Entertainment Series 9: D.J. MacHale/ Writing Pendragon / AI & Post Capitalism / Creative Processes

0:01 Welcome to another episode of come together DJ McHale. What a pleasure I the 13 to 15 year to 16 year old me is freaking out inside right now, and I'm very, very happy to be talking to you. How are you I'm. Happy to be here. I'm, I'm excellent. It's good to meet you. It's good to meet you too. So, you know, I started, I was doing, I was talking to a friend of mine who I told you I just texted at letting him know we're talking about, we're, we're recording together and we're talking about potential guests and great writers that I, you know, that we would like to talk to. And we, and then I said to him, I was like, dude, you must have read PED Dragon growing up.

0:48 And he said, yeah, dude, he goes, I actually didn't know too many other, everyone knew about it, but not too many of my friends actually had read it. And I was like, yeah, well, I loved it. And, and I said I got to reach out to the author and then I did some homework other than other than the book. And I saw you had quite a incredible creative career in general on screen and in writing. And so, so I'm happy because that gave me a lot more firepower and things to talk about so. Right. Yeah, that's good. Well, it's kind of fun how when you when you make television, unless you're a big highfalutin star or whatever, most people don't know who makes television shows. They, they, it's the actors, you know, it's it's the it's the whoever show and they don't know who the writers are and whatnot. And it wasn't till but people do know who writes books because their name is right of the book And people, chances are they might not even know the title of the book, but they know the author.

1:41 And so it's, it was fun, you know, to start a while ago, but it's fun where combination of being an author and getting my name on books and social media. So the people like putting two and two together, they're like, whoa, wait a minute, that's the same guy that I watched in that show. So it was, so it was really, it's kind of fun to get, oh, it's the right word without sounding egotistical, getting recognized or getting kudos for having done something that back when I did it, no one knew with or in front of the dark. No one had any idea. So I talk about it more today than I did back then. I feel a similar scenario happened with people like Ben Stiller where he directed that awesome show Severance. And I, you know, and someone told me like, hey man, you should watch Severance.

2:30 And I said, I'm not crazy about Ben Stiller. And he's like, no, there's nothing to do with the Ben Stiller that you think you know or don't know. He's like, there's a whole another side of him that, that, that, that comes out here. And it's really good. And I have to say I was blown away. So I love when people and also who knows how long he could have been wanting to direct something serious, you know, or something a little bit more thought provoking and just never got the chance to because he was typecast for, you know, whatever reason or for however long, you know. Well, he's having a pretty good career without doing that. So whether he was feeling like he's missing something, I guess, but he was, he was doing quite fine before that. So this is just adds to it. So he's he's so good for him. He's he's doing fine. Definitely, definitely so. So I want to hear if you don't mind, I would love for this to kind of be a combination of me kind of picking your thoughts a little bit. Just in general.

3:15 I want to hear a little bit about your creative process and the way that you come up with stories and your world building which seems which is really exceptional. And I also would love to hear just a little terms of narrative and little biographical aspect as to what, you know, parts of your life you were writing or working for television which came first, which was a passion and we kind of start wherever you prefer. But those are the two areas I would like to, you know, get to with our time. Yeah, the, the one of the things that's kind of fun for me is when I speak at schools, most because of the books, not just the TV, because of the books. And I have a speech, I've given it 8,000,000 times. But and it's I've it's, it's honed down. Believe me.

3:59 It's I know exactly how to get, I can give it in my sleep. But one of the things that I start with that is absolutely true, but it also endears me to the kids, is that I start off by saying I hate to write. OK. And so you know who that gets everyone's attention? Like, oh really? Talk to some boring author and he who hates to write. Tell me more. But it was that hatred of writing that got me to become a writer. And, and as odd as that sounds, it's because when I was in school, when I well, throughout, you know, SEC first, but it's not secondary education.

4:44 It's, you know, K through 12, let's say which one? Where were. You in New York, Connecticut, which is, which is actually suburban New York. I mean, it's it's, I mean, you can see Manhattan from my town. So it's so I feel like a New Yorker even though it's Connecticut. But it wasn't so much that I hated writing, as it turns out. It's that I just didn't have the discipline to do it. I just hated having to sit down and not running around outside and not watching TV or not playing, whatever it happened to be. So it was about 8th grade that for whatever amazing stroke of good luck. Now, this is a long time ago. This is the dark ages. This is like 1970.

5:28 There's a media specialist on a school teacher who, I'm not sure what he did, but he was the media specialist and he came to me one day and I don't know why he did this, but he said, DJ, we, we just got this thing in, do you want to use it? And it was a, he called it a portable videotape recorder. Now, by today's standards, there's nothing portable about this thing. I, you know, it was between the cables and the cameras and the batteries and the, you know, it's, it's probably gas powered for all I remember. But black and white reel to reel, you know, really old school, horrible quality. And he said, you want to use this. And I said, no, what?

6:09 I want to use it. But then a couple friends of mine and I who had the same mindset were like, hey, who? We came up with the best scam. We said whenever we have to do a report on something, an essay, whatever it is, rather than write a report that we hate because we hate to write, maybe we can make a videotape about it instead. Awesome. So you know, today that's commonplace if people, they're walking around in their pocket with the technology to do that. But no one was doing it back then. So we used to go to teachers and say, can we make this video instead? And they'd all have the same reaction. They have this look like I want to be supportive, but are they trying to get away with something like I don't, I don't know. If so, they'd say, I guess I'm like, OK, thank you, goodbye. And from from that like 8th grade, I guess that was from 8th grade until 12th grade.

6:58 There are three or four of us that whenever a report came up, whether it's for our class or somebody else's class, they'd say time to make another show, time to make another video. And we're like, OK, And we made comedies, We made dramas, we made game shows, we made documentaries and. I loved. It everything and, you know, all horrible, but but and and we learned about whatever the thing was that we were doing it about and the thing that that also we didn't. Well, we thought we're so smart because we were having fun. We were getting out of writing because we hated to write and because it was so new, teachers had no idea how to grade these things, so we always got A's.

7:39 So I was like, yeah, this is fine. It wasn't until I I'll jump ahead pretty quickly. When I graduated high school, I, I went, I didn't know what I wanted to do for life, but I knew I should go to college. So I went to a college that I'm going to be a pre law like yeah, right. That's. I did that too, English major. There's there's anything I learned at that, at that university, it was like, I don't want to be doing this. Yeah. So it was my girlfriend at the time who said, you know, you really liked in high school making movies. Why don't you go to film school? I was like, oh, isn't that a bad idea? OK, fine. So I replied to you in a church. I went to NYU film school and there was a a real moment that I had that I had to take a writing class because you have to take all these film type things that's writing. And I went to the professor and I said this is going to be ugly. And she said why?

