0:00

So, we're back with Scar.

0:03

Dan

0:06

is still having a mental health day and I still

0:08

need to sign a whole bunch of pages. And

0:12

Scar is here to keep me company for

0:14

Intentionally Blank this week. And

0:16

we're going to talk about something fun because

0:18

we're going to talk about writing

0:21

while having other jobs and

0:23

things like that, right? Yes. Dan

0:26

has had

0:27

a real job his

0:29

whole life. Yep. And

0:32

me and Dan, Dan had a real job for

0:34

a little while.

0:35

Oh, a long while. Yeah, a long-ish

0:37

while. But I mean, he sold

0:39

his first book in the early 20s. It's

0:42

been 15 years, easily. Good heavens. So,

0:45

he had like eight years of a real job.

0:48

Yeah. And I never had a real job, but I had a fake

0:50

job that I wrote during. So,

0:53

I thought it might be useful to just talk about

0:55

like your experience because

0:58

you finished the same book several times and

1:00

then you finished at least two

1:03

other books that I know of. Yes. I

1:05

finished a novel-length memoir.

1:08

I finished the project that you and I worked

1:10

on. Yep. Where you gave me the 10,000 word outline

1:12

and then. Yep. This was

1:14

one of the very early stabs at what

1:17

became Adamant, which I still haven't managed to

1:19

find a thing to do with. Just didn't

1:21

quite work out. So, I sent it to my agent and

1:23

didn't click. But it was one of my very

1:25

first attempts at co-authoring was with Scar. And

1:27

you were so busy. You were in the middle of Wheel

1:29

of Time at that time, which this

1:32

is a funny story. We can just randomly go off,

1:34

but it's about this. I had written the

1:37

novel-length treatment

1:38

of the outline that you had given me. Yeah.

1:41

And we'd put it through writing group and you had just never

1:43

had time to brandify

1:46

it. Yeah. Brandalize

1:48

it. And then finally, like a year and a half after it was

1:50

finished

1:51

and you just didn't have time to mess with it, you called

1:53

me up and said, hey, I think, I mean,

1:56

didn't you? Yes. At one point you

1:58

said, Scar, why don't you just take it?

1:59

Yeah, fiddle with it and then you know market

2:02

it around. Yeah, and I said no, I'll wait I'd

2:04

love to be co-authoring with Brandon and so we

2:06

waited more and then one

2:09

day you called me on the phone and said

2:11

Hey, it's time. I finally have time

2:13

to really get after this novel thing

2:16

You know probably for the next couple of months Let's

2:18

do this and I was just like Brandon you've

2:21

reached me. I'm on Fort Bragg I'm

2:23

going to Afghanistan for a year I I'm not

2:25

gonna be able to help participate in this you're just

2:28

like out at which point It turned

2:30

into a work for hire. Yeah, and at which

2:32

point I paid you. Yep, so that your

2:34

time wasted Yeah, and then

2:36

honestly, we just trumped it We did show it

2:38

to Joshua but tried to like make

2:41

it into episodes at one point It episodes

2:43

at one point like I've moved

2:45

it into the Cosmere if I ever do it It'll

2:47

be in the Cosmere cool. And so that'll

2:49

change in the back of my head. It's hovering there, but

2:52

it's still a really cool idea It's just never

2:54

quite panned out that we did do a short story together. That

2:56

was mostly you that turned out great

2:59

Yeah, oh, can I tell that story and

3:01

correct me if I get details wrong? I do my level

3:03

best but mm-hmm you came to me and

3:05

said scar I've been invited to be in anthology

3:08

about men in power armor. Yep I

3:10

like what you've been giving us in writing group and I told

3:12

them I Will be in this anthology

3:15

if I can have a co-author. Yeah, they said yes,

3:17

and you said scar Do you want to write a story about men in power

3:19

armor, and I did yeah, I wrote

3:21

an 8500 word short story Gave

3:24

it to you and you said I'm

3:26

super busy. I read this. I like it send

3:29

it to the editor so I sent it straight to the

3:31

editor and He liked

3:33

it came back and said I've got about a dozen changes

3:35

that I want you to make and I agreed with all them They were fine.

