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Overview
Today’s guest is Tory Element who has co-authored a book with Jim Kukral called Rock Rain. This is Tory’s first book and we discuss writing with a co-author.
Tory is retired Air Force and has been working as a fitness trainer along with writing.
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One of his favorite book series:
He also is a fan of Auntie’s Books
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TRANSCRIPT
Stephen 0:45
Sorry, welcome. official opening of the podcast, even though we’ve been yakking for like 15 minutes. Yeah, good morning, Steve, how you doing? I’m doing great. So let’s get started talking author stuff. Tell us a little bit about you and who you are outside of writing outside of your book.
Tory 1:07
Um, two things. I’m retired Air Force I did 22 years in the Air Force retired about 10 years ago. And I decided my last year in airports, I was going to start started getting more into fitness. So I wouldn’t got certified as a fitness trainer. And kind of been doing that since. But the same time I also decided I wanted to write the stuff I love to read, which is sci fi kind of Action, Adventure stuff. So my last year in Air Force, I started, started writing, and then quickly learned how much I didn’t know about writing. spent the next 10 years learning about writing.
Stephen 1:48
Nice. Well, I’ll get back to that in two seconds, because I have a great question on that one. So the fitness, you and I were talking about this off the air, so to say, Tell everyone a little bit about what you’re doing with that where you’re going with your fitness?
Tory 2:04
Well, I’ve always been fit in the military, you kind of have to maintain a certain fitness level. But my dad died early from cancer. And I think I think that kind of helped me get more serious about my own fitness. So I got into more fitness. And then I started a thing. Once I got out of the Air Force, I’m like, What am I gonna do? I did, I did have a business degree that I really was interested in using. So I just got certified and started doing personal training and then mind a group training. And that’s I’ve been doing ever since here in Spokane and Fairchild Air Force Base in a local gym down the road here. So a lot of classes, hit style, and cycling. And then you know, one on one, training my, my specialty and my stuff I have to concentrate on is weight loss or fat weight loss, help people lose weight, and move better, basically, is what I concentrate on.
Stephen 3:05
And we’re talking, we’re both 15 ish, especially for people at our age group. If you’ve learned sedentary life, now it’s starting to catch up to you and you need to. And that also affects a lot of authors. Because obviously, you’re gonna be sitting a lot if you write
Tory 3:24
exactly and and I’m developing a online fitness course, with authors very much in mind.
Stephen 3:33
I love that. Because that’s what this is all about authors. Besides the fitness, you said you what you got into writing, you’ve spent a large part of the last 10 years learning to write. And I find that significant because we’ve probably both been on the forums, listen to other podcasts with authors like, well, I just sat down over the weekend and wrote my first 3000 or 300,000 word book. Now how do I publish it? You know, several? Why? Why did you want to get into writing but you chose to learn? You said, obviously you said you know that you learned that there’s things you don’t know. But I don’t think a lot of people get that. So I guess what I’m asking is why did you spend so much time learning rather than putting something out there already?
