August 20, 2025 • 49 mins
On today's 238th episode of The Thriller Zone with host Dave Temple, we're diving into the world of thrilling literature with two amazing authors: James Byrne and Bruce Borgos.
We’re all about the casual vibes this episode, but don’t let that fool you—there’s some serious storytelling magic happening here!
We chat about their latest works, including James’s "Chain Reaction" and Bruce’s "The Blue Horse," both packed with suspense, deep characters, and unique settings that feel like characters themselves.
Plus, we tackle the challenges of tech hiccups in podcasting—because who doesn’t love a little chaos?
So grab your headphones, sit back, and join us in this light-hearted yet insightful romp through the art of writing, where we share tips, laughs, and the occasional literary gem!
Takeaways:
- Today's episode had a few technical hiccups, but the casual vibe made it all fun!
- If you're planning to join the podcast, make sure to have a good mic and lighting.
- We discussed two thrilling books: 'Chain Reaction' and 'The Blue Horse'—both packed with excitement!
- The uniqueness of characters like Porter Beck and Aloysius Limerick shows how diverse thrillers can be.
- It's important to write for yourself first; if you're not entertained, neither will your readers be!
- Editing is crucial—sometimes the best lines need to be cut if they don't serve the story.
Links referenced in this episode:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Foreign welcome to theThriller Zone.
I'm your host, David Templin.
As you can see, it's casualFriday, except it's Wednesday.
We have had a couple of littletechnical issues here of late trying
to hook up with today's guests.
So today's performancetechnically is not going to be tip
(00:23):
top like we usually have it.
We had a connection problem onone end so we went to a different
program, still had theproblem, called in my wife Tammy,
thank goodness, and we hookedit up on Zoom.
However, as you will see, allthree of us are not on the camera
at the same time.
So it could be a littleconfusing at first just telling you
all that so that you know whatthe story is.
(00:45):
I'm your host, Dave Temple.
Welcome to episode who.
Who knows what it is, but it's summertime.
So as you can see, it's alittle bit casual around here.
A couple of quick notes.
If you want to be on the show,I'm gonna really suggest strongly
that you have a microphonethat works in addition to your laptop.
I think you're going to reallyappreciate it.
(01:07):
You're going to sound better.
Have a little light on your face.
Whether it's a window or aspotlight or a lamp.
It really does help.
And WI fi, if your wi fisucks, so will the show.
So just a word to the wise is sufficient.
Today's show, two guys, you'regoing to see me announce it again.
James Byrne with Chain Reaction.
Bruce Borges, the Blue Horse Barry.
(01:28):
Very excited to have both ofthese guys on the show.
And as always, if you wouldlike to be on the show, probably
more after the summer vacationbreak that we're going to have here
very soon.
Love to hear from you.
The thrillerzonemail.com sowithout any further ado, how about
you and I get on into theThriller Zone?
If you knew what it took us toget here, you would be going.
(01:54):
I'm glad this show's free.
No foreign it's been.
Gentlemen, welcome to the show.
Oh, thanks for having us backyet again.
We tried this folks last weekand we had some tech issues.
James is in downtown Portlandin a high rise.
It's a very handsome condo.
And Mr. Borges is in a verygorgeous alpine ish cabin in the
(02:19):
middle of where?
Southern Utah, in themountains, about 8,000ft.
Oh, that's nice.
Why I'm wearing a jacket.
Well, I'm glad we were able tomake this happen.
It is not without some challenges.
(02:39):
But that's one thing aboutthis trusty Thriller Zone.
You just keep going.
Now you guys can jump in hereanytime you want.
This is.
We're on Zoom.
Zoom is not my ordinary territory.
I like Riverside fm.
Nothing against Zoom, but wehad to resort to this.
(03:03):
That's.
Oh, my God.
I just saw Tammy.
Tammy's name is down here.
Yes.
Hi, I'm Tammy.
Just.
Just ignore that we're on her account.
But anyway, we're talkingabout two fabulous books.
James is back.
James is new to the show.
Chain Reaction is this littlebad boy.
(03:23):
And then Bruce is back withthe Blue Horse.
Everybody knows my good buddyMr. Borges, but I'm telling you,
these are two stacked books ofreading deliciousness.
Jump in, guys.
(03:44):
Well, we're glad to be here.
Bruce's book just came out.
Mine came out in January.
And we're thrilled to be withyou, Tammy.
It's always good to see you.
But let me just say realquickly, if.
If you're new to James'swriting, just like he's new, a little
(04:04):
bit new to Dave and maybe someof your listeners.
He is a fabulous writer.
His books, especially thisseries featuring the amazing Des
limerick, are just a treat to read.
I mean, so exciting and sowell crafted.
(04:26):
Thank you.
I'm also a huge fan of Bruce'scurrent series.
And we have the samepublishing house, we have the same
editor, and we're.
We are now a team.
Yeah.
And we used to have the same agent.
That's right.
That's right.
Who sadly recently passed.
But let me.
Let me ask you this, because we.
And I'm going to repeat thingsthat we had in our first conversation
(04:48):
that got removed because oftech issues.
So I'm gonna.
We'll just pretend it's allfrom Brand New Fresh.
How did you guys meet and whatstarted this bromance love affair?
Every year at the WorldMystery Convention, which is also
known as bouchercon, theMinotaur, St. Martin's folks have
(05:09):
a cocktail party and a coupleyears ago is in the delightful city
of San Diego, which I don'tknow well at all.
And everybody who's edited bya guy named Keith Kayla, we all gathered
around him, and Bruce and Imet there.
And one of the things that wekind of oddly discovered about the
writers who are edited byKeith is that Keith seems to go out
of his way to edit.
(05:30):
Nice people, people you wantto meet.
There was a guy named SteveHussaini was there too, and it was
just we ended up hanging outthe, like, I don't know, four or
five of us for the entirecocktail party.
We just more or less ignoredeverybody else.
And it was.
And it was grand fun.
Yep, absolutely.
I was at that particular bowShakhan, because it's right here
(05:51):
in my backyard.
But I had several things inthe air, so I bopped in, got to meet
some people, got to see Bruce.
Did not get to meet you.
J.
And then was on my way.
But Bruce, you.
You've been at this.
This is number four.
Three.
Three on.
Yeah, it's number three in thequarterback series.
(06:12):
Thank you.
But it's.
You have other books before that.
Let's.
Let's just do this.
Let's just shoot out of thegate with.
What is Porter up to now?
One thing, refresh my memorybecause I've read a few books since
then.
Was.
Was Detective Charlie BlueHorse his girlfriend in the last
(06:36):
book?
That I don't.
Yes, she was.
And so just a quick synopsis.
Porter Beck is the sheriff ofa very rural county in Nevada called
Lincoln County.
He recently, in the last fewyears, returned from a career in
army intelligence and ended uptaking the job of sheriff that his
(06:56):
dad had held for more than 30 years.
And Lincoln county veryinterestingly sits right next door
to the very top secret area inthe Nevada desert that the federal
government occupies and doesstrange things in.
So it's right next to Area 51and all the alien stuff.
And so he.
(07:17):
He continually encounters somereally interesting cases and situations.
And then, yeah, he met CharlieBlue Horse in the second novel in
the series called Shades ofMercy, and that she has become his
girlfriend and a prettyserious relationship developing there.
(07:38):
And then we move into the BlueHorse where Porter is trying to figure
out who is taking out some ofthe people associated with the government's
roundup of wild horses, whichis not a popular thing because of
the way that those roundupsare conducted.
And there's a big contingentof people on the other side who are
(08:01):
trying to stop them, but lotsof nefarious things going on.
So that's kind of where we.
We get to.
When we get to the Blue Horse.
Nice.
Let me ask an odd question.
It's probably asked 10,000 times.
Who came up with Area 51?
When did that start?
What's.
Why.
Why is that little tiny spot.
(08:22):
So we'll use the word magicalin air quotes.
Yeah.
So Area 51 is a place that wasnot publicly acknowledged by the
government, I believe, untilthe late 90s.
It was rumored to be a placefor several decades.
It actually began in the1950s, about the mid-1950s, I think.
(08:45):
And the first thing thatactually happened at Area 51, after
they fenced it all off fromthe other part of the Nevada test
site where we were blowing upall the atomic weapons above ground
and testing all of those.
The first thing that happenedthere was we brought in the new U2
plane surveillance plane, andthat's where we kept it.
(09:06):
We needed a secret place totest it.
And the Nevada desert is ahuge expanse of land if you don't
know that.
So it's very easy to flyplanes in an area like that that
is not heavily populated atall and keep it a secret.
So that's the first thing thathappened there.
And then of course, as weknow, you know, all you have to do
(09:30):
is watch the X Files on TV torealize lots of other stuff occurred
there over the subsequent decades.
I think I mentioned to you inone of our earlier conversations.
I'm working on a novel rightnow that is based in almost solely
in Las Vegas for a number ofdifferent reasons.
(09:50):
And I have found what I findso interesting for some bizarre reason.
And I've traveled back andforth across the country during my
radio career and stopped in alot of cities, in towns and states.
And Nevada is its own, its ownparticular kind of world.
And what I like about thisarea in your book, it's.
It's a character in and of itself.
(10:12):
And that's kind of the way I'mdoing it in my book.
I mean, Vegas, for instance,is its own microcosm.
But Nevada in general seems tobe its own little world.
And I, and I really dig thatabout how you weave it in as a character.
I think it's, you know, Ithink we said probably last time,
(10:32):
there's a lot of low hangingfruit for me to grab as a writer
to talk about rural Nevada.
Again, it's.
Most people are acquaintedwith Las Vegas and Reno, but outside
of that, you know, people wholive anywhere east of here especially
and have never visited thestate really have no idea of everything
(10:53):
that, that that happens hereand how big the state actually is.
So you're right, Dave.
There is plenty of opportunityto take Nevada and all of its interesting
things and really describe itto people in such a way that it becomes
a character.
I mean, it's very scenic in agreat deal of the state.
(11:16):
Yeah, where my books takeplace is really high desert for the
most part, but there's plentyof mountains.
Nevada is actually the mostmountainous state outside of Alaska.
And most people don't knowthat it has more peaks, more peaks
over 10,000ft than anywhere else.
I think too, maybe other thanlike Colorado or Alaska.
(11:39):
So the terrain itself isreally a marvelous thing to incorporate
into these stories.
And in it, it also impactswhat my characters can do.
All right, before I jump overto Dana, I want to say one of my
favorite things about PorterBeck was that how you and we talked
(12:01):
about this, it doesn't followthat traditional thriller mold.
