Episode Transcript
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Welcome to the writer series podcast calledBooks and Company. The podcast is presented
by Single to Do and the SaintPeter's Episcopal Church here in Laga Vista,
Texas. I am your host,Elizabeth Colvin. Every month we will showcase
the art of writing, focusing onboth fiction and non fictional stories. You
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can visit us live or listen toour podcasts. Please like, share and
enjoy the show. Have an amazingday. This is Elizabeth Colvin with Single
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to Do in conjunction with Saint Peter'sChurch. We have a writer series called
Books and Company and we have adynamic writer with us. Today's Rothia James,
and we'll be going over his works. But I just want to say,
welcome to the point. The pointis here at Saint Peter's. Everything
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is lovely here. We are inLaga Vista, Texas, and this is
our parish and we just welcome youto enjoy our podcast, our YouTube and
be our guest. So let's getstarted. Welcome Rothia. Thank you well.
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Rothia, you are a phenomenal writer. Very nice. Would you say
that I really appreciate everything that I'vewritten about you? And before we get
too started into the discussion, Ijust want to say thank you for your
service. Well thank you for sayingthat. Yes, because he's also a
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Vietnam veteran, So thank you foryour oh awesome, awesome, awesome.
So I didn't I went over thereto kill people. I was over there
save lives, and I did do. I got some letters from guys thanking
me for doing that. Oh,that's amazing, that's amazing. It's a
long time ago. Well, Iknow you have an extensive background and film.
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Yes I do. And you camefrom Dallas, but you're originally from
Oklahoma? Is that correct? That'scorrect. I was born in Oklahoma.
I went to OU. That's that'show I got into theater as I was
going to college. And know youOkay, well, we'll forgive you for
that. Well you shouldn't. Iforgive you for beingness for forty nine and
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nothing. I'm still upset about that, but that's okay. If you're born
in Oklahoma, you're probably gonna goto old U right right. Well,
your name Rokia is very special.Tell us about your name. You know
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what, when I was I guessI must have been about ten years old,
and I always wondered about Rachia.Now everybody called me Rocky. I
went by Rocky for the long youknow, I still do, and long
before the movies came out and everybodystarted calling her dog Rocky, I was
going by Rocky. And I Iasked my grandmother. Because I was a
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junior, I was named after myfather, So I asked my grandmother,
where did she come up with thatname? She was this dark woman,
dark haired, dark skinned. Sheused to sing in the in the honky
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tonks back in the day, andshe also could whistle really well, and
they called her the song on radio. She was on early radios. They
called her the songbird on the radioin those days, a long time ago.
And she was a fascinating woman.And I asked her where did you
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get that game? How'd you comeup with that? And she said,
well, we're related to six tribes. There are several tribes, few nations,
lots of tribes, and she said, we're related to six tribes.
And I took the first letter offof each tribe and arranged them till I
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came out with Rotya. Because mydad was her first baby, and she
was looking for a special name thatwas related to some ancestry, and that's
how that's for the name comes from. And I was fortunate enough to be
born to my father and mother,right, and uh, he gave me
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his name, and I wanted touse it as as instead of Rocky.
I thought I thought Rothia had betterring to It looks better in print.
It's just an unusual name, andI'm actually pretty proud of it. But
I hardly ever get a chance touse it. But now I'm getting a
chance to use it. Absolutely byusing by calling my by using that as
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my author's name. Absolutely, youknow, you know. And just to
move on, we know that youhave your book Blood Born, but before
we go there, I want totalk about a lot of the other works
that you have, because I knowthat you have screenplays, poems and songs.
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Yes, and tell us about yourfirst book, Art of Murder,
Murder, Art and Murder or theArt of Murder, Art of Murder,
okay, or is it in Murder? I hardly ever used that title anymore
because I've rewritten that book and I'mdoing something else with it. Right,
because I know that when we've talked, you know, it was going through
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a transformation. So I know peoplethat may look at your works on websites
and will see that, they'll seeart of murder. So what what kind
of transformation did it go through?Well, if I may let me this,
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I I with my publisher. Iknew I that was the first book
I ever wrote. It wasn't bloodBorne. The first book was this The
Art and Murder, and it revolvedaround the art world, and it takes
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place in Austin. And when Iwrote this story, I really felt like
it was a really good story andit's got something. At the time,
the book The Art Murderer has gotninety thousand and almost ninety seven thousand words
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in it. I went to aclass just to jump a little bit.
I went to a class because Ihad no idea what to do about writing
a book, and my daughter wasgoing to UFT and I found out that
there was a lady that wrote booksand she was given a class for it,
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and so I bought tickets for me, myself and my daughter because I
knew she liked to write too.She writes really well as well, and
so at the time she was injournalism, and so I thought, you
know, you never know, shemight evolve into writing books. Who knows.
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Now she's a librarian at Harvard Universityat any rate. So she lives
in Boston, and we went tothis class and I was listening, and
I realized in a short period oftime that this lady was teaching a class
about how to how to books,how to do something. She was like
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a lawnmower. She was using thatto mow your lawn. If you're going
to write a book about more inyour lawn, well you break it down
into paragraphs. The first paragraph mightbe what kind of grass do you have?
