The Write Path #55 - “Times End Series” Author PK Stuart!!!!

Our guest today, in her own words:   “In July 2023, I published the first book in my Time's End series. Since then, I've published three more, with Book 5 coming in June 2025. I've built an email list of 1,200 subscribers and learned more about the business of books than I ever imagined.”   
“Each book in the series focuses on a different romantic pairing, but the entire cast remains throughout, so readers get to watch multiple love stories unfold while the larger quest continues.”  Listen now!!! 

Her website:   https://pkstuart.com/

Her books:   https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Tree-Line-Times-Book-ebook/dp/B0C9SQ7LGS

Welcome to the Write Path Podcast, where being an author, an actual author, still matters. This isn't the place for the Chat GPT experts or the AI buffs to churn out soulless content with no heart.  This is the place where authors share their journeys, explore their creativity, examine the "Why?" behind it all and come together to celebrate each other. This is the podcast for authors, about authors, and by an author, where the truth still counts and words still have power. Join Us!  You have a story to tell!

Contact us on all our social media platforms and email us at thewritepathpodcast@gmail.com  

This is the place where authors know that every page... is a step forward. Let's move forward together, let's move forward today. Listen now.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Right Path Podcast, where being an author, an actual author, still matters. This is the podcast that's for authors, it's about authors, it's done by an author, where we share our journeys, we explore our creativity, and most importantly, we examine the why behind it all. Folks, our guest today, absolutely fantastic lady. I've had the opportunity to get to know her in the last few minutes, and I'm already intrigued to find out all about this series. Uh, the author of the Times End series, PK Stewart. Pam, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:37

I'm great. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Oh, better than I deserve. Thanks for asking. I uh I'm trying to uh catch up with you, though. Uh so the um the Times End series, I cannot wait to dive into this and hear all about you know the individual books and where we're going. But before we do that, tell everybody a little bit about you know who is PK Stewart and um you know what got you into all this stuff in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Well, I spent the first you know decades of my life um as a business management person. Um so quite a departure from that. Um I by the time that I quit altogether and was writing full-time, I was doing business startup consulting. And so that's probably where the path to indie authoring comes from, is unlike so many authors, the business side of it is the easy part. So that's one of the things that's a little bit different than a lot of authors. Um, but my sister had been writing for quite a while, and I'd read lots of her stuff, thoroughly enjoyed it, and she was president that year of an organization called Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. And they were having Diana Gabbledome that year as their keynote speaker at conference, and she knew that was one of my favorite authors. So off I went to go to the conference, even though she did not realize at that point that I was already writing. You know, it was one of those secret endeavors that you didn't want to share with anybody yet. And um and that was such an epiphany to go be around 200 and some people who did who were proud to say they were authors. And I realized they were no smarter than I was necessarily or or more creative, they were just braver. You know, they were they were willing to put themselves out there, and and so that was the point at which I started doing it quite seriously and and have loved every minute of it. It's just so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Now you I read that you it took you a little while to get your first book out.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Oh, yeah, but I think that's typical. I I want to say close to seven years.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Okay. That's not bad. I've heard a lot worse. I've heard a lot longer.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Um and at this point, I'm the fifth book is with the editor, and it should come out in June. I do have, you know, unlike a lot of people, I get to write full time. So nice. That's that's a huge bonus compared to a lot of folks who are trying to fit it in amongst, you know, raising kids and holding down jobs and doing all of those things at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

So absolutely, absolutely. You know, I'm I'm curious the series. Okay, it's it's five books. There's four of them that are out already.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Um, Inside the Tree Line, Learning to Fly, Our Tangled Stars, Dreams of Fire, and then the fifth one that's coming on June 9th, Echoes of Fate. Yes?

