Writer's Block Workshop - Making Incremental Progress 2025

We're halfway through the Writer's Block program for 2025 and decided to revisit a topic from last year (it had been almost a year)

How is the progress on your work coming along?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Today talking making incrementalprogress up above slew of stuff.
Gosh, Thursday space with Chris.We're actually going to do a bit
of a continuation of our theme here, which is making an
incremental progress. We'll we'll do that one on the
film 3 space as well. So that will be a slightly

(00:22):
different angle, but at the at the same time, a thematic
continuation. Luckily, you know, if you if you
want to join it over there and talk to them.
Gosh, the workshop recording from a month ago is up on the
podcast platform. If you want to catch that, you

(00:44):
know, share it around, let people hear it.
I put out a new video while a remake of a video from last
year. As it turns out, there is unrest
in the force. New tools, new look, same audio.
Also, the workshop article is upon sub stack, so if you're

(01:11):
looking to read a little bit, that's an opportunity as well.
Jeez, let's see. Oh, Anunnaki got that out this
month. I'm doing all my I'm doing all
my incremental progress, my workshop check in right out of
the gate. Finally this Monday, Audible
approved the audio book. So that's finally out.

(01:33):
Luckily. Man, it took, I feel like it
took one extra day, unfortunately, but you know, it
is what it is. It's up there now.
And last announcement, you know,drum roll, please.
Ricky has got Royal Rd. working for him.
You want to give us an update onRoyal Rd.
Ricky? Yes, thank you, Michael.

(01:57):
Yeah. So I've been talking about it
ever since you and MJ introducedme to it, and I finally got my
ducks in a row, got some cover art.
It's a very simple process to post up there.
It's it's like the dashboard's not that complicated and I'm
already nearing 100 views. Each view is representing

(02:20):
someone's looked at a chapter Rep like read a chapter.
So and they're they're neck and neck.
They're almost one. I launched 1-2 days before the
other and Dragons catching up with it.
So I and I plan on doing a recording of chapter read the

(02:40):
Book of Dragon today and then start posting it on there and
stuff like that. So we'll see how that works out.
Everything's great. Yeah, very cool.
Maybe we'll get more into that before too long.
But Heidi, how are you? How's your progress coming

(03:02):
along? It's coming along.
I'm just focusing completely on the audio book right now and you
know, I'll tell you something kind of interesting that I
discovered is that ChatGPT can listen and tell you what
problems are what's going wrong on certain things.

(03:23):
And I didn't know that but I discovered it, you know, so like
I could give it like a little 5 minute thing.
There was this rubbing noise andreel and ChatGPT help me
diagnose it. I mean, after we record the
section, but basically it was like my mic cord was moving, I

(03:44):
guess moving against something. And I have a blue Yeti mic and
evidently they're notorious for this all these things I didn't
know that I I learned courtesy of the AI.
So I'm I'm pretty you know, these, these, this is a useful
you useful thing that AI can do if it can help diagnose
problems. It's like I don't need it to do

(04:05):
the creative part, but. Some people were diagnosing this
problem without ChatGPT for you.The mic chord.
Did you tell me the mic chord? Yeah.
I, I thought I OK, so just so you understand where I'm at, did

(04:25):
you, I believe you. I'm just, I don't remember us
having this conversation, but I,I, it's the mic though.
I mean, is Blue Yeti a problem for this kind of recording?
Should I look at investing in something different?
It's not the Blue Yeti so much as like just any cable, like if

(04:51):
you are touching the cable or it's moving, those vibrations
are going to transfer to the microphone and the microphone is
going to pick it up and transferit into your recording program.
So it doesn't really matter, youknow, what microphone you're
using. If there is movement occurring
to the microphone or to the cable, then that's going to
happen. You know, that's just the nature

(05:12):
of the equipment. Well, I'll.
I'll tell you what happened was I had a different headset, a
different and it died. It just stopped working.
So I switched for the later chapters and that's where I
noticed it all started happening.
Gotcha. So I don't know what to do
about. That, but I just have to make

(05:33):
sure your cables aren't touchingand when you move, you know.
Down. Yeah, there you go.
Down to the, to the arm. I taped it to me.
I taped it to everything so thatit can't move.
I'm stand. I, you know, I just taped it to
my shirt, everything or my skin actually, so that it's not, it

(05:54):
can't move, but it's, it's, you know, you're a little trapped
with it, but it is what it is. Yeah, well, you know, welcome to
the wonderful world of audio recording and production, indie,
indie level when you're doing ityourself.
Any other updates? Any other notes, ideas, concepts
before we say hello to Robin andthen get into the discussion,

(06:20):
the actual proper discussion? I've been poking around on some
poems I'm working on. I'm and I used, I love playing
with the AI stuff. What can I say?
I use there's 11 labs. I'm sure you know, I'm telling
you stuff you already know, Michael, but where they do AI

(06:41):
voices. So that was kind of interesting
because I have this poem that I've been messing with that
really needs a male narrator. So I wanted to hear like a male
reading it. So I, I put it in there just to
hear it. And I like being able to mess
with the AI with little short things like a poem because I can

(07:02):
get, I can just get a feel for what it can and can't do.
And I, I kind of think that's it.
It allows me to get an understanding of because, you
know, I'm, I'm of the opinion that we will be incorporating
this stuff into our work in one way or another.
And I'm not so interested in having it incorporated on the

(07:25):
creative level as much as I am on the technical level.
So that's kind of what I'm poking out right now.
So that was kind of interesting.I mean, you know, you can pay
them. I, I just did sort of a free
version, but it's, it's just sort of interesting to see what
this stuff can do, you know, AndI found that you have to really

(07:46):
kind of hem it in because it'll,it'll, it'll attempt to say, oh,
let me rewrite this phrase like,no, no, I don't want you to do
that. I just want this, I want you to
tell me, you know, can you, you know, you know, what's what's
causing this? I need to know about the tech
side of things. And I found AI to be really

(08:07):
useful in that. So I've been poking around some
poems. I'm working on those and yeah,
so that's kind of where I'm at. I got to get back to a couple of
things, but I'm I've got, let mejust say I think I have open up
machine. I have 123456 more chapters to

(08:34):
finish up and then I'll be done with the audiobook for song
list. I've got, I think, over 12 hours
of audio done, so 6 more chapters might be another two or
three hours. So yeah, hopefully, I'm hoping
to finish it in the next 10 days, two weeks.
I'll give myself two weeks, let's say.

(08:55):
Hopefully it'll be sooner. All right, I, I Robin, how I
will stop now, but that's where I'm at.
I'm good. I'm good.
You know, last week I was so frustrated because I was trying
to finish up sort of the last ofMission Infinity and it wasn't

(09:16):
happening. I was so frustrated with this
epilogue. And then what I realized on I
think it was Thursday or Friday.I don't need an epilogue.
I was trying to do too much. So one word of caution.
Sometimes you want to prolong a project for whatever reason, and

(09:37):
that's what I was doing. So I am done with the writing.
I'm 100% done with the writing of Mission Sanity.
I have a very pesky formatting issue that I brought upon myself
and I'm working through that now.
It's really technical and it just involves spacing and

(09:58):
paragraphs and dialogue tags. And that's going to take me
probably a week or two. And then I'm finished with
Finity and I'm getting ready to,I have a couple of manuscript
contests, unpublished manuscriptcontests.
Then I'm going to enter, I'm going to start.

