Tom Pepperdine interviews New York Times Bestselling author, Isaac Marion, about his writing process. Isaac discusses his experiences having a novel adapted into a film, what he's learned working in a writer's room , and why he moved his entire life to write in a shed in the Washington State wilderness.

Isaac's website is here: https://isaacmarion.com/

Isaac's Instagram is here: https://www.instagram.com/isaacmarion

Isaac's YouTube is here: https://www.youtube.com/@OuterEdgeOutpost

Isaac's Twitch is here: https://www.twitch.tv/tirdsworth

And more info on The Bazaar is here: https://playthebazaar.com/

And you can find more information about this podcast on the following links:

https://www.threads.net/@realwritingpro

https://www.instagram.com/realwritingpro

Hello, and welcome to The Real Writing Process, the show that finds

out how authors do exactly what they do.

I'm your host, Tom Pepperdine, and this week my guest is the author

of the New York Times bestselling Warm Bodies series, Isaac Marion.

Isaac is an incredible writer, and if you've not read any of the Warm Bodies

books, or if you've only read the first one and didn't realize there were sequels,

then I do recommend you check them out.

And of course, we touched on what it's like having a book adapted into

a movie, but Isaac's working on a computer game right now, so we really

go into depth on what it's like in a computer game writer's room.

Uh, we also talk about how he moved into the remote desert of Washington State.

I feel it's the dream of many a writer to run off into the wilderness and

write from a shed, but Isaac has actually done it, and it's great

to hear about his experiences.

Anyway, that's enough waffle.

Let's hear from the man himself right after this jingle.

And I'm here with Isaac Marion.

Isaac, hello.

Hello.

Thank you for being here.

And my first question, as always, what are we drinking?

Black coffee.

Excellent.

One of my favorites.

Uh, Now just for the listeners, just to let people know we're

on a bit of a international time zone thing of about eight hours.

So I'm on the decaf, because it's quarter to eight in the evening where

it's close to midday for you, Isaac.

Um, is this your writing drink?

Yeah.

It's, uh, It's well, it's just kind of my everything drink really.

It's it's the life force.

Okay.

So do you have one of those big coffee pots that you work through

the day or do you like to make each one, you know, bean to cup kind of

I guess it's sort of a jug.

I use a French press, so it puts out about, I don't know, three, maybe four,

four mugs full, which is more than enough.

I usually drink my fill of the first batch and then the next day

I have the cold cup to get started.

Like an easy start, gotta have efficient systems out here.

I've really got into ground coffee.

My wife got me a coffee grinder and fresh beans this year.

But yeah, I'm in a tea drinking nation.

And so a lot of these podcasts are cups of tea, which is

fine, but I'm a coffee drinker.

I use tea for my, for my evening session when I don't want to be too alert.

Yeah, it takes a lot of tea to get me into the coffee state.

Um, so where I'm speaking to you now, again, listeners may not be aware, but

I'm guessing this is your writing spot?

Yeah.

My whole life is in the same spot, actually.

Right now there really is no, no to separation.

Yeah.

Do you want to describe where you live for our listeners and

what your writing space is like?

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

I live in a, uh, you could call it a cabin if you want it to be charitable.

I think of it more as a shed, which I think maybe has a different

meaning in the UK, but it's, it's essentially a outbuilding that's

designed to be, you know, storage, but I turned it into a house and,

And my living areas 10 by 13 feet.

And, uh, it's basically a bed, a little kitchen sink, and a desk,

and a little closet in the corner.

And, um, I have just enough room to stand up and walk out the door, not much else.

And this shed.

I mean, writer's sheds are quite popular in the UK, but yours is

not at the end of the garden, like some people might imagine.

Where in the world, uh, and what can you see out your window?

Yeah, I guess you could think of it as a garden of sorts, as I'm surrounded

by plant life, that's, that's for sure.

Uh, I'm on the edge of a cliff, basically, um, In Eastern Washington

state, which is kind of the environment you would imagine from like a old

Western sort of movie cowboys and such.

It's tumbleweeds and desert and, uh, hot summers and harsh winters.

And, uh, I'm situated on the edge of a high plateau overlooking vast

expanse of sage hills, basically.

Uh, unfortunately, and I will put a link in the podcast, but you're on

YouTube and you're on TikTok so people can actually see these stunning vistas.

And what's the elevation where you are?

Cause it looks pretty high up.

I can't remember off the top of my head.

I did check that once, but, um, It's high enough that a car looks

like a speck, I guess is the best I could, I could explain it.

Uh, yeah, cows are little dots in the distance.

It's, um, it's, it's high enough that the clouds are often below me.

I can put it that way.

Like I get these spectacular sunrises where I'm looking down on the clouds.

Like I'm on the peak of a mountain and, uh, the sun comes

up underneath them and shoots out the top and it's, it's glorious.

Nice.

And I think in the UK, it's quite common to have writers retreats

as I'm sure it is in America.

And I think a lot of writers can look with jealousy at your location

of the lack of distractions.

Yeah, that was kind of the idea.

It was a retreat, but I used to do retreats myself and I lived in

the city and I'd retreat to the country to, you know, clear my

head and get back into my projects.

And then I just kind of realized, why don't I turn that around?

You know, this is, this is what my life is all about.

Why am I making that the vacation?

I should make that life.

And then when I want a vacation, I go back to the city and have fun.

yeah.

And how long have you lived in this shed now?

Two years.

Wow.

Little over two years that was my second winter that I just survived.

Okay.

Well done.

And, um, have you managed to complete a writing project there or are you

still in the process of your first book since retreating to the wilderness?

So my, the novel that I'm still tinkering with is in the final stages.

I wrote the last, I guess, maybe 20 percent of that.

Um, when I first bought this land.

And I, there was nothing on it and I was just out here in a tent.

And so I got a, a deep dive into that life experience while in the

final stages of writing that novel.

And it definitely shaped how that novel panned out in quite literal ways.

Because the character basically does the same thing that I did.

But, yeah, so I feel like that definitely was stamped by this

experience, although I wrote the bulk of it in a previous situation,

but I would, I would count that one.

Yeah.

So it's going method.

Yeah, pretty much.

That's always kind of how I've done it.

I write books based on, you know, whatever I'm struggling

with personally at that moment.

And I sort of work it out in the process of writing the story.

So

Okay.

Well, that's kind of one of the questions I wanted to ask is, what

are you, the triggers that sets your ideas that this is special enough

that I want to develop a story.

So it's very much from life and the emotional state that you're going through?

Yeah, I usually have a roster of ideas kind of circling in the back of

my mind, and they'll be floating around there for years sometimes as I pick

and choose which ones to tackle next.

And they all come from some powerful feeling that I've had or

else I wouldn't be that excited.

excited about them, but I think it's like, I, I kind of, every time I finish

a project, I, I kind of pull up the, the menu of what, what else I have

circulated and I'm thinking, okay, which one of these connects most strongly to

kind of whatever is going on in my life.

Whatever feels most urgent to explore to me.

And then I kind of spend time adapting that into, uh, incorporating that

into whatever I'm living through.

And when you're developing that, do you find that the story

solidifies when you've got a character to represent it, or is it more the

world building and a scenario that, you know, sort of acts as a metaphor

for what you're trying to process?

Yeah.

Uh, I feel like it really depends on the story.

I mean, the two, two major, I mean, I've the warm body series

is my only major published work.

And then I have this new book that's totally unrelated.

I've written a lot of things before that, but as far as things that

are or ever will be available.

I'll just keep it limited to that.

Because the, the, the books that I wrote before that were practice runs.

But, yeah, so with warm bodies, it, it kind of started as a combination

of a premise and a, and a character.

Because the premise kind of is the character of the character

being a, basically a Depressed, existentially tormented corpse.

And it was like, well, that is kind of the premise as well.

So I had the, you know, the, the idea of wanting to explore that feeling of,

which is what I felt like at the time.

