56. R A SALVATORE: The secret to staying creative after 35 years of writing fantasy novels

If you're an aspiring writer, this is going to help you so much. R.A. Salvatore has been publishing books for more than 35 years, so he knows a thing or two about writing. He's the man behind the Drizzt books, Demon Wars Saga, as well as some Star Wars books. He's got around 70 titles under his belt, so how does he keep going? Join us for this conversation as he unpacks crafting characters and vast worlds for them, how to keep creativity flowing over the years, plus, how he pushed back to help fiction keep up with readers' evolving attention spans. He is a wealth of knowledge and so dang nice!

Thanks to the team at Saga Press for setting this up and letting us invade your booth space at New York Comic Con.

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Transcript

00;00;00;01 - 00;00;23;19
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie, your literary hype and today's author conversation. You know, this one is a little bit different. And I know I might say that about a few other things, but this one, if we don't talk about the books that much, which is kind of surprising because Ari Salvador has been publishing books since before I was born, which I do give him a little bit of a hard time about in this conversation.

00;00;23;19 - 00;00;41;16
Speaker 1
But he's a really good sport about it. You might know him for his Dungeons and Dragons books. The Legend of Dritz Homeland is a big one. That we touch on in this conversation. You might know him from Star Wars books because he wrote some of those, or you might know him from his Demon Wars series, Penguins Wars, Folly is the most recent as of right now.

00;00;41;16 - 00;01;01;07
Speaker 1
There are more on the way very, very soon. But he's got so many books to talk about, so we couldn't really narrow it down to just one book so we decided to talk more about creativity and longevity and writing. So if you're an aspiring writer, definitely check out this conversation. Save it come back to it repeatedly. I know I will be as well.

00;01;01;19 - 00;01;06;15
Speaker 1
So without any further ado, here's my really fascinating conversation with Ray Salvador.

00;01;11;17 - 00;01;18;23
Speaker 2
Welcome to Literary Hype. So very exciting to have you to on the show to talk about like one or two books that you might hold up.

00;01;19;11 - 00;01;25;05
Speaker 3
One or two times. 20 times. 30 times. Yeah, yeah, I've got a few.

00;01;25;16 - 00;01;32;12
Speaker 2
Yeah. I was trying to count how many books you had and I think about the Internet tells me 107 that no.

00;01;32;13 - 00;01;55;05
Speaker 3
That's not right. They've got books and they put them in different, they put them in different like I'll put three together and I'm the best addition. But no, I would say it's more like, well 39 to 47 in the realms seven, nine, 14, 15. The word was six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Yeah, probably about 70.

00;01;55;06 - 00;01;58;22
Speaker 2
That saved up more books than the years you've been alive.

00;01;58;26 - 00;01;59;05
Speaker 3
Right.

00;01;59;15 - 00;02;08;10
Speaker 2
Which is just stunning to me to hear these kind of numbers. So let's go back to the beginning, OK, because you were just mentioning that you wrote your first book.

00;02;09;01 - 00;02;09;13
Speaker 3
I did.

00;02;10;10 - 00;02;12;24
Speaker 2
How much does the publishing industry change?

00;02;13;15 - 00;02;35;16
Speaker 3
Well, I mean, I was publishing back then. I just I brought it in a spiral notebook, and that's the book that I sent out, got a bunch of bad dejection letters. So that just pissed me off. So I just started working harder and got it where I liked it, send it back out. And I didn't sell that book, but I got the invitation to audition for A New World with Dungeons and Dragons.

00;02;35;16 - 00;02;44;09
Speaker 3
People were making calls for that, and that's why that's where I started there in 1987. I got a chance to do the first.

00;02;44;19 - 00;02;49;22
Speaker 2
My first book and your first published book came out in 1988 the year before.

00;02;49;22 - 00;02;51;29
Speaker 3
I was born. Yeah, she wrote it down again.

00;02;53;24 - 00;02;56;04
Speaker 2
I'm not used, I get picked on as being the old one around.

00;02;56;08 - 00;03;05;29
Speaker 3
This is like about now it's like 15, 20 years, you know. I began to realize that the people coming in my books were younger than the book. And it's like, Wow.

00;03;06;22 - 00;03;10;17
Speaker 2
What's that like for you to see? Your work transcends gender and generations.

00;03;10;17 - 00;03;40;16
Speaker 3
That's it best. My book signings look like Fleetwood Mac concerts where I will be a grandfather, a father with his son, his granddaughter. They're all reading the book together. I love it. I mean, there are things the best, most satisfying parts of the feedback I get. There are people who say, I never read the book until now. I feel like I've done something really good in their life and another one would be I went through a really bad time in my life and these were my friends, and I completely understand that that was me.