And you talk about that. Thissecond paragraph or the second chapter might
be what you what kind of amachine are you going to use to mow
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this? And you know, Andshe was breaking it down like that.
And at the end of the thing, I asked her and said, can
you tell me what is how manyI didn't even know this. How many
words should be in a good thriller? Can you tell me that? And
she said about ninety thousand words.So The Art and Murderer had ninety seven
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thousand words, almost ninety seven thousandwords and a very involved story, and
I self published it because I didn'thave any idea what to do next.
You know, I didn't know younever dawned on me to get on the
internet and look for a publisher.And I also found out also knew that
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you had to probably go through anagent to start with. Well, I've
had some bad experiences with talent agentsfrom being an actor, and I realized
that most of these agents are alesactors, and that's why they becomes That's
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why they become agents. U andI kind of get the feeling that a
literary agent might be the same kindof deal. As matter of fact,
I write about one in uh inBloodborne at any rate, so I didn't
really want to get an agent.Now, don't you know what to do
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next? So I self publish it. Well, it went unnoticed because self
publishing is not they they get theirmoney from the author. You give them
money to publish your book. Theydon't spend any money on promoting it or
anything like that. A publisher getstheir money from selling books, so they
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promoted so it's much the better deal. So at any rate I did,
I realized that that book would justwent unnoticed, it didn't get any I
didn't know how to promote it oranything. I didn't know what to do.
So I decided to write a storyabout a vampire. But I did.
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I wanted to make realistic vampire becausethe vampires don't exist that you know,
they're fairy tales. So what Idid was I wrote a story blood
Born. It revolves around a cyclepath that believes he's a vampire, and
that could happen. And that's howI ended up writing Bloodborn. When I
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finished Bloodborn, I got on theInternet and looked for a publisher that was
that was looking for unknown authors.As a matter of fact, that's what
I googled publishers looking for. Andmy publisher came up and I sent him
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the book and they loved it.They gave me a glowing review on it.
And and here we are. Here'scopies of it right here. So
and when it came to I feltlike I wanted to I wanted to give
the art and murder a second chance. So I rewrote it, cut about
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it, over a thousand words init. AH retitled it to Broken Designs,
and may I read this paragraph.This is what my publisher back with
me with the contract. Your manuscriptwas brought to our attention at the latest
Editorial Board meeting, where we discussedthe potential of its publication. Having read
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all the reports and taken note ofthe editor opinions, we can confidently state
that your work was found to bea most engaging and entertaining read that will
undoubtedly captivate a wide audience. Aclassic murder investigation with an insight on the
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personal lives of the characters. Thatmakes your work a pleasant read. The
plot moves along at a well maintainedpace, which is a good thing.
I cut a thousand words out ofit, and the characters build and sustain
the story, delivering a convincing andhighly relative crime novel. Broken Designs is
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a well written and research crime novelworthy of attention, and believe it would
have a place in the market.That's what I got back on the book,
so that that book is introduction nowand what I'm doing. I'm a
young I'm not a young man,but I'm a young author and I'm trying
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to build a fan base. AndI appreciate anybody that might say something nice
about my work. I appreciate thatimmensely. Well. I'd like to talk
about your screenplace because I've done lotsof screenplays, and out of your screenplays,
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most importantly, there is one that'scalled Major Bust. Tell us about
that book. That screenplay has beensold to a friend of mine. I
sold it to him for a realgood deal. He got a great deal
on it and he's in his hands. Now, do you guys know who
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Michael Parr is? The actor ofmy Parr Eddie and the Cruisers. Does
that ring a bell to anyone?Remember that movie? It's a pretty old
movie, Eddie and the Cruisers.That was Michael Parr. That was Michael
Parr in that. He never reallyhe kind of came onto the scene through
Eddie and the Cruisers and Streets ofFire. He was a star in that.
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That's where William Dafoe started his career. That was Michael Parr. Was
the opposite of the guy that foughthim in the streets. He never really
it never caught on. He hadsome good roads, but it just never
happened for him. But he's stilldoing work and uh. And the guy
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that bought the script sent it tohim and he said some really nice things
about it. He said, it'sa great script. He wants to do
it now he's got to find themoney to do. My friend does and
tell our audience what is major bustabout? What kind of summarize it?
I was talking about this earlier.It's a story about a fellow who was
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a cop in Chicago and he hada partner that he that he was tight
with. He was he loved him, he was he was his brom h
and he got killed because of thepolice commissioner's rulings that he was laying down
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on the force and he got himkilled, similar to what you see in
in in the newsreels today, what'shappening to the police today, except this
was the way this was written along time ago. And so he,
uh, he quit the force andhe became a a bounty hunter, which
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still made him kind of like acop using those skills, and he and
the story starts with him looking forthis guy named Jack that is a cop
killer, and he catches him rightoff the bat and he gets them booked
and he's fixing the lead. Thenext day, well there's a knock in
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his door when he's getting ready togo catch a plane go back to Chicago
because he's come to do what hecame to do and it's done. And
so he's fixing the go and thesetwo dougliest kind of guys say, hey,
we want you to come with us. Our boss wants to talk to
you. So he goes to thisspreading ranch takes place in Dallas way,
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you know, And he goes tothis ranch, huge ranch, and this
guy named Charlie Marsh is running atranch and he wants him to look for
this kid that he claims stole thehorts of his and this and this kid
his name is Billy. And sohe offers him, you know, several
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thousand dollars to find this kid.And so he's now, I'll spend a
few days on it. And hesaid, well, here's half the money
here and if you if you findthe kid, you get the other half.