He's more introspective.
I don't want to say sensitive,because that makes you think one
thing, but introspective.
And so it always makes mewonder what drove you to not use
that classic hard actionarchetype, you know, whether it's
a Jack Reacher or, you know,fill in the blank.
(12:26):
Well, I think the reason I didthat primarily was because we all
have seen very strongcharacters in.
In modern Western literature.
I. I'm thinking of C.J.
box and Greg Johnson, youknow, the Walt Longmire and Joe Pickett
characters.
And although Joe Pickett's not a.
(12:47):
He's not a Superman either.
But I always thought there'splenty of pages and books already
taken up with.
With heroes in those storieswho are almost indestructible in
some ways.
So I thought, well, here Ihave this very rugged setting, and
I do have a.
A somewhat rugged guy, buthe's by no means a superman at all.
(13:11):
And he has problems.
And he has.
In.
In Porter's case, he has avision problem.
He cannot see at night.
You can see pretty well duringthe day.
But he suffers from nightblindness, which is a degenerative
disease, and that is slowlytaking its toll on him.
And, you know, he is by.
He needs help.
He needs the help of hisdeputies and other people.
(13:36):
Well, now let's flip the pagea little bit to Dana and.
And Dana, I've got this twopart question that's burning a hole
in me and Desmond.
All right, how do I say this?
Aloysius.
Aloysius.
That's it.
Aloysius Limerick based onChain Reaction number one.
(13:56):
How in the wide world ofsports did you come up with that
name?
And it's.
It's delicious in and of itself.
And how did you come up withhis rare mix of part rogue, part
philosopher, part sleuth?
So we'll go one, two.
I just love the genre.
I love the single male actionadventure that the Lee Child, the
Reacher genre.
And I wanted to try my hand atit, but I couldn't do what everybody
(14:18):
else had done.
I needed to make this guy different.
So, like, like Bruce and likePorter, I tried to find ways to make
my characters stand out acouple of ways.
He's very, very good in a Fight.
Very strong fellow, powerfully built.
But one, he's English, he's,he's from the uk.
And secondly, he, although hedoesn't sound like it, he's got this
bit engineering technical background.
(14:39):
And then third, I decided if Ihave this guy who's big and tough
and good in a fight, why don'tI give him the stupidest name I could
think of?
Because it just, it would beso easy to slip into toxic masculinity
with this kind of character ifhe was perfect.
So I came up with Limerickbecause I'm an Irishman myself and
limerick is a fun word.
And then I wanted, Idesperately didn't want to use a
(15:01):
Joe or a Jake or a Jackbecause there are about 12 million
of those in this genre.
So Des is good because it'sone syllable and it's got a Zed in
it.
And that, that's fun.
And then finally, Aloysius,it's just simply the silliest name
of all time.
And so when you put themtogether, you get this absolutely
ridiculous name.
And almost every book at onepoint somebody says to him, no, seriously,
(15:21):
what really is your name?
And he's like, it's aperfectly good name.
This is my name.
It let me undercut, let me adda second flavor to the sauce until
it was just a one note character.
So well done.
So go ahead and give me the,the spin on Chain Reaction.
So folks who were debating,and I apologize, I didn't realize
it came out in January.
(15:42):
I knew it was spring ish, butgo ahead.
Okay, so this is the third ofso far four books.
The fourth one is with myeditor and coming out next year.
Des is 35 years old.
He's retired from AM Military.
I never say which one it is.
And he's come to the UnitedStates and he's roaming around with
a guitar on his back and justgetting into trouble.
(16:04):
And, and in the military, hewas a breach artist.
His job was to be a gatekeeper.
He can open any door, keep itopen for as long as it's necessary,
and control who does and doesnot get through it.
That was his, his, his expertise.
So in this book we find himlured to Las Vegas where a terrorist
incident is going on.
(16:24):
And that's about the firstthird of the book.
And soon we realize thatthere's a whole, whole different
thing going on beneath that.
That the terrorist incident issort of a setup for another set of
crimes that is being maskedbeneath it.
So we spend this book.
First book was in LA.
Second one was in Oregon,where I live.
This third book, NJ, New York City.
And I, like, unlike Bruce, hasthe ability to have an actual character
(16:48):
in his setting.
And he's.
And he paints it so incrediblywell and so thoroughly that I feel
like I've been there.
But DEZ bounces to a differentvenue and in every book which allows
me to have him always be afish out of water.
Well, I admire something thatyou both have done.
Of course, you both have nowsaid it in that you, you turned your
back on the average norm.
(17:10):
The thing that we grew up watching.
The James Bond, the JasonBourne, the Jack Reacher and, And
you've, you know, you, you're.
You're marching to the beat ofyour own drum.
One of my favorite things to do.
Right.
And so I, I so appreciate andrespect that.
And you made a good point, Dana.
It is true about Bruce's bookis the way he paints the story is.
(17:36):
And every and all good writersdo this, but for some reason, Bruce,
I don't want to say he's gotthe market cornered, but he really
does have a beautiful way ofsetting scene.
Yeah.
And making me feel like I'mliving inside of it.
You do the same thing yours feels.
I like the way you structureyour characters and the character
(17:57):
and the way they speak and thetiny little nuances like the opening
scene in the book aboutthey're in this car ready to get
into this hairy situation.
So you both have reallyexceptional storytelling skills.
And I can now understand nowbetter why you become such close
friends.
(18:18):
I do think our writing style is.
Well, first off, how we writeis vastly different.
The process by which Brucewrites would make me have an aneurysm.
And the process by which Iwrite, he would.
He laughs his tail off and Itell him how I do it.
But nonetheless, we havegotten to that same point where we
have these very characterdriven stories that are actually
different at one level, butkind of similar at another level.
(18:41):
Well, wait a minute.
Go ahead.
I was just going to say, toadd to that, I think one of the things
that we do similarly in ourwriting style is we don't over describe
things.
We try to put in just enoughdetail to give the reader a good
sense of what we're talkingabout or a place that one of our
(19:03):
characters is in withoutoverdoing it.
Which is not something I'mterribly fond of as a reader.
Right.
Which is probably why I don'twrite that way.
I don't like too much description.
I like to leave something opento the reader's imagination.
So you know, we drop these.
These.
These very brief descriptionsof breadcrumbs along the way to give
(19:24):
the reader a sense of whatwe're talking about without spending
three pages on it.
I remember the day.
The days back in.
Let me see if I can reach this.
The old gray mirror ain't whatshe used to be.
Late 80s.
Yeah.
(19:45):
Mid to late 80s, early 90s.
I'm thinking of Tom.
Tom.
Thomas Wolf.
Tom Wolf.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm thinking of Bonfire, the Vanities.
I'm thinking of later.
The Man.
Man.
Man.
Allowed manner.
Whatever the hell it is.
Point being, you could open.
You could open a Thomas Wolf book.
(20:07):
Chapter one.
You could be six chapters in.
And he's just describedwalking into the room.
Do you remember those days?
I do.
And, you know, he's very goodat it.
You have to be really, reallygood at that.
There's a.
There's a lot of options who are.
And they can keep you engaged.
(20:28):
I'm not one of those people.
Yeah.
So my bigger.
So I remember this oneparticular scene.
I think it was Bonfire, the Vanities.
He's just describing the.
A guy waking up with a hangover.
And.
And.
And.
And having been a sizabledrinker back in my old days, I would
just read that and go, oh, myGod, he nailed it.
(20:48):
But here's my point.
I don't want to lose the point.
Those days are.
I don't want to say they'regone because it's to, you know, to.
How are you like to read your books?
But I've noticed between theshortening attention spans, the more
the battle for those attention.
Those shortening attentionspans, people just kind of want to
cut to the chase faster.
(21:10):
And I don't know, is that me?
Because I'm impatient, becauseI'm trying to read so much because
we've gotten conditioned by.
Yeah, I know.
He walked into the room andit's a brightly lit room and there's
tapestry and he's wearing acertain kind of shoe.
But I don't need that detail.
Where's the gun?
And who's gonna get shot?
(21:32):
I do think.
I do think there was a styleof literature at a time and I.
We often joke about the JamesMichener school.
Chapter one, the Earth cools.
You know, it's like.
And by page 185 wereintroduced to our protagonist.
And that was a school of.
That was a way of doing it.
Leon Uris wrote sort of thatway too.
And I do think that.
(21:53):
And I'm going to say thatyou're probably right.
That it's an attention span,and it's a social media and an Internet
world in which I don't thinkeither of us have the luxury of waiting
15 pages for somethinginteresting to happen.
Because my wife gets booksfrom our local library system, and
she opens it and reads chapter one.
And if you didn't get herchapter one, she closes and gives
it back to the library.
And she's not out of scent.
(22:14):
So that's our challenge today.
Remember the days when youwould go, God, I'd go to a bookstore
and I'd buy a stack and I'dget home, and I'm like, oh, my God,
I cannot wait.
And then you realized, I got acouple of dogs in here, and because
I paid for them, you can besure I'm gonna read them.
But those days are kind of gone.
(22:35):
And I like your wife's philosophy.
I like the way you like.
Oh, it's just.
And we had this conversationlast time.
We were talking about how Iused to give you.
I'd give you three, four,maybe five chapters.
All right?
Then it became, you know,again with time and with age, in
this four years of the show.
I'm like, let's see what youcan do in the first chapter.
(22:56):
Now.
It's your prologue.
And here's the challenge.
Can you get me to do this?
Oh, and if you can, I'm stillwith you.
And.
And both of these books did that.
You're right, Dave.
That's.
That's the big challenge.
Especially in our genre, wewrite things, stories that have urgency
(23:16):
to them and that havedeadlines associated with, you know,
our protagonist figuringthings out.
And our readers are all drivento look for those things and to look
for them very quickly.
So, yeah, if we don't deliverin the first couple of pages, our
book doesn't even get off the shelf.
Yeah, you.
You both got a chance to meetmy lovely wife, whose name is right
(23:38):
here because she saved my assby breaking out zoom and the other
stuff didn't work.
And she.
I love.
I have loved.
We've been together, what, 10years now?
And I've watched the patternof her digesting series of televisions
shows.
And she'll say, every.
With time, she has come to aplace where she goes, oh, ticking
(24:01):
clock.
Oh, my God, what's that, honey?
She goes, there's the ticking clock.
And I'm like, bravo, young lady.
So now she's starting to pickup ticking clock and notice.
Hey, notice how that lastchapter or I. E. Scene made me want
to see the next one.
I'M like, now you've got it.
(24:22):
It's beautiful.
