Episode 97 - Hillbilly Zombies! An Interview with JD Byrne (Moore Hollow)

Hello Everyone, today we are joined by JD Byrne to discuss writing and his book Moore Hollow! Make sure to check out this an his other books at https://jdbyrne.net/

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Transcript

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[Music] It's time for a new episode of the Redeemer Ruffians, your favorite library called podcast. This is why I don't do the intro. Surprise, it's Ariel! Mallory is missing out on this one to prepare for Jurassic January tomorrow. But she'll be back next week, don't worry anyone. Today we are excited to welcome author JD Burn to discuss his book More Hollow. Thank you so much for joining us JD. Feel free to take this time to share any socials or information about yourself and then we can get started. Oh, thanks for having me. My website is JDburn.net and there's a tab there that says JDB Online that's got links to. My Facebook page, Goodreads, Blue Sky, and a couple other places. All right. You can find more content from us on our Facebook group, Redeemer Ruffians Podcast, as well as from our Instagram, Redeemer Ruffians. Our library can be found on Facebook, as well as on Facebook, as well, at facebook.com/jco-library. We also have Instagram and TikTok, which can be found at wvjco-library. Hold up a second. We have a TikTok? Yes, we've had a TikTok. You still have a TikTok? We've had a TikTok. Well, we've been posting all of our juicy shorts over there. We need to do that. Well, I can't log into it anymore. Mallory can handle, so. I can't have it on my phone, so. That's because I don't have TikTok on my phone. And I don't know if we can, I can re-download it or not. That's a good point. I don't know. But I think Mallory still has hers. You know, I heard that this is dating the podcast a little bit, but somebody recently just sold an iPhone, I think, 16 or 14 camera, which one is still had TikTok installed on it for like $2,500 on the eBay. That's outrageous. Isn't that ridiculous? That does sound ludicrous. That's insane. Yeah. Okay. Do you want me to ask the questions that or do you want to pull up the drive? If you have it handy, that'd be great. Otherwise I'll grab it off. All right, so we'll get into it. So have you always wanted to be a writer? Not necessarily. I'm a lawyer by trade. And so I write a lot for that, you know, in my day job. And it was probably, I don't know, 15 years ago or so. I just kind of got the urge to write something where I got to control the outcome. You know, if you make stuff up when you're writing a legal brief, judges get mad. So I started playing around with a few short stories and everything. And I had some bigger ideas and discovered National Novel Writing Month and decided to give that a go. And I kind of proved to myself that I could do it. And once I hit that, I was just off and running. Nice. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. Are there any books or authors that have influenced your writing? influences are always weird to talk about because I think sometimes people talk about, you know, this is a big influence on what I do. And you can't see that in their works. I'm always a little hesitant. A big part of the stuff that I write through the way I write it is partly due to. My wife, who used to sell books for a living and is a voracious reader, who introduced me to Georgia R.R. Martin. And I read the first Game of Thrones book and I really liked it. And I was like, you know, there's virtually no magic in here. Which certainly isn't. I know you can only pointy headed wizards running around. I was like, wait a minute. Maybe fantasy can be something broader than I'd sort of always conceived as being. And that gave me, you know, the idea to start playing around with different worlds. But other people that, you know, that I read a lot and I think contribute somewhat to the stuff I do. Douglas Adams was a big. I like him. So far like both of them. He was a big one when I was young. And sort of his fantasy top or version, which is Terry Pratchett. But also people like Mark Rattwood and Felix Gilman, who wrote a book called The Half-Made World, which is a really neat, weird, almost steampunky kind of fiction thing. And I like things, things that appeal to me are ones that sort of are. Like fantasy or paranormal or whatever, but that kind of get twisted a little bit. And so don't go down the main, main tropes, if you will. I get that. It's because I don't think I've read any of those. Terry Pratchett. Well, yeah. I've read Terry Pratchett. Douglas Adams. Like the Hitchhiker. I know who it is. I just, and I know George. I've never read it. Oh my gosh. Never watch a show either. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I know it's wild. No, I just have three children, and I'm always busy. Oh, yeah. I'll do it. The books are good, but you know, they're never going to be finished. That's true. They're never going to be finished. Yeah. All right. So, let's see. That kind of leads into this other question. Is there any books that you've read lately that you really enjoyed or that you've read and you actually really hated? Well, either one's good, or if you have both. Oh my goodness. I didn't really think about that. I mean, typically, if I really, really don't like a book, if it's just not connecting with me, I probably don't finish it. That's what she's like. I'm sorry. So I tend to forget it. I hate read things. So. Books recently that I really, really like. This is kind of a cheat because it was a reread. In December, I reread Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. This is Anna Clark, because it's 20th anniversary. And I read it when it first came out. And I really, I really liked what it did with the way magic works in that world, because the relationship between the two of them reminds me a lot of lawyers. Back then, before you had law schools and things like that, because that's how you learned to be a lawyer was you studied with somebody who was already practicing. So I reread that. And that was interesting because when I read it, the first time I had not started writing myself. And when I read it this last time, sort of reading it through the eyes of a writer, I could see things that she was doing that were really, really slick and not necessarily things that you would tell people to do. She slips kind of points of view a lot in ways that probably if someone said, I'm going to do this, you'd be like, and he probably shouldn't do that, but it's also smooth. And it's also immersive that it just. Believe him, sort of blows you away. I never thought about how it would be to read a book from like a writer's perspective, like how that would change it. So all the authors we've interviewed they never mentioned that and I've never even thought about that. I've seen people online who say, you know, once they start writing, they really can't read. Oh, no, because they're so hypercritical. No, it's a thing, like if you, like sort of dumb examples, if like you do handyman work around your house and then you go to somebody who's done a fixer upper and you're like, well, that corner should have been a little better. It's like, what, what finished did they use on this? This is terrible. It's not going to be something like that with all writers, because I mean, you get some really