Today is part two of two where we are talking to Zachary Jeffries about his novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about writing in middle school, his mom encouraging his writing through journaling and creative writing, not to let age keep you from doing what you want, making writing friends online, building your team to help you make your book better, using movies for inspiration, using social media to monitor the book game, writing after everyone has gone to bed, and collecting advice to apply later.

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Zachary Jeffries hails from the southeastern United Sates where his first jobs were lawn mower, pizza cook, and stable hand. His overactive imagination and love for reading led to to various routes of storytelling through improv, screenwriting, and the Chicago theatre scene. After working under a myriad of names, Jeffries now writes contemporary Young Adult fantasy brimming with tropes, humor, and action. Along with The Unseen Curse and Angel of Fate, Jeffries also publishes middle grade books under the pen name Z Jeffries. You can read books from either pseudonym by signing up at ZJeffries.com.

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Today is part two of Two where we are talking to Zachary Jeffries about his novels.

Over the next two weeks, you will hear about writing in middle school, his mom encouraging his writing through journaling and creative writing.

Not to let age keep you from doing what you want.

Making writing friends online, building your team to help you make your book better using movies for inspiration, using social media to monitor the book game writing after everyone has gone to bed and collecting advice to apply later.

Angel of Fate the Scrim reaper just met his fate.

High school sophomore Michaela Colfax was perfectly happy with her life until she inherited a mysterious pair of scissors.

They don't cut.

But when holding them, Michaela begins seeing things like lines between people connections.

With the scissors, she uncovers the ancient power of her lineage of Greek faiths.

If Grim Reaper in training, Kane Morgan messes up one more Soul Harvest, he'll remain a disgusting human for the rest of his existence.

But his new target has supernatural connections, tying it to Earth.

Now Kane's only hope is to find some force powerful enough to cut these ties.

Can Michaela embrace her destiny fast enough to preserve the balance of life and death?

Can Cain tolerate a human long enough to make Michaela into the fate he needs?

And for the love of the gods, can the two of them work together for 1 minute without fighting?

Yeah.

For my middle grade series, The Hide and Seek Chronicles, I have this idea for basically the government has a secret top secret game of hide and seek, and that's how they develop weapons and camouflage technologies.

And in my head, they get trapped by this mysterious, maybe otherworldly force and they are forced to continue to play.

And they have to pretend and keep up appearances and play, but really, the whole time they're trying to figure out how to defeat this other worldly force and how to get free.

So kind of like Maze runner.

Sort of, but not really.

Yeah.

No, we're trying to get out of the maze, but we're going to keep doing what they're telling us to do in the running in the maze, doing all the stupid stuff.

Absolutely.

And once I had that idea and started writing it out, I realized there was just way too much to explain heading into it.

So I was like, oh, well, then let's do the story of how this boy first finds this government game of high tech hide and seek.

So that was book one.

And then book by book, we finally get there.

Instead of an info dump, you're trying to more release along the way the information.

Absolutely.

And things happen to change it and it develops and grows.

And so books three to four were really the meat of the story.

And then book five is after they think these problems are solved, how are they going to fix the giant problems that caused this in the first place and all of that.

But that was really fun, knowing that I was writing towards the big thing and that the big thing wasn't they were going to go through the action of the big thing and there was going to be all the fun explosions and all of that stuff, but that the problems wouldn't be solved in that way and that I still had the problems to solve in book five.

Yeah, that's kind of the way that I'm going with mine.

So originally it was like, I have also been writing since I was a kid, as most writers have.

My first book was about our guinea pigs and the life that the guinea pigs led in the Barbie doll house.

And there's pictures and everything.

So it's a storybook.

But I wrote that when I was like, maybe had to have been under nine because of the house we lived in at the time.

So seven, eight, maybe.

I wrote this book.

I have a copy of it still.

We bound it with like ribbon and it's fancy, fancy.

Okay.

So then I would try to write, but it would be like I'd get one or two paragraphs down and then it's like, well, that's the end of the idea.

So beginning of last year, I started narrating September of 21.

And beginning of last year I'm like, I want to do fiction.

And so I start auditioning for fiction and no one was picking me.

And I'm like, at the time, I'd been doing the fiction podcast since like October of 21, so practice and getting better.

So finally I'm like, I'm just going to write my own book.

If no one wants to hire me, I'll just narrate my own fiction books.

There you go.

So about the time I'm starting on that, I start getting a lot of fiction books.

And now towards the end of last year, I was very bad at balance, so my own book did not get any work done on it.

But this year I'm like, even if it's ten minutes a day, you are working on your book.