Let's see, let's, let's diveinto, let's just couple more things
because we've been at this fora while, trying to get our show going.
Blue horse.
The blue horse wrestles withgenerational guilt.
What, what's, what's got youthinking about this?
Bruce, get on, get on the couch.
Make yourself comfortable.
It's therapy time with theDave and Dana.
(24:44):
So as you mentioned earlier,Dave Porter Beck is pretty introspective
and he comes from a lot ofsecrets in his past which, which
start to be revealed in thefirst book, the Bitter Past, hence
the title.
And there's a lot of thingsthat are secretive, not only in those
(25:07):
areas of Nevada that Idescribed that are run by the federal
government, but in people's lives.
And he's no different.
And guilt is one of thoseemotions and one of those things
which at times plague us all.
Regret and things that wedidn't do or we should have done
differently.
(25:28):
So those are always good toolsto use, I think, in a story, provided
that you don't overdo itbecause they're very interesting
and very relatable.
So yeah, it's, it's a big part of.
Generational guilt is a bigpart of this whole series really.
Or if you grew up in thechurch with a father as a pastor
(25:50):
like me, you, you know yourfair share about guilt, right?
Yeah.
Jesus.
Well, I want to bounce overhere to, to the chain reaction corner
and, and say one thing about James.
What I dig about your style isthat the way you do this.
(26:12):
And we, you know, we touchedon this earlier.
You dance between action andsatire the way limerick disarms with
a phrase.
I love that, that, that justwitty repartee.
Is that one of your, your ownpersonal hidden secret talents?
I. Yeah, I mean I am an extheater guy, so I have a pretty good
(26:34):
sense of how to do dialogueand how to make dialogue carry freight.
You don't want dialogue fordialogue's sake.
It always needs to give yousome character revelation or needs
to have a clue towards areveal later on.
So that, that helps a lot.
Secondly, I just really wantedto have a loquacious, fast talking
(26:55):
guy with street patois.
He sounds pretty uneducatedbecause I had never read that before
and I thought it would bereally fun to have.
We have our fair share ofstoic heroes and I just thought wouldn't
it be fun to have a guy whojust won't shut the hell up.
And the other thing that wasreally fun to do with this character
was when it comes to havingsex, he's instantly 15 years old
(27:16):
and he's the least cool guy inthe world, the least suave, the anti
bond.
He's always like, sex.
That would be marvelous.
Yeah, let's do that.
And I thought I hadn't readthat before.
Wouldn't that be fun to have adude who's so insanely uncool?
So those are just.
They were things thatentertained me.
And Bruce and I have talkedabout this in the past.
We're our own first audiences.
(27:38):
We both write books that willentertain us.
That's.
That's the first goal.
And I. I really wanted acharacter that would make me.
That would make me laugh.
Yeah, I think, James, the onething that's really fascinating that
I think the audience herewould get a kick out of is describe
how you learned how DEZ would speak.
(28:00):
How did you pick up that dialect?
Yeah, some of it is fromformer amateur theater days, some
of us watching a lot ofBritish television.
And then I got really, really lucky.
I had a friend, and you'veprobably had her on the show, Meg
Gardner, who lived in England for.
For quite a while.
And I asked Meg if she wouldlook at an early manuscript and correct
my British isms.
(28:22):
And there's an editor atMinotaur St Martin who is British,
and she also read it.
So I'm.
I, first off, I have a prettygood ear for.
For dialect.
And then I also had two betareaders who said, no, I think you're
fine in that.
The other thing, and I'venever revealed this to the audience,
is that DEZ grew up in whatyou and I would call orphanages in
(28:43):
parts of England, Ireland and Scotland.
And the reason I did that isthat nobody could ever say, oh, no,
no, nobody from Ireland wouldsay that.
Only somebody from Scotland would.
And I'd say, I'm.
I'm inculcated.
I'm fine.
I've got.
I got that.
So if there's some Englishisms, if there's some Irish isms
and some Scots isms in there,I'm okay with.
I. I can pass muster with anyof that.
Yeah, that opening prologue,folks, if you pick up a chain reaction,
(29:07):
you're gonna.
You're gonna get it right away.
And I'd sit here and read itfor you, but I don't want to bore
you.
But, yeah, you turn a phraseand just little phrases that, you
know, get.
Sends it home.
Right.
Now, there is a line.
Don Winslow drove out here acouple Summers ago, we were talking
about one of his books, andhe, he said a line.
(29:30):
I've never forgotten it.
And I try to remember it everytime I sit down to the keyboard.
And that is, every line mustpay rent.
I like that.
Yeah.
And I'll tell you what.
Damned if that doesn't.
I, I, I don't have it on a sign.
It should be a little noteright here attached to one of my
(29:51):
four monitors.
It says that very thing because.
And Bruce, you and I've talkedabout this before.
It's interesting how we.
Oh, I just came up with areally cool line.
I love that line.
Oh, yeah?
Well, does it fit?
Does it.
I'm not sure it fits.
Doesn't really matter.
It's such a sexy damn line.
But if it doesn't really movethat story forward, you're really
(30:14):
just kind of taking up space.
What do you guys think about that?
Yeah, I think there's no question.
And we all, all three of usknow that too, Too painfully.
You, you sometimes write stufflike you said, Dave, and you just
sit back and you go, gosh, outof all the stuff I've written today,
that that's the most brilliant line.
And yet when you go back andlook at it again and you're, maybe
(30:36):
you're doing your edits, yougo, well, yeah, it's a nice line,
but it really doesn't, itdoesn't move the story forward, or
it doesn't even move theparagraph forward.
It's, it's, you know, it'sjust sitting there.
It's, it's, it's taking up space.
And in this business, ifyou're not your own editor, and you're
(31:00):
not your own best editor,you're probably not doing this well
enough.
We all have editors, you know,help us hone these, these manuscripts
before they go out.
But you have to make thosepainful decisions occasionally.
And sometimes it's like, oh,no, I'm gonna have to take that out.
But you do it.
(31:22):
How many times have I.
Go ahead, James.
What are you gonna say?
I was gonna say, we both are.
Edited by a guy named Keith.
And Keith, in one of my firstbooks, they ever said to me, hey,
on page 32, you have thisscene from so and so's point of view.
But on page 314, so and soneeds to know that too.
Would you consider changingthe pov?
And I thought, good Lord, heunderstands my story at a granular
level that I don't.
(31:43):
Oh, my God.
And we are insanely lucky to have.
I take all of his edits comein the form of suggestions, and I
take 97% of his suggestionsbecause they're simply that good.
Yeah, they're.
They're great.
And what's his name again?
Keith.
Kayla.
Kayla.
H L, A.
(32:06):
And he's hilarious, and he hasan encyclopedic knowledge of 1980s
pop culture, and he's a guy togo have a drink with, too.
So, I mean, he.
We're.
We're super lucky.
Yeah.
He did the same thing with meon my first book.
I had a joke in there that,you know, Porterbeck likes to tell
jokes, and he's a funny guy.
He's got a quick wit, and he's.
(32:27):
He's very.
He's got good timing, goodcomedic timing.
But Keith sent me back hisedits, and like.
Like James said, you know, Itypically take just about all of
those right at face value anddon't make any changes.
I like those suggestions.
But he said, I think you don'tneed this joke.
And I said, oh, no, no.
(32:49):
I was like, that joke in mymind is essential.
But then I.
And so I made that commentback to him and his response to me,
he said, okay, I like all ofthese changes that you adopted or
made, and I like thissuggestion, but you still need to
get rid of this joke.
It's not doing anything forthe story.
(33:11):
You've already established thereporter can tell a joke, and, you
know, but this is not the bestplace for that.
So.
And he said.
He said, believe me, somepeople are not going to get it.
He said, that's the mostimportant part of it.
Some people won't get it.
Either change the joke or getrid of it.
There is a line you guys haveboth been around this business long
(33:34):
enough to know.
And I think about this everytime I put my ass in a seat in a
theater.
If you're doing something onthat screen that takes me out of
the story, that makes me go,wait a minute.
What does that mean?
What did he mean by that?
Well, you have just burned upsome important real estate because
(33:57):
you've.
Now.
Now, here's what's got to happen.
I've got to stop, and I got to go.
What do you mean by that?
And then you got to get meback into the story.
And what have I missed in thetime that it took me?
I'm not saying I'm gonna sitthere and go for 10 minutes.
You know what?
I don't know exactly what hemeant by that, but I could assume,
you know.
(34:17):
But the point, Ben, is to hisPoint, did it.
Did it move me forward?
Did can everybody get it?
That's a really, really,really solid point.
And I never thought about it,but, boy, which is why beta readers,
besides editors, which istheir profession, are what I think
(34:38):
are so important with betareaders, because they might.
You might have 10 people readit and one person go, I have no clue
what that means.
Then you have to stop and go,is it in my best interest to leave
that?
Right, yeah.
We have kicked that blue horse.
All right.
What scares you, James, mostas a storyteller?
(35:02):
That A, your fiction might beprophetic, or B, no one is listening
until it's too late.
The prophetic thing is weirdbecause I drew.
I'm a.
By training a journalist.
I came out of newspapernewsrooms and I wrote a book that
was called, eventually goingto be called Crashers, and it was
about ntsb, the teams thatinvestigate airline crashes.
(35:24):
And I got it finished, and Igot a literary agent in New York,
and the agent called me andsaid, oh, my God, this is a great
book.
It's going to be a hardback paperback.
It's going to do really well.
We're going to take it to Hollywood.
This is great.
And that was in August of 2001.
And one month later was 9 11.
And this was a book aboutterrorists bringing down multiple
airliners.
And a third of the book tookplace in New York City.
So that book became thus themost unmarketable book in the world
(35:49):
because all the publishers arein New York City, or not all of them,
but a whole lot of them are.
And so that was a case where Ihad to take the story and I had to
take the book and put it on ashelf for seven years.
So we finally got it sold toMinotaur Saint Martin's in 2010,
but it had been sitting on ashelf for a long time before that
got published.
And then I wrote another bookfor Keith, and I wanted to set it
(36:11):
in the safest place possible,somewhere in the Middle east that
hadn't changed in a long time.
That was very, very stable.
And I thought finally, well, Syria.
Nothing ever changes in Syria.
And that, you know, Arabicspring hit me about three weeks after
the book landed.
And so sometimes you juststumble into the.
The world orbiting out fromunderneath where you started your
(36:33):
book.
And the.
When that happens, you justhave to say, well.
I think that's just a greatlesson in life, James, that you can.
That we should be a littlemore flexible and just roll with
the punches.