good writers out there. It's like, I, I mean, yeah, I can criticize this, but it's just really, really good. So yeah. It's less for me. It's less it ruins the experience or whatever, but it's easier for me to think about why isn't this working for me or why is this working for me? I would never have thought you have done it that way. So do you, do you find yourself being, does it, does it hurt your immersion at all when you do this, like since you read it differently now? I don't think so unless there's, unless there's something that throws me out of it. You know, I'm trying, I'm trying to think of something that I've read recently. I was like, I just can't, I can't do the buy-in to it. Then maybe I get like hypercritical of it, but I, there hasn't been anything like that recently. All right. So how long have you been writing? Probably like 15 years or so. 15 years. I have no idea. I was just, what is the biggest obstacle to overcome throughout your writing process? Is it the writing, the editing, the publishing? The writing is easier than it was. I would imagine. The writing gets better. The editing is always a pain. Everything, all my stuff is self-published. And so I have not really tried to go through the traditional process of finding an agent and a publisher and things like that. But that has its own problems because of what you're responsible for doing as an author. But I mean, probably the hardest part still after all this is starting. That makes sense. Because once you get a role in, once you're several chapters into a book, things kind of steamroll, then you have a manuscript. And the editing is not fun and you got to find time to do it, but you're working on something that you already have and you can improve it. And then when you get that done, you move into the publishing part of it. It's like it all kind of picks up steam. But at the blank page stage is where it can be the most difficult still. I think I would agree with that. I used to write when I was younger, but I always found the hardest thing when I was making up stories and something like that was the very first sentence. How do you start it? You got to have something good. That was going to ask, do you always start at the beginning or do you sometimes start further in and work your way both directions? That's a good question because, you know, I think one of the things writers struggle with is where the beginning is. And I think they're definitely situations, definitely short story situations I know where, you know, I think the story starts back here. Then you start writing, you're like, no, it really starts up here. What happens before might be relevant might come out and sort of a little bit of backstory or something, but the story starts, you know, further on. I've never really done a situation where you're like, first chapter is is the end. And then you work back to it. I haven't had a story of that. That would be a while. Which fits would fit the head. It's kind of like when they're like like Travis's book where he starts all over the place. I know where he was like, she's dead. Okay. That was his first. Yeah. That's a good hook. You want to know more? So yeah. But he also would like write chapter three and write chapter seven. Yeah, he's all over the place with his. It's more like he wants to do specific sets or scenes and then just like puts a story around them a lot of time. I don't know. I don't think I could do any of it. Honestly, I mean, we've had other people that just start at the beginning and work there. Yeah. I think that would be harder. I think so too, because my brain's all over the place. I think I would probably be more like Travis would. All right. Actually, this is a question regarding your process. Are you more of an outliner? You do do more of like a free form sort of you go through and stuff just comes to you or. I'm kind of in between, but I lean towards outline. I hesitate to say outline because they very rarely produce what people would think of as an outline. But what I try to do, I use for first drafts, I use a software called Y rider. And it's set up in chapters and scenes. And each chapter in scene has like a little capsule description. And so I try to come up with, okay, what, what are my chapters going to be? If I, if I, here's how I want to start it, here's how I want to end it. How do I get from, from A to B? But then in the process of writing a lot of times, there are chapters that get inserted. And so things, things that crop up that I didn't really intend to begin with. The Bay of Sins, which is the third part of a trilogy I did called the Water Road. There's a whole B story, separate character that was not in the original plan. But about the third of way through, I'm like, I think this might be interesting thing to weave in here. And so I did that kind of on the fly. But I try, I try to do an honest kind of pancing Nanna Rima one year, and it did not work. I need, I need some structure, but I'm going to, to ignore the structure when it suits me. Oh, it makes sense. That makes sense. Okay, let's see. Okay, so we can go ahead and get into the actual book and stuff. Your covers, I was looking at them. How do you come up with them? Do you have someone who designs them? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. The first thing I did was a short story collection, and I was like, people do their own covers. I will do my own cover. That was the wrong thing. When it comes to visual stuff, I know what I like, but I don't have any clue how to get there. And so the people that I use for all of my covers now, because I redid the cover to more hollow when I did the sequel last year, are called deranged doctor designs. They're from the UK. And they're just fabulous. They have a two or three page questionnaire, basically, that you walk through about your book, what it's about, are there, are there characters you want on the cover, are there images, particular imagery, you want. And of course that they are cognizant of, you know, it's just a series, it's a trilogy, it's a standalone so they can set them up, you know, to have a consistent braining and everything. And so I use them first for the water road, and people just seemed to really be drawn to those and really compliment them. So I've just kept kept using them. I was going to say, I like that covers. I need to. And I think, I mean, you're not supposed to, but a cover will draw you. Oh, I judge by covers all time. I will absolutely. And just if the water road covers are pretty dope, not gonna lie, I'm looking at them right now. I judge a whole book by the cover, because I don't read synopsis. I refuse to read them. Yeah, I will not. The only reason I read books is either the cover caught my intention or somebody suggested it to me. No, okay. But I will not read a synopsis until like after I've read the book. The cover will make me read the synopsis. Try and figure out a little bit what it's about. I like going blind. And, and that's like, that's the crazy thing about it, because like, I read a lot of books about cannibalism. I don't know we go it in. If you ever fix nothing else, I was like, wow, that's a cool cover and you start it and you get like third of the way through and you're like, nope. I cannot do this. There's been a couple, yeah, but most of the time, I'll try to finish a book because I'm like, somebody wrote