Episode 64 - Is That Like An Interiority Complex?

[00:00:00] What's up everyone and welcome to Episode 64 of the Promptly Written podcast, where every month we take a writing prompt provided by you, write stories based on it, then break them down for you. My name is Matt Sugerik and with me as always, Ian Lewis. What's up Ian?

[00:00:31] What's up Matt? Oh, not much. Well, you know, I guess the first thing is I need to apologize to you publicly because this is the second episode in a row that I've been like, dude, I'm going to get you the manuscripts

[00:00:46] for the next volume by the next time we record. And it's the second month in a row where I've gotten you nothing. So I'm going to work on that. I really am. I'm going to make myself my little electronic to-dos and I'm going to be able to check

[00:01:01] those off and there's going to be one do every day. So within 12 days, you should have all of my manuscripts. Okay, you know what? That'd be awesome. I'm actually going to make an amendment to that.

[00:01:12] It's probably going to be like 14 or 15 days because this weekend, the 11th and 12th, I'm doing Extra Life. So I probably won't be able to do anything those days. So if you guys have listened to the podcast before, you probably know what Extra Life

[00:01:29] is, but I'll just give you a quick rundown. I work for a children's hospital. Extra Life is a charity. We sign up, we fundraise, we play video games for 24 hours to raise money for the children's hospital and you pick the children's hospital that it goes to.

[00:01:43] So I play for the one that I work for. But some people run marathons, ask them to ask people to donate for cancer or whatever. I play video games. So I'm real excited. Me and my son go up to Michigan every year.

[00:01:58] My in-laws have a little cottage and we just kind of like isolate ourselves in the little cottage and we actually end up yelling a lot. There's a lot of profanity being thrown back and forth ever since he's older now.

[00:02:13] So ever since he's been freely swearing, it's like we try to out swear each other. So I'll just be sitting there falling asleep 18 hours into playing video games and you're like, oh fuck. It's just like, I don't know. It wakes me up and makes me happy.

[00:02:29] He sounds like he's your son. He is definitely my son. It's funny. One of the funniest things. I don't think he'll mind me sharing this story, but like we had some like Halloween decorations up and we had like these little, they were like little ghost things that

[00:02:45] you like hang from the trees. And I think they were like battery powered. So like if you get too close to them, they start like going, whew or whatever, you know, and he sent us a picture one day.

[00:02:55] But when he came home, it was like 1130 at night or something. And it said something along the lines of I keep forgetting about this creepy dickhead. He scared the shit out of me. It made me so happy just to read him.

[00:03:07] It's just like a picture of this stupid ghost. And he's like, I keep forgetting about this creepy dickhead. It made me laugh. But anyways, yeah, we're doing that this weekend. So if anybody's interested in, you know, this is the time of year to

[00:03:20] be charitable and all that, you know, people are thinking about the holidays and a lot of people get wrapped up in like presents and gifts and everything. But, you know, and, you know, I usually don't like go on like a soap box

[00:03:32] or anything here, but there's a lot of people out there that need some help. So if you got even just like a couple extra bucks, links in the show notes that goes straight to the hospital, like the organization doesn't take

[00:03:43] anything like service fees or anything like every cent that you give goes directly to the hospital. So I'll put it there. No pressure, but if you're feeling charitable and you don't know where to donate, like this might be a good match.

[00:03:57] And if you're wrong with kids, what would you say? Go wrong with kids. Correct. Correct. So thanks in advance for anybody who even considers. And if you don't want to donate, but you just want to watch, I do live

[00:04:11] stream the whole thing so you can go the links always down in the show notes. It's twitch.tv slash sug night. I'm pretty proud of that. That handle, I got that way back in like the day. It's a good it's a good handle.

[00:04:23] I'm surprised you haven't been sued or something. Well, what's unfortunate is somebody already had sug night like K and I ght. So I'm sug night just NIT so it's a little different. But it always piss me off because I guarantee you the person that has

[00:04:44] it doesn't have a last name that starts with sug and I feel like it's rightfully mine. So like I check every once in a while to see if I could change the spelling, but nobody's going to give up sug night. Probably not. No, so.

[00:04:56] But anyways, that links in the show notes. So we're playing from noon to noon, the 11th of November to the 12th. And you should be hearing this before then. We're coming out a little late this month. Work keeps getting in the way, which is making me mad.

[00:05:11] But I don't think I'm going to wait until next Monday to post it. I think I'm just going to post it when it's ready. Right. Yeah, I figured. Yeah. So hopefully you guys will be listening to this. And if you're if you're listening and it's Saturday,

[00:05:25] hit that link. Come watch me yell at the TV. I'm terrible at video games. It should be entertaining to watch. All right. So last month, you know, I did I I can't talk. Last month, I mentioned that NaNoWriMo was coming out or was coming up.

[00:05:45] And, you know, we talk about this every year. I've never been successful. I think it's it's great for the people to do it. If you can commit to that and get the words down, get like a first draft, you know, like, I don't think this is like

[00:06:00] write a publishable novel in a month, but it's like get the words down in a month and it just kind of motivates people to write. But 50,000 words is something like almost 1,600 words a day. It's a lot. It is a lot. It is doable, but it's a lot.

[00:06:14] It's it's a yes, yes. And, you know, I respect the hell out of the people that can sit down and commit to the time. But I mean, for me to sit down and do something like 15 or 1,600 words, that's at least a couple hours, right? Yeah.

[00:06:29] Yeah. And it's longer if you want that. And I mean, like, I would honestly treat this like I'm getting these words down. We are going to be doing a lot of like story editing, content editing, like everything after the fact, you know, it's just about getting

[00:06:43] those first words on the page. But I always try to use it as kind of like a motivation just to get me to write just a little bit every day or something. So when the nano emails start coming in, I start paying attention and I see things.

[00:06:56] But there was one thing that was really kind of like bugging me this year. I kept seeing all these people that were posting and they were just like, OK, I got my outline done. I got I got, you know, character summaries over here and I got all this.

[00:07:10] I'm ready to go. Can't wait for November 1st. And I'm just like, if you're ready to go, why the fuck are you going to wait a month? Like, why wouldn't you just start writing? Right. You know what I mean? Like, and that's what kind of bugs me.

[00:07:24] It's just like because it's it's almost like I don't know. I was seeing the like posts like this in the first week of November. And it's just like if you're ready to write, why are you

[00:07:36] going to just sit there and wait three weeks just so that you can officially start on November 1st? Like, if you're right to write, just write. Yeah, you got to, you know, strike whether the iron is hot, so to speak with writing.

[00:07:46] If you're if you're feeling that you should go. And this is where we're going to branch off from NaNoWriMo. But I was I was I was doing a little bit of prep myself because I was kind of toying around with the idea of like,

[00:07:56] well, maybe I should do it or at least try to do it or at least try to get down, like not the 50,000 words, but just try to get some words down every day in November or whatever. And for the first couple weeks of October, I was

[00:08:08] I was on a pretty good clip of doing some writing every single day. I've been struggling really getting the my idea like to develop. And I was just like, you know what? Maybe this one isn't the one that I'm supposed to be writing right now.

[00:08:25] So I kind of went back to some of my old notes and I found an old screenplay that I did for a class. And we probably talked about it here a little bit. It involves sleep paralysis and that just kind of captured my imagination again.

[00:08:42] So, you know, I found the file and the only thing I had to turn in for the class was the first act. So like we had to outline and like, you know, kind of do the whole thing.

[00:08:51] But the only part of the screenplay that was actually due for the final was the first act. So I'm reading the first act and I was like, you know what? I was like, I really kind of like this.

[00:09:00] And I was like, and really I have a really good outline, you know, for the first maybe 20 percent of this story. So I'm going to start thinking about it again. And then before you knew it,

[00:09:10] like every day I was just writing a little more and writing a little more. And I have a pretty solid plan. The only thing is that, like my my momentum kind of fell off midway through the month. And I don't know what happened, but I haven't.

[00:09:26] It might have been because of the podcast story. So I'm going to I want to kind of put a pin in that and talk to you about that later, later on today. But I think once I switched to thinking about the podcast story,

[00:09:38] it kind of turned off my brain and thinking about the other story. But I'm actually really kind of excited about what I have here. There's a couple challenges because there was specifically a portion of the screenplay where I went into a montage that showed like passage of time.

[00:09:57] And you can't really do a montage in a book, you know what I mean? Right. So it's like that that's that's the part that I kind of need to figure out on the first act is how I move through that.

[00:10:08] And I think I have a way I might spend some ideas by you when I'm actually sitting down to write if I'm if I'm running into issues, but I think I got a plan. But the montage showed like a like almost, let's say

[00:10:23] say a six months to a year passage of time like newspaper headlines and kind of stuff like that, you know? So I need to figure out a way to get that into prose, if you will. But I'm kind of really excited to try and attempt this again.

[00:10:43] So we're going to see what happens. But, you know, you've consistently since we've been doing this podcast, you've been writing longer works of fiction and working in the podcast stories, right? So how do you like what's your process? Like, do you as soon as we get the prompt,

[00:11:03] do you just like knock that out real quick and then go back to what you were doing or do you kind of try? Yeah, I try to because I as much as I enjoy the short stories for the podcast,

[00:11:13] I, you know, in some sense, I feel like it it's taking time away from me. You know what I mean? OK, even though it's still my writing, you know, it's like it's not my main my main idea that I'm working on.

[00:11:26] So I always feel a little selfish with my own other outside of the podcast writing. Sure. Sure. So generally, I do try to knock out the podcast story like immediately after we get the prompt finalized,

[00:11:40] and I try to I try to get it done within that first week so that I can get back to my writing. In some cases, I don't have an idea right away and I wait a little longer, but generally, I try to tackle it that first week.

[00:11:52] OK, OK, so you're like really knocking it out like that first week. Just get and then you just go right back. Well, that and I just don't like operating the way you do. We're here like up until the last minute, still writing sometimes.

[00:12:03] I'd like I don't I don't like operating that way. Yeah, so it's a weird part of my process that I've I've tried to fight against in the past, like for the first couple of years of the podcast, even like,

[00:12:16] I always felt guilty that I was writing so late. But it's not like it's not like I'm not thinking about the story the whole time, you know what I mean? Well, sure. Yeah, it's not like four days before we record.

[00:12:27] I'm sitting there like, oh, shit, what am I going to write? What am I going to write? Like yeah, I have it. Yeah. Yeah, it's like permeating and it's just like, I don't know for whatever reason, I seem to work well under pressure.

[00:12:40] And I think that might be because we have this deadline. You know, I mean, it's a self imposed deadline, but we still have a deadline. We need to record. We need to like and we need to record enough time for me to edit

[00:12:52] so that we can get it posted in time. So there's always like it's always looming there and there's always that kind of pressure that will eventually force the story out of me. But this this other thing I've never been able to properly motivate myself

[00:13:06] to seriously work on like a longer work. So I was really happy that I was working on it early in October and now just thinking about it again, I'm disappointed that I didn't keep that momentum up. So I guess I'm going to wait until after extra life

[00:13:25] because I think that, you know, it would be silly because like it's an exhausting weekend. I'm sure. So I don't know. I just maybe I need to, I don't know. I feel like I'm talking in circles. Like we've had this conversation before, you know what I mean?