(10:20):
I started my query letter and itturns out the summary a summer.
Writing a summary for your own book is very, very difficult.
I put it past a couple of people, a couple of sci-fi
writers, and they gave it sort of the thumbs down.
So I have to start over. It's a very difficult thing for

(10:41):
anybody to do, you know, doing aprofessional summary.
It's not only what you would seeat the back of an Amazon blurb,
but what a, an agent or a, I think even a small press would
want to see like a proper summary.
And it's so it's very important.So those are my next steps.

(11:02):
I'm very excited. I feel like I really have
closure now and I'm ready to go on to so sort of the slower
marketing of Miss Infinity. And then July, August, I'll
start on a new project while I'm, you know, sort of doing all
that kind of submitting and hoping somebody will somebody or

(11:23):
some press will pick up Miss Infinity.
So yeah, that's what's up. Yeah, very cool.
Glad to hear it. Yeah, trying to think you recall
the website Query Finder was it?I think it's Query Finder.

(11:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have heard of that and I'm
going to look at it. I'm not.
I'm sort of. Not query tracker.
Query tracker. Query tracker, yes, I have heard
of that. That's sort of all, that's like
all the next kind of steps. And I'm, I know we're doing,
we're talking about increments today and that's sort of I
really need to hear about, you know, doing things slowly and at

(12:07):
the right pace. So yeah.
I did it earlier this year over the course of like a month and a
half. There's a lot of agents on
there. Oh, OK.
So I was like definitely pacing myself, just kind of evaluating,
you know, who would be a, a goodpossible person, a message.

(12:29):
I didn't want to just like shotgun everybody, you know.
So I think I only sent out maybe18, which is not a lot just to,
you know, for you I would say. Right.
I would say, you know, make an effort to basically message
everybody that, you know, potentially makes sense for you,
right? And there's a lot, there's a

(12:51):
just a slew of them on there. Let me open up the notes.
So, you know, this is this is where we'll start.
We'll start the actual discussion at what is working
for you. You know, Heidi, Ricky Robin,
what is working for you in termsof productivity?

(13:12):
You know the the routines or habits that you have.
Well, I right now, because of what's been going on like for
the last couple years, I was writing novels.
So I have a bunch of, I have like 4 novels hanging around.
They're all at like the 0 drafts.

(13:33):
Well, not all. Some are edited well, I I I edit
very slowly. So what I'm doing right now is
I'm trying to edit a chapter a day and just wait.
Like cut away at it because I don't I don't enjoy editing as
much as I enjoy composing by zero drafts are basically the

(13:56):
first thought best thought off the outline, whatever word
budget three I continuum. I'm working on a zero draft is
the first thought best thought with very little changed.
So I leave that. And then sometimes I added
chapter to chapter, but oftentimes I'm just so Jones
throwing chapters down that I just keep going, especially if I

(14:19):
have a series that I'm right nowI've powered through two
Dragons. They're they're each 100K power
through Wargate, A Wargate and ahalf.
There's a big like 1/2 of Part 2.
So I just beat up on it. And then I take a separate path
through. I listen to it as if I'm

(14:45):
rewriting. Once that's done, I consider it
a first draft and I'm, I'm kind of like finished with it.
So if I can write 2K of 0 draft a day, that's pretty good.
If I can edit a chapter a day, that's pretty good.
And I've been really getting into looking at Royal Rd. you

(15:06):
know, all the stats and watchingthings.
That's how I, that's how I, that's what's working for me.
If that's what the question is, you know.
Yeah, those are all fair angles.You know, for me, I, I kind of

(15:26):
jump around between stuff obviously like I'm very deadline
focused. So I kind of set that and then
work my way backwards and try and make sure that I'm kind of
fitting in as much as I can or as much as I need to to, to hit
those dates. And, you know, I think like
everybody, I've got like a handful of them I'm juggling at

(15:47):
any given time right now. The one I've been really
hammering on because I, I wantedto, I want to see how far I can
get with it before the end of this month is for the paperback
that I'm working on for release in November.
I believe it is. So I'm like 112th of the way

(16:07):
through the layout on there. And it's a lot of work, heavily
pictorial. And, you know, it's like 400
pages, even 12% is quite a smallamount of page count in that
sense. But, you know, we're getting

(16:28):
there a little bit of time. I got a handful of other pieces.
I started working on editing theaudio book for August this past
weekend because it's going to take a bit of work.
I want to get that first round of editing done by the end of
this month, and I think I can doit.
You know, we're only halfway through the month, so I should

(16:48):
be able to get that wrapped up. It's only like an hour and a
half of audio. But in turn, I also have the
audio book for July that I need to get on, and it's going to
have an ebook piece that goes with it.
Now, the ebook is already done and laid out.
That's completed. I finished that maybe a week or
two ago, but the audio book, I need to do a little bit of

(17:11):
tracking, which means a little bit of editing and then, you
know, a little bit of exporting and uploading and design.
I got to get the cover made-up for that as well.
So, you know, always kind of kicking things around in the
hopper and basically, you know that that's in a nutshell, like

(17:32):
making incremental progress. To me, it's just like not trying
to get overwhelmed, but chippingaway a little bit.
I don't try to look at like how much has to be done.
I just try to think of like, howmuch can I get done at any given
time and, and try and accomplishall that.

(17:54):
Now, once the deadlines start getting close, hopefully you're
far enough long that if you haveto grind on it, you know, no big
deal. You can, you can focus and get
into that zone where you can just knock out everything that
needs to happen before you have to get everything submitted.
But you know, it is what it is. I'd rather work ahead and be

(18:16):
able to pace myself then have like a crunch time.
That's just my opinion on it. So question I will say hey
spirits, I threw you a mic if you want to come up.
Haven't talked to you in a whileso let us know if you want to
share or put yourself to task. Good to see you and Michael.

(18:37):
So you've got this 400 page book.
What? What's it about?
What is it may I ask? You may and I'm I'm going to
kind of keep that on the the back burner for a little while
longer. I'll start talking about it and
making announcements on it towards the fall.

(18:59):
But it's you know, again, it's asizable it's a sizable thing.
So it's and, and again, like I got to do the audiobook read for
it in advance of the actual submission for KDP for
publishing. I'm going to do a paperback and
I'm going to do a hardback. And yeah, you know, that's,

(19:23):
that's the first hardback I'll have done.
And I think it's fitting at least for this material.
And, you know, we'll see how it goes.
It's it's, it's kind of a beast.Yes, I I'm aware I'm I'm
familiar with 400 page beasts, so I'm living with one right
now. But yeah, so.

(19:48):
What's working for you and your routines and habits?
Sheer grit. That's really what works for me.
It's just I will do this. That's kind of my thing.
Organization, sure. I mean, it's, it's daily

(20:10):
organization is a challenge for me because my days are not the
same. I don't know if everyone, I
mean, so I have different thingshappening on different days and,
and I have to kind of work around that.
So it it literally does just become, you know, I will do this
just that's really the thing that happens for me.

