August 4, 2024 • 33 mins
by the Great Virus, endless civil war and a collapse of the global order called the Breakdown. She’s forced by circumstances to ally with a nomadic photographer. His gentle decency moves her to the core, but her mission leads her away from the man she’s falling in love with and toward a confrontation with the people who hold her sister. To defeat them, she’ll need the help of the powerful Nations, a league of indigenous tribes. But there’s a problem. The Nations consider Deirdre a deadly enemy. They've even given her a nickname that signifies their grudging respect for this ferocious adversary: Crazy Hawk. “America at times feels like it is at a breaking point, or at least at a moment where it is divided and tested,” notes Stewart. “I address those fears and passions when drawing the world in this book. The future is not yet determined, but for some, it can seem a dark, violent place.”
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
If you love entertainment, current events, and Hollywood, don't miss
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Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hi, guys, welcome to another episode of Creators to Creators. Today,
today we have a special guest, R. J.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Stewart.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Be here the same, thank you for being on. I mean, gosh,
your resume is impeccable. It's pretty impressive. I always liked
going yeah, I always, but I really love going back
to the beginning. I always say the beginning kind of
charge our trajectory, Like there are little habits that we
pick up when we're children kind of somehow follow us
(01:12):
us into our adulthood. So tell me a little bit
about your childhood. What was that like and how did
you kind of find your way into the entertainment world.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
My dad was a career Air Force guy. Uh, and
so we traveled a lot, and that'll that'll work into
the story. But one of the he worked, he wasn't
a pilot, he was a sergeant. He worked mostly in
base supply. But he was a master storyteller. And uh,
he used to sip by my He knew I was
obsessed when I was a kid. I was obsessed with
(01:45):
the Disney characters and uh, the Peanuts cartoon. You know,
Charlie Brown, Schroeder, those guys. Yeah, he would sit next
to my bed and tell me stories. He'd make up
about these characters. So and he loved doing it. One
time he was on a tour of duty and he
sent me a long letter. I still have the letter
of of a you know, goofy came into the room
(02:07):
and there was mickey and stuff. And so the idea
of storytelling was introduced to me very early on. And
and the kind of writing I do, that's what it is.
It's storytelling. Of course, you have to do all the
characters and timing and screenwriting brings one one aspect of it,
and writing a novel is another. But the uh, uh,
(02:29):
it's it's all. It's about telling a good story, and
so I had that very early on. And then when
I was I started writing. Okay, I actually found some
of my really early writing and it was what you expect,
childlike and boring and predictable. But it did show my
(02:50):
ambition in that way. And then when I was about twelve,
I had a teacher named mister Sayuta. I'm going to
give him credit for this because he said, a story,
a creative story, and I'll give you extra credit for it.
Uh and I uh. I was at that time intoxicated
(03:11):
with the novels of Alastair Rikklean, who is a famous
action a venture novelist. At the time, several of his
books returned into movies Guns of an avarone Ice Station Zebra.
So I wrote it in that style and he, you know,
about four pages it was, you know, and he given
I remember that I made that. There was a lot
(03:32):
of news about Lawrence of Arabia is going to come out,
you know, it was this, this is a pre movie
come out. So I made the main character in arab
even though I knew nothing about Arabs anything like that
except what I saw in movies. And he said that
that was that was good. Every week after that I
wrote a story and gave it to him, and he'd
(03:53):
come up to me and say, you know, I'm not
giving you extra credit for these these stories that you're
turning in every week. And I said, that's okay, I
just want to do it, and he was. He was
a good sport. He mostly read them. Like I said.
They were very short, and I'm sure everyone had the
manly man character and hero saving the damsel and stuff.
And uh. At that time though, that was my first Uh,
(04:15):
this is this is not about me so much, it's
about a creative stimulus. I had. The movie Guns of
an Avarone came out. Oh, I didn't mention. We were
stationed my devastation in eraclyon Crete, Greece. So we were
in Greece when a movie came out called Because the
Guns and Evroone by by Alistair McLean, the one I
just referred to. And one of the characters in there
(04:37):
was the great Greek actress Irene Pappus, playing a badass,
very empowered woman, and I was already madly in love
with her because her poster was on every bus stop
and every body store and uh. So that began my
love of of writing and being attracted to woman in
(05:00):
novels and in drama, and I.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Love that you were attracted to powerful women. I think
a lot of times you don't really see that nowadays,
Like I mean, I think it's beautiful to have a man,
a male writer who uplifts a female character because we
don't really see, you know, too many. I mean a
lot of times in cinema you see like the woman,
(05:24):
submissive wife, she's you know, playing the woman role. Like
it's great and all, but it's really cool to see
like a powerful, like strong woman kicking button doing stuff
and looking good doing it.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
You know. Hey, I've been fortunate enough for my career
to get that opportunity a lot because the first job
I ever had was on Remings Steele. I was the
cubby writer on that show. It was my first job,
and I don't know if you recall the premise of
the series, but it was. Laura Holt is a crack
private detective, but she's because of the prejudice against hiring
(05:56):
a woman private detective. She wants to hire an he
suit to be the front for the for the agency,
so she hires a guy named she might have even
made up the name Remington Steel but of course the
person they cast was Pierce Brosin now, because Pierce was
such a big hit, I mean huge matter of fact,
(06:17):
when I first came on the job, they asked me
what I thought of the show, and I said, oh,
a great, wonderful of course, some kind of praise the show,
and they said, to be honest, tell us what you
really think. And at the time I was young and stupid,
and I believe that he wanted the honesty, and I said, well,
it's fabulous, and I love Stephanie Zimbolist as Laura Hold
(06:38):
and stuff, but you know, you got to write more
for that Pierce Brosnan guy. He's he's great, which doesn't
make me a genius. It was just the reaction the
whole world have when the show aired a few weeks later.
And so you know, as far as Stephanie was a
wonderful actress and a very very sweet, loving person, but
unfortunately the show moved a little away from that original
(07:01):
premise and they became more equal, so it came being
a little bit more like what Moonlighting would become and
not points metal. Glenn Karen, who created Moonlighting as the
guy who hired me on remug stealing.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Oh wow, very cool. Would you say that, Like, you know,
was there like all through your life? Was it like
those moments of like it just your things just came
to you because you like just trust the process of
just a.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Tr there is. It's a combination, you know, when your
people have mixed views about Hollywood. Some people, Yeah, people
don't like Hollywood and sort of thing. One thing I'll
say in an absolutely true of Hollywood, and everyone has
to understand people work hard in Hollywood. And my advice
to any young person trying to break and just works
(07:51):
so hard and then just try to discipline yourself so
that when an opportunity comes up, you're ready for it.
