Wedlock - Jonathan Rose
Great conversation with Jonathan Rose discussing Wedlock his new book and other three books.
Transcript
hi, welcome to this episode of author echo I'm Travis Davis, your host.
Speaker:Tell us your story.
Speaker:Hey everybody.
Speaker:Welcome back to author Ecke today we have Jonathan Rose.
Speaker:He's going to tell you about himself, his book, and there we're just going to
Speaker:get into a free flowing conversation.
Speaker:And who knows where it's going to go, but tell your story.
Speaker:Go ahead, Jonathan.
Speaker:Oh, Travis.
Speaker:Uh, just want to thank you for having me as a guest.
Speaker:I'm happy to be here and looking forward to a good conversation.
Speaker:Actually.
Speaker:Me too.
Speaker:I'm ready, man.
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:Sounds good.
Speaker:Sounds good.
Speaker:So what what'd you write your book?
Speaker:This book, this is my fourth book, actually.
Speaker:It's entitled wedlock and when see it there, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Great cover.
Speaker:It was done by Jonathan
Speaker:Did a great job who really love his work look.
Speaker:I originally wrote it way back when I moved to Mexico about 13 years ago.
Speaker:And, the first draft was done living in a little apartment and over summertime,
Speaker:it was an idea I had, but I've been rewriting it over the past 12 or
Speaker:so years kinda would write, right.
Speaker:It was one of those books where I would write.
Speaker:And, I liked it, but it just didn't feel right.
Speaker:And then I would put it aside for a couple of years, work on
Speaker:another project, get back to it, rewrite it, get to another project.
Speaker:So it was a lot of back and forth.
Speaker:The very first draft of the book is way different than what it is now.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:So this is the version of most happy with.
Speaker:So in the meantime though, I published, uh, three, uh, three books before
Speaker:that, , This one was published by Montag breasts that was out in California.
Speaker:Before that published two more and also published a book down south in
Speaker:Mexico as well, a couple of years ago.
Speaker:So tell me about Mexico, man.
Speaker:I mean, you know, uh, I don't think Spain growing up as a kid, so
Speaker:Mexico had to, but we're at Mexico.
Speaker:I mean, how and what how'd you get there and why did you get there?
Speaker:Well, I got there by driving kind of Toronto.
Speaker:You drove from Toronto all the way to.
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:And I did an old 92 Camry.
Speaker:Love that car called it.
Speaker:Nobody stole it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No, that car, I don't know how it made it, man.
Speaker:It had like two, 300,000 kilometers on it, but it's a Toyota.
Speaker:Oh yeah, man.
Speaker:Those, those are way back when they made them, they made them real good.
Speaker:Like.
Speaker:Used to die.
Speaker:It was a good four day drive.
Speaker:, I always wanted to do it and I had some very close relationships down in Mexico.
Speaker:Always wanted to live, in another country cause I've been visiting them so long.
Speaker:So I was just like, you know what?
Speaker:I quit my job.
Speaker:I was 23, 24 and I was like, ah, screw it.
Speaker:I want to take this writing thing serious and rent as a hell
Speaker:of a lot cheaper there than.
Speaker:Especially now.
Speaker:That's why I'm going back down south in the new year for you.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:So, uh, yeah, drove down and, uh, I didn't have a timeline.
Speaker:I wasn't like I'm going to stay for a decade.
Speaker:It was more, I just want to live this and see where it goes.
Speaker:And I ended up there for over a decade for a couple of years too, and just spend
Speaker:a third of my life in Latin America.
Speaker:those are the important words, the important German.
Speaker:I can speak German.
Speaker:I lived there for nine years in Germany.
Speaker:That's all I know.
Speaker:I will speak English.
Speaker:I'll understand everything anyways, but I, yeah, and I didn't speak a
Speaker:word of Spanish when I got there.
Speaker:I just.
Speaker:I just got there with nothing.
Speaker:It was difficult.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Just picked it up.
Speaker:And, yeah, it was a great experience.
Speaker:And I was in, most of the time I spent in Mexico city, uh, I also lived in,
Speaker:uh, in a beautiful town called Cholula.
Speaker:It was in a state of right in front of volcanoes.
Speaker:It's like wake up to a postcard every morning place lived in a container row.
Speaker:Imply.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And, bounce.
Speaker:I just moved around that country a lot, saw so much of it.
Speaker:I miss it a lot.
Speaker:And your book, uh, did it take place?
Speaker:It take place in Mexico?
Speaker:Oh, big time.
Speaker:Big.
Speaker:All of the books, all four of the books I've published have been
Speaker:heavily influenced by my time there.
Speaker:I mean, you're spending 12 years in a place you're surrounded by stories.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, it heavily influenced.
Speaker:And, but I didn't name it specifically.
Speaker:I didn't want to you, I use details, but the story, because it's about, man and a
Speaker:woman, young woman meets this man thinks he's prince charming thinks he's perfect.
Speaker:And he is just obsessed with keeping her safe to a frightening level.