00;03;41;07 - 00;03;55;13
Speaker 3
And then the third would be I'm reading I my mom read me these and now I'm reading them to my son and my daughter. And then just to me, it's like you're doing things like that. You're doing OK. So it's, it's horrible.

00;03;55;28 - 00;03;59;19
Speaker 2
That's so sweet. As if you're like, oh, what a life.

00;03;59;23 - 00;04;19;27
Speaker 3
I complain, but nobody listens. And I don't like that was we're going to finance. And I wrote this book and I got the audition, I won the audition and I quit my job in 1999. I quit my job in 1990 and I, and I got to watch the kids grow up. I got the voice that teachers can hang on.

00;04;19;27 - 00;04;37;23
Speaker 3
My wife didn't drive her crazy. She didn't drive me crazy. Amazing, you know, just something I'd be doing even if I wasn't publishing and they continue to do it. I know how fortunate I've been. They just wanted to get me. So they call people all the time.

00;04;37;29 - 00;04;41;02
Speaker 2
What led you to wanting to write in the first place?

00;04;42;20 - 00;05;06;21
Speaker 3
Honestly, I used to write and read a lot when I was very little, but by the time I graduated high school, I hated because they gave me really books to read. That meant nothing to me. Like even from The Silence on the Moby Dick, it's like and I started college as a math and math science major. I wasn't going into computer science field.

00;05;07;17 - 00;05;30;20
Speaker 3
It was Fortran Basic and COBOL and languages were used for Christmas. My freshman year. My sister gave me these for books instead of money. I wanted money, and it was a hobby. I read The Beagle. I know this book. You saw that The Peter Eagle in Among the Ranks. I'm like, Oh, wow. That's like, I was a kid.

00;05;30;20 - 00;05;47;02
Speaker 3
I felt that way. And then they opened the book and, you know, the hole in the ground, the The Hobbit, that was it off and running. And so I just fell in love with fantasy and I read pretty much every fantasy on the shelves at that time. There were many, and there was no way to survive without books.

00;05;47;02 - 00;06;06;03
Speaker 3
30. I wasn't trying to get published I just thought, Hey, they have kids and they have kids. I'll be able to give you guys this. Your grandfather wrote this and stuff like that. That was just because that was my way is like a creative opposite, and that's why I wrote one. And then I had hired my sister, the type of money.

00;06;06;08 - 00;06;19;18
Speaker 3
My friend said, You should send this to some publishers. So I did and got objection letters. But that's how we met. So it worked out well. I was still working in finance and got to do the addition for TSR.

00;06;20;16 - 00;06;22;18
Speaker 2
How has your process in writing.

00;06;22;18 - 00;06;46;13
Speaker 3
Books changed over the years? Oh, it's very different. Well, I got the first contract from TSR got it in July of 1987. I had a three year old, a two year old, my wife was seven months pregnant and I was working a full time job an hour and they said, OK, we need it October 1st. So it's just pure pressure.

00;06;47;05 - 00;07;07;11
Speaker 3
But we did it right? We've got the kids out there all in one streak. Good. And I got the book that I good work. That was cool, right? I finally got my name on the book. I thought it was a one off. Everybody did really well. I say everyone, you know, I don't think they tried to do the second book and that's a little better.

00;07;08;15 - 00;07;32;19
Speaker 3
And then they made a big mistake and they started advertising the third book before they had contacted me to write it. So I got a nice royalties and but I still say, don't put it up. And that was the Happiness Jam and it came out. Now, I mean, the New York Times is back. That was a really big deal because that got you into all the drugstores and all the supermarkets and all the K-Mart readers markets and all the other things.

00;07;33;11 - 00;07;58;06
Speaker 3
So those numbers went way up and they said, Look, we really people want to know where this guy came from to a lot of people, maybe 70, what he did in 1990, I quit and semi-retired. Well, yeah, and my process immediately was panic because now also they've got three little kids. I have no insurance, I'm self-employed what the hell did I just do?

00;07;59;06 - 00;08;24;06
Speaker 3
So I just sat down and just sold books in New York as well. I was doing three months a year for several years. I couldn't stop writing they series, so that's easier. Like I don't have to reinvent the characters, you know, it's actually fantastic. My books are more like Sherlock Holmes or than they are like real time. They're there this year.

00;08;24;14 - 00;08;48;12
Speaker 3
You can read any of the terrible series pick up any book, you know, hopefully it will be a lot worse. It's not happening. So I just kept doing that and that's my process. That was just very mean spirited. I take my kids to their hockey games and the same only with them. Obviously we bury them since I haven't even got into variety of choices.

