1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,600 This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com. 2 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:16,000 Welcome to Story Over Everything, Episode 24, which will be aired June 23rd, 2023. 3 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:21,800 This episode I'm continuing to document, chronicle my journey as a writer. 4 00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:27,200 I'm going to be talking about partly, and this is because I don't know everything I'm going to be talking about yet, 5 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:34,800 so for sure I'm going to be at least a little bit talking about some insights I've had into writing process and craft, 6 00:00:34,800 --> 00:00:40,400 including or based on a book, audiobook I bought. 7 00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:45,400 And I almost let myself get upsold on something and I'm not saying I shouldn't have or that it was the wrong decision, 8 00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:54,400 but between listening to that, you know, craft book or, you know, the author blueprint from Joanna Penn last week 9 00:00:54,400 --> 00:01:04,000 and buying the English, which was free, and then buying this book, I bought the packaged up audiobook and an e-book 10 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:10,800 and I think it was only a two hour read or something like that, but it wasn't that much money for the pair of them, which was good. 11 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:17,200 I feel a lot more inspired to, you know, keep pushing myself to write. 12 00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:25,600 You know, I have already determined that I want to do this, you know, 10 minute goal of writing every day or a goal of writing at least 10 minutes every day. 13 00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:28,600 And if I go beyond that 10, that's fine. 14 00:01:28,600 --> 00:01:34,800 This morning I had to do something super early for work and I got up in the middle of the night 15 00:01:34,800 --> 00:01:39,800 and I wasn't able to go to sleep very easily partly because of a situation that I had to deal with 16 00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:42,800 and partly because of stupidity on my own part. 17 00:01:42,800 --> 00:01:52,000 I was foolish and I got this new thing and I was trying to configure it and get it all set up and ready to go to maximize my... 18 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:57,800 I honestly think I will become more productive with this thing, but it did slow me down in the middle of the night 19 00:01:57,800 --> 00:02:05,200 and it wasted time and it kept me up later or it took... it stole sleep for me basically doing this, spending time on this stole sleep for me, 20 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:17,200 which meant I was super tired, which meant I chose to wake up later than typical the Monday and Sunday that I worked consecutively and... 21 00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:21,200 not concisely, but, you know, in a dedicated fashion. 22 00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:27,200 I had gotten up early both those days and I made sure I drew and wrote first thing in the morning. 23 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:31,800 This day I did not... I also exercised those days first thing in the morning or first thing in the morning. 24 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:45,400 Today I did not exercise. So, anyway, I kind of want to hone and get my body just right and properly dialed in to help my mind 25 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:51,000 because, you know, your mind is actually attached to your body. I don't know if you know that or not. 26 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:59,600 So as I think about this more and more, I want to keep up with the writing every day a certain amount of time. 27 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:10,000 However, beyond that, I want to... and the hope is that... the plan is that as I'm exercising my writing muscles more consistently, 28 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:20,800 five, six days a week, maybe seven, who knows, I will cultivate a discipline and basically turn myself into a sprinty, spurt rider 29 00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:30,400 who's able to get out... who's able to write like a dwarf runs, you know, being a natural sprinter and whatnot. 30 00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:37,800 But I don't know that that's possible. Or no, I do know that that's possible. I do think it is likely. 31 00:03:37,800 --> 00:03:44,400 However, and this is where the negativity was coming in, however, I do not think ten minutes a day writing, 32 00:03:44,400 --> 00:03:49,200 no matter how fast I get, no matter what my, you know, words per second is or whatever you want to call that. 33 00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:52,400 Words per minute, I guess, would be the right way to put it. 34 00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:58,800 I do not think that will be sufficient for me to continue to write books at a reasonable pace, 35 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:02,600 especially because after I write them, I need to have them edited. 36 00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:06,700 I need to do all the different things that you do with a book before you get it printed. 37 00:04:06,700 --> 00:04:13,800 And since I'm self-publishing and things like that, I'm teaching myself a lot of those things or hiring people out or other things. 38 00:04:13,800 --> 00:04:20,200 And I, you know, I need to get the best ROI I can. So that's interesting. 39 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:27,800 And that's interesting to me. And the author that I got this from is M.L. 40 00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:31,400 I cannot remember his last name right now. Hold on. 41 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:42,700 Okay, I got it. It's M.L. Ron. So I, you know, if you listen to the last episode of Story Over Everything, 42 00:04:42,700 --> 00:04:50,400 you know that I'm in some ways facing a crisis where I don't feel like I have the fundamentals down. 43 00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:55,000 So I've been doing a lot of research. I've been doing a lot of listening to stuff 44 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:59,700 and trying to figure out what I want my method to be. 45 00:04:59,700 --> 00:05:09,900 And that way I can get it codified and then proceed to go back to that until I have it memorized. 46 00:05:09,900 --> 00:05:16,800 And even before I have it completely memorized, keep it in a document in a useful, friendly, 47 00:05:16,800 --> 00:05:21,900 you know, simply displayed way and maybe even have, you know, the base document for it 48 00:05:21,900 --> 00:05:25,300 and then make copies off of that and work off of that and expound and expand 49 00:05:25,300 --> 00:05:30,100 so that I can basically get myself to the point where I'm writing in this, you know, mechanistic way, 50 00:05:30,100 --> 00:05:36,900 which I still think can be creative and worthwhile. And if you don't think so, whatever. 51 00:05:36,900 --> 00:05:40,600 But if you want to give it a shot, I think it makes sense. But anyway, 52 00:05:40,600 --> 00:05:44,300 but something struck me. So this M.L. Ron book, it's called Be a Writing Machine, 53 00:05:44,300 --> 00:05:47,300 which I thought, well, that's the perfect book for me. That's exactly what I mean. 54 00:05:47,300 --> 00:05:51,300 I'd like to be a writing machine. And I think that's pretty great. 55 00:05:51,300 --> 00:05:56,200 So he just talks about like theory and process and what do you think stops people from writing 56 00:05:56,200 --> 00:06:01,100 as much as they possibly could and advice he has for you to push yourself to write more. 57 00:06:01,100 --> 00:06:05,800 And it's funny. He's a pantser. And one of the things he says is quit drafting or not quit. 58 00:06:05,800 --> 00:06:11,500 Well, yes, quit drafting, do one draft and also quit outlining. 59 00:06:11,500 --> 00:06:17,500 So that's not what I want to do. I guess I sort of kind of want to use the snowflake method 60 00:06:17,500 --> 00:06:24,700 and build up from a single sentence to like a larger treatment and then make a skeleton or outline from that 61 00:06:24,700 --> 00:06:30,000 and then develop that farther, further, further. Yes, further. 