And he said, well okay,that's what made him decide to stick
around for a couple of days.So he starts looking, well, he
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starts getting involved, he starts running. There's a couple of other thugs show
up wanting to know why he's lookingfor Billy and stuff like that. Well,
it all boils down. Eventually youcome to find his name is Drake.
Major is the name of the guy. So that last name is Major.
So all boils down. You thinkthe reader or the person and watching
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the movie hopefully thinks it's another drugstory. It's another story about drugs.
Well, it turns out that what'sgoing on is that Charlie gave that horse
to Billy, and Billy's a cowboyand he was working on the ranch and
he did some extra work and Charliegave him the horse. And so the
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kid wants to sell that horse.It's a good horse. He wants to
That's what his business is, whateverybody thinks his business is is, you
know, raising a horses, horseraising. He he's going to take that
horse and take it to a guythat he thinks he can sell that horse
too. So he puts it inthe trailer horse horse trailer rather and he
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Charlie's got a bunch of them,you know, He's got a line of
them, ten of them, andthey all are white, and they all
got a big gold circle on itwith a big C inside of that for
Charlie and that was the brand.Yeah, that's the ranch's brand. And
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uh he uh, he takes thetrailer just that random. He picks his
trailer out, puts a horse init, takes it to this guy.
He thinks he's gonna sell it,but by this horse, and he's gonna
make some money and pay off somegambling debts or Charlie's got in his mind
and make it look like that whateverhappens to that kid is the gamblers at
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God him. That's what Charlie's gotin mind to do. And this is
part of the mystery that major figuresout through the whole thing. But you
think it's it's about drugs, allright. It turns out that the uh,
the guy that's behind everything is hisold police commissioner who's retired and he's
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up in Canada and he's he's sellingjim stones, illegal jim stones brought into
the country by a man named Grahamwho happens to be Billy's dad. Wow,
and he's an import export. There'sall kinds of them. That's why
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Michael Pare when he read it,he said, ah, this is very
norse. This is like a filmnoir, very twisty and turny and stuff,
surprises and stuff. And so likeyou find out that Charlie Mars wasn't
looking for that horse, he waslooking for that trailer. Because in the
trailer, if there's a hole drilledin the bottom of the trailer, when
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you put the horse in right andyou stick a pike in there a spike
that'll spike and you trigger the thingand their trap door opens up, and
there's compartments full of gemstones. Anduh, I did some research on it.
I do research on everything I doand can come to find out that
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rubies were are more expensive than diamondsand they're more rare. That's why they're
more expensive. So he's got abig stash of rubies in there, along
with uh jade and stuff like thatand jimsones and they come from Thailand.
They import an export guy who's Billy'sdad is receiving these things from Thailand giving
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them to Charlie. Charlie is puttingthem in his horse trailer and under the
guise of selling a horse, hegoes up to Canada and gives it and
gives the gymstones to uh the oldpolice commissioner. Wow, well, we
definitely look forward to information about majorbus. Yeah, story it is and
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Michael Perrob said some really nice thingsabout it. Okay, he's seen a
lot of scripts. And are thereany memorable films that you've been involved in.
Uh, Well, I was justI was speaking about this earlier.
I uh I did a lot oflow budget films out of h and I
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used to I used to teach filmacting classes with did anybody know who Lou
Diamond Phillips is. I used toteach film classes with that guy. Everybody
thought I was going to be thestar. But I didn't look like a
Hispanic fella. I look like aNoxie, so they didn't. They didn't
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want me to read for La bambook, but they But you know, Lou
was prepared for his break and heand he jumped on it at any rate.
But everybody thought I was the betteractor and all this buff, all
this stuff, but those are allpeople's opinions anyway. So to finish what
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we were talking about, I usedto teach film acting classes and that's when
I started writing scenes for my students. And that's when I discovered that I
can write dialogue. And I startedwriting scenes for my kid, for the
kids, and I caught them kids, and so I did a lot of
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low budget stuff and I worked asa film acting and I was quite well
known in doubtless at this time atthe Adam Rorid's Film Actors Studio, and
it became even more famous when Lougot discovered and it was a well known
place, and I was one ofthe top instructors there, and so I
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did some stuff that was low budget, forgettable movies because they were a low
budget. And that's the kind ofmovies you do. You're not in Hollywood,
that's what you're doing. But thenthere were these places that had come
to UH. Production companies that wouldcome to Dallas, UH, like unsolved
Mysteries I did. I still getroyalty checks for that, for Unsolved Histories
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and America's Most Wanted and stuff likethat. I played a lot of bad
guys. Okay, bad guys arefun to play, they really are.