And the uh that that that that's the key is
hard working and then you need some luck. You really
do you need someone?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, I hear that a lot. The luck thing is
the thing. It's like, it's interesting, It's like I think
that that that you know, obviously everyone can't you know,
quote unquote make it. But like you said, it's the
hard work. And I think if you love what you
do and you kind of continue to be curious and
work hard, I think things just open up to you. Yeah,
(08:32):
I absolutely believe that you can do anything really if
if you really enjoy it. So I think it's like
knowing what you and I don't think there's like one
way particularly. I think there's like many ways to go about,
you know, the career. But yeah, it's amazing how you know,
your life just unfolded. It seemed like it was very
easy process. Did you have like any uncertainty along the journey?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Not? Once I started working, Yeah, yeah, this is my thing?
Is what else am I going to do? You know?
You know you hear that a lot on different interviews,
But I think it's if we but you put a
lot of creative Hollywood people together, they'd all come to
that eventually, like what else were we going to do?
It's kind of a scary thing. I'm sure there are
people that go on to do fine things. I mean,
(09:17):
it's not sure. You don't just give up if you
don't make it. And it's a very difficult world to
break into. So I mean someone shouldn't be discouraged in
all of life because they don't make it Hollywood. But
I think once you start working in Hollywood, you realize
this is where I belong, you know, So in that way, well,
you know, we didn't get to Zena as far as
(09:38):
the formidable woman that I developed and wrote and produced Xena.
That was kind of luck, you know, I mean luck
that they found me. Luck for them and for me.
I really was thinking in a total different direction at
the time. And when my agent on the phone pitched
the idea to.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Me and I said, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Then I saw Lucy in the park, because Lucy had
been a villain on Hercules. I saw her in the park.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Another words, Zena, the character Zena was introduced into into Hercules,
and I thought, ooh, that's cool. Yeah, and that's so
I committed to writing the pilot and that. But I
mean those kind of things. You know, if you would
have told me that year, you know, what is your
next job? I would have I had just come off
of a show that didn't succeed. Uh, you know, most
(10:30):
most shows don't. So I have been a supervising producer
on a show called The Great Pretender, which was with
the great actor Michael I mean the Great Defender. I
meant to say a Great Defender. It was a pun on,
you know, a play on the Great Pretender, and it
was Michael Rispoli, a wonderful actor was the lead. It
(10:52):
was about lawyers and stuff because I had a sound
sort of likeness to it, and and I thought I
wrote well for that show. And I think, and that's
probably where I'm going next. But you know, in a
wonderful way, it came full circle back in my Alistair
McLean days, I was writing action and now I'm back
writing action and adventure. And it felt really yeah, luck
to that too, the matching up the actor to the
(11:15):
to the material, the writer to the material. There's another
thing of luck, you know. I mean, because you know,
maybe if I went off to write a because I
had some connections with the people who eventually made West Wing, Okay,
so okay, yeah, the theoretically I could have ended up there,
but maybe I wouldn't have thrived there. You know, maybe
maybe I wouldn't have done as well there. And but
(11:36):
I was the right guy for Zina. No.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I mean an amazing show. I mean classic, and it's
it's like it's like it goes down in history. It's
one of the best action adventures, you know, shows about
the time. Like I remember watching it growing up, like
and you know, I was like, wow, what a powerful woman.
And it just made me believe that, you know, it
was awesome to see a woman doing all these things
and looked great doing it, and it's just it goes
(12:02):
to show you, like, you know, it's like we can
do and have these kind of roles in the business.
So thank you for wanting to make something that important.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah, I everybody thinks a little bit about their legacy
and stuff, and I think with us people that were
involved with Xena, the one thing we get a little
frustrated now is people don't realize how innovative it was
at the time. Yeah, in the nineties we were giving
credit where Stue we were simultaneous with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
(12:34):
We were both on at the same time, so they
had two kick ass women on it simultaneously. So it
wasn't just us, but it was we went in a
direction that Buffy did as far as violence and her
the whole ethical conundrum of when you use violence and
when you don't, and you know, that's it was the
(12:55):
contrast between her and gabriel her her sidekick was you know,
riel was less prone to violence and and Xena felt
she needed to protect Gabrielle in some ways, although by
the end of the series, Gabrielle had evolved into her
own former rules. So the tension that is that, I
just you know, I just stumbled on this myself thinking
(13:16):
about it. I love writing for already empowered women, you know,
so rather than the the the wonderful movies. I love
the movies where a woman is doesn't feel empowered and
then we watch her become empowered those important things. But
I enjoy writing for the already empowered woman. But we
had both on Zena. We had powered woman and we
(13:37):
had the arc of the woman who becomes empowered Gabrielle.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Right, yeah, it's beautiful. How was it working with her?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
With Lucy? Uh, she's a true just a wonderful actress
and a wonderful person. I talked to her last August
and she looked graaty, she looks, you know, it was
like this. It wasn't zoom. I think it was the
other version of it. But yeah, uh, the the uh
it was. It was wonderful talking to her. She's still
(14:07):
as funny and is as kind and loving as she
always was. And so she lives in New Zealand, so
I don't see her very often.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Oh I see, I see, I see New Zealand. I
love New Zealand. So let's talk about your new thriller.
I'm excited for this post apocalyptic thriller. So what made
you go in this direction and why? Now?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Well, it's a it's the name of the book. It
is Crazy Hawk, It's you're writ some post apocalyptic thriller.
The uh. When I was a long time ago, I
read a book called Can't Go for Liba Witch, which
is about a post apocalyptic world. In that world, it's
(14:56):
deep future, thousands of years in the future, and it's
after a nuclear war and everything is destroyed, and so
it's very different from my book. But what I bring
it up is that one thing that fascinated me about
it is that at a certain point, some of the
characters discover a fallout sketch, a shelter that is pretty
much intact, and the people in Cantaicula Label Woods try
(15:19):
to figure out what the world was before the war
from the evidence they find that in that fallout shelter
and fascinated me. So I wanted to take a shot
at creating my own world, my own post apocalyptic world.