this. You know, somebody's put their work and effort into this. And I try to get through them. There's been a couple I do not finish. And then there's few, there's a few that I've hate read. Like one of the most popular ones is the quarter thorn and roses. That's absolutely despise. That's serious. Read the entire thing. I can tell everybody about how much I hate it and why. I mean, it's dedication. There's a lot of spite. You work in a library, so that probably helps. But if you buy all of them, you're not sending her a lesson. No, no, I am that. See, that's the thing I didn't buy them. But, like, Zach picks out a lot of books and he's like, oh, you'll love it. And then I read it and I'm like, I hate this. This has been the ones that you have not finished. No, I finished. I finished flatland. I finished that stupid shape one. Is that the same one? Okay, shape one. That's the same one. Okay, shape one. That's the same one. Okay, shape one. That's the same one. That's the same one. Okay, shape one. That's the same one. That's the same one. Okay, shape one. That's the same one. That's the same one. Okay, shape one. That's the same one. Okay, shape one. That's the same one. Okay, shape one. That was a good book. Now you're the mannequin. Oh, yeah, that was stupid. That was a stupid book. That was a stupid book. So, like the movie, but a horror tape or something? It's about a kid who thinks a mannequin is hunting him and his friends down. So, he decides to kill his friends first. That's dark. Yeah, that was dark. It was dark. It was kind of goofy dark, though. It was kind of goofy. It was like his logic doesn't make any sense. You know, whatever it's fun. It was stupid. He's doing it to save their families. It makes sense in context. He's still insane. But it makes sense in context. Yeah, it's awful. I think you're right for it. Okay. Do we want to read the synopsis of this book? Or we can, but I also wanted to, before we get into the actual book, how much do you want to talk about? Oh, yeah. That's a good point because spoilers and stuff. I'm the worst about giving spoilers before I realize what came out of my mouth. So, I want to know where, where my line is. I'm, I'm happy to talk about anything. Okay. Okay. He's like, spoiler friends. I like, there you go. Okay. Yeah. Have me read it because I think so well. I'm going to hoist myself in my own pitard here, but my, my theory on spoilers is always, if spoilers ruin something, really, it's not really worth reading or watching in a verse place. All right. I mean, there is something we said for going in cold, but if the twist is all there is. Yeah. Okay. All right. So Ben Potter's life is a, is a, in shambles. As a journalist, he's hit rock bottom, writing. Direct about monsters and ghouls to make ends meet after a big story blew up in his face. As a son, he's a disappointment, unwilling to follow his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather into the family business. As a father, he's mostly just not there. Now, a new assignment could change all that. All he has to do is go from London to the hills of West Virginia to investigate the strangest of stories his great-grandfather told. Did he sleazy politician really raise the dead to try and win an election? And if he did, what happened to the zombies? Could they still exist? Ben needs to find out to solve the mystery and find a way to get his life back on track. But finding the answer only presents Ben with a whole new batch of problems. Does he use what he learns to put his life back on track? Or will he be compelled to do the right thing even if it leaves his life a mess? The hardest part of a mystery is deciding what to do once you've solved it. I'm going to be honest. I love that last line. Like, I think that was really good. Because usually it just ends after that. Okay, I have a question just in general about the book, especially now knowing that you are a lawyer. So the whole point of at least this politician raising the dead is that those people still could technically legally vote, right? So is that a thing that happens? Is that an actual law anywhere? Is that like a thing? Obviously we can't raise people from the dead. That's an actual law anywhere. Or like I guess an oversight would be a better thing. Yeah, I think oversight is probably a better order. Well, you have a death certificate. You're not allowed to vote. Because the sort of genesis for this idea was there are stories from Southern West Virginia in the late 19th or early 20th century about voting irregularities in our situations where people who were dead were listed as having voted. And so the idea for this was, well, go one step further. Raise the dead. They can actually go vote in person. What are people going to do at that point? So that's kind of where it started. I didn't rigorously interrogate whether that would actually work. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things like I assume at least that there's not an explicit law written anywhere that says, once you are deceased, you can no longer vote. I think that would be silly. I think that's fair. Yeah. And there was, I mean, there has always been a lot of irregularities. I think some of them not quite as dramatic as that. But my grandmother used to work the polls when she was younger. Well, and she was alive too since she's not. But my there was no, it was not uncommon for people to be standing outside the polls offering money to vote a certain way. And she would get so mad at my grandpa for taking the money. And he's like, I'm going to vote however I want to anyway. It's a good like a free five bucks or whatever. Or booze. But is this man? Yeah, she was I mean, she was like not a happy camper with that. But he was like, I'm going to have to give it to me. You know, I'm going to vote anyway. It's a secret about it. Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah, there's a so I could see this probably as a possibility of somebody thinking that that would work. Yeah. Okay. So, why did you choose the county that you chose? Was there like a specific draw to that one? Is there like something that you know about said county? Okay. What wound up happening is I was writing it and it was going to be I think it was Mingo County. But there was something in a neighboring county that I wanted to include or something. And so I just wound up making one up. So, it sort of occupies a liminal space down there along the. See, I was like, why did you pick that one? Why not like one of the other 55 counties? I was thinking it was Logan. Yeah. Because I could see Logan. Yeah. Having something like. Yeah. I mean, there's like Boone County. I can see Boone County. My ex husband. That's where he was from. So, yeah, I can see that whole. But yeah, it was worse than Boone. Oh, God. So, yeah. Yeah. There's freedom in having a place that kind of reminds people of real places, but it isn't actually a real place. Yeah. So, that's why I was like, because I pictured Boone County. Did you? Yeah. That's what I imagine. Because I know Boone County. Yeah. You've been there. I mean, it's West Virginia. There's not a lot of difference. No. I mean, no. A positive. There's like nothing towns out in like nowhere counties. Like there's times of them. Like almost all of the middle. Just like that. And the southern part. Or southern middle. Yeah. That coal country. Yeah. Yeah. Basically, all coal country. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, why did you choose to make the zombies the way that they were where they just like. Didn't do anything really. This is a unique take on. Yeah. I've never heard anybody make zombies like that. And it makes more sense. Why do they not deteriorate? Oh, that was. Yeah. That was. Going back to the beginning of that compound question, Senator. Um, sorry. I thought of it as I was asking. My thought with the zombies was always the original kind of the original short story. That, uh, sort of developed into this book was the politician and his, his henchman, his Igor doing the, you know, sort of the magic that would raise the zombies. And the whole point was just that it didn't work the way he, he, he managed to. He came, sent something problematic. And so when I shifted in, in, in set the book, when I said it, I was like, I don't want it to be. I don't want them to be monsters necessarily. I don't want them to be the typical brain eating, you know, blaster heads off of the shotgun. I really like this idea of them being a problem that had to be dealt with and also a secret. The, the little town had and they were like, we know if the rest of the world knew about this. We'd be overrun and these, you know, these coming. God forsaken beings or whatever they are. And that's, that's very fitting for a small, less Virginia town, the whole, let's keep it a secret. But in terms of why they don't deteriorate, um, I'll just say magic. Zombie magic. Yeah. That makes sense. I was just didn't know if there was nothing specific though. I thought the, the, it kind of had a similarity between like the Voodoo type zombies where they give them the drug. And they look like they're dead and they bury them and they can dig them up. And they're, they're just messed up. Their brain is just messed up. And I thought they behave more like that than the zombies from like horror movies or books or something. I said it had more of a, like, I don't want to say base in reality, but more of what an actual zombie could be. Yeah, it's a good point. I, that wasn't intentional, but I've read some things along those lines since I wrote that. And I, uh, that's, that's a good comparison. I mean, it's not zombies falling in love, like some of these results. It is, it is not that. Oh, but it could have been. It would have been. Kind of funny, but nonsense. I thought the way the town dealt with it, she was very. Spot one. Yeah. Yeah. It's terminal. I mean, because actually at the time, it would have happened. That would have been their loved ones. And had they, they'd already came back from the dead. So could you really kill them or would you just cause them to suffer? I mean, you would have all these things going on in your head. It's like, how do we deal with this? Yeah. Thank you. You, do you want me to zombie? No, make sure I'm dead. Okay. I don't just like come back later with a bull hole, man. Yeah. I'd be like, dang it, mama. I'm getting a program again. I feel the love. That would be great. It's important to have, you know, these kind of talks. I mean, if you just decapitated them with a head be alive in the body be alive or. You know, in the locking dead, that's what happened. Yeah. Yeah. See, you got to decide this stuff before you're actually in the situation. Yeah. See, the more it's on the head, the more it's off. Absolutely. I don't want to be a zombie. Take me out. Yeah. Like, if I get bit, take me on immediately. Absolutely. Like, I'm so alive. Take me on immediately. I do the same for you guys. Let me think of a cool last words though. Okay, that's fair. You got three seconds. You get like a minute to have last words. Okay. A minute. That seems good. Okay. Plenty of time. Why did you choose to write more about the growth of the main character and less about the whole zombie aspect? That was part of the process of transitioning it from a short story to a novel. Because I was working on the short story. Essentially, it was a joke. It was a dead people voting in West Virginia. How about real dead people voting? I like the joke, but it's kind of empty and everything. I thought of this idea of somebody in modern times trying to figure out the truth of that. I started to build Ben as a character. I would love to be able to say I had a perfect reason for making him British. I don't. I fought back on that because I even had one of my beta readers say, be sure you want to have a British character whose last name is Potter. Oh, yeah. I don't even think about that. Yeah. I don't have enough you that's a wizard. I think there's a reference to that and that I put. But yes, I decided he was going to be British. Well, if he's he has to have a connection to West Virginia, he just can't come to West Virginia. So like, what's the connection? And so I thought about back in the real boom years of the coal industry in the late 19th, early 20th century. You've course had coal miners, but you also had railroad engineers and builders and everything. They built railroads to haul the coal out to the main areas and everything. And I thought about, OK, maybe his grandfather or great grandfather comes here and sort of comes in leads. So he can build sort of an outside observer. And then that sort of led to, OK, well, what's what's the rest of the family do and it gets the idea of, you know. Granddad was kind of a nut and been sort of identifies with him and his his father, you know, wants him to be more serious and all that kind of stuff. Then that his development and his trying to get his life together kind of came came together, I suppose. I kind of like the grades because at first I wasn't, I didn't really like him as a character. I was like, this guy is just a real pain. He is kind of a smart ass. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, but the more he interacted with the people of the town, the more he started changing. I just, I like the way he grew in the end. And I mean, and he's going to have a lot of things to answer for recalls of it. But I think it's a good thing. I think he turned out better in the end that he started. I like that side character that was helping him the young guy. I can't remember names. But that guy was pretty cool. It's like, no, I can't help you, but I know a guy. Yeah, that's the way it works. I know people in real life like that, you know, they're just like, oh, I know somebody. Don't worry. Yeah. Sometimes that's that's somebody's job. Essentially, they're the conduit through which everybody else gets connected to do their things. I mean, I don't like most of the characters in the book. I thought it was very spot on. I mean, I was going to ask and I don't have it down. I forgot it. No. I haven't read the second one yet. We have it out there. I was going to say we can talk about that. And I think of it. But it's like. I can only guess what it because I haven't read the back of it because I. Once every the back of usually if it sucks me in and I'm committed to reading. And I don't have really a lot of time at what I'm trying to finish one up. So does it it follows being more I'm assuming it does. It does, but it also broadens the castle a little bit when I wrote that I intended it to be a stand line. And I went off and wrote a couple of trilogies. But in the process of going to book festivals and things like that, I had people