Uh. And if if you knowanything about film, you find out quite
quickly that the really nice guys areplaying the bad guys and the jackasses are
playing emails forgive the word. Uh. Well that was interesting. So what
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brought you to this area? II got so I got so along in
my years that I couldn't play.They wouldn't have me read for the guys,
for the characters I was interested in. So I became disenchanted, and
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it triggered something inside. I've beenwriting all my life, poems and stuff
like that, and I liked towrite, and so and it led me
to that, and I started writingscreenplays. And I came here because Austin
is. I got tired of beingin Dallas. I just burned out on
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it. Dallas is so you can'tIt takes you two hours to get across
town. I didn't want to bearound that kind of stuff anymore. I
got older and wiser and real quick. There's something that triggered in me when
I was in Acting one class.This is before I even in college,
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and this was before I even declaredI got into acting. I was going
to college through the GI bill,and my advisor said, well, you
got three more hours you need topick up. You got twelve hours and
eat fifteen. You get all yourBill of Rights stuff, your veterans stuff.
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You need another three hours. Whydon't you take an acting class?
Probably no homework that struck a court. So I took that class, and
I fell in love with it.It felt like I was putting in an
old flannel shirt that I'd had fortwenty years. It just felt so comfortable,
all right. In my Acting oneclass, there was a three part
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scenes that the instructor called and thevery first one I remember this really clearly,
their very first one. But hegave you three actions to do.
No dialogue. You'd build a sceneyourself and the situation, but you had
to do three things in it.And the three things was strike a match,
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stand on a chair, and tiea knot. You had to do
those three things. Well, everybodyin my class was doing these scenes.
And they would come in. They'dset up a little bedroom or something.
They'd come in and they'd notice apicture was a skew on the wall.
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So they got the chair and theygot stood up on a chair to fix
the thing. Or they would lighta candle or a cigarette, or they'd
tie a tie or a shoe stringthat was loose. But what I did,
I set the thing up like anoffice, and I snuck into this
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office and I went behind the deskand grabbed a chair and pulled the chair
out and set it underneath one ofthese You don't have them here, You
know, little things that come outof the ceiling that throws water if there's
a fire. I said it underneaththat, stood up on the chair,
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pulled out a piece of string,tied the string, tied the knot,
tied the string on that thing,and let it drap down. And then
I replaced the chair. I cameback to that string. I took out
a cigarette lighter and lit the stringand snuck back out of the office.
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And I was gone for a fewseconds, and I came back into the
class and everybody was watching the string. I'm freaking out. I ran away
and put it out and stuff,and everybody was just crazy about my scene.
They asked me what I was doing, what was going on? And
what I was doing is I wasI was setting a diversion. I was
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in this building to steal a cosmeticformula, and I was setting a diversion
on the second floor and and Ihad to get up to the fourth fourth
floor to get to the to thecosmetic UH formula. And that's what I
was doing. That's what the scenewas about. You see. I realized,
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as opposed to most of my classmates, I realized that people don't pay
money for someone to walk into aseven to eleven store and buy a over
of bread. They will pay moneyto watch this guy go into seven eleventh
store and rob it, but tobuy all over bread. And then that's
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when that was the first time Irealized that maybe to write a story from
that experslutely and everybody. We hadseveral three part scenes and the class was
always like this, waiting for myscene to start. And that is definitely
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reflected in your writing. Lots ofirony, lots of suspense, and I
thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.No, we're ready to take a break.
Yeah, I've been gabbing a lot, folks. I'm sorry. We're
gonna take a break. But beforewe take a break, I really would
love our audience to get to listento one of your songs. Well,
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and then after your song, thenwe're gonna come back and talk about blood
Board, and then we're gonna goover some information as far as character development
and some deep information about the bookitself. And do you have a favorite
song you would like for us toWell, I could sing a song that
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my father really liked. He reallyliked this song. And can you kind
of tell us a little history beforeyou start singing? Well, I just
I remember being a kid going tomovies and and and watching and watching Roy
Rogers on TV and Geene Autry andand hop along Cassidy Johnny mac brown.
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You know who that guy is,a lot of people don't know who Jenny
and Johnny mac brown. He wasa college football player and he uh they
Hollywood made him. He did alot of movies, even Bob Still.
And my dad showed said, doyou see that little guy who was watching
a cowboy movie when I was akid, And he said, you see
that little guy right there? Isaid yeah. He said he was a
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big cowboy star. I said really, and he stood about this tall and
he but he was pretty good actor. And anyway, so I reminisced over
that and and discussion of the timesI had with my father. I loved
my father very much, and soI kind of wanted to do a song
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that that that he was a partof in a way. And so I
wrote, uh, King of theCowboys, that's the name of the of
the tune. Now, I'm nota singer, folks, so and I
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might muck this up, and ifI do, excuse it. And I'll
get back on track if I domuck up. But it goes like this,
and this song, for this particularsong, not all my songs do,
but this particular song starts with thechorus, Okay, they were the
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King of the Cowboys, the PonyExpress, the tin badging six gun that
tamed the Old West. The trick, roping, hard riding Saturday show.