Because so much of this worldis fluid.
And I mean, this world right here.
(36:55):
You know, see, people talkabout, where do you come up with
your great ideas?
To those people, I want tobackhand them, but I say, oh, you
know, if I'm waking up in theday, I'm probably going to have a
dozen.
But when something great comesalong, you just go, okay, not a big
(37:15):
deal.
I got plenty more that came from.
Put it on a shelf and keepmoving forward.
I want to ask you something aswe start to kind of wrap up you,
both of you guys, if you couldgo back to your younger selves and
sit down and have aconversation about two things.
The passion with which youchase your dream of writing and the
(37:40):
business in which you have tooccupy in order to be successful.
If you could go back and givethose, you know, kind of those insights,
knowing what you know now,what would you say to those youngins,
that young Bruce and thatyoung James as they were starting
out?
Bruce, you're first.
Well, I would.
I would certainly tell myself,you have the right instincts.
(38:03):
This is what you should be doing.
But you need to believe itmore because it's so easy when you're
younger.
I'm like so many authors thatI know who really didn't start seriously
writing fiction until a littlebit later in life because they had
life to contend with and, youknow, everybody needs a job and bring
(38:25):
home a paycheck and all ofthose things.
But I. I wish that I had hadthe confidence much earlier to pursue
this and, and literally spenda great deal more of my time, you
know, trying to.
To go after that.
Had I done that, I. I think,you know, I probably would have a
(38:47):
lot more books out there by now.
So that would have been my bigpiece of advice to me, James.
I probably would have told myyoung self that the, the trick, and
we've talked about this, aboutwriting for yourself, being your
first reader.
Don't go don't ask what ishot, don't ask what is popular.
Don't ask what genre is makingthe most money.
None of that matters.
(39:07):
At the end of the day, you'regoing to spend the better part of
a year with these charactersand with this plot, and it better
be entertaining you.
So don't go and chase whatevercute teenage vampire is the hot market
of the day.
Only write stories that arefor the one purpose only of entertaining
yourself.
If you do that, then you mightgo ahead and find a literary agent,
(39:29):
and then you might find aneditor, and then you might find booksellers,
and then you might find anaudience elsewhere.
But if you don't do thatfirst, you ain't going to do the
other stuff.
Yeah, and one of the things,Dave, before you, before you go on,
I think just kind of adds onto that nicely is that, you know,
you always hear the advice,write what you know.
Well, when you're, when you'rereally young, you don't know anything
(39:50):
about anything and you don'thave any life experience.
So.
So I, I think one way to, totake that a little bit differently
is write what you'reinterested in.
So, like James just said, Imean, if you can find something that
you first and foremost have,have an interest in, you can make
it interesting.
(40:11):
I don't care how much you knowabout it right now.
You can learn it, you can dothe research, you can, you can make
it interesting to people ifyou have enough interest in it.
That's really great.
Yeah.
You made me think of twothings as you were describing your
younger self's conversations.
I started piddling about backwhen I was living in LA in my first
(40:35):
tour of duty and I was doing asatellite radio show.
And I remember one day,satellite radio is different than
live radio as you can imagineit, live radio, it's, you know, 7,
15, 15 after 7 o'.
Clock.
We'll check weather rightafter this.
But coming up on the Todayshow is la, la la la la la la la.
Everything is very vermin, butin satellite radio you have to speak
(40:59):
in generic terms because I wasin eight different time zones, so
I couldn't say, hey, goodmorning, it's Dave here playing your
favorite country hit or whatever.
Because in this time zone, itmight be evening and in this format,
format, it might have shiftedto album rock.
That's not the point.
The point is just beingpresent and aware of, you know, what
(41:24):
you're doing.
The other thing is, so as Iwas just kind of bored with that
situation, I'm like, I'm justgoing to go down the hall and pick
up my secretary's typewriter,I'm going to take it down the studio.
I got another four hours ofthis nonsense to do.
So I started banging outlittle tiny short stories just for
shits and giggles.
(41:44):
And that's how I started.
But it was a year later, andhere's my point I'm trying to get
to.
I remember sitting theregoing, I'm now living in New York
City doing the number onemorning show, and I'm sitting in
my apartment after the showand I'm just banging out stories.
And I was a big JamesPatterson fan at the time, and I'm
like, I think I can do this.
(42:05):
And I keep writing.
I'm like, this is really kindof good.
But I didn't have theconfidence that it really, truly
was good.
And because I didn't share itwith anyone, I didn't have any feedback.
So I agree with you.
I'd say, like, man, if youjust have a inkling that you think
you're good at it, just, Justpursue it.
(42:27):
Somebody somewhere is going totell you that it sucks and that maybe
you should do something elseor it's going to catch on.
Anyway, I have to say, I wasat a writing conference this weekend
and I was presenting and I raninto a woman who heard me present
the year before, and she said,you said one thing at the conference
last year.
(42:47):
And I typed it out when I wenthome and I put it in my conference
lanyard and I've hung on thewall behind me.
And what I said to her is, Idon't want to ever hear anybody in
this room refer themselves asa would be writer or a future writer
or somebody who wants to be a writer.
If you're slapping nounsagainst verbs, you're a writer.
And start identifying yourselfin the mirrors, look at that writer
who's shaving, and startthinking of yourself as a writer.
And she said, I put, I am awriter, typed it out, put it on a
(43:10):
lanyard behind it.
And she said, a year later,she's still using it as inspiration,
which was one of the mostgratifying moments of my career that
I had.
I'd said something that wasless dumb than a lot of other things
they say, and it affected somebody.
Wow.
And something that, you know,I think most writers would appreciate.
Yeah, for sure.
(43:31):
Well, and it's absolutely.
And it's so funny, the lack ofgiving ourselves permission.
I don't know where thatsilliness comes from because I always
look at it this way, this isgoing to be a little.
Might feel a little obtuse,but bear with me a second.
So I remember as a kid growingup in the church again, thinking
(43:54):
to myself, do you think if,if, if there is a God, and God instilled
in me a particular desire andtalent, do you think I would say,
zing, there you go.
And you, I, I'm a pretty good writer.
And then you start to writingand then one day he goes, yep, you're
(44:14):
not going to be any good at it.
I'm like, that doesn't reallymake any sense.
If the, if the desire is thereand the ability is kind of coming
along, Then I'm probably apretty good chance I'm gonna be halfway
decent at this.
I don't know if that's tooobscure, but you see what I'm saying.
No.
And we talked about this last time.
(44:35):
You know, nobody's born Mozart.
You know, in the writingworld, for the most part, it takes
a lot of reps. You gotta.
You gotta put in hours andhours and hours of practicing, writing.
Just like the violin or thepiano, it's no different.
And like you said, Dave, ifyou believe that, I, I, you know,
I've got a little bit of atalent for this, and you.
(44:56):
You like doing it, then themore time you spend doing it, the
better you will get.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like my.
It's like my golf game.
Where.
Where do you think in the wideworld of sports do you think you.
I'm just gonna take a bag out today.
When's the last time you wentout, Dave?
It's been about four or fiveyears, but I think I've got this.
And you go out there and yousmack it, and you're just screwing
(45:19):
off and horribly.
Well, did you put in the time?
No, not really.
Well, then how can you get any good?
Yeah, all right.
Did you take lessons?
Did you find somebody who'sreally good at it or a professional
in that and take some lessons,Learn how to do it?
That's what.
It's the same with writing.
You gotta.
You gotta.
(45:39):
You gotta learn those things.
Yeah.
And I don't think writing isan art either.
I really think of it as a craft.
I've just.
And it's not that dissimilarfrom cooking.
I love to cook, and I love to write.
And the more you cook, thebetter you get.
The more you write, the betteryou get, and the more you figure
out the easy paths in the craft.
Just.
Bruce is a.
He nailed it.
(45:59):
You've just gotta stick to itand put in the hours, do the reps.
Absolutely right.
Yeah.
Well, I feel like we'vealready been given our best writing
advice, but if you've got anylittle cherry to toss on top, I'd
love to hear it.
If anybody ever tells youthere's only one way to write, you
should nod politely, shaketheir hand, walk outside, find their
(46:20):
car and pee on their tires,because it's just not true.
And I've heard so many writingcoaches and been seen so many writing
things where they.
Everybody must outline or.
All writers must do X, nowriter must ever do Y.
And ED is nonsense.
There's a million ways to do this.
And when you find your zone,and you'll know it's your zone because
all of a sudden you writeeight or 10 pages and the next day
(46:41):
you read them and you thinkthey're really good.
That's your zone, whateverthat is.
That's the right way to write.
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
You know, find what works for you.
James mentioned earlier thatwe, the two of us, have completely
different writing styles interms of, you know, our process.
Actually, we have twodifferent processes, and that's fine
(47:02):
because it's what works for us.
There is no secret sauce tothings you have to do to become a
good writer.
Yeah.
You have to put in the time.
Yes.
But that doesn't mean you haveto do 5,000 words a day.
It doesn't mean that you haveto write every day.
There's a lot of people inthis industry will say, you must
write every day.
I don't care if it's fivewords or 500 or 5,000.
(47:24):
Must write every day.
I. I don't think that's true either.
You know, I take time off.
I.
Life gets in the way.
I.
Sometimes I just want to takea break and let my brain cool down.
Yep.
So you just gotta find whatworks for you and stick to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was teaching a class onetime and a young woman said, I.
(47:45):
My problem is that I'm.
I have lazy, horrible work ethic.
I will.
I have a day job, and oneweekend I will try and sit down and
write and nothing happens.
And the next weekend I'll tryand sit down and write and nothing
happens.
And the next weekend I try andsit down, nothing happens.
And then I'll have thatweekend where I generate literally
100 pages and I don't know howto get out of this horrible, horrible
habit.
And I said, show of hands inthe room.
If you did a hundred pages ina month, would you be happy?
(48:05):
And everybody said, well, of course.
Don't change what you're doing.
Just don't allow yourself tofeel guilty about it.
If you said, I am not allowedto be guilty about it.
This is my way of writing.
You got yourself a system.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One other thing that I wouldmention to people is this is me personally.
I don't believe in writer's block.
I don't know what that is.
I've never experienced itbecause I've always told myself,
(48:28):
just start typing.
Even you know, I've got someidea in my head, just start typing.
What you.
What you vomit out first isprobably going to be crap.
But if it's not there in crapform to begin with, you can't make
it better.
So just start typing.
It will come.
You don't have to.
You don't have to spewperfection right out of the gate.
(48:50):
Yeah.
We don't have writer's blockin journalism.
We call it unemployment.