Speaker:So it has a lot of black mirror aspects because we use technology to really keep.
Speaker:Safe as he likes to put it.
Speaker:And so I based a lot of that on real stories I've heard, not
Speaker:just from Mexico, but from women.
Speaker:I knew here in Canada, everywhere, but just that notion of this,
Speaker:that, that macho, you know, Tarzan you Jane kind of thing.
Speaker:You're my woman.
Speaker:I'm going to protect you.
Speaker:But for this character, and I found this happened a lot.
Speaker:It was rooted in real love.
Speaker:He really loved.
Speaker:But he's just a fanatic about it.
Speaker:He's worked on how he shows it.
Speaker:And I wanted that to reflect some of those attitudes.
Speaker:Like a man who believes that a woman's, his possession is wrong.
Speaker:It just stays.
Speaker:But it's important that just because something's wrong.
Speaker:That you don't just dismiss it and say evil, bad, and just go,
Speaker:that, that doesn't solve nothing.
Speaker:You got to try and understand it.
Speaker:Like, why is he like this?
Speaker:Where did these influences come from?
Speaker:Why is she go along with it?
Speaker:And where is she influenced?
Speaker:And by seeing so much of that macho culture, and I didn't
Speaker:just want to demonize it.
Speaker:And you know, it was the yelling on Twitter about it.
Speaker:I wanted to understand where did it come from?
Speaker:Generational.
Speaker:So this book was a reflection of a lot of that.
Speaker:What I learned really getting into the.
Speaker:To the heart of it.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:While keeping it thrilling and trying to let the technology aspect.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's like black mirror, a black mirror romance set in the big Latin city.
Speaker:So really cool concept.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I had some flare of Latin America.
Speaker:It can, it can be anything.
Speaker:The type of relationship could be anywhere.
Speaker:We all know somebody who's been in that kind of, we all know a woman and a man
Speaker:has been in that kind of relationship where you, they go to you and they're
Speaker:like, I don't know, something's wrong.
Speaker:Like this doesn't feel right.
Speaker:And then the first question is, you know, do they hit, you know, Do they
Speaker:yell at you and embarrass you, humiliate you and do all those bad things
Speaker:that make it obvious in this book?
Speaker:Uh, the character she's just like, no, no.
Speaker:Well then what's the problem, but you, there is one was
Speaker:what I wanted to get into.
Speaker:Oh, cool.
Speaker:Or the other, other three books similar.
Speaker:They have a totally different, uh, storyline.
Speaker:How long did it take you to write those versus the 10, 12 year.
Speaker:Right there.
Speaker:They're all different, very different storyline, but the influences there,
Speaker:I'm actually having them here with me.
Speaker:My little show that the third book is called the spirit of laughter.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Another great artist.
Speaker:His name was Al out of, he was out of Cholula.
Speaker:He did that for me.
Speaker:This book was inspired by again, a Mexican story and important.
Speaker:It was inspired by a few years back, there was the murder of 43 students.
Speaker:They were from IOC, Napa, the, the Mormons, right?
Speaker:Not the Mormons.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So I'm fortunate how there's so many of these types of
Speaker:the tragedy of it.
Speaker:This one was 43 students from a teacher's college, from the normal east of school.
Speaker:And they were from Iguala and they were in a bus.
Speaker:The bus disappeared, they were shot at, and these kids just.
Speaker:They still have it.
Speaker:They found little parts of them and stuff like that.
Speaker:And it's just, and when that happened, I was there in Mexico city and
Speaker:everybody was justifiably furious.
Speaker:And they were like, where are these kids?
Speaker:What happened?
Speaker:The government wasn't doing anything.
Speaker:And I remember when I was taking a walk around Mexico city, near the
Speaker:national university, there was a wall.
Speaker:And on the wall, you would see these murals.
Speaker:And I've also seen murals for 49 kids who died in a fire
Speaker:in Sonora and the ABC school.
Speaker:And they were young kids, but corruption and corner cutting.
Speaker:So it wasn't safe.
Speaker:The fire started, they couldn't get out.
Speaker:And so these murals you'd see of these real kids and
Speaker:sometimes they were so lifelike.
Speaker:And so the spirit of laughter, I wrote this story about what would
Speaker:happen if those murals did come to.
Speaker:And so I said, yeah, I said it in a school with a main character named Francis
Speaker:disco, and he has this evil principle that they nickname evil Espinosa.
Speaker:And she's like a representation of that corruption, that tyranny.
Speaker:And so it's kind of like, you know, that, that, uh, that part seems to finish kind
Speaker:of kid, you know, that kid leans back when everyone's studying, you know, and, uh,
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:I was the one in detention.
Speaker:They had corporal punishment when I was a kid.
Speaker:And thank God they did, or I did really bad.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I was in detention.
Speaker:It was, it was always that too.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Throughout the school where they would send me.
Speaker:So this, Francisco character, just like a, him versus evil Espinosa.
Speaker:And she tells us like for punishment, you have to paint your other students
Speaker:and you have to paint them on the wall.
