Against The Norm

The Courage to Stay Curious with Richard Sparks

• Norman Calvo • Season 1

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A retired schoolteacher becomes a fantasy hero. A television comedy writer discovers online gaming. A lifelong creator refuses to slow down at 75.

Meet Richard Sparks—Oxford graduate, television writer, novelist, and author of the “New Rock” series. 

Richard shares stories from a remarkable career that includes writing comedy, working alongside some of Britain's most influential creative talents, and eventually finding inspiration in an unexpected place: online gaming.

But this conversation isn't really about fantasy novels or video games.

It's about curiosity.

It's about remaining open to new experiences long after most people believe they're supposed to have life figured out.

Richard offers a refreshing perspective on retirement, creativity, and what it means to continue growing as we age. We discuss why so many people abandon their passions too early, how creativity evolves over a lifetime, the importance of community and adventure, and why "doing what you love" remains some of the best advice at any age.

Whether you're approaching retirement, already retired, or simply wondering what your next chapter might look like, Richard's story is a powerful reminder that meaningful work, learning, and personal growth don't have an expiration date.

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Subscribe to Against the Norm, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who's ready to make the next chapter of life their most adventurous yet.

To learn more about Richard Sparks, read his writing, and follow his latest adventures, visit him here:

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Contact us:   againstthenorm.net



SPEAKER_01

Number one, I want to tell you that I'm kind of honored. It's this is the first time ever, first time ever I've spoken to somebody who went to Oxford, let alone somebody who wrote for British television or authored books or things like that. And so knowing that I never knew what you were all about before this introduction of ours, tell us I what I'd love to do, at least to start off with, Richard, is to tell my listeners a little bit about who you are, what you originally did before you writing books now and entering that world of you know fantasy books or gaming books by gaming. Tell us a little bit about what how you got started originally.

SPEAKER_03

Wow, back in the old days. Well, I always loved writing ever since I was reading stories as a kid, and and um my father was a school teacher, and my mu my mother as well, and they provided lots of books for us. And when I realized that people wrote these books and made them up, I thought, oh, I want to do that. Um and of course you don't know how, right, but it it was always what I I mean I I've got various notebooks lying around of you know, like titles of books I'd come up with and and um fake what do they call non-deplumes, pseudonyms for writing under because I thought Richard Sparks was a silly name. I ought to be called something grander, or not grander, but more normal.

SPEAKER_01

Richard Sparks, very British, very good.

SPEAKER_03

Well it works, I know, and I like the name Sparks. I'm perfectly used to it. It's uh it's um nothing wrong with it. Yes, exactly. So um when I got to Oxford University, as you said, I started writing comedy sketches. I just happened to bump into my ex-roommate in our second year as we walk across the quadrangle of our old college and said, Um, where are you going? He said, Hello, where are you? And I said, and he said he was going to audition for a review and that I should come along because I wrote funny stuff. Because when we were at a room together, I used to leave him notes. You know, we had a sitting room and each separate separate bedrooms.

SPEAKER_02

Sure.

SPEAKER_03

And he kept all the silly notes. And actually, one of them made it into the show. So anyway, he said, Come along and audition. And so uh the the director actually made me put come into a room and do a terrible audition sketch, which I was hopeless at because I'm not an actor. But then um he said, Well, Rich Peter says you write anyway, so come along and and and we'll to the first meeting. So it was a few days later, so I think about two or three days later. So I wrote a history of drama from the Greeks right through to you know Pinter and modern stuff. And it was all, you know, funny versions of what Greeks or Pinter or Restoration comedy was like and Shakespearean goofiness. And and um so I went along to the meeting, one of the people in it was Mel Smith, who later went on to be the star of Not the Nine O'Clock News, which I wrote for. And um after a bit everyone was sort of being very jolly and and and then the director said, Well, has anyone got any um material? And there was sort of silence fell over the room. So I sort of said, Well, I've got some. And then I started reading, and I read for about half an hour. Uh-huh. And the and uh people laughed. And the director said, uh, well, there's our show. So then everyone else um chipped in with ideas. One guy had a lovely idea, which was a backwards Victorian melodrama, which started with a pile of bodies on the stage, all the actors in it. This is and then one of them got up and said something like, Garn and never called me mother and shot himself, or the other way around. And then other people got up and the whole thing was a backwards melodrama, which I didn't write, but it was the sort of thing that other people chipped in with. Um, I've always liked collaborating with with other writers. So that show happened, and then uh that summer the tradition was that the Oxford University would send a review up to Edinburgh, from which you know, people like who recently before us was the Terry Jones and Michael Palin were Oxford um people who left a few years before I did. They're about ten years older than me. And um, who else was Oxford? And then and then the Cambridge team at the same time was people like John Cleese and Graham Chapman and Eric Idle. And so um one thing led to another. So we did our show up in Edinburgh with Mel Smith and it again, and I met the Cambridge people, who included Douglas Adams, who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Oh wow. John Lloyd, who wrote, who was um producer, the leading British producer of our generation. He produced, let's see, god, John's credits. I'm seeing him next week when I come in London. Um what are John's credits? Well, we'll start off with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a radio series, which he co-wrote with Douglas. That was before that it was a book, and I think it was much better than the book because it had all this wonderful voices and funny effects in it. I remember driving around listening to it in London. This was, you know, the year like London was having three-day weeks, and it was striking and cold and miserable, and Douglas's show came on and cheered us all up. Um I thought it was great. So who else is in it? Well, John did that, and then he did Not the Nine O'Clock News and Black Adder, he produced, and QI, which he's doing the 24th season of now. Uh Spitting Image. You know, an extraordinary career. Um some and various other people, Mary Allen, who went on to run the Opera House, the Royal Opera House. She was very funny, very beautiful girl. Very funny, obviously very bright. That was in the Cambridge team. The Oxford lot was we were more sort of more shambolic. They were all very professional. Uh Griff Reese Jones was in it, also from Not the Nine O'Clock News. Uh Simon Jones, who was the lead in Hitchhiker. Uh we didn't have oh well Peter Wilson was my sketch partner, he was a theatre producer in the rest, he's now dead, sadly. Um as is Mel.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_03

Um so anyway, one thing led to another, and then after that, I managed to get a job after leaving university in Welsh television. Um very undistinguished job, but you know, starting at the bottom.

SPEAKER_00

Still a job, yes. It was great.

