Hyatt's Victoria, how are you doing today, Victoria. I'm doing very well.
I am. I'm really excited for all of this today. I'm so
excited to talk with you because the reason why is I'm somebody who uses those
VR goggles. And the thing is is that the way you use your words,
I don't need those goggles. You put me inside a story where I
get consumed by everything that you were painting. Well, that's a very high
compliment that that's exactly what I'm aiming for in all of my books. I
like to say that I'm an entertainer. I haven't immersed you and buckled you
into a roller coaster. I haven't done my job. So then you totally
believe in theater the mind. I do absolutely. I'm one of those people
who when I read a book, I see it like a movie in my
head. Okay, since you set me up on that one, I've got
to come this way. I was going to say, don't don't go the
route of Netflix and stuff like that. But since you've played it out in
your head first, you've got to be dreaming about making this go to Hulu
or even into a movie form. Oh always, I'm you know, every
writer dreams about that. They dream about the biggest audience possible experiencing their work.
But for me, it's just I'm trying to see it the way an
audience would so I can communicate it as best on the page, so I
can do that level of immersion. But of course I'm always dreaming about that.
Where did you learn that art of It's not about me, it's about
those who receive. I went to film school, I studied screenwriting in college,
and you're always in service of the audience, because if you can't make
the audience believe in your unbelievable things, then you're not telling them a story.
They're not going to receive it. The final clash between kingdoms and gods,
I mean, all must rise to fight. I love to hear those
words because that tells me that it's not just one person going into battle.
We have to create a community first, and that community must move forward.
And I like that kind of basically sublime writing. Yes, absolutely, And
when I set out to write this story, I wasn't really thinking about sort
of a theme or a motif or any kind of message I wanted to convey.
It was more the story itself that enamored me. But as I was
writing it, I realized the thing that I was communicating with in myself was
the sort of frustration I have with our world and our communities that can see
all of these issues that affect all of us, but can't put aside our
differences to sort of address them. And as I was writing these books,
I realized, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get that
frustration out and sort of write what I want to see in our world when
these battles are witnessed by your imagination. First, does it come out chronologically
or do you sit there and you have to keep coming back to it to
build up the scene a little bit of both. I have to write my
books chronologically because I have to really be able to trace that sort of character
journey. But with the battles themselves, I go from sort of a bird's
eye view, where I literally look at it from a top down angle and
I kind of draw out what it's going to look like from sort of a
schematic standpoint, and then when I'm in it, you're trying to be as
visceral and immediate as possible and really ground the audience in something that could otherwise
be very confusing. Well, you know what's really interesting. I wish they
made movies like that, but they don't. They go beginning middle d Okay,
let's go over here, let's tweak this, let's do that. But
I mean, I'm totally with you when it comes, you know, let
me lay it out first and then we'll let the editors take it from there.
A little bit, a little bit, How do you envision the choice
of preparing for a larger than life finale? Because I've always wanted I'm a
book writer, but I don't write like you do. I'm one of those
self help kind of writers. And the thing is, though, is that
you're coming up, You're building up the scene, building up, building up,
and all of a sudden, boom, How does it move through you?
I mean I would be up walking around as much as possible to kind
of shake it off. Yeah, a little bit. And my husband knows
which days I'm writing in a way that he can't interact with me for a
little bit afterwards. I have to sort of It takes a lot to get
into it, and then it takes a lot to come out of it too.
It's almost like diving or something like that. You know, you've got
to swim down and then come back up slowly. Writing is such a muscle,
and at first it can be really weak and a little bit rusty,
and then as I carry on in the books, I get better and better
and faster and faster. I'm a little more unhinged. Probably do you believe
that books are not written but words are? In other words, one word
has to lead to the next one. Absolutely absolutely. I mean we can
write beautiful sentences and lovely turns of phrase, but it needs to amount to
something, and I think books are definitely more than some other parts. One
of the things you talked about was your husband, And that's one thing that
listeners don't understand is that relationship with those that are in our house with us.
When we go into that room or into that zone, it's not that
we're disconnecting from our love for them. It's like, go let them be
them. Just do you have that kind of a relationship, Just let me
create yeez. Yes. And I'm a little lucky in that the structure of
our lives really is conducive to my work and his work. He works out
of the house. I work from home for the most part, the person
I interact with the most isn't a person. It's my dog. But it's
lovely because then I get to work all day, be by myself, be
in my own little world, and when he comes home, I'm sort of
ready to interact with other people. Well, no, I totally get having
the dog in there, because Jasse is with me at all times. The
problem is when I go out there in the real world, I want my
dog to be with me. But it's like, ah, I got to
have my little buddy with me. I know. I mean, I'm on
a book tour right now, and all I can think is I wish my
dog was right here. Yeah. Yeah. So when you have a this,
first of all, this is not a shallow battle. Listeners need to
understand that that this is a real, honest to god, ruthless enemy that's
in here, you know, a demon God. How do you envision that?
Because as a writer, my first wife would sit there and get pictures
of who she thought was playing that role this one. Where did the image
come from? I think it's a little bit internal, and we all have
sort of that amorphous shape in our heads of something that's almost too terrifying to
really perceive fully. So in the story, I tried to hold on to
that idea of that thing you glimpse out of the corner of your eye,
and if you look at it fully, you'll never you'll never be able to
look away again. So I wanted to give those flashes and sort of let
the audience fill in the blanks themselves, because that makes it all the more
terrifying and personal. Writers are always working on the next project. Can you
talk about that next one? Hah. I'm in the middle of working on
a book proposal for what will hopefully be my adult debut. Up until now,
I've written strictly young adult and maybe a little bit of crossover with realm
breaker, but this is going to be firmly in the adult space and in
our real world. It's going to ideally be a historical fiction. But I'm
figuring that out because in the past I've only ever written a whole book and
then turned around and tried to figure out what to do with it. Or
I've just said, hey, here's what I want to write, and now
I'm sort of in uncharted territory. Wow, I'm just glad you gave yourself
permission to actually write because so many people aren't writing these days, and you
know, we need your seeds to you know, to give us some fruit,
and you're definitely doing that. Well. Thank you so much. I
mean, so many people say, oh, I would just write if I
had the time, or if I had this or that, And I know
so many authors who work against so many more restrictions than I have and still
make it happen. So I feel like, if you've got a story to
tell, you have to do it. I love it. Please come back
to this show anytime in the future. The door is always going to be
open for you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. You
bet you'd be brilliant today. Okay, thank you