April 18, 2025 • 47 mins
Errata: William acknowledges that the fifth book in the Douglas Adams Hitchhiker series is "Mostly Harmless," not "Mostly Serious" although he thinks both equally inaccurate. The Faulkner quote he butchers is "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
The title of the Barry Friedman series we didn't say aloud is Jack Sh*t 1 & 2, lovely vignettes of his father's colorful wit and wisdom.
This Week on WriterCon:
Bestselling authors William and Lara Bernhardt discuss the latest news from the book world, offer writing tips, and interview Matt Goldman, New York Times bestselling author, playwright, and Emmy Award-winning television writer for Seinfeld, Ellen, and other shows. He has now written a novel, The Murder Show.
0:00 Opening Thoughts
Check out the new books from fabulous Friends of WriterCon (and edited by Lara): Beauty and the Bund by John Wooley and Broadway Dreamer by Lynette Bennett.
5:13 News
1) Author of the Original Vampire Dairies Books was Blackballed from Her Own Series
2) AI-written Poetry is Indistinguishable and More Popular than Human Poetry
21:06 Craft Corner
Desire Duffy of Black Chateau talks about how to get reviews from readers.
25:26 Interview with Matt Goldman, author of The Murder Room
45:46 Parting Words
The WriterCon Alaskan Cruise departs from Seattle on May 31. Wouldn't you like to be writing and learning about writing on the high seas?
The WriterCon Retreat is July 17 at the Canebrake Resort not far from Tulsa OK. Take a deep dive into your work at this gorgeous location. Small and Large groups meetings every day.
Until next time, keep writing, and remember: You cannot fail, if you refuse to quit.
William Bernhardt
www.williambernhardt.com
www.writercon.com
The title of the Barry Friedman series we didn't say aloud is Jack Sh*t 1 & 2, lovely vignettes of his father's colorful wit and wisdom.
This Week on WriterCon:
Bestselling authors William and Lara Bernhardt discuss the latest news from the book world, offer writing tips, and interview Matt Goldman, New York Times bestselling author, playwright, and Emmy Award-winning television writer for Seinfeld, Ellen, and other shows. He has now written a novel, The Murder Show.
0:00 Opening Thoughts
Check out the new books from fabulous Friends of WriterCon (and edited by Lara): Beauty and the Bund by John Wooley and Broadway Dreamer by Lynette Bennett.
5:13 News
1) Author of the Original Vampire Dairies Books was Blackballed from Her Own Series
2) AI-written Poetry is Indistinguishable and More Popular than Human Poetry
21:06 Craft Corner
Desire Duffy of Black Chateau talks about how to get reviews from readers.
25:26 Interview with Matt Goldman, author of The Murder Room
45:46 Parting Words
The WriterCon Alaskan Cruise departs from Seattle on May 31. Wouldn't you like to be writing and learning about writing on the high seas?
The WriterCon Retreat is July 17 at the Canebrake Resort not far from Tulsa OK. Take a deep dive into your work at this gorgeous location. Small and Large groups meetings every day.
Until next time, keep writing, and remember: You cannot fail, if you refuse to quit.
William Bernhardt
www.williambernhardt.com
www.writercon.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on the writer Con podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I want piece of advice is be kind to yourself,
don't beat yourself up.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to writer Con, a gathering place for writers to
share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, author
of the want lnd Files book series.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Thank you, Jesse Ulrich. Hey, they're writers. Thanks for joining us.
I'm just back in town from another of my mysterious
research trips. Will I reveal this subject to the research. Yeah.
Once I finished the book, which will not be this podcast,
we can celebrate the release of Like. In this two
(00:50):
week period, just before this podcast came out, not one
but two books have come from out written by writer
Con friends who have been on the podcas asked and
come to the conference every year. I'm talking about John Woolley,
been here many times. He just released Beauty in the Bund,
Lynette Bennett just released her memoir Broadway Dreamer, and Laura,
(01:13):
I think you edited both of those books, didn't you did?
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Yes? Edited and designed? I sure did. And I'm so
happy for Lynette. I've been working with her and watching
her progress for more than more years than I think
I'm willing to admit. And I'm so happy for her
to see that book come out.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, yeah, good news. Jossy.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
John's books are just always so much fun to read.
I love working with him too, So all all did
things you think? You know?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
The book Beauty and the Bund is basically typed. It's
an epistolary novel. To use my English major. It's people
typing letters back and forth to each other, one of
whom is John, and one of whom is his co author,
Robert I mean, Jesse. Is there an audio book here?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, there's a great audio book here, them just ring
letters to each other, John.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Coley, you would have to play Robert because sadly Robert Brown,
whose co author has passed, but John can be John.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, that's actually jumping ahead in your own script. Yes,
talking about Barry's new book. We've we've been constantly having
conversations about how we can do an audio book about.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Even though he's in Portugal.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well no, not even just himing in Portugal. It's just
like books about his dad. Who's going to play his dad?
Who's going to play him? Because like he can't do both,
and I was like, what if I read you and
you read your dad?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
So, because that's usually us the punchline, So that makes sense.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, yeah, we're talking about the books whose titles we
can't mention or I have to check and adults only box.
But it's Jack and then there's another word, and it
means that stuff written by Barry's father, Jack. Barry has
been on the podcast before talking about them. He's done
(03:06):
two and apparently there's going to be three and of
four in this incredibly incorrectly titled trilogy based upon his
sleeve father. Right.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
I know I knew Jack my entire life.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I don't know if there's four books worth of his
uh fascinating wisdom.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
But you know, Barry's a very good writer. He'll figure
it out.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
He is a good writer and a good friend.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Following in the brilliant footsteps of Douglas Adams, there you
go and the four books in his Hitchhiker's trilogy.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So okay, five toward the end? Weren't there was there
a fifth?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Oh well, listen, listeners, make sure to correct us in
the rudest way possible.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
I'll do anything, be it comments. Yeah, yeah, I just
want some feedback. Maybe I should start dropping intentional mistake.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, we should. I mean that's the truly that those
are the people who like to respond to the mine.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Right, Well, so long and thanks for all. The Fish
was the fourth book in the trilogy. If more came
out to it, I know Samon of a Doubt.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Was part of Mostly Serious or something like that.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
And that one wasn't finished. I don't think it was
part of that doesn't count.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Wasn't finished doesn't count if he didn't finish it, all right.
Our interview today is with Matt Goldman. Matt is a
New York Times bestselling author and a playwright, and an
Emmy Award winning television writer. He wrote for Seinfeld, wrote
for Ellen the sitcom, and a bunch of other shows.
(04:34):
Now he's written a novel, not his first but very goods,
called The Murder Show, which involves, you guessed it, the
making of a television show that goes bad in a
really big way. It's a really pulse racing novel about
secrets and old friends and how the past never really
(04:58):
leaves us. Is that a that's like a paraphrase of
Faulkner isn't the thing about the past is it's never
passed or something like that. Anyway, looking forward to talking
to Matt, But first the news news story number one.
(05:30):
This relates to sadly the passing of a wonderful author.
Her name was L. J. Smith. She was the original
author of the Vampire Diaries books. She's passed away at
the age thirty seven. That's not actually what this story
is about. This is a story. Well it's not exactly Jesse,
(05:52):
your series of writers behaving badly. It's just let me
tell the story. So she wrote these ya now for
the Vampire Diary series, which of course became a hit
television drama and led to what the Wall Street Journal
called one of the strangest comebacks in literary history. Here's
(06:13):
what happened. Let me set the stage. Is a company
called Alloy Entertainment. They had noticed the popularity of the
Twilight books and they wanted a young adult version of
some supernatural romance things. So they asked LJ. Smith to
write what became The Vampire Diaries, a series centered on
this love triangle involving a girl named Elena and it's
(06:37):
vampire brothers, right, Stefan and damon. Yeah, so she wrote
the first three books for HarperCollins were published starting in
nineteen ninety one. A fourth was released. No, all three
of them were in ninety one, then a fourth and
ninety two. Let me give you a little background about
(06:57):
MS Smith. Her first agent was her type at Okay,
the typist had never represented a client. She wrote the trilogy.
According to her and what she told the Wall Street Journal,
she wrote the original trilogy for an advance of only
a few thousand dollars, not realizing, probably because she didn't
(07:18):
go to law school, that the app made it work
for hire because they hired her to write this specific thing,
so she didn't ultimately own the copyright for the characters.
By two thousand and seven, the sales of the Vampire
dis had skyrocketed, and she was contracted to write another trilogy.