Speaker:So I don't have to paint, paint and artists save the school money.
Speaker:But to do it, he has to interview these students, get to know them, to paint them
Speaker:and they start telling him their stories.
Speaker:They start telling him, he's like, well, I want to get emotion.
Speaker:Like, how do you feel that?
Speaker:Or what do you hate about this school?
Speaker:And they start talking about how they were wrong by this principal.
Speaker:So he starts passionately doing these portraits throughout
Speaker:the school, on this big wall.
Speaker:And then as things progressed, you know, things come out of it.
Speaker:And then these portraits come to that.
Speaker:And then they get their revenge.
Speaker:And I just was, it was so inspiring from the murals I saw
Speaker:of those, these kids from ILT.
Speaker:And I feel like they deserve their revenge.
Speaker:They deserve justice, right.
Speaker:Their revenge against that, that wrong them.
Speaker:So that inspired that book.
Speaker:That was part of that.
Speaker:But one was published by Montag press in 2020.
Speaker:Yup.
Speaker:The next one, next one here is called Guthrie Lobo.
Speaker:And, uh, this one was published in, uh, last year and a couple of years back.
Speaker:Sorry.
Speaker:It's being promoted by Wampo in Mexico city right now.
Speaker:It's not even available in English.
Speaker:It's only a Spanish word.
Speaker:You wrote it in Spanish.
Speaker:I wrote it in English, but it was translated.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I can't write in Spanish.
Speaker:I would butcher the lane.
Speaker:I don't have that.
Speaker:I can't do that.
Speaker:But, uh, this story was men means a lot.
Speaker:It was, a real story I was asked to do.
Speaker:By somebody who's very dear to me.
Speaker:He asked me to do it.
Speaker:He was just like you, I think you'd be perfect for this.
Speaker:So he put me in contact with this teacher and she's like, I have this
Speaker:real story, but I'm not a writer.
Speaker:She's like, I want to tell it to you.
Speaker:Do you mind?
Speaker:And I said, of course not.
Speaker:And we sat in this cafe, overlooking the Zocalo in Mexico city in the center.
Speaker:She told me this tale and it blew my mind.
Speaker:And we're just talking.
Speaker:It's all in Spanish.
Speaker:We're talking about.
Speaker:And she's telling me this story about this girl who would go to class, dressed up
Speaker:like a cat she'd have cat contact lenses.
Speaker:She'd have, she would just look at, but nobody, nobody would make fun of her.
Speaker:That always stuck me.
Speaker:Nobody would bully her.
Speaker:Like I think back when I was a kid, if you had anything different,
Speaker:you were going to get, you were going to get, you know what I mean?
Speaker:They were more, they normalized it.
Speaker:She did it with such an individual confidence that you
Speaker:couldn't and that fascinated me.
Speaker:And then on the other side, there was this boy named everyone called
Speaker:him Lobo because he had like a beard and he was just moved like a Wolf.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so, and yeah, nobody speaks Spanish.
Speaker:Lobel means Wolf GAPA means okay.
Speaker:And, and then the story she told me, like with the details she had, I had to
Speaker:dramatize some of course things were, she told me it was all based on real stuff,
Speaker:how it was like Romeo and Juliet kind of thing, you know, like these opposite types
Speaker:and they get together with tragic results.
Speaker:And I don't want to give away too much of it, but just don't know,
Speaker:people don't read the British results were the reason it takes.
Speaker:I learned Spanish and the results were really tragic, but it was so beautiful.
Speaker:And there was so much to it that I was just like, you just told me this unique
Speaker:Shakespearian tale that actually happened.
Speaker:I'd be honored to write it.
Speaker:And so I wrote that for a teenage audience.
Speaker:Which I've never done.
Speaker:And I wasn't sure if I could, but then I just have the simple thing
Speaker:I'm like, I don't like the idea is I hated reading the books.
Speaker:They gave us in school.
Speaker:I hated the most of them are crap.
Speaker:Like they were boring and dull and like I'm 16.
Speaker:Come on.
Speaker:So what I wanted to do is I want it to read, I want it to write the type
Speaker:of book I would have wanted to read.
Speaker:And so my idea, and I love reading.
Speaker:I love classes.
Speaker:The most, I love real good stories.
Speaker:So I thought, well, I'm going to do that.
Speaker:And just because it's for teenagers, doesn't mean I have to dumb it down.
Speaker:It doesn't mean I have to tell it in a way that other kids are smart, really smart.
Speaker:So for me, it was just, okay, just no graphic violence,
Speaker:no graphic sex and neglect.
Speaker:You took that out of the equation, you can write no diff no different.
Speaker:So that's how I approached it.
Speaker:And it really worked.
Speaker:And some of the best things that came from it so far, I mean, the
Speaker:pandemic ruined the promotion.
Speaker:We were supposed to do a book tour was ruined.
Speaker:I, there I was there in March of 20, 20 trying to debate.
Speaker:Should I stay?
Speaker:Should I go back to Toronto?