00;08;48;26 - 00;09;23;07
Speaker 3
She's just selling them the most time in the office, right? As I watch her race impression, watch the horse out of the office every 3 minutes, I just really felt I needed to make this work and then it got better because I now have to sell a lot of people and I started relaxing and I was able to build my self in a special way, very special because my wife was having a good this.

00;09;24;10 - 00;09;24;17
Speaker 2
I.

00;09;24;17 - 00;09;26;19
Speaker 3
Got extra hours to get my.

00;09;26;23 - 00;09;32;09
Speaker 4
Workout done and then the kids grew up and they don't.

00;09;32;09 - 00;09;47;05
Speaker 3
Need me anymore and so then it became like working. Right now I'm sure I'm home, right? I'm going to go play some for this is much more of an issue.

00;09;48;06 - 00;09;58;01
Speaker 2
It's a little bit about that comfort level that comes with reaching that point in your career and how does it take the pressure off the writing itself that allow you.

00;09;58;01 - 00;10;14;17
Speaker 3
To be where it is now? Not for a long time, because the thing is, it's like, I don't want much we're happy. We have everything we want. I don't need to say, Oh, we got it all worked for we'll get this and we'll get that. And I care about things. So my kids are all set they don't need it.

00;10;14;20 - 00;10;42;07
Speaker 3
They're all there is and so when the financial pressure went off, I still had that pressure to keep producing for a long time because, you know, I had I had a lot of writers who develop relationships via private messages and stuff. It's like you got to keep them, got to keep going. And it was only a couple of years ago when I said, you know, it's kind of slow, but I'm going to get a better work life balance.

00;10;42;11 - 00;10;52;14
Speaker 3
And I did. And I'm finally producing almost as much but it's not eating up every day. And it's more fun to hear that. It's more.

00;10;52;14 - 00;10;57;05
Speaker 2
Fun. What do you think it is about your writing that has given you the longevity that you have.

00;10;58;14 - 00;11;26;07
Speaker 3
That I would say my writing is very visual, and I think part of it is that I write the way people talk. You know, I have a copy in it's like I keep telling them it's the English language. It's not a set of rules. It's a set of tools. Well, you don't need the comedy. Yes. I do. Because I want to slow down the reader because I want the reader's head to go and then pay attention to the next part of the sentence for.

00;11;27;00 - 00;11;45;07
Speaker 3
And that's how I've always written, just because that's the way I like to read. And the other thing about that is I've gotten a whole bunch of letters from people who I'm dyslexic and I couldn't read books in three years, and now I'm reading. I think I have a lot of slicing as well. So I'm very small either.

00;11;46;03 - 00;12;08;19
Speaker 3
And when I find a book that has like that voice in it that brings in my head, I can fly through it. So I don't really know. I've been attached to the Dragons. It certainly helped getting some covers like Larry Elmore and Keith Parkinson and Todd Walker did Dirty Tricks, was complete luck that was off the top of my head.

00;12;08;19 - 00;12;31;08
Speaker 3
He was created. He thought he was the sidekick. He hit it the right time. You know, any time you meet a successful person, and you ask them, how did how did you get successful in your field? And they don't think the word luck, that mind is a big part of everything. It's hard work. Yeah. Talent. Yeah. Timing and the ability to take advantage and produce when you grow.

00;12;32;03 - 00;12;35;01
Speaker 2
And a lot of you touched on the English phrase.

00;12;35;09 - 00;12;36;09
Speaker 3
Yes. Which reminded me of.

00;12;36;18 - 00;12;42;01
Speaker 2
Something you said in your how do you look at that? Adverbs are.

00;12;42;01 - 00;12;43;07
Speaker 3
Emotions. Yes.

00;12;44;06 - 00;12;49;14
Speaker 2
Explain that theory and how it applies to writing, because it was fascinating.

00;12;49;15 - 00;13;18;19
Speaker 3
OK, English one on one, a college degree, two words. If you have to retract your dialog, you're writing an adverb. The road to hell is paved for that meaning. If my character is saying it sarcastically, the reader should understand that the character is saying sarcasm, OK? And the Third World War, once I get to the leaders, don't change point of view, then that's another reason why I think my books work.

00;13;18;19 - 00;13;37;10
Speaker 3
Well, we'll get into that later. OK, I kind of follow those rules, but I didn't really buy them. And I know if I had a lot of people talking and it's almost a draw if you don't have the accent, the dialect, and so that would work. But there were times when I would he said, she said, Well, go in for some version of that.

00;13;40;11 - 00;14;12;13
Speaker 3
And I liked adverbs and use a lot of money. And then I realized that around the late nineties and around the turn of the century, that, you know, if I didn't use the attribution on dialog, I was losing readers. And if I didn't use adverbs, they weren't understanding unreliable narrator or sarcasm or whatever. And the reason is the internet because the Internet, if you're reading social media or message boards were the first ones, right?