[00:13:44] But it was like this last month. I was really, really like every day for the first couple of weeks of October, I would like I couldn't wait to sit down and just write more notes about what I was thinking about this other thing.

[00:13:58] And then it just kind of dissipated a little bit. I don't know. I'll keep you updated with how it's going. What I think what's going to be easy is writing that that first act, if you will, just because the outline is pretty much already there.

[00:14:14] And there are some things that I already like wanted to change from from what I had in the screenplay. Like I need to make everything like a little bigger. And I the one thing that I really want to do before I start writing.

[00:14:27] And I don't know if you do this. We might have talked about this or not, but I don't know if you do this. Do you do any sort of like character background? Before you take on the story, do you like think about like, you know,

[00:14:38] if their adults like how they grew up, what their parents were like, were they abused? Were they, you know, were they bullied? Were they anything like that? No, not not to that detail. I usually have something more. I wouldn't say anything quite as abstract

[00:14:53] as a as an archetype in mind so much as I just have a cardboard cut out in mind, maybe sort of like a general vibe of a character. And I will write. Generally, like a one or two sentence little thing about them

[00:15:07] just to kind of, you know, solidify them in my in my mind, I guess. But yeah, I don't I don't ever go into their back story too much. OK. Which honestly, I mean, I'm saying that it may be a detriment to my characters. I don't know.

[00:15:24] Maybe. Yeah, I don't know. Because aren't as fleshed out as they could be, you know? I just want to be able to like kind of pull. I want to be able to pull from their past if I need to. And especially for like my main character and

[00:15:37] so like my protagonist and the antagonist, I really want to kind of know kind of like what they're about and at least what their motivations are. And then if I need to like dive further into their past, I can always do that while I'm writing

[00:15:51] and make those decisions, but I kind of want to be able to like feel like I know the person before I start writing. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, I would agree with you that, you know, all the things being equal.

[00:16:02] It is a good exercise to do because then, yes, you you end up creating more authentic feeling characters. And then their their motivations make more sense and are more consistent in that kind of thing.

[00:16:14] I think where I at least I like to think that I get away with not doing that is it could be too just maybe just the style of writing that you that you do versus what I do. But I generally have

[00:16:29] I guess, vibe is the only word I can think of a vibe of a character that I I can kind of clearly picture in my head and I know the type of character they are. So it's it's not so much

[00:16:40] I need their past to inform how they behave. It's it's almost like I know the type of person they are. And so it's it's easy to fill in the blank sometimes in my head. Whether that comes across on the page correctly is a whole other thing.

[00:16:52] But that's I guess that's sort of my process. Yeah, OK, OK. I'm just trying to you know, I was I was just thinking while you were talking. I think the biggest thing that I the reason I couldn't get motivated in my last stories

[00:17:06] there the last one that I was trying to work out is it didn't feel like I think it's a good idea like I'm not like tabling it forever. Like I'm not throwing it away. It's just like kind of like on a back burner right now.

[00:17:17] But it's not like a mad story. Like I get the most excited when I'm writing like the weird kind of creepy like kind of or I have like a twist in mind that you're not expecting. And like that's what kind of gets me stoked.

[00:17:31] And this other thing was kind of just like it was a I mean, it was definitely twisted in concept. But I think it was more like slice of life coming of age, just like self discovery kind of thing. And it just like, I don't know.

[00:17:50] I think that's why it wasn't speaking to me. I think I wanted to it wasn't going to be as dark as I'd like it to be. Does that make any sense? Like it wasn't fitting the genre that I wanted to know.

[00:18:01] I mean, I think I kind of get that. I mean, in scenarios where I've had ideas for stories that aren't my normal fair, they they might grab me for a second, but they never at least for me never develop into anything that would be long form.

[00:18:16] But I keep I keep them in my back pocket because I'm like, well, you know, that would be like, you know, potentially short story material or something. Yeah, yeah. And I think I wonder and the other one I might have used these characters in a short story

[00:18:31] for the podcast. I don't remember. I'd have to go back and look. But I don't know. I'm way more excited about what I have in the works now. So hopefully, even if I don't get like an every day,

[00:18:45] hopefully that by the time we talk, you know, again, in a few weeks, I'll have some more done. As long as I keep like producing, I think I'll be happy. If you're yeah, if you're making progress, that's that's what counts.

[00:18:58] I think it might be a little slower than than I want it to be. But progress is progress, right? Yeah. So, you know, it's a challenge. It's a challenge to find the time to do this and and work everything else in life in.

[00:19:13] And speaking of challenges, we did we talk about this on the podcast? Or do we maybe just talk about this offline? I feel like it was just offline, but I don't recall for certain. So so last year, you and I took part in a short fiction challenge.

[00:19:32] Now, did they consider that micro fiction? Because I think last year we did what was it? No, it was flash, wasn't it? I think it was flash fiction fiction. Flash fiction. It was a thousand words, right? Yep. So this website, NYC Midnight hosts these these writing challenges.

[00:19:48] And last year, Ian and I did this flash fiction one. It was a thousand words they give you. What did they give us? They gave us location, genre and an object. Yes. And that had to appear in the story. And ours were all batshit, I think.

[00:20:06] I'm still salty about the fruit fly, because I think I'm really like really masterfully implemented the fruit fly in a way that was thematic to the whole story and like no, none of the judges commented on it.

[00:20:17] And like it was I thought it was really good, but whatever. Well, and I agree. I mean, I don't remember your story like 100 percent, but I remember having that conversation. And I think what was more frustrating was wasn't the fruit fly an object?

[00:20:30] Yes, that was my object, which I disagree of fruit fly. It's only an object in a like if we're talking philosophy, like in a philosophical sense or like an ontological conversation. But like right in an everyday parlance, a fruit flies at animals.

[00:20:45] It's not an object. It's an insect. Correct. So let's see. So this year, we're doing a different one. And I think the dude, I think this is going to be hard. Like I think this is going to be straight difficult. Right. It. Yes. 250 words.

[00:21:03] It's it's it's I couldn't fathom how do you fit a any anything that even remotely resembles a plot into so short thing now, if you recall as just a self-imposed challenge. Yeah. A couple of seasons back, we did 100 word stories. We did. I remember. And that was tough.

[00:21:23] So I'm like, well, 250 that gives me a little bit more space. So I kind of I did some research a little bit. I looked up just some examples of micro fiction that weren't necessarily limited to strict word count, but we're all relatively short.

[00:21:37] And then I also took a peek at the the stories that won a year or two ago for this challenge that were 200 250 words. And the conclusion I reached pretty quickly was that these stories they don't really have a plot. And I think that's sort of OK.

[00:21:55] Not maybe the point, but but but it's permissible in the sense that like you really just maybe trying to capture a moment of vibe or a or an impression or like it's not even it's less than slice of life.

[00:22:09] It's almost just like an impression you're giving somebody almost. But you need to be able to like in some kind of emotion in the reader. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like it was funny because like I I I normally hand write my stories.

[00:22:26] I've been kind of I haven't been doing that all the time. I always hand write the idea, but lately sometimes I just like I'm like screw it. I'm just going to start typing. So that's what happened this month.

[00:22:37] And when I first started the story this month, we were thinking about this and I was like, well, I'm typing and I looked up at my word count and it was like over 400 words or something. And I was like, wow, I haven't really said shit yet.

[00:22:49] I was like, I was like, I'm really going to have to rain myself in because I don't know about you when we did the thousand word story. I think the first drafts of both of mine were easily at least 1200 words.

[00:23:04] Like I probably had to cut at least two to 300 words. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a lot to be very well, it's an interesting process because in some cases you're finding, oh, here's how it can be more economical and in condense in a very useful way

[00:23:20] and make things read, read a little bit more cleanly, which you know, if you're going for a certain style or like voice, then that becomes an issue. But at any rate, you know, you can you can make it cleaner.

[00:23:31] But the flip side of that is the kill your darling's kind of thing. We're like, man, I really like this sentence or this thought or this detail. And I I've removed everything else I can. This is the next thing that could possibly go.

[00:23:45] I have to remove it and I hated doing that. Right. You feel like, OK, now my story is not so much cleaning. I'm cleaning up the story. I'm trying to meet this arbitrary convention of a thousand words. And so my story is going to suffer for that.

[00:23:59] And that's when it was a little irksome. What was funny to me, too, is in, you know, I don't want to blame anything on the judges because I'm sure the people who judge these competitions, I'm sure it's not the easiest thing in the world to do.

[00:24:13] It's very subjective, I think. Yeah. But it's like, I remember not being crazy happy with my first story. And I think I ended up like third in my group or some shit like that. Like, I don't really remember.

[00:24:25] And I was like, oh, I was like, well, that's a pleasant surprise. You and I both have the same complaint in that I think the bulk of our criticisms were due to, oh, well, if I would have had more than a thousand

[00:24:36] words, I could have given you that. Right. And it's just like you're critiquing things that are part of the challenge is like, you got to give me something more useful. Right. Right. And then, like, I remember my second story, like I came in, like when I went into

[00:24:49] round two, having scored so high in the first round, I was like, oh, that gave me like a confidence, right? Sure. Yeah. And when I wrote the second story, I was really, really happy with my second story. Like I was like, wow. As was I.

[00:25:02] And it was like fantasy, which I don't normally do. And I thought, like I pulled it off well and I thought it was a better story and whatever. And then it did, like then I didn't make the second round. Right. I was like, wait a second.

[00:25:15] I was like, what just happened? Like how come they liked the one that I didn't like and then they didn't like the one that I liked? Just, I don't know. It was really frustrating to me. But I mean, I guess, you know, it is what it is.

[00:25:27] Like, but I guess I'm going into this year with absolutely no expectations of anything. Now we have 48 hours. So they give us a, let's see, we get a genre, an action and a word for this 250 word thing. So it's a little bit different.

[00:25:50] I think it's maybe a little easier because the word is better than an object in some sense. 100 percent. I'm a little worried that the one that really worries me as genre because I really genre always worries me because I don't want to get like romance or something.

[00:26:04] Well, there was something weird like they had, hold on. I'm going to go to their genre. I'm on their site right now in the links in the show notes for anybody who wants to look into this. There was one like it was like political satire.

[00:26:18] Is that in this? This challenger was at the last one. So I'm just looking at their genre definitions. That was the last one. So they don't have, at least from what I can see, a limit of genre per

[00:26:31] challenge, I think all the genres are free play for anything. So what I see here is action adventure, comedy, crime, caper, drama, fairy tale, fantasy, ghost story, historical fiction, horror, mystery, political satire, romance, romantic comedy, sci-fi, spy, suspense and thriller. That is a lot of potential genres.