And, and the premise just kind of flowed naturally from that.

Cause I'm like, well, how do I write about feeling like this?

I don't want to just write about myself being like a depressed guy in Seattle.

and I just stumbled upon a wacky idea of something to connect it to that would be,

you know, a fun vehicle to explore that.

So those kind of intertwined at the same time.

And then the recent book that I'm working on started more as an idea

of like just things I'm observing in the world that I wanted to explore.

And then I figured out what kind of character would fit into this,

this struggle and, uh, taking my own struggles, things that I'm working

through, uh, how to grapple with that, that change in the world.

And then that sort of forms the character.

So, yeah, it just depends on the story.

Everyone calls for a different, different process, really.

And with the project that you're working on now, as you're developing the

character, are you someone who likes to write a biography and develop, you know,

sort of a backstory for the character before you work on the plot or is the

character developed as the plot continues?

I always like to have some basic idea before I start and

before I break ground on anything.

I want to have a good sense of who the person is.

I don't focus so much on, specific biographical details, like where

were they born and all that stuff.

But I like to get kind of a, a mental snapshot of what kind of

person they are, what they're, what their inner life is like.

And then, I guess I do kind of sketch out a sense of, you know, their

origins, but it's not a rigid process.

It's just a internal.

I don't, sketch out, you know, the exact birth date and whatever

until, until it becomes necessary.

And with the plot itself, are you someone who likes it to unfold as you're

writing it and you're writing processes to kind of find out what happens?

Or do you very much have a clear end point and just like, okay,

I know where I'm writing to?

So I've explored both.

Both of those camps in my, two stories.

I mean, if I'm combining all of warm bodies as one story.

With that one, I very much felt like it was necessary to plot it out

because the first book is relatively streamlined, but even with that, I

needed to know where it was going and kind of what the, the key beats were.

So I had kind of a very rough map for that one.

And then as I expanded it into the rest of the series, there was a lot of moving

parts and I definitely felt like I needed to know exactly where it was going.

Because it's, uh, It's a big processor load to generate the story as

you're writing it at the same time.

Versus, just converting what you've sketched out into prose.

That's much less processor intensive.

So it's, it's a tall order to do both at the same time.

But that's sort of what I tried with this, this current book.

I think I probably knew how it was going to end at least.

But I didn't map out, you know, the points in the middle of

how we get from A to B to C.

I kind of had my, my general idea and then how it was going to, you know, Conclude.

And I feel like that's the most important part.

To just at least get a rough idea is like, what is the payoff for all of this?

If I go into it without having any idea what that's going to be,

I think it can tend to meander.

I've read books by people who are firm believers of the no planning

camp and I'm like, yeah, I can tell, you know, this doesn't, it

doesn't go anywhere interesting.

So I'm cautious of that.

it's always that the jokey stereotype of an author in a franchise

is as they get more confident in the franchise and as the publishers

more comfortable with their success.

The books get bigger and bigger and bigger and you start with this like

pamphlet size the first book and then this war and peace epic at the end.

As it's just, yeah, freewheeling and roaming and tying everything off.

Yeah.

With, um, the warm bodies franchise.

I just want to sort of like touch on that because it's a book with

two sequels and one prequel.

um, So where did the prequels like come in the development of that franchise?

Yeah, it is kind of, I did it in a kind of an unusual order.

Because usually prequels come like after the series is over to kind

of comment on something someone might want to explore later.

But in this case, I consider the prequel as book two of the series because it

does set up the events of what, what happens in the rest of the series

in a way that would probably be kind of confusing if you hadn't read it.

I, I've sort of reluctantly allowed because it's such a hard concept

to, to push through the, like, no, this is actually the second book.

You don't read it first, even though I, chronologically it's first, but just

the order I wrote them was intentional.

It wasn't an accident.

But people really struggle with that, so I've kind of, I've kind of

let go of it and just be like, Hey, you know, it's three novels and a

prequel, do what you want with it.

Cause I'm just tired of fighting.

But, but basically it sheds a lot of background on All the three,

you know, major characters really.

But it also introduces a new character who ends up being very important

to the, where the series goes.

So I feel like it, you're definitely missing something

if you don't read the prequel.

But, yeah, my publisher was very, very eager to have me not prioritize

the prequel and say, Oh no, just, you can jump right into the second book.

Because they, they never want to have any obstacles for readers.

And I'm like, okay, fine.

yeah.

If George Lucas can start with chapter 4, you can certainly,

start with chapter two.

But like you say, it's, it's.

Warm Bodies is the first book, and then it's, it's a flashback

book, um, before A Leap Forward.

It's, it's really interesting how the chronology of things.

Like people, people really want to get the chronology set.

And to me, it's, it never really occurred to me until after I wrote

this prequel, how, how complicated that was going to be with, with people.

Cause to me, it's like, well, You know, in a novel, you know,

you have flashbacks, you have chronology jumps all over the place.

That's, that's part of the flow of the story.

Nobody's saying like, Oh, we should take, Pulp Fiction and, and reedit

it to be in chronological order.

It's like, that's, it's not, that's not the same movie.

And also Godfather 2 is, you know, widely celebrated, and

that's pretty much all flashback.

Um, so, uh, yes, but, you know, useful for listeners who may not have, like

you say, a lot of people know of Warm Bodies, but they're not aware of the

full four book series, but to know the running order, know the intentional

running order, Good to get that out there.

Um, with the book that you're just finishing off now, does it feel very

standalone or are those characters that you're planning to revisit?

This is definitely standalone.

I don't know if I'll ever write a series again.

Honestly, it's a very troublesome format for storytelling in

a lot of different ways.

And, uh, this is definitely a departure.

It doesn't fall into any, any genre that lends itself to elaborate world building.

It's much more grounded.

So it is what it is.

And I probably will get back into more, more fanciful kind

of material, as I move along.

But I, I think if I ever do write a series again, I would write it

all at once rather than hoping for the best after each book comes out.

Because it's like this, this phenomenon you see all over the place, especially

with television and these things where, you know, somebody starts a

story with the first series, the first season and first book or whatever.

And then things happen and it gets dropped or it gets, you know, changed or you

just, you have to rely on people coming back for it years later, and that's

just not really the world we live in.

Yeah.

And it's a real trap especially with streaming, there can be two years

between series and there'll be people who will just go, well, I'll wait

until the whole story's finished.

I won't go now.

But then if they don't get the viewing figures, it's not going to finish.

So it's just, it's a chicken and the egg.

Yeah, it is.

It really is.

I, I've been encountering that a lot lately.

Because I'm just so fed up with all the, the streaming networks, how they just

never finished their stories, you know?

They waste my time giving a big setup and I invest my emotion into it.

And then there's like, Oh, anyway, there's no ending to the story.

And they just walk away.

And like, you bastards, you made me a promise here.

I delivered my end of it.

I think there's a lot of people who are very excited

with Shogun at the moment.

You know, don't want to promote Disney, but it's based on a book

and it's a one series and done.

And it's just like, yes, please.

Just, do the book, one series, you know, sort of eight, nine episodes,

whatever, whatever it takes.

I feel like that is, as far as cinematic storytelling, that's

like the sweet spot, in my opinion.

Like movies are too constrained.

Normal TV series are too sprawling, but like the single

mini series is just perfect.

You just enough time to develop things properly and then you have an ending and

a satisfying conclusion and we're done.

But with books, there really is no, I guess a novel kind of is the

equivalent of a, of a mini series.

Yeah, I don't know what, what the equivalent would that would be

like multiple seasons, I guess.

Again, it could be, you know, the franchise books.

And I think when there are adaptations of books into TV shows, I am just

like, okay, is it one book per season?

Because I can get behind that.

But if it's not, then Yeah, there's always a hesitation.

Like, we've all been stung.

We've all been hurt, emotionally investing in something for it

not to have a satisfaction.

