Episode 73 - I Knew She Had A Dark Secret, But I Had No Idea

[00:00:17] What's up everyone and welcome to Episode 73 of the Promptly Written Podcast, where every

[00:00:21] month we take a writing prompt provided by you, write stories based on it, and break

[00:00:26] them down for you.

[00:00:27] My name is Matt Sugerik and with me as always, Ian Lewis.

[00:00:29] What's up Ian?

[00:00:30] Hey, what's up Matt?

[00:00:32] You know, not much.

[00:00:34] I wanted to start today just by kind of apologizing to everybody because, you know, as of yesterday

[00:00:40] this episode was supposed to be released and I just had like a little scheduling conflict

[00:00:44] at work last week when we were supposed to record and I wasn't going to get out as

[00:00:49] early as I thought and I figured instead of like running around making you wait for

[00:00:53] me to get there it would be easier just to kind of push it out.

[00:00:56] So we're recording now, we'll get a week later and then there's just a little

[00:01:00] less time in between episodes.

[00:01:01] So, you know, I think it'll work out.

[00:01:04] So my apologies to you and to everybody else who is expecting to spend their Labor Day listening

[00:01:09] to our the dulcet tones of our voices.

[00:01:12] You know, what's been going on with you?

[00:01:15] I think you got some big news since the last time we recorded.

[00:01:18] Yeah, I finished the first draft of my work in progress, which is the third book

[00:01:26] in the Reeve series.

[00:01:28] The title is Riders of the Black Cow.

[00:01:32] And that means I'm in editing mode right now, which is the not fun part of writing.

[00:01:37] Yeah, that's the work.

[00:01:39] Yeah, it feels like work.

[00:01:40] It very much does.

[00:01:41] Definitely feels like work.

[00:01:43] So so you pick.

[00:01:45] Does this pick up right where the last one left off?

[00:01:47] Is there a passage of time?

[00:01:48] Is that something you're willing to reveal or?

[00:01:51] It picks up like maybe a couple of days.

[00:01:55] Maybe a week.

[00:01:56] It's it's pretty close to the end of the last book, but it's not like immediate.

[00:02:00] Gotcha. Gotcha.

[00:02:02] And remind me, you started with this series.

[00:02:06] I believe you kind of give like a short recap at the beginning of every

[00:02:11] it will have a recap of the prior book.

[00:02:13] Yeah. OK, so that that answers what would would would have been my next

[00:02:17] question, which is do I need to reread?

[00:02:19] No, I don't I don't think so.

[00:02:20] I think it would it would suffice to just read the the summary.

[00:02:25] All right, cool. Well, I'm excited.

[00:02:28] Now, do you have like, do you do you set like a

[00:02:32] a deadline for yourself to get it done or do you have something in mind

[00:02:35] when you want to release it?

[00:02:36] Or is it just kind of whenever it happens, it happens?

[00:02:40] Sort of somewhere in between.

[00:02:42] I don't have a hard deadline yet.

[00:02:44] Once I get things formatted and into Amazon.

[00:02:49] They let you set a release date.

[00:02:51] And at that point, I'll have a pretty firm idea in mind.

[00:02:53] But right now, my goal is just, you know, I'd like to have it out by Thanksgiving.

[00:02:59] OK, OK. Now, what about artwork?

[00:03:01] Have you started looking into that yet?

[00:03:03] Yeah, so I hit up my artist.

[00:03:04] He's working on something right now.

[00:03:06] I've not heard anything yet.

[00:03:09] But I would expect sometimes soon I'll have something that I can share with everybody.

[00:03:13] Amazing. That's got that's got to be exciting when you see the cover come back to you.

[00:03:17] It is. And I never know.

[00:03:20] Because obviously, I have a very specific idea in my head.

[00:03:23] Sure. But I'm not, you know, I'm not an artist at that level.

[00:03:28] So what he comes up with, you know, is based on my idea,

[00:03:31] but obviously it's always a little different than what I had in mind.

[00:03:34] Sure. Which is good and bad, you know, it's bad in the sense that like

[00:03:38] you really wish the control of your vision a little bit.

[00:03:41] But it's good because like he's a very good artist and it always comes back

[00:03:44] really, really cool. So.

[00:03:46] I agree. Yeah, I agree.

[00:03:48] I love the work that he does for you.

[00:03:50] I don't think I've ever seen anything else that he did other than his work.

[00:03:54] Do you want to give him a shout out?

[00:03:55] Like we throw his name in the show notes.

[00:03:56] Does he have like a website or something?

[00:03:58] You know, he used to.

[00:03:59] I don't know if he still has it up right now or not.

[00:04:04] But his name is Justin Adams and his sort of business

[00:04:11] was was called Various Studios, V-A-R-I-A.

[00:04:16] OK, I'll check it out later.

[00:04:18] He used to have his portfolio online.

[00:04:22] It looks like maybe he's got he's up on Art Station and then

[00:04:25] looks like he's on Twitter as well or X.

[00:04:28] All right. Well, we'll get a link in the show notes

[00:04:31] and everybody can kind of check out his work.

[00:04:33] Yeah, he's got he's definitely got some interesting stuff.

[00:04:36] So very cool.

[00:04:37] Well, that's exciting. Well, I always like talking.

[00:04:40] I live I like to live vicariously through you because, you know,

[00:04:44] never never hit that long form thing yet.

[00:04:48] But once you get going, you can't stop.

[00:04:51] But I get excited when when you're getting close to release

[00:04:54] because it I don't know just feels exciting to me.

[00:04:57] It is exciting.

[00:04:58] But I'm like so past the

[00:05:00] you know, maybe this is the one kind of feeling, you know what I mean?

[00:05:04] I'm just like that ship has sailed.

[00:05:06] I'm just kind of, you know, I'm just doing this for pure enjoyment.

[00:05:11] Well, that's the thing.

[00:05:11] I mean, we were talking about this actually in in class the other day

[00:05:15] with some of my photography students.

[00:05:17] We started we started school up again,

[00:05:19] and I only have two in my photography class this semester,

[00:05:23] but they're two of my previous students that came back to audit the course

[00:05:26] so they can kind of learn some more.

[00:05:27] So I'm kind of excited because even though like on paper it's photo one,

[00:05:32] we're going to do some stuff that they've always wanted to do

[00:05:35] and just never got the opportunity to do.

[00:05:38] So that was kind of exciting.

[00:05:39] We were kind of talking about that.

[00:05:41] And it's just like when it comes down to it,

[00:05:43] you should be making art for yourself

[00:05:46] and worry about everybody else later.

[00:05:49] Like if you're making art to appease other people,

[00:05:51] like I don't know if that's going to necessarily

[00:05:54] or the best result.

[00:05:56] You know what I mean?

[00:05:56] Sure. So I think

[00:05:58] I think you're going about it the right way.

[00:06:00] Is right what you want.

[00:06:01] And you know, the people who love it

[00:06:03] or the people who read it are going to love it

[00:06:06] because like the the Reeve series.

[00:06:09] I don't know. It's a toss up between the Reeve

[00:06:11] and like, do you have a favorite between the Reeve and the driver?

[00:06:16] Oh, that's tough.

[00:06:17] So I think I think if I had to pick one,

[00:06:21] I'd probably pick the driver because there's a part of me that

[00:06:24] that and I'm going to shoot myself on the foot here a little bit.

[00:06:29] But there's a part of me that doesn't like

[00:06:32] what I'm doing with the Reeve in some sense

[00:06:35] because I'm incorporating the philosophical aspect of it

[00:06:40] in a pretty heavy handed way.

[00:06:43] And it's not being done in our in our in an artistic way or a

[00:06:48] you know, it's it because in some in some sense, that's intentional.

[00:06:52] I was trying to present actual

[00:06:53] philosophical arguments up front in the in the text in some sense

[00:07:00] rather than have it be more of a skillfully delivered sort of thing,

[00:07:04] which from an art perspective is the wrong way to do it.

[00:07:08] But like whatever.

[00:07:08] But so in that sense, I feel a little hackish with the Reeve some time.

[00:07:13] But the driver, you know, sort of my first love.

[00:07:16] So I don't know. I might go with the driver.

[00:07:18] Yeah, I mean, I think I see what you're saying about the Reeve.

[00:07:23] But at the same time, I think that that's kind of.

[00:07:26] Crucial to his character, like there's almost like a.

[00:07:30] He's almost constantly in a like

[00:07:34] like a moral debate with himself.

[00:07:36] Like is he doing the right thing?

[00:07:37] Is you know what I mean?

[00:07:38] Like it's like that's all there.

[00:07:40] Like, yeah, it will drive him as a character for sure.

[00:07:43] But I just know that like there's books

[00:07:45] that might have a very similar sort of thrust with regard to its

[00:07:52] search for meaning, so to speak.

[00:07:54] And I haven't read it yet, but I've read enough about it.

[00:07:56] It's on my shelf. It's a long book.

[00:07:58] But the the brothers Karamazov,

[00:08:02] I don't if I pronounce it right by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

[00:08:06] And sure, it has, I think, is a similar

[00:08:09] maybe search for meaning in it.

[00:08:11] But it from what I've read about it,

[00:08:14] it's just done in more of a skillful, artful manner.

[00:08:17] And it's well regarded for, you know, for that reason and many others.

[00:08:21] But I don't know.

[00:08:23] You know, I keep looking at like what I'm doing is like it's all practice.

[00:08:26] Right? I am I get this shiny new thing in front of me

[00:08:30] and I want to do it. I'm like, this is the best thing ever.

[00:08:32] I'm going to put my heart and soul in it and I'm going to do it.

[00:08:36] And then like, you know, as I'm going along, I'm like,

[00:08:37] I can kind of see where this isn't the best.

[00:08:40] It was maybe a cool idea, but like the next thing I'm going to do

[00:08:43] is going to be the thing, you know what I mean?

[00:08:44] So like I keep working on like these other ideas in my head

[00:08:47] where once I get this stuff done, it's sort of like

[00:08:51] it was it was like a sketch in my portfolio, if you will,

[00:08:55] is just practice.

[00:08:56] And at some point, I'm going to get to that masterpiece.

[00:08:58] Yeah, I think that's that's one of the harder things to do.

[00:09:01] Like just as a writer is just to know when to stop because I mean,

[00:09:04] if it was up to us, probably we would just keep changing stuff forever.

[00:09:09] So that that's the problem.

[00:09:11] So you really have to just pick and be like, this is done.

[00:09:13] I'm moving on.

[00:09:14] You do. We've talked about it before.

[00:09:17] I think some writers spend a decade on their first novel.

[00:09:19] I'm like, I don't know that kind of time.

[00:09:21] I got too many ideas and I get bored too quick.

[00:09:23] Yeah. But that said, I really do like the aspect of like

[00:09:28] you know, like almost like an improvisational jazz kind of thing.

[00:09:31] Like, hey, this is what I put together at this point in time

[00:09:34] with this going on in my life with this music in my head.

[00:09:37] Like this is what I put on the page and like it's it's a snapshot of that

[00:09:41] in that sense.

[00:09:42] And it's not something that's meant to be perfected or hammered out

[00:09:46] or revised to the nth degree.

[00:09:49] It's just like this is what I did.

[00:09:51] You know, obviously you retool it enough where it's it's professionals

[00:09:54] that can be in its cleanest can be.

[00:09:56] But well,

[00:09:58] I'm excited to follow along in your editing journey.

[00:10:01] And we'll definitely we'll definitely be talking about it

[00:10:05] once it's out in the world.

[00:10:06] Very cool.

[00:10:08] We only have like one kind of major general discussion topic today

[00:10:12] and you threw it out there.

[00:10:13] So why don't you why don't you introduce it?

[00:10:16] Because I think it's intriguing.

[00:10:17] I had actually had all these ideas.

[00:10:18] I'm like, what if we did a list of our favorite 10 top 10 favorite books?

[00:10:22] And then I'm like, what if we did a list of our top 10 favorite

[00:10:25] favorite movies and then top 10 favorite albums or something?

[00:10:30] But, you know, obviously we're getting off track from writing.

[00:10:32] But I threw books out there as an idea.

[00:10:34] But then I was very quick to caveat that with I'm not even sure

[00:10:38] I could come up with a list much less, you know, in order, in order list.

[00:10:43] OK, yeah. But you like the idea.

[00:10:45] So I'm glad that I took a few minutes today

[00:10:47] to just sort of put something together because I'm glad I looked at the

[00:10:51] document this morning because I was all thrown off like I

[00:10:54] was this in there last week?

[00:10:56] It's been in there for a little while.

[00:10:58] I think, yeah, I must have just not seen it.

[00:11:01] But I saw it this morning and I was like, this is intriguing.

[00:11:04] So I did I did come up with a list.

[00:11:08] It's got 10 books on it.

[00:11:10] I would like to like before I give mine,

[00:11:14] I don't know who you want to go first or how you go first.

[00:11:17] Or like one one for one or.

[00:11:19] I we can do everyone. I don't care.

[00:11:21] Yeah, I mean, we'll figure it out.

[00:11:22] But it's just like I'm going to put a pretty, pretty heavy asterisk

[00:11:26] after this list and be like like subject to change, because I'm sure that

[00:11:29] there's like books that I love that I didn't even think of today.

[00:11:34] Yeah, I would say the same thing like this was hastily thrown together.

[00:11:38] There's a handful that I know for a fact will be on this list.

