October 13, 2025 • 61 mins
This week, the writing community chat show hosted former Navy Seal, MMA fighter, and American football player, Tom Hruby & seasoned author James Promerantz.The authors of the explosive thriller, The Breacher’s Playbook: A Deklan Novak Novel.If you are looking for an inspiring story of determination, or simply want the secrets behind writing high-stakes, authentic action, you cannot miss this episode.Tom Hruby’s life reads like a blockbuster movie: a decorated Navy SEAL Breacher who served four combat deployments, an undefeated MMA fighter, and a walk-on Northwestern Wildcats Linebacker in the Big Ten—all before becoming a successful author.Co-author James Pomerantz brings the literary precision, leveraging his own wild background from writing biographies to navigating the world of Chicago nightlife (including a memorable business partnership with action-star Steven Seagal!).In This Episode, We Breached the Playbook:Here are just a few of the high-impact stories and writing secrets the authors shared:* From SEAL to Student: The unbelievable transition Tom made from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to walking onto a Division I football team at the age of 34, and how that relentless drive fuels his writing.* The “Breacher’s” Philosophy: What the term “Breacher” means both tactically and psychologically, and how Tom’s philosophy of breaking through barriers shapes the protagonist, Deklan Novak.* The Art of Collaboration: How two men with such wildly different life experiences successfully merge authenticity and narrative craft to create a seamless, high-velocity story.* Endorsement by a Champion: We discuss the amazing testimonial from former Chicago Bear Jim Morrissey(World Champion 1985), who called The Breacher’s Playbook a book he “simply could not put down.”Praise for Tom Hruby and the Book:“A true warrior in every sense... The book is all about determination at the highest level and the inspirational message that anything is possible.” — SEAL TEAMMATE OF TOM HRUBY“The Breacher’s Playbook: A Deklan Novak Novel”Deklan fought his demons in the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan as a Navy SEAL breacher and now in Chicago as a special agent for the FBI’s Violent Crimes Against Children squad.That grit will be what he leans on in his new role as a tough FBI agent tasked with unraveling the disappearance of two children from a daycare center owned by his mother in this first installment.This debut narrative, the first in a planned three-book series, is a fictional account based on Hruby’s real-life story.The mystery thriller lays the groundwork for what the authors describe as a recurring character who is hard, fast, and mean as a razor wire. Deklan’s life path is one of determination and sacrifice in the face of defeat. That grit will be what he leans on in his new role as a tough FBI agent tasked with unraveling the disappearance of two children from a daycare center owned by his mother in this first installment.“The Breacher’s Playbook showcases a modern warrior’s real-life experiences,” said Chris Schafer, CEO at Tactical 16 Publishing. “Tom and James’ story shows that not all battles are in war zones, and not all war zones are sanctioned by governments.”“After serving more than a decade as a Navy SEAL and retired with a decorated combat career, Deklan Novak realized his days of making life and death decisions were not behind him. The Breacher’s Playbook is a book I simply could not put down!” -Jim Morrissey, a former Chicago Bears linebacker, 1985 Super Bowl ChampionBuy The Breachers Playbook here!Watch it here:Listen on the Go:Prefer to listen on your run or commute? You can find the writing community chat show on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. Search for our channel name or the episode title: Navy SEAL to Big Ten Linebacker: Tom Hruby & James Pomerantz.Pick up a copy of The Breacher’s Playbook: A Deklan Novak Novel today!Support Our Non-Profit CICAs many of you know, The Writing Community Chat Show is now officially a non-profit Community Interest Company (CIC). Our mission is to support authors and creatives through interviews, workshops, competitions, and community projects.Running the show takes time, effort, and resources — from live streaming and editing, to event hosting and outreach. If you enjoy what we do and want to help us continue providing a platform for authors, please consider donating directly to our PayPal. Every contribution goes right back into growing the show and supporting the writing community.Donate here: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/TheWCCSEven the price of a coffee makes a difference in helping us keep the lights on, the mics live, and the conversations flowing.Featured on these blog posts as one of the best writing podcasts:Number 7
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Writing Community chat show.
We've got a great guest, and we've got two great
guests for you tonight, and an incredible story that we
can't wait to dig into, and I'm really looking forward
to it. How's your week been, Chris, How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, it's been good. I've been looking at all the
little socials that you've been doing, and you took on
the voice of mister Dean.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yes, I did. It seems to be a bit of
a trend and everyone is jumping on it, and it
is purely based on how much I really adored that series,
as dark and disturbing as it was. I think Charlie
Hannam has been absolutely stellar in that series, and you know,
of all the acting he is done, I think that
is up there with his best.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, started off in the Humble Biker Grove. Yeah, so,
but yeah, I love what you're doing with the side
show that you're doing. God knows how you watch that
much TV mate, but you are getting through the reviews
and yeah, given some good recommendations as well.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
So well, that comes from a lot of memory as
well and current uptake, which has increased since I started
doing the reviews, so you know, kind of and you'll
notice a lot of my series recommendations or a lot
of ex military or military kind of shows, especially with
Navy seals in them, which is absolutely fantastic about with
Tonight's guest and the Breacher's Playbook which you can see
(01:24):
above Chris's head, because that is all inspired by the
stories of said guests tonight, So yeah, I'm looking forward
to it.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, and obviously we talk about mental health and resilience
and all that good stuff, and you need both in
the writing world. It's a difficult business to be in
at times. So you know, hopefully we can pick Tonight's
guests brains and get some really good tips as well
as some brilliant stories as well.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, have you done much writing this week?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I've done sod all right in this week. Yeah, I've
reading Spooky Season, so we're reading a few horror novels
and stuff like that. So yeah, I'm classing that as
my homework. Maybe I'm thinking last week's guest. They said
that the publishing world is after sort of books that
(02:14):
are a little bit shorter, and I'd love to do
like a Goosebump style with people from the writing community,
contributing and doing little little novels that scare the socks
off people, so that might be cool.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, well I do agree that, you know, taking that break,
getting your mind working again and especially reading, is really
helpful for the process. So I wouldn't say that's not
You've done not a lot. I think that is productive.
And you're in the chat, says hello to you. No
writing here either, grading tens of stuff. Yeah, lots of
teaching work there for you again, which is quite a distraction.
(02:50):
But we've got two guests on tonight who are you
know in the creative world, one of which who's written
ten books, so we're going to get some advice on
that as well. But we know writing and life is
quite a difficult thing to juggle, but it is very possible,
and we've, you know, over three hundred and sixty interviews
proves that with guests who have done very good jobs.
(03:12):
So yeah, are you ready for tonight's guest Chris.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to getting them on, having
a good chat about all things right and mental health
and some good stories and stuff as well.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yes, so hello to you all in the chat, and
if you're watching this, thank you for watching live. If
you are, please hit the like button. If you're watching
it back, thank you, and please do lead some comments
and if you have anything follow up wise, you're more
than welcome to message us or find us on social media.
But importantly, if you are watching live, get involved in
(03:44):
the comments in the chat tonight. So we are thrilled
to be talking about a novel that is literally been
forging fire on the football field and in the heart
of the action world. Tonight we have the authors of
the explosive new thriller The Breaches Playbook, a declar novak novel,
the first in a planned three book series. First, we
welcome James Pomerantz, a seasoned author, novelist, and entrepreneur who
(04:08):
brings the professional literary craft refined by years in the
intense world of Chicago nightlife and unique partnerships. And joining
him is Tom Ruby, a man whose life stories life
story is frankly astonishing. Tom is a decorated Navy seal
breacher who served four deployments, an undefeated MMA fighter, and yes,
a man who walked onto the Northwestern Big Ten football
(04:30):
team at the age of thirty two. Together, they've written
a book that showcases a modern warriors life, real experiences
and proves that not all battles are in war zones.
Tom and James, please give me a big help in
hand in welcoming them. Welcome them to the show. My goodness, Gosby.
Hello guys, Hello, Hey, thanks for having You're very welcome.
(04:54):
How are you guys doing?
Speaker 3 (04:55):
James? Start with you.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
How you doing?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
How's your week been?
Speaker 4 (04:58):
It's good. No, I'm here in Arizona, so.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
The weather is finally cooled off and I'm lucky to
be here.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, amazing. Well, thank you and Tom.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
Hey, thanks, I'm near Chicago in Coron Point, Indiana and
saying the weather has cooled off and life is great.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Thanks having us, You're very welcome. What you guys like?
Do you like the whole weather? Will you to prefer
the witness time in the seasons? What do you prefer?
Speaker 6 (05:35):
I like the hot weather until I don't like the
hot weather, and then I like the cold weather until
I don't like it anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yeah. I think that's about right.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
Well we have we have a great set of four
seasons here still, so it's none of these seasons last
all that long.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Before we can look forward to the next one.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Well, they do love long here.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
The summer in Scottsdale is is brutally long. Let me
put it out.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
Yeah, but it's over now, So good I survived another one.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Well, what we normally do on the show is we
dig into the past of our guests, and you know,
they're writing journey. How they got into it, which we
can kind of touch on. But what I'm really interested
to know, based on both of your backgrounds and your
experiences and kind of the amazing lives you both lived,
is how that connection between the two of you happened.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Well, I'll start, I guess.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
I was working on a novel in twenty fourteen, living
north of Chicago in a suburb called Maneka, and I
owned a business near Northwestern University, and I was friends
with their head football coach Pat Fitzgerald. And the novel
(07:07):
I was working on was about an older college football player.
And I asked Pat if I could attend summer training camp,
and he was awesome, said yeah, come on up shadow
me for a couple of days. And then when we
got up there was August of twenty fourteen, he said,
you know, you should talk to Tom Ruby. And I
(07:30):
knew who Tom Ruby was because everybody in Evanston knew
that there was an active duty Navy seal playing for
the football team, and I was like, oh, hell yeah.
You know, so he introduced us, and you know, we
just kind of started talking from there, and you know,
(07:51):
after getting to know him a little bit, I was,
I said, you know, the story I'm working on is interesting,
but your life is times more interesting.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
So it took a.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
While, but we finally agreed to collaborate work on a
novel where the protagonist was based on a lot of
Tom's experiences.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, which I think is amazing. And Tom, how did
you kind of react to that, not the meets up,
but the suggestion that there should be a story about
kind of your experiences?
Speaker 6 (08:27):
At first, I was, I was real resistant, and so
I contributed to a couple of projects to include the
one he was working on at the time that he
you know, that's kind of was his lead in to
the relationship, and so we worked on that project for
(08:47):
a little while. Eventually we decided that we would start
looking into a biography. So we worked on that project
for a bit, but both of us, both of us
had much bigger interest in writing fiction and creating a
(09:10):
fiction novel story and series. So it seemed like a
very reasonable, logical and exciting step to just take the
biographical story and adapt it to this really fun, thrilling,
(09:31):
you know, fiction story that ultimately could go on, you know,
and as long as people keep buying the books, we
can keep writing this story and this character can.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Go on for a very long time.
