Why are Blake Allwood's MALE TO MALE ROMANCE NOVELS so popular with so many FEMALE readers?

Chapters
00:00
Introduction and Background
01:29
Coming Out Journey
03:50
First Experiences and Relationships
07:55
Finding Love and Long-Term Partnership
11:46
Becoming an Author
14:43
Writing Themes and Audience
18:28
Future Projects and Aspirations
21:19

Summary
In this conversation, Blake Allwood shares his journey of self-discovery, from his coming out experience in a conservative environment to becoming a successful author. He discusses the challenges he faced growing up in a small town, his exploration of sexuality, and the impact of his relationships on his life. Blake also delves into his writing career, revealing how he transitioned from being terrified of writing to publishing numerous books, primarily focused on gay romance. He reflects on the importance of authenticity and the lessons learned.

Takeaways
*Blake's coming out story was influenced by his upbringing in a conservative environment.
*He didn't fully understand his sexuality until he was in college.
*Therapy played a crucial role in Blake's self-discovery.
*Blake's first sexual experience was with a man he met at a bar.
*He identifies as demisexual, preferring emotional connections over casual encounters.
*Blake has been with his husband for over 30 years, emphasizing the importance of finding the right partner.
*His writing journey began as a way to help a troubled foster son.
*Blake has published around 35 books, mostly focused on gay romance.
*He enjoys writing stories that offer hope and happy endings.
*Blake's audience primarily consists of straight women who enjoy gay romance.

Bio

Blake Allwood was born in Tennessee, then moved to Missouri after earning a degree in Early Childhood Education from Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa. He met his husband Shaun in 1995 and they officially married in 2015, once gay marriage was legalized; although they still consider Valentines Day 1995 as their true “anniversary date”. Twenty-two years later (2017), after fostering 12 children together, he and his husband sold their home, purchased an RV and began traveling the country with their two dogs.

 Most of Blake’s stories are inspired by the places they have visited in their ongoing travels. His first book, Aiden Inspired, was released in 2019 and he has now written over 30 books. On June 1st, Blake released his latest book, Cleats and Pumps, which is an NFL football player to drag queen star novel.

 Blake also writes under the pen name of Adam J. Ridley for his urban fantasy fans looking for stories revolving around gay characters. His first series is The Witch Brothers Saga, starting with Emerald Earth.  He will release two new books under Adam J. Ridley this fall.

Contact Info:
Email: Blake@blakeallwood.com
Website: blakeallwood.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blake.allwood.5
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blakeallwood9/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/authorblakeallwood.bsky.social

To contact Wilkinson:  BecomingWilkinson@gmail.com

Transcript

Wilkinson (00:01)
Good morning. Today I'm with Blake Awood. He's an author. Hi Blake.

Blake Allwood (00:10)
Hi, how are you?

Wilkinson (00:12)
So do we have a delayed reaction here?

Blake Allwood (00:15)
We do.

Wilkinson (00:17)
Wow, I don't know why it's doing that.

but my program will take that out. we'll, I think what I'm gonna do is start over knowing that we have that. That's really annoying.

Blake Allwood (00:35)
And I can hear you also.

Wilkinson (00:38)
Okay, but it's not looping, so we're okay on that. Maybe I'll try talking a little bit quieter.

you

Okay, we'll start over.

Good morning. Today I'm with Blake Allwood. He is an author from, you're not in Palm Springs, you're near Palm Springs, right?

Blake Allwood (01:07)
in Cathedral City now as of a couple weeks ago.

Wilkinson (01:09)
Okay,

okay, all right. All right, let's hear your story. Tell me about you. We can talk about your writing ⁓ in a bit, but let's hear your story. Where'd you grow up? What's your coming out story? Blah, blah, blah.

Blake Allwood (01:30)
So that coming out story hasn't been thought about for about 30 years, but I will try to dust off the neural pathways as if I can remember. So my husband and I, we moved here in August. For the last eight years, we've been traveling full time in an RV and we settled, like I said, like two weeks ago, we moved to Cathedral City. And so...