62 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:33,600 Anyway, further has two degree, farther has two distance, right? 63 00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:42,800 Anyway, so that's my plan. And anyway, I as part of that strategy to figure out what I am doing 64 00:06:42,800 --> 00:06:49,600 and what my methodology will be as an author, I decided to buy this book and listen to his advice 65 00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:55,300 and what he has to say about being a writing machine. And because that's my goal. 66 00:06:55,300 --> 00:07:02,100 And I guess to sum up what I was saying or to put a fine point on it, my goal is to be a writing machine. 67 00:07:02,100 --> 00:07:06,300 I think I'm going to spend, I was at the gas pump thinking about this. 68 00:07:06,300 --> 00:07:11,400 Right now, I'm only three days into writing every day, 10 minutes a day. 69 00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:16,000 I want to do that for a month, build and entrench that habit in myself. 70 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:20,400 And then after that, I think I want to increase my time. 71 00:07:20,400 --> 00:07:24,100 Well, I want to increase my writing in one of two ways. 72 00:07:24,100 --> 00:07:31,400 I will continue to track my daily writing and write or put the word count in my log 73 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:35,600 in the weekly roundup post that you can find on the website, mjmunoz.com. 74 00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:49,300 And I will continue to do that. I will either increase my time or set a goal of a number of words 75 00:07:49,300 --> 00:07:57,500 I'd like to put out each day. Now, honestly, saying that out loud, what is my daily word count that I want to achieve? 76 00:07:57,500 --> 00:08:02,600 I don't like the sound of that. That doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel appealing. 77 00:08:02,600 --> 00:08:08,200 It doesn't feel like me. However, if I do want to be a writing machine, you know, it's junk in junk out, right? 78 00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:16,000 So, well, and that's kind of my point. If it's junk in junk out and I'm just looking for a word count each day, 79 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:22,400 then is that setting me up for failure? Because will I be inflating my words? 80 00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:28,800 Will I be throwing in unnecessary things just to pad out the word count? 81 00:08:28,800 --> 00:08:32,200 Or will I actually write something meaningful in that time? 82 00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:37,700 And is the goal for me to write a certain amount of words? 83 00:08:37,700 --> 00:08:40,800 Or is the goal for me to write a certain amount of words that I'm going to keep? 84 00:08:40,800 --> 00:08:49,300 Now, Ron speaks of writing in a tidy manner so that your writing is not sloppy 85 00:08:49,300 --> 00:08:56,400 and in need of excessive revision so that you're not going in there and doing two and three drafts or four even. 86 00:08:56,400 --> 00:09:02,900 And I can see a quality in that. I can see that being a very strong idea, a strong premise. 87 00:09:02,900 --> 00:09:09,400 And ideally, your first draft would always be great. How do you form a good first draft? 88 00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:14,100 Is it by setting a word count for yourself and making sure you hit that every day? 89 00:09:14,100 --> 00:09:23,200 Or is it by setting a quality time writing interval or period for yourself and hitting that every day? 90 00:09:23,200 --> 00:09:29,500 I would think it's more that. But that's also why I'm not going to switch automatically to targeting a word count. 91 00:09:29,500 --> 00:09:38,800 I will make an adjustment at the end of, let's say, 30 days of writing like this and see how I want to change things. 92 00:09:38,800 --> 00:09:46,700 Do I want to bump it up? Do I want to say, okay, I'm going to write 500 words a day and maybe time myself and see, 93 00:09:46,700 --> 00:09:51,800 well, how long does it take to do 500 words? Sometimes it's 10 minutes, which would be awesome. 94 00:09:51,800 --> 00:09:56,900 Sometimes it's an hour, which would be okay, I guess. 95 00:09:56,900 --> 00:10:02,300 You know, I did the math. I am interested in pulp novels. And he brought up this phrase, which I love. 96 00:10:02,300 --> 00:10:07,200 It's basically, if you want to manage it, you must measure it. 97 00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:11,900 He actually said it differently, but that's basically a truth of this world. 98 00:10:11,900 --> 00:10:19,700 And I like that because it makes sense. Anything you want to measure the status of, 99 00:10:19,700 --> 00:10:28,800 you will be able to, with those metrics, develop a plan to manipulate it so that you get the kinds of results that you want. 100 00:10:28,800 --> 00:10:33,500 What are the results I want? Do I want to write six to eight books a year? I don't know. 101 00:10:33,500 --> 00:10:39,200 I don't necessarily think so. Would that be good? Perhaps. 102 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:46,500 You know, a book a month is a crazy schedule. I devoured nine books from an author within like, 103 00:10:46,500 --> 00:10:53,900 I don't know, less than two months because I had the means, motive, and opportunity. 104 00:10:53,900 --> 00:10:59,300 And would I be happy with a writer or a reader of mine doing that? Yes. 105 00:10:59,300 --> 00:11:05,700 I did see, while I enjoyed the books overall, these are Jeffrey A. Haskell's Arsenal series, 106 00:11:05,700 --> 00:11:16,400 Full Metal Superhero Arsenal. I did notice some weird patterns and some weird inconsistencies or little flaws. 107 00:11:16,400 --> 00:11:22,700 And I don't know if that's attributed to how quickly he wrote the books or if it was an editing, 108 00:11:22,700 --> 00:11:25,200 you know, an error in editing and how they were put together. 109 00:11:25,200 --> 00:11:31,100 They're still very good books. Like, I think the lowest I would rate any of them is like a seven out of ten. 110 00:11:31,100 --> 00:11:36,400 But, you know, the highest. But that's because I'm really hyper-focused on the content. 111 00:11:36,400 --> 00:11:39,700 I don't care if you, you know, I don't really care about the typos and such. 112 00:11:39,700 --> 00:11:43,800 It's not, professional is not as professional as it could be, but I didn't read it. I listened to them. 113 00:11:43,800 --> 00:11:49,500 So I experienced the story in a different way. And when I looked at Amazon reviews, 114 00:11:49,500 --> 00:11:52,100 there were people complaining about typos and whatnot. 115 00:11:52,100 --> 00:11:59,100 But as far as, you know, listening to the story, there were no issues in grammar or syntax or anything that I heard. 116 00:11:59,100 --> 00:12:06,300 There were just like weird bits where like things would be repeated in an odd way or there would be a little bit of a jump in logic or a gap. 117 00:12:06,300 --> 00:12:18,400 Almost as if there was, you know, almost as if it was, you know, point A, B, C, D, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, Q. 118 00:12:18,400 --> 00:12:23,500 Well, where is P in the other letter? You know, what happened there? I don't exactly know. 119 00:12:23,500 --> 00:12:30,600 But that's not my problem. That's Haskell's problem, not mine. And I still enjoyed the stories. 120 00:12:30,600 --> 00:12:34,800 So it's not like, you know, it gutted me or anything like that. 121 00:12:34,800 --> 00:12:38,000 But I'm thinking, how do I avoid those types of mistakes? 122 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:42,400 I don't know, but I'm not even producing books at all at this point. 123 00:12:42,400 --> 00:12:47,700 So I'm not going to let that worry me. I'm just saying I don't know for me, 124 00:12:47,700 --> 00:12:51,200 you know, what the ideal cadence of releases of books is. 125 00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:55,600 And I guess that's something I'll figure out later, although, but I will tell you, you know, 126 00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:59,800 between 150 and 200 words a day, over 10 minutes is not good enough for me. 127 00:12:59,800 --> 00:13:06,100 So after this month, I want to switch it up and see, you know, will I go 20 minutes or will I go for a certain word count? 