8:31 And I said because I hate to write. And she laughed at me and I was like, what are you talking about? She said, DJ, you come up with stories, right? Oh, yeah, she says, and you like telling these stories, right? Yeah, she says. And and you like getting feedback from people, see how they like. And if they based on the feedback, you either make it funnier, scarier, change or whatnot. Yeah. She was with Doofus. What do you think writing is? And I was like, oh, you know, just because I wasn't sitting typing it or writing on a piece of paper, whatever, that didn't feel like that was writing. But she said you for all the films you've made, you probably did more writing than any kid whoever went through that high school of yours, like, Oh my God, that's pretty good. So that's when I kind of realized that, Oh, maybe I, I can be a writer and, and to get into the film business. And back in those days, kind of along the same lines of nowadays you can make a feature film with your, your iPhone. It was very expensive to be actually making films back then. And so I thought I couldn't afford that. I was poor.

9:36 So it's like, if I'm going to get into this business, it's going to be through writing. So that's kind of how I got into being a writer and writing screenplays and writing teleplays and things like that. So that was that was really the the beginning of it. That's awesome. That's really cool. And what's what's so cool about that is I guess it answers the question of which came first. And the answer is the word built the world building. You know, if you're, if you're going to be taking all the assignments that you're doing and there is a creative muscle that is being flexed or exercised when you're transmuting information or repeating information on your own that a teacher wants to hear, Especially if you're going to put, you know, your own spin on it, like making it to a game show or a drama or a comedy. And, and that, that's, that's the beauty of, of really a lot of writing.

10:22 And it's funny because I try to get, I teach high school English and I try to get my students to break out of the formal writing at the moment they're, you know, they're used to it. And one thing that, and I'm, and I would love to get your feedback on this, but I said these students are, you know, 9th through 12th grade. They know that I know rather that by the time they get into college, writing essays is going to be almost obsolete as far as AI goes, as far as skills go, as far. Yeah, unfortunately, yeah. And I try to emphasize instead that they've got to learn how to articulate their thoughts and express their own selves on paper, because that's the muscle that has to be exercised.

11:12 And so I kind of focus more on reactions to information as opposed to summarizing informal paragraphs. And I try to encourage poetry and they, they look at the word like it's, you know, awful. I just show them the movie Dead Poet Society. I show it to my 12th graders. And it, it rocked that it really shook them to their core. You can see that how, how, how much of an impact it had on them. But they're learning that that writing is that writing is talking just, you know, I mean, it's pretty much the same thing. And except you have an opportunity to edit and revise what you're saying and really, really get to really get to have fun with it.

11:53 Well, well, that's, that's where the art comes in it. It's putting your own spin on it, your own point of view, your own take on it. I have a debate with a friend of mine who is a, who's a very, very talented artist, a painter. And I mean, like amazing. I mean, he's one of those guys, like a criminal would want to hire him to do a forgery of a painting because that, that's how good he is. It it's, it's really remarkable and that's such a skill and he's worked at it and whatnot. But but it's not art. It it's the art is the person who created the original piece, who chose what the subject was, what the angle was, what the lighting was, what the colors are going to be.

12:36 He is very skilled. I couldn't do it. He's very skilled in recreating it, but he's not putting his own voice into it. So it doesn't become art until you put your own voice to it. So with a script, with a story or whatever, until you your own voice comes through and that. And that's I think one of the big knocks on AI. It's like AI doesn't have a soul. It just takes what's there and extrapolates and whatnot. So that's why I hope AI will never well, God, I can't believe I'm thinking I'm an old guy. I'm like there's AII don't know. No, is it, Well, I mean, apparently you have the foresight or at least have thought about the, the, the notion of like, you know what, what is what this road's going to lead down and you know, it's it's not, it's not too pretty.

13:22 I don't, I don't think potentially, but I think. I just had an experience the other day and literally just a couple days ago where it was on, I think it was on Facebook. And well, I get these things that notice that oh, my name popped up in something. And then I go to the article, see what it is, usually somebody selling something and I look at it. But every once in a while an interesting article pops up. And it was not an article, but it was, it was a verbal essay, whatever about my first Pendragon book about the merchant of Death. And it was clearly an AI voice that was saying it. But but the description of the book, it's like, wow, this is and it wasn't just this is what happened.

14:07 And that's what happened. This was going into the philosophy behind it by the the essence of it. And it's like, wow, this person. I, I don't know if I, I even thought that through all the way when I wrote it, but wow, it's, this is pretty and it kind of dawning. It's like, wait a minute, this was AI. This wasn't somebody who sat down and wrote this. This is just someone who who did but interpret something that already existed. Yeah. The AI did not come up with something they interpreted something that already existed. And you can tell, you can tell when something's AI written. I could tell with my student, you know, and it's not judged that there's degrees of, you know, polished, you know, the AI has relative to my students have of course, but you can tell, you can tell with a lot of articles there is, there's even like some kind of soul that's missing to the writing. It's a weird way to put it, but I, I think that it's, it's if you translate that same idea over to music, it works really well.

15:01 And that example that even you gave earlier. I'm a big Grateful Dead fan and I've been for a couple of years now, not my whole life. I'm not, but you know, it's, I've kind of tripped into it a little bit and I, and they start as essentially a cover band and when they first got their first record contract, they panicked because they didn't have any original songs to play. They, what they excelled at was playing cover songs their way and creating this whole new style of playing music. And I find that a lot of a lot of the great musicians that I, that I've really followed throughout the years and listened to real deep tracks and really, you know, listened to a lot of their live performances and stuff. They've, they too will often cover their influences. But you can find the, you can see their own spark and their own humanity and their own individual touch to a lot of it. And it, it turns that song into their own. I think that every single person that does that really takes, you know, so it and I guess that would be AI is missing that part where it's reforming it into something new. It's instead it's kind of just a cold summary or soulless summary, but it's but it's scary. It's really good.

16:16 I, I heard this phrase, I shouldn't say what it was referring to, but I'll, I'll tell you the phrases is that when you listen to a song like that, let's say AI generated song like that, it all seems polished and correct for the most part and thoughtful. Thoughtful is probably not the right word. Polished, correct, technical, well polished, incorrect, incorrect factually. But somewhere in the mix, there's a dead hand. It's just that makes it fall off and it just takes away there, there isn't a soul in this thing. There isn't a point of view in this thing. It's just fact. And will that change?

17:00 Will, will we get to Hal in 2001 and space and they'll take over or Terminator and then suddenly they're taking over the world? I don't know. It's quite possible. It's really scary when machines can start thinking for themselves. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because we're getting at the point and I've been thinking a lot about this too. And I'd love to hear if you have any thoughts on this or just any, you know, kind of playing these might, you know, these, these thought these thought experiments out. But we're not too far from Elon Musk putting, you know, Grok into a Tesla robot or a Tesla humanoid robot and having it walk around essentially for. And I think he said the starting price that he wanted to charge was between 20 and 30 grand for this, these Tesla robots, you the cost of all labor and the cost of really everything is going to drop enormously. And it almost feels like we're snowballing and hurtling towards a post capitalistic society because capitalism is not going to be necessary.

