Author Johnny B. Truant on Weird Fiction, SyFy, and Following Your Heart

In this episode, author T. Thorn Coyle speaks with bestselling author Johnny B. Truant about his creative journey, the importance of finding one's audience, and the magic of storytelling. The two authors explore the challenges and joys of being a full-time creative, the significance of collaboration, and the personal practices that support artistic endeavors. Along with talking about having his novel series adapted for a SyFy series, Johnny shares insights on the value of creativity, the role of human connection in the creative process, and his current goals for growth and freedom in his work.

You can find out more about Johnny at: https://www.johnnybtruant.com
Enjoy this podcast? Join Thorn's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/ThornCoyle

Transcript

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Hello friends, it's T. Thorn Coyle. Welcome back to Magic, Creativity and Life, Interesting Conversations with Interesting People. And this week, this episode, I'm talking with author Johnny B. Truant, who's a really interesting person. He's been on my radar for several years because of his books, because of his work early on with the Smarter Artists Summit, other things like that. But I had never met him. until we were both in Las Vegas last November at the Author Nation Conference. It was great meeting him. We had a really nice connection. And you'll hear a little bit about that in our conversation where he's talking about getting one of his book series made into television for the SyFy channel. It's now on Hulu. And the thing I like about Johnny is like so many of my author friends He's very successful, you know, even has a TV show. And yet I bet most of you have never heard of him. And that is the way things work right now. We're not all listening to the same music, watching the same films or TV shows. We're not all reading the same books. So all of us, both as readers and viewers and as creative people, get to find our niche and we get to connect with our people, the folks who most resonate with us. And Johnny is a great example of that. He loves connecting directly with his readers and that's where he finds his success. Just like that's where I find my success as well. So I enjoyed this conversation. Now let's move on to a little bit of personal news. I am still writing my Contemporary fantasy based on the loosely based on the Thomas the Rhymer Ballad and I'm enjoying it. I'm nearing the end of this draft and Excited to finally have a first reader dive into it the other thing I've been doing is Doing the final edits and formatting on my resistance matters essay collection So I can get print proofs ordered this week and then send out the eBooks to my Kickstarter backers and with the print books to follow both paperback and hardback. And those will be available to the general public in early July. So that's my Resistance Matters project. Other than that, I just presented at the Author Alchemy Summit, which was terrific. And I'm preparing to teach at Sacred Space. in Maryland next month in March and perhaps I'll see some of you there. So that's about it for personal news. I hope you're weathering all the metaphorical and literal storms these days and wishing you well. Let's dive into my interview and conversation with Johnny B. Truant. one last thing. Thanks, Patreon people. I appreciate you. Hello everybody, welcome back to Magic, Creativity, and Life. Today I'm talking with Johnny B. Truant, who is the bestselling author of Fat Vampire, which was adapted by the SyFy network as Reginald the Vampire. His other books include Pretty Killer, Gorepoint, Invasion, The Beam, Dead City, Unicorn Western, and over 100 other titles across many genres. Originally from Ohio, Johnny and his family now live in Austin, Texas, where he's finally surrounded by creative types as weird as he is. Johnny, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thank you. I enjoy my own bio. I was listening to that I was like, weird as I am thing is, I've gotten used to it, but that was a big deal, moving to Austin and being around weird people. So what was it like being a weird person in Ohio? Then let's just start there. You know, I'm it's funny, I pass for non weird. can be like an undercover. I think of Jo Penn talking about how she's a vanilla goth, she's goth on the inside. And I think that, I I'm, I'm able to walk amongst the normies pretty well. Right. but there wasn't a lot of creative energy where I used to live. And, and I guess what that means is I just, I didn't casually run into. to friends unless I sought them out who understood what I did at all, who understood what it was to be creative and to kind of need to be creative. And just to really think outside a lot of the usual boxes. so moving here was better. I found my people. Good. So that brings me to the question I usually open with, which is, what are your creative roots? Has it always been writing, you know, even as a child or did you experiment with other creative expressions? I know actually the answer to that question. You're also a musician, right? So why don't you talk a little bit about your creative roots and how things progressed for you. Oh man. Musician is really overstating it. Thank you. Um, it is funny. That's the first time I've been referred to as a musician and I get why you say it. use a, um, uh, an avatar of me playing my guitar. I really like playing the guitar. Um, I started just a handful of years ago with that, maybe five, six years, and I really love it. Um, but I, I never was, did any music at all. And it was just something I always kind of wanted to do. I was much more. I did write from a very early age. have a memory of, being out of my grandmother's Lanai in Florida. And she had like a little typewriter in a case that, you know, was like its own suitcase and sitting out there with actual literal keys and a typing ribbon, telling stories. so that was always something that I did. And through high school, I had a quote column in our school's newspaper so that I could do something that wasn't just like reporting, which. I'm not into. But I've always needed to, I suppose it sounds a little trite, but I've always needed to express myself and I've always kind of insisted upon it in everything that I do to the detriment of financial wellbeing in a lot of cases, which really makes my wife, who's an accountant, pretty happy. Yeah, I've been the same. You I always wanted time more than I wanted money because I wanted to follow whatever creative pursuits because I've done a lot of different. I've always been a writer since like around age five, but