Speaker 1: Hi, Roberts Arrow, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Good?
Speaker 1: How are you fantastic? Let's talk about them aducent protocol.
Speaker 2: Dude, I would love that.
Speaker 1: You have got to be one of the most oh
my god, precise writers in the way of describing things
in the most simple, honest way that this is for everybody.
It's not just a guide book. I mean, everybody can
pick this book up and take something with it.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: What goes into that? What is your daily routine to
where you know? I'm because I mean you've got to
have that inner voice and you're going that's a little
bit too technical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I don't know. That's a great question.
Speaker 3: I think ultimately I kind of came out of the
minimalism school of writing, you know, like Amy Oull and
Tom Spenbauer and Shuck Polinox so and it's all about
like really stripped down, really specific detail.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I think that's maybe the best I got there.
Speaker 1: This is the type of writing that really does create
conversation in the way of saying because everybody goes, what
are you reading today, and you go, you got to
read this one. So it's almost like the way we
react when it comes to binge watching TV shows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I mean, I mean, I just want
to write books that are fun and appealing and entertaining,
but also have something a little bit more that you
can dig your teeth into, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean, that's so funny you say that
the entertaining because you do have humor in this. I mean,
and it's like, I mean, you know, comedians spend a
lifetime crafting their jokes. How how do you put? Does it?
Speaker 3: Is?
Speaker 2: It? Is it?
Speaker 1: Do you rely on stream thinking to put you know,
that that little bit of humor in there?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: I think that's uh, it's a very natural, uh progression
of my voice, you know, because because I could be
a bit of a wise guy. But I think it's
it's really you know, humor is such an important tool
for writers because the thing is is if you can
make a reader laugh, you can make them trust you,
and if.
Speaker 2: They trust you, you can take them anywhere. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So did you know while writing Assassins Anonymous that you
were going to be leading us to the MEDUSA Protocol?
Speaker 3: I mean, look, every book I write, I just assume
it's the last thing I'm ever going to write. You know,
I always have that feeling of like, oh, I've got
no words left, I'm done.
Speaker 2: You know, this is garbage until someone tells me otherwise.
I mean, right from the.
Speaker 3: Jump, I kind of knew that this had series potential
because you've got all these assassins who.
Speaker 2: Are in a recovery program, who are.
Speaker 3: All, you know, quirky, different, interesting characters who have their
own past and their own traumas and their own specialties.
So yeah, I just I really wanted to revisit it,
and I was really happy that my publisher was open
to letting me do that.
Speaker 1: Well aster it, you paint her to be pretty darn strong.
She's staying faithful, she doesn't want to kill anybody, but
yet she wants to get the hell out of that prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's tough.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the fun things about writing these
books is that you've got these characters that are just
such a fishing killers that they can end something in
an instance, but they have this newfound sense of self
worth and of not wanting to go down that pathway.
So it creates all these challenges of like, how do
I get these people out of these situations without killing somebody?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: In the chapter called Mark, you talk about that box
of fried rice. That is my go to food, that's
my comfort food.
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 1: How special fried rice? What are we talking about when
it comes to your fried rice?
Speaker 2: Oh? How special?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And that's the thing.
Speaker 3: I feel like a lot of places don't advertise the
house special.
Speaker 2: You have to ask for it.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what It's always the best. Yeah. See that
that's me. Is that connection to that reader? Because I
mean to identify with just fried rice and it's just
mentioned in it. It's like, yes, this guy, he's one
of us. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing too.
Speaker 3: It's like, you got these characters who are you know,
Mark is supposed to be the deadliest killer in the world,
which we can't identify with that, you know, But if
he's like, if he likes snacks, if he likes food,
if he likes watching movies, those are things we can
identify with.
Speaker 1: So what we're you doing in your everyday world to
to do the olives on a pizza as a signal
to Mark that it's like, hey, hey, hey, something's not
right here.
Speaker 3: Oh that's just because olives are like the worst topping
to go on a pizza. Just just olives are terrible.