It's why I want these networks to, to recognize that

and do something about it.

I want them to be like, Hey, we're committing to this complete arc.

It's going to get filmed.

So watch it.

this whole, like, maybe we will, maybe we won't.

It's like, I don't have time for that.

No, yeah, absolutely.

Now, I also want to touch on the fact that recently, well, in the last few

years, you did a poetry book, but it wasn't an ordinary poetry book.

Do you want to tell us a bit of how that project started and how that developed?

Yeah, so I'm not deep inside the poetry world at all.

And I've always kind of dabbled with it, in kind of secondary mediums

like video and stuff like that.

But, uh, I'm not really in the poetry scene, but I, I was writing

it kind of just For my own enjoyment.

I would make little musical videos with my poetry in it and put them

on Instagram and things like that.

And kind of got the bug of it.

Started to enjoy the feeling of writing that style.

Cause it's always kind of been part of my prose writing as well.

I used to, you know, used to write music and poetry and music and prose are all

kind of, they blend together for me.

But I, I, have a Patreon and, um one of the rewards that I used to

offer was for a certain tier, people could like send me an email of, a

hope or fear, was the setup of it.

Was like something that they were anxious about, something they

were struggling with or something.

And just kind of like lay it out for me, confess it, and I would, uh, use it as

sort of as a writing prompt to write a poem that Speaks to that in some way.

Not necessarily like a advice column, you know, well, here's how to fix your

problem, but just, you know, something that would respond to the particular

issue that they're going through.

Because for one, one hand, it was just, uh, it was kind of like a, something

I could give to my supporters, but it also was kind of refreshing to build a

right for, for, for someone else's life, someone else's perspective for change.

Instead of just always thinking like, what am I struggling with?

It was refreshing to be like, what are other people struggling with?

So I wrote a bunch of those back then.

And, um, I decided to basically compile them all into book.

And so I, you know, it's a very short book, but I, I did a little Amazon self

release of, the thing that they wrote me first, and then the poem that I wrote in

response to that, and then I illustrated it and put it out there on Amazon.

It's called Hopes and Fears.

and I think it's just a great way to engage with your audience.

And it's a real conversation, between audience and writer.

And yeah, some of the topics covered and things.

It's giving validation that I see you.

And, you know, you're not alone, and I understand this emotion.

And I just think it's such a, great thing to read and see.

And part of this podcast is for, hopefully, other writers to listen

to, because it's a very insular job, to hear other people who are also

writing and doing similar things and going through similar challenges, and

it's, you know, Oh, I'm not alone.

Oh, I do that too.

Okay.

I'm not the only one.

And that little affirmation.

And it's, yeah, it's a book of poetry affirmation, I would say.

And just, it's not solving everyone's problems, but it's

just, acknowledging, resonating, reflecting, beautiful sort of thing.

So it's just, it may not be something that becomes your magnum opus, but

it is a little project that just really blew me, really impressed me.

And so I wanted to make we cover that.

Yeah.

I have also written just pure poetry for its own sake and I have kind of

a slowly growing collection of that.

But I don't know if it's something.

I mean, it is kind of its own craft to the extent that I would feel kind

of silly just trying to stick my head in there without, you know, having

really honed the craft to that level.

But for something like this, I feel like, well, because it's conversational

like that, because it is kind of a different concept is kind of a

two, a two directional exchange.

I can, I feel comfortable and I enjoy releasing something like that

because it is sort of outside of that realm enough that I feel like, well,

my stuff may not be good enough for the poetry elite, but for this very

public kind of interactive medium I think it could be worth something.

I mean, we've had a few poets on the show and they've

always performed their poetry.

And I think that's the thing that a lot of people don't appreciate or realize

with poetry is the power it can have when it's spoken aloud and performed.

And it can be a bit of a one way conversation, but there's

almost like a stand up comedian.

It's that engaging with an audience and responding to the mood of the room.

And that can be really powerful.

But you don't often get that with a collection of poetry because

it's so internalized by the reader.

The reader's not, often not reading it aloud, and how they respond

to it and how they can reflect on it, you know, with a group.

But the way that you've done it by having people write in and having

you respond directly to them.

It's different, but it's very much, it feels part of the poetry world.

I think I, I mean, it may be something I continue.

Cause I, my patron is still, still ongoing.

I just haven't, haven't had much spare time for any more side projects, but

it's something that, you know, if I ever get to that fanciful period that

I'm imagining where I get to sit back and think, what shall I write today?

It's been a long time since I've had that kind of freedom.

I've been on an agenda for quite a while now.

But when I get back to that, I would like to open that up, you

know, open the submissions again and see what's bothering people now.

Well, also I think just, you know, I dunno how often you go back to Seattle,

but I feel Seattle's one of those creative cities that there's probably

a poetry open mic that if you did, want to, and also because of , where you,

you live currently, it's just like, I can go to the city, I can perform.

If it bombs, I leave the city.

Never be seen again.

yeah.

Go into exile in the wilderness.

Yeah, exactly.

Uh, so it's low risk, but yeah, we had a poet, uh, Helen Shepard who,

when she's forming the poem, she'll perform it while she's drafting.

And she finds performing it as part of the drafting process, which

considering the novelist point of view is like, no one sees the drafts.

You'll wait until it's finished and no one can see it beforehand.

Uh Oh, you mean she performs it publicly while drafting it?

Yeah, yeah, She will go out and she'll see how

an audience takes the lines.

I know common with standup comedy is kind of develop the

material on stage, but yeah, I've never heard of that with poetry.

yeah, it is very brave.

But yeah, it's just, it's a different process, but everyone has their own

process, but it's things to try.

Um, and talking about things to try or the things that are new that, you

know, I'm pushing my luck here and you can just say, say no comment.

Um, but you're writing for a computer game.

Yes.

And that's very different from novels and poetry.

Yeah, I've been diversifying quite a bit lately.

How's that been as an experience?

Is it just feel like, Oh, this is very collaborative or is it stressful?

Is it just a big sandbox that you get to play in?

How are you finding it?

It's definitely not the third thing.

It's probably the first two things.

It's collaborative and stressful.

Uh, it's, uh, it's been fascinating because I've never done

anything quite like this before.

I think the closest equivalent is probably, you know, having that

movie adaptation of warm bodies.

It was the closest I got to interacting with a team that is working on something

that I'm, you know, contributing to, but it's not ultimately my work.

Being, you know, just one part of the process.

And so with the game that I'm working on, and I have to be maddeningly vague

because I'm not allowed to even, I can't even say the company that I'm

working or anything, I keep asking like, when are you going to announce this?

So I can talk about it, but it hasn't happened yet.

But it's basically they had a premise that they'd been working on for some time.

And they brought me into kind of like flesh it out and help them, you

know, figure out the story and then actually write the script for the game.

So it's similar to screenwriting in, in that phase of it, but it's also all the

stuff before the actual script writing is, is something I've never dabbled in before.

Which is basically kind of a writer's room environment where I'm in with four

or five other people on their team.

And we're just kind of hashing it out.

Like what, what happens here?

And, that doesn't make sense.

What do we do about this?

And, and just these very intensive sessions that are for

me, it's, it's unique because first of all, it's not my story.

It's not, you know, something that came from my life experience and, and, uh, it

was, Passionate enough about to write a novel about, but I kind of adopted it.

I took the project because I liked their idea enough to feel like I

could embrace it and make it mine.

and so I'm doing that, but with, you know, this large company and a

large team of people and all these different agendas that have to be met.

You know, different goals that people are pushing for.

I wondered when I was first starting the project, like I've

never collaborated to this degree.

I've always kind of hated collaborating.

Even when I was in bands I'm always thinking like somebody

has to take charge here.

I mean, we can't all, five people in the band, we can't all have

opinion on what the next chord be.

You know, someone has to write the song.

So, uh, wasn't sure I could do it, but, um, they brought me over to Cambridge

and, uh, I spent, you know, several weeks just Basically as a pseudo employee.