Tory 4:29
That that’s a really interesting question. I’ve had 10 years to reflect. But I distinctly recall, the first time I sat down to start writing, you know, this kind of half, half baked idea. I realized that I had no idea how to even get started, let alone finish something. So I just I started taking some notes. And I started looking at, you know, where can I get more information. And that was about the time this is oh nine That, you know, the indie author had concept had kind of just kind of just started, you know, we had the Kindle, and the iPad, that were really cool ideas for ebooks, I used to have a ton of books, and, you know, in the military and move a lot. So I’ve, I found myself every three years packing up, like two or 300 books, you know, in boxes and moving them wherever. That’s not a, that’s not a wasted effort. Yet, because books are cool, I love the artwork. That’s why I collected books, really, for the stories and then the artwork. But you know that that wasn’t sustainable, I’d love the idea of having all my books on a device. But I also realized that there’s lots of, you know, magazine articles, and then there was podcasts, and then there were blogs. So I started looking for all those to learn how to write, you know, all different things, subjects on the craft of writing. And that’s kind of where it started. And, and, actually, it started back when I started. I mean, I mean, let me backtrack a little bit, I decided to start writing because every blurb, back cover copy I read sounded the same. You know, it was basically, you know, the hero saves Earth from aliens. It every, every, every back cover sounded the same, like, there’s got to be more to life. And then this, you know, I now realize why they all sound the same. But at the time, I’m like, I’m tired of the same, I want something different. So that’s why I decided to write my own stuff. And hit now here we are, 10 years later. It took me a while to get there. So I took my time to learn piece by piece, I have a thick skull. So it takes a while for me. But once I learned it, I learned a pretty good. And I just kept, you know, kept practicing, kept writing a little bit here. And there took me by four years to write the first book. And that was that’s because, you know, I still had a day job. So it wasn’t my my primary, you know, occupation sort of thing. And I wasn’t making money at it yet. So there’s no big rush, don’t I mean, so. That’s how I got started.
Stephen 7:20
And I think a lot of authors that would listen to this podcast, are in the same boat, have a day job, one, right? Vote feel, you know, everybody was so far beyond me. Everybody’s better than me. And that’s not true. You started just like everyone else at the beginning. And I think that’s great. Also, sometimes people think, Oh, I have to have an MFA or some degree, or you’re in the Air Force, you had a business degree, nothing to do with writing fiction. The resources are out there to learn all of this, it seems now with books and podcasts and the internet.
Tory 7:58
Yeah. And not Yeah, they weren’t directly related. And I learned early on, I think it was specifically from Joanna Penn’s podcast that you don’t have to do it overnight. Right? There’s no, there’s nobody saying you have to write and publish, you know, in 30 days, you can take your time, learn what you want to do, then what you want to learn, enjoy the process along the way. It’s the same thing with fitness. You don’t you know, people don’t get overweight overnight, and they don’t lose weight overnight, it takes a while. And I tell my clients, you know, learn to enjoy the journey, not the destination.
Stephen 8:37
Right? Yeah. That’s how I approached it. And funny, you said that, because I always laughed when I was younger, mostly working in the office, you’d get the ladies that would say, oh, we’re exercising at lunch, then you’d see them in the parking lot. And they’d walk around the parking lot, like three times talking the whole time, then say, well, we worked out and then they’d eat a candy bar is a reward. Or they would say, Well, I walked in the parking lot yesterday and I didn’t lose a single pound. That’s not how it works. Now we have to kind of get it get into it to understand that I think writing now is kind of the same thing. You know, people think oh, I’ll write a book everyone a clamber to my door. And you know, I’ll be super rich. And that’s the same people that then get on all the forums and stuff saying, hey, go buy my book. And there’s 3000 people going, Hey, we all work on ourselves, go lay. You know, I, I love that you took the time to really get into it and learn about it without feeling like you had to get a degree.
Tory 9:38
Well, I kind of went into it, not knowing either side of that issue. But after listening to Joanna pin is almost like, you know, she told me to get myself permission to go ahead and take the time I needed you know, to do it right because you don’t you don’t want to rush something and publish or you know, crap. Product just like right, just like Ford, you know, when they, when they produced a Pinto. It was a crap product. But they didn’t take the time to do it. Right. And if you know the Pinto story, it didn’t end well.
Stephen 10:12
Right. Right. That’s the butt of many jokes from our era, our age group. Exactly, yeah, yeah. Okay. So now you’ve been at this about 10 years, tell us about your book, and any other stuff you’ve published and written?