Wilkinson (01:39)
Okay.

Blake Allwood (01:59)
I am an author, which is what brings me here. And like you said, we'll talk about that in a moment. But before that, I grew up in Jack's Creek, Tennessee, which is in the middle of nowhere. It's exactly what it sounds like. There's more cows and dogs than there are people. ⁓ And then I left there as quick as I could. I turned 18 and I ran away from home and went to an equally small town to go to college.

school in Lamoni, which is exactly what it sounds like. And then, and then after that I moved to Kansas City and fully came out of the closet. So my coming out experience was a strange one. I didn't even really know what gay was ⁓ growing up until I was in college. Of course, you know, the kids would call each other gay, but I didn't

Wilkinson (02:33)
⁓

Blake Allwood (02:59)
The only thing I knew about gay people at that time was, and when I was around seven or eight years old, the family got into our conversion van, black and orange, striped, and drove down to New Orleans. And we were on the, in the French Quarter, and of course, know, back in the 70s, the prostitutes were literally hanging out the windows. So it was quite an education for this.

Wilkinson (03:18)
Wow.

Blake Allwood (03:29)
very backward little country boy. But this fabulous drag queen walked across the street, African-American, tall, slim, had this purple leotard. Of course, this is 70, 1978, something like that. She walks across this road, purple leotard, massive, huge.

Wilkinson (03:32)
Wow.

Blake Allwood (03:55)
Yellow polka dots and my dad said hey look at that gay guy. So this the only real relationship I had with what it meant to be gay until I was 19 I'd go to college and I my two best friends start dating a man and a woman and I have to have therapy Because I didn't realize it at the time that I had some pretty significant feelings for my male friend

And I'm in therapy and the therapist says, David, I think you're gay. And I said, I don't want to dress up like a woman. Again, images of the purple leotard and the yellow polka dots. ⁓ And she said, no, that's not what it means.

Wilkinson (04:25)
wow.

⁓

Right, well, now when you were younger though, when you

were younger, were you attracted to men or boys?

Blake Allwood (04:49)
So around five years old, and people have asked me that before, so around five years old, I knew I was different. I didn't know why I was different. I just knew I had feelings that weren't quite right compared to other people.

Wilkinson (05:02)
⁓

Blake Allwood (05:08)
Yeah, I would say that I knew that I thought about boys differently than other boys did, but I didn't really understand that that was attraction. I didn't know that I was going to be not getting married. I always thought I would marry someone, have kids, live a know, former Jack's Creek, Tennessee, normal life. ⁓ And so, you know, it was all a big surprise to me.

Wilkinson (05:39)
So your therapist outed you to yourself.

Blake Allwood (05:45)
She did. She laughed a lot ⁓ when I told her I didn't want to drink something like a woman. ⁓ And then she laughed when I explained to her that story I just told about the purple guitar. But no, she said, you know, I think you have an attraction to your friend. And I'm like, ⁓ that's an option? I didn't really know that that was something I could do.

And I haven't looked back really since then. When I finally figured out what it was, I'm like, yeah, let's go there. I like that. That's much more fun.

Wilkinson (06:22)
So what happened? I mean, so you left the therapist office and what?

Blake Allwood (06:31)
Well, there wasn't really anything I could do with my friends. Neither one of them are friends anymore, needless to say. But I had a lot of thinking to do. I've always been very contemplative. I went and I just spent a lot of time thinking about it. ⁓ Shortly thereafter, we had our winter term, which I ended up going down to Mexico with a group of kids.

spend a lot of time meditating and thinking about it. So, you know, I don't, it wasn't that extraordinary, you know, I just, for me, it was more of coming to terms with it. And, you know, I also grew up a Mormon, not the Utah Mormon, but a sect of the Mormon religion based out of Independence, Missouri. So I had to come to terms with that, because, you know, I knew the church would never accept that. So I had to, you know,

work my way around all of that. And then I also wanted to be a parent. I was going to be a parent. That was just not an option. So I had to figure that out. So my coming out process, I was a lot older. So ⁓ I wasn't a teenager trying to figure that out. Thank goodness. And I was on my own. I didn't have to depend on parents.

