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Good morning, Tracy. How are
you doing today? Hi am good,

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just good. Here you are with
this gigantic, oh my god, the

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book that people are going to be
reading. You've got a production coming,

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I mean it should be. I'm
fantastic and I want to share it with

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the world. Right, You're right, I am fantastic. You are correct.

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You've put something together here that I'll
bet you that nobody ten, fifteen,

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twenty years ago would have predicted.
And yet here it comes, It's

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flowed through you, and now it's
reaching us as viewers as well as readers.

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Right yeah, I mean, you
know, I think it's just luck.

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And you know, being in the
right place at the right time kind

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of that has gotten me to where
I am with this particular story. Being

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in the right place at the right
time. Now now you have my attention

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in the way that that because I
mean, as a writer, so many

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writers are you know, they're told
no, no, no, But but

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now they they they're saying yes to
you. And and and here it comes,

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you know, pirates and mermaids and
and the one thing that that's always

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been fascinating is that we love the
bad boys and we love the bad girls

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as well. What is it when
when they get together like that, the

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pirates and the mermaids. Oh yeah, I mean yeah, that's definitely a

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popular pairing. I have learned pirates
and mermaids. I think you know a

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lot of kids really really love pirates. They love this idea of um,

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you know, like the kind of
traditional swashbuckling pirate. They love how pirates

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they are and gir and that sort
of thing. And they also love the

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fantasy a mermaid and mermaids being these
these creatures that can really do anything they

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want right under the sea. So
they seem like a really good pairing because

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of course they both live out on
the ocean. But what I tried to

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do with mermaid and pirate was kind
of introduced the idea that, yes,

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they both love the ocean there you
know, they live out on the ocean.

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But they really do come from two
different worlds. So you have mermaid

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who has like her own language actually
has the sort of watery which and pirate

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have his own language. And what
happens when the two of them come together

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and cannot who I communicate even though
they find themselves in a difficult position together

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Like what happened? That's that's really
what I was going for. How did

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you create those those two personalities,
because I mean, I mean it's I

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mean, did you bring them together
as a collaboration right on the spot or

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did you write out each part and
then and then figure out a way that

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where the editor could do that?
So funny enough, I tend to have

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a lot of toys in my office, and I switch out my toys all

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the time, you know, and
like how different toys around because I have

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so many that I can't have them
all in the office all the time save

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the time because my office is kind
of small. So one day I actually

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had a stuffed mermaid and a stuffed
pirate on the chair in my office,

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on an arm chair in my office, and I looked at them and I

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thought to myself, huh, I
wonder what would happen if the two of

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them had to try to communicate.
And it occurred to me almost immediately that

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they would not have the same language. That's actually how the story started.

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It started with two stuffies on my
armchair in my office. I had the

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two of them immediately from the very
beginning, and then it was just like

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working out, like, you know, what kind of problems would these two

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have together, you know what kind
of trouble to these two creatures get into

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over the course of the story.
So it was a matter of figuring out

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all of the little scrapes they could
get into. But also the funnest part

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for me was figuring out their language
and like how they try to communicate with

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each other and how it just does
not work ever, because they don't speak

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the same tongue.