128 00:13:06,100 --> 00:13:08,300 And I was going to say I looked it up. 129 00:13:08,300 --> 00:13:17,300 And if I want to create a pulp novel in, let's say, 40 hours of work writing, I would have to write 1500 words an hour, 130 00:13:17,300 --> 00:13:22,300 which doesn't seem like a ridiculous amount if you divide that into blocks of 15 minute periods, 131 00:13:22,300 --> 00:13:26,100 375 words every 15 minutes. 132 00:13:26,100 --> 00:13:29,800 I could write a pulp novel within 40 hours. 133 00:13:29,800 --> 00:13:37,700 But if I only wrote 15 minutes a day and let's say I only wrote five days a week, 134 00:13:37,700 --> 00:13:50,900 that's 75 minutes and 40 hours divided by 75 minutes equals, hold on, that doesn't work. 135 00:13:50,900 --> 00:13:56,800 What am I doing here? Let me think about this. 136 00:13:56,800 --> 00:14:02,300 40 hours times 60 minutes is the number 240. 137 00:14:02,300 --> 00:14:07,300 If I divide that by 15 minutes, that's 160 days of writing. 138 00:14:07,300 --> 00:14:12,800 That's a third of a year, maybe minus 365, 205. 139 00:14:12,800 --> 00:14:17,600 So let's say 365 divided by 3 is 120 days. 140 00:14:17,600 --> 00:14:22,400 So it would take me over a third of a year to write a single pulp novel. 141 00:14:22,400 --> 00:14:25,200 That's not good enough for me. That's not what I want to do. 142 00:14:25,200 --> 00:14:28,400 I want to write pulp novels based on the things that I enjoy. 143 00:14:28,400 --> 00:14:31,000 That seems like my preferred genre. 144 00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:32,700 And that's what I want to write in. 145 00:14:32,700 --> 00:14:37,600 But Walter B. Gibson was writing one or two 60,000 word novels a month. 146 00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:42,300 And I'm not saying I want to get to that point because that's 24 books a year, 147 00:14:42,300 --> 00:14:47,200 which is crazy. But I want to be somewhere closer to that. 148 00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:50,400 So maybe my goal would be to write maybe six books a year, 149 00:14:50,400 --> 00:14:52,000 which would be one every two months. 150 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:56,000 And I have to figure out what that would mean for me to write every day 151 00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:02,500 and then include editing, revision and all that stuff too to figure out how I can achieve that. 152 00:15:02,500 --> 00:15:09,000 So I guess to summarize that my biggest takeaway from Ron is that by setting a goal for myself, 153 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:10,600 I'll have something to strive towards. 154 00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:15,400 Even if I don't hit it, it's better than not because the way I'm operating right now, 155 00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:18,500 I'm despite the fact that I'm not a pants or rider, 156 00:15:18,500 --> 00:15:23,000 I'm running my writing operation by the seat of my pants. 157 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:24,700 And that doesn't make sense. 158 00:15:24,700 --> 00:15:28,700 It doesn't seem to be working for me because I haven't had success yet. 159 00:15:28,700 --> 00:15:32,100 I have not formed a business plan for myself. 160 00:15:32,100 --> 00:15:37,200 I have ideas, but they need to be formalized and set in stone basically. 161 00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:40,300 So that's something I definitely want to do. 162 00:15:40,300 --> 00:15:53,400 And yeah, I like a lot of what Penn is doing with the self-hosting. 163 00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:56,900 You know, she's got her own page, creativepenbooks.com. 164 00:15:56,900 --> 00:16:00,500 Check that out. That's her storefront where you can buy directly from her. 165 00:16:00,500 --> 00:16:02,500 I think that's great. I want to do that too. 166 00:16:02,500 --> 00:16:09,900 In fact, I bought ML Ron's book from him specifically on his website, Author Level Up. 167 00:16:09,900 --> 00:16:13,200 And which by the way, if you get any sales from this Ron, 168 00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:16,600 you want to toss me an affiliate, a couple bucks. 169 00:16:16,600 --> 00:16:19,000 I wouldn't mind. 170 00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:22,900 But anyway, there was an option to buy directly from him as opposed to Amazon. 171 00:16:22,900 --> 00:16:28,200 So I bought directly from him because I want to be paid directly from my customers. 172 00:16:28,200 --> 00:16:34,800 So therefore I want to be a customer who pays directly money to authors for stuff that I want from them. 173 00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:37,500 So anyway, that was really a cool experience. 174 00:16:37,500 --> 00:16:40,100 I see that he used HitPay. This is not an endorsement. 175 00:16:40,100 --> 00:16:41,200 It's just an observation. 176 00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:47,900 I've heard of HitPay before and he used it and it seemed like a good, a pretty good system. 177 00:16:47,900 --> 00:16:52,000 It's it kind of seems like an alternative to book funnel because again, 178 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:56,000 I'm a join a pan listener and I believe on CreativePen, 179 00:16:56,000 --> 00:17:03,200 she just had this week of June, whatever this is like the 22nd 21st or second one of those days. 180 00:17:03,200 --> 00:17:08,800 Anyway, she just had on Damon something from book funnel. 181 00:17:08,800 --> 00:17:20,900 And it sounds like the way that book funnel does things where they can get your books distributed to your people who sign up to your stuff. 182 00:17:20,900 --> 00:17:23,500 Maybe even do a little bit of well, yeah, that part. 183 00:17:23,500 --> 00:17:28,600 I don't really know because I paid through HitPay and then HitPay sent me an email and in that email, 184 00:17:28,600 --> 00:17:36,900 there was my digital or my ebook and my audiobook and it was cool because there was a pop-up on the website of the desktop that I did it on originally. 185 00:17:36,900 --> 00:17:40,600 And he said, you want to download this here? And I elected to not. 186 00:17:40,600 --> 00:17:41,800 And it said, don't worry. 187 00:17:41,800 --> 00:17:43,000 Or basically, it said, don't worry. 188 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:44,100 We emailed this to you too. 189 00:17:44,100 --> 00:17:46,000 So, you know, you can go and close this and go away. 190 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:47,500 You'll get it in your inbox. 191 00:17:47,500 --> 00:17:50,800 I looked sure enough. My phone indicated that I had something in my inbox. 192 00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:53,000 I swiped down and I saw, oh, okay, cool. 193 00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:54,200 This is this is them. 194 00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:56,600 This is from HitPay and this is my book. 195 00:17:56,600 --> 00:18:03,000 And then I, you know, that a couple seconds later, I went ahead and I downloaded the audiobook on my phone. 196 00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:04,600 I downloaded the ebook on my phone. 197 00:18:04,600 --> 00:18:07,400 It was super easy, barely any inconvenience. 198 00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:08,300 And it was great. 199 00:18:08,300 --> 00:18:14,100 So I don't know if Book Funnel does all of that as well. 200 00:18:14,100 --> 00:18:17,500 But that's really cool that we're in a environment now. 201 00:18:17,500 --> 00:18:23,400 We're in a marketplace or ecosystem where you can get a system like that to do that for you. 202 00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:32,800 And, you know, Michael, ML Run, put out videos on YouTube that I went to and I checked them out. 203 00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:35,000 I like his personality. I liked his approach. 204 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:38,200 I like the fact that he's written 40 books. 205 00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:40,300 That's amazing. Since I can't remember what he said. 206 00:18:40,300 --> 00:18:42,300 Maybe 2008 or something like that. 207 00:18:42,300 --> 00:18:44,800 He started writing seriously. 208 00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:47,400 I kind of think that's right. Anyway, doesn't matter. 