[00:11:41] But I have no idea if this is accurate.

[00:11:45] And it's certainly not in order either. So yeah, mine's definitely not

[00:11:50] it's just 10 books. Yeah.

[00:11:52] So how do you want to do it?

[00:11:55] What do you think? I don't care.

[00:11:57] You want to go back and forth?

[00:11:58] Let's go back and forth. Yeah.

[00:11:59] All right. So you go first.

[00:12:01] What's what's the what's the first one you got listed?

[00:12:03] And again, not ranked, but just not not ranked.

[00:12:06] Yeah, I have The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz F.

[00:12:11] Now that is the is that the that library series thing?

[00:12:17] Yes. Mm hmm.

[00:12:18] Which book in the series is that?

[00:12:19] That's the first one.

[00:12:21] OK, that's the one I read.

[00:12:22] You did read that one?

[00:12:24] Yes, I didn't.

[00:12:24] And I didn't finish up very good book, very good book.

[00:12:27] OK, I don't think like I don't know how much commentary you want to give on each

[00:12:30] book, but I figure we'll just kind of go through them relatively quickly.

[00:12:33] Yeah, yeah.

[00:12:35] The first book on my list, like my go to is It by Stephen King.

[00:12:39] Like he's it's like one of his standouts for me.

[00:12:43] It's the book that made me fall in love with him.

[00:12:45] So like it's the first one that just popped into my head.

[00:12:48] Got it. Yeah, I figured you'd have some King on your list.

[00:12:51] 30 percent. OK.

[00:12:54] 30 percent. My list is Stephen King.

[00:12:56] There you go. So yeah, what do you got next?

[00:12:59] Next, I have King Solomon's Minds by H.

[00:13:03] Ryder Haggard.

[00:13:04] It's one of the few books that I've read more than once.

[00:13:09] OK, it's been a while since I've read it.

[00:13:11] I remember really liking it.

[00:13:13] It's like an adventure story and I read it twice, I think.

[00:13:17] And someday I'd like to read it again.

[00:13:19] But, you know, it'll be interesting to see how it holds up,

[00:13:21] but it's been a while.

[00:13:22] Sure, sure.

[00:13:24] Next on my list is another Stephen King, The Shining.

[00:13:29] This is true horror, like psychological horror in my mind.

[00:13:35] And if you've only seen the movie,

[00:13:37] you're doing yourself a major disservice.

[00:13:40] Like the movie, like in comparison to the book is nothing.

[00:13:43] Stephen King doesn't like the movie.

[00:13:45] Stanley Kubrick didn't like the end result, like

[00:13:49] The Shining is next level.

[00:13:51] Interesting. Yeah, so I think I've heard that before.

[00:13:54] It's long, but like, like honestly,

[00:13:56] like if you like the movie, you will love the book.

[00:14:00] There's so much going on in Jack's head

[00:14:02] that like that you just don't get to see her, you know.

[00:14:07] So yeah. OK.

[00:14:09] Next I have On Her Majesty's Here Service by Ian Fleming.

[00:14:14] I was I was wondering when Ian Fleming was going to pop into the list.

[00:14:17] I've also read that one.

[00:14:19] You have read that one? Yeah.

[00:14:20] No, I enjoyed it.

[00:14:21] And I think that's the only one I've read, to be honest.

[00:14:23] I think so, yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:25] Does the movie hold up?

[00:14:27] Is that your favorite movie or your movies rank different?

[00:14:30] It's it's my third favorite movie,

[00:14:31] but it's a really weird entry in the whole franchise.

[00:14:36] I like it third on a mostly subjective basis.

[00:14:40] The cinematography and the score are fantastic.

[00:14:44] So in it from a film making perspective, it's done really well.

[00:14:48] But it's also sort of the odd duck of the bunch,

[00:14:52] not the least of which because the actor in the in the Bond role

[00:14:57] only did that one film.

[00:14:58] And so he's not as known as the other ones.

[00:15:01] And it's, you know, I won't spoil it,

[00:15:04] but there's an aspect of the film that, you know, plot the plot point is

[00:15:08] not what you normally get in a Bond film either. So.

[00:15:12] I did watch the movie, but I don't want I don't want to I don't want to get too

[00:15:15] too far off the rails.

[00:15:16] It's it's it's got a 60 psychedelic.

[00:15:19] Yeah, it was to it almost, which is another another weird thing about it.

[00:15:23] But like it's I've grown to love it.

[00:15:24] So it's it's what it is. But.

[00:15:27] All right. So my next on the list is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

[00:15:32] Well, I knew that would be on there.

[00:15:35] It's it's really the first book I think I remember reading for school

[00:15:38] that wasn't like identified as like a children's book, if you will.

[00:15:44] And I don't know. I just I just love it.

[00:15:46] It makes you it makes it's a great story.

[00:15:48] It makes you think about how you treat people and how the world treats people.

[00:15:53] And I think it's just

[00:15:55] I think it's I think it still stands up today.

[00:15:58] I could I could continue going on about about that.

[00:16:01] But there's another book later that in my list that I think.

[00:16:06] Does it better, but we'll wait until I get to it. OK.

[00:16:12] Next on my list and this is a book that was something I read someone recently.

[00:16:17] And so I don't know if it's in my top ten for sure.

[00:16:21] But I liked it so much that a six out of my head was till we have faces by C.S.

[00:16:26] Lewis. OK.

[00:16:28] And it was a retelling of a Greek myth.

[00:16:31] And I don't remember the myth partially because I wasn't familiar

[00:16:36] with the myth anyway to begin with.

[00:16:38] But OK, but it was just it was a really good book.

[00:16:41] Yeah, I figured C.S.

[00:16:42] Lewis was going to be on your list.

[00:16:43] But like for me, the only thing I've ever read is like Lion Witch in the War

[00:16:47] Drum, right? You know, and I don't even think I made it through that whole series.

[00:16:50] Just wasn't my thing. But I mean.

[00:16:52] Yeah. But the first book's the best one, I think.

[00:16:55] Is it anyway? So yeah.

[00:16:57] All right. Next on my list is a book you recently finished

[00:17:02] Station Eleven by Emily St. John Lendell.

[00:17:04] Yeah, OK.

[00:17:05] This one has an additional asterisk.

[00:17:08] I love all of her books and I couldn't decide which one I liked the best.

[00:17:12] I wanted her on my list.

[00:17:14] I went with Station Eleven Glass Hotel was really, really good.

[00:17:18] Last Night Montreal was also fantastic.

[00:17:20] So but I'm sticking with Station Eleven for now.

[00:17:24] OK.

[00:17:26] Um, next very similar to the previous book was something that read in recent memory

[00:17:31] and really stuck out to something I really enjoyed was The Great Gatsby by F.

[00:17:35] Scott Fitzgerald. Heck yeah.

[00:17:36] It almost was a.

[00:17:37] That was a.

[00:17:39] That was a book club, a promptly written book.

[00:17:41] It was. We need to do that again.

[00:17:43] We have not done that for a long time.

[00:17:45] It's been a while. We haven't done it in a minute.

[00:17:46] And that was fun.

[00:17:47] We need to pick a classic that we haven't read and go back to it.

[00:17:51] Yeah, that almost made my list.

[00:17:53] But it didn't.

[00:17:54] Yeah, I liked it way more than I thought I would.

[00:17:57] Yeah, yeah, no, it was really good.

[00:17:59] He did a really good job like his everything about it was great.

[00:18:02] I think he really painted that picture.

[00:18:05] Next on my list is Kindred by Octavia Butler.

[00:18:10] This is what I was alluding to earlier, like

[00:18:13] it tackles similar issues that to kill a mockingbird did.

[00:18:17] But this is in an author of color.

[00:18:20] Like so I think that it comes off across as more authentic.

[00:18:27] And I think the I think people of color

[00:18:29] should be the ones telling these types of stories,

[00:18:33] not to not to take anything away from Harper Lee

[00:18:35] because it was a great book.

[00:18:36] But I think this one just does it better.

[00:18:39] So it's probably a book that I will teach in future courses.

[00:18:44] I'm a little on that like it got added to the book list for the

[00:18:47] college, but I know that some people are reading it in high school.

[00:18:51] So I don't know if I necessarily want to make that edition

[00:18:55] because I don't want to make people read something they might have recently read.

[00:18:59] If that makes sense.

[00:19:00] Well, that's instantly how I ended up reading to kill a mockingbird

[00:19:04] twice because I had read it on my own as a kid.

[00:19:07] And then, you know, because like someone had bought it for me

[00:19:10] and so I had my own copy.

[00:19:11] But then we had we read it in class.

[00:19:13] And so I ended up reading it twice.

[00:19:16] It's just one of those things where it's like I could easily do it.

[00:19:19] And then I think it's one of two things, either the students are going to know it

[00:19:23] and it's going to be easier for them or they're going to know it.

[00:19:26] And they're just going to gloss over everything because they don't want to do.

[00:19:28] You know, yeah.

[00:19:30] No, I think you're saying because sometimes another read through

[00:19:33] after you have everything in mind is sort of how it can be helpful.

[00:19:37] But yeah, like if you don't have the right attitude at that age level

[00:19:40] to maybe go through something again, you might not get what you want out of it.

[00:19:45] But yeah. All right.

[00:19:47] So we're halfway through halfway through.

[00:19:51] Yeah, OK.

[00:19:52] So the next one again was like another one of these recent ones.

[00:19:57] But I gave this one the nod because I really appreciated

[00:20:00] not only the experimental approach to it,

[00:20:04] but sort of the commiseration with an author who was

[00:20:09] spurned until after he was dead in that is Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

[00:20:15] Oh, so this made your top 10 because this was very recent.

[00:20:18] Was it this year or late last year?

[00:20:20] No, it's been a couple of years since I read it.

[00:20:22] But it was a it was a dense read.

[00:20:26] It was a long read.

[00:20:28] And I think there's so much in there to unpack that like you.

[00:20:32] It's like it was one of the I think

[00:20:33] was like listed as one of Cormac McCarthy's favorite books that he like.

[00:20:37] I could be misquoting, but maybe that he reread every year or something.

[00:20:40] I don't know. But like it's is just like a work of fiction,

[00:20:45] like just the scope of it and what went into it.

[00:20:48] It's it's pretty crazy, but it's like you.

[00:20:51] I think you really have to be in the right mood to read it. Got it.

[00:20:54] Got it.

[00:20:55] But like the experimental aspect of it.

[00:20:59] I can I can I can vibe with that. Nice. Nice.

[00:21:03] All right. Next on my list is The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

[00:21:07] So this was a recent read for me.

[00:21:09] But I've actually read through it like three times because I taught it last semester

[00:21:14] and it just completely blew my mind.

[00:21:17] Like it's it's emotional in every way.

[00:21:19] It makes you angry. It makes you sad.

[00:21:23] It's I mean, it's it's again, it's in the same vein as

[00:21:27] is kindred into kill a mockingbird.

[00:21:28] And it's just like she just tells a powerful story.

[00:21:32] And it's like a fictionalized version of her life.

[00:21:36] So like while.

[00:21:40] While of her childhood, so like while everything has been like kind of, you know,

[00:21:46] what's the word I'm looking for?

[00:21:48] Starts with an E exaggerated.

[00:21:51] Well, everything is like kind of exaggerated for the sake of the story.

[00:21:54] Like if you if you go to the root and you think about like these things

[00:21:57] that she had to deal with, it's pretty heartbreaking.

[00:22:00] And that those are the kind of books that are

[00:22:02] you've been kind of getting to me lately.

[00:22:04] It's just like the ones that make me feel things.

[00:22:06] So it's like it could be a good story, but like if you feel like an emotion,

[00:22:10] I think it sticks with you a little more.

[00:22:12] So yeah, you just you're just a big teddy bear.

[00:22:14] I know I'm big softy.

[00:22:16] You're a softy.

[00:22:19] OK, so on my list next, we have something that

[00:22:23] I haven't read in a long, long time,

[00:22:27] but it had meant meant to reread it.

[00:22:30] There's this growing pile of I want to reread that books that I just,

[00:22:34] you know, haven't gotten to yet.

[00:22:36] But in then they were known by Agatha Christie.

[00:22:40] OK, I need.

[00:22:43] I need to I've never read any any Agatha Christie books.

[00:22:48] So yeah, I think this is the one you told me to read.

[00:22:51] It is it that and the murder on the Orient Express

[00:22:55] are probably my favorites by her.

[00:22:57] And it wasn't so much that she was like.

[00:23:01] Like writing some great piece of literature, per se,

[00:23:04] but just had a really great sense of being able to to create a mystery

[00:23:09] and I know who done it kind of a thing.

[00:23:11] Gotcha. Yeah.

[00:23:13] Yeah, I'm going to have to make it a point

[00:23:15] to maybe add one of those before the the year ends here.

[00:23:20] My next one's kind of in the same vein.

[00:23:23] It's a study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

[00:23:26] It's the first Sherlock Holmes novel.

[00:23:29] I've never read anything by him.

[00:23:31] Sherlock Holmes is a fascinating character.

[00:23:35] I mean, it's just it is great character work.

[00:23:40] He feels like a real person in all his like weird,

[00:23:45] like just kind of like like the qualities and everything.

[00:23:49] It's just he's he's he literally comes to life on the page.

[00:23:54] It's kind of amazing.