So I'm now having to read back through what I already did, which is similar to yours.

It's missing the descriptions and stuff, but I'm aware that that's missing, so I'm like, that needs to be added before anyone sees it.

I removed access to everybody I'd given access to, so, like, no one can see it anymore.

But now I'm, like, working on this.

But the original plan was, oh, it'll just be a single book.

And then I'm like, no, because now I've got, like there's, like, the Big bad thing I thought was going to happen in book one.

And now I'm like, oh, I have an even better, bigger batter thing that I can do.

So I'm like, all right, well, I don't want to drag book one on for 300,000 words just to get to this bigger batter thing.

The way mine is written, I can do the original storyline and then basically go back and follow other characters to get there.

So it's like superheroes that are made based on an accident kind of situation.

Got you as they are.

But they're grown ups.

They're not kids superheroes.

They're grown ups.

And so I can go back.

So there's, like, the two main characters, but then I can go back in time and follow these other characters that didn't come in until later in book one.

I can follow their journey of how they eventually ended up with their powers until eventually, at the end, you do the Big Bad after not a ridiculous quantity of these extra side character stories.

Yeah.

Every superhero you look at, like, Justice League and stuff like that, there's got to be a team of at least four to six people that defeat the Big Bad Thing.

It's not typically one.

If it's just one, then he's not that big of a bad, right?

Yeah, exactly.

So I got to build my team, but I don't want it to be, oh, we followed these two people, and then these other six people randomly popped in at the end of the book, and now we finished the Big Bad.

I want to be able to see the character development before follow Marvel, where they did all the singular storylines before they started doing the my brain is just not working today.

Before they started doing group ones.

You got to kind of at least get a couple of the characters individual lines done first.

Yeah, absolutely.

So what do you do now?

So you're on TikTok to talk about your book.

I randomly came across some of your videos this week.

So when did you start doing TikTok, and how has that helped you promote your book?

I started doing TikTok probably maybe this time last year.

Okay.

It's been just about a year, and it's been great.

It's a very supportive author community, and there are some great book recommendations on the book.

Talk side of it.

Thus far, I've just found tons and tons of reviewers and people that will be art readers.

I found a couple of beta readers and things like that, learned a lot from other authors about what works and what doesn't and resources like that.

So basically, I think I'm doing what a lot of authors are doing and straddling author talk and book talk at the same time and giving readers space and everything and not inserting myself into the book talk side of things, but getting a chance to see what readers are saying about certain things and how they feel about being approached with arcs and things like that.

Okay.

And so do you have an account for both names that you use or just the one?

Just the one.

I'm really used to saying z or Zachary.

Jeffrey's here.

There's no secret.

Even both.

No, I just don't want them listed as the same author in online stores.

Okay, that makes sense.

I have Freya Victoria, and then I have Brie.

Carlyle is what I host the daily fiction podcast as, which my family knows about.

But my day job occasionally has, like, background checks, so I don't do any of this under my legal name because I'm like, I don't want them to.

I mean, could they, if they searched hard enough, find it?

Yeah, they could.

But I'm like so freya.

I make no secret of the other stuff, but my real name I don't like.

I talk about the daily fiction podcast, but no one knows what kind of books I narrate.

They just know that I do narrate.

There you go.

I'm writing them.

So I imagine you don't always want to be held responsible for whatever is included.

Well, I don't know that I've ever now I have turned down one book because the content was so messed up that I was like, I cannot do this.

I'm like, I don't even want to do this under a separate pseudonym.

I don't want anyone to hear this and recognize me and tie it to everything else.

It was so bad.

It lacked editing, it lacked sensitivity reading, it lacked all the things got you.

And I had been told up front, like, I've had to fire or he didn't fire.

Several narrators had already dropped out and told him, gave him reasons that were when I read the book, I was like, that's not why they dropped out.

I'm like, listen, I'm also going to cancel on you, but here's the real reason why people are dropping out.

And it still does not have an audiobook made.

I have not seen it up for audition since then.

So my guess would be he took it back to the drawing board.

I don't know.

But yeah, at the end of the day, there is part of, like, I didn't write it.

I wouldn't write an erotica book.

But narrating wise, especially royalty share, they sell very well.

So I've been hired on a few of them.

And I'm like, okay.

Because in my first five or ten audio books that I had narrated, fiction wise, most of those were erotica.

And I'm like, hey, these are selling really well, so why not?

Yeah, absolutely.

But again, you wouldn't want your boss to call you in to ask you about these.

I am my boss.

I am my boss.

My sister were kind of like co managers of our company.

And so she has a YouTube channel where she goes to these adult party resorts.