I don't understand why people eat them. But it was
one of those things that you know, it was funny too.
Speaker 2: So yeah, in the.
Speaker 3: Book, Astra is trying to get a coded message to
the team to let them know that she's alive. And
luckily I was able to go back and make a
reference about that in the first book because we were
still in edits.
Speaker 2: So I look a lot smarter than I really am.
Speaker 1: Okay, that explains the continuity then, because I was going
to ask you, how did you connect these two books together?
So well, because you know how readers are. We'll go
into a book, we're into a story, a series, and
we'll start picking things apart.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and look like someone's going to call me
on something and say, oh, you did this, but it's
supposed to be like that, and that's just kind of
the name.
Speaker 2: Of the game. But yeah, no, I.
Speaker 3: Again, this is one of those happy situations where I
feel like it's coming together. It feels so second nature
that I'm just like, yeah, you know, I got this.
Speaker 1: What is your writing discipline are you? Are you writing
in the morning, because I have to at seven o'clock
in the morning. I've got to be behind a pan
that see.
Speaker 3: That's really cool. I can't do that for me. I
tend to work in big binges. And it's also it's
dependent on so many things. It's like, you know, if
my daughter doesn't have school, I'm not going to write,
Like we're gonna go David Busters and play.
Speaker 2: Video games, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's always the way I like to describe it
is that the work gets done or it doesn't, you know.
Speaker 2: And that's the only thing to me.
Speaker 1: The matters how do you return to a normal life,
because I know that when I disappear with writing, I'm
in that zone and it takes me a couple of
seconds to really connect with my real world.
Speaker 2: I think. Again, it's kind of a function of like,
this is.
Speaker 3: A lesson I learned when I when I had a kid,
you know, because I used to For me, the writing
process used to be really precious. It had to be protected,
it had to be you know, there were rituals, and
then you have a kid and you're.
Speaker 2: Like nope, nope, all of that goes out the window.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, she's napping, I have one hour to write.
I need to write in that hour.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, yeah, well that means I mean, because when
I do things like that, I call that stream thinking.
I don't have time to mess around with captain perfectionists.
I've got to be able to invest in stream thinking.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and look like all my first drafts are
just the worst piles.
Speaker 2: Of hot barbage you've ever seen in your life.
Speaker 3: But that's the point of a first draft is you
got to get it on the page. It's like it's
like you're a sculptor and you're working in clay, right
you have to have a big mount to clay on
the table before you can shape it into something. It's
just making that clay and getting it all loaded up there.
Speaker 2: That's the hard part.
Speaker 1: I had an editor tell me one time that it
was like, you know, get just get it out. It's
my job to do the editing, not your job.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: Wow Wow. So then when here's what I want to
talk about the book cover, is that a monarch butterfly
on the knife? I believe it is, yeah, because I
mean that right away. I mean, it's it's almost like
what Peter Max told me one time, you put things
inside your paintings that take your eye away from what
you think that thing is about, and so I'm attracted
to the butterfly. But then all of a sudden, the
rest of the of the book cover comes into play.
So there are a lot of thought has gone into
this book cover.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the book covers are designed by a guy named
Tal Gretzky, and he's one of the archives over at
Hanging Random House, and he is.
Speaker 2: Just so good. I mean, this is such a cool
visual style for the series and the butterfly.
Speaker 3: I was a little surprised by because and it was
because he wanted something with a little bit of a
feminine element since this book is now focusing a little
bit more on Asterid, and I thought it was just
a smart and clever way to do that.
Speaker 2: So it's a man, I feel lucky.
Speaker 3: I've never gotten a bad cover, but these are truly
like some beautiful special covers that he's made.
Speaker 1: And on the inside of this cover, first of all,
congratulations on your success as a writer. And because most
of the time you find out what the author has
written in the back of the book, I'm glad that
you're you're promoting yourself in the front of the book
saying hey, by the way, thanks for buying this book.
But there's other ones you can add to your collection.
