Life Between Seconds - Doug Weissman
Well, it's that time of the week again for the latest episode of Author Ecke. This week's guest is Doug Weissman, a world traveler, writer, and author.
Transcript
Hey everybody.
Speaker:Welcome back to Author ett.
Speaker:For y'all that don't know, ETT is Corner and German, so it's Author Corner.
Speaker:And today we have Doug who is a world traveler and I'm very interested in
Speaker:learning more about him and is endeavors.
Speaker:So Doug, please introduce yourself and take it away.
Speaker:Yeah, appreciate it.
Speaker:Thanks for having me.
Speaker:I started traveling actually when I was.
Speaker:20 years old and I just never looked back.
Speaker:I went around the states a lot with my parents.
Speaker:But I did a trip to Costa Rica, which was my first trip out of North America,
Speaker:and then immediately afterwards, just hitched it to Italy for a year and
Speaker:traveled around, did some school.
Speaker:Came back to finish college and was like, Oh, I'm just gonna go around again.
Speaker:I just have that travel.
Speaker:That's awesome.
Speaker:It was right, It was 2008 as well.
Speaker:So my prospects for finding a job after college wasn't really great, so
Speaker:I was like, this is perfect timing.
Speaker:So I just I write about it.
Speaker:. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:And I, I started heading east.
Speaker:I kept a travel blog just so my parents could keep up with it.
Speaker:It wasn't something I thought about monetizing, I just was like, this is
Speaker:the best way and only way at the time.
Speaker:That I could really keep people abreast what I'm doing.
Speaker:And then I came back, worked for a little bit, decided this is not fun.
Speaker:Went to South America for six months, then got, Oh, that was fun.
Speaker:Yeah, that was definitely a lot more fun than trying to, I
Speaker:went for a week and loved it.
Speaker:. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I was, I of just hit what Columbia and just headed Southwest, Try and
Speaker:make my way down to Argentina and.
Speaker:Made my way up back up to Mexico I flew to Mexico.
Speaker:I'm not gonna make it sound like I did a boat or drove . Yeah, so
Speaker:flew to Mexico, did some time.
Speaker:Then I got into grad school writing for writing.
Speaker:So I did a mfa and that's really when I solidified becoming a writer
Speaker:where for so long I fought it thinking there's no future there.
Speaker:But really, It was the only thing I wanted to do.
Speaker:Only thing I had skills in doing was like that or talking.
Speaker:So then I could do both.
Speaker:Why not?
Speaker:You can talk into Word now, right?
Speaker:At the same time.
Speaker:It's amazing.
Speaker:And I do that sometimes, especially dictating notes when I'm walking
Speaker:around my block or something with my dog is such a godsend.
Speaker:So I, I did grad school, then I went to Africa for six months and it was around
Speaker:that time right before I left for Africa.
Speaker:I actually found a job on Craigslist.
Speaker:It was, Hey, have you ever been to these areas of the world?
Speaker:Write like a paragraph or a page about your experience.
Speaker:And so I just responded that using that travel blog that I
Speaker:never used for anything else.
Speaker:And they're like, Oh, great, you're hired.
Speaker:Let's work with this.
Speaker:So I freelanced with this company, this travel company for years.
Speaker:So I was just traveling, writing for them.
Speaker:I was able.
Speaker:Make it a career for myself.
Speaker:But I was always still writing novels.
Speaker:In 2014, I wrote.
Speaker:What was it?
Speaker:It was between 2014 and 2015, I wrote seven novels for a book packaging company.
Speaker:So they came up with the ideas, right?
Speaker:Like the major idea they came up with, and then I came up
Speaker:with the arc for every book.
Speaker:I came up with the characters for every book.
Speaker:So for six of those books, it's one series called Deep Freeze,
Speaker:and the seventh Book was a part of a separate series called Fresh.
Speaker:And I just hammered it out.
Speaker:It was a very.
Speaker:Great learning experience for writing for different markets
Speaker:for how to write for a deadline.
Speaker:Also understanding how much you might miss when only writing for a deadline.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:. And, but I've ever since, I've still been working on my thesis from my grad program,
Speaker:which is Life Between Seconds, which is the book coming out in November 15th.
Speaker:So it's my newest book.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:Ever release.
Speaker:Very excited, but I've been working on that.
Speaker:Since 2013, so it's been 90.
Speaker:Oh no, because no deadline . Exactly right.
Speaker:It was that thing was a beast.
Speaker:Just in terms of that taught me, the other books taught me how to write
Speaker:for a deadline and write towards a certain audience where life between
Speaker:Seconds taught me how to write.
