August 18, 2025 • 32 mins
It is a pleasure to welcome award-winning writer Tim Cummings to The Jake’s Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast.
Tim is the author of the multiple-award-winning coming-of-age novel, Alice the Cat, published by Fitzroy Books. It was chosen as an American Book Awards 'Best Book' Finalist for 2023, received a Bronze Medal in the 2024 Feathered Quill Book Awards, and is a Finalist in both the 2024 National Indies Excellence Awards for Teen Fiction and the Independent Author Network's Book of the Year Awards. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and a BFA from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts.
Since 1984, he has appeared in over 200 projects across theatre, film, television, voice-over, and new media. Recent publications of short fiction, essays, and poetry include F(r)iction, Scare Street, Lunch Ticket, MeowMeow PowPow, From Whispers to Roars, Drunk Monkeys, Hare's Paw, Lit Angels, and Critical Read/RAFT, for which he won the ‘Origins’ contest for his essay, “You Have Changed Me Forever.” He teaches writing for UCLA Extension Writers' Program, The Townies Inc. in Ojai, runs private workshops, and coaches authors. He lives in Los Angeles with his partner of 19 years and their dog.
Tim grew up with a severely epileptic brother. His name was Matthew. They shared a room growing up. The seizure scenes in The Lightning People Play between Kirby and Baxter are drawn from real life. Matthew succumbed to epilepsy in the summer of 1997 when he died of complications caused by a grand-mal seizure. He was 26. With this story, Tim manifested a different destiny for Matthew–and for his heart.
On this episode of The Jake’s Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast, Tim Cummings shared his origin story and how both Alice the Cat and The Lightning People Play teach essential life lessons to its readers.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jake-s-take-with-jacob-elyachar--4112003/support.
Tim is the author of the multiple-award-winning coming-of-age novel, Alice the Cat, published by Fitzroy Books. It was chosen as an American Book Awards 'Best Book' Finalist for 2023, received a Bronze Medal in the 2024 Feathered Quill Book Awards, and is a Finalist in both the 2024 National Indies Excellence Awards for Teen Fiction and the Independent Author Network's Book of the Year Awards. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and a BFA from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts.
Since 1984, he has appeared in over 200 projects across theatre, film, television, voice-over, and new media. Recent publications of short fiction, essays, and poetry include F(r)iction, Scare Street, Lunch Ticket, MeowMeow PowPow, From Whispers to Roars, Drunk Monkeys, Hare's Paw, Lit Angels, and Critical Read/RAFT, for which he won the ‘Origins’ contest for his essay, “You Have Changed Me Forever.” He teaches writing for UCLA Extension Writers' Program, The Townies Inc. in Ojai, runs private workshops, and coaches authors. He lives in Los Angeles with his partner of 19 years and their dog.
Tim grew up with a severely epileptic brother. His name was Matthew. They shared a room growing up. The seizure scenes in The Lightning People Play between Kirby and Baxter are drawn from real life. Matthew succumbed to epilepsy in the summer of 1997 when he died of complications caused by a grand-mal seizure. He was 26. With this story, Tim manifested a different destiny for Matthew–and for his heart.
On this episode of The Jake’s Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast, Tim Cummings shared his origin story and how both Alice the Cat and The Lightning People Play teach essential life lessons to its readers.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jake-s-take-with-jacob-elyachar--4112003/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Latey's edition of
The Jakes Tick with Jacob Elioshar podcast. I'm your host,
Jacob Alisher, the chief content producer and writer of Jakestick
dot com, a pop culture entertainment news website. If you're
listening to today on audio, please download this episode and
more episodes now. If you're watching us on our YouTube channel,
please give us a thumbs up and please subscribe. I'm
(00:24):
very excited. Welcome. This is our last guest today. He
is an award winning author. He's appeared in over two
hundred plus media projects throughout the media. He teaches at
the UCLA Extension Writers Program, and his latest book is
called The Lighting People The Lighting People Play, So please
help me. Welcome Tim comings to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hi Jake, how's it going.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
It's going good, Tim, Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
You're welcome. Happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
All right, So let's get started. So when did you
get interested in writing and how did that passion involve
desire to pursue a career in our field, the mediadustry.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
This is probably gonna sound a little hooy, but as
a child, a young child, meaning before even nursery school.
I have this very vivid memory of sitting in my backyard.
I grew up in Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York,
(01:26):
and I had a lot of elder siblings. I'm the
youngest of six, and I used to take their classic
composition marble notebooks that they had and sit at this
picnic table in our backyard and I would write in
(01:47):
these notebooks. But I didn't know how to write. I
couldn't form sentences, but I would do these scribbles all
the way across the pages and fill in these notebooks
as if I was writing stories. So I don't know
if that came through from a past life or what
that was, but I was enamored of storytelling and the
(02:12):
act of writing before I could even do it. So
that's a very compelling and intriguing, mysterious part of my life.
And from there I don't know. Man, I read like
a maniac when I was a kid. I read everything
you could read in the kids section of the library,
all the Beverly Cleary books, all to choose your own
(02:34):
adventure books. I was obsessed with books that were for
a little bit older kids, like Watershipped Down and Louise
and may Alcotts Little Women. I read all the books
by this author named Ruth Chu, who wrote these incredible
stories for kids about witches that were just living in
(02:55):
neighborhoods around America. And they would always meet these children
and take them to these strange portals, like in a
tree in a park, and then there was a coven
underneath the ground. Incredible, incredible stories. And I just loved
reading and storytelling. And then when I was eleven years old,
(03:16):
I got into theater and that really took everything to
the next level. I started acting professionally maybe a year later,
and have done that for forty years. In twenty sixteen,
I decided to go back to school to get my
master's in writing. I just wanted to evolve as an
(03:38):
artist and a storyteller and focus on it. You know,
I was so distracted from being an actor. It really
does take up so much of your life, especially if
you do theater. So this was an opportunity for me
to kind of step off the stage. And I worked
really hard for three years in grad school, and you know,
everything happened very quickly. As soon as I got out,
(04:00):
I got an agent, I got a book deal, and
that's just been the journey that I've been on since
that time.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
It sounds you've been on a phenomenal journey, and I've
been on that journey to very similar because I remember writing,
like creating lists of like a dream storylines I would
give for Batman or for Power Rangers and like like
for me, it was like reading for the kids, like
the Magic School Buses and yet juiar Zone Adventures, but
also the Bailey School Kids books were also Neither What
(04:31):
We're another one of a major reading stars, and Stay
with Juny B. Jones and Sadeway Stories from Wayside School.