Speaker 6 (09:49):
So I had essentially made the decision that rather than
write the biographical story, which you get one book out
of that, and maybe we should have done that, who knows, right,
But but the alternative is, we created this character, and
we took these experiences and all of this knowledge and
(10:11):
skill sets, and we get to tell this fantastic and
take right readers on a really fantastic journey. So I
think that's kind of what was attractive to me. And
at that time, I was transitioning out of the Navy.
I was still an active duty, full time seal instructor.
(10:32):
I was a full time student at Northwestern, I was
playing football, I had a family. I had three kids
at the time, so I had a couple of things
going on in my life that made the idea of
writing a book at that time, and it was my
first book, but I had always been a voracious reader,
even as a little kid, and so I had always
(10:54):
imagined writing at some point in time that didn't seem
like the right time, and it was.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
It still took us some time, but.
Speaker 6 (11:03):
I attribute James is really had a vision of what
the story could look like, and he stuck with that
project in that vision for a long time. He was
just wildly persistent and in a way that was great
and respectful. I mean I enjoyed kind of developing a
(11:23):
friendship with him over a course of years where we
might not talk to each other but a few times
over the year, but we kept in touch.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
And I think once the time was.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
Right and I had settled down and we got to
a position where it made sense for me, the first
thing I did was call James up and say, hey,
are you ready, Let's get this project back on the books,
and he was ready to go, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, it's amazing. I think it's still room. You can
probably do the biography and keep the series going, you know,
late to project for that as well. So yeah, I
keep that in mind. I think that was will be
a great read. James going back to them, the sort
of starting process for you where did write him become
a part of your life and at what point did
you decide your experiences and the imagination is the point
(12:13):
for you to pick the pen up?
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Well, I went to college for journalism originally right out
of high school. I wanted to be a sports writer.
I always thought I could write. In high school, I
was you know, I was just a student that didn't
(12:36):
pay a lot of attention. I thought I was talented,
but I didn't work hard at it. And you know,
I went to school for a while and then ended
up tending bar college, and I figured, well, this is
a good way to make a living. You get to
(12:57):
sleep late, you meet girls, and you know, there's drinks around.
So I'm like, this could be a good career. But anyway,
I ended up in the night club bar business in Chicago,
and I ended up partners with the Newman Haas racing
(13:21):
team and one venture Mario Andretti's team, and then I
was partners with Steven Sagal and another restaurant. And I'm
going through these experiences, I was like, oh my god,
I got to write about this shit.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
I mean, it's wild.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
So I wrote my first novel in ninety nine and
been writing ever since.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, I can only imagine the amount of stories you
must have tucked away from those experiences.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Well, yeah, there's a few.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
Yeah, I went to a bull riding school at forty
five years old, So that was that was another book, right,
it was fun.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, that's amazing. And Tom, obviously you know, the Navy
Seals is a massively sort of attractive thing for the
media for fiction across the world. How much compared to
your real experiences and what you've put in the book,
how much of it is sort of true to the
experiences you had on how much of it is sort
of leaning more towards the fiction site.
Speaker 6 (14:29):
I don't know how I could put a percentage on
what's what's true to life?
Speaker 3 (14:37):
There there there there are.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
Let's say, out of a dozen stories, eight of them
are probably pretty true to life. But that's the beauty
I guess of a fiction story and storyline. We have
the ability to piece the story together virtually anyway that
(15:02):
we wanted to put it together. That I think that
a great way to look at how I think I
approached this project was, of course, there are certain sensitivities
that that have to be considered.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Uh So that was.
Speaker 6 (15:24):
That was always in the back of my mind, and
it was very important that I considered all of those
those possibilities. But what I really felt like was having
experienced all of these places events, I could I could
(15:44):
understand and feel what it would be like to be
in that scenario, which allows for almost every situation, every
piece of dialogue, every co character to be in my
In my opinion, when I look at the stories and
I read them, they're so wildly authentic.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
So nobody in that story is made up.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
It is these are authentic, genuine, you know, situations where
this is exactly how a Navy seal would would.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Act in this situation.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
It's we you know, for example, like I'm not I
didn't go to the FBI, but Declan becomes an FBI
agent and he is tasked. He becomes a member of
the Violent Crimes against Children in Chicago. Now we have
friends that are FBI agents, so of course we interview them,
(16:36):
talk to them.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
But there's there's a big section of book, and that's
a little.
Speaker 6 (16:41):
Bit about what the Breacher's Playbook I thought was was
intended was to give our readers an upfront access to
some of these worlds that they would never have ever
been able to see and so we show from the
inside out, and it's not in a documentary way, it's
in a biographical way. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
We created a fiction.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
Story, a suspenseful, thrilling story that also is fully authentic
to include James. We were invited to Quantico, Virginia to
tour the FBI Academy and so we spent hours.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
James spent hours touring.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
It with a Seal friend of mine who runs Hogan's Alley,
which is a portion of FBI training academy. So so
even even situations where I wasn't particularly there, we had
access and we gained access, so that I mean, it's
just so wildly detailed and authentic.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
In the book that.
Speaker 6 (17:40):
You know, that's the reality of the of the book,
is that we've created stories that you just you could
never get anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yes, fascinating, Yeah, Tom, I'm really interested because obviously going
into the Seals obviously very much in control, MMA not
losing any finds in that as well, it's all on you.
You're very much in control again with your training and
you approach, and the same with football to a certain extent.
(18:09):
Again a lot of it relies on you, but with
reading and writing. As soon as that book goes out
into the world, you've kind of lost control of it. Then,
So what were your fears going into it and how
did you sort of manage those?
Speaker 6 (18:26):
Well, it took us ten years to write this raject
and to put it out into the world. So I
guess it's a terrifying thing. I'd imagine anyone that has
written a biography, I suppose just to put your writing,
(18:48):
in your style and your thoughts in your structure, all
out there for the world to view, and it's a
horrifying thing. So for for my first published book, uh,
for it to be a you know, a somewhat historical
fiction about my life, and to include my writing and
(19:11):
to include our ability to turn it into a tantalizing
story is it was a very it's a very scary thing.
But it's like gosh, I I I you realize that.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Once you once it's out there, it's done right.
Speaker 6 (19:32):
It's just you gotta push send at some point, uh
and let let the chips lie where they will.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
And And that was just another opportunity to experience that
kind of a thing. Like it's like you, Chris, you talked,
you brought up fighting in a cage. There's a chapter
in the book that details my very first fight, the
the process of walking into a mixed martial arts gym
(20:03):
that you know, we're talking like, you know, it's not like, uh,
it's not like the UFC kind of uh franchise type
gym that you see, you know, one where it's just old,
dirty mats and pads, and these guys are in there
because they want to be professional fighters. And to walk
into that gym, you know, at some point you just
(20:25):
got to open the door and go in.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
I could sit outside all day long, the reasons why
I'm going to back my car out of.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
The parking spot, but at some point you got to
walk out your car and get into that and walk
into that gym. And and so that I detail that,
you know, we detail in the in the book, the
whole process of walking into the arena and weighing in
and being checked by the doctors, and sitting in the
(20:52):
stairwheel outside of the octagon, listening to the match before.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
And and and we and I.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
And I talk about how the fight right before me
ends in like thirty two seconds, you know, and you're
just thinking, maybe I'll have about eight more minutes before
I've got to go in there. And then you hear
uh you know ko in thirty two seconds, Hey Tom,
You're about and you go, oh shit.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
This is real. This is going to happen today.
Speaker 6 (21:22):
And so those are those are moments where you just
I guess you just got to push send and let
it go. So and I and I guess you understand
that there's there. Sometimes you concern that they're the context.
You didn't get all the context right, and and how
do you go back and re explain some some situations
(21:42):
and stories and you might not get an opportunity to
do that.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
It's it's out there now.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I think what you're talking about there is determination and
obviously a lot of other things. And one of your
teammates said, the book is all about determination, So going
through being a Navy seal and then a fighting going
onto the rugby field, and even right in the book.
What's kind of the biggest lesson in the book about determination?
Do you think you've.
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Had I think about how, I really think about how
where it began that that I became convinced I wanted
to play football at the highest level that I could. Yeah,
I wanted to go back and be a college football player.
So I've already done deployments. I saw the world, I
(22:28):
saw war, I saw what was happening, and the wars
were kind of closing down, and we didn't have as
much stuff to do, and and I'm and I'm watching
college football. Uh, and I said, I think I think
I might be able to go do that.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Maybe when I get back, that's That'll be the next
thing I'll try out.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
And then over a period of you know, weeks, months time,
I I I convinced myself that that is where I'm
going and that is what I'm doing. It was a
matter of that that's what will happen, and that's the
matter of determination. And once I have that certainty, this
(23:10):
is what I'm doing, this is where I'm going. It
doesn't mean it will always happen that way, right, But
now I have set the path and it just begins
to kind of I mean, the path almost just reveals itself,
you know, it just it is there waiting for me to.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Make the decision. I'm doing this, all right. So the book.
Speaker 6 (23:31):
Takes Declan through I think five or six maybe phases
of his life where these are the decisions that he
has to make.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
And the cool part about I think the story.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
Is that you know, these circumstances, these life circumstances occur
outside of Declan, right, that forced him to make a
decision about how am I going to make a difference
in these particular people's lives, And I'm going to have
to decide where I want to go, what I need
to do to get there. And then Declann just says,
(24:03):
if I'm going to make a difference in this young
girl's life, or these kids' lives or the people in
my family's lives.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
I gotta do it. This is the path that I
have to take.
Speaker 6 (24:11):
In it, you know, the path reveals itself, I suppose
once you make that decision. So determination, in my estimation,
is take the time, figure out who you are, what
you want, where you want to go, and be absolutely
certain about it.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah. I just can imagine you saying to people I
want to go play college football, you know, NFL or
whatever that specifically was, and probably a lot of your
friends or family might have been saying you sure, that's
the right thing to do.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
That's the story of my life.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Well Tom eventually went to Chicago Bears camp after college.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
So yeah, obviously a great decision, but you know, it's
just one of those funny things, especially you know in
the Brotherhood site like the Seals, you've got friends who
always kind of take take the makeout of you and
probably say, don't you know, maybe not not so supportive,
because that's kind of the human that's there. Tom. I'm interested,
as someone you know, working with James who's written ten
(25:12):
books or nine books at the point where you were
speaking about writing this, what kind of lessons did you
learn as a writer from someone with that sort of experience.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
Well, I am just I'm wildly humbled by the skill
and and frankly the genius of the way that James
is able to craft it's a story and not I mean,
(25:47):
I still have a hard time understanding how we came
up with For example, the book is written in a
non linear format. So to me, that's the coolest damn
thing that you could really ever come up with. Now,
I'm sure that I could have done that and written it,
(26:08):
but it would have made very little sense, and I
don't know if I could have ever tied it.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
All back together.