(07:40):
But it didn't happen. No, that trilogy did happen. It's
in twenty fourteen. By that time, the series had sold
more than five million copies, but Miss Smith was no
longer writing them. Alloy fired her over what they called
creative differences, and then hired a ghost writer. At first
(08:02):
and later somebody used the pen name Aubrey Clark to
actually write the final six books in the series, and
she and that, and since Alloy owned it, they could
control who wrote it who didn't. And so LJ. Smith,
the creator of this thing, could no longer write her
(08:22):
own characters for a publisher. And so what did she do?
She retreated to fan fiction. So she's writing fan fiction
about the characters she created. But because it was fun
faction and not being a fan fiction and not being sold,
you know, she could do it. And people came to
(08:42):
her because they knew she was the original author of
this thing. And it's a cod convoluted story, but bizarre
that someone is creating successful series characters, even becomes a
successful television series, but it ends up not being able
to write their own characters, except maybe for free online.
(09:07):
I don't know, Laura, what are your thoughts on this.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
We've talked before about how critical it is to read
your contracts, read them very carefully and watch for things
like this. Bill has mentioned before. Publishers are out to
make money. They are not there as the supporter of
(09:33):
the arts, and they're they're not They're going to be
looking at their own bottom line. So for them, this
is an ideal situation. They paid very little and it
was over and they got to keep everything else. But
it drives me crazy when the actual creators of content
(09:53):
are tossed to the side like this, Yeah, ripped off,
ripped off.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I mean, I know it was legal, but that doesn't
make it any like it anymore exactly.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
We're not suggesting that they did anything illegal. But that's
why you have to be so very careful, pay attention
to your contract.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
You probably knew, because for one thing, I always have
to drop a Superman reference in every episode, and two
this is not at all on that'll come later. Jesse
covers that sometimes. But did you know that at one
point Paramount offered to sell Star Trek back to Roddenberry
(10:32):
for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but he said
no because he didn't have it. Oh my gosh. But
getting back to Superman, because that's another rights issue because
as most people know, you know, they got Superman published
and it was a huge hit, and they did make
some money in the early years until they were fired.
(10:53):
But the point is they weren't in control of their
own character because of an agreement that they'd had to
sign that I had to sign. That's how they got
the thing published, but it meant they didn't own Superman
anymore and eventually got cut out of it. Jesse, you
look like this is not pleasing you, but.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
No, I did very upsetting and Telsa has its own.
The woman who created Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Bright, I believe,
lives in town and also doesn't control the rights to
her creations.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Does not create it. Wow. Why how something she signed?
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Probably, And I'm just like you know, like again, legality
and morality are two different things, and just because people
didn't do anything more legally wrong doesn't mean it's not
morally corrupt. And stealing people's inventions and then not giving.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
Them the ability to continue to make money off them
is just wrong.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
Yeah, that's a good for legally legally right, but morally
wrong corrupt is more dramatic, though.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
I'm throwing some flair in there for you.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
No, I didn't know Strawberry Shortcake creator was right right
here in Oklahoma.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yeah, we met her at an event she was doing
like a like I mean it it was technically just
a signing because she doesn't I mean, I think maybe
she did write a book. Or someone wrote a book
about her and she was just you know, people were
bringing care bearers and strawberry shortcakes and she was signing
them and taking pictures and she was dressed up like
strawberry shortcake. She's a delightful woman. So wow, to support
(12:28):
her somehow.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Bottom line writers.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
Look at them contracts.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, good, get somebody else to look at it.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Run the contract through AI, be like, do I still
own write to my characters?
Speaker 5 (12:40):
That's a good use of AI.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
If you have an agent, your agent should be able
to help. But even if you if you don't, get
a lawyer to look at it. Seriously, it's like an
hour of her or his time, and it's worth.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
It, and they can let you know. And don't get desperate.
Don't get so so excited that you're being offered a
contract that you're just desperate, and sign it and go.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, all right, news story number two. You can file
this under I never thought I'd be saying these words,
but here's the headline. According to a recent study, AI
generated poetry is indistinguishable from human written poetry, and furthermore,
(13:24):
is rated more favorably by humans not by a this study,
they took AI generated text which obviously is involving evolving
over time. But they used and this may be key,
I'm using the words from the study itself non expert readers.
(13:45):
Take that to mean what you will, and gave them
samples of both AI generated poetry and human generated poetry
and asked whether they could tell the difference. They could
not with any reliable consistency. They couldn't. And according to
the people running the study, the poetry came from well
(14:06):
known human poets, but still nobody could tell the difference.
And furthermore, when they came to rate how much they
liked a particular poem, you know, focusing on particular qualities
like rhythm and beauty, and you probably already know where
this is going, AI poetry generally was rated more favorably
(14:32):
than human written poems. Maybe the computer programs have learned
how to imitate something people like, I don't know, Jesse,
would you read a poem written by AI program?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I mean it depends on how long it is.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Read a poem written by anyone.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
Yeah, I mean, Here's here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Like other than like free form poetry, right, poetry has
set rules, and that I think makes it easier for
AI to fake human poetry because it's like, Okay, I
have to have this many words with this many syllables, right,
Like it can intuit the rules of poetry faster than
a human being can. Doesn't mean it's good even though
(15:16):
these people judged it. So Also, poetry is like wine
in the sense that people think good the bad, the
bad version of it is better than it actually is.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
Right, So I don't.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Trust these people, Like Lara, what were they asked? Where
they asked is this good poetry? Like if someone asked
me read this poem, is it good, I'm gonna be
like yeah, sure.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Like yeah? And who are these non experts? I mean
what does that mean? Does that mean they're not poets themselves? Yeah? So,
I mean, Laura, I'll pose this to you because what
they were speculating in the report was that AI poems
were simpler and more direct, and thus it might be
(16:02):
easier for non experts who aren't accustomed to poetry to understand.
And of course if it's if something is easier to understand,
you're going to like it more, and that might be
why AI was rated better by a significant margin. I
don't know what do you think.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
I think you're probably right. But I also I like
Jesse's point that people who know wines are probably going
to pick something very different than an average consumer. I mean,
don't drink a lot, but when I have a little
bit of wine, it's usually super cheap, like bottom end.
(16:46):
Nobody would rate that great wine. But if I open
the bottle and I like it, I like it. So yes,
it's very possible that it was simpler, easier to understand,
or maybe it came across an algorithm. What was going
to make people happy? What would make it easier to read?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I mean, when you're in the English department, part of
what you're taught, not exclusively, it's not the only way
to analyze a poem, but part of it is looking
for author intent. You know, what is he or she
trying to get across? Why have they left out some words?
Why have they broken the line there? Why does this rhyme?
But not that? What hidden or subtraineing meanings are there?
(17:30):
Can you do that when it was generated by or
does that just mean we were just making all that
stuff up to begin with.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
I think that's that's what I was wondering. Can any
AI has it adapted to the point to actually reach
that level of nuance yet because obviously when we're using
similarly in metaphor and analogies, and I think, but maybe
that's that complexity that gets lost on some people or
(18:00):
or just didn't just didn't resonate with the people that
they were asking.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Well, a human being will know when to break the
rules of the thing they're writing for effect.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
I don't. I don't think we're there.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
With AI and is never going to be able to
come up with a weird you know Faulkner quote.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Probably might but who knows whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yeah, well, if it does, we're going to think it's AI.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Because again, you know, the.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
Difference is if you tell me a I wrote that
quote about the thing about the past is it's never passed.
I would have if you said that was A I
would have thought that's just stupid words salad. But if
you tell me it came from Faulkner, I'm like, oh.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Are we are we AI racist?
Speaker 5 (18:47):
Think about it?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Possibly?
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Well, I don't love it. I would have expected this
poetry to also have the like the word version of
having a third arm or money fingers.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Experience like that, But fifteen lines.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
On it, it's adapting. Look at what Ralph was was
creating when he was here last.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Week, when he was creating those great short stories about
our cats. Yeah, did you was to go with them
and they were good.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
I'm obsessed.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Did you understand why I put in our notes Ralph's
jazz music? You know that little gizmo that he was
playing jazz, our favorite form of music, not all weekend long.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
I felt like I was felt like I was in
like a peanut special, you know, dance.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Here's what we probably didn't know that was all AI
generated music. He wasn't streaming anything. AI was making it
up as we went along.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Oh yeah, I didn't know that. I thought it had
just tapped into a jazz station. Yeah no, Oh so
I'm just as bad as these people. Like the poetry
is what you're telling me, I'm on this stode.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Or the weird thing is why was Ralph playing it?