Wilkinson (07:38)
Bye.

Right.

So how old were you when you saw the therapist? Did you say 19?

Blake Allwood (07:59)
My favorite.

Wilkinson (08:01)
Okay, and then how soon before you had your first gay experience?

Blake Allwood (08:09)
So that summer, so that took place right before Christmas. And then that following summer I drove home. that's an interesting experience. I'm 19, actually at that point I'm 20. I'm 20 years old at this point. I go to a bar in Memphis and I really was just looking for a hookup. I had no idea what I was doing. ⁓

Wilkinson (08:22)
Let's hear it.

Right.

Blake Allwood (08:38)
In Kansas City, they had a gay rag called The Current, and I got my hands on one of those. And so I took The Current and I found a place that you could look up where all of the gay events were. And I found one in Memphis. I went there and got a gay rag from Memphis. I don't remember the name of that one. And I found that there's a bar, and I got myself to the bar. And I picked up this...

Wilkinson (08:45)
Okay.

Blake Allwood (09:07)
probably 35, 40 year old guy. And he was really handsome, really tall, blonde, raggedy hair, rugged, drunk off his ass. Excuse my language. And he took me home.

Wilkinson (09:21)
That's fine. We're

past the five minute mark, so YouTube won't ding us. It's fine.

Blake Allwood (09:28)
Good, good, good. I do have a bit of a potty mouth. Growing up Mormon, learn, you know, you're going to have, but I've learned I get to have fun now. So go home with this, this really sexy man. He's too drunk to get it up, but he was huge. That was a very large man, if you know what I mean. And it scared me back in the closet for a while.

I did not have sex with him. He was too drunk to have sex, which probably saved me a lot of pain.

Wilkinson (10:03)
So had you had

sex with guys before though, before him?

So that would have been.

Blake Allwood (10:13)
No, I was

molested as a kid, but that wasn't enjoyable.

Wilkinson (10:17)
So

that would have been your first experience with him.

Blake Allwood (10:23)
Yes, that was my first choice, I would say, in a sexual relationship.

Wilkinson (10:31)
Okay.

Blake Allwood (10:32)
It was really scary. then the next experience I had was with an Indian man up in Des Moines and it was wonderful. And then I never looked back after that. It was great. I highly encourage.

Wilkinson (10:48)
So you think you're gay?

Blake Allwood (10:53)
Oh no, I know. There's no question. I did have one sexual relationship with a woman for about 15 minutes and that was enough for me to know I'm not a straight man. Not even a little bit. No thank you.

Wilkinson (10:55)
Hahaha!

Really?

Well,

how old were you when that happened?

Blake Allwood (11:11)
I think, 19. It was all that same year.

Wilkinson (11:12)
So you

were thinking the gay thing, but you tried out the lady and it's like, nah.

Blake Allwood (11:21)
Yeah, I actually I think so I had yeah, it was it was after the therapist. So it would have been the spring. Of that year. And I ended up in a relationship. With well, it a relationship. I ended up going out with this girl and she was very interested in and going all the way and so she took me all the way and then.

Then she pretended to be pregnant and it was really a disaster. It was really rough. I mean, if the universe is trying to show a kid that you do not want to be in a relationship with women, this is the way to do it. Stick him with a woman who basically climbs on top of him and makes it happen and then pretends to be gay or pretends to be pregnant. And then my roommate was a woman and she was really mad because I guess she had feelings. I had no idea she had feelings, but

Wilkinson (12:18)
⁓

Blake Allwood (12:19)
That went really, really bad. I ended up having to move and I moved in with a church couple that were very conservative, but the wife, she totally knew me, knew who I was. And so I had a lot of sermons about not being gay. Yeah, I was ready to come out of the closet and never go back in after all of that wonderful experience. However, the guy with the footlong,

That was a little scary. It took a moment to overcome that.