3:37

So I made the changes in word using crack

3:40

changes and then send it to you again

3:42

Yep, you liked them you fiddled with it

3:44

some more yourself. Not a lot. No,

3:46

I've always been very honest people scar wrote

3:49

this story This is scar story

3:51

to the point that whenever anyone wants

3:53

to anthologize it or something I say you got to go to scar.

3:55

This is his story. I was there as

3:58

kind of an editorial Overseer seeing

4:00

force, it is 98% star, right? So

4:04

we sent it to the editor and

4:06

it got published in armored

4:09

by a really great editor to work

4:11

with. Vayne put it out. I think

4:13

it was fantastic story. Thank you. I really

4:15

liked that story. It was fun to write. The

4:18

payout for it was 500 bucks upfront,

4:21

right? And then royalties afterwards. I actually got a couple

4:23

of royalty checks for a few seconds for that. But

4:25

the check went to Joshua and

4:28

he sent me $250 and you $250.

4:32

Literally the next time we saw

4:34

each other physically, you handed me

4:36

a check for 250 bucks and said, I didn't

4:39

really do a ton on this story. This

4:41

money belongs to you. And I'm like, Oh, thanks. I'll

4:43

make my car payment this month. I mean, it really

4:45

is the way it was. Like I thought

4:47

we might be able to coauthor more on

4:50

that, but it turns out you just had

4:52

a really killer idea for a really good

4:54

story. And I really

4:56

liked it. If it had been super busted, then

4:59

we would have been in a place, but

5:01

I mean, I thought it was just really

5:03

good. So there you go. Mm-hmm. So

5:06

if you guys want to read it, it's called H A R

5:08

R E with periods. It's an acronym.

5:11

If you ever put that up, like just for

5:13

sale, like on Kindle or anything

5:16

like that. I have not in the back of my

5:18

mind. It's like,

5:19

I don't know if I can, maybe I

5:21

should.

5:21

Yeah. They only bought first serial rights

5:24

or something like that. So you

5:26

should be able to just put that up if you want

5:28

to. Yeah. Well, now that's in my

5:30

brain. I may actually do that. Yeah.

5:33

Very

5:33

cool. Yep.

5:34

We'll find a place. We'll tell people when it's up. Scar's

5:37

excellent power armor, a short story that

5:39

has coincidentally my name on it. Yes. I've

5:42

read a few reviews of it. Short stories

5:44

don't get a lot of reviews on the internet. And

5:47

there was one guy that absolutely hated it.

5:49

That's on this end of the bell curve. And then there's another guy

5:51

that said it was the best story in the anthology. And

5:54

I'm forever thankful to that guy. Cause

5:58

that made me very happy. I'm sure they

6:00

can go buy the anthology. Yeah, I'm

6:02

sure it's still on Amazon. It's out there. So,

6:06

you've been just always writing. Your

6:08

father's a writer too. I've read his book.

6:11

He's got two books on Amazon. I've

6:13

only read the first one. Yep. Are

6:15

they two standalones? They are, they're two standalones.

6:18

Same universe, but standalones.

6:20

And you were kind of raised by your father on

6:22

golden and silver age science fiction. Yep.

6:25

Every time I got bored as a young man growing up, I

6:27

would just go into my dad's study and

6:30

look at his bookshelves and know that almost

6:32

anything I pulled down was going to be fun to read. And

6:35

sometimes I'd ask him for recommendations

6:37

and he'd hand me a Heinlein

6:40

that I hadn't read or Vance. I

6:42

read Jack Vance because of you. I had never read

6:45

Jack Vance and I'd never read David Gemmel

6:47

until you got me reading him. And both of them

6:50

are people I really enjoy. That

6:52

is fantastic. How many Gemmel awards do you have

6:54

up on the wall of things? I wish that we're still

6:56

going. That was the best award, the

6:58

Gemmel Award, named for him. The

7:00

one where the award was a battle axe, a battle

7:02

axe or a dagger. Or a dagger, yeah. It's

7:04

a little battle axe. The dagger is the stabby from

7:07

Reddit. Oh, okay. So

7:09

there's like a little battle axe and a big battle axe. If

7:11

you get nominated for the Gemmel, you get the little

7:13

one. If you win, you get the big one. And you've got a big one.