SPEAKER_03

As a job, it was paid, it was in television. And while I was there, a very nice producer gave me some scripts to write for a television, for a radius. What's going on today? It's very early in the morning. Um it was for children's series. So I um I wrote some scripts for that, so I had some actual credits when I got back to London. I did that job for two years, and I signed up for the second year thinking, well, it looked very good on my resume if I don't if I just leave after a year. Because I wanted to be a writer. But then after two weeks of the second year, I thought, what an idiot. I don't want it, I don't want a resume. I don't want to get another job ever again. I want to live by writing. You know, do do whatever I can to anyway. So I did that job for two years, and then in 1976, we met Rowan Atkinson up at um the Edinburgh Festival, because Peter Wilson and I did a two-man show uh for the Ricky DeMarco gallery, which went down well. And all the Oxford people from that year, who were a couple of years behind us, we'd left the university before, um, they all came to support our show, which was really nice of them. And someone, and do you I think it was either Richard Curtis, who's the writer, obviously he's a very successful writer, he wrote what, Four Weddings and a Funeral and things like that.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03

And Black Adder.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_03

So he was rich, he was Rowan's writing partner in real life later on. Or maybe it was Howard Goodall, the composer, who's also had a great career. Anyway, someone said to me, You've got to meet this guy. So after our show. So I went and met Rowan, who was standing at the back looking thoughtful. And he he said some very nice things about our show, which was so so actually he saw me on stage before I ever saw him, which is kind of bonkers because I'm not an actor and have never wanted to be. So uh then my friend and I went to see their show a couple of days later, and it was as uh as all student shows are quite good and quite not good in parts. Uh plenty of talent, plenty of good laughs. And there was this amazing sketchy that the Rowan did by himself that just my partner and I turned to each other and went You know, what the hell? And the audience didn't really know whether to laugh or not, because what what was going on? Anyway, so that was our first meeting with Rowan and Peter who I saw him two two or three years ago before he died, and he said he thinks Rowan's had a actually a more because people were saying Rowan's going to be the next Peter Sellers. Wow. Um and um that was it when he was yeah, when he was 24 or something. And um Peter said, no, actually he's had a more distinguished career than Peter Sellers because if you look at the variety of what he's done, you know, from Black Adder to Mr. Bean to not the nine o'clock news to to all the different sketch shows. Um it's it's been extraordinary. So then I don't quite sure how it happened. I think it's actually possible that Rowan suggested us. He was asked to do a show by Michael Rudman at a very small theatre in London called the Hampstead Theatre, which is the like the leading fringe theatre in London, small room, you know, 100, 200 seats. And uh I think I think Rowan suggested Peter and me to be in it with him. But anyway, the director decided that they didn't want three uh this what he's called an established double act uh against Rowan, you know, like one guy here and two guys there. So um he actually he he he instead of having me, he had Peter Wilson's then wife, which was turned out to be a bad idea, because that uh wasn't a good chemistry between the three of them. Although she's one of these people is brilliantly funny offstage, but not but anyway, it didn't really sort of work. Um so that that show was done, and and um that's when Rowan first was seen. John Cleese saw the show and a year later asked Rowan to be in his charity show, The Secret Policeman's Ball, doing the sketch that I wrote for him, a schoolmaster sketch. And so that was great to go along to the big theater and you know, room full of people and all these you know like Pete Townsend from The Who and Peter Cook and and uh all the Pythons.

SPEAKER_01

So you have tremendous connections there. I mean, first of all, you know, you mentioned the year 1976 and was immediately brought to my mind only because I'm American and you know, you're talking about a lot of things that are happening in England, but it it was there any connection at all, or was there any continuity of kind of like creative spirit between what you were doing and let's say Monty Python or Saturday Night Live here in New York? Was there any connections there? What what was going on in that world of creativity and comedy and things like that?

SPEAKER_03

Well, we're we're we're all products of the others. And that's a line that was said to me by Charles Asneville, the great French singer. Someone asked him what his um influences were. We are all products of the others. It is impossible for someone to come fully formed out of the forest. And so Python's a great influence on us. In the spring of 1976, before meeting Rowan and Richard Curtis and everyone else at the Edinburgh Festival in August, in the spring we were on a tour of uh the eastern coast of New York, Peter and me uh doing a two-man show that was financed by the University of Rhode Island.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_03

So we went over to Rhode Island and then we did some some sketches. I think we went to Harvard or Yale or somewhere and did a performance. Anyway, we were up and down the coast doing students and stuff. Had a wonderful time, and so that was when 76. That's when I got to see um the Who perform in high in um Central Park, right, New York. And and they've always been one of my favorite bands, they were amazing. So I may have got the dates wrong, but I know I was there because Red Around sounds about the right time.

SPEAKER_01

I'm about that age as well.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, if we look up when the Who were in Central Park in 1976, because it was the bicentennial. Right, exactly. So and that so yeah, there was a great connection back and forth. And and actually the best one was the year after I left Oxford University and I was working in my very undistinguished job in Welsh television. Peter Wilson was asked to do the Oxford comedy show in Edinburgh. And those shows sold out every night in those days, a 400-seat theatre, and they always got really good houses. Um and and he said, Eric Presence's written a brilliant show. So I I went to see it. And and it's it was good, you know, some good stuff and fine. And and but the the day I went, um, I saw Peter afterwards, and he was sort of ashen-faced. I said, Oh, the show's good. Well, well, what's the matter? And he said, Well, somebody saw the show, just seen it, and said, You realise all that mysterious is stolen. I said, Peter said, What? And he said, He said, This is all from the National Lampoon. Because Eric had obviously I think he might have been American. Anyway, Eric had obviously read the magazines, realized that no one in England had seen these jokes, thought they were perfectly good sketches or whatever, and had re-tailored the material that he'd um let's see that had inspired him. Yeah, right. So Peter's left with egg on his face, thinking, Oh my god, we have we've done stuff that we don't own this. This is this is not right. So anyway, that was that was the sort of thing. So yeah, there was crossover and and and influence from one to the other, and of course in 76, yeah, it would have been the no, it's uh the a little earlier. John, um, excuse me, the pythons hit America.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_03

About two or three years after their show had finished in England. Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01

And that's a whole Saturday Night Live started, I think, in '75. I think it was 75 here in here in New York. But it's you you're right. I love that quote that you you said, we're all products of one another. What was the exact we are all products of the others? And we are all products of the others.