[00:23:54] Really well drawn.

[00:23:55] It wasn't what I was expecting from a book written in like 1888

[00:24:01] or something like that, like in that era.

[00:24:05] So yeah, I highly recommend reading some Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

[00:24:13] Yeah, I'll have to put that on my list too.

[00:24:16] Next, I've got another recent reread

[00:24:18] that just really stuck out to me as

[00:24:20] a really, really, really good book

[00:24:24] from a character characterization point of view.

[00:24:27] Really well drawn characters and also was very influential

[00:24:31] influential on the book that I'm trying to finish up right now.

[00:24:34] And that is Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

[00:24:37] I feel like you read this recently within the past years as well.

[00:24:41] Right? I read it last year. Yeah. OK.

[00:24:43] Yeah. That's good.

[00:24:45] It's good that like at, you know, I've been feeling old lately.

[00:24:49] You know, my daughter moved into college like that.

[00:24:51] So it's like I've been feeling old.

[00:24:53] But I think it's kind of awesome that like we like we don't have to go back

[00:24:56] into the past to find favorite books because we're read or we're discovering

[00:25:01] new favorite things still as old men.

[00:25:05] Well, I certainly can't stand by my eight year old opinion

[00:25:07] of Franklin W. Dixon is the best writer ever anymore.

[00:25:11] You know what I mean?

[00:25:12] Sure. I mean, that's fair.

[00:25:13] As much as I still love the Hardy Boys, right?

[00:25:16] Like, you know, there's better stuff out there.

[00:25:18] W. Dixon, like 80 different people.

[00:25:21] Yeah, well, that's what I was really let down by that.

[00:25:24] When I found out he wasn't even real.

[00:25:25] I thought he was such a genius, but yeah, no, it's a bumper.

[00:25:28] Not so much.

[00:25:30] All right. So the last three on my list, I'm switching gears.

[00:25:33] I'm moving to nonfiction.

[00:25:36] Oh, interesting. I stuck with fiction.

[00:25:37] Yeah. So this one is a Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.

[00:25:42] I read it probably once a year. Wow.

[00:25:46] He romanticized writing in such a way like,

[00:25:50] you know, he's not really a artist.

[00:25:53] Hemingway is not really a great role model.

[00:25:57] He was kind of not many artists are really.

[00:26:00] And I'm not about it, but.

[00:26:02] He was very misogynistic and just kind of like the

[00:26:05] he's like the antithesis of me.

[00:26:07] He was like the, you know, like the alpha male in like

[00:26:12] just it's not me.

[00:26:13] But like when he he sat and talked about like it was all

[00:26:17] about his experience living in Paris and it just it just made

[00:26:20] we want to go to Paris and eat bread and drink white dry white wine

[00:26:25] and write by the fire.

[00:26:27] That's what I really want to do.

[00:26:29] So it's like usually usually it's like a winter read for me,

[00:26:32] but I go through it.

[00:26:33] It's pretty quick.

[00:26:34] And I just I just love his take on the whole on the art of writing.

[00:26:39] If Hemingway were a real man, he wouldn't be drinking white

[00:26:42] wine. He'd be drinking bourbon.

[00:26:44] I'll just say that.

[00:26:46] I'm kidding. I'm just making.

[00:26:49] That's that's fair.

[00:26:50] But yeah, he was a lot of a lot of dry white wine.

[00:26:55] Interesting. Yeah.

[00:26:55] Maybe that's a peresian thing.

[00:26:57] And I have no idea.

[00:26:59] I hear the the pano chocola is very good.

[00:27:01] I'm sure everything over there is fantastic.

[00:27:03] I'm sure I would I would just eat myself to death living

[00:27:06] in Paris.

[00:27:08] What do you got next?

[00:27:09] So I wanted to throw some McCarthy in here because I

[00:27:11] is really was struck by his writing.

[00:27:14] But I've only read three of his books and I need to change that.

[00:27:18] But I was torn as to which one to include.

[00:27:22] But I decided on No Country for Old Men simply because

[00:27:26] one of the main characters in that book, Sheriff Bell,

[00:27:29] was the archetype for Sheriff Hildersham in my Driver series.

[00:27:35] Yeah, this is still one that I need to read.

[00:27:37] I want to read it, but you kind of scared me.

[00:27:41] Because of the whole the whole run on sentence thing.

[00:27:44] Well, I feel like the run on stuff was that's not in all of his books.

[00:27:49] That was definitely a thing with.

[00:27:51] Blood, blood Meridian, but I think no country for old men

[00:27:55] a little more palatable, no country would be all right to start.

[00:27:58] But like, I really think you'd like the road a lot.

[00:28:00] OK.

[00:28:02] The road was the first thing I read by him and

[00:28:04] I was just floored by his his ability to describe things.

[00:28:09] All right, the road.

[00:28:10] And it's it's I think it's your kind of like John or two is like a post apocalyptic type thing.

[00:28:17] You know, all right.

[00:28:19] I mean, man in the sun out like traveling trying to survive like, you know,

[00:28:23] it's got like a walking dead feel without the zombies kind of thing.

[00:28:27] But that you just sold it.

[00:28:29] Yeah, literally. You'd like the road.

[00:28:32] All right.

[00:28:33] My next one, it's Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.

[00:28:38] I read this during a fiction workshop and he was the first kind of like nonfiction

[00:28:43] writer where I felt like somebody was just talking to me.

[00:28:46] And he was kind of sarcastic and he was kind of witty and he was just kind of

[00:28:51] over the top funny in some points.

[00:28:53] And it just made me like think about like the way I talk.

[00:28:56] And I was like, maybe I could write the way I talk and it would be OK.

[00:29:00] You know what I mean?

[00:29:01] Like, because like it was just it was the first time I ever

[00:29:05] experienced anything like that.

[00:29:07] And it really just kind of struck a chord with me.

[00:29:10] And I think just reading his nonfiction take on just life in general

[00:29:14] really did kind of change the way that I put words down on the page.

[00:29:19] Interesting. Yeah.

[00:29:19] Like, I mean, you can certainly have like your own style, you know what I

[00:29:23] mean? Yeah, like a conversational kind of a tone. But yeah.

[00:29:26] And that's what he did.

[00:29:27] And it just felt like I felt like like how he was writing is how he would

[00:29:30] just be telling the story if he was sitting across the table from me.

[00:29:35] And he didn't like he didn't like try to use like crazy words or anything.

[00:29:40] He just like he wrote like he talked.

[00:29:42] And that's kind of like what Hemingway does, too.

[00:29:44] He's like not like he's not like like some

[00:29:48] wordsmith or anything like that.

[00:29:50] He's very short. Yeah.

[00:29:51] He's very very workman like for sure.

[00:29:54] For sure. Yeah.

[00:29:54] So yeah, that's number nine.

[00:29:57] All right. What's the last one on your list?

[00:30:00] Through another Fleming on here I've got from Russia with love.

[00:30:03] Nice. Nice.

[00:30:05] Is it is his style pretty consistent with the bond stuff or did it change

[00:30:09] based on? Yeah, no, no, it was pretty consistent.

[00:30:13] Yeah. Gotcha.

[00:30:13] This one is a little interesting because bond doesn't show up to like

[00:30:17] halfway through the book.

[00:30:18] It starts out with two other characters, which is kind of kind of

[00:30:23] interesting, but it was it was the book that sort of propelled him into

[00:30:27] the limelight a little bit because John F. Kennedy cited it as one of his

[00:30:31] favorite books. Oh.

[00:30:32] And that sort of kind of got him.

[00:30:33] There you go.

[00:30:34] On the radar in America.

[00:30:36] So nice.

[00:30:37] Now who played Bond and from Russia with love was that Connery?

[00:30:41] OK. It was Connery's second second second bond film.

[00:30:44] Gotcha. Cool.

[00:30:46] All right. Last on my list is on writing by Stephen King.

[00:30:50] Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't read this one.

[00:30:53] Quite as often as Moveable Feast.

[00:30:55] I do have it on my list to kind of I would like to read it again sometime soon.

[00:31:00] I don't think there's anything better than like your favorite author kind of

[00:31:05] writing a whole book, just kind of giving you his philosophy on writing

[00:31:08] if you want to be a writer, even if you don't want to be a writer

[00:31:11] and you're just interested in like process and how things come together.

[00:31:14] I mean, it's worth it's short.

[00:31:16] It's worth a read, I think.

[00:31:17] OK. I do have an honorable mention.

[00:31:21] Oh, yeah.

[00:31:22] Because I love to break the rules and this isn't necessarily one of my favorite

[00:31:26] books, but it really just kind of like I mean, maybe it is.

[00:31:30] It's called The Dead Key by D.M. Pooley.

[00:31:33] D.M. Pooley is a local author to Cleveland.

[00:31:36] I mean, she's probably that seller.

[00:31:40] Yada, yada, yada.

[00:31:41] But I mean, she's from right around here and she wrote this.

[00:31:45] It's like a noirish piece that takes place in Cleveland.

[00:31:49] And it jumps between like, I want to say, like the forties or the fifties

[00:31:54] and present day.

[00:31:56] And what I really liked about it was like when I drive to work,

[00:32:00] I drive past some of the locations that were in the book.

[00:32:04] OK. And it just kind of comes to life.

[00:32:06] It's really interesting.

[00:32:07] So if you're like from the Cleveland area, it's like a cool little mystery

[00:32:10] and you get in and everything is like historically accurate to like.

[00:32:16] So like how things were in Cleveland during the time periods that.

[00:32:20] The characters are actively in.

[00:32:23] And it is I just thought it was really cool.

[00:32:25] Nice. Yeah.

[00:32:26] So I have one more question for you because again, love to break the rules.

[00:32:31] We spoke earlier about like how I didn't want to put children's books in there.

[00:32:34] But like if you did have to pick like a favorite book that you read when you were a kid.

[00:32:39] Could you come up with one real quick?

[00:32:42] Yeah, I really like this book and I can't remember the author's name.

[00:32:49] She wrote the book.

[00:32:52] I don't remember what time period, but it it's called North to Freedom.

[00:32:56] And I recently read it to my kids.

[00:32:59] It's about this boy who's in a.

[00:33:02] She doesn't go into like a lot of detail about exactly where he's at.

[00:33:06] But he's somewhere in Europe in some type of prison camp.

[00:33:09] So.

[00:33:10] He grew up there as a baby, so he doesn't even know why he's there,

[00:33:14] which is part of the reason why maybe you don't get that information.

[00:33:17] But he's he basically escapes early on in the book and it's his.

[00:33:21] He's trying to travel far enough away that he could he can find freedom

[00:33:25] and not be captured by the prison guards in this kind of thing.

[00:33:29] And like they don't get into like is he in Russia or is he in Germany somewhere?

[00:33:33] You know what I mean? But yeah.

[00:33:35] It I remember it as a kid really, really thinking like wow, I was impressed by this

[00:33:41] by not only the writing, but the story.

[00:33:44] And when I reread it to summarize, I still kind of had that takeaway

[00:33:47] that I'm like, oh, yeah, I still really do like this book.

[00:33:49] So that that was certainly one of my favorites.

[00:33:51] Nice. It was it and home.

[00:33:53] That sounds about right. OK.

[00:33:55] Yeah. And it's it's it's probably more of a young adult book, maybe.

[00:33:59] Like as far as the reading level goes is my guess.

[00:34:03] Because like I read it to my kids and like I was, you know,

[00:34:06] I was still entertained by it.

[00:34:08] I wasn't like felt like I was reading someone silly, you know?

[00:34:10] Yeah, yeah.

[00:34:12] So I went to Catholic school when I was a kid.

[00:34:14] I was a pretty sheltered kid.

[00:34:15] Like we didn't really do anything outside of go to school, go to church and go home.

[00:34:20] So when I was a kid, like I just kind of got books that were kind of

[00:34:24] just either library, but they also had to be safe.

[00:34:27] So nothing was really pushing boundaries in the Shigaric household

[00:34:30] in the eighties.

[00:34:31] So I was like a lot of Beverly Cleary, Judy Bloom kind of thing.

[00:34:35] Yep. But I have two here and I'm not going to go into detail,

[00:34:39] but I just fondly remember James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.

[00:34:43] Oh, excellent.

[00:34:44] And The Indian and the Covered by Lyn Reed Banks.

[00:34:47] I remember the book.

[00:34:47] I can't remember how I read it, though.

[00:34:49] I don't remember too much of it.

[00:34:51] And I was actually thinking like I might go back and like read a couple of these

[00:34:55] because I have to imagine like I could tear through James and the Giant Peach

[00:34:57] and like a couple of hours.

[00:35:00] Oh, I don't remember how long it is, but like it might be fun to go back to one of those.

[00:35:06] So if I do, I'll let you know and I'll let you know how it goes.

[00:35:10] OK. And just just going to let everybody know

[00:35:14] it's probably I'm probably not going to put 20 links in the show notes

[00:35:18] to these books.

[00:35:19] So like if you're interested, like, you know, I think we talked about them long enough.

[00:35:23] You can find them on your own will be good.

[00:35:24] That's a lot of damn links.

[00:35:27] All right.

[00:35:29] So I think that's all we have.

[00:35:31] So you want to get to the stories?

[00:35:33] Yeah, yeah.

[00:35:34] Our prompt this month was given to us by Ryan Grace.

[00:35:38] And it is I knew she had a dark secret, but I had no idea.