Speaker:For the publishing industry, right?
Speaker:How to query things, how to take my time, how to wait for a response, how
Speaker:to keep working while I'm waiting, and like the things I need to do to
Speaker:make sure I'm not just twiddling my thumbs for response, waiting for, So
Speaker:do you do you do a lot of research?
Speaker:What I found is I do a lot of lookup of words to make sure that I'm
Speaker:doing it right, and then I also do a lot of research to make sure that
Speaker:what I wanna put in there, , even though fiction is somewhat factual
Speaker:or based on something of fact.
Speaker:So do you do a lot of research and how do you do that?
Speaker:Hundred percent.
Speaker:So life between seconds, part of it takes place during the Argentine dirty war.
Speaker:So its 1970s, 1980s when the Hunter really was disappearing.
Speaker:A lot of students and people who were attempting against the government
Speaker:and really only learned about it when I was in Argentina and saw the
Speaker:mother deposit mayo, the mothers of children who were disappeared.
Speaker:And so every Thursday for decades, they would march silently, holding up
Speaker:signs, holding up pictures of their children, trying to continuously call the
Speaker:government to account, Where are my kids?
Speaker:Where is my family, Where is my husband?
Speaker:And it moved me so much that I wanted, I took a deep dive into
Speaker:learning more about what happened.
Speaker:The perspectives are all these things.
Speaker:So I could instill fact into my fiction, right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It makes it your fiction.
Speaker:I was at a book signing this weekend and this is twice as happened.
Speaker:I tell me about your book.
Speaker:So I started tell about the book and by the end the lady was like, Is that real?
Speaker:Nope.
Speaker:But it's good fiction . Exactly right.
Speaker:The best is the best fiction.
Speaker:The Best Lies are based on yes.
Speaker:Fiction.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:So you write for travel, but you also write your own novels.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And then you're also writing a thesis.
Speaker:Your hands have gotta have carpal.
Speaker:You not yet taking a lot of Advil?
Speaker:Not yet.
Speaker:But I do think that they just always look like this no matter what.
Speaker:But that's where you shake hands.
Speaker:Hello?
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Shake hands.
Speaker:Like a shake hands like a woman in Regency England.
Speaker:I'm just putting my, That's crazy.
Speaker:So your book's gonna be out in November?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Are you self-published or did you Publisher, if you're self-published,
Speaker:Have you found the experience or even through a publisher?
Speaker:Yeah, so I'm actually going through a indie publisher.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:My, my journey was I have nothing against self-publishing.
Speaker:It's just not the journey I wanted to take at this time for this book.
Speaker:So I was querying agents for years and a couple times I had a few bites and I
Speaker:was really excited, but they weren't.
Speaker:But they didn't pan out the way I wanted them to.
Speaker:One wanted me to remove I love magical realism in all my work.
Speaker:And one wanted me to remove that from this.
Speaker:It's no, that's not, I'm not ready for that.
Speaker:That's really important to me.
Speaker:Another one just didn't have the same perception of what kind
Speaker:of the book could or should be.
Speaker:I just kept going at it until finally I thought I'm spending all this time
Speaker:trying to sell my book to one person who's gonna try and sell it to a publisher.
Speaker:So why don't I just try to sell it to the publisher on my own?
Speaker:I know all the steps I have to take anyway.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And I found a few indie presses and one that sounded really good, and
Speaker:I love indie presses for a lot of reasons, but one, I was able to.
Speaker:lot of that artistic integrity, a lot of the things that I wanted
Speaker:to, I have a very particular voice.
Speaker:I love playing with punctuation and just like you looking up words,
Speaker:but using words very specifically.
Speaker:Even if it might not be the best word, but I like the way it sounds better.
Speaker:I'll use it.
Speaker:I do the same thing.
Speaker:Like I hear a word, I'm going, I'm have to write that down.
Speaker:I like that word.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cause you don't hear it often.
Speaker:I'm gonna, I need to put in the book somehow.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Said ok.
Speaker:Now I just wanna make sure.
Speaker:Oh no, I will take that word out on a date and I will just leave it for a while.
Speaker:Cause that, but that's, and I'll do that.
Speaker:So I was able to keep that in there.
Speaker:And perfect example.
Speaker:There's one chapter in life between seconds that's, it's about
Speaker:three pages, give or take, but it's only two seconds as long.
Speaker:So it's just all wrote on sentences.
Speaker:But I love it.
Speaker:It's like really?
Speaker:Impactful and it's supposed to be right.
Speaker:You're supposed to be reading it and just sucked in because you can't take a breath.