SPEAKER_03

That's very profound. It is, isn't it? It's Charles Asnavour, the famous French boulevardier singer. Great storyteller. Um, but it's such a great, it is impossible for anyone to emerge fully formed from the forest. One of my favorite poems, in fact, I quote it in the first of the New Rock series, as um, we are no, what's the line? I am a part of all that I have met. It's Tennyson from his poem Ulysses. And I am, I'm a product of everyone that I've met, my culture, everything that I've read. You soak it up and spit it out the other end.

SPEAKER_01

No, the same, I don't know. Everything everyone that you've met and everything that you've experienced as well, because people, people's lives help create experiences for everybody else, and that is part of the whole world that we live in. Everything's influencing everything else. Nothing is independent, so to speak. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03

And this is something that you learn because when when you're asked as a very young writer, you know, what are your influences, you think subconsciously, and it's not just me, other people think this person's asking who whose idea I'm copying, or who my influences as if that's a bad thing. After a bit you realise that there's way more product of the soup of certainly, I was going to say human culture, but certainly British and European and American and the English language cultures. And you know, and and and writing we the first book ever, well not the first book ever, but the the great epic of Gilgamesh is a fantasy story.

SPEAKER_02

Sure.

SPEAKER_03

It's pretty old, the Ramayana of um of the Hindu tradition. I don't know much about the ancient Chinese texts, but I'm sure and of course African oral traditions, fantasies, they're all magic and mysteries. Yeah. And the same over here in America with the uh the indigenous people who lived here before the Europeans came.

SPEAKER_02

Right, right, exactly.

SPEAKER_03

Many mythologies, all religions and mythologies, they're all fantasy stories, right? Uh, in order to explain the world around us.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Now, were you always interested in fantasy? Because I know the the New Rock series is part uh, you know, a lot of about gaming and about fantasy and things like that. So how did you kind of like make that transition from comedy to this new book series? Like, what was what were the intervening steps that brought you along the way?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, well, it's not really a a change, it's a sort of a growth in that I'd always wanted to write books. I think that writing narrative is the highest form of uh a writer's work, um, possible exception of poetry, but nobody really writes or reads poetry these days. You know, back 200 years ago when Walter Scott published Marmion, a poem that nobody remembers anymore, who's paid a thousand guineas for that in 19 in 1820 or 30, whenever. I mean you could buy a village for a thousand guineas. And that was published in book form, and people read it round the fire, and it was the entertainment of the day, and uh you know, immensely popular in in the 19th century. Anyway, that's poetry. Um yeah, so one thing led to another, as it does in any career. And you can't start off writing novels and expecting them to get published and make a living, because it takes a while to write one. It certainly takes a while to learn how to do it. You know, I've got the the unf the ones that were unpublished sitting in the bottom drawers that weren't good enough that were part of my learning process. So when I didn't have other jobs, I'd um I'd work on writing narrative. And it wasn't until I'd come through towards the end of my career, come through and discovered internet gaming and the pleasure of being part of a gang of scoundrels charging around getting up to mischief with, you know, people all over the world in your earphones. One guy in South Africa, and our leader was in, I think, Ath Atlanta, Georgia. She was a right. She was brilliant.

SPEAKER_01

So how did you discover gaming? I mean, we're approximately the same age, so I'm really curious as to, you know, I've never done any gaming, but I'm curious as to how you discovered it and how you became interested in it so that it became part of your life and part of your books. That would be an interesting thing for my listeners.

SPEAKER_03

Well, I think possibly I I mean, Douglas Adams, who's my exact contemporary, who didn't even make it into the 21st century, sadly. I think he was 48 when he died.

SPEAKER_02

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03

He was over here in California anyway. Um he he said he was he was into gaming long before the rest of us. He's saying, You've got to try these, they're great. And I was saying, well, shouldn't you be writing? Because everyone knew Douglas hated writing. He was brilliant, but would rather do something else. Um anyway, in fact, yeah, for John Lloyd said, what was it last time we had a beer together? Something like Douglas was hopeless at everything except having brilliant ideas. They were flatmates, you know, so when they were at university together. It's such a great line. Um anyway, so I was at the background, my gaming looks fun, but I think I got into it through internet poker because I love poker playing, and I've played in the World Series a few times. And you know, with satellites to get in and play some play some small events and do do reasonably well. Um and that opened up for me the fact that there were games online, and then I discovered there were these other games that and anyway eventually I you know opened my eyes to what other people had known for a long time and discovered the joys of role-playing games. And it's like you're the hero of your own movie. You're creating you create your own character, your own avatar, and you follow him or her or it around, and you steer, you steer your hero through the story, rather than watching an actor on the screen, which is what I'd been writing and watching, you know, actors on stage, actors on screen. So so that it just one thing evolved into the next.

SPEAKER_01

So as a person who's never done any gaming, I've got to be honest, I'll be uh upright, uh forthright with you, I've never done any gaming online. But what I don't quite understand what that means to create your own hero. Like you have to develop your own story like spontaneously on this on the fly.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I mean, the the ones that I really like were the fantasy worlds, sword and sorcery, and sort of magic, you know, that medieval world type feeling or whatever. But not not I mean some of the futuristic ones were okay. And I've now come out of the other end, I don't play them anymore because I'm too busy writing my own ones, my own, writing my own stories that were inspired by gaming. So one thing leads to another and then out again. Um so what you do is you at the beginning of the game, there's always a sort of a training sequence in which you you create your character. You want him or her to look how you want him to be, or you know, your character might be an elf or an orc or a wizard or whatever you want it to be, or just a warrior. And um so you then pick their personality. traits and make them what look how you want them to look and then you totter off into the world with not a clue where you're going or why and so that inspired the books because one day I was charging around getting up to mischief with um my lots of people you know 24 of us and I suddenly just thought what would it really be like to be this heroic young battle mage with a magic staff you know go just going up to adventures? What would it actually be like? Not in a game. I stress this because some there's a form of writing called lit RPG which is literary role-playing game fiction and those adhere very closely to the structures of of role-playing games so you go level by level by uh you know and so you you're sort of increasing it that's a bit more technical mine is just come basically three people win a world championship of gaming online and the next thing the hero knows he's standing on the hillside with a crappy sword and shield going what what what where am I and why and why am I being chased by wolves and where are my two mates you know because and he's never met them in real life he's a retired school teacher before he's when he's not being a heroic young battle mage and now he's a heroic young battle mage but he doesn't have a magic staff he doesn't have any abilities and he's um things go from bad to worse which is what it would actually be like you know having been a world champion pushing a mouse around and operating a keyboard in his retirement that's one thing but actually standing there and for real having to do it and and then and why is this happening to him and what's the explanation for it and um it's all explained at the end of the first book and then we're set up for the the other three there were four books in the series the fourth one is published in November. Wow nice so so then that just totally took me off down that road and so I don't play games anymore. And when you first got into gaming or got into this type of uh this world and and started writing about it were you ever intimidated by not knowing enough about it or completely yeah absolutely but they can't really hurt you I mean you you know you may be in in some boss fight with some gigantic flaming demon with your with your mates and he's sort of s marmalizing you all and being splat he can't reach out through the computer and grab you with his great flaming arm and can't you know you're safe. You're adventuring but you know behind uh behind firewalls.