18:05 You're not going to need. It's going to be almost a world of meaning and relationships and adventure relative to, as opposed to a world of maintenance for an out of necessity. Well, you're you're right, but that that spells doom because unless what people do generate money, generate income or generate value, then where does value come from? So I don't know, I mean, I, I don't, I'm glad I'm closer to the end than the beginning of my life, so I won't have to worry about it.

18:49 But I just read an article at that long ago that was talking about the viability of creating a robot like you just described, like a humanoid type robot. And I don't put anything past anybody. I believe at some point that's probably going to be viable, but it's a lot of. Have you seen it recently? Yeah, but but what they show are really controlled tests and whatnot that but apparently mechanically even not even not even the the software create recreating the human movement and whatnot unless they come up with robots that aren't human like which they do have too as well. Yeah, exactly.

19:32 To try to emulate the ergonomics of a human being are a lot more difficult than creating Rosie the the the maid from the Jetsons. I don't know but that. But as I said to say that won't happen someday. I I don't know but but unless I take it in a much more rudimentary level, it's like how how many people no longer find jobs on assembly lines. I mean no one's. Using a wrench on an assembly line anymore that's, that's not new, that's been that way for 40 years or whatever. So it's like, what are people going to do? What, what, what's, what's going to be? How are they going to generate value in what they do in order to feed the machine that's going to give them the machine?

20:19 You know, I I don't know the answer to it. So I think that I mean, what I would imagine in just playing this out, if you take away and I, I've asked the student this before and I think about this a lot because I've, I grew, I've grew up in a upper class world and I and I, and I see people, I saw people collect money for far more than they could possibly ever use it for, you know, and, and one of the benefits that obviously they get is this kind of social currency for saying that they have so much money or indicating somehow that they have a lot of money, that they create a lot of value. And when that becomes not as impressive because value or things that are monetary or things that are physical are going to be so cheap and so easily made, then the then our values for what we find important in life are going to have to shift from something that's currency based to something else. So for example, if you're in Russia or China, it's the motherland or the, or the, you know, or the, or the Chinese party or whatever it is.

21:26 And if you're America, it's capitalism. But maybe the answer might be meaning and adventure. Maybe the answer is, you know, OK, let's go to space now and see what you see, what we could do from here. In other words, stop focusing on money being the yardstick that we're measuring our success in the time that we spend our lives with, and instead change the emphasis to adventure or, or life development or meaning and relationships and stuff like that. Because at the end of the day, that is what people live for. And, you know, no matter how much physical, how many, how many stories have we heard of, of wealthy people that are depressed, suicidal, that we just know that at a certain point it, it money is security.

22:09 And money, you know, provides happiness in the sense that you feel secure and not anxious and concerned about where your, where your safety's going to come from. But beyond that it doesn't provide anything or as much. Yeah, absolutely. Well, unless you want to pay to go to outer space or or go out on an adventure or whatever. I mean, it's people have to eat and short of going out and hunting and gathering themselves, they're going to have to get someone to grow that food for them.

22:50 So unless we go back to a total what what's the term agronomy? Yeah, it's society. It's I, I I just don't see it. I mean, it's it's I'd love to be able to be make money off of adventure, but or, or make a make a survive off of adventure. Exactly. You wouldn't be making money. I, I mean, I think that the cause of things would be so cheap that there'll be, it'll be effectively free to live. I mean, I, if, if you, if you scale any kind of robotics and any kind of AI and you stick them together and you scale that, think about how quick San Francisco can change. And then think about how quickly that can just ripple out.

23:31 Think about how quickly and we've seen the impacts of, you know, it might take 15 years, it might take 20 years, it might take 50 years, but we've seen that we've seen the standard of living is higher now, especially in America than we ever than we've ever been. I saw a really interesting article that talks about a country that primarily that their primary resource that they create are services is a wealthy country and countries whose primary services are material goods is a developing country. And we've been, you know, and, and we've been providing, if you think about what we provide, it's tech companies, it's finance, it's banking, it's AI, it's software. It's a lot of this, it's a lot of the, it's Hollywood, It's, it's, it's, it's great entertainment. A lot of these aren't, we're not. And maybe cars, but we're not, we don't have sweatshops. You know, Nike doesn't make anything in America and Apple doesn't make anything in America. And so we're already the, the standard of living here is already higher because of technology. And I and I think that everyone in the world is hoping that, you know, we could just keep, we don't even know where it's going.

24:41 It's just a freight train and it's just chugging along. Well, that's, I mean, that's a horrifying thought because, and I think it's an accurate one, because there there's still a baseline of need. People need shelter, they need clothing, they need food. And there there's a value in that. There's a value in providing that, whether you're a farmer or a, or a rancher or or whatever, whatever. So that will never go away unless, unless the healthcare for I'd say, you know how you know, or are doctors going to work for nothing?

25:26 And, and as we live in an entirely bartering society, I, I just don't, yeah, I don't. And I'm the first one to be I, I don't want to say I'm anti capitalist. I'm I'm not. But where one side of the aisle they fear the government, on the other side of the aisle they fear on my side of the aisle, they fear big business. It's like at least the government at at least their charter says they're supposed to be there to help you business. No, their their job is to make money and and I've seen it again again, they will they will throw their mother under the bus if it raises the stock price. So I where it all leads.

26:13 I I don't know. Yeah, I've talked a lot about that about that concept because I find myself kind of homeless as far as like I don't think either of them are very have been have proven to be very effective ways of of helping people. So I don't really know what it is, but I've been pretty I've been pretty black pill this as far as my understanding of of having optimism in either of the two parties at the moment. But I think rest I don't know. I don't know what I don't know where it's going to go from here. But I'd love to hear if you don't mind a little bit about so you came, you see, told me how you started writing. How did you come about the world building and the concepts? And I growing up, the first of all I loved, I think it was a second book with or the third book with the water planet. The whole the second book and that and the character Spader just for some reason had like a special place in my heart. But there's, I wanted to ask about a couple of things #1 the world building and also the characters, because you did a really cool job blending the main characters as far as jocks and nerds and someone straddling the line in between and, and the awkward teenage, you know, everything. And, and you captured that experience so perfectly. And it was because, and one of the things I was in in a kind of timeless way, I was talking to friends about of mine recently about Calvin Hobbes.

27:43 And one of the things we were saying was even if you may not get the cultural, you know, the cultural references common thing on humanity. And like these human traits don't change on a day-to-day basis. Bill Waters can be writing in 2025 for anyone, for anyone knows, and it'll be just as funny and just as accurate. And I know that from my siblings and my students and and my friends. So. So can you tell me a little bit about your process and how this went? Yeah, it, it, I mean, if there's Boisele, I could answer there's a million different ways because it's not a it's kind of like the easy question that I got asked is So what were you inspired by? You know, it's just like, oh boy, that that answer is it's there's no easy answer to that because, because inspiration comes from multiple sources and they usually then coalesce and do a story or a character or whatever. If there's one thing and I I can't tell you why this is important to me.

