Making It Up with Jeffrey James Higgins, author of the Nathan Burke thriller series

“Writing is so personal. And when you're writing a character, things come out that I know most writers, including myself, are unaware of when they're writing it... they're writing about things you're trying to work out. It's so deeply personal if you're writing honestly.” — Jeffrey James Higgins 

Jeffrey James Higgins is a retired supervisory special agent who writes thrillers, short stories, creative nonfiction, and essays. He has wrestled a suicide bomber, fought the Taliban in combat, and chased terrorists across five continents. He received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Heroism and the DEA Award of Valor. He’s appeared on CNN Declassified, National Geographic’s Narco Wars, and ABC News. Jeffrey is a #1 Amazon bestselling author who’s won the Claymore Award, PenCraft’s Best Fiction Book of the Year, and a Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal. 

Among other things, Jeffrey and Carter discuss their style of interviewing in their podcasts, overly descriptive writing, and balancing reader expectations with experimenting with genres. At the end of their conversation, they make up a funny story using a line from Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Friends, hello. This is Carter. Welcome to this episode of Making It Up, the Conversation Series where two authors sit down and talk about whatever comes to mind. Hopefully that has to do with books and writing, but who knows? Any anything's game. Before I get to today's guest, just a quick note on Unbound Rider. We've got a couple exciting things happening on a long-term basis. We're looking at a retreat in Paris in early 2027, kind of springish. This is a suspense writing retreat with myself, Alex Finlay, and Clemence Mochelon. By the time this episode airs, hopefully we'll have some of our shit figured out. So if you go to unboundrider.com, you can see the details of that. If we haven't had our shit figured out, there's at least an interest form that you can sign up for to make sure you're aware of those things when we figure things out. There is also an online class I'm going to be teaching about being visible as an author. This is going to be happening on May 30th. I'll also be teaching the same class a couple weeks before at Thriller Fest. But it's all about how to be visible as an author, how to extend your presence off the page and in front of people, whether that's online, whether that's in person, because your presence going forward is going to be your currency. I am very convinced of that. In a world of AI where anything can be faked and voices can be manipulated, the ability for you to show up into a room or show up online in a meeting or in front of fans is going to really help extend your career as an author. So make sure you can check that out at unboundwriter.com. All right, today, today I had a friend of mine on, uh Jeffrey James Higgins. So Jeffrey's a fascinating guy, and we we don't have nearly enough time to go into all of his history and all the different books that he's written, but he is a retired supervisory special agent who writes thrillers, short stories, and creative nonfiction. He's also a number one Amazon best-selling author. I think he told me that he um has 14 books out. He also owns Elaine's literary salon in Alexandria, Virginia, where he counsels writers, interviews authors, and hosts uh podcasts. Um so he's actually um on book four of his very first series. Um and his final book called The Uganda Protocol just came out. So make sure you check that out as well. That is a Nathan book four of the Nathan Burke Thrillers. Um, but he's written, you know, psychological thrillers as well. He's written, you know, deep espionage stories. Um we get into it in in the podcast. He loves writing different types of things. Um so Jeffrey and I, we just met each other at the conference. We had a great experience together on a panel. Um, we get into that a little bit in our conversation here. But what I quickly realized about Jeffrey is whenever we talk, and I was on his podcast, um, we just have a connection. We I think we think very similar about writing and the psychology of writing and the approach to writing. And we also teach writing. Um, so we we very quickly geek out on all things writing and and approaches to writing. So that's this podcast episode was no exception at all. We immediately went into um kind of that kind of philosophy and kind of had that mind melt. So uh it's it's one of those episodes where I'm trying to be conscious of the clock because you know I try to have these episodes be around total around 45 minutes or so, but I see the clock ticking by, and that's not a bad thing. But the but the problem is I have so many other things I want to talk to him about that you know, it could easily be an hour and a half long. So I, of course, I have to cut it off. But um, he's the guy it'd be nice just to hang out with and just uh talk more and more about approaches to writing because I just find it fascinating. So um a lot of good advice in this particular episode for aspiring writers. Um, so if you were one of those, I think you're gonna get a lot of out of this. But this is this is a good one, folks. This is my conversation with Jeffrey James Higgins. But yeah, we both we both podcast, and I was on your podcast, and it was it was great, and it's nice to kind of talk to somebody else who who does this kind of and what let's back up a little bit. So we we kind of connected, where was it at BoucherCon? We were on a panel where the moderator didn't show up, and the two podcasters on the panel just kind of took over, and we just started asking people questions. Um, and so that's kind of how I got to know you a little bit, and it was it was fun because even during that 45-minute session, I'm like, oh, this guy's really curious about people, like the way that you were asking questions, and it kind of reminded me of myself a little bit of like he's not asking rote questions, he's he's listening to what they're saying and and asking based on that, and then pivoting to the next person, which is kind of why I started my podcast because I just wanted good conversation. I was so tired of answering questions about the normal shit, and then going to the next question with no follow-up. Is that uh why did you start your podcast?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

It is so funny. That is exactly the experience I had when we were at BoucherCon because we were both, you know, the there's this there's this law, right? The audience was looking at us, we're looking at them, there's no moderator. So we both just sort of jumped in and did the questions, but that's exactly it. It's like this is so interesting. Like, writing is so magical, and storytelling is such an inherent part of who we are as human beings. And when you go to, you know, I've I've been interviewed many, many times over the years, and when and you they'll have this list of 10 questions, you know, and they'll ask a question. And when I'm listening, like I listen to podcasts all the time. So whenever I'm walking back and forth to work, when I'm running, whatever, I listen to it, and you'll hear like the most provocative answer, and you're like, Oh, that's fascinating. And then the interviewer moves on to their next question. You know, about what they just said, you know. So that's why I love what you're doing here, where you do uh just conversational, and I do the same thing. We have Elaine's Literary Swan podcast, we do the exact same thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah, I had such a great time talking to you, and I remember we wrapped up and we're like, Oh, we could just keep on going and going, which is great that that you're here now. Um, but it's true, and it's funny with with the subjects, right? Because I find writers fascinating because I've I fell in, I fell into writing. Like I had no aspiration. So I came at it almost like an alien visiting a new planet. So I'm like, I have so many questions just about the act. So I become fascinated by other writers and their process. And so when I talk to writers on the podcast, you can tell when people are being real because you often get that vulnerability, you get that self-doubt, regardless of how big a name they are. And then you can also tell when they're putting on the shield. Um, and those are the less interesting conversations. And what I love to do is talk to people and try to get that shield lower by not asking the standard question. And doesn't always work. Sometimes people are like, here are my talking points, but point of reference, I don't talk about people's books normally. I want to talk about them. And if sometimes they're not prepared for that because they're a little bit like you know, I'm more comfortable talking about the worlds I create, not about the world I live in.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