who had read more hollow and they're like, are you going to write sequel? Are you sure I sequel? Are you going to write sequel? And so I was like, well, no, it's a standalone. It is what it is. But then I had an idea that I thought was like, well, I could sort of turn this into its own series. So the the new one triplets of 10erton. Ben comes back to us Virginia, but this time permanently. And he's he's trying to make it go of it as a local paranormal investigator. Web guru, you know, podcast, I was kind of thing. And he gets sucked into a murder case. Which actually drags in some characters from a book I wrote several years ago. That's never going to leave my closet because it was very good. But I like the ideas. Yeah, that is so cool to read that one too. But I like the idea is in it. And so he works with with this lawyer on this case. It's a cold case involving these. It was an arson in these three infant triplets who died in it. And the father after all these years is charged. Well, setting the fire and he just insists that they are alive. And so the lawyer who has kind of reputation for dealing with odd clients and everything. Here's about Ben. Ben's bringing in to be sort of her investigator on the weird side of things. And so it goes into what what actually happened. And are there sort of bigger things at play. So those characters will all sort of be recurring as things things go forward. But yeah, it's still still been. Give me Harry dresser vibes, honestly. Now I'm going to have to go and check this out and take it home. And like reshuffle my reading. Yeah, I had to figure it out. You let me know because I got like a good six months of stuff lined up. Well, you get school. So that makes it harder. Yeah, I'm in college too. Hardly seems fair. Yeah, so. All right, Zach, do you have any questions? Because I still can't remember mine. And it's I guess I guess crazy. What? It's like it's okay. Remember mine and it's driving me crazy. Okay, well, I got something. So maybe I don't know if this is something you run into the two with this book just in general. But going in when I heard about like I guess the premise of the book, I was definitely expecting something very different from what we got. And it is because like I expected to be a little bit more horror. And it's sort of, I don't know, feels like it leans into that a few times. But then when you actually get to it, it's like there's not actually any real horror there. There's weirdness, but it's more interesting and more like a curiosity type thing as opposed to actual horror. That's fair. So I guess my main my main question is like, is this something you've heard? Is this like an intentional choice that you made like to make it feel like it's horror? But then when you actually get there, it's it's actually horrible. But here's here's this little town with this little secret. It was an intentional in that I was thinking I'm going to walk right up to a line but not cross it. It was intentional in that since I decided that the zombies weren't really going to be your typical brain-munching monsters that it had to work in a different way. But yeah, I try to sell this to people sometimes and at book festivals or whatever and they'll pick it. I mean, oh, zombies aren't for me. I was like, you're not that kind of zombies. Because they're really not. Like this is a completely different sort of story. And I think knowing the zombies weren't there like kind of trying to sort of look there for a little bit and I was like, what in the world is this book? Because you get up to that point and you're like, man, something's going to start getting eaten right now. Yeah, I was expecting it. Yeah, that's kind of happened. I like horror though. I like people eating people very clearly. Yeah, Mallory was worried about it because that's her big thing. Like our zombies are like her like, no, no, like she can't watch movies like Sean of the Dead. Have you seen that movie? Gave her nightmares. Like she cannot handle that. It's a little embarrassing. Why call it Mallory out like that? Is that it on the podcast? It's like me with aliens. All right. We just, we can't do it. Yeah, so does in the second book, do you have some of the characters from the first one in that one or is it just Ben? Ben and his daughter and his ex. Do they move with him? They don't move with him, but he has a couple of video chats. Okay, okay. That'd be hard. I can't imagine moving across the pond. Across the pond. Speaking of him being British and coming to West Virginia, there's actually two guys on TikTok from Britain that came to West Virginia just recently. I saw some of that. Yeah. Some of them. Man, they drank moonshine. That was funny. The ones that ate the biscuits and gravies. Yeah. And the one put ketchup on his biscuit and everybody was like, no. Don't do that. That is actually a thing every time somebody from. It's usually the UK somewhere comes over and has biscuits and gravy. They're like, oh my God, there's just a mirror. Yeah, I think it's like a scout. Yeah, right. I didn't see I didn't realize I knew tutors was like strictly like a West Virginia type deal. I know genos was. Yeah, they're the same same people will see I knew that they come together a lot in a lot of different places like here and hopefully they're too separate, but I just. I never thought it was what it's the same. It is the same. Yeah. And yeah, I just was never like, oh, maybe genos isn't everywhere too. Yeah. Does he try genos or tutors? He doesn't. I should have actually I'm not I'm not sure I could have done that because I am I am not the world's biggest tutorshan. I love to I always order like the strangest thing though when I go there because I order a little tater, but I get no potatoes in it. So it's a no tater. Yeah, basically, and I just have extra eggs put in. I think I think tutors just like you either love it or you hate it. There's like not that middle. Michael doesn't like it and Michael's not from us Virginia. So maybe it's maybe this is tutors like skyline. Skyline is awful. Skyline is awful. Yeah, you're just wrong there. I hate. I hate it. Who makes sweet chili? That's disgusting Greeks apparently. It's disgusting. It's fine. It's just like. Definitely there's having nostalgia there. Okay, anyways. So the last actual question that we have on our list like we can still talk some more, but. Do you have any tips that you would share with aspiring writers or something that you wish you knew going into writing and publishing? There are there are a lot of people that give tips and a lot of people who. Will have rules and things you things you should do things you shouldn't do. And. I think my mind my two things would be number one rules are good to know. So you know when you break them and why you're breaking them. So you know if one rule you see somewhere is never start a book with a character who is waking up from a dream. Okay, you can do that, you know, but you probably I don't know why you're doing that and why you think this is going to work where it generally doesn't. The other thing which is kind of rule and it's not a rule I follow religiously to my detriment is it really helps if you do something writing related every day. If you you know assuming you got a job or you're in school or something like that sitting down you have 15 minutes even if it's. Sort of like world building