That's what they were when the bestof them rolled. When I was a
boy full of heroes and dreams,I'd go to the movies. They lived
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on the screen. Spin up myspin up my two bits, I'd say
for the week, buy me somepopcorn in a front row. See there
was Tomics and Tony and Little BobSteele, John Wayne and Gabby. They
all seem so real, pop AlongCassidy, Johnny mc brown. The bad
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guys would leave when they'd come totown. They were the king of the
cowboys. The Pony expressed, thetin badging six gun that tamed the Old
West, the trick, roping,hard riding Saturday show. That's what they
were when the best of them rolled. There was Rowe and Dale and Jeane
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Krey's song. Those were the dayswhen nothing was wrong. And now that
I've grown, I look back witha smile and ride with the guys in
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those days. For a while,they were the king of the cowboys.
The Pony expressed the ten badge andsix gun that came the Old West,
the trick, groping, hard riding, Saturday Show. That's what they were
when the best of them rolled.Awesome, amazing, awesome, amazing.
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But we're gonna take a break there, I need one. Oh yeah,
we come back. We'll talk aboutblood Born, Okay, and we'll have
some questions and go over some otherpieces. Okay, but just thank you
for being here with us. OhI'm enjoying myself. Very nice people.
And now we need to get backand talk about blood More. Okay,
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your latest book. I know youhave another one in production. We'll talk
about that towards the end. Okay, but you know, before we get
into blood More, what was yourinspiration to become a writer? Was this
someone that you admired? Was ita particular incident? Tell me about that.
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Well, you know what I have. I've been writing all my life.
I was looking at a bunch ofstuff in the a bench that I
have, and you lift up thetop that you sit on, and I
got a bunch of stuff in there. I've been writing all my life,
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but I never got serious with it. I had, I had, I
had, I was raising a littlegirl, I had a daughter, and
I had a career as an actoras well. But I still was writing.
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But it was stuff like poems andsongs. I wrote a lot of
songs over a period of time,and short stories every once in a while.
But I would get to a feelingthat I would just get this feeling
that I need to write something,I need to put something on paper.
And I wouldn't even have an ideaor anything. I just started writing about
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the way the day was and justwrite a couple of pages about what I
was feeling about that like a journal, Yes, like a journal, but
it wasn't a journal. It wasjust exercising that feeling. I had to
put him to paper. Mm hmuh. And so I can't tell you
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that there's no definite thing. Ican tell you this. When I was
in the second grade, our teachertold us to write a story. She
told the class I wanted her towrite a story. So I started writing
the story I was writing. Itwas about two mice. I watched a
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lot of Tom and Jerry buddies thatcartoon. It was about two miles.
This is a long time ago now, and uh. I started writing this
story about Flip and Flop and whenthey got when the cat came around and
they got scared, Flip would startflipping and flop would start flopping and uh
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and the adventures that they had.And as I was writing that, I
said to myself, even when Iwas in the second grade and I was
writing that, and I said,you know, I thought this is fun.
I like to tell a story.I like this. Maybe someday I
will it will become a something thatI can do. So was writing something
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that you just stumped it's just intoit, or was there like a person
that you admired, like a teacher, or was it just something that you
just discovered on your own. Ijust discovered it on my own, and
it was you know, a lottakes you in different directions. You know,
I know a lot of writers theystarted writing and telling stories at a
(39:45):
very young age. Well, Iwas playing baseball for my dad, and
I was going to the dances,and then and then I got drafted and
was in Vietnam. And then whenI came back from that, I had
a very bizarre experience when I wentto Vietnam. When I left Vietnam,
everybody was listening to songs like Littlegto You Really looking Fine, And the
(40:10):
girls were working pok dot dresses.The guys had button down shirts. And
when I came back, the kidswere listening to purple haze also their brain,
and the dudes were wearing beads andthe girls were going around without brawls
(40:32):
and stuff. It was like anothercountry. And I was only gone a
year. It totally changed, totallychanged. So you know, that took
me off in the directions. AndI'll tell you something. I learned to
smoke pot when I was in Vietnam. Okay, I smoked a little pot
when I was I don't smoke itanymore, but back then, when I
(40:53):
was a kid, I was smokingpot. I started smoking pot. The
first guy that came up to mesaid, you want some pot and pot?
You know, you know, hesaid dope. He wasn't dope,
so dope. I ain't no dope. So I didn't. I wouldn't hip
to anything. And I started smokingpot in Vietnam. And I came back
to the United States, I continuedsmoking pot, and I ended up getting
(41:16):
arrested in Dallas for two marijuana jointsand spent two years in Huntsville prison for
that. So when I say lifetook me in different directions, it really
did, and some of them veryextreme directions. And so yeah, that's
(41:39):
an extreme direction. I remember,I clearly remember standing in my whites and
my brogs in line, waiting togo eat nothing but barbed wire and brick
walls. And I'm thinking to myself, damn, I'm in prison. I'm
in prison, right, Uh huhyeah, oh yeah, all right,
(42:06):
that was That was all a longtime ago, and it was after Vietnam.