Speaker:Like I was faced with that.
Speaker:You take care of my mom who lives here.
Speaker:And so the book tour got scrapped and so much bad things happened.
Speaker:And, um, are you going to take it back?
Speaker:Are you going to try it?
Speaker:When you go back down, are you going to, it's being promoted there now by
Speaker:Wampo they're doing an easy job with it.
Speaker:Um, but I hope to get back to it, to see what I can do to help it to get out and
Speaker:momentum, but also really great was the teacher who told me the story, getting
Speaker:her approval men more than anything.
Speaker:I didn't care about anybody else.
Speaker:Like she told me.
Speaker:This is her story.
Speaker:She told me if she says this is crappy, butchered, it I'd scrap it.
Speaker:She, she cried a little.
Speaker:She was just like, that was beautiful.
Speaker:I mean that to me, And then it got read by students in schools.
Speaker:And, um, there was this one school in particular and it meant a lot
Speaker:where there were indigenous kids, Spanish isn't even their first
Speaker:language and they don't read a lot.
Speaker:They're, you know, they're not into it too much.
Speaker:Books, they can't relate to.
Speaker:And, um, so they had copies of this book and they read it and they loved
Speaker:it and we would do zoom conferences and they would hold up the book and
Speaker:they'd be like, wow, pretty slick.
Speaker:It was great.
Speaker:And it's like, and the ending is ambiguous.
Speaker:So what the kids did is it was proposed to them.
Speaker:Well, what do you think happened to the characters?
Speaker:Because in real life, I don't know what happened, so I don't at the end,
Speaker:so I don't think it was fair to make.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, and that was helped.
Speaker:That was given to me, I would always give credit to a friend named Mariana.
Speaker:She, she gave me the ending.
Speaker:She was like, no, if you don't know what happened, don't say it, leave
Speaker:it to the, and that was all her.
Speaker:And she left their creative juices instructor percolate.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And it did all of these kids wrote their own endings and I mean 10
Speaker:page essays and they didn't have to.
Speaker:And the teacher was even like, they don't write a lot.
Speaker:They're not really into it, but your book spark that.
Speaker:And so that kind of reaction in like I am, as far from an indigenous
Speaker:Mexican teenagers, he gets that I was able to write this book
Speaker:based on things that really happen and that they were inspired by.
Speaker:It meant a lot.
Speaker:So we're really pretty cool.
Speaker:To keep it going.
Speaker:And the next one, do you have another bone or is that a, yeah,
Speaker:my first book, this, this is my first book published professionally.
Speaker:It's called carrier.
Speaker:And this one got published in 2015 by Montag press.
Speaker:And there's always something special when your first book gets published.
Speaker:Mine is actually released today.
Speaker:My first book was actually released today.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:What's it called?
Speaker:It was called flames of deception.
Speaker:Oh, congratulations.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Yeah, today's a big day.
Speaker:So get to show.
Speaker:That's really cool.
Speaker:It's a feeling that.
Speaker:Nothing matches it.
Speaker:I don't care how many more books you publish getting that first one.
Speaker:When you get your copies in the mail, you open it up and you see what you worked on.
Speaker:And it's a cool feeling.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think we'll see how it goes.
Speaker:Uh, happily optimistic as you should be.
Speaker:You should be a lot of writers.
Speaker:Don't get to that point.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:How many, like a lot, don't get to see that.
Speaker:That's why I started this podcast because.
Speaker:So I started writing my story in March that first week of March.
Speaker:And I finished it last April.
Speaker:I was like, man, there's gotta be other people that have these ideas or these
Speaker:thoughts that they want to write a book.
Speaker:They don't know where to start.
Speaker:They, you know, it's, you know, it's just a.
Speaker:Trying to get all the stuff together, you know, like they say, you're
Speaker:trying to make sausage, right?
Speaker:I mean, you've got all these ingredients and get a published
Speaker:and where do you start?
Speaker:How do you start?
Speaker:So that's why I wanted to interview authors and they don't
Speaker:have to be no famous authors.
Speaker:It's just like people see walking down the street that wrote a book.
Speaker:You'd never know it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And then, you know, so what, what motivated them?
Speaker:Why'd you, it takes time it's effort.
Speaker:It's, it's a commitment that you have to make to be able to finish.
Speaker:And then when you start writing, like when I write, say, I can see
Speaker:everything that I, that I want.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So it's got some details in it.
Speaker:That's why I wanted to interview folks.
Speaker:And so, you know, you don't, you don't, I mean, I didn't get up that
Speaker:day, so I'm gonna write a book.
Speaker:I was just sitting there and I go, you know, what's going on in the world?
Speaker:And I said, what if this happened?
Speaker:What if.
Speaker:I actually start with the same kind of concept that with that idea.
Speaker:Like what if this happened?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like you just said, I had that, that inspired a few books,
Speaker:especially the first one.
Speaker:I would just carry on book.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Tell us about that.
Speaker:I wanna hear about that book.