I'm a hundred percent the same way because honestly, for the for the viewer and for the the the writer themselves, right? Is it I I can just I can get your press release and hear about your book, you know what I mean? And it's fine to talk to in general or whatever, but I want to know like what it is that drives them to do this incredibly difficult business and what it is that uh that excites them about it because storytelling is just it's amazing, right? Like we all that's how we learn, and it's I mean from the time I was a little kid, like listening to my parents make up stories for me when I was to good to go to sleep at night, right? Just totally captivated by this magic that can transform people. And and I'm I I do exactly the same thing where somebody will say something, and I'm like, that's interesting, but I always want to dig down to like what's the psychological motivation at the basis of it. And then before you dig, and you know, if I if I don't have like somebody that I'm interviewing say, like, oh my god, that's a good question, or I've never thought of that like five times during the interview. I feel like I've never done my job.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

It's the best, and but because what's I think what's fascinating about the psychology of writing is to your point, you're a kid, you're you fall in love with with the idea of story, which we all do, I think, to one degree or another, whether it's through reading or TV or whatever, or or actual storytelling. And and then there's a very small percentage that decides I want to, I want to pursue this, I love it so much. And then then becomes the reality of everything, which is not only how incredibly difficult it is, the actual act of constructing a narrative that spans, you know, 80 to 100,000 words that's cohesive and emotional and compelling, but then the struggle of getting it out there is far beyond, I think, what most people go into it with. So to me, what's fascinating is those of us who go through all those slings and arrows and are constantly bleeding and still keep doing it uh for the love of story and the love of getting better. And I think that's to me, that's what's fascinating because it's like it just becomes this pure thing of like, I don't care how hard this is, this is who I am. Is that kind of how you feel about yourself as a writer?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah, very much so. But there's this dichotomy, right? So there's the writing itself, the craft of writing, incredibly difficult. And you know, you're developing characters, you're you're weaving this like tapestry. So it's you know, things that that happen in act three have to be seated in act one. And you know, you have inner inner conflict and external conflict, and so you're you're weaving all that together, and it's really complicated. And and so the craft itself, like like writing is one of those things that they do these studies every now and then that something close to 90% of people say they plan to write a book someday, but only three percent of them ever actually start that book, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

People love to talk about writing start that book, not even finishing it.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Three percent don't even start it, only one percent ever finish it, and then it's a much lower percentage that ever gets published. So it's like it's like the craft, so it's very difficult, but like I love it, right? I work a hundred plus hours a week every week, I have multiple jobs, but I just love the writing. People say, Well, why don't you just take a break? I'm like, but that's the thing I want to do beyond everything else, you know. Right. So that's the love of story. And then so when people say, like you say, you know, you're bleeding, yeah, it's very difficult, but it's to me, it's it's love, it's enjoyable. Like I that that's what I'm passionate about. And then there's the business side, right? On the other end, which is a whole different animal that shocks people. It's like a it's like a slap in the face for writers because they don't realize the how low the odds are of getting published, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

And it's but there's also a certain freedom to the lack of control on that side of things, and it's a balance because you can't just blame it on a lack of control, and you can't just blame it on the industry. You have to learn and you have to absorb feedback and you have to recalibrate how you write. But on the other hand, sometimes it just doesn't work out, and that doesn't mean it's never gonna work out. It just means that maybe you're not ready yet, or this book isn't just ready yet, or it's not finding the right people yet. And that's that's all part of the education, I think. You know, means something down the road, it might come to that.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Even saying, like, recalibrate that that's a really interesting thing because I work with a lot of writers who won won tons of awards, you know, who are best-selling authors. And I often hear that because sometimes they're writing to market, right? Sometimes it's like, oh, this will be really marketable. I can sell this, people want this. And and listen, that's a legitimate business concern. But for me, like for me to write something, especially you're gonna write a 400-page book, I have to really want to tell that story. Yeah, you know, so to me, it's it all starts with that. And if you're passionate about a story, you have a high concept idea, you have a really unique character, you have something that you want to tell, the business stuff I believe works itself out. And maybe it's me, I'm I'm maybe maybe I'm deluding myself. But when I write something, I just I know it'll get published. You know what I mean? Like I just know there'll if I because if I liked it, I know other people will like it too. Maybe not everybody, of course, not everybody, but there'll be an audience for it. And if there's an audience for it, someone will publish it.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Yeah, I think I think that's probably true. It takes a long time and a lot of words to get to that level of confidence. Um, but once you have that level of confidence, you're like, okay, I feel like I know what I'm doing. But what's why I use the term recalibrate? I was just been thinking about a lot of this lately, you know. So, for example, I tend to alternate um my books, they're usually almost always single point of view, and I alternate usually between female and male protagonist, um, more female than male. And what I'm working on now is a male protagonist. And I gave my agent my first hundred pages, and she's like, it's really interesting. You tend to write weaker men than you write weaker women. And in my mind, I'm writing a man from my perspective, which is maybe weak, but it's I but I'm not trying to do that, you know. And I'm thinking, like, maybe I'm just not good at writing a strong male lead. And how do I learn how to do that better? Because when I get a little bit too testosterone-y about it, I feel like I'm being kind of tropey or cliched. But maybe I'm calibrating to the place where I'm supposed to be because maybe my instincts are to write people who are more like me, which is like, yeah, I would crumple up and die if this happened to me. So it's it's I feel like that's one of the self-doubt comes, and you're never quite sure if you're for me, if it's good or not, or if your character is going to resonate or not. But you feel comfortable that, like, yeah, this is because I love this so much, it's going to be published, it's going to be marketable.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

So I did mention it could be delusion, but also it's it's it's not this just overconfidence. I have, I have as much self-doubt. Every time I'm writing anything in the first draft, at some point, I'm like, this is horrible. What am I doing? This is the worst book I've ever written. Like, I feel that for every single book. So I have as much imposter syndrome as anybody else does. I just by the end, I just I believe there's a market. It might not be a big market, but I know there's a market for books, you know, as long as you put in the effort and the craft. But you know, something you just said is interesting because you're writing is so personal. And when you're writing a character, things come out that I know most writers, including myself, are unaware of when they're writing it. Oh, but they're writing about things that are happening in your life, they're writing about things you're trying to work out. You know, it's it's so deeply personal if you're writing honestly, and I write as honestly as I can. Like I hold nothing back. Yeah, you know, I think it's really important for writing.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

