I read like a lot of not just military journals like we were
assigned to read like, you know,like The Kite Runner and like
that kind of stuff like like Global War on Terror make you
feel bad for people in the Middle East or whatever kind of
books, which by the way, like all all they did for me.

(05:52):
I remember, like, when I was in high school, I had to read those
books. And I remember I read 1 and it
was just like, about how, like, there were like American
soldiers that were like marchingaround and doing patrols and
getting ambushed by insurgents. And then there's some girl and
then she got like raped by her uncle.
And that somehow was supposed tobe like, supposed to teach you

(06:13):
about how, like, America is bad or something.
And I remember I like, turned tomy teacher and I was like, like,
so like, we're supposed to be there.
Like, these people are just, youknow, this is the main
inspiration for Pray for the Birds, by the way.
Not really. But yeah, I really, I really
liked historical fiction that really got me and, and Bernard

(06:34):
Cornwell, by the way, for most people who don't know Bernard
Cornwell inspired George RR Martin, like George RR Martin,
like shamelessly stole a lot from from Bernard Cornwell.
And Bernard Cornwell wrote his books with the purpose of like
he he wrote, he read first hand sources of the medieval period

(06:56):
and then he wrote very believable, very good characters
that would have existed in that time period.
I know that some people don't like it.
I know, I know there's some people who don't like him as
much because especially like on our side of Twitter, because he
like isn't super big fan of the Christian world, or at least

(07:17):
like the Christianity in the sense that like it was like the
one good religion or something that was like holy a good thing.
I think Bernard Cornwell kind ofapproached it from a very
cynical lens. George RR Martin took that and
and went completely agnostic Andobviously like that's where Game
of Thrones, like that's where it's it's roots come from, is
from that like that kind of flair and theme.

(07:41):
And then like I also read like Clive Cussler.
I read Jack, Tom Clancy. Jack, this is Jack Mance.
I don't remember all the the different titles he did.
Tom Clancy I read there was another one my dad, my dad loves

(08:01):
like John Grisham. And so so I used like I read
that kind of I read like the corporate lawyer fiction, which
actually really enjoyed really, really like that kind of stuff.
I haven't read it for a long time, but yeah, pretty much
that. I'd say like that.
I gravitate now more toward, I mean, like my number one, like
the number one author. I tell people that I like to

(08:22):
probably out of the the two mostI'd say or no.
Jack Vance's would be the writerDying Earth series by by him and
then Glenn Cook's Black Company or just Blank Cook in general.
Those two authors probably rightnow, I think are severely under

(08:42):
like grossly underappreciated. Who are some of your favorite
authors maybe on the scene rightnow?
Who are you reading amongst the folks that we know?
See, this is where I'm going to I'm going to show my true
colors. I have not read anything from
people on our scene from a long time.
Shame. And that's that's mainly because
I haven't read for a while. I just started reading again

(09:03):
like a few months ago. Well, you've been turning stuff
out too, though that's the otherside of it.
You know, you're busy producing.It's hard to read and produce.
It it is yeah. You you want to read?
I have a stack of books. There's actually, I went through
my 1 redeeming quality about like my one redeeming quality a
while get thrown in the the the right wing writing gulag is I

(09:26):
did buy a bunch of books from people and I have them sitting
on a stack. I will read them eventually and
I look forward to reading them. There's a couple that I've read
that I really liked. I can't remember, I can't
remember their names for the life of me, but our side
produces good stuff. I'll say that like people here,
they, they really care about good writing.

(09:46):
So, so, you know, no one, no oneput me in the guillotine yet.
I'll eventually get to their books too.
I just, yeah, I'm, I'm in the midst of finishing editing a 500
page book. So it just takes up all of your
time on top of everything else that I already have going on.
So, so let's. Talk about the craft of writing.
You're in the middle of finishing a book.

(10:08):
How do you approach writing? Where do you start?
Is it with an idea? Is it with characters?
Tell us about the way that you do it.
So I'll tell you the way that some people do it, which is
tell. Us the way that you do it.
Well, some people are more organized than me and it makes
me feel it doesn't. We're here to talk to you,
Clawson. That's.

(10:29):
True, you know we. Want to hear how you do it?
I what? I do is I have my ideas are in a
cave and then I pull them out ofThe Cave and I light them on
fire and then in the ashes I scrawl little little sentences
and that's my writing. That's good.
It it's totally gonna see in my pants.
But yeah, OK, so what's not likethe craft side?