[00:35:43] I'm excited that Grace is participating more in the group now because he had

[00:35:48] an even an interesting one that this month.

[00:35:50] It didn't it didn't make it.

[00:35:51] But he did have an interesting one this month and we'll get to that.

[00:35:54] Yeah, no. I I thought this one had sufficient promise for,

[00:36:00] you know, you could take it the comedy route.

[00:36:02] You could take it the really serious route.

[00:36:04] Yeah, I mean, yeah, or route if you prefer route instead of route.

[00:36:08] However you want to.

[00:36:10] I don't know why I said route.

[00:36:11] It's fine.

[00:36:13] Yeah. No, I thought this was a fun one.

[00:36:15] I kind of struggled with coming up with the idea.

[00:36:18] But once I had it, it kind of kind of wrote itself.

[00:36:22] So I was real excited when I saw your story title.

[00:36:29] Yeah, I had two ideas.

[00:36:31] The idea did not go with as an idea I've had for a long, long time.

[00:36:35] And it's excuse me, it's really a Matt idea.

[00:36:38] But I would to do it.

[00:36:40] Sufficient justice would have to go beyond that a little bit.

[00:36:43] Which I don't want to do.

[00:36:45] It's not it's not a story that's my kind of a story.

[00:36:47] I really got you now.

[00:36:49] Something that popped it popped in my head

[00:36:52] and it's not my type of story to tell at all.

[00:36:55] But gotcha.

[00:36:56] Well, we might have to take that offline because I'm intrigued.

[00:36:59] Yeah, I mean, it would just be

[00:37:03] for it to have the right effect.

[00:37:04] It would be, I don't know, it would maybe be a little vulgar.

[00:37:07] But it's I don't know.

[00:37:09] It's not my story. Now I want it even more.

[00:37:11] What is doing? It's not that exciting.

[00:37:15] But it was just, you know, like I said,

[00:37:17] it was it was an idea.

[00:37:19] I don't know where it came from, maybe it was something I'd seen a movie or

[00:37:22] something that sparked the idea.

[00:37:23] But anyway, I went with my anti hero series

[00:37:26] and I was going to do my homework and find out what episodes

[00:37:32] listeners should revisit if they want to get the whole story.

[00:37:35] And I totally I totally forgot.

[00:37:38] I'm sorry. No, don't don't be sorry because I have this fancy little

[00:37:43] spreadsheet and it has all of our story titles in it.

[00:37:46] Yeah, I mean, this goes back to season one.

[00:37:48] Oh, yeah, anti heroes one point oh was episode five one point one episode eight.

[00:37:55] One point two episode 15.

[00:37:59] One point three episode twenty seven one point four episode forty four.

[00:38:07] One point five episode fifty and one point six was sixty one.

[00:38:13] So there you have it.

[00:38:15] Yeah, so today you get anti heroes one point seven.

[00:38:18] Love it. I can't wait.

[00:38:20] Yeah, and you know what?

[00:38:21] I decided a while back, but I can't change it now that I don't love the one point

[00:38:25] blah, blah, blah nomenclature either.

[00:38:27] But yeah, you're too.

[00:38:29] Whatever. Yeah, I can't change it now.

[00:38:32] Now, I think we've asked this question before and you probably answered it

[00:38:35] every every single time you write one of these entries in the series.

[00:38:39] But would you ever collect them together into just one group

[00:38:41] and like release a novella or anything?

[00:38:44] No, so the idea if if I stick with it and I've stuck with it so far is that

[00:38:50] I would do a two point oh is a novella.

[00:38:53] And it would be where all the characters come together in their own

[00:38:57] in one big story, well, a short story.

[00:39:01] But the idea would be that, hey, if you want everything

[00:39:03] that came before, you got to go back to the podcast.

[00:39:05] You know what I mean? Love it.

[00:39:07] So or the books or the books at bare minimum, which you can find on Amazon.com,

[00:39:12] which you can find on Amazon and read for free if you have a Kindle

[00:39:15] unlimited subscription. Yes, you can. Well done.

[00:39:19] OK, so this story is about 1400 words.

[00:39:22] It's not very long. OK.

[00:39:23] But I guess we're going to get going.

[00:39:25] Yeah, I'm ready to go. OK.

[00:39:28] The voices in my head have always been a measure of something.

[00:39:31] But I've never been able to learn what or why.

[00:39:34] I spent much time in the public library seeking knowledge.

[00:39:38] The people at the library don't mind too much who comes in,

[00:39:41] even though I'm homeless.

[00:39:43] Just as long as one doesn't cause a ruckus and appears somewhat presentable,

[00:39:47] then one is welcome to be there and I've learned a lot.

[00:39:51] I read voraciously, sometimes spending nearly all my day among

[00:39:56] encyclopedias, philosophy books and large historical volumes.

[00:40:01] It seems to calm the voices.

[00:40:03] And sometimes I wonder if my capacity for learning isn't multiplied

[00:40:06] by how many of them there are.

[00:40:07] But I still don't know why they're there.

[00:40:11] They're part of the secrets surrounding my origins and how I ended up

[00:40:14] in Dr. T's facility.

[00:40:16] Secrets, of course, are something that I suspect most people carry with them.

[00:40:20] At some point, I began to understand that everyone has an inner life,

[00:40:24] an integral dialogue, if you will.

[00:40:27] But that none or perhaps very few had one as rich and complex as mine.

[00:40:32] I never expected to meet anyone like that and still don't.

[00:40:36] I'm not even sure how one would arrive at the conclusion that another

[00:40:39] person shared the same psychological cacophony.

[00:40:44] I never expected, however, to meet someone who is special like me.

[00:40:48] That is powerful like me.

[00:40:51] She didn't cross my path in the expected package,

[00:40:54] though I can't say for certain what I would or should have expected

[00:40:57] from someone like me.

[00:40:59] In any case, she was a diminutive woman, very soft spoken and reserved.

[00:41:04] I detected a sadness in her and perhaps even some type of regret,

[00:41:09] something buried beneath her many years.

[00:41:11] I suspected she was in her seventies and I knew she had a dark secret,

[00:41:16] but I had no idea.

[00:41:17] I had no idea what burden she carried.

[00:41:20] And it was a burden compounded by the fact she was searching for someone,

[00:41:24] a young woman who'd been abducted, a woman whom she seemed to care for.

[00:41:28] Our paths crossed in this manner.

[00:41:31] You see, I had taken to roaming at night,

[00:41:33] looking for the type of hoodlums I'd dispatched once before.

[00:41:36] It had felt so good to unleash my lethal fury upon them

[00:41:39] and it suggested a purpose for myself,

[00:41:42] which was something I desired ever since I escaped Dr. T's facility.

[00:41:47] I didn't often find perpetrators, but the roaming satisfied me.

[00:41:51] It was as if my vigilant presence was sufficient to ward off

[00:41:54] the types of bad people I wished to thwart.

[00:41:56] And it was entirely in accord with a voice's desires.

[00:42:00] I find that my disposition is easier to manage when the voices are sated.

[00:42:05] When they are not, I sometimes wonder if one of them might someday

[00:42:08] become the dominant voice, supplanting my own.

[00:42:11] So far that hasn't been the case.

[00:42:14] But the elderly woman, the widow as I now like to call her,

[00:42:18] she's entirely preoccupied with finding the girl she's looking for.

[00:42:22] Such a nothing will stand in her path.

[00:42:24] And I ask myself what could stand in her path?

[00:42:26] Perhaps someone like me.

[00:42:29] Certainly someone like me.

[00:42:30] Someone with horrific powers of lethality.

[00:42:33] But she is a force of nature herself.

[00:42:35] And I would never stand in her path.

[00:42:38] I would never try to stop her.

[00:42:39] I didn't even try to stop her the night I met her.

[00:42:43] I had been wandering.

[00:42:45] I remember it being 2.30 in the morning.

[00:42:47] That's what my digital time axe said.

[00:42:49] It's one of those trusty things, second hand in nature,

[00:42:52] that keeps me grounded.

[00:42:54] It's a piece of the world that was never mine but is mine now.

[00:42:57] Shared with the person who once owned it.

[00:42:59] And it makes me feel as though I lived a part of their life.

[00:43:02] For all the competing voices in my head,

[00:43:05] I otherwise never feels if I've lived any life at all.

[00:43:09] But it was 2.30 and I was more or less awake.

[00:43:12] Kinetic and thrumming with all those myriad pulses.

[00:43:15] And there was a ruckus of some sort,

[00:43:17] shouting and smashing glass that I heard from one block away.

[00:43:21] I ventured in that direction, brimming with excitement.

[00:43:25] I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I was quite eager,

[00:43:27] but the prospect of lashing out and letting loose,

[00:43:30] of unleashing my power,

[00:43:32] is the only real satisfaction that I truly get to experience.

[00:43:35] What I found shocked me at first.

[00:43:38] Just inside the door of a warehouse,

[00:43:40] I found the widow astride a man who'd assumed the fetal position.

[00:43:43] So racked with pain was he.

[00:43:45] She was projecting some type of terrific energy from her own body.

[00:43:49] Her arms and hands directing it down upon him in bright flashes.

[00:43:52] And I was struck by how unimaginable the whole thing was.

[00:43:56] Of course my presence caused her to relent,

[00:43:59] and she stopped and turned,

[00:44:00] unsure how to respond by interruption.

[00:44:03] I think she must have been taken aback by having a witness.

[00:44:06] For the look she'd had on her face before noticing me,

[00:44:09] was one of deep dark resolution.

[00:44:12] She'd been entirely consumed, possessed,

[00:44:15] by the meeting out of punishment on this man.

[00:44:17] I simply stood there, numb by what I'd seen her do,

[00:44:21] up until that night it had never occurred to me anyone else could perform

[00:44:24] fantastic feats like I could,

[00:44:26] and to observe at first hand was arresting to say the least.

[00:44:30] But the moment where we held each other's gaze was short-lived,

[00:44:33] for the man took the opportunity to reach for a weapon of some kind.

[00:44:37] I imagine it was a knife,

[00:44:39] but I didn't wait long enough to see.

[00:44:41] The voices all rose up at me at once in an immediate screaming crescendo,

[00:44:45] and I leapt forward,

[00:44:47] the splintering rifts in my body tearing me apart into blazing charge

[00:44:50] that obliterated him.

[00:44:52] I was too fast for him, too fast for the widow,

[00:44:55] such that when my body had realigned and I stood near her,

[00:44:59] she only gaped at me.

[00:45:01] I assured her I meant no harm.

[00:45:03] The voices in I could sense she was a good woman,

[00:45:06] and I didn't want her to feel intimidated,

[00:45:08] and I of course didn't want her to unleash her attack on me.

[00:45:12] So we held each other's gaze in something of a stand-off until she asked,

[00:45:16] how are you able to do that?

[00:45:18] It seemed a simple question,

[00:45:21] and simultaneously a strange but natural enough one to ask given the circumstances,

[00:45:25] but I wasn't able to answer it.

[00:45:27] I otherwise divulged much to her in a flurry of emotion.

[00:45:31] I spilled my guts as they say,

[00:45:33] having at last found someone with whom I might commiserate,

[00:45:36] never once considering she wanted to hear any of it.

[00:45:39] The widow seemed to process all of it quickly,

[00:45:42] though I suspect she simply determined that it was too complicated of a conversation

[00:45:45] to have in a warehouse in the dead of night,

[00:45:48] with the dismembered remains of a man scattered about.

[00:45:51] She led me away from there, taking me into her temporary care,

[00:45:55] even if it was just walking block after block until we'd returned her home,

[00:45:59] which turned out to be a woman's shelter.

[00:46:02] This only increased my perceived camaraderie with her.

[00:46:05] It seemed we were from the same worlds in more way than one.

[00:46:08] We agreed to meet again to discuss our mutual burdens,

[00:46:11] and we did, cautiously at first,

[00:46:14] until we'd built a trust, and then she revealed much to me.

[00:46:17] I learned about the life she'd once had with her husband and its violent end.

[00:46:21] I also learned the name of the woman she was looking for,

[00:46:24] and all the equally violent altercations the widow had had looking for her.

[00:46:29] And that's how we ultimately arrived at tonight.

[00:46:31] We're in the back of a cargo van whose owner is lying paralyzed.

[00:46:35] The widow put him down, lancing his body with one great shock of energy.

[00:46:40] Her investigations have led us here.

[00:46:42] By investigations, I mean mostly interrogations,

[00:46:46] and that's what we're going to do with this man.

[00:46:49] We're going to push him as far as necessary until he gives us what we want,

[00:46:52] until he gives us the next piece in the puzzle.

[00:46:56] I must say the voices are elated at the prospect of this.

[00:46:59] The smell of his sweat and fear and urine are so intense in that small space,

[00:47:03] and it truly heightens the moment.

[00:47:06] The man is an underling of some sort, another link in the trafficking chain,

[00:47:10] and it seems as though all we come across are underlings,

[00:47:14] but soon, soon we will find someone who's in charge,

[00:47:18] someone who is responsible for all this misery.

[00:47:21] The end.

[00:47:23] All right, so you're going to have to forgive me,

[00:47:27] but I feel like I always ask this question when we get into the anti-heroes.

[00:47:31] Are these two people that we have met before?

[00:47:34] Yes, there's only three, there's only three characters,

[00:47:37] like three viewpoint characters.