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Okay, I'll make sure I got that out. When you started this, did you just start writing Inside the Tree Line, or did you start writing Book One of the Times End series?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

I started writing Inside the Tree Line, only it was a completely different story.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

I mean, it was so the setting, I always knew where I wanted it to be. I kind of knew the theme and a few of the characters. But the pantzer in me, I mean, I honestly, I know people who don't write this way think we're making this up when we panters say it, but I don't write these stories. The characters do. I mean, literally, you're sitting down, you you know, you gotta get to know the characters really well first. I spend a lot of time on character development, but then it's about just typing as fast as they move and trying to capture everything that just kind of flows through you from those characters. And my protagonist just decided that I really didn't know what his story was at all and went a whole different direction.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

So for folks who don't know what a pantser is, and you alluded to it a little in terms of the character development. Um just give everybody kind of a definition of well, the the term comes from buy the seat of your pants.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

And and by the way, I I listened to a podcast by Joanna Penn the other day, and she calls herself a discovery writer. And I'm gonna start using that term instead. I think it's a lot more appropriate because I am sort of discovering the story as I go along. I've always, people who plot, I'm like, how can you do that? I don't even know what the story is yet. How do you plot something that you don't know what it's going to be? Um so I even teach a class on character development that is called intuitive character development, a panther's plot tool. And uh and I literally have conversations in my head with my characters. If I get stuck, I'm like it always works to go, okay. What am I missing about you? What do I not understand? What and just whatever comes to me is what I go with, and it works.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

That's so interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

So that's after you get all the you know, blue eyes and blonde hair and everything on paper. You've got to do the rest of it.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

I talk to so many people who the characters almost seem like they're uh of secondary value to some of these folks because they're they spend uh forever writing about um the uh do putting out description and um you know talking about the setting and the plot line, you know, and kind of what the narrator is saying. But then when the characters go to act it out, I mean the dialogue is like, yeah, exactly. Right, of course.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

And you're like mine are very verbose.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

I'm guessing. So how does how does that uh change the writing process when the characters are actually kind of helping you write?

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Obviously, I have no idea because it's the only way I've ever written. So, you know, I I we were talking, I was talking a little bit about my sister being a writer. She is more of a plotter and is also somebody. What I've noticed is that there are writers who can turn off their editor brain while they're creating, and those who can't. They, you know, they want to get the writing perfect as they go along. And this style of writing doesn't work if you can't turn that editor brain off.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Uh okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

You know, there's plenty of time. In my case, there's plenty of time for that later. In fact, I'm gonna spend more time on the edits than on the original creation, probably.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Um so I'm guessing you start with the characters.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Oh, absolutely, yeah. I write in Sprivener. I don't know if that's something you're familiar with, but each character has their own folder there. And I start with the typical things, just trying to get a picture in my mind of what they look like. But then I honestly do start asking questions about their family and about their relationships and who their friends are and why, and how they see themselves in the world, but how that might differ from how their best friend describes them. And, you know, just all the things that are true to human beings that you need to know to trust them and go with whatever they say. Sounds weird.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Not at all. I I'm I'm fascinated by everybody's process. It's one of the things I love the most about doing this particular show. And I have a bunch of podcasts, but on this one, one of the things that I just absolutely love is the process for everybody because it's so different from person to person. It is. Um, and I've heard people talk about character development before, but uh I've never heard anybody honestly talk about it this way. And um uh the I would think that you would come in with at least an idea of what the story is going to be, because I would think that would help you get an idea of the characters.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

I have a starting place.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Right. So the starting place is kind of like I vaguely want this. Ah, okay. So we got an end in place.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

I have I have an end, I have a place where I would like for them to land. Because especially when you're writing series, it's kind of important to to know those jumping off places, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

But I'm never real sure how we're gonna get there, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

So they have to find their own way through the maze.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

To get to the end. I mean, you know where the end is, but they gotta find it.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Anything I would write down is not near as interesting as what they end up doing.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

When you're writing like this, are you able to um sort of segment and be disciplined about it and say, hey, I'm gonna write for an hour each day? And or is it really just kind of when it comes to you, you have to sit down and go with inspired thought?

SPEAKER_01 10:59

No, I need to I need to capture ideas. Um, there's a lot of, hey, Siri, take a note going on in my life. Um I've I've learned to do that because I I learned really quickly that the best ideas that you're just sure you will never forget are gone that fast. So I'm really good about capturing those kinds of things. But normally six or seven words will bring a whole idea back to me as long as I can put that down.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

All right. Knowing this and having explored all of these angles here, let me go back to that original question then. Where when you sat down and you started putting, you had a little bit of an idea and you started putting characters together, where you you were putting them together for inside the tree line, and it was a different story. Then it became a new story. Then it turned into Times End series. Am I getting this right?