Because he thinks he's, you know, young twenties. He thinks
it's cool. Woo a. I made music and it's enjoyable.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
Whatever gets kids in the jazz, I'll take it.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Are you going to be our senior jazz correspondent from now?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
I would love to be your jazz correspondent so I
love ja.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Oh, come on, nobody really likes jazz.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
I like Jazz. I'm weird, Okay, I'm a weird person.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
I love Charlie Brown music, Miles.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Davis, kind of Blue Delicious.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
And on that note, let's segue to Craft Corner. Today
we are going to wrap up this fantastic series we've
been getting from Desiree Duffy of Black Chateau and Books
that Make You. She's been talking about reviews and different
kinds of reviviews, but today's focus is on getting reviews
from consumers or in other words, you know reader. This
(21:00):
is the people who buy your book, and she knows
what she's talking about. Take it away, desire a Craft Quarter.
Speaker 7 (21:12):
There are three types of book reviews, editorial endorsements, and
number three what we're going to talk about today, consumer
and reader reviews. These are reviews that are written by
everyday readers on platforms like good Reads, retail sites, Amazon, Barnes,
and Noble Cobo. In some cases, they even include the
(21:32):
verified review check mark to let the reading community know
that this is a real, honest review from a reader.
The purpose social proof This can help influence the potential
buyers because they're reading real reader opinions, unlike an editorial
reviewer or celebrity endorsement that might not carry as much weight.
(21:56):
The volume of these types of reviews can improve visible
and algorithms on retail platforms. Again, Amazon will lift up
books that have a lot of positive reviews to other readers.
Real consumer reviews are still one of the most trusted
forms of marketing. Think how you might go and look
(22:18):
at reviews of products when buying that refrigerator or when
checking out a new car. It's the same kind of mentality.
Readers love to read reviews from other readers to see
if that book is right for them, and it can
even help with advertising and other types of marketing. For example,
a substantial number of reviews is often needed to get
(22:41):
a book bub promotion. So there's a lot of ways
that these types of reviews can help you out. The
big question, though, is how do you get them. I
have a few ideas. First of all, include a call
to action in the actual book. Enjoy this book, Please
leave me a review. Use your own news lige, letter,
your email, marketing, and social media to ask readers for
(23:04):
honest reviews. Some authors do giveaways or offer incentives in
exchange for honest reviews. Two things there I always recommend
asking for honest reviews. Also, be aware that some platforms,
like Amazon's terms of services don't allow for incentivized reviews
(23:28):
or paid reviews. Also, be careful because there are a
lot of companies out there that will offer you paid
reviews on Amazon, verified reviews on Amazon. But sometimes these
companies are a little less reputable and it really isn't
something that can help your ratings on Amazon, and it
could actually lead to some really bad things with Amazon
(23:50):
if you're violating their terms of service. However, there's lots
of benefits that go along with getting authentic consumer reviews,
high ratings, the review volume, well, it can help drive
your sales. It can also give you as an author,
some real valuable feedback. You get into the head of
(24:13):
your readers. You can find out what they think of
your characters, which can help improve or offer you ideas
or give you some insights in what you're going to
be doing with the next book in the series or
with your writing in general. So go out there and
get those consumer reviews. There's lots of ways that they
(24:33):
can help you as an author and your book to succeed.
A big thank you goes out to William Bernhardt and
the team for making me a part of Craft Corner.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Thank you so much, Desiree Duffy. Now let's talk to
Matt Goldman. Matt Goldman, welcome to the podcast. Thank you.
All right, you have a traditional first question. If you
could offer writers one piece of advice, what would it be.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
My one piece of advice is be kind to yourself.
Don't beat yourself up. It's hard. Everybody has days that
go badly. Everybody gets stuck, everyone gets frustrated. Even no
matter who your favorite author is, how popular they are,
what a mega million bestseller they are, their first draft
(25:30):
probably stinks. Everybody's done. There's work to be done. So
if you spend a day writing and you look back
over it and you think, oh, why did I think
this was good? That's normal. So go easy on yourself
and just know it's a process.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
That's great advice.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
I'm not sure we've had that one before. I like
it in my case. And you know, I've.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Written over sixty books, and still you finish your first
draft and I think, when did I forget how to write?
This is terrible? And then you go back. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So my analogy is your first draft is like shoveling
the driveway in a blizzard. Like, when you're done, you
still have a lot of work to do, but you
can kind of see where the driveway is, so it
makes it a little easier for the next past.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
I like that. That's right, because yeah, you can see
the driveway. All right, Well, let's talk about writing. How
did there are many things you could have done? I
bet what inspired you to enter the world of writing.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Oddly enough, you probably haven't got this answer either. It
was stand up comedy. I was in college. I was
a chemistry major. I was planning on going to medical school.
At the end of my junior year, some friends invited
me to see the stand up Comedy live, which I
(27:02):
had never seen before. I'd always been a big fan,
but never actually seen it live. And I went and
saw it live, and for some reason that I cannot
explain to this day, I thought I should be doing that,
And so I started doing stand up and I really
fell in love with the writing part of it, the writing,
the writing, the writing, and then once I moved into
(27:23):
narrative stories on television shows as a writer, I started
to get more interested in character, more interested in story,
and that was really my.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
Entry way.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, and as you've already said, you very successful. You
wrote for a number of television shows, like what give
us a list? What are some of the shows you've
worked on?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Seinfeld? I've heard of it, Ellen, Yeah, Ellen, Ellen, the
sitcom not the talk show, the New Adventures of Old Christine.
A lot of shows, some good, some not so good.
But yeah, I did it a long time, you were there.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
Very cool. You've already mentioned that you're living in Minnesota now,
and is that why you shifted into books. Did that
make it difficult to work in television or are you still.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
That's not why I moved to Minnesota. I've always loved
being in Minnesota, and I have had a presence of
some kind here since the year two thousand. Well, I
grew up here, and then I was in la for
fourteen years full time, and then I started to started
to build part of my life back here again. I
(28:39):
had always wanted to write books my whole life, really,
and just stumbled in the other direction and it took
me a while to come back. But it does make
you know when you write books, you can live anywhere
you want so, and I much prefer for my personality
and my temperament, writing books is a much better place
(29:01):
for me to be. I'm not. I have not been
in production on a television show since twenty seventeen. I
did consult on one by zooming into the writer's room
in twenty twenty, because everybody was on zoom back then,
so it didn't matter where I was. But I haven't
(29:22):
worked in television since, and I've been so busy with
books that I have not even thought about it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Interesting, How did you transition? How did you make that
transition from television into the busy but quieter world of books.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I there was a change in the television landscape, and
what happened was television got very good with shows like
The Sopranos and The Wire and Breaking Bad. There's a
long list of shows really that kind of created the
second Golden Age of television and TV became very cool
(30:03):
all of a sudden. It had always been you want
to work in film, and if you can't work in film,
then work in TV. But those shows change that, and
it was all the talk. Everybody was talking about the
shows they were watching, but they were all dramas and
so the people in charge of comedy, the studios and
the networks, we want to make comedy cool too. But
(30:24):
comedy is not a cool thing. If you look at
the great comedic characters, you know, Jackie Gleeson, is Ralph Kramden,
Lucille Ball, Fraser Krane, George Costanza, They're not cool people.
They're idiots. But we love them because they showed that
side of us. We can relate to them. That's why
we can watch those shows over and over again. And
(30:47):
when they tried to make comedy cool, they made it
joke here slicker, less human is what they did. They
made it less human, and I started to lose interest
in writing it. So I thought, I'll write drama, do
my homework to be a drama writer. I started reading
crime fiction because I thought, oh, I'll have to work
on a TV show and a cop show or something.
(31:07):
And so I'd always been a big reader, but kind
of a literary fiction snob for no good reason.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
You know, none of fiction it's okay, you don't have
to make expense.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah no I'm not. I mean, I still love it.
But i'd see crime fiction books in the airport, like
I call them big font books. Because they were the
Da Vinci code and go on girl and there are
and now I have a big font book. But anyhow,
but so I started reading it and fell in love
with it because it had what I was missing from comedy,
(31:39):
which is in a different way. But when you have
a crime at the center of your story, there's a
dead body, a missing person, there's kind of a built
in engine to the story. Your characters don't have to
carry the whole weight of it. And so because you
know things are going to move along, the phone's going
to ring and someone's going to say we got the
prints off the gun or whatever it is, things move forward,
(32:00):
and it frees up space for your characters to just
be people and you could look focus on them and
their relationships. And it was exactly what I was missing.