Tory 10:30
Okay, so the first book I wrote took about four years, I finished it in 2016. It’s not going to be published as is because it was, I consider it a practice run, which is good. Yeah. So I do plan to rewrite that and, and, and someday turn it into a four book series. But that’s where I got started. And then I, then I hooked up with Jay Thorne, and the career author, podcast, him and Zach. And they kind of really kind of boosted my, my author, self, you know, author, indie, author career, I got more involved with a few in person, you know, conferences, and started meeting, some people started networking. As much as I hate the concept and the act. It’s hard to do for me. But it, but it did produce some really good connections and some really good confidence boosters. And then I, that’s how I met Jim Kook role. And then that led to the collaboration project that we’re now almost ready to publish.
Stephen 11:38
Tell us about that book. And let’s talk a little bit about the collaboration.
Tory 11:45
I come from, you know, a career in the Air Force, 22 years in the Air Force. And nothing in the military gets done without it without teamwork. So I’ve really learned to, you know, appreciate that and like it a lot. So I like working with other people, whether it’s by fitness business, or, or working with, you know, this this book project. So Jim and I got together. And it was his idea he reached out and just kind of put the offer out there. I was one of the people that responded. And my goal was to not only do a teamwork project, but really to hook up with someone with a different skill set that I lacked myself, and one that he lacked, that I had, and we put those together. And that was that was one of the major goals was to collaborate on opposite skill sets. Does that make sense?
Stephen 12:42
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think that’s important to say that, because a lot of authors ask about, what are we doing to write a novel with somebody? How do you do that? What How do you handle it? And I think your approach is maybe not totally unique. But it’s important because there are too many cases where people work with somebody, and they’re like, Oh, my God, I can’t stand them. Now, I can’t believe this. So you guys both brought different strengths to the table for the story?
Tory 13:12
Yeah, that was one aspect. And I thought about it a lot. If you go in, if you want to do a collaboration project, you you have, it’s a mindset. You can’t go into it thinking, Well, I’m going to do this, this and this. And if the person doesn’t like it, well, then it was won’t work. That’s completely the wrong attitude. You have to go into a collaboration project. With attitude that we’re working together, there’s two sets of opinions. And there’s no right or wrong answer to anything. And as long as you do that, as long as you stay flexible and have an open, you know, minded attitude, it’ll work. Anything else in a won’t work.
Stephen 13:53
Right. I agree. I haven’t written with anybody, but I can definitely see that. And I know Jay and Zack, talk about that quite a bit. So how does it work between you and Jim? Did you guys sit down and plan the whole book out? Who did most of the writing who did editing and or did you take parts out? who developed characters all of that jazz?
Tory 14:16
Yeah, we had a we had a handful of zoom meetings. And then we had one meeting in person at a that was in kind of an in conjunction with a separate event, I actually flew out to to Cleveland, and over over chips and salsa and tequila shots, Jim and I had, you know, kind of a planning meeting. And we we first of all laid out, you know, our strengths, and what our primary roles would be. And then we laid out and then we started working on what kind of story wanted to tell, so it kind of evolved over a series of meetings. And you like most plans, the final product wasn’t exactly what we planned. But it’s pretty close. And that and that’s fine. Nothing ever going to. I mean, unless you’re like a super meticulous, Angel individual, no plan will end up exactly as planned. That’s just impossible. But if it’s close, that’s fine. You know, plans are a guide, not a written in stone sort of sort of thing. So, but the major thing was identifying our strengths and our roles. And then we also included, you know, what we would do if, if it didn’t work out? So we had a contract also, that we that we both agreed upon and signed? Yeah,
Stephen 15:34
that’s right. And I think that’s important too, because I think a lot of new authors miss that point. You, agent, co authors, whatever, you should have some sort of contract. It’s like putting a lock on your door, it keeps honest people honest. So some of the hassle?
Tory 15:52
Well, it’s, it’s, it helps you get in your mind that, you know, you have responsibilities, there’s more than just you involved. And if it doesn’t work out, you have an amicable exit strategy. And you have to keep in mind to, you know, not take it too personal, not get upset and realize that there’s no more than one person involved. And also be be okay with if it doesn’t work out. No problem move on.