(20:34):
And then there's there's the, asRicky calls it, the muse just
starts getting on top of you andyou just got to, you know, like
do that's kind of what I I think, I think it's, you know, I
think it's kind of different foreverybody.
You know, how how everybody chooses to kind of hit their

(20:58):
goals. So for me, it's like I have to
juggle everything with the rest of my life.
So it's kind of like what I'm doing right now with the audio
book. I'm just sort of laser focused
on that as much as I can be witheverything else.
And I have to put it aside. Like on Sunday, you know, it's

(21:19):
Father's Day, I have to put somestuff aside.
So you know that that's just kind of what I do.
I think I don't know about you guys, but I think it would
probably help to have some more.I don't almost concrete, you
know, semi concrete deadlines because I think it gives you

(21:42):
something to work for. I don't know about concrete
deadlines. It becomes problematic.
You can do it. But then I think it when you're
artistic, when you're when you kind of want to balance the art
with it, when you're sort of like, I really want this to be
right. You know, you have to balance it
with that sort of perfectionism,which is, you know, you

(22:08):
challenging. I mean, you want everything to
be perfect. It's never going to be.
But you, you also want it to be done.
You just need to finish it. Like Robin was saying, she's
just like, I'm, I just realized that this epilogue was me
dragging this on. And I get that, right?

(22:30):
You like your story, you drag iton.
Sometimes you have to know when to stop.
So I mean, I think part of it isknowing when to stop is kind of
an important thing to consider when you're when you're putting
forward deadlines, even if they're not completely hard
deadlines. Well, can I, I would say it a

(22:50):
little bit differently and this is just me.
It's not, I think you said when you know, know when to stop.
For me, it's when having the courage to stop because when I
stop writing, that means that I have to go to the next step,
which is much more uncomfortablefor me than writing.

(23:11):
That's the judgment stage, the querying, the, you know, and all
that. And like, waiting is the comfort
zone for me. It's fine.
It's, you know, it's getting outof that.
And I have to say, all right, it's time to stop and go to the
next stage. Oh, and just to, you know,
continue to the conversation with what works and what
doesn't. You know, I've, it depends how

(23:32):
you're built. I'm very, I've always been very
scheduled. Like when I was a kid, I went to
the sleep at the same time when I was six years old and my mom
says it's time to stop taking naps.
I said, oh, please, can I pleasetake a nap?
That's like a story she always tells.
So it sort of it's like built into me to have a schedule.

(23:53):
So I am, I think very well in the morning.
So I, I write for a block. I do everything in blocks of
time. That's what works for me.
I time block in the morning. Now in the afternoon I'm
working. I do have some deadlines now
because I'm also going to be submitting some poems to

(24:14):
journals. So there's the whole process of
when, when is the when is the, do you know when is the
submission date for poetry for this journal?
When is it for that journal? And I have a spreadsheet for all
that. So for me, it's time, time
management, always blocking timeon a calendar.
And you know, the, I guess the deadlines for me are the

(24:39):
contests and the and the when I really want to get the get my
book out to agents and small presses.
So that works for me. I'm behind the time block thing.

(25:00):
I don't often talk about it, butit takes me like between two and
four hours, maybe 2 and 3 hours to write 2000 words if it's all
outlined, if it's like in a state of readiness.
And you do have to make time blocks like I theorized because

(25:21):
of the weekend I had a couple months ago where I wrote 10K and
one weekend because it was like a downhill part of the narrative
that I was like stoked, right? So there was no interrupted news
access. It was just when can I write
again? When can I write again?
And like every, every four, likeI set aside 4 hours, I take a

(25:41):
break, 2 hours, then there's another 4 hours, take a break
for two hours. So if I didn't have like a full
time gig to make bread and butter, I could probably
efficiently knock novels out like that.
And I would prefer that. But you do have to calculate
that sort of thing. Time blocks, you know, you do.
It's part of the adaptive equation.

(26:03):
And you also have to know not just time blocks, but when you
get, when is it that you sort ofyour mind Peters out?
Like for me, I'm slower than you, Ricky.
I can only write if I'm on a first draft, 500 to 1000 words
Max. And unlike you, I enjoy editing
because it's already written. So it's just making it better.

(26:24):
But I will find that it's just natural for me.
I'll start, you know, let's say I started time A.
Let's say I start at 7:00 in themorning.
I will, I know by 10:00 I feel it.
I can no longer, I no longer have that sharpness of thought
and that kind of associative waythat I think when I'm writing at

(26:47):
my best. So I just know three hours is it
one big time block and I'm done for the day with that kind of
writing. And I then I have to go on to
sort of administrative stuff, networking and you know, my
spreadsheets, my beloved spreadsheets.
When is this due? When is that do reaching out to,
you know, this editor? But for me, that's a lot less,

(27:08):
you know, that's a lot less of amental challenge.
It's more of a administrative thing.
Yeah, I'm with it. I am not big on over organizing
the planning side of things. Like I keep mental notes of a

(27:29):
lot of stuff, but I'm not tryingto do like spreadsheets about
like tasks that I have to do. I'll make lists, I'll write on
like like sticky notes, like what I got to get done for the
day or for the next couple of days.

(27:50):
I do keep a huge kind of like, Idon't know, status report kind
of thing on my graph paper notebook.
So like all of that is kind of like graphed out on there so
that I can basically say like every, let's say two or three

(28:10):
months, I'll remake that and eliminate what has been
completed, add on, you know, things as they're making
progress. I keep the list of all of the
podcasts that I do on there so that I can schedule that out so
that I can schedule, you know, the spaces that I have and the

(28:31):
topics and when podcasts are coming out.
So I can kind of keep them straight to make sure that like
for example, you know, this weekthe the workshop article comes
out, the workshop podcast from last month comes out and the
workshop for this month on the writer's block is obviously this
week. So all those things happen at

(28:52):
the same time. And, you know, if you're
following me across social media, then you see these very
common images, you see, you know, the, these conversations
kind of occurring across the board, you know, wherever,
wherever you are. And hopefully, you know, a month
over month that starts to get some recognition and you know,

(29:15):
people identify. OK, that's what's happening.
Same thing with the podcasts, you know, the, the regular
writing, authorship and publishing or like interview
stuff over there or other promotions.
Like I keep track of these things, but I'm not necessarily
saying like, oh, by such and such day, I got to have this
done. I kind of know, you know, on the

(29:36):
weekends, I will edit the podcast for the Monday release
and then I'll, I'll do the graphic for that.
And then on, you know, I'll makesure that it's all ready to go
and you can schedule that stuff or, or anything you want.
You know, these are all options that we have in general.
But yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not big on the the pre planning

(30:01):
organization stuff. I do a lot of outlining for
writing. I do do that.
But on on the backside, I'd liketo be super organized.
Hey, Penny, if you want to come up, grab Mike just talking about
writing. I know you.
You write stuff too. On the backside.

(30:21):
I try to be very organized with like files and assets and that
can be anything that could be like what Robin was talking
about earlier, like little blurbs for things.
Because when you're doing promotion, you want to be able
to, you know, promotion or marketing or whatever.
You want to be able to like grabthese common components, you

(30:45):
know, pictorial things, video stuff, editorial sound, whatever
it is, you want to be able to find it quickly, rapidly and
deploy it quickly so you can like get that stuff done.
And, and you know, if you're promoting across like half a
dozen or more social networks and websites and everything
else, I think there's like when I'm doing like a full court

(31:08):
press kind of promotion for a new project, say like Anunnaki
that came out at the beginning of this month.
And then the audio book, like there's more than there's
probably 12 to 15 websites and social media things and and
whatever else that are kind of part of my regimen or a
promotion on any given major project that I'm doing.