And when the main character is Deer Drum, she's a
very formidable, empowered woman, and she when we meet her,
(15:42):
she's on the trail of the men who kidnapped her sister,
which is bad news for those men, because she's a
very serious, deadly, relentless warrior. And what the world she
travels in is the ruined world that you and I
(16:03):
live in, you know. So she's investigating what our world
is as she moves in after she as she pursues
the villains, and so she's and she's trying to formulate
an idea of what the world was in our day,
and and that's what was fun about that thing. And
she's not always right, you know, because she can't quite
(16:25):
figure out what the cloud was. They stored information in
the cloud. I'm not sure it was in the sky.
Was it a real cloud? So so, so she's trying
to piece together our world. So it's a fun it's
a fun challenge. You get to create your own new world,
but you get to comment on our world at the
same time.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I love that. I love that. How long I mean,
how long was it did it take to create this?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Well there, it's impossible to tell that story without bringing
up some very sad things.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
We lost our daughter, Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Appreciate it, thank you, and that so I conceived it
originally in Japan in twenty thirteen. We were traveling to
a new Distinct tourist in Japan and my horse had
lost the vision in his right eye. I'm a big
horse rider, and the one of the main characters in
the book is Danny, who is based very much on
my horse, and I just thought of the opening line
(17:22):
was her horse had one eye, and that is the
opening line of the book. And I started working on that.
I probably had a zero draft by the end of
twenty fourteen, and that's when Laurie got the diagnosis stage
four cancer. And then so it took a while to
get back to it, you know what I'm saying, So
(17:42):
how long I would say the first thing of creating
that zero draft. When I say zero drafting, it was
such a rough draft and here's a lot of editing,
and wouldn't even call it a first draft. And that
took about That was twenty thirteen and some twenty fourteen,
and then when I came back to it after the
(18:03):
Lord had passed in twenty eighteen, started working on twenty nineteen,
and then when a COVID hit. I said, Okay, when
people ask what did you do during COVID, I finished
this novel. That's what I'm going to say. Yeah, I
mean then I wanted a self published because because when
you're a screenwriter, what the goal of a screenwriter is
(18:23):
is to hand it off to other people, let them
make a wonderful lily, or maybe not make a wonderful lily.
But what I you know what, I wanted to self
publish because I get to control it all, you know,
I get this is my work and I'm very proud
of it, and people seem to like it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I love that, well, congrats on that. And I love
that you you know. It's something about having when it's yours, right,
it's like it feels like it It's like, wow, I
did that. It's all me.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
It's like something. Yeah, that's you know, it's I've we've
got I've got a couple of nice print reviews from
Kirkus and uh forward forward Clarion and I, uh, it's
it's very very nice feelings and nice customer reviews and stuff.
It's very nice to see.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
That, you know, And that's beautiful and I go ahead
now you please, please please, No, I was going to.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Say that the the you know now, being the old
writer talking to younger writers, revision, revision, revision, revision, revision.
That's even more true when it's all yours. You know,
it's actually kind of a little easier when somebody is
telling giving you notes. But if you have to be
your own self critic, revised, revised, revisor, revise, every time
(19:45):
you read through it, that sentence doesn't quite work. And uh,
you know this, this paragraph is too long. Breakup of paragraphs.
I actually got excellent advice from a copy editor I hired,
uh to break up my paragraphs more. I had longer paragress.
And it is interesting. I didn't even notice it at
the time, but now that i'm you know, after getting
(20:06):
that note and doing that with my novel, I read
popular novels and yeah, it's it's it's short. We're living
the era of short paragraphs, which matches our ability to
concentrate on anything.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
But so true, it's so true. It's so funny. My
my friend and I we wrote a actually just recently,
a she's a filmmaker actress, you know, I'm a filmmaker actress,
and we're like, let's create something, you know, that's kind
of based on like our lives a little bit and
also a little bit of like we watch a little
bit of The Matrix and we were inspired with the
(20:39):
whole like waking up and what is the real world?
What's being sleep? You know, all that thing, and so
we did so, you know, I guess, like I think
eleven pages. It's a short film and we're going to
shoot it and super ambitious. But we have some creative
friends that we were going to go and shoot it
and like a weekend and just yeah. So it's something
about out just creating and I love creating with people.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I mean, wonderful sounds. I'm happy for you.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Thank Yeah, it's fun, it's really fun. I'm excited. We're
gonna We're gonna really that's really cool. Creative people and
nice cams and you know, drones and do the whole thing.
So we're very excited to just make something, you know.
I think that's what I like about now. It's like
you can get up and create anything, you know, on
a phone on put anything out these days.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah. I mean when I learned what self publishing was,
I didn't even you know, because back in the day,
self publishing was you know, a guy drives up to
the book fair with a bunch of books in his
trunk and stuff. When I realized it was this whole
world of self publishing and Amazon, KDP and all these Yeah,
I got very excited, like, wow, I could do that.
(21:49):
It's all very current, very modern. And you know what
you're doing with your with your podcast is you know
when did you decide to do that? When did you? Said? I?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Actually during COVID Actually yeah, I was, you know, I
was talking to like during COVID, I you know, I
was talking to my plant. And then I was like,
I have to not do this. This is not healthy.
I got to figure out something. I talked to real people.
So I called a friend who is a radio host,
(22:22):
and I you know, asked for advice, like, you know,
you know, what do you talk about? And he said,
just anything that you enjoy talking about? And so I
was like, well, I'm a filmmaker. I do enjoy talking
to creatives just about the journey, how they did it,
you know, their mistakes and you know where they see
themselves later in life whatever. And so that's how it
kind of started. So I've had this show now for
(22:44):
four years, so it's doing really well. I've had some
amazing guests as yourself, So I'm just.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Really naturally you're really good at it. You keep it going.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
My my mom said I talk too much, so I'm like, wow,
I have a really fun question. And there's no wrong answer.