At least for the first draft, right? You're just you're just writing from instinct.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah, but I mean, even the vulnerability, right? And the flaws of characters and the and the philosophical things, and like I just put it out there, and then later I can tweak it or fix things if it if it doesn't work, because it's all about the story. And I find the more honest I am, the the the better it is, it tends to be, right? Um, but a lot of times I won't know what those issues are until later. Like, I mean, I wrote a couple of three or four books before I realized like this whole concept of like man versus institution was was really inside my work. And that, of course, obviously came from my, you know, I spent a whole career inside the federal government, you know, and most of the good stuff I did was the ultimate institution, yeah. Yeah, right. And it was it was fighting bureaucracy and it was doing those things, but it's more than that, right? A death in the family, like tragedy happens, like that's the kind of stuff. It works its way, the emotions and things work its way into characters sometimes consciously, but often I don't see it till I finish the manuscript. Then I look back and I'm like, oh, right. Like like Stephen King, right? With misery dealing with like drug and substance abuse. Right. He didn't realize that's what he was writing about to many years later.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Right, right. Shining is the the same example of that as well. And it's funny because with my first few books, which I didn't know what I was doing, it was all male character protagonists, and like people who knew me said, Oh, you I see so much of you in this guy. And I I always pushed a guy, I didn't like that. Um, so I switched to writing from a uh a female point of view, and I think, you know, of course, part of our our humanity seeps into whatever character we're writing, but I think that gave me a little bit of a firewall to to just really be somebody else. And that for me, that's freeing because I don't know if I'm trying to because I'm very honest and I feel very open, but maybe I'm trying to protect my I don't know. I don't I don't know what it is, but I feel like it was it allowed me to explore new new landscape and not be. I think when I write from a male point of view, I feel like I'm almost limiting my worldview to kind of what I think too easy. Maybe I get trapped in that. Um, but and I'm curious what you said. So talking about like, you know, I I always you know, I always question, is this the worst thing I've ever written? You write you write obviously a lot of action military. Um, you you have you you you have that down, right? So when you're writing something that is just what you know best and it's a great story, do you run into like, have I done this before? Have I am I repeating uh is this the same character I wrote three times already, even though it's not a series? Do you or do you feel like you're able to really start totally fresh every time you're doing a different type of book?

SPEAKER_01 17:56

I've had those moments when I'm like, oh, did I have this like thought or this philosophical like internal struggle or something in another character? I think I've written like 14 books or something at this point. Yeah, but I mean, I'm doing my first series. Book four, the new series will have just come out just before before this airs. Um, I actually prefer to write female characters like you do. Like my first book, Furious, that was first person from a female point of view, and I have a bunch of them. Like I've I've written in the action adventure espionage world because that's the world that I lived in, right? I I was working with the intelligence community around the world, I chased high-value targets. So I've done those kinds of things. I've been in firefights and been in combat and right, so I've done that, but uh and it's fun and I love this series, it's really it's really a good time. But the the psychological suspense and like the female in jeopardy, like those kind of you know, isolated locked room type of uh stories are my favorite. And I've I've got a couple of them that I had contracts for that based on my last agent, I I pulled. So I have a couple I have to go back out with, and I just finished another one last week. Oh, it's I think I've got four that I that I that I'm out on. I'm out on submission with two, and you know, I'm gonna go, you know, so it's fun. And when you had mentioned that, you know, maybe this was a way to protect yourself because you don't want people seeing all that character's you, it could be that, but it could also be that you it it demeans the character a little bit when and people do this all the time to writers, right? When they say, Oh, I know who that is, or I know this person, and yeah, maybe there's elements of somebody you know or whatever, but it's not you, right? This is a character that that you put out into the world, and I don't know how you feel about your characters, but to me, they really come alive. Yeah, you know, when these characters, and so they're they are fictional, but they're they're real to me.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah, yeah, it depends on the story. I just had this conversation with somebody, like some stories, because I write first person present tense, so you're you're behind their eyes, and so some characters that I'm like, I'm living this, I totally viscerally feel living this person. Other characters I don't quite get that close to, and then I start to have, does that mean the story's not as good? Does that mean I'm not or is it just like I'm not connecting as much as with this character as hopefully readers will be able to? And I and I don't know what it is, but I but I find it totally fascinating. Um, but it's you know, I going back to your comment about writing kind of those psych, you know, hitting hitting more of those psychological beats. There's something about so you so for example, say you have a character, intelligence, community, combat, um, that drawn from your own experiences, I'm sure you can vividly recreate that, but fewer people in general are going to relate to that character, right? When you have something that's totally psychologically driven, that's universal. Like this could happen to me. That's what I that's the field I love to explore of like, you know, maybe it's not quite an everyday person, but everyday enough where somebody's reading, it's like, well, that they're immediately saying, What would I do in this person's situation? Because that's how I write. I'm like, what would I do? Uh, and because I don't outline, I'm just constantly throwing myself into these situations and just figuring out what would I do and then what would I do and make it interesting. Um, so maybe that is that pulling you as well as just that that exploration, because you can't escape your mind. That's the beauty of psychological thrillers, is you you can run away from danger, you can't run away from your own paranoia. Um, and that's what's fascinating to me, I think.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

So, yeah, you know, you're I agree and disagree. So I agree a hundred percent with with that, right? With it's something that could happen to somebody, it's a psychological thing. You're you know, you're in the normal world, and then this horrible thing happens, how would you react to it? And then psychological suspense, you have a lot of that, but also I think like it doesn't really matter the setting. Like, um, so even like these espionage books, and you know, with with somebody who's doing intelligence work around the world or whatever, people still put put themselves in that character's position. Yeah. And if you've written with some authenticity, it feels real. And and I think people do the same thing, like, regardless. Like, I'll give you an example like uh Andy Weir's uh The Martian. Yeah, right, right, right. But the whole time I'm asking myself, I love that doing math to save your life, right? Like the whole the whole time I'm in his shoes going, what would I do? And what's the right decision? And and I have not yet been to Mars, you know. So like I think I think you're right. And but I I think people do that's that's probably the escapism, you know. And it's this thing within evolution where we're able to go through story and picture things because it it's a survival mechanism, right? You're able to put yourself without I'm not actually going to die if I make the right wrong decision. But if something like that ever happens to me, I've already thought it through. And I I think that's why story is so universal.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