(31:32):
So yeah, that's some of the thinking there.
I have a weekly thing like Monday I drop on royal Rd.
Tuesday I record, I drop on royal Rd. and I edit I do promo
then on Tuesday I on Tuesday I I, I, I plan on recording a

(31:59):
chapter read for royal Rd. Wednesday I dump Thursday I edit
right like I I have like I try to get like a rhythm going
throughout the week week bebop and through the days.
You know I. Don't want to get too into the
weeds. Unlike tools and software and
stuff to streamline your writingprocess, I don't really believe

(32:19):
in that too much to, to in a, ina dedicated way.
Obviously, like when Heidi and Ricky and I get together to plan
this session, we have notes thatwe put together and use LLMS to
do some of that. But like it's only kind of

(32:40):
putting out what you put in and the prompts that we use, or at
least that I use, it's kind of targeted now.
And like I have this long running conversation with that
thing that's been going for not quite a year, but a long time.
And it's targeted and it's also drawing from the articles that I
write now. So every month when I create a

(33:01):
new article, I'm putting that into the repo of things that
it's drawing from. So it's basically becoming
recursive and referencing, you know, the larger body of notes
and, and writing that we do about writing about creating the
space. And I think, you know, that is

(33:22):
not necessarily to streamline things, but to be able to jump
off into the actual discussions and actually like have something
concise that everybody can interpret rapidly, much less
than trying to like create efficiencies.
I mean, it is an efficiency, butlike there's no efficiency for

(33:46):
conversation. It's real time.
It's, it's 1 to one translation.You know, when we're here, it's
not as if we can. You're either having the
conversation or you're not, right.
But to jump forward a little bit, how are you defining
success for the Royal Rd. experiments, Ricky?

(34:07):
I'm kind of curious about that. Well, I watched some videos and
I talked with some people who have not been an oversight but
have been paying attention to how various success stories have
manifested. According to what I hear, if you
got it, you got it. And there's a lot of ways for
that to manifest. Like there are people who have

(34:31):
achieved various levels of success.
We'll say I was told to post 3 *a week to try to get to 20 K as
soon as possible. I'm thinking maybe that does
something for badges because every time you make a, every
time you do something, they wantyou to do that.

(34:52):
They measure for success. They give you a little badge
like you're in a video game. You're like doing side quests or
whatever, which is fine. I know that some, some people
dig that kind of encouragement. So I see these people who have
been on for like years, some people have been on for like 10

(35:14):
years and they have like hundreds of thousands of views
and massive amounts of followers.
I'm kind of scaling it off of that.
But I don't really know, like isRoyal Rd. more popular now than
it was then? Like how many people are on or
on Royal Rd. It seems to say something as far

(35:37):
as placement because there's they're big on stats and
ranking. People can vote on you.
Like is your, is your manuscriptugly?
Like is the edit lacking? You know, they, they vote on
different stats. Probably pull that up and break
that down. But I don't want to get too into

(35:59):
it because the question was addressing what I view as
success. What I view as success is having
a decent amount of followers, and I don't really know.
I can't scale that right now. I don't have any friends on
there who have shared intimate details from the author, writer

(36:21):
point of view. Most of the people I spoke to
were our readers, you know, and they encouraged me.
They're like, you know, if you got it, there's a, there's a lot
of room to grow, be exposed and take wing.
So I'm, I have the phase one, which is I, I started it late.

(36:42):
I was supposed to do this like late last year.
And I'm just getting it started basically within the last month
because of various things. So my first year I'm putting out
three books. I'm doing Dragon 1, Wargate 1
and Chronicles of Chirom 6 Origins of the the the eye or

(37:03):
whatever it's called. It's a sci-fi novel.
I wrote with my nephew because he was get being a goose and get
in trouble at school. So I figure, all right, this
kids bored so let's give him something to do.
And he's either going to like, you know, smush, smush, smush it
and forget it, like ditch it, orhe was going to form to it and

(37:25):
form to it. So I had him draw all these
maps, come up with these little little creatures.
We did a big world building thing like the way I do with
maps and he had a blast. And eventually I, I outlined it
and I wrote it. So that's, that's phase one is
those three books. Phase 2 is Dragon 2, Wargate 2,

(37:45):
Princess of Turmoil, Dragon 2 isred, Princess of Turmoil is red.
And I'm halfway through Wargate 2.
So it's just edit through all that, finish composing, edit
through all that, rinse and repeat all through.
The way the release schedule works is I have like a four, I
have four months. So when I start releasing a

(38:07):
book, if I release at the pace that I've been releasing it at,
which is dropping three times a week, which is it's been
recommended by the site and by people who also track what the
site's doing. So it's like 4 months, four
months here, four months there. Once you get like 6-6 books on

(38:30):
there, that's a lot of words. I can imagine that they're going
to try to reward that. So I just plan on overwhelming
them with oceans of words, just dropping all the stuff I've
been, I've written. And if I get decent numbers and
a decent following, that's the first level of success within

(38:52):
the first couple phases because I got a bunch of phases.
But I don't want to keep hackingaway.
You know, that's I think that answers.
The question Ricky, what platform were you just talking
about? Royal Rd.
Royal Rd. Oh, I should probably look into
that though. I'm not a very interactive

(39:12):
writer, but it sounds interesting.
Yeah, I'm not I'm not interactive either, but we we
have to instrument these days inthis modern world that we have
to eventually get hands on. And it's not my favorite aspect
of it either. But yeah, if you get, if you
write little RPG sci-fi, they, they have this whole genre

(39:35):
vacation and this, this huge list of tags and that brings
your readers to you, you know, So I would, I would watch some
videos and look into it because I'm enjoying the platform so
far. And I can't say that for the
majority of, you know, yeah. That's interesting.
I was. I was talking to a group of

(39:58):
sci-fi people and one of them she was.
Hold on a second, Let me just get out of here.
She was talking. About this, it was a subreddit.
I think it's called Lithub or something.
I, I'm not quite saying it right, but there was this whole
thing she was describing how youput in your query and people

(40:21):
vote you down or people vote youup.
It sounded like people were verymean, you know, and I'm, I'm
trying to avoid I, I want to sort of avoid bullies and I sort
of want to avoid people who may or may not know, you know what
they're talking about and just, you know, feel like blasting you
for something. Do you ever feel like that,

(40:41):
Ricky? Like it's a, you know, sort of
like a popularity contest. Well, I'm glad.
You asked because? I sort of have my own view of
this people because I've been accused of being overly
confident. That's that's what people say.
Confidence is this mysterious elixir.
Today, if there's too much of it, you're an arrogant dog and

(41:04):
you should be shot in the street.
If if you don't have enough of it, then you're you're you're
meandering in some Les Miserables cityscape forever in
the fog and you never get anywhere because you don't
believe in yourself. So it's like you have to have
like a balance. The way I look at it is people
can talk whatever S they want about the book you always take.