28:41 If I had a therapist, you could ask my therapist, But if there's one thing that is it consistent in all of my writing, whether it's the TV shows that I've written or the books that I've written, it's the concept of self empowerment where it's, and I, and I often I write about all ages, but often kind of hit that sweet spot of like around 1415 years old, which is what Bobby Pendragon started. And, and I love that age because it's an age where you're right in between, where you're, you're no longer joint at the hip to your parents. You can start having a little bit of, of freedom and independence yet you don't know anything yet.

29:27 You think you do, but you don't. So, so you're just learning on your own about the world. And I we say how people always ask why, why in Disney films do the parents always have to die? And it's like, that's an easy one. I mean, yes, there's the sympathy factor. You want to feel sorry for the kids whose parents died. You know, poor Bambi, your mother got shot. But, but, but the, the, the real reason is that in order for the kid to go on the adventure of both the conflict and the learning whatnot, they have to do it on their own without help from outside sources. So I always put young people into difficult situations where the first thing they do was I looked at my parent for whatever reason, parents out of the picture. I, I did 91 episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark and got rid of the parents in 91 times.

30:25 They candy. They're not, for whatever reason, their parents aren't around. They'll go to the police. I can't get to the police. I go to a teacher, can't get to the teacher. Doors keep closing in front of them until they say like, oh, if I'm going to get out of this, I've got to do it on my own. And therein lies the growth and the adventure. So that's one kind of starting point with all my stories is about a person, no matter what the age is, whether they're really young or even adult, it's like, how are they going to see their way through the jungle here to to solve their issue and. With the character trajectory that you want to that you want to emphasize. Yeah, it's one of them. I mean, it's not necessarily the first, but it's one of. I said there are many things that that's one of them, but I always.

31:07 You're saying like piece of paper and you're and you're like, where do I, I want to start something? Do you start with talking it out? Do you start like because I, I'm the someone, for example, that I, I start, I just start writing and I kind of see where I start writing. I'm very bad at planning ahead of what I'm going to write. A lot of times if I try to plan ahead, it all falls apart And that's why I'm bad at long form writing actually. Or I haven't must exercise that muscle. I see. Yes. Well, you know, it's funny there, there are two schools and and I get into this with other authors all the time. There are the people who like you where it's just like they'll sit down and like, OK, I have an idea, let me just start writing it and see where it takes me.

31:50 Perfectly valid that that's fine. I can't do that. You can't read 10 books. Like that. Well, no, I, I outlined, I, I outlined those 10 Pendragon books in about two weeks. I, I, yeah, I mean, in broad strokes, it was yeah, yeah. And, and also part of that is because a lot of my stories, all my stories are very, they're plot heavy and there's a mystery involved that has to be solved. And so you can't really write about it until you know where it's going to end. In order to write a murder mystery, you have to know who'd done it. Then you work backwards as to laying in the clues or the misdirections or all that kind of stuff. So, so, so my process and actually this is, that's what I'm about to say.

32:37 It's the second part of the process, but the first part of the process is kind of like they're like 3 different areas. 1 is what kind of character do I want to write about, which you just talked about. It's like what kind of who are they, what kind of journey they're going to go on? What do they have to overcome? Because every good story is about someone who wants something that you come any story, what is it? What do they want? And the story is how they get it or not get it and what the, and the story is the impediments they have along the way to try to get that thing, whatever that thing is. You know, Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wants to get home. That's what's driving her the whole time.

33:17 The fact that she meets the Scarecrow in a 10 minute, that's just, that's just. Yeah, step along the way. It steps along the way and impediments and victories and all that kind of stuff. So I start with a character that that wants something. Yeah. And, and, and, and this is kind of critical too. Usually my stories have a big hook to them, whether it's a science fiction hook or a supernatural hook. But I want a story about someone or some or a few people who whose story would be interesting even if they never came upon the science fiction boogeyman. Whatever it happens to because I want, I want a story about a kid, an adult, doesn't matter that they're going through a really relatable real life situation. Conflicts.

34:06 Does that be hugely dramatic if it's a, you know, already afraid of the dark? But it's something that they've got to overcome that readers or viewers can relate to because we're going to care about what happens to them. And maybe our caring amounts to we hope they fail because we hate them. I mean that that's valid too. But they would be interesting to read about or or watch even if they never came upon the supernatural hook, because then now there's the second part of the story is of the process is what's the supernatural hook? What's the science fiction hook and whatnot. And that's equally important to come up with something that is interesting to me that I think will be interesting to people, whether it's a land entirely covered in water and there's a sunken city that they have to find in order to stop these underwater farms from from being poisoned. You know, that's the fun setting for it. That's that's the second one.

35:07 The third one is I try to come up with some kind of theme that what are we really talking about here? It's not just about a kid who's being bullied. Whatever I made just made that up. What's the larger picture that I'm talking about here? And with each of the Pendragon stories, there's, there's a much larger thing and and there's, there's, there's a theme that runs with the whole thing that's, that is homogeneous to the whole thing. But then each book has its own particular theme that is plays out as the characters are playing out their individual conflicts and the conflict of that book. That's saying more about, that's speaking more than just, oh, here's a good guy and a bad guy and we got to try to beat the bad guy because he's bad.

35:56 So, so I I try to have it a little deeper and more complex than just a superficial thing. And I do all that before I ever put pen to paper. It's all that's the fun part for me. And and. So how do you do that? Are you talking this out? Are you writing this in in a notebook? Are you with, are you with friends or family? Do you have a particular? Do you have a particular method that goes about that? In the beginning, it's, it's a three-step process in, in the beginning, it's just in my head. And the older I get, the more I have to take notes because it's like, what was that good idea that I had? Oh, damn, that was so good. I wish I could have remembered it. Oh man.

36:43 But most of it's just in my head. I'm literally just thinking it through. And one of the talk about process I have, I've trained myself to, let's talk about writer's block for a second. Most people think writer's block is when you can't come up with ideas. To me, that's not writer's block, that's you can't come up with ideas. To me, writer's block is the impediments that keep you from working on coming up with those ideas, the distractions. And so, you know, I'm, I'm sitting here and I'm writing whatever I'm writing. I'm like, oh, I got to feed the dog. I got, oh, no, I can't do it. OK, let me go. OK.

37:24 God, I'm so tired. I can't, oh, I can't do that. I'm thirsty. I better get something to drink. Those are all the things that are stopping you from being productive. So excuse me. I've trained myself when I first wake up in the morning, when my brain is clean slate, it is clear that I, I turn myself to whatever story I'm working on. And that's when I come up with so many of the ideas because I can focus solely on that I, that, that challenge that I meant that I, whatever it happens to me, it's, it's remarkable. I also will go for a run or go for a walk or something like that just to clear out all the blocks that allows you to somehow magically focus in on the challenge that you've, how am I going to get him to do this?