209 00:18:47,400 --> 00:18:51,600 It's his story, not mine. But I'm just telling you, he's written 40 books in not a lot of time. 210 00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:57,600 And he's writing, I don't know, I think he said he averages eight books a year now and he thinks he's going to get faster than that. 211 00:18:57,600 --> 00:19:00,400 And, well, I appreciate that. 212 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:02,900 And I think that's cool. 213 00:19:02,900 --> 00:19:04,900 And that's just that's crazy inspiring. 214 00:19:04,900 --> 00:19:13,200 But regardless, he did what, you know, in his video presentation, he at the end did a call to action and he pitched, 215 00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:19,700 Hey, I've got these links to these courses or, you know, the other people have done that I've taken to and you benefit from them. 216 00:19:19,700 --> 00:19:24,000 And, you know, I wrote this book, I wrote this book, I wrote this book. 217 00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:25,900 And you might want to check that out if you're interested in this. 218 00:19:25,900 --> 00:19:28,600 If you've clicked on this video, I know you're interested in this topic. 219 00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,200 And since you did that, I think you'll be interested in this book I wrote. 220 00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:35,700 And again, like I said earlier, the title of the book intrigued me. 221 00:19:35,700 --> 00:19:37,900 It caught my attention. I thought, all right, I got to do this. 222 00:19:37,900 --> 00:19:42,500 And it was cool. I mentioned Pope authors earlier at the end of the audio book. 223 00:19:42,500 --> 00:19:45,900 He mentions books he recommends people read. 224 00:19:45,900 --> 00:19:52,200 And one of them was a book about writing pulp stories. 225 00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:56,200 I want to say pulp fiction, but I don't want to get messed up with the movie. 226 00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:59,300 And I think I might have to buy that. I might. 227 00:19:59,300 --> 00:20:05,300 We'll see. So I already found it in Amazon and I'm looking forward to that. 228 00:20:05,300 --> 00:20:10,000 Looking forward to getting into that. But I know. 229 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,100 And this is really cool. In one of his videos, he was like, look, 230 00:20:12,100 --> 00:20:16,300 I got advice for you and I got it to read from the school hard knocks. 231 00:20:16,300 --> 00:20:19,200 I'm going to tell you stuff that you need to hear. 232 00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:21,000 But, you know, will you hear it? I don't know. 233 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:25,100 That's up to you. And no matter how like I can't give you a magic bullet 234 00:20:25,100 --> 00:20:29,200 because you can only employ, you know, the magic bullet is you making yourself 235 00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:33,300 do the work and you being disciplined, which 236 00:20:33,300 --> 00:20:39,300 general that very much meshes with what I believe and where I'm at now in my life. 237 00:20:39,300 --> 00:20:43,500 I feel like just taking responsibility for everything I do, everything I failed to do, 238 00:20:43,500 --> 00:20:50,400 every mistake that happens, not in a, you know, oh, I'm suffering and woe is me kind of way, 239 00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:54,400 but just like, yep, I let that happen. I let that happen. 240 00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:56,700 I made that happen. I'm responsible. 241 00:20:56,700 --> 00:21:02,400 I shouldn't have done that or I should have done this to make sure that things stayed in good standing 242 00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:08,200 or whatever the situation is. So I'm very content with that feeling in life 243 00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:11,700 and the attitude in life. And yeah, you know, he was right. 244 00:21:11,700 --> 00:21:16,100 I, you know, I haven't published my books yet because of me. 245 00:21:16,100 --> 00:21:18,400 It's all my fault. It has nothing to do with anybody else. 246 00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:22,900 And I could have done it if I wanted to. And I'm tired of that being the case. 247 00:21:22,900 --> 00:21:27,100 I want to get myself to the point where I'm really doing this. 248 00:21:27,100 --> 00:21:36,700 So anyway, I'm going to wrap up the Grow Bug Tales project and then I might take time off of. 249 00:21:36,700 --> 00:21:41,900 Yeah, I don't know how I'm going to do it. I was going to say I might take time off of my creative writing 250 00:21:41,900 --> 00:21:45,000 in order to give myself a little bit of, no, I think I will. 251 00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:51,600 I'll take a small break, like less than a month, and in that month, I will dedicate myself to honing my craft 252 00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:58,300 and figuring out this formula that I want for my, I don't know if I want to say mechanical writing 253 00:21:58,300 --> 00:22:02,600 or like systemic writing. I'm going to come up with a cool name for it as part of the project. 254 00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:06,300 But basically, I'm going to come up with the method first, then come up with the name for it afterwards, 255 00:22:06,300 --> 00:22:12,800 I think. And I don't want to be one of these product guys, but I think I'll definitely include on my website 256 00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:17,200 links for people, PDFs for people, where they can have their information so they can fill it out 257 00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:22,500 and have the kind of guide that I want. And the reason I'm making it is because it's the guide I want. 258 00:22:22,500 --> 00:22:27,000 And if other people like it, then that's great. And, you know, I'll have it for them. 259 00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:31,400 So I'll have for them, but more importantly, I'll have it for me too. 260 00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:36,200 So I'll be able to reference it very quickly and use it to great effect. 261 00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:40,900 And yeah, that's that's part of what I'm doing. And that's part of my strategy. 262 00:22:40,900 --> 00:22:49,500 And I want to, you know, be salesy in the same way, which is, hey, I know you're here doing this for this reason. 263 00:22:49,500 --> 00:22:57,800 And, you know, I have, you know, we have an overlapping interest and I have a thing that you might be, 264 00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:03,200 you know, benefited from by checking it out. You know, go here and do that and, you know, 265 00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:10,000 hopefully expand my base. I don't want to attract authors necessarily who, you know, want advice and help, 266 00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:14,500 because again, I'm not that kind of person. I'm not that teacher, I don't think. 267 00:23:14,500 --> 00:23:20,300 That's not my intention to be that. I want to be the bookseller, the, you know, superhero, 268 00:23:20,300 --> 00:23:26,800 you know, Tokusatsu, Henshin hero type, you know, superhero story selling guy. 269 00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:30,800 That's my goal. I want to write that stuff. And, you know, I will do that. 270 00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:35,500 But again, you know, with these children's stories, I'm cutting my teeth on and this has been my plan all along. 271 00:23:35,500 --> 00:23:40,000 It just, it's taking a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. I thought I'd publish in 2022, 272 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:45,400 but that did not happen. And now we're in the middle of 2023 and it hasn't happened yet. 273 00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:49,700 But I have a feeling I have every intention to make it happen this year. 274 00:23:49,700 --> 00:23:59,500 So anyway, you know, that's the author I want to be and I'm figuring out how to work towards that. 275 00:23:59,500 --> 00:24:05,800 And I want to have concrete results and things that are clear and easy for, you know, 276 00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:12,200 me to read, for me to share, for me to say that this is who I am. This is where I am now. 277 00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:17,700 And I'm going to just keep plugging away at it and working towards that goal, 278 00:24:17,700 --> 00:24:24,100 making it happen and putting up the proof here in the story over everything and all over mjwinners.com as well. 279 00:24:24,100 --> 00:24:33,900 So I'm going to take a break and come back with either a conclusion or more thoughts and more concrete stuff. 