[00:47:40] There's Copperhead, the widow and Rex.

[00:47:42] This was Rex and the widow.

[00:47:46] I'm always intrigued to see what's happening, and I love how we get backstory too.

[00:47:55] I love the fact that we learned about how they met,

[00:47:58] and I kind of felt like him when it was revealed that she went back,

[00:48:05] like on the night that they met for the first time,

[00:48:06] that she went back to a women's shelter, I was like,

[00:48:09] oh, they're both homeless.

[00:48:11] Well, she runs the shelter.

[00:48:13] Oh, okay.

[00:48:13] How you said it in the story was perfect,

[00:48:17] like they're from the same world in more ways than one,

[00:48:21] which is really kind of intriguing.

[00:48:26] You used Cacophony, which is the best word ever,

[00:48:29] and I always point out when you use it because it's my favorite word.

[00:48:31] Yeah, and I feel like maybe I use it too much, but I don't do that.

[00:48:33] No, it's fine.

[00:48:33] You should use it at every given opportunity.

[00:48:36] What did you say?

[00:48:39] So I have a question because I know that the voices tell him things and whatever.

[00:48:48] So when he said he detected a sadness in her,

[00:48:50] like the first night he met, is that the voices telling him that,

[00:48:53] or is that just a perception based on a regular human perception?

[00:48:59] I can look at it as more of a perception thing.

[00:49:01] Okay.

[00:49:02] Okay.

[00:49:04] Yeah, I mean, what I really want to do, I think,

[00:49:10] is I think I'm going to go back and read them all in succession,

[00:49:13] like one after another.

[00:49:15] Yeah, I bounce from one character to another.

[00:49:17] So I'm nearing this point obviously where I'm bringing them together a little bit.

[00:49:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:49:24] I don't know if you remember any of the prior stories,

[00:49:26] but like you can start to see the theme in there

[00:49:29] and how they're maybe all going to cross paths together.

[00:49:32] So because 2.0 was going to be the novella,

[00:49:35] I'm assuming that there's only 0.8 and 0.9 left to go?

[00:49:39] Oh, I don't have it planned out in that matter.

[00:49:42] As far as I'm concerned you'd have a 0.12, you know what I mean?

[00:49:45] Oh, sure, fair enough.

[00:49:46] But I don't really have a plan like,

[00:49:51] you know, maybe there'll only be one more,

[00:49:52] maybe there'll be two or three more, but I haven't,

[00:49:55] I just not plot it out, you know what I mean?

[00:49:57] I just have a general idea of like,

[00:49:59] I need to get them all together and then once they're together,

[00:50:02] I'll be done with the stories and then if I feel like it,

[00:50:06] I'll do a little novella maybe.

[00:50:07] You know, I'm going to put this out to the listeners,

[00:50:11] see if it's something they'd be interested in,

[00:50:13] but I could do like a bonus episode

[00:50:18] with all of the recordings from every single one of these stories.

[00:50:21] Oh, that's an interesting thought.

[00:50:23] Maybe you would do that after I got done with all of them.

[00:50:25] Like once you've determined you're done,

[00:50:28] and I could start building it in the meantime

[00:50:29] and like every time you add a new one, just kind of like add it.

[00:50:33] Yeah, there's not going to be much more, I don't think.

[00:50:35] There's going to be, like I said,

[00:50:38] depending on what I think of next,

[00:50:40] I could wrap it up in one more story.

[00:50:42] Maybe it's a couple more, but like we're nearing the end,

[00:50:45] I think for sure.

[00:50:45] So like do you have these mapped out

[00:50:47] and you just wait for a prompt?

[00:50:50] No, no, it's all spontaneous.

[00:50:52] Okay, so it's just like it's not mapped out.

[00:50:53] I just have a general idea of like,

[00:50:55] I need to get them together at some point

[00:50:58] so that I can, that will be the launch pad for the novella.

[00:51:03] The novella, which again, I have no concrete,

[00:51:06] I have a really cool idea for something that needs to occur in it.

[00:51:10] You know with regard to like these characters' powers.

[00:51:12] So you got like a scene.

[00:51:12] But I have a scene but I have no plot.

[00:51:15] Gotcha, gotcha.

[00:51:16] So, and I don't want to spoil it because it's really cool.

[00:51:19] Yeah, no, I was just curious if you just had like these kind of mapped out

[00:51:22] and you just kind of wait for a prompt?

[00:51:23] No, no, it just whatever strikes my fancy.

[00:51:26] I like that.

[00:51:27] I like that.

[00:51:29] Yeah, no, great.

[00:51:31] Also, love the little tidbit about the Timex.

[00:51:34] Yeah, I think I had mentioned in the prior story with this character

[00:51:37] that he had picked up a Timex somewhere but...

[00:51:40] Well, it's interesting because not to go off until like a watch corner

[00:51:44] kind of tangent because we don't need to.

[00:51:46] But I had texted you like, I don't know, a few weeks ago

[00:51:51] and I found this Timex used thing.

[00:51:54] Oh yeah.

[00:51:55] Where they rework the watches and sell the reworked watches.

[00:51:58] They can recondition them and if you have an old watch,

[00:52:00] you can send it in and they'll recondition it or whatever.

[00:52:03] And I was like, this is really cool but I think that

[00:52:05] I would feel like I was wearing somebody's grandpa's watch.

[00:52:09] But this character put a totally different spin on it.

[00:52:12] And I don't know if it was just coming from his perspective in life

[00:52:16] because he's homeless and he doesn't have a whole lot of

[00:52:19] material possessions probably so he really holds onto that one.

[00:52:23] But it was just a really interesting perspective

[00:52:26] because instead of like, oh, I'm just wearing some dead guy's watch.

[00:52:29] It's just like I'm sharing this...

[00:52:32] I'm giving this watch a second life and that was interesting to me.

[00:52:38] It's his connection to...

[00:52:41] Because he doesn't feel like he has his own real life in him

[00:52:44] because he's got these voices in his head.

[00:52:46] He doesn't feel like himself.

[00:52:49] So he doesn't know really where he came from ultimately or who he is.

[00:52:55] And so we all take it for granted that we've got a history to fall back on.

[00:53:01] He's got none of that.

[00:53:02] So he just knows this medical facility he came out of and...

[00:53:06] Yeah, no, that's really good.

[00:53:07] It's one of the things I really enjoy about your writing

[00:53:09] because that was like a very small little detail

[00:53:13] that a lot of people could overlook

[00:53:15] but I think it gives so much insight into the character.

[00:53:19] You know what I mean?

[00:53:20] And it's just that little thing and it could have been skipped over.

[00:53:23] You could have said...

[00:53:24] Looked at his time X and went on

[00:53:26] but you just added that little extra

[00:53:28] that just kind of just added so much to the character.

[00:53:31] It was really well done.

[00:53:33] Thank you.

[00:53:34] And I also like how you describe the dismembered remains

[00:53:38] of a man scattered about.

[00:53:40] Like that...

[00:53:40] Ah, I knew you're gonna love that.

[00:53:42] I knew it.

[00:53:43] I wrote that.

[00:53:44] I wrote that.

[00:53:45] I'm like, man, I'm gonna love this.

[00:53:46] Scattered about like really I was like, yeah.

[00:53:51] Cool.

[00:53:52] You got anything else to say about this one?

[00:53:54] I don't think so, no.

[00:53:55] I think I covers it.

[00:53:56] All right.

[00:53:57] I'm really kind of excited about this whole anti-heroes

[00:54:01] bonus episode with all the stories.

[00:54:03] I think that's really cool.

[00:54:04] Like I'm kind of excited about that.

[00:54:06] It could be interesting.

[00:54:07] Yeah, so I might start just putting that together

[00:54:09] so every time we have one,

[00:54:11] I can just kind of copy and paste the new one in there.

[00:54:13] That'll be fun.

[00:54:15] All right.

[00:54:16] Cool.

[00:54:17] So I guess it's my turn.

[00:54:21] Um...

[00:54:21] Lay it on me.

[00:54:22] I have about 2,500 words for you.

[00:54:26] You know, this was one of those ones

[00:54:28] where I was just like, this is gonna be short.

[00:54:30] It's gonna be like, I was writing.

[00:54:32] I was like, and I didn't hand write this one.

[00:54:34] I went straight to the keyboard for this one.

[00:54:37] And I was typing and I was like,

[00:54:39] you know, like a thousand words in

[00:54:40] and I'm like, ah, I'm gonna wrap this up soon.

[00:54:41] It's gonna be great.

[00:54:42] And then I'm like 1,500 words later.

[00:54:44] I'm like, oh man, it was not short at all.

[00:54:47] But um, you know, it is what it is.

[00:54:50] So yeah, it's 25,14 including the title.

[00:54:54] So um, what I got for you this month

[00:54:57] is called Suspicion of Mischief.

[00:54:59] Alrighty.

[00:55:02] There are pros and cons to driving for a living

[00:55:04] and I learned early on in my career

[00:55:06] that over-the-road gigs weren't for me.

[00:55:09] So after suffering through my initial contract,

[00:55:12] I focused on seeking out regional or local work.

[00:55:15] And I like to think that in addition

[00:55:16] to making a decent living, I've also been able

[00:55:18] to maintain a comfortable work-life balance.

[00:55:21] I see my wife and kids every night

[00:55:23] and having most weekends open is a blessing in itself.

[00:55:27] That was always the thing for me.

[00:55:29] Had I not been in a committed relationship

[00:55:31] when first starting out, things might have turned out different.

[00:55:34] I could see how a single driver could find solace

[00:55:36] out on the road, seeing new things,

[00:55:38] meeting new people and observing different cultures.

[00:55:41] Every day has the potential to be a new adventure.

[00:55:44] But while I try to be optimistic,

[00:55:47] I've come to the conclusion that I'm a pessimist at heart.

[00:55:49] I never appreciated what I was experiencing

[00:55:52] only longed for the things that I was missing.

[00:55:55] So all I found that overall I'm happier

[00:55:57] making shorter runs and being home at night,

[00:55:59] there was a trade-off.

[00:56:01] I've been on the same route

[00:56:02] for the better part of three years now

[00:56:04] and it's become quite routine.

[00:56:07] I see the same things make the same stops

[00:56:09] and apart from dealing with various degrees

[00:56:11] of inconsiderate drivers on the road,

[00:56:13] every day is pretty much the same.

[00:56:16] Well that was until about six weeks ago,

[00:56:18] when I encountered a rather odd scene play out

[00:56:20] at one of my usual stops.

[00:56:23] I tend to gravitate toward the smaller rest areas

[00:56:25] where I don't have to deal with the lot lizards

[00:56:27] or the long haul guys waiting for greasy food

[00:56:30] in lukewarm showers.

[00:56:32] Don't get me wrong, you can still run into people

[00:56:34] of a nefarious nature at these places,

[00:56:36] but it's usually the more inexperienced

[00:56:38] and they're easy to avoid.

[00:56:40] I find it's easier if you wear clean clothes

[00:56:42] and pull off your bluetooth earpiece

[00:56:44] before walking in.

[00:56:46] In any case, avoiding eye contact is key,

[00:56:49] but I digress.

[00:56:50] I'm getting off subject.

[00:56:52] After fueling up,

[00:56:53] I pulled into an available spot with an easy exit

[00:56:56] and as per usual,

[00:56:57] I started on a lap around the building

[00:56:59] to give my legs a stretch.

[00:57:00] When I was coming through the parking lot

[00:57:02] reserved for cars and recreational vehicles,

[00:57:05] I noticed some shenanigans of foot

[00:57:07] on the common lawn in front of the entrance.

[00:57:09] There were two children,

[00:57:10] a boy and a girl somewhere between the ages of 8 and 12,

[00:57:15] crawling around on the ground,

[00:57:17] chasing each other and screaming

[00:57:18] in what can only be described as gibberish.

[00:57:21] It wasn't a normal crawl though.

[00:57:24] Their hands and feet were on the ground,

[00:57:25] but their knees remained locked,

[00:57:27] which resulted in a rather awkward movement.

[00:57:30] It was sort of akin to what a human ad-at would look like.

[00:57:33] You know what I'm talking about,

[00:57:34] the walkers from the empire strikes back?

[00:57:37] Their movement is even less graceful in human form.

[00:57:41] I slowed my pace as I approached to take it all in.

[00:57:44] There didn't appear to be any adult supervision,

[00:57:46] and I'm ashamed to say that my first thought was

[00:57:49] regret in not having a lasso

[00:57:51] so I could rope one and circle them, tripping them both up.

[00:57:54] I made it to the entrance

[00:57:56] and forgot about them while I embarked on my usual routine.

[00:57:59] The restroom was empty so it was a quick in and out.

[00:58:02] I grabbed a black coffee and a bag of peanut M&Ms

[00:58:04] from the vending machines,

[00:58:06] my usual Friday treat.

[00:58:08] I was headed out the door

[00:58:09] that led to the truck parking

[00:58:10] when I remembered the unsupervised children.

[00:58:13] I checked my watch and, having time to spare,

[00:58:15] I turned it one out the way I came in

[00:58:17] to see if anything had changed.

[00:58:19] It had, but not much.

[00:58:22] There was now a youngish-looking woman

[00:58:24] overseeing the children.

[00:58:26] The game hadn't seemed to change at all,

[00:58:27] but this woman looked tired.

[00:58:30] I would place her in her early to mid-30s.