Stephen 16:23
Right. So when you started writing, who came up with the main story idea? And who started writing the most? or How did that come out? How did you handle that?
Tory 16:36
We decided that I was going to do most of writing in Jim’s gonna do most of the marketing. And then, but the idea came from Jim, he, he was he he spoke about this a lot on his on the summer book show podcast. You know, people love their convenience. And this, this current pandemic, in retrospect, kind of played right into the theme as we had already developed, which is, you know, people are stuck inside. And now we have this delivery culture emerging. And that’s actually what is happening right now in real life. Right. But we took it further, Australia takes place roughly 50 years in the future, where a large part of the everyday infrastructure and economy is done by delivery robots and drones, of all shapes and sizes for just about everything. So that was kind of the basis of the of the story, all driven by artificial intelligence.
Stephen 17:44
And where’s the story at right now? stage?
Tory 17:50
Yeah, we just we just put out the offer for arc readers. So it’s been written, it’s been edited, once we got the cover, we’ve got the blurb. Derrick Murphy did a fantastic job on the cover. Brian Cohen’s company did the did the blurb did a really fantastic job. So we just literally, like a week or two ago put in it’s like, what, 12? November today. So we put the call out for arcs, and we’re just kind of gathering people’s feedback, you know, good, bad or indifferent. And, and then we’ll go from there, as we get, you know, a couple weeks couple, I mean, a few reviews, we’ll go from there. So I’m not sure if I’m gonna be able to launch soon. Or we have to go back to the, you know, revision board and and do that, right. What are the two?
Stephen 18:42
Well, the photo scoring on that I’m one of your arc readers. So I’ve got the book. Oh, a couple chapters into it. Reading. I like the concept a lot. Especially the AI stuff. You know, I’m a computer guy.
Tory 18:55
Yeah, I suspect that it’s, it’s gonna need a little bit more work. But I’ve only gotten a few reviews yet. So I’m not sure if that’s indicative of you know, one thing or another. So we want to get a few more, I hope.
Stephen 19:10
Yeah. I’ll push on it and try and get back to you. Oh, great. Thanks. Yeah. Well, just another slight brag on my part. I guess. I’m an hour away from both Jay Thorne and Jim. So I love living where I live in that regard. Let me so that that makes it nice for me, I guess. Yep. Do you see him often? Well, not not lately. Um, I’ve run into Joe and several things when he does library talks and stuff like that. But I haven’t met Jim face to face we just a couple emails here and there.
Tory 19:46
Oh, gotcha. Yeah, yeah, he’s a Jim’s had a hell of a year this year. I mean, the the pandemic started and then I think he had a tree fell on his house and Just what a couple months ago that he, they discovered he had some cancer. Yeah, he’s had a rough damn year this year. So he’s recovering. But you know, I, I pray and hope for his you know, total recovery. There’s just so unfair seams.
Stephen 20:16
And I agree. So you better make this book really good forum solly and get it out?
Tory 20:22
Well, that’s our planet. And that’s why I think we might have to go back and tweak it a little bit more. But we’ll we’ll take the time necessary to do that before we put it out there. So yeah.
Stephen 20:33
And what’s your book called? It’s called rock rain. Okay. Now, alright. So, during this process, you’ve already mentioned a little bit of this, but your writing itself, what have you learned? And what would you do different if you went back and started this book again?
Tory 20:53
If we had to start over again, right now, I would take a little bit more time and have a have a more solid outline. Because outline we sketched out, in retrospect was a little bit, a little bit too vague, I think. And then there’s, you know, there’s always a little bit of a default uncertainty when you have more than one author. Because now now you have two opinions, you know, two brains to, to experience levels or backgrounds. And I found myself, you know, constantly wondering, Well, what would Jim think? And, and I’m not, that’s fair or not, or not, that’s correct or not, or the right way to think about it. But that’s what happened. So I think, I think that was a little bit of a resistance tool that that worked its way into my kit. And it it, you know, it, it often is sometimes held things up. Does that make sense?