Wilkinson (12:49)
The what?

Did you say footlong?

Blake Allwood (12:55)
yeah, I think it probably was. He was very endowed. I've never seen another man like him, and I've seen a lot of men. Yeah, he was scary.

Wilkinson (13:03)
Wow. Yikes. Yikes. All right. So,

then how and when did you meet your husband?

Blake Allwood (13:19)
So one of the things that I knew about myself early on is that I was not really a player and I didn't really enjoy, I hated dating. I hated it, absolutely hated it. At the time I was teaching kindergarten out in a suburb of Kansas City, which had a very active KKK following. I ended up with the grand whatever they call them, son in my classroom.

Wilkinson (13:48)
brother.

Blake Allwood (13:49)
So I wasn't able to be out very much. It was rough. It was an interesting time. So I wanted a relationship. That's really what my focus on anything was. I went through a lot of men. I asked them very clearly from the beginning, do you want children? Do you want to be married? Are you someone who wants to be in an open relationship? Although I don't think we called it that back in the 90s.

But basically, you know, are you looking for a monogamous relationship? And most men were no, they were not. And I met Chuck and he was everything that I was looking for in a guy. And I was around 24 years old. And we got together and been together ever since. It was 30 years Valentine's Day.

Wilkinson (14:22)
Right.

Okay.

Wow.

You're, you're a unicorn.

Blake Allwood (14:51)
I am

a bit. So I think the kids have a term for it today. They call us demisexual. So the people who are not promiscuous, who are really looking for just kind of a one person, they have a term for that.

Wilkinson (15:07)
That's

not my understanding of that word. me, think the actual meaning is that you want an emotional connection. You just don't want a trick. But the main component, I think, is that you're connected to the person in some way.

Blake Allwood (15:12)
No, what do you think that is?

Yeah, and that's my understanding as well. I'm actually a member of a group on Facebook of people who identify as demisexual, and that's one of the things that we've kind of commonly seen amongst each other, is we tend to be a... Well, that's not true. There is a group of us who swing more toward one person partnership than open.

Wilkinson (15:36)
I don't... Yeah.

Blake Allwood (16:04)
But then there are quite a few who are not, definitely. So yeah.

Wilkinson (16:07)
Well, I think you can be a demisexual as long as you have connection in a serial way, like with different people. But anyway, so what got you into writing? Where'd that come up?

Blake Allwood (16:21)
I

think it's really hard. For me, it was really hard to be one night stands. Those were gut wrenching for me. It didn't work. And I know that it's really popular, especially back in the 90s. I think it was really popular for you'd meet someone at the bar, because we didn't have grinder. You'd meet someone at the bar or the park, and then you would do the nasty, and then you'd be on your way. And so it never worked for me.

And I struggled a lot with that because, you know, I was definitely an oddball in the gay community. ⁓ And so, you know, it took, I guess I was lucky having found a partner who definitely fit my need and I fit his. So it worked out really well. I just got lucky, I think.

Wilkinson (17:13)
All right, so now talk about writing. How'd you become an author?

Blake Allwood (17:18)
⁓ Why did I become an author?

Wilkinson (17:23)
How did that happen?

Blake Allwood (17:27)
Well, it was an interesting experience. So I have always been terrified of writing. I actually went to get my master's degree when I was teaching school and ended up quitting because I had to write a paper and it just freaked me out. So I never thought I would be a writer. But when the husband and I sold our house and moved into our RV and began traveling,

Wilkinson (17:46)
Ha

Blake Allwood (17:56)
I had a lot of time on my hands. I was actually finishing up a master's program. I actually went back to school and got that master's. And I began just writing, actually it was a foster son, he was having a lot of trouble. He had moved out and then he had moved back in and he was a young gay man having a lot of difficulty. The biggest...