Speaker:Well, I'm gonna, I'm going to take it from what you said.
Speaker:It was a, what if it was a big, what if.
Speaker:This was 2014.
Speaker:I wrote in 2013, you know, the walking dead thing and all of that
Speaker:dragging on like a soap opera.
Speaker:I dunno.
Speaker:Uh, I wasn't really into it, but you know, we've had those stories forever.
Speaker:You know, humans, good monsters, bad humans must kill
Speaker:monsters to survive, blah.
Speaker:And I was like, well, what if I got, it was more, what, what if
Speaker:we got a story from the monsters?
Speaker:And so that was what carry on.
Speaker:Like you said, the what?
Speaker:And so the whole book is basically just think a walking
Speaker:dead episode, just flip it.
Speaker:And it's from the Monster's point of view where they're.
Speaker:They're not hateful.
Speaker:They have nothing against you.
Speaker:It's not just their food.
Speaker:It's no different than if it's, it'd be like demonizing a shark or
Speaker:a lion or a Cougar or something.
Speaker:It doesn't hate you.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So this story is just about that.
Speaker:And so by doing that and I based it again, and I'm a big Latin city, Mexico.
Speaker:And it would just be like these different scenarios where through the Monster's
Speaker:eyes, there's not a lot of inner monologue or not, and it's still monster, but you
Speaker:see through his eyes that I wanted to put the question who's really evil here.
Speaker:Like he's just looking at he or she, whatever.
Speaker:It's just looking for food, but then you see the.
Speaker:Like torture, you know, the Rick character, the hero character,
Speaker:you're like torturing these monsters.
Speaker:You're, you're doing all these things.
Speaker:You're for fun.
Speaker:Shooting them in all of this.
Speaker:And they're just going, shopping for food, the grocery stores
Speaker:just where you live, that's it.
Speaker:It's not personal.
Speaker:So it stems from what you were talking about that.
Speaker:What did that, do you write?
Speaker:Do you have like a set time you write or do you have, I'm going to write so many
Speaker:words a day or I just feel like writing.
Speaker:Cause sometimes I'll just say, okay, I feel like writing and
Speaker:then I'll just hammer away or sometimes I'll say, you know what?
Speaker:I have an idea.
Speaker:So let me put that idea somewhere in the book, because I think I
Speaker:could use it and it didn't, it just helps me kind of flow that.
Speaker:So you take like, you know, is it a job right?
Speaker:Eight to 500, right?
Speaker:Or is it, you know what, it's a passion I'm gonna write,
Speaker:but I don't want to write.
Speaker:I'll do something else.
Speaker:I I've been doing it.
Speaker:I remember before when I first started, oh, long time ago when I maybe before
Speaker:Mexico, even maybe 13, 14 years ago.
Speaker:I wanted to see if I could write a book.
Speaker:I was really inspired to, I, I had, I was going through a long convalescence from
Speaker:a back injury, so I did a ton of reading.
Speaker:Like what else it was that or soap operas.
Speaker:So, yeah, so I did a ton of reading and really got inspired by
Speaker:like, I read the classics, right?
Speaker:Like when you got all that time, I read one piece on hold.
Speaker:Not trying to stay on full story.
Speaker:I survived.
Speaker:The depth of the stories was inspiring.
Speaker:So I said, I want to write stories like this human stories, deep stories.
Speaker:Always been a fan of them.
Speaker:And so what I did was first before I think I'm great.
Speaker:Cause in my mind I wanted to be Dostoevsky before I was 30.
Speaker:It didn't happen, but it's okay.
Speaker:I still got time.
Speaker:I started writing more for the, can I do it?
Speaker:And I decided to discipline.
Speaker:So I told myself I'm gonna write.
Speaker:By words.
Speaker:So, and it stuck.
Speaker:So I do a thousand words a day and I still do that when I'm working on a project.
Speaker:And that's good.
Speaker:I mean, uh, I tell folks that, uh, Hemingway wrote 500 words a day because
Speaker:he was so meticulous in his writing that that's all he could get out of.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I usually work, in the mornings.
Speaker:I mean, I'm not an early morning riser, but basically morning in like I get up
Speaker:when I feel the most fresh to do it.
Speaker:So it's wake up.
Speaker:Sometimes it takes only a half an hour.
Speaker:Sometimes it takes four hours, but the whole thing to get those
Speaker:thousand words and I didn't care if it was my birthday, Chris.
Speaker:And so with that first book, I did that and was really proud.
Speaker:I thought it was great.
Speaker:Book was garbage, but it will never come out, but that's not the point.
Speaker:It was to see if I could fit just to see if you could do it, finish it.
Speaker:I mean, you hear everybody say, I'm going to write a book.
Speaker:And when I told my friends, Hey, I'm gonna write a book in there.
Speaker:Like, uh, Travis, we know you.
Speaker:So you know, like squirrel.
Speaker:So, and then if it didn't actually went dark, I told
Speaker:everybody I was writing a book.
Speaker:I'm going to have to finish this thing.