Those were incredible books for me. And that's why. And
then all along came Harry Potter, and all of a sudden,
I my reading was saved. So I became an avid reader.
So and then also on top of that, theater kid
from sixth grade to twelfth grade.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Get out amazing What theater did you do?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Music musicals particularly were my favorites. I love. I had
supporting roles. I can Fiddler on the like for middle
school was Fiddler on the roof, Hello Dolly, Oklahoma. Then
high school was a funny thing happened on the way
to the Forum. Oh Oliver, and then the most interesting
musical of them all, Working where I had like a
(05:16):
monologue as like a tie salesman.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Oh yeah, that's a great musical. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
And then and then also the last one I remember,
and also the last one I did was in the
musical recited repertory theater class I got to do I
guess the Twelfth Night where I got to play Sir Andrew.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Nice. Nice nice. Yeah. So you have a lot of
experience on the stage.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, I love it. But the thing is, professionally, I'm
more of a storyteller myself, for like our journalists and like,
so that's my that's my path.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, you found your niche. That's amazing. But I mean
the theater, whether it's something that you pursue professionally or
if it's a springboard for something else in your life.
I've always said it should be required for every single
person in this country to study from a young age
the way we study science and math and English. Theater
(06:10):
makes you so present, it makes you so collaborative, it
makes you so smart, it makes you have to get
up in front of people. I mean, there's there's absolutely
nothing bad about studying theater or doing theater. So it's
always baffled me that it has this sort of a
bad rap because I remember when I started doing it,
(06:33):
I got made fun of for it, and that egged
me on because for me, it was this like an
active protest. It was an act of rebellion against all
of the kids who were bullying me. It doesn't even
our strange power.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Absolutely, And the thing is, I guys say this, I
rather see my I rather was. I tell people all
the time I wasn't on the stage was myria. Yes,
and the and choir concerts were my basketball games.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yes, I love that choir concerts were my basketball games.
That's pretty powerful because I don't know about you, but
I didn't step foot on a basketball court neither did
I not the blaze for me growing up. Yeah, so
I love that. Yeah, it has a strange mystical power.
(07:29):
And I've always loved whether it's something that I've written
or as a vessel to interpret somebody else's words, somebody
else's ideas, somebody else's world. It's quite it's quite beautiful.
I think the industry part of it is a little
bit trickier, but the art form itself is really beautiful
(07:51):
and really powerful and I'll always stand by.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
It absolutely absolutely. So let's talk about the authors that
inspire hired you, because I could go on and on
our list after you, the people that are the writers
that inspired me, the who authors that inspired you to
go pursue your storytelling, and also how to and how
did they make it made an impact on your craft.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I mean, when I was a kid, I really loved
I read Watership Down and I really loved that book,
and then I read all of Richard Adams's books subsequent
to that, even though at that age I didn't really
understand because a lot of his stuff is for adults.
But I have gone back at various times in my
life to read his stuff. I actually bat there on
(08:35):
my epic bookcase. I have first edition hardcovers of all
of his work. So he was a big one for
me growing up. Mildred Taylor was a big one for me.
I really love rold thunder Here, My Cry and Her
and the subsequent sequels. A lot of kids authors. Obviously,
(08:56):
I teach that for UCLA, so I'm you know, I
always have my pulse on the finger of what are
the more current books being written for kids as well
as the classics from middle of the century forward. Philip
Pullman was a really big one for me. He wrote
the his dark materials books Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, and
(09:18):
Amber Spyglass and now the sequels. I remember reading one
of his books in the early aughts when I was
living in New York City, right around the time that
the Twin Towers went down, and my whole life got
really disturbed from that. Those books really went in in
a very emotional, powerful psychological way, and I think wanting
(09:43):
to do that, be that live in that energy eventually
prompted me to go back to school, certainly eventually. So yeah,
I mean I love the Harry Potter books too. I
can't say that I have warmon twsy feel about JK.
Rowling as of late, but her stories were really instrumental
(10:06):
to an entire generation for reading and world building. So
I really loved those books. And I also I tend
to read sort of all over the place, Like I'll
read a middle grade and then I'll read a classic ya,
and then I'll read a memoir, and then I'll read
(10:27):
a nonfiction and then I'll read a classic. For instance,
I just finished The Secret Garden. I had never read it.
I don't know how it passed me by that I
read The Secret Garden, but I read it and that
was really immense. What a powerful story, beautiful story, so
dark and sad, but then it becomes the most sort
(10:49):
of beautiful, redemptive thing. So I'm reading some classics, so
I kind of keep it. I try to stay very
versatile in what I'm reading and why. Obviously some of
it I have to do for work, for teaching, and
then the rest of it is for pleasure. And then
also going back and reading all the books that I love,
(11:10):
because I think it's important for you to talk intelligently
about the books that you love and that have inspired you,
and you learn more about them as you grow older
and have more life experience and go back and revisit them.
Do you find that I do?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I do? I do? And yeah, I agree with you
a lot. I gotta say I got to give a
big shout out to Marsha T. Jones and Debbie Daty,
who were the co authors The Bailey School of the
Bailey school Kids, my favorite, one of my all time favorites.
And yes, despite JK. Rowling being a polarizing figure, I
credit her for giving me my love of reading back
(11:46):
and for creating the wisdening world of Harry Potter, one
of my all time favorite lurashy worlds. But it's not.
And also I got to give shout outs to James
Patterson and Dan Brown, whose page turners just are a
thrill both thrill seeking. But however, I don't want you.
I cannot forget one certain medium which has been a
huge part of my life, and I'm talking about comics.
(12:08):
I'm talking about the stories that Bill Finger wrote. I'm
talking about the More the Great what Marv Wolfman, the
world building that Jeff johnsd for and Grant Morrison and
Mark Wade and Greg Walco, Gail Simone, Brian Michael Bendez,
Ed Brew Baker. I could go on, Chris Claremont, I
could go on, and of course the one and Only
stan Lee, the Great Blie Miss stan Lee. Those all
(12:31):
those creators currently Scott Schnyder and Josh Williamson and Jims
Tinny to fourth, those creators have played a masterful role
in me when it came to devouring the DC and
Marvel universes.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, extraordinary. You You must be a very visual thinker,
because that's really deeply visual stuff. I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Oh yeah, the class the storyline is like I've been
a Batman fit since I was five years old. So
like the Great Pulp Friend, the Paul Danny Bruce tim
animation series, to the storylines like jeb Loves Iconic Huh
and Jamie's Iconic Hush, the controversial of Jed Winnick's return
of Jason Todden under the Red Hood, and of course
Grahamans Graham Morrison's Batman and Scott Seiner Gregor Pulo's Batman
(13:14):
Knew Batman fifty two soundust those stay with me.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
It's amazing the way you come across things like that
that you fall in love with and they have such
an impact on your life. I'm so grateful for that.