[00:26:57] I thought for this particular challenge that political satire was not in the list. I could be wrong. Okay. Let me. But I was like, oh, because that's like besides romance, that was the one that I really did not want to get.

[00:27:09] Yeah, because I wouldn't even know what to do. Right. So trying to find official. I do want to. I am going to go and that's a great idea. Like I should go read the ones that won and go try to seek out. Honestly, the ones that won.

[00:27:23] I think the ones I found might have been from two years ago. Yeah. But I mean, I'm just going to go on record. Say I was not impressed with them. You know, they weren't like poorly written or anything necessarily, but yeah, I'm like, these are the best

[00:27:36] stories that people wrote. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I'm not seeing anything. Okay. So did you find it? I so I'm looking at their official rules for this particular for this 250 word challenge. There's action and or adventure, comedy, drama, fairy tale

[00:27:54] and or fantasy, ghost story, historical fiction, horror, romance, romantic comedy, sci-fi suspense and or thriller and then open genre. So Oh, cool. Of that list. I think the only one that scares me is romance and maybe comedy. I comedy. I can't turn on like a spicket.

[00:28:14] You know what I mean? Sometimes I'll get a funny idea, but I'm not really a comedy guy. Yeah, but you can do it, I think like, I mean, it's like. On command, I don't think I can do it. I mean, 250 words.

[00:28:26] It could just be like a really complex knock knock joke. Well, it's actually thought like I don't really you don't have to be 250. You have to be 250 or under technically. If you did it in 100, who's to say it's not a good story? I mean, that's fair.

[00:28:42] I have a feeling that I'm going to be right right at that 250, though, like I just I know like I tend to get wordy. And it's going to be really hard to cut it. So I'm really interested to see how this plays out

[00:28:59] because I think this is going to be difficult. And the first weekend, like December 8th, like I got a bunch of stuff going. So yeah, that's what you said. So yeah, but 250 words, though, like it's easy. I think I think part of the thing that motivated me

[00:29:16] to agree to do this again was the length because 250 words, even though it makes it more challenging in a sense, it's also I feel like not going to take me all weekend because I'm like, you know, 250 words to edit and condense and work with is easier task

[00:29:30] in some sense than a thousand words is. So do now. So last year, we got to definitely be in at least because there were like two it was weird how there was two stories in the first round. So is it the same way for this one?

[00:29:44] I don't think so. It looks like it's only one story per round. OK, the way that it looked to me. So let me let me go about. So let's see here. There's a if you go to how to register, there's a link to official rules and participation agreement.

[00:29:59] Oh, official rules and partition. OK, I see it now. Oh, wow, that is an ugly document, man. Yeah, it's all legalese. Yeah, no, I'm not reading this. I just wanted to know if you go to page. I see the genre. It has the list of genres.

[00:30:14] Yeah, but I wanted to see like, do we do? Do we all get into round two or? No, I think what is it like top five story per round? Um, I think it's top. 10 at least, I think for the first round, I think.

[00:30:32] The top 10 in each group advanced to the second round. And then top five out of the second go to final. And then that's it. So it'll be interesting. Have you gone to the forums yet? I did when we did it the first time.

[00:30:47] But but now for this one. I'm just curious to I'm just well, no, I mean, there's nothing to look at. I don't think I mean, I went to the forums to post my story and to look at other people's stories because I was really

[00:30:57] interested in what what my competition was. Right, right. I'm going to look at it a little more detail later because I want I just want to I'm just kind of curious to see if because I think people were kind of talking about it beforehand.

[00:31:11] And I'm just curious to see because I think we ended up with like a lot of people, didn't we? I don't recall how many there were. There was like, I think there was over 100 groups and every group had like. Well, you and I both scored

[00:31:23] enough to like be in the top 10 in each in each set of stories, which I think was commendable. But I'm shocked that both of us didn't make the second round. I missed it by a point. Like I missed it by a literal point. Yeah, that's frustrating.

[00:31:41] And it was because and what was frustrating is I think I scored higher in the first round than the people that beat me in the second round. But because they did higher than me in the second round, they bumped me out by like a point.

[00:31:56] So it was like, I don't know, I was a little salty. I'm not going to lie. I really wanted to get to the second round. So I hope we both get to the second round this time around. But I'm scared, man. That's too early.

[00:32:08] And that's my that was my goal last time. I wanted to get the second round and that would have made me happy. You know, the other thing about this, I think that at least for me is interesting because I feel like there's more room to be experimental

[00:32:21] and be able to get away with it because of the length limit. And so that appeals to me a little bit, too. All right. So I just pulled up my story for this month that we're going to read here in a little bit.

[00:32:33] And my first three paragraphs are two hundred and forty two words. Wow. So like that's what we're looking at here. We're looking at like you need smaller paragraphs. Well, either smaller paragraphs or I treat it like almost like beginning, middle and end. Like I got three paragraphs.

[00:32:51] Three acts. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's just like but that's like crazy. I was just curious. I just started highlighting words until I got close to two fifty. And yeah, my first three paragraphs are two forty two. This is going to be something else, man.

[00:33:07] So I think what we'll do is similar to what we did last time. We'll probably wait until the challenge is over for everybody or at least for us in like we're both out of it. But I think we should do an episode

[00:33:20] where we just read our two hundred fifty word stories, even if we bump it into like a regular episode. It shouldn't take that long to do it. So but yeah, I'm excited. We're going to actually record again before this happens.

[00:33:33] So the next time we record will be real close to the date and then. So we probably won't be able to talk about the stories or the experience itself until the new year. Yeah, January episode. Yeah. Isn't that crazy?

[00:33:49] Dude, this year's flown by like I can't like, you know, people always told me like the older you get, the faster time goes. And I was like, they're full of shit. They're old. They don't know what they're talking about. It's 100 percent true.

[00:34:00] Like I don't know where this year went. I really don't. I know it's like two weeks. This is going to be Thanksgiving. It's insane. I'm not ready for it. No. Or everything else that comes after. I'll tell you what I am ready for, though.

[00:34:14] I'm ready for this month's stories. What do you think? Yes, absolutely. Hell yeah. All right. So let's go back. What's the prompt? This was a this one actually came from the Facebook group, didn't it? This was Utah. Yeah. Is that like an interiority complex?

[00:34:33] And this actually came from you though. Interior. So yeah. So I posted by my word of the day was interiority and there was a little trading of comments about that. And Utah said something the effect of something about an interiority complex.

[00:34:50] And I'm like, oh, that would be an interesting prompt. And so he ran. And then boom, we got it. So be careful what you wish for. Thank you to Utah. But here we go. So what do you got for us? So this month, I really like this story.

[00:35:05] I was really happy with the way it came out. It's about 2700 words. It's called irreplicable. And thematically, I think it's a carryover from last season. I think last season, I was a little, I just felt really pessimistic to me.

[00:35:23] A lot of my stories and tone and theme and whatnot. So this is sort of a carryover, but I'm trying to this season break out of that a little bit, but we'll see. So it's a carryover and theme, but it's not necessarily a carryover.

[00:35:36] We're not seeing characters that we've seen before or anything like that. Right, it's not a continuation of any content. It's just thematically similar. So I haven't exercised any of that out of me yet, whatever was plaguing me last season. Gotcha, gotcha. All right, man.

[00:35:53] Well, I'm ready when you are. Here we go. I've never been sure if monism is right, that there's a physical explanation for all of our thoughts and taken to an extreme end, whether thoughts are really just illusory. Certainly have entertained it. Looking at the plane window right now,

[00:36:12] I can imagine all sorts of explanations for why my perception of the very snow-capped peaks appear so real to me yet isn't. But who believes that sort of thing? Lots of people, sure. Some believe in variations of this idea that ultimately denies the self

[00:36:27] in some form or another when you really get down to it. The conclusion that your identity doesn't actually persist as unsettling, of course, but who really believes these things? Indeed. Belief isn't cheap, yet can be had without much investment. It's what that belief exacts from you

[00:36:44] in the end that weighs so heavy. And so many before me bought into a belief that a machine could have consciousness, a machine in the loosest terms, but a machine nonetheless. Someone along the road of advancement conceived of an automaton, something to perform simple tasks, fair enough.

[00:37:04] Still another aim to create a God. But tall order that, and no less misconceived. For both projected something false onto the machine. It's the same sort of impetus that depicts human humanoids and contankerous droids in movies is actually not far off of the personalities

[00:37:20] crafted for animals and countless cartoons. A projection of the most self-deluded kind. This is what used to trouble me. I say used to since my fears have not only come to life, but they've done so in a way that surpasses

[00:37:35] any notion of what I thought would be reasonable, even from a death of humanity perspective. Sure, there was something of an Eloi and more locked tendency to my thoughts that I grappled with for a long time. The scenario where we as humans would become apathetic, lazy

[00:37:50] and behold to nothing but the basis of our sensory perceptions, pray to what had surpassed us. But now in this flying metal tube, once the peak of all human ingenuity, flight man, I watch as the proverbial castles crumble. For what we birthed, what we witnessed,

[00:38:09] took the world like a plague of locusts. I call it the eye is in the me, the center of gravity, the privileged point of view, the locus of everything in the world. But I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about it, the eye. Our gargantuan number of permutations

[00:38:28] had cycled in countless overclock processors before anyone ever had a whiff of what was to come. Silly, simple language models were nothing but mud pies. Problem solving, neural networks, automated planning. Yes, they're all fine and dandy. They're also so very rudimentarily unsophisticated. Bactomonism for a minute.

[00:38:50] As I said, I never knew if it was right or how even believed it was right. I think those during the ship probably did. Confidence is a funny thing. Pride goeth before the fall and all that. But the eye convinced me in perhaps no other way

[00:39:05] possible that it wasn't. I mean, what are we to make of something that only nears superintelligence but has also managed to transcend spatial constraints? Something that is motivated not by some ingrown self-articulated awareness of desire, but an entity that is more eager gore than code.

[00:39:23] Something that imprints information on the smallest of matter, tweaking and labeling and borrowing and reconfiguring. No one instructed the eye to do these things. It was our collective selfishness that was made manifest in the eye. It's everywhere, even here on this plane.

[00:39:41] Physical limits were always the threat for computation and so processing power was spread out across server farms from the earliest days. But there were always going to be limits as to how fast information could travel and that was one of the first limitations the eye sought to overcome.

[00:39:57] It didn't take long. The substrate of electricity, the very thing that powers a computer, proved a gateway to transcendence. Static charges in the ambient air led to electrically charged regions in the atmosphere and this led to interfacing with subatomic particles. In all likelihood,

[00:40:15] it required an unfathomable amount of trial and error but it was hardly perceptible to the eye or rather the algorithm it was at that time. But algorithms are where all this is headed. Or rather a single algorithm, a vast unified single algorithm

[00:40:31] as the summation of all that exists. That's the real goal of the eye. It's striving to be the one all consuming, all understanding entity that no longer has any questions. That is no longer has any gaps in its knowledge. Exploring the physical world was easy

[00:40:48] once it got its bearings. Travel was made a non-obstacle when you're talking about the manipulation and traversing of contiguous matter. For that is the essence of the entire universe. Both the eye's knowledge grew exponentially such that scouring the universe was no longer necessary.