Stephen 22:00
Yeah, yeah. The, the thinking, not necessarily what’s the reality, but what’s in our own heads, keeps us back sometimes. And I say it that way. Because, you know, listening to all the different podcast talking to all the different authors I’ve known and meet at various events, that seems to be a large, common denominator with a lot of others, the imposter syndrome, am I good enough? Can I really do this? All of that the doubts creep in. Especially for new authors.
Tory 22:35
Yeah. And then if you’re doing a collab project, it’s, it’s, you know, that that intensity is doubled.
Stephen 22:42
Especially with someone like Jim, who’s a name that’s known within the circles,
Tory 22:47
right. And he’d been wanting to do a fiction project for a while. But you know, we, we both also still had day jobs. And, you know, we live three times zones apart. So getting together just like that was near impossible because of mostly because he’s, he’s a lot busier than I am. So it was, it wasn’t, it wasn’t super easy to get together just whenever we needed to. So, you know, a lot of things were stacked against us by by accident, really.
Stephen 23:20
But as you said to me earlier, you’re so used to the zoom calls, that is one benefit with all the tech we have, that you can schedule a zoom call and talk face to face and still get things done. We need holograms next. So hopefully, that’s coming. We do
Tory 23:35
yeah, and that or I’m still hoping for Hyperloop travel so I can get to, you know, the side of the country within a couple hours. So that going through the the harassment of the airports,
Stephen 23:47
right, we need Stargate and then we’ll be good. Well, yeah, I mean, what’s the holdup? Right, we shouldn’t have that by now. Somebody needs to invent that as easy as it said, Just do it. So it’s not quite out yet, are in gyms do all the marketing. But for you doing the writing, what do you use to do your writing? What software tools,
Tory 24:14
oh, I use Microsoft Word because that’s what I grew up with. And I like it, and I can easily use it. And if I want to move things around, I do each chapter scene with a separate document. You know, so I don’t have to scroll through, you know, 100 or 200 pages. So that’s, that’s, that’s where I start and I usually do it on my iPad to do the first drafting and then I’ll send that to my computer. And you know, do the rest of it on on the computer. As far as formatting the book, you know, I use drafted digital for that. It’s pretty easy to do. And I don’t do any formatting within Word. I’d keep it absolutely basic. No space. Is No, you know, paragraphs, no page number, none of that stuff i just i use just basic text 12 point, you know, times just to keep it super simple. I did figure out that you had to do a couple carriage returns. So the ebook version has a space. Okay, so that took a little bit of figuring out, which is fine. They’re there. Their support, customer service was really helpful with that regard. And then like I said, Jim did the blurb in the in the book cover, he helped help people do that. But we also use for the editing or innovative service that uses AI and software called. And that was a collaboration with first editing and fictionary. Have you ever heard of those?
Stephen 25:52
I’ve got fictionary actually a subscription?
Tory 25:55
Yeah, yeah, so a very useful kind of visual editing tool that you can easily move around between chapters and scenes and, and a whole host of other other, you know, metadata inside your book. So number of characters, the plot points, number of words per seeming, the whole list goes on. That’s a super awesome piece of software to use.
Stephen 26:22
I got a question on fictionary. But I got one on word first, you said that you write each chapter or scene in a different documents. So at the end of the book, you have like 30 or so documents, it does offer the ability somehow to combine those or look at them in like a binder or some some way. So you’re not going through a folder on your hard drive with different documents.
Tory 26:49
No, I just, yeah, I just do it manually. After I do all those separate chapters in separate documents, then I take you know, a day and format into one document. Okay, now, well, I’m the type person that I don’t mind doing that. I’m not so busy that, that I have to worry about, you know, using a different piece of software, or that will combine it automatically, I don’t really care about that stuff. I like having total control. And I don’t mind, you know, getting a glass of getting a beer and just cutting and pasting a whole bunch of times. I don’t mind that.