I love when my mind explodes over things like that,
whether it's a book that I find that I read
that I love the way it stays with me, or
a graphic novel I love. I specifically have been really
(13:42):
appreciative of incredible modern animation of classic books, graphic novels
of classic books. I saw a Wizard of oz One
that I thought, this is so it's so cool how
they're doing this. I saw Lord of the flies One
was so cool to bring them to a younger generation
through visual storytelling and in a medium that younger generations
(14:09):
relate to immediately because of the way that it's drawn
and how much more visual younger generations are because of
the Internet and the phones and social media and the
way that storytelling the forms of storytelling are evolving.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So I agree, I agree. I got to give you
a special shout to Chris Colfer because his Land of
Stories definitely has definitely ignited the next general the pregeneration.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, and also an actor, a really great Broadway performer,
so I love him.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Good on him, absolutely. But we're here not talking about
all the great writers that we have mentioned and all
the great creators that I mentioned. We're here to talk
about you, Tim, So let's get back to our conversation.
So what can you describe your writing process to my audience.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
My writing process is blast by the fact that I
am an intensely early riser. I always have been since
I was a little kid. I just don't require a
ton of sleep. I just don't and I wake up
early and it's a time of the day where I'm
(15:18):
my mind is free and empty. I'm not thinking or
worrying about anything, and I come down here. This is
my office in my house, and I come down here
and I do my writing. So I always have a
couple of different balls in the air, whether I'm working
on a short story or a novel in verse or
(15:41):
a long form novel, and I have a lot of
ideas coming at me all the time. I try to
just write them down by start writing one of them
and it goes somewhere I know that it's worth pursuing.
Some of them kind of stop after a few pages.
So it's a very prismatic process. I don't want to
(16:02):
nail it down as anything like scientific or routine, because
I feel like I'm having a relationship with my muse,
you know. I love the idea in the old days
when writers and artists would have a communion with their muse,
which was a spirit that sort of lived in the
wall and spoke with them. I like to keep things
(16:24):
very mercurial as far as being an artist, because I
feel like if you try to trap it, you know,
or like, you know, throw a lasso around the moon
and pull it down, it won't shine. So getting up early,
being disciplined in writing also reading, I read a lot,
(16:44):
and reading is writing. You have to read, you know,
you have to understand other voices, of their styles, what's
going on there in terms of storytelling structure. So I
consider the time that I take reading books as writing
time as well, and I go on a lot of retreats.
(17:05):
I love retreats because retreats you get to go away
to a lake, to a mountain, to the desert and
no distractions, no interruptions, and you're writing for anywhere from
you know, five to ten to fifteen days with a
bunch of other writers. You meet them, you make new friends,
you workshop your work. So I'm a big believer in retreats,
(17:27):
and I go on several of them a year. You know,
if they're cost sometimes they're cost prohibitive. But I do
like to do that, and to be honest, teaching and
running writing workshops takes some time away from my writing.
But I do love guiding people. I do love building
(17:49):
community with other writers. So again I consider that part
of the writing process awesome.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
So we got to talk about your books. So, for example,
you wrote the award winning book Alice the Cat. This book,
Oh there's Alice the Cat right over there, So that
this book tackles grief, love, and the supernatural. So what
were some of the lessons you learned about these talks
about these topics throughout your writing process.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Alice the Cat was a good book for me to
cut my teeth on. I wrote it in grad school.
I wrote it feeling two things simultaneously. One was the
freedom to explore what I wanted to explore, because I
really wanted to tell this particular story, and the other
one being because I have a kind of a rebellious nature,
(18:36):
and middle grade and young adult literature can be a
little hemmed in as far as there dictates on what
you can and cannot include. I was trying to push
the envelope a little bit, So I think I wrote
it with some freedom and some rebellion. But that book
is based on something that actually happened to me in
real life, which was I lost my mother when I
(18:58):
was a teenager, and we had this cat that she
absolutely loved. It was her cat, and she was very
regal and she was very beautiful. She was also the
family cat. But in the wake of my mom's death,
the cat started acting very strangely, including darting out into
the street when cars came by. As if she was
(19:21):
trying to ender her own life. And then the cat disappeared,
and I never knew what happened. I don't know if
she succeeded in getting run over. I don't know if
my dad took her to be put to sleep. I
don't know if she just walked into the woods to die.
Animals do a lot of strange things when they are
sick or sad. And I buried this memory for a
(19:44):
very very long time, for decades because it was too painful.
And when I was in grad school, one day, I
was sitting out in the courtyard having lunch, and the
question just opped up in front of me what happened
to the cat? And I thought, oh, no, no, no, no, no,
I'm not going there. I can't go there. And lo
and behold, I think I went back to the hotel
(20:05):
that night because I was doing a residency, no staying
in a hotel, and I wrote that first sentence of
what became this book. So the exe Jesus of that
novel was based on something that really happened to me
that I wanted to explore. But the characters and the
plot and all that stuff that was all complete fiction.
(20:26):
That was all imagination. That was all I think, those
characters coming in and using me almost as like a
medium to tell their story. So I love it. It's feckined
and wild and really powerful and really emotional and also
really quirky and really goofy. It has a lot of grief,
(20:47):
it has a lot of darkness, but also it's ridiculous
as well. And I was happy that a lot of
people who read it got a lot from it, you.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Know, and which is a amazing because the thing is
that those stories and like that only that not just
with Kit, not just with readers, but also your peers
as well in a professional organization. So what went through
your mind when you like, say congratulations, ask Cat won
this award and ass a Cat is now a finalist
(21:17):
for this award.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I just felt seen. I felt seen, you know. I mean,
it's not why you do it. I've won a lot
of awards as a writer, I've won a lot of
awards as an actor, and it's not why you do it.