Speaker:So it just kind of motivated me to do that.
Speaker:And as I continued to do it and motive motivated me more until you're done,
Speaker:then you're like, okay, now what do I do?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Got out to the publishers.
Speaker:And, you know, just the whole process now is the process of marketing a book.
Speaker:So writing to me is the easy part marketing.
Speaker:It is more of is a harder part.
Speaker:Even though, I mean, I've done marketing before and some things, but getting,
Speaker:you know, get that interest because there's a lot of books out there.
Speaker:I mean, millions, millions on Amazon millions.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You know, you've got to find it.
Speaker:I don't even think it's a niche.
Speaker:I think you have to find something interesting.
Speaker:People want to read.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cause they're committing themselves to three, four hours in a period of time.
Speaker:So to listen, to read your thoughts that you've actually put down on paper.
Speaker:I look at it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like they're basically saying I'm going to have a one-sided conversation with you
Speaker:where I'm just going to listen to you, talk for hours and hours about something.
Speaker:And I mean, I think about any time you've talked to somebody, how many people have
Speaker:you talked to where you'd be like, yep.
Speaker:I'd be willing to sit here and not say a word and listen to them for hours.
Speaker:Pretty short.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So anytime a person chooses to read anything I've written and I take it like,
Speaker:damn, they just want to listen to me.
Speaker:That's that's really cool.
Speaker:But yeah, like you said, for the marketing, I mean, I'm terrible at it.
Speaker:I suck.
Speaker:I'm not good at it.
Speaker:I'm a private person.
Speaker:I'm not an introvert.
Speaker:I'm just private and.
Speaker:I'm not, I just never had the skill of it.
Speaker:I've always, I love the writing of the stories.
Speaker:I love editing.
Speaker:I love editing a lot.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:It's like bonsai tree cutting.
Speaker:I love trimming it just to get it just right.
Speaker:That's where I love that.
Speaker:But so many people do.
Speaker:That's why I like opportunities like this to do podcasts, to talk about it.
Speaker:I find like, okay, this is fun.
Speaker:If this could be called marketing, I enjoy this.
Speaker:It's interesting because.
Speaker:, I was communicating back and forth with a writer that I interviewed,
Speaker:Jennifer Hilley two weeks ago and talking about marketing and I
Speaker:think outside the box at marketing.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, you know, they're trying to get in bookstores.
Speaker:I'm like, I don't want to get where books are.
Speaker:I want to go where people that read books are that's fair.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So like the places I put on my books.
Speaker:They're real places.
Speaker:I mean, you could drive the highway, you could see it.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And so, I, put my daughter's flower shop in it.
Speaker:I'm gonna have a book signing in a flower shop.
Speaker:I did a, a brewery in Manassas, Virginia called Eve.
Speaker:I'm having a book signing with them on the 22nd.
Speaker:We're all excited about that because that's where people go and they can
Speaker:relate because they're, they're the same reason why I put it in the book, right?
Speaker:This is a place with, after a mission, they go and relax and they just
Speaker:get the clear, the air they relax.
Speaker:And that's why people go to these things like that to relax so
Speaker:they can kind of relate to it.
Speaker:Um, so that's my take on marketing, which could be totally wrong.
Speaker:If it works, it works.
Speaker:If it works, it doesn't, you know what, I'll do something else because
Speaker:there's a lot of Africans I'm writing.
Speaker:I'm currently writing my second book about halfway through.
Speaker:It was a follow on.
Speaker:So, uh, so it's, it's, uh, it's a military thriller, uh, espionage,
Speaker:and it's what if Russia, for example, knew that something they have.
Speaker:Was running out, but something that they had to have and they
Speaker:had to get it from somewhere else.
Speaker:So they elicit the help of India and China, right.
Speaker:To get it.
Speaker:And the same time everybody's going to green technology.
Speaker:And what about a cyber attack?
Speaker:That could actually say when to turn the lights off, when the light
Speaker:turn the lights on how far you can drive, you can't drive today.
Speaker:You can't grow outside this radius.
Speaker:So, so what if this actually.
Speaker:And it's perceivable that it could.
Speaker:And if it's three individuals that were independent, that became a team
Speaker:and you can see all the course of the book, how they became a coach who
Speaker:cohesive team, and everybody has their strengths and weaknesses, but they
Speaker:rely on each other for the mission.
Speaker:And, uh, and then, you know, I talking to somebody on an airplane,
Speaker:flying back from Atlanta the other day, and I've told her, and she
Speaker:looked at me and she goes, is there.
Speaker:I go like, okay, awesome.
Speaker:I'm fresh.
Speaker:You'd go jump out of the plane.
Speaker:I said, no, I just made it up.
Speaker:That's really cool.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it's, it's kinda, you know, cause like I was in the army for 20 years and
Speaker:you know, spirits in the military and everything, but uh, it's just, you know,
Speaker:it's interesting that what you can do.