Speaker 6 (26:13):
Right, So I I so when I when I look
at the story and I read it and as we
as we built the whole story in the timeline, I mean,
there were so many times where I had to go
back and just kind of understand, how does this actually
fit together? And and and and of course it does.
And if it seamlessly fits together at the end of
the book and we tell eight or nine different timelines
(26:35):
and storylines all come back together, it's it's remarkable.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Right.
Speaker 6 (26:38):
So, you know, some of our favorite movies, like for
My you know, it's like the pulp fiction type of
Quentin Tarantino writing style. And so we tell these crazy
stories and we go back into Deklan's childhood and and
then it ties together with with the current situation. So
(26:59):
so so of course, right I'm in awe as we
did this whole project, and so I got to experience,
you know, watching an experienced writer and and craftsmen create
this story.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
So that was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
And I mean, as far as actual things that I
learned from him was I mean, he just writes an
enormous amount and writes so damn much. It's it's like
the dedication that he has to writing is.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
It's unmatched by me.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
I could never find the time, the energy, the space,
that that, and somehow he's able to just when we
when we come up with a new idea, he's like
sometimes by the end of the day, he has three
thousand words he's sending back to me on something we
talked about six hours ago, right Edie's asking me for
(27:59):
my hitting on it. So it's just I guess, I guess.
You know, his dedication and uh is really amazing.
Speaker 7 (28:09):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
So, James, I'm really interested, obviously from your point of views,
somebody who's written plenty of books on your own, and
what did you learn from this experience and what was
it like, obviously writing a book with somebody else instead
of doing it on your own.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Good question. You know, I was.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
A little concerned about it, you know, collaborating, especially when
the protagonist is based on my collaborators experiences. So I'm
writing literally about things that he lived.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
And then I kept.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Since I never had a writing partner before, I kept envisioning, well,
what if he hates what I'm.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Sending him, or what.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
If I'm not nailing this character, or if I'm not
even close.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
But we didn't. That just wasn't part of the process.
We it worked great.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
I was actually a lot of fun having a writing partner,
and you know it, it gave me more freedom actually,
because you get immediate feedback like, hey, this, this sequence
is great, but this you know, we should change and
(29:34):
do this. And you know you don't get that when
you look at it yourself and you go, oh, yeah,
everything's great. So you know, I'll write when I write
a book on my own, I'll write eight hours and
come back the next day and you know, reread it
and I might have goosebumps rereading it. I think it's
(29:56):
so good, or i might erase the whole thing. Now
I've got somebody to tell me, you know, yeah, this
is good, this is let's work on this. So it
was it was kind of seamless, to be honest with you,
and we actually we didn't know going in.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
So take us into sort of the day to day
in terms of what it's like to collaborate. Obviously, he said, like,
you know, Tom mentioned about sending you sending three thousand
words and him you've mentioned obviously about him comment on it.
But what was the sort of like did you have
an initial phase where you sat down and you mapped
out the whole novel or did it just happen organically
over time that you just started, and then it started
(30:41):
to snow.
Speaker 7 (30:41):
Work like.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
It started with, you know, sitting down together at Tom's
house for thirty or forty hours of taped interviews.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Then I went.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
Back and outlined what I thought at the time was
the storyline, and then you know, then it.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Was a series of kind of assignments.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
You know, I would tell Tom, or ask Tom to
give me three thousand words on his first week at Buds,
or three thousand words on training for his first fight,
first experience in combat, first few days at a Big
(31:32):
ten college football camp, and then I would take that
and adapt it to a chapter that I was working on,
and then send it back to Tom and then we
you know, review it together and hey, that's great, make
some changes, And that's pretty much how the whole book went.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I just want to ask a question about the fact
that it's planned for three book series, Tom, with the
situations that you thought, I'd love to put this in
the book, but you've had to hold it back because
you want to then drop it in later maybe book two. Three.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Oh, of course, Well, we have you know, we get
so many we have so many stories.
Speaker 6 (32:17):
We have we have a whole book worth of material
probably already written that did not go into this book.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Short this book by a couple.
Speaker 6 (32:28):
Yeah, we were six hundred plus pages long to start,
and so we're down to about three fifty or so,
so we virtually have another book already panned out.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
We I thought the six hundred pager was the was
the book personally, but it appears people don't read six
hundred pages anymore. Maybe they never did, but uh, we'll
just turn it into a second one. Yeah, we have
so many great stories. I think that that's a really
a beauty of James and I working together. As you know,
(33:04):
Seemingly on the surface we might have some seems to
have some differences, but when you get down to it,
we're actually quite similar in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
So trying to.
Speaker 6 (33:17):
Decipher how we're gonna, you know, create these characters wasn't
actually all that difficult.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
M hm. Did you find at any point that, obviously
the more you write together that your voices started to
merge into one or was it very much like if
I was to pick this up, could I.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
See, oh, James, this bit.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Tom is definitely right in this bit, because I've read
books before that are like collaborations like Neil Gaiman and
Terry Pratchett. Is one that I can remember and I
think I can go, oh, that's gaming and that's a
pratchet would would read this Bible to do that with
the old book? Or do you think you've found a
sort of sweet spot.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Personally?
Speaker 5 (33:59):
I don't think you can read Breachers and know it's
my im writing in Time's writing.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
But mh that's my opinion.
Speaker 6 (34:14):
It's hard to say, you know, when I read it,
I can of course tell, you'll just know where wherever
the writing is really good, it's probably James. In my defense, though,
I'm I'm I'm I'm learning and I'm getting better, and
(34:36):
it certainly is a more far more of a of
a process. Writing well, is far more of a process
that takes time, and there is a real clearly there's
real evolution to it.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
So uh but yeah, James writing is just fantastic. So
mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Do you think that you're going to get the bug
for writing after the series? Do you think it's something
you're going to kick onto and do more of?
Speaker 6 (35:06):
I think so, Yeah, I'd love to continue my writing. Yeah,
I've got a bunch of ideas that I'm starting to
work on.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
So yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Then obviously you mentioned about the character going too the FBI.
What was that that appealed to you guys in terms
of obviously you said before Tom, it's not something you've
done personally, but what what decided What was the decision
sort of in your mind to go, oh, we're going
to take the character in this direction because that will
be interesting for the reader, rather than obviously what you've
(35:41):
already experienced yourself, which is probably just as interesting.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I think, Well, I the FBI was a real option
for me.
Speaker 6 (35:54):
There was there were several opportunities for for I mean,
it's not a it's not an unreasonable next step for
an X Special Forces guy or seal to find his
way into the FBI. So that was something that I
was really looking into it in those those few years
after as I was wrapping up my time with the Navy,
(36:17):
UH and figuring out what I would, you know, where
where was I going to land after I was finished
for the Navy and my my time at Northwestern was done?
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Uh, So I looked at the FBI. I spoke with
the FBI. I was a real consideration at the time. Uh.
Speaker 6 (36:32):
And then as far as how you know. Reasons why
we thought that would be a great inclusion in the
story is the FBI is responsible for crimes against kids,
you know, domestically, Uh those that's who would be called.
That's uh if if you if you were Declan Novak
and uh, you felt that it was your call to
(36:55):
protect kids in these environments, that's probably where he would
go next. Where can he make the most impact? Is
how Declan would most likely have looked at that. I
know that there's a need for this, and I feel
the call to it. I don't want to do it
because I have a family and a whole life and
(37:16):
I would rather just live a peaceful life on a
farm somewhere. But that's not how it works for the
Novac So he ends up in the FBI. The book finishes.
Book one finishes with Declan beginning to kind of see
some of the cracks in the bureaucratic FBI system, And
so that is the segue into Declan's next journey, which
(37:45):
you know he won't quite be involved with the FBI,
and the same sort of fashion, he finds a fine
group of highly effective men to work with outside of
the FBI. Starting book two, well, shortly in the book too.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
So nice, Yeah, thats great. I'm interested in the process then, Tom,
we've talked about all your experiences and how they've influenced
the book and how the stories are telling parts of
the book. What was the process like for you to
translate it from sort of memory into the hands of
James to create the stories. How was that process And
(38:23):
if someone is who has life experience that they might
want to put into words, what tips might you have
for them through that process.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Well, I began my writing.
Speaker 6 (38:34):
I re began my writing journey fifteen ish years ago
and it was just in journal form. So I'd always
done some writing as a young stir and lots of reading,
and I'd always wanted to really journal my life because
I felt like it was a fun, interesting life that
(38:57):
I was living already. But it took a long time
for me to finally pick up the pen and decide
this is in.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Fact important that I do this.
Speaker 6 (39:05):
So I started writing, and it was many pages of
very cringe worthy, uh you know, introspective thing. Actually, I
look back at some of the first ones and the
journals were like, so I woke up today, you know
something that was very benign stuff and it's.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
But that's how I had to start.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
And eventually it becomes just very introspective and you get
to explore your own psychology, your own mind, You get
to explore your relationships through writing and your own journals,
and so you just kind of developed the ability to
put your thoughts into words and then on to pieces
of paper. And it did take a long time to
(39:49):
feel comfortable with sharing any of these things outside.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Really outside of myself. Yeah, and James, you know, he he.
Speaker 6 (40:00):
He, I felt most comfortable. I guess I've I never
felt as comfortable to share these things with anybody besides James,
but I would I would highly recommend, I highly highly
recommend anybody that is that that that it's also a
(40:23):
very cathartic and therapeutic experience as well. And I would
highly recommend that anybody that's dealing with difficult life situations trauma,
that putting putting this stuff down is the very first
next step that you can very easily take to healing
that stuff, to letting it go, to processing and eventually
(40:49):
eventually walking away from whatever that is to live, you know,
and enjoy the life. And really you can tell the
story that way someday you can help many many others.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Perhaps is it This might be a bit of a
deep question, but is it the case that it's now
on the page and in the story. Do you feel
like that is something you've now kind of moved on
from and it's literally a chapter that you can lead behind.
Speaker 6 (41:15):
Oh yeah, of course, of course, yes, you don't have
to put it on paper. I don't think to write
the chapter and leave it behind, but it certainly is
another way, and it does help.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
It does help.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
So one of the things that we always do on
the show is we have a section called what's the story.
We've not been doing videos because we've enjoyed the conversation
so much. But if you had to give us an
elevator pitch for this novel, what's your elevator pitch? And
what can read? Does expect.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
An elevator pitch for the now?
Speaker 5 (41:56):
I think it's it's a story where the audience is
so varied that that it hits home for people that
always look at things and think they can't do them.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
You know, Oh God, I wish you could do that.
I envy that person. He can do that, or she
can do that, or whether it's writing whether it's an
athletic event, whether it's whatever it may be.
Speaker 5 (42:33):
This novel, more than anything, says, hey, you know, dreams
are not illusions. There are things to reach out for
and you can get there. You know, not everybody does,
but it's it's certainly worth the effort.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
It's not you know, it's not our successes that we
regret in life. It's not doing things that we regret.