But I think that's where it becomes the talent of the author or lack thereof, depending on the book. When you get into a really technical thriller, you can really appreciate, I think most of us can really appreciate the setting, appreciate the complexity, um, and appreciate them the mechanisms of the scene. But if the author isn't hitting the strides from a pure human voice, then you're going to lose us when we start to lose interest in in what happens, because then it just becomes, you know, a buy the book, this is what you do, as opposed to like, yeah, I know what I'm supposed to do, but I am scared out of my mind because I've actually never been in this before, you know, and you could be the most highly trained operative ever. And they'd be like, This, you know, my heart rate is going. Um, and that's that's I see it a lot with my students writing, like they'll have this action-packed scene, and a lot of stuff happens, and I don't care. It just feels like something that they learn, not something that let me let them let me feel it viscerally. And and to me, that just takes books, lots of writing to to be able to convey that in a way, you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Carter, that's exactly right. Like, and if you only taught new writers one thing, teach them that, right? I used to have a post it on my computer that said it's all about the emotion, you know, and and I was just looking at that. So it you you're right. Maybe you haven't been in a fire fight with a terror group, right? But you've been in moments when you were scared, or you've been in moments when you were worried about losing a loved one, or you're been in right. So everyone like has experienced terror, everyone's experienced some kind of fear, whether it's losing your job or going bankrupt or whatever that terror comes from. We've all experienced the emotion. And so as long as you can write with enough emotion, then people can put themselves in that person's shoes and they and they know what that's like. They they know they know what ecstasy is like, right? That they know what anxiety is like, they know the emotions. You just have to be able to focus on that instead of that's like that's the whole character plot thing, right? You can have the great plot, but it's got to affect the character in a way that that drives these emotions in the reader.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Yeah, and I and I think I remember talking about this with you on your podcast. Like, I'm a very emotion forward writer, and I think, especially if you're doing first-person present tense, you're it has to be that, you know, because you know, the plot doesn't matter unless you're connected to to knowing how this person is feeling all the time. What's funny then is I also see with students the other extreme where they over-explain the emotion. So, a good example, reading a book about somebody who uh you know lost his wife tragically, right? And that becomes a primary motivation for the actions that he takes. I tell you that right now, he lost his wife tragically. You got it, right? You maybe you want to know some details, but you're like, I get it. But then all of a sudden, every chapter we're in these long, drawn-out, you know, internal monologues about how upset he is and how much he misses her. And you're like, this guy's getting annoying, even though he lost his wife tragically, you know. And I'm like, it two sentences is usually what it takes to convey two really well-written sentences to be like, oh, wow, that's and maybe and a lot of times it's a sentence that you're not expecting, like uh an observation that just hits it. And to me, that just comes with practice, would just 100%.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

And I've thought about this a lot too. And I I I think like you also don't want to just like tell what you know, oh, they lost the wife, and you can do it through, you know, seeing like an object that that that had that brought up an emotion, or you can have a snippet of a of an image, right? Like there's things you can do that we all know when you're connected to someone you've lost that bring that back to you, and everybody's lost somebody so they can have that emotion, right? And if you keep hitting it over and over like you're talking about, I think the reason that gets so annoying to people, and you start rooting against the person in some ways, is is that you know, we we want like we want a character who has agency, right? We want a especially a protagonist, we want someone who's making smart decisions, we want someone who's overcoming obstacles because when you get back to it, that's sort of the purpose of story to begin with, right? It's the how you know, how do you fight the woolly mammoth, right? Like that's how stories start, right? And so if the person is just constantly in they they can have this emotional wound or this scar or or whatever it is that they have to change because you need a character arc, they can have it through the whole thing, but they have to be fighting against it and and overcoming it. And if they're just constantly being pulled back to that initial thing, it does get really old very quickly, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Because they're not changing. And I I I kind of push back a little bit against the idea that your character has to totally change, but I think your character has to come to a realization that they didn't have before. Um, and and right, and like if you're just constantly fighting, and and that was that was one of my biggest problems as I was starting to write, because I I'm very I love realism. I I want to write very realistic characters, and if there's a fight, it's got to be realistic and consequential and you know, not parody. But I think what ended up happening because I was just starting out, I was writing these characters who were just who were weak because they were constantly fighting back but losing. Because I'm like, I think that's what would happen. Um, but you realize over time, like, you know, there's a balance because you want to make it realistic, but you've got to push your character outside of what they're comfortable with, and they can fail, but they have to learn from that failure and make a change somehow and try again, you know, and and eventually kind of find that crack in the wall somewhere. Um, but that took me that took me a long time to figure out.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yeah, no, that's really critical. And and it can be any kind of change too, right? Like what you're talking about, it can be a realization.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

So they can totally.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

So it's a misbelief, or they think something, but it's wrong. Or it can be the wants versus needs thing where they're they're they're trying to achieve something, you know, get that new job, you know, because I I want the money and the respect and everything, but what they really want is their father's approval, right? Like, you know what I mean? Like it can it can come in so many different forms. It can be a phobia that has to be overcome, it can be whatever it is. They just we want to see them uh achieving something. We want to see them being faced with all kinds of conflict, the faced with something horrific and overcoming it.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Yeah, I've you know, I had a character in one of my books, and by the end, like the last scene, she's not bleeding out, but she's bleeding profusely. And the bad guy got away, but she found this like weird peace in knowing she could do what she had to do. She was capable of it. And there was some kind of closure, just getting to that point alone, even though she didn't slay the beast necessarily. Um, and and you have to be able to feel that yourself. It has to be a weird catharsis when you're writing it to feel like, yeah, I think this this hits it. Then of course, you have to get feedback. You have to agents and editors and see if you're hitting the right beats and learning from that. Um, so I I whenever I finish a draft and it goes to my agent, I'm like, it's not done. It's uh now I'm waiting. This is the best I could do. Now I'm waiting for people smarter than me to tell me what needs to change. Um, because it's you you never for me, I never quite I never nail anything on the first attempt.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

You mentioned giving a hundred pages to your agent or your editor, whoever it was. Do you do you have like those alpha readers where you're giving unfinished work? And I and by finished, I don't mean it hasn't been edited, you haven't fixed it, but something you're still in the process of first drafting. Do you share that?