And so I had this break after kind of devouring
the genre for a few years. I had a four
month gap between shows and I just sat down and
(32:21):
started writing with no real plan. And that book became
gone to dust and it changed my life.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Yeah, huge great review from Lee Child. What a deal.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, very fortunate to me.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
The big different I mean, I know what drew me
to writing books. You can do it by yourself. I mean, yeah,
you got to get a publisher and all that, but
you can do it by yourself, whereas in television it's
the writer's room and it's almost always collaborative, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yes, yes, And I'm not saying one way is better
than the other. I happened to be quite introverted. I say,
I'm an introvert with social skills.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
But exact I think there's a rum for that. I
think they call it an extroverted introvert, Like we can
oh really end for a while. Yes, we're friendly an extroverted,
but then it's really draining and we have to go
away and recharge for a while.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, And that's what it's about. It's recharging. So when
I was in a room full of writers for sixty
seventy eighty hours a week, as funny as they were
and as smart as they were, it was exhausting for me.
And so I do much better by myself as a writer,
I mean, just as a my person does much better.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Yeah, that makes sense. So after that then came Carolina moment.
Is that right? Well?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I know, I wrote four books featuring a private detective
named Nil Shapiro, gone to Dust, Broken Ice, the Shallows,
and Dead West. Then I wrote my first standalone on Carolina.
Moonset is the name of that moonset?
Speaker 3 (34:03):
I'm sorry? Yeah, And I'm the one that got the
great blurb from Harlan Cohen Cob.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah, it got. I can't remember which book Harlan blurb,
but it's received. Actually, that book has a blurb on
the cover from William Kent Krueger, which is nice.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah. Yeah, So okay, enough about the past. Tell us
about your new book, The Murder Show.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
The Murder Show is about a television show runner, which
I know something about. I've done that job before. It's
about a television showrunner who gets involved in a real
life murder investigation. So how it happens is he has
a show called The Murder Show on a Netflix like
(34:51):
platform and it's been on for three seasons, and it's
on the bubble as to whether it's going to come
back for fourth all backstory, right, and he goes in
and pitches.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Similar to the setup from my series. Sorry, I'm just
oh really okay, sorry, but please mine has ghosts. Please continue?
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Sorry Okay, I have no ghosts in mind. That's just
there's not one.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Thank goodness, no competition here.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yes, and he pitches his fourth season. The network hates it.
They say come back, or you know, you got to
come up with something better. So he's at that age,
he's forty years old. He's at that age as a
television writer that he's feeling he's too old to be
a staff writer on someone else's show. He has to
(35:43):
have his own show or his career is over. So
he kind of has that desperation which I also know
that feeling, which is not pleasant, and he's gonna he's
trying to come up with that new storyline, and the
strike happens, the writers guild strike we had recently I
used in this book, and so he has time. Now
(36:08):
he goes back to Minnesota because that's where he does
his best thinking, which is something that was always true
for me too when I worked in television. And while
back staying at his parents' house, he runs into his
whole old high school friend, Rosalie, who's now a police
officer with Minneapolis PD. When after they graduated high school,
(36:31):
a friend of theirs that summer was killed in a
hit and run and it was never solved. No one
came forward, They never found out who did it. They
don't know if it was on purpose or if it
was an accident. And Roe now believes for reasons I
can't get into that their friend Ricky was murdered, and
(36:56):
it's outside the jurisdiction of Minneapolis way out, so she
can't investigate it officially. No one's she's talked to is
really paying any attention to her. They're not going to
look at that old crime. But since Ethan's home, she
talks him into investigating it with her, under the guys
(37:18):
of you can use this for your show, this can
be your storyline. Something will come from this, And so
the two set out to investigate it together. And the
more they learn that kind of the deeper and darker
and more just it gets sounds fantastic.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Now, all the pr for this book talks about how
you wrote this from quote personal experience, which is clear
personal expertise, actually expertise, which is clearly true. But you know,
I want the dirt. Are there secrets being buried in
this book?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Or oh well, there's not secrets, But there is a
lot about writing in this book. Because Ethan he's better
professional writer his whole life and in real life situations.
He draws on what he knows as a writer. So
there is some writing talk in this thing. Yeah, there's
(38:11):
no There is no like gossip about real life people
or anything like.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
The sequel could be the Seinfeld murders.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
Yes, maybe I'm interested how you approach a new project.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I was.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
I was definitely hearing some some threads from this book
that you've I think pulled from your own life and
woven in there.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
But I'm sorry, everybody just went away. Hold on a second, Okay,
Oh wait, I might have.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Hold on. We can still see you.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Okay, that's why I can't see you, but as long
as you can see me. Okay, what is the question again?
Speaker 4 (38:55):
So I'm hearing from from what you were just telling us,
I hears some threads. I think that you pulled from
your own life and wove through this book yours, And
I'm just interested how you approach a new project. Do
you outline, take a bunch of notes? Do you take?
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Don't outline? I know very little.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Would you call yourself a panser?
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Definitely extreme extreme, And sometimes people have a hard time
believing that happens in genre fiction. But it has been
my experience working on over five hundred episodes of television
in which we had to outline. There was a whole
process of outlining and getting approvals to move forward, and
(39:44):
you know, the writer's room would develop a story in
great detail. The writer would take those notes away and
write an outline faithful to those notes and think it's
pretty good. Bring it to the room. Invariably, the room
say this doesn't work. We need to fix it. We
spend a few days fixing it. We'd all think it
(40:05):
was good. We take it to the studio, they'd say,
this doesn't work. Same thing would happen with the network.
We'd rewrite it twenty times until we all thought, like
fifty people thought it was a great outline. The writer
would write a script faithful to that outline, and it
wouldn't work. And the reason it wouldn't work is because
(40:28):
the part of your brain you used to outline is
a very logical this happens, that happens, this happens. It's
the same part of your brain you use to make
a shopping list. It makes sense in an outline. But
if you create characters who are three dimensional and behave
(40:49):
true to what you created, they're complicated. Real people are complicated,
it's messy, and they don't fit into that outline all
the time, and it gets weird. You start to compromise
your characters. If you've ever heard a character say, if
you've read this or seen it in the show or
(41:09):
in a movie, if they say, I can't believe I'm
going to say this, But there's a good chance they
do that because they're acting out of character, and the
reason they are is to fit a predetermined story. So
I would rather let it be a little messy, get
stuck once in a while, and just do it from
(41:30):
the inside out.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Well, the story is gotta come out of the character
at least fit the character, right, Yes, yes, well that
sounds fantastic. Can I ask what's next? We've got the
Murder Show now, but what are you working on after that?
Speaker 2 (41:48):
This is gonna sound weird, but so much as next
after the Murder Show. Five more books are coming out
in the next two years that are written or four
of them are four of them? Three of them are written,
The next two will be written in the next year.
(42:15):
So my first four feature private detective named Nils Shapiro,
and then Nils has gone away. The number one email
I get is when's Nil's coming back, And that's what
people ask at book events, and so.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
I can relate to that.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
A lot of series writers can write. So I Nils
does appear in three chapters of the Murder Show. He's
back in a limited capacity, but it does set up
his return. That book has written. It's called Dark Humor,
and it'll be published in December. So it's coming in
(42:57):
amazing ten months or seven. But whatever, whatever the math
is somebody else doing, that's happening out a time.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
But you're so prolific, I just look quick, Can I
know what your typical writing day looks like for you? Like,
what's your process that's keeping moving? And much so quickly?
Speaker 2 (43:16):
I treat it like a full time job. It's my
only job. I'm lucky, and and so I start pretty
much right after I wake up and pretty much work
till five o'clock or so. That can be a twelve
hour day, it can be an eight hour day sometimes
(43:39):
if I go by word count, if it goes great,
one day, I could be done in three hours. It
doesn't happen that often, but it can. It does happen
once in a while. And I do it seven days
a week. So if I mean, if there's a big
something on a weekend, I will, you know, maybe cut
(44:00):
in half. But I do it all the time. One
of the reasons I work seven days a week isn't
because of worth that work, ethic, or lack of any
other kind of life. I do it because I don't
outline and I need to keep that story moving in
my head. I don't want to lose the thread.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
So, and then a year from now, my first book
with Minotaur will be out. It's called Liar's Creek. I
think it's going to be the start of a new series.
They're very happy with it. Fantastic that's in production. And
then next fall I have two books coming out. One
(44:47):
is another Nails book, which has not been written, and
one is a historical novel that I wrote in twenty eighteen.