Showing up every day and going to these meetings and figuring it all out.

And I found that it was, it was kind of a thrilling in its own way.

It was something like a being able to, contingent on the fact that

everyone I was working with was smart.

It could have been bad if they were not, but I was greatly relieved.

You're like, okay, no one here is an idiot.

I think we can, we can work together.

So, uh, yeah.

Yeah, that, that ended up being, you know, it's a lot.

I understand the appeal because it was similar to the process of coming up with

a novel, which is basically, I sort of play the entire writer's room on my own.

I'll go out on a walk and argue with myself, like, oh, that's a terrible

idea to come up with something better, but it's just the differences with

this, there are actual other people representing the different ideas.

So it's a, it takes a lot of the burden off because, I'd hit something

that stumps me, and if I'm writing a novel, no, one's going to help me out.

It's up to me to, you know, go on some long road trip until the, till

the inspiration clicks to figure out how to solve this problem.

But with this, I could walk in like, I don't know, what do you guys think?

And then maybe they solve it for me.

It was unique.

It was like, Oh, I kind of understand the appeal here.

Collaboration.

and also I think it helps prevent going down the wrong route on

something like if there's a plot hole or just a logic leap, there's people

to catch it earlier and to say, Oh, hold on, let me just pick that apart.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

No, the logic falls apart.

We're going to try something else.

But at the same time, that can, I guess, uh, bruise an ego.

How do you manage that when you're constantly being challenged?

Is it, is it a good kind of raises your game or can it some, some days

just being like, why am I a writer?

yeah, well, with this, this project, I, I kind of

entered it very intentionally with not being precious about it.

I, I had to remind myself, you know, this is not my story.

It's their thing that I'm helping with as much as I want to immerse myself

in it and kind of take ownership of it, they aren't my characters.

It's, you know, things that it made it easier to take a step back

when someone disagree with me.

Because ultimately, you know, there's a director for the game

and it's, uh, it's his final say.

Whereas with a novel, it's kind of the reverse where, you know, with

novel, it's just usually one editor, but it's this kind of the same process

where my editor will call me and tell me, you know, this part is bad.

This part doesn't make sense, whatever.

And then I have the final say about whether I agree or not.

And almost never completely ignore those feedbacks.

But yeah, this is just sort of the reverse of that, where I got to see what it's like

to be the one, you know, suggesting things and then they can take or leave it and

it hasn't been much of a problem really.

I mean, it's so much more complex with, uh, similar with Hollywood

in, in any industry where a project being produced by large teams of

people with lots of money involved.

Like there's art versus commerce is always kind of the, the friction.

So there's people pushing for things to be easier to sell.

And then there's people pushing for things to be better art.

So that's the case in really all mediums, but it's more pronounced, I

think when on a larger scale project.

So there's been moments of that where it's like, somebody wants to do with

things a certain way because it's, you know, better for the boardroom.

But I have to push back sometimes.

Cause I'm like, guys, the story falls apart if we do this.

So it's, it's been a, a, a stimulating and kind of stretching

and growing experience for sure.

And working with characters that aren't your own, also how comfortable

you are saying, are these established characters, or is this a new story?

So how's your freedom on what the characters can do?

And are you kind of given a Bible of the law of the game?

Or is it just ad hoc and it's being developed while you're in the room?

Well, it is original characters, but it was all pretty well

established before I came on board.

So they, they do kind of have a general sense of Who they are and what to follow.

But what I found is that it felt similar to creating them myself,

because I still have to go through the process of taking, you know, words in

a email and then making them pop into an actual image in a, in a face, in

a voice, and everything in my mind.

Before I'm able to actually write anything in their voice I have to

feel like I have met them in some way.

Which is very similar to the process of inventing a new character is

just like making that reality.

Sometimes making my own characters, you know, is it particularly, you

know, more minor characters, they don't always come in with a human

presence established already.

It's more like, this is, you know, the accountant or whatever the, the

guy that does this part of the story.

And then it's not until I start writing it that I figure out, you know, what they're

like and how they talk and everything.

And so that process is familiar to me from doing that.

And it was, it was kind of similar to this where even though they had their

actual arcs well sketched out and, you know, kind of the, the backstory

and everything, I still had to pierce that barrier between theory and, and

reality for like narrative reality.

So you can still develop a character's voice and not have people go,

Oh, no, no, they wouldn't sound like that.

Or they wouldn't say that.

Yeah.

Yeah, and they were, they were left open enough, I think, because they

hadn't really done what I was called on to do yet, which was to really

like dig in and bring a kind of an emotional reality to the story.

They just been tinkering with the components of it.

So when I came in, the characters did change to some degree because, I'm

thinking, you know, like I get the rough sketch of what you're going for here.

But in more particularly how do they respond to these kinds of situations?

What's their, what's their attitude and what made them the way they

are and all that kind of stuff.

So that all came into existence through that process.

And a lot of that did come from me, which makes it easier to connect

to them as, as I write them.

That's great.

Going on to more general terms now, just in your writing process, when

you're actually sitting down to write, are you a prolific note taker?

Are there's lots of pieces of paper around your desk as you're

writing that you refer to?

Or are you someone who keeps it all in your head and then

just puts it in the manuscript?

My version of taking notes and outlining, I guess,

is kind of adorably primitive.

Uh, in it, I basically just have a note file on my phone slash computer

that updates, you know, and I just when I'm outlining it, I kind of just

write the whole story really badly.

As if I were very stupid.

I just say the things that are going to happen.

And so as I'm, you know, sketching out the plot, it's just kind of me saying, and

then she falls off a cliff and without any attempt to make it beautiful or anything.

But I kind of, as if I'm like telling the story to a five year old or something.

And, um, same with notes.

I mean, as I'm trying to, you know, if I get stuck on something or I'm trying

to rethink an idea, it's usually just me walking around somewhere and talking

to my phone and I'll just dictate observations and ideas and then hope

that I can translate whatever popped out when I get back to back to the computer.

And are you a same time of day writer, where you sort of

like, okay, now it's writing time.

I sit down, you know, office hours or are you someone who's like, okay, I'm

going to walk for a bit and then once it all clicks, I just rush back to the

computer and then, the energy's there.

Do you write when you've got the time or when you're in the

mood or is it very structured?

I always at least try to do it at the same time.

it's the morning.

It's just first thing I do.

My ideal writing day would be I wake up and don't do anything else.

And I just dive right into it.

No looking at the phone, no checking emails.

And it basically is little engagement with reality as possible.

If I can get in to my document, while I'm still almost half asleep

and I'm just sipping in my first sip of coffee, that's the sweet spot.

That's where my best stuff comes from.

And it's not always possible to be quite that pure, but

I do aim for that every day.

I think that the more I engage with my actual life and with reality around

me, the harder it gets to like the more, the further away my story feels.

So I try to come to it fresh.

And then throughout the day I do take a lot of breaks.

So I'll go for walks in any time.

I just need some fresh air or need to think about what happens

next, what the next paragraph is.

And, um, usually I'm done by early afternoon, which has

always kind of frustrated me.

Because it's like there's half of a day left, but I'm just tapped out.

I don't, don't have any, any words left in me by that point.

And sometimes I'm able to have an evening session as well.

If I'm really on fire and it's really flowing, I'll do a morning to afternoon

and then take a little midday break and come back in the early evening

and have some tea and go back into it and at least get a little bit of

editing done if not new chapters.

But I do try to stick to a pattern.

I think it's helpful.

I I'm not militant about it.

If life gets in the way, I'll do my best to adapt.

But, you know, in a perfect world, I have a regimen.

And do you have any minimum targets that sort of like,

okay, I can't give up yet.

I need to hit this marker.

I, I wish I could.

I know that it's like common practice with writers and I just

think it's a lovely idea, you know, but it's meaningless because I

would never be able to follow it.