But the three levels of influence, money, power, and respect,
And if you could choose only one of those things,
which one would you choose in a.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Why, Well, it's a great one. Want to be intellectually
honest here, I'd say I'd order them give them to
me again.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
What are the threnny, power or respect?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
I go respect, money, power, But I mean that's not
putting out power. I mean but but I had a
pretty successful career and I was only a couple of
times I felt real powerful. That was when I was
showrunners and show and stuff that you do your that's
power because you so much depending on you, so that
people give you a lot of responsibility, which is terrifying
(23:54):
sometimes so so I iten't The power is is a
mixed bag too. Of course. It comes with that, you
know no thing. The money, I'm not gonna I'm not
gonna lie money. There are certainly times in my career
I made choices space some money. I have no doubt
of that. I uh, you know, and and uh it
(24:18):
put me in a position to retire forly young. I
retired in my mid fifties, which on everyone, and I
bought a horse ranch horses, and I get it was
riding horses that inspired crazy me know writing that novel,
you know, is thinking on horseback about what I would
like to do in the valley I live in and
how I'd like to describe it and fictionalize it slightly
(24:40):
and so U so money became a handy, but respect, Yeah,
you wanted to be respected and uh and uh uh
you know, I think you hear a lot of people said,
I want to be respected by my peers. Well, of
course I want to be respected by my peers, but
I think I want respect from the outside of the audience,
the people who my product, my art, And so that's
(25:04):
that's actually maybe a little more important to me than
being respected by my peers, because you know, after a
certain point, I want to say, one thing that was
not included in that list is your own spiritual innercore life,
because that's very a quote I have in the book
(25:25):
that is from the French moral Less Epigrammas chamfort is,
I can get it right. Happiness is very difficult to
find in ourselves and impossible to find it anywhere else.
And yeah, it's it's always been meaning well. I read
it about thirty years ago and it's been very meaningful
(25:46):
to me. So your you're spiritual and interior castle. The
Catholic Saint Theresa avad that calls it an interior castle,
which is a wonderful imagery. And I'm not Catholic, but
I just love that imagery. And you know, building up
a spiritual resilience, a fortifying yourself, your interior life is
(26:15):
maybe even you know, I would put that number one
then in respect, because you know, what if what if
you do everything right but you don't get the respect,
it's a lifetime failure. You know, you got to have
something inside, so you're not at the peace, you know
the famous Shakespeare line slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
We don't want to be at the mercy of those.
(26:36):
We want to have something in us that look catastrophes.
I mean, losing our daughter, you know, was a catastrophe.
And there's no you know, you can't have a formidable
enough castle to not be blown away by that, be
destroyed by that. But when you rebuild yourself, it's nice
to know that you have something in there as you
(26:58):
go on from there.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Love that. Oh, thank you for that. That's really great advice.
I was literally going into my question of like, you
know that was literally the next question is, like, you know,
what advice would you give to those out there that
you know that are trying to get into the business,
don't really know quite know how to do it.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah. I talked about work, hard work, if well, let's
talk about writing in particularly. I used to be an
actor to back in the day. I never worked in Hollywood,
but I did work in plays and stuff, so I
have some advice there. But mostly my my, my, my
advice that would be valuable will be as a writer,
and I'd say, right things that you understand and the
(27:44):
old the cliche from back way back when I was
first starting out was write what you know well, if
you're right well. And the first screenplay that broke me
into the business that people read was about me. It
was about a guy driving a truck around LA I
was a teamster for nine years, so it was very
much about my life. So that is some good advice,
but of course not everybody really wants to write things
(28:04):
about their personal things. You want to have because your
imagination is part of you too. But the for instance,
Crazy Book, I yeah, it's it's I imagined all this future,
so I don't know what the future is going to be,
so I can't say I wrote what I know. But
it's also about horseback riding. And I got into shooting
(28:27):
black powder guns. You know, you know, you actually shove
the black powder in and stuff, and then so that's
something I put in the book. You know that they
had the anciety has lost the technology of that we
have with weaponry, so they had to make their own
black powder and stuff. So I'm writing things I know
combined with my imagination. So I would say when you're
(28:47):
first turning out, try to write what you know. Now,
maybe if you're a nerd and you only read science
fiction novels, well at least you know science fiction novels,
so then so at least use that. Uh. Life experience helps, boy,
Life experience helps, uh. And I don't mean you have
to join the French Foreign Legion and stuff like they
did in the old days. I mean that you need
(29:10):
to I think you need to interact a lot with
with the world, and it doesn't have to be risky,
although taking a few risks doesn't hurt. And so building
up experiences so you can you can that didn't work,
yes for me? The the what what you do for
(29:36):
what life experience does for you? And like I'm saying,
I'm not saying about extreme life experience or you have
to you know, go out in and put yourself at
risk or something, but just talk to a lot of
people and stuff. But it gives you is something to
call on when you need it because your creativity, you're
constantly looking at what's the next scene about? Because that
blank blank page, whether it's novels or screenplays, that can
(29:59):
be terrifying. And you go back to a memory you
got or experience you got and you can you can
use that. So and then the other part of that
of writing what you what you what you know about
is also about UH writing a lot you know, right,
keep producing calling card scripts that you can show to people.
(30:21):
And I told you the book that the script that
Glenn Karen read that that UH enabled him to hire
me on Runnington Steele was about a guy who drives
around in in Los Angeles and delivers packages. That's what
I was doing and so uh so, so they hired
me right out of the truck so so to speak,
(30:42):
and h they that's that's a you know, that's a
that's a not a safe. I don't want to say safe,
it's a it's it's a Your real life experience is
something you should tap into. It's yours. You own that
you own your life experience, so use it. And but
your imagination is part of you too. So you know,
(31:02):
I'm not saying, oh, it has to be about truck drivers.
It could be about you know, I could have written
about a guy who drives a spaceship and makes deliveries
to different space stations. You know, that would have been
a way to use my experience and my imagination. So
anyway that that would so write a lot of calling
card scripts and just be ready to for the opportunity.
(31:25):
And that's right, And how do you get ready for it?
You be ready to commit to work. We're back to
how people in Hollywood work.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, I love that. That's such great advice. I have
a question, and you know there's you know, I just
I love asking this because I find this is one
of my favorite questions to ask on the show. But
you know, once your life is over and you get
to the pearly gates of heaven and you meet God,
what would you want to God to say about you
and all the work that you've done.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Wow, that's a good one I would like him to say,
because I know he's not going to say you're a
great guy, A lot to do that he's going to say,
I'd love him to say, you tried very hard to
be a good person. And I, being the creator, you know,
(32:20):
being I'm talking about God, God would say, since I
created you, I know your flawed and your sinful and stuff,
so I'm going to let you pass on that. But
you tried really all. And so that's that's what I
would like to hear that both in that including in
my career too. You know, you tried really hard, and
I think we all have to keep trying. Don't ever
(32:43):
ever give up. I love that.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
That's beautiful. Thank you so much for coming. One minutes
goes by so fast. I am lovely, so refreshing.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yes, and I had a great time and luck with
what you're doing, I think you're great at it.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Thank you, Thank you so much. Your mouth to God's ears.