I've also done a whole host of other creative projects. And I set up my life to work weird jobs so I could create. And so the fact that I can like make a living as a creative now is fantastic. Yeah, I, I come from creative stock. I, I had, I had good, I had unconventional role models. I had, I had role models that kind of made it impossible for me to just do the normal thing, the nine to five working in a cubicle. That was never really possible because my dad, after years and years working in advertising to kind of legitimize his, creative pursuits to his parents, eventually said, Screw that. I don't want to do advertising. I want to do art, which was at the root of what he was doing. And he became, he said, I'm going to embark on the career of being a starving artist. He didn't actually say that, but then he did it. so he, he liked, he paints like paint, paints paintings and, and plays his guitar all day. And that's, that's what he does and has done for a really long time. And my mom, like he owned a gallery and all that stuff with just his stuff. and my mom was, She was in, she had a branding and marketing communications company, always art art adjacent. You know, they that's a creative field, but she was always very good with business. she, knew how and liked the idea of combining business and her art. so she, you know, she really did well in those creative fields, but as a boss, like as a, as a legitimate business that was very successful and then in retirement, she paints. So. You know, it's like, that was always a possibility for me in a way that I don't think it is for a lot of people. And I think that with my kids too. It certainly wasn't for me. I was raised working class and working poor. so then my parents were like, well, you're smart. So at least like then go to college and do something if you know, you're not going to go into the trades because you're this weird geek, right? And then I didn't do that. I was like, I want to be a writer. And that freaked my family out. And my family still doesn't understand. Even though I've written as many books as I've written and I make my living as an artist. So I did not have that growing up. Although I did have support in a weird way. Like my mom would drive me to my theater rehearsals as a kid, things like that. So there was support for artistic creation, but there also wasn't a lot of comprehension of it. So I had kind of a mixed bag. I think I may have gotten lucky on that front in that my parents were both artists, but even when my mom was working her, when she had her business hat on, I think that there would have been a chance there for her to be like, you know, why don't you do something productive? But she never did. Right. She always just kind of understood what I did. And, there, there was one time that I remember I had a really, respectable career going there for a while before I decided to join the hooligans over here in writing land. And, I was going to be a geneticist of all things. So I, I was, you know, I went to school, I was valedictorian in my high school. I went to school for molecular genetics. I, you know, summa cum laude, all that stuff. And then I went to grad school for genetics. And I know that, when I was like, mom, don't think I want to keep doing this. And there was just a little bit of, has it, Ooh, are you sure? Are you sure? But that was it. Like that was all I got. And I often wonder. how people handle that like strong pushback or disapproval that I've fortunately never had to deal with. Yeah, I mean, it's part of why it wasn't the only reason, but it's part of why I had to move away from my family because I just knew I needed to do what I was going to do. And I couldn't do it in the cauldron of their gaze constantly, you know. So I moved from L.A., which I hated Los Angeles anyway. No offense to people who love Los Angeles and moved to San Francisco when I was 18. And that sort of began my quest towards freedom and creative expression, think. How long have you been a full-time writer then? think it's been about 12 years. I did, I'm trying to even remember. See, the thing is I'm, I've always been classically unemployable. So even before I was a full-time writer, it's not like I was working in an office. I did kind of the internet thing. There's lots of, lots of vestiges of my prior internet life out there. If you were to Google for me, I don't know how to describe it other than I was. An outspoken blogger who of course surprise surprise. did everything via writing That was the reason that I was interesting to people but I I sold courses and did coaching and did that sort of thing but when I I think it was in 2012 that I wrote my first it was my technically my second book, but it was my first book of this kind of new wave that was Fat Vampire and that was a series and by the when I published I think it was the fourth book It was like, okay, I could do this full time. And before that, it was just a handful of months really of pushing and trying to make it work. like you said about time, the minute I was like, this is fun. I wanna do more of this. And the only way to do it is to buy more time, meaning make more money with the book so that you don't have to do anything else. Right, right. So, Fat Vampire, you know, that's paranormal, but it's still weird. It's even weird for paranormal. And pretty much all your books are really weird. And it's amazing to me because people in the writing community often say, you know, write to market, stay in your lane, do things this way. And the thing I have admired about you watching you from afar for years is it seems like you just said, screw that. I'm doing what I want. I am letting my freak flag fly and I'm doing writing these very strange books. And I love that you have found an audience. Thank you for that. I'm, I'm incapable of doing the normal thing. And again, this is, this is strange because I do present very normally. but it's true. I'm, kind of incapable of being normal long-term and that includes in my books. And I know, so I've written most of my books in collaboration with Sean Platt and there were times when Sean and I were like, you know, just as an experiment, we write really fast. We can pivot really quickly. It was an experiment. Why don't we try selling out? Like we use those terms, right? So we were like the first, the first one was we, we did it. remember there were two distinct times we tried to sell out. The first time was we wrote a book called Invasion and invasion is super page turning and, like we engineered it that way. And we, was, it was a little unnatural in the rhythm in that we had to We forced ourselves to do very short chapters with