We're both like, Just don't tell all the other companies we work with what our side jobs are.

There you go.

Let's just keep this over here separate.

From the time I'm like, as long as it doesn't interfere with the day job, it does not affect them at all.

Yeah.

And it's funny because I've had people on TikTok Live, I'll be Narrating Live, and I'll have people be like, oh, your voice sounds so familiar.

And occasionally they'll be like, did you narrate this very spicy book?

I'm like, that was me.

Yes, it was.

I did.

In fact.

You did.

I did not on TikTok Live because I'd get banned for that.

I had a romance, you know.

Narrators get banned a lot for content, usually, like violence or explicit content or whatever.

So it's like, as soon as I hit 1000, I'm like, I know I'm going to get banned at some point.

Let's figure out where that line is so we don't cross it anymore.

So now I have, like, on my spreadsheet while I'm prepping a book, I have little checkboxes.

So on the chapter, if it's like, oh, crap, there's an explicit scene, I just mark it.

Don't ever do this one on Live.

Nice.

Or hop over on Discord and do it over there where my channel is, or my server is flagged for 18 and up or whatever.

Got you.

You have to figure out same with books, what works best and what keeps you from getting banned from something.

Yeah, absolutely.

Totally.

One of the reasons why I have my pen names differently is because I have some main characters that use heavy language, and I don't want someone like, oh, man, my kid loves these middle grade books.

Let's get these other ones he writes.

Yeah.

So obviously you have a day job since you're new to writing and stuff.

When do you find time to write?

When do you do your writing?

During the day?

I generally write once.

Everyone goes to sleep in my house at night.

I am a big writer.

Once we put the kiddo to sleep, I will start doing the writing, and then I mostly write from 830 to midnight.

Every day is my sweet spot.

I'm guessing that's your most awake time of the day to be doing that.

Yeah, oftentimes it is, but I do here and there.

I really got heavily into writing at the same time that we had our daughter.

So I really worked on making sure that I didn't need absolute silence, that I could pick up the laptop or even Google docs on my phone and get a couple of words in, waiting here, waiting there, or even when the kiddos drawing or something like that.

So I do squirrel away a lot of moments and minutes whenever I can, but my solid is eight to twelve at night.

Okay, what is coming next?

You're trying to finish out the middle grade series.

You're working on the not middle grade series.

What's the next book?

We've got the next books coming out February.

Tell us about that one.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's going to be angel of Fate.

And there's a grim reaper in training.

He is not the best at what he does.

He is learning the ropes from his parents and has yet to prove that he can do this on his own.

And until he is doing this on his own, he is living as a human and hates.

It just humanity and high school and all of these disgusting oh, they made.

Him go to high school.

They did.

It's pretty embarrassing.

And he gets an assignment, and he's really headstrong, and he's going to make this one work, and he's going to do this assignment.

But the assignment that he has has earthly ties that are going to make it difficult.

He sees these earthly ties that are tying him to this plane of existence.

Meanwhile, there's a girl at school who she inherits a mysterious pair of scissors from a grandmother she thought was long dead.

Okay.

This girl is very crafty, and she is into art.

She does a lot of collage, and she gets these scissors, and they don't cut ribbon and they don't cut string or thread or paper or hair or anything.

I see where this is going.

But when she holds the scissors, she starts to see things.

She can see lines connecting people, and the scissors are calling to her, and she'll put them down.

Then all of a sudden, she'll look down and they'll be in her hand.

She won't remember how she picked them up and everything.

And she discovers that her mom has been keeping from her that they are in the lineage of Greek fates.

So when the Graham Reaper finds this out, he is going to dishonestly present himself as someone who is going to train her what she needs, how to learn to be a Greek fate, when really he is just getting her to a point that she can help him with his sole assignment.

It's very loosely based on Pygmalion, okay, which is a Greek story.

It's the story of Pygmalion was an emperor who was a sculptor, and he sculpted a woman and then prayed to the gods, and they made her his wife.

It's this very sexist story, as a lot of them were as they went.

You grow up and you're like, oh, wow.

These are all about how awful dudes was.

Yeah, I mean, he was absolutely oh, gosh, my wife found out about my mistress.

Let me transform into some other animal to help myself.

Or, like, Harrow went through all this trauma and took it out on this poor woman.

Anyway, and then there was a play by Shaw based on it called Pygmalion.

My Fair Lady is also based on this story.

And of course, my favorite, She's All that, the old 90s romcom.

90S?

Was that really in the 90s?

Wait, I'm thinking the wrong one.

I'm thinking she's the man.

She's all that.