Please we'll have a wonderful day and please come back anytime.
And thank you, thank you all for listening, and always
remember to live, love, laugh. We'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Bye bye, bye bye
If you love entertainment, current events, and Hollywood, don't miss
Creator to Creators. Hosted by the filmmaker Mio Shabine, known
for the shutter Hit documentary or Noir and the acclaimed
film Anatomy of an Anti Hero Redemption. This show features
interviews with filmmakers and creatives from around the globe. Join
(00:25):
the fun with guest celebrities and gain valuable insights. Subscribe
now and follow Creator to Creators.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hi, guys, welcome to another episode of Creators to Creators. Today,
today we have a special guest, R. J.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Stewart.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Be here the same, thank you for being on. I mean, gosh,
your resume is impeccable. It's pretty impressive. I always liked
going yeah, I always, but I really love going back
to the beginning. I always say the beginning kind of
charge our trajectory, Like there are little habits that we
pick up when we're children kind of somehow follow us
(01:12):
us into our adulthood. So tell me a little bit
about your childhood. What was that like and how did
you kind of find your way into the entertainment world.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
My dad was a career Air Force guy. Uh, and
so we traveled a lot, and that'll that'll work into
the story. But one of the he worked, he wasn't
a pilot, he was a sergeant. He worked mostly in
base supply. But he was a master storyteller. And uh,
he used to sip by my He knew I was
obsessed when I was a kid. I was obsessed with
(01:45):
the Disney characters and uh, the Peanuts cartoon. You know,
Charlie Brown, Schroeder, those guys. Yeah, he would sit next
to my bed and tell me stories. He'd make up
about these characters. So and he loved doing it. One
time he was on a tour of duty and he
sent me a long letter. I still have the letter
of of a you know, goofy came into the room
(02:07):
and there was mickey and stuff. And so the idea
of storytelling was introduced to me very early on. And
and the kind of writing I do, that's what it is.
It's storytelling. Of course, you have to do all the
characters and timing and screenwriting brings one one aspect of it,
and writing a novel is another. But the uh, uh,
(02:29):
it's it's all. It's about telling a good story, and
so I had that very early on. And then when
I was I started writing. Okay, I actually found some
of my really early writing and it was what you expect,
childlike and boring and predictable. But it did show my
(02:50):
ambition in that way. And then when I was about twelve,
I had a teacher named mister Sayuta. I'm going to
give him credit for this because he said, a story,
a creative story, and I'll give you extra credit for it.
Uh and I uh. I was at that time intoxicated
(03:11):
with the novels of Alastair Rikklean, who is a famous
action a venture novelist. At the time, several of his
books returned into movies Guns of an avarone Ice Station Zebra.
So I wrote it in that style and he, you know,
about four pages it was, you know, and he given
I remember that I made that. There was a lot
(03:32):
of news about Lawrence of Arabia is going to come out,
you know, it was this, this is a pre movie
come out. So I made the main character in arab
even though I knew nothing about Arabs anything like that
except what I saw in movies. And he said that
that was that was good. Every week after that I
wrote a story and gave it to him, and he'd
(03:53):
come up to me and say, you know, I'm not
giving you extra credit for these these stories that you're
turning in every week. And I said, that's okay, I
just want to do it, and he was. He was
a good sport. He mostly read them. Like I said.
They were very short, and I'm sure everyone had the
manly man character and hero saving the damsel and stuff.
And uh. At that time though, that was my first Uh,
(04:15):
this is this is not about me so much, it's
about a creative stimulus. I had. The movie Guns of
an Avarone came out. Oh, I didn't mention. We were
stationed my devastation in eraclyon Crete, Greece. So we were
in Greece when a movie came out called Because the
Guns and Evroone by by Alistair McLean, the one I
just referred to. And one of the characters in there
(04:37):
was the great Greek actress Irene Pappus, playing a badass,
very empowered woman, and I was already madly in love
with her because her poster was on every bus stop
and every body store and uh. So that began my
love of of writing and being attracted to woman in
(05:00):
novels and in drama, and I.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Love that you were attracted to powerful women. I think
a lot of times you don't really see that nowadays,
Like I mean, I think it's beautiful to have a man,
a male writer who uplifts a female character because we
don't really see, you know, too many. I mean a
lot of times in cinema you see like the woman,
(05:24):
submissive wife, she's you know, playing the woman role. Like
it's great and all, but it's really cool to see
like a powerful, like strong woman kicking button doing stuff
and looking good doing it.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
You know. Hey, I've been fortunate enough for my career
to get that opportunity a lot because the first job
I ever had was on Remings Steele. I was the
cubby writer on that show. It was my first job,
and I don't know if you recall the premise of
the series, but it was. Laura Holt is a crack
private detective, but she's because of the prejudice against hiring
(05:56):
a woman private detective. She wants to hire an he
suit to be the front for the for the agency,
so she hires a guy named she might have even
made up the name Remington Steel but of course the
person they cast was Pierce Brosin now, because Pierce was
such a big hit, I mean huge matter of fact,
(06:17):
when I first came on the job, they asked me
what I thought of the show, and I said, oh,
a great, wonderful of course, some kind of praise the show,
and they said, to be honest, tell us what you
really think. And at the time I was young and stupid,
and I believe that he wanted the honesty, and I said, well,
it's fabulous, and I love Stephanie Zimbolist as Laura Hold
(06:38):
and stuff, but you know, you got to write more
for that Pierce Brosnan guy. He's he's great, which doesn't
make me a genius. It was just the reaction the
whole world have when the show aired a few weeks later.
And so you know, as far as Stephanie was a
wonderful actress and a very very sweet, loving person, but
unfortunately the show moved a little away from that original
(07:01):
premise and they became more equal, so it came being
a little bit more like what Moonlighting would become and
not points metal. Glenn Karen, who created Moonlighting as the
guy who hired me on remug stealing.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Oh wow, very cool. Would you say that, Like, you know,
was there like all through your life? Was it like
those moments of like it just your things just came
to you because you like just trust the process of
just a.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Tr there is. It's a combination, you know, when your
people have mixed views about Hollywood. Some people, Yeah, people
don't like Hollywood and sort of thing. One thing I'll
say in an absolutely true of Hollywood, and everyone has
to understand people work hard in Hollywood. And my advice
to any young person trying to break and just works
(07:51):
so hard and then just try to discipline yourself so
that when an opportunity comes up, you're ready for it.