The big blow up was when he went out with a prostitute, did not pay him. And then all of his privates were blown up all over social media. You have to pay. If you offer to pay, you have to pay. Otherwise it gets ugly.

Wilkinson (18:38)
Oops.

you

Wow.

Blake Allwood (18:48)
So I sat down and I started writing short stories just to kind of give him an idea of what it could be like to be in a relationship. That it doesn't have to be what he was doing. And then I caught the bug. ⁓ I published my first book in 2019. I self-published it. And it's because I knew I needed some experience writing before I started trying to go for a publisher. And then COVID hit.

Wilkinson (18:59)
Right.

⁓ okay.

Right.

Blake Allwood (19:18)
And I was stuck alone. My husband was working 80 hour weeks because he's a nurse. ⁓ And we were in a place I'd never been before. I didn't know anyone. You're not allowed to go out and meet people. This was in Arizona at the time. And so I just started writing and I wrote a lot of books.

Wilkinson (19:29)
Right, right.

Blake Allwood (19:41)
I honestly don't know the number, to be honest. I think it's around 35. I lost Kian.

Wilkinson (19:44)
Really?

Whoa.

Wow.

Blake Allwood (19:51)
COVID was a very, I was very bored.

Wilkinson (19:57)
So are they all gay stories?

Blake Allwood (20:03)
All but one. ⁓ the first two books that I wrote, Aidan Inspired and Bobby Transformed, those are two gay stories. And Bobby really represents me as ⁓ when I was going to college in Iowa. And then Aidan's sister, Susie, I wrote a story about her because at that time there was a political thing going on when Judge Kavanaugh was being...

brought in and Lazy Ford, Dr. Lazy Ford was, well she was being crucified. And so I wanted to write a story to support her. And so I wrote Suzy Empowered, which is basically a story about a young woman who was assaulted when she was in high school. And then the politician, the guy that assaulted her became a politician.

and then tried to destroy her, because she's a Broadway musical star. So yeah, so that's the only book I wrote that's about a man and a woman. All the rest of my books are about gay men.

Wilkinson (21:16)
and you're still writing.

Blake Allwood (21:20)
Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm, oh yeah. I'm editing. I was editing a book this morning actually before I came over, over here. And then I've got, I'm writing a, I'm beginning writing books about people my hour age. So a little bit older because I have a lot of, I have a lot of men in my group where I have a group that I started on Facebook. has around 17, 18,000 members called Gay Men Loving Gay Books.

Wilkinson (21:24)
yeah.

Blake Allwood (21:49)
And it's really all about that. it's all just gay men. If you identify as a man who loves men, you can be a member of the group. I've had a lot of them talking about, know, there's not a lot of books out there about men who are over 40. And so I've got three books that I have started that I'm working on now. It'll probably be a year or two before they come out. But they're about people over 40.

Wilkinson (21:58)
Right.

Right.

Blake Allwood (22:17)
who are finding love. And that's an interesting, it's a little bit harder to write those stories than it is to write a 20 year old who's fresh out of college looking for a relationship.

Wilkinson (22:29)
Well, if you've been with the same guy for all these years, how would you know what it's like being over 40 and out in the gay world?

Blake Allwood (22:42)
⁓ I hear a lot of stories. I don't know if you know much about gay men, but they aren't really, they're not really, ⁓ they don't have a problem sharing their thoughts and stories and ideas and adventures.

Wilkinson (22:45)
Or you do.

Well, that's why I have so many of them on here.

Blake Allwood (23:04)
yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I could just watch your podcast. You can get plenty of information to write books. Thank you.

Wilkinson (23:08)
Right. I've got stories, yeah.

So who is your audience for these books?

Blake Allwood (23:23)
So you may be surprised to learn that around between 85 and 95 % of my readers are They identify as straight women. There's a percentage that identifies queer or LGBTQIA, but most of them are straight women.