But you do feel seen, and you feel a little
like a little bit more encouragement that you're on the
right path. And I think that that's important because sometimes
(21:41):
its work can feel a little maddening with the amount
of people who are doing it and the competitive nature
that they kind of throw on us about it, and
how sometimes you can feel like, don't look at me
if you're not number one. I've tried my whole life
to let go of a lot of that pressure and
and not live in a place of ultra competitiveness. Healthy competitiveness,
(22:04):
obviously that's important, but I think being a storyteller in
whatever capacity and putting your stuff out there in whatever
way is the grand award. No matter if you win
an Oscar or a Pulitzer or a Newberry or whatever,
right a Grammy. You know you're brave enough to be
an artist and put your stuff out into the world
(22:26):
and let people receive it and or judge it. Then
you've already won all the awards in my book, because
it's hard to do and it's beautiful when you do
it and put it out there. It's an active protest,
I think.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
And absolutely, because I'm getting ready as we're speaking right now,
I had for most of you who don't who have
been following me on social media, I won an award
from the American the CV Awards, the American Business Award.
It's the silver in their Best Interview Talk Show category.
So this is the first time in six years that
I've been oh, thank you, thank you so much to
appreciate it. Like there's a lot of coming across the
(23:05):
crawling across my screen right now. And then also I'm
in the beginning the safety process of my fifteenth anniversary
SEES anniversary celebration that's beginning next year because twenty eleven
marks the first time I ever blogged and that and
that has led it to where we are today.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
That's incredible. See and your your channel keeps going and
you just keep you go and you grow. Absolutratulations.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Thank you so much, I and guys, there'll be more
to come on the fifteenth anniversary celebration. It's going to
be year long. But however, we got to get back
to our conversation right now because we have to talk
about the reason why you're here, the Lightning People play.
So how is this book similar and different to Alice?
And can you describe this book to my audience.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
So, this is a book about a bunch of really
brilliant theater kids who put up a play to raise
money for a seizure alert dog because the protagonist's younger
brother has been diagnosed with epilepsy, and their play opens
a portal that's that's your hook. It takes place in
(24:17):
the same fictional town I created for Alice the Cat,
which is called Weirville. When I was in grad school
and I was writing Alice the Cat, I kept asking
the question, like, how come we don't have any new cities? Like, seriously,
America has no new cities, right, It's kind of weird,
(24:40):
and I wanted to create one. I wanted to create
a small one, you know, like Pittsburgh or Saint Louis
or like a small city, but also make it kind
of like I live in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles
is a vast, endless megalopolis that is half a city
and half a suburb all over the place. I wanted
to create half a city, half a suburb in a
(25:02):
small little area. So I created Weirville. This book also
takes place in Weirville, and so, yeah, the kids live
in Weirville. And there's some crossover from Alisa Cat. There's
a there's a character in Alis the Cat who shows
(25:24):
up in this book as well. It's not a sequel,
but it's sort of like a multiverse, I guess you'd
call it, and.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Then your nose. It could be a weare of the
wear of Ville. You could be building a Wearville multi
versus you speak.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I would be that would be amazing, honestly, But I
obviously we talked about this. I you know, I was
a theater kid. I've been a theater kid my entire life.
But also I grew up with a severely epileptic brother.
Unfortunately he didn't make it. He was killed from one
of the seizures. And you know, decade later, I decided
(26:00):
to write a story that rewrote his fate, as it
were something more hopeful than what we had. What we
had to deal with epilepsy is really difficult. And I
shared a room with him growing up, and he had
he would have these seizures in the middle of the night,
and it was absolutely terrifying, and a lot of weird
(26:21):
stuff happened. I have to say that I think was
buried deep in my subconscious for all of these years,
and when I started writing this book, it made itself
known to me in very mysterious ways, which is where
the magical realism of this book comes in. It's stuff
that happened that I explored what was not didactic about
in any way. So there's this magic, there's this weird
(26:42):
stuff that happens, but I don't know what it is,
and so I don't explain it. I leave it up
to the reader to kind of make their own decision
about what it is. So that was why I wrote
this book, you know, I was I was thinking for
a long time, like how can I mash these things together?
Like I've been a theater kid. I want to write
(27:03):
about theater. How do I do that? How do I
also write about epilepsy? You know? And the thing that
solved the problem miraculously was the dog. Really yeah, I
tell this to my students all the time. You have
a story problem, put an animal in it, and you
won't have a problem anymore. Animals have incredible bridging power.
(27:29):
So you know, alse the cat's about a cat, this
one has a dog. And once the dog came in,
I was like, that's it. That's the connective tissue. That's
where it all makes sense. The kids are going to
put up a play to raise money for a seizure dog,
and all this magical stuff was going to happen as
a result. So once the idea was fully formed. Then
(27:52):
I had to do the work you know of like
writing a book, which is luck. It's still it's still
a miracle to me to look at it and be like,
what here it is?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And who knows? It could be able to be before
first in school plays and maybe maybe maybe like off
Broadway or maybe regionally.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I would love that. I think I think both of
these books would make incredible films. I think Aliska would
make an incredible animated film, especially looking like Mizaki film.
The protagonist in that book is a big fan of
Spirited Away, so she talks about that a lot. And
I think this one would be an incredible episodic. It
would be a great Netflix show. I mean, listen, Stranger
(28:39):
Things is done. We need something to replace it. It's this,
It's absolutely so yeah. I mean, I'm all about watching
stories evolve and go into different mediums and forums. And
you know, I remember recently we watched Station eleven. I
(29:01):
read the book. A friend of mine told me that
I needed to read the book. I hadn't read it
when it came out, which is about ten years ago,
but I read it and I loved it so much.
And then we watched the show, and they really took
a lot of license. They worked with the author, but
they reimagined it in a lot of ways. Where the
foundation or the framework of the novel was there, but
how they told the story visually was really really different.
(29:26):
And I know a lot of people weren't cool with it,
but I thought it was cool that they all collaborated.
The writer who told one version of the story and
the filmmakers who wanted to tell a different version. They
converged in the middle and made something that I thought
was really profound, really.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Powerful, and you said the best. Not a lot of
people do that. We don't see the authors like for example,
I know with JK. Rowling and Wisting World. There's a
lot of stuff going on with Harry Potter, and then
of course you have JRS Well, I mean the Game
of Thrones and everything going on. Yeah. That that basically
(30:02):
like they want to make sure that they honor George
or Martin's work.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah, so that's like we don't get a lot of
creative collaboration like that.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah. I think it's cool if you come on board
in whatever way you want to as an author, but
you have to be careful how hands on you are
because I think it can get I think it can
get tricky. The collaborative thing can get a little bit tricky.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Look at what happened with Walt Disney pl travers with
Mary Poppins.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Oh yeah, wasn't that a great film? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
I guys say that Tom Hanks should have won an
oscar and also Emma Thompson should have won an oscar.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
It's such a beautiful film and I think a really
important story. I don't think a lot of people knew
what the foundation of Mary Poppins really was, and it
really makes you think about why authors are writing what
they write, and how stories can sometimes get reimagined and
the original feed or the original spark for it gets
reinterpreted again. It's like a tree, you know, it branches out,
(31:05):
Different things happen, different people receive it in different ways.