Speaker 3: Now, I'm not mad about that. It's wild to look
at that and be like, man like that. I've been
doing this for a minute.
Speaker 1: All right, Who is Todd? I want to know who
Todd is? Because you obviously, like you said, you were
watching you know, watching him, you learned a lot, so
you got to tell me who Todd is?
Speaker 2: Sure? So, so Todd is the person I dedicated the
book to. He is Todd Robinson.
Speaker 3: He is the author of The Hard Bounce and the
editor of, or the former.
Speaker 2: Editor of thug Lit.
Speaker 3: Thug Lit isn't active anymore, but it was a short
story magazine for crime fiction.
Speaker 2: And he is. He's one of my best friends.
Speaker 3: But you know, thug Lit was so important to the
crime fiction community, especially now because there's really not a
lot of options anymore if you're writing short stories. But
Todd initially published me. He published Sean Cosby, s A. Cosby,
He published Jordan Harper. You know, all these authors who
are just kind of a big deal now. You know,
he saw their potential when they were first getting started,
and he is such a good friend and an incredible editor.
Speaker 2: Well, what's funny is that s. A.
Speaker 3: Cosby has a book this album too, called King of Ashes,
and he also dedicated the book to Todd had.
Speaker 2: Two books dedicated to him this month.
Speaker 1: See, I always want to talk about the ones that
get the dedication because as readers, they just they just
fly over and it's like, no, I want to know
the story. I want to know because to me, that
helps me understand the author who is sharing the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, And there's always that part of me
that's like I want to write like a whole essay
about how great Todd is.
Speaker 1: But there is more with Rob Heart coming up next
did name of the book the Medusa Protocol. We're back
with Rob Hart. We do have something in common. I
love for Tick not Han. I mean, oh my god,
we should be able to hold our suffering and look
deeply into it, hold it tenderly and learn from it.
Tick not Han, That man, through his words has taught
me so much about being a creative person.
Speaker 3: He really is just such a beautiful thinker. And that
was one of the fun things about the book. About
these books in particular is obviously I've got my epigraph quotes,
but I like putting other quotes in two in part
because so much of recovery is quotations, is you know,
sayings and.
Speaker 2: Stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Do you find yourself traveling to the areas that you
speak of inside your stories?
Speaker 2: I try to the best that I can.
Speaker 3: A lot of this book is set in Salth Paulo,
which I, you know, wanted to go to and just
didn't have the opportunity.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 3: So part of the first book is set in Singapore,
which I've spent time there and that was a that
was a ton of fun.
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow. So when did it hit you the idea?
I mean, because my last book hit me while walking
through a South Park mall here in Charlotte and you
just go, crap, oh God, this means I'm going to
dedicate the next two years on this.
Speaker 3: Well, for for assassins, it was very much. For the
longest time, I've wanted to write a book about assassins in.
Speaker 2: Like a group therapy program. And then there was just
one day it was a.
Speaker 3: Friend of mine was talking about being in recovery and
it just clicked with me.
Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, that's it.
Speaker 3: That idea would really work by putting it because the
thing about the recovery process is that it includes an
amn's process, and I'm like, oh, what does an amen's
process look like for someone who professionally kill people?
Speaker 2: You know, that's got to be interesting.
Speaker 1: Is there really an assassin's anonymous?
Speaker 3: I mean, look, the world is a big and fascinating place,
like maybe, but I kind of feel like if there was,
someone probably would have knocked on my door and been like, hey,
you got to knock this.
Speaker 2: On, right.
Speaker 1: I've been with Mark Greene many, many, many times. When
I saw his name on the front cover of your book,
I knew exactly this was my book.
Speaker 2: He's a good dude, appreciate in taking the time.
Speaker 1: Oh oh my god. I mean, I mean creative circles
when it comes to writers. I mean it's amazing to
sit down with other authors and just share and swapshop
basically just just share your story.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, I mean that's that's the best part about
going to like conventions and stuff. That's like they may
be expensive, and you know, they may be you know,
sometimes a little hard on the body in terms of
you know, staying up late and all the traveling.