280 00:24:33,900 --> 00:24:42,500 I want to follow up on something from last time. I found my Everything Creative Writing book and I looked it over. 281 00:24:42,500 --> 00:24:48,700 I didn't read it specifically, but I found out I think what the most pertinent sections are going to be for me to look into. 282 00:24:48,700 --> 00:24:59,200 And I thought I remembered getting the format for the outline from that book. 283 00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:05,800 However, I it seems like I did not, unless I need to look much more carefully at it in order to discover that, 284 00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:16,700 because in my first perusal of it just last week, I did not see it, which has led me to look for resources kind of all over the place. 285 00:25:16,700 --> 00:25:26,100 I kind of want to keep skimming Readsie for resources because they have good stuff there. 286 00:25:26,100 --> 00:25:29,900 I think they have nice forms and I've modified some of them myself, downloaded them, 287 00:25:29,900 --> 00:25:35,500 copy and pasted and modified to make like my templates because templates make sense to me. 288 00:25:35,500 --> 00:25:51,000 And anyway, I got something from them on the three act structure and I started going through these videos by Lee McGeorge. 289 00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:58,000 Lee McGeorge is a indie horror author and he wrote something called The Obsidian, 290 00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:05,800 which is a gothic romance book with a ghost train, which is pretty cool and the ghost train is the obsidian. 291 00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:14,100 And he's got this right, a novel course on YouTube and it's, I don't know, 26 videos long or something like that. 292 00:26:14,100 --> 00:26:18,400 And in it, he basically takes himself through the process of well, 293 00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:23,000 he gives instruction and comes up with the idea for this book. 294 00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:28,100 And then I looked it up to see, well, this sounds like it would be a really cool book or novella first of all, 295 00:26:28,100 --> 00:26:30,100 because it's a short one, it's a novella. 296 00:26:30,100 --> 00:26:37,700 And I thought it'd be cool to see if he published this and I would also like to read this if he published it to see how good it is, 297 00:26:37,700 --> 00:26:43,100 to see whether or not I should, you know, hitch myself to his wagon or not. 298 00:26:43,100 --> 00:26:49,300 And I did find it. It's on KPU, it's on Kindle Unlimited, whatever that's called. 299 00:26:49,300 --> 00:26:56,700 And it's a two and a half hour read. I desperately tried to see if there was a audiobook version of it. 300 00:26:56,700 --> 00:27:02,100 If I want to do my EV app trick in order to get it to be turned into an audiobook for me, 301 00:27:02,100 --> 00:27:04,700 I would have to copy and paste, copy and paste, copy and paste. 302 00:27:04,700 --> 00:27:09,700 It doesn't work on the desktop. It works on the phone. 303 00:27:09,700 --> 00:27:16,500 So I don't know that it would be worthwhile to try to do it on the phone, 304 00:27:16,500 --> 00:27:19,100 because it might take me two and a half hours to copy and paste it. 305 00:27:19,100 --> 00:27:24,500 Of course, then I could listen to it anytime I want, anywhere I want while I'm doing other stuff. 306 00:27:24,500 --> 00:27:28,700 But could I just read it in snatches instead? I don't know. 307 00:27:28,700 --> 00:27:35,200 But he talked about the eight point story structure, which I've heard of. 308 00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:39,300 I never really examined too much, although it's funny. 309 00:27:39,300 --> 00:27:47,200 It kind of shares some features with the 3X structure as far as they're being a as far as I can remember, 310 00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:56,100 because there is a status quo, then there's a trigger, which is a term I'm very familiar with as far as writing is concerned. 311 00:27:56,100 --> 00:28:01,900 Then things get more difficult. Eventually there's a climax, then you come down from that climax. 312 00:28:01,900 --> 00:28:08,700 But apparently in the eight point story structure, it's climax reversal, then I don't know, wrap up, ending. 313 00:28:08,700 --> 00:28:13,300 I can't remember what they call it. I don't have it memorized yet, but it sounds like a really good method. 314 00:28:13,300 --> 00:28:17,500 And hearing him go through it is he's basically streaming. 315 00:28:17,500 --> 00:28:19,800 It's like stream of consciousness. He's just recording himself doing this stuff. 316 00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:24,600 He where he ends up writing for a while, he ends up doing fast forwarding, which is cool. 317 00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:26,700 But you can still see the passage of time there. 318 00:28:26,700 --> 00:28:30,900 It seems like a really neat, really concise way to go about it. 319 00:28:30,900 --> 00:28:32,900 I wouldn't say he uses the snowflake method. 320 00:28:32,900 --> 00:28:35,700 He kind of does like a brainstorm thing in the beginning of it. 321 00:28:35,700 --> 00:28:39,500 But he like threw out ideas. It's a really cool thing. 322 00:28:39,500 --> 00:28:45,600 You should check it out. Lee McGeorge. I don't know what else. 323 00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:50,200 Like write your novel course or something like that. It's how you'll probably find it. 324 00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:53,900 I don't even know what the name of his YouTube channel. I just know that his name is Lee. 325 00:28:53,900 --> 00:28:58,200 George. Oh shoot. It is McGeorge, right? 326 00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:04,100 Hold on. I'm pretty, pretty sure it's Lee McGeorge. 327 00:29:04,100 --> 00:29:11,300 So, yes, it is Lee McGeorge. Anyway, you'll be able to find it. 328 00:29:11,300 --> 00:29:15,900 I can provide a link to India in the show notes as well or in the blog post that I turned this into. 329 00:29:15,900 --> 00:29:23,500 So, yeah, it's a very interesting idea. 330 00:29:23,500 --> 00:29:27,000 I really appreciate that he documented his process like that. 331 00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:31,100 And I'm about half way, I don't know, I'm halfway, two thirds through. 332 00:29:31,100 --> 00:29:35,400 And it's really interesting to see how it's developing. I'm going to definitely finish the rest of the course. 333 00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:40,500 And I'm sure, I mean, I've already learned some stuff from it. 334 00:29:40,500 --> 00:29:46,100 I think I will continue to learn more and I find it pretty compelling. 335 00:29:46,100 --> 00:29:51,100 And I'm kind of thinking, like I was saying with ML Ron's method too, 336 00:29:51,100 --> 00:29:53,800 I think I kind of want to combine some of these things together. 337 00:29:53,800 --> 00:30:00,200 Like I think I want a, because I won't go into it, but McGeorge does this thing where he 338 00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:03,500 kind of like goes back and like fills in the gaps. 339 00:30:03,500 --> 00:30:09,500 Like he creates, he like brainstorms an idea and starts filling that out. 340 00:30:09,500 --> 00:30:16,500 But as he's kind of going through the process and like reiterating it for himself to more fully fill it out, 341 00:30:16,500 --> 00:30:20,800 he goes back and, okay, now I've got, you know, six characters. 342 00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:23,500 These are the people they are. 343 00:30:23,500 --> 00:30:27,700 And I'm just going to give a, I'm going to give them a name and a brief description. 344 00:30:27,700 --> 00:30:34,900 And like characterize them and describe their character as well. 345 00:30:34,900 --> 00:30:44,700 So I guess he's saying characterizes how people view them and their character is who they truly are underneath that 346 00:30:44,700 --> 00:30:48,100 when they're put to pressure or friction. 347 00:30:48,100 --> 00:30:55,500 So under normal circumstances in their status quo, they seem this way because partly it's true. 348 00:30:55,500 --> 00:30:58,500 That's what's observable of them by other people. 