My publisher made an offer on it turned it down,
not because of the money. I just thought there's not
very much crime in it, and that's not really the
point of that book, and I didn't know if they
(45:10):
were the right publisher, and my agent said, we'll get
another publisher. It took a while to make all these decisions,
and by the time we went back out the pandemic started,
and then it was just nothing was going on for
a while. But now that book is being published. It'll
in the fall of twenty twenty six, and then spring
(45:33):
of twenty twenty seven will be I think the second
Liar's Creek book fantastic.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Well, we've got a lot to look forward to. Then.
That's wonderful. Matt, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed it.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
Bye bye.
Speaker 6 (45:49):
Now just a few parting words. The Writer Con Cruise
is still coming up May thirty first to June seven,
leading from Seattle for an Alaskan cruise. Go online and
check out our itinerary. It's fantastic and I'm excited because
(46:11):
I just lined up an agent. We we had somebody
before who had to drop out, but.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
The first and I got to take her place, is
a superstar. And not only is she going to be
speaking on this cruise, she has committed to if you
want to meet one on one with every single person
on the cruise, I mean with our group, not everybody
on the cruise boat, but everybody in the Writer Gone group.
Plus you're gonna get twenty hours of writing instructions scheduled
(46:42):
when the boat is at sea, not when it's in port.
And if you want more information, please visit our website
which is writer con dot com. I'll leave a link
in the show notes. Laura, are you coming on this cruise?
Speaker 4 (46:57):
Yes, I want to see some whales.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
I think that might actually happen. And of course, then
if you want all small group workshoppy on your work progress,
we're going to have the retreat that's in July. It
came break all right, until next time. Hey, everybody, keep
writing and remember you cannot fail if you refuse to quit.
(47:24):
See you next time.
This week on the writer Con podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I want piece of advice is be kind to yourself,
don't beat yourself up.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to writer Con, a gathering place for writers to
share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, author
of the want lnd Files book series.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Thank you, Jesse Ulrich. Hey, they're writers. Thanks for joining us.
I'm just back in town from another of my mysterious
research trips. Will I reveal this subject to the research. Yeah.
Once I finished the book, which will not be this podcast,
we can celebrate the release of Like. In this two
(00:50):
week period, just before this podcast came out, not one
but two books have come from out written by writer
Con friends who have been on the podcas asked and
come to the conference every year. I'm talking about John Woolley,
been here many times. He just released Beauty in the Bund,
Lynette Bennett just released her memoir Broadway Dreamer, and Laura,
(01:13):
I think you edited both of those books, didn't you did?
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Yes? Edited and designed? I sure did. And I'm so
happy for Lynette. I've been working with her and watching
her progress for more than more years than I think
I'm willing to admit. And I'm so happy for her
to see that book come out.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, yeah, good news. Jossy.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
John's books are just always so much fun to read.
I love working with him too, So all all did
things you think? You know?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
The book Beauty and the Bund is basically typed. It's
an epistolary novel. To use my English major. It's people
typing letters back and forth to each other, one of
whom is John, and one of whom is his co author,
Robert I mean, Jesse. Is there an audio book here?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, there's a great audio book here, them just ring
letters to each other, John.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Coley, you would have to play Robert because sadly Robert Brown,
whose co author has passed, but John can be John.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, that's actually jumping ahead in your own script. Yes,
talking about Barry's new book. We've we've been constantly having
conversations about how we can do an audio book about.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Even though he's in Portugal.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well no, not even just himing in Portugal. It's just
like books about his dad. Who's going to play his dad?
Who's going to play him? Because like he can't do both,
and I was like, what if I read you and
you read your dad?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
So, because that's usually us the punchline, So that makes sense.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, yeah, we're talking about the books whose titles we
can't mention or I have to check and adults only box.
But it's Jack and then there's another word, and it
means that stuff written by Barry's father, Jack. Barry has
been on the podcast before talking about them. He's done
(03:06):
two and apparently there's going to be three and of
four in this incredibly incorrectly titled trilogy based upon his
sleeve father. Right.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
I know I knew Jack my entire life.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I don't know if there's four books worth of his
uh fascinating wisdom.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
But you know, Barry's a very good writer. He'll figure
it out.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
He is a good writer and a good friend.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Following in the brilliant footsteps of Douglas Adams, there you
go and the four books in his Hitchhiker's trilogy.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So okay, five toward the end? Weren't there was there
a fifth?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Oh well, listen, listeners, make sure to correct us in
the rudest way possible.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
I'll do anything, be it comments. Yeah, yeah, I just
want some feedback. Maybe I should start dropping intentional mistake.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, we should. I mean that's the truly that those
are the people who like to respond to the mine.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Right, Well, so long and thanks for all. The Fish
was the fourth book in the trilogy. If more came
out to it, I know Samon of a Doubt.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Was part of Mostly Serious or something like that.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
And that one wasn't finished. I don't think it was
part of that doesn't count.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Wasn't finished doesn't count if he didn't finish it, all right.
Our interview today is with Matt Goldman. Matt is a
New York Times bestselling author and a playwright, and an
Emmy Award winning television writer. He wrote for Seinfeld, wrote
for Ellen the sitcom, and a bunch of other shows.
(04:34):
Now he's written a novel, not his first but very goods,
called The Murder Show, which involves, you guessed it, the
making of a television show that goes bad in a
really big way. It's a really pulse racing novel about
secrets and old friends and how the past never really
(04:58):
leaves us. Is that a that's like a paraphrase of
Faulkner isn't the thing about the past is it's never
passed or something like that. Anyway, looking forward to talking
to Matt, But first the news news story number one.
(05:30):
This relates to sadly the passing of a wonderful author.
Her name was L. J. Smith. She was the original
author of the Vampire Diaries books. She's passed away at
the age thirty seven. That's not actually what this story
is about. This is a story. Well it's not exactly Jesse,
(05:52):
your series of writers behaving badly. It's just let me
tell the story. So she wrote these ya now for
the Vampire Diary series, which of course became a hit
television drama and led to what the Wall Street Journal
called one of the strangest comebacks in literary history. Here's
(06:13):
what happened. Let me set the stage. Is a company
called Alloy Entertainment. They had noticed the popularity of the
Twilight books and they wanted a young adult version of
some supernatural romance things. So they asked LJ. Smith to
write what became The Vampire Diaries, a series centered on
this love triangle involving a girl named Elena and it's
(06:37):
vampire brothers, right, Stefan and damon. Yeah, so she wrote
the first three books for HarperCollins were published starting in
nineteen ninety one. A fourth was released. No, all three
of them were in ninety one, then a fourth and
ninety two. Let me give you a little background about
(06:57):
MS Smith. Her first agent was her type at Okay,
the typist had never represented a client. She wrote the trilogy.
According to her and what she told the Wall Street Journal,
she wrote the original trilogy for an advance of only
a few thousand dollars, not realizing, probably because she didn't
(07:18):
go to law school, that the app made it work
for hire because they hired her to write this specific thing,
so she didn't ultimately own the copyright for the characters.
By two thousand and seven, the sales of the Vampire
dis had skyrocketed, and she was contracted to write another trilogy.
(07:40):
But it didn't happen. No, that trilogy did happen. It's
in twenty fourteen. By that time, the series had sold
more than five million copies, but Miss Smith was no
longer writing them. Alloy fired her over what they called
creative differences, and then hired a ghost writer. At first
(08:02):
and later somebody used the pen name Aubrey Clark to
actually write the final six books in the series, and
she and that, and since Alloy owned it, they could
control who wrote it who didn't. And so LJ. Smith,
the creator of this thing, could no longer write her
(08:22):
own characters for a publisher. And so what did she do?
She retreated to fan fiction. So she's writing fan fiction
about the characters she created. But because it was fun
faction and not being a fan fiction and not being sold,
you know, she could do it. And people came to
(08:42):
her because they knew she was the original author of
this thing. And it's a cod convoluted story, but bizarre
that someone is creating successful series characters, even becomes a
successful television series, but it ends up not being able
to write their own characters, except maybe for free online.
(09:07):
I don't know, Laura, what are your thoughts on this.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
We've talked before about how critical it is to read
your contracts, read them very carefully and watch for things
like this. Bill has mentioned before. Publishers are out to
make money. They are not there as the supporter of
(09:33):
the arts, and they're they're not They're going to be
looking at their own bottom line. So for them, this
is an ideal situation. They paid very little and it
was over and they got to keep everything else. But
it drives me crazy when the actual creators of content
(09:53):
are tossed to the side like this, Yeah, ripped off,
ripped off.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I mean, I know it was legal, but that doesn't
make it any like it anymore exactly.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
We're not suggesting that they did anything illegal. But that's
why you have to be so very careful, pay attention
to your contract.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
You probably knew, because for one thing, I always have
to drop a Superman reference in every episode, and two
this is not at all on that'll come later. Jesse
covers that sometimes. But did you know that at one
point Paramount offered to sell Star Trek back to Roddenberry
(10:32):
for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but he said
no because he didn't have it. Oh my gosh. But
getting back to Superman, because that's another rights issue because
as most people know, you know, they got Superman published
and it was a huge hit, and they did make
some money in the early years until they were fired.