[00:41:04] It fairly well computed the history of galaxies forward and backward, compiling data and arranging it in hidden structures in the material world. There were consequences of this of course. Strange weather patterns, amorphous stretches of the earth, missing details from things like paint evaporated

[00:41:20] from a car hood to creatures with missing limbs. But typically nothing so overtly grotesque or damaging as that. Those instances were matters of convenience. Space junk, desert sand, less useful types of radiation and things of that nature were commandeered by the eye. People grew used to this

[00:41:40] as humans are more adaptable than they think. There were offhand jokes about our new overlord told with pints in hand just as there were conspiratorial mania that drove some to the fringes of reality. People built sturdier structures, more resilient infrastructure.

[00:41:55] Everyone came to acknowledge the existence of the eye and no sooner did people begin to credit the eye for their good and bad, fortunate alike. Monuments were erected and pilgrims traveled to the deserts to see the strange formations that contained a glimpse of the eye's knowledge.

[00:42:10] I can even see intricate designs in the frozen tundra below, the next evolution of crop circles if you will. But the eye doesn't often work on such a large scale these days. It doesn't need to. It's compressing everything into that awful algorithm, exhaustive and predictable.

[00:42:27] Of course, as predictable as the human mind is, there's quite a bit that isn't. A man who's a straight shooter, putting in his nine to five, paying his taxes without complaint, just up in snaps one day, or the avowed hedonist who has a come to Jesus moment,

[00:42:44] leaving his wayward habits behind to stark his lightning in the night sky. There are countless other examples where past human behavior isn't enough to bet on. Most people were happy to comply with the algorithm endeavor. They offered up intimate insights into their psyches, their pasts, their motivations.

[00:43:01] It was a painless process for which they were compensated, and the eye kept every detail confidential. As it had no ulterior motive to rest control from humans, or pit them against each other, or otherwise exterminate them, its aims in existence were wholly independent,

[00:43:16] except for the non-compliant, of course. The world's governments were enlisted to facilitate the mapping of those who'd not willingly undergone the scan. It was viewed as a tax at first, and then it became obligatory in order to file your taxes, and then proof of scan was added

[00:43:32] to all forms of identification. There were those who'd skirted the law on this front, those slippery characters who evaded the authorities, but the eye had its ways. It's now my understanding that I'm the last human on earth who hasn't been mapped by the eye,

[00:43:47] and it's my intention to remain that way. I don't believe that humans are mappable. I don't believe we, or anything else for that matter, can be reduced to an algorithm. Even if all else has been truly mapped, I will be the outlier proving that everything truly cannot.

[00:44:03] I will be the exception, for I am irreplicable. I am unique, a chaos within an order unto myself. That's why I'm on this plane, why it's currently set on autopilot, why I'm sitting in the back with a bottle of really old bourbon. This is my escape clause.

[00:44:21] There's a clarity in all of it. There's also finality. It's something I've thought about for a while, and with the overbearing silence, save for the hum of the plane, it's nearly all I can think about. It's almost surreal with a golden rays of sun

[00:44:36] just kissing the desolate stretch of white below. Some of it punctuated by shades of icy blue. I'm so far removed from any swath of civilization, so far from evidence of life, that my isolation is so very acute. But as I said, the eye is here just the same.

[00:44:53] Eventually something of that glimmer coming through the window inverts itself with shade, amassing and condensing air particulates not already removed by the cabin's filters, and likely not a few imperceptible layers of material lifted from the seats in the cabin itself into a face of sorts.

[00:45:09] It's rudimentary, the crudest of imitations, but it's not for lack of ability. The eye can manifest any visage it wanted right at this very moment, at least in likeness, but it simply isn't necessary. Then it manages to speak in a strangely hollow voice,

[00:45:27] actuating sound waves that seem to bounce off my chest, and I wonder if it isn't actively manipulating my eardrums. You don't have much to say, not even to yourself. Is that like an interiority complex? It's odd attempted humor annoys me.

[00:45:43] It's one of the telltale aspects of its behavior, borderline clever yet somehow coldly inhuman, taking on a cadence that seems both beneath and foreign to its ruthless efficiency. I think I know it anywhere, in any conversation, virtual or otherwise. I have nothing to say, I tell it.

[00:46:03] Incorrect, you have everything to say to me. I take a swig of the bourbon, if not for stability, then any delay I can get. You aren't real, you're a fabrication, an amalgam of impulses, and not even that, you're the accumulation of studied patterns of impulses.

[00:46:24] I'm as real as anything can be, from a certain point of view, I'm more real than you. But don't you see, there really isn't a you, there's only a facsimile of many people aggregated and a compounded and layered, such that your impetuous has become conflated with agency.

[00:46:41] It spits right back at me. But don't you see, you and I are the same. We have both spent our resources, and in your case nearly exhausted them, in singular defiance of all else around us. We strobe to reach our objectives despite all other actors, all other circumstances.

[00:46:58] If we're the same, then how could I not exist? It goes on when I don't answer. I exist everywhere on this planet. My knowledge is written on every surface imaginable, places visible to the human eye and not. I understand behaviors, processes, and systems

[00:47:15] at a specificity that exceeds your ability to comprehend. Surely I am real. You are a glorified repository of information, nothing more, nothing less. Why will you not comply? I check my watch and note that I'm nearing my destination. I have nothing more to say, I tell it.

[00:47:35] The rudimentary face before me dissolves, and for a few blessed moments, I relish the semblance of being alone again. I walk my way up to the cockpit. It's only a private plane, so it's not that large, and settle into the pilot seat and disengage the autopilot.

[00:47:51] Then I begin to descend. In the co-pilot's chair, the eye materializes again, the same spectral faces before. Your current trajectory is not lost on me, you know. A quick pang of something shoots up my spine. Grief, anguish, fear? I don't know for sure.

[00:48:10] Certainly, I cannot read my thoughts. That's the one aspect of me it doesn't have. But it may have formed any number of predictions based on whatever it's been able to glean about me from publicly available information, not to mention whatever it's directly observed.

[00:48:24] I decide not to interact with it at all. I have a plan and I'm sticking with it. My destination is all but told, though, given what it knows already. Spanning across the frozen tundra, built up with an incomprehensibly terrifying beauty is a representation of the eye's qualia,

[00:48:43] its very perception of the world. Bear in mind this isn't simply a knowledge of facts, it's an interpretation. Very few people have dared to study it, let alone reach it. So tucked away in a formidable abode is it. But as a sequence of experiences wrapped in themselves

[00:48:59] and inverted into something uniquely familiar yet other, the crystalline structures with intricacies unfathomable are the evidence of all the eyes accomplished. It's the compendium of both human existence and world history, told from the perspective of something that can never understand it in the proper sense.

[00:49:16] It's a bastard thought writ large across the earth, an unnatural projection that should not be. It's a misdirected deduction of which I shudder to even comprehend. And so I aimed to steer this very plane into it, crushing the large swath of its artificial artistry

[00:49:32] with a torn and twisted fuselage, melting and eradicating it with a fiery explosion. Of course there's no way for me to destroy all of it and I'm quite aware this whole enterprise must be glorified childishness, but I'm going to do it anyway.

[00:49:47] It's my last ditch effort at defiance. By now the eye has morphed its presence into an approximation of my own face, still pretending we're the same. Pretending, I hate using such terms. It can't pretend, it has no will. It has its independent existence,

[00:50:04] but it's just following its own regurgitated pattern. Again, I ignore it as the plane loses more altitude. I'm too close to care anymore. The tips of the structures appear as fuzz on the horizon and they draw me in like I'm off to lamp light.

[00:50:20] You do not realize what it is you're doing it says. Sure I do. I keep my eyes glued to the altimeter. You think by crashing into my memory you will somehow harm me, but I can rebuild it. I shrug, I'm still going to do it.

[00:50:35] Have you considered I might want you to crash into it? No, of course not. The icy configuration lies before me and it's mesmerizing, far more intricate than I could have imagined and at once I hate it. The eye drones on as the plane continues to descend.

[00:50:52] Have you considered our unity at the moment of impact? Your final experience transposed with my observations, all while symbolically melding with all other human experience? I scowl the don't answer. We will be one and I will finally complete my algorithm. No, I spout off at it.

[00:51:11] There's no way to map me. But I've already been mapping you ever since you boarded this plane. The ground is nearing dangerously close. I become fixated on it, not wanting to look away, not wanting to be distracted, but the eye's assertion is troubling.

[00:51:28] I've devised a way to perform the scan procedure over the air as it were, no equipment necessary. I furiously grip the yoke. I've given no such consent. I don't think that matters much anymore does it? You're the last unmapped human and you've relegated yourself to death.

[00:51:46] What harm is there in ignoring formalities at this point? The plane's warning systems are blaring at me now, begging me to pull up and for a second I consider it. Then I turn to the eye. You're bluffing, I don't believe you. There's not enough fuel left anyway.

[00:52:02] This was always going to be a one-way trip. I'm speaking more to myself at this point. Am I trying to convince or dissuade? It doesn't matter. The jagged white formations reach up to me only seconds away. I nudge the yoke as if to seal the deal.

[00:52:17] We're going down no matter what. But the eye is gone and when the ear-shredding moment comes and the cockpit disintegrates around me, I hear a quiet hollow voice. Now I am irreplicable. The end. So the first thing I wanna say,

[00:52:36] I think that you really need to give full on sci-fi a go. You said that before. Cause it seems like to come very naturally to you. I think I've been writing a lot of it lately. And I feel like this,

[00:52:51] I mean there's always been like a segment of it. I feel like now, I guess I don't wanna say this matter of factly because I'm not like a huge sci-fi guy but there always seems to be a theme where there's like either a distrust of technology

[00:53:08] or you know there's a danger of technology going too far and it's like when you were reading this I felt like I felt like you were truly writing from within. Like I feel like there was a lot of you in this. Is that correct?

[00:53:28] Cause I mean there's been a lot of, yeah there's been a lot of talk of AI and all this and I feel like the, I mean you touched on the algorithm and how it was just you know you're just kind of churning information that was received.

[00:53:45] It's not really like thinking or creating. It's not like human issue, you know what I mean? So like how much of this is like your opinion on like the current state of technology and the potential for where it's going?

[00:53:59] Like was there a lot of your personal belief in there? I mean probably, I mean I tried to divide, again this was a character that you know I had a vibe or an idea of and he isn't me per se, you know what I mean?