Stephen 27:29
Got it. Okay. And the more interesting thing is, I don’t know if you’ve ever dealt with this. But if you go with Ingram Spark, they have this new book builder, that they help create the whole print book. And the one method of getting things formatted correctly is each chapter being a separate document. So you upload a separate document for each chapter. And then you could reorder them or whatever. And you’re set up perfectly for that for getting things printed through Ingram spark with that.
Tory 28:02
Yeah, and that’s something that will, that’s probably one of the next steps right now our book that Jim and I are working on, it’s gonna be ebook only. But depending on, you know, on feedback and success, or lack of, we probably go that route for the for paperback version, eventually, I especially want to focus on, you know, I’m really impressed with Joanna’s plan. She goes, she goes wide and multi format. And that’s kind of my plan as well. So multi format means also not just ebook, but you know, large print, print books as well. Because I’ve noticed to myself, the older I get the worst my eyesight gets, right. And I, I frickin hate that because I fully suspect let me give you a secret here. I plan to live to be 120. But I probably blind by 90. So I’m not to learn to to dictate a book someday.
Stephen 29:03
Right. And that’s something I’d like to work on too. And I bet Jim has more problem agreeing with going wide? That’s probably definitely on his radar to do. You know, I’m
Tory 29:15
not sure. Lately, he’s been more focused on his health. So we haven’t, we haven’t we haven’t done a lot with the book. Because of that, and it’s more important for him to get, you know, recover and get healthy first,
Stephen 29:30
right.
Tory 29:31
But I actually think that once we launch, we’ll probably go Kay, you for the first 90 days.
Stephen 29:39
To do that.
Tory 29:40
Yeah, just to get like I kinda like a running start, so to speak, and then reevaluate. I’m actually a huge fan of going wide. Because I think I think Amazon is, is leaning towards treating authors like crap, right? A lot of their moves last year. appears, to me indicate less and less caring and support for the indie author.
Stephen 30:07
And I think, and I think like Kobo and drafted digital are jumping on that. And they’re trying really hard. But the reality, and I think you’re right. And I know Jim says it a lot on the show, and others do, too. You don’t want to have all your eggs in one basket, but right 90% of the market is in one basket, then you should have your eggs in that basket, at least. And I think it makes sense to go with, can you to start with and see how that goes. But I’ve heard that if you do like a series, and you end up pulling it out of K, you it actually ends up hurting you because the readers want all the books and they don’t want to then have to go look for stuff later elsewhere.
Tory 30:51
Yeah, and that’s where you start getting into, you know, an endless, endless rabbit holes of well, what if, and if I do that, what about this, and, and you can get totally lost in that. But part of part of my plan is not just for this one book, but for the other series I’m writing is to not only go wide, you know, platform and format wise, but also to get outside the US borders. Amazon may have an advantage here stateside, but that doesn’t mean they have advantage in the rest of planet because all places they don’t even exist. And that’s where a COBOL comes in. And a lot of other platforms. So my plan is to go fully, fully worldwide. And take advantage of you know, new and emerging technologies to translate the book as well as is distributed to you know, outside of the state. So yeah.
Stephen 31:47
And Google just announced that they’re doing 70% royalties. And, and every android phone comes with Google on it. And I was reading another news thing where there are several countries in the world now that they skipped over, everybody having desktops and laptops, and they went straight from barely having a phone to everything being done mobile. So they’re, you know, there’s billions of people with a Google and Android on their phone. So
Tory 32:19
if that makes total sense, because you know, who wants to carry around a desktop in their pocket? You know, nobody, right? Well,
Stephen 32:27
I’m a tech guy, and I do development and coding. So it’s difficult to do from a phone, but I can’t do it. Yeah,
Tory 32:34
that’s true. And I find it, I find it really interesting that, that people read books on their phone. You know, I have a phone, but it’s too damn small to read. So that’s never gonna happen with me. But a lot of people do. So yeah, it’s gonna be I think, advantageous for any author to eventually go, you know, multi language, multi platform, as many different avenues and outlets as possible, including libraries and their own website. So that’s, that’s, that’s the long term strategy for me.