cliffhangers. then after the cliffhanger, you changed to a different group. So you don't even get resolution on that cliffhanger. And then the second group gets a cliffhanger and that sort of thing. And it was meant to be like, keep people turning, keep people turning just to see if we could do it. And we had this grand plan of at the time, I don't know if this is still true. Amazon, had categories within sci-fi nested categories. And it was like alien invasion, colonization. Alien contact. Like I don't remember, but there were a bunch of them in a row. And so the names of our books in the series were invasion, contact, colonization. Like we even keyword stuffed the titles. And, I mean, they were single word titles. They weren't those long, annoying ones, but after book one, like we kept book one, very commercial and page turning, but after book two, it got all plat and truant, right? Like it got all weird and, Maybe weird is the wrong word in this specific case, but it's like it became philosophical and thoughtful and layered and not an easy, quick read in the way that the first book was, which did super well, by the way. And then the second time we tried to sell out was we decided again, as an experiment, let's see if we can write romance. And the answer is no, because it became very... layered and same thing, like same thing. Like we were connecting the books together in more than a, you see the guy pass and he'll be the hero in the next one. Like that's usually the way that romances do sequels or there's an ongoing story, but we would create this web of like who's with whom and this whole thing. And we even tried branching into erotica. And then there was a decision that was made that It's a long story, but it ended up being like, well, that can just be an Easter egg for our world of the beam, which is this sci-fi world. It was going to be this like sci-fi erotica. And it became this huge series called the future of sex, which is not erotica at all. At all. We actually had to go back through and remove all the explicit stuff because it was so neither nor. was like the erotic people didn't want hard science fiction in their erotica and the science fiction people were kind of skeeved up at the fact that it was just so explicit. So like those were my attempts. So I think in answer to your question, it wasn't really a question. You stated that they're weird. can't not be weird in my books. And some are more overtly weird. Like unicorn Western is quirky and tongue in cheek. And, I think the stories are very coherent once you're into them, but it's a weird concept or it crosses genres and it's. I did kind of say screw it, I'm gonna write what I want because I'm in this for the joy of creativity and so I don't understand why I would go halfway. Like if I'm jumping ship from a normal job to be creative and do what I want, I don't know why I would stop at like, well, limited creativity, let me stay inside the box of creativity. That didn't make sense to me. And so to my own detriment, plenty of times, it's much, harder for me than I think it is for a lot of people because you don't immediately identify what it is that I do. Like I don't stick to one genre. don't, I mean, I'm all over the place and even the books themselves cross genres, but it just, I think it's a longer game and it's, I have to kind of trust that people will take time to get to know me, but then it's a better bond once they do. found the same thing. I'm not quite as all over the map as you are genre wise, although I write in every genre in short fiction. But my novels tend to be fantasy or fantasy adjacent, like paranormal cozy mystery. It's more cozy mystery than it is fantasy, but it still has a paranormal element, which brings the fantasy in. But then I also write nonfiction, you know, on spiritual practice, of all things. And what I have found is the same, that stronger bond. I have people who read everything I write. It doesn't matter if it's alt history fantasy, epic fantasy, urban fantasy, or cozy paranormal. They love it all. But it also means my audience is smaller, I think. And that's OK with me. I make a living, and I'm really grateful to the people who read my books. And I don't, I can't do it any other way. I'm like you in that I've got to just write what I'm called to write and live the way I'm called to live, you know? Yeah. I think that that's kind of in a writer's DNA. I do have an anecdote that, that I think is, is interesting. I don't know what it means necessarily, but, I think that we were talking at Author Nation the day before RAVE. I, so I had never sold books in person before, but I was like, well, they gave me a table because I'm a speaker. so, okay, let's try it. So fast forwarded today. I'm, I'm in love with selling my books in person. So I've, I've been. scouring places to find places where I can actually meet readers and who don't even know me. Like I'm not talking people who know me and they walk by, ooh, books, did you write those? And what I found in those situations is that there isn't a genre affinity for the vast majority of people who stop by. It's they will, because I do a few things. If they walk by and they don't even look over, I just let them go. If they look over all, it'd be like, how's it going? Good morning, that sort of thing. And then if they linger at all, I'll ask them, are you a reader? then followed on by what kind of books do you read? And so that's kind of my opening salvo. What kind of books do you read? And almost exclusively, all sorts of things. You know, I'll get a few people who are like, I read historical fiction and Clive Custler. I'd say, well, I'm not going to be able to help you. I'm sorry. But most people. They're just interested in a good story in that environment. I thought that was really interesting because it's so predominant. That is interesting. I know when I have sold in person, I've done well because I have a wide enough variety that someone can find something, right? Whereas when I've shared a table with friends who have a really deep catalog instead of a wide catalog, they have much more trouble at live events because there's only one thing to hook the reader, right? There's only one type of book. Yes, and actually I have so many books and have been on such a tear with selling in person that it's like I'm just eager to get more and more books into paperback. And so I was counting the other day, I just got a new shipment in and I said, like I'm in around like, I don't know, 70 books in paperback that are in my living room right now. And it's enough that in a 10 by 10 vendor stall, I'm like, should I create genre sections? Yeah, because you have your own bookstore