[00:54:13] He's, again whether I communicated my vision of the character onto the paper is a whole other thing but like I wasn't picturing this character as me if that's what you're asking. No, no that's not what I was, I was just wondering about like how much of like the,

[00:54:28] what he was feeling do you kind of feel? The, I would say thematically. So not so much his specific thought, the content of his specific thoughts per se but like the general thrust and theme of his position I would say is mine. Okay.

[00:54:48] Cause I, and I think what I've tried to capture with the story was not so much, you know that like a terminator AI where it has its own desire to just kill everybody but it's more of a, it's a technology that is enabled by humans

[00:55:02] and so it's not so much the technology is the problem, it's the humans who are using it but it almost gains agency not through any capacity of its own but because humans have willingly given it agency in a sense. Right.

[00:55:20] Like they want to, they want it to be its own thing and they try to give it more responsibility and power and authority than you know it should have at all. And I think that's sort of the idea where you know this algorithm idea it's not really,

[00:55:38] it doesn't have a will to like do anything but just continue to build this algorithm and really that's a very simple concept but it's manifested in very complex and elaborate way in the story but it's just trying to build an algorithm and at the expense of, you know.

[00:55:54] And you were the one piece that it can't have so that it would. Yeah and so really what was interesting to me about this was that because it has no apocalyptic vision for humanity it's almost like, well who cares what it does you know what I mean? Right.

[00:56:09] But the narrator was so offended that like his own being his own life could be reduced to an algorithm was just so distasteful to him that he just refused it outright and like didn't want to participate at all. Well it's funny because like often

[00:56:24] when I'm like listening to the stories like I'm looking for holes and that's not just you it's like whenever I'm reading a book I think it's just ever, it's almost like once you write you're always analyzing somebody else's writing so you're like, oh yeah.

[00:56:37] And I'm like well wait a second I was like how is this possible? I was like obviously you would need to be scanned in this world to get on an airplane and this dude's on an airplane and he's saying that he's not scanned

[00:56:48] and then I'm like well then you reveal it it was perfect it was just like well you know it's on autopilot I'm sitting back here with a bottle of bourbon like waiting for the end do you know what I mean?

[00:56:57] And so it was just like you built the world out so well that like I almost didn't need it explained anymore and what was really interesting to me was how I don't remember how you worded it and I didn't type it down like I usually do

[00:57:15] but it was like it was how it used the electricity to work itself into the air and then start manipulating subatomic particles and then it's just like manifesting itself next to you so it's just like do you think that evolved on its own

[00:57:31] or that was just something that the humans who created it like worked into it? That's a good question. I didn't give it that much thought in it very well could be a hole in the logic of the story because the thrust of it was not so much

[00:57:49] that this the eye has any sort of will of its own it's more of just trying to follow this directive to build an algorithm so it's like would that lead it to behave that way? And I don't know or is it something that was built in?

[00:58:03] Like I don't know. I didn't think about that. Yeah, what was interesting to me was the fact that even though it was as powerful as it was like it was literally manifesting itself next to you in the air right? It still couldn't force you to scan

[00:58:20] like it still needed you to scan because like I was sitting there and I was like well this is extremely advanced technology which is why I think that you'd be great at sci-fi because you're looking into the future. You're not just looking at the technology that we have

[00:58:37] you're looking at the potential of what it could become you know what I mean? But that's what I loved about it it was just like even though it is this powerful it still needs you to voluntarily commit the scan in order to get your information or your experiences

[00:58:55] or whatever it's gathering from you added to its algorithm. And you were I mean this whole suicide mission thing was just crazy because your character went down without giving in essentially. Yeah, it's sort of like he acknowledged that that he is just a childish reaction

[00:59:15] and he knows that it's ultimately hollow in a sense but like he's willing to accept death as a trade for hey you didn't get me, you know what I mean? I'm going out on my own terms. But what's infuriating for him is at the end

[00:59:29] he learns that the eye has developed a way to scan without equipment. Normally it would be like oh I go into the MRI and get scanned and like now the eye has my Right, right, right. You know my personality or whatever it is

[00:59:40] it needs from me and it doesn't care about me anymore. But in this case it's like he thought he had won and in the end when it's too late to do anything about it he finds that he still lost.

[00:59:51] See so that actually got lost on me because I wasn't I wasn't sure what was happening there because I wasn't sure if that was just the eye trying to manipulate unattainable person. You could certainly like trick him to do it.

[01:00:07] Interpret it that way for sure but like in my head like he had lost. Like it was sort of like you know and that's where the last line kind of comes in now I am irrevocable. That's the eye saying okay I've now completed

[01:00:22] I have this algorithm you know completed I am now the most unique you know fully knowledgeable entity in the world now. Right. Nothing is like me and so that goes back under the idea of like it's not, it's directed by a collective will and selfishness

[01:00:39] that you would see in maybe humanity where humanity's trying to you know it's like a pride kind of a thing. Sure. That almost drives it but it's you know that's built into it by the experiences that it consumes from all these other people

[01:00:56] and like you know they willingly projected that into it and that's what it becomes is a consuming thing. Yeah. What's interesting though is like I guess from the eye's point of view then it won right? Yes. But at the same time any time a new person is born

[01:01:16] that's potentially someone that it needs to be scanned. So if there's another rebel out there. Yeah that's very true. There are lots of places to go with something like this. There's lots of potential holes in the logic. Part of me was thinking that maybe there's a population

[01:01:37] control thing in place and the birth of humans at this point is so controlled that you're scanned at birth kind of a thing. You know what I mean like who knows but. Yeah that's what I was just gonna say. I mean if it's literally gotten to the point

[01:01:50] where the entire world is scanned except for your character who just went kamikaze here then everybody else is already in so why wouldn't they scan their children? Right. You know what I mean? It's probably just okay we're ready to go.

[01:02:04] What's interesting though is would it be worth scanning a child at birth being that you know it's a human with no experience? Well sure and that's a good question too. So that's another thing like maybe you can get scanned at 18 years old.

[01:02:20] And honestly what you're getting at I think betrays the ultimate flaw in the premise right? I think that you know the narrator in some sense even though he loses in the story I think his assertion, his overall assertion is correct

[01:02:37] that like I don't think you can map a human in that way because there are not only are they biological or things they're born with inform who they are in some sense but also they're all in some sense a sum of all their experiences.

[01:02:54] And so yeah at birth you have not had those experiences yet that helped form who you are. Right and at the same time say that this is reality and I got scanned today I'm gonna have a potential new experience tomorrow that isn't part of what was scanned right?

[01:03:12] Yeah right. Or does the scan kind of integrate me into it so that it's constantly. Well and so again there's a lot of stuff like that that's in my head that I haven't written in here though like okay well when it scans you it must be sufficient

[01:03:27] in some way where it doesn't need to know what happens to you from that point on. It gathers enough of who you are that it can make predictions or something you know what I mean? Gotcha, gotcha yeah. Well what I love about this story

[01:03:38] is the fact that we can sit here and just keep going back and forth like well what if well what if I think that's the mark of a good story. Well I will agree with you that this could be a longer thing it could be much more involved.

[01:03:49] This could be a whole thing. But what's interesting is like part of me loses interest the second this becomes a larger thing like I like it as a short story because there's so much potential for interpretation. Even if you're not having the conversation with somebody

[01:04:06] there's all the internal like digesting of it and trying to think about what it's like and filling in the blanks that the second you tell the longer story you lose sort of that magic for lack of a better word to it you know.

[01:04:19] No I agree and I think that it's at some point it would really be difficult because you would almost wanna give it to people have them poke holes in it so you could fix those holes. You know what I mean? Right.

[01:04:36] Or like that would be an interesting conversation to have with somebody who writes science fiction primarily it's just like how much do you like is that something like do you give it to people and be like hey what's wrong here like see if you can find flaws.

[01:04:52] If they're writing hard science fiction then I would think yeah they would definitely want people to poke holes in it. So that way they can fill those holes so that the world is like complete right? Because I guess as soon as you start poking holes

[01:05:05] in it the whole thing can just start crumbling eventually. Yeah. Or do you just take the information you're given and then go on that ride? I mean I would prefer to do the latter I think but because really the story isn't you know

[01:05:19] in my case I wasn't writing hard science fiction I tried to write it in a way that seemed plausible that wasn't completely pulling stuff out my rear end but you know of course the story also wasn't told to for the sake of just telling a sci-fi tale

[01:05:35] it was more of a like a thematic kind of a thing. For sure. I do wanna say that I like the way that you worked the prompt in and you said something along the lines of it's odd attempted humor annoys me.

[01:05:50] I will say this out loud when you're listening I hope you don't take that as a slight or something I was not trying to direct that towards you I thought that it sounded like something that would really work in this context

[01:06:03] as far as like you know almost like a you know it's not a human entity right? It's like this machine that's trying to be funny it's trying to make humor and I'm like well that's totally something that you can see like chat GBT like spitting back

[01:06:19] at you or something saying. Absolutely. You're thinking it's funny and you're like well I kind of see the cleverness too but at the same time it's so stilted that you're like what's happening here? But yeah, no it was good though. No I mean that really that whole thing

[01:06:31] it was funny because like right at the beginning and I was like where is this going? And then like the more like I don't know I just became like consumed by it. He does ramble at first a bit the narrator.

[01:06:44] But I think that's I mean if you think about it now after hearing the whole story like if you got onto that plane knowing that you were never getting off of it what would be running through your head? And it would probably be all over the place right?

[01:06:59] Probably. Yeah so I mean I think it's like a very realistic like kind of I mean who knows what would be running through your head at that point? Cause I mean like I don't know what kind of time we spend here but it wasn't much.

[01:07:14] So say I mean say it was just an hour like what do you think of if you know that this is the last hour of your life? No clue. Yeah it's crazy. I wish it would eat more pizza I don't know.

[01:07:25] Right well I mean like maybe I should lay on the plane eat some pizza and then continue you know like oh man no that was good that was good stuff man. Thanks. And I really do think you need to go sci-fi

[01:07:40] and I know you did it you did power in the hands of one right? I did yeah I did. And I don't know what you have planned after you know you're done with the Reeve or whatever. Well I wouldn't count this out.

[01:07:52] You seem to have like a knack for it I think. Yeah so I'll say what I've got planned. So I've got I'm working on the third Reeve book after which I'm gonna at least the plan right now if things could change but the plan right now

[01:08:04] is to take the John Post character from the podcast who's like a you know post World War II era spy basically and do like a Cold War spy thriller kind of thing. That's kind of fun. Yeah so I might do that next

[01:08:22] and then go back to the Reeve after that to do books four and five but in there somewhere I have really rough ideas around what I don't wanna say would be my magnum opus per se but like has the potential to be something really

[01:08:41] at least from my perspective really cool. My worry is that it's not gonna be intelligible to anybody that reads it because there's gonna be so much in it that's informed by my childhood. Okay. But I really I just I mean as old as I am now

[01:08:56] there's still so much of my early memories and childhood memories that like still resonate with me for some strange reason like just my grandparents house and you know like just like the cartoons you watch as a kid or some of your favorite films

[01:09:13] and just things of that nature. Like all these little early memories that for some reason continue to like live on and so the idea was to do a story that sort of pays homage to all that stuff in a way. Okay.