sort of like thinking about characters or something it doesn't have to be sitting down with a pen and paper or a computer keyboard and typing it doesn't have to be. X number of words on a page. But if you just kind of keep chipping away at things they build up and you wind up with things that you can. Work with that become stories or books. I think that's really good advice. It is good advice. I would never follow it. It's good with everything to you because I mean it's going to say a lot of people say like you know just 10 minutes of something every day. It's like with my jewelry. If I go months without doing anything it's like I have to relearn how to do it again. Which is insane since I've been doing it for years but it's still. That's me with my painting. It's like you just if you if you stay at it you stay in that mindset but if you. Like I would not recommend going to month or two like I do sometimes because it takes you a good week. You also have to like make yourself sit down and take that time too when you stop for so long. Yeah because you're like oh well I haven't done this long what's one more day and it's like three. Yeah. I think that's really good advice. Now do you have any things that you are currently working on? I am. You want to discuss. It's super secret. I'm not telling you about it. There's zombies. No zombies now. I'm working on a book. I'm editing it. I've got a draft and so I'm in the process of editing it. That is inspired by the fate of a guy. Is anybody heard of a gentleman named Franz Reichelt? No. What did you call that? He's French. And around the turn of the century when. Flight was kind of starting. One of the things people were trying to figure out was basically to develop what would become parachutes. And so he created a flying suit. It was sort of a jumpsuit kind of thing that would deploy if like you had to jump out of a balloon or an airplane. And he was he was testing them. And he kept tying just to sort of just jumping off of things. And they weren't really working and he thought I need to jump someplace higher in order to have enough time for the thing to play. You kind of see where this is going. Oh my god. I haven't heard of this. So he talks his way onto the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower. That's pretty high up still. With a pair of British newsreel cameras into one with him and one on the ground. And so he puts his suit on and he jumps and it does not work. Oh no. And he falls to his death on camera. And so I had heard about that. And I was like, oh man, that's that's wild. There's got to be a story idea there. And then there's a YouTube series that I wish I could remember the name of. But it's like little 10, 11 minute videos on disasters. Air crashes and building collapses and stuff like that. And there was one on friends or I count. And the guy very consciously did not show the footage of him falling to his death. Guess it's out there. That was probably not as stupidity of age. And it got me thinking about how we think about about people like that. And so this book is it's set in a world where sort of an art decouille kind of world. And magic was discovered about a generation back. That's cool. And the main character is an old guy. He's a retired rabble ralzer. He used to be a labor organizer and all this sort of stuff. He's very anti-magic because he thinks basically magic has come along and kind of smoothed everything out enough that nobody cares about systematic problems in society. And so there's a woman. There's a monument. It's called the Tower of the Three Queens. It's kind of an eyefully tower kind of thing. So there's this woman who falls off of it. And the reaction kind of generally the city is, oh, she's, you know, she's crazy. You know, she's, she's nuts. We don't really care about her and he really internalizes that and decides he is going to find out what drove her there. And in the process of telling figuring out how to tell her story, he's going to try and figure out his place in this world that he's kind of like not a part of anymore. He's estranged from his, his daughter and his grandkids. And so it's, it's a little different from the stuff I've done before. So the first thing I've done that actually has magic explicitly in it, which is kind of fun. Yeah, but it sounds like it's a different look at magic, too. So that's kind of, that's an intriguing. Yeah. Sounds good. It does. It does sound interesting. That one comes out. We should have you back along because that sounds interesting. I like, I like that idea. Yeah. All right. Also, just FYI for the listeners, look up. If nothing else, just pictures of this man who jumped off, what's his name again? I just, I have it right here. I can't believe he had enough confidence in his, I don't think I've ever had enough confidence in literally anything. It's like, it's still not working. So I'm going to get higher because that's going to do it. Yeah, I'm not sure if it's confident, if it was confident so much as it was, there were so many people working on similar things that he had to keep ahead of what other people were doing. I think I would have picked some place where there's water at the bottom. I know, probably still didn't die, but at least you know, had your bets a little bit, you know? That's fair. Like jump off a cliff. Jump off a cliff. That would be better. He shouldn't have been like a sugar glider at the back up because then maybe, you know, because people do that. Yeah, the cliff jumping with a little sugar glider outfits. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's wild looking. If you watch some of those videos, they'll go like three little holes and things on the how in the world. Those videos are terrifying. I just, because I have this edge thing going on. That's mine. She can't, she can't even have other people standing here. I was in her pictures of me with my feet off cliffs. Yeah, it's like, oh, yeah. Can't do it. I was thinking about it. I was thinking about the one he sent where he was like standing like in the river. It's somewhere out there. And it was maybe it was. Where was a Yellowstone? Where was it at? Where was your 70? Your 70. Okay. Your 70 balls at the top. Oh, gee, he's okay. Yeah, and you can see the waterfall like right up. And I thought, what if you had slipped? There's not even time to like save yourself. There was none in a room. Yeah, you get about 10. I was like, he was like, 15 feet before the end of the waterfall. Yeah, there's like a block that gets moved up in the middle. You can just hop over on to it. Oh, my God. Yeah. It was a dry rock. I checked. Sounds like a plan that might not have. Oh, my God. You're acted well with reality. So that I was a little bit down the back. Oh, that's a beautiful picture. I'm like, what are you thinking? It's a very pretty picture. Okay. I just wanted to briefly touch on your other books that you've written. It looks like you've got a couple of trilogies. Obviously, we haven't read these ones, but you've got a couple of trilogies in here. And I guess like you said that the other ones didn't have explicit magic in them or anything. Maybe it's just the coverage making me feel like this. Is this like like one looks a little bit kind of steam-hunky and the other one looks. I don't know. It looks at least swords. Not if not sword and sorcery, sword and board type, like, you