now. Right! It's my own bookstore and it has as much variety as a lot of bookstores. So I thought that was... I don't know. We'll see what happens. Yeah. You know, I'm, when you're talking about reader response in person, I'm thinking back to a story you told me while we were talking in the hallway at Author Nation about the response that the crew had to finding out you were the author when you were on the Fat Vampire, when you were on the Reginald the Vampire set. And I just loved that so much that Because I never, I always heard stories about Hollywood that, the writer is like, please don't come visit the set. Like you're this weird prima donna and we don't care about you. We don't want your spoon in our pot, you know? But the fact that people were excited to meet you was so charming to me. And I wondered if you have any thoughts about that you want to share. Yeah, I have lots of thoughts on that. So, the first one I'll toss out, and this is more of an aside is that I've heard that too, like writers don't come to the set, that sort of thing. but I think what I've noticed that there's a big difference, unfairly. So I think between the people who are writers on the show and the people, like an author of a book. So the writers on the show are often not really, I don't think that. I don't think people really think about them that much. Like, and they're just kind of like, well, who are you? And that would, that would be weird. As far as authors, I've heard, I've heard a few different reports and it depends entirely on the author. So a story that I don't think I told you is that, so, just for backstory, I have my fat vampire series became a sci-fi series called Reginald the vampire, which is on Hulu now. And I went up to visit the set. And the show runner is a guy named Harley Payton and Harley and his business partner, Jeremiah, um, who purchased it and sold it to the networks and stuff. had a bunch of just initial meetings and this is before anything was really conceived and nothing was written down. And Harley had this kind of tentative thing when we were talking, he said, you know, I, I, there's some things I'm thinking about changing. And there was something in his tone that just. Like I could tell he'd been bitten before. And I said, I don't really care what you change. It's like, it's my concept and you're going to do what you're going to do with it. And it's going to be different and it should be different and that's fine. And then it was like, he just, I don't think I heard a sigh of relief, but that was the mood like, good. Because there's so many writers out there who are really precious and they'll say, you screwed that up. And that person didn't look like that. And you changed this plot line. And so because I made a point to respect what others were bringing to the table, and this is true of actors as well, and the people like the lighting director and the assistant directors, like all of those people are bringing something to it. by respecting what they did rather than seeing them as little action figures that were being moved around by the grand authority that was my book, that immediately changed things right away. I've been able to get away with a bunch of stuff that writers don't normally get to get away with. So I don't know that it'll ever see the light of day, but I did talk them into recording a companion podcast and I recorded eight out of 10 episodes before we hit some log jams, but that sort of, and to pay me for it, by the way. So they, you know, they flew me up and they, they, got paid for the podcast and that sort of thing. That's never happens. And I kept trying to elbow my way in and say, you know, I'll talk to press. Can you put me in front of press? And they still haven't introduced me to press, but they did have me moderate the panel at Comic-Con. It's San Diego's big Comic-Con for Reginald the Vampire because I wasn't a jerk. So that's kind of, yeah, super fun. But that's like my mantra for life is don't be a jerk. Like people like people who aren't jerks. And I think that's all it took. But yeah, that was amazing moderating that panel. That was an experience and a half. You know, I wonder if part of it, I'm sure, is just your personality, but part of it is you're used to collaborating, right? And film and TV, it's all collaboration. You can't make, you know, it's the thing about Orson Welles saying to make a movie, you need an army, right? It's all collaboration. And I'm wondering if your ease with collaboration, both in business and creativity helped with that. I'm actually a super crappy collaborator. I have the appearance of being a good collaborator. Like I'm just not, I'm just not good at it. The reason that Sean and my collaboration has worked. And the reason I think you're laughing is because I've done so many books with Sean Platt, like most of my books. but the reason that that works is because Sean understands how I quote collaborate, which is I'm not actually that collaborative. So when I'm in. When I'm we Sean and I do things in layers, like we'll come up with a story. It's usually mostly him. And then he gives it to me and then I'm fully in charge and he doesn't get to mess with me. And I write the book all the way through with, you know, touching base. And then I hand it over and he does editing and all this stuff. So because we do it that way and because he defers to how I write. It's never been a problem, but I don't like to share the wheel. That's the reason. So Sean and I used to be business partners. had an amicable business divorce is the way we both like to say it. And the reason is largely because I, I want to do my own thing. I want to make all the decisions. I don't want to ask for permission, but I I've learned. And I do mean learned because this was not a natural thing for me at the beginning. I've learned. don't know how the reason I'm pausing is because it makes me sound terrible. I've learned that I'm not the only person who matters. Like at the beginning, I'm an only child. And I think for a while it was just like, I know, and I'm gonna elbow my way through. And so I think that what maybe passes for, okay, with collaboration or things like I was saying with, with, with the TV story is it's like, I'm not going to collaborate with them, but I will do my own thing, but I will fully allow them to do their own thing. and respect that it is what it is, even though it owned my hands in it. I don't know if that makes any sense. Yeah, you'll you're bowing to their expertise. You know what your expertise is and you honor their expertise. Yes, I would say that's accurate. Yeah, that makes sense. So you're not like the writing team, Kit Rocha, where Donna and Bree actually really collaborate on all their series. That's interesting. yeah, that might work if Sean let me have my way all the time. Of course, now it makes me want to have a conversation with your wife. well, we're, actually very good, marriage collaborators. I mean, I'm being a little bit facetious as far as my, think that I move very quickly. I think that I make decisions, on a dime and then I want to implement right away. And it frustrates me when I have to ask for permission or if somebody disagrees. but you know, early in my marriage, I did bring some of that attitude forward and I was like, it'll be great. It'll be great. This thing that I'm doing that. that is bankrupting us, like it'll be great. And like I was into real estate investing for a while and I just kept saying, it'll be great, it'll be great. And it was not great. And so I've, I've learned, but I don't think, I think it took some hard knocks for me to go, wait a minute. I'm not the only one here. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. So I'm going to switch gears slightly. What is your creative practice if you have one? I think that my creative practice, okay, so I'm gonna answer this in a different way than I think a lot of people might. I think that when, I think the creative practice for a lot of people probably involves some sort of regular things that you do that are almost like traditions or ritualized or something like that. I don't really do any of that, but I do, I'm very, very stubborn about making room for the creative things that I wanna do. that sort of thing comes first. And I've been in situations where I've had obligations or appointments or whatever and they start to get in the way and I tend to make those things wait because I'm putting, it sounds trite, but I'm putting the art first. And I kind of insist upon that sort of thing. And... I would say I just allow myself and I'm trying to do even more of this. allow myself to take what feels like non-productive time, even when I'm really busy to do the things that make me feel good. So like for instance, yesterday I have a 16 year old daughter and I was really busy yesterday, but we like to go to the coffee shop after school on Tuesdays and work, I'll work on something and she'll study. But that's kind of early. Like it's at four 15 and I had a lot of stuff to do, but I'm like, well, that's important. I want to, I want to hang out with her and um, even if I can't get writing in, I'll jam it in. be like, well, I'm to do less of this other thing that I don't want to do so that I can get at least a little bit of writing in or um, when the house is empty, it has to be empty. I will, um, play my guitar and sing. That's why it has to be empty, because I don't want to do it in front of anybody. yesterday, again, I was busy and I was like, well, OK, I want to do that anyway, because that's a good thing to do. So I think it's less about any sort of rituals or practices and a little bit more about a holistic attitude. Yeah, that's actually similar to mine. I don't have set rituals or even set times, although I try to write first thing in the morning because that's better. I get more words in if I can do that, but I can't always, you know, and especially, you know, I have an autoimmune disorder and sometimes I have terrible brain fog in the morning and the writing's just not going to come. And so then I do an afternoon session instead, but it's the same with me. The creativity always has to come first. And your guitar playing reminds me I'm an amateur, very amateur photographer, right? And that's important to me. It's important to have a creative expression that I'm not monetizing and I'm not trying to perfect. It's just something I do because it feeds a part of me. You know, it's interesting. I did photography too. and I did it. I don't know. Do you have a dark room? no i don't do any of that i'm just digital only although i it's funny when i was young i would i hung out with a bunch of actual photographers who did all the darkroom stuff so it gave me a great appreciation for that Yeah. Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say actual photographers. Cause that means that that implies that it's not actual photography. If you don't do that, I just, enjoyed that. think it's because I have such roots in science and it's like combining science and art. Um, I actually had a, uh, a dark room in my basement. And when I moved to college, I took my equipment and set it up in the basement of my college place too. And you know, I didn't mention that I, I don't know why I didn't think of this. Um, I used to do a lot of drawing too. So. I've been kind of around the horn on that, but it's, like, if I feel some artistic need, then I take the time for it. That's all there is to it. yeah. How about other kinds of practices? Do you have a physical practice that you do that's helpful to you or a spiritual practice that you do that's helpful to you? I try to meditate every day and it used to be that I could take longer periods of time and I should probably follow my own advice about making time and do more. but I just try to get like just 10 minutes if I can. that, that really, at this point, I wish it was more of a, of a support to my creative brain, I guess, but really it's just like, I kind of have to check it off and it calms me down. so I'd like to get back into that as far as everything else. I'm a really avid exerciser. I kind of always have been since high school. I used to be super into that and now it's making time for it amongst everything else. But like I, I lift weights. I, I was very into powerlifting for awhile. now more into climbing like rock climbing. I do indoors. I run, you know, I've done all sorts of things like that. I have a very energetic dog that I will take on long walks. sometimes. So it, really is much more about that. And I'm a real family guy. So it's very, we have a lot of family rituals, especially like around the holidays or my son is very into rituals. Like he loves his ritual rituals and traditions. So I end up, I guess I'm kind of a creature habit in that way. And I do like when things happen at the same times and I can count on them and then I can. It's almost like that story. I think it was Einstein, but I think Steve Jobs did it too with his black turtlenecks where he'd wear the same thing every day so that he didn't have to expend mental energy. And I think that it works a little like that in that if I know that everything is kind of where I left it, you know, I know what I do at this time, then I can give it my all when I'm in it. Like I don't usually work past six. I don't usually work on weekends, that sort of