Wilkinson (23:43)
Okay, so why would a straight woman want to a romance novel about gay men?

Blake Allwood (23:52)
So there's a lot of speculation and I'm not an expert. I'm not a psychologist. You would definitely need to get into the psychology of that. ⁓ I have some speculation and I'll speak in a bit. I think for women, ⁓ sex is complicated. I think there's a lot of dynamics around women expressing their sexuality. ⁓ I think there's a lot of ⁓ limitations put on women.

And if a woman is able to imagine herself in a gay relationship as a man, you just pretty much get rid of all of those. Men are able to have sex and we might call each other a slut, but at the end of the day, who gives, no, we don't care. It didn't hurt my feelings at all. In fact, my friend Shane just called me a slut this morning. Didn't bother me at all. It's a miracle I even remember it since he calls me that every day. So.

I think it'll, you know, for a woman to be able to imagine being in a sexual relationship where she doesn't have all of the different ⁓ rules and expectations and condemnation, ⁓ you know, she's damned if she does, she's damned if she doesn't. ⁓ But in a gay relationship, that's not the case. So I think it gives them freedom. I think it's just another step in the female sexual liberation. And I say, so I think that's why most women are attracted to it.

to gay romance.

Wilkinson (25:22)
Huh. I wonder if straight women watch gay porn. That's interesting.

Blake Allwood (25:29)
Yes, they did. yeah, absolutely they did. Trust me on this one. They tell me.

Wilkinson (25:30)
They do. They do. Huh.

Wow. So you hear from some of these women?

Blake Allwood (25:46)
yeah. Yeah. If you, if you find me on Facebook and you look at my friends list, it's mostly women. Absolutely. And if you look at my, I have 4,000, almost 5,000 people on the newsletter. It's mostly women. Absolutely.

Wilkinson (25:53)
Wow.

Wow,

interesting. ⁓ So where do you go from here? What else besides those three books would I ship to?

Blake Allwood (26:19)
So, well, mean, it just, know, right now is a really hard time. As a writer in general, I know a lot of us are struggling because of the changes that are taking place politically and also socially. A lot of people have begun to boycott Amazon. And in those boycotts, that's really cut down on the people who are buying our books.

So there's not really a career there. So at least not as a moment. So I'm pursuing more commercial writing. still write queer, I wanna write gay books. I don't wanna write, I wanna write about gay people. I don't really wanna write about straight people, but I'm looking more toward going more commercial and finding publishers and agents, which is a little different.

I've written what I wanted to up till now, ⁓ so I'm shifting the game a little bit. Because my husband wants, he says that I need to make money, it's so rude, don't, husbands, what are you doing?

Wilkinson (27:33)
Well, sounds like he has a pretty good job. What's his problem?

Blake Allwood (27:38)
Exactly, is not funny. This is what I've been saying. So anyway, I am right. I've got several books in the mix. I've got one coming out June 1st that's Drag Queens. Of course, that's not commercial, but it was a lot of fun. I wrote a short story that was part of an anthology that came out in January called...

Wilkinson (27:42)
Right.

Right.

Blake Allwood (28:04)
actually something about drag and then the book that I have coming out in on June 1st is a follow-up to that and it's about a football player who has he just wants to be a drag queen and so he accomplishes that and ends up becoming pretty popular as a drag performer and that book is called Cleats and Cleats and Pumps.

Wilkinson (28:35)
Cleats and pumps, okay.

Blake Allwood (28:35)
And so,

yeah, again, not commercial. I said I'm going commercial, but that one is definitely not. But anyway, it's fun.

Wilkinson (28:45)
Wow. How do you like pop strings so far?

Blake Allwood (28:52)
I love it. So, you know, I've lived in Kansas City most of my life. I grew up in Tennessee. I went to college in Iowa. And all of those places have been difficult to be gay in. There's not a whole lot of relationships.