38:07 And that story? I don't know. You could be beating your head against the wall. Then you go out for a run. You're like, oh, of course that's that's what it's going to be. Why didn't I think that was easy? And it seems so easy, but it wasn't. So in the beginning I just come up with ideas in general and whatnot. Then the first thing I do is I write an outline, and once I'm kind of have in my head where the story's going to go, who the character is, what the themes are, then I make it a little bit more concrete by typing out an outline. And the term outline is probably too formal for what I do. It's not like 11-A1B1C. It's not quite like that. It's just putting notes down to shape a story. And the beauty of that is that it's so easily changed because you're not sweating writing the right words that people will read.

39:02 No one else is going to read this but me. So we can move things around. You can tell that shouldn't happen there. Well, that sucks. OK, You know, I can. I can move things around so easily and beat out the story in broad strokes all the way through to the end, so much so that I'm confident. OK, this works. I, I, I get it. Everything up to that point is fun for me and enjoyable. I should say it stops getting enjoyable instantly at that point. So when I write a first draft, I hate writing the first draft because you are writing words that people are going to read. So suddenly you're worried about rearranging deck chairs in the Titanic Where so, but oh, but by the way, at that point, I throw away the outline.

39:48 It's like I, I don't even refer to it. It's just that I but the outline is forced me to go through a process. So I'm confident that as long as I hit these major points, it's going to work out in the end. And I often find that once I start writing, you know what, I imagined it was going to go like this. It really went like that. And but I always have in mind that I know I have to end up over here. So like that. And then I will get stuck and I'm like, well, what did I, what did I mean? What was, what was it going to be? So I'll go back to the outline and go, whoa, that's not at all what I had thought of before. Whatever, but it it the the only real. I think downside to writing an outline is that if you consider it etched and granite where you're writing it, you come up with the idea and you're like, well no, that doesn't go to the outline.

40:36 So I can't do that. You can't do that because that stops you from coming up with better ideas Because just because that was your first idea, even if it was your 5th idea, it may not be the best idea. But as you actually go through the process and the story is really taking shape. I mean, actually in a nuts to bolts level, usually taking places that you better places that you never really imagined, you start going deep into things. And, and so eventually, you know, it's kind of like if you'll get it, I think of it as like a map, map of a forest and you have your starting point, you have like 4 or five places, you know, you're going to hit and you know where you got to go. But who knows what that trail is that's going to get you. You have to carve through that forest to get to these places.

41:16 As long as you hit those major points, and you may even change those major points when you get there, it'll get to the end. So that that's really the then I get to the end of the first draft, thank God. And then it gets fun again, because then you can start playing with it and you go back to see what you wrote. And it's like, Oh, I could do this much better. Oh, it's that I love rewriting and it which is I say this to kids. I don't know. It's going to be the death of me. Well, OK, maybe you won't say this to your students, but, but. Every, every, every writer that I admire, every that I know personally that I admire, edits a ton and loves the editing process and I hate it and I can't stand it. And I'm the only one.

42:00 I see it from the good writers and the bad writers, because all the good writers love to edit and I can't stand it. Well, it's hard because it's hard to get it down on paper, and it's like, I got to change it now. This is crazy, but I will tell you, people often ask how many drafts do you do? And I'm like, I couldn't even count because I'll write 7 pages in a day, let's say 7 single space type pages. The first thing I do the next day, I'll go back and I'll rewrite those pages because, because, because coming up with those words is hard. And you're, and you're worried so much about the, the micro that you may not be seeing the macro. So once, once you've got it down, then you go back and go, I kind of can't believe I wrote that and change it.

42:45 And, and I say this to kids all the time. And, and you should say it to your kids, even though you don't believe it yourself. Well, you may believe it, but you may not like it. But I'll say it to you too then. OK, I'll say it to you that that when I say to kids, if they have to do a report or whatever, this is free, AII guess. But I was like, if you've got an assignment to write about the Titanic, whatever it happens to be, whatever or whatever it is, first of all, don't leave it till the last minute and say do do it soon. Do it right away and just get it done and then put it away. Forget about it, go on with life, do whatever else life brings to you, do your sports, do other things, do whatever. And then you know, a little bit before it's due, go back to it. Because then suddenly you'll look at it semi objectively and you'll be able to find out where the flaws are. That your teacher is then going to read and go, Oh no, because now you're reading it like them from their point of view, not 100% but but close to it.

43:48 And you'll change it. I mean, believe me, I'm somebody who hated writing in school. So when, when the teacher would say, OK, you're going to write this thing, first you have to write an outline. Then then you write the, the paper, whatever. I'm like, well, wait a minute, you want me to write an outline? Then you want to write the paper. That's like 2 outlines. That's like 2 papers. I don't want to do that the. Response has not changed in 50 years. No, it's human nature. I get it. I I believe me, I get it. But if you want your writing to be good. I tell them to read out loud to themselves and that's typically what I do with myself is I'll actually read what I write out loud and then and then when it comes out of my mouth and my ear bounces off my ears, the things that don't, that aren't natural or don't flow or aren't organic will typically strike or are very striking.

44:35 It's very quick to. Yeah. And your eye is easy. Your eye wants to just process it all quickly, you know. You it's like Paris and the the spring. You know that that old thing where it's Paris and the the spring and you don't read that there's two thes there. You just, you just blow by it. I do that too. I definitely do with screenplays. I mean that because that really is meant because I do dialogue and whatnot. You. Have to do that I want, I want, I want to get into that. I wanted to ask you one another quick question as far as drafts and writing stuff goes. I've heard this phenomenon that happens particularly with very character driven stories, is that at a certain point, once you've given the character enough personality or history or written a certain way, even if you have other plans for the character, he he or she will cut will take their own form of life and will almost despite whatever plans you originally had.

45:30 Their character needs a different arc because of what they've become. Whether you've meant for that to happen or not is that. That you create that is. That's not it's, it's absolutely true. Actually, I'll tell you a story that and I won't mention the name, but when I was at NYU, this is going way back, I took a comedy writing class because I thought for a minute I could write comedy. I'm not a comedy writer. The I can write humorous. I can't write. I can't write funny. No one laughs away. The the best I ever get is, yeah, that's the most I'm going to get out of. But no, Bobby Pendragon says something wise. Podcast comedy. Yeah, I could. Well, yeah, I could.

46:12 And I took a common writing class from a a very notable comedy writer. I won't mention names. And and this person had prior to the big job they had at the time, which was really cool. And I won't mention what it was because I don't want not not that they're going to see this, but but they'd also written on a notable sitcom prior to that with a notable sitcom character and that that show had been on for years. And this writer was talking to the class and saying how tough it is to be a writer, basically, and how especially when you're just a writer on a show as opposed to the showrunner on a show, you're at the mercy of the showrunner. So the showrunner is the last word, literally. And this person was writing this character that that the world knew, or at least the United States knew. And the showrunner definitely knew. And this person wrote a line of dialogue and turned the script in and the showrunner said, this is her telling the story. This is the writer telling the story. And the showrunner said this character would never say that. And the writers come back to us.