Speaker:When you, when you sit down and you think of something, you go, oh, well, that'd
Speaker:be cool if I, I want them to do this now, because I'm trying to put it in a way the
Speaker:reader would, reader's expecting this.
Speaker:I'll go 90 degrees, the opposite direction.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I'm doing something different, but that's cool.
Speaker:So, yeah, so we're excited, but so where can everybody get your.
Speaker:Um, well, my website is the easiest place.
Speaker:All the links are there.
Speaker:It's www.jonathanrrose.com real simple, H a N R rose.com.
Speaker:I'm also at Twitter.
Speaker:Uh, Jonathan R underscore rose.
Speaker:They're all on Amazon and, yeah, I really encourage people to give them a read.
Speaker:If you really want to get a.
Speaker:Like for me, I was interesting when you mentioned like, yeah, your story,
Speaker:it came from 20 years in the military, you have that insight, you know, the
Speaker:workings, you know, those details, little mannerism, things that to you are
Speaker:normal, but to anybody who has nothing to, I've never been in the military, I
Speaker:want to know like, oh yeah, just this.
Speaker:Like what?
Speaker:And it's those nails that I find, make a story enriching
Speaker:that really gets you in there.
Speaker:And so from.
Speaker:'cause they were so inspired by the time I spent in Latin
Speaker:America, because I want to go back.
Speaker:It's just this world that embraced me.
Speaker:It showed me, it opened itself to me.
Speaker:I really shut my mouth and listened.
Speaker:I immersed in it.
Speaker:I didn't just look at it from a distance.
Speaker:Like I was in a zoo.
Speaker:I went elbow to elbow.
Speaker:I got in as much as I could.
Speaker:And I was lucky where I was just able to, and people allowed me and everything.
Speaker:It was like even in the military where I was able to acquire.
Speaker:Those details that I would have to be reminded aren't
Speaker:common knowledge to people.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So for my books, I tried to put those details as much as I could.
Speaker:To give people who might not know that world, an insight into that world.
Speaker:Isn't that, Hey, there's so much richness here and it's interesting.
Speaker:It's not all great, but it's not all bad either.
Speaker:It's, it's, it's humanity.
Speaker:It's no different than anywhere else yet.
Speaker:It's completely different from everywhere else.
Speaker:And I wanted to show those worlds and I want to keep doing that
Speaker:and keep writing those types of stories that people give me.
Speaker:So while I'm never going to ch I'm, I'm not a chronicler of like Mexican history.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:But I wanted to capture those stories and bring them to as many people as I can.
Speaker:So all the books I've written so far, I think can give a little insight to that.
Speaker:And for people from Latin America, I hope they enjoy it
Speaker:so they can see, Hey, he saw it.
Speaker:I know that I've been there.
Speaker:I've been at that place.
Speaker:I saw them, I walked the streets.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I see the street names.
Speaker:I don't sit because the Latin-America is humongous.
Speaker:Like, and it's so diverse, like Wendell series, can't be more
Speaker:different from Mexico city that can be different than Keith or Lima.
Speaker:They're all different, but there's also a similarity to them as well.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So I wanted to capture that.
Speaker:So, yeah, definitely my website, all the books are there, this new book
Speaker:wedlock, I'm really excited about it.
Speaker:It's been 12 years in the making.
Speaker:That's awesome though.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Or you got another one you worked in another one or it
Speaker:was just something I recommend.
Speaker:I'm a big traveler.
Speaker:I love to travel and I'd recommend it.
Speaker:Recommend it.
Speaker:If you have the opportunity to go live somewhere else for absolutely
Speaker:six months, three months, six months.
Speaker:As long as you can.
Speaker:I'm for me, it's addictive.
Speaker:I, every time I come back to Canada, I'm always itching to leave.
Speaker:And for me, it's one of those things where once you start, you can't stop.
Speaker:Like, you always hear a lot of people.
Speaker:They're just like, oh, would you want to live forever?
Speaker:And I'll be like, oh, I don't know.
Speaker:I would go, I would spend a century in each country because it's so interesting,
Speaker:but I know I can't live forever.
Speaker:So I want to.
Speaker:Spend any time I have to learn about these different cultures
Speaker:and everything they have to offer the good end, the battle I love.
Speaker:And as a writer, as somebody who likes to tell stories, I mean, it's like mining
Speaker:and without hurting anybody, right.
Speaker:It's to get as much of this great stuff as you can.
Speaker:And that's that's, I just love doing, but, as far as right now,
Speaker:I'm working on a, play an English version, play of the Gato Lobel book.
Speaker:And, uh, that's almost finished.
Speaker:I don't know what I'm going to do to come see that, but I want a good seat.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Here's hoping that as somebody takes an interest in.
Speaker:I've also finished a frog, any screenwriters out there looking for a good
Speaker:play that's original check out Jonathan.
Speaker:It's a great story.
Speaker:It's really good.
Speaker:And, uh, I just finished a non-fiction book, Canadian based actually the
Speaker:first real Canadian-based story.
Speaker:It's a real story.