Speaker 2: But sometimes you just need that.
Speaker 3: You need to refill the creative well, you know, you
need to connect with other writers, and remember why it
is we're doing this?
Speaker 1: How did you learn such pacing with your words? Because
we live in this age where there are so many
run on sentences and crazy thoughts. Like my wife is
reading a book right now. She goes, she says, I'm
glued to it because I don't understand it.
Speaker 2: Really, that's interesting. I kind of like that.
Speaker 3: No for me again, like I've always been sort of
like a more minimalist writer, but also like, you know,
I remember reading authors like Ken.
Speaker 2: Berwin who like or like James l.
Speaker 3: Roy is very much like that too, just like really
short static sentences that I think serve to kind of pull.
Speaker 2: You through the narrative. You know, they're they're a little
bit blunter, so they feel a little bit faster.
Speaker 1: Are you tapping into a computer while you're doing this
or are you handwriting it first?
Speaker 2: Oh god, you know, handwriting sounds so romantic.
Speaker 3: And then the idea of then having to type it
into a computer after having writ and it drives me insane.
Speaker 2: No. No.
Speaker 3: I Also I used to be a reporter, so man,
I type fast. Like people get mad at me because
they're like, how do you work so quickly?
Speaker 2: And I'm like I used. I used to have to
do a page one.
Speaker 3: Story in like ten minutes before the press is rang.
You know, you kind of learned how to move quickly
at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm convinced that the reason why my computer keeps
jamming up is because I'm tapping too fast on that
thing and it can't keep up with me.
Speaker 2: Hey. You know what, though, that's a good problem to
have when you're.
Speaker 1: When you're building characters such as Mark and Astrid, are
you envisioning the actors that are going to play them?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: No, that that that I feel like if I do that,
then I'm going to become to behold into someone else's uh,
you know, way of.
Speaker 2: Speaking or patterns or whatever.
Speaker 3: I kind of like like the the only I'll tell
you this, there's only one character I've ever written that I.
Speaker 2: Had an actor in mind while I was writing them, and.
Speaker 3: That was Kenji, who is Mark's sponsor and Assassin's anonymous.
Speaker 2: And for him it.
Speaker 3: Would be hero Yuki Sonata, who is a phenomenal Japanese actor.
He was in Shogun. You know, if the movie happens,
I'm going to be lobbying very hard that they go
to him for that role.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I've always wondered what, what does what is
the voice of the of the characters inside your head
sound like? And because by the time it gets to us,
then it's and it's the voices in our head that
will bring Asterid and Mark together. And I often wonder
how close we are together and are they compared?
Speaker 2: See that that's an interesting question. I mean, it's impossible
to know.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, I'll tell you this, I
can't listen to my audio books, oh, because they make
me deeply uncomfortable because when because then I'm listening to
someone else read the voice that was in my head yep,
and I'm like, this doesn't sound right, this doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2: I do not consent to this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So on that I agree with you, because I'll
go from like pages your pages, and then I'll go
to audible and I'm going, ooh, that's a different emotion
because I'm at your pitch, volume, in.
Speaker 2: Tone exactly exactly so.
Speaker 3: But that's also kind of the cool thing about it.
It's like what people take from it. It's like, once
I'm done with it, it kind of becomes its own thing.
Speaker 1: Wow, all right, So what's next? I mean, because are
we going to get a third book or can you
talk about that yet?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely. The third book is submitted to my editor. It
is called Three hit Men and a Baby, and.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: It's a fun one and I'm curious to see what
she thinks. Like I'm in that space. I'm sure you
know this. It's like you finish your book again and.
Speaker 2: You're like, until someone else tells me this is okay,
it's not okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you do go do that hanging out and
wait for that.
Speaker 1: You go through that fear then before you send it
off to Todd. You know that little feeling in your stomach.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean I go through that feeling after the book
comes out, like you can show like I'll get like
a pile of great reviews and I'm still like, I
don't think this book.