But I learned to smoke pought inVietnam. I came here and got
thrown in the penitentiary for learning whatI learned in their war, in the
Vietnam War. So I have beenthrough a lot of crazy situations and and
(42:27):
I think probably you know, uh, all those experiences built things inside me.
Yeah, and you I'm sorry whatI was decorated four times? Yeah,
the question is did he did hesee action? Well, I'm not
(42:51):
sure. I'm normal. I'm notsure I'm normal. Now, I tell
you, I can recall a timewhen we I was a combat medic.
There were many times this happened.We'd go into a village and it was
(43:12):
supposed to be dangerous ec and stuff, and there was nobody in that village.
And it was a big village.Nobody was in it, and there
was half cooked meals, buys weregoing on in the hootes and stuff,
but no people. The people weregone. Livestock walking around everywhere, cows,
(43:39):
chickens, goats, all kinds oflivestock. The sergeant called into the
lieutenant, lieutenant was back where itwas saved, called it in. The
lieutenant said, lieutenant, you knowthere's nobody here, and the lieutenant wanted
to know if there was livestock,and yeah, it's well kill the livestock,
(44:02):
thinking that they were going to killwhat was feeding the BC. I
didn't follow those lords. I wouldnot do that if something didn't feel right,
and anywhere in all my life,if something didn't feel right, I
wouldn't do it. I just didnot do it. I didn't have to
(44:24):
because all the rest of my guysaround me went crazy shooting these animals,
and they were taking out all theiranimosity of getting shot at and getting wounded
and stuff, and they had achance to get back with bullets. I
just didn't follow that. And Ithink probably that's I listened to my own
(44:52):
voice inside me. But that kindof answers your question. Yes, and
we know that Vietnam can be verytraumatic. Oh, Vietnam was a bad
(45:15):
place, you know, but atthe same time you were able to have
creativity through your poetry. Yes,and some of your works are just amazing.
So right now we have someone that'sgoing to recite one of your poems.
Okay, it's called Sunset. Wehave Earling Jackson. It's going to
(45:37):
recite Sunset. And it's what youguys enjoyed because it is so poignant and
beautiful. You can just come righthere only hi everyone, and thank you
(45:59):
so much for serving our country.Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate
it. Yeah, I appreciate yousaying that. Thank you. And Vietnam
veterans are my sweethearts by the way, so ah, thank you for your
service. Yes, I was inthe medical field too, so I'm an
Air Force medic. So I havea very good idea. How are you
(46:23):
feeling there? So let me readone of your poems. It is called
Sunset. It's called Sunset. Sunsettarnish clouds obscure his aging stage while striving
(46:44):
to cast his brilliance with glow beamsupon Earth's face. Orange red passion color
points horizon to enhance the struggle.It takes his last sigh, then tumbles
(47:06):
below outline of globe and sky inone big gulp, disappearing without a whim,
as if something mightier just swallowed him. It's beautiful. Yes, that
(47:30):
is an excellent depiction of what sunsetis like. So even though Vietnam was
harsh, you still have humanity,and we just never let go of any
of that. Oh yeah, I'vealways maintained my humanity, even in prison
and everywhere, everywhere, everywhere I'vebeen. I remember I used to rescue.
(47:57):
There was a gal that came tomy door. I lived this little
apartment like place when I was incollege. And she said, Rocky,
I'm scared, And I said,what's matter? She said, there's two
guys that this person had moved outof this apartment above her, and they
were vagabonds. And she came tome, She said, can you tell
(48:24):
them to leave me alone? SoI got my baseball bat. I always
have a baseball bat because I likebaseball. It's my favorite sport. And
I liked swinging it, you know, I just like it feels good.
And so I got my bat andI went up there. Mutt and Jet
(48:45):
is what I called this guy.One was real tall. One was real
short, and I knocked on thedoor. It was open, and I
just came in. I said,I want you to to leave this woman
that lives below you. You leaveher alone. If you don't leave her
alone, you will not believe thereality that comes next. And then I
(49:07):
slammed that bat into the wall.And the tall guy looked at the short
guy and said, get your gun, and I started having I said that
gun would have been hopped up along time ago, so you could get
a doug wide. You didn't bedude, So anyway, just leave her
alone and they and they left thenext day. And I've just I've always
(49:30):
protected people. I've always done that. I've saved two women from being raped.