(41:30):
It it. In the spirit in which it's
given. If a reader is talking to you,
they're giving you a reader's opinion.
Some people think I'm being Snooty.
I'm not being Snooty. This is how I stratify.
A reader gives you a reader's opinion.
If another writer reads your stuff, they're giving you a
writer's. That's a different opinion to me

(41:52):
especially. A writer.
That I respect, which is the next level is is this writer
like I'm like, wow, holy moly. This.
They got it. The guy read it.
They got it. It's like, yeah, I'm they're
they're a peer of mine. Maybe they're maybe they're
above, maybe they're on the nextlevel.
I don't know. I believe in hierarchies, sorry.

(42:12):
I stratify. It's called thought.
We should really be getting backto that these days.
But then there's someone who's agenius.
There's somebody who you're justlike, holy, I can't even believe
this. Like they invented a genre.
They have some kind of huge contract, but they have money.

(42:35):
They also have St. Pride.
They have someone like we did years ago, we did this writers
club where we were interviewing comic book people who had
written for like major comp, like they did Spider Man, they
did Silver Surfer. So we were interviewing these
people. Now, when they give you an
opinion, it's an opinion, but it's an opinion from someone

(42:56):
who's been embedded in the industry.
They have certain information that's from their time, but they
also have certain Evergreen information that they could
present. So it just don't die on like
like you're on. I haven't read your writing from
and I would really like to. I'm assuming one of these days
when it gets out, I'll be able to buy it.

(43:18):
And I would buy it, you see, andchill.
Don't look at everyone like thisis the playground.
I mean, it's a, it's a bear pit.The internet's horrifying.
Like social media is a monstrosity and most, most
people are are, you know, goblins at best.
But I, I, I don't care. It's like we will never leave

(43:40):
our Hobbit holes and go out adventuring if we don't learn to
grow skin. And I'm not saying you don't
have skin, but you know, you believe in this stuff, you're
doing it. You have a dream of being a
writer. Don't, don't be foiled.
Don't, don't let these people bother you.
Like, who really cares what humans think at the end of the

(44:02):
day? Like, we have to demographically
we have to. But that doesn't mean I have to
dig a foundation all the way underneath it and build my house
on it like that doesn't. Like, I really don't care.
I write for other reasons, so don't don't fret over that
stuff. I'm sure your your work is
jazzy, you know? Yeah.

(44:23):
I mean, I know it's a me. Thing it's not an everybody on
the writer's block thing, but I have AI have a certain
vulnerability when it comes to writing that I don't have in
other aspects of my life. And you know part of it is
separating the self from the writing self and the person who
you are in life from what you'reputting out on the page.

(44:45):
But I have a certain. I have a certain.
Vulnerability. That's almost a teenage
vulnerability that I need to, I'm recognizing it now as my
work is coming to an end that I have to, I have to find ways to
be strong. Not a criticism doesn't bother

(45:05):
me. I have to be strong against
meanness. And I've seen a lot of meanness,
you know, just for many reasons on the Internet and it's, you
know, it's just appalling to me and I just know that it's sort
of my next hurdle. So thank you, Ricky.
That does help a lot. I'm I'm back.

(45:26):
I I had. To go in the kitchen and get
some tea. So thank you all for your
patience, Robin. I've read well, some of your
chapters you can write. I mean, you shouldn't, you
shouldn't look at. Vulnerability as a.
Weakness. I don't look at it that way.
I think in order to write well, you have to be vulnerable.

(45:49):
You have to make your yourself and your writing vulnerable
because if you don't, I mean, that's what people are going to
connect with, you know, and there's there's just always
some, you know, gremlin out there.
I liked how you put it. What did you call most people?
Ricky Gremlins? Was that the word?

(46:09):
Well, got goblins? Goblins.
They're all the same, I segued into the To the Bag End
metaphor. But they're all little goblinoid
creatures. Goblin trolls, right?
Or they're the. Trolls out there can't think,
right? You know, the stone when the
light hits them, I mean, that's,you know, just, I don't even

(46:30):
listen to those people because they're not that's not real.
That's just that's just somebodyfilled with hate who's just
spewing, you know, venom becausethey, they got nothing else
inside them. So those, I mean, the mean
people are actually in my mind the easiest to disregard because

(46:53):
they they, they're not saying anything real, not really.
I mean, maybe they are, maybe there's always some little hint
of truth and every criticism. But for the most part, you know,
when someone like says, oh, I see your profile picture, you
look old. It's like, well, I am old, you
know, I good, you know, good luck to you living as long as I
have, right. But it's like, The thing is, you

(47:15):
know, that's just stupidness. It's absurdness, you know, and
and it it's it it's I mean, I don't acknowledge that.
And I think you know, the thing that and I I you have, I think
that being I get what you're saying where it's like you just
you know, you just on Royal Rd. I mean, where you would.

(47:38):
Feel exposed in that. Way and Ricky's like, yeah, I
just, you know, I don't, I don'tcare.
I got AI got a wheel of iron hell with them, but I know what
they are unless part of it. It's like know what they are.
When people say really crap things is like that's not it.
It it serves no purpose other than to just try and hurt
someone's feelings and then it becomes irrelevant in my mind.

(48:00):
But the vulnerability is super important to maintain because
you can't connect with other people unless you're being
vulnerable. I mean, I could put up a wall
constantly with with everyone I meet.
And believe me, I'm, I put up lots of walls with people all
the time. Yeah, me too.

(48:22):
Yeah, you have. To in.
General And I think you know, itmight be, you know it might.
Be just being female. I mean, because let's be honest,
women are we're, we're now we can be really mean.
I mean, we can be. Really mean and.
Especially to each other. So The thing is, you know, not

(48:43):
that we don't have positive qualities, but let's just, you
know, this is the conversation we're having right now.
But so we put up a lot of walls and I think, you know, and I
think that's. You know, needed.
In a lot of life, but I think onthe creative side, what you have
to come to grips with is just allowing that vulnerability to

(49:06):
exist because that's where the heart of this artistic process
is, you know, and I think it's different for each person on how
they do that on how they want tokind of reach in and allow that
to exist. And I will go back to my
long-suffering audiobook. One of the things that I

(49:30):
realized I, I in doing this is that in order for me to read
this well, I have to sort of take, I have to just take
chances with how I'm reading it and it I just have to lean in to
that weirdness, lean into maybe embarrassing myself, just lean

(49:50):
into it. And the more I do that, I think
the better the performance becomes.
And I will say I saw the difference.
I was I'm. I try not to.
Talk about this. Too much really, not at all,
especially in recorded space. But I will say that when you

(50:12):
listen to someone narrating, especially your words, but, and,
and they're unwilling or unable to allow themselves to be
vulnerable in the way that say art and, and words and our
writing needs to be vulnerable, it comes across terribly.

(50:33):
It doesn't work. That's where the embarrassment
is. So I would say that you need to,
the more you lean into that, themore you just allow that, the
less exposed you are. I think there's a
counterintuitive quality to it that I'm trying to express.
It's sort of like, you know, I want to sing in front of

(50:56):
somebody, but I'm going to sing quietly, you know, and then you
don't sound good. But if I go out and I sing
boldly and I allow them to hear me, then maybe that's what's
going to come across. I think that's a good metaphor
for it. So I don't know, does that help?
But that's my approach to it. Because I feel you.
I, I did not want to expose myself my, any of my writing or

(51:21):
anything for a very long time for these same reasons that
you're discussing. So I think I finally just came
to grips. With it in.
Terms of, of that saying, you know, I'm just, I don't care if
I'm doing this. And I'm, you know, if I'm, to
use the metaphor, if I'm singingloudly, you know, and they don't

(51:43):
like it, fine, but at least I'm actually singing.
Does that make sense? That is actually a great.
Metaphor. And it makes sense a lot.
And there was something else that I was going to say that I
sort of forget. But yeah, no, that does make,
oh, I know what I was going to say.
For me, there's a difference. And it may just be sort of an

(52:04):
excuse or an artificial difference between, you know,
sending my work to journals or sending my work to, you know, a,
for a manuscript contest as opposed to putting it out on
social media. That's where I have the problem.