M hmm.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
So on that topic, then obviously it is very inspirational.
But let's say somebody was a bit cynical and they said, yeah,
it's easy for you to do. To say, because you've
done it, what would you say to that person in
terms of like motivation and you know, getting them to
see past their own sort of cage if you like
that they put themselves in. What would your advice both
(43:33):
of you be to that type of person.
Speaker 6 (43:38):
So the first thing that I got to do is
I got to see, I got to see how powerful
that person is. And as soon as you can see
how absolutely amazing that human being is, that gives them
permission to see how amazing they are and that there
(44:01):
is nothing that they can't do, there's nothing that stands
in their way. They have the ability to see, to know,
and to go anywhere they want. And as long as
I can see it, as long as one other person
can see it, they now know that it's a real thing.
(44:22):
The problem is that nobody can see it for themselves.
They cannot see the possibility of those.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
Dreams coming true.
Speaker 6 (44:30):
Most people can't even see the dream itself, let alone
imagining that someday they may actually accomplish it. So we
have to look at them and know that they have
that ability, they have that power, they have the strength.
They already are exactly the thing that they think they
want to do. And as soon as we do that,
(44:53):
and we look at them and you put your arm
around their shoulder, they already know it's possible.
Speaker 5 (45:00):
I think one thing that knowing Thomas taught me that
once you once you.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Get to that stage where you can see that dream
and see yourself there, nobody can make you quit.
Speaker 5 (45:19):
You just it doesn't matter who's telling you how hard
that's going to be or that you can't do it.
Once you see yourself there, they can't make you quit.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
M We've got a lot of people on the show
that have had a dream, achieved their dream, and then
suffered mentally because they've done it. That's the thing they
wanted to do, you know, they wanted to publish a book,
or they wanted to you know, I remember listening to
an interview with Tyson Fury and he said the same thing.
He won the world championship, he became the best heavyweight
(45:56):
boxer in the world, and then he just hit a
wall of depression. Is just like straight to the floor.
And so I suppose my question in that is, what
advice would you give to somebody for building the next dream?
Speaker 4 (46:13):
Wow? Good question.
Speaker 6 (46:17):
H all right, let me let me take this one.
So we have a we actually have chapter thirteen in
Breacher's playbook. Declan is now out of the Navy and
he's done with football. He tore his a cl so
his football career ends and he's struggling to understand what's.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
Next in his life.
Speaker 6 (46:44):
For Declan, he decides, I got to give up all
the things that I think are standing in my way
or causing me to feel this depression this, and so
he lets go of everything that he thinks makes him
who he is, that defines him, that gives him a
(47:07):
sense of validation, and he rebuilds himself from the very
bottom back up. I know it doesn't sound fantastic, and
everyone wants to hear a real quick fix. This is
how you go from being on top of the world
to well, people don't care so much about you anymore?
(47:29):
What have you done for me lately? And how do
I recreate myself? And I don't believe that there is
a real quick, simple fix right. How quickly and how
easily your fix is as quick as you can let
go of identifying with whatever that glory was that you
(47:50):
once felt. And until you can do that, I don't
know that the next vision, the next dream, the next
goal will ever come into focus.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Interestingly, Chris, I heard Robbie Williams, the musician on the
radio today and he was basically talking about that exact thing.
He basically topped all the charts, did everything he wanted
to dream of, and then did exactly that hit the
wall of depression. Where do I go next? And he's
talking about how, basically I'm sure this was through therapy,
he looked at his whole life as a journey and
(48:24):
chapters as opposed to the goals that are coming, and
that made him really appreciate what he had done and
be able to move on rather than thinking what the
hell's next, you know. So I think that's real good
advice to look at your life in that kind of respect, real.
Speaker 6 (48:38):
Real quickly with that in mind. So I'm at tempting
to become a writer, which is quite different from being
a Navy seal fighting football player.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
So all right, So to.
Speaker 6 (48:54):
Understand and accept that I'm just not going to be
defined the same way that I once was, or others
won't define me in the same way. Nor do I
have to identify myself the same way that I always had,
and then allow my other skills, my other talents to show,
because I think everybody we all have them. Even though
(49:16):
we played on our strengths in order to get to
where we are today, there's a lot of other stuff
that's kind of in the shadows, has been buried that
if we allow it, you know, we can we can
flourish in different ways too, which is fun really to
see your life and to see you know, your entire
story kind of broaden.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
You know, it's fun after the fact once you allow
it to happen.
Speaker 6 (49:40):
But it is terrifyingly, you know, scary that, hey, I'm
going to give up on these things that were so
worked so well for me for so long, and now
here I'm going to attempt to move into a new
territory where it may not go as well.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
Right, It's about knowing your identity at that point as
well and your purpose. And I think coming out of
say the military or even you know you can write
in or the NFL, it's like that's who you are,
So stepping into the next journey. For anybody going through
a transition, it's about getting hold of what you want
to be, what your direction is, and who you are,
(50:17):
and then very good progressing forward without worrying about too
much what's next, I think. But yes, Chris, we've got
some we could ask you some staple questions, or we've
got a couple of questions in the chat.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Yeah, we've got a few questions in the chat. Obviously,
we've got about eight minutes left. So if you're listening
and watching this live and you've got a question, send
it in now and we'll get to asking some of them.
We'll ask some of the ones that are in the
chat before we ask some staple ones. So this one
is from Linda. She says, were there events slash subject
matter that you hesitated to address. If so, how did
(50:50):
you go about that with the collaboration, great question.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
I think that's probably directed at times, and.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
Sure it was. It was, like we talked about a bit.
Speaker 6 (51:05):
It was important that I was careful with anything that
was sensitive, both with the.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
Military, with my comrades.
Speaker 6 (51:16):
I mean, there was a lot going on at Northwestern football,
and there were some things that were happening with unionizations,
which I got to be right in the middle of
at Northwestern. There were some other scandals that took place.
There's a lot of things that took place obviously in
our throughout our lives that I think it was important
(51:36):
that we were really cautious about how we portrayed it.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
And again I.
Speaker 6 (51:41):
Get you know, even though we can't necessarily speak specifics
about things.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
The beauty of a fiction story.
Speaker 6 (51:50):
Again, this is what I think is really fantastic about us,
is that we still can tell the story and we'll
still you'll still get access to some of these characters,
these psychologies, the dynamics just you know, in some different ways.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
So it's kind of a it's kind of a fun
thing that James.
Speaker 6 (52:07):
And I were able to collaborate on how are we
going to tell these stories, right, but also protect everyone
that we possibly can.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
So yeah, that's I think how it went. It was
pretty It was pretty cool to do that too.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Got another question to have in the chat and what
would be the ideal place for writing retreat direct to
both of you.
Speaker 5 (52:35):
Well, I always thought writing was job, you know, assuming
that we have to have jobs. Writing you get to
work for yourself, get to be creat every day. You
can do wherever you want. You don't have a boss,
you don't have any employees. That's the perfect job. And
(52:57):
for me, the perfect place to do is.
Speaker 4 (53:01):
Oh my god, you know, in the mountains.
Speaker 5 (53:07):
Colorado, Arizona, close luckily had great access to.
Speaker 4 (53:17):
Is the perfect place to write?
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (53:23):
Nice, yep, agree, the mountains. I actually I find I'm
super creative at airports and on airplane. Strangely that's another one,
but the mountains is the place amazing.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Just that Another question, Chris, come in if you're awesome.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
Aside from the genre you're write in, now, what is
another genre that piques your interest? And that is a
great question. Thank you, Linda.
Speaker 4 (53:56):
We were talking about this yesterday. Romance Now.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Didn't expect that one.
Speaker 6 (54:08):
That was something we were I've been picking that one
around for a little while.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
Romance novel.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
We decided yesterday, why not let's do it.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
Excuse me, Hey, that's that's all fun on the show.
How what kind of level of romance we're talking here?
I've got a little mischievo feeling that it's not just
the stundard reading it about I'm.
Speaker 4 (54:29):
Sure we've gotten to that detail yet, but.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
That's going to be I don't know if I want
that email from you.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Right to you told me what about this?
Speaker 4 (54:43):
Yeah, you're like, I don't want to read?
Speaker 3 (54:49):
Yeah, definitely would do this Roman. I thought that would
be fun. They there's a there's a.
Speaker 6 (54:56):
Thriller romance novel genre, so I think that that could
be that would be fun and interesting to do. And
then I also like youth adventure stories, so I I
I've got a passion for writing, you know, kind of
a you know, my generation Hardy Boys style series about
(55:18):
a young Declan Novak and you know, his his his
teenage pursuits.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
So amazing.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Yeah, I love that. And yeah, Nicholas Spoks he makes
an awful lot of money, So maybe trying the romance.
One of our staicle questions and that we have on
the show is if you could take any character from
fiction and make that character your own, Which character choose
and what would you do with them?
Speaker 4 (55:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (55:48):
He stopped them on that one.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Chris, I think, wow, I.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
I think you could add one fictional character into the
Breaches playbook.
Speaker 6 (56:02):
Oh, the Breacher's playbook. Yeah, that would be great. Okay, okay,
I was going to use an anime character.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
It was going to be my okay, gosh, what a
what a question?
Speaker 1 (56:21):
You can possible not if you want, if you want
to come back to us, maybe drop all.
Speaker 3 (56:24):
Let's come back to it. James, do you have one?
Speaker 6 (56:29):
You know?
Speaker 4 (56:30):
I was just mentioning there.
Speaker 5 (56:35):
They touched on Charlie Huntum in the beginning of the show,
and I was I was a huge Sons of Anarchy fan,
and and the writing in that show was perfect. And
Jack's the way he related to his father's writing.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
Yeah, I loved that, absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
Yeah, I think I got I'd say real quick, I do. Uh.
Speaker 6 (57:00):
If you're familiar with the show with Dean and Sam Winchester,
it is, Oh, well, we'll get back to it. I'll
remember it.
Speaker 4 (57:16):
No worries.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
I'm quite conscious of the time. You guys, A couple
of minutes, and I want to sneak a question in here,
which is about the cover. It looks fantastic. How much
design did you guys put into that and why choose
that one over perhaps other options you had.
Speaker 5 (57:31):
That's a that's interesting because the publisher's Tactical sixteen dot com.
In my past experiences with covers being designed by publishers, most.
Speaker 4 (57:50):
Of them sucked and you had to go back and
forth forever to get it right.
Speaker 5 (57:58):
And I we gave taxis to some general parameters to
look at for the cover, and when they sent me
the first proof, they nailed it.
Speaker 4 (58:13):
I mean looking at you're looking at the first proof.
Speaker 3 (58:16):
Yeah, that's the first take.
Speaker 4 (58:19):
I opened this email and I was like, holy shit,
I loved it. Yeah, they did a great job.