7:16

And I've got a big one. Yep, it was only around for like five or

7:18

six years. And they're actually

7:20

like replica battle axes from

7:23

the books. Yeah, the naga

7:25

or something. The butterfly axe from one

7:27

of the characters from the main guy

7:29

that's in more of them than any of the other ones. Where

7:32

they'd done some replicas and sold

7:34

them to fans and they had a few extra after

7:37

he passed away. They're like, hey, what if we just made

7:39

this the award? I love his stuff.

7:41

Yeah. Good writer. I remember seeing

7:43

him once at convention, were you there? Where

7:46

he got up and said, I'm basically

7:48

the Louis Lamour of fantasy. He

7:51

called himself that. Wow. Or

7:53

he said, you know, I write stories about

7:56

people that you're just not sure about. But

7:59

by the end. You'll be sure about them.

8:02

I mean, I can't fault him. I don't think he was

8:04

wrong Yep, were you thinking that that's

8:06

a little bit? I mean, wow what a claim to make

8:08

or was it like in the context? This

8:11

was a really good description of his work to

8:13

people who haven't read his work, right? He wasn't bragging.

8:16

He was on the panel. Like how would you explain your

8:18

writings? Like well, you know lots of standalone

8:21

similar themes Really regular

8:24

releasing them kind of about people who are rough

8:26

around the edges, but in their hearts They're

8:28

good folk. Mm-hmm. That's kind of how he

8:30

pitched who he was and I thought

8:32

it was a pretty good pitch. Yeah Accurate

8:35

David Gemmel G-e-m-m-e-l. Yep.

8:38

Is it two L's? I do not know I feel bad

8:40

for not remembering but how

8:43

did you ever write stories? Well both

8:45

having a job and in the military well

8:49

Undeployment. Mm-hmm. I'm sure you've heard

8:51

I mentioned in the last episode, you know, hurry

8:53

up and wait that happens Mm-hmm. Sometimes

8:56

the hurry up and wait happens where you're just

8:59

sitting in your hooch and you have your laptop So

9:02

you got three days nothing's happening. You may as

9:04

well sit down and write one of my

9:06

deployments was horrifying

9:09

in That my

9:11

job for months was to

9:13

watch a little box an electronic

9:16

box and If

9:19

certain alarms went off I had to go do things. Mm-hmm,

9:22

but they rarely went off I

9:24

mean when they went off it was exciting and you go

9:26

do stuff But they rarely went off and you're just sitting

9:28

in this scorching hot box

9:31

on a base in Afghanistan waiting

9:33

for this computer to go off and Yeah,

9:38

I sitting there I wrote a 20,000 word

9:40

was that a novella in the well, mm-hmm. Do

9:42

you have fans could they like

9:44

I Didn't

9:47

ask if they have air conditioning. I'm just I know that

9:49

one's just gonna be a chuckle Yeah, could you

9:51

like turn a fan on you? Yes, okay, if you

9:53

brought one Yeah, okay, and

9:55

I mean it was an electronic box. So there was plenty

9:58

of power piped into this thing but

10:00

the machines all created heat, you created

10:02

heat, the sun created heat, yes, you could

10:04

put a fan on, but fans

10:07

are most useful when you're sweating. Because

10:10

then it evaporates the sweat. On

10:12

the gun, when we'd be driving down places,

10:14

I discovered early on that you could

10:17

sit in such a way, you could see your sector

10:19

of fire, and if you rolled your sleeves

10:21

down, a lot of guys like to have them up, and I

10:24

do too, except in this situation where if you roll

10:26

them down, you can hold it in such a way that

10:28

the wind from your passage goes up your sleeve,

10:31

across your chest and back and out the other sleeve,

10:34

which is lovely. So

10:36

when you're- That doesn't help in the box. Hurrying

10:39

up and waiting. Don't they have like stuff for you, aren't

10:41

they like, go clean the

10:43

floors with toothbrushes? Like they

10:45

joke about that in movies and things. They

10:48

do, and there's only so much of that that you

10:50

can do. And especially in my MOS,

10:54

they have other things they want you to do. Which

10:57

sometimes involve waiting for days

10:59

at a time for the little bell on the box to ring.