(10:50):
I think the way I look at it is I think about like, so for this
recent book, it's all from the perspective of one guy, except
for, you know, there's like a a small little of the epilogue.
You have like this narration that's in someone else's head.
Obviously, you know, like the head a little bit head hopping.
But this, this book is, is primarily from 1 character's

(11:11):
perspective, which by the way, that's not like been my style
from the very beginning. In fact, actually that was my #1
complaint I got when I publishedmy first book in 2017 was people
kept saying I like this, but youhad hop way too much and you're
going, you're going way too crazy.
Like I don't know who's who's saying what or thinking what or
whatever. So nowadays, like especially

(11:36):
with this new book, the way I look at it is I like brevity.
I don't like unnecessary. You got a 5. 100 page book.
Well, yeah. But like it's all like most of
it is just it's, it's dialogue and it's in its action.
I would say there's very little exposition.
There's some, but it's sprinkledexposition as in A1 sentence

(12:00):
about like what a part of the city might feel like.
I don't like describing them either the way I like it.
Here's how I like it. And here, here's how I write.
Now, I think I'd like to think my readers, and I do believe
this, my writers are smart people.
They don't need me to tell them that somebody's face is like

(12:23):
very proportional and looks like, you know, like a, like a,
like a Cologne model or something.
I don't need to describe them. How many hills there are and
just what trees are there. Maybe one particular tree to get
a feel for it. If you're in a different terrain
or something, it doesn't really matter.

(12:43):
I want my I mean, as far as those stories, I right now and
my I say we call my style, my voices has changed.
And like, what you'll find my writing currently is I would
like to, I tackle, I'll tackle things of the, the social
confrontation and the grappling of the people actually dealing

(13:06):
with, you know, uncomfortable situations and, and
confrontations that they're not expecting and it playing out in
a way that, you know, that you'dactually see at like that.
That's why I was saying about like the, when I was thinking
about like the John Grisham novels or the Tom Clancy, a lot
of these characters like they'renot, they're not perfect and

(13:27):
they don't know everything is about to happen.
And as a writer, I like to foreshadow things for my
readers. But I, I like my readers kind of
having to guess and I like them having to create in their own
heads what people may look like.So for me, I like to feel like
what I write, the craft, like the feel of dialogue.
I like the feel of how the wordssound and I like abrupt

(13:54):
descriptions and things kind of scattered throughout almost to
kind of pull you out. If it if it seems like a poem,
something will come out you out of the left field like a arrow,
just like shooting into a like a, a conversation over tea and
just shattering all the cups. And not just for the sake of it,

(14:15):
like, not just to, to, to invertvalues of, of traditional, like
literature or, or fiction, but in the sense that like, things
don't always things, things aren't perfect.
And the pictures seen should be,you know, it presented in a way
that it, it, it plays out exactly how how it in my world

(14:36):
how it should. So yeah, that if that makes
sense. Like, I like that.
I like setting things up in a way, especially this most recent
book where you can actually kindof get into the character's head
and you can actually follow him along from one side of not
having any belief in anything toending with him being very
strongly convicted, almost a a zealot or a madman at the end.

(15:00):
So. So you're focused on characters,
less on world building. Yes, but the world, the world
building I think is already there.
It it you just have to kind of you, you may have to read the
book a couple times to realize you might have, you might have
missed something. I'm like, I like hiding things
throughout the writing. That's what that's what Glenn

(15:23):
Cook does. And I, I love Glenn Cook for
that. That's why I reread his books
constantly. I've I've reread the Black
company so many times and every time I I find something new in
it. A good book does that right.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, and, you know, I, I think
that the longer I read and I write is the more I appreciate
the small things and not the grandiose things.

(15:44):
How many books? Have you written so far?
Oh, they think about that. I've.
I've written. Let's see.
So I've written, published. Yeah, yeah, published books.
I have published. Let's see, 123.
I think this would be my 9th one.
Wow. Yeah, that's power 8th.

(16:05):
Or 9th book? Yeah, but but as far as like
that, you can find that you can actually read 5 five or five or
six. I've taken off I've like
depublished 2 of them. 2/3 No, that is the math doesn't that
math doesn't check out. I've deep I've I've I've removed
I think 3 books from from Amazonthat I originally started with.