Speaker 1 (58:27):
That's why I asked, because it's it's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (58:29):
Yeah, I wish I could take more credit for it.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
But and another one on before we go, why can
we where can people buy the book?
Speaker 2 (58:40):
And why can people follow you on social media? And
all that good stuff.
Speaker 5 (58:46):
The book available at tactical sixteen dot com. Amazon, You
can follow Tom Ruby seal dot com get it there.
You can follow James Pomerants, writer dot com at Pomerance.
James on Instagram. Uh, what's your Instagram? Tom?
Speaker 3 (59:12):
T T Ruby thirty three.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
Yeah, in the name, it's silent h in front of
ruby an h T T h r U. Y. Well,
we'll stick some links in the descriptions once we post
this up so to have a look there as well
and not make it a bit easy for you guys
to click on it.
Speaker 4 (59:29):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (59:30):
Thanks, Yeah, sure that show is supernatural. Somebody got it.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
Yeah, they did. They put that in the comments, so
thank you for that. Linda.
Speaker 4 (59:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
One question. I know we're just shooting over time slightly,
but if you could cast any actor to play your
MC in a movie if this was adapted, who would
you pick?
Speaker 3 (59:50):
Tom Hardy? Nice?
Speaker 4 (59:52):
Perfect, Yeah, Taylor Kits would work too, nice?
Speaker 1 (59:58):
Yes, yeah, okay, brilliant. All right, Tom and James, thank
you so so much for being on the show with
us and sharing your story. I'm sure there's so much
more we could have talked about, and I hope James
you have a great golfriend straight after this. But everybody watching,
thank you so much for tuning in. If you're listening
back and watching this back, please leave us some comments,
(01:00:20):
drop some comments and if you've got any messages for
these two, we can surely send it through email to
them afterwards.
Speaker 5 (01:00:25):
One message besides thank you for having us on. We've
done a lot of podcasts, this one was awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Well, thank you so much. You guys were great. So
everybody please stay safe and click those links by the
book more importantly, and we will see you next week.
Thanks everybody, Bye bye by
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Writing Community chat show.
We've got a great guest, and we've got two great
guests for you tonight, and an incredible story that we
can't wait to dig into, and I'm really looking forward
to it. How's your week been, Chris, How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, it's been good. I've been looking at all the
little socials that you've been doing, and you took on
the voice of mister Dean.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yes, I did. It seems to be a bit of
a trend and everyone is jumping on it, and it
is purely based on how much I really adored that series,
as dark and disturbing as it was. I think Charlie
Hannam has been absolutely stellar in that series, and you know,
of all the acting he is done, I think that
is up there with his best.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, started off in the Humble Biker Grove. Yeah, so,
but yeah, I love what you're doing with the side
show that you're doing. God knows how you watch that
much TV mate, but you are getting through the reviews
and yeah, given some good recommendations as well.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
So well, that comes from a lot of memory as
well and current uptake, which has increased since I started
doing the reviews, so you know, kind of and you'll
notice a lot of my series recommendations or a lot
of ex military or military kind of shows, especially with
Navy seals in them, which is absolutely fantastic about with
Tonight's guest and the Breacher's Playbook which you can see
(01:24):
above Chris's head, because that is all inspired by the
stories of said guests tonight, So yeah, I'm looking forward
to it.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, and obviously we talk about mental health and resilience
and all that good stuff, and you need both in
the writing world. It's a difficult business to be in
at times. So you know, hopefully we can pick Tonight's
guests brains and get some really good tips as well
as some brilliant stories as well.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, have you done much writing this week?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I've done sod all right in this week. Yeah, I've
reading Spooky Season, so we're reading a few horror novels
and stuff like that. So yeah, I'm classing that as
my homework. Maybe I'm thinking last week's guest. They said
that the publishing world is after sort of books that
(02:14):
are a little bit shorter, and I'd love to do
like a Goosebump style with people from the writing community,
contributing and doing little little novels that scare the socks
off people, so that might be cool.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, well I do agree that, you know, taking that break,
getting your mind working again and especially reading, is really
helpful for the process. So I wouldn't say that's not
You've done not a lot. I think that is productive.
And you're in the chat, says hello to you. No
writing here either, grading tens of stuff. Yeah, lots of
teaching work there for you again, which is quite a distraction.
(02:50):
But we've got two guests on tonight who are you
know in the creative world, one of which who's written
ten books, so we're going to get some advice on
that as well. But we know writing and life is
quite a difficult thing to juggle, but it is very possible,
and we've, you know, over three hundred and sixty interviews
proves that with guests who have done very good jobs.
(03:12):
So yeah, are you ready for tonight's guest Chris.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to getting them on, having
a good chat about all things right and mental health
and some good stories and stuff as well.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yes, so hello to you all in the chat, and
if you're watching this, thank you for watching live. If
you are, please hit the like button. If you're watching
it back, thank you, and please do lead some comments
and if you have anything follow up wise, you're more
than welcome to message us or find us on social media.
But importantly, if you are watching live, get involved in
(03:44):
the comments in the chat tonight. So we are thrilled
to be talking about a novel that is literally been
forging fire on the football field and in the heart
of the action world. Tonight we have the authors of
the explosive new thriller The Breaches Playbook, a declar novak novel,
the first in a planned three book series. First, we
welcome James Pomerantz, a seasoned author, novelist, and entrepreneur who
(04:08):
brings the professional literary craft refined by years in the
intense world of Chicago nightlife and unique partnerships. And joining
him is Tom Ruby, a man whose life stories life
story is frankly astonishing. Tom is a decorated Navy seal
breacher who served four deployments, an undefeated MMA fighter, and yes,
a man who walked onto the Northwestern Big Ten football
(04:30):
team at the age of thirty two. Together, they've written
a book that showcases a modern warriors life, real experiences
and proves that not all battles are in war zones.
Tom and James, please give me a big help in
hand in welcoming them. Welcome them to the show. My goodness, Gosby.
Hello guys, Hello, Hey, thanks for having You're very welcome.
(04:54):
How are you guys doing?
Speaker 3 (04:55):
James? Start with you.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
How you doing?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
How's your week been?
Speaker 4 (04:58):
It's good. No, I'm here in Arizona, so.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
The weather is finally cooled off and I'm lucky to
be here.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, amazing. Well, thank you and Tom.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
Hey, thanks, I'm near Chicago in Coron Point, Indiana and
saying the weather has cooled off and life is great.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Thanks having us, You're very welcome. What you guys like?
Do you like the whole weather? Will you to prefer
the witness time in the seasons? What do you prefer?
Speaker 6 (05:35):
I like the hot weather until I don't like the
hot weather, and then I like the cold weather until
I don't like it anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yeah. I think that's about right.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
Well we have we have a great set of four
seasons here still, so it's none of these seasons last
all that long.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Before we can look forward to the next one.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Well, they do love long here.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
The summer in Scottsdale is is brutally long. Let me
put it out.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
Yeah, but it's over now, So good I survived another one.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Well, what we normally do on the show is we
dig into the past of our guests, and you know,
they're writing journey. How they got into it, which we
can kind of touch on. But what I'm really interested
to know, based on both of your backgrounds and your
experiences and kind of the amazing lives you both lived,
is how that connection between the two of you happened.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Well, I'll start, I guess.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
I was working on a novel in twenty fourteen, living
north of Chicago in a suburb called Maneka, and I
owned a business near Northwestern University, and I was friends
with their head football coach Pat Fitzgerald. And the novel
(07:07):
I was working on was about an older college football player.
And I asked Pat if I could attend summer training camp,
and he was awesome, said yeah, come on up shadow
me for a couple of days. And then when we
got up there was August of twenty fourteen, he said,
you know, you should talk to Tom Ruby. And I
(07:30):
knew who Tom Ruby was because everybody in Evanston knew
that there was an active duty Navy seal playing for
the football team, and I was like, oh, hell yeah.
You know, so he introduced us, and you know, we
just kind of started talking from there, and you know,
(07:51):
after getting to know him a little bit, I was,
I said, you know, the story I'm working on is interesting,
but your life is times more interesting.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
So it took a.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
While, but we finally agreed to collaborate work on a
novel where the protagonist was based on a lot of
Tom's experiences.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, which I think is amazing. And Tom, how did
you kind of react to that, not the meets up,
but the suggestion that there should be a story about
kind of your experiences?
Speaker 6 (08:27):
At first, I was, I was real resistant, and so
I contributed to a couple of projects to include the
one he was working on at the time that he
you know, that's kind of was his lead in to
the relationship, and so we worked on that project for
(08:47):
a little while. Eventually we decided that we would start
looking into a biography. So we worked on that project
for a bit, but both of us, both of us
had much bigger interest in writing fiction and creating a
(09:10):
fiction novel story and series. So it seemed like a
very reasonable, logical and exciting step to just take the
biographical story and adapt it to this really fun, thrilling,
(09:31):
you know, fiction story that ultimately could go on, you know,
and as long as people keep buying the books, we
can keep writing this story and this character can.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Go on for a very long time.
Speaker 6 (09:49):
So I had essentially made the decision that rather than
write the biographical story, which you get one book out
of that, and maybe we should have done that, who knows, right,
But but the alternative is, we created this character, and
we took these experiences and all of this knowledge and
(10:11):
skill sets, and we get to tell this fantastic and
take right readers on a really fantastic journey. So I
think that's kind of what was attractive to me. And
at that time, I was transitioning out of the Navy.
I was still an active duty, full time seal instructor.
(10:32):
I was a full time student at Northwestern, I was
playing football, I had a family. I had three kids
at the time, so I had a couple of things
going on in my life that made the idea of
writing a book at that time, and it was my
first book, but I had always been a voracious reader,
even as a little kid, and so I had always
(10:54):
imagined writing at some point in time that didn't seem
like the right time, and it was.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
It still took us some time, but.
Speaker 6 (11:03):
I attribute James is really had a vision of what
the story could look like, and he stuck with that
project in that vision for a long time. He was
just wildly persistent and in a way that was great
and respectful. I mean I enjoyed kind of developing a
(11:23):
friendship with him over a course of years where we
might not talk to each other but a few times
over the year, but we kept in touch.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
And I think once the time was.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
Right and I had settled down and we got to
a position where it made sense for me, the first
thing I did was call James up and say, hey,
are you ready, Let's get this project back on the books,
and he was ready to go, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, it's amazing. I think it's still room. You can
probably do the biography and keep the series going, you know,
late to project for that as well. So yeah, I
keep that in mind. I think that was will be
a great read. James going back to them, the sort
of starting process for you where did write him become
a part of your life and at what point did
you decide your experiences and the imagination is the point
(12:13):
for you to pick the pen up?
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Well, I went to college for journalism originally right out
of high school. I wanted to be a sports writer.