Yeah, that's right.
Exactly.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
Yeah.
Golly day.
We have learned so much.
We are.
We're smarter people now, Folks.
You want to learn more to goto bruceborges.com and or jamesburnthriller.com
(49:12):
the books are.
Course we're going to throwthem up here.
Chain Reaction by James andthe Blue Horse.
Yes.
Look.
Oh, how nice is that?
We're going to show.
Yeah.
Guys, I'm so glad we werefinally able to pull this off.
I think everything's working.
Thank you for your patience.
This is great fun.
Thank you.
(49:33):
So much fun.
Your number one podcast forstories that thrill the Thriller
Zone.
Foreign welcome to theThriller Zone.
I'm your host, David Templin.
As you can see, it's casualFriday, except it's Wednesday.
We have had a couple of littletechnical issues here of late trying
to hook up with today's guests.
So today's performancetechnically is not going to be tip
(00:23):
top like we usually have it.
We had a connection problem onone end so we went to a different
program, still had theproblem, called in my wife Tammy,
thank goodness, and we hookedit up on Zoom.
However, as you will see, allthree of us are not on the camera
at the same time.
So it could be a littleconfusing at first just telling you
all that so that you know whatthe story is.
(00:45):
I'm your host, Dave Temple.
Welcome to episode who.
Who knows what it is, but it's summertime.
So as you can see, it's alittle bit casual around here.
A couple of quick notes.
If you want to be on the show,I'm gonna really suggest strongly
that you have a microphonethat works in addition to your laptop.
I think you're going to reallyappreciate it.
(01:07):
You're going to sound better.
Have a little light on your face.
Whether it's a window or aspotlight or a lamp.
It really does help.
And WI fi, if your wi fisucks, so will the show.
So just a word to the wise is sufficient.
Today's show, two guys, you'regoing to see me announce it again.
James Byrne with Chain Reaction.
Bruce Borges, the Blue Horse Barry.
(01:28):
Very excited to have both ofthese guys on the show.
And as always, if you wouldlike to be on the show, probably
more after the summer vacationbreak that we're going to have here
very soon.
Love to hear from you.
The thrillerzonemail.com sowithout any further ado, how about
you and I get on into theThriller Zone?
If you knew what it took us toget here, you would be going.
(01:54):
I'm glad this show's free.
No foreign it's been.
Gentlemen, welcome to the show.
Oh, thanks for having us backyet again.
We tried this folks last weekand we had some tech issues.
James is in downtown Portlandin a high rise.
It's a very handsome condo.
And Mr. Borges is in a verygorgeous alpine ish cabin in the
(02:19):
middle of where?
Southern Utah, in themountains, about 8,000ft.
Oh, that's nice.
Why I'm wearing a jacket.
Well, I'm glad we were able tomake this happen.
It is not without some challenges.
(02:39):
But that's one thing aboutthis trusty Thriller Zone.
You just keep going.
Now you guys can jump in hereanytime you want.
This is.
We're on Zoom.
Zoom is not my ordinary territory.
I like Riverside fm.
Nothing against Zoom, but wehad to resort to this.
(03:03):
That's.
Oh, my God.
I just saw Tammy.
Tammy's name is down here.
Yes.
Hi, I'm Tammy.
Just.
Just ignore that we're on her account.
But anyway, we're talkingabout two fabulous books.
James is back.
James is new to the show.
Chain Reaction is this littlebad boy.
(03:23):
And then Bruce is back withthe Blue Horse.
Everybody knows my good buddyMr. Borges, but I'm telling you,
these are two stacked books ofreading deliciousness.
Jump in, guys.
(03:44):
Well, we're glad to be here.
Bruce's book just came out.
Mine came out in January.
And we're thrilled to be withyou, Tammy.
It's always good to see you.
But let me just say realquickly, if.
If you're new to James'swriting, just like he's new, a little
(04:04):
bit new to Dave and maybe someof your listeners.
He is a fabulous writer.
His books, especially thisseries featuring the amazing Des
limerick, are just a treat to read.
I mean, so exciting and sowell crafted.
(04:26):
Thank you.
I'm also a huge fan of Bruce'scurrent series.
And we have the samepublishing house, we have the same
editor, and we're.
We are now a team.
Yeah.
And we used to have the same agent.
That's right.
That's right.
Who sadly recently passed.
But let me.
Let me ask you this, because we.
And I'm going to repeat thingsthat we had in our first conversation
(04:48):
that got removed because oftech issues.
So I'm gonna.
We'll just pretend it's allfrom Brand New Fresh.
How did you guys meet and whatstarted this bromance love affair?
Every year at the WorldMystery Convention, which is also
known as bouchercon, theMinotaur, St. Martin's folks have
(05:09):
a cocktail party and a coupleyears ago is in the delightful city
of San Diego, which I don'tknow well at all.
And everybody who's edited bya guy named Keith Kayla, we all gathered
around him, and Bruce and Imet there.
And one of the things that wekind of oddly discovered about the
writers who are edited byKeith is that Keith seems to go out
of his way to edit.
(05:30):
Nice people, people you wantto meet.
There was a guy named SteveHussaini was there too, and it was
just we ended up hanging outthe, like, I don't know, four or
five of us for the entirecocktail party.
We just more or less ignoredeverybody else.
And it was.
And it was grand fun.
Yep, absolutely.
I was at that particular bowShakhan, because it's right here
(05:51):
in my backyard.
But I had several things inthe air, so I bopped in, got to meet
some people, got to see Bruce.
Did not get to meet you.
J.
And then was on my way.
But Bruce, you.
You've been at this.
This is number four.
Three.
Three on.
Yeah, it's number three in thequarterback series.
(06:12):
Thank you.
But it's.
You have other books before that.
Let's.
Let's just do this.
Let's just shoot out of thegate with.
What is Porter up to now?
One thing, refresh my memorybecause I've read a few books since
then.
Was.
Was Detective Charlie BlueHorse his girlfriend in the last
(06:36):
book?
That I don't.
Yes, she was.
And so just a quick synopsis.
Porter Beck is the sheriff ofa very rural county in Nevada called
Lincoln County.
He recently, in the last fewyears, returned from a career in
army intelligence and ended uptaking the job of sheriff that his
(06:56):
dad had held for more than 30 years.
And Lincoln county veryinterestingly sits right next door
to the very top secret area inthe Nevada desert that the federal
government occupies and doesstrange things in.
So it's right next to Area 51and all the alien stuff.
And so he.
(07:17):
He continually encounters somereally interesting cases and situations.
And then, yeah, he met CharlieBlue Horse in the second novel in
the series called Shades ofMercy, and that she has become his
girlfriend and a prettyserious relationship developing there.
(07:38):
And then we move into the BlueHorse where Porter is trying to figure
out who is taking out some ofthe people associated with the government's
roundup of wild horses, whichis not a popular thing because of
the way that those roundupsare conducted.
And there's a big contingentof people on the other side who are
(08:01):
trying to stop them, but lotsof nefarious things going on.
So that's kind of where we.
We get to.
When we get to the Blue Horse.
Nice.
Let me ask an odd question.
It's probably asked 10,000 times.
Who came up with Area 51?
When did that start?
What's.
Why.
Why is that little tiny spot.
(08:22):
So we'll use the word magicalin air quotes.
Yeah.
So Area 51 is a place that wasnot publicly acknowledged by the
government, I believe, untilthe late 90s.
It was rumored to be a placefor several decades.
It actually began in the1950s, about the mid-1950s, I think.
(08:45):
And the first thing thatactually happened at Area 51, after
they fenced it all off fromthe other part of the Nevada test
site where we were blowing upall the atomic weapons above ground
and testing all of those.
The first thing that happenedthere was we brought in the new U2
plane surveillance plane, andthat's where we kept it.
(09:06):
We needed a secret place totest it.
And the Nevada desert is ahuge expanse of land if you don't
know that.
So it's very easy to flyplanes in an area like that that
is not heavily populated atall and keep it a secret.
So that's the first thing thathappened there.
And then of course, as weknow, you know, all you have to do
(09:30):
is watch the X Files on TV torealize lots of other stuff occurred
there over the subsequent decades.
I think I mentioned to you inone of our earlier conversations.
I'm working on a novel rightnow that is based in almost solely
in Las Vegas for a number ofdifferent reasons.
(09:50):
And I have found what I findso interesting for some bizarre reason.
And I've traveled back andforth across the country during my
radio career and stopped in alot of cities, in towns and states.
And Nevada is its own, its ownparticular kind of world.
And what I like about thisarea in your book, it's.
It's a character in and of itself.
(10:12):
And that's kind of the way I'mdoing it in my book.
I mean, Vegas, for instance,is its own microcosm.
But Nevada in general seems tobe its own little world.
And I, and I really dig thatabout how you weave it in as a character.
I think it's, you know, Ithink we said probably last time,
(10:32):
there's a lot of low hangingfruit for me to grab as a writer
to talk about rural Nevada.
Again, it's.
Most people are acquaintedwith Las Vegas and Reno, but outside
of that, you know, people wholive anywhere east of here especially
and have never visited thestate really have no idea of everything
(10:53):
that, that that happens hereand how big the state actually is.
So you're right, Dave.
There is plenty of opportunityto take Nevada and all of its interesting
things and really describe itto people in such a way that it becomes
a character.
I mean, it's very scenic in agreat deal of the state.
(11:16):
Yeah, where my books takeplace is really high desert for the
most part, but there's plentyof mountains.
Nevada is actually the mostmountainous state outside of Alaska.
And most people don't knowthat it has more peaks, more peaks
over 10,000ft than anywhere else.
I think too, maybe other thanlike Colorado or Alaska.
(11:39):
So the terrain itself isreally a marvelous thing to incorporate
into these stories.
And in it, it also impactswhat my characters can do.
All right, before I jump overto Dana, I want to say one of my
favorite things about PorterBeck was that how you and we talked
(12:01):
about this, it doesn't followthat traditional thriller mold.
He's more introspective.
I don't want to say sensitive,because that makes you think one
thing, but introspective.
And so it always makes mewonder what drove you to not use
that classic hard actionarchetype, you know, whether it's
a Jack Reacher or, you know,fill in the blank.
(12:26):
Well, I think the reason I didthat primarily was because we all
have seen very strongcharacters in.
In modern Western literature.
I. I'm thinking of C.J.
box and Greg Johnson, youknow, the Walt Longmire and Joe Pickett
characters.
And although Joe Pickett's not a.
(12:47):
He's not a Superman either.
But I always thought there'splenty of pages and books already
taken up with.