Speaker:Where I've shown it to editors that work in larger publication
Speaker:areas and they're Oh they tear it apart and this needs to be here.
Speaker:This needs to be, It's no it's completely removed from context and
Speaker:removed from what I wanted to do in that space where working with the
Speaker:IND press gave me the power to say, Yes, this is exactly what I want.
Speaker:They didn't even say boo about it.
Speaker:What's your artistic expression, right?
Speaker:That's how you want.
Speaker:It's these little things.
Speaker:These little things.
Speaker:As an author, like whatever you're writing, whether I've had friends
Speaker:that wrote romance or friends who wrote military, and there are just
Speaker:little things that everybody connects with that they really want to keep.
Speaker:And that was mine.
Speaker:A two, a three page, two sentence chapter was mine, . I think that's
Speaker:the way I talk Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:But that's awesome.
Speaker:So when do you find time?
Speaker:You'd say you gotta, you have a wife, you have a dog when you
Speaker:find time and a cat, so Oh my God.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So finding busy, It's, yeah, finding time is e I actually when things
Speaker:shut down in Los Angeles and.
Speaker:I was, so I'm a travel writer by day and yeah, for travel years, there was
Speaker:no travel, there was nothing I could do.
Speaker:So I'm piecemealing together jobs to keep my to pay rent, to pay exactly.
Speaker:Utilities, whatever it is.
Speaker:And at the end of the day, I was just so exhausted put my daughter to
Speaker:bed She was an infant at the time.
Speaker:Now she's three, which, so it's even harder.
Speaker:And so I was exhausted and my wife and I wanna spend time together and it's what?
Speaker:I don't have the energy to sit and write for an hour or two and finish a book.
Speaker:But what I found was 10 minutes, I only needed 10 minutes a night.
Speaker:And so for six nights a week, 10 minutes, I would sit at my computer and
Speaker:just gamify, how many words can I do?
Speaker:Can I get a complete chapter done?
Speaker:Can I interest?
Speaker:Piece all these chapters together to see what works best.
Speaker:And I was able to complete revisions that way for life for 20 seconds.
Speaker:And I was also able to complete a, another novel, like finish it in
Speaker:Full and sell it just while doing 10 minutes, six nights a week.
Speaker:And that's works for me.
Speaker:And Now I have trouble if I do more than like 20 minutes, I'm
Speaker:like, Oh, I can't concentrate, I can't focus for this long of time.
Speaker:That's like me in the afternoon.
Speaker:I have to do it in the morning.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Unless I really want to finish it up or finish a thought, I have to do that.
Speaker:But what you've done, you've like the gamification, right?
Speaker:Everything is gamified, right?
Speaker:Business, everything.
Speaker:So you've just internally gamified it and you wanna win every.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:And luckily I do.
Speaker:So that's . It's a game I can win.
Speaker:It's done.
Speaker:So evidently you won.
Speaker:So have you started think of another one or, No?
Speaker:Marketing is tough.
Speaker:I would've to say marketing.
Speaker:I heard yesterday I went to a local library writing group.
Speaker:It's like over a million books a year, put on Amazon or some number like that.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I'm not for sure.
Speaker:But that's a lot.
Speaker:Though marketing it is tough.
Speaker:Branding yourself is really what you've gotta be able to do and want to do.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That, that is, I'm finding to be the most difficult part.
Speaker:Even with so many books under my belt with the previous books that I've done,
Speaker:it was in such a way that I thought, Oh, I don't have to market these.
Speaker:I will be very upfront now.
Speaker:I have made every single mistake you can as a writer.
Speaker:And I just learned from it.
Speaker:Oh, me too.
Speaker:. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker:I've made it, I've done it.
Speaker:Sending the same cut and paste query letter to agents and making it obvious.
Speaker:Done that doing the same thing for grad schools.
Speaker:Done it not marketing my books, thinking that the marketing department at the
Speaker:publishing house is gonna take care of it.
Speaker:Done.
Speaker:It failed miserably.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And you learn.
Speaker:And so what I'm learning now is exactly what you said, the beast
Speaker:of the marketing department.
Speaker:And I work technically as a travel writer.
Speaker:I work in the marketing department of the travel company I work for.
Speaker:And I still sweet, but it is right.
Speaker:So I know certain things, but still in like book marketing is so different
Speaker:and I'm also finding it to be.
Speaker:Super expensive.
Speaker:Everybody just comes outta the woodwork saying, Oh pay me this,
Speaker:or you need to pay for this.
Speaker:And I'm just like, What is that?
Speaker:I've had more people reach out to me that are experts in everything but related.