There's not lot of places where you can be out and not have some kind of stress about it. We moved to out west as soon as we moved into the RV. We came to Seattle first and then we went out east again and then we came back and we stayed out west and since. So we've been all over Oregon, Washington, Arizona. Now we're in California and I love it. I love being able to go out and see, you know, couples walking down the street.

a couple of gay guys. I love being able to see my age gay guys walking down the street holding hands. So it's just different and it's something I haven't experienced before. So yeah, I'm really enjoying.

Wilkinson (29:53)
Did you say that you were in the RV eight years?

Blake Allwood (29:59)
Eight years this month, we moved into the RV, I think the 17th. So what is today?

Wilkinson (30:05)
So is that where you

are you based in an RV right now? Okay, so you're not you haven't like, you haven't like bought a house or settled down here.

Blake Allwood (30:11)
I am. Yeah, so.

We bought a lot. So I bought a lot in an RV park. yeah. So we were looking at a home and moving into the house. And then, you know, we both talked about, know, so then you have to fix the roof and then you have to mow the yard. And then you have to, you know, there's all these responsibilities. And, you know, when you live in an RV, you don't really have nearly the work that you do when you live.

Wilkinson (30:20)
you did? okay. Okay.

Blake Allwood (30:46)
in the home. So at one time we owned two houses. We had three acres. I was running an urban farm. My husband was working. And then we had foster kids. And so that was a lot of work. We were tied, really, really tied down.

And so the thought of moving back into a home or even a condo, it's really hard. mean, we're not, it's just, we love the freedom. ⁓ If we, if we don't want to be where we're at, we can literally get in, turn a key and we leave and we have the freedom to come and go. We have a really nice RV. We are 450 square feet. ⁓ We have four slides. It's, it's not, it's not a camp.

It's a home and so we both really enjoy it. And so we decided not to buy the house. We would have had to sell the RV to buy the house and neither one of us were ready to do it. So we bought the lot instead and we really love it.

And it's, you know...

Wilkinson (31:52)
I

cannot imagine driving something that big through traffic.

Blake Allwood (31:58)
I do not. I don't. That's what husbands are for.

Wilkinson (32:03)
All right.

Blake Allwood (32:04)
Hahaha

Wilkinson (32:08)
All right, anything else you want to share before we wrap up here?

Blake Allwood (32:15)
Well, yeah, so one thing is I have two pen names, Blake Allwood, but if you like fantasy, I would highly encourage you to look up my Adam J. Ridley books. So those are, they're all Roman. So I write about hope, I write about relationships. No matter what happens in any of my books, as bad as it gets, everybody's gonna get a happily ever after. That's the promise.

So, but yeah, if you like fantasy, Adam J. Ridley, if you like more romance based books, Blake Allwood, check me out. Cause daddy needs new shoes.

Wilkinson (32:51)
Well, we'll,

there you go. ⁓ Yeah, we'll put links in the episode notes that can find you and do all that stuff, so.

All right, so my last, I always ask one question before we end. What have you learned in your life? What is like a lesson or something that you live by?

Blake Allwood (33:17)
goodness. So I've learned a lot. Don't pee on an electric fence. ⁓ Don't spit in the wind. Don't play with a turd if you don't want to get shit on your hands. I learned a lot. I think the main thing though, if I were going to give advice to a young person who's starting their life, I would say,

Wilkinson (33:27)
Ha ha ha!

Blake Allwood (33:47)
Don't let people tell you who you are supposed to be. Be yourself. And it hurts. And yes, they will come after you. And yes, they'll make your life miserable. But do it anyway. You won't regret it.

Wilkinson (34:03)
It's worth it.

Wow. All right. Well, thank you for coming in. Hopefully this will help you with some of your books, build your audience there a little bit and appreciate you coming in.

Blake Allwood (34:20)
All right, thank you very much.

Wilkinson (34:22)
All right, thanks. Have a great day.

Okay, take care.