11:01

Cause nobody else can react appropriately when

11:04

it goes off. There's very complicated things you have

11:06

to do. How did you write back

11:08

when you were a writer? Cause we touched

11:10

on this last episode, but it's

11:12

actually pretty relevant to this one. You

11:14

went and became a tech writer. I did. Which

11:17

as you've always said, you're glad for the job, glad

11:19

for the work, but it wasn't a particularly

11:22

creative endeavor. Nope. How

11:24

I wrote while I did that was I would work

11:27

quickly to get ahead of things. And

11:29

then at my desk, even

11:32

my cubicle, I was always very careful to sit

11:34

so that nobody could see my monitor unless

11:36

they were in my cubicle. And sometimes

11:39

instead of having the latest manual up, I would

11:41

have my novel and I would just go at it. Also

11:44

just going home and biting the bullet and saying, all

11:46

my writing energy is used,

11:49

but nope, still gonna do some. You're

11:51

gonna push yourself anyway. Yep. Yeah,

11:54

I mean, working at the hotel,

11:57

like I did, was super, super lucky

11:59

as a job. I think I've told this story before. I applied

12:02

for two jobs at the same time. I worked at the library

12:04

and got fired from the library. The

12:08

BYU library. Because people kept coming up and talking to you.

12:11

No, I loved when people talked to me. I actually

12:13

have kind of a service-oriented sort of mindset, and

12:15

that would be interrupting, but I would never resent it.

12:19

Like when I worked at the hotel, if people came in

12:21

and needed something, like that's what my main job

12:23

was, right? And I wanted to be there for them. Like when

12:25

I was sitting at the hotel in Walden, there wasn't really guilt,

12:27

you know? Like

12:34

the bosses knew it was fine, but part

12:37

of the reason I could tell myself

12:39

I'm doing a good job is because when someone came in, I put it all

12:41

down and I did my best to help them. And

12:45

if I didn't

12:47

do that, I don't think I could have actually written

12:49

because I would have been feeling guilty not doing

12:52

my actual job. And when I

12:54

was at the reference desk on the fifth floor

12:56

at the BYU library, if someone

12:58

came up and wanted help finding a book, like

13:01

that's fun.

13:02

Interacting with people, helping them,

13:05

doing the job, but I think

13:07

I've told this before, that wasn't my actual job.

13:10

Oh, I thought it would be. That's the

13:12

job I applied for. That's the job I interviewed

13:14

for. But what I didn't realize

13:16

is when you get that job,

13:19

what you're really doing is then sitting at the

13:21

help desk and you are doing research

13:24

for the librarians. As

13:28

most of it involved, they would get

13:30

these booklets. They're like, here are all the new books we've

13:32

released. And they want to know which we

13:34

have in the library and which we don't so

13:36

that they can choose whether to fill out

13:39

the collection or not, right? Something that does

13:41

need to be done. You don't want your high-paid

13:43

librarians spending all their time searching.

13:46

And so my job for hours on

13:48

end was to sit at that desk and

13:50

it was to look and see, do we have a book?