349 00:30:58,500 --> 00:31:01,400 But then when the chips are down, how do they react? 350 00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:09,500 Well, they come out of that, that characterization and their true character is revealed because as I've said before, 351 00:31:09,500 --> 00:31:11,200 conflict reveals character, right? 352 00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:15,500 So anyway, I don't know if I'm going to assemble like a bunch of maxims or whatever. 353 00:31:15,500 --> 00:31:18,300 They're going to help guide me through writing my stories. 354 00:31:18,300 --> 00:31:20,600 But I mean, it feels good. 355 00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:23,300 It makes sense. 356 00:31:23,300 --> 00:31:28,800 You should be able to have protocols and principles that you can rely on in order to generate story. 357 00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:31,500 That just makes sense to me anyway. 358 00:31:31,500 --> 00:31:32,900 So I like that. 359 00:31:32,900 --> 00:31:39,300 But I think I kind of want to start off like with the idea that I have to, you know, 360 00:31:39,300 --> 00:31:44,900 maybe maybe throw brainstorm type stuff out there for that, especially with like the pulpy things I want to write. 361 00:31:44,900 --> 00:31:53,500 It makes sense to bring together the diverse elements that I want for a particular story and then develop those. 362 00:31:53,500 --> 00:32:01,700 And I think, though, I want to do, you know, put my ideas down and then say, OK, so I have my ideas now. 363 00:32:01,700 --> 00:32:05,900 Here is my one sentence summary of the story. 364 00:32:05,900 --> 00:32:10,800 And then from there, you know, and I can use that for my blurb and other things going down the line, right? 365 00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:29,100 And then from there, I think I want to, I don't know, maybe use the eight point structure to kind of help me figure out what exactly is going on to help me figure out, OK, who is my cast and. 366 00:32:29,100 --> 00:32:33,400 What is the setting? And. 367 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:43,400 What is the character and characterization of each of my cast members so that I can have top from the top down in my my document from developing to writing the novel? 368 00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:54,300 Maybe I'll have the development document be one thing, like I said before, then a first draft, then a final manuscript type document. 369 00:32:54,300 --> 00:33:00,500 So three children. I think I mentioned the last story of everything that seems to make sense to me to keep things organized. 370 00:33:00,500 --> 00:33:07,900 But then I'll be able to reference that in that document and see, OK, what is the character ization and what is the character? 371 00:33:07,900 --> 00:33:12,300 And then also, what are the demographic qualities? 372 00:33:12,300 --> 00:33:15,200 What's the description of the physicality of the character? 373 00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:21,600 And I can just do a couple of things there and then. 374 00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:24,600 That'll help guide me through. And then I think I'd like to add in there as well. 375 00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:28,800 What is the motivation goal and conflict for each character? 376 00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:44,500 And I think I would put that up in the top with their description, you know, like within the cast area, I'll have basically a cheat sheet or a condensed bio for the character along with their, you know, 377 00:33:44,500 --> 00:33:49,400 or within their cast listener in the place where I list them, where I list the cast members. 378 00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:55,200 I'm I don't know why I'm struggling to say that more clearly, but that's that's the final thing I wanted to say about that. 379 00:33:55,200 --> 00:34:03,500 And then under that, I can have, you know, like I said, motivation, goal, conflict and theme. 380 00:34:03,500 --> 00:34:16,300 And maybe the theme goes up top under the one sentence thing and or maybe the theme is derived directly from the main character, the perspective character of their by. 381 00:34:16,300 --> 00:34:19,400 Maybe it goes in their bio because they know they want to keep it separate. 382 00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:27,000 I think I'll do the ideas and then I'll maybe throw those at the bottom of something, but keep it up in that document. 383 00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:31,800 Maybe that'll be like, I don't know, my my foundation is that and I'll have that cast at the very bottom. 384 00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:42,600 And I'm building the story I can have at the pinnacle is the one sentence condensation of the one sentence condensed form of the story. 385 00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:57,600 Then I can have the blurb that I can have the theme defined, then I can have my cast, my setting, my. 386 00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:00,900 I'm not sure what else I need. Then after that, I guess I would have my story treatment. 387 00:35:00,900 --> 00:35:12,100 That's a couple of pages long or, you know, it's you expand upon the the eight plot points of the eight story points by I think doing one paragraph for each of them. 388 00:35:12,100 --> 00:35:19,600 I think that sounds right. Maybe two paragraphs for each of them, which if that's eight to sixteen paragraphs, I would imagine that'd be a page and a half to two pages. 389 00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:30,800 And maybe in addition to the cast, because I'm writing these sci fi superhero type stories for when I am, maybe I also need to have like a props section as well. 390 00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:35,400 And kind of treat it like a like a play or movie or a comic book or something. 391 00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:39,100 That would make sense. So anyway, I'm glad I made these notes. 392 00:35:39,100 --> 00:35:48,100 I was thinking about not doing it, but then I listened to a document that I again made and I listened to with Evie before I came back to the recording. 393 00:35:48,100 --> 00:35:52,300 And it got me thinking about the three act or the eight point story thing. 394 00:35:52,300 --> 00:36:06,900 And I want to look at the three act structure documents that I have now and then also look at the the blending of the you can harmonize apparently the three act structure with the eight point story structure. 395 00:36:06,900 --> 00:36:22,700 And that seems like it might be the best thing to do, especially because supposedly the eight point story structure might be more difficult to use as a full novel versus like a short story or novella. 396 00:36:22,700 --> 00:36:35,600 And apparently, according to the same resource, which I will name later and link to the three act structure is better at helping you build out your middle so that you don't struggle with that. 397 00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:49,300 So it's kind of like when if you blend the two together, the eight point and three act, it they help to compensate for each other's weaknesses, which I think is good because then it more easily helps develop that structure. 398 00:36:49,300 --> 00:37:02,100 You know, basically, I think if that's true, that they harmonize with each other and fill in each other's weaknesses, and that means that I'm going to have an overall stronger method that I'm working off of in order to get that to all work well. 399 00:37:02,100 --> 00:37:16,700 And then I think I can kind of incorporate what Imran is saying and try not to do multiple drafts, because if I have this, you know, I don't know, mini draft type thing or no, if I have this like really robust outline, because again, I feel more comfortable with that. 400 00:37:16,700 --> 00:37:21,700 And it helps to direct me and tells me everything I need to know about my story. 401 00:37:21,700 --> 00:37:24,900 Then once I have that down, I can just start filling those things in. 402 00:37:24,900 --> 00:37:44,500 And it seems to be logical to me. And again, if you know, once I've done this one time, the next time I do it, I can just keep iterating on it and changing it up until I get it so that it serves me as well as it needs to as well as it can so that I have the best performance I can have with my writing. 403 00:37:44,500 --> 00:37:47,500 That's the plan anyway. 