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Pretty much, yeah. I was I was writing the same sister had invited me to join a retreat group in Fairplay, Colorado, which is this funky little town at about 10,000 feet up in the mountains. It's beautiful, I love it. And it's this historic hotel. The in the books, it's the Platt Hotel. In real life, it's the Hand Hotel. But um, I just always knew that was the setting. And it started out, I thought I was gonna write a ghost story, and I ended up with time traveling druids. So, you know.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

I mean, really not the same.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

He was a time traveling druid.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

The time traveling druid, okay, because I read about this a little bit too. So the time traveling druid part is that part of I'm thinking of this character, and as I'm building this character, he sort of ends up being a time traveling druid, or are you going, I'm gonna make up time traveling druids, and this is what they're gonna look like?

SPEAKER_01 13:09

No. Here's what happened, here's the other thing that honestly happened when I think about it in the interim, is um I don't want to get political because it really is beyond that, but there was a in that period of time I became very concerned about what I felt like the direction of our culture was. And the time that that character comes from, travels from, is me taking the worst of that culture and projecting it two hundred years into the future and creating a dystopia of sorts that he is traveling from to come to the past to try and fix how all of that came to be, I can't tell you exactly, but but that's who he ended up being, and the rest of the story sort of wrote itself as I was um deciding what that dystopia looked like, and but yeah, the the woman who runs the hotel is a keeper of this druid faction, so druid faction.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Oh my gosh, okay, gotcha. I love the word choice right now. It's it's making me kind of go, all right. Um, so I mean that's that's fascinating. So as you're um in the process of building, then these things happen in our real world, real time. You have concerns about them, you are concerned, hey, maybe this turns into this down the road. This is why I'm concerned. And that becomes part of the story. And so to quote you, and one of the things I wrote about you, it's it's how you weave big social themes into genre fiction. This is how you do it. You you change the names, you kind of change the characters, but you're kind of making the point.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

I hope I'm I'm hoping I'm making people think. I try to not be at all preachy because who wants fiction that's preachy? But um but I would hope that just who my characters are and their value system and that sort of thing at least makes people think a little bit about who they want to be.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

I see. So it sounds like there's a hope in there somewhere that they're going to pick up on these themes, realize how they feel about this particular situation, and then go, wait a minute, this is what's actually happening in the real world, and now I know I feel this way about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah, you know, that's all you can hope for. And and then the other thing you're hoping for is that you just make people happy because happy people make better choices.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Happy people buy books. So that's right on. All right, I love that. Time traveling druid. Okay, so that's that's what we got. Um, now we we started with that, right? So that's that's book one. Do you keep your characters through the entire series or do we add more? How's that work?

SPEAKER_01 16:25

I add I add more um ones that you've already met become more important in other books. There's it's so the genre is romantic fantasy. I think the better term is contemporary romantic fantasy with a dystopian edge to it. Um it's contemporary, not urban, because I'm writing mountains and tiny towns, and there's there's not a lot of city in it, so urban fantasy doesn't work very well for me. But um so it it's small town, it's this group of people who want to change things. There are others that uh come into the picture. There's a romance, a separate romance in each book, but we keep the characters throughout. In fact, by book five, you know, big battle scene in book five. I had to get a piece of paper and just write down all these people and things and where they were and what they were doing to keep from getting lost.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Okay. So book five is coming out, and that's the that's the final installment in this particular series. Um, have you talked to the characters about that yet?

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Um I actually, you know, just before I sent it off to the editor three weeks ago, I was just writing that final scene, and I was actually in tears. I'm gonna miss them. But um, but you know, I think I don't want to be one of those people that just keeps writing the same story forever, and you know, it's it's just time to move on to something else. So I'm gonna be brave. I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Okay. Oh, well, I mean, that's another question I had from down the road, but we'll just address that now. Um, the last book in the series, Echoes of Fate, comes out uh on June 9th. You've already done a prequel uh called Destiny to the entire series. So we've got five books, uh, the total series, start to finish, a prequel to you know, cap it all off. Um, do you already have something in mind for what's coming next?