I have seen that one as well, but I was thinking, like, Amanda Binds and Channing Tatum was like that was.

Freddie prince Jr.

Yeah.

And I can't think of what the girl's name is.

Yeah.

Hyper parabo.

No, she has a she acted under a triple name.

I can't think of it right now.

Parker?

No, it's the the brunette.

The she did a ghost show.

Love Hewitt.

Yes, there it is.

Jennifer Love Hewitt.

And by the time it got the copy of the copy of the copy, it's a story of the popular guys are talking about, oh, you're so popular.

You could make the weirdest high school reject into the homecoming queen.

And they make a bet.

They pick the art girl, the ponytail, glasses.

No way.

That is not Jennifer Love Hewitt.

That's not it.

No.

Let me look it up on my phone real quick.

Okay.

But anyway, in all of these, there's this overall criticism of why on earth would she stay with him?

Rachel Lee Cook.

Rachel e cook.

Thank you.

It's Rachel Lee Cook.

I was like, picturing in my head.

I'm like, no, it's not her.

You know what?

Jennifer Love Hewitt played the same character in, like, the Spoof, not another teen movie version of it.

When she usually played the popular girl.

In most movies she was in, she was usually the popular girl, which is why I was like, it's not her.

I think a big thing that was missing from that story for me is, why on earth would she be with him?

And for me, the answer of it turned into something that I'm not going to write this from a woman's point of view.

I'm not a woman.

The feminist perspective I can understand feminist criticism, but that's not necessarily my story to tell.

But one thing that I could attach to is up ending a traditional approach to this and a traditional power structure where, what if this were the story?

Very much like she's all that.

But you find out that, in fact, the girl is much stronger than the boy.

Her power set, her in this case, mythological power set.

She absolutely overpowers this guy who has.

Been doesn't want her to know that.

Doesn't want her to know that.

And he's been surrounded by these humans that he looks down on and he has considered himself above all of this his whole life.

And so that is something very different for him because he was raised to think that he was superior to those around him.

And now all of a sudden, there is a Greek fate who is a very rare supernatural being in this world and he does not know a lot about, but he is still trying to maintain this superiority in this power dynamic.

Right.

It's like, I'm better than you, but she doesn't know anything about her history, so it would make sense that he could trick her into, yeah, I'm better than you.

I mean, it's like any manager ever that you get really good at your job, but they still try to pretend like they know what you're doing.

Better than you.

Yeah.

Because eventually you might not need the manager.

The manager doesn't want you to know that.

Right.

So if you were talking to a new author that hasn't written any books or maybe an author that needs help in their writing, what would be the biggest piece of advice that you would give?

I mean, overall, it's always going to be not every piece of advice for everyone.

There's no universal piece of advice that really works.

So it really is a matter of learning to collect tools so that when you are working later on, you will have a full tool box from which to grab different things and try different things.

But trying to apply every single bit of advice is not going to help in that way in this life.

Well, not every advice works for every genre either.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Some of the worst advice starts with, now, I don't normally read this genre, but true.

Or a romance author trying to tell you how to write your detective story.

Exactly.

Because I feel like detective would be a lot more of a you would need the information, like more information driven, fact driven, research driven, as opposed to a fantasy where you can just make the entire thing up.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it really is a matter of I would tell a young artist that you don't feel like that everything has to apply or that you have to use every piece of advice and be fine with listening to advice and saying, okay, thank you very much, and then never using it or just putting it on the back burner.

Or if you ever run into a situation when you do need it.

Right.

And yeah.

And just be picky about your sources and who you follow from.

When I first was writing, I was listening to the podcast, writing excuses, and then I was watching Brandon Sanderson's college lectures on YouTube, and those were very helpful and I got a lot out of it.

And then once I started consuming even more stuff on writing and classes and lectures and things like that, there's a lot of crossover and things that you hear over and over and over again.

And those are the things that you stick with.

Those are the things that follow with you and the stuff that you hear over and over again.

But especially if you're hearing something for the first time or this advice giver is the only person that's saying this.

Don't feel like you have to bet the farm on it.

Don't feel like you have to really go all in on this person's advice.

Right now, my big thing, and I just posted a video about this on my thing is I'm very much a panther.

That because I only have limited amounts of time, I'm like, I need to be able to plot just a tiny bit.

It doesn't need to be a giant.

I plot down to every scene, but some kind of a way to structure my novel where when I jump into it the next day for ten to 20 minutes, I know where I need to be, so I'm not just staring at the page for ten minutes.

Yeah, agree.

Thankfully, I type ridiculously fast.

Oh.