But that was a really powerful story. Colin Farrell also
was really really incredible in that really.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Powerful He definitely means definitely was heartbreaking. Yeah, all right,
so where so last question? Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
What's that last question?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yes? I'm ready?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
All righty, where can my audience find you find your work?
And also, if you're on social media, where can they
connect with you?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
So I'm on Instagram and my handle is Acto Spark,
which is a whole story behind it, but I won't
go into it here it'll take too long. But I'm
on Instagram and I have a website, Tim Cummings dot Inc.
But not I n C, I n K as in
(32:01):
like an octopus or writing ink. And I'm pretty active
on both. My website has all the information the books
and where you can get them, and uh, Instagram has
you know, a nice mixture of professional stuff but also
personal stuff, you know, my life here in Los Angeles
(32:25):
with with my dog and my husband and my friends
and you know, life lived here in this crazy, crazy
city of Ballet.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. And guys, thank you so
much for watching, Thank you so much for listening. Until
next time, everybody, have a great one. Good bye.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Thank you,
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Latey's edition of
The Jakes Tick with Jacob Elioshar podcast. I'm your host,
Jacob Alisher, the chief content producer and writer of Jakestick
dot com, a pop culture entertainment news website. If you're
listening to today on audio, please download this episode and
more episodes now. If you're watching us on our YouTube channel,
please give us a thumbs up and please subscribe. I'm
(00:24):
very excited. Welcome. This is our last guest today. He
is an award winning author. He's appeared in over two
hundred plus media projects throughout the media. He teaches at
the UCLA Extension Writers Program, and his latest book is
called The Lighting People The Lighting People Play, So please
help me. Welcome Tim comings to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hi Jake, how's it going.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
It's going good, Tim, Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
You're welcome. Happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
All right, So let's get started. So when did you
get interested in writing and how did that passion involve
desire to pursue a career in our field, the mediadustry.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
This is probably gonna sound a little hooy, but as
a child, a young child, meaning before even nursery school.
I have this very vivid memory of sitting in my backyard.
I grew up in Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York,
(01:26):
and I had a lot of elder siblings. I'm the
youngest of six, and I used to take their classic
composition marble notebooks that they had and sit at this
picnic table in our backyard and I would write in
(01:47):
these notebooks. But I didn't know how to write. I
couldn't form sentences, but I would do these scribbles all
the way across the pages and fill in these notebooks
as if I was writing stories. So I don't know
if that came through from a past life or what
that was, but I was enamored of storytelling and the
(02:12):
act of writing before I could even do it. So
that's a very compelling and intriguing, mysterious part of my life.
And from there I don't know. Man, I read like
a maniac when I was a kid. I read everything
you could read in the kids section of the library,
all the Beverly Cleary books, all to choose your own
(02:34):
adventure books. I was obsessed with books that were for
a little bit older kids, like Watershipped Down and Louise
and may Alcotts Little Women. I read all the books
by this author named Ruth Chu, who wrote these incredible
stories for kids about witches that were just living in
(02:55):
neighborhoods around America. And they would always meet these children
and take them to these strange portals, like in a
tree in a park, and then there was a coven
underneath the ground. Incredible, incredible stories. And I just loved
reading and storytelling. And then when I was eleven years old,
(03:16):
I got into theater and that really took everything to
the next level. I started acting professionally maybe a year later,
and have done that for forty years. In twenty sixteen,
I decided to go back to school to get my
master's in writing. I just wanted to evolve as an
(03:38):
artist and a storyteller and focus on it. You know,
I was so distracted from being an actor. It really
does take up so much of your life, especially if
you do theater. So this was an opportunity for me
to kind of step off the stage. And I worked
really hard for three years in grad school, and you know,
everything happened very quickly. As soon as I got out,
(04:00):
I got an agent, I got a book deal, and
that's just been the journey that I've been on since
that time.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
It sounds you've been on a phenomenal journey, and I've
been on that journey to very similar because I remember writing,
like creating lists of like a dream storylines I would
give for Batman or for Power Rangers and like like
for me, it was like reading for the kids, like
the Magic School Buses and yet juiar Zone Adventures, but
also the Bailey School Kids books were also Neither What
(04:31):
We're another one of a major reading stars, and Stay
with Juny B. Jones and Sadeway Stories from Wayside School.
Those were incredible books for me. And that's why. And
then all along came Harry Potter, and all of a sudden,
I my reading was saved. So I became an avid reader.
So and then also on top of that, theater kid
from sixth grade to twelfth grade.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Get out amazing What theater did you do?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Music musicals particularly were my favorites. I love. I had
supporting roles. I can Fiddler on the like for middle
school was Fiddler on the roof, Hello Dolly, Oklahoma. Then
high school was a funny thing happened on the way
to the Forum. Oh Oliver, and then the most interesting
musical of them all, Working where I had like a
(05:16):
monologue as like a tie salesman.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Oh yeah, that's a great musical. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
And then and then also the last one I remember,
and also the last one I did was in the
musical recited repertory theater class I got to do I
guess the Twelfth Night where I got to play Sir Andrew.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Nice. Nice nice. Yeah. So you have a lot of
experience on the stage.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, I love it. But the thing is, professionally, I'm
more of a storyteller myself, for like our journalists and like,
so that's my that's my path.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, you found your niche. That's amazing. But I mean
the theater, whether it's something that you pursue professionally or
if it's a springboard for something else in your life.
I've always said it should be required for every single
person in this country to study from a young age
the way we study science and math and English. Theater
(06:10):
makes you so present, it makes you so collaborative, it
makes you so smart, it makes you have to get
up in front of people. I mean, there's there's absolutely
nothing bad about studying theater or doing theater. So it's
always baffled me that it has this sort of a
bad rap because I remember when I started doing it,
(06:33):
I got made fun of for it, and that egged
me on because for me, it was this like an
active protest. It was an act of rebellion against all
of the kids who were bullying me. It doesn't even
our strange power.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Absolutely, And the thing is, I guys say this, I
rather see my I rather was. I tell people all
the time I wasn't on the stage was myria. Yes,
and the and choir concerts were my basketball games.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yes, I love that choir concerts were my basketball games.