404 00:37:47,500 --> 00:37:58,400 So you'll have to go look at the show notes, you know, show notes slash blog entry for this episode of story over everything to see the links at the bottom. 405 00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:08,500 But I found more links, more interesting information, more like, you know, colder, clinical, simpler. 406 00:38:08,500 --> 00:38:16,400 Presentations of the information on the eight point story arc, which I now am confident to say that's what it is, the eight point story arc. 407 00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:24,200 And, yeah, it can, you know, relatively simply be used for creating just about any story. 408 00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:32,100 And I find that really interesting. Before I found this latest document. 409 00:38:32,100 --> 00:38:35,900 Oh, which, again, will be linked at the bottom here. 410 00:38:35,900 --> 00:38:48,400 I was thinking about it and I was thinking, is it possible to use the eight point story arc or the eight point arc for every scene or every chapter? 411 00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:55,900 And I realized that, yes, yes, it is. Or at least, again, from my understanding, as I'm trying to wrap my head around this, it sure seems like you can. 412 00:38:55,900 --> 00:39:00,800 And part of why I feel so confident about that is because one of the sites that I've linked here, 413 00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:10,100 it mentions the fact that you can even make the single sentence of your story, which I don't know what you call that. 414 00:39:10,100 --> 00:39:16,500 The log line is something else, but I don't know what you call that one line summary of your story. 415 00:39:16,500 --> 00:39:21,300 That can be comprised of the eight point arc because it has all those elements. 416 00:39:21,300 --> 00:39:27,500 It's got the stasis and the trigger, you know, goes to the climax, the reversal, finally the resolution. 417 00:39:27,500 --> 00:39:31,300 And I skipped a couple there because I don't have them all memorized yet. 418 00:39:31,300 --> 00:39:41,700 But that was super interesting to me that the single sentence, you can use the eight point arc to construct a sentence that has everything. 419 00:39:41,700 --> 00:39:51,600 So, I don't know, does that mean that the least amount of words you can have in one of those that fulfills that, that fulfills that purpose would be like nine words? 420 00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:58,800 I'm thinking, you know, the or uh, or something like that. You wouldn't say man on mission of revenge. 421 00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:05,700 You'd say a man on a mission for revenge. Yada yada. 422 00:40:05,700 --> 00:40:20,700 A man loses his family. A man has the perfect life with his family until they are gunned down, caught in the crossfire between rival gangs. 423 00:40:20,700 --> 00:40:37,900 Now he seeks to get vengeance on the criminals who took his wife and son from him. 424 00:40:37,900 --> 00:40:47,000 Will he succeed in this mission? Or will they kill him? And even if he does live, will he lose his soul? 425 00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:53,900 Something like that. I think that kind of fulfills everything. That's Frank Castle by the way, or at least the movie version of Frank Castle. 426 00:40:53,900 --> 00:40:57,100 The first one, the good one. I didn't see the second one. I don't know if it's bad or not. 427 00:40:57,100 --> 00:41:03,600 But the Frank Castle Punisher movie from, I don't know, early 2000s or late, no, it would have been early 2000s. 428 00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:11,900 It was like post Blade and for sure post Blade and maybe post Spider-Man 1. 429 00:41:11,900 --> 00:41:15,800 So maybe 2001 or 2002 it came out. Man, I love that movie. 430 00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:25,500 Anyway, John Travolta is in it. I think, I can't remember the actor's name who plays Frank Castle, but it was a great movie. 431 00:41:25,500 --> 00:41:31,900 Anyway, but like that basically, you know, it was a kind of long sentence I think. 432 00:41:31,900 --> 00:41:38,000 But it still fulfills more or less going off the top of my head not being able to look at it and think about each element by itself. 433 00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:41,700 But it was way more than nine or ten words. It was probably like a 40 word sentence. 434 00:41:41,700 --> 00:41:51,500 Which I don't know if there's a conventional wisdom on how many words you should have as your maximum sentence length, but I don't really care. 435 00:41:51,500 --> 00:41:55,600 Anyway, so I like that and I like that knowing this. 436 00:41:55,600 --> 00:42:01,200 I like I'm not saying that eight point arc is the only way to write a story. 437 00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:05,500 I'm just saying I think it's a good way that appeals to me. 438 00:42:05,500 --> 00:42:18,200 And already considering the fact that I had wanted to use this single sentence structure to expand and expand and expand my story, then it totally makes sense. 439 00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:27,800 I can do that. And also the flexibility of the eight point arc, meaning that you can have your chapters broken down in eight point arcs as well. 440 00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:31,400 Or I don't know if it's chapters or scenes and I don't know what the distinction is. 441 00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:36,200 How many scenes can you have in a chapter before it's too many and you need to move on? 442 00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:40,000 I love The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Those chapters are too long. 443 00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:46,100 They are too. They're an hour long on average, I believe, which is unbelievable. 444 00:42:46,100 --> 00:42:52,800 Anyway, anyway, yeah, they're comprised of many, many scenes. 445 00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:56,000 So how many scenes? I don't know. Michael Crichton. 446 00:42:56,000 --> 00:43:03,700 I've read a fair number of his books, like a half dozen or something. And oh gosh. 447 00:43:03,700 --> 00:43:13,400 Okay. Timeline Jurassic Park 1 and 2 or Jurassic Park in the Lost World and The Andromeda String. 448 00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:17,700 That was a cool book. I guess only four Crichton books. 449 00:43:17,700 --> 00:43:21,000 Maybe there was a fifth one in there somewhere, but no, it was just this far. Never mind. 450 00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,400 But still, that's a handful. 451 00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:31,600 He writes very short chapters. It's very suspenseful, very pithy, very effective, I would say. 452 00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:40,600 Although he does let... I'm not going to talk about Ian Malcolm and his monologues, his morphine monologues. 453 00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:42,200 Maybe I should. Maybe I should. 454 00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:47,900 Anyway, I'm getting distracted, but I'm really happy I found this eight point story arc thing 455 00:43:47,900 --> 00:43:56,900 because it seems to work and this Lee McGeorge, who's... I finished the course of the 21 videos that he had 456 00:43:56,900 --> 00:44:01,900 talking about structuring your novel, writing your novel, novel writing, that's what it's called. 457 00:44:01,900 --> 00:44:06,000 He says a couple of times, he doesn't explain, but he makes an illusion. 458 00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:08,100 He says, oh, I think I'm going to use a mini arc here. 459 00:44:08,100 --> 00:44:15,600 And I think he's saying, I'm going to use the eight point arc structure for this scene or this chapter or this little concept. 460 00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:21,800 And it doesn't take up that much space. So it's a very flexible, very scalable device tool. 461 00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:30,900 And I think the great thing about it or the one thing to pay attention to is that I guess the resolution for the eight point arc, 462 00:44:30,900 --> 00:44:35,500 if you're going to be using it in a chapter and every chapter, to go from chapter to chapter, 463 00:44:35,500 --> 00:44:47,100 you have to set it up so that your resolution changes the status quo and improves it or deepens it in some way. 464 00:44:47,100 --> 00:44:52,400 Well, it's kind of like an open ended thing. Like maybe it's like on the one hand, this is good, but this is bad. 465 00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:54,800 So like, oh, I made two steps forward and one step back. 466 00:44:54,800 --> 00:45:02,400 Maybe that's what it needs to be in order to keep that momentum going and keep propelling the reader into the next chapter. 