And the uh that that that that's the key is
hard working and then you need some luck. You really
do you need someone?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, I hear that a lot. The luck thing is
the thing. It's like, it's interesting, It's like I think
that that that you know, obviously everyone can't you know,
quote unquote make it. But like you said, it's the
hard work. And I think if you love what you
do and you kind of continue to be curious and
work hard, I think things just open up to you. Yeah,
(08:32):
I absolutely believe that you can do anything really if
if you really enjoy it. So I think it's like
knowing what you and I don't think there's like one
way particularly. I think there's like many ways to go about,
you know, the career. But yeah, it's amazing how you know,
your life just unfolded. It seemed like it was very
easy process. Did you have like any uncertainty along the journey?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Not? Once I started working, Yeah, yeah, this is my thing?
Is what else am I going to do? You know?
You know you hear that a lot on different interviews,
But I think it's if we but you put a
lot of creative Hollywood people together, they'd all come to
that eventually, like what else were we going to do?
It's kind of a scary thing. I'm sure there are
people that go on to do fine things. I mean,
(09:17):
it's not sure. You don't just give up if you
don't make it. And it's a very difficult world to
break into. So I mean someone shouldn't be discouraged in
all of life because they don't make it Hollywood. But
I think once you start working in Hollywood, you realize
this is where I belong, you know, So in that way, well,
you know, we didn't get to Zena as far as
(09:38):
the formidable woman that I developed and wrote and produced Xena.
That was kind of luck, you know, I mean luck
that they found me. Luck for them and for me.
I really was thinking in a total different direction at
the time. And when my agent on the phone pitched
the idea to.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Me and I said, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Then I saw Lucy in the park, because Lucy had
been a villain on Hercules. I saw her in the park.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Another words, Zena, the character Zena was introduced into into Hercules,
and I thought, ooh, that's cool. Yeah, and that's so
I committed to writing the pilot and that. But I
mean those kind of things. You know, if you would
have told me that year, you know, what is your
next job? I would have I had just come off
of a show that didn't succeed. Uh, you know, most
(10:30):
most shows don't. So I have been a supervising producer
on a show called The Great Pretender, which was with
the great actor Michael I mean the Great Defender. I
meant to say a Great Defender. It was a pun on,
you know, a play on the Great Pretender, and it
was Michael Rispoli, a wonderful actor was the lead. It
(10:52):
was about lawyers and stuff because I had a sound
sort of likeness to it, and and I thought I
wrote well for that show. And I think, and that's
probably where I'm going next. But you know, in a
wonderful way, it came full circle back in my Alistair
McLean days, I was writing action and now I'm back
writing action and adventure. And it felt really yeah, luck
to that too, the matching up the actor to the
(11:15):
to the material, the writer to the material. There's another
thing of luck, you know. I mean, because you know,
maybe if I went off to write a because I
had some connections with the people who eventually made West Wing, Okay,
so okay, yeah, the theoretically I could have ended up there,
but maybe I wouldn't have thrived there. You know, maybe
maybe I wouldn't have done as well there. And but
(11:36):
I was the right guy for Zina. No.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I mean an amazing show. I mean classic, and it's
it's like it's like it goes down in history. It's
one of the best action adventures, you know, shows about
the time. Like I remember watching it growing up, like
and you know, I was like, wow, what a powerful woman.
And it just made me believe that, you know, it
was awesome to see a woman doing all these things
and looked great doing it, and it's just it goes
(12:02):
to show you, like, you know, it's like we can
do and have these kind of roles in the business.
So thank you for wanting to make something that important.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah, I everybody thinks a little bit about their legacy
and stuff, and I think with us people that were
involved with Xena, the one thing we get a little
frustrated now is people don't realize how innovative it was
at the time. Yeah, in the nineties we were giving
credit where Stue we were simultaneous with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
(12:34):
We were both on at the same time, so they
had two kick ass women on it simultaneously. So it
wasn't just us, but it was we went in a
direction that Buffy did as far as violence and her
the whole ethical conundrum of when you use violence and
when you don't, and you know, that's it was the
(12:55):
contrast between her and gabriel her her sidekick was you know,
riel was less prone to violence and and Xena felt
she needed to protect Gabrielle in some ways, although by
the end of the series, Gabrielle had evolved into her
own former rules. So the tension that is that, I
just you know, I just stumbled on this myself thinking
(13:16):
about it. I love writing for already empowered women, you know,
so rather than the the the wonderful movies. I love
the movies where a woman is doesn't feel empowered and
then we watch her become empowered those important things. But
I enjoy writing for the already empowered woman. But we
had both on Zena. We had powered woman and we
(13:37):
had the arc of the woman who becomes empowered Gabrielle.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Right, yeah, it's beautiful. How was it working with her?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
With Lucy? Uh, she's a true just a wonderful actress
and a wonderful person. I talked to her last August
and she looked graaty, she looks, you know, it was
like this. It wasn't zoom. I think it was the
other version of it. But yeah, uh, the the uh
it was. It was wonderful talking to her. She's still
(14:07):
as funny and is as kind and loving as she
always was. And so she lives in New Zealand, so
I don't see her very often.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Oh I see, I see, I see New Zealand. I
love New Zealand. So let's talk about your new thriller.
I'm excited for this post apocalyptic thriller. So what made
you go in this direction and why? Now?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Well, it's a it's the name of the book. It
is Crazy Hawk, It's you're writ some post apocalyptic thriller.
The uh. When I was a long time ago, I
read a book called Can't Go for Liba Witch, which
is about a post apocalyptic world. In that world, it's
(14:56):
deep future, thousands of years in the future, and it's
after a nuclear war and everything is destroyed, and so
it's very different from my book. But what I bring
it up is that one thing that fascinated me about
it is that at a certain point, some of the
characters discover a fallout sketch, a shelter that is pretty
much intact, and the people in Cantaicula Label Woods try
(15:19):
to figure out what the world was before the war
from the evidence they find that in that fallout shelter
and fascinated me. So I wanted to take a shot
at creating my own world, my own post apocalyptic world.
And when the main character is Deer Drum, she's a
very formidable, empowered woman, and she when we meet her,
(15:42):
she's on the trail of the men who kidnapped her sister,
which is bad news for those men, because she's a
very serious, deadly, relentless warrior. And what the world she
travels in is the ruined world that you and I
(16:03):
live in, you know. So she's investigating what our world
is as she moves in after she as she pursues
the villains, and so she's and she's trying to formulate
an idea of what the world was in our day,
and and that's what was fun about that thing. And
she's not always right, you know, because she can't quite
(16:25):
figure out what the cloud was. They stored information in
the cloud. I'm not sure it was in the sky.