That's pretty powerful because I don't know about you, but
I didn't step foot on a basketball court neither did
I not the blaze for me growing up. Yeah, so
I love that. Yeah, it has a strange mystical power.
(07:29):
And I've always loved whether it's something that I've written
or as a vessel to interpret somebody else's words, somebody
else's ideas, somebody else's world. It's quite it's quite beautiful.
I think the industry part of it is a little
bit trickier, but the art form itself is really beautiful
(07:51):
and really powerful and I'll always stand by.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
It absolutely absolutely. So let's talk about the authors that
inspire hired you, because I could go on and on
our list after you, the people that are the writers
that inspired me, the who authors that inspired you to
go pursue your storytelling, and also how to and how
did they make it made an impact on your craft.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I mean, when I was a kid, I really loved
I read Watership Down and I really loved that book,
and then I read all of Richard Adams's books subsequent
to that, even though at that age I didn't really
understand because a lot of his stuff is for adults.
But I have gone back at various times in my
life to read his stuff. I actually bat there on
(08:35):
my epic bookcase. I have first edition hardcovers of all
of his work. So he was a big one for
me growing up. Mildred Taylor was a big one for me.
I really love rold thunder Here, My Cry and Her
and the subsequent sequels. A lot of kids authors. Obviously,
(08:56):
I teach that for UCLA, so I'm you know, I
always have my pulse on the finger of what are
the more current books being written for kids as well
as the classics from middle of the century forward. Philip
Pullman was a really big one for me. He wrote
the his dark materials books Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, and
(09:18):
Amber Spyglass and now the sequels. I remember reading one
of his books in the early aughts when I was
living in New York City, right around the time that
the Twin Towers went down, and my whole life got
really disturbed from that. Those books really went in in
a very emotional, powerful psychological way, and I think wanting
(09:43):
to do that, be that live in that energy eventually
prompted me to go back to school, certainly eventually. So yeah,
I mean I love the Harry Potter books too. I
can't say that I have warmon twsy feel about JK.
Rowling as of late, but her stories were really instrumental
(10:06):
to an entire generation for reading and world building. So
I really loved those books. And I also I tend
to read sort of all over the place, Like I'll
read a middle grade and then I'll read a classic ya,
and then I'll read a memoir, and then I'll read
(10:27):
a nonfiction and then I'll read a classic. For instance,
I just finished The Secret Garden. I had never read it.
I don't know how it passed me by that I
read The Secret Garden, but I read it and that
was really immense. What a powerful story, beautiful story, so
dark and sad, but then it becomes the most sort
(10:49):
of beautiful, redemptive thing. So I'm reading some classics, so
I kind of keep it. I try to stay very
versatile in what I'm reading and why. Obviously some of
it I have to do for work, for teaching, and
then the rest of it is for pleasure. And then
also going back and reading all the books that I love,
(11:10):
because I think it's important for you to talk intelligently
about the books that you love and that have inspired you,
and you learn more about them as you grow older
and have more life experience and go back and revisit them.
Do you find that I do?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I do? I do? And yeah, I agree with you
a lot. I gotta say I got to give a
big shout out to Marsha T. Jones and Debbie Daty,
who were the co authors The Bailey School of the
Bailey school Kids, my favorite, one of my all time favorites.
And yes, despite JK. Rowling being a polarizing figure, I
credit her for giving me my love of reading back
(11:46):
and for creating the wisdening world of Harry Potter, one
of my all time favorite lurashy worlds. But it's not.
And also I got to give shout outs to James
Patterson and Dan Brown, whose page turners just are a
thrill both thrill seeking. But however, I don't want you.
I cannot forget one certain medium which has been a
huge part of my life, and I'm talking about comics.
(12:08):
I'm talking about the stories that Bill Finger wrote. I'm
talking about the More the Great what Marv Wolfman, the
world building that Jeff johnsd for and Grant Morrison and
Mark Wade and Greg Walco, Gail Simone, Brian Michael Bendez,
Ed Brew Baker. I could go on, Chris Claremont, I
could go on, and of course the one and Only
stan Lee, the Great Blie Miss stan Lee. Those all
(12:31):
those creators currently Scott Schnyder and Josh Williamson and Jims
Tinny to fourth, those creators have played a masterful role
in me when it came to devouring the DC and
Marvel universes.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, extraordinary. You You must be a very visual thinker,
because that's really deeply visual stuff. I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Oh yeah, the class the storyline is like I've been
a Batman fit since I was five years old. So
like the Great Pulp Friend, the Paul Danny Bruce tim
animation series, to the storylines like jeb Loves Iconic Huh
and Jamie's Iconic Hush, the controversial of Jed Winnick's return
of Jason Todden under the Red Hood, and of course
Grahamans Graham Morrison's Batman and Scott Seiner Gregor Pulo's Batman
(13:14):
Knew Batman fifty two soundust those stay with me.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
It's amazing the way you come across things like that
that you fall in love with and they have such
an impact on your life. I'm so grateful for that.
I love when my mind explodes over things like that,
whether it's a book that I find that I read
that I love the way it stays with me, or
a graphic novel I love. I specifically have been really
(13:42):
appreciative of incredible modern animation of classic books, graphic novels
of classic books. I saw a Wizard of oz One
that I thought, this is so it's so cool how
they're doing this. I saw Lord of the flies One
was so cool to bring them to a younger generation
through visual storytelling and in a medium that younger generations
(14:09):
relate to immediately because of the way that it's drawn
and how much more visual younger generations are because of
the Internet and the phones and social media and the
way that storytelling the forms of storytelling are evolving.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So I agree, I agree. I got to give you
a special shout to Chris Colfer because his Land of
Stories definitely has definitely ignited the next general the pregeneration.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, and also an actor, a really great Broadway performer,
so I love him.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Good on him, absolutely. But we're here not talking about
all the great writers that we have mentioned and all
the great creators that I mentioned. We're here to talk
about you, Tim, So let's get back to our conversation.