[00:58:32] She wore a black t-shirt

[00:58:33] that had been cut into a tank top,

[00:58:35] the design long faded.

[00:58:37] The first word my mind conjured

[00:58:39] to describe her was frail.

[00:58:42] She had a spattering of random tattoos

[00:58:44] and sipped from a coffee cup identical

[00:58:46] to the one I held in my own hand.

[00:58:48] I kept my eyes trained in her direction

[00:58:50] as I passed, but she didn't pay me any attention.

[00:58:53] She was focused on the kids

[00:58:54] and while the behavior being displayed

[00:58:56] wasn't something I would allow

[00:58:57] my own kids to do,

[00:58:59] it was also none of my business.

[00:59:00] So I just made my way back to my rig

[00:59:02] and climbed up into the cab.

[00:59:06] Just as I was about to pull out,

[00:59:07] I checked my mirrors

[00:59:08] and noticed the woman ushering the kids

[00:59:10] into a side entrance of the building

[00:59:12] near the dumpsters,

[00:59:13] reserved for employee use only.

[00:59:16] It was odd,

[00:59:17] but I guess it wouldn't be that out of pocket

[00:59:19] for one of the rest area workers

[00:59:21] to have her kids with her for the day.

[00:59:23] It explained their abundance of energy

[00:59:24] built up by sitting around bored all day.

[00:59:28] My mind set at ease,

[00:59:30] I went about the rest of my day.

[00:59:32] I put them out of my mind

[00:59:33] until the following Friday

[00:59:34] when I flicked on my turn signal

[00:59:36] to pull into the stop.

[00:59:38] I glanced at the lawn

[00:59:39] as I pulled into the gas station

[00:59:41] and perked up when I saw activity.

[00:59:43] I'm not going to lie,

[00:59:44] I was a little antsy waiting for my tank to fill

[00:59:46] as I wanted to get a closer look.

[00:59:49] As I made my way around the building,

[00:59:51] I was taken aback.

[00:59:53] The same woman was there

[00:59:54] in the same chopped up t-shirt,

[00:59:57] but the kids couldn't have been more different.

[00:59:59] There was a toddler crawling around

[01:00:00] the woman's feet,

[01:00:02] shoving her dirt covered fingers

[01:00:03] into her mouth while she looked on,

[01:00:05] oblivious.

[01:00:06] There was a couple of pre-teens

[01:00:08] leaning against a tree,

[01:00:09] smoking cigarettes and one more

[01:00:11] somewhere in between the ages of the others

[01:00:13] doing the weird Star Wars walk.

[01:00:16] I couldn't be sure at the time,

[01:00:17] but I was fairly certain that

[01:00:19] none of the children were ones

[01:00:20] I had observed the previous week.

[01:00:24] I hurried through my obligations

[01:00:26] inside the stop

[01:00:27] and once again took the long way back around

[01:00:29] and stopped dead in my tracks

[01:00:30] when I found the lawn to be completely empty.

[01:00:32] No woman, no kids.

[01:00:36] I walked faster than my usual pace

[01:00:38] around the building,

[01:00:39] making a pit stop at the employee door.

[01:00:42] I hesitated when I reached for the handle

[01:00:44] unsure of how I would explain my actions

[01:00:46] if there happened to be someone on the other side,

[01:00:49] ultimately deciding to go with

[01:00:50] sheer ignorance of question.

[01:00:52] It turned out that I was worried for nothing

[01:00:54] as the door was locked.

[01:00:56] Gave it a gentle tug,

[01:00:57] but it was going nowhere.

[01:01:01] I keep a small notebook in my truck

[01:01:03] just to keep little notes to myself.

[01:01:05] It's usually work related,

[01:01:06] and boring,

[01:01:07] but I went to a fresh page

[01:01:08] and wrote a short description of the woman

[01:01:10] along with descriptions of each of the kids

[01:01:12] from both the week before and that day.

[01:01:15] I know it sounds a little weird,

[01:01:16] but I had this feeling in my gut

[01:01:18] that something wasn't quite right

[01:01:20] about this family or whatever you want to call them.

[01:01:23] I also took note of the time.

[01:01:26] 4.05pm.

[01:01:28] This was a little later than when I was there

[01:01:30] the previous week,

[01:01:31] so maybe I'm catching her on a scheduled break?

[01:01:35] I was stuck covering someone else's route

[01:01:37] in the few weeks that followed,

[01:01:38] so I hadn't had a chance to update my notes again until today.

[01:01:42] I made it a point to get there a little earlier than normal

[01:01:44] to see if I could see things play out from the beginning.

[01:01:48] Again, I know this might seem a little creepy and stalkerish,

[01:01:52] but from my perspective,

[01:01:53] I wanted to make sure that these kids were okay.

[01:01:56] I wouldn't take anything into my own hands

[01:01:58] or anything like that,

[01:01:59] but with all the human trafficking scares

[01:02:01] that you hear about these days,

[01:02:02] I would certainly have no problem

[01:02:04] reporting this to the authorities

[01:02:05] under suspicion of mischief.

[01:02:08] I pulled in about 315 and the lawn was clear.

[01:02:12] I got my gas and pulled into my usual spot.

[01:02:15] I was about to make my lap around the building

[01:02:17] when I caught myself.

[01:02:19] I wanted to review my notes from last time,

[01:02:21] just so I could see if I was building something out of nothing

[01:02:23] or if there was a legitimate reason for concern.

[01:02:26] I took it all in and as I was about to exit the cab,

[01:02:30] I noticed activity in my side mirror.

[01:02:33] I watched as three children exit the door,

[01:02:35] two boys and a girl,

[01:02:37] followed by the woman who is now pushing a stroller.

[01:02:42] I gave them a few minutes to get into position

[01:02:44] and then made my way around.

[01:02:47] The woman and stroller were nowhere to be found,

[01:02:50] but the others were back playing Star Wars again.

[01:02:53] One of the boys could have been the same from the first week,

[01:02:55] but I couldn't be sure.

[01:02:57] The girl had a large bald spot on the side of her head

[01:03:00] revealing a sizeable red birthmark.

[01:03:03] The rest of the hair on her head was sparse.

[01:03:05] While she seemed relatively happy,

[01:03:08] I couldn't help but feel for her.

[01:03:10] I was in and out of the stop again

[01:03:12] and was pleased to find the woman outside

[01:03:14] watching the kids when I returned.

[01:03:16] I can't explain why,

[01:03:17] but I walked up next to her and started talking.

[01:03:22] Beautiful day out today.

[01:03:24] I definitely caught her off guard.

[01:03:26] She cleared a throat as if she intended to speak,

[01:03:29] but ended up nodding in response.

[01:03:31] This seemed to catch the attention of the older boy,

[01:03:34] but he turned back and continued playing with the others.

[01:03:37] I ripped open the yellow bag of M&M's and offered it to her.

[01:03:41] M&M?

[01:03:43] Her eyes lit up for a moment, but only for a moment.

[01:03:47] She went to reach her hand out,

[01:03:49] but the older boy cleared his throat loud enough

[01:03:50] to make sure his presence was known.

[01:03:53] She was quick to withdraw her hand

[01:03:54] and grasped the stroller with intensity.

[01:03:57] No thank you.

[01:03:59] I'm allergic to peanuts.

[01:04:01] Fair enough.

[01:04:02] I've always felt like that might be the worst allergy you could have.

[01:04:06] I'd just love peanut butter too much.

[01:04:08] I laughed and I thought I may have seen a hint of a smirk from her,

[01:04:12] but before I could say anything else,

[01:04:14] the older boy was at her feet.

[01:04:16] May I have the rope please?

[01:04:19] She flicked her eyes toward me

[01:04:21] and shook her head in short swift movements,

[01:04:23] barely visible if you weren't looking.

[01:04:26] The rope.

[01:04:28] Please.

[01:04:30] Her shoulders slumped and she reached into the bottom of the stroller,

[01:04:33] pulling out a considerable length of rope.

[01:04:36] The boy took it from her with a little more force

[01:04:38] than I thought to be necessary

[01:04:39] and ran back to join the others.

[01:04:43] What's he...?

[01:04:43] I couldn't even get the question out before it was answered for me.

[01:04:47] The rope had been fashioned into a lasso

[01:04:49] and it appeared that he was about to play Star Wars for real.

[01:04:52] Before I knew what was happening,

[01:04:54] the rope was cast into the air

[01:04:55] and the little bald girl had gone from being an ad at one second

[01:04:59] to being effectively hogtied the next.

[01:05:02] She began to scream and cry,

[01:05:03] gaining the attention of anyone with a near shot.

[01:05:06] Holy shit! I exclaimed without thinking.

[01:05:10] The entire scene stopped for a moment

[01:05:11] as all the children stared at me with wide eyes.

[01:05:14] The woman just looked to the stroller in front of her

[01:05:16] while a single tear rolled down her cheek.

[01:05:19] Playtime resumed in a mixture of laughter and tears.

[01:05:23] I spoke in a whisper,

[01:05:24] If you need help, just nod and I'll make sure you get it.

[01:05:30] She shook her head and spoke softly.

[01:05:33] I'm fine. They're just kids being kids.

[01:05:38] One of the marks of being a great driver

[01:05:39] is having exceptional awareness.

[01:05:42] I couldn't help but notice the oldest boy

[01:05:43] keeping one eye on me during this entire altercation,

[01:05:47] leading me to question who was really in charge in the scenario.

[01:05:51] From what the movies and television taught me,

[01:05:53] any additional action taken could potentially make her situation worse

[01:05:57] if there was a situation at all.

[01:06:01] Well, I need to get back on the road.

[01:06:03] Enjoy the rest of your day, ma'am.

[01:06:07] I left without waiting for a response

[01:06:08] and made certain to walk at my normal pace

[01:06:10] as I circled the building.

[01:06:12] When I climbed back into my truck,

[01:06:14] I noticed that my heart was racing

[01:06:15] and I built up a slight sweat.

[01:06:18] I hoped that it hadn't been visible a few minutes earlier.

[01:06:21] I jotted down a few notes and checked the time.

[01:06:24] 3.55.

[01:06:26] If there was a pattern to this madness,

[01:06:28] she should be rounding the corner

[01:06:30] to the employee entrance any minute now.

[01:06:32] I adjusted my mirror so I could see

[01:06:34] without leaning across the seat.

[01:06:36] As soon as the clock turned to four,

[01:06:39] I saw the group come around the corner.

[01:06:41] No one seemed to be taking any extra precautions,

[01:06:43] so I felt it safe to assume

[01:06:45] that I had not been perceived as a threat.

[01:06:48] As she approached the door with the children in tow,

[01:06:50] she knocked three times, paused, and knocked two more times.

[01:06:55] The door opened just enough to let them through

[01:06:57] and close behind them.

[01:07:00] I paused for a quick mental recap.

[01:07:03] At this point, I had already confronted the woman

[01:07:05] and asked her if she needed anything, which was refused.

[01:07:08] Any scenario built up in my head

[01:07:10] could have been concocted by an overactive imagination

[01:07:13] during long hours on the road.

[01:07:15] She said she was okay, so why shouldn't I take her word for it?

[01:07:20] There was something in my gut sitting like a lump of concrete,

[01:07:24] telling me that she had a dark secret,

[01:07:26] but I had no idea what kind of path

[01:07:28] my suspicion would lead me down.

[01:07:31] I sent a quick text to my wife,

[01:07:33] telling her that I might be running a few minutes late

[01:07:35] and made sure location sharing was turned on in my phone.

[01:07:38] Then I jumped out of the cab, locked it,

[01:07:41] and made my way for the back entrance.

[01:07:44] Double checking that there was no one else around,

[01:07:46] I knocked three times, paused, and knocked twice more.

[01:07:51] There was a bit of scuffling behind the door

[01:07:53] before it opened.

[01:07:55] I slipped into the darkness and let the door close behind me.

[01:08:00] To be continued.

[01:08:03] Oh, you didn't just do that.

[01:08:07] I did just.

[01:08:08] The second you opened the door, I knew you were gonna do that.

[01:08:11] It's never been done.

[01:08:14] Yeah, I don't think you've ever done that to me yet.

[01:08:18] So as I was talking earlier,

[01:08:20] you know, I thought it was gonna be short.

[01:08:22] It ended up being long.

[01:08:24] It ended up being real long.

[01:08:26] So you know where this is going.

[01:08:28] I know where it's going.

[01:08:29] It hasn't all been written yet though.

[01:08:31] Okay, not fair enough.

[01:08:32] Like I know where we're heading.

[01:08:33] I just didn't know if like, okay, okay.

[01:08:35] So I can answer questions without giving spoilers.

[01:08:40] Yeah.

[01:08:41] Yeah, so I mean, I guess the question will be

[01:08:44] when will you get another prompt that will work

[01:08:47] to keep this going?

[01:08:49] You know what I mean?

[01:08:49] So when I decided that I was going to do this to you,

[01:08:54] and to everybody,

[01:08:55] even my wife was like to be continued really.

[01:09:00] I'm just gonna tell you, I'm gonna continue it next month.

[01:09:03] Okay.

[01:09:04] Like you will get the rest of it next month.

[01:09:08] Which I think is gonna be a bit of a challenge,

[01:09:11] but I think doable.

[01:09:13] Challenge in fitting it all into one story?

[01:09:16] Just working the prompt.