13:53

Circle it if we do. Exit out if

13:55

we don't. Actually, it was reversed. And

13:57

hours and hours and hours of just doing that. And

14:00

I was wasn't very good at it because

14:03

as we talked about last week Like

14:05

this is the worst sort of work

14:07

to give me if you give me something that's fully

14:10

engaging Mm-hmm like going and helping

14:12

somebody find a book like that's really

14:14

engaging sure and or you know Someone

14:16

comes and they're like hey, I need to check into

14:19

the hotel. You know, it's actually really engaging

14:21

There's a lot of things to do and make

14:23

sure that they're taken care of and they get to the room But

14:26

if I'm sitting at a desk doing something monotonous

14:28

that doesn't use my whole brain But just enough

14:30

of it to keep me from being able

14:33

to do anything else I am miserable and

14:35

I assume correct me if I'm wrong you

14:38

would sometimes Come to yourself. Yeah

14:40

with your pen hovering over the last thing you x'd out

14:43

and you realize it's been 40 minutes Not

14:45

really that but I would sometimes come to me like

14:48

I x that out Did I actually look that up or

14:50

did I look up the one above it twice? Right

14:53

and things like that and like

14:55

this is why aside I can't

14:58

do choir. Oh The church

15:00

loves members to go singing choirs. You always

15:02

get invited choir is Absolute

15:06

just purgatory for me really

15:08

because doing the same thing Over

15:10

and over again. Mmm. Yeah same

15:13

song but with enough of your

15:15

brain that you can't be thinking of

15:17

something else Just enough

15:19

of it that you can feel

15:21

the ideas waving at you You

15:23

can't give them anything is just absolute

15:26

misery and this job was absolute misery.

15:28

So I'm glad they fired me Yeah, but they called me

15:30

and said You're a square peg

15:33

in a round hole. It's what they actually

15:35

told me they use that phrase They use that exact

15:37

phrase well good for them and they didn't tell

15:39

me there was no like Quality

15:41

control help like they said

15:44

you've been getting too many of these wrong and I'm like I have

15:46

been why didn't you say anything? I've been doing this for a week

15:48

and it's miserable. I'd at least like to do it Well,

15:51

if I knew you know get some feedback

15:53

get some feedback Maybe I can put a system into

15:55

place to keep myself from but

15:58

nope. There's like you're a square peg in a round hole Good

16:00

luck finding something else. And so I got cut

16:02

out the first week of college back,

16:05

right? I have bills

16:08

and it's like a week or two until

16:10

the pull out deadline,

16:12

right? You can pull out and get the money

16:14

back, right? Yeah. But if

16:17

it goes beyond that, you're on the hook

16:19

for it. And I'm like, I need

16:21

a job in two weeks. And

16:23

so I went and applied for everything. And

16:27

two jobs I got pretty far

16:29

along on. One was the hotel, working

16:31

in the graveyard shift, the hotel, and one was

16:34

a call center for

16:36

trying to talk people into giving

16:38

money to the university. That sounds like

16:40

even worse than the go down the list. Yes.

16:43

Look at books. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

16:45

Even worse because you're not helping people.

16:48

You're trying to talk them out. And I knew that that one would

16:50

be miserable because cold calling. It's not

16:52

inbound. It's outbound. It's outbound. I

16:55

actually know that I hate it because

16:58

when I was just one semester

17:00

back from college, my family was

17:03

living in Idaho. So this is after I went to Korea and

17:05

came back. My mom had a job lined up for

17:07

me when I got back. And it was my

17:09

uncle was in politics and running

17:12

for mayor. And

17:14

she's like, I got this great job for you. You're going to sit and you're

17:16

going to call and you're going to ask

17:18

people if we can send them material

17:21

about how great he's going to be for the job.

17:23

And it was

17:24

awful. Mm. It was. Thank you.

17:27

Nobody wanted to be getting the calls. No.

17:29

And I didn't want to be making the calls. And

17:32

so I knew the call center, but it's either that or

17:34

I can't afford school. Yeah. And

17:37

so you have to do, but yeah, the

17:39

lucky thing was I got

17:42

both jobs

17:44

and I got called first on

17:46

the call center one and they said,

17:48

do you want to take the job? And I said, how

17:50

long can I have? Yeah. And they're

17:52

like, well, we'd like you to take it now, but we have

17:55

a policy that you can have this many. It was like,

17:57

you know, 48 hours or something like that. But

18:00

you really should jump on it. It's a good job. And I'm

18:02

like, I'm gonna wait 48 hours. I will call

18:04

you hour number 47

18:08

and 50 minutes. And then

18:10

I just like, I need

18:12

to get this other job. And then the

18:14

next day, I got the other job. Next day.

18:17

Yeah. Wow.