SPEAKER_01

So uh it's it's um like that's why the idea of what would this really be like in real life it would not be quite as safe as it as it would be you'd be either devoured by a be a beast or burned alive or burned at the stake or something like that.

SPEAKER_03

It would not be pleasant that's for sure exactly and you can see the comic you can see the comedy in there the fact that you know I'd be I've written comedy all my life I mean I set out to write adventures but funny things happen in adventures disasters happen. Disasters are funny and things going wrong and betrayals and misunderstandings and and the characters you meet are you know they've they've got attitude and they've got they've and and so funny things happen in the adventures which I mean you couldn't really couldn't help it it's it's it was you know it would have been missing a big trick not to have that element. But you only look as Hitchcock does it he um scares you and then makes you laugh.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah he does you know yeah his shows are really really great yeah oh yeah the master that's for sure were you at all influenced at all by any of the Harry Potter books or that that just is just totally a different genre completely not influenced no they're very good because my daughter was exactly the right age when they were coming up so I think I read the first one to her and and then by the time the second one came out she was you know she was just galloping ahead of me so she didn't need me anymore.

SPEAKER_03

You know I used to read to her every night. Sure my wife used to read the those books to my kids as well yeah right exactly and they're very well written she's a super writer um so they didn't influence me at all because I'm that I'm not that's not in in the ballpark of what I do but it again she's the product of the same culture as the rest of us the same ideas I mean the the worst witch or the worst witch goes to school is you know uh the same idea as as Harry Potter but done earlier because I can't remember who the writer is but it's a school for witches.

SPEAKER_01

Right oh interesting yeah I mean nothing everything is new but nothing is new in a sense that everything is just a continuation of what preceded it.

SPEAKER_03

And it has to be it's a development I think it's a an evolution.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_03

If you wrote uh what was it I I came up with some really stupid remark in a conference recently if I wrote the most brilliant novel ever written and it was about a rock sitting in a desert on top of a cliff for 400 pages well it may be the most brilliant novel ever written but we wouldn't recognize we wouldn't have a clue. It wouldn't mean anything to us because it's just not where we are at it you can't be that far out it's got to be part of the tradition that we understand. So you know if the if the rock developed legs and ran off I don't know and things happen to it then we go oh okay it's an animated it's now it's now anyway a terrible idea but I was trying to demonstrate that you have to be connected to the culture in a way that people understand. And when you read a book I mean one of my favorite books growing up was The Phantom Toll Booth by Norton Juster. And that came in from America obviously and my father and mother gave it to me for a birthday must be about 10 or three wow I love that book. I called it the Phantom toll booth I didn't know what a toll booth was a toll booth by the we don't have them in England. Actually there are one or two on but you charge a shilling over a you know to go over a bridge that anyway but no not like on the turnpikes in America.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah well here in New York it's it's gotten so expensive that if you if you want to cross over from Brooklyn to Staten Island here in New York City it's $17 now.

SPEAKER_03

Well who the hell wants to go to Staten Island? Actually there's a very good reason there's Mandolin Brothers who's a settler in a in they the the great um vintage musical instrument shop. I play the five string banjo so I've I've visited that sort of great great establishment.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah no we just go through Staten Island to get to New Jersey but still you have to pay the price to have to go through Staten Island. Norman if you're if you're going through Staten Island to get to New Jersey you started off in entirely the wrong direction you've no need to go to either anyway I mean my aunt lived in New Jersey my wife was born in New Jersey I had every respect for New Jersey's yeah no it's a great place it's really really a great place now one thing that I wanted to ask Richard was the following a lot of people I mean we're approximately the same age and a lot of people our age don't know anything about gaming and generally don't read fantasy books.

SPEAKER_03

What would you oh come on we all read fantasy books in your growing what about what about Frankenstein? What about Dracula? What about science fiction of the 20th century?

SPEAKER_01

Yes Asimov and you know yeah well if you call those fantasy books if you call those fantasy books then yes okay so we got Vonnegut but also a lot of my listeners are probably not big readers so much anymore. What what would you say the benefits of getting involved in gaming or reading fantasy books for people in their 60s is uh well the problem is eyes i mean our eyes get older so I just listen to audiobooks now i'm getting on a I'm getting on a plane later today to go back to England.

SPEAKER_03

Uh-huh I've listened uh you know when I I go for my walks every day for an hour and I listen to audiobooks because it's easier on the eyes than reading. But yeah I would say get into audiobooks and fantasies are just look what is it William Shatner said science fiction is just human beings in other places. They're all the human problems human conditions and we get more of a inner world that is the more possibilities exist than in real life you can do more with your stories. Because you don't you're not constrained by reality T. S. Eliot said humankind cannot bear very much reality and he ought to know do you ever read the wasteland god I had to flog through that at university. Oh T.

SPEAKER_01

S. Eliot that was that was a tough poem. Come on that was a very tough poem.

SPEAKER_03

I know and everyone took it so seriously I could I couldn't I I'm not really a Yates was more my flavor my my speed but I like what you said about science fiction and that being you know kind of like not being constrained by reality and things like that because I remember as a kid I used to watch Star Trek all the time exactly I had I had dinner with Bill Shatner I'm not allowed to call him a year and a half ago really interesting I know he's as sharp as attack he's 94 then I think in his 90s great what a treat because you know mutual friend and all that so we we met and um that was a thrill um yeah look Star Trek for heaven's sake we brought out what about any in the comedy get smart and and and and Mel Brooks is another g another American genius.

SPEAKER_01

Phenomenal I love Mel Brooks but even even like Star Wars and Star Wars and Star Trek and all these types of movies they're all yes you're not constrained by reality of what's happening now but all of the themes in those movies or in whatever books are similar to them they're pretty much what we deal with on a day-to-day basis in society anyway.