For me, it really feels like there's just a tank of fuel.

And when it runs out, there's no, no amount of discipline

can make a car run with no gas, know, it's just like, it's gone.

And my brain is off.

And to force myself to squeeze out another thousand words or something.

I could force myself to do it if it was just abusive, you know, prison situation.

But if they're not going to be good words, why bother?

Yeah, that's the, that's why the hesitance I have with that whole

discipline notion is that, yes, you can make yourself do things, but you only

get to write it for the first time once.

You can edit it all you want, but there's only one first explosion of words.

And oftentimes that initial burst is something special and magical that,

that you can't always replicate and you never know exactly how it's going

to come out until you're typing.

And if I make the decision, like I'm going to write, you know, this

pivotal, emotional climax of the story while I'm half asleep and hung

over and can't put words together, it's going to come out a certain way.

And I can try to polish it all I want from then on, but the groundwork

has been set in that state.

And it's just, I hesitate to do it because it's, you know, what if, what

if I'm stuck in that format forever now?

And when you do feel the tank running close to empty, do you like to

go, well, I'll just finish this paragraph, this sentence, this chapter, or will

you just leave something mid sentence?

Well, I leave things mid sentence when, when I feel like I'm really stuck.

I think I don't, I don't like to do that, if I can avoid it.

I like to reach some kind of a victory point where I feel like I've

contained it somehow before I quit.

But sometimes I just recognize that I'm banging my head against

the wall and I,I call it.

The reason I asked that particular question is because, being a spoiler

light as possible, there's in Warm Bodies, there's a character and a manuscript.

And the manuscript is picked up and it is left mid sentence.

And regular listeners to the show will know that I ask, you know, do you start

a writing session, new chapter, right where you left off on a particular scene,

or do you, if you leave it mid sentence, do you just try and like pick it up from

where you left off in that sentence?

And the amount of writers I've had who've gone, leaving it

mid sentence is psychopathic.

I couldn't do it.

Like who does that?

No, always victory point.

But it is something that I read somewhere once, and so it is something that I've

asked, and I do love the reactions to it.

So when I re read Warm Bodies, and I was reminded of that bit,

I was like, Oh my goodness, this could be something that Isaac does.

Well, I have done that.

I mean, I've abandoned novels mid sentence and never come back to them,

which is that character's experience was something that's happened to me.

There's been several false starts in my writing history where I thought I had a

great idea and I got a couple chapters in and suddenly the floor falls out from

under you're like, this is not happening.

And you walk away.

It's very, very bleak moment.

But, uh, yeah, as far as things that I do finish, I would rarely

actually end mid sentence.

I would definitely end mid paragraph sometimes.

I mean, that that's, you said you read that somewhere.

There's a famous bit of advice from Hemingway, that is actually

one of the few writing tips that has ever really stuck with me.

I often find that writing tips are just, they're so personalized.

It's just like, well, that works for you, but that means absolutely nothing to me.

So I, it feels like white noise to me, when people will try to explain, you

know, their recommended writing process.

But one that stuck with me was something he said about, intentionally

not ending on a victory point.

Rather than, you know, writing the conclusion of the chapter, stop

writing, you know, just before.

Like in the middle of that kind of climax point.

Not because it makes that moment better, but because it makes it easier to

plug back into it when you come back.

Which is something that I have often struggled with is just,

opening up the document and not really being sure where to begin.

If it's the end of a chapter, I'm starting a new chapter then it's

like, what's the opening of this scene, you know, where do I start?

And it's just adds this extra burden when you start your day.

As opposed to having it, you know, set up for you beforehand.

It's kind of like meal prep or something.

Like laying out your, your clothes the night before, you're

just ready to, to get started.

Yeah, and if it's a big scene that either emotional scene or like

say a climax where it's like, you know, sort of big conflict, you're

excited to get up the next day and say, Ooh, I get to write that scene.

And it's with a grain of salt.

I mean, I wouldn't intentionally abandon if it in the middle of a really

emotional moment or something where it needs to have a coherent flow.

It's more like there's a strategy to it of exactly, you know.

I'll get just past the climax and then end as it's ramping up into the next one, so

that I have kind of a runway built for me.

But I do feel like it's important to get immersed in, in the scene.

And if you know, I'm on fire and I'm writing something really intense, I'm not

just going to make myself walk away in the middle of it for writing practice.

Cause that would be psychopathic.

No, that's fair enough.

Absolutely.

Um, and like you say, if you fit in an evening session.

If, you know, got an extra full tank that day, then go for it.

Why not?

But on the flip side of that, as you're someone who has, like you say, walked away

from projects and there's a lot of stories that haven't seen the light of day.

A thing I like to talk about a lot on this show is imposter syndrome and those

moments throughout a project where you get to that hurdle where you doubt yourself.

And it's just like, Is this a story worth pursuing, or am I just a terrible writer?

Or this is the moment that I get found out that I have zero talent,

or this project has no legs.

And so obviously you've finished several books, and you're,

you know, finishing one now.

But you've also abandoned books, so how do you overcome that moment, um, when you

have doubts on a book that you finish, and how is it different from the ones where

you know you absolutely have to walk away?

Hmm.

Yeah.

I don't know that I've ever felt that about the ones that I've finished.

I've definitely had doubts as far as you know, are people going to like this or

not, or it will be successful or not?

But I think it would be hard for me to ever get to that finished

point if I had serious doubts about the viability of the idea.

I guess that does come up, you know, somewhere along the way from time to time.

But usually by the time I'm a third of the way through I've kind of done

the research well enough to establish that, yes, there is a story here.

I already have it, you know, at least roughly sketched out.

And I know where it's heading and so I can sort of hold on to that's

another reason I like to, to plan.

Is that it, it, it prevents those sort of moments of despair of thinking,

like, how am I going to finish this?

Because I've already figured it out in advance.

So now I just have to, you know, put the boards together that

have already been blueprinted.

For the ones that I didn't finish, I think those were usually not so

much about doubting my talent as it was just, you know, what does

the story have legs, like you said.

And there's been a couple where I got a ways through and I just sort

of realized, it's usually kind of, it's a personal sensation of like,

this does not excite me enough.

Maybe there is material here that could be made into a story, but I've lost

the feeling and I Can't really continue if I can't feel where it's going.

So that's happened a couple of times.

One in particular is a book that I've been sort of stewing on for a long time.

That's, that's very ambitious and, and big large scale story covering a very

wide view of kind of the human experience.

And I've been intrigued by it for a long time.

And every time I, I start to write it, I think like, I think I need

to get older before I write this.

I'm just not, I'm not mature enough to tackle this yet.

And like the, the longer I wait, probably the better it'll be.

So I just gotta.

I've had a few authors on with stories like that

and they always excite me.

I was like, I can't wait, you know, for you to get old enough.

Yeah.

It's uh, I mean, I think it's good to have that, that humility of being

able to recognize that you're still developing and, and you're going to

keep learning and have more experiences that will inform these things.

And better to approach it from a place of deep experience rather than just

trying to speculate wildly on, on what someone might think about this scenario.

And there's a point, you can't always write what you know,

you have to speculate somewhat.

But I think the more real experience you can infuse into

your writing, the richer it'll be.

It's hard to know where to draw that line.

When I first came up with this, I was probably in my mid thirties

and now I'm in my early forties and it's like, well, I could do it now.

Like I'm, I'm not young anymore, so it's starting to think like me.

Is that my next one?

Or do I wait another 10 years?

And with some of the projects that you've abandoned, because you've

mentioned how they're part of an emotional state that you're in at a certain time.

Do you ever look back on those and go, there's some gold within the junk that I

can take out and use on other projects?

Or do you look back and go, Oh, I was so young and stupid and naive there.

And I've matured, I've learned so much from then.

And I'm a different person.

And I just have to junk all of it?

Yeah, it definitely has.

That has definitely happened.