(52:25):
I, I, you know, I understand how, you know, you need to put,
in fact, I want to put myself out there to the world.
It's not that I don't want that.It's, you know, I'm just, I'm
afraid. Of what I think of.
It as like the sort of the trolls and the amateurishness
because I don't want it to take up my psyche.

(52:48):
But again, you know, there's twosides to that.
That could just be an excuse. Well, you know.
I don't know what the guys think.
My opinion? On it is that you just, you got
to take the good with the bad. I mean, there are days when I've
I've taken some hits from peopleand I feel them deeply.

(53:10):
No one in this room, by the way.Let me just throw that out
there. But, and the thing of it is.
When you open you, you open yourself up.
You got to open yourself up to all of it.
And it's hard and there are dayswhen it's, it's harder than than
other days, but it's it's a matter of perseverance.

(53:34):
It's a matter of, you know, I said, how do you get things
done? Well, grit, that's how I get
things done. Ultimately, that's what it comes
down to, you know, is that I just, I am like, OK, you know,
I've taken this hit from someone.
They've they've ripped into my psyche.
So what am I going to do about it?
I'm going to keep going, You know, it's like.

(53:57):
I had this like, you know, come on.
You got to get to the point where you're like, go ahead,
doubt me. I love it.
Keep doing it. Doubt me some more.
Let's go. I mean, that's just the place
you got to get to. And it's it's, you know, I say
this, I'm not there every day. It's it's a continuing process.
But that's kind of the mindset Ithink that's needed.

(54:19):
And you just have to be willing to fail.
Failure isn't isn't a problem. I mean failures, just it's just
another thing. It's just another experience.
It's not the end of the world. Doesn't matter, you know, it it
it it's not it's it's only it only matters if you stop.

(54:39):
If it makes you stop. That's the only thing that
matters about it is if you stop because of it.
If you can't overcome it, that'sthe only thing.
But if you keep going, it's it'sjust part of the journey and
it's probably an incredibly useful part of the journey.
I mean, you know, I'll go back to the long-suffering, my

(55:02):
long-suffering audiobook, which hopefully is going to be done.
And finally, there were some bigfails with this audiobook and
I'm not going to go. Into it in here.
But so much. But I'll just say, you know,
serious fails serious set back serious.
Oh my God, I just, you know, howdo I deal with this?

(55:25):
You know, having to deal with people, having to deal with all
sorts of stuff and, and I'm, I'm.
Keeping it vague because. I'm just going to.
But. You know, I haven't failed, you
know, the big fails, but I'm, you know, I'm still going to
finish it. It's that grit thing, right?

(55:46):
I mean, and I think, you know, Ricky, that's what you're saying
too, is like, well, they're all a bunch of goblins, screw them,
you know, and and I mean, and with Royal Rd.
I think the thing with Royal Rd.I would consider is if your work
fits that platform. And I think Ricky was very, is
very clear that his stuff does fit that platform.

(56:07):
And that's the one thing I wouldsay about it.
I mean he that is like a lit RPGsort of zone.
And so if that's the thing aboutRoyal Rd., I mean, and it's not
so much that. You know something you know.
You just have to make sure it's the right connected fit.
And so you could put stuff like I put, I mean, I probably

(56:31):
wouldn't put something on there,not because I'm above it, below
it or, you know, afraid of it. I just don't think what I do
fits on that platform very well.It's not going to be of interest
to people who go there to read stories.
I would completely disagree withyou and.
Tell you that Royal Rd. is actually a great fit.
Yeah, it's it's probably a greatfit for you primarily for your

(56:53):
first book because you have like47 chapters.
So it would serialize very well for a almost a year if you put
out 1 chapter a week the content.
Do you think the content of the story?
I'm sure it'll be fine. I'll be, I'll be honest, Heidi.
There's all kinds of flavors like the genre vacation, the in

(57:14):
betweens. It's, it's worth investigating,
you know, Well, I might do that once.
I get the second book out, so I might be able to use the first
book to market in that way. So that's kind of my thinking.
I'm sort of holding it back right now.
There are some, there are, thereare some implications.

(57:37):
I was listening to a video whereI was saying like if you post
stuff up on there and then you try to post it in other places,
there's own there's like different percentages of what
you're allowed to have up there.Like if you, they call it
stubbing, which is like you're, you're, you just got bought by
someone, like somebody, somebodybought your work.

(57:58):
So you'd have to take it, you'd have to take it down from there.
There's like some insurance and outs and there is, there's a
casual interface with Amazon where that if there's something
applicable there, but I haven't,I haven't looked deeply into it.
So look at the licensing and stuff before you do it, you
know, because for me, these books, these books can go up

(58:21):
there. I'm fine with that.
That's the other. Thing I I.
Would have to invent I'm it's, it's so not on my radar right
now. My radar right now is creating
content so that I have somethingto kind of move around and I
have, you know, yeah, I have a 400 page book, but there's just

(58:42):
the one I'm trying to get the audiobook done and I got two
other things that I want to get out and then I'll start looking
at maybe shopping stuff around. But for me personally, it's
about just creating the content,you know, and then going forward
with it. So, and then the way I create as
well as it's like I need time. So like I, you know, I realized

(59:04):
my first draft is really my outline.
And so I mean to go forward on that.
So I mean it's, it's kind of a marketing choice and I will be
able to use the first book to market everything else.
Maybe the novella to help markettoo, because it's a nice short
little. It's only 100 pages probably
when I put it, when I lay it out.

(59:24):
But so, yeah, no, I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll listen to what you
guys are saying. I'm just not ready to listen to
it today. Does that make sense?
Yeah, that'll be fine. You know it's going to be.
There, it's not going anywhere, I don't think.
I'd like how. We kind of naturally.
Transitioned into roadblocks andeverybody has different forms

(59:47):
of. Inhibiting.
Roadblocks, these little things that snare us up and slow us
down. But you know, for me, my, my

(01:00:08):
biggest roadblock is, is bulk word count production.
You know, I just do not have thehabit of like.
Churning out 1000 words a day or1000 words a week or whatever.
I and part of this is the natureof the way that I work.