SPEAKER_03

Exactly my point. Exactly my point human beings in other places and look go back through all the epics Beowulf is the first great work in the English language. What's got what's this got a dragon with a horde of treasure? A monster that lives at the bottom of a lake and comes up and tears the arms off warriors? No it's the other way around the warrior tears off his arm and he has to slope back down and then Beowulf has to dive down to the bottom of the lake and deal with his mother that's this this is these ideas are bigger than us. Right. You know if you I I I love the quote from the the old curmudgeon Kings the Amos who's a great 20th century novelist who said the trouble with modern fiction these days is it's all about women being miserable in Fulham. Fulham is a small part of suburb of London or part of London.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

And it's typical grouchy old man misogynistic old but it's actually his point was that that the constraints of modern literature can be rather small. Right and when in fantasy you you're you've got a bigger canvas and you can do other things human beings in other places.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_03

I just I came back to it having grown up voraciously reading science fiction and fantasy and magic Lord of the rings and stuff like that. And you I went off for twenty or thirty years and read other things and did other things and wrote and then through gaming with these fantastic worlds that you get to charge around in uh in the games I I came out of that inspired by the games not to write a game story but a story inspired by that connection between you and unreality. Yeah and it's been really liberating writing the stories.

SPEAKER_01

Wow interesting so now you're are you're are you in your 60s now Richard how old are you? I'm gonna be 75 in August 75 in August okay so for a lot of a lot of my people that listening to my bl my uh podcasts or read my blog and things of that sort they're already in in that age group 60s 70s things like that you're obviously still creating still going strong still you know producing content and living a life of creativity and writing and working what would you say to people uh contemplating retiring right what would you say about them starting a second career or starting a second type job or getting involved in something that's beyond what they've been doing before I I think just about everybody does.

SPEAKER_03

Do what you love. You're finally free of the office grind. You know many people have had to work at jobs that they weren't particularly mad about in order to earn a living to put their kids through college to to buy a house you know you have had to go off and and work. It's not always very exciting and you know I've been lucky enough to work in the business that I love doing the thing I love but some years you don't earn any money. So that's that's the bad side of it. And of course I've now discovered I was kind of thought I'd be writing books ever since ever since I could start writing but uh because I start off writing scripts you get better paid. I you know take any work you can get there's real demand for script writing or there was and I I did a lot of work and was able to buy a house when I was 28 from script writing with with a mortgage I had to buy a mortgage but a four bedroom house in London you know it was it was it was great and um but you never retire. You know if you're doing what you love I'm doing two other jobs now that completely come out of left field and uh one of which is sketch comedy which I hadn't written for a while and I it's certainly better than anything I could have written in my twenties because I've got that uh those roots there and um there's that and then collaborating with an artist very um successful in her field on um graphic novel which is I can you know came out of the left field. So but people retire and they do what they want they volunteer they go they work in um service for other people giving back to their communities that's not necessarily even paid or they for example might be animal lovers you know and and go to work from kennels and dog walking and I'm just off the top of my head what you see people of our age doing that we we don't all just sit around the house doing nothing although we now have the the the leisure time to do that and the facility to to take a rest after a well earned rest. But most of us want to do things as well as to be um you know comfortable and and left alone and not have to flog ourselves to death anymore. But we still have the energy and we still want to still want to help the community and still want to do things. So just do what you love is what what what advice I give to a 18 year old or an 80 year old.

SPEAKER_01

Oh interesting so it applies whether you no matter what age just go ahead and keep on going and doing what you love.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely yes I mean that that's that's it. If I'm not writing I f I feel very sort of sort of sloping about thinking what what am I what's going on here? When I'm writing you know I read a George R. R Martin's blog I I I started reading those a few years ago. I haven't read them for a long time but I remember one of them he said you know some days it's it doesn't go well and other days you know he he'd go upstairs with his cup of coffee not stairs I'm making this up he'd go to his office with his cup of coffee to start work and the next thing he knows it's dark outside and the coffee's cold and he hasn't touched it and he spent all day in Westeros and absolutely you just get tripped you get tripped out on the work. Right. And those are the days that you know and you you totter away afterwards feeling um you know kind of worn out but in a good way. In a very good way yeah yeah those are the days that you want and and yeah because it it does there's a cost for everything. It's it's not you don't just get to sit there and press alt delete n and a novel comes out at the other end you know or you know you've got to do word by word and nobody's written it before you've got to make it up as you go along.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Yeah yeah yeah yeah you know it's funny because um you the creative process is so different than just regular work. I used to be a mortgage broker or still kind of and you're right I mean my days when I was at the top of my career I was working 12 hours a day and didn't matter at all even if it was 13 or 14 hours a day didn't matter at all. But the creative part of the process meaning once I started doing other things I I now do cabaret here in Manhattan in Times Square singing singing in cabaret shows yeah it's it's a lot a lot of that is that's a change. Yeah oh tremendous change especially for a banker but the creative process brings more energy brings more excitement brings more fulfillment and and and and creativity than anything I ever did as a mortgage broker. And yeah you're right yeah I'm wondering in your in your field as being an author or writer or involved in what you're doing in in comedy were was there ever a time when the creative process stopped and you felt ill at ease or you felt something was missing or you just that spirit just kept on going and going?

SPEAKER_03

Both. Yeah you I mean I I've written myself into corners I've gone up dead ends I've had to learn you know because nobody can really teach you all the things that you need to learn. I I didn't go to a creative writing uh class or college you know I studied English language and literature at Oxford as I said but um you you have to learn your own technique uh one of the things that I remember as a very like the certain major notes in my life I've been given stand out uh one of them basically to boil it down is don't try don't try to write like someone else you know you have to learn how to write like yourself how to for an actor you know you don't you can't after a bit you don't copy the other actors you've got your own style your own groove you're you know how to bring the part to you and bring yourself to the part um make it personal in acting terms uh so you learn all the necessary things you need to f to fruition which I believe is an Americanism and you bring to bring your work to fruition yeah it's it's a learning process and one of the things about learning is that your mistakes are your best teachers. Absolutely the dead ends surely well there's no point in going up here because you don't belong writing this kind of thing. And so when this the mentor of mine said it was actually directing something he said why you why are you trying to direct like someone else this isn't you interesting yeah brilliant note and then I thought yeah thank you thank you thank you it and it takes a while to get your head around it right right because basically you I I was sort of surfacing with the work you know I was thinking oh well it ought to be done like this rather than really thinking it through deeply and and bringing myself to the work and the work to me the way that an actor brings apart to himself. Knowing exactly what you're cap not only capable of but what your best product can be what you really and over the years the threads all join together all these little separate threads of your life join together then suddenly you've got a nice thick rope and that's that's that's I can climb this one. This is me I've made this this is this is who I am and I now know how to express it in this way.