I always thought I could write. In high school, I
was you know, I was just a student that didn't
(12:36):
pay a lot of attention. I thought I was talented,
but I didn't work hard at it. And you know,
I went to school for a while and then ended
up tending bar college, and I figured, well, this is
a good way to make a living. You get to
(12:57):
sleep late, you meet girls, and you know, there's drinks around.
So I'm like, this could be a good career. But anyway,
I ended up in the night club bar business in Chicago,
and I ended up partners with the Newman Haas racing
(13:21):
team and one venture Mario Andretti's team, and then I
was partners with Steven Sagal and another restaurant. And I'm
going through these experiences, I was like, oh my god,
I got to write about this shit.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
I mean, it's wild.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
So I wrote my first novel in ninety nine and
been writing ever since.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, I can only imagine the amount of stories you
must have tucked away from those experiences.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Well, yeah, there's a few.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
Yeah, I went to a bull riding school at forty
five years old, So that was that was another book, right,
it was fun.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, that's amazing. And Tom, obviously you know, the Navy
Seals is a massively sort of attractive thing for the
media for fiction across the world. How much compared to
your real experiences and what you've put in the book,
how much of it is sort of true to the
experiences you had on how much of it is sort
of leaning more towards the fiction site.
Speaker 6 (14:29):
I don't know how I could put a percentage on
what's what's true to life?
Speaker 3 (14:37):
There there there there are.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
Let's say, out of a dozen stories, eight of them
are probably pretty true to life. But that's the beauty
I guess of a fiction story and storyline. We have
the ability to piece the story together virtually anyway that
(15:02):
we wanted to put it together. That I think that
a great way to look at how I think I
approached this project was, of course, there are certain sensitivities
that that have to be considered.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Uh So that was.
Speaker 6 (15:24):
That was always in the back of my mind, and
it was very important that I considered all of those
those possibilities. But what I really felt like was having
experienced all of these places events, I could I could
(15:44):
understand and feel what it would be like to be
in that scenario, which allows for almost every situation, every
piece of dialogue, every co character to be in my
In my opinion, when I look at the stories and
I read them, they're so wildly authentic.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
So nobody in that story is made up.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
It is these are authentic, genuine, you know, situations where
this is exactly how a Navy seal would would.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Act in this situation.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
It's we you know, for example, like I'm not I
didn't go to the FBI, but Declan becomes an FBI
agent and he is tasked. He becomes a member of
the Violent Crimes against Children in Chicago. Now we have
friends that are FBI agents, so of course we interview them,
(16:36):
talk to them.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
But there's there's a big section of book, and that's
a little.
Speaker 6 (16:41):
Bit about what the Breacher's Playbook I thought was was
intended was to give our readers an upfront access to
some of these worlds that they would never have ever
been able to see and so we show from the
inside out, and it's not in a documentary way, it's
in a biographical way. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
We created a fiction.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
Story, a suspenseful, thrilling story that also is fully authentic
to include James. We were invited to Quantico, Virginia to
tour the FBI Academy and so we spent hours.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
James spent hours touring.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
It with a Seal friend of mine who runs Hogan's Alley,
which is a portion of FBI training academy. So so
even even situations where I wasn't particularly there, we had
access and we gained access, so that I mean, it's
just so wildly detailed and authentic.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
In the book that.
Speaker 6 (17:40):
You know, that's the reality of the of the book,
is that we've created stories that you just you could
never get anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yes, fascinating, Yeah, Tom, I'm really interested because obviously going
into the Seals obviously very much in control, MMA not
losing any finds in that as well, it's all on you.
You're very much in control again with your training and
you approach, and the same with football to a certain extent.
(18:09):
Again a lot of it relies on you, but with
reading and writing. As soon as that book goes out
into the world, you've kind of lost control of it. Then,
So what were your fears going into it and how
did you sort of manage those?
Speaker 6 (18:26):
Well, it took us ten years to write this raject
and to put it out into the world. So I
guess it's a terrifying thing. I'd imagine anyone that has
written a biography, I suppose just to put your writing,
(18:48):
in your style and your thoughts in your structure, all
out there for the world to view, and it's a
horrifying thing. So for for my first published book, uh,
for it to be a you know, a somewhat historical
fiction about my life, and to include my writing and
(19:11):
to include our ability to turn it into a tantalizing
story is it was a very it's a very scary thing.
But it's like gosh, I I I you realize that.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Once you once it's out there, it's done right.
Speaker 6 (19:32):
It's just you gotta push send at some point, uh
and let let the chips lie where they will.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
And And that was just another opportunity to experience that
kind of a thing. Like it's like you, Chris, you talked,
you brought up fighting in a cage. There's a chapter
in the book that details my very first fight, the
the process of walking into a mixed martial arts gym
(20:03):
that you know, we're talking like, you know, it's not like, uh,
it's not like the UFC kind of uh franchise type
gym that you see, you know, one where it's just old,
dirty mats and pads, and these guys are in there
because they want to be professional fighters. And to walk
into that gym, you know, at some point you just
(20:25):
got to open the door and go in.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
I could sit outside all day long, the reasons why
I'm going to back my car out of.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
The parking spot, but at some point you got to
walk out your car and get into that and walk
into that gym. And and so that I detail that,
you know, we detail in the in the book, the
whole process of walking into the arena and weighing in
and being checked by the doctors, and sitting in the
(20:52):
stairwheel outside of the octagon, listening to the match before.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
And and and we and I.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
And I talk about how the fight right before me
ends in like thirty two seconds, you know, and you're
just thinking, maybe I'll have about eight more minutes before
I've got to go in there. And then you hear
uh you know ko in thirty two seconds, Hey Tom,
You're about and you go, oh shit.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
This is real. This is going to happen today.
Speaker 6 (21:22):
And so those are those are moments where you just
I guess you just got to push send and let
it go. So and I and I guess you understand
that there's there. Sometimes you concern that they're the context.
You didn't get all the context right, and and how
do you go back and re explain some some situations
(21:42):
and stories and you might not get an opportunity to
do that.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
It's it's out there now.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I think what you're talking about there is determination and
obviously a lot of other things. And one of your
teammates said, the book is all about determination, So going
through being a Navy seal and then a fighting going
onto the rugby field, and even right in the book.
What's kind of the biggest lesson in the book about determination?
Do you think you've.
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Had I think about how, I really think about how
where it began that that I became convinced I wanted
to play football at the highest level that I could. Yeah,
I wanted to go back and be a college football player.
So I've already done deployments. I saw the world, I
(22:28):
saw war, I saw what was happening, and the wars
were kind of closing down, and we didn't have as
much stuff to do, and and I'm and I'm watching
college football. Uh, and I said, I think I think
I might be able to go do that.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Maybe when I get back, that's That'll be the next
thing I'll try out.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
And then over a period of you know, weeks, months time,
I I I convinced myself that that is where I'm
going and that is what I'm doing. It was a
matter of that that's what will happen, and that's the
matter of determination. And once I have that certainty, this
(23:10):
is what I'm doing, this is where I'm going. It
doesn't mean it will always happen that way, right, But
now I have set the path and it just begins
to kind of I mean, the path almost just reveals itself,
you know, it just it is there waiting for me to.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Make the decision. I'm doing this, all right. So the book.
Speaker 6 (23:31):
Takes Declan through I think five or six maybe phases
of his life where these are the decisions that he
has to make.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
And the cool part about I think the story.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
Is that you know, these circumstances, these life circumstances occur
outside of Declan, right, that forced him to make a
decision about how am I going to make a difference
in these particular people's lives, And I'm going to have
to decide where I want to go, what I need
to do to get there. And then Declann just says,
(24:03):
if I'm going to make a difference in this young
girl's life, or these kids' lives or the people in
my family's lives.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
I gotta do it. This is the path that I
have to take.
Speaker 6 (24:11):
In it, you know, the path reveals itself, I suppose
once you make that decision. So determination, in my estimation,
is take the time, figure out who you are, what
you want, where you want to go, and be absolutely
certain about it.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah. I just can imagine you saying to people I
want to go play college football, you know, NFL or
whatever that specifically was, and probably a lot of your
friends or family might have been saying you sure, that's
the right thing to do.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
That's the story of my life.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Well Tom eventually went to Chicago Bears camp after college.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
So yeah, obviously a great decision, but you know, it's
just one of those funny things, especially you know in
the Brotherhood site like the Seals, you've got friends who
always kind of take take the makeout of you and
probably say, don't you know, maybe not not so supportive,
because that's kind of the human that's there. Tom. I'm interested,
as someone you know, working with James who's written ten
(25:12):
books or nine books at the point where you were
speaking about writing this, what kind of lessons did you
learn as a writer from someone with that sort of experience.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
Well, I am just I'm wildly humbled by the skill
and and frankly the genius of the way that James
is able to craft it's a story and not I mean,
(25:47):
I still have a hard time understanding how we came
up with For example, the book is written in a
non linear format. So to me, that's the coolest damn
thing that you could really ever come up with. Now,
I'm sure that I could have done that and written it,
(26:08):
but it would have made very little sense, and I
don't know if I could have ever tied it.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
All back together.
Speaker 6 (26:13):
Right, So I I so when I when I look
at the story and I read it and as we
as we built the whole story in the timeline, I mean,
there were so many times where I had to go
back and just kind of understand, how does this actually
fit together? And and and and of course it does.
And if it seamlessly fits together at the end of
the book and we tell eight or nine different timelines
(26:35):
and storylines all come back together, it's it's remarkable.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Right.
Speaker 6 (26:38):
So, you know, some of our favorite movies, like for
My you know, it's like the pulp fiction type of
Quentin Tarantino writing style. And so we tell these crazy
stories and we go back into Deklan's childhood and and
then it ties together with with the current situation. So
(26:59):
so so of course, right I'm in awe as we
did this whole project, and so I got to experience,
you know, watching an experienced writer and and craftsmen create
this story.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
So that was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
And I mean, as far as actual things that I
learned from him was I mean, he just writes an
enormous amount and writes so damn much. It's it's like
the dedication that he has to writing is.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
It's unmatched by me.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
I could never find the time, the energy, the space,
that that, and somehow he's able to just when we
when we come up with a new idea, he's like
sometimes by the end of the day, he has three
thousand words he's sending back to me on something we
talked about six hours ago, right Edie's asking me for
(27:59):
my hitting on it. So it's just I guess, I guess.
You know, his dedication and uh is really amazing.
Speaker 7 (28:09):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
So, James, I'm really interested, obviously from your point of views,
somebody who's written plenty of books on your own, and
what did you learn from this experience and what was
it like, obviously writing a book with somebody else instead
of doing it on your own.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Good question. You know, I was.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
A little concerned about it, you know, collaborating, especially when
the protagonist is based on my collaborators experiences. So I'm
writing literally about things that he lived.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
And then I kept.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Since I never had a writing partner before, I kept envisioning, well,
what if he hates what I'm.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Sending him, or what.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
If I'm not nailing this character, or if I'm not
even close.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
But we didn't. That just wasn't part of the process.