47:24 I mean, I think, I think what the writer said to the showrunner was oh, OK, but what, what the because, because showrunner was the boss for. The classroom when you tell the story about it later. Yeah, telling how so how this writer felt about it was this is a fictional character. I I can they say what I tell them to say. And even as a kid who hadn't had that much experience, I'm thinking what you were just said. It's like, oh, no, that's not you're wrong. If you've created a character who has a voice who you know how they're going to act, they can't do things that go against that or you're going to lose your audience.

48:07 So it so you are 100% correct and it shocked me that this really notable writer didn't believe in that. Like, OK, but you're right. If your character has a strong enough voice, thrown off personality, thrown off character, you're you're tied to that. You know they can grow. If you know if they can, they can, then what they should grow. So they may grow to the point where they would say something goofy like that. But you have to show that growth. You can't just have them out of the blue. Yeah, say something that doesn't matter. I I was listening to a Joe Rogan podcast the other day with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and they were pushing there they were pushing the new Netflix film that that that just came out a couple of days ago. And I started adding it, adding it around to watching yet. But one thing that they mentioned in the in the interview was that Netflix is acutely aware of the fact that people are, are typically not paying attention while they're writing.

49:10 And so they'll push the writers to repeat and re emphasize plot points throughout the throughout the script, whether or not the writer wants to put it there because they know the audience might not be paying attention. You know, they're scrolling for what? The first time you say 10 minutes in and then they're scrolling the second time you say 30 minutes in. And so for, you know, an hour, an hour and 20 minutes in, you got to re summarize everything. And the issue with that becomes the same kind of issue as what we're talking about now, which is a kind of it, it ruins the organic flow of what a show was even supposed to be. And I even, and again, just to give the Dead Poets Society example, again, there were so many scenes in that movie and I told I had to prepare my students for the movie.

49:51 I said, this movie's a genre. There used to be a genre called dramas, and they used to be that used to act and express things without necessarily saying something. So the director would do something with the camera worker. the OR the actor would say would specifically not say something. Or Jerry Garcia used to say the chord unstruck, the the note unstruck that you would not play. And as a lookout for that and lookout for moments that make you think and that are like that. And there are several moments in the film where half the students weren't sure whether to laugh or to cry or like, they weren't sure what emotion to feel. And there was nothing directing them in any particular way. It just sat with them. And that's such a lost art.

50:35 But that's, I feel the real. What was such a beautiful art of storytelling and filmmaking. And even, you know, especially with books, cause books, you have your brain as the as the imagination, as the, as the projector. Your brain is the projector. And so while you're reading in your and you're and you and I've and I dove in and I'm on the couch for 45 minutes or an hour straight, just turning pages over and over and my my brains going on like a like a, like a movie projector. I feel like with because we're aware of human behavior, we're trying to compensate for how far our attention span has fallen and how far our ability to appreciate the arts are. And instead of trying to pick people back up, we're adjusting. We're we're, we're moving the yardstick down instead, instead of trying to raise people up.

51:25 Well, you know, I'll tell you. I've heard that about Netflix from other sources too. Where from other writers who said not necessarily that you have to repeat it every 10 minutes or whatever, but that was very specific, but it's just more like they know that people are distracted on their phones and what not. This one particular writer said so they don't care that it sucks because people aren't paying my close attention. One thing I've noticed, and this is this is a little positive in here too. I found that where that phenomenon occurs is with these made for streaming movies. There are some big movies, they aren't cheap movies, big cast, big budgets and they're just terrible. The the writing is just terrible and. It it seems like, well, Temple does a lot of them. And you think this is this is going to be good and you're like, this sucks, this is horrible. The good part is it's almost like we're we're topsy turvy world now.

52:31 What's really being elevated is television writing, not movies, episodes. Oh yes. That's where all the good stuff is and, and it's and you're it's the short attention span is built in. It's not a 2 1/2 hour movie. It's a 45 minute episode. So you don't have to, they don't feel like you have to repeat it or, or be stupid. So there's some really, really smart series on that are really impressive where the movies are just horrible, but but the series are really good. The limited series too. I love the limited series. In particular the limited series. Because, because what they do is they take something that would have been too short for a television series that, that, that that is the typical station would have, would have wanted to kind of, you know, make 20 seasons of or something like that. Or, you know, it's not quite there and it's not quite in the two hour movie and it's somewhere in between, but it's still a real and you can get a grade writers, directors, whatever to tell and it's name and it's an A+ story. I I read a great book by a gentleman named Ben, Ben Fritz, who actually I spoke to I meant to start another podcast before I started this one a couple of years ago and he was going to be my first guest.

53:46 But he wrote this a great book called the Big Picture about why particular genres are not in film anymore, or at least in movie theaters rather anymore. And one thing he said was the fact that global markets now don't, you know, dictate the the business decisions that studio executive make. Because you depend so heavily in the box office. And if something doesn't convert to a Chinese audience or to a European audience or whatever, then it's they're missing out on potentially hundreds of millions of dollars that they could be making. And so he says that's why you see such a enormous rise in franchises for for theaters, whereas streamers specifically want to be as eclectic as possible because they want as many different types of people signing up for their service. And so they're green lighting all sorts of genres and all sorts of movies because they know even if one out of every 50 people watch it, that's a lot of that, that put that across the world.

54:45 I mean, that's, that that's significant. And, and if you think and, and what I, what I've always noticed is, but I'm, I'm in an Airbnb right now, you go to, you log into the Netflix and you look at the algorithm and you look at the, at the potential of what you could watch. And none of it is the same thing as the thousands of stuff that's on my Netflix account. You know, I mean, there's no overlap. So it just showed how, how, how personalized a lot of this content is and they just keep making it. It's incredible. And, and fortunately, from a, from a economic point of view, it's not good for the people making it because these short series, you know, 8 episodes, you can't make a living doing that. It's and to get a second season on some of these things is huge. To get a third season is unheard of. I mean, it does happen sometimes, but it's unheard of. So it, it, it's really changed the paradigm of, of being someone working in this industry. I, I see it also with there's so many big stars that are in, suddenly they're all over the place. It's like Harrison Ford is like, I, I think he's like in a whole movie.

55:59 The other, I mean, he's in everything now. It's because what he's in, they're all short term. You're only shooting it for a, a, a little bit at a time. And so therefore you could do 5 projects or in three projects and it doesn't bode well for the, for the, the people, the writers and the workers 'cause they're, there's no security in doing it. So it's, and because with streamers, because the Netflix's of the world are of the world, It's not the old days where it's just NBC is in the United States and then you can license it elsewhere and there could be a revenue stream there. Now it's all Netflix wants. Everything well. Yeah, but depending where you go, I think they're a little bit more, I think it's a little bit more technical than that. I because I, I know that, I mean, obviously even based on where your country is, like what country you're in, the licensing rights are different and I don't know. And everything gets a little squirrely outside the States from my understanding.