SPEAKER_01

So I d I I I don't know I mean maybe you know people like the boy Chatterton you know Keats as a young man hit the ground running uh and actually know a lot of people are very successful very young with with art I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here um yeah well yeah there are a lot there are a lot of well especially in the in the music world there are a lot of music world yeah yeah I mean even even inventors Thomas Edison had to fail 99 times before he made an electric light bulb so there you go you just had to keep on going but I love what you're saying Richard we know I started singing maybe eight years ago and uh at first I was very very poor at it but ultimately I became okay and then one time I started I I sang a slow serious song and the cabaret director said Norman just stick with the funny songs just that's not you it's just not you and so but now that I finally kind of get it that okay I like something a little bit humorous a little bit of show offiness in on stage I'm not gonna sing a ballad I'm not gonna give me a top hat and okay exactly go go for it yeah well that whole American tradition

SPEAKER_03

Of the vaudeville tradition in America and with the music all over in England. Right, right, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great stuff.

SPEAKER_01

So it it but it's very, very true. You have to be exactly what where you shine, where you really, really do extremely well.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and of course you don't necessarily know that to start with.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you don't.

SPEAKER_03

Or you have the arrogance of youth, you think you can do anything. You think and and that's by the way, something that every actor should need is that they should be able to go into a room and say, Yeah, I can do this. Well, of course I can ride a horse. There's stories about people, yeah, you can got the part, you got to ride a horse. Oh, I do that every day. And they think, what the fuck? How do I ride a horse? Go off and get lessons and turn up on set and uh and do it. You know, those stories are many, many of them. You just gotta say yes if you get an inkling of an opportunity and then deliver. I mean, that's a tough job acting.

SPEAKER_01

It's but it's important to be open and to try things. And if if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and that's perfectly okay. But those people who are just terribly afraid or embarrassed about starting something new, like what would have happened had you kind of seen what gaming was about or kind of got involved in games online? What would have happened if you said, that's not for me? Is did that ever occur to you? Or is it just you had the openness to say, look, I'm gonna try it, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna see what this is all about?

SPEAKER_03

Well, I mean, no, that one was a slam dunk because of I mean, we learn through play. Children learn from an early age through play. You go to school and you work, and then what do you do in the afternoons? You you play, you play games, we call them in England. Sports is another word for them. And a sport and a game and a school, they're all the same word, ludus in Latin. You know, so that that's that's part of the process, is learning. Um uh playing and learning, and and that they they seem to be a completely natural fit to go from one to the other. So that and then when you see these extraordinary worlds that the creative geniuses, uh, the developers and designers have have made for us to play online games, um, they blow your take your blow your breath away. Blow your mind. Blow your breath away. That's not really good. Um so yeah, but I just you know, I I think it naturally you keep your eyes open without even knowing it for things that are going to work for you. Right. And you know, I've I've never been interested in, I don't know, name something that people do. Um fishing. I don't go fishing. Gardening, gardening, fishing is one. That's a good point. Now that is exactly what you m you got in me to think about earlier. It's the difference between work and toil. I love work. I will spend my entire life, you know, apart from family and cooking and all that sort of stuff. I I love my work. I won't do toil. I won't I won't do the gardening. I'm just not interested. Um I can't I can change a light bulb, but you know, fuse, I maybe. I've changed an oil in in the car a few times and you know that's it. I I but that's the point about going to work in jobs that are just not exactly your passion, but that you like being a mortgage broker, you have to do to make a living. That's to some extent, that's toil. Even though you're working it 13 hours a day and you're good at it and you put all your effort into it. Yes, the the passion work, uh which I was lucky enough to spend my life doing, uh is is that's what I that's that's where my focus is, is on s sitting at the desk and coming up with whatever I come up with, or else spending months avoiding doing it because I can't think what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But that's the focus, not the not not the other stuff outside.

SPEAKER_01

You have to you yes, exactly. You have to discard things that are just out of your realm or things that are not terribly interested, that you're not terribly interested in in order to really excel at what you really, really love to do.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and it and it's hard when the when it's not going, when the muse isn't whispering in your ear. But you've got to come to the point where you say, This is all this is all um research, this is all input. My work is output, but the output's got to come from something. So living a life and explore- I remember some old writer said to me, you know, you want to live while you're young, so you've got something to write about when you're older. I thought that was ri really good.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_03

Uh even though you've got to start writing as soon as you can or working on your passion. But you've got to have the input's got to come in from somewhere. Inspiration. I always was fascinated by the concept of inspiration. I only recently learned, well, a few years ago, what the word actually means. That intrinsically, the the etymology of the word. Well, you've heard you've heard of expiring. We die. Exactly. Expiring.

SPEAKER_01

Inspiring is bringing into you, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Ah, that's where I was wrong. Expiring, you die. You breathe out. Spiro, S P-I-R-O, is the Latin word for breathe. Right, okay. Okay. So spy S B I R O. So in expiration is breathing out. So breathe ex exhaling is another word. Inspiration doesn't mean in. It means into. So inspiration is the muse whispering into your ear. The muse breathing into your ear. And I always wanted to know where inspiration came from. Where did Shakespeare get his inspiration? Well, the answer is it comes from outside. You've got to keep your eyes open, learn and keep your wits about you, and the muse will speak to you. You know, like you're sitting at your desk and you can't think what you're doing, so you take the dog for a walk, and halfway around the park you're sitting on the bench with a notebook scribbling away because the idea has come from when you're not staring at it.

SPEAKER_02

Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03

Uh so the muse, you've got to respect the muse and wait for her to whisper in your ear. And to and sometimes you need to really flog yourself to death in order to get her attention. You know, you've got to get up really early and say and sit in front of the I've got to deliver this by 10:30 this morning.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Just do it. You know, don't don't don't flannel about, just bloody well do it and get the thing on and then hope for the best.