SPEAKER_01 18:49

I was sitting here writing it this morning.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Um I had a feeling.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Yeah. I'm I'm moving on to witches.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

From druids to witches.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Okay, I'm starting to see a theme here.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Because fiction needs a little magic in it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Oh, I like that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

All right. Now are we talking um there's there is witches, just witches, if all you do is put quotes there. There are about 30 definitions.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

This will not have black hats. No black hats, no cauldrons, no, nothing like that. No, these are more um much subtler powers, no magic wands, no, you know, nothing like that.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Okay, we're moving on to witches, and we're not taking any of the same characters with us.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Oh, you just made me you made my brain go, ooh, could I do that?

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Special appearance in book two, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

I haven't thought about it. I don't think so. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Okay, so as a friend.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

I'm changing locations, so yeah, don't confuse me.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

All right, hey, I'm just I'm just here for the show. That's I'm just a host. Humble host. That's that's just me. I uh I love that. But uh, you know, that's I guess that's one of the really fun parts about when you're in fiction and when you when you own your characters like that, is that you you could you could always weave them back into the story. I mean, a time traveling druid could end up anywhere, even in the middle of a bunch of witches.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah. And and the thing that's great about being a pantser, you know, that plotters don't get to do is I have characters show up that are supposed to be this big. Twice now I've had little bitty parts that, oh my god, they are just such phenomenal fun people that I end up keeping them because I they just need a bigger role. So then I have to completely rethink all of that. I love those surprises.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

So you're just out here having fun, is what's going on. You're just having a blast writing this all up. Going, I really like this character. You know what? I'm gonna keep this one for a while.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

I love that creative license. I mean, that's fantastic, really. Um, I'm not sure you can you can do that with too many other um vehicles the way you're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

No, no, it definitely didn't work with accounting.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

So, you know, this is a nice departure.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Oh, I'm uh yeah, all right. I cannot imagine that it would have. All right, there we go. Yeah, at some point a four is a four, and that's just that. So that's right. I gotcha. Okay, beautiful. Um, the now you do a lot of teaching. Um you meant some teaching. Okay. Yeah. And now, are you exclusively teaching um up and coming writers or these aspiring writers? Is this a university setting? What are you doing there? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Well, that same organization that I said my sister was. Part of I've stayed really hooked up with, and um, I just finally got somebody else to take over the treasurer uh part of it. I did that for a couple of years, and I'm back to what we call the Western Slope Education Chair, Western Slope being the west slope of the rocky. So it's a term probably that people anywhere else don't get, but um so I'm kind of in charge of putting together workshops and different things for the people that are very local to where I live. And um I'll do a little more code, but I'll also get other people to come over and teach. And um the group here, even though it's a bunch of really small towns, there's a pretty decent group of creators up and down the stairs, and some are published. Some of them, you know, there's nonfiction, there's fiction, even though it's called Rocky Mountain fiction writers. We've got some nonfiction writers, and um kind of runs the whole gambit. So a lot of times it's just great to teach a workshop and get discussions going and you're learning from each other as much as anything else.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Sure. Well, and uh no, I know you're also very uh much an advocate of indie publishing. Yes, and doing things yourself and going out there and self-publishing and and so on.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Not so much an advocate, because I think it depends on who you are, what direction you need to go. Um I have the business background, you know, when I sat and looked at it, the kinds of things a publisher can provide to me, I don't need. I can I can do those things myself, including being well resourced enough to pay an editor and and buy book covers. I mean, not everybody has that luxury. So um there's plenty of people that need to get that publishing contract in order to take things where they need it to go. But for me, it made perfect sense. And it's one of the other things that I love helping other people do, you know, if they're interested in it. I I love to sit down and help people with the ins and outs of it. And um I wasn't just accounting, I was IT as well. So all of the all of those bits and pieces of it, uploading books, dealing with websites, dealing with those sorts of things aren't near as scary for me as they are for a lot of people. So that's helpful too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Excellent. All right. Well, so clearly you went the self-publishing route.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Went straight there.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Okay, great. Um, the in terms of that, one of the biggest issues is always marketing and advertising the books and you know getting sales. Yeah. Um, it seems like people have to do that even with publishers now. They still have to sort of sell their own books or market it themselves.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