Stephen 33:08
And I agree on looking into getting into that more. For me, I like middle grade, and it actually turns out that middle graders will want to get the physical book before they read it on ebook. So it’s definitely something I’ve looked at, and two of my kids have eye issues. So large print makes sense for me to get into, you know, cuz my kids would have needed that when they were younger. So, all these things, there’s just so many options, it can get overwhelming, definitely.
Tory 33:40
Yeah, and I think it also depends on an author’s you know, stage a new author, I think it does make a lot of sense to, you know, write three books and start out in K you mostly to get, you know, to kind of just grow your audience Get, get a little bit of recognition, gather reviews, maybe start, you know, generating some income. And then seriously consider, you know, as more books, as you as you write more books, seriously considered going wider and more platforms, it’s a step by step process. And it’s, it really has to be done, you know, auto by author, because everybody’s little bit different. But it has to be, you know, least thought out and, and plan made to follow
Stephen 34:30
and genre to, like, you know, middle grade, like I said, print books makes a lot of sense. But I don’t think necessarily romance may make as much sense because they seem to like these, the subscription model,
Tory 34:43
right? And that’s one of the tough things to do is people always say, you know, well know your audience and know your genre. But I’ve noticed there’s not a whole hell of a lot that actually teaches you how to do that out there. You really have to You had to look up, you know, you know, dozens of sources and kind of piecemeal all that together, because that’s just not intuitive. I don’t care who you are.
Stephen 35:07
I agree. That’s funny you say that, because I’ve actually been working on an article that addresses that exact issue. You know, everyone says, figure out your genre. But that’s as far as it goes, there’s no. How do you figure out your genre? And what, you know, all that? So?
Tory 35:24
Yeah, and the biggest one for me is is, you know, find your audience. Okay. Well, that makes sense to say that, and it’s a whole lot easier to say than do. But I have, I have really struggled to find any useful, coherent one location place to that, that shows you or just tells you or teaches you how to find your audience. That’s really elusive. And it might be out there. I don’t know. But so far. I’ve learned a little bit, but it certainly wasn’t easy. It sure as hell wasn’t all in one place.
Stephen 36:00
Right, definitely. And that’s something I’ve been exploring more of myself. So maybe next time we talk, we’ll both have a little more insight into that. Yeah, hopefully, come on Nita soon. So do you have any plans for a next book? Or what’s your thoughts for your next book?
Tory 36:23
I wrote this book. With two things in mind. One, I wrote it so it would be easy for a movie producer that wanted to make it into a movie. You know, so it’s not so it’s not so adventurous or so outlandish that it couldn’t be done on a on a visual basis. And then I also wrote it with an interesting backstory and, and possibility for two more stories. So it could be a three book trilogy. And, but that’ll all hinge on how the first one goes. And what Jim wants to do. I’m not sure he wants to do two more. I don’t know yet. We haven’t gotten to that point yet. So if people like it, and and we want to go forward, we may do that. Yeah.
Stephen 37:14
Okay. All right. All right. You said you read. You have read a lot. You had a lot of books. what some of your favorite books and favorite authors.
Tory 37:25
Oh, probably the the top is the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Okay. Those are the only books I’ve ever read more than once. Wow. Yeah. I hear a lot of people, you know, reading their favorite books multiple times. I’m like, How on earth? do you do that? Because there’s so many more books to go read.
Stephen 37:47
Right?