Was it a real cloud? So so, so she's trying
to piece together our world. So it's a fun it's
a fun challenge. You get to create your own new world,
but you get to comment on our world at the
same time.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I love that. I love that. How long I mean,
how long was it did it take to create this?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Well there, it's impossible to tell that story without bringing
up some very sad things.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
We lost our daughter, Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Appreciate it, thank you, and that so I conceived it
originally in Japan in twenty thirteen. We were traveling to
a new Distinct tourist in Japan and my horse had
lost the vision in his right eye. I'm a big
horse rider, and the one of the main characters in
the book is Danny, who is based very much on
my horse, and I just thought of the opening line
(17:22):
was her horse had one eye, and that is the
opening line of the book. And I started working on that.
I probably had a zero draft by the end of
twenty fourteen, and that's when Laurie got the diagnosis stage
four cancer. And then so it took a while to
get back to it, you know what I'm saying, So
(17:42):
how long I would say the first thing of creating
that zero draft. When I say zero drafting, it was
such a rough draft and here's a lot of editing,
and wouldn't even call it a first draft. And that
took about That was twenty thirteen and some twenty fourteen,
and then when I came back to it after the
(18:03):
Lord had passed in twenty eighteen, started working on twenty nineteen,
and then when a COVID hit. I said, Okay, when
people ask what did you do during COVID, I finished
this novel. That's what I'm going to say. Yeah, I
mean then I wanted a self published because because when
you're a screenwriter, what the goal of a screenwriter is
(18:23):
is to hand it off to other people, let them
make a wonderful lily, or maybe not make a wonderful lily.
But what I you know what, I wanted to self
publish because I get to control it all, you know,
I get this is my work and I'm very proud
of it, and people seem to like it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I love that, well, congrats on that. And I love
that you you know. It's something about having when it's yours, right,
it's like it feels like it It's like, wow, I
did that. It's all me.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
It's like something. Yeah, that's you know, it's I've we've
got I've got a couple of nice print reviews from
Kirkus and uh forward forward Clarion and I, uh, it's
it's very very nice feelings and nice customer reviews and stuff.
It's very nice to see.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
That, you know, And that's beautiful and I go ahead
now you please, please please, No, I was going to.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Say that the the you know now, being the old
writer talking to younger writers, revision, revision, revision, revision, revision.
That's even more true when it's all yours. You know,
it's actually kind of a little easier when somebody is
telling giving you notes. But if you have to be
your own self critic, revised, revised, revisor, revise, every time
(19:45):
you read through it, that sentence doesn't quite work. And uh,
you know this, this paragraph is too long. Breakup of paragraphs.
I actually got excellent advice from a copy editor I hired,
uh to break up my paragraphs more. I had longer paragress.
And it is interesting. I didn't even notice it at
the time, but now that i'm you know, after getting
(20:06):
that note and doing that with my novel, I read
popular novels and yeah, it's it's it's short. We're living
the era of short paragraphs, which matches our ability to
concentrate on anything.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
But so true, it's so true. It's so funny. My
my friend and I we wrote a actually just recently,
a she's a filmmaker actress, you know, I'm a filmmaker actress,
and we're like, let's create something, you know, that's kind
of based on like our lives a little bit and
also a little bit of like we watch a little
bit of The Matrix and we were inspired with the
(20:39):
whole like waking up and what is the real world?
What's being sleep? You know, all that thing, and so
we did so, you know, I guess, like I think
eleven pages. It's a short film and we're going to
shoot it and super ambitious. But we have some creative
friends that we were going to go and shoot it
and like a weekend and just yeah. So it's something
about out just creating and I love creating with people.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I mean, wonderful sounds. I'm happy for you.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Thank Yeah, it's fun, it's really fun. I'm excited. We're
gonna We're gonna really that's really cool. Creative people and
nice cams and you know, drones and do the whole thing.
So we're very excited to just make something, you know.
I think that's what I like about now. It's like
you can get up and create anything, you know, on
a phone on put anything out these days.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah. I mean when I learned what self publishing was,
I didn't even you know, because back in the day,
self publishing was you know, a guy drives up to
the book fair with a bunch of books in his
trunk and stuff. When I realized it was this whole
world of self publishing and Amazon, KDP and all these Yeah,
I got very excited, like, wow, I could do that.
(21:49):
It's all very current, very modern. And you know what
you're doing with your with your podcast is you know
when did you decide to do that? When did you? Said? I?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Actually during COVID Actually yeah, I was, you know, I
was talking to like during COVID, I you know, I
was talking to my plant. And then I was like,
I have to not do this. This is not healthy.
I got to figure out something. I talked to real people.
So I called a friend who is a radio host,
(22:22):
and I you know, asked for advice, like, you know,
you know, what do you talk about? And he said,
just anything that you enjoy talking about? And so I
was like, well, I'm a filmmaker. I do enjoy talking
to creatives just about the journey, how they did it,
you know, their mistakes and you know where they see
themselves later in life whatever. And so that's how it
kind of started. So I've had this show now for
(22:44):
four years, so it's doing really well. I've had some
amazing guests as yourself, So I'm just.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Really naturally you're really good at it. You keep it going.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
My my mom said I talk too much, so I'm like, wow,
I have a really fun question. And there's no wrong answer.
But the three levels of influence, money, power, and respect,
And if you could choose only one of those things,
which one would you choose in a.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Why, Well, it's a great one. Want to be intellectually
honest here, I'd say I'd order them give them to
me again.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
What are the threnny, power or respect?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
I go respect, money, power, But I mean that's not
putting out power. I mean but but I had a
pretty successful career and I was only a couple of
times I felt real powerful. That was when I was
showrunners and show and stuff that you do your that's
power because you so much depending on you, so that
people give you a lot of responsibility, which is terrifying
(23:54):
sometimes so so I iten't The power is is a
mixed bag too. Of course. It comes with that, you
know no thing. The money, I'm not gonna I'm not
gonna lie money. There are certainly times in my career
I made choices space some money. I have no doubt
of that. I uh, you know, and and uh it
(24:18):
put me in a position to retire forly young. I
retired in my mid fifties, which on everyone, and I
bought a horse ranch horses, and I get it was
riding horses that inspired crazy me know writing that novel,
you know, is thinking on horseback about what I would
like to do in the valley I live in and
how I'd like to describe it and fictionalize it slightly
(24:40):
and so U so money became a handy, but respect, Yeah,
you wanted to be respected and uh and uh uh
you know, I think you hear a lot of people said,
I want to be respected by my peers. Well, of
course I want to be respected by my peers, but
I think I want respect from the outside of the audience,
the people who my product, my art, And so that's
(25:04):
that's actually maybe a little more important to me than
being respected by my peers, because you know, after a
certain point, I want to say, one thing that was
not included in that list is your own spiritual innercore life,
because that's very a quote I have in the book
(25:25):
that is from the French moral Less Epigrammas chamfort is,
I can get it right. Happiness is very difficult to
find in ourselves and impossible to find it anywhere else.