SPEAKER_01

I I gotta tell you, Richard, one thing it's so interesting, this whole conversation, but one thing that's really, really inspired me, and I love the inspiration, I never in a million years never ever would have looked at anything about gaming online or fantasy books ever, right? Or current fantasy books, but today's conversation inspired me to kind of go ahead and take a look at it. Now, what would be a good starting point for anybody who's never done gaming online and never done fantasy online? Where would one start with something like that? If somebody was just curious, okay, what's this all about? Why are people interested in this?

SPEAKER_03

Perfectly easy. Go to RichardSparks.com and pick up free. I kind of thought you'd say something like that, but that's not great. You've got there, you can get free chapters. There's a free chapter of each book, or a free audio chapter of me reading the audiobooks, because I did those. I had uh Fred Sanders produce them, Fred Saunter, excuse me, who produced the Game of Thrones audiobook. So I had a very good director. So there are three free chapters, one from each book, and three free audio chapters with me reading them. So go to there and listen to a free chapter and see see if it appeals. Otherwise, you know, you would you might have seen the Lord of the Rings films, for example. That's a pretty deep classic. So those books written in the 50s are are still their masterworks.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Um George R. R. Martin's um uh Song of Ice and Fire, is it called? A dance, I don't know. Um the Game of Thrones series. Game of Thrones series. Extremely well written. I mean that he's a really good writer. Um I I you know I came across those completely by accident, because my daughter by that stage was very you know, was reading voraciously, and I was going to Las Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker. I'd I'd won a seat, I got into the main event.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03

So I said to my daughter, I need something to read. It's going to be days off. What do you what do you recommend? She said, get get Game of Thrones. So I went to Barnes and Noble in Las Vegas. And do I buy this book or do I buy the whole set? I'll buy the whole set. My daughter says it's good. And she she's never steered me wrong. And so on, you know, so you play poker all day, and then the next day is your day off. So I just sit and sit in my room and read the Game of Thrones books. So that was and they're very, very good. I I mean, you know, he's an extraordinarily talented writer.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I know everybody loves the TV show, that's for darn sure. Yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_03

I thought it was great. And I was worried that it wouldn't be any good because those books are huge. Yeah. There's only about 20% of the books in the TV series, but very well done. I I was a little, you know, because I am a TV writer, I was. So I was a little bit thinking, oh dear, I hope they don't mess it up. And they didn't. By by George, they didn't. They did a really good job. Good directors. But it's interesting, once they overtook George's writing, they got lost. Because the people who were then, they're not as good as he is. Whoever was writing the scripts were fine script writers, but they weren't George R. R. Martin, even though he wrote some of the scripts. What I'm saying is once the stories got beyond the point where he'd written the books, um they well, they didn't know how to end the series, and so they basically just threw it away, which was really kind of a sad thing at the end of all that. You know, the the heroine that you've been rooting for for all those years suddenly turns mad. I mean, no, if you wanted to end like that, you've got to set it up better. You can't just get stuff coming out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_03

But it was still a great show and wonderful, really good performances, some some you know, some smashing uh work done. Uh you know, it was it was it was it was must-see television.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Well, it was I think it was number one here in America, that's for sure. I mean, for a long, long, long time.

SPEAKER_01

People just stopped what they were doing just to watch Game of Thrones. So yeah, that's and it was beautiful.

SPEAKER_03

It was just looked lovely, didn't it? Shot in Iceland and somewhere in the Balkans, Slovenia or Slovakia or Croatia or something. Just great. Just you know we're very lucky when people do work that good.

SPEAKER_01

Great TV, yeah. And one last question that I have for you, Richard. Okay, so you I've got your books here. I can take a look at that. But how about just in general, online with a gaming type thing? Like what uh fantasy game would you recommend?

SPEAKER_03

Well, the ones that I love were the Elder Scrolls games. Uh people you might have heard of Skyrim. That's uh one of the that's the last one in the series. We were still waiting, it's like 15 years later, for the sequel to that. There have been four in the series so far. Skyrim was a real step forward. You create your own character, you blunder around and and get up to adventures. Uh that also the there's of course the world of warcraft. There's um what's the other thing? Um Baldur's Gate. Um plenty of and and I like the space um Mass Effect 2 and 3 were very good. Mass Effect 4 fell to bits.

SPEAKER_01

How do you spell that Mass ETRX? Mass Atrex?

SPEAKER_03

Mass, M-A-S-S S Effect, E F F E C T. Mass Effect 2 and 3 were very good. Those are space set out in space.

SPEAKER_01

That'd be interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And they're very easy to pick up. Every game has a training sequence at the beginning. And it's not like formal training, but that you're basically in a in a safe place to learn how to climb up walls, for example. If you're doing Assassin's Creed, you learn how to apsile up walls. I didn't like Assassin's Creed because I'm not interested in killing people. And you know, the hero of that is an assassin. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh well, one thing that uh it just perks my curiosity, and I'm so interested, uh not today, because I don't I've got other things to do today, but I want to go onto these sites and see exactly what how this intriguing this can be, and what what I can create from something like this. So one thing that I'm interested in, just as a question to you, is with these games or this gaming online, or with your books or things like that, how does that what does it do to somebody who's never been involved in something like that? How does it spur curiosity and creativity and things of that sort?

SPEAKER_03

As I said earlier, Norman, you are the hero of your own story. Get Skyrim, go on to Steam.com. I think it's go onto Steam, get Skyrim, S-K-Y-R-I-M, and download it. You know, I think it costs a bit to buy the game, and after that you own it. And you'll spend hundreds of hours playing, and you'll, you know, make a make a character of yourself.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03

The story unfolds, and you learn how to do this and how to trade and how to survive and how to come up with stuff, and you'll find yourself, you know, you're and there you are, the character you create is is running around doing what you, you know, all you need is a mouse and a keyboard. Uh and you're off and running.

SPEAKER_01

It's like being in a movie. It's like being in a movie. So it's kind of like you're creating something, you're getting some pleasure out of it, you're you're enjoying its entertainment, and it's something that brings you pleasure and something that is just fun for the time that you're involved in it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and if you then get get further down that rabbit hole, you will next then go to a game like Elder Scrolls Online, where you are part of a team of other real people all over the world. I mean, I haven't played that in years, but that was a great one. That was the one that I was playing when I had the idea of what would it really be like to be like this for real. Not not in a game, but in a world like this. Me. So uh and then and then you're galloping around getting up to mischief with other people. And my business partner, I have a business um, and he he he's uh I think it's World of Warcraft he does. Oh and he's got his team, and he's he does and these, you know, on your earphones chatting away while you're while you're doing adventures.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_03

You know, and not everyone just wants to sit back and watch television or watch a play or watch a movie.