With heroes in those storieswho are almost indestructible in
some ways.
So I thought, well, here Ihave this very rugged setting, and
I do have a.
A somewhat rugged guy, buthe's by no means a superman at all.
(13:11):
And he has problems.
And he has.
In.
In Porter's case, he has avision problem.
He cannot see at night.
You can see pretty well duringthe day.
But he suffers from nightblindness, which is a degenerative
disease, and that is slowlytaking its toll on him.
And, you know, he is by.
He needs help.
He needs the help of hisdeputies and other people.
(13:36):
Well, now let's flip the pagea little bit to Dana and.
And Dana, I've got this twopart question that's burning a hole
in me and Desmond.
All right, how do I say this?
Aloysius.
Aloysius.
That's it.
Aloysius Limerick based onChain Reaction number one.
(13:56):
How in the wide world ofsports did you come up with that
name?
And it's.
It's delicious in and of itself.
And how did you come up withhis rare mix of part rogue, part
philosopher, part sleuth?
So we'll go one, two.
I just love the genre.
I love the single male actionadventure that the Lee Child, the
Reacher genre.
And I wanted to try my hand atit, but I couldn't do what everybody
(14:18):
else had done.
I needed to make this guy different.
So, like, like Bruce and likePorter, I tried to find ways to make
my characters stand out acouple of ways.
He's very, very good in a Fight.
Very strong fellow, powerfully built.
But one, he's English, he's,he's from the uk.
And secondly, he, although hedoesn't sound like it, he's got this
bit engineering technical background.
(14:39):
And then third, I decided if Ihave this guy who's big and tough
and good in a fight, why don'tI give him the stupidest name I could
think of?
Because it just, it would beso easy to slip into toxic masculinity
with this kind of character ifhe was perfect.
So I came up with Limerickbecause I'm an Irishman myself and
limerick is a fun word.
And then I wanted, Idesperately didn't want to use a
(15:01):
Joe or a Jake or a Jackbecause there are about 12 million
of those in this genre.
So Des is good because it'sone syllable and it's got a Zed in
it.
And that, that's fun.
And then finally, Aloysius,it's just simply the silliest name
of all time.
And so when you put themtogether, you get this absolutely
ridiculous name.
And almost every book at onepoint somebody says to him, no, seriously,
(15:21):
what really is your name?
And he's like, it's aperfectly good name.
This is my name.
It let me undercut, let me adda second flavor to the sauce until
it was just a one note character.
So well done.
So go ahead and give me the,the spin on Chain Reaction.
So folks who were debating,and I apologize, I didn't realize
it came out in January.
(15:42):
I knew it was spring ish, butgo ahead.
Okay, so this is the third ofso far four books.
The fourth one is with myeditor and coming out next year.
Des is 35 years old.
He's retired from AM Military.
I never say which one it is.
And he's come to the UnitedStates and he's roaming around with
a guitar on his back and justgetting into trouble.
(16:04):
And, and in the military, hewas a breach artist.
His job was to be a gatekeeper.
He can open any door, keep itopen for as long as it's necessary,
and control who does and doesnot get through it.
That was his, his, his expertise.
So in this book we find himlured to Las Vegas where a terrorist
incident is going on.
(16:24):
And that's about the firstthird of the book.
And soon we realize thatthere's a whole, whole different
thing going on beneath that.
That the terrorist incident issort of a setup for another set of
crimes that is being maskedbeneath it.
So we spend this book.
First book was in LA.
Second one was in Oregon,where I live.
This third book, NJ, New York City.
And I, like, unlike Bruce, hasthe ability to have an actual character
(16:48):
in his setting.
And he's.
And he paints it so incrediblywell and so thoroughly that I feel
like I've been there.
But DEZ bounces to a differentvenue and in every book which allows
me to have him always be afish out of water.
Well, I admire something thatyou both have done.
Of course, you both have nowsaid it in that you, you turned your
back on the average norm.
(17:10):
The thing that we grew up watching.
The James Bond, the JasonBourne, the Jack Reacher and, And
you've, you know, you, you're.
You're marching to the beat ofyour own drum.
One of my favorite things to do.
Right.
And so I, I so appreciate andrespect that.
And you made a good point, Dana.
It is true about Bruce's bookis the way he paints the story is.
(17:36):
And every and all good writersdo this, but for some reason, Bruce,
I don't want to say he's gotthe market cornered, but he really
does have a beautiful way ofsetting scene.
Yeah.
And making me feel like I'mliving inside of it.
You do the same thing yours feels.
I like the way you structureyour characters and the character
(17:57):
and the way they speak and thetiny little nuances like the opening
scene in the book aboutthey're in this car ready to get
into this hairy situation.
So you both have reallyexceptional storytelling skills.
And I can now understand nowbetter why you become such close
friends.
(18:18):
I do think our writing style is.
Well, first off, how we writeis vastly different.
The process by which Brucewrites would make me have an aneurysm.
And the process by which Iwrite, he would.
He laughs his tail off and Itell him how I do it.
But nonetheless, we havegotten to that same point where we
have these very characterdriven stories that are actually
different at one level, butkind of similar at another level.
(18:41):
Well, wait a minute.
Go ahead.
I was just going to say, toadd to that, I think one of the things
that we do similarly in ourwriting style is we don't over describe
things.
We try to put in just enoughdetail to give the reader a good
sense of what we're talkingabout or a place that one of our
(19:03):
characters is in withoutoverdoing it.
Which is not something I'mterribly fond of as a reader.
Right.
Which is probably why I don'twrite that way.
I don't like too much description.
I like to leave something opento the reader's imagination.
So you know, we drop these.
These.
These very brief descriptionsof breadcrumbs along the way to give
(19:24):
the reader a sense of whatwe're talking about without spending
three pages on it.
I remember the day.
The days back in.
Let me see if I can reach this.
The old gray mirror ain't whatshe used to be.
Late 80s.
Yeah.
(19:45):
Mid to late 80s, early 90s.
I'm thinking of Tom.
Tom.
Thomas Wolf.
Tom Wolf.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm thinking of Bonfire, the Vanities.
I'm thinking of later.
The Man.
Man.
Man.
Allowed manner.
Whatever the hell it is.
Point being, you could open.
You could open a Thomas Wolf book.
(20:07):
Chapter one.
You could be six chapters in.
And he's just describedwalking into the room.
Do you remember those days?
I do.
And, you know, he's very goodat it.
You have to be really, reallygood at that.
There's a.
There's a lot of options who are.
And they can keep you engaged.
(20:28):
I'm not one of those people.
Yeah.
So my bigger.
So I remember this oneparticular scene.
I think it was Bonfire, the Vanities.
He's just describing the.
A guy waking up with a hangover.
And.
And.
And.
And having been a sizabledrinker back in my old days, I would
just read that and go, oh, myGod, he nailed it.
(20:48):
But here's my point.
I don't want to lose the point.
Those days are.
I don't want to say they'regone because it's to, you know, to.
How are you like to read your books?
But I've noticed between theshortening attention spans, the more
the battle for those attention.
Those shortening attentionspans, people just kind of want to
cut to the chase faster.
(21:10):
And I don't know, is that me?
Because I'm impatient, becauseI'm trying to read so much because
we've gotten conditioned by.
Yeah, I know.
He walked into the room andit's a brightly lit room and there's
tapestry and he's wearing acertain kind of shoe.
But I don't need that detail.
Where's the gun?
And who's gonna get shot?
(21:32):
I do think.
I do think there was a styleof literature at a time and I.
We often joke about the JamesMichener school.
Chapter one, the Earth cools.
You know, it's like.
And by page 185 wereintroduced to our protagonist.
And that was a school of.
That was a way of doing it.
Leon Uris wrote sort of thatway too.
And I do think that.
(21:53):
And I'm going to say thatyou're probably right.
That it's an attention span,and it's a social media and an Internet
world in which I don't thinkeither of us have the luxury of waiting
15 pages for somethinginteresting to happen.
Because my wife gets booksfrom our local library system, and
she opens it and reads chapter one.
And if you didn't get herchapter one, she closes and gives
it back to the library.
And she's not out of scent.
(22:14):
So that's our challenge today.
Remember the days when youwould go, God, I'd go to a bookstore
and I'd buy a stack and I'dget home, and I'm like, oh, my God,
I cannot wait.
And then you realized, I got acouple of dogs in here, and because
I paid for them, you can besure I'm gonna read them.
But those days are kind of gone.
(22:35):
And I like your wife's philosophy.
I like the way you like.
Oh, it's just.
And we had this conversationlast time.
We were talking about how Iused to give you.
I'd give you three, four,maybe five chapters.
All right?
Then it became, you know,again with time and with age, in
this four years of the show.
I'm like, let's see what youcan do in the first chapter.
(22:56):
Now.
It's your prologue.
And here's the challenge.
Can you get me to do this?
Oh, and if you can, I'm stillwith you.
And.
And both of these books did that.
You're right, Dave.
That's.
That's the big challenge.
Especially in our genre, wewrite things, stories that have urgency
(23:16):
to them and that havedeadlines associated with, you know,
our protagonist figuringthings out.
And our readers are all drivento look for those things and to look
for them very quickly.
So, yeah, if we don't deliverin the first couple of pages, our
book doesn't even get off the shelf.
Yeah, you.
You both got a chance to meetmy lovely wife, whose name is right
(23:38):
here because she saved my assby breaking out zoom and the other
stuff didn't work.
And she.
I love.
I have loved.
We've been together, what, 10years now?
And I've watched the patternof her digesting series of televisions
shows.
And she'll say, every.
With time, she has come to aplace where she goes, oh, ticking
(24:01):
clock.
Oh, my God, what's that, honey?
She goes, there's the ticking clock.
And I'm like, bravo, young lady.
So now she's starting to pickup ticking clock and notice.
Hey, notice how that lastchapter or I. E. Scene made me want
to see the next one.
I'M like, now you've got it.
(24:22):
It's beautiful.
Let's see, let's, let's diveinto, let's just couple more things
because we've been at this fora while, trying to get our show going.
Blue horse.
The blue horse wrestles withgenerational guilt.
What, what's, what's got youthinking about this?
Bruce, get on, get on the couch.
Make yourself comfortable.
It's therapy time with theDave and Dana.
(24:44):
So as you mentioned earlier,Dave Porter Beck is pretty introspective
and he comes from a lot ofsecrets in his past which, which
start to be revealed in thefirst book, the Bitter Past, hence
the title.
And there's a lot of thingsthat are secretive, not only in those
(25:07):
areas of Nevada that Idescribed that are run by the federal
government, but in people's lives.