[01:09:17] Because like it's funny because I had a draft of this,

[01:09:22] you know, ready to go.

[01:09:24] And we didn't record last week.

[01:09:26] So I took yesterday and I went back and I kind of just

[01:09:28] like read it out loud to myself again

[01:09:30] to make sure that like I liked everything.

[01:09:32] And you know, there's still some things in there

[01:09:33] that I'd probably change if I didn't just read it out

[01:09:35] loud to everybody.

[01:09:39] But I realized that I didn't actually put the prompt

[01:09:41] into the story.

[01:09:45] Like so I had to go back and put the prompt

[01:09:48] in the story.

[01:09:49] Like it's like the prompt inspired the story,

[01:09:53] but the prompt wasn't actually in the story.

[01:09:55] And so I fixed that and I fixed that today actually

[01:09:59] because it was just like, holy shit.

[01:10:01] I completely left the prompt out.

[01:10:03] Yeah, you kind of need that in there.

[01:10:06] Well, which could lead us to a more philosophical

[01:10:10] conversation about like the purpose of a writing prompt?

[01:10:16] Like I'm not looking for a loophole

[01:10:17] and I'm not looking to change the rules here,

[01:10:19] but I mean like if I had left it out,

[01:10:21] I mean that prompt still inspired the story.

[01:10:24] Right?

[01:10:25] Yeah, sure.

[01:10:26] Yeah.

[01:10:27] So I mean, don't get me wrong.

[01:10:29] Like in some way it would count.

[01:10:30] But part of it, part of the challenge is

[01:10:33] having the words in the story itself.

[01:10:35] Right.

[01:10:36] Yeah.

[01:10:37] So yeah.

[01:10:40] I'm having fun with this one.

[01:10:41] Well, right off the bat, the lot lizard comment.

[01:10:47] Earned the chuckle for me.

[01:10:49] I don't remember who we knew that was a truck driver,

[01:10:51] but they introduced us to the term lot lizard.

[01:10:56] So I just hope that that person didn't take a lot

[01:11:02] lizard up on her services.

[01:11:04] Right.

[01:11:04] Right.

[01:11:06] Because there's probably still shit oozing out of that man.

[01:11:13] Moving on.

[01:11:16] I mean you established pretty early on like some suspense, right?

[01:11:22] I tried to.

[01:11:24] You know, you described sort of, you know,

[01:11:27] if you put children in potential harms way,

[01:11:29] I mean most people are going to be hooked.

[01:11:32] You know what I mean?

[01:11:32] So you've got that going for you and you kind of tease

[01:11:35] that out.

[01:11:36] And you know, you establish it, your character seems like

[01:11:38] he's pretty level headed.

[01:11:40] You know, he's not someone who the reader thinks

[01:11:45] they should distrust.

[01:11:46] He seems trustworthy, right?

[01:11:47] Just a regular guy, right?

[01:11:49] Well yeah, but you go to the lengths to establish it like,

[01:11:52] you know, he's not one of these guys that's, you know,

[01:11:58] maybe preoccupied with other things.

[01:12:00] He seems observant.

[01:12:02] He doesn't want to put up with any kind of nonsense.

[01:12:04] It doesn't seem like so.

[01:12:06] You know, he seems like a reliable narrator, right?

[01:12:08] I'd like to believe that, yes.

[01:12:11] Right.

[01:12:11] And so when he starts to notice these things, right,

[01:12:15] that he thinks they're suspicious, you know,

[01:12:18] we as the listener kind of go along with that and like,

[01:12:21] yeah, that does seem suspicious.

[01:12:22] And so you set the hook pretty early, which is good.

[01:12:26] And you start teasing them out and then, you know,

[01:12:29] you give him the gumption to go up and inquire

[01:12:32] and make contact and try to find out what's going on

[01:12:36] and to sort of rebuffed a little bit,

[01:12:38] but still thinks things are strange enough

[01:12:40] that he goes through the door, which obviously

[01:12:42] is a perfect place to have your cliffhanger.

[01:12:45] Yeah.

[01:12:46] But I'm curious like without giving too much away,

[01:12:51] what might be coming?

[01:12:52] Sort of where did the idea come from

[01:12:54] and what were you thinking about?

[01:12:56] So I'll be honest, we were,

[01:12:58] I went and saw Metallica with my good buddy Russ

[01:13:01] last month in Chicago.

[01:13:03] So we were on the turnpike and we stopped at a rest stop

[01:13:07] and there were just these fucking kids

[01:13:09] like just running around the lawn and screaming.

[01:13:11] Because I was like, the fuck are these animals doing?

[01:13:14] There was like nobody around.

[01:13:16] It was just like this bunch of assholes

[01:13:18] just running around Cosmer Ruckus.

[01:13:20] And I'm like, I just want to pee and get like a Red Bull.

[01:13:23] Like that's all I want.

[01:13:25] So like for some reason, like that stuck into my head.

[01:13:28] And when I was sitting there, I was like, you know,

[01:13:31] I was like, I think that

[01:13:33] could possibly have some shenanigans go down at a truck stop.

[01:13:36] It seems like a relatively decent place for shit to go afoul.

[01:13:42] So like I just kind of started free writing.

[01:13:46] Like I had the images of them running around

[01:13:48] and we did see this kind of frail looking tired woman

[01:13:55] that I don't know if she was with the kids,

[01:13:58] but she was at least watching the kids.

[01:13:59] So in my mind, it all added up.

[01:14:03] It's just like maybe she just doesn't have the maybe they're just

[01:14:05] maybe the kids are so bad that she just doesn't have the energy

[01:14:08] and she's like, fuck it.

[01:14:10] They're not dying.

[01:14:11] They're just running around yelling like who cares?

[01:14:13] You know?

[01:14:16] But they were kind of crawling weird.

[01:14:18] It wasn't like complete ad at thing.

[01:14:20] But like that was the best way like in my mind to kind of describe it.

[01:14:25] So it took it took me a little bit to understand what you were referencing.

[01:14:30] I is that how it's pronounced?

[01:14:32] I thought it was 8080.

[01:14:33] So I did some research about this and because there's the 80ST is so George

[01:14:40] per George Lucas, it was meant to be said as ad at

[01:14:46] so that it would be something easy for children to say.

[01:14:50] Interesting.

[01:14:51] That being said, he did acknowledge that 8080 was an appropriate way to say it.

[01:14:57] But I wanted to look it up because I was unsure because I've heard both.

[01:15:02] And when I read that, I was like, well, I'm not going against George Lucas.

[01:15:07] So it's at it.

[01:15:09] Yeah.

[01:15:10] Interesting.

[01:15:11] But but that aside that that stumble aside, like I think that was a really cool

[01:15:18] sort of metaphor to describe what they were doing.

[01:15:21] Oh, yeah.

[01:15:21] Thanks.

[01:15:22] I mean, I couldn't really like I wanted something that I could relate it to because if I say crawling

[01:15:27] around like I could have just said crawling around with on hands and feet with their knees

[01:15:31] locked, but I don't feel like that was really right.

[01:15:34] It wasn't like a visual is I wasn't getting a visual off of that.

[01:15:37] No, it paints a picture for sure.

[01:15:38] So yeah.

[01:15:39] Well, it's it's funny how much just everyday life inspires ideas for stories.

[01:15:46] But but yeah, truck stops or like rest stops in general.

[01:15:51] Yeah.

[01:15:52] I mean, you've got I mean, it's a smorgasbord of like, you know, of everybody's a cross

[01:15:58] section of anybody.

[01:16:00] Everyone's going to stop there.

[01:16:01] Right.

[01:16:01] I mean, like you're going to see people from all walks of life and they're all going

[01:16:05] to be behaving differently.

[01:16:06] Right.

[01:16:07] And it's it is definitely fodder for stories.

[01:16:11] Well, and that's why I'm kind of excited because like I have a general idea of where

[01:16:14] I want this to end up, but like I don't necessarily know what's going to happen

[01:16:19] next.

[01:16:20] No, that's sort of the fun part though.

[01:16:21] So that's what I kind of need to come up with.

[01:16:23] Like I know where I'm going, but I got to figure out how I want to get there.

[01:16:28] And like I have a couple ideas that I'm kind of tossing back and forth,

[01:16:31] but it's just like at the same time, like we're recording a week later than I wanted to.

[01:16:37] I haven't started writing the second part yet, and I have less time to do it the normal.

[01:16:42] So I feel like I'm right on the edge.

[01:16:45] So it's going to be interesting to see where this goes.

[01:16:48] I'm excited about it though.

[01:16:50] Sometimes, sometimes when you're under the gun, it just flows, you know?

[01:16:53] But well, you know, you know, that's we could probably go off on a tangent that I

[01:16:57] don't want to go off on about that because it's like I was reading something later or

[01:17:03] like a couple of weeks ago and I forget where it was, but it was something about

[01:17:07] like how some people say that like procrastination is part of their process and they need

[01:17:11] to be under the wire to really get work done.

[01:17:14] And you know, I was thinking about it and I was like, that's kind of me.

[01:17:18] Like, I mean, it's always like in my head and I'm always constantly thinking about

[01:17:22] or whatever, but when it actually comes to putting it down on the page,

[01:17:24] it's always like I'm under the wire.

[01:17:28] And it's just like the person who wrote the article was like,

[01:17:32] but it doesn't have to be that way.

[01:17:35] Like you just need to sit, like it's like you obviously have the ability to

[01:17:38] sit down and do the thing that you're trying to do.

[01:17:42] You don't need to have this extra pressure.

[01:17:44] You just need to have kind of a little more,

[01:17:49] what's the word I'm looking for?

[01:17:52] Discipline.

[01:17:52] Discipline to just do it more often.

[01:17:55] You're not still handwriting things, are you?

[01:17:58] So I go back and forth.

[01:18:00] It's on a month-to-month kind of basis.

[01:18:02] Like a lot of times I will handwrite the idea.

[01:18:08] Like if I'm brainstorming, I'll sit down and free-write and then like I had noticed over time,

[01:18:13] like because I used to what I used to do is I would write down the prompt and then I would like

[01:18:20] do all my brainstorming and then I would draw a line

[01:18:23] and then I would start writing the story by hand and then I would type it when I was done.

[01:18:28] And it got to the point where I would start brainstorming and then the brainstorming

[01:18:31] would kind of turn into the actual writing.

[01:18:34] So I would have half of like an outline or free-write or whatever you want to call it

[01:18:40] and then it would just kind of slowly morph into the actual writing.

[01:18:44] So now like my notebook is sometimes I just jot down ideas that I can pick from.

[01:18:49] Sometimes if I'm feeling like I have some extra time and I want to write because I still like

[01:18:54] writing by hand and I still like using my pens.

[01:18:56] So if I have the time to do it, I will do it.

[01:18:59] But like this month I wrote down the idea and then I just, I mean I wrote with a keyboard.

[01:19:08] So I'm kind of all over the place.

[01:19:09] It's just kind of month to month like whatever's working for me.

[01:19:13] Got it.

[01:19:14] Because I used to be like so structured where it was like if I didn't hand write it,

[01:19:18] I was upset with myself because I felt like I was doing something wrong

[01:19:22] and it's just like as long as the words get written,

[01:19:26] doesn't really matter the methodology that you use to get them written, right?

[01:19:30] So I'm just kind of going with the flow now.

[01:19:33] Plus I bought a new iPad and I bought the big one.

[01:19:37] I bought the 13 inch and got the nice keyboard and everything.

[01:19:40] And it's really nice to write on.

[01:19:43] Oh nice.

[01:19:44] So now I feel like I got to use it more because it costs me a lot of money.

[01:19:47] Oh yeah for sure you gotta get your money's worth.

[01:19:49] So yeah but that is it for me.

[01:19:53] So before we get into, well last do you have anything else you want to say about that or no?

[01:20:00] I don't think so.

[01:20:01] I think that covers most of it.

[01:20:02] Okay so before we go I had this idea and I just want to throw it out there.

[01:20:08] I'm not saying that we have to do it or we should do it or whatever

[01:20:11] but like when I did the to be continued thing, right?

[01:20:15] I was like, hmm this is intriguing.

[01:20:19] And so I was sitting, I'd been smoking cigars.

[01:20:22] We talked about that.

[01:20:23] So I was sitting outside last night with the cigar.

[01:20:26] I had some music playing and I was just kind of chilling.

[01:20:29] I'm sitting there thinking and I was like you know what if I took an idea that I have, right?

[01:20:36] And I broke it into a 12 point like storyline, like 12 distinct chapters

[01:20:44] and then committed to every episode for a season will be a chapter in this story.

[01:20:52] So one season would actually equal a novella.

[01:20:56] It's a cool idea.

[01:20:59] My only my only caveat or concern with that because I don't know that I've had the exact

[01:21:06] same idea per se but I've done stuff that sort of spanned a little bit and so I've

[01:21:11] had the thought of like how far could you go doing the same story in some sense.

[01:21:17] But the problem that you're going to run into maybe is if you get a prompt that

[01:21:23] is just not a good fit for what you're trying to do, you know what I mean?

[01:21:26] You either have to abandon your idea or you really have to find a way to like shoehorn

[01:21:33] it in which may or may not work well.

[01:21:35] So my thought was though like if we have active listeners listening

[01:21:39] and they get like I mean I think the first month would probably be the hardest.