I think that's they must have readthat into my tests. And when
I was in the service, itmade me a medic. You know,
I don't know, but I've neverlost sight of my humanity. I try
(49:52):
to relate to that into my storiesabsolutely. Now we're going to go into
blood Borne. The part that Ireally loved. I love a fact that
you debbed deeply into your character,a character that had a severe mental illness,
(50:15):
a mental illness that all the charactersin the book were not aware of
it, but as we get closerand closer toward the book, we were
able to discover it and then seethe means that he takes to actually do
(50:36):
the acts that he commits. AndI really think that that was amazing how
you were able to educate someone,if someone knew nothing about mental illness,
to a professional where they can identifywhere you were coming from. Where did
you get the information in the research? What type of research did you do
(50:59):
to get into the life of yourcharacter. That's what I'd like to well,
I of it came from here.I wanted to develop a character that
lives like a vampire because he thoughthe was a vampire. But there's no
(51:21):
such thing as a vampire. Butthere's there's been a lot of what they
call vampire murders, and uh thatthat's it comes from that. The idea
comes from that, but the ideaabout getting as close to a vampire as
I possibly could. So I gavehim the ability to make his own things
(51:43):
and contraption to it, to dowhat do what he was doing because he
wanted blood, because he thought drinkingblood was going to bring his vampire hours
back, as you well know,absolutely and so he was a complicated character,
and I did a bunch. Ihave books on psychopaths and sociology,
(52:08):
sociopaths and stuff like that. I'vedone a lot of reading on that.
One in every twenty five people.A lot of us don't know this,
but one in every twenty five peopleis a sociopath. There's probably a lot
of CEOs that are sociopaths, andone in every hundred people are psycho paths.
(52:34):
Now, when you're a sociopath,that doesn't mean if you've got bloodlust,
you might be a serial killer.But not all of them are like
that. A lot of them are. Life will try to get in position
to where they are empty inside.They don't have any feelings. They have
they must be horrible to be likethat, but they're empty inside. They
don't feel anything, So they lookthe only charge they get in life to
(53:00):
mess with other people's lives, peoplelike you and I and all of us,
to mess with our lives and todisrupt them and cause hardship SPUs.
And that's why there's probably a lotof CEOs that are sociopaths. Because they're
running businesses and they lay down allthese laws within the corporations and stuff.
(53:23):
So I in, a psychopath isa very dangerous human being. And they're
very similar to sociopaths, but they'remore dangerous. Uh they are, they
will act out, they're fancysees muchmore readically than a sociopath will. And
(53:52):
I got the idea well years ago. I was include Grille working as a
orbit little welder. I was speakingabout that earlier orbitalle welder. Is what
they do is they well stain asstill tubes together and you have to do
(54:13):
them precise. It's precise. It'sin clean room when everybody's got these outfits
on. It look like they're walkingaround on the moon or something. It's
a skill and you have and youyou weld these tubes together. And they
put them all together, and theymake uh components for computers and stuff out
(54:34):
of by using these tubes, uhputting them inside these little boxes and they
they and their uh airless boxes andthey make these components. And these tubes
are transferring gases and stuff, andsome of them are poisonous and so therefore
they need to out leak or anythinglike that. So you everything you do
(54:57):
in the in the in the uhin the containment mm hmm. Every well,
you make is checked severely because itcould kill somebody if they don't if
it's not. And and so Iwas working in saying I've worked there a
couple of years. This is outin Flugerville, and the sky brought this
(55:22):
machine in that didn't you didn't haveto worry about it causing stains inside the
two while you wel died or leaks, because that the stain, the stains
inside could cause problems too. Itburns the stains, it burned, the
(55:43):
heat of the well, the circularwell. It would go around the two.
It could burn, It could burn, you know, air could get
caught in the air and it couldburn. It cause burns, stains and
and ruined the peace. And theywould look for that as well. So
(56:04):
he brought this machine in and hehe was, uh, I wanted to
see how it worked for everybody.And it was uh, it was about
that long, and you fit itdown, you put it in there,
and it was real simple. Madethe whole thing, the whole process,
very easy. But it was experimental, he was he had some glitches in
(56:25):
it. But I realized then Ihad this book was floating around in my
head all along during this time,and I wanted to get to writing it,
but I had I was. Iwas getting up at four o'clock in
the morning and going to going towork and in getting home, and I
(56:49):
was I was worn out from thestrain of doing all this stuff that was
being tested all the time, andso I was just too I just I
just didn't I couldn't gather myself towrite anything that book anyway. I might
write a song or a short storyor something like that, but not a
(57:09):
book, and it takes all theenergy to finish this. I decided to
go to that guy's warehouse where hewas dealing on this stuff. And you
know the scene you read the book, I'm assuming you know the scene where
they're going into that workshop and thatmachine from Japan that comes from him.
(57:35):
I went in there and asked himsome questions, he showed the machine,
and I wrote all this stuff downand kept it for years, and and
then finally when I got away fromworking all the time, that's when I
started writing books. And I've writtenthrees so far in a couple of years.
And you were able to combine themechanical elements I want to how they
(58:00):
character was able to fulfill his missionhe had a high IQ. Yes,
But while you're telling that complicated story, we're also including a very deep love
story, yes, about the detectivesthat are also involved in solving these mysteries
(58:20):
and they kind of discovered each other. Yes. Yeah, so I thought
that was very well done. Well, I appreciate that, no, because
it's not too often you can seea thriller mystery in a love story.