(16:28):
Now they're. Exclusives.
Yeah, you can't find the first three books I wrote.
I don't want you to find them. Why you?
Don't like them anymore? No.
No, that's interesting. I don't think anybody.
I don't think the writer does, to be honest with you.
I don't think anybody who I think anybody who writes like is
very happy with their initial work.
They may be like satisfied or they might be surprised to, to

(16:49):
go back and find they enjoy somethings that they wrote, but
they're not, they're not going to be like very impressed with
themselves. They might be like, oh, like I
did a pretty good OK job there. I forgot about that.
And then they're going to be disappointed for the rest of it.
At least that's how I it's. Interesting how you find that in
arts in general, you know, wherebands will put out maybe early

(17:16):
material and then they're like, well, we gravitated into this
other side of things, but fans lock on to maybe those first
handful of records and then theyend up playing that stuff live
for years. You know, I don't know if that
necessarily translates over to the author side of things.
It's not as if we that are putting out books are out there

(17:38):
performing our books. So there's a little bit of a
disconnect there. But I think that, you know, you
carry readership on along through the course of that.
Maybe earlier books become more popular or, or whatever, whether
it's by limiting access or just the the time that elapses, the

(18:04):
conversations around those things.
I mean, yeah, there's, there's lots of prolific writers, but
still people kind of dial into maybe a handful of works or
less, you know, in that sense. It's OK.
So the reason why I think like, I think what the difference
between writing and perhaps music is the fact that for one,

(18:29):
like writing a good writing is refinement.
You're taking essentially like Ithink what I was trying to get
AT and what I've come to realizeis that the best writers, they
there were some of that that said it in like our group chat
yesterday, but it's like aim small, miss small, right?
So you're basically taking like if you want to get like the best

(18:50):
book possible, you're going to want to start with a smaller
like you don't want to have too many variables.
You don't want to have too much that you're trying to cover.
You're not going to try to covera you can't cover 1000 year
period as well as you could cover A1 year period, if that
makes sense. Like you can 1000 year period,
but you're going to glossing over a lot of things.
And I'm not saying that quantityis, you know, obviously quantity

(19:11):
is the quality of all of its own, but in writing limitation
is far better than the opposite.Because in the same way that
like, you know, we've been inundated with like comic book
movies and just like junk swap content for the last, like
probably more like we've probably noticed it more in the

(19:32):
last decade or two. But like, especially nowadays,
if you go go to the movie theater, like nobody's
interested in going to the movies.
Like they only want to see reruns because you know, the new
stuff now, you know, like say, let's take like Marvel for
example, there's no rules, but they're going to rewrite and
they're going to they're going to go from, OK, we're only

(19:53):
fighting people that live on Earth too.
We'll just open up to the entireuniverse and then the multiverse
or whatever you want to call it garbage.
And also now there's because there's no limitation it become,
it feels fairly cheap and it feels rough.

(20:13):
It feels like you're not gettingthe final version of an idea or
of a plot. You're getting like the first.
Rough cut there's something thatmy friends and I used to do so a
lot of books I write are based off of and this most recent one
is based off of like a tabletop series of friends of mine I've
known for years we run these games and we've been running

(20:34):
them for years and they're they're basically story games so
they're 100% about stories and character that's.
Interesting. You're the second person I've
talked to in the last week that has had had this example, in
fact, that there's a lot of thisgoing on.
There is a lot. There's a lot more going on, I
think. Well, so for example, The Black

(20:55):
Company was also a tabletop series written by, you know, of
Vietnam War vets. So they're all Vietnam War vets
who all ran a game together in afictional universe, but they
applied what they've gone through in, you know, in Vietnam
into the world. Same thing goes with with my
friends of mine. We, a lot of us are military.

(21:18):
A lot of us are, you know, one guy's a search and rescue guy,
one guy is a special forces, another guy is an engineer.
So what the way we look at our the way we look at how we, we
build out our world and how we, you know, our our games, our
story games run through them is much more akin to like a non

(21:39):
fiction crime novel. Then it would be like, say a
like whatever, like Brandon Sanderson ask, like slop world
or something like slop content. And, and I think that that like
that the limitation on, on what for one, older media had in
what, like I, I'd say what, what, how we approach it or we,

(22:03):
we, we kind of, we use a thing called, we use the system called
microscope that we use where it,it's actually, it's built to
build worlds. It's a world building.
I can't remember who made it. It's like it's designed to like
for people to create worlds. And we use it to refine and kind
of zoom in on a lens of what we want to be playing in.

(22:24):
So for us, it was like, let's take, let's take like Baghdad
and let's make it like Baghdad built over ancient Sumeria or
ancient Egypt. And then let's like put in the
caliphate. Let's put it in the, you know,
the middle age, you know, right,right before taking Jerusalem.