So what can you describe your writing process to my audience.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
My writing process is blast by the fact that I
am an intensely early riser. I always have been since
I was a little kid. I just don't require a
ton of sleep. I just don't and I wake up
early and it's a time of the day where I'm
(15:18):
my mind is free and empty. I'm not thinking or
worrying about anything, and I come down here. This is
my office in my house, and I come down here
and I do my writing. So I always have a
couple of different balls in the air, whether I'm working
on a short story or a novel in verse or
(15:41):
a long form novel, and I have a lot of
ideas coming at me all the time. I try to
just write them down by start writing one of them
and it goes somewhere I know that it's worth pursuing.
Some of them kind of stop after a few pages.
So it's a very prismatic process. I don't want to
(16:02):
nail it down as anything like scientific or routine, because
I feel like I'm having a relationship with my muse,
you know. I love the idea in the old days
when writers and artists would have a communion with their muse,
which was a spirit that sort of lived in the
wall and spoke with them. I like to keep things
(16:24):
very mercurial as far as being an artist, because I
feel like if you try to trap it, you know,
or like, you know, throw a lasso around the moon
and pull it down, it won't shine. So getting up early,
being disciplined in writing also reading, I read a lot,
(16:44):
and reading is writing. You have to read, you know,
you have to understand other voices, of their styles, what's
going on there in terms of storytelling structure. So I
consider the time that I take reading books as writing
time as well, and I go on a lot of retreats.
(17:05):
I love retreats because retreats you get to go away
to a lake, to a mountain, to the desert and
no distractions, no interruptions, and you're writing for anywhere from
you know, five to ten to fifteen days with a
bunch of other writers. You meet them, you make new friends,
you workshop your work. So I'm a big believer in retreats,
(17:27):
and I go on several of them a year. You know,
if they're cost sometimes they're cost prohibitive. But I do
like to do that, and to be honest, teaching and
running writing workshops takes some time away from my writing.
But I do love guiding people. I do love building
(17:49):
community with other writers. So again I consider that part
of the writing process awesome.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
So we got to talk about your books. So, for example,
you wrote the award winning book Alice the Cat. This book,
Oh there's Alice the Cat right over there, So that
this book tackles grief, love, and the supernatural. So what
were some of the lessons you learned about these talks
about these topics throughout your writing process.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Alice the Cat was a good book for me to
cut my teeth on. I wrote it in grad school.
I wrote it feeling two things simultaneously. One was the
freedom to explore what I wanted to explore, because I
really wanted to tell this particular story, and the other
one being because I have a kind of a rebellious nature,
(18:36):
and middle grade and young adult literature can be a
little hemmed in as far as there dictates on what
you can and cannot include. I was trying to push
the envelope a little bit, So I think I wrote
it with some freedom and some rebellion. But that book
is based on something that actually happened to me in
real life, which was I lost my mother when I
(18:58):
was a teenager, and we had this cat that she
absolutely loved. It was her cat, and she was very
regal and she was very beautiful. She was also the
family cat. But in the wake of my mom's death,
the cat started acting very strangely, including darting out into
the street when cars came by. As if she was
(19:21):
trying to ender her own life. And then the cat disappeared,
and I never knew what happened. I don't know if
she succeeded in getting run over. I don't know if
my dad took her to be put to sleep. I
don't know if she just walked into the woods to die.
Animals do a lot of strange things when they are
sick or sad. And I buried this memory for a
(19:44):
very very long time, for decades because it was too painful.
And when I was in grad school, one day, I
was sitting out in the courtyard having lunch, and the
question just opped up in front of me what happened
to the cat? And I thought, oh, no, no, no, no, no,
I'm not going there. I can't go there. And lo
and behold, I think I went back to the hotel
(20:05):
that night because I was doing a residency, no staying
in a hotel, and I wrote that first sentence of
what became this book. So the exe Jesus of that
novel was based on something that really happened to me
that I wanted to explore. But the characters and the
plot and all that stuff that was all complete fiction.
(20:26):
That was all imagination. That was all I think, those
characters coming in and using me almost as like a
medium to tell their story. So I love it. It's feckined
and wild and really powerful and really emotional and also
really quirky and really goofy. It has a lot of grief,
(20:47):
it has a lot of darkness, but also it's ridiculous
as well. And I was happy that a lot of
people who read it got a lot from it, you.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Know, and which is a amazing because the thing is
that those stories and like that only that not just
with Kit, not just with readers, but also your peers
as well in a professional organization. So what went through
your mind when you like, say congratulations, ask Cat won
this award and ass a Cat is now a finalist
(21:17):
for this award.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I just felt seen. I felt seen, you know. I mean,
it's not why you do it. I've won a lot
of awards as a writer, I've won a lot of
awards as an actor, and it's not why you do it.
But you do feel seen, and you feel a little
like a little bit more encouragement that you're on the
right path. And I think that that's important because sometimes
(21:41):
its work can feel a little maddening with the amount
of people who are doing it and the competitive nature
that they kind of throw on us about it, and
how sometimes you can feel like, don't look at me
if you're not number one. I've tried my whole life
to let go of a lot of that pressure and
and not live in a place of ultra competitiveness. Healthy competitiveness,
(22:04):
obviously that's important, but I think being a storyteller in
whatever capacity and putting your stuff out there in whatever
way is the grand award. No matter if you win
an Oscar or a Pulitzer or a Newberry or whatever,
right a Grammy. You know you're brave enough to be
an artist and put your stuff out into the world
(22:26):
and let people receive it and or judge it. Then
you've already won all the awards in my book, because
it's hard to do and it's beautiful when you do
it and put it out there. It's an active protest,
I think.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
And absolutely, because I'm getting ready as we're speaking right now,
I had for most of you who don't who have
been following me on social media, I won an award
from the American the CV Awards, the American Business Award.
It's the silver in their Best Interview Talk Show category.
So this is the first time in six years that
I've been oh, thank you, thank you so much to
appreciate it. Like there's a lot of coming across the
(23:05):
crawling across my screen right now. And then also I'm
in the beginning the safety process of my fifteenth anniversary
SEES anniversary celebration that's beginning next year because twenty eleven
marks the first time I ever blogged and that and
that has led it to where we are today.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
That's incredible. See and your your channel keeps going and
you just keep you go and you grow. Absolutratulations.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Thank you so much, I and guys, there'll be more
to come on the fifteenth anniversary celebration. It's going to
be year long. But however, we got to get back
to our conversation right now because we have to talk
about the reason why you're here, the Lightning People play.
So how is this book similar and different to Alice?