(10:53):
But the point is they weren't in control of their
own character because of an agreement that they'd had to
sign that I had to sign. That's how they got
the thing published, but it meant they didn't own Superman
anymore and eventually got cut out of it. Jesse, you
look like this is not pleasing you, but.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
No, I did very upsetting and Telsa has its own.
The woman who created Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Bright, I believe,
lives in town and also doesn't control the rights to
her creations.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Does not create it. Wow. Why how something she signed?
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Probably, And I'm just like you know, like again, legality
and morality are two different things, and just because people
didn't do anything more legally wrong doesn't mean it's not
morally corrupt. And stealing people's inventions and then not giving.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
Them the ability to continue to make money off them
is just wrong.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
Yeah, that's a good for legally legally right, but morally
wrong corrupt is more dramatic, though.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
I'm throwing some flair in there for you.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
No, I didn't know Strawberry Shortcake creator was right right
here in Oklahoma.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yeah, we met her at an event she was doing
like a like I mean it it was technically just
a signing because she doesn't I mean, I think maybe
she did write a book. Or someone wrote a book
about her and she was just you know, people were
bringing care bearers and strawberry shortcakes and she was signing
them and taking pictures and she was dressed up like
strawberry shortcake. She's a delightful woman. So wow, to support
(12:28):
her somehow.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Bottom line writers.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
Look at them contracts.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, good, get somebody else to look at it.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Run the contract through AI, be like, do I still
own write to my characters?
Speaker 5 (12:40):
That's a good use of AI.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
If you have an agent, your agent should be able
to help. But even if you if you don't, get
a lawyer to look at it. Seriously, it's like an
hour of her or his time, and it's worth.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
It, and they can let you know. And don't get desperate.
Don't get so so excited that you're being offered a
contract that you're just desperate, and sign it and go.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, all right, news story number two. You can file
this under I never thought I'd be saying these words,
but here's the headline. According to a recent study, AI
generated poetry is indistinguishable from human written poetry, and furthermore,
(13:24):
is rated more favorably by humans not by a this study,
they took AI generated text which obviously is involving evolving
over time. But they used and this may be key,
I'm using the words from the study itself non expert readers.
(13:45):
Take that to mean what you will, and gave them
samples of both AI generated poetry and human generated poetry
and asked whether they could tell the difference. They could
not with any reliable consistency. They couldn't. And according to
the people running the study, the poetry came from well
(14:06):
known human poets, but still nobody could tell the difference.
And furthermore, when they came to rate how much they
liked a particular poem, you know, focusing on particular qualities
like rhythm and beauty, and you probably already know where
this is going, AI poetry generally was rated more favorably
(14:32):
than human written poems. Maybe the computer programs have learned
how to imitate something people like, I don't know, Jesse,
would you read a poem written by AI program?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I mean it depends on how long it is.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Read a poem written by anyone.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
Yeah, I mean, Here's here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Like other than like free form poetry, right, poetry has
set rules, and that I think makes it easier for
AI to fake human poetry because it's like, Okay, I
have to have this many words with this many syllables, right,
Like it can intuit the rules of poetry faster than
a human being can. Doesn't mean it's good even though
(15:16):
these people judged it. So Also, poetry is like wine
in the sense that people think good the bad, the
bad version of it is better than it actually is.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
Right, So I don't.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Trust these people, Like Lara, what were they asked? Where
they asked is this good poetry? Like if someone asked
me read this poem, is it good, I'm gonna be
like yeah, sure.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Like yeah? And who are these non experts? I mean
what does that mean? Does that mean they're not poets themselves? Yeah? So,
I mean, Laura, I'll pose this to you because what
they were speculating in the report was that AI poems
were simpler and more direct, and thus it might be
(16:02):
easier for non experts who aren't accustomed to poetry to understand.
And of course if it's if something is easier to understand,
you're going to like it more, and that might be
why AI was rated better by a significant margin. I
don't know what do you think.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
I think you're probably right. But I also I like
Jesse's point that people who know wines are probably going
to pick something very different than an average consumer. I mean,
don't drink a lot, but when I have a little
bit of wine, it's usually super cheap, like bottom end.
(16:46):
Nobody would rate that great wine. But if I open
the bottle and I like it, I like it. So yes,
it's very possible that it was simpler, easier to understand,
or maybe it came across an algorithm. What was going
to make people happy? What would make it easier to read?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I mean, when you're in the English department, part of
what you're taught, not exclusively, it's not the only way
to analyze a poem, but part of it is looking
for author intent. You know, what is he or she
trying to get across? Why have they left out some words?
Why have they broken the line there? Why does this rhyme?
But not that? What hidden or subtraineing meanings are there?
(17:30):
Can you do that when it was generated by or
does that just mean we were just making all that
stuff up to begin with.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
I think that's that's what I was wondering. Can any
AI has it adapted to the point to actually reach
that level of nuance yet because obviously when we're using
similarly in metaphor and analogies, and I think, but maybe
that's that complexity that gets lost on some people or
(18:00):
or just didn't just didn't resonate with the people that
they were asking.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Well, a human being will know when to break the
rules of the thing they're writing for effect.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
I don't. I don't think we're there.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
With AI and is never going to be able to
come up with a weird you know Faulkner quote.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Probably might but who knows whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yeah, well, if it does, we're going to think it's AI.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Because again, you know, the.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
Difference is if you tell me a I wrote that
quote about the thing about the past is it's never passed.
I would have if you said that was A I
would have thought that's just stupid words salad. But if
you tell me it came from Faulkner, I'm like, oh.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Are we are we AI racist?
Speaker 5 (18:47):
Think about it?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Possibly?
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Well, I don't love it. I would have expected this
poetry to also have the like the word version of
having a third arm or money fingers.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Experience like that, But fifteen lines.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
On it, it's adapting. Look at what Ralph was was
creating when he was here last.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Week, when he was creating those great short stories about
our cats. Yeah, did you was to go with them
and they were good.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
I'm obsessed.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Did you understand why I put in our notes Ralph's
jazz music? You know that little gizmo that he was
playing jazz, our favorite form of music, not all weekend long.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
I felt like I was felt like I was in
like a peanut special, you know, dance.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Here's what we probably didn't know that was all AI
generated music. He wasn't streaming anything. AI was making it
up as we went along.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Oh yeah, I didn't know that. I thought it had
just tapped into a jazz station. Yeah no, Oh so
I'm just as bad as these people. Like the poetry
is what you're telling me, I'm on this stode.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Or the weird thing is why was Ralph playing it?
Because he thinks he's, you know, young twenties. He thinks
it's cool. Woo a. I made music and it's enjoyable.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
Whatever gets kids in the jazz, I'll take it.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Are you going to be our senior jazz correspondent from now?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
I would love to be your jazz correspondent so I
love ja.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Oh, come on, nobody really likes jazz.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
I like Jazz. I'm weird, Okay, I'm a weird person.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
I love Charlie Brown music, Miles.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Davis, kind of Blue Delicious.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
And on that note, let's segue to Craft Corner. Today
we are going to wrap up this fantastic series we've
been getting from Desiree Duffy of Black Chateau and Books
that Make You. She's been talking about reviews and different
kinds of reviviews, but today's focus is on getting reviews
from consumers or in other words, you know reader. This
(21:00):
is the people who buy your book, and she knows
what she's talking about. Take it away, desire a Craft Quarter.
Speaker 7 (21:12):
There are three types of book reviews, editorial endorsements, and
number three what we're going to talk about today, consumer
and reader reviews. These are reviews that are written by
everyday readers on platforms like good Reads, retail sites, Amazon, Barnes,
and Noble Cobo. In some cases, they even include the
(21:32):
verified review check mark to let the reading community know
that this is a real, honest review from a reader.
The purpose social proof This can help influence the potential
buyers because they're reading real reader opinions, unlike an editorial
reviewer or celebrity endorsement that might not carry as much weight.
(21:56):
The volume of these types of reviews can improve visible
and algorithms on retail platforms. Again, Amazon will lift up
books that have a lot of positive reviews to other readers.