That was one of the reasons I just didn't even is I just saw no upside to it at all, other than giving somebody else part of the money. Um so yeah, I mean, and the marketing's the hardest part of it. And and granted, part of that is the indie publishing has created this huge marketplace where, you know, just to be seen amidst the thousands of authors out there that are trying to do the same thing is is tough.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Sure. Well, you've done this six times, and this is number seven.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

This is the one I'm writing now, or the one that's coming out in June.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah, because you have well, you have this one, two, three, four. There's a fifth novel.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Sixth story.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Sixth story because of Destiny. Gotcha. Destiny keeps throwing me off.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Destiny is more of a novella. In fact, it's that thing that when you're first writing, you're you start at the very beginning and you you plod along, and then all of a sudden your critique group goes, Oh, this is where the story starts. But you've got 40,000 words before you get to that place.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

So that's where destiny comes from. I had to clean it up quite a bit, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah, whenever the author group prequel. Whenever the author group or the editor or anybody says, you know, oh, that you know what, it's nothing good happens after that.

unknown 26:42

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

For sure. All right. So you've done this this many times. All right. We'll just I'm just gonna go with that. I'm gonna take the chicken way out and just say you've done this many times. Yes. And um, what have you found uh with all this experience that kind of works in terms of you know marketing and you know, maybe some sound practices or you know, good ideas?

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Well, I can't tell you that I'm getting rich off of it yet. So, you know, there is that, um, to be perfectly honest. But again, the business part of it, I think, really comes into play. I think you've gotta look at return on investment when you're looking at advertising dollars. You've got it, you've gotta really be willing to take a hard look at everything you do. And whether it's book descriptions on Amazon or how you're doing your advertising, it's it's constantly experimenting and keeping good enough records that you know what works and what doesn't. Um, and you don't keep doing the same thing over and over after it stops working. You know, all of all of those things go into it. Um I've obviously paid for a lot of courses on the subject of marketing because it wasn't that was a skill I didn't have going into this. So um there's a lot of great people out there, both paid and free, that are wonderful sources of information for how to go about it on, you know, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, or wherever.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Sure. Have you has social media been kind of the the main thing for you to use, or have you gone other routes?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

I think Amazon advertising works better than Facebook does myself.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Amazon advertising, okay, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Yeah. And it's, you know, without getting too technical, it doesn't Facebook charges you for every click.

unknown 28:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Amazon is better about only charging you for the clicks that matter.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

I like that. The clicks that actually count. Right. Okay. You know, the unsettling part is we still don't know because either of those you know governing bodies can just tell us whatever they want to tell us, right? Oh, I just got you back. Yeah, I was saying that unfortunately you really don't even know.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

And they constantly change the rules on you.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

No.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

And every time you think you've got it figured out, they go, Oh, no, we're gonna do it this way now.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

And have you found any uh have you done or or heard of anybody doing the independent book tour uh setup? I've heard a little bit of that recently where folks are doing their own book tours, uh arranging it with the you know different publishing houses, maybe small stores, that kind of thing. Is that something you did or you've heard of?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Or no, it's not something I've done. It's probably not something I would be that interested in doing. I'm not a huge traveler. Okay, I'm I'm I'm uh I'm not a homebody either, but I would much rather go to the mountains than to a city or a bookstore or a you know, if if I'm traveling, it's to places like I last month it was Portal, Arizona, which I defy you to even find on a map.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

No, I don't just but the birds this time of year are amazing.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Um and so I'm looking for hiking opportunities. I'm looking for beautiful places I haven't seen before. I'm not looking to go sit in a bookstore.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Gotcha. If I'm gonna travel, I'm gonna go do something. That's kind of where we are, huh?

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Well, and it's not gonna be real people oriented.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Oh, okay. All right. Uh are you kind of a recluse when you do your writing? Do you need to be like alone and everything quiet and everybody leave me alone type of thing?