But yeah, when everything is turned on and working, which right now, I'm reading back through everything, but I am able to get those rough, mostly dialogue bits of chapter done, and then I'd seen and this is definitely the way that I'm going to have to take.

I'd seen someone talk about they don't have, like, an outline ahead of time.

They write their first draft and they just write it as fast as they can and then they will go down and in each chapter, they'll edit it chapter by chapter until they get those chapters done and ready.

And then they put it all together, read back through it, make sure it's all good as a cohesive book and then publish or whatever, or go off to an editor or whatever it is you need to do next with your book.

I'm like, yeah, that's going to have to be me.

Like, type when I say fast, I'm like 100 words a minuteish.

Oh.

So when I'm there and the ideas are flowing, I can type fast.

If I'm staring at the page for ten minutes going, what happens next?

That's what I need to avoid.

But at the end of the day, even like, okay, this is the point we need to get to, because that's our big thing for this book.

In my head, I know, like, just get what do the characters need to do to get there?

They can't jump from, oh, no, we have superpowers, to suddenly fighting the bad guy.

There has to be some learning how things work period in there, otherwise you're in trouble.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

Well, I was lucky enough that I did spend so long, especially in playwrighting and theater, that the shape of story and the rising action.

There are so many different approaches.

There are so many people that do this.

Saves the cat or the Hollywood method.

There are some pretty simple Shakespearean like five act approaches or even a two or three act.

I do something called the Fry tag pyramid is what I was pretty much taught.

And everything that I'm doing, every idea that I have automatically just slides into that and so that I know that I have to have.

This is your baseline life.

This is your inciting incident.

There are complications and rising actions all the way up to a climax, and then the fallout, and then a new norm.

And even if it's not the whole story, every scene follows that.

Every chapter follows that.

If I'm separating the whole book into little books or parts, then each book or part falls into it.

And so I was very fortunate in that I had a background that the shape of the story, the overall plot structure was never something I had to be super conscious of because I would automatically write it in, right?

And I am a panther, like you in that I am a panther.

But I do know the notes.

I do have to hit this point.

I do have to hit this point.

I am writing towards this.

I am writing towards this, which I think it's just done very well for me, and that has definitely worked in my favor.

The one and only research that I did, I had to figure out.

I didn't want the entire population to get superpowers from this thing that's giving them powers.

So I had to figure out how to narrow down a small enough percentage of the population where enough people were going to have powers that you would know that people had powers.

Eventually, when it's one or two or three people, the rest of the world is not necessarily going to know that.

But when it starts showing up, like a couple thousand people have it, or 20,000, 30,000, I don't remember what my overall global population number was.

So I started out on Google, like, what's the world population?

Okay, what percentage of the world population has this happened to?

Okay, so if that has happened to them, what if this also happened to that same person?

And it had to be things that I could readily get information from on Google as far as, like, percentages, but got it down to where it's like zero, zero, zero something of the population.

And then I'm like, okay, so if the inciting incident has to be able to affect enough of the world where people are going to have powers, so I'm like, okay, so if this inciting incident has happened to, say, 10,000 people, how many of those would have powers?

Especially with formulas like that, spreadsheets are my friend, because I can set all those percentages into the spreadsheet where I can plug in, okay, it's all based on a vaccine.

So they get a vaccine that gives them powers, but it's what percentage of the population that got this vaccine should have.

Powers because I don't want it to be everybody.

That would be ridiculous.

That's a different kind of book.

And then I also wanted to write one on Greek or just mythologies in general, various mythologies.

And so I tried to kind of tie that into it at one point.

And my husband was like, no, he's like, write your book that you started that you're 30,000 words into.

Write that book the way you had that book, that you researched that book, and do your mythology somewhere else.

Yeah, that's always tough, getting the extra ideas literally at the 30,000 word mark, you're like, I don't want to keep writing this.

What if there's something was shiny?

Well, then he's like, so yesterday, last night, we're literally doing dishes, getting ready for bed.

And he's like, So how many words in are you?

Because I've been reading back through it, and I'm like, Well, I'm about 30,000 words in.

And I think it's probably about a third of the way into the overarching storyline of the novel.

But that's 30,000 words in with almost exclusively dialogue.

There is very little inner dialogue.

The only inner dialogue there is because it had to help push the story along or, like character backgrounds or whatever.

So I'm going to have to go back in.

So that's 30,000.

We multiply that by three.

That's at least 90,000.

Then I have to go fluff it up.

We're looking at 100, 120, maybe 150 for this one book, which needs to be just I can't split it.

It will have to be the one book.

It can't be split into multiple parts.

It would be weird if I did that with how I have it going so far.