Real consumer reviews are still one of the most trusted
forms of marketing. Think how you might go and look
(22:18):
at reviews of products when buying that refrigerator or when
checking out a new car. It's the same kind of mentality.
Readers love to read reviews from other readers to see
if that book is right for them, and it can
even help with advertising and other types of marketing. For example,
a substantial number of reviews is often needed to get
(22:41):
a book bub promotion. So there's a lot of ways
that these types of reviews can help you out. The
big question, though, is how do you get them. I
have a few ideas. First of all, include a call
to action in the actual book. Enjoy this book, Please
leave me a review. Use your own news lige, letter,
your email, marketing, and social media to ask readers for
(23:04):
honest reviews. Some authors do giveaways or offer incentives in
exchange for honest reviews. Two things there I always recommend
asking for honest reviews. Also, be aware that some platforms,
like Amazon's terms of services don't allow for incentivized reviews
(23:28):
or paid reviews. Also, be careful because there are a
lot of companies out there that will offer you paid
reviews on Amazon, verified reviews on Amazon. But sometimes these
companies are a little less reputable and it really isn't
something that can help your ratings on Amazon, and it
could actually lead to some really bad things with Amazon
(23:50):
if you're violating their terms of service. However, there's lots
of benefits that go along with getting authentic consumer reviews,
high ratings, the review volume, well, it can help drive
your sales. It can also give you as an author,
some real valuable feedback. You get into the head of
(24:13):
your readers. You can find out what they think of
your characters, which can help improve or offer you ideas
or give you some insights in what you're going to
be doing with the next book in the series or
with your writing in general. So go out there and
get those consumer reviews. There's lots of ways that they
(24:33):
can help you as an author and your book to succeed.
A big thank you goes out to William Bernhardt and
the team for making me a part of Craft Corner.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Thank you so much, Desiree Duffy. Now let's talk to
Matt Goldman. Matt Goldman, welcome to the podcast. Thank you.
All right, you have a traditional first question. If you
could offer writers one piece of advice, what would it be.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
My one piece of advice is be kind to yourself.
Don't beat yourself up. It's hard. Everybody has days that
go badly. Everybody gets stuck, everyone gets frustrated. Even no
matter who your favorite author is, how popular they are,
what a mega million bestseller they are, their first draft
(25:30):
probably stinks. Everybody's done. There's work to be done. So
if you spend a day writing and you look back
over it and you think, oh, why did I think
this was good? That's normal. So go easy on yourself
and just know it's a process.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
That's great advice.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
I'm not sure we've had that one before. I like
it in my case. And you know, I've.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Written over sixty books, and still you finish your first
draft and I think, when did I forget how to write?
This is terrible? And then you go back. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So my analogy is your first draft is like shoveling
the driveway in a blizzard. Like, when you're done, you
still have a lot of work to do, but you
can kind of see where the driveway is, so it
makes it a little easier for the next past.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
I like that. That's right, because yeah, you can see
the driveway. All right, Well, let's talk about writing. How
did there are many things you could have done? I
bet what inspired you to enter the world of writing.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Oddly enough, you probably haven't got this answer either. It
was stand up comedy. I was in college. I was
a chemistry major. I was planning on going to medical school.
At the end of my junior year, some friends invited
me to see the stand up Comedy live, which I
(27:02):
had never seen before. I'd always been a big fan,
but never actually seen it live. And I went and
saw it live, and for some reason that I cannot
explain to this day, I thought I should be doing that,
And so I started doing stand up and I really
fell in love with the writing part of it, the writing,
the writing, the writing, and then once I moved into
(27:23):
narrative stories on television shows as a writer, I started
to get more interested in character, more interested in story,
and that was really my.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
Entry way.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, and as you've already said, you very successful. You
wrote for a number of television shows, like what give
us a list? What are some of the shows you've
worked on?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Seinfeld? I've heard of it, Ellen, Yeah, Ellen, Ellen, the
sitcom not the talk show, the New Adventures of Old Christine.
A lot of shows, some good, some not so good.
But yeah, I did it a long time, you were there.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
Very cool. You've already mentioned that you're living in Minnesota now,
and is that why you shifted into books. Did that
make it difficult to work in television or are you still.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
That's not why I moved to Minnesota. I've always loved
being in Minnesota, and I have had a presence of
some kind here since the year two thousand. Well, I
grew up here, and then I was in la for
fourteen years full time, and then I started to started
to build part of my life back here again. I
(28:39):
had always wanted to write books my whole life, really,
and just stumbled in the other direction and it took
me a while to come back. But it does make
you know when you write books, you can live anywhere
you want so, and I much prefer for my personality
and my temperament, writing books is a much better place
(29:01):
for me to be. I'm not. I have not been
in production on a television show since twenty seventeen. I
did consult on one by zooming into the writer's room
in twenty twenty, because everybody was on zoom back then,
so it didn't matter where I was. But I haven't
(29:22):
worked in television since, and I've been so busy with
books that I have not even thought about it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Interesting, How did you transition? How did you make that
transition from television into the busy but quieter world of books.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I there was a change in the television landscape, and
what happened was television got very good with shows like
The Sopranos and The Wire and Breaking Bad. There's a
long list of shows really that kind of created the
second Golden Age of television and TV became very cool
(30:03):
all of a sudden. It had always been you want
to work in film, and if you can't work in film,
then work in TV. But those shows change that, and
it was all the talk. Everybody was talking about the
shows they were watching, but they were all dramas and
so the people in charge of comedy, the studios and
the networks, we want to make comedy cool too. But
(30:24):
comedy is not a cool thing. If you look at
the great comedic characters, you know, Jackie Gleeson, is Ralph Kramden,
Lucille Ball, Fraser Krane, George Costanza, They're not cool people.
They're idiots. But we love them because they showed that
side of us. We can relate to them. That's why
we can watch those shows over and over again. And
(30:47):
when they tried to make comedy cool, they made it
joke here slicker, less human is what they did. They
made it less human, and I started to lose interest
in writing it. So I thought, I'll write drama, do
my homework to be a drama writer. I started reading
crime fiction because I thought, oh, I'll have to work
on a TV show and a cop show or something.
(31:07):
And so I'd always been a big reader, but kind
of a literary fiction snob for no good reason.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
You know, none of fiction it's okay, you don't have
to make expense.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah no I'm not. I mean, I still love it.
But i'd see crime fiction books in the airport, like
I call them big font books. Because they were the
Da Vinci code and go on girl and there are
and now I have a big font book. But anyhow,
but so I started reading it and fell in love
with it because it had what I was missing from comedy,
(31:39):
which is in a different way. But when you have
a crime at the center of your story, there's a
dead body, a missing person, there's kind of a built
in engine to the story. Your characters don't have to
carry the whole weight of it. And so because you
know things are going to move along, the phone's going
to ring and someone's going to say we got the
prints off the gun or whatever it is, things move forward,
(32:00):
and it frees up space for your characters to just
be people and you could look focus on them and
their relationships. And it was exactly what I was missing.
And so I had this break after kind of devouring
the genre for a few years. I had a four
month gap between shows and I just sat down and
(32:21):
started writing with no real plan. And that book became
gone to dust and it changed my life.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Yeah, huge great review from Lee Child. What a deal.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, very fortunate to me.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
The big different I mean, I know what drew me
to writing books. You can do it by yourself. I mean, yeah,
you got to get a publisher and all that, but
you can do it by yourself, whereas in television it's
the writer's room and it's almost always collaborative, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yes, yes, And I'm not saying one way is better
than the other. I happened to be quite introverted. I say,
I'm an introvert with social skills.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
But exact I think there's a rum for that. I
think they call it an extroverted introvert, Like we can
oh really end for a while. Yes, we're friendly an extroverted,
but then it's really draining and we have to go
away and recharge for a while.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, And that's what it's about. It's recharging. So when
I was in a room full of writers for sixty
seventy eighty hours a week, as funny as they were
and as smart as they were, it was exhausting for me.
And so I do much better by myself as a writer,
I mean, just as a my person does much better.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Yeah, that makes sense. So after that then came Carolina moment.
Is that right? Well?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I know, I wrote four books featuring a private detective
named Nil Shapiro, gone to Dust, Broken Ice, the Shallows,
and Dead West. Then I wrote my first standalone on Carolina.
Moonset is the name of that moonset?