Speaker:I'm like, there can't be this many.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I didn't even know there were that many departments.
Speaker:I'm not gonna, I person.
Speaker:Love, do it, love.
Speaker:Some people pay.
Speaker:I don't I try to, and a lot of authors are introverted, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Me, uhuh.
Speaker:I am extroverted.
Speaker:I will talk to anybody all the time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I, So I think that helps.
Speaker:But you're right.
Speaker:The market, the marketing is tough.
Speaker:So how do you market?
Speaker:Where are you gonna market?
Speaker:Where are you gonna put your dollars?
Speaker:How many dollars are you gonna put poor?
Speaker:When do you know that's successful?
Speaker:When do you not know successful?
Speaker:When do you punt?
Speaker:You didn't go through a rabbit hole and.
Speaker:End up with a bunch of books at your house that handling basically.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's in that case, which I'm sending to Europe, because they did, they
Speaker:made bad decisions on their energy.
Speaker:So I'm actually taking a bunch of books with me to Germany for Christmas
Speaker:and I think I'm just gonna burn them.
Speaker:Oh there, in a good way.
Speaker:Not a bad way.
Speaker:Not a bad way.
Speaker:Tell em, sell them as kindling.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Saying but read 'em first, then filming fire and read em, leave me a review.
Speaker:Then Burn . You just retitle the book Burn After Reading.
Speaker:Yeah, sure.
Speaker:Put me on a plane right outta there.
Speaker:But no, so I like how you do the 10 minute thing.
Speaker:I think could all writers struggle I think with writing block
Speaker:or when to write how to write.
Speaker:So I like to write in the morning.
Speaker:Cause I'm more creative.
Speaker:I think I like just to hammer some stuff out.
Speaker:And then if I have writer block, what I'll do is I will then do edits.
Speaker:Oh, nice.
Speaker:Cause I'm, because when you edit, Oh, I need to put something here.
Speaker:Yeah, this would be cool.
Speaker:So how do you edit?
Speaker:Do you like all at one time or piecemeal or how did that inter Integr process go?
Speaker:Yeah I edit.
Speaker:All at one time, but I have to print everything out.
Speaker:I cannot edit.
Speaker:I'm the same way.
Speaker:Are you?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I got a bunch of paper.
Speaker:I do too.
Speaker:I have, if I can pull it out.
Speaker:I have so much stuff in my desk, but like I have this is like my
Speaker:latest, just this box of Oh yeah.
Speaker:Paper.
Speaker:And that's one book that I finish that I need to edit again.
Speaker:I have I usually do probably between five and 10 rounds of edits.
Speaker:Because the first one, I don't write linearly, I write modularly.
Speaker:So I'll just be like, This chapter sounds interesting.
Speaker:So I'll just write that chapter.
Speaker:And then the next one that sounds interesting.
Speaker:I'll write that chapter.
Speaker:And then when I feel like I have enough chapters put together, then I printed.
Speaker:Piece it together, like a puzzle.
Speaker:This sounds like it goes here.
Speaker:This sounds like it goes here, and then I look through, see what
Speaker:I'm missing, and be like, Okay, now I have to fill in these gaps.
Speaker:Then when it comes to revision, After the whole thing really is finished,
Speaker:there's a beginning, middle, and end.
Speaker:Then I'll go through and do the same thing setting character plot.
Speaker:Is it all fitting together?
Speaker:Is it threading, Oh, I have to, I mentioned this on page one 50, but I
Speaker:actually need to put that on page three.
Speaker:Or you need to follow up, you need to follow that, finish that whatever
Speaker:the action that person does.
Speaker:That's interesting.
Speaker:I do the same thing.
Speaker:I printed out and I had so much paper.
Speaker:I'm lucky they picked up my trash.
Speaker:What did this guy take?
Speaker:That's to Germany with you only have five pounds.
Speaker:You only have five pounds per luggage though.
Speaker:Yeah, good point.
Speaker:. So that's interesting.
Speaker:Are you, do you write a outline or do you It I pants it?
Speaker:I generally know where I'm going generally, but then if a ending
Speaker:presents itself, I'll just write the ending and then I'll figure out,
Speaker:okay, now how do I get from aid.
Speaker:Z here, but when I, sometimes I might do an outline, like with those
Speaker:seven books that I originally did.
Speaker:Yes, I had to do an outline.
Speaker:One, they required it, but two, I had to do so much so fast that
Speaker:I needed to know where I was starting and where I was going.
Speaker:But generally I don't really feel an outline helps me cuz I stray from it.