SPEAKER_01 30:56

We have a lovely little cabin. Um up, it's about two hours from here. And my husband calls it our Hillbilly Chateau. It's not at all what he thought we would own as a cabin someday, but it suits me perfectly. It's you know, we've got 70 acres, nobody around us. Wow. And um nothing but trees and a creek running past the front of the house and birds and bird feeders, and never have to turn a TV on if I don't want to.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Well, that's gotta help, you know, having that kind of solitude to be able to just dive in and and uh you know mesh with your characters like that.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Yep. I had gotten behind on this book and already had a date for the editor. And so that one required two weeks of the cabin and not doing anything else, you know, to get caught up again.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Love it. When you uh when you let me take you back to the first book, okay. When you first started this entire series, you started this process. Um, very often authors are writing their books to somebody or for somebody, or maybe they have someone in mind, maybe they're one of the characters, you know. Um did that happen with you with the first book? And if it did, did it change over the the five books or six books?

SPEAKER_01 32:31

The only person I'm writing to, I think, is myself. Is I'm I'm writing exactly what I enjoy reading, and I do a lot of reading. So um yeah, I would be exactly like me. You know, what do I want? I want a happily ever after, or at least a happy for now. You know, I require that. So romance this is my genre. Um I like that little bit of magic. Um I I like a good badass, you know, gotta have some good badass characters. Um hence druids, you know. So that's that's what's top of mind when I'm when I'm creating is is that reader.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

Okay, all right, I like that. And and that is uh it's still that way today. From day one.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Pretty much, yeah. All right.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

All these books later. Yeah, that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

I am I did toy with the idea. Yeah, I I have uh developed a Lucy Score obsession, and this is an author that writes small town romance that um just makes me laugh out loud, and it's so fun. So not my typical genre, and I did toy with um trying my hand at that, so that may still happen along the line somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Excellent. All right, I love that. Um, before uh I mean, as we kind of you know pull this together and wrap this up a little bit, uh I do want to make sure we get all of your links and contact information out there. So before I go any further, let's make sure we stop and intentionally get all that out there because otherwise I might forget it.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

So how can people find out more about PK Stewart, the books, uh, you know, buy them, that's that type of thing.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Okay, the books are available on Amazon exclusively right now. Um, I have a website, PK Stewart S T-U-A-R-T.com. And on that website you can find links to all the books, of course, but you can also um sign up for my website or my newsletter. Um it's called Where the Story Leads, which is a little bit about writing, a little bit about the books, a lot about my travel and adventuring and that sort of thing. Um, and but signing up for the newsletter also gets you Destiny, that uh prequel we were talking about. And that'll you know take you to a link on BookFunnel that lets you download it any way that you want to do that. Um so yeah, those are the best ways. The website pretty much has all of all of those options.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

That's wonderful. So all right, so signing up for the newsletter gets you an ebook of destiny.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Gotcha. Okay. And I'm just guessing we have some links for that. If not, you uh if you can get those to me, I'll make sure we get those in there.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Um, it's just pkstewart.com.

unknown 36:10

Oh, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Gotcha, gotcha. All right, wonderful. Um, well, Pam, if I can uh hit you with one more before we leave. Um you've been doing this for a minute, for sure. Uh very experienced and uh successful at doing this. And you know, there's a lot of folks who listen to this program that are aspiring writers. And so I wonder, uh, especially with you, with all of your uh experience at self-publishing and everything you've been through, uh character development and whatnot, what is the best piece of advice, you know, uh, or you know, a couple of things that you can give to folks who are aspiring writers who want to uh be where you are.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

I think the thing that you've got to do is get past that um authors on a pedestal bit. If you're if you're a big reader, I think we all spend a lot of time thinking, authors are these people up here that I could never do that. And if you just give yourself the grace to get started and take it seriously seriously, and enjoy it, have fun with it. Um you don't know until you get going and take it, take yourself seriously.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

That's great. That's great. I've actually never heard anybody give me that advice before. So I love that. I love that. Thank you for sharing that with everybody. All right. Um, well, the uh the author of the Times End series, uh PK Stewart. Uh Pam, thank you so much for being with us today, for sharing everything that you did. Uh, you're an absolutely wonderful guest, and uh, I just I love your story. Thanks for being here. All right, folks. This has been another episode of the Right Path Podcast, where truth still matters and words still have power. This is the place for authors who know that every page is a step forward towards finding your right path. Until next time.