18:19

So 24 hours between. Well, you

18:21

would have written anyway, I was gonna I was gonna say

18:23

that, you know, oh, no, you get this job and you never

18:26

write your books, but you would have written anyway. I

18:28

probably would have burned out on the other job

18:31

and found something else. Yeah, but

18:33

delayed you a few months delayed me a few

18:35

months, maybe hopefully, but

18:37

hopefully, that's all it would have done. Yeah, it wouldn't

18:39

have sucked my soul to the point that I just, yeah,

18:42

but I got the hotel job. And

18:44

I wrote every night at that hotel job. It's

18:47

a little more to the story that I haven't, I think

18:49

told, they called and said, we can

18:51

only give you three days a week. We can't give you

18:53

full time. Do you still want it? And

18:56

I ran the numbers. I'm like, I can

18:59

live barely on three

19:02

days at it was like 650 an

19:04

hour. Right? As long as the price of

19:07

ramen doesn't go up. Exactly. Okay.

19:09

I ran those numbers. I'm like, I can make

19:11

this work, hoping that I would eventually be able to

19:13

go to five days, which about six months

19:16

later, I was able to go to five days away. Nice.

19:18

Things like that. But did

19:20

you ever come visit me? Yeah, the

19:22

hotel we did. I know a lot

19:25

of people did. Yeah, I'm late, man. Yeah.

19:28

And you had I had a wife and kid, you had like

19:30

a real job and a wife and kid. Yeah. Yeah.

19:33

Back when I was single. And

19:35

you were the one with kids, you

19:38

would bring them to the magazine. Yep.

19:40

Little Isaac would toddle in,

19:42

could barely talk and you'd be like, hey, guys,

19:44

look at this. Hey, Isaac, what

19:47

do you do with a sword? And

19:49

little Isaac would be like, yes, stick it in a bad

19:51

guy. That's right, son. And

19:55

shout out to my son. Yep. He's in

19:58

army. He went,

20:00

yeah, I won't tell you his stories, but... Nope,

20:03

but he's out there... He's pretty happy. Fighting

20:05

dragons. And your other son, you have

20:07

two sons and multiple daughters. Three

20:09

daughters. Your other son makes swords.

20:13

Not swords yet. But knives. But

20:15

he is making beautiful knives now. He's

20:17

actually on his journey to becoming a journeyman

20:20

and then a master smith. Yep. So

20:22

you've got the soldier and you've got the blacksmith

20:25

to keep him equipped. So... Yep. Four

20:27

brilliant daughters coming up through the ranks. Three

20:30

brilliant... Did I just say four brilliant daughters? You said four, but

20:32

it's alright. Sorry, girls. There's

20:35

only three of you. Circling

20:39

back... Yes. ...to talking about writing

20:42

while having a job. That

20:44

skill that you talked about, being able to bounce

20:46

from one focus to another, is

20:49

trainable. You can get that. So,

20:52

you know, Brandon helping a person at the desk...

20:54

Yeah. ...or Ethan responding to the little

20:57

bell on the machine. Once that's over,

20:59

you can train yourself to get back

21:01

into the groove faster. It just takes

21:04

practice. You know, so you come home

21:06

exhausted after work. You

21:08

can sit down and force yourself to write

21:10

anyway and it's gonna suck at first, but

21:13

you can get better at it. You can. And

21:16

you can do certain things that'll

21:18

like put you in that, Oh, I

21:20

write now. Like make your brain

21:23

say, oh, this is what we're doing? Okay, this

21:25

is what we're doing. And one of

21:27

the ways I find

21:30

to help with that is to not let

21:32

the brain do what it wants to do, which

21:35

is after you mode shift, your

21:37

brain wants to do something easy. True.

21:39

That's been my experience. Like, so you

21:41

help someone at the front desk and then you're

21:44

gonna go back to your writing and your brain says, this

21:46

would be a great time to check your email. You're already interrupted.

21:49

Or, you know what? This would be a great

21:51

time to just relax. You already

21:53

got some work done and watch some YouTube or something

21:55

like that. And if you give into

21:58

that repeatedly, that will become. your

22:01

method of operations. You can train yourself

22:04

out of. Yeah. You will write,

22:07

help someone, waste a half

22:09

hour, finally force yourself

22:11

back into it, get interrupted, and then repeat

22:14

the cycle. I think this may

22:16

be apocryphal. I think it was Rex Stout though.