Speaker:So yes, quickly, yes, I'm same.
Speaker:I'll write.
Speaker:I'll write the, I'll write the end first.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:And then, but I probably won't use it.
Speaker:And because then I wanna do the first know, the first part of the book, the
Speaker:introduction or the setting, the scene.
Speaker:And then as a book progresses, I may use portions of the end that I did.
Speaker:Or I may rewrite the whole thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But the book would work either way.
Speaker:But how do I want to end it?
Speaker:Do I want to kill off a character?
Speaker:To me that's man, that's.
Speaker:The hardest part.
Speaker:I birthed these characters.
Speaker:I'm not have to kill one of them, . That's all that fucked up.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I had to do that.
Speaker:I had to do that with Life.
Speaker:Between Seconds, there was a character.
Speaker:I loved her, but after one third of the novel, she disappeared.
Speaker:I didn't kill her off.
Speaker:I didn't, I just did nothing with her.
Speaker:She didn't show up, so I was like then there's no point for
Speaker:her and I have to get rid of her.
Speaker:But after losing her for maybe two or three drafts, I realized, She doesn't
Speaker:need to be throughout the one third, she just needs to be in this one spot.
Speaker:So I get to keep her in a small section, which made me feel better.
Speaker:But still it was I you have to do it.
Speaker:Otherwise the book's not gonna work or not gonna be as good.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Now I'm like that too.
Speaker:I'm like, oh, okay.
Speaker:Let's think of the most hideous way that I can back this person off.
Speaker:Be a little bit of shock about
Speaker:I also, I love what you said though, that you can even, but that you could even
Speaker:use some of your ending sometimes, cuz I.
Speaker:I feel like a lot of writers are afraid that they're either gonna have to scrap
Speaker:something completely or use completely, and they don't realize that, Oh, I
Speaker:can take bits and pieces of this and it works here where I do that all the time.
Speaker:And I love that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I do I'll like I like to walk in the morning, listen to music, and I'll
Speaker:think of something and I'll get back and I have a section at the end of the
Speaker:book in the Word document it's called.
Speaker:And I'll just jot something down, like a phrase or a sentence or a scene,
Speaker:a real a quick synopsis of a scene.
Speaker:And then as I start writing again, I'll, Oh, I can use, let me go back here.
Speaker:Oh, I can use that.
Speaker:Let me put it in there.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:So it is a poor man's outline of some sort, or it's a free flow of.
Speaker:They, I like that better than a poor man's outline.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:. But yeah, so I, I do like to do that and I use that and then I've, when I'm
Speaker:writing, like I'm writing my second book now, I like, wow, now I can spin this
Speaker:character off and they can do something, and it becomes a different type of thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Is your second book related to your first book, or is it the same team?
Speaker:Yeah, but different scenario that's actually.
Speaker:Two plots that come into one at the end.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Whoa.
Speaker:. Let's see.
Speaker:. Oh I'm not saying, I'm saying I'm already intrigued, but then the trick
Speaker:is to make sure it all and and I already I can coalesce at the end.
Speaker:I've got that, that figured out.
Speaker:So what do you do in your spare time than travel?
Speaker:But, So I like to travel myself.
Speaker:I've been.
Speaker:Oh, shoot.
Speaker:All around Europe, Egypt.
Speaker:I just came back from Egypt actually.
Speaker:No, that is overwhelming.
Speaker:It's absolutely when you go and you go, Oh you go on a vacation, you
Speaker:go, I'm gonna relax and everything you get there you go, Oh my God.
Speaker:This is just, the history is, and how old it is.
Speaker:I can go to anywhere nice states and look at a building.
Speaker:It's probably less than 200 years old.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Now you go to Egypt and you're seeing things that are 4,500 years old.
Speaker:Now you can go to California and I think, look at General Samuel, right?
Speaker:That big tree that's 4,500 years old.
Speaker:And if that tree could talk, he could tell you everything that's happened
Speaker:in the world since he was a seed and every significant thing in the world,
Speaker:civilization based he can talk about.
Speaker:Now, that would be interesting for a tree to talk about.
Speaker:You might have your next book.
Speaker:Oh man, I thought somebody likes Trees . Yeah.
Speaker:There's a book I read, What is it called?
Speaker:I think it's called Maybe A Brief, Not a Brief History of Trees, The Secret
Speaker:Life of Trees, something like that.
Speaker:I just read it recently, but it, there is a tree that has its own perspective and
Speaker:kind of explains these really interesting.
Speaker:Traditions from Cyprus, and so it was this whole Oh, that's cool.
Speaker:Cyprus During the troubles.