And yeah, it's it's always been meaning well. I read
it about thirty years ago and it's been very meaningful
(25:46):
to me. So your you're spiritual and interior castle. The
Catholic Saint Theresa avad that calls it an interior castle,
which is a wonderful imagery. And I'm not Catholic, but
I just love that imagery. And you know, building up
a spiritual resilience, a fortifying yourself, your interior life is
(26:15):
maybe even you know, I would put that number one
then in respect, because you know, what if what if
you do everything right but you don't get the respect,
it's a lifetime failure. You know, you got to have
something inside, so you're not at the peace, you know
the famous Shakespeare line slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
We don't want to be at the mercy of those.
(26:36):
We want to have something in us that look catastrophes.
I mean, losing our daughter, you know, was a catastrophe.
And there's no you know, you can't have a formidable
enough castle to not be blown away by that, be
destroyed by that. But when you rebuild yourself, it's nice
to know that you have something in there as you
(26:58):
go on from there.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Love that. Oh, thank you for that. That's really great advice.
I was literally going into my question of like, you
know that was literally the next question is, like, you know,
what advice would you give to those out there that
you know that are trying to get into the business,
don't really know quite know how to do it.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah. I talked about work, hard work, if well, let's
talk about writing in particularly. I used to be an
actor to back in the day. I never worked in Hollywood,
but I did work in plays and stuff, so I
have some advice there. But mostly my my, my, my
advice that would be valuable will be as a writer,
and I'd say, right things that you understand and the
(27:44):
old the cliche from back way back when I was
first starting out was write what you know well, if
you're right well. And the first screenplay that broke me
into the business that people read was about me. It
was about a guy driving a truck around LA I
was a teamster for nine years, so it was very
much about my life. So that is some good advice,
but of course not everybody really wants to write things
(28:04):
about their personal things. You want to have because your
imagination is part of you too. But the for instance,
Crazy Book, I yeah, it's it's I imagined all this future,
so I don't know what the future is going to be,
so I can't say I wrote what I know. But
it's also about horseback riding. And I got into shooting
(28:27):
black powder guns. You know, you know, you actually shove
the black powder in and stuff, and then so that's
something I put in the book. You know that they
had the anciety has lost the technology of that we
have with weaponry, so they had to make their own
black powder and stuff. So I'm writing things I know
combined with my imagination. So I would say when you're
(28:47):
first turning out, try to write what you know. Now,
maybe if you're a nerd and you only read science
fiction novels, well at least you know science fiction novels,
so then so at least use that. Uh. Life experience helps, boy,
Life experience helps, uh. And I don't mean you have
to join the French Foreign Legion and stuff like they
did in the old days. I mean that you need
(29:10):
to I think you need to interact a lot with
with the world, and it doesn't have to be risky,
although taking a few risks doesn't hurt. And so building
up experiences so you can you can that didn't work,
yes for me? The the what what you do for
(29:36):
what life experience does for you? And like I'm saying,
I'm not saying about extreme life experience or you have
to you know, go out in and put yourself at
risk or something, but just talk to a lot of
people and stuff. But it gives you is something to
call on when you need it because your creativity, you're
constantly looking at what's the next scene about? Because that
blank blank page, whether it's novels or screenplays, that can
(29:59):
be terrifying. And you go back to a memory you
got or experience you got and you can you can
use that. So and then the other part of that
of writing what you what you what you know about
is also about UH writing a lot you know, right,
keep producing calling card scripts that you can show to people.
(30:21):
And I told you the book that the script that
Glenn Karen read that that UH enabled him to hire
me on Runnington Steele was about a guy who drives
around in in Los Angeles and delivers packages. That's what
I was doing and so uh so, so they hired
me right out of the truck so so to speak,
(30:42):
and h they that's that's a you know, that's a
that's a not a safe. I don't want to say safe,
it's a it's it's a Your real life experience is
something you should tap into. It's yours. You own that
you own your life experience, so use it. And but
your imagination is part of you too. So you know,
(31:02):
I'm not saying, oh, it has to be about truck drivers.
It could be about you know, I could have written
about a guy who drives a spaceship and makes deliveries
to different space stations. You know, that would have been
a way to use my experience and my imagination. So
anyway that that would so write a lot of calling
card scripts and just be ready to for the opportunity.
(31:25):
And that's right, And how do you get ready for it?
You be ready to commit to work. We're back to
how people in Hollywood work.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, I love that. That's such great advice. I have
a question, and you know there's you know, I just
I love asking this because I find this is one
of my favorite questions to ask on the show. But
you know, once your life is over and you get
to the pearly gates of heaven and you meet God,
what would you want to God to say about you
and all the work that you've done.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Wow, that's a good one I would like him to say,
because I know he's not going to say you're a
great guy, A lot to do that he's going to say,
I'd love him to say, you tried very hard to
be a good person. And I, being the creator, you know,
(32:20):
being I'm talking about God, God would say, since I
created you, I know your flawed and your sinful and stuff,
so I'm going to let you pass on that. But
you tried really all. And so that's that's what I
would like to hear that both in that including in
my career too. You know, you tried really hard, and
I think we all have to keep trying. Don't ever
(32:43):
ever give up. I love that.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
That's beautiful. Thank you so much for coming. One minutes
goes by so fast. I am lovely, so refreshing.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yes, and I had a great time and luck with
what you're doing, I think you're great at it.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Thank you, Thank you so much. Your mouth to God's ears.
Please we'll have a wonderful day and please come back anytime.
And thank you, thank you all for listening, and always
remember to live, love, laugh. We'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Bye bye, bye bye
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