(22:47):
That was basically like our inspiration for this world.
And then my, my character was the rooster.
So like that's I'm, I'm speakingfrom my own character's
perspective. And I think that that I think
that what people really, when you want to talk about like good
writing. I'm not saying if my writing is
like phenomenal or anything, butthe writing I enjoy, the writing

(23:09):
I try to emulate is writing thattakes really tries to refine and
reduce and really only keep the gems and really try to like try
to to reduce and and make it like streamlined, especially for
pacing. Because I think the other thing
too is it like a lot of these, alot of the stuff that we're like

(23:30):
we're presented to like fiction media now is a lot of it could
like you're watching something, you're like, OK, half this movie
could be like you won't, you don't need this.
For example, my wife and I just went and watched Star Wars
Episode 3. They were re released in
theaters. There's a huge span of events.
Most of that movie is foreshadowing.

(23:52):
I don't know how you feel about the prequels, but the most of
the movie takes place in a series of chambers and rooms
talking about the political events happening all over the
Star Wars Galaxy, You know, universe Galaxy, and how this
war is coming to an end. And the kind of plots and the
subplots of the Emperor, well, the Chancellor, Palpatine,

(24:16):
Anakin, the Jedi Council, how there's all these kind of
different political powers that are making moves and those
characters that are represented.People love that movie.
And there's there's good action in it.
But the majority of movie until the very end is just dialogue.
And it's it's plots, it's political espionage and like

(24:39):
it's court intrigue. I think that is.
And it's crazy how popular that movie is.
Now take like a Marvel movie that could be 100% action and
it's you're going to bore peopleto tears.
They're going to be they're going to be asleep.
You know, how do you explain that, right?
Nostalgia, you know, rejection of the sequel trilogy.

(25:07):
There's a lot of factors if and if the points you're making here
right in this court intrigue andthe plots.
Why does that not extend to Attack of the Clones?
I think it does. Less, I think.
I think, I think that I think the court intrigue of the third

(25:28):
movie was much more interesting than the second movie is good.
I, I, I, I'm like one of the people.
I think that episode, I think Attack of the Clones was
actually a a fairly good movie and it had a lot of mythology
embedded. I mean, like George Lucas is a
he is a fanatic for Joseph Campbell and it, it's, it's
present in all of his movies. I think the issue, I think the

(25:54):
the thing episode 3 did better than episode 2 is I think we can
all agree that fiction, the villain makes a fiction like the
villain is the most important part because because the villain
moves the, the plot and they, they present an obstacle to the
protagonist in a series of challenges, whether they're like

(26:18):
mortal or immortal, that result in either like victory or
tragedy. And I think in episode 2, the
number one criticism I've heard from people is that there's not
a defined antagonist until the end, sort of with a Count Dooku
and, and the, the, you know, theSeparatist.

(26:38):
And so a lot of people, they don't really appreciate the
cloak. I don't know how you feel about
the cloak and dagger of the, of the beginning with the
assassination plots and stuff. People just don't really enjoy
it. I for one, I actually really
enjoyed that. I don't need the defined, I
don't need like the Darth Vader in front of me.
But that's what people really like the original movies,
because your enemy and your antagonist are clearly defined

(27:01):
and they're, they're ruthless and they're making moves and
they're clearly trying to exterminate the protagonist.
And that is always a more riveting story than for for the
majority of audiences and for most people mythologically then
like, say, a hidden enemy that isn't really well defined.
Or maybe the story kind of meanders and beats around the

(27:23):
Bush a lot until maybe there's arevelation at the very end.
Fair, reasonable. Let's pivot a little bit because
I feel like we could, we could beat Star Wars to death, you
know? Oh.
Yeah, it has been as. We find in the chat, you know,
sometimes I like to find a tweetthat an incendiary tweet and

(27:45):
just lob it in there just to getpeople going.
But let's talk about your work. Let's hear about what you have
been working on, what you're getting ready to release.
We've gotten to see the cover, you know, Tell us maybe about
your process on making the cover, when people can expect to
get the book. Anything that you feel is

(28:07):
important in regards to this newrelease?
The cover is the cover is not important except for us to draw
all all I want is I want to drawpeople in.
So it felt I felt like going forlike the old school fiction
covers with like a not necessarily A twist, but just

(28:29):
like bold dramatic colours, heavy metal inspired, like just
all the same stuff you would have expected.
There is a bird on the cover. So unfortunately I'm, I'm being
lumped into the other young adult fiction authors, all the
women who have Ravens and crows.At least it's a, it's an eagle

(28:52):
that that's my only defense. It's an eagle.
It's not a it's not a crow. I've never written or read any
of those books, by the way, thatwhatever.
They're all the various crow, Raven, you know, books.
I don't know what they're reallyabout, but I've heard.
I'm not even necessarily sure I know what you're talking about.
It's like the. The throne of birds, they're

(29:15):
like it's all this like sort of new, like imagine like you walk
into a target and you are looking in the fiction series
that that's what's going to be in the front of it.
Like you go into a a Walmart andthat's like what the the books
you'll see. I think I do know who you're
talking about. It's like the they're like
George Martin RIP off titles, right?