Speaker:It was, it was based on an accident that happened back in 1988 to my stepbrother,
Speaker:actually that may the second, most famous Canadian in the world of that.
Speaker:Behind only Ben Johnson.
Speaker:He was the Olympic sprinter that got caught with steroids and he
Speaker:survived a fire, a house fire that burned 98% of his body.
Speaker:Third degree, nobody survives that nobody buys more 40% at 90% and he survived.
Speaker:He was the Guinea pig.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:That they used all the skin graph, surgeries, everything like that.
Speaker:He was one of the ones from the, he went to the Shriners Institute in Boston.
Speaker:They developed a lot of their experimental procedures that saved thousands of people.
Speaker:It started with.
Speaker:Every time he would be in a surgery.
Speaker:They'd be like, he wants to arrive.
Speaker:I was seven, eight years old at this time and seeing it, whatever, from my
Speaker:point of view and he kept surviving and I've talked to him about it at length.
Speaker:And he would tell me about out of body experiences.
Speaker:I mean, some of the stories he told me were so unbelievable, they had to be true.
Speaker:Like he had to get disinfected, but imagine your whole day 8% is raw.
Speaker:We would have to dip him into a bad.
Speaker:Of water with salt.
Speaker:I mean, this is torture stuff.
Speaker:This is like Darth Vader.
Speaker:You can imagine it, the burden to keep him cleaned and he survived and he was 15.
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:And the book is about, that's just the beginning, but it's about
Speaker:the 30 years after, because the media made him into this massive.
Speaker:Because the title is the heroes we want and the heroes we get, he
Speaker:was extraordinary for surviving.
Speaker:He was extraordinary for that, but they wanted him to be more extraordinary.
Speaker:They wanted him to be the hero, the symbol of goodness.
Speaker:And that just wasn't him.
Speaker:He was a normal kid
Speaker:in a normal life, but the story of what he represented, they,
Speaker:and there was a lot of line.
Speaker:There was a lot of embedded.
Speaker:On their part.
Speaker:And by the time he was able to say his own piece, he was already sucked in.
Speaker:And so this book is about the 30 years after.
Speaker:Cause he just passed away last year, 49 people wasn't supposed to make it that day
Speaker:and he lived another 33 years and amazing.
Speaker:But in that light, He was exposed to so much.
Speaker:And to me it was such a human story and it made, there was a lot of questions.
Speaker:Should he have survived?
Speaker:Did he like, there's a lot of human questions to it.
Speaker:And so I was asked to write it by my father.
Speaker:I had is I had diaries newspaper clip.
Speaker:It was a really, really deep dive.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I'm trying to find a publishing.
Speaker:I'm trying to find an agent for it.
Speaker:I'm looking so anybody interested in a real story like that, please contact me.
Speaker:It's a great person.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I'm really proud of that one.
Speaker:So keeping busy.
Speaker:I wouldn't expect that one.
Speaker:So yeah, so I like writing about anything I find in games.
Speaker:I love reality.
Speaker:I love real stories.
Speaker:I love and funny enough, the notion of subversion now it's interesting.
Speaker:People are expecting the embellishment.
Speaker:Now they're expecting the, um, the pro say corny, but they're expecting
Speaker:the simplified, the whole Goodwill.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't really like that direction where I find reality is
Speaker:actually the thing that's unexp.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so I want to lean more toward that.
Speaker:Like, Hey, the real stuff, I guess what your heroes are
Speaker:flawed, your heroes are human.
Speaker:Your heroes have messed up.
Speaker:There is no such thing as this person that is infallible and perfect and
Speaker:has been pure of heart doesn't exist.
Speaker:I don't care who it is.
Speaker:They've done some bad things that doesn't take away from the
Speaker:good they've done and vice versa.
Speaker:I've done some good things too.
Speaker:And you have to do.
Speaker:You just have to understand the fact that as human beings, there's the whole
Speaker:spectrum and that's, there's the same.
Speaker:Uh, it all comes out in the wash.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So, uh, I agree, but they have a fascinating talking
Speaker:to you and meeting you.
Speaker:I mean, I've never met you before.
Speaker:This is fascinating.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Show us your books again.
Speaker:Let's let's put the coverage out there.
Speaker:So the latest book right now is God is wedlock that's out right now.
Speaker:That's the new one.
Speaker:There's the spirit of laughter.
Speaker:That came out 2020 the Spanish book at the we low-balled probably
Speaker:Spanish speakers out there.
Speaker:It's the movie in like what I'm in
Speaker:My very first book carry on.
Speaker:It's a horror novel from the Monster's perspective to see who's more
Speaker:monstrous us or the us or the monsters.
Speaker:And they're all available on my website.
Speaker:Www dot Jonathan R.
Speaker:Rose dot.
Speaker:Well, thanks for being a guest author.
Speaker:Thank you very much.
Speaker:It was, uh, it was interesting.
Speaker:I liked it.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:Take care.
Speaker:Thank you for listening there'll be another episode next week.
Speaker:Please stop by and structure your own story.