But self publishing, you have a lot more freedom, too.

Yeah, absolutely.

Make them however big.

No, I think we might write similarly because my first draft is the action that gets us to the next point and then just all the dialogue and the voices and things like that.

Yeah.

So you need some dialogue.

That's not in my day job.

I have to send emails and stuff.

And so I'll talk to my sister and I'll be like, do you want the fax version?

Like, here's the fax, which is how my first draft kind of is.

Like, here's the things that we have to know to move it forward.

Or do you want the fluffy, nice version?

That is the version that it has to get to for people to want to consume it.

So I'm like, I have to bridge the gap of, like, it started out, here's the facts and here's the baseline story.

And now we need to make it give it pros and fluff and not poetry, but, like, more of a flow to it than just dialog dialog dialogue.

Yeah, it has to be fun.

It can't just be need to know basis kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Unless there are some genres that that is how you write it, but fantasy is not one of them.

No, you can meander you can absolutely.

Yeah.

I feel like, let's see, Sci-Fi, which mine would kind of bridge the gap between fantasy and Sci-Fi.

Sci-fi would be more of those.

Here's the facts.

But you also have to describe the spaceship in the sky that you're on.

You got to describe that.

If you just said, I'm floating in the sky.

Are you flying?

I need to answer the questions, so I don't get the questions.

All right, well, do you have any final words or anything that you'd like to your books coming out on the 14th?

I believe this, so I split each episode into two parts.

So one will air before the 14th, and I think the other one is like, the day before the 14th or something is how I had you scheduled.

So any final advice for the go by the book or final tips for writing or anything?

No, I mean, I'll just say everyone out there, if you have a story that's under your skin that you got a hankering to tell, go for it.

Go tell it.

Make friends.

Support other people.

I just want to say one of the things that Freya does here with her platform is absolutely fantastic.

And if you are listening, go ahead and pause it and hit a subscribe and hit five stars.

And support her and her endeavor because she's only lifting up the community and helping other people just selflessly help each other out because it's a tough gig, and it can be a pretty isolating gig at times.

So it's always good to have friends buy their books, support them, help them out, leave them reviews.

Yeah, absolutely.

Leave reviews.

Review on tik tok word of mouth.

I don't believe that books are objectively, good or bad, but I think every book has the type of person that could absolutely love it.

And if you know that person, get that book in that person's hand.

But, yeah, just spread the love and help each other out.

It's a tough road to hoe and keep at it, y'all.

Keep going.

And don't wait till you're 50.

No, you don't have to.

That's a mess.

That is what is it called when you get an idea in your head even though it's not true?

Yeah, confirmation bias.

Something like that.

Yeah.

Well, all these people I see on TV are in their 50s, so you must have me 50 to make it.

I figured it out.

All right, well, thank you so much.

For your time today.

Thank you.

No problem.

You have a good Saturday, and I'll be on the lookout for more of your books.

Thank you as well.

Have a good one.

I'm looking forward to hearing it.

All right, bye.

Getting older.

Zachary liked Greek mythology, a major branch of classical mythology.

Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks and a genre of ancient Greek folklore.

These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Greek's own cult and ritual practices.

Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece and to better understand the nature of mythmaking itself.

The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral poetic tradition, most likely by Minoan and Mycenian singers, starting in the 18th century BC.

Eventually, the myths of the heroes of the Trojan War and its aftermath became part of the oral tradition of Homer's epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the Theogy and the Works of Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices.

Myths are also preserved in the Homeric hymns, in fragments of epic poems of the epic cycle, in lyric poems, in the works of the tragedyans and comedians of the fifth century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic Age, and in texts from the time of the Roman Empire by writers such as Plutarch and Possenius.

Aside from this narrative deposit, in ancient Greek literature, pictorial representations of gods, heroes, and mythic episodes featured prominently in ancient vase, paintings and the decorative of Votive, gifts and many other artifacts.

Geometric designs on pottery of the 8th century BC.

Depict scenes from the epic cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles.

In the succeeding archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods, homeric and various other mythical scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence.

Greek mythology has had an extensive influence on the culture, arts and literature of Western civilization and remains part of Western heritage and language.

Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes.

Today we'll be reading The Slang of the Minotaur by Andrew Lang.

Don't forget we're reading Le Morte, DeArthur.

The story of King Arthur and of his noble knights of the Round Table on our Patreon.

You can find the link in the show notes.

The Slang of the Minotaur Bacius first fastened one end of his coil of string to a pointed rock and then began to look about him.

The labyrinth was dark, and he slowly walked, holding the string down the broadest path from which others turned off to right or left.