Speaker:So it was really, Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, that's, It was a beautiful book, but it was similar just in that idea
Speaker:of a tree telling you the, Do you to put that in this bottom section
Speaker:of my current book to see . Yeah.
Speaker:No, there's, I love the thing about Egypt that fascinated me
Speaker:other, the history itself, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But the perspective that was brought when they found a Roman villa, The ruins
Speaker:of a Roman villa right in front of one of the temples and the, when the ruin
Speaker:of the Roman, or when the Roman villa was built, the temple the Egyptian
Speaker:temple was already 1500 years old.
Speaker:So it was ruin, it was a ruin to the Roman.
Speaker:So yeah, again, like there, just the enormity Yeah.
Speaker:Of it is amazing, right?
Speaker:It's, But the people are, Fantastic.
Speaker:So when I found out I was in the army at the time when I found
Speaker:out they liked to like to barter.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Cause money.
Speaker:So when I found out they liked a ballpoint pins, it's something good to barter with.
Speaker:So I had 200 of the US government skill crap pins, and what I
Speaker:would do, I just give them out.
Speaker:I'm guaranteeing some will probably still use somebody writing on an old
Speaker:government skill crap pen, their name or something on a receipt or whatever
Speaker:that, if I know that before and I would've been like looking out for it.
Speaker:Yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker:I dunno how my wife went before I did and she kinda, oh, they
Speaker:like ballpoint pins and stuff.
Speaker:Like I get some of those.
Speaker:They're all the place.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:So your books, what's the title?
Speaker:What's it coming out and where can we potentially.
Speaker:Yeah, Life Between Seconds comes out November 15th.
Speaker:It's all over the internet, which is nice.
Speaker:So you could find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target.
Speaker:You could even find it on Target.
Speaker:The publishing house is history of press, so H I S T R I a.com.
Speaker:Small indie press.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it's great.
Speaker:Honestly, I was I think I ran around my.
Speaker:Screaming so loud that my wife thought I was having a heart attack, and now that it
Speaker:was available like on Target, it's whoa.
Speaker:Right on target.
Speaker:That is very cool.
Speaker:When I told my wife I was writing a book in friends, they told me to stop drinking.
Speaker:So
Speaker:that would've come second afterwards, after the dying.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:But then you tell somebody you're writing a book and if you tell somebody,
Speaker:then you gotta finish it up with it.
Speaker:They, You're just BSing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I had.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The accountability is real, right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That's why I tell when I told people I had one in one of the books, one of the
Speaker:seven books I wrote the dedication to my friends, cuz I was like, see, I told
Speaker:you I was writing a book, basically.
Speaker:So what advice would you give an author or somebody just
Speaker:attempting to start their novel?
Speaker:What kind of bites would you give them to Kinda get 'em through the hurdles
Speaker:and the pitfalls and some things that you've learned over the years.
Speaker:Yeah it's been, When you say it like that, I was like, Oh man, I do have
Speaker:to remember it has been years now,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm a good person for perspective . Yeah.
Speaker:Honestly, I would say make it manageable.
Speaker:I think that especially coming in as a new writer, people have these expectations.
Speaker:Oh, if I.
Speaker:10,000 words a day or 5,000 words a day, every day for X amount of days.
Speaker:I'll have a novel ready.
Speaker:But it's not manageable and it's not something sustainable where
Speaker:the 10 minutes worked for me.
Speaker:It might not work for everybody.
Speaker:Maybe somebody has an hour.
Speaker:But what I do know is, When I first started writing, and I could do four to
Speaker:five hours at a time, that was great, but it wasn't sustainable in my current shape.
Speaker:I evolved from that because of current circumstances.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:I made, I found what worked for me, and so what people have to do is they
Speaker:have to find what works for them, what keeps them accountable, what gets their
Speaker:button, the chair, and what keeps them focused rather than, Oh, I'll go on
Speaker:Facebook for 10 minutes or let me.
Speaker:Track my playlist.
Speaker:Like I only have three songs that I listen to.
Speaker:I only listen to them if I need to.
Speaker:I have one on repeat the entire time I'm writing, so I'm not
Speaker:sitting there shuffling things.
Speaker:So you can write and listen to music or something, right?
Speaker:It's not music with words, but usually it's the tone that I need.
Speaker:So if I'm jumping in and I have 10 minutes and I gotta get a certain.
Speaker:Feeling.
Speaker:But I don't feel that way.
Speaker:I have three diff like one's a happy song, one's a sad song, one's a fast paced song.