Speaker 3 (34:03):
I'm sorry? Yeah, And I'm the one that got the
great blurb from Harlan Cohen Cob.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah, it got. I can't remember which book Harlan blurb,
but it's received. Actually, that book has a blurb on
the cover from William Kent Krueger, which is nice.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah. Yeah, So okay, enough about the past. Tell us
about your new book, The Murder Show.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
The Murder Show is about a television show runner, which
I know something about. I've done that job before. It's
about a television showrunner who gets involved in a real
life murder investigation. So how it happens is he has
a show called The Murder Show on a Netflix like
(34:51):
platform and it's been on for three seasons, and it's
on the bubble as to whether it's going to come
back for fourth all backstory, right, and he goes in
and pitches.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Similar to the setup from my series. Sorry, I'm just
oh really okay, sorry, but please mine has ghosts. Please continue?
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Sorry Okay, I have no ghosts in mind. That's just
there's not one.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Thank goodness, no competition here.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yes, and he pitches his fourth season. The network hates it.
They say come back, or you know, you got to
come up with something better. So he's at that age,
he's forty years old. He's at that age as a
television writer that he's feeling he's too old to be
a staff writer on someone else's show. He has to
(35:43):
have his own show or his career is over. So
he kind of has that desperation which I also know
that feeling, which is not pleasant, and he's gonna he's
trying to come up with that new storyline, and the
strike happens, the writers guild strike we had recently I
used in this book, and so he has time. Now
(36:08):
he goes back to Minnesota because that's where he does
his best thinking, which is something that was always true
for me too when I worked in television. And while
back staying at his parents' house, he runs into his
whole old high school friend, Rosalie, who's now a police
officer with Minneapolis PD. When after they graduated high school,
(36:31):
a friend of theirs that summer was killed in a
hit and run and it was never solved. No one
came forward, They never found out who did it. They
don't know if it was on purpose or if it
was an accident. And Roe now believes for reasons I
can't get into that their friend Ricky was murdered, and
(36:56):
it's outside the jurisdiction of Minneapolis way out, so she
can't investigate it officially. No one's she's talked to is
really paying any attention to her. They're not going to
look at that old crime. But since Ethan's home, she
talks him into investigating it with her, under the guys
(37:18):
of you can use this for your show, this can
be your storyline. Something will come from this, And so
the two set out to investigate it together. And the
more they learn that kind of the deeper and darker
and more just it gets sounds fantastic.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Now, all the pr for this book talks about how
you wrote this from quote personal experience, which is clear
personal expertise, actually expertise, which is clearly true. But you know,
I want the dirt. Are there secrets being buried in
this book?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Or oh well, there's not secrets, But there is a
lot about writing in this book. Because Ethan he's better
professional writer his whole life and in real life situations.
He draws on what he knows as a writer. So
there is some writing talk in this thing. Yeah, there's
(38:11):
no There is no like gossip about real life people
or anything like.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
The sequel could be the Seinfeld murders.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
Yes, maybe I'm interested how you approach a new project.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I was.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
I was definitely hearing some some threads from this book
that you've I think pulled from your own life and
woven in there.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
But I'm sorry, everybody just went away. Hold on a second, Okay,
Oh wait, I might have.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Hold on. We can still see you.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Okay, that's why I can't see you, but as long
as you can see me. Okay, what is the question again?
Speaker 4 (38:55):
So I'm hearing from from what you were just telling us,
I hears some threads. I think that you pulled from
your own life and wove through this book yours, And
I'm just interested how you approach a new project. Do
you outline, take a bunch of notes? Do you take?
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Don't outline? I know very little.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Would you call yourself a panser?
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Definitely extreme extreme, And sometimes people have a hard time
believing that happens in genre fiction. But it has been
my experience working on over five hundred episodes of television
in which we had to outline. There was a whole
process of outlining and getting approvals to move forward, and
(39:44):
you know, the writer's room would develop a story in
great detail. The writer would take those notes away and
write an outline faithful to those notes and think it's
pretty good. Bring it to the room. Invariably, the room
say this doesn't work. We need to fix it. We
spend a few days fixing it. We'd all think it
(40:05):
was good. We take it to the studio, they'd say,
this doesn't work. Same thing would happen with the network.
We'd rewrite it twenty times until we all thought, like
fifty people thought it was a great outline. The writer
would write a script faithful to that outline, and it
wouldn't work. And the reason it wouldn't work is because
(40:28):
the part of your brain you used to outline is
a very logical this happens, that happens, this happens. It's
the same part of your brain you use to make
a shopping list. It makes sense in an outline. But
if you create characters who are three dimensional and behave
(40:49):
true to what you created, they're complicated. Real people are complicated,
it's messy, and they don't fit into that outline all
the time, and it gets weird. You start to compromise
your characters. If you've ever heard a character say, if
you've read this or seen it in the show or
(41:09):
in a movie, if they say, I can't believe I'm
going to say this, But there's a good chance they
do that because they're acting out of character, and the
reason they are is to fit a predetermined story. So
I would rather let it be a little messy, get
stuck once in a while, and just do it from
(41:30):
the inside out.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Well, the story is gotta come out of the character
at least fit the character, right, Yes, yes, well that
sounds fantastic. Can I ask what's next? We've got the
Murder Show now, but what are you working on after that?
Speaker 2 (41:48):
This is gonna sound weird, but so much as next
after the Murder Show. Five more books are coming out
in the next two years that are written or four
of them are four of them? Three of them are written,
The next two will be written in the next year.
(42:15):
So my first four feature private detective named Nils Shapiro,
and then Nils has gone away. The number one email
I get is when's Nil's coming back, And that's what
people ask at book events, and so.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
I can relate to that.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
A lot of series writers can write. So I Nils
does appear in three chapters of the Murder Show. He's
back in a limited capacity, but it does set up
his return. That book has written. It's called Dark Humor,
and it'll be published in December. So it's coming in
(42:57):
amazing ten months or seven. But whatever, whatever the math
is somebody else doing, that's happening out a time.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
But you're so prolific, I just look quick, Can I
know what your typical writing day looks like for you? Like,
what's your process that's keeping moving? And much so quickly?
Speaker 2 (43:16):
I treat it like a full time job. It's my
only job. I'm lucky, and and so I start pretty
much right after I wake up and pretty much work
till five o'clock or so. That can be a twelve
hour day, it can be an eight hour day sometimes
(43:39):
if I go by word count, if it goes great,
one day, I could be done in three hours. It
doesn't happen that often, but it can. It does happen
once in a while. And I do it seven days
a week. So if I mean, if there's a big
something on a weekend, I will, you know, maybe cut
(44:00):
in half. But I do it all the time. One
of the reasons I work seven days a week isn't
because of worth that work, ethic, or lack of any
other kind of life. I do it because I don't
outline and I need to keep that story moving in
my head. I don't want to lose the thread.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
So, and then a year from now, my first book
with Minotaur will be out. It's called Liar's Creek. I
think it's going to be the start of a new series.
They're very happy with it. Fantastic that's in production. And
then next fall I have two books coming out. One
(44:47):
is another Nails book, which has not been written, and
one is a historical novel that I wrote in twenty eighteen.
My publisher made an offer on it turned it down,
not because of the money. I just thought there's not
very much crime in it, and that's not really the
point of that book, and I didn't know if they
(45:10):
were the right publisher, and my agent said, we'll get
another publisher. It took a while to make all these decisions,
and by the time we went back out the pandemic started,
and then it was just nothing was going on for
a while. But now that book is being published. It'll
in the fall of twenty twenty six, and then spring
(45:33):
of twenty twenty seven will be I think the second
Liar's Creek book fantastic.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Well, we've got a lot to look forward to. Then.
That's wonderful. Matt, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed it.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
Bye bye.
Speaker 6 (45:49):
Now just a few parting words. The Writer Con Cruise
is still coming up May thirty first to June seven,
leading from Seattle for an Alaskan cruise. Go online and
check out our itinerary. It's fantastic and I'm excited because
(46:11):
I just lined up an agent. We we had somebody
before who had to drop out, but.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
The first and I got to take her place, is
a superstar. And not only is she going to be
speaking on this cruise, she has committed to if you
want to meet one on one with every single person
on the cruise, I mean with our group, not everybody
on the cruise boat, but everybody in the Writer Gone group.
Plus you're gonna get twenty hours of writing instructions scheduled
(46:42):
when the boat is at sea, not when it's in port.
And if you want more information, please visit our website
which is writer con dot com. I'll leave a link
in the show notes. Laura, are you coming on this cruise?
Speaker 4 (46:57):
Yes, I want to see some whales.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
I think that might actually happen. And of course, then
if you want all small group workshoppy on your work progress,
we're going to have the retreat that's in July. It
came break all right, until next time. Hey, everybody, keep
writing and remember you cannot fail if you refuse to quit.
(47:24):
See you next time.
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