(01:00:31):
Part of it is the nature of how many things I'm working on at
any given time. But part of it is that I have
not ever tried to establish the habit.
And it would be it's agonizing for me to just grow slop on the
page and then come back and editslop.
I did just man, I cannot stand it like of my own work in that

(01:00:57):
sense, like the IT if I'm just like rapidly ideating and
tossing out what I consider to be garbage sentences.
I don't ever think that you're going to take a garbage sentence
and make it a great sentence. And that's not to say that like
any of my sentences are great. That's just my philosophy on

(01:01:19):
writing in that way. I just don't think that it it
gets, you know, you're, you're polishing turds, you know, and
it's it's just not, you know, not necessarily.
I would. I would say that I think of it
like cleaning the pipes. So it's like, you know, you

(01:01:41):
never turned the water on for a long time.
It all comes out brown for a bit, Butters and all of that,
right? So if you continue to do it,
yeah, you may have a bunch of stuff you just toss, but
eventually it starts you start getting clean water if you.
If you maintain. Keeping that, you know, faucet

(01:02:03):
open, shall we say? Sure.
I don't drink tap water though. So, you know, too many
contaminants, that's a real issue.
We got. We got.
Well, water where I am, so, but yeah, I don't know when I throw
down a zero draft, It's it's, it's not a turd like it's, it's

(01:02:25):
cheapers like I, I call it keepers If I write something
that's substandard. By that I mean meets my muse
doesn't meet my muse's satisfaction.
It's, it's before there's an audience. 0 draft is like for
before there's an audience. And then you share 0 drafts to
help make them first drafts where you read them or you beta

(01:02:45):
or whatever and you work out. So you leave it in sort of a
fluid state. So it's not exactly that.
It's that it's irredeemable or unreconcilable.
It's just you got to have another Passover.
I I do it for the sake of momentum, because if I can write
2 KA day and I can consistently do that, then my, my, my product

(01:03:11):
comes out and I listen to it andit's never like, oh geez, like
what was he thinking? It's like, well, that's tasty.
But there's, there's bits and pieces, There's clunk.
There's clunk in the syntax. There's something wrong with the
way this sets. The poetry is not optimal.
The pacing is weird, like, and that's, that's what you do you,

(01:03:33):
you look for that and then you, you go through it again.
And then that's first draft and then after that I could care
less. It's like for editors or like if
I read it out of read space, they're like, well, that's cool,
but what if you did this? And then I'm like, oh, I got a,
you know, I got some chapters I can move around to make room to

(01:03:54):
keep the pace consistent. You know, I think you could do
it, Michael. I really do.
Let me ask you this about editing.
This goes for anybody, really. You know how much?
Editing. Do you want to go through?
Because for me, I kind of mix a little bit of editing and a

(01:04:14):
little bit of writing as I'm going.
I'm not trying to completely rewrite entire sections or
completely pull out or add sections along the way.
All right, well. Can I?
No, no, no. Go ahead, Heidi, by all means, I

(01:04:36):
think if I. May I don't, I don't think you
should view editing as writing as two separate things.
They are one in the same. You know, there's the old line
that the true writing begins once you have a something to to
work with. Once you've got a bunch of words
on the page to work with, that'sthe true writing.
So I don't view it that way at all.

(01:04:59):
I mean and I view it like a likea painting.
Or sculpture, right? So before you do a painting, you
do a lot of like. Sketches.
You do sketches before you. Sit down and put the final thing
on there. You you train yourself to do the
image. So it's a base.
So you've drawn this face on with pencil a bunch of times and

(01:05:21):
then you finally go into the painting and you, you know how
you want that face to be. And you keep going up, you keep
building layers. You start with the first layer
and then you build up the next layer of paint.
You keep going and going and going.
Like maybe it's easier to view with a three-dimensional
sculpture. That's how I view it.
I don't view them as separate processes.
So it's like, I know you and Robin read the first and and so

(01:05:46):
I think to me that's, if I may say that might be an error on
your part to separate them. It's like, well, this isn't it?
Well, no, the itches you make are are are are going to be kind
of they're not going to be that final drawing.
So it's like, you know, the first draft I show like, I'll

(01:06:06):
say 0 draft. I like that for I like that
term, Ricky. So you and Robin basically saw
zero draft of that novella that the Jack's house, we'll call it
for OK. That was zero draft.
That was a scaffolding for all practical purposes.
It's not all there. It's not that was not a finished

(01:06:28):
product. And I, you know, I'm, I'm, I've
got that sitting right now because one of the things,
because I'm going to finish thisaudio book, but one of the
things that I will do too is part of the process is let
stuff, stuff sit. Sometimes things need to sort of
go into the slow cooker, shall we say, in the back of your

(01:06:49):
brain and just ruminate back there.
So when you come back to it, it's like I, you know, it, it,
it all starts to make sense now,how many drafts I do, you know,
I don't, I don't care. I mean, it's irrelevant to me
how many drafts I do. What, what's relevant to me is,
is that I, I, I, I get to the point where it's, you know,

(01:07:11):
completed and there there's stuff that I miss.
I mean, if I look at that story,the scaffolding was there in the
zero draft that you guys saw. What was missing was all of the,
the bits and pieces and all, allof this other stuff.
You know, it wasn't completely all there.

(01:07:32):
So it's it's. Not that I had shit.
Sentences here, there. I mean, I had some good ones, I
had some crap ones. It's irrelevant.
What's irrelevant is that I havesomething I can build on, so I
don't view it. I mean, you're like I.
Need this. It's kind.
Of like, I'm, I mean, maybe I'm mishearing you, but it's almost
like you want, you want to have the finished product without

(01:07:56):
having to do the sketches. Now you are mishearing me
because I said I do writing and editing at the same.
Time. OK, so as I'm.
Working. Maybe don't do that.
Maybe. Maybe just blow it out, I don't
know. I'm, I'm just throwing out some
ideas. I'm hearing you.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm hearing you, I think.
Word count is an important thing.

(01:08:18):
Eventually, if I can, you know, get up to the the task of
writing longer material that I think becomes a requirement.
But for me right now, as I'm working on the formats that I'm
working on and doing things in anonlinear way, that if I'm

(01:08:41):
writing some stuff at the end orI'm writing some stuff at the
beginning or kind of filling outthe middle or kind of plopping
things in here and there, I, I see little things as I'm going
through it and I'm making changes, I consider that to be
editing. I, I don't consider it
necessarily to be any different than than writing or whatever.

(01:09:01):
And then even like really to me,the final round of editing, as
we've talked about before, is, is during the, the audio book
performance, which I do before Iput out the ebook or the
paperback or whatever to have myeyes run over every single word
and, and actually vocalize the stuff to see if it's working.

(01:09:26):
You know, if it's working for mewhen I'm reading it, then I am
of greater opinion that it will work for readers or listeners as
they interpret it. And I think part of it is really
semantics, what you're calling. Things, I mean, for me, I don't
really distinguish writing from editing.

(01:09:48):
Sure, there's a first draft that's writing and you're not
editing that. But in my experience, I, I
rewrote, slash edited same thing, my manuscript five times.
And it, the sentences changed, some of the concepts changed.
And yeah, it was part of the editing process, but it was, it
was cleaning up process. But there, there was also an

(01:10:10):
adding and there was making sentences better.
But to me, it's all in one. So yeah, to me, editing is
writing, probably because I enjoy editing, so.
And I enjoy writing, so it's a sort.
Of the same, well I mean I. Have a different.
Means of viewing this topic for a variety of reasons.

(01:10:35):
First of all, I've been writing this book about writing and
gathering information and I makelittle notes of such things.
And I find, I'm not saying this is uniform, but I find that the
people who edit as they write asopposed to just compose, they
compose less. My theory for that is it's not a

(01:10:59):
question of it being semantics or a different panic of writing.
If it were all just writing, we wouldn't have to worry.
But the thing that a lot of authors forget that I don't
Pepperidge Farm remembers. Put it to you that way, writing
has to flow around consciousness.
OK, Consciousness, you mentionedit, Robin.