Speaker:And so I'll put it on repeat, one of one of the three, and I'll just go, And that
Speaker:just gets me in that feeling that I need to be for whatever scene I'm working on.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But it's not words it's classical music or one of those intense
Speaker:soundtracks from a movie or something.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Cause I can listen to music and write.
Speaker:I watch TV and write.
Speaker:Good.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, I do.
Speaker:I've done it.
Speaker:But I wouldn't say it was good.
Speaker:I wouldn't say I did a good job.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:I go back and edit for, There you go.
Speaker:I'll write something.
Speaker:My, my brain's working so fast, I can't type that fast, so I go back and read it.
Speaker:I'm like, I didn't know what I said.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I have those moments too.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It was, so apparently Hemingway didn't say this, but people say, You
Speaker:said it so I say it anyway, but it was it was right drunk at its sober.
Speaker:And he only did 500 words a day, supposedly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But he, and he did it at what, four 30 or five o'clock in the morning.
Speaker:So the truth is he was either he would not drink that early in the morning.
Speaker:So he wasn't drunk when he wrote, But if he was probably still
Speaker:drunk from the night before.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So he wrote and then later he edited before he went back out.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:So what about writer's block?
Speaker:What do you do for writer's Block?
Speaker:I, Wow, you have.
Speaker:Yeah I get it, but my two best things for writer's block is I take a walk.
Speaker:I love walking anyway and then I was living in San Francisco for
Speaker:a few years and then traveling so often that just walking is great.
Speaker:You explore new places.
Speaker:Yes, you find new things.
Speaker:It gives you a chance to just be outside of that frenetic of I need
Speaker:to check my email or check this.
Speaker:Or someone's screaming for me.
Speaker:So I love walking.
Speaker:Or I'll also pick one paragraph.
Speaker:From some book that I love that, and I'll just rewrite that paragraph over and
Speaker:over again until I find my own words.
Speaker:Oh, interesting.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Huh?
Speaker:So that generally works for me, but I only give myself a few minutes.
Speaker:Like I won't do that for a half hour.
Speaker:I'll do it for Alright.
Speaker:I have, especially if I'm only doing 10 minutes, it's like I have two
Speaker:minutes to copy this down as much as possible and, but it works for me.
Speaker:So Do you have a favorite.
Speaker:I don't have a favorite author anymore.
Speaker:I have a few authors that I love, but like when it comes to copying
Speaker:down that paragraph, I always do the first paragraph of a farewell to arms.
Speaker:Always.
Speaker:I don't know why, but about 10 years ago, it just stuck with me.
Speaker:I really like the rhythm of the sentences there, and it's familiar and the imagery
Speaker:is the imagery is so present and atmospheric, even though it's so sparse.
Speaker:So it helps me get into.
Speaker:But I wouldn't say like Hemingway is my favorite author or anything.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How about you?
Speaker:Me?
Speaker:No
Speaker:ler Tom Clancy, Dan Brown?
Speaker:So I used to edit tech, edit Microsoft Series.
Speaker:Technical books for Q Publishing back in the day.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:That sounds be intense.
Speaker:It was fun.
Speaker:Sometimes I'd get a word document that was almost done.
Speaker:Sometimes it would be just raw, so I'd have to in there and look at
Speaker:the diagram and everything, and then they reached out to me one time.
Speaker:I'd say, Hey, Travis, do you want to help write a book on the window of
Speaker:2000 security handbook is what it's.
Speaker:And I go, Yeah.
Speaker:I go, What do you want me to write about?
Speaker:And she goes, ero.
Speaker:I go, Oh heck, I'll do that.
Speaker:And I got off the phone, I was like, What the hell's
Speaker:research?
Speaker:Darn
Speaker:out what?
Speaker:It was kind the time, but it's interesting.
Speaker:And then I didn't do anything for years and then all of a sudden, 1st of March
Speaker:I had an idea and I decided to write it.
Speaker:And that's what.
Speaker:Yeah, so I like a lot and I like reading technical books.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:As a matter of fact too, so I would hope so.
Speaker:Given, given your years editing tech books, like that's important.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Just the technical part, not the written part, but the tech Cause
Speaker:it was interesting cause it makes you ensure that when you do talk
Speaker:about things, that it's correct.
Speaker:Yeah, and I still have some of the books too with my name in there
Speaker:and everything, that's awesome.
Speaker:It was pretty interesting.
Speaker:I'm sure it also gave you a really good foundation to you probably already
Speaker:know this, going into that, but the foundation of how things work, how
Speaker:things are connecting, making that things are building an appropriately
Speaker:fitted where I don't have that, like my, I, I don't, my details are,
Speaker:Even though I put it on my reserv.