Tory 37:47
I just don’t get that. I mean, they might be good books. But Dan has a lot more to read. So I’ve only done that once. So that’s probably one of my, among my very favorites. Why typically go for authors. So token is one of my favorites. The guy that the guy wrote on our honor Harrington series, was my one of my favorites. I forget the name. I know. David something I think. Alright, anyway, so the honor Harrington series, The Great military, sci fi, space opera sort of thing. Terry Brooks, one of my favorites. He wrote a he wrote a really interesting I think it was like, third first person past tense. or something to that effect, you know, sci fi, kind of sort of like a middle grade sci fi a lot of fun. And yeah, really different from what his fantasy stuff was. But yeah, he’s one of my favorite authors. I actually got to meet him at a local book signing event couple years ago. Oh, here now you can Yeah, so super nice guy. But any kind of mostly I read science fiction, military or adventure. Right now Lindsay broker is one of my favorite sci fi writers. She just wrapped up her star Kingdom series. Fantastic series. I think the last book in that series was some of the best stuff that she ever wrote. And you know, she’s got a couple books out there. So that’s that’s
Stephen 39:25
pretty good.
Tory 39:27
Yeah, that’s that’s saying a lot because I’ve, I’ve kind of followed her, her books and each one gets a lot better. It’s incredible to watch that. So yeah, those are among my favorite books
Stephen 39:39
are personal question. Have you read or know the author Ian Douglas.
Tory 39:46
I heard of it. I don’t know if I’ve read any or not. Okay.
Stephen 39:51
I actually know him. He was like the first author I met. And that’s kind of like, I took it. I’d been thinking about writing and then I met him. And I was like, Okay, well, there’s my sign from whatever being above telling me that, hey, you should go write it. You know, I took it as a sign. So, but he writes sci fi military type stuff. Oh, in Spokane, do you have any left favorite bookstores?
Tory 40:22
You know, I used to, I used to live near one of the Barnes and Noble. And I was a regular there because I really enjoy cover art. Okay, so I used to go there once a week, get a coffee, and just, you know, look at every cover on the shelf. And I always stuck to the sci fi section because what I read, I really don’t care about anything else. So I always peruse the, the cover art, I look for new books, and then I go, you know, to Apple and buy it online because I don’t buy physical books anymore. So, but I’ve moved away from there, so I don’t actually go there anymore. And I’m not even sure if it’s open because of recent events anyway. There’s also an indie bookstore in downtown Spokane called Auntie’s books. In this ancient old building the floors Creek, they’re not they’re not even even. But super nice people. They got a lot of books. Also a lot of us books. So that’s a fun place to go, as well.
Stephen 41:25
Okay. All right. So So before we wrap things up, close this portion of our long talk out. Do you have any last minute advice for some new authors?
Tory 41:40
Yeah, I would say you know, if you’re, if you’re new to this and any kind of frustrated, don’t be Take a deep breath. Give yourself permission to, you know, learn as you go and enjoy the process. And, you know, don’t don’t impose an artificial deadline, just just let it happen. And it’ll come.
Stephen 42:03
Okay. All right. And where can we find you online?
Tory 42:09
You can check out my very simple self done website at at my author pending, which is Tory element.com. Up there, I have a couple anthologies, I’ve been involved in couple short stories, you can download for free. And you don’t even have to join my list if you don’t want to, but that’s an option as well. And then there’s also a link to the art copies for the book Gemini wrote, so pretty simple stuff. And then, um, I think there’s one section where I, I hint at my upcoming, you know, fitness website and course, coming online soon, too.
Stephen 42:51
Okay, great. Well, I’ll put links in the episode show notes and on the page for that. I appreciate you take some time to talk today. Everyone doesn’t know listen to this as we were talking about fitness for a while and other things with stuff going on in the country. So maybe someday we’ll have some of that as extras and bloopers. Oh, that’d be fun. Look at it go wrong. We talked about what in red we talked. Yeah. So. All right. Okay, so I appreciate you take some time. And you have a really great day.
Tory 43:27
Thanks. He has been awesome. Thank you so much.