We it worked great.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
I was actually a lot of fun having a writing partner,
and you know it, it gave me more freedom actually,
because you get immediate feedback like, hey, this, this sequence
is great, but this you know, we should change and
(29:34):
do this. And you know you don't get that when
you look at it yourself and you go, oh, yeah,
everything's great. So you know, I'll write when I write
a book on my own, I'll write eight hours and
come back the next day and you know, reread it
and I might have goosebumps rereading it. I think it's
(29:56):
so good, or i might erase the whole thing. Now
I've got somebody to tell me, you know, yeah, this
is good, this is let's work on this. So it
was it was kind of seamless, to be honest with you,
and we actually we didn't know going in.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
So take us into sort of the day to day
in terms of what it's like to collaborate. Obviously, he said, like,
you know, Tom mentioned about sending you sending three thousand
words and him you've mentioned obviously about him comment on it.
But what was the sort of like did you have
an initial phase where you sat down and you mapped
out the whole novel or did it just happen organically
over time that you just started, and then it started
(30:41):
to snow.
Speaker 7 (30:41):
Work like.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
It started with, you know, sitting down together at Tom's
house for thirty or forty hours of taped interviews.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Then I went.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
Back and outlined what I thought at the time was
the storyline, and then you know, then it.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Was a series of kind of assignments.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
You know, I would tell Tom, or ask Tom to
give me three thousand words on his first week at Buds,
or three thousand words on training for his first fight,
first experience in combat, first few days at a Big
(31:32):
ten college football camp, and then I would take that
and adapt it to a chapter that I was working on,
and then send it back to Tom and then we
you know, review it together and hey, that's great, make
some changes, And that's pretty much how the whole book went.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I just want to ask a question about the fact
that it's planned for three book series, Tom, with the
situations that you thought, I'd love to put this in
the book, but you've had to hold it back because
you want to then drop it in later maybe book two. Three.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Oh, of course, Well, we have you know, we get
so many we have so many stories.
Speaker 6 (32:17):
We have we have a whole book worth of material
probably already written that did not go into this book.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Short this book by a couple.
Speaker 6 (32:28):
Yeah, we were six hundred plus pages long to start,
and so we're down to about three fifty or so,
so we virtually have another book already panned out.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
We I thought the six hundred pager was the was
the book personally, but it appears people don't read six
hundred pages anymore. Maybe they never did, but uh, we'll
just turn it into a second one. Yeah, we have
so many great stories. I think that that's a really
a beauty of James and I working together. As you know,
(33:04):
Seemingly on the surface we might have some seems to
have some differences, but when you get down to it,
we're actually quite similar in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
So trying to.
Speaker 6 (33:17):
Decipher how we're gonna, you know, create these characters wasn't
actually all that difficult.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
M hm. Did you find at any point that, obviously
the more you write together that your voices started to
merge into one or was it very much like if
I was to pick this up, could I.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
See, oh, James, this bit.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Tom is definitely right in this bit, because I've read
books before that are like collaborations like Neil Gaiman and
Terry Pratchett. Is one that I can remember and I
think I can go, oh, that's gaming and that's a
pratchet would would read this Bible to do that with
the old book? Or do you think you've found a
sort of sweet spot.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Personally?
Speaker 5 (33:59):
I don't think you can read Breachers and know it's
my im writing in Time's writing.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
But mh that's my opinion.
Speaker 6 (34:14):
It's hard to say, you know, when I read it,
I can of course tell, you'll just know where wherever
the writing is really good, it's probably James. In my defense, though,
I'm I'm I'm I'm learning and I'm getting better, and
(34:36):
it certainly is a more far more of a of
a process. Writing well, is far more of a process
that takes time, and there is a real clearly there's
real evolution to it.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
So uh but yeah, James writing is just fantastic. So
mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Do you think that you're going to get the bug
for writing after the series? Do you think it's something
you're going to kick onto and do more of?
Speaker 6 (35:06):
I think so, Yeah, I'd love to continue my writing. Yeah,
I've got a bunch of ideas that I'm starting to
work on.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
So yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Then obviously you mentioned about the character going too the FBI.
What was that that appealed to you guys in terms
of obviously you said before Tom, it's not something you've
done personally, but what what decided What was the decision
sort of in your mind to go, oh, we're going
to take the character in this direction because that will
be interesting for the reader, rather than obviously what you've
(35:41):
already experienced yourself, which is probably just as interesting.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I think, Well, I the FBI was a real option
for me.
Speaker 6 (35:54):
There was there were several opportunities for for I mean,
it's not a it's not an unreasonable next step for
an X Special Forces guy or seal to find his
way into the FBI. So that was something that I
was really looking into it in those those few years
after as I was wrapping up my time with the Navy,
(36:17):
UH and figuring out what I would, you know, where
where was I going to land after I was finished
for the Navy and my my time at Northwestern was done?
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Uh, So I looked at the FBI. I spoke with
the FBI. I was a real consideration at the time. Uh.
Speaker 6 (36:32):
And then as far as how you know. Reasons why
we thought that would be a great inclusion in the
story is the FBI is responsible for crimes against kids,
you know, domestically, Uh those that's who would be called.
That's uh if if you if you were Declan Novak
and uh, you felt that it was your call to
(36:55):
protect kids in these environments, that's probably where he would
go next. Where can he make the most impact? Is
how Declan would most likely have looked at that. I
know that there's a need for this, and I feel
the call to it. I don't want to do it
because I have a family and a whole life and
(37:16):
I would rather just live a peaceful life on a
farm somewhere. But that's not how it works for the
Novac So he ends up in the FBI. The book finishes.
Book one finishes with Declan beginning to kind of see
some of the cracks in the bureaucratic FBI system, And
so that is the segue into Declan's next journey, which
(37:45):
you know he won't quite be involved with the FBI,
and the same sort of fashion, he finds a fine
group of highly effective men to work with outside of
the FBI. Starting book two, well, shortly in the book too.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
So nice, Yeah, thats great. I'm interested in the process then, Tom,
we've talked about all your experiences and how they've influenced
the book and how the stories are telling parts of
the book. What was the process like for you to
translate it from sort of memory into the hands of
James to create the stories. How was that process And
(38:23):
if someone is who has life experience that they might
want to put into words, what tips might you have
for them through that process.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Well, I began my writing.
Speaker 6 (38:34):
I re began my writing journey fifteen ish years ago
and it was just in journal form. So I'd always
done some writing as a young stir and lots of reading,
and I'd always wanted to really journal my life because
I felt like it was a fun, interesting life that
(38:57):
I was living already. But it took a long time
for me to finally pick up the pen and decide
this is in.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Fact important that I do this.
Speaker 6 (39:05):
So I started writing, and it was many pages of
very cringe worthy, uh you know, introspective thing. Actually, I
look back at some of the first ones and the
journals were like, so I woke up today, you know
something that was very benign stuff and it's.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
But that's how I had to start.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
And eventually it becomes just very introspective and you get
to explore your own psychology, your own mind, You get
to explore your relationships through writing and your own journals,
and so you just kind of developed the ability to
put your thoughts into words and then on to pieces
of paper. And it did take a long time to
(39:49):
feel comfortable with sharing any of these things outside.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Really outside of myself. Yeah, and James, you know, he he.
Speaker 6 (40:00):
He, I felt most comfortable. I guess I've I never
felt as comfortable to share these things with anybody besides James,
but I would I would highly recommend, I highly highly
recommend anybody that is that that that it's also a
(40:23):
very cathartic and therapeutic experience as well. And I would
highly recommend that anybody that's dealing with difficult life situations trauma,
that putting putting this stuff down is the very first
next step that you can very easily take to healing
that stuff, to letting it go, to processing and eventually
(40:49):
eventually walking away from whatever that is to live, you know,
and enjoy the life. And really you can tell the
story that way someday you can help many many others.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Perhaps is it This might be a bit of a
deep question, but is it the case that it's now
on the page and in the story. Do you feel
like that is something you've now kind of moved on
from and it's literally a chapter that you can lead behind.
Speaker 6 (41:15):
Oh yeah, of course, of course, yes, you don't have
to put it on paper. I don't think to write
the chapter and leave it behind, but it certainly is
another way, and it does help.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
It does help.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
So one of the things that we always do on
the show is we have a section called what's the story.
We've not been doing videos because we've enjoyed the conversation
so much. But if you had to give us an
elevator pitch for this novel, what's your elevator pitch? And
what can read? Does expect.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
An elevator pitch for the now?
Speaker 5 (41:56):
I think it's it's a story where the audience is
so varied that that it hits home for people that
always look at things and think they can't do them.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
You know, Oh God, I wish you could do that.
I envy that person. He can do that, or she
can do that, or whether it's writing whether it's an
athletic event, whether it's whatever it may be.
Speaker 5 (42:33):
This novel, more than anything, says, hey, you know, dreams
are not illusions. There are things to reach out for
and you can get there. You know, not everybody does,
but it's it's certainly worth the effort.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
It's not you know, it's not our successes that we
regret in life. It's not doing things that we regret.
M hmm.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
So on that topic, then obviously it is very inspirational.
But let's say somebody was a bit cynical and they said, yeah,
it's easy for you to do. To say, because you've
done it, what would you say to that person in
terms of like motivation and you know, getting them to
see past their own sort of cage if you like
that they put themselves in. What would your advice both
(43:33):
of you be to that type of person.
Speaker 6 (43:38):
So the first thing that I got to do is
I got to see, I got to see how powerful
that person is. And as soon as you can see
how absolutely amazing that human being is, that gives them
permission to see how amazing they are and that there
(44:01):
is nothing that they can't do, there's nothing that stands
in their way. They have the ability to see, to know,
and to go anywhere they want. And as long as
I can see it, as long as one other person
can see it, they now know that it's a real thing.
(44:22):
The problem is that nobody can see it for themselves.
They cannot see the possibility of those.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
Dreams coming true.
Speaker 6 (44:30):
Most people can't even see the dream itself, let alone
imagining that someday they may actually accomplish it. So we
have to look at them and know that they have
that ability, they have that power, they have the strength.
They already are exactly the thing that they think they
want to do. And as soon as we do that,
(44:53):
and we look at them and you put your arm
around their shoulder, they already know it's possible.
Speaker 5 (45:00):
I think one thing that knowing Thomas taught me that
once you once you.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Get to that stage where you can see that dream
and see yourself there, nobody can make you quit.
Speaker 5 (45:19):
You just it doesn't matter who's telling you how hard
that's going to be or that you can't do it.
Once you see yourself there, they can't make you quit.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
M We've got a lot of people on the show
that have had a dream, achieved their dream, and then
suffered mentally because they've done it. That's the thing they
wanted to do, you know, they wanted to publish a book,
or they wanted to you know, I remember listening to
an interview with Tyson Fury and he said the same thing.
He won the world championship, he became the best heavyweight
(45:56):
boxer in the world, and then he just hit a
wall of depression. Is just like straight to the floor.