thing. For me, my meditation and exercise practices actually do help my creative process. Like you said, the meditation calms me down, it centers me, it makes me less scattered and gives me greater ability to just sit and be still and pound out words, right? But it also helps the rest of my life. And... I used to exercise a lot more. used to actually be a, I was a professional dancer for a while and I used to lift weights really intensively. These days, mostly I walk and do some resistance training, but if I have to take a daily walk, right? The, know, mostly cause I work from home, you know, I need to get out of the house. And also as we know, movement helps the brain, right? So It all ends up supporting my life and my creative practice, which is one reason I like asking creative people about those kinds of practices, because I think they are helpful. And I think people who only become like a big brain, I don't know how, I mean, I don't want to cast judgment because everyone's life is different, but it doesn't feel as holistic to use your word or as long-term healthy to me. I feel like we need more than that. Yeah. And I almost wonder, I mean, this might be a diversion, but, you know, I, I think I've gotten more, introspective as I've gotten older and I don't, it's to the point where I like that, that curious phenomenon of, let's say you have an emotion, you go, I wonder why I'm feeling that emotion. And that's, I don't think a lot of people do that. And I just wonder if it comes from intensive introspection and really paying attention. to what's going on inside my head. And so I wonder if that's the reason that some people don't do some of those things is not necessarily because they don't want to, but because they're not aware that it's bothering them again, like I'm presuming, but I do have a small story about this that kind of came to mind just here. And it was, it was like maybe two years ago, something like that. so I had been working very closely with, Sean and his company, Sterling and stone. And I was, this was before the business divorce. And, that wasn't a real good fit for me because I was having, you know, I'm not a good collaborator really. And, but it did have me around people like we would have meetings and there was a Slack group. And so I had this feeling of being in touch with other people. And when that stopped, it was like, watch what you wish for. Because I didn't really like meetings. I didn't really want to be involved in the business. So on the surface, it made a lot of sense and it felt good that I didn't have any of that stuff going on. But then it was like this malaise set in and you don't notice a malaise because it's like an absence of positivity. And you you don't, it's not strong enough to like punch you in the gut or whatever. So you just kind of like go on, at least for me. And I remember after a series of back and forths, I was kicking this back and forth with my wife. She's like my sounding board for and I was like for just about everything and I'm like describing this and she goes, oh you're you're lonely. And it was weird that I didn't realize but it's true because if we don't force ourselves to go out and have other interactions and you know I had friends and stuff but during the day I was by myself all the time staring in front of a computer. And so I even wrote a post on my sub stack about this like I thought I might. go teach at a college. always enjoyed the college environment and I looked into that a little bit and it's, it's harder than you think, like to just get a guest spot and speak. And so I kind of pushed that aside and some other things happened, but what I found is that this live selling thing scratches that exact same edge. And I think it's why I like it so much. I mean, I'm literally going to farmers markets on the weekends and setting up a stall and selling outside and. In one sense, there are times when I do that and I almost wonder from certain outside perspectives that that almost looks pathetic. Like, you're selling it off farmers market? Awesome. But it feeds a part of me. It feeds that quiet extrovert that I don't always acknowledge is within me where I want to interact with people and it doesn't really matter how many books I sell, although I do quite well. It's like I just... get that human contact and that interaction with people that was always absent before. That's interesting. And you know, it makes me think, so it's not so much necessarily about a spiritual practice or a physical practice. It's about finding ways to feed different parts of ourselves. I think that that's what feels important. And so I thank you for actually telling that story because that feels key to me. And that's going to be different for everybody because for me, I have sold in person. but mostly I find it tiring. I enjoy talking to people, but for me it's like, my gosh, it's all day. I have to stand here all day. And I just don't have that kind of energy right now, right? Cause I am such an introvert that I find it draining. If I could like do an hour on half an hour off, maybe that would work, but it's the... the solid block of time. Like I was going to sell with a friend at a conference recently and then I realized it was three days I would have to do that. And I said, so I backed out. I was like, there's no way I can commit three days to this. You know, it's, funny. I think that we're, since we're creators, we're more in touch with things that are going on inside of us than, than a lot of people are. And I think that there's this tendency for a lot of people to just put their noses down and, just do the work or whatever it is. And that's where you get sentiments like, well, life doesn't have to be fair and life doesn't, you know, things happen that you don't like, and you just got to work and blah, blah, blah. Why do you think you're such a special flower that you need roses or whatever all the time? But. I think that creators are just naturally more in touch with like that's in everybody, I think, but we're more aware of it. And, and by turning in the direction of like, well, maybe I am lonely or maybe this, or maybe that, then I think that we can access those solutions. I mean, one of the big things that I've noticed, is just a mental discipline of, mean, it's quasi spiritual, if not outright spiritual of like. What happens when things go to crap and, like, you're having a really hard time or things, you know, collapse or some terrible happens and you kind of go like, could give up, but I think that the dedicated creative kind of has to find meaning in it and say, okay, well, you know, this is going to teach me something. don't know what. And, and looking