He counted his steps, and he had taken near 3000 steps, when he saw the pale sky showing in a small circle cut in the rocky roof above his head, and he saw the fading stars.

Sheer walls of rock went up on either hand of him.

A roof of rock was above him, but in the roof was this one open place, across which were heavy bars.

Soon the daylight would come.

Theseius set the lamp down on a rock behind a corner and he waited thinking at a place where a narrow, dark path turned at right angles to the left.

Looking carefully round, he saw a heap of bones.

Not human bones, but skulls of oxen and sheep hooves of oxen and shank bones.

This, he thought, must be the place where the food of the minotaur is let down to him from above.

They have not Athenian youths and maidens to give him every day beside his feeding place.

I will wait.

Saying this to himself, he rose and went round the corner of the dark, narrow path cut in the rock to the left.

He made his own breakfast from the food that Ariadne had given him and it occurred to his mind that probably the minotaur might also be thinking of breakfast time.

He sat still, and from far away within he heard a faint sound like the end of the echo of a roar.

And he stood up, drew his long sword and listened keenly.

The sound came nearer and louder.

A strange sound, not deep like the roar of a bull, but more shrill and thin.

Theseus laughed silently.

A monster with the head and tongue of a bull but with the chest of a man could roar no better than that.

The sounds came nearer and louder, but still with a thin, sharp tone in them.

Theseus now took from his bosom the file of gold that Medea had given him in Athens.

When she told him about the menotaur, he removed the stopper and held his thumb over the mouth of the file and grasped his long sword with his left hand.

After fastening the clue of thread to his belt the roars of the hungry minotaur came nearer and nearer.

Now his feet could be heard padding along the echoing floor of the labyrinth.

Theseus moved to the shadowy corner of the narrow path where it opened into the broad, light passage and he crouched there.

His heart was beating.

Quickly.

On came the minotaur.

Up leapt Theseus and dashed the contents of the open file in the eyes of the monster.

A white dust flew out and Theseus leapt back into his hiding place.

The Minotaur uttered strange shrieks of pain.

He rubbed his eyes with his monstrous hands.

He raised his hat up towards the sky.

Bellowing and confused, he stood tossing his head up and down.

He turned round and round about feeling with his hands for the wall.

He was quite blind.

Theseus drew his short sword, crept up on naked feet behind the monster and cut through the back sinews of his legs at the knees.

Down fell the minotaur with a crash and a roar.

Biting at the rocky floor with his lion's teeth and waving his hands and clutching at the empty air.

Theseius waited for his chance.

When the clutching hands rested and then thrice he drove the long, sharp blade of bronze through the heart of the menotaur.

The body leapt and lay still.

Theseus kneeled down and thanked all the gods and promised rich sacrifices and a new temple to palace Athene, the, guardian of Athens.

When he had finished his prayer he drew the short sword and hacked off the head of the Mental.

He sheathed both his swords, took the head in his hand and followed the string back out of the daylit place to the rock where he had left his lamp.

With the lamp and the guidance of the string he easily found his way to the door which he unlocked.

He noticed that the thick bronze plates of the door were dented and scarred by the points of the horns of the Minotaur.

Trying to force his way out, he went out into the fresh early morning.

All the birds were singing merrily and Mary was the heart of Theseus.

He locked the door and crossed to the palace which he entered putting the key in the place which Ariadne had shown him.

She was there with fear and joy in her eyes.

Touch me not, said Theseus for I am foul with the blood of the Minotaur.

She brought him to the baths on the ground floor and swiftly fled up a secret stair in the bathroom.

Theseus made himself clean and clad himself in fresh rain mint which was lying ready for him.

When he was clean and clad he tied a rope of Bibless round the horns of the head of the Minotaur and went round the back of the palace trailing the head behind him till he came to a sentinel.

I would see King Minnows.

He said, I have the password and dragios.

The sentinel, pale and wondering, let him pass.

And so he went through the guards and reached the great door of the palace.

And there the servants wrapped the bleeding head and cloth that it might not stain the floors.

Theseus bade him lead him to King Minnows who was seated on his throne judging the four guardsmen that had been found asleep when Theseus entered followed by his serving men with their burden.

The king never stirred on his throne but turned his gray eyes on Theseus.

My lord, said Theseus, that which was to be done is done.

The servants laid their burden at the feet of King Minnows and removed the top fold of the covering.

The king turned to the captain of his guard.

A week in the cells for each of these four men, said he and the four guards who had expected to die by a cruel death were led away.

Let that head and the body also be burned to ashes and thrown into the sea far from the shore, said Minnows.