SPEAKER_00 30:12

I used to. I I was in the critique group for about 20 years. Um and a couple years ago, I just kind of stopped going because I've I've I've changed enough as a writer where because I don't outline, if I give you chapter two, the chapter two might not exist. This character might not exist by the time I get to the end of it. So I was finding like it really wasn't helping as much as it used to. So now, and even even doing the 100 pages is a new thing for me. So usually I would just go off and write a book and not tell anyone what I was working on, and then just be like, here it is. And that's great. And it also causes a whole lot of problems because you realize like a lot, a lot of work needs to be done on it. So because I don't online, it's hard for me to give my editor a really good synopsis of the next book. So I give her the high concept, and now I give her the hundred pages just to make sure it feels like it meets their expectations. But I mean, it could be a shit show by the time I turn it in. So it's it's it's I I get anxious every time. How about you?

SPEAKER_01 31:18

I do too. And I think all writers do. I just I can't share anything till it's done because I go back and I layer a lot. So I'm getting through the plot. I'm trying to race to the end as fast as I can. I'm trying to get the story out of me when it's in my head and working in my subconscious. And then when I go back, I'm like, okay, you know what? I have to change this motivation, I have to plant something here, I have to change this character a little bit. So I'll go back over and over and over again, you know. And so if I gave someone like a first draft before I did that, before I went through all the editing iterations, it would really be shallow, you know. Like I really can't do that.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Yeah, and you don't want to get feedback based on that because then you're kind of discouraged. You're like, well, maybe the overall story is terrible, rather than I just haven't layered all the subtext in yet. Um, but yeah, because that's what I do. I'm as I'm writing, I'm not really looking back, but I'm taking notes. I'm like, he needs to do this, or there needs to be an explanation about why he would do this. But I don't write that now. I put it in these notes, and when I go back through, I'm like, now I really start thinking about it. Cause then you can kind of see it for its whole. But it's you always lose, you always lose I always lose perspective. You know, you read something four or five times and you're like, I don't know, maybe it's good.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

I know there's some great parts of it when you when you get when I give a book up, except for to you know, the first beta readers, like I'm always like, Oh, I hope this isn't horrible. Like, you don't tell me, and and like I've even had books published. I'm like, I don't know, I mean, we'll see what happens. And you get these great reviews, and you're like, Oh, whoo, you know, like because you you you do see it so many times, you know, it lives in your head, you get it out there, you do the best you can. You have you have a certain level of craft that you bring to it, so you know you're like hitting the techniques and things, right? But you don't know until people uh start uh reading the book. And I think that's that everybody everybody's definitely suffers from this, right? If you're putting a book out going, oh, people are just gonna love this, and I'm gonna make, you know, you might love it, but you don't know until it gets it hits the public.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Yeah, and and you really need to right, and when it gets to the time of the public reading it, then you really have to distance yourself a little bit because you really have to realize that look, you know, if I get a lot of reviews and they average three and a half stars, that's pretty good. That you because everyone likes different stuff, and some people are going to hate your book no matter what, even if all they read is your type of book, and other people are gonna absolutely love it. I think the trick, the key for me going throughout my career was finding those those alpha readers who you just trust. You and and that's really hard to do. It's really hard to find the person who is going to give you great feedback and objective feedback where you feel it, you can feel like, yes, that totally resonates with me. Um, because if you try to make changes based on everyone's ideas, it'll be a mess, it won't make any sense.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

That's such a good point, too, especially for like newer writers. When you put something out to a group, if you have like 12 beta readers, for example, you'll have disagreements. One person will tell you, Oh, I love this scene and this is your best part, and someone else will say that's got to be cut, you know. So, right, because it is so subjective and personal. What I found is if you have two or three people saying there was a problem with the scene, no matter what they say is the problem, something's wrong with it. You know, if they stumbled over anything, I probably need to go back and fix it. And sometimes that can just be a sentence or two that clarifies something or that changes, you know, what it looks like. But if you go, if you and I and I know young writers do this all the time, they'll get a they'll get feedback. Like I'm gonna have a critique group with like 18 people in it, yeah, and they'll and they'll try to respond to each thing and fix it. And what happens is they destroy their voice, yeah, they destroy pacing, they destroy the flow of it, the beauty of the words, like and it'll just be a disaster. And if you do that enough, and by the way, this can happen with your agent, can happen with an editor, right? It it'll you'll destroy it so so so badly that you'll never be able to recover it.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

You you lose your voice out of it for sure. And I think what's hard to appreciate, and it'd be interesting to hear your take on this because I know you work with developing writers as well. If you're reading a book, the way that your mind processes the information is much more casual than somebody looking at one chapter that you submitted in a critique group, right? I can find a thousand things wrong with that chapter. If I'm reading it in a book, that chapter flows fine. And you have to kind of write to that. Obviously, you want to write the best you can. Um, but then when you're a newer writer, also you also realize like, hey, an agent might look at 20 pages. These 20 pages have to be flawless, and and then you start obsessing over every little detail because there isn't really a big picture opportunity so much. So, how would you counsel a writer who's you know, because you have to give them space to breathe a little bit too?

SPEAKER_01 36:06

Yeah, I think you have to make it as good as you can, you know. And I've I've heard writers will say, Oh, well, you know, they'll fix that in the editing or something. It's like, no, they won't. Like uh, 20 pages is is actually optimistic, right? The average uh totally the average acquiring editor reads five pages, you know, and a lot of times now, especially because they're getting everything digitally, like agents will will won't even get through your query letter, you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