And he's no different.
And guilt is one of thoseemotions and one of those things
which at times plague us all.
Regret and things that wedidn't do or we should have done
differently.
(25:28):
So those are always good toolsto use, I think, in a story, provided
that you don't overdo itbecause they're very interesting
and very relatable.
So yeah, it's, it's a big part of.
Generational guilt is a bigpart of this whole series really.
Or if you grew up in thechurch with a father as a pastor
(25:50):
like me, you, you know yourfair share about guilt, right?
Yeah.
Jesus.
Well, I want to bounce overhere to, to the chain reaction corner
and, and say one thing about James.
What I dig about your style isthat the way you do this.
(26:12):
And we, you know, we touchedon this earlier.
You dance between action andsatire the way limerick disarms with
a phrase.
I love that, that, that justwitty repartee.
Is that one of your, your ownpersonal hidden secret talents?
I. Yeah, I mean I am an extheater guy, so I have a pretty good
(26:34):
sense of how to do dialogueand how to make dialogue carry freight.
You don't want dialogue fordialogue's sake.
It always needs to give yousome character revelation or needs
to have a clue towards areveal later on.
So that, that helps a lot.
Secondly, I just really wantedto have a loquacious, fast talking
(26:55):
guy with street patois.
He sounds pretty uneducatedbecause I had never read that before
and I thought it would bereally fun to have.
We have our fair share ofstoic heroes and I just thought wouldn't
it be fun to have a guy whojust won't shut the hell up.
And the other thing that wasreally fun to do with this character
was when it comes to havingsex, he's instantly 15 years old
(27:16):
and he's the least cool guy inthe world, the least suave, the anti
bond.
He's always like, sex.
That would be marvelous.
Yeah, let's do that.
And I thought I hadn't readthat before.
Wouldn't that be fun to have adude who's so insanely uncool?
So those are just.
They were things thatentertained me.
And Bruce and I have talkedabout this in the past.
We're our own first audiences.
(27:38):
We both write books that willentertain us.
That's.
That's the first goal.
And I. I really wanted acharacter that would make me.
That would make me laugh.
Yeah, I think, James, the onething that's really fascinating that
I think the audience herewould get a kick out of is describe
how you learned how DEZ would speak.
(28:00):
How did you pick up that dialect?
Yeah, some of it is fromformer amateur theater days, some
of us watching a lot ofBritish television.
And then I got really, really lucky.
I had a friend, and you'veprobably had her on the show, Meg
Gardner, who lived in England for.
For quite a while.
And I asked Meg if she wouldlook at an early manuscript and correct
my British isms.
(28:22):
And there's an editor atMinotaur St Martin who is British,
and she also read it.
So I'm.
I, first off, I have a prettygood ear for.
For dialect.
And then I also had two betareaders who said, no, I think you're
fine in that.
The other thing, and I'venever revealed this to the audience,
is that DEZ grew up in whatyou and I would call orphanages in
(28:43):
parts of England, Ireland and Scotland.
And the reason I did that isthat nobody could ever say, oh, no,
no, nobody from Ireland wouldsay that.
Only somebody from Scotland would.
And I'd say, I'm.
I'm inculcated.
I'm fine.
I've got.
I got that.
So if there's some Englishisms, if there's some Irish isms
and some Scots isms in there,I'm okay with.
I. I can pass muster with anyof that.
Yeah, that opening prologue,folks, if you pick up a chain reaction,
(29:07):
you're gonna.
You're gonna get it right away.
And I'd sit here and read itfor you, but I don't want to bore
you.
But, yeah, you turn a phraseand just little phrases that, you
know, get.
Sends it home.
Right.
Now, there is a line.
Don Winslow drove out here acouple Summers ago, we were talking
about one of his books, andhe, he said a line.
(29:30):
I've never forgotten it.
And I try to remember it everytime I sit down to the keyboard.
And that is, every line mustpay rent.
I like that.
Yeah.
And I'll tell you what.
Damned if that doesn't.
I, I, I don't have it on a sign.
It should be a little noteright here attached to one of my
(29:51):
four monitors.
It says that very thing because.
And Bruce, you and I've talkedabout this before.
It's interesting how we.
Oh, I just came up with areally cool line.
I love that line.
Oh, yeah?
Well, does it fit?
Does it.
I'm not sure it fits.
Doesn't really matter.
It's such a sexy damn line.
But if it doesn't really movethat story forward, you're really
(30:14):
just kind of taking up space.
What do you guys think about that?
Yeah, I think there's no question.
And we all, all three of usknow that too, Too painfully.
You, you sometimes write stufflike you said, Dave, and you just
sit back and you go, gosh, outof all the stuff I've written today,
that that's the most brilliant line.
And yet when you go back andlook at it again and you're, maybe
(30:36):
you're doing your edits, yougo, well, yeah, it's a nice line,
but it really doesn't, itdoesn't move the story forward, or
it doesn't even move theparagraph forward.
It's, it's, you know, it'sjust sitting there.
It's, it's, it's taking up space.
And in this business, ifyou're not your own editor, and you're
(31:00):
not your own best editor,you're probably not doing this well
enough.
We all have editors, you know,help us hone these, these manuscripts
before they go out.
But you have to make thosepainful decisions occasionally.
And sometimes it's like, oh,no, I'm gonna have to take that out.
But you do it.
(31:22):
How many times have I.
Go ahead, James.
What are you gonna say?
I was gonna say, we both are.
Edited by a guy named Keith.
And Keith, in one of my firstbooks, they ever said to me, hey,
on page 32, you have thisscene from so and so's point of view.
But on page 314, so and soneeds to know that too.
Would you consider changingthe pov?
And I thought, good Lord, heunderstands my story at a granular
level that I don't.
(31:43):
Oh, my God.
And we are insanely lucky to have.
I take all of his edits comein the form of suggestions, and I
take 97% of his suggestionsbecause they're simply that good.
Yeah, they're.
They're great.
And what's his name again?
Keith.
Kayla.
Kayla.
H L, A.
(32:06):
And he's hilarious, and he hasan encyclopedic knowledge of 1980s
pop culture, and he's a guy togo have a drink with, too.
So, I mean, he.
We're.
We're super lucky.
Yeah.
He did the same thing with meon my first book.
I had a joke in there that,you know, Porterbeck likes to tell
jokes, and he's a funny guy.
He's got a quick wit, and he's.
(32:27):
He's very.
He's got good timing, goodcomedic timing.
But Keith sent me back hisedits, and like.
Like James said, you know, Itypically take just about all of
those right at face value anddon't make any changes.
I like those suggestions.
But he said, I think you don'tneed this joke.
And I said, oh, no, no.
(32:49):
I was like, that joke in mymind is essential.
But then I.
And so I made that commentback to him and his response to me,
he said, okay, I like all ofthese changes that you adopted or
made, and I like thissuggestion, but you still need to
get rid of this joke.
It's not doing anything forthe story.
(33:11):
You've already established thereporter can tell a joke, and, you
know, but this is not the bestplace for that.
So.
And he said.
He said, believe me, somepeople are not going to get it.
He said, that's the mostimportant part of it.
Some people won't get it.
Either change the joke or getrid of it.
There is a line you guys haveboth been around this business long
(33:34):
enough to know.
And I think about this everytime I put my ass in a seat in a
theater.
If you're doing something onthat screen that takes me out of
the story, that makes me go,wait a minute.
What does that mean?
What did he mean by that?
Well, you have just burned upsome important real estate because
(33:57):
you've.
Now.
Now, here's what's got to happen.
I've got to stop, and I got to go.
What do you mean by that?
And then you got to get meback into the story.
And what have I missed in thetime that it took me?
I'm not saying I'm gonna sitthere and go for 10 minutes.
You know what?
I don't know exactly what hemeant by that, but I could assume,
you know.
(34:17):
But the point, Ben, is to hisPoint, did it.
Did it move me forward?
Did can everybody get it?
That's a really, really,really solid point.
And I never thought about it,but, boy, which is why beta readers,
besides editors, which istheir profession, are what I think
(34:38):
are so important with betareaders, because they might.
You might have 10 people readit and one person go, I have no clue
what that means.
Then you have to stop and go,is it in my best interest to leave
that?
Right, yeah.
We have kicked that blue horse.
All right.
What scares you, James, mostas a storyteller?
(35:02):
That A, your fiction might beprophetic, or B, no one is listening
until it's too late.
The prophetic thing is weirdbecause I drew.
I'm a.
By training a journalist.
I came out of newspapernewsrooms and I wrote a book that
was called, eventually goingto be called Crashers, and it was
about ntsb, the teams thatinvestigate airline crashes.
(35:24):
And I got it finished, and Igot a literary agent in New York,
and the agent called me andsaid, oh, my God, this is a great
book.
It's going to be a hardback paperback.
It's going to do really well.
We're going to take it to Hollywood.
This is great.
And that was in August of 2001.
And one month later was 9 11.
And this was a book aboutterrorists bringing down multiple
airliners.
And a third of the book tookplace in New York City.
So that book became thus themost unmarketable book in the world
(35:49):
because all the publishers arein New York City, or not all of them,
but a whole lot of them are.
And so that was a case where Ihad to take the story and I had to
take the book and put it on ashelf for seven years.
So we finally got it sold toMinotaur Saint Martin's in 2010,
but it had been sitting on ashelf for a long time before that
got published.
And then I wrote another bookfor Keith, and I wanted to set it
(36:11):
in the safest place possible,somewhere in the Middle east that
hadn't changed in a long time.
That was very, very stable.
And I thought finally, well, Syria.
Nothing ever changes in Syria.
And that, you know, Arabicspring hit me about three weeks after
the book landed.
And so sometimes you juststumble into the.
The world orbiting out fromunderneath where you started your
(36:33):
book.
And the.
When that happens, you justhave to say, well.
I think that's just a greatlesson in life, James, that you can.
That we should be a littlemore flexible and just roll with
the punches.
Because so much of this worldis fluid.
And I mean, this world right here.
(36:55):
You know, see, people talkabout, where do you come up with
your great ideas?
To those people, I want tobackhand them, but I say, oh, you
know, if I'm waking up in theday, I'm probably going to have a
dozen.
But when something great comesalong, you just go, okay, not a big
(37:15):
deal.
I got plenty more that came from.
Put it on a shelf and keepmoving forward.
I want to ask you something aswe start to kind of wrap up you,
both of you guys, if you couldgo back to your younger selves and
sit down and have aconversation about two things.
The passion with which youchase your dream of writing and the
(37:40):
business in which you have tooccupy in order to be successful.