Speaker:Great attention to detail.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Not me.
Speaker:. Oh I'm terrible about that.
Speaker:When I wrote the book, first thing I did, I started looking
Speaker:through all the contracts.
Speaker:Cause I wanted to reach back out to the lady I was working with,
Speaker:the publishing I didn't about publishing book up on, on LinkedIn
Speaker:or I think I got rid of them all.
Speaker:And, oh, I gotta start from beginning to figure out how I,
Speaker:how am I gonna get this book out?
Speaker:Cause like you, I just don't think I have the wherewithal
Speaker:to do a self-published book.
Speaker:Yeah, I wouldn't know.
Speaker:So I got a publisher.
Speaker:It's just easier for me to do that.
Speaker:Cause now I can concentrate on other stuff.
Speaker:But the marketing is key, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The marketing is key.
Speaker:I tell everybody that if you look at a pie, divide the pie in three.
Speaker:One third is a book, The other two thirds, That's the market.
Speaker:That's, that is getting the book out there.
Speaker:That figure you see all these events, you can go to the right event.
Speaker:Just don't go to an event and be sitting there.
Speaker:Cause you might get discouraged because that is not the demographics
Speaker:that you're going after in your book.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like you don't wanna go to the romance writer's retreat
Speaker:when you're writing suspense.
Speaker:Exactly, yeah.
Speaker:You don't, you want to go to that.
Speaker:Effective use of time and resources and money.
Speaker:Is key because if you have something else you wanna write about, don't
Speaker:get discouraged based on the first.
Speaker:Hundred percent.
Speaker:That's great advice, especially if I was discouraged about
Speaker:the turnaround, the market and everything from my first seven books.
Speaker:Granted, they were packaged together, but still I would not have continued writing.
Speaker:But even since then, I've, I'm publishing one, I have another one
Speaker:published that will be published either late next year, early 25.
Speaker:Oh good.
Speaker:Or, and then I.
Speaker:Another book in progress or two other books in progress.
Speaker:The writing just continues.
Speaker:You just find that, yep.
Speaker:Over speaking and roll with it.
Speaker:Get getting a rhythm or a frame of mind or.
Speaker:I'm not for sure what you call it, but Yeah, but just like you, you had an
Speaker:idea for a story and it just you hadn't written a story before, but then all
Speaker:of a sudden, boom, you had the idea.
Speaker:No, tell a lot of them get it.
Speaker:I tell.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:Feeling right?
Speaker:I was like, So you should write a book.
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:So yeah, I'm gonna get a trench coat and carry 'em in there and say, book.
Speaker:Anybody want a book?
Speaker:Hard, hard cover, soft cover.
Speaker:Who wants.
Speaker:Yeah, . Doug's been great.
Speaker:So tell us again the title and where we can get it and where people can reach
Speaker:out to you to learn more about you.
Speaker:All your social media.
Speaker:So I said let's hear this.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So again, life between seconds.
Speaker:And it's available wherever books are sold.
Speaker:Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
Speaker:Target again, Target.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And it comes out November 15th.
Speaker:I am most active on LinkedIn and Instagram at Douglas Weisman,
Speaker:so you can find me there.
Speaker:If you type in Douglas Weisman travel writer on LinkedIn, easily find me.
Speaker:And I will tell you that how we connected it through LinkedIn.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And if you've been to somewhere cool from a traveling perspective.
Speaker:Reach out to dog tell him your experience because you never know.
Speaker:You might not have been there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm only at 48 countries trying to get 50 before I'm 40 and I still have
Speaker:a lot more countries I wanna go to.
Speaker:So that's 270 countries in the world.
Speaker:Something like that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm not interested in going to all of them, but I'm interested
Speaker:in going to a lot of them.
Speaker:Yeah, there's a couple I wouldn't.
Speaker:Yeah, I have no interest in North Korea.
Speaker:Oh yeah you probably shouldn't given your experience.
Speaker:I probably given my experience, would wander over the border on accident because
Speaker:that's just what happens to me sometimes.
Speaker:, I've seen that happen in East Germany, West Germany.
Speaker:So that's another story That's great.
Speaker:Doug, I wanna thank you for taking the time today to be part of Author.
Speaker:And again I'm excited about the book.
Speaker:I love reading about your little travel stories too on LinkedIn when you start
Speaker:talking about stuff that I think it helps people think that's the hope, right?
Speaker:I'm trying to spark that idea and give people the how, not just the what.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Again, thank you very much and the most success, and again,
Speaker:you get that book of target.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:, thanks a lot.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