But if if they look at it, and it might not even be the agent looking at the query letter.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Yeah, it rarely is. If it's a big agent, it's an intern, right? So somebody's looking at it with certain criteria, it's also subjective, it's really hard. I mean, the numbers are horrific. It's something like one out of every 4,000 queries is accepted by an agent in general. You know, a lot of the a lot of the big agents are getting a hundred plus cold queries a day, you know. And and there's I can't tell you how many authors I've talked to who had these best sellers and who, you know, some agents like, Oh, why didn't you send that to me? Oh, I did. You turned it down, you know, because totally and I've talked, I I love talking to agents about this stuff too, because a lot of times it's the mood that they're in. You know, they're tired, it's the end of the day, and now they get they open up their inbox and they're like, son of a gun, I got 75 queries today, you know, and they have to get through it because they get so far behind, they'll never get to it. And sometimes they're just in a bad mood. And right, you know, and I don't know about you, but like I've picked up a book to read because I'm like, you know, I want to read something, and I've started it and it hasn't resonated with me, and I put it down. Then, like a year later, I pick up that same book and just devoured it.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Yeah, or it could be a TV series or a movie, and it is just what mood are you in? Sometimes, like, this feels a little bit too heavy for the mood I'm in right now, or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Or it can be like with an agent, they have, you know, their dozen acquiring editors that they've worked with in the past and that they know and who they've spoken to recently, and in the back of their head, they know what those acquiring editors are looking for because that's the quick win, right? They're looking for something, they have it, boom, I can sell that something else, maybe so far out of the box, or something different, they don't know what they can do with it. Somebody does they they don't immediately know where they can sell that. They didn't, they're not sure of the market, and so they'll just say no. And uh, and it doesn't have anything to do with the book often, right? I mean, I get to say I get I get stuff from like people in the intelligence community and in and military and law enforcement all the time. They're like, Hey, would you look at and I I usually will say, send me the first two pages, you know, and I'll look at it and you can see like all the rookie craft mistakes right away. Yeah, I just had somebody send me something a couple days ago and I started reading it, and it was spectacular. And I'm like, this is so rare, right? For like a new writer. Like, often you can just see, you know, their their passive voice and and and you know their telling, and they have like one paragraph that's fun, then they jump into backstory for six pages, and you know, you see all these kind of rookie mistakes that happen, but um, I forgot where I was going with that, but it probably doesn't matter. It's it's just really difficult.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Yeah, I'm well, I am also fascinated going back to earlier in the conversation, and I think a lot of listeners are gonna they want me to follow up on this. You made just such a throwaway comment about working a hundred hours a week and writing on top of that. Um, you know, because we all get the questions like, well, how do you how do you, you know, none of us are Stephen King. We're like, this is what we do all the time, 100% of the time. How do you fit it in? And and I know the answer is because you have a passion for it, but like literally, how do you fit it in?

SPEAKER_01 39:17

So I mean, that's such a good question. And honestly, this is one of the things I talk to because I talk to new writers all the time. Everyone's who tells you, yo, I have a book, I'm gonna write, I'm gonna whatever. I'm like, Well, are you writing? No, I'll write when, you know, so it's always this future time when they're gonna be at a cabin in the woods, secluded for six months, and they're that's never gonna happen, right? Right. So, so honestly, the the thing is, are you if you're a storyteller, and I I told someone this the other day, I was at a conference and I was speaking at a conference, and a guy came in and he was telling me about a story that he wanted to write. And I remembered like three years ago, he'd come up to me at another panel I was on and was telling me the same thing. And I'm like, Well, have you started? He's like, No, you know, so you're if you're a storyteller and you're not writing, like I don't know how you feel. Like, if I if I go a couple of days without writing, I'm not myself. Like I get cranky, right? Like you have this need to tell story, and it doesn't matter who's, you know, even if your friends and family are the only people who ever read it, you have to tell it. So, like, number one, like you have to say, this is a priority in my life. And so, you know, it doesn't mean you don't take your child to the hospital, you know, but it just means every day or almost every day, I'm going to write. And so I'm a big believer in like, you know, I'm an outliner, you're not, but we both come to it, I think, the same way. You're gonna have time set aside, whenever that is. I can tell you, like, because I mean, I literally do work over a hundred hours a week. I I run a literary salon, I'm the general manager of a restaurant, uh, I do a restaurant, I do some consulting and I'm writing. You know, I've got all these different things coming out going on. So, what I do is I find the time that works for me is early in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Me too.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

So before my whole day starts, I'm at a desk and I know like if I'm first drafting, I want to shoot for it. Used to be two to three thousand words a day. Oh, that's a lot. It's a lot, but it was fine when I didn't have all these other pressures, but now it's at least a thousand, right? So I try to do at least a thousand. And interestingly, though, I can tell you that I think it was like three books ago. Uh, we had some some medical things going on, and we had stuff at the and my businesses, and it was crazy busy. And the only time I could find to write was walking back and forth to to our restaurant. So I wrote an entire book like 15 minutes at a time dictating.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Dictating.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Oh my god, that's amazing. And and that's not ideal. I can tell you right now, like I'm a big fan of dictating as a tool you use, but it would the 15 minutes at a time, it takes a while to get into flow, you know. And then if you can have a nice three or four hour block, that's ideal for me. You know, most writers get tired out because it's exhausting after about five. But you know, in general, I probably get a good hour and a half in every day. Yeah, and that's enough to hit my thousand words.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Yeah, and I'm an hour a day. That's my, you know, and now I'm at the place where I have that, you know, I can put that in. It's dedicated. I go to the same coffee shop seven days a week, write an hour a day. That's that's what I do. Um, but it's by the way, don't gloss over that.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

That is literally the key to writing, what you just said. I think it is you're doing it, you're working every day. The words will come. If if you write a page a day, you'll have a book in a year, at least a first draft in a year.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Right. No, totally. It's all additive. And I think people are so surprised by that. And I'm like, it's not, it's not hard. The hard part of writing is learning from it to me. It's like learning how to get better and being open-minded and learning how to structure and and admitting when you're not doing it well. Um, but but if you it's like anything, if you're consistent, it shit will get done. I mean, but I remember when my kids were little, like they're at flag football practice, and I'm sitting in the car with my laptop for those 45 minutes because that's the only time that I had. But it's funny because you know, so I like to work with my hands. And so I built a desk recently, and it took me like two months because I'm doing epoxy, I'm doing all and every day I worked on it a little bit, and I'm excited to work on it because I'm seeing it coming together. That's how I feel about writing. It's like that's what it's a highlight of my day because hey, I don't know what the hell happens next. So it's kind of an adventure for me, but it's this whole problem solving. I'm working towards an answer about this story, and it drives my it drives my interest because it's a big problem to be solved. And so I'm like, I can't wait to chip away at it every day. Rather than I'm going to the office and I got to deal with some horse shit that's not even interesting to me every day. Um, it's just a matter of how it sits with you. And if it doesn't, the guy you were talking about who hadn't he likes the idea of being a writer. And I know a lot of people like that. It's their it's that whole future thing, and that's somehow motivating enough for them. They go to all the conferences, but they never quite write. But somehow they're happy with that, which is totally fine. I'm not trying to be judgmental, but unless you're unless you're putting in the work, and I'm not talking Talking about, like I had the Muse come to me last night, so I wrote for six hours and I didn't write again for three more months. I just that's not sustainable.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