If you could go back and givethose, you know, kind of those insights,
knowing what you know now,what would you say to those youngins,
that young Bruce and thatyoung James as they were starting
out?
Bruce, you're first.
Well, I would.
I would certainly tell myself,you have the right instincts.
(38:03):
This is what you should be doing.
But you need to believe itmore because it's so easy when you're
younger.
I'm like so many authors thatI know who really didn't start seriously
writing fiction until a littlebit later in life because they had
life to contend with and, youknow, everybody needs a job and bring
(38:25):
home a paycheck and all ofthose things.
But I. I wish that I had hadthe confidence much earlier to pursue
this and, and literally spenda great deal more of my time, you
know, trying to.
To go after that.
Had I done that, I. I think,you know, I probably would have a
(38:47):
lot more books out there by now.
So that would have been my bigpiece of advice to me, James.
I probably would have told myyoung self that the, the trick, and
we've talked about this, aboutwriting for yourself, being your
first reader.
Don't go don't ask what ishot, don't ask what is popular.
Don't ask what genre is makingthe most money.
None of that matters.
(39:07):
At the end of the day, you'regoing to spend the better part of
a year with these charactersand with this plot, and it better
be entertaining you.
So don't go and chase whatevercute teenage vampire is the hot market
of the day.
Only write stories that arefor the one purpose only of entertaining
yourself.
If you do that, then you mightgo ahead and find a literary agent,
(39:29):
and then you might find aneditor, and then you might find booksellers,
and then you might find anaudience elsewhere.
But if you don't do thatfirst, you ain't going to do the
other stuff.
Yeah, and one of the things,Dave, before you, before you go on,
I think just kind of adds onto that nicely is that, you know,
you always hear the advice,write what you know.
Well, when you're, when you'rereally young, you don't know anything
(39:50):
about anything and you don'thave any life experience.
So.
So I, I think one way to, totake that a little bit differently
is write what you'reinterested in.
So, like James just said, Imean, if you can find something that
you first and foremost have,have an interest in, you can make
it interesting.
(40:11):
I don't care how much you knowabout it right now.
You can learn it, you can dothe research, you can, you can make
it interesting to people ifyou have enough interest in it.
That's really great.
Yeah.
You made me think of twothings as you were describing your
younger self's conversations.
I started piddling about backwhen I was living in LA in my first
(40:35):
tour of duty and I was doing asatellite radio show.
And I remember one day,satellite radio is different than
live radio as you can imagineit, live radio, it's, you know, 7,
15, 15 after 7 o'.
Clock.
We'll check weather rightafter this.
But coming up on the Todayshow is la, la la la la la la la.
Everything is very vermin, butin satellite radio you have to speak
(40:59):
in generic terms because I wasin eight different time zones, so
I couldn't say, hey, goodmorning, it's Dave here playing your
favorite country hit or whatever.
Because in this time zone, itmight be evening and in this format,
format, it might have shiftedto album rock.
That's not the point.
The point is just beingpresent and aware of, you know, what
(41:24):
you're doing.
The other thing is, so as Iwas just kind of bored with that
situation, I'm like, I'm justgoing to go down the hall and pick
up my secretary's typewriter,I'm going to take it down the studio.
I got another four hours ofthis nonsense to do.
So I started banging outlittle tiny short stories just for
shits and giggles.
(41:44):
And that's how I started.
But it was a year later, andhere's my point I'm trying to get
to.
I remember sitting theregoing, I'm now living in New York
City doing the number onemorning show, and I'm sitting in
my apartment after the showand I'm just banging out stories.
And I was a big JamesPatterson fan at the time, and I'm
like, I think I can do this.
(42:05):
And I keep writing.
I'm like, this is really kindof good.
But I didn't have theconfidence that it really, truly
was good.
And because I didn't share itwith anyone, I didn't have any feedback.
So I agree with you.
I'd say, like, man, if youjust have a inkling that you think
you're good at it, just, Justpursue it.
(42:27):
Somebody somewhere is going totell you that it sucks and that maybe
you should do something elseor it's going to catch on.
Anyway, I have to say, I wasat a writing conference this weekend
and I was presenting and I raninto a woman who heard me present
the year before, and she said,you said one thing at the conference
last year.
(42:47):
And I typed it out when I wenthome and I put it in my conference
lanyard and I've hung on thewall behind me.
And what I said to her is, Idon't want to ever hear anybody in
this room refer themselves asa would be writer or a future writer
or somebody who wants to be a writer.
If you're slapping nounsagainst verbs, you're a writer.
And start identifying yourselfin the mirrors, look at that writer
who's shaving, and startthinking of yourself as a writer.
And she said, I put, I am awriter, typed it out, put it on a
(43:10):
lanyard behind it.
And she said, a year later,she's still using it as inspiration,
which was one of the mostgratifying moments of my career that
I had.
I'd said something that wasless dumb than a lot of other things
they say, and it affected somebody.
Wow.
And something that, you know,I think most writers would appreciate.
Yeah, for sure.
(43:31):
Well, and it's absolutely.
And it's so funny, the lack ofgiving ourselves permission.
I don't know where thatsilliness comes from because I always
look at it this way, this isgoing to be a little.
Might feel a little obtuse,but bear with me a second.
So I remember as a kid growingup in the church again, thinking
(43:54):
to myself, do you think if,if, if there is a God, and God instilled
in me a particular desire andtalent, do you think I would say,
zing, there you go.
And you, I, I'm a pretty good writer.
And then you start to writingand then one day he goes, yep, you're
(44:14):
not going to be any good at it.
I'm like, that doesn't reallymake any sense.
If the, if the desire is thereand the ability is kind of coming
along, Then I'm probably apretty good chance I'm gonna be halfway
decent at this.
I don't know if that's tooobscure, but you see what I'm saying.
No.
And we talked about this last time.
(44:35):
You know, nobody's born Mozart.
You know, in the writingworld, for the most part, it takes
a lot of reps. You gotta.
You gotta put in hours andhours and hours of practicing, writing.
Just like the violin or thepiano, it's no different.
And like you said, Dave, ifyou believe that, I, I, you know,
I've got a little bit of atalent for this, and you.
(44:56):
You like doing it, then themore time you spend doing it, the
better you will get.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like my.
It's like my golf game.
Where.
Where do you think in the wideworld of sports do you think you.
I'm just gonna take a bag out today.
When's the last time you wentout, Dave?
It's been about four or fiveyears, but I think I've got this.
And you go out there and yousmack it, and you're just screwing
(45:19):
off and horribly.
Well, did you put in the time?
No, not really.
Well, then how can you get any good?
Yeah, all right.
Did you take lessons?
Did you find somebody who'sreally good at it or a professional
in that and take some lessons,Learn how to do it?
That's what.
It's the same with writing.
You gotta.
You gotta.
(45:39):
You gotta learn those things.
Yeah.
And I don't think writing isan art either.
I really think of it as a craft.
I've just.
And it's not that dissimilarfrom cooking.
I love to cook, and I love to write.
And the more you cook, thebetter you get.
The more you write, the betteryou get, and the more you figure
out the easy paths in the craft.
Just.
Bruce is a.
He nailed it.
(45:59):
You've just gotta stick to itand put in the hours, do the reps.
Absolutely right.
Yeah.
Well, I feel like we'vealready been given our best writing
advice, but if you've got anylittle cherry to toss on top, I'd
love to hear it.
If anybody ever tells youthere's only one way to write, you
should nod politely, shaketheir hand, walk outside, find their
(46:20):
car and pee on their tires,because it's just not true.
And I've heard so many writingcoaches and been seen so many writing
things where they.
Everybody must outline or.
All writers must do X, nowriter must ever do Y.
And ED is nonsense.
There's a million ways to do this.
And when you find your zone,and you'll know it's your zone because
all of a sudden you writeeight or 10 pages and the next day
(46:41):
you read them and you thinkthey're really good.
That's your zone, whateverthat is.
That's the right way to write.
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
You know, find what works for you.
James mentioned earlier thatwe, the two of us, have completely
different writing styles interms of, you know, our process.
Actually, we have twodifferent processes, and that's fine
(47:02):
because it's what works for us.
There is no secret sauce tothings you have to do to become a
good writer.
Yeah.
You have to put in the time.
Yes.
But that doesn't mean you haveto do 5,000 words a day.
It doesn't mean that you haveto write every day.
There's a lot of people inthis industry will say, you must
write every day.
I don't care if it's fivewords or 500 or 5,000.
(47:24):
Must write every day.
I. I don't think that's true either.
You know, I take time off.
I.
Life gets in the way.
I.
Sometimes I just want to takea break and let my brain cool down.
Yep.
So you just gotta find whatworks for you and stick to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was teaching a class onetime and a young woman said, I.
(47:45):
My problem is that I'm.
I have lazy, horrible work ethic.
I will.
I have a day job, and oneweekend I will try and sit down and
write and nothing happens.
And the next weekend I'll tryand sit down and write and nothing
happens.
And the next weekend I try andsit down, nothing happens.
And then I'll have thatweekend where I generate literally
100 pages and I don't know howto get out of this horrible, horrible
habit.
And I said, show of hands inthe room.
If you did a hundred pages ina month, would you be happy?
(48:05):
And everybody said, well, of course.
Don't change what you're doing.
Just don't allow yourself tofeel guilty about it.
If you said, I am not allowedto be guilty about it.
This is my way of writing.
You got yourself a system.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One other thing that I wouldmention to people is this is me personally.
I don't believe in writer's block.
I don't know what that is.
I've never experienced itbecause I've always told myself,
(48:28):
just start typing.
Even you know, I've got someidea in my head, just start typing.
What you.
What you vomit out first isprobably going to be crap.
But if it's not there in crapform to begin with, you can't make
it better.
So just start typing.
It will come.
You don't have to.
You don't have to spewperfection right out of the gate.
(48:50):
Yeah.
We don't have writer's blockin journalism.
We call it unemployment.
Yeah, that's right.
Exactly.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
Yeah.
Golly day.
We have learned so much.
We are.
We're smarter people now, Folks.
You want to learn more to goto bruceborges.com and or jamesburnthriller.com
(49:12):
the books are.
Course we're going to throwthem up here.
Chain Reaction by James andthe Blue Horse.
Yes.
Look.
Oh, how nice is that?
We're going to show.
Yeah.
Guys, I'm so glad we werefinally able to pull this off.
I think everything's working.
Thank you for your patience.
This is great fun.
Thank you.
(49:33):
So much fun.
Your number one podcast forstories that thrill the Thriller
Zone.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.