(01:11:20):
There's a point in your morning where it's optimal to compose.
You're, you have a clock of consciousness where like there's
different phases of attention. There's I have, I have similar
things that I've also reconditioned.
But you're you're, you know, you're dealing with
consciousness. So when when I interface with

(01:11:42):
unconsciousness, which is what creative writing is, because
you're talking to your imagination and an
intraconscious level. OK, I have all my outlines and I
have this and that and I have myimagines.
But then when the actual rubber,rubber meets the road, when,
when we're composing, when I'm throwing down, that's a specific

(01:12:02):
mindset. And for me, that's a drug.
I need that. But I don't get that.
My life is not there's somethingwrong.
I get, I get sad. I get there's like I'm not
getting, I'm not cycling my brain chemistry.
The ultimate point behind it is to cycle your brain chemistry
and keep those circles of inner time spinning and to interface

(01:12:28):
with your news. It's I'm not I'm not whistling
Dixie with this like I really mean it.
The better relationship you havewith her, the more you reward
her, which you're rewarding yourbrain when you do something
creative. You should celebrate.
It should be a spiritual firecracker going off.

(01:12:48):
It should be like this is awesome.
But the way daisies and and and cloud shadow when you were a
child were like, Oh, this is so awesome.
This is beautiful. You got to like try to reach for
your inner child and, and get access to that.
And I don't find it because editing for me, I have, I have

(01:13:08):
neural divergencies, perceptual impairments.
So you guys can say that it's, it's all the same.
It can't be for me. It just can't.
Because when I'm throwing down, there's this vortex that I'm,
I'm, I'm, I'm holding my music'shand and we're both like, we
just jumped out of a plane and time and space and the room,

(01:13:30):
everything goes away. And it's the greatest because I
don't want to be here. So it's it's just literally
wonderful. It's inescapably blissful for me
to just vacate body and humanityand be able to do this.
And that to me is where the flowcomes.
The chapters done before you even know it because you're time

(01:13:52):
traveler. Human beings are time travelers
between modes of consciousness. That's why the DMV sucks.
And when you go to someplace that's cool, it's over before it
starts because we're time machines.
Case closed. Our heartbeats are regulated by
such. That's why Campbell says to
follow your bliss. He didn't say follow your work.

(01:14:16):
He said follow your bliss. And that's the hope.
Every once in a while, you got to get to your bliss.
That's what writing is for me. And if I look at it any other
way, it starts to become work. And I'm like, I don't really
know. I don't really know.
Maybe the other people are right.
And that's when the the Calvin and Hobbes drawing turns black
and white. The old Tamara hits and I'm just

(01:14:38):
like I the dream must live. If the dream does not live, then
I shall die. You know, I, I agree.
With most of what you're saying.Except the Joseph Campbell part.
I don't think that's right to follow your bliss.
I think that's, well, religiously speaking.
I have trouble with that statement, but but I digress.

(01:15:00):
But I I will agree with you. The time travel element is is a
spectacular thing. And I think we do move between
these, I'll call them realms forlack of a better.
Term. You know what I mean?
By that, and I told you guys that I have this thing where if
I'm really in a state where I'm really focused on something, if

(01:15:23):
someone taps me on the shoulder,I scream.
I literally physically scream because it's like I have it's,
it's like that fairy thing, right.
They used to say about if you get yanked out of the fairy
world, it's like, it's like someone will just pull me out.
It it, it's, it's what it feels like.
It's just like a shock. And I think, you know, that's my

(01:15:47):
interpretation of what you're saying.
I mean, I, you know, you're, you're right about the time
traveling thing. I think that's just a wonderful
way of putting it because that'swhat we're sort of doing.
We're not just traveling throughtime.
We're traveling through, you know, different realms.
And there's that flow state thathappens.

(01:16:08):
And so I, I kind of, you know, we can terminology, whatever,
but I agree with you because when I sit down to write, yeah,
maybe the sentences are perfect.I don't think about the
sentences. I think about what I'm seeing,
you know, it's like I'm, I'm in the space and I'm seeing what

(01:16:30):
I'm, and I'm seeing something and I'm writing it down.
So that's why I think I get so shocked when someone pulls me
out of that space because I'm there.
So I think that has a lot. To do.
With, you know, to be more mundane word count, where you

(01:16:52):
just allow yourself to move intothat world, you know, you know,
where, where you're just there and you're describing what
you're seeing. And then when you go back to
revisit it, yeah, you can clean it up.
So you can explain it to people better.
You can explain what happened. You can explain what you saw.

(01:17:12):
But it's not. It's not so much like I'm making
it. Up.
It's just that I'm. You know, it's, it's, you know,
telling you. What happened?
Which is I think why we all write in past tense because
that's, you know, well, we don'tall write.
But why a lot of stories are like third person past tense,

(01:17:33):
right? Because you're describing what
you saw, so. Yeah, I I yield if anyone.
Else wants to comment, Yeah. I do a lot of that past.
Tense stuff because of that reason, because I view it as as
a record Campbell's bliss thing is not.

(01:17:55):
I mean, a lot of, a lot of the Judeo-christian ethic has a has
a problem reconciling Campbell because most of his thinking is
couched in Eastern thought, not even Middle Eastern thought,
Eastern thought like Tibetan Buddhism, old Hindi stuff.
Like he, he's the one of the premier mythologists because he

(01:18:18):
knows like that's his truth, that's his perspective.
He he looks at ritual and myth as the ultimate sublimation, the
ultimate truth simultaneously. And I don't I wouldn't agree
with the man either. If we were in a room together,
it we would probably not like each other or there would be
some hostility because of that, even though I'm more on his side

(01:18:41):
than I am in Western thought side, I'm more on his side with
the way that I view the cosmos. But when I speak of bliss, I
always wedded to the inner child.
And it goes back to the cookie thing I talked about.
I don't know if it was like a month ago.
You know your your inner child is the is the part of you that
shares the cook your your inner beast.

(01:19:03):
The lower nature is the part. That steals the.
Cookie from the cookie jar. The hell with Mama.
I don't care if Daddy spanks me.I'm getting the cookie because I
want it and it's mine and you know, you know what?
I guess the reason I. Yeah, I mean I.
Know all that I've, I've always liked Joseph Kimmel, but I guess
the reason I object to the term is is partially for that.

(01:19:28):
I, I think that a lot of people use it as a cop out and I don't
think that's how you're using it.
I mean you're creating something.
They use it as a cop out to say,well, this doesn't give me joy,
so I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to be responsible
because that is my bliss isn't responsibility, you know, that
kind of thing. So I think that the term gets

(01:19:51):
used for people who want to duckout on being responsible about
their own existence or those around them.
It's like this marriage isn't blissful, so I'm going to leave
it because I need to, you know, follow my bliss, that kind of
thing. So that's kind of where my
objection lies. I don't think you're using that
term for in that way. I don't think you're saying, oh,

(01:20:16):
I'm running away from per SE responsibility.
I think you're saying I'm. I'm going and I'm trying to find
something real. Would that be correct, Ricky?
Yes. And if you recall the other
thing that is. Coherent within my statements.
As I've said, the first thing you have to do in order to be
creative is to be adaptive.