No, a hundred percent. And if you have to have these perfect, uh, you know, environmental conditions in order to write. Look, there are there are places to write that are better. I can write anywhere. Like I could I'll if when and I I make a point of it by the way. Like when I travel, I make a point of writing in the the terminal, I write on the plane, even just for a few minutes. I'm checking the box, you know what I mean? Right and it really adds up, and uh eventually you'll you'll get there. And you know, there's that Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in any in any discipline, yeah, and it's roughly a million words they say for for writing. You know, I I know people have written their first book and it's been a masterpiece, so it's not for everybody, but the more you write, the better you get. And and the key is I think it's like fear of failure. You know, I think it's it's once they start writing, you realize how hard it is, and that's okay. You just got to keep writing. Like, I mean, there's never a point, they call it a writing practice. When do you reach that point when you're like, okay, I got it? I am a this master writer now. I'll I'll finish a book now, like whatever it is, book 15. And when I get to the end of it, I'll go back to the beginning of it and I'll and I'll be like, Oh my god, this is terrible. Like, you know, because you grow with every book, the more you write, the better you get, as long as it's focused practice.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

But I think that's what's also exciting about it, too, is knowing that you're never going to be perfect, right? So if you're scaling a wall and you get to the top of it and you have a sense of accomplishment, but you're like, now what? Oh, there's another wall. Okay, cool. That wall looks a little bit harder, but you know, maybe I'm good enough now where I can do that. That to me is what's thrilling. It's like, let me try something that I think might push push myself because that fear of failure is kind of exhilarating a little bit. There's a little bit of an adrenaline rush of like, you know, the rope might break.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

So so what you just said, right? Pushing something, like trying a different technique, trying something new, writing, writing in a different tense, writing from a different POV, writing a different like genre. Like I love doing that. Like with every book, I try a different something new, you know, that I add to it. Maybe there's an epistolary element to it, maybe, maybe there's you know, uh uh scene is more of a character, you know, like whatever it is. And and every time you do it, it's harder because you have to learn it, but you've just added another tool to your kit. And by the, you know, the more you write, the better you get. Like, I mean, you can see that. I'm sure you have a favorite authors, and you look you you're reading something that was a big breakout hit, then you go back and read, like, I'm one of those, I'll go back and I'll read the first thing they ever wrote, and it's still good, but it's nowhere near what they did like six books later.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

Do you find like so? I've so a good example of this is John Grisham. Like, I used to really be into his books, and then you know, obviously, you know, predominantly illegal thrillers, and then I remember reading a painted house, which was just a work of literary fiction, and it blew me away. Like, I was like astounded by how like I'm like, wow, this guy actually can write. He he because you think of you think of um John Grisham, you think very much plot driven, right? I'm really fascinated by the plot, and this was just like I'm can and not much happens in this book, and you're like, I am so connected to these characters, and but the downside of that, you know, for those of us who aren't John Grisham, is that people have expectations, readers have expectations, and so all of a sudden, if you do something too different, they're like, What is he doing? This is not why I bought this book. Do you run into that at all when you're when you're trying to do that?

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Everybody does, so so it's it's you know, Bob D'Goni did that too fairly recently. He wrote a book for literary fiction that was fantastic, but very different from his other series that he was working on. And I had that with my last agent. We had these discussions all the time about branding and about what reader expectations, and there's something to that. I just think you have to be really clear with what your cover looks like and how you market something. So when a reader picks up a book, they know what they're getting, you know. And if it's a if it's a bit, if it's really a different type of book, whether it's theme or character or level of violence or whatever it is, you just have to let them know because if they're expecting something different, they'll be disappointed, even if it's great. But as a writer, like I love that you're saying this because you you know, you want to try different things, you want to do like I've I've won literary awards for writing literary fiction. That's very different than these, like, you know, espionage international action invention thrillers or my psychological suspense are completely different. But when I when I sold those, I sold them to a specific market. So people knew what they were getting.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

But I would I would also guess that a fan of yours would see your voice in all of those, right? They would see you in all of those, at least whether it's that casual turn of phrase that's very nuanced to you or whatever, because that I mean, because that's kind of inescapable, yeah, I think. Um, and you know, they'll probably be able to say, Oh, Jeffrey's fingerprints are here from his other books. I see it, even though it's it's a totally different work, I would guess, because I wouldn't know how to escape that personally.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Yeah, I mean your your ethereal voice, right? It should be something, but it also changes and grows. I'll give you an example. I think it was my third manuscript I wrote was this really cool, like actual murder mystery. And I don't I don't really, I don't really do those, it's all more thriller, but this one was really a murder mystery. And I had it, and we I had a contract, and my agent at the time said, you know what, this is that isn't gonna do what you need to do. We need to rebrand, we need to do something different with this book. So I pulled it back. So it's been sitting on my desktop. I think I wrote it in 2019. It's just I've been sitting on this, and it's one of my favorites. Like I've really loved this book, yeah. And so I just I was I just decided a couple of weeks ago, you know, I'm gonna get this thing out there. Yeah, so I went back and I started editing it, you know. I you give gotta go back and read it. So I'm editing it for like the billionth time, but it's been so many years, and I went back and I'm like, my voice is my voice is similar, right? But I my my style has changed. Like, like it's it wasn't as fast-paced as some of the other stuff I've written. Yeah, it had more description, it had it had a lot more atmosphere to it, you know, but it's it was just different, like it felt different, but also some of my craft wasn't as good. So I I I'm literally doing a line edit going back and I'm just fixing and pulling it up. And that was, you know, that was a few years ago now, but I think I re-edited it in like 2022 or something, and when I when I pulled it back from from that that publisher, I I totally I'm the same way.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

I totally never go back and look at my old stuff anyway, even the stuff that was published. But like I can tell you, like I mean, atmosphere is great and tone is great. I think tone is super important, but the our understanding of what it takes to establish tone, I think for newer writers, it's like it takes a lot more than what the reality of it is. So I I you know, so here's a page on how snowy it is outside. And you know, if I could just write it's fucking snowing, they get it. Like they've established it, they've established your voice. And I I was so guilty of that a lot of just internal monologue were a lot of introspection, and everyone's like, we get it. And I'm like, How is this shit published?

SPEAKER_01 51:06

I don't know, you know, yeah, and those are the things, right? Yeah, and like flashbacks and and long internal monologue and long description. And what I've learned is like you can just say it with a sentence, yeah, you know, and you hit that sentence, and a lot of times through an object, or it's not you don't have to do hit it on the nose, you know, you're just you're showing something that gives the reader the feeling. And you also don't have to describe it for the reader because it is part of that is a question in the reader's mind. So when you say something and they look at it and they go, Oh, that that little moment of thinking about something or having an emotion, and you're like, Well, I wonder what that's about, or I'd like you, you kind of know, but you don't, and you want to you want to read more, right? And so when you when a lot of writers first start, myself included, I just overexplained everything.