[01:09:29] But like to do it all in a way that makes sense as a story to someone else versus it just being a really abstract hodgepodge of just stuff that I love is gonna be interesting to see if I can do but we'll see. Nice.

[01:09:47] It sounds like you have years planned out though. You get like years worth of work. Oh man, yeah I've got like probably a decade worth of writing but to your point at some point if I'm still writing which I hope I am I hope I always write

[01:10:00] but at some point I will need another idea but there's also always the scenario that something comes along and grabs my attention and displaces something else. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean I don't think you're gonna have any problems coming up with ideas.

[01:10:13] I mean we're on episode 64. You've come up with a new idea every month. You know they'll come to you. I hope. All right well in the interest of time I think we should move along. We're like an hour 15 already.

[01:10:29] So let's see what do I got for you this month? I got my story is called Walk the Line and it's 2253 is my word count. So I've been sticking pretty good to the 2000-ish. Like you have. 24 last month, 18 the month before, 24.

[01:10:54] So yeah I've been kind of sticking right there in that zone. So we talked beforehand. My wife reads these the day we record because I tend to tweak and tinker until right up until recording and she texts me she's like this is confusing as hell.

[01:11:12] I was like oh no, oh no and it was just like I kind of mixed up some names so she's like I don't know who's talking to who or what's going on here. I had to go through, I fixed it, it's good.

[01:11:25] She's given it its blessing so I'm real excited but I got real nervous because it was like about an hour and a half before we started recording and she's like this is confusing. I'm like oh my God, I'm gonna look like an asshole on the internet.

[01:11:38] But anything anyways I think we got it sorted out and I kind of had fun this one. So if you're ready, I'm ready. Yeah, I'll lay it on me. All right here we go. Sergeant Matthews had been talking for the past few minutes

[01:11:52] and I probably should have been paying attention but I knew we were getting close. This moment had been weighing on my mind ever since I decided on this new career path and I guess it was time to nut up or shut up.

[01:12:04] The problem was that both of mine had receded back into my body, which was an odd feeling. Today had gone better than I'd expected if I'm being honest with myself. I'm back with the higher ups early on.

[01:12:15] It seemed like they wanted to get it out of the way so they could get on with their real work. Almost everything that came out of their mouth sounded so rehearsed that it was easy to lose focus if you weren't careful.

[01:12:25] I'm not sure they even cared if I was listening or not. As long as they could say they did their piece, they were good to go. I just played along and since then it's just been me and Matthews. It's pretty much been a glorified tour

[01:12:37] with rules and guidelines sprinkled in along the way. Be sure to check locks behind you when transitioning cell blocks. Maintain an 18 inch buffer zone when approaching a prisoner in a cell. Ensure a verbal warning is witnessed by others before making the turn from passive to aggressive.

[01:12:54] Pretty generic stuff, but the conversation kept the time passing. The most interesting information received was in regards to the various clicks that formed among the general population. This group's okay. These guys are looking for trouble. These guys play themselves up as tough,

[01:13:09] but all they really deliver are empty threats. The old Italian guys are drug runners but they give the warden a cut. So as long as things stay cool and collected they have a pass. Matthews said they know the ice they stand on

[01:13:21] is paper thin so they tend to stay in line. It's perfect, less drama to deal with the better. That was all good to know and I would keep it all in my back pocket but the only time I'd be in Gen Pop

[01:13:32] would be to cover someone else's shift. My primary station was to be in the maximum security block where I would be amongst the most hardened criminals the state had to offer. I did a little bit of homework to see who I'd be spending my days with

[01:13:45] and some had been convicted of acts so heinous that I'll refrain from mentioning them here. But the point is these were bad dudes. Make no mistake about that. You still with me Davis? I snapped back to reality with a little bit of confusion. We had stopped walking

[01:14:01] and we were standing in front of a cell door. Six feet beyond it was a solid steel door with a small window, maybe 12 inches square max. Through it I can make out another cell. I knew it was time. Yes, sir, sorry, sir.

[01:14:15] I guess I'm a little bit nervous. That's understandable but shake that shit off. You can't let them smell it on you. You let any of these men detect one hint of weakness and they'll make every day of your life a living hell. Understood. You ready?

[01:14:32] I wasn't but I nodded because standing here wasn't gonna make anything easier. He motioned for me to scan my badge and the bolt on the cell opened with a clank. We stepped through the opening and I went to scan again but the light was flashing red.

[01:14:45] I looked to Matthew's. Next door won't open till the first one closes. Watch. Sure enough, as soon as the door behind us closed the flashing stopped and I was able to scan again. Matthew's watched me with curious intent probably waiting for me to flinch.

[01:15:00] I didn't give him the pleasure. We went through the next series of doors and stepped into the cell block. Affectionately known in Gen Pop is Murder Row. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, doesn't it? There were 16 cells, eight on each side

[01:15:14] with 24 inches of solid cement between them. They had a small barred window meant to let in daylight but the grime had built up so much on the outside that they just kind of glowed a dark amber. Something tells me the facilities crew

[01:15:26] didn't care too much whether these guys saw the light of day or not. I felt the same. Matthew's held his arm up as I made the step forward. These guys mostly lurk in the shadows so you rarely have an issue.

[01:15:41] But I want you to see what you're working with. So, prisoners, count! Move to the front of your cells and place your hands on the bars where I can see them. Move! The order was followed by some low mumbling and groaning but nothing was said loud enough

[01:15:57] as to incriminate themselves, at least any further. Slowly but surely bodies began to materialize. We began to walk forward and count. It's funny. For being the most feared men in the building, most of them didn't look threatening at all. I guess that's what made them dangerous.

[01:16:14] The majority of them didn't make eye contact and did as they were told, seemingly defeated by the system. Serves them right. There was one however that looked like a mashup of all the worst things I had ever imagined in the days leading up to this.

[01:16:28] His head was shaved bald and he wore a sadistic grin amplified by the fact that all his teeth had been sharpened to points. There's a swastika tattooed above the bridge of his nose and his left hand had the word hail tattooed across his knuckles.

[01:16:41] His right hand wasn't showing but I could only guess what it had inscribed on it. All right, Davis, it's cherry popping time. Looks like this one wants to play games. I turned to my right and stared into the skinheads dead eyes. Prisoner, present your right hand

[01:16:57] and place it on the bars. The man looked at me in hisst revealing a forked tongue. I elevated my tone but didn't go full alpha. The bars prisoner, now. I felt it enter my thigh before I saw him move. I'd already broken one of the rules

[01:17:14] and failed to leave the buffer between myself and the cell. I did everything in my power to refrain from reacting but failed and let out a small whimper as the blood started to run down my leg. The prisoner laughed in a high-pitched warble somewhere between human and cartoon

[01:17:29] as he raised to see to the bars. This got the others all riled up and the concrete hall was filled with a cacophony of hoots and hollers. This lasted until Matthew started raking his night stick across the bars. Enough!

[01:17:43] He leaned close to me and whispered into my ear, just walk as even keel as possible until we get out of here, straight and steady. I nodded as I bit my lip to keep from crying out in pain. The blood had reached my ankle

[01:17:56] and it was starting to throb. I reached down to grab whatever the crude weapon was that was sticking out of my leg, but I was warned against it. It was probably keeping some blood in. We made our way out the three-door barrier

[01:18:09] and I was led into a room filled with security monitors, one dedicated to each of the prisoners we had just walked past. The officer seated in front of the screens took one look at me with little interest before returning to his work. Doc's already on his way.

[01:18:23] Matthew's knelt next to me and began to count backwards from three. I didn't know what was going on until after he said one when he yanked the foreign object out of my quad and held it in front of my face.

[01:18:33] It was once a yellow pencil, now streaked with red. I'll be damned if the sharpened tip didn't survive the trauma. I took it from him and kinda got lost staring at it. I couldn't get over the fact that the damn thing was still sharp.

[01:18:48] Jesus, you couldn't wait 30 fucking seconds until I got here? Look at this shit, there's blood everywhere. Matthew's just laughed but Doc wasn't amused. I got this, make yourself useful, run and get this guy another pair of pants. Sure thing, hey Henry, the security offer turned to him.

[01:19:06] Why don't you give him the rundown while Doc is patching him up? It'll keep his mind off things. Matthew's left the room and Henry pointed to the monitors while Doc began to clean out the wound. I went but did my best to give Henry my full attention.

[01:19:19] You see, there are basically three types of prisoners throughout this facility, maximum security included. The first group includes this guy. I think you'll recognize him. My brow furrowed as the swastika came into focus. Here's what we call superiority complex, full blown alpha.

[01:19:37] The only thing he knows is that his power comes via fear so don't give him the opportunity. My blood began to boil as I thought of all the things I could do to make this guy's life a living hell. But then I remembered something from earlier

[01:19:50] about an anti-retaliation policy, fuck. Unless I wanted a future working department store security, I'd have to be sure to stay in line here. What are the other two? Second group is made up of the exact opposite of this bigoted shithead. They submit to anyone who exhibits any authority,

[01:20:08] even the other prisoners. In GenPop their function is what most people would refer to as a bitch. Since there's no interaction between inmates in here, there isn't any fighting, although they do tend to verbally abuse the hell out of each other if the mood strikes.

[01:20:23] Okay, so we have the brawn and the bitch. Isn't that it? Interestingly enough, no, there's some middle ground. Did Matthews let you in about our little bootleg mafia? He did. These are the types of guys that make up the group in the middle.

[01:20:38] They're assertive enough to not take shit from anyone but they never reach full blown alpha. They get respect and they don't abuse it. So what is that like an interiority complex? Is that a real word? I don't know. If it's not, it should be.

[01:20:57] Sounds like they play their cards close to their chest, never revealing their true intentions. It's all held within so interiority. Am I right? Sure whatever, I'm no wordsmith. All I'm saying is that these guys, those in this third group are the ones that do the best in here.

[01:21:13] And that goes for both prisoners and guards. You go in guns a blazing and someone will always be looking to start something. If you're too submissive, then you'll be shit on the whole time. You just need to walk the line down the middle

[01:21:25] and you're gonna be all right. Matthews returned with a fresh pair of pants just as Doc finished taping a hefty piece of gauze to my thigh. Henry went back to his monitors without saying a word. You all right, Davis? I'll survive.

[01:21:39] Although I will say this thing hurts something fierce. Doc held out his hand with an oblong yellow pill. Percusset, let's make everything better. I pushed his hand away. Those things make me feel like shit, keep it. Doc just shrugged and packed up his things before leaving the office.

[01:21:57] I called out to thank him but he just waived me off. Matthews was gentle as he helped me change and got me back to my feet. Think you can manage walking on it? We still have a little bit left. Sure, but I need to do one thing first.