So the first books that I ever wrote, I started when I was 14 and they were

just kind of like a very stereotypical high fantasy saga, kind of epics.

Chosen one kind of situation.

And at the time I thought they were very fresh and original and, And

I wrote two books in the, what was going to be a five book series.

And then realized that it wasn't ready and tabled it and moved

on to other types of projects.

But I've always kind of looked back on that one and thought,

you know, this is so out there.

I'm not going to make this step in my career anytime soon.

It's very juvenile and obviously, but, there's certain ideas

within it that I thought like, I still like that oddly enough.

You know, 30, 40 years later, I still, there's certain elements that I would

love to revive and use in something.

And so I've always kind of had a dream of pulling a Stephen King, dark tower

situation late in life where I come back to something I wrote 30 years

ago and be like, Oh, now it's time.

Now I'm going to do the series.

But that's, you know, from the seat of comfortable success and not

having to prove anything to anybody.

I might, I might consider that, but not while I'm still in the thick of it.

So that one's like way off in the background.

And then I have the book I wrote after that, which I did in my late

teens through early twenties, is the only one that I have that I've tried

to revive as a, as a grown up a few times because I feel like the, the

story concept still holds together.

It's still interesting to me.

I finished that when I think when I was 22 and I have tried to go back to it a couple

of times in my late thirties and thought, you know, obviously I can't use this book,

but maybe I could rewrite it from scratch.

You know, just using the same story material and I go back into

it and I read it and just like, I don't think it's salvageable.

It's just too young.

No, it's the perspective is so young.

I can't really relate to it anymore.

So it'd have to be, you know, completely reimagined because it's just, you

know, it's a unique feeling to be 21.

And I, You can, can look back and remember and, you know, think

about it, but if it's not a period piece or a nostalgia kind of story.

If it's supposed to be immediate and real, then you have to be able

to adapt it to how you feel now.

So haven't quite figured out how to do that one, but I

still, I still think about it.

That was one that I kind of self published in a primitive way back then.

And a lot of people still ask me about it to this day.

Cause I used to sell it on my, on my blog years ago.

And a few non friends and family have picked it up.

And, and it has kind of this mystical status that people

email me once in a while, like, is there any way I can get this?

And like, no, you will never read that version of it by

design, not by availability.

Okay.

Well, that's a, that's a cool mysterious thing that we'll leave hanging in the air.

Um, so we're kind of already talking about it, but I really want to go into

editing now, and really focus on that.

Because there's the old adage that writing is rewriting, and so I want to sort of,

with your editing process, when you start a writing day, you're getting up, you're

just having a sip of your coffee, do you look back at the previous day, And

where was I and kind of bring yourself up or because it's that free flow,

noncritical, not really aware of like the realities of the world that you just

write in blind and you'll edit much later?

Yeah.

I've always thought that doing the full draft and then go back and

revise would probably be the most efficient way to do it.

A lot of people suggest that style, but I've never quite been able to bring

myself to turn that much of a blind eye.

Because you know, when you open up the document, there it is,

there's your last paragraph.

I can't help, but look at it.

But I also find that If you do a whole draft, you're taking that

entire version of the story without any feedback from yourself and you're

committing to it all the way through.

And then if you find, you know, major flaws in it, when you come

back to it later, it could be a huge waste of of writing time.

Because you might discover, oh, that really doesn't make sense.

And now this whole other plot thread is irrelevant and have to just

do so much more editing than you would have to do if you were kind

of keeping tabs on it as you go.

So my, my typical process is a little bit of both.

I generally, at least, quickly skim where I was before, just

to kind of get the rhythm of it.

Because I focus a lot on, on rhythm.

And again, in terms of the sentences themselves, but also just

like the flow of Scene to scene.

And even paragraph to paragraph, I just wanna make sure that I'm not,

repeating myself, being redundant in the, the way that things flow.

So I, I like to make sure I listen to the, you know, previous measure before I

start playing the next, the next melody.

So, I do that and then sometimes, it depends on how challenging the section is.

If it's something that is just flowing well, and it's sort of easy.

I generally try to just keep going.

If it's something that I'm not totally sure about, I'll sometimes use my

evening session for a quick edit.

Where I find that, you know, I, I might be a little tired in the evening, I

don't have the manic energy I need to generate new material from scratch,

but I do have enough gas in the tank to, uh, look back and, you know,

pull those threads together, kind of connect what I, what I did before.

So, it depends on the day, really.

I think all those tactics are valuable in different circumstances.

And it's just about knowing like when to do which.

And when you've written like "the end," do you have

like a little celebration or do you like, go right tomorrow?

No, we've got start editing this.

Once you've got to the ending, do you have like a pause?

Do you have a celebration or do you wait until it's fully signed off, edited?

I try to.

It feels just cruel to not even take a break at the end

of a project of that magnitude.

So I always like finishing a novel in particular, but even, even smaller

projects, I try to at least give myself a day to not think about it.

But it's hard.

I mean, because I, you tell people, Oh, I finished, I finished my novel.

And they're like, Oh, great.

When's it coming out?

And they don't understand that it has just begun at that point.

But I do feel like it's important to, you know, give yourself a little

acknowledgement once in a while.

And not just, you know, always be looking 10 steps ahead.

Because it's just you get despair that way.

If you're always looking toward the final product.

I mean, if I spend three years writing the first draft of a novel and then, uh, don't

get happy because it's not going to be on shelves for another three years, then

it's, it's really depressing way to work.

So I take breaks, but it's difficult.

I mean, when I'm in the thick of a project like that, that whole work

life balance thing eludes me a lot.

Because it's just all I'm thinking about.

And anytime I try to take a break, I have to drag myself away from it.

Because I wake up the next day and I'm just like, why am I wherever

I am, why am I not working today?

And it just doesn't make sense.

Because there's just so little time and life is so short,

so many stories to write.

And,when you u have, uh, when it goes to an editor, are you someone

who's had, uh, an editor throughout your career or did you have one for the Warm

Bodies franchise and now you are working with someone completely different?

And how's your relationship with professional editors?

Okay.

So my experience, I don't know if this is the average experience, but

my editor has mostly been my agent.

He did 95 percent of the editing work with all of my books.

And then the person with the actual title of editor at the publisher

kind of comes in and just you know, offers a few suggestions after

it's already basically perfect.

Cause it's, I think there's something that's changed in the industry in

the last decade or so, but you know, my agent told me it used to be that

publishers would take you under their wing and they'd have their, their editors

work with you and like develop the story and like make it work together.

But now it's just so cutthroat that they expect it to be pretty

much ready for the press by the time it even reaches their desk.

And then they'll just sort of make a few little notes on, on it here

and there, but they aren't really interested in doing heavy work with you.

So we spent me and my agent with warm bodies spent, I don't know, at

least a whole year just going back and forth between us on many drafts

before we even submitted it anywhere.

So it's basically him.

And, uh, I worked with the, the actual editor of the publisher for

warm bodies for those books, but in, She had, you know, helpful input,

but, uh, it's just, it's such a small part of the process that it almost

feels kind of second afterthought.

Yeah, I think it's certainly in recent years, from my impression, from

everyone I speak to is, editors move on.

And, you can be at the same publishers, but have very different experiences

from editor to editor, book to book.

So to having a consistent person in your life that understands your author

intention and your author voice.

That makes sense.

I mean, it's, it's a very intimate relationship.

Like you said, someone who knows what you're trying to do.

Uh, when I first experienced that for the first time after years of just

having, you know, friends and family be my editors and, you know, the beta

readers and all, and all of that.

Where it's people who are just there because they were available.

There's no presumption of affinity for, for your work in any way.

It's just like, Hey, will you read this and tell me what you think?

And you're pulling from a wide spectrum of people who may just generally dislike

the style of writing you're doing.

They may have no interest in the subject matter.

There's just nothing, there's no common ground whatsoever.

Doing it like that was agony.