22:18

He wrote the Narrow Wolf books and

22:20

stories. I believe

22:22

it was him who said his writing

22:25

habits were such that you

22:27

just wrote for these periods of the day. Now

22:29

he was doing it full-time. Yeah. But

22:31

he would write and he would finish a novel.

22:34

And if he had an hour and a half left before his

22:36

time was up, you know, he just written the end. He'd

22:38

start the next one. He would start the next one and

22:41

work on it for 90 minutes and then go to

22:43

lunch or whatever. He would just, boop.

22:46

I am not that hardcore. But

22:49

it is a good mindset to be in that

22:51

once you finish a chapter, if

22:53

you've got enough time that you can spin back up a

22:55

little bit to start into the next chapter because

22:58

that'll make the next day that much

23:00

easier. For most of us, continuing

23:03

something that we've just barely started the

23:06

next day is easier than starting

23:08

from new. Yeah. Because your brain again has

23:10

spun up into the storytelling mindset.

23:13

And so you start off that chapter, you're

23:15

probably going to start it pretty strongly. So

23:18

that's been again my experience. But

23:20

it is this interesting thing where writing,

23:23

most of us can write at between 250

23:25

to 500 words an hour. Very common. A lot of people

23:27

can do

23:30

more, right? Sure. 250 to 750, I'd say

23:33

is pretty average. Which means

23:35

that you can do 2,000

23:39

words a week on

23:42

relatively little investment depending

23:44

on how fast a writer you are and

23:46

how much prep you're able to do during the week. Like

23:48

if you want to be close to that 750 or even a thousand

23:51

words an hour, usually that means you're

23:54

taking the time earlier in the week to jot

23:56

down notes and build yourself an outline. So

23:58

you're never stopping during that hour and being

24:01

like, what happens next? You already know

24:03

it and it's ready. You've played it out in your mind. I've

24:05

said before, very important to my schedule

24:08

is to go work out before I write, because

24:11

that's what I'm doing. I'm playing through each of those things in

24:13

my mind. So when I sit down, there's no time

24:15

of, oh, gee, what would be cool next? I

24:17

know each thing I'm writing

24:19

that day. And so while I'm writing

24:21

them, I'm focused wholly on how

24:24

great can I make this execution? Wow.

24:27

And I think that in

24:29

the years where I couldn't write as much, being

24:32

able to prime my

24:34

brain, as though I did sit down, I

24:36

was always closer to the thousand words an hour.

24:39

And that's two hours of work a week

24:41

to get a novel in the air. There

24:43

it is. Now, it's eight hours of work if you're

24:46

closer on the 250 side, right? But

24:49

it's not that much time

24:51

investment if you can train yourself in

24:54

the habits like you were saying. And it

24:56

does add up. I mean, I've been

24:58

distracted for 20 years for reasons,

25:01

but I've still continued to write and pushed at it.

25:03

Nothing like the output, obviously, if I was full

25:05

time. But when problems

25:08

will present themselves to my brain and I'll chew

25:11

at them in the back of my mind while I'm doing other

25:13

stuff. And if it's really, you know, mentally complicated

25:15

stuff, not a lot of cycles

25:17

go towards chewing on that problem. But

25:20

some does. And the subconscious

25:22

works on it. And when I sit down

25:24

and actually force myself to just start putting

25:26

words on the page, even if I don't have a solution

25:28

in my mind, the act of

25:30

forcing myself brings those solutions

25:33

out of my subconscious. They're in there,

25:36

but they're not going to present themselves unless you're butt

25:38

and chair

25:39

writing.

25:40

There's another aspect of this I wanted to dig into. It's

25:43

kind of a different take on it, but is

25:45

pretty important for the whole writing

25:48

while having a day job. You have

25:50

five kids, as we've talked about. I do. And

25:52

you have a wonderful wife who wants your

25:54

time and who probably

25:56

deserves it because you have left for multiple years

25:59

at a time. Yes, and you're back.

26:02

How do you explain to them? All right

26:06

Dad needs this Saturday evening to

26:09

go work on a story Oh Honestly,

26:13

I don't hmm.