467 00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:15,100 Because I've heard that chapter timing chapters should end not when events end, but when something else new is about to start. 468 00:45:15,100 --> 00:45:20,700 So like your protagonist knocks on a door or hears a knock on the door. 469 00:45:20,700 --> 00:45:25,600 That could be the end of the chapter because, well, actually, the door needs to be open. Right. 470 00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:33,500 So you might want to turn to the next page and see who's at the door. And I mean, that statement works for either. 471 00:45:33,500 --> 00:45:38,000 The protagonist knocked and they want to see who answers the door or if nobody does. 472 00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:43,800 And also the if they're inside and the door is knocked knocking or gets knocked on, 473 00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:47,600 then they're either going to answer it or they're not. 474 00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:52,400 And you don't know who that person is necessarily. 475 00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:55,900 Who's coming to the door. So I think that's really interesting. 476 00:45:55,900 --> 00:46:04,900 And it kind of makes sense that there's this idea of the invisible question at the start of a story. 477 00:46:04,900 --> 00:46:10,100 I don't know that it has to be in the first line or just on the first paragraph. 478 00:46:10,100 --> 00:46:22,300 Sure, the first page. But I mean, I think probably first line is best that you start with a statement or information being given to the given to or experienced by the reader. 479 00:46:22,300 --> 00:46:26,400 That forms an invisible question in their mind and it hooks them. 480 00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:34,900 I think just by that question, they are hooked and propelled to read through the rest of the story to see what it's like or just see what happens. 481 00:46:34,900 --> 00:46:41,900 So that compels them. And I would think maybe your chapter endings, you're going to want to have an invisible question there, too, 482 00:46:41,900 --> 00:46:45,400 which I think it's invisible because you're not stating the question. 483 00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:52,000 Who could be at the door? What's on the other side of this wall that I hear knocking? 484 00:46:52,000 --> 00:47:06,300 That you say, you know, you let the character experience it and you let the audience or the reader observe this question, quandary, mystery, whatever. 485 00:47:06,300 --> 00:47:14,500 And you present it to them through, I guess, just through telling them or through showing them it. 486 00:47:14,500 --> 00:47:18,400 And then you allow them to ask the question. That way they're compelled to. 487 00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:22,400 They're hooked in and they want to read the next thing and see what exactly happens. 488 00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:26,700 So anyway, then you don't have to do a false cliffhanger type thing. 489 00:47:26,700 --> 00:47:31,400 But if you're clever enough, I'm sure you can figure out a way to to make it work. 490 00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:34,900 The you in this case would be me, because I mean, I don't care about your writing, 491 00:47:34,900 --> 00:47:39,700 but I'm not trying to claim the authority to be an instructor and tell you how to write yourself. 492 00:47:39,700 --> 00:47:44,000 I'm just telling you how I'm thinking about doing my stuff going forward. 493 00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:50,400 So, yeah, it's a very interesting process. 494 00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:55,700 And well, I don't know what else to say. 495 00:47:55,700 --> 00:48:05,100 This is crazy. I feel like I'm learning and I feel like so much new is happening that I almost feel embarrassed of the fact that I've been calling myself a writer for years 496 00:48:05,100 --> 00:48:06,900 and that I don't have some of these things down. 497 00:48:06,900 --> 00:48:10,300 But I mean, I don't know. 498 00:48:10,300 --> 00:48:16,500 I'm in repair. I'm not together, but I'm getting there, I guess you could say to quote the part of my time. 499 00:48:16,500 --> 00:48:19,300 That's not true. It's a John Mayer line, by the way. 500 00:48:19,300 --> 00:48:23,500 So anyway, yeah, I'm going to go to the I'm quoting John Mayer. 501 00:48:23,500 --> 00:48:27,000 It's time for me to go. That's just that's the rule. 502 00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:34,600 That's the rule. So I hope that you stick around to come back next time for more development of my writing. 503 00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:41,700 Actually, I think next week is going to be a it's the Goblin the Princess of the Goblin book chat. 504 00:48:41,700 --> 00:48:44,500 So the Princess of the Goblin skimming leaves episode. 505 00:48:44,500 --> 00:48:47,400 So I really love that book. 506 00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:49,900 I have a lot to say about it. 507 00:48:49,900 --> 00:48:54,100 And I have a lot I sometimes have a lot to say about it and not a lot to say about it. 508 00:48:54,100 --> 00:48:55,500 It sparks a lot of tangents. 509 00:48:55,500 --> 00:48:56,500 I already recorded the episode. 510 00:48:56,500 --> 00:48:57,800 So I'm just letting you know. 511 00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:00,600 I recorded the episode and it sparks a lot of tangents. 512 00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:04,900 And it's just a very interesting book that's very provocative to me. 513 00:49:04,900 --> 00:49:11,800 And it's very like meaningful or profound, even though it's a simple children's fantasy tale. 514 00:49:11,800 --> 00:49:17,500 And I think if you check it out yourself, which I strongly encourage you do because it's a classic. 515 00:49:17,500 --> 00:49:21,500 Yeah, I don't know that's a recognized classic today, but it should be and it is. 516 00:49:21,500 --> 00:49:23,900 And it's so fabulous. 517 00:49:23,900 --> 00:49:30,000 I think even if you're 10, I mean, if you were a kid or you are a kid now, 518 00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:32,700 you got to listen to that book. That's all I'm going to say. 519 00:49:32,700 --> 00:49:36,500 So anyway, come back for that and then come back the week after that. 520 00:49:36,500 --> 00:49:38,500 This is episode 24, right? 521 00:49:38,500 --> 00:49:39,600 So that should be up to 25. 522 00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:47,100 So come back to 26 for more of my chronicling myself as a writer, as an author. 523 00:49:47,100 --> 00:49:49,200 So guys trying to figure this all out. 524 00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:54,300 And I don't know what I'll have for you then, but I'm sure it'll be something new and different and interesting. 525 00:49:54,300 --> 00:49:59,800 And it'll definitely be me at a later stage from where I am right now. 526 00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:03,800 And I'll be somewhere moving along in my journey. 527 00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:05,200 So I invite you to join me there. 528 00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:07,300 And until next time, folks, be well. 529 00:50:07,300 --> 00:50:09,600 This is MJ signing out. 530 00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:11,100 I hope you enjoyed that. 531 00:50:11,100 --> 00:50:17,800 Go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions, comments or other feedback you might have. 532 00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:21,700 There you can find all of my analysis, art and fiction. 533 00:50:21,700 --> 00:50:26,900 I cover books, tokusatsu, comic books, anime and more. 534 00:50:26,900 --> 00:50:30,500 Look around, you're sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well. 535 00:50:30,500 --> 00:50:57,500 This has been a story over everything production.