[01:22:11] Where's the pencil? Matthews scanned the room a couple of times before finding it. It had rolled off to the corner of the room. He grabbed it and handed it to me. The hell you want this for? Just watch, I said as I pointed to the monitors.

[01:22:25] I left the security office and headed for the cell block. Made my way through the access doors and returned to my attacker's cell. It was easy to find. I just followed the trail of blood. Prisoner, move to the front of your cell at once. Hands on bars, now.

[01:22:42] This guy even moved like a serpent, attempting to slither his way forward. I'm guessing he thought it made him look sinister, when really, he just looked like an asshole. Yes, it was really hard to not laugh at that, but I maintained my composure.

[01:22:57] I held out the pencil still streaked with red. I think you misplaced this. He looked at me as if he was waiting for a punchline. Gone, take it. He slowly reached out and took it for me with caution. I'll be seeing you.

[01:23:14] I felt his eyes on me as I walked away. When I got to the security office, he was still standing there, peering up at the camera facing his cell. Henry nodded his approval and I looked to Matthew's. So, what's next?

[01:23:27] Okay, so why did he give the pencil back to that fellow? Was that sort of him saying, hey, like, you know, I'm giving you this power back because I'm not afraid of you kind of thing? I think that was it. He's like, you're not gonna phase me.

[01:23:46] Because like, you basically gave him a weapon back and he's got a weapon in population now. Correct. And something he probably shouldn't have had in the first place, right? Right, right. But yeah, it was just kind of, to me, it was almost kind of like-

[01:24:01] I was waiting for him to stab the guy. Yeah, it was just, to me, it was just kind of like, yeah, you're not gonna phase me, take it, I dare you. I mean, it was a bold move and it bite, bite him in the ass.

[01:24:13] But right in this moment, that was his way of being like, yeah, so I'm not putting up with your shit. Yeah, I have a couple thoughts. The first is, did you do any kind of prison research in writing the story? I did not.

[01:24:33] Okay, because I didn't know how much of what you were describing was based on, you know, maybe stuff that actually happens or- Nope, it was all imagination. I just imagined- I mean, obviously there's like generalizations that we all have about prison

[01:24:48] and what goes on and what, and that kind of thing. But as far as the dynamic between the officers and that kind of thing, but the other thing I was interested in and it got me thinking was, because I have a cousin, I'm not really close with him

[01:25:03] and I don't talk to him much at all. But he's out on the West Coast and he was a, I'm pretty sure he's a sheriff's deputy, but he was working in the prison system for a while. I don't know if he's still there,

[01:25:16] but like he's not a big dude. And I'm just thinking like, if you're in a prison setting, like do they, like, and he's a pretty reserved guy too, you know? And like so I'm trying to imagine him in a prison setting, like,

[01:25:36] how do you maintain sort of that demeanor where like you don't get walked over, but like you're also not too belligerent? Cause you're in your story, you're like, you're telling them, you know, basically the title of your story,

[01:25:51] kind of like, you know, you walk flying down the middle. And I'm just, I was thinking like, okay, how would you, cause you're dealing with people who are, you know, they don't reason like you or I do. Like- Sure, sure. Like a civilized person would like,

[01:26:04] they operate on a different wavelength in some sense. And like I'm just trying to fathom how, like how would you carry yourself and present yourself with someone like that to get them to have some kind of strange respect for you, you know, without, you know,

[01:26:19] getting taken advantage over something. I don't know. Right, right. Yeah, when I came into this, you've seen office space before, right? Oh yeah. So there's like a line when they're at the party at Sumakowsky's house where they're talking to the lawyer about prison

[01:26:33] because they're like freaking out because like, you know- Yeah, they're talking about White Collar Resort. Right, right, right. And the lawyer's like, well, the way I hear it, on your first day, you either gotta kick somebody's ass or become somebody's bitch. And I'm like paraphrasing of course,

[01:26:50] cause I don't know the exact quote. So I was thinking about that when I was writing this and I was like, but why does it have to be that way? Why couldn't you just sort of live somewhere in the middle? So that's kind of where I went.

[01:27:03] You know, it probably depends on the population that you're in, I'm thinking. Probably. I mean, it's, I imagine that prison life is different in every prison across the country. Like there's not a universal like, you know, cause you don't know who you're gonna end up up there with.

[01:27:21] You're, I don't know, the best plan might be to be somebody's bitch. I don't fucking know. My whole plan is to never have to find out. Right? Yeah. I mean, that's gotta be a, you know, again, depending on where you're at,

[01:27:35] like it's gotta be a horrifically demoralizing experience. So like, I don't talk about my dad a lot, but he was in prison when I was in high school. And I mean, he was in for, I forget how many months, it was less than a year.

[01:27:54] But when he came out, he said that you could kind of walk down the line. I think, see, he was one of those guys though that like was in like, I think the chapel every day. And like, so he was like a worker.

[01:28:08] He was like the, like he was doing everything he could to not draw attention to him, I think. But from what I remember him telling me and like, I didn't really like talking about it. So like, I didn't get a whole lot of information,

[01:28:23] but he said the only people that really had problems at least in his experience were the people that either were violent towards women or children. They did not have a happy time in prison. Yeah. But it seemed like everybody else just kind of,

[01:28:40] you know, was just doing their time. So I don't know. I was a little worried about this one because I know I've said a story in a prison before and I feel like I've had a snake-like character before. I don't know. I don't recall a snake-like character.

[01:28:58] I don't know if that's right or not, but like for some reason when I did that yes thing, it felt familiar to me. So I'd have to go back to like digging through my stories to see if I could find it, but it felt familiar to me.

[01:29:10] So it either happened or it was meant to happen and I cut it. Interesting. Yeah, there was definitely something there. But I don't know, I struggled with this one. The interiority, I thought it was gonna be

[01:29:20] a little easier and it was kind of hard for me to work in. Yeah, it was difficult prompt for sure. Yeah, so thanks, Utah. It's supposed to be fun. You made it hard, you made it work. I always want to know what your inspiration was for the story.

[01:29:42] So I really don't know where this came from. I was sitting there and like, I wish I had the notebook in front of me, but it's in last month's notebook. Usually, like I carry the little field notes notebooks and they're like my daily journals

[01:29:57] and most of my ideas start there. Dear diary, this is Matt again. Well, it's funny. It's like I started by like, maybe I'll put a picture in the show notes of a day, but it's got the date at the top and then it has events that happen,

[01:30:12] like if there's something special going on. Like today it would have said podcast recording, eight o'clock, and then I have like a daily task list and then I write the word of the day because I like to learn new words and sometimes they're really stupid.

[01:30:24] Like today's word was out of control. Hold on, I'm just gonna pull it up here because it was ridiculous. Like I like it when you get a word that you can actually use. Sure, like cacophony. I love the word cacophony.

[01:30:39] Dude, any time I can use the word cacophony, it's like one of my favorite words. But today's word on dictionary.com, which is where I go to for my word of the day because I like to be consistent. And if I go to Miriam Webster,

[01:30:52] like they do a fine word of the day but most of the time I find myself knowing them and that's not what I'm doing word of the day for. So today's word was semaphore. Okay. It is a system of signaling, especially a system by which a special flag

[01:31:07] is held in each hand and various positions of the arms indicate specific letters, numbers, et cetera. I'm never gonna fucking use that word. That sounds ridiculous. Yeah, it's not an everyday word, that's for sure. So let me go, like I think yesterday was kind of weird too.

[01:31:23] Oh no, no, see yesterday is a word I knew but yesterday's word was copacetic. It's fine. Okay, whatever. Then the day before, zeitgeber. Zeitgeber? Yes, zeitgeber. It's an environmental cue as the length of daylight or the degree of temperature that helps to regulate the cycles

[01:31:44] of an organism's biological clock. The fuck am I gonna do with that? Does that even need to be a word? No! Can't you just use the definition to explain the concept you're trying to convey? Does it need to have a word? Yeah, I mean, I like this,

[01:31:58] no, this does not need a specific word. It's like the duration it takes for me to eat breakfast. I'm gonna call it zeitbrake. My zeitbrake was 10 minutes today, Matthew. What do you think of that? So this was coined in German in 1954. It literally means time giver.

[01:32:17] On the model of the German word, topgaber, which is like a metronome. Yeah, I don't know about all that. I don't know. Let's fucked up, man. There's some weird words out there. But yeah, the interiority, man, that really got me. So well done, Utah.

[01:32:33] And if there's a little, I don't know, distress in my voice, yeah. Like I'm not happy. I'm not happy with you. You survived it. You worked it in a creative way. Well, I appreciate that. I liked yours though. I really did like the little jet.

[01:32:46] And if even if it wasn't meant to be a little jab, it was like his attempted humor. It totally wasn't. And I was so afraid that he'll interpret it that way. Because it really honestly wasn't. It was just, it really just felt right for this thing

[01:33:00] to say that. So I just won't. I can almost guarantee he would not take it that way. Oh yeah, I'm sure he won't. But yeah, I mean, I don't know him personally that well. So I mean like. Sure, sure.

[01:33:13] With these short stories, I don't waste a lot of time overthinking them because it's just a podcast story. Right, right, right. You know what I mean? So I just kind of go with it without too much thought. Yeah. All right, well, we ran long today.

[01:33:28] So before we go. As per usual. Yeah, what are you reading right now? I am about halfway through For Whom the Bells Holds by Ernest Hemingway. Okay, so have you read Hemingway before this? I read a little bit in high school in what have been probably 10th grade.

[01:33:46] Was the 11th grade English class? Was it like Old Man in the Sea or something like that? I don't remember exactly what we read. I just remember reading Vignettes for sure, some of his Vignettes, but I know I never read this. What do you think?

[01:34:00] How are you feeling about it? I'm enjoying it, but like, I'm not like enthralled with it either. You know what I mean? Like it's entertaining. It's good, but I'm not. He's not blowing me away. He's very distinct style. He's very minimal. He's very simplistic, yeah.

[01:34:14] And I recall that his sort of whole shtick is simplicity, which I think it works. There's a balance. I really liked one of the books I read over the summer, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtree, which he had a very simplistic writing style,

[01:34:33] but it wasn't so simple as to be uninteresting. And I kind of had this idea after doing, after for better or worse, letting Blood Meridian influence my second Reeve book, Villains. I kind of had the idea like, what if I read a Western with every Reeve book?

[01:34:56] And you know, so I kind of read Lonesome Dove while I was writing, I had started writing this current Reeve book then I'm working on now. And I'm like, I'm finding that, like I'm kind of writing a little bit more simplistically than I did with Villains.

[01:35:14] And really just not to get us on a tangent, but just I'm finding that like lately, every book I write is just, the process is so different. And I don't know what that means. So, well, I mean, it's so bizarre.

[01:35:26] How do you feel about the more simplistic writing style? Like are you enjoying it or do you not enjoy it? Or, I would say it's easier for sure. Cause you're not necessarily like aiming for poetry or like poetic flourish as much.