And that's, you know, how most people get start.

Before get into the industry is that's all you have.

So you, you know, you have your workshops or your classmates or whatever it may be.

But you have to take everything with such a grain of salt because people will

come in, like, maybe you get some guys like, all I read is political thrillers

and you've written a high fantasy novel.

And they'll be like, well, what if there was more politics in it?

And you're like, no, that's not the kind of book I'm trying to

write and they just want to turn it into their, what they like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's understandable.

And it's, it really takes a leap of professionalism to get past that to

sort of be able to set aside their personal tastes and recognize what you're

trying to do and help you get there.

My first time experiencing that, I was like, this is amazing.

It's like having someone who actually sees what I'm trying to do and

isn't just dragging it, you know, over to their personal tastes.

That that was transformative.

So, so yeah, we've, my agent has been a big part of my creative process.

It would be very hard to start with someone new.

No, that's great.

No, it's really nice to hear that as well.

And I think, yeah, people have different types of agent and some of

who are very hands on and who are not.

So I think that's a, it's great that you have that.

It sounds really healthy and good.

And also I want to say, because you mentioned there that sometimes the first

draft can be three years and you've had like a big franchise that you've completed

and, you know, you've got this book now you've been working on for a while.

You know, you know, let's look at the franchise of warm bodies.

After those four books, was it a relief to get it done and out there to the

world, or was there, you know, it was more overwhelmed with grief of, you know, I'm

not going to see those characters again.

I've spent all these years with these characters and their stories

told and I have to leave them be.

I think here there can be a mixture of relief, well glad that's done, and grief.

I'll miss it.

Uh, I'm just wondering, do you have a ratio where you feel more

relief or do you feel more grief?

Yeah, that's a good question.

It definitely is a mixture.

And in, in my case it was particularly complicated because I had just had such

a complicated journey with that series.

Not so much the writing of it, but just the experience of being the author of

that series was very complicated and difficult in a lot of strange ways that I

wasn't expecting when I started the story.

Just struggling with, you know, the media perception of what it

was as being colored by the movie, like you said at the beginning.

And just all the, all the, the strange places I found myself because I stumbled

into, you know, um, A genre that I generally don't have much interest in.

In, in both styles of it, you know, kind of the, the young adult world and the

zombie world were both foreign to me.

And I somehow made that my entire life and career.

So, a lot of the relief came from just being able to let go of that tension.

Cause I spent kind of that whole 11 years or whatever it was trying to get people

to understand what I was trying to do.

And it was vastly a failure to get them under to understand.

Because it was just so much momentum from forces that had nothing to do with

me, like the movie and the marketing for the movie and all of that stuff

that kind of pushed it in one direction.

And, uh, to the point where people would always, kind of Um, Smile and

nod when I try to talk about the rest of the series, which is actually, I

mean, warm bodies is, is 18 percent of the word count of the total series.

And it's in my mind, it's like, Oh yeah, that's, you know, act one,

that's the first chapter, but that's, that's all anybody talks about.

So it's, uh, that strange kind of tension of having written this story that people

talk about it, but There's just like a lot of uncomfortable, I don't know what

the word is, just like this pressure of feeling like I have to prove something

to people and like try to make them understand what I was actually trying

to create and what, how far removed it probably is from what they think it is.

Which is, you know, it's Kind of became a running joke for me because nine out

of 10 reviews, professional or amateur would just, it would always start with

like, well, I thought this was going to be this thing, or I thought this was

going to be terrible, but it surprised me.

It's just so many preconceptions about it.

Because it's working within, you know, this pop culture trope and it has all

this cultural baggage attached to it.

And so all of that was really exhausting.

And having to swim upstream the entire time of trying to get people

to look past the cultural baggage and be like, we actually just give

it a chance on its own merits.

Being able to finally drop that, that load, that burden was, was a huge relief.

Because it's like, you know what?

It is what it is.

I tried, I did my best.

I tried to make people see it.

I tried to promote it.

And, uh, now I can move on to something that has no baggage.

Just writing, you know, uh, a neutral story that has to

stand on its own merits alone.

That'll be a great time.

So, so there was the relief in that.

But it was painful.

I mean, that type of story in particular, because it is so kind of emotionally

charged and, and highly dramatic.

With all the different characters and all their subplots and, and

every, every character kind of has their own little, little arc.

And in a way it's, it's more emotionally, you connect to them in

a, in a different way than you do with kind of more hard literary fiction.

Where the characters can tend to feel a little less like your,

your buddies, you know, they're more like a piece of the art.

But not so much like, nobody cosplays as, as literary characters, you know?

No, they're more of a metaphor construct, I feel.

What my opinion is, is just like, okay, you're trying to deconstruct

this element of the human condition and they're representative.

more like archetypes.

And I actually, that's one of the things I don't like

about a lot of literary fiction.

Is that sort of dehumanization of it, feeling like the entire story

is, you know, shot from a hundred feet away and you never really

get a sense of who the people are.

So even as I write more in the literary realm, I try to I avoid that and try to

make people feel real and warm and human.

But it's just when it's, More real they're less colorful

cartoon characters, you know?

You can't like, insert yourself into the lives quite as easily as you can

with like more genre type fiction.

And also just the fact that, you know, a standalone novel that's more or

less set in the real world, it doesn't have the kind of world building and

like lore and, and all that stuff that helps you feel immersed In a story.

That kind of a science fiction type story.

So that kind of stuff, makes the people and, and adding to that, you

know, all the extra media elements of likes, you know, going through the

whole Hollywood process with the movie.

And seeing your actual human beings represent those characters.

It's hard to ever achieve that, outside of that, you know?

People taking them up on their own, making fan art, making cosplay, all

this stuff that makes them feel so much more like they exist in the real world.

That's more painful than usual to let go of because it's like they

kind of became real, you know?

When people embrace a character to that extent and are literally

performed by human actors, they, they are kind of a person in a way.

In a way that, you know, it's something that's purely exists in

my imagination isn't quite the same.

Yeah, they're not yours anymore.

Yeah, they become real when people start talking about them like

separately from, from your creation.

So that was strange.

I still kind of, I get nostalgic about it once in a while.

Like, You know, one of the characters, Julie has her birthday, is mentioned in

the second book and the sequel novel.

And so I, you know, I celebrate her birthday on social media once in a

while, do a little, little tribute and just kind of sappy things like

that, when I remember how much fun I had in that, time of, of storytelling.

That's lovely.

And yeah, sort of, when there's a fandom and like you say people cosplay

it, you never really lose them.

You know, it's just because even with that book you wrote when you're

22, you know, there's, there's people still, uh, intrigued by it

and wanting to know what happens.

And, yeah, it's like, it's a great affirmation that your art

has connected with people and, you know, so people want more.

It seems like a wondrous, it is why artists do well.

One of the reasons artists do art is, you know, it's touching with people.

It's resonating with people.

And it's, much like with your poetry book, it's, uh, it's that connection.

It's the life is a shared experience no matter how isolating it can feel at times.

Yeah.

And that's, I connect to that motivation more than many authors do.

I've heard a lot of, a lot of authors talk about their, you know, how

they think about their writing and what, what motivates them to do it.

And you hear a lot of a refrain of, you know, it's just for

me, it's not for anybody else.

And it's, it's just a very insular kind of process.

And I've always kind of, I felt differently about it.

Like what got me started on it to begin with was just that desire to share and

to connect and to get the ideas and the images and the feelings in the worlds

that were circulating in my head.

And to be able to make them become real by sharing them with other people.

So to me, It's not that I write for the audience in the sense of like, Oh,

are they going to like this or not?

You know, I still write what I think is good.

But I very much am aware of and kind of grateful for the audience and their

connection to that is a big part of it.

It's like, I don't think if, no one sees your painting did you paint it?

It's like, there's a balance there.

But I, I feel like they, the audience, the readership completes the process.