56:53 Well, Netflix, they want everything. They do want to. Pay higher, higher fees up pay higher fees up front, but. That's what draws them in. That's and that's the stupid that's the same short term problem that that we have. I think the if, if America stopped getting off a three or four month business plan, instead started focusing a little bit more on a couple of years down the line. And I think that a lot would change very quickly. And I think that this incredibly, incredibly short term thinking and incentivizing is just, I mean, think about, if you think about I'm, I'm hungry and you're not going to think about what the food, how, what the food's going to make you feel like in an hour from now, then you're never going to eat well.

57:40 Then you're think about how quickly your body will fall apart if you, if you can't plan for the future at all. And I remember even with Amazon, I've read, I've read about, I've read a couple books about them. And one of the main things that, that, that, that everyone admired and was was blown away by was the fact that they didn't care what their stock prices was. They said, listen, if Wall Street wants to punish us, they'll punish us. But at the end of the day, we're looking to grow our business and we're not looking to make any friends in Wall Street. We don't need every projection to be the top thing in the world. In a year from now, when they see what our plan is, they'll all come running and look what happened. I mean, you got, you got. To now he's the richest man in the world. Yeah, Yeah. Well, yeah. Other than what's all the world like that? Yeah. I wanted to ask for we, but I know you're running out of time. You've got a couple minutes left. I wanted to ask about the difference between screen writing and script writing and fictional writing or any other form because I know I, I tried, but my heart, my original aspiration was to be a screenwriter. And I, I, I always wanted to, and I took a creative, I took a screen write screenplay writing class in college and I talked, I told the story and I, I loved my professor, but he, I, I submitted my first assignment and he looks at me and he calls me over after and he goes, So is your character autistic? I said not intentionally read your script out loud. And I said OK.

59:06 And I took the paper and I read out loud and I'm like, I cannot believe how mechanical and robotic and terrible this sounds. And and, and, and I and it turns, you know, I mean, obviously it was a pretty blunt way of putting it, but he was right. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was terrible. So can you you want to can you tell me a little bit about the what it takes to write for for script as opposed for just the page? Well, there, there's, there are a lot of similarities too, and it goes back to what we were talking about before. I mean, when I, when I gave you my, my, my triumvirate of things that I look at with, you know, the character, the setting and the theme, it's the same as a screenplay or, or, but it it's all the same stuff. It's good characters who want something, I mean, based on its storytelling. So that that's the same, the mechanics of it, the screenplay structure for the most part is very rigid and, and I used to fight against that because I'm like, oh, people will sometimes turn down scripts just as it doesn't fit some kind of format with that four points.

1:00:12 Wait a minute. No, I got to write what makes sense and whatnot. And, and there's truth to that, but the the scene structure, pacing, pacing is so different and. And the actual writing itself is very different because when you're writing a screenplay, that's not the finished product. The finished product is what's going to be on the screen. And there are a whole lot of people that are going to take that, starting with the director, who are going to take that and add to it. That might not necessarily be on the page. So one of the challenges in writing a screenplay is writing with economy. You, you can't describe things.

1:00:58 You can't go thought process. You can't it, it's all got to be you have to you have to see it. You have to imagine what it's going to look like on screen. And so you have to learn an economy of words to describe what a scene should look like, what a setting should, what a world should look like very quickly. You, you can't expand and expound on something. It's got to be fast because of course now I'm going to go against that now. I don't know why movies are now three hours long. It's crazy. They don't need they. Not that they don't need to be. They shouldn't be. I mean, Woody Allen once. Pillars by the flower moon I took an I took an aisle seat just so I could walk up and down the stairs while I was while I was watching it to stretch my.

1:01:41 Leg yes, yes, like what is the heck? And and then you see these budgets are 400 million to $300 million. It's like I could have cut $100 million out of that and it would have been a better movie. So. So I don't, I don't, I don't get that phenomenon. It's on the budget. It's crazy. It's crazy. I, I, I really don't get the thinking there because it's not like it's a one off. It's like they're all that long. I mean, usually a cut. Woody Allen used to say that the ideal length for a comedy is 89 minutes. What movie is 89 minutes now? It's they don't exist. We're streaming like I'll are they I don't know I'll, I'll maybe I'll, I'll turn on a a comedy that was made for streaming thinking, Oh, this will be a short, fast thing.

1:02:24 No, it's goes 2 1/2 hour. What? Come on. What's aren't studios saying? You know, come on. So, so maybe my, my economy here isn't operative anymore. I I don't know. But but you have to be able to write visually that that's the big really with a short few amount of word found in words. And you can't, it's the old show don't tell thing with with a screenplay, you have to know you are showing it. You're going to see it on screen. The people are going to be speaking dialogue where with a book, you can take some time with it.

1:03:06 You you can get into thought process. You could, I mean, you don't no one's going to see this. They're only going to see what they're imagining is on your page. So, so that's a very big difference that you have to be much more hand holdy with books now. Now things have changed a little bit too. This is boy, and it speaks to ADHD. Now, granted, I don't write great literature. I, I'm the first one to say that I don't write great literature. I write, I tell good stories and I talk about well and, and talk about talk about reading it back, reading it aloud and whatnot.

1:03:48 So many of my books are written in first person, so I write it. It's as if the character is telling you the story. So the voice, whether it's specific to Bobby Pendragon or Marshall Seaver or or whoever it happens to be, you know, I come up with their, the way they speak. I come up with the way, the way they, their word choices, whatever. And then I tell the story that way. But it's like me telling them the story in that person's voice, which is why it doesn't lend to great literature. So unless you're Aaron Sorkin, where everyone has these speeches that are like, wow, they came up with that at the spur of the moment. That's that's brilliant. That that character is amazing because I told you. But especially for young people, they're not only writing their own dialogue or telling their own dialogue, they're also describing us going on.

1:04:39 So it's a much simpler way of writing. That's why I say it's not great literature. You're not going to get lost in the prose of, of what I wrote. It's it's very simple. Where is I going with this screen? Writing similar that way I think. Yeah, screen writing is more like that. You, you've, you've got to, you've, you've got to forget if it's simplified, you've got to paint the picture very quickly. And then you have to, there's a, oh, I know what I started to say, but to this day, you know, a book in my mind, a book is different than a than a movie. You know, a book is you can kind of get lost in a book. Even my books, even if you're not writing great literature that you're like, oh, the word play is so Marvel. You know, it's not going to happen.

1:05:20 I, I once heard a review of one of my books. It was, it was a Morpheus Rd. book. And I think it was a kid. I don't, I don't know who it was and I, I, I know where I read the review, but it was the review started out with this book was really slow to get started and I thought, oh, oh, here we go. This, this is this doesn't bode well comma. But after the 1st 10 pages it really took off like. What? 1st 10 pages, that's barely the title page. This is a book. It's not a video game. It, it's, it's not a, it's not a like, but, but that's what kids want, especially kids and adults too. It's not just it's adults.