So you guys really need to checkout this book because that was awesome,
you know, and the element ofsuspense was incredible, And right now we
(58:44):
have someone that's going to recite chapterforty eight to give our audience an idea
of what that suspense piece is likewe have in Milanya. It was deeply
quiet, emotionless, like a boneyard, except for weak moans that filtered the
(59:04):
air. The sounds came from thebrick wall where the renaissance man had hammered
nails the day before. Kim wastied to them. She was posed in
a crucifix which with each arm outstretchedand bound by black silk scarves to the
long concrete nails. Her clothes weretorn and tattered, her face smudged and
(59:29):
soiled. She seemed to be comingout of unconsciousness, slowly gaining an awareness
of her predicament. When she comesto her full faculty of senses, she
looks about frantically, realizing her situation. In moments of dedication, Kim struggles
to set herself free. She strainsand thrashes with all her might, and
(59:53):
then decides its fruitful, fruitless totry with that prais she seen, She
starts to scream bloody murder. Thescreams bounce and echo off the chamber walls,
producing an even more shrill sound.That was amazing. Instead of saying
(01:00:17):
one word scared, you built itinto a story. Yeah, And that
I thought was just truly masterful.And I really appreciate how you were able
to do that all throughout the book, All throughout the book, you know,
and as far as the contraption,the mouthpiece, how they were able
(01:00:42):
to actually, I guess he weldedit himself in the machine shop, and
the machine shop that's where he builtit. You don't find this stuff out
till way into the story, right. What made you call him the Renaissance,
Well, it's I like that nameabout word renaissance. It has connotations
(01:01:07):
to it. And he started heevolved into his attire. He found a
cape, you know, and hewore his blousy shirts and and uh ah,
he found a case to carry hisequipment in later on, and stuff
(01:01:30):
and an old doctor, old oldwestern doctor case and a little black case,
and uh you found all these thingsand it just evolved into this into
this. Uh. Well, rememberthe scene when he's looking for ah,
an office space or an office andhe's walking the streets and the people and
(01:01:53):
he stops at at at a lightsaying don't walk. And he's standing with
a bunch of other people. They'reon the way to the Elm Street business.
Elm Street in Dallas is like SixthStreet in Austin. It's not yours
bestive, but it's the same thing. Mm hm and uh And he's standing
(01:02:16):
there and and people are noticing histhe way he's dressed and stuff. And
he goes walking across the street aheadof everybody and escape clapping in behind him
and stuff. It's just I justthought that was calling him a renaissance man.
Was a good was a good handlefor him, absolutely out of you
(01:02:37):
know, from and and and thedetectives came up with that because that that
lady the waitress described him in inthe bar and and she pointed out he
never talked to her. He handedher a note saying what he wanted to
drink a bloody Mary. So allthis stuff is leans towards the vampire myth.
(01:03:07):
I'd like to think this book isnot really about vampires. It's about
the vampire myth. Yes, that'swhat it's about. Yes, And the
detectives always thought that they weren't takinga They never thought it was a vampire.
Yeah, right, just smart people. Yes, and the intrigue of
(01:03:30):
it. It still gives you anidea of is he really a vampire?
Yes? You actually ask yourself thisthe whole time. Well, I you
remember how it ends, his bodyvanishes. Yes, so that's what you
just said. Kind of relates tothat absolutely and leaves the reader wondering,
(01:03:53):
well, was he really a vampire? What? Absolutely also leaves to a
to a another story if I everdecide to do that. So you think
it'll be a part two if Iever decide to do that. I don't
(01:04:13):
write series. I write individual stories. None of them are related to each
other. Yea, none of themhave any relation to each other at all.
You know a lot of a lotof writers write James Patterson, he
wrote about the uh that Morgan Freemanplayed him in the movies about the detective
(01:04:35):
several uh yeah, several stories aboutabout that character. But I don't do
that. I try to. Ijust don't. Maybe I will, and
I'm I'm I've left Bloodborne open forthat choice if I come to it.
Well, we have fairly enjoyed thebook. I'm glad you did. That's
(01:04:57):
why I'm writing them. I wantpeople to enjoy them. It's an awesome
read and I think you did anamazing job. I appreciate that. And
we thank you for being here withus, and I'm sure our audience will
visit with you. And just frommy standpoint, are there any other questions?
(01:05:21):
Thank you? Oh, thank you. We're listening to and give him
a thank you. Lcome. Itis amazing, and we just want to
also thank our audience. We wantto also thank Sumner's Productions. We want
(01:05:45):
to thank our Bishop's committee for justbeing here today and we'll be able to
visit with you more afterwards. Andalso we have catering from the chef in
the house, Tim McClellan, andwe really want you guys enjoy that and
look at our podcasts and video andthis will end our broadcast today. Thank
(01:06:08):
you. This is Elizabeth Colvin wouldSingle to Do. Thank you for listening
to our podcasts. And we justwant to say thank you to our Single
(01:06:30):
to Do team, the City ofLaga Vista, our Bishop's Committee, Sumner's
Productions, all writers around the world. We wish you peace, love and
tranquility. Remember to like and share. Have a great day.