They receive the signal and then amplify it and make it become real.

That's great.

Uh, last two questions.

Now it's my belief that writers continue to grow and develop their writing

with each story that they write.

Uh, was there anything in particular that from a recent project, either you

know, the poetry or the game writer's room, or the book that you're working on?

Something that you finished that, uh, you learned that you're now applying

to, uh, the novel that you're editing.

Yeah, I think, um, maybe one thing that I've learned from the

collaborative stuff that I've been doing.

It's actually two different games that I've written for and different experiences

with both different kinds of games, different levels of collaboration.

But it was a level of collaboration above and beyond what I've experienced

with just having an editor, which is kind of, you know, a form of

collaboration, but I have more control.

I guess I've, I've observed being able to kind of sit back and watch other people

riff on the story without my input.

It's kind of an interesting bird's eye view of that process.

Where I, I'll see people make suggestions and then kind of watch the faces

in the room, how they react to it.

I feel like I've gained a little bit more insight into just how to

convey an idea in a way that can be translated by the, the receiver.

avoiding the, pitfall of excessive abstraction to where you, you have

this idea that kind of makes sense to you on some subliminal level.

But you're not considering like the translation across the medium.

And I've seen people suggest things that they're trying to make it work.

They're explaining why it makes sense.

And you can just see everyone's squinting, like, I'm trying to get

there, but this is not intuitive.

This does not, you know, resonate organically.

And being able to observe that process in myself as I'm figuring out how

to convey a story and admit when I'm stretching it, when I'm reaching.

Because there's times where like, you really want something

to be part of the story.

You like the idea and you just kind of try to force it because

like, I think this is cool.

And you start to realize, it's just too much.

It's just, it's asking too much of the reader.

They're not going to build it, like intuitively absorb it.

It's going to be a frustrating friction point.

And I have a slightly, sharpened sense of where that boundary lies, I guess.

Having seen the process in action over and over.

And understand like, yeah, there are certain key principles of

like communicating a concept.

Because I often work with stories that have a weird concept in them.

They're not usually just, you know, people talking about their marriage or whatever.

There's some kind of trippy premise that takes a cognitive leap.

And there, there are ideas and even just on the thematic level of things that I'm

trying to get across with this story.

And, uh, It's just helpful to kind of develop the vocabulary of like not visual

symbols in this medium, but cognitive symbols that you can put in there.

That can be picked up and sort of melted like a, like a capsule in the

person's mind and like, ah, there it is.

And, and that process I think is important.

Because I think the danger of being too much for yourself as a writer, too

insulated, is that you have your own vocabulary of your own thoughts that

other people don't have access to.

And you have to understand, you know, how to communicate because

that's, writing is communication.

I've just been more conscious of that in a lot of ways.

Even just talking to friends, you know, people try to tell me stories

sometimes or like try to describe a dream they had or something.

And a, the writer part of my brain in the background is thinking

like, this is terrible structure on your, your dream story here.

You're not sharing the, the setting that you're in.

It's so, it's uh, just a, a lifelong skill to, to hone, I guess.

Yeah.

And just having that communication where people can get the sense of the

person, the time, the space, without getting bogged down in detail.

Cause sometimes, yeah, you can read books and they're so descriptive of the

room or the smells or you know, what the background characters are doing.

It was like, okay, I've forgotten why they're there.

The process of, um, identifying what information is the key little,

uh, atom of, of comprehension that you can stick in there.

Some of the works that I've been doing for this game is they'll have me do things

like write a, a scene by scene breakdown of, you know, the whole story where it's

sort of like a synopsis where I'm supposed to summarize everything that's happening.

And I gotten into the habit of after I write the whole thing,

I go back through it and I look for just these essential phrases.

Like a sentence or a chunk of a sentence that conveys the key unit of

comprehension for this idea that I want people to see, and I'll put that in bold.

So that when you kind of skim through the document, your eye tracks

to like, here's the thing that is important to understand here.

And obviously you can't put it in bold in a, in a novel.

Like, look at this part, but it's still helpful to be thinking about that.

Like they don't need to know, you know, the exact shape of the

engravings on the chair, but they need to know what this person's

relationship is or whatever it is.

Or, you know, how this person experiences time backwards or just whatever the key

element is that the story hinges on.

And sort of filter out a lot of the unnecessary noise.

Yeah, that's great.

And one final question.

Is there one piece of advice that you find yourself returning

to, uh, in your own writing?

Is there one thing that's always resonated from when you heard it or read it?

Well, there's the thing I said earlier about the Hemingway

advice, which is very undramatic and just kind of practical writing tool.

Uh, honestly, there aren't a lot of like big philosophical principles that

I've absorbed as far as writing advice.

It's all, kind of a hazy process of learning for me.

And I, I probably have heard things that contributed to my understanding, but I,

don't often latch onto them well enough to put it on my mantle on a plaque.

It just all goes into the pot and I stir it together and I don't

really know who my influences are.

I don't know where I got the information.

I would love to credit them, but I just, I forget.

And it just, it all merges into this stew that's in my head.

So I, I couldn't really answer that very clearly.

that's it.

It's just was there a role model that you had on stories that inspired

you at 14 to finish and get it

Yeah.

Well, the first How to write book that I ever read was Stephen King's on writing.

And I, I grew up reading a lot of Stephen King.

So I, I did absorb a lot of ideas from, from him.

But oddly, I found that, uh, it was often not the lessons that he

was trying to say that I absorbed.

Things that he wasn't talking about.

And a lot of the principles that he advised, I actually kind of disagree with.

So there's things, you know, in that on writing book that, for example, he's a big

proponent of not plotting your stories.

Of not, not mapping anything out and just kind of diving

in and it doesn't work for me.

I think it's a questionable method unless you really, really master it.

But, uh, but I absorbed a lot of other things from his writing and just in

terms of how to create a mood .And, and the vividness of everything.

And so I don't know, it's, uh, you know, for, we're talking about my,

my early influences, then he would have been a big one, I suppose.

But I've shifted it my allegiance is so many times over the years, it's hard

to get any sense of, you know, this person represents anything about me

because it changes every couple of years.

no, no, that's fine.

I mean, that's one of the great things about When I interview people,

I feel it's a snapshot in history.

And if we were to speak again in a few years, who knows where you'd

be and how you'd be writing then.

Um, but I'll leave it there.

I think this is, um, all, all the time we've got, but I just like to thank Isaac.

You've been an incredible guest.

Uh, you've been really, really good and thank you very much for being on the show.

Thank you.

And that was Isaac Marion.

Isn't he lovely?

The computer game he is working on, but couldn't name in the interview, has now

been announced, and is called The Bazaar.

It's currently in beta testing, but there's links on his website

if you'd like to know more.

I'll put his website address in the show notes, but it's also very easy to google.

The one thing that took me a little time to find, but I think was worth

it, was the actual Hemingway quote that Isaac referenced, which I'll

repeat here to close out the show, although I'm not going to do the accent.

I'll try and add emphasis where I can.

The most important thing I've learned about writing is never

write too much at a time.

Never pump yourself dry.

Leave a little for the next day.

The main thing is to know when to stop.

Don't wait until you've written yourself out.

When you're still going good, and you come to an interesting place,

and you know what's going to happen next, that's the time to stop.

Then leave it alone and don't think about it.

Let your subconscious mind do the work.

The next morning, when you've had a good sleep and you're feeling fresh,

rewrite what you wrote the day before.

When you come to the interesting place and you know what's going to

happen next, go on from there and stop at another high point of interest.

That way, when you get through, your stuff is full of interesting places, and when

you write a novel, you never get stuck and you make it interesting as you go along.

Well, that's pretty damn good, isn't it?

Do I stop the show now?

Are we done?

Of course we're not done, but that's Hemingway.

And us, well we'll be back in a fortnight with another great guest, and in the

meantime, you've got some writing to do.

So please, for me, keep writing, until the world ends.