And can you describe this book to my audience.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
So, this is a book about a bunch of really
brilliant theater kids who put up a play to raise
money for a seizure alert dog because the protagonist's younger
brother has been diagnosed with epilepsy, and their play opens
a portal that's that's your hook. It takes place in
(24:17):
the same fictional town I created for Alice the Cat,
which is called Weirville. When I was in grad school
and I was writing Alice the Cat, I kept asking
the question, like, how come we don't have any new cities? Like, seriously,
America has no new cities, right, It's kind of weird,
(24:40):
and I wanted to create one. I wanted to create
a small one, you know, like Pittsburgh or Saint Louis
or like a small city, but also make it kind
of like I live in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles
is a vast, endless megalopolis that is half a city
and half a suburb all over the place. I wanted
to create half a city, half a suburb in a
(25:02):
small little area. So I created Weirville. This book also
takes place in Weirville, and so, yeah, the kids live
in Weirville. And there's some crossover from Alisa Cat. There's
a there's a character in Alis the Cat who shows
(25:24):
up in this book as well. It's not a sequel,
but it's sort of like a multiverse, I guess you'd
call it, and.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Then your nose. It could be a weare of the
wear of Ville. You could be building a Wearville multi
versus you speak.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I would be that would be amazing, honestly, But I
obviously we talked about this. I you know, I was
a theater kid. I've been a theater kid my entire life.
But also I grew up with a severely epileptic brother.
Unfortunately he didn't make it. He was killed from one
of the seizures. And you know, decade later, I decided
(26:00):
to write a story that rewrote his fate, as it
were something more hopeful than what we had. What we
had to deal with epilepsy is really difficult. And I
shared a room with him growing up, and he had
he would have these seizures in the middle of the night,
and it was absolutely terrifying, and a lot of weird
(26:21):
stuff happened. I have to say that I think was
buried deep in my subconscious for all of these years,
and when I started writing this book, it made itself
known to me in very mysterious ways, which is where
the magical realism of this book comes in. It's stuff
that happened that I explored what was not didactic about
in any way. So there's this magic, there's this weird
(26:42):
stuff that happens, but I don't know what it is,
and so I don't explain it. I leave it up
to the reader to kind of make their own decision
about what it is. So that was why I wrote
this book, you know, I was I was thinking for
a long time, like how can I mash these things together?
Like I've been a theater kid. I want to write
(27:03):
about theater. How do I do that? How do I
also write about epilepsy? You know? And the thing that
solved the problem miraculously was the dog. Really yeah, I
tell this to my students all the time. You have
a story problem, put an animal in it, and you
won't have a problem anymore. Animals have incredible bridging power.
(27:29):
So you know, alse the cat's about a cat, this
one has a dog. And once the dog came in,
I was like, that's it. That's the connective tissue. That's
where it all makes sense. The kids are going to
put up a play to raise money for a seizure dog,
and all this magical stuff was going to happen as
a result. So once the idea was fully formed. Then
(27:52):
I had to do the work you know of like
writing a book, which is luck. It's still it's still
a miracle to me to look at it and be like,
what here it is?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
And who knows? It could be able to be before
first in school plays and maybe maybe maybe like off
Broadway or maybe regionally.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I would love that. I think I think both of
these books would make incredible films. I think Aliska would
make an incredible animated film, especially looking like Mizaki film.
The protagonist in that book is a big fan of
Spirited Away, so she talks about that a lot. And
I think this one would be an incredible episodic. It
would be a great Netflix show. I mean, listen, Stranger
(28:39):
Things is done. We need something to replace it. It's this,
It's absolutely so yeah. I mean, I'm all about watching
stories evolve and go into different mediums and forums. And
you know, I remember recently we watched Station eleven. I
(29:01):
read the book. A friend of mine told me that
I needed to read the book. I hadn't read it
when it came out, which is about ten years ago,
but I read it and I loved it so much.
And then we watched the show, and they really took
a lot of license. They worked with the author, but
they reimagined it in a lot of ways. Where the
foundation or the framework of the novel was there, but
how they told the story visually was really really different.
(29:26):
And I know a lot of people weren't cool with it,
but I thought it was cool that they all collaborated.
The writer who told one version of the story and
the filmmakers who wanted to tell a different version. They
converged in the middle and made something that I thought
was really profound, really.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Powerful, and you said the best. Not a lot of
people do that. We don't see the authors like for example,
I know with JK. Rowling and Wisting World. There's a
lot of stuff going on with Harry Potter, and then
of course you have JRS Well, I mean the Game
of Thrones and everything going on. Yeah. That that basically
(30:02):
like they want to make sure that they honor George
or Martin's work.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah, so that's like we don't get a lot of
creative collaboration like that.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah. I think it's cool if you come on board
in whatever way you want to as an author, but
you have to be careful how hands on you are
because I think it can get I think it can
get tricky. The collaborative thing can get a little bit tricky.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Look at what happened with Walt Disney pl travers with
Mary Poppins.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Oh yeah, wasn't that a great film? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
I guys say that Tom Hanks should have won an
oscar and also Emma Thompson should have won an oscar.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
It's such a beautiful film and I think a really
important story. I don't think a lot of people knew
what the foundation of Mary Poppins really was, and it
really makes you think about why authors are writing what
they write, and how stories can sometimes get reimagined and
the original feed or the original spark for it gets
reinterpreted again. It's like a tree, you know, it branches out,
(31:05):
Different things happen, different people receive it in different ways.
But that was a really powerful story. Colin Farrell also
was really really incredible in that really.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Powerful He definitely means definitely was heartbreaking. Yeah, all right,
so where so last question? Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
What's that last question?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yes? I'm ready?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
All righty, where can my audience find you find your work?
And also, if you're on social media, where can they
connect with you?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
So I'm on Instagram and my handle is Acto Spark,
which is a whole story behind it, but I won't
go into it here it'll take too long. But I'm
on Instagram and I have a website, Tim Cummings dot Inc.
But not I n C, I n K as in
(32:01):
like an octopus or writing ink. And I'm pretty active
on both. My website has all the information the books
and where you can get them, and uh, Instagram has
you know, a nice mixture of professional stuff but also
personal stuff, you know, my life here in Los Angeles
(32:25):
with with my dog and my husband and my friends
and you know, life lived here in this crazy, crazy
city of Ballet.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. And guys, thank you so
much for watching, Thank you so much for listening. Until
next time, everybody, have a great one. Good bye.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Thank you,
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