know, medieval type stuff. I can't tell though, really, from just the covers. I could read the things, but I've been talking to you. The water road is, I think of it as epic fantasy. The sort of time period equivalent for its setting is like early 19th century. So it's actually gunpowder. But yeah, there's no magic. There actually aren't humans in those books. But it's a fantastical world. There are things that are several like cryptids. That don't actually exist in our world as much as we want them to, but they exist in that world. And there are some other things like that that are sort of fantastical. And then the unari empire trilogy is steam-punkish. There's also an ancient alien angle to it. Absolutely not. Okay, I'm bored with that. That sounds like steam-punkish aliens. Well, that's not true. I do read alien books, but the cryptid's got me. I like the cryptids. Yeah. Ah, cryptid's whatever. It's been their time now. The other one does sound really cool though. I mean, the cryptid's stuff does sound kind of neat. Just like the world sounds kind of neat. But the other one is unari empire trilogy. I'm actually going to pick that one up and read it like Sunish. Okay, cool. Now this, it sounds neat. Now I was reading through a little bit of this, I guess not set off. This is whatever the good for each thing is called. A little description, dude. Sounds interesting as well. Plus the covers are cool. And of course, we judge books by their covers. No, for sure. One other thing, I just wanted to briefly mention. I noticed that we have a friend in common, and that is Timothy Hugin. Oh, yeah. Hey, yeah, we had him on. What was a couple months ago? Yeah, I saw that. Yep. He's fun. Yeah, I met him at, I think it was the West Virginia Book Festival years ago. And not only do we wind up at those things, but we've seen wind up at those things like at next door tables or across the aisle or something like that. I guess because we sort of both write, you know, sort of weird paranormal things. And people think it makes sense to cluster them together. Yeah. I mean, it feels like our shop in one section. That's right. I think that's right. I think that's true on the one hand. But I also think what happens sometimes is people who are interested in a particular thing like that. They find the first one and they buy all their stuff and they run out of money. Well, yeah. Yeah, that is an issue with like, because I mean books are not that cheap, you know, especially physical copies. Yeah. So you go there, you're like, oh, I mean, this is cool. And you want to buy all their stuff. And then you go to the next person, you're like, oh, I'll spend all my money. You get a sign that says paranormal start here. Okay. Yeah. There you go. See, I'm a browser though. I'll go and look at everything. I do. And then decide what it is I want. Yeah. There's some people to do that. There are some people who come and browse and lie and say they'll come back and they never do. Well, they probably found something else. Or they just didn't have money and they would like to have it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always think of it as, you know, they come, they look, we talk a little bit and they're like, oh, well, maybe I'll come back and they walk away and I'm like, you're not going to. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes you can really tell. I'm also a horrible salesperson. I don't like to be sold. And so in my head, I don't want to sell to people. I get that. Yeah. Yeah, I know I get that. I'm not a salesperson either, man. Neither. But Rowan, my daughter. Oh, my God. She'll sell you anything. Yeah. Call it down, child. Yeah. She's like, look at this. This is done by this person. And they made it because of this. And like, she will talk to you for 15 minutes about something to try to sell it to you. Do you want to try selling people to podcast a little bit more? Yeah. Well, you know, she was older. My philosophy is if they wanted, they're going to buy it. Yeah. I'm just like, here's my stuff. If you like it, you know, I'm just not a people person either. So I'm like, that's exhausting. And it is. It can't be. Yeah. My face is depression because I was smiling. And I guess I didn't smile enough. Yeah. And it's like, oh my God. I just want to die now. You need to train for it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like. That. Yeah. That in the pack of. Or a bottle of Advil. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. All right. Well, we are coming up on an hour. So do we have any. Yeah. Other questions or thoughts. I have. I have one more just real quick. So you've definitely written in like the fantasy genre. A little bit in this like sort of paranormal genre it looks like. And then. Are there any other genres you think about branching out into? Because it seems like you've been doing different stuff every time you've been like going around and writing new books. Like this new one you were talking about is. A different sort of vibe. Like I guess historical fantasy type deal almost. Yeah. Kind of sort of. I mean, I mean, in my head I group I group everything I've done under the umbrella of fantasy. I have some short stories that are honestly going to science fiction, but I don't have the. Technical wherewithal. I think to write science fiction. Fantasy it's very easy to. You build a world like not so late is you know. The water road is called the water road because there is a river that runs the width of this continent that is navigable. It's entire length which just doesn't happen. Well, guess what? God did that. You know, that's that's the backstory of this world. The only difference is you could have said like, you know, all the the ancients did that and it's an alien civilization. Yeah. Well, that's a little bit what's some of the unari stuff is. But yeah, I do try and find different different different vibes. Like you said, different niches within. Yeah. Within fantasy and paranormal. You know, because the triples of Tanderton's kind of a mystery, you know, a little bit kind of a murder mystery. It's got it has courtroom stuff. I couldn't resist. You courtroom stuff altogether, given my day job. It was going to sneak in there somewhere. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, one point I thought I'm going to have a lawyer in every book just, you know, because we're everywhere. We're we're like locusts. But I haven't but I haven't managed to do that. Okay, so you said that you've read some Terry Pratchett. Did you read the We Free Men? I have not read that one yet. There is a toad lawyer. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he is amazing. He is amazing. Okay, I'll definitely suggest that he did start out as a toad. No. He was a lawyer. They got into it. Because he made, I guess it was a witch mad, wasn't it? Yeah. That's never a good idea. No. So but now he's the the We Free Men's lawyer. Yeah. Nice. Definitely have to look down on it. It's very good. Well, say it doesn't happen in the first book. Doesn't that's like the second one? Maybe or the third. The second third. Yeah. I think you meet him in the second one. He really falls into the lawyer role into the third one. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I think he saw that for like as the lawyer in the second one. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. So cool. There's there's so much of the Discworld stuff I have left to explore. Oh, yes, I haven't read all of them, but those are some of my favorites. So. Yeah. Well, I really liked the book and I would recommend it to people. And I at first when I didn't really like the character. I'm like, where is this going to go? Where's this going to go? And the more I read the better it got. And I loved the different twist on zombies because it made him look more. Like a human maybe it's like these were once people. Yeah. Instead of just being a monster. Yeah. So I kind of like that. It was a nice twist. And you're not looking for. You're not a horror reader either. I'm not. I'm not. That's the reason I probably liked it. Probably as much as I did. And I'm looking forward to reading the second one now. So yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, looks like the crone was going to have to wait a minute. You know, I really enjoyed the book as well. And, uh, I thought I knew it was going to happen in it basically the whole time. And I was wrong every single time. Me too. Me too. You know, good. And it was pleasant surprises. You never know how. Yeah. No, there's good surprises. You never know how those things are going to land because, uh, you know, in the writing. Certainly by the time I'm editing and everything. I know what the setups are and how I'm trying to lead them. Lead them there. But, you know, you never know how readers going going to interact. There's an incident that happens at the beginning of the water road that kind of sets up the whole thing. And, uh, there's a review somewhere or someone's like, I just couldn't buy that. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's fair. People have different reactions to things. But, you know, I think at this book, it was that I had too many preconceived notions of what was going to happen. Like I was definitely expecting, you know, some sort of zombie nonsense to happen. Like, you know, they start eating people or go crazy. I also thought that he was going to get over the character's name. But the sheriff and the like cold airing guy, I can't remember what his name is. Anyway, that those two were going to end up like trying to kill Ben. But it didn't ever happen either. They just kind of took him as like, now don't you go talking to anybody? We're going to trust you. Share a phrase, wasn't it? Yeah. And then McGee was the other guy. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, I was expecting something like that to happen. No, they were chill dudes for the most part. I mean, I understood where they were coming from. It's just. Yeah. I was expecting, like, you know, evil rich man. Yeah. Because. Like, he actually had a tie to one of the zombies. Yeah. Which was interesting. It's like, you know, so that's the thing. I was expecting something different because I think of preconceived notions. But it made all this stuff made sense in the context of the book. And I, it wasn't, I wasn't disappointed by it or anything. I was just like surprised. Yeah. I guess I was wrong. Maybe he's not an awful person. Yeah. But you think that at first. You think, oh, no. Oh, no, you 100% think that at first because you're seeing it sort of through Ben's point of view. And back, I mean, there were people that were really that ruthless in history. Oh, yeah. For sure. And in, you know, West Virginia, especially connected to the coal mines. I'm really worried about the hate on Ben because Ben is the closest to me of any character. It was the fact that he was not, he was, he was there to use people. Oh, okay. And I don't do that. No. And it's like, and he grew. It's like, you know, there's. Yeah. That's what it was. Like, we can more self-aware stuff. Yes, he did. And he was more empathetic. Yeah. And it's like, oh, you know, there's more going on here than. Yeah. Or maybe it revealed his empathy more. I don't know. I think it's what they said to trauma. Very different from the beginning towards the end. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't, I like them in the end. Yeah, because I think at the beginning, he would not have done what he did at the end. I don't think so. I don't think he would have just let things lie. Yeah. Yeah. Without having, like, you know, both with these people, I got a little bit more of the backstory. Yeah. And, you know, had this like deep introspection. And I think the fact that they trusted him. I'm just putting words in your mouth here. But I think the fact that they trusted him made him more aware of what he was doing. Oh, 100%. Yeah. That was the big push, I think, when it was the fact that they trusted him. Because they didn't need to. Right. They probably shouldn't have. Honestly, but, you know, they did. Yeah. And now I've felt like it melted his heart a little bit. Yeah. Less crunchy. But I would recommend it. And we definitely haven't here to check out. So if something was to check it out. And Judy, she will. Yes. She will. I like it. Somebody's waiting on it. And I've had a little bit longer than I probably should have. But I was like, I was trying to. Yeah. I wanted to have it for this. Yeah, I know. So I was like, she's going to wait. Did you hold it up? I did hold it up because I wanted to have it with the podcast. So I had the physical copy. And then I ended up reading it on my condolence. Okay. Yeah, I did a candle. I was like, oh, yeah, you can have this, by the way. Which is a good thing because we didn't have too many. I mean, I do. Yeah, I know. So I got one for us. Someone for Ravensway. But I ended up getting it on my Kindle. So. Which honestly is like the only first. It's the first actual real book that I've read on my Kindle. Really? I read graphic novels on my Kindle a lot. But I don't like reading on screens very much. But I was able to read this one. That's good. Yeah. I don't know why. But it worked. I find a lot easier to read on Kindle personally. I don't know. I'm not on school. I have to hold the book or listen to it. That's my only choices. I hardly ever get to actually sit down and read a physical book. I always have to listen. But. I have to print stuff off. If I have to read it at work because I read better from a paper than I do that screen. I don't know. You're so old. I know. I know. All right. Well, are we going to wrap this up then? I guess any last words. Too much pressure. All right. Thank you guys for having me. Thanks for coming. Thank you for coming. Sorry. We had to reschedule so many times. Absolutely. You're all slow. Whether. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's actually in our after. They control the snow. Absolutely. It's a thing. All right. So coming up next is my nonfiction pick, which is Melania. And then we will sit down with special guest Adam Good to discuss some really fun stuff. Then we will have Malorie's nonfiction, Love and Whiskey by Fawn Weaver. And then we will have our first actual book chat of the year. Which is insane that it's going to be February February before that happens. But snow has like messed up arc schedule completely. We have House of Leafs done by then. You never know. No, no. Probably not. All right. It's a big book. It is. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. It is time for us to sign off. But before we go, only the best libraries have librarians who don't show you.[Music][BLANK_AUDIO]