And his servant silently covered the head of the Minotaur and bore it from the throne room.

Then at last Minnows rose from his throne and took the hand of Theseus and said sir, I thank you, and I give you back your company safe and free and I am no more in hatred with your people.

Let there be peace between me and them.

But will you not abide with us a while and be our guests?

Theseus was glad enough, and he and his company carried in the palace and were kindly treated.

Minnow showed Theseus all the splendor and greatness of his kingdom and his ships and great armories full of all manner of weapons.

The names and numbers of them are yet known for they are written on tablets of clay that were found in the storehouse of the king.

Later, in the twilight Theseus and Ariadne would walk together in the fragrant gardens where the nightingale sang.

And Minnows knew it and was glad.

He thought that nowhere in the world could he find such a husband for his daughter.

And he deemed it wise to have the alliance of so great a king as Theseus promised to be.

But, loving his daughter, he kept Theseus with him long till the prince was ashamed of his delay knowing that his father, King Aegis, and all the people of his country were looking for him.

Anxiously.

Therefore he told what was in his heart to Minnows who sighed and said I knew what is in your heart and I cannot say you nay.

I give to you my daughter as gladly as a father may.

They spoke things of state and made firm alliance between nosos and Athens while they both lived.

And the wedding was done with great splendor.

And at last Theseus and Ariadne and all their company wit aboard and sailed from Crete.

One misfortune they had.

The captain of their ship died of a sickness while they were in Crete but Minnows gave them the best of his captains.

Yet by reason of storms and tempests they had a long and terrible voyage driven out of their course into strange seas.

When at length they found their bearings a grievous sickness fell on beautiful Ariadne.

Day by day she was weaker till Theseus, with a breaking heart stayed the ship at an isle but two day sail from Athens.

There Ariadne was carried ashore and laid in a bed in the house of the king of that island and the physicians and the wise women did for her what they could but she died with her hands in the hands of Theseus and his lips on her lips.

In that aisle she was buried and Theseus went on board his ship and drew his cloak over his head.

And so lay for two days, never moving nor speaking and hasting neither meat nor drink.

No man dared speak to him.

But when the vessel stopped in the harbor of Athens he arose and stared about him.

The shore was dark with people dressed in the morning Raiment and the herald of the city came with news that Aegis the king was dead for the Cretan captain did not know that he was to hoist the scarlet sail if Theseus came home in triumph.

And Aegis, as he watched the waters had described the dark sail from afar off and in his grief had thrown himself down from the cliff and was drowned.

This was the end of the voyaging of Theseus.

Theseus wished to die and be with Ariadne in the land of Queen Persephone but he was a strong man and he lived to be the greatest of the kings of Athens for all the other towns came in and were his subjects and he ruled them well.

His first care was to build a great fleet in secret harbors far from towns in the ways of men for though he and Minnows were friends while they both lived when Minnows died, the new Cretan king might impress Athens.

Minnows died at last and his son picked a quarrel with Theseus who refused to give up a man that had fled to Athens because the new king desired to slay him.

And news came to Theseus that a great navy was being made ready in Crete to attack him.

And he sent heralds to the king of a fierce people called the Dorians who were moving through the countries to the northwest of Greece seizing lands, settling on them and marching forward again in a few years.

They were wild, strong and brave and they are said to have had swords of iron which were better than the bronze weapons of the Greeks.

The heralds of Theseus said to them come to our king and he will take you across the sea and show you plunder enough but you shall swear not to harm his kingdom.

This pleased the Dorians well and the ships of Theseus brought them rounds to Athens where Theseus joined them with many of his own men and they did the oath.

They sailed swiftly to Crete where as they arrived in the dark the Cretan captains thought that they were part of their own navy coming in to join them in the attack on Athens.

For that Theseus had a navy.

The Cretans knew not he had built it so secretly in the night.

He marched his men to nosos and took the garrison by surprise and burned the palace and plundered it.

Even now we can see that the palace has been partly burned and hurriedly robbed by some sudden enemy.

Ladorians stayed in Crete and were there in the time of Ulysses holding part of the island while the true Cretans held the greater part of it.

But theseus returned to Athens and married Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons.

The story of their wedding festival is told in Shakespeare's play amid Summer Night's Dream and Theseus had many new adventures and many troubles but he left Athens rich and strong and in no more danger from the kings of Crete.

Those adorians after the time of Ulysses slept all over the rest of Greece and seized my senior and Lacedaemon the towns of Agamemnon and Mennolos.

And they were true to their oath to Theseus and left Athens to the Athenians.

Thank you for joining Freya's fairy tales.