26:15

No, I take that back. I have done that in the past

26:17

and they're very very Committed

26:21

to helping me. They want me to succeed as much

26:23

as I do at all these things But

26:26

honestly the real solution to this

26:28

one for me has been

26:30

Get up earlier

26:32

When they are asleep They

26:34

are neither asking for my attention nor

26:37

being denied my attention

26:40

which is Hard because

26:42

it involves getting up early, but

26:44

it's a solution Would you just get less sleep

26:46

then or would you go to bed earlier go to bed earlier?

26:49

I also work out for various

26:51

reasons. I mean Part of

26:53

my job description is to stay physically fit

26:56

Yeah, you know one hour a day is part

26:58

of my work schedule, which is amazing

27:00

and I thank you that happens early

27:02

and So

27:05

early that if I time it right I can

27:07

get an hour or two in the morning

27:09

when nobody else is awake Now

27:12

in the military It was not acceptable

27:14

to go from working out to hanging out in my room

27:16

for an hour and a half writing There was lots

27:19

of other stuff. They wanted me to be doing so I've

27:21

talked about this with you guys Sometimes

27:23

when I find myself done working out and I have an hour

27:25

and a half to kill I just go to work because that's

27:28

what my subconscious tells

27:30

me to do but yeah your wife loves

27:32

that For

27:34

some values are love. Yes Like

27:38

when you weren't working for us, you're supposed to take

27:40

time off equal

27:43

to the extra time you have to put in such as sitting

27:45

in the evening being on a podcast when But

27:49

I'm getting used to it. I'm getting better at

27:51

that. Yeah The military

27:53

is isn't very big on oh you

27:55

worked extra this weekend. You should

27:57

just take off a few days They do that all the

27:59

time Don't they? Yes all the time. That's

28:02

very common. Mm-hmm So yeah

28:04

writing with a full-time job is tough, but there

28:06

are solutions. Are you working on something right

28:08

now? I am working on the final

28:12

Well, I say final a major

28:14

edit to that book that you've referred to it that I

28:16

finished three times and gotten really

28:18

good feedback From my agent

28:21

Joshua. I introduced you to Joshua, right?

28:23

You did introduce. Yeah, Joshua You

28:25

came running down the stairs. We

28:27

were staying at your cousin's house That's

28:30

yes, because we my brother's

28:32

brother's house. Yeah, the Nebula

28:34

Awards were in New York Yeah,

28:37

and Dave one of our mentors

28:39

said hey you guys should go to this and I'm like,

28:42

I can't afford this scar You're

28:44

from Jersey. You're like, yeah,

28:47

I can get us there. I can get us a floor to stay on

28:49

for free Yeah, and I can help us navigate

28:51

the trains to get into

28:54

this thing So all we have to do is buy our tickets

28:56

in the door. Yep, which was pretty cheap

28:58

for students It was like, you know, like 30 bucks

29:00

or something. So that's all we had to do and of course Air

29:03

Flying Fair Which was yeah expensive but

29:05

helped us save some time. We go to

29:07

the Nebula Awards I'm sitting in the

29:09

bar twiddling my thumbs never having

29:11

really had to go in a bar and make

29:14

small talk Yes, and you

29:16

come running down the steps. You're like I met Simon

29:18

Green's agent. We really like Simon

29:20

Green And we're rising blue

29:22

moon rising and the hawk and Fisher books Yeah And

29:25

you grabbed me and towed me up the stairs

29:27

and introduced me to this guy who eventually

29:30

became my agent and then yours Yeah

29:33

So books spend back and forth to

29:35

Joshua several times and every time

29:37

it comes back It's got a major suggestion

29:39

that is really a good idea and I'm

29:42

putting into place the latest one I won't say

29:44

the last one the latest one. I hope it's

29:46

the last one because I think it's really good It's coming into

29:48

shape, but

29:49

that's what I'm working on It's

29:50

a fun book. Do you want to say

29:53

anything about it or do you want to leave

29:55

it quiet? Oh, it's far future

29:57

military science fiction men

29:59

in power Man in Power Armor. Yep.

30:02

Ben's Reddit.

30:06

How is

30:07

it, Ben?