SPEAKER_00 51:48

Everything, yes, everything, and that's and and I and I see that also, you know, I am particularly attuned when people are writing first person present, because that's what I do. And that's a real problem when you're overexplaining there, because like in your mind, you wouldn't be overexplaining. It's your mind is fragmented thoughts, distractions, and of course, you can't write that kind of stream of consciousness. I mean, you can, but it wouldn't be great. Um, but it's somewhere in between where it's just like one-word sentences, one-sentence paragraph, just staccato bursts of thoughts and reactions. And I think that melds well with kind of the attention span of readers today who are, especially thriller readers, who are like, I want to read a book in three days max, and I want it to absorb all the atmosphere and the tone and the fear and the paranoia and the literary brilliance, hopefully, but do it in a pithy way, and you can do that. Um, but I think people think it has to be these long, flowery sentences that I'm like, you're killing stuff here.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

Yeah, I mean, you really are, and it and it just it you you also so here's here's a difference, right? When someone comes to writing, we've all written, right? And you write in other parts of life and whatever, but it's different than fiction in that when a reader's picking up a book, they're seeing the pictures in their head. So I like I wrote a book, and but when I give it to someone and they read it, they're seeing a different story, right? They're creating it. So the more I think the more experience you get, the more you realize that the reader can fill in the gaps. Yeah. So I'm giving you, I'm not, I'm not really telling you the story, I'm giving you enough so that you can create the story yourself, which is what makes that magical, as opposed to watching a movie, which I also love to do. But there you're doing everything for them, right? But in the book, the reader's doing it and they will fill in the gaps. Readers are smart that they will create their own story. So I'm just I'm just giving them enough. I'm giving them enough prompts that they can make this beautiful story in their head. Right. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

Well, Jeffrey, we're gonna wrap up before we do. We're gonna do a little storytelling of our own. So um, I don't know if you've ever seen the podcast, but this is where I we we do just a quick impromptu storytelling. I've picked three books off my bookshelf. Um, you're gonna choose one of those books. We're gonna choose a random sentence from a random page. I'm gonna read that sentence, and that'll be the first sentence and a very, very, very short, short story. So we'll just alternate sentences back and forth, and after a couple minutes, I'll call it. I'll call it. Um, these three books are very disparate. I uh they just were sitting next to each other on my my bookshelf, so I grabbed them. Um, I've got Robert Harris's Pompeii, um, Cormac McCarthy's The Passenger, and Nick Arvin's Articles of War. Um, so choose one of those.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

Let's go uh Cormac McCarthy. What he's one of one of my favorite American writers, right?

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Yeah, The Road is probably my favorite book of all time. I could not get through this. This is his his final book. Um, and I just I just really struggled with it.

SPEAKER_01 54:44

Um, I actually have a picture uh of him on the shelves behind me that one of the writers that I've interviewed here was friends with him, and they had a long correspondence, and he sent him this signed photo of him, and the guy gave it to us so we could have it here. Wow, yeah, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 55:00

Um page between one and three eighty three.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

Uh 50.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

And we'll see if there's words in this sentence that we understand.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

So McCarthy can have like a story where basically nothing happens and it's just so beautiful you can't stop reading it.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Right, right. I know. And like you're you're tempted to to to look words up, but you're also just like, let me just let me just absorb because there's something about I don't know how to explain it, but I remember reading the road and be like, some of this stuff I don't understand, but it's just the right amount of syllables, like for that sentence to to like flow over me like a river. Like it's amazing. I'm like, is this a science? Is it just how his brain works?

SPEAKER_01 55:50

He's probably the most literary writer to write things that are essentially thrillers or you know, horror. The the road was terrifying. He's he's written books about somebody stole my horse, and you're gonna read 300 pages of that, and you're like, This is the most beautiful thing I've ever read. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 56:04

Um, all right. Well, we're gonna do something that maybe doesn't sound too Cormac McCarthy, so I'm gonna give you this sentence and you do whatever you want with it. Um The Dwarf raised a hand.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

All right, a chill ran up his spine. He looked around the room, and everybody was staring at him.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

The man who stood on the stage paused, clearly not wanting to be interrupted. He looked down. The dwarf already felt way too used to be looking down upon, and the man said, Do you have a question?

SPEAKER_01 56:47

He'd spent all his time trying to hide his true identity, and now he'd endangered it with this one insane compulsive moment.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

I do, the dwarf said. I do have a question. How long have you been sleeping with my wife?

SPEAKER_01 57:16

A silence fell over the entire room. And the man next to the dwarf stood up and said, And mine.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

A murmur went through the crowd, a murmur that turned into talking and a few shouts. The whole time the man on the stage just stood still, a thin smile creeping up over his face. He put his hands behind his back and said quite flatly, about seven weeks.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

No one spoke. Everyone stared at him. What was happening here? The actor looked around the room and said, You're probably all wondering why you received the invitation to come here tonight. I know all of you and I know your wives.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

I think we call it there. That's great. What I love about this is my daughter edits these podcasts. So I'm like, I can't wait till she listens to the dwarf uh infidelity story that we made up.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

It's classic, it's classic uh erotica.

SPEAKER_00 58:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, man versus nature. Hey man, good catching up with you again. Am I going to see you at Thriller Fest in a few weeks?

SPEAKER_01 58:30

You know, I don't think I'm gonna make it this year. Um, I I'm I'm gonna I'm hoping to get to BoucherCon. I've gone Thriller Fest is one of my favorite conferences. I've I've been there like eight times. Yeah, I wanted to go, but I've just got a bunch of things happening uh this spring.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:43

Uh but but yeah, I'll I'll if I don't make it, which I don't think I will, I'll definitely get back there next year.

SPEAKER_00 58:48

Okay, right on, man. Well, it's great to see your face again and uh love to connect you with you again soon.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

Yeah, me too. Uh keep up the great work. I love your writing. You're doing a great job.

SPEAKER_00 58:57

Oh, thanks, man. Talk to you soon. Thanks, Jeffrey. Bye. All right, that is my conversation with Jeffrey James Higgins. It was a good one. And uh first on this show taking a Cormac McCarthy sentence and turning it into a dwarf infidelity story. Um, we are we're masterful, if nothing else. Um so uh you can find out everything about Jeffrey at his website, which is Jeffrey JamesHiggins.com. Uh and while you're out there, go ahead and poke around at my website, uh CarterWilson.com. And if you're interested in any of our upcoming Unbound Rider seminars or retreats or one-on-one coaching that I do as well, you can head on over to unboundrider.com. Uh all right, that is it. That is it for this episode of Making It Up. Another one out just next week. In the meantime, friends, take care of the