(29:35):
Yeah, they and their their George Martin Ribuff titles,
sans any of the interesting dialogue or like, intrigue of
Game of Thrones, which is the only reason why people actually
enjoy those books, I thought. They were basically like
medieval. War of Roses and fantasy stuff,
yeah. Romance.

(29:57):
Romanticy. Oh, those.
Ones maybe I'm. Wrong.
I don't know. I'm not sure what all you're
talking about. I haven't read them I'm.
I'm I'm making fun of my own cover.
I'm. Speculating here, why not?
Poke a little fun. I can't be, I can't be a super
serious poster. So we.
Can expect a strong romance story in Prey for the birds is

(30:18):
what I'm hearing I think. There's like 3 women in the
book. It's a very mastering commander
coded. It's a war fantasy book.
There doesn't need to be romancein it.
There's going to be romance in the second book, but for other
he, he has to get married for other reasons.
So it's a political thing. I'm not going to get into.
I'm not going to get into it. It's there's there.

(30:40):
All I'll say is that you're not going to spoil.
The plot right here on the program polygamy.
Might be involved and, and I'll leave it at that.
So the book comes out next monthif you want.
June. Yeah, yeah, in June.
June. Yeah, June, I don't know when

(31:01):
this is the most is going to drop.
So so June this will. Come out in June as well, OK?
So this month it comes out, it comes out in, you know, future
me is saying this comes out thismonth and in a in a few weeks.
If you want to blurb as far as what to expect since we're

(31:24):
talking about about other it's about critiquing other books and
other fiction series. This book coming out is I think
what I how I described it on Twitter is it's Game of Thrones
without Lib tardism. It's Kingdom of heaven without

(31:45):
the anti war pro Islam propaganda.
It's black company if Glenn Cookwas obsessed with sand and like
the anti Anakin. And yeah, that's about it.
I mean, the the series focuses on one guy who just simply can't

(32:07):
be killed. Well, he can't be killed.
It's just that's the kind of the, the hook is he, he, he
can't die and he gets marched off into this desert, this, this
realm, you know, outside of his own knowledge and purview.

(32:28):
All he knows is he's like, I'm, I'm, he was basically forced
here to this place and and then soon quickly realizes that, you
know, it's not really all he washoping it would be.
Although to be fair, he kind of assumed he just kind of died
drinking, so he didn't really expect to have a whole long

(32:49):
escapade in the desert. This is 100%.
Everything that happens in this book was how it happened in our
game. This was meant to be a throwaway
character and he somehow lived way longer than he should have.
And that's all. I'll, I'll, I'll leave it at
that. As far as like his as the main
character, his name's Rooster. He's a middle-aged guy.

(33:12):
He was not necessarily a good Lord.
He was kind of bad dude and now he's like has a lot of regrets
in his life and now he's kind offorced to, to figure out what's
going on in this side. This whole like desert
landscape. So it's very much like, you
know, it's a, it's a, you know, a white man in foreign land.

(33:33):
I'd say it's like whatever they call that trope.
Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence of Arabia, the huge
influence. Yeah, I I love Lawrence Arabia.
It's probably one of my favoritemovies of all time.
You scroll through my tweets, you'll see that like, I just
made a whole tweet about how youcan even remake that movie.
Besides the fact there's no Peter O'tooles that exist
anymore or Al Guinness to to Muslim face, we want to call it.