back, that has been an invaluable skill, not just because it's mental gymnastics that get me to not quit, but it also tends to be true, which is really interesting too. Like there are so many things that I'm like, that was terrible. And thank God it happened because it otherwise something would have happened that I really needed. I I say that about my brain injury. I talk about the gift and all the things I learned from my brain injury, which was the most horrible point in my entire adult life, right? Both are true. And sometimes I talk about the things I learned and the gift of it and people look at me as if I've grown two heads, right? But it's true, you know? I also think, I think the other thing I wish more people realized is all the ways in which human beings are creative people, right? So you're talking about those of us who have made a commitment to creativity. But there are people who don't feel they have, and they then discount their creativity. Like I was talking with, I had a meeting with my banker a year or two ago and I was saying, well, you know, aren't you creative? She's like, no, I'm not creative at all. You know, I just do scrapbooking. And I was like, well, what do you think scrapbooking is? Right? It's your creative outlet and your creative process. And she was really pleased, but also kind of astonished, right? Because she just discounted that part of herself as something valuable and important. Yeah, I think that's true. I know that my wife would say that she isn't creative at all, but I think all people are creative. I mean, that's kind of what we're here for to create things. Just sometimes it doesn't look like what we typically think of as art, you know? Right, mean, life is creative, right? Can't have life without creativity. And the thing I love about creativity is the way in which, for me, it's a form of magic, right? We're spinning something out of nothing or we're taking raw material and turning it into something else. And, you know, those of us that write genre fiction, we... work with magic a lot, right? We work with the strange and the unknowable and we do what a friend of mine calls trying to F the ineffable, you know, what is this thing and how is it manifesting? And I'm wondering what your thoughts are about the magic of creativity or magic in general. Well, think that it's, let me put it this way. So Stephen King has a metaphor in his book On Writing, which I highly recommend. love that book. So you would know this metaphor and it's the idea of the buried fossil that in Stephen's estimation, he believes that stories are not things that are created, but they're things that are discovered. And so your job is to notice something like, you know, piece of a fossil sticking out of the ground and to carefully excavate it. And I'm not a plotter. I wouldn't say I'm a pantser, but I'm kind of somewhere in the middle. And the only way to get through a story for me is to begin getting through the story. And once it's going, I never know where it's going to go. And they always surprise me. I had a really interesting experience just very recently where I'm doing the third book in a trilogy. That's actually have a Kickstarter launching like next week or something. And I didn't remember the book because it's been like two years since I wrote it. And I was, I was just like, I need to read. need to get a cover made. How am going to like put any graphics up for the Kickstarter without the cover? And I don't have time to read the book. And it was just this whole thing. And, um, I mean, I ended up having AI summarize it for me, which, helped, but Then I started reading it because I wanted to be able to number one, check for final typos, but also to, I do an author's commentary and I was reading through it and there's this character who, appears in previous books and your bit, basically have a loop closed where you find out where that character came from. But I did this thing where I was writing along in this third book and I was being about it. was describing a character then and then you get to the end you realize that that's that guy right like that's that guy from the previous books and I was so genuinely pleased. I was like now I wrote this book but yet I was like well I didn't see that coming at all and I won't remember things I mean that that one has an excuse that's two years out. I've had people tell me something that I just wrote and they'd be like that was really cool or whatever and I'd be like why did Did that happen? I don't remember that. You know, it's like I'm pulling it from somewhere else. So yeah, I totally and completely believe that. I don't know how it works necessarily. I couldn't guess at the mechanics of it, but, I'm a, I'm kind of a, like I said, I'm, I'm, I'm Joanna Penn's vanilla goth. Like, I'm, I'm much more mystical and spiritual than a lot of people probably think, because I think that the creative act requires a lot of faith. Yeah, yeah. I'm writing a book in a brand new, what I'm hoping is a brand new series and I'm in act four and it literally is writing itself at this point because I have no idea what's coming next. Yeah, and you know, people who read my mysteries have remarked to me, wow, I can never guess who done it, right? I never know. who killed the person or who stole the thing. And I said, that's good. It's because I don't know either. Right. I never know until I get to the end and go, right. And then sometimes I have to go back and seed in some details early in the book to plant more clues because I honestly have no clue. I have no idea. And the other thing that happens is, I don't know if this happens for you as well, but toward the end of a book, I will have strung out so many different plot lines, not necessarily different plot lines, but like little things to remember, little details and stuff, and loops to close, and why did I mention that Chekhov's gun, that I should probably do something with that, and I will keep a running list of notes just to keep myself on it. But what I always find is, oh, look at how that all came together. It's like it was planned that way from the beginning. Yeah, I do the same thing. My outline comes after, right? When I write a chapter, I'll say, I need to note this thing down because I have a feeling it's going to be important later. I don't yet know how or why, but I make a note, chapter 12, this happened, right? Have you ever had a reader tell you that you must just have some intricate plot, that it's amazing that you tied something up in book seven that was in book two or something weird like that and they just, they think that you have some grand plan, but you don't. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm not that smart. I'm smart, but I'm not that smart. Same. Like I, I've had really, really, really important twists that, that ended up deciding the entire fate of the story that I just, they just happened to be there. And I was like, okay. What? wonder what that means. I'm telling you, the subconscious is a beautiful, powerful thing. yeah. It drives the bus, I think. And for me, a lot of my creative process is getting out of its way, right? say that. I love that you beat me to it. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm going to close by asking you, Johnny B. Truant, what is your current why? Well, you asked it. Yeah, no, no, no, it's, okay. I'm going to, I don't know if this counts as a why, because like, I'm admitting things here today that just, like I said, they just, I wonder how they sound. This is the year that I focus on money. All right. Like I know how that sounds. I haven't focused on money and it's like, okay. Maybe I should actually earn something. So my, my current why is let's take all of this stuff I have and earn more. But it's not so that I can build a golden mansion and drive a gold Lamborghini. actually have zero interest in any of that sort of thing. I just want more freedom, honestly. Like I, you know, I'm tired of not having freedom of choice or not being able to advance things that I believe in or to, you know, contribution that sort of thing. Like I'd love to give more to charity. So that's kind of where I am right now is I'm not. trying to prove myself creatively or trying to forge a creative life, like I feel like I've done those things. So it's really more about how do I take this thing that I've built and actualize it in a way that has a world changing or at least me changing potential, which right now it's creatively fulfilling, but it doesn't have that. Well, and more money means more readers too, right? So you're actually reaching more people. Yeah. Yes. And it's a validation of the value of what it is that you do. think that a lot of artists and writers or artists undervalue what they do. And we see this all the time, like, I'm sorry, you priced your book higher than $2.99. That's too much. No, I I put effort into this and you can show me that you appreciate it more than, you know, it's half the price of the latte you just bought and drank right away. So yeah. Why do you think artists undervalue our work? I was just talking with a crafts person recently. I was like, you way under price and they pushed back and they're like, no, people won't buy it. And I was like, well, they actually will because I stood there while people were surprised at how cheap your goods were that you handmade. Why do you think that is? I think it's because I have a few reasons, the answers to this. And I just hope that I can mentally juggle them all and get them all out. So the first is I think it's because we're so grateful to be able to do what it is that we do. That it's like, that's part of the value inherently is that you've already gotten the value because you got to do it. Sorry. the other, another is that I think because it's so personal that it's difficult sometimes to see how another person might find value in what was so valuable to you. And there's a whole discussion we could get into, but we don't have time about how I feel that art is inherently collaborative, meaning that it's half me and it's half the receiver, or in our case, the reader. So I think that's part of it too, is that, you know, this was valuable to me as valuable to you. But the anecdote that I would share, and this isn't a really a why, this is an example, is that since I have started hand selling books, not once have I had somebody ask me how much a book costs. And that's a really interesting thing because some of my books are expensive. So the unicorn Western full saga, which is this giant six by nine, 716 page book, I sell that for 35 and I have, a vampire omnibus that I sell for 45 because it's cheaper than the full series. But what I've found is that we talk about the books. And then they're like, I want that book. And I, it's kind of the point where I have to, I've trained myself. have to remember to tell them how much I'm charging their card for. Because it's not like there was a time there where I was just like tap and go and like, I guess you don't know how much you just paid me. So it feels like I need to let them know. But I think that demonstrates to me that once the value is there for them, once they're intrigued by whatever the art is, be it a painting that they can see or a story that sounds compelling and they want to experience it. then the money doesn't matter. mean, imagine getting book A and book B and they're really excited about book B and they're not as excited about book A, but book B is more expensive. Like, can you imagine somebody being like, well, okay, I'm gonna take the one I don't care about because it's cheaper. Like, nobody does that. So I think that successful artists need to kind of lean into the fact that there is value in this for the right person and that we should go ahead and claim it. Yeah. And value for the right person is the key, right? We're wanting to connect with the people who want to connect with us. Yeah. That's great. Well, thank you so much, Johnny, for coming on and talking to me today. And you can find Johnny at johnnybtruant.com. And you can find me as always at thorncoyle.com. And thanks so much for listening. Wasn't that a great conversation? I love that Johnny said he's classically unemployable because I've pretty much felt that way my entire life, which is why, as I said in our conversation, I've worked a variety of bizarre jobs before finally just becoming fully self-employed. At this point and at my age and after all these years, I can't quite imagine who would hire me. So I'm very grateful to get a chance to be a full-time creative. just like Johnny is. I hope something in this conversation sparked something inside you, gave you a little bit of inspiration or hope for your own creative journey. And I want to give great thanks to all of my Patreon supporters. I literally could not run this podcast without you. You pay for the captioning and the recording and everything else that goes into this. into these conversations. So thank you. And if you're not yet a supporter, please feel free to join me at patreon.com backslash thorn coil. And let me know what you thought of this conversation, whether that's on my Patreon or on social media. I'm pretty much all over. You can find me anywhere. And I'd love to know what you thought of my conversation with Johnny. That's it for this week. Wishing you a magical creative day.