And so I suppose my question in that is, what
advice would you give to somebody for building the next dream?
Speaker 4 (46:13):
Wow? Good question.
Speaker 6 (46:17):
H all right, let me let me take this one.
So we have a we actually have chapter thirteen in
Breacher's playbook. Declan is now out of the Navy and
he's done with football. He tore his a cl so
his football career ends and he's struggling to understand what's.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
Next in his life.
Speaker 6 (46:44):
For Declan, he decides, I got to give up all
the things that I think are standing in my way
or causing me to feel this depression this, and so
he lets go of everything that he thinks makes him
who he is, that defines him, that gives him a
(47:07):
sense of validation, and he rebuilds himself from the very
bottom back up. I know it doesn't sound fantastic, and
everyone wants to hear a real quick fix. This is
how you go from being on top of the world
to well, people don't care so much about you anymore?
(47:29):
What have you done for me lately? And how do
I recreate myself? And I don't believe that there is
a real quick, simple fix right. How quickly and how
easily your fix is as quick as you can let
go of identifying with whatever that glory was that you
(47:50):
once felt. And until you can do that, I don't
know that the next vision, the next dream, the next
goal will ever come into focus.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Interestingly, Chris, I heard Robbie Williams, the musician on the
radio today and he was basically talking about that exact thing.
He basically topped all the charts, did everything he wanted
to dream of, and then did exactly that hit the
wall of depression. Where do I go next? And he's
talking about how, basically I'm sure this was through therapy,
he looked at his whole life as a journey and
(48:24):
chapters as opposed to the goals that are coming, and
that made him really appreciate what he had done and
be able to move on rather than thinking what the
hell's next, you know. So I think that's real good
advice to look at your life in that kind of respect, real.
Speaker 6 (48:38):
Real quickly with that in mind. So I'm at tempting
to become a writer, which is quite different from being
a Navy seal fighting football player.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
So all right, So to.
Speaker 6 (48:54):
Understand and accept that I'm just not going to be
defined the same way that I once was, or others
won't define me in the same way. Nor do I
have to identify myself the same way that I always had,
and then allow my other skills, my other talents to show,
because I think everybody we all have them. Even though
(49:16):
we played on our strengths in order to get to
where we are today, there's a lot of other stuff
that's kind of in the shadows, has been buried that
if we allow it, you know, we can we can
flourish in different ways too, which is fun really to
see your life and to see you know, your entire
story kind of broaden.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
You know, it's fun after the fact once you allow
it to happen.
Speaker 6 (49:40):
But it is terrifyingly, you know, scary that, hey, I'm
going to give up on these things that were so
worked so well for me for so long, and now
here I'm going to attempt to move into a new
territory where it may not go as well.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
Right, It's about knowing your identity at that point as
well and your purpose. And I think coming out of
say the military or even you know you can write
in or the NFL, it's like that's who you are,
So stepping into the next journey. For anybody going through
a transition, it's about getting hold of what you want
to be, what your direction is, and who you are,
(50:17):
and then very good progressing forward without worrying about too
much what's next, I think. But yes, Chris, we've got
some we could ask you some staple questions, or we've
got a couple of questions in the chat.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Yeah, we've got a few questions in the chat. Obviously,
we've got about eight minutes left. So if you're listening
and watching this live and you've got a question, send
it in now and we'll get to asking some of them.
We'll ask some of the ones that are in the
chat before we ask some staple ones. So this one
is from Linda. She says, were there events slash subject
matter that you hesitated to address. If so, how did
(50:50):
you go about that with the collaboration, great question.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
I think that's probably directed at times, and.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
Sure it was. It was, like we talked about a bit.
Speaker 6 (51:05):
It was important that I was careful with anything that
was sensitive, both with the.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
Military, with my comrades.
Speaker 6 (51:16):
I mean, there was a lot going on at Northwestern football,
and there were some things that were happening with unionizations,
which I got to be right in the middle of
at Northwestern. There were some other scandals that took place.
There's a lot of things that took place obviously in
our throughout our lives that I think it was important
(51:36):
that we were really cautious about how we portrayed it.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
And again I.
Speaker 6 (51:41):
Get you know, even though we can't necessarily speak specifics
about things.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
The beauty of a fiction story.
Speaker 6 (51:50):
Again, this is what I think is really fantastic about us,
is that we still can tell the story and we'll
still you'll still get access to some of these characters,
these psychologies, the dynamics just you know, in some different ways.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
So it's kind of a it's kind of a fun
thing that James.
Speaker 6 (52:07):
And I were able to collaborate on how are we
going to tell these stories, right, but also protect everyone
that we possibly can.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
So yeah, that's I think how it went. It was
pretty It was pretty cool to do that too.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Got another question to have in the chat and what
would be the ideal place for writing retreat direct to
both of you.
Speaker 5 (52:35):
Well, I always thought writing was job, you know, assuming
that we have to have jobs. Writing you get to
work for yourself, get to be creat every day. You
can do wherever you want. You don't have a boss,
you don't have any employees. That's the perfect job. And
(52:57):
for me, the perfect place to do is.
Speaker 4 (53:01):
Oh my god, you know, in the mountains.
Speaker 5 (53:07):
Colorado, Arizona, close luckily had great access to.
Speaker 4 (53:17):
Is the perfect place to write?
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (53:23):
Nice, yep, agree, the mountains. I actually I find I'm
super creative at airports and on airplane. Strangely that's another one,
but the mountains is the place amazing.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Just that Another question, Chris, come in if you're awesome.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
Aside from the genre you're write in, now, what is
another genre that piques your interest? And that is a
great question. Thank you, Linda.
Speaker 4 (53:56):
We were talking about this yesterday. Romance Now.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Didn't expect that one.
Speaker 6 (54:08):
That was something we were I've been picking that one
around for a little while.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
Romance novel.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
We decided yesterday, why not let's do it.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
Excuse me, Hey, that's that's all fun on the show.
How what kind of level of romance we're talking here?
I've got a little mischievo feeling that it's not just
the stundard reading it about I'm.
Speaker 4 (54:29):
Sure we've gotten to that detail yet, but.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
That's going to be I don't know if I want
that email from you.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Right to you told me what about this?
Speaker 4 (54:43):
Yeah, you're like, I don't want to read?
Speaker 3 (54:49):
Yeah, definitely would do this Roman. I thought that would
be fun. They there's a there's a.
Speaker 6 (54:56):
Thriller romance novel genre, so I think that that could
be that would be fun and interesting to do. And
then I also like youth adventure stories, so I I
I've got a passion for writing, you know, kind of
a you know, my generation Hardy Boys style series about
(55:18):
a young Declan Novak and you know, his his his
teenage pursuits.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
So amazing.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Yeah, I love that. And yeah, Nicholas Spoks he makes
an awful lot of money, So maybe trying the romance.
One of our staicle questions and that we have on
the show is if you could take any character from
fiction and make that character your own, Which character choose
and what would you do with them?
Speaker 4 (55:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (55:48):
He stopped them on that one.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Chris, I think, wow, I.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
I think you could add one fictional character into the
Breaches playbook.
Speaker 6 (56:02):
Oh, the Breacher's playbook. Yeah, that would be great. Okay, okay,
I was going to use an anime character.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
It was going to be my okay, gosh, what a
what a question?
Speaker 1 (56:21):
You can possible not if you want, if you want
to come back to us, maybe drop all.
Speaker 3 (56:24):
Let's come back to it. James, do you have one?
Speaker 6 (56:29):
You know?
Speaker 4 (56:30):
I was just mentioning there.
Speaker 5 (56:35):
They touched on Charlie Huntum in the beginning of the show,
and I was I was a huge Sons of Anarchy fan,
and and the writing in that show was perfect. And
Jack's the way he related to his father's writing.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
Yeah, I loved that, absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
Yeah, I think I got I'd say real quick, I do. Uh.
Speaker 6 (57:00):
If you're familiar with the show with Dean and Sam Winchester,
it is, Oh, well, we'll get back to it. I'll
remember it.
Speaker 4 (57:16):
No worries.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
I'm quite conscious of the time. You guys, A couple
of minutes, and I want to sneak a question in here,
which is about the cover. It looks fantastic. How much
design did you guys put into that and why choose
that one over perhaps other options you had.
Speaker 5 (57:31):
That's a that's interesting because the publisher's Tactical sixteen dot com.
In my past experiences with covers being designed by publishers, most.
Speaker 4 (57:50):
Of them sucked and you had to go back and
forth forever to get it right.
Speaker 5 (57:58):
And I we gave taxis to some general parameters to
look at for the cover, and when they sent me
the first proof, they nailed it.
Speaker 4 (58:13):
I mean looking at you're looking at the first proof.
Speaker 3 (58:16):
Yeah, that's the first take.
Speaker 4 (58:19):
I opened this email and I was like, holy shit,
I loved it. Yeah, they did a great job.
Speaker 1 (58:27):
That's why I asked, because it's it's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (58:29):
Yeah, I wish I could take more credit for it.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
But and another one on before we go, why can
we where can people buy the book?
Speaker 2 (58:40):
And why can people follow you on social media? And
all that good stuff.
Speaker 5 (58:46):
The book available at tactical sixteen dot com. Amazon, You
can follow Tom Ruby seal dot com get it there.
You can follow James Pomerants, writer dot com at Pomerance.
James on Instagram. Uh, what's your Instagram? Tom?
Speaker 3 (59:12):
T T Ruby thirty three.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
Yeah, in the name, it's silent h in front of
ruby an h T T h r U. Y. Well,
we'll stick some links in the descriptions once we post
this up so to have a look there as well
and not make it a bit easy for you guys
to click on it.
Speaker 4 (59:29):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (59:30):
Thanks, Yeah, sure that show is supernatural. Somebody got it.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
Yeah, they did. They put that in the comments, so
thank you for that. Linda.
Speaker 4 (59:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
One question. I know we're just shooting over time slightly,
but if you could cast any actor to play your
MC in a movie if this was adapted, who would
you pick?
Speaker 3 (59:50):
Tom Hardy? Nice?
Speaker 4 (59:52):
Perfect, Yeah, Taylor Kits would work too, nice?
Speaker 1 (59:58):
Yes, yeah, okay, brilliant. All right, Tom and James, thank
you so so much for being on the show with
us and sharing your story. I'm sure there's so much
more we could have talked about, and I hope James
you have a great golfriend straight after this. But everybody watching,
thank you so much for tuning in. If you're listening
back and watching this back, please leave us some comments,
(01:00:20):
drop some comments and if you've got any messages for
these two, we can surely send it through email to
them afterwards.
Speaker 5 (01:00:25):
One message besides thank you for having us on. We've
done a lot of podcasts, this one was awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Well, thank you so much. You guys were great. So
everybody please stay safe and click those links by the
book more importantly, and we will see you next week.
Thanks everybody, Bye bye by
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com