1:06:04 You've got to the pace has to be so fast. So unless you're know you're going to write, read something that's true literature where you know you're going to settle in. If you're writing popular stuff, it's got to be as fast-paced as a movie. I've never realized, I've never realized the extent of the truth of what you're saying until I read the first couple. My, my great uncle was a writer for ABC for many years and was part of the Writers Guild. And so he used to get screenplays sent to him all the time just to hoping that they would, they would vote for them for best, best script and he'd give you, he'd give them to me and I and I'd read these awesome scripts going, you know, I, I wasn't growing up. I was in college when he realized that I was in teens giving them to me and, and I realized the writing is so minimal and so sharp and so and what I also realized they write like there was almost like a transcribe of a conversation. You're not writing, you're transcribing. I start to talk and you interrupt what I'm saying the of saying it.

1:07:04 Or, you know, you feel a great emotion while, you know, while kids pissed off or someone else walks in the room and have to abruptly change my intention in the middle of my sentence, something else. So you might be 3 words into a sentence and then just shift it. And you have to get used to writing like that. Yeah, I imagine because that when I read it, I was like, oh, that's why I'm bad at this, because I, I, I, I, I, I'm wordy. I I, I like the fans in the library, you know? Well, well, if you're Aaron Sorkin, you could be wordy, too. That's what the words are. I'm sorry, just I, I, I thought you'd appreciate this. I, I did, I did a podcast with a really interesting guy who was a homicide detective in Arizona and a very, very sweet guy. And I asked him, I told him, I said, one of my least favorite things about stupid crime movies or superhero movies is every time you have a villain, you know, you're, they have him in a dark room and they say, why did you do this? He says, when I was 12 years old and he goes into a whole monologue, you know, like what happened? And he says, I cannot tell you.

1:08:02 And this is what he told me. He goes, I cannot tell you how often it actually does happen. Well, I'll ask them. I'm, you know, I'm sitting across from someone that committed a crime and I'll say I'm, I'm not judging him. I'm just asking, why did you do it? Would you like what, what, what, what happened? And he goes, so many people are so quick to just tell the truth because they figure they're caught, they're in trouble. That's it. Like they're not thinking you're trying to game anything. And at the end of the day, you know, you watch someone on screen and they could be all tough when they're confined and handcuffed to a table. And he said most people just want to get out of it, just want to just want to, you know, OK, I'm caught, I'm done, I'm whatever. So he goes, what's the story goes? Well, I really, you know, I hated my ex-wife and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he goes, You have no idea how many people monologue.

1:08:44 So I thought that was very funny, but so it changed my tune a little bit. Well, but that's an extreme example too. I mean, that's, that's, I think there's this whole psychological thing with that where people are like, I got to get this off my chest because it's weighing on me. Oh my God, whatever. Or maybe maybe the person I'm telling this to won't take pity on me and realize that because I was abused as a child, maybe they'll let me go, whatever it is. Maybe. But but you're right. But with normal conversation like we're having right now, people don't speak in well, I know some people speak in monologues, but it's like, you know, yeah. It's like, stop. All right, TMI, You got to stop now. But yeah, you have to.

1:09:29 You have to learn how to do the rhythm. And it it with books a little bit too, but it's a little more of a leeway. You have a little more leeway with books. But when you're actually seeing it for real on screen, for real, you see it for real on screen, it's got to ring true. And people do cut people off and, and people do lose focus or, or they leave the whatever happens. So you have to be able to, That's why to be a good writer, you have to be such a, a student of human nature and, and observe people all the time and how they do react. I, I'm doing that all the time. And they use traits of, of people that I know just because it's like, well, that's interesting.

1:10:13 The way they always interrupt you and you're always, you can't get 2 words in edgewise because they want to tell you about what they have to say. It's whatever. That's one example. But in some ways, screenplays are more real than writing a novel. Yeah. It's like, I don't know if this is a good analogy, but it's like when you watch a a musical on Broadway. It's like people don't break out in song what you know what, but this is not real. But in that genre, in that, in that forum, you get it makes sense. You go with it. With books, you can kind of give a little more leeway on a conversation in exchange or whatever it is.

1:10:59 With screenplays, it's got to be more real. Yeah, it's. A little bit less and less forgiving. Yeah. So, but then there are also similarities. They said it's all about good characters who want something and, and the interesting things that get in their way to do it. So that that, that that's just good storytelling, whether it's a a play, a movie, a, a book or whatever it happens to be. Then then there are similarities. It it was fun. I, I had a, there was a couple years that it was, oh man, I wish I could go back and do this again where I was in the middle of writing a Pendragon books. So I'd write essentially A Penndragon book a year and then, and that took roughly 6 months all told, string it all together. But then the other six months of the year I was making a TV series called Flight 29 Down and writing the scripts and producing that show in Hawaii.

1:11:49 So it was like, so when I was doing the show, just when I was sick of dealing with the set and people and crews and actors and all that kind of stuff, just when I was like, Huck, I get, I get to sit in my cave and write a book that I can do whatever I want. Then after I'm like, I don't tear my hair out, I'm making it back on the set again where I could, I could actually communicate with people and have other things happen. So that that was fun. And, and I don't know if this is a good analogy, but if you ever played sports, I remember as a kid, I remember there was always a, it's not so much anymore, but usually when you're a kid, back when I was a kid, you would play the sport that the pros, the, the schedule is the same as the pros.

1:12:29 You play baseball in the summer, play football in the fall, you play basketball in the winter. Not so much anymore. Now kids are like so refined. They're playing baseball year round because they think they're going to get a scholarship or whatever it happens to be. But I always remember that transition period of throwing a baseball to throwing a football. It's different mechanics, it's different setups, it's different body motion and, and at first it's just like what it takes a while to get. Oh, OK, that's what, And that's what it's like going back and forth to be writing a screenplay or writing a book. It's like, oh, I'm, I'm doing this. I'm taking too much time in this scene. What what am I doing? It's like, all right, I got to, I got to start start cutting it down South. There there are different.

1:13:15 It's awesome analogy. It's a great analogy. I, I, I live like that on a, on a daily basis, more than a monthly basis. So I work from home during the day and I go crazy. So I go teach and then I get back from teaching. I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready to pass out And I, you know, I want my kids to bed and I'm like, Oh my God. Like so so I, I, I hope to be able to kind of stretch out my tolerance for each each step of my. Yeah, yeah, couple hours is not a good fact, to be fair, to be up to here. Certain writer like myself, you know, very short writer like myself, I just think in the paragraphs out of time and that's the extent of it. There you go. I really appreciate the time and getting to me and getting back to me and making the time for this.

1:13:56 This is really a ton of fun and maybe I'll check out some of your TV shows, Reach out and see if we'll do something else about that because sure, absolutely. This is really tons of fun. And I thought we came on going for a long time, but I want to. I know you. Got good luck cutting this down into a listenable. Oh, this is going to be, are you kidding? This is going to be awesome. Anyway, I appreciate the time. Thank you. Great to meet you, Jeffrey have. A great night.