(33:56):
It's not really black facing. It's kind of brown facing, which
by the way, Al Guinness was phenomenal.
Still in in that movie. I don't care what you say, but
yeah, it's kind of it's called Lawrence Arabia.
The difference between Lawrence and Arabia though, and and pray
for the birds is Lawrence Arabia.
Lawrence is he's enamored in love with the desert and he's

(34:22):
very pure and he is quickly likeall that romanticism about the
desert is banished very quickly and replaced with a sort of
shell shocked like realism at the end where he's kind of he's
he's endured what many people doin war and kind of come back

(34:46):
kind of a broken person. It's that's my my take away of
of Lawrence Arabia this and preyfor the birds is not like that
rooster already doesn't like this is AI don't.
I obviously like the way that mymy characters talk is what you
see a lot of them like in like like say in Glenn Cook's example
where I try to make it. I don't try Shakespeare it the

(35:11):
characters talk of how you'd have troops talk now if you had
a if you were the bunch of marines in Iraq.
They're they're not going to talk all fancy and they're not
going to, you know, be extremely, you know, these are
essentially levees or mercenaries.
They're not well read men. They don't, they're not
polished. They don't go and drink wine and

(35:31):
go to balls. They don't, they're not, they're
not a men of high esteem or class.
They're basically hacking an existence out in the desert for,
for coins, killing people for money and just trying to to
survive. So that's how they they kind of
the grounded dialogue that I use.

(35:53):
But on top of that, the moralityI don't, I don't try to inject a
morality like a a modern morality where we're not used to
death, where in like the medieval period, like people are
much more accustomed to death. And it wasn't this great shock,
which in some ways Game of Thrones, I think kind of is
disappointing where like death is, it is more of a reality.

(36:14):
But like, if you watch the TV show, the way it's described,
even in the books too, the way it's described, is it in a way,
sometimes it starts to feel likelike death is like the shock
when like in the old times it wasn't and had greater meaning
to it. So and of course, like it's a,
it's more like a like a greater fantasy.
But there's your typical fantasyelements in the book.

(36:36):
I do strongly gravitate towards the darker.
I'm a huge fan of HP Lovecraft. I'm a huge fan of horror.
So there's definitely more horror elements you'll find and
pray for the birds than your typical like fantasy series,
I'll say that for sure. That's interesting.
Bad guys are bad. Bad guys are very, very bad.

(36:57):
Like they're not just like, oh, they're bad guys and they wear
black. Like, no, they're really fucking
bad. They're horrible.
So are there? Any things that we haven't heard
about from you that you feel we should know or any closing
thoughts? I'm a crazy person, that's why I

(37:17):
wrote a 500 page book in two months.
That's ripping. Honestly.
Ripping yeah, we're ripping. I took AI took a break from my
I, I basically close up shop my my company and said I'm going to
I'm like goodbye everyone for, for, you know, these few months.
I'm just going to write this basically what I did.

(37:37):
No, I, I would just say, you know, I, I encourage people to
read. I really enjoy writing.
I've had a lot of different readers over, I think I
mentioned this to you before we started, but like I've, I've
lived like 4 different lives as a, as a writer.
I started as a fiction writer. I started writing non fiction.

(38:00):
I kind of dabbled in religious and now I'm back to fiction.
So we got we, we came full circle.
And yeah, I, I, I, I, I am a huge advocate and I'm a fan of
this space. I love the self published, I
love the anti trad publishing people.

(38:20):
I wish everybody in the space the best of luck and immense
success because they deserve it because everyone here writes
very, very well that they haven't written very well yet.
They will soon. I've seen a lot of people in the
space improve like their their writing has become really good.
And I think that that this happens in a, in a way, I think

(38:43):
that the self-publishing sphere,I think it, it only gets better
from here because, you know, people are tired of what they're
being, what's being forced upon them.
You know, and even though they're writing and reading of
kind of taking a, you know, they, they've hit a lower point
because of like just, you know, just because of the, the modern
age of digital age and people have lower attention spans and

(39:05):
they're watching TikTok and stuff and they're not
necessarily reading. I think there's been a huge
comeback with we're talking about audio books off, you know,
offline just just about that andhow, how I mean, people are are
just eating up audiobooks left and right.
And so I think, I guess like, I would probably just echo what
you were saying to me honestly, which is like, like, you've made

(39:26):
me want to really double down onaudiobooks and get, and just
really get them out there and, and get some really good
professional sound out there formy, my work.
So I think everyone should be doing that because they can grow
their audiences in the and hopefully, I mean, you know, God
willing, we can put trad publishing out of business and
then we can become the next tradpublishers.

(39:47):
We'll see, see what happens. Well, hey.
Clawson, I appreciate you takingthe time.
Thank you. Yeah, thanks for telling us
about your background in writing, the craft of writing
and, you know, obviously the newbooks.
Looking forward to Pray for the Birds.
Enjoy the rest of your day and we'll talk again before too

(40:08):
long. Thank you.