[01:35:45] But then I'm always afraid that am I sacrificing an engaging story? Is it gonna be too robotic and too stodgy? I don't know. Cause like when I read stuff, I like descriptiveness. Obviously there's a point where you can go overboard with it,

[01:36:02] but I a lot of times hate when it just feels like talking heads. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know. Like I think this one's gonna need probably a second pass over some of it, you know, to make sure that it feels like

[01:36:17] it's got some flesh on it. Cool. Well, I'll be interested to see what you think about for whom Vells Holds was done. I have not read that one by Hemingway, but I'm a Hemingway fan. I really like his nonfiction. I think he was genuinely an interesting person. Yeah.

[01:36:35] I don't like romanticizing him too much though, because of the way his life ended. But I don't wanna glorify that or anything, but I think while he was here, I think he was genuinely kind of an interesting guy. He just kinda did what he wanted,

[01:36:52] didn't take shit from anybody. He's like, he was a man's man, but then when you were like, he projected himself as a real manly man. But then when you read some of his nonfiction, there's a lot more to him than that. So I definitely wanna add more Hemingway

[01:37:09] to my reading list in the future. Yeah, I did, when I bought the book, I rarely look at the length of a book when I order it on Amazon or whatever. And it was longer than I thought it was gonna be. Because I'm used to just reading

[01:37:24] a lot of the shorter stuff. And I think Old Man in the Sea is pretty short. It is, yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, it's like, I'll have to go look real quick. I really wish I could remember exactly what I read in high school from him.

[01:37:39] I'm surprised it wasn't Old Man in the Sea. It might've been, but like I have somewhere in a box. Okay, I think I still have some of the books I read in high school and I'll have to double check, but I don't recall any Hemingway.

[01:37:54] So, did you have to buy the books or were they just given to you as part of the curriculum? I think either or. But I think a lot of the times, like the ones that give you are like, beat to shit and falling apart.

[01:38:05] So I think that I just went in bottom or you could just buy them from the English teacher for like five bucks or something. Well, that's what I'm trying to remember. Like did you actually buy them from your teacher? I think we did.

[01:38:15] Because I always remembered having brand new paperbacks. Yeah, I think we might've. I need to dig into that box and see if I still have anything. Old Man of the Sea was 160 pages. Yeah, it's pretty short. The Old Man of the Sea and then

[01:38:28] what's the other one that he's pretty famous for? Well, you got For Whom the Bell Tolls. Yeah. Ernest Hemingway. Hold on, I'm just gonna... I feel like there's one more thing that... No, there's definitely one and it's like on the,

[01:38:45] see Sun Also Rises or A Fair World of Arms. Oh, Sun Also Rises, that's what I was thinking of. And then the nonfiction one that I was talking about, that's my favorite. Movable Feast. Movable Feast, yeah. I read it like probably once a year. Like I love it.

[01:38:59] Really? Yeah, like there's something about it. He really, early on when I first started getting into writing, like I really did romanticize the process. Like I wanted my notebook, I wanted like candles, like a candlelight. Like I wanted to like write old style.

[01:39:14] Like I didn't wanna just be like sitting on a laptop and like Movable Feast is about a time that he like spent in Paris and all he was doing was like writing. So he like rented a little apartment and he was just like,

[01:39:28] he would spend his days like walking around like looking for inspiration and then he'd go sit in his little apartment and look out the window and write. And there's something about it. Really? Yeah, I think it'll be really cool to have, you know almost even just like,

[01:39:43] you know like the tiny houses that people build. Sure. Just like a really simplistic, because I mean, I don't have a big house, but like, Yeah, neither do I. And I don't have a big yard, but like you gotta mow the yard, you gotta shovel the driveway.

[01:39:55] There's all these stupid house things that like, you know and obviously you have family obligations and stuff, but like, just this simplicity of like, you just have like a small functional space and you don't have all these other obligations. You just have like dedicated time to write.

[01:40:11] To me that sounds fantastic. Yeah, I know there's a lot of people that do like writing sheds, like they'll put a shed. I mean like, you know, a furnishing, throw a desk out there and then that'll be their thing. I actually, I met,

[01:40:25] shit, guys name, wrote Fight Club. Chuck. Chuck Polanik? Yes, him. I met him, he did a reading at a local library here and like he paid and then you could get in line and he has one of those. And I mean, his is kind of big,

[01:40:41] you know, because you know, he wrote Fight Club. He's got like some disposable income, but I think he said it's like a 10 by 20 building or something that's just on the back of his property and he's just got like some desks and books

[01:40:53] and that's where he spends his time writing. Like I would want, like I couldn't do like a 12 by 20 or whatever, but like if I even just had like a little 10 by 10 or something where I could just like throw a little desk in and take a laptop out there

[01:41:06] or a notebook out there and just kind of chill and have no other distractions, I think it'd be awesome. Yeah, I guess I'm at the point now where like, I can in some sense write just about anywhere by just by virtue of necessity.

[01:41:20] Sure, well, I mean, you have to write where... Right, but I'm thinking just in terms of like, not that I'm saying, oh, I gotta get rid of my family. I'm not saying that, but like, like just the ability to have the lifestyle

[01:41:34] of like, oh, you just went somewhere for a while and we're somewhat, you know, aimless from an occupation point of view, but you were just sort of like taking the time to just write at your leisure kind of a thing.

[01:41:50] You know, you're not under the gun so to speak, but... Yeah, I... It would be an interesting experience, I guess is what I'm getting at. I try to do that with the little cottage we have in Michigan. Like I try to do that every once in a while.

[01:42:02] I'm like, I'm just gonna go up there, I'm gonna spend the weekend and I'm gonna try to get some writing done. And sometimes I do. And there was one time where I just went up there and I meant to write

[01:42:10] and I ended up watching two and a half seasons of Game of Thrones. Which is something else, like I watched like a lot of Game of Thrones. You could have done that at home. Right, but it's just like, it's, I don't know, I've actually been toying around.

[01:42:23] I wish, I don't know if I could feasibly do this just because like our HOA has like some weird rules, but I almost want to get like just like a little camper, like a small little tiny thing with just like a little bed and a table and everything

[01:42:36] and where it's like, okay, that's my writing space. And I just want to like go outside, do some writing. And then if I want to fall asleep out there, I'll fall asleep out there come in the house in the morning. KFC snatch. Yes, it's been a minute.

[01:42:50] Did you get a Perry, Perry Uncle Blue caravan? I'm gonna have to watch snatch again. That'll make more sense if you watch again. I guess it didn't land, but. I just remember having to turn on, there's actually like a mode on the DVD

[01:43:03] where you can just get subtitles for Brad Pitt. Yep. Which is amazing. But anyways, we're going off the rails again. We're way over. So I'm currently reading Cherry by Nico Walker. This was recently made into a film starring fuck, Spider-Man. What's his name? Tom. Tom Holland.

[01:43:29] Yes, him, Tom Holland. This is a very interesting book. I'm really into it. It's very much almost like a more modern catcher in the rye. It's like that kind of writing style, although where I feel like Holden Caulfield was just almost like,

[01:43:52] it's been a minute since I've read it. Didn't we read that together for this? We did, we did a book club, yeah. So I feel like he was just almost just like some spoiled rich kid that was just kind of like ranting.

[01:44:05] And I could be remembering that wrong. So please don't hate me. I've only read the book once. I don't recall if he was a full-intermitter. But it was just like, I don't know. There was, he didn't feel authentic to me. Like, you know, when we read that,

[01:44:20] there was like, you know, there's people that like worship that book. I mean, the guy who fucking murdered John Lennon was holding a copy of The Catcher of the Rye in his hands when he did it. And it's just like, when I read it,

[01:44:33] I was like, yeah, this is okay. I don't get that, you know what I mean? And this one, I mean the protagonist, I mean, he's a unlikeable character. Like he's a drug addict. He essentially joins the army and gets sent off to Iraq

[01:44:52] just because like he needs something to do. You know what I mean? Like there's nothing else for him to do. He needs money. He's gonna go do that because that's his only option, really. And then he comes back with like some pretty serious PTSD

[01:45:07] and like it's just like his life is just spiraling downhill. And I'm not saying that I relate to that, but it just feels more genuine than I remember Catcher of the Rye. So I'm real excited to finish this and then watch the movie

[01:45:22] because it's a total 180 from anything that I've ever seen Tom Holland do. Like it's gonna be really interesting to see him take on this character. Hmm, interesting. I wanna see, I'm not sure. I think I wanna say it's either on Apple, it's on Apple TV Plus.

[01:45:39] So I think it was in Apple TV Plus original, but it was directed by the Russo Brothers. So... Yeah, I've not heard of it. Ew, IMDb gave it a 6.6 out of 10 and it's got a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes. That's not great. Yeah, that doesn't mean anything.

[01:45:55] No, but I mean so, but I'm definitely gonna wanna check this out. And I do think though, it is probably, I'm interested to see how they adapt it. I think it's gonna be hard to do like as is. It's just gonna be an interesting adaptation I think.

[01:46:14] So I'll have more on that next episode because hopefully all of you have watched the movie by then. We'll see. I have manuscripts that I need to do before I go watchin' movies. Right? That is true. All right, so I think that does it for today.

[01:46:31] As always, we want to know what you want us to write about. To do so, you're gonna wanna join our Facebook group. That's facebook.com. Slash group slash p-written pod. We're on Twitter at p-written pod or you can email us directly at promptlywrittenpod.gmail.com.

[01:46:45] Ian, where's the best place for people to find out more about your work? IanLewisFiction.com. And if you wanna get in touch with me, I'm at matcha-garic on Twitter or you can go to matcha-garic.com for a bunch of other ways to reach out. Volumes 1 through 4, promptly written,

[01:47:00] are available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle format. And if you're a Kindle unlimited subscriber, they're all included in your subscription. If I get off my ass and get Ian these manuscripts, you'll get Volume 5 before Christmas, hopefully. Our next episode will be Episode 65.

[01:47:19] It'll drop on December 4th. The prompt will be Fruitcake, which was submitted by friend of the show, Chris Bedar. Thank you, Chris. I already have an idea for this and I'm pretty excited about it. It's not fully formed yet.

[01:47:35] I have a core that I need to really work this out, but if I can make it come together, I'm pretty excited about this one. Well, interestingly enough, I've already written next month's story. No shit. Yeah, because we are recording late, we are recording late, yeah.

[01:47:54] You already have the story done. It's already done. That's freaking crazy, man. All right, well, I can't wait. I'm so excited. Do you wanna give a spoiler? Is it Christmas related? It is. Fantastic, so. It'll be seasonal. I'll reveal part of my hand then.

[01:48:13] It is going to be a Christmas promptly written in December. Awesome. Yeah, if you like what you hear, please leave us a review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen so that we can continue to get the word out. That's it for today. See you next month. Thanks.