SPEAKER_01

They want to be part of it. They want to be part of it, sure. This would seem like uh you're right, it m far more interesting than just sitting there watching TV. Far more interesting.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and one of the things I get asked about all the time is you know, you're uh aren't you a bit old for this sort of thing? Yeah. Well, I discovered one day when I was, I think it was Elder Scrolls Online, I was playing that, and into the chat came up from a guildmaster. And you you you can join a guild, you don't have to if you want to, but you can trade with people in the guild or go on adventures with them. You make friends, and it's like a club. Uh and the guild master typed in, does anyone want to take over running the guild? I'm going to be 85 next week and I want to retire. And I th I and I thought, of course, everyone online is a kid. They're all, we're all, you know, pretending to be 12. But no, 85-year-old lady who ran this thing and she did it very well. No, I don't want to run a guild, it's a lot of work. But if you're into that kind of admin uh thing online and trading and helping people live their lives, uh yeah, it's an incredible community. I mean, it it it's and it's you know, look, what one of us doesn't like adventure, and now you don't have the knees for it because you you can't climb mountains anymore at our age, but you can sit and have adventures in your own room with your own computer and your own screen.

SPEAKER_01

Right, right. Well, that's that's so important to take away from our talk today that this is an opportunity for more adventure, more creativity, more excitement and life to instead of just sitting around, because people, you know, in their 60s and their 70s, oftentimes some of them are just sitting, or some of them are not, don't have that much to do. But to find something that's creative, exciting, entertaining, and fun, hey, why not? That would be funny.

SPEAKER_03

Well, that's and that's exactly where new rock, new role start, R-O-L-E, because a rock is a planet, you know, you go to a rock and a third rock from the sun. Our hero, me, the first person narrator, is a retired school teacher, a widower, sitting alone in his little bungalow in in a small village in England. And he's just an avid gamer. He's discovered gaming through his nephew, and he and his two mates, one's who's an Asian American girl from Orange County, he's never met her, and the other's an Australian character whose Avatar is an orc. So he's kind of this monster on his side. He's his his his mate, you want one of these behind you in battle, big ugly bugger like him. And the girl is the sword dancing, you know, skilful, cool as a cucumber and deadly as deadly as sin. And the three of them just happen to be a really great team. He's the he's the caster, he's the healer, he he makes sure that they work in battle. And the three of them are an unstoppable team. But they've never met in real life.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_03

And there, and then of course, you know, having he just stuff when he's transplanted or whatever, he's um he's young again, which is kind of what you are when you're playing another character.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03

You know, you're charging around, you're not your knees don't creak when you're when you're running your avatar.

SPEAKER_01

I I love what you said that you're just not too old. You know, people in their 70s or 80s are playing games online and they're doing this and they're enjoying their life. Their body may not be able to climb, like you say, Mount Kilimanjaro, but they certainly can climb the you know fantasy mountains out in that world. That's true.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. And there's a com and you get this community in your ear, you know, that you people live in these games. Uh, and and it's it's it's very, very healthy. Yeah. I mean, community is healthy, and there's, you know, one of the things that you read about is the epidemic of uh loneliness among older people.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Which is, you know, as social creatures we need our communities. And there, there is your family out there. Many of the great fantasy books are about found family. And definitely the new Rockney Roll series is there he finds his family, his true family, who he, you know, the found not the ones he's related to, but and you know, even the even the scoundrels that he meets who who uh betray him right at the beginning. And yeah, they they they meet up and then they team up later, and and you know, one thing leads to another, and all these characters uh fulfill his life.

SPEAKER_01

Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the key, yeah. To to have a life that you enjoy, to have a life that you know of creativity and excitement and freedom in the sense of being able to do what you can do uh despite any limitations and things like that. So uh it's a blessing, isn't it? It's a blessing. It really is. I mean, after uh after today's talk, Richard, I'm gonna go on, go take a look at your books, and I'm gonna go take a look at uh one of these uh one of these gaming sites. It's uh what a fascinating conversation this morning. So thank you, thank you, thank you very, very much for this. And would you mind afterwards, after I take a look at these things, if I just email you what encountered?

SPEAKER_03

Because really, you've inspired me. You've it will open your eyes, Norman. You will find yourself going way down this rabbit hole. Uh and uh you will, it's just great, you know, because life is all about lots of different experiences.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

What's what's wrong with going down a great rabbit hole for a bit, you know, and then come out the other side and yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Absolutely, have fun, man. It's it's great.

SPEAKER_01

You're gonna love it. I'm gonna love it. And this is something totally new for me. And one of the things that I'm I'm always you know looking for is new adventures, new excitement, something to grow into. Like one of the things, and I'll end it right here, but one of the things my kids are always asking me, I mean, recently I went online and I hired this um trainer, and his what he does, he's a physical fitness trainer, but what he does is he specializes in training people how to do handstands, you know, statistically on your hands, right? Yeah, I used I used to walk on my hands when I was a kid. Right. When when you're a kid, right? Yeah, I'm 71 years old, and my kids are asking me, Dad, what are you doing? What are you doing here? Richard, there's absolutely no reason there's no reason why I'm doing it except for trying to accomplish something new and seeing if I can do it and seeing what's out there. And this is the same type of thing. Of course, it's not in the physical way, but in a experiential type way, to go out and find new things, new adventures is really, really the focus and the key for living an exciting and vibrant life. And that's one of the takeaways that I have from today, which I'm really blown away by it. And I appreciate you, you know, the time that we spent and you inspiring me on something like that. It's been really, really great.

SPEAKER_03

Well, well, thank you. And let's leave the last word with Lewis Carroll, shall we? You are old, Father William. The young man said, Do you think at your age it is right to do cartwheels down the road and stand on your head or whatever it was? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

Go for it. It's definitely right. It's definitely right. It's definitely right. So, anyway, thank thank you. Have a safe flight back to England. I know that's where you're going today.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you. Let me know. Listen to the listen to my sample chapter, uh certainly the first book, and let me know what you think of it. Write me and say, I'm not gonna read the rest of this crap. Or I think I might take a look at this.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely, and I'll definitely be in touch. I'm going to actually I'm going to Paris uh actually tomorrow. I'm going to Paris for five days. So uh it'll be afterwards, but I'll definitely recontact you next week. It'd be great. Excellent. All right. Well, thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Richard. Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you again.

Contributor

Norman Calvo

Host