Speaker 2: Is very good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so you've got the interperfectionists too, then.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, which is good. You know, it's not a
bad thing.
Speaker 3: It's like, as long as you're not too hard on yourself,
as long as you're getting.
Speaker 2: Your work done.
Speaker 3: But it just means that you want you want to
push yourself, you want better for yourself.
Speaker 1: Well, how many books a year are you doing? Because
I mean, like I mentioned before, my last one took
two years, and I think that's because I think it
was laziness. Because I guess you can push yourself harder.
Speaker 3: Right now, I'm on sort of like a two book
a year schedule because I've got so I've got The Assassins,
which is coming out in June.
Speaker 2: I'm on a June track for that.
Speaker 3: In January, I'm going to have a book called Detour,
which was co written with Jeff Rake, who is the
creator and showwridder of the TV show Manifest. Oh man,
so that is, and that's going to be a series too.
So for a little while, I'm going to be writing
two books a year. I don't know how I feel
about that yet.
Speaker 1: How do authors work on that when you're I mean,
he comes to you with ideas and then then you
work it out on zoom. I mean, how is it
that you're you're able to do that?
Speaker 2: That was he came to me with a pitch.
Speaker 3: Well, well, I mean his agent came to me first
because I know his agent and said.
Speaker 2: The dude is looking for a co writer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we met and we hit it off famously.
Speaker 2: Great dude, super awesome.
Speaker 3: And he comes from the TV world, which TV is
a collaborative medium, so he understands how that works. So yeah,
you know, he came to me with this big pitch
and I went through it and I said, hey, here's
all the stuff that I love.
Speaker 2: Here's all the stuff I would do differently, here's all
the stuff I'm going to suggest.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 2: We felt good about it.
Speaker 3: We ripped back and forth for a little while, and
then we just kind of started. You know, I'll write
a whole bunch, I'll send it to him. He'll do
edits and add stuff and take stuff out, and it's
a lot of back and forth.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. That usually when I have to go
and do the self editing and stuff like that, it's
like it'd be like the Medusa Protocol Part one and
then Part two would be the next edit, then part
three would be the next edit, and it's like, okay,
which one of these edits is the right one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know we went through well, well, you know,
we didn't. I usually do.
Speaker 3: If I'm doing a book, I usually do four or
five editorial passes before it goes off to somebody. Okay,
with Detour, we got to do a little bit less,
but that was also we had the benefit of two
sets of eyes on it every time it was going
through the process.
Speaker 1: That's a comfortable position to be because in this way
it leads, you know, you can get you know, you
kind of just go back and forth with each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Wow, All right, where can people go to find out
more about you, Rob and everything that you're doing it?
Because I've got your book right here in front of me.
I know what your books are. But I know listeners
they you know, when they go to their book clubs
and things or where they're talking in a circle for
the summer, they want I know more about what's going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, well, So Madusa Protocol comes out June twenty fourth.
Speaker 2: Assassin's Anonymous.
Speaker 3: The paperback is currently the June Mystery and thriller pick
at Barnes and Noble, So you can walk into any
Barnes and Noble and there's.
Speaker 2: Going to be a giant pile of them right in
the front. Ye. Then I have a.
Speaker 3: Website which is Robwheart dot com and from there you
can find my Instagram, my Blue Sky, my substack and
all that nonsense.
Speaker 1: So if you don't like listening to your voice when
it comes to the audio is part of the story.
How do you feel when you walk into a Barnes
and Noble and your book is staring at you with
a moment you walk in that door.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's the most amazing feeling. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, because I'll tell you this late like you get it,
like you usually you walk into a bookstore, You're lucky
if they have like maybe a.
Speaker 2: Book or two of yours.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, And now with this promotion, I've been to over
a dozen Barns and Nobles to sign stock for them,
and I walk in and there's a pile of twenty thirty,
forty fifty copies and I'm like, this is not a
bad life.
Speaker 1: Well, you've got to come back to this show anytime
in the future. The door is always going to be
open for you, sir.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, you too. You have a great day.