[01:21:43] The first couple months would be the hardest because we really wouldn't know what we were

[01:21:45] getting into and but like if the listeners knew what the stories were,

[01:21:51] they could almost use the prompts to try to direct a story the way that they wanted it to go.

[01:21:57] You know what I mean?

[01:21:58] Well that's an interesting idea.

[01:21:59] So it's almost like a back and forth between us and the listeners but then again

[01:22:05] I could be writing a completely different story than you're writing and it's just like so we still

[01:22:11] have to both work together somehow.

[01:22:13] So you're talking about like an experimental season you mean?

[01:22:16] So here's the thing I would say like it's a cool idea.

[01:22:21] I would ask if there would be ground rules around the prompts.

[01:22:24] So what I mean by that is like you wouldn't want someone to

[01:22:29] suggest as a prompt an actual plot.

[01:22:31] Correct.

[01:22:32] Let's say there's a character called Jerry in your story.

[01:22:36] They couldn't write Jerry flies a plane into the ground.

[01:22:39] You know what I mean?

[01:22:40] You can't do that.

[01:22:40] They couldn't do that right?

[01:22:41] It has to be a normal prompt.

[01:22:43] No you couldn't do that because I wouldn't have a character like say you had a character

[01:22:46] named Jerry and my character's name is George like I'm not going to have Jerry.

[01:22:50] Well right but like that's a contrived example but you know what I'm getting like

[01:22:52] they couldn't like steer the story via like yeah that would have to be a rule but

[01:22:59] and then I thought it would be interesting because if we did like say

[01:23:02] like I'm not saying we should do this because like all honestly we have one more episode to record

[01:23:07] before the end of this season.

[01:23:09] Are you sure this isn't the last one for the season?

[01:23:12] Yeah because I think we added one more because there's usually 12.

[01:23:16] I had the I think this is I had the spreadsheet wrong so if you go to the spreadsheet

[01:23:20] this season started with...

[01:23:23] I'm not gonna lie I don't know what you're talking about spreadsheet.

[01:23:26] Oh I got a spreadsheet it's in the folder.

[01:23:27] It's called the master topic list.

[01:23:29] It started at 63 so that's one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven

[01:23:38] twelve is 74 which will give us a dozen.

[01:23:43] Well so are we going based on number of episodes because we skipped them?

[01:23:47] Oh you're right.

[01:23:48] Or are we going based on the months?

[01:23:51] You know what I mean like September to October.

[01:23:54] Oh you're right.

[01:23:55] Something like that or October to September.

[01:23:57] This might be the last one then.

[01:23:58] Well that's what I was thinking.

[01:24:00] Okay so if this is the last...

[01:24:01] Well we could do whatever we could take that offline we don't need to have that

[01:24:04] conversation now but I mean this would be not for the next season

[01:24:07] because the next season starts next month.

[01:24:11] You know what I mean?

[01:24:12] But it's just it was an idea that I had that I kind of wanted to present to you

[01:24:19] and I thought that I would do it on the episode just to see if we got any feedback

[01:24:25] is if people were like no that's not interesting or yeah we want that or like whatever.

[01:24:29] So I like it but I don't like I like the idea it's an interesting idea I think it would be fun

[01:24:35] it would be a challenge but I also really really like the complete creative freedom month

[01:24:42] to month to just do whatever I want you know what I mean and like you would be locked in

[01:24:46] for a whole year.

[01:24:47] A whole year.

[01:24:49] To a single story that like...

[01:24:51] You could end up hating.

[01:24:51] You not only have to...

[01:24:53] You not only have to produce month to month and it'd be long enough to last the whole year but

[01:24:58] also you have to resolve it by the end of the first year.

[01:25:01] Sure well that's what I was saying like you would like what I would do

[01:25:04] if I was gonna do this I would get a story idea and I would like essentially make an

[01:25:09] outline with 12 chapters and I would try to plot it out and then but leave it vague

[01:25:15] enough so I could like go where the prompts take me but I would have a plan

[01:25:19] going into that year.

[01:25:21] I'm also looking in our in our document here and it's my turn for nails and I completely forgot.

[01:25:30] Yeah that's still floating out there.

[01:25:33] We haven't had a nail since November 2nd 2022.

[01:25:37] 2022 really?

[01:25:38] That's when your last... Well that's when the document was put out there.

[01:25:41] I will need to look at the document.

[01:25:42] Episode 52 like I'd have to... I would honestly I would have to go back and read all of these

[01:25:46] which is something I'm gonna have to do because it's my turn.

[01:25:49] Well you have to revisit at least the last story but like depending on what you're gonna do with it.

[01:25:54] Yeah I think I'd gotta go back.

[01:25:55] You know the certain details will force you to go back and revisit the house.

[01:25:59] I didn't realize it was me I gotta get on that it's been too long.

[01:26:02] I will say that I have had an idea that this might work with that I've been debating on

[01:26:10] it's sort of like I don't even know if this makes sense the inverse of a concept

[01:26:14] album almost like there's a there's an album that I've been thinking about it's like it's 16 tracks

[01:26:20] but like I could kidnip some of the tracks into a single story but like the idea was like

[01:26:25] the very last song on the album for whatever reason gave me very specific

[01:26:31] vibes or a vision for like a scene and ever since I had listened to some of the weirdness

[01:26:36] of the pixies I had thought about like wouldn't be fun to just take a pixie's album and

[01:26:40] write a story based on each like each song would be a chapter or part of the story and just like

[01:26:45] construct a story completely based off an album just my interpretation of the lyrics

[01:26:50] and just run with it right I thought that would be fun I've never done it but like

[01:26:53] there was this other album that I thought like what if I just wrote a story

[01:26:58] and each I'd listen to a song the first song the second song and each song would be

[01:27:03] depending how long it was if it was a book each song would be a chapter or

[01:27:07] if I made it a podcast story it would be like a paragraph or something or whatever right it would

[01:27:12] be a scene and you know maybe maybe this would be the opportunity to do that maybe I don't know

[01:27:19] but but it is committing to a whole year of the podcast so like I really I really do want

[01:27:24] feedback from the listeners because like I mean I think part of the fun of this podcast

[01:27:31] is the fact that like the stories are completely different

[01:27:35] month to month like right month to month and this would be locking both of us into a distinct

[01:27:41] story for an entire year of the podcast but like I would really like like some listener feedback

[01:27:47] as well so so I already know that that Utah and Bedenar will both try to mess with us

[01:27:53] oh for sure and I think Grace would get in on it too with the sum of the

[01:27:56] shit that he's putting out there yeah that would be that'd be tough it could be interesting

[01:28:01] so what I'm going to do is once this episode's out into the world for a little bit I might go

[01:28:06] to like a poll and just see what people think I mean we have a year because we're not doing

[01:28:11] it starting next month for sure so like and I think it would be really cool if we like

[01:28:18] just to look at it like from the the grander scheme if we publish that season's volume

[01:28:25] we could keep our novellas together so it's like literally one novella from you one novella from me

[01:28:32] like 12 consecutive chapters instead of going back and forth I'm not opposed to the idea I mean

[01:28:37] just yeah we would just have to I think we would need to we need to think about it

[01:28:41] and I think we do need some vague rules that need to be followed in order to kind of

[01:28:49] still keep the the process like I don't know exciting and just quasi-fair yeah he's got to figure

[01:28:57] out because like I guarantee like Utah hasn't even heard this episode yet and I guarantee his

[01:29:02] like ears are burning and he was like I'm coming up with a fucked up prompt right now

[01:29:06] I don't even know and that's the other thing like if I had a good enough idea that I was like

[01:29:13] oh I could do a whole year of it it's like man I get stingy I want it to be all my own and when

[01:29:19] someone tries to give me a prompt that's so far off base that doesn't fit with my idea

[01:29:24] like that's gonna drive me baddie right but that's also part of the challenge like

[01:29:28] there's part of the challenge it is so I mean just think about it we have a ton of time

[01:29:32] to think about it and go through it it was just it just popped in I'm not opposed to it but I have

[01:29:37] my reservations I'll say that well I mean I think I do too because it does kind of ruin some of the

[01:29:42] spontaneity of like our ideas and shit to come through so it does just something to think about

[01:29:48] we had we got a at least a year to worry about it so um in the meantime uh what are you reading

[01:29:55] right now I'm reading The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John LeCarr I'm intrigued by this title

[01:30:03] is this a newer book or is this an older book no no no it's an older book uh John LeCarr's a pen

[01:30:09] name I don't remember the the fellow's real name but he was a pen name and he wrote a lot of different

[01:30:14] spy novels some of which have been made into movies um Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy,

[01:30:21] I think The Night Manager which was a like a show maybe on like a streaming show um

[01:30:28] there's been a number of them but this one always popped up for some reason and I wanted to read

[01:30:34] some spy related stuff um sort of his research and just get me in the right mindset because my

[01:30:40] plan right now after I finish this read book is to do if you recall the John Post character

[01:30:46] from the podcast um did a couple like period piece spy stories with him the idea would be it would

[01:30:52] be like a like a John Post novel it would be sort of like quasi pulpy short novel you know set maybe

[01:30:57] in the 60s yeah we were talking about this so I was like yeah I recently just picked up a copy of

[01:31:02] the Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazine because I wanted to get a little bit of that pulpy flair

[01:31:05] in my life yeah I've got a compilation somewhere I need to remember did I get it from the library

[01:31:11] I thought I owned it I'm gonna need to find it I have a copy of a bunch it was like a

[01:31:15] Hitchcock compilation of short stories and the reason I bought it because I think it's a used

[01:31:20] copy it had a short story and it called The Hostage which was um the premise it was the

[01:31:28] idea that inspired the movie Suicide Kings oh nice and I was like oh I want to read that

[01:31:33] story and I um I think I picked up this compilation for that reason but um but at any rate that's

[01:31:41] that's what I'm reading right now how far are you through it maybe halfway you enjoying it so far I

[01:31:46] am yeah it's um I'm moving a little bit slower through we were without power for about six days

[01:31:52] and so I flew through a couple books but now I'm kind of like back to my normal reading pace

[01:31:56] got it got it all right so I'm reading this is a title it's called Alright Alright Alright

[01:32:04] the oral history of Richard Linklater's Days in Confused by Melissa Myers

[01:32:09] it's alright alright alright it sure is and like literally I was just kind of like I

[01:32:16] I finished the the Stephen King book of short stories which was fantastic

[01:32:21] um and I was like I was just kind of scrolling through my Kindle library to see like what I could

[01:32:26] read and I like I'm I'm not kidding I'm not exaggerating at all I watched Days in Confused

[01:32:32] once to twice a week like it's just the movie I throw on at night while I'm like scrolling

[01:32:37] through my phone and I don't really have to pay too much attention to you it's just kind of

[01:32:40] like background noise kind of but there's like there's like certain parts that I just

[01:32:44] I'm always like just watching and then I go back to what I was doing or whatever

[01:32:47] I love this film and so like when I I just saw that I bought I bought this book like two years ago

[01:32:54] or something and it's just sitting there and I was like you know what I'm reading it so

[01:32:58] next month it's it's it's long it's like 460 pages but I think there's a lot of photos

[01:33:05] and stuff in it so I'm actually going to read it on my iPad because I want to see all that

[01:33:08] shit in color so yeah I'm excited interesting okay yeah I got nothing else so with that

[01:33:17] we want to know what you want us to write about to do so you're gonna want to visit our Facebook

[01:33:21] group join the Facebook group facebook.com slash group slash p written pod that's where you'll

[01:33:27] you'll get to do the polls where you get to help pick the prompts and like you get Ian's word of the

[01:33:32] day and in weird obscure quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson that don't seem to make any sense

[01:33:38] we have Ron X at p written pod or you can email us directly at p promptly written pod

[01:33:45] at gmail.com Ian where's the best place for people to find out more about your work

[01:33:50] Ian Lewis fiction.com and if you want to get in touch with me I'm at matcha garic on x or you

[01:33:56] can go to matcha garic.com for a bunch of other ways to reach out and you know what I need to

[01:33:59] change this document I'm not on x all that match anymore go to at matcha garic on Instagram

[01:34:05] and that's where most of my content is going to come through it's still not all that often

[01:34:08] a lot of it's just like pictures of cigars but anyways um that's where the stuff comes through

[01:34:14] want to remind you all that volumes one through five of promptly written are available on amazon and

[01:34:18] both paperback and kindle format and if you're kindle unlimited subscriber they're all included in

[01:34:24] your subscription um our next episode will be episode 74 it will drop on october 7th the prompt

[01:34:31] will be live long and prosper god damn it which was submitted by Ian Lewis like I'm not people

[01:34:39] you're you're doing it wrong I started the poll with a dumb prompt because you're not supposed to

[01:34:46] pick that one you're supposed to submit your own like seriously I like I have no ill feelings

[01:34:52] towards star trek it's just I never watched it like I literally know I'm not nothing about

[01:34:57] star trek I watched one episode in film class because I was doing a television workshop and it

[01:35:02] was it was a fine episode it was from the original series um it was fine but like

[01:35:07] I really just I know nothing so I got nothing we're gonna figure out like what's gonna happen

[01:35:14] like in and I'm kind of stuck because I gotta finish the story I started so we'll see what

[01:35:20] happens anyways if you like what you hear please leave us a review on apple podcast or wherever

[01:35:25] you listen so we can help get the word out that's it for today see you next month thanks