00;14;13;16 - 00;14;42;04
Speaker 3
All the dialog is attributed to someone, the names of them who wrote this post, right? And I'm oh geez, I read that. I remember Flame Wars and that's right. And you had to put that smiley face emoji or you got a style or something. And so I actually started adding adverbs back in a little bit because I realized that the sensibility of the audience all is a good thing or a bad thing.

00;14;42;21 - 00;15;14;18
Speaker 3
It's just people read differently now than they did when I started writing. Yeah. And people read differently before television and they read now. I was with Tom Davis, who wrote this wonderful book called Walker. What's your interview in London? BBC and this was in the early nineties, and it's all combines to kind of say it's still there, but everybody that wants those readings is nearly half so silver just waiting for two weeks.

00;15;15;19 - 00;15;44;17
Speaker 3
And we got to ask, you know, why are you selling more than and and Tom gave the best answer. I never thought about this and said, because talking to an audience, you have to pre-television. We grew up with television. And then I thought about the original fights I have with my editor because I turned in the first year of the show draft and he's like, Bob, we got a problem.

00;15;44;17 - 00;16;06;15
Speaker 3
You're changing point of view all over the place. You said, yeah, right. You can't do that. I said, Why not? So I said, It must be simple. No, but I'm afraid that's no, I'm not going to produce the deal. Why go out? Why because my readers grew up in television. All television is just point of view changes. You know, back then it was Russert this.

00;16;06;16 - 00;16;35;17
Speaker 3
Rachel said that. So we said that in the different characters. Right. And one of my proudest moments in life was when TSR came out with a style guide. Well, three years later, that is when you're changing point of view, use the five stars. I did that. And so that was me. That was my point. That one that but I think that works because you have so many more like a traveling public moments or something else and come back.

00;16;36;00 - 00;17;12;05
Speaker 3
Yep, that's right. This is about today. Oh, and it's over here. That's addressed, right? And so they can't put the book down, right? Yeah. If you've got the book right. So that's another room. English beautifully. But I watch someone who has been on a smartphone texting 18 different conversations all the time. That no matter how much I should never be able to do that with my kids, my grandkids, it's like, how does all those words showing up on the screen, right?

00;17;12;21 - 00;17;27;21
Speaker 3
So in a lot of ways, the readers, the younger is way more sophisticated in terms of taking in bits of information separating and taking other bits and going back to your kids and saying, you got to adapt your writing for that.

00;17;28;01 - 00;17;38;19
Speaker 2
This is just like blowing my mind. Yes. When you dabbles in writing fiction, like this is like I'm doing something that I'm going to watch myself for.

00;17;39;20 - 00;17;56;07
Speaker 3
When I was first came out, it was like locusts just killed them. They just killed the literary authors just killed. And finally it was like, wow, you know, I get it now. I said, So do you realize that I was doing these things on purpose right?

00;17;58;22 - 00;18;05;05
Speaker 2
So how do you approach your worldbuilding and what's happening.

00;18;05;05 - 00;18;06;00
Speaker 3
In this way?

00;18;06;22 - 00;18;11;20
Speaker 2
OK, so how do you come up with your name for your own belief, especially in your.

00;18;12;08 - 00;18;44;13
Speaker 3
Original version of the demos? I came to the parents, you told him and Mary told Vanessa Brooks Thomas. Well, that show is mostly Western. We're in the house and I'm trying to spin that and I have an e-mail. But to me, when you're building a world, you have no history. History rhymes and it rhymes because reasoning being say certain questions about what are the economic systems, how does this culture relate to that culture?

00;18;45;04 - 00;19;14;20
Speaker 3
Is there a religious problem is there an economic problem? And I try to keep all of that in mind as I'm building my world with these cultures, because we're talking about my world. They're all said you know, the anywhere from the Dark Ages to every renaissance is in believing if it ends here, if you live in this little town, and I'll put a door in the Midwest, you had no idea what was going on there.

00;19;14;20 - 00;19;44;18
Speaker 3
And you know, and it's much, much, much more parochial world. They would know what was happening. There was a war in another country. They we not even know about it for months. Right. So building goes the states, cultures. I, I know enough science, understand geography, determines enough about religion to understand how religion grows out of that religion. And that's why they're all so similar.

00;19;45;05 - 00;20;10;04
Speaker 3
Keep all that in mind. When you're building a world, the most important thing to keep in mind, sending every one of my books, they got to believe in dragons. People throwing bolts swords, ways. You can take a fight with two sources and kill two enemies. That any of that. So I'm asking them to suspend their disbelief. Just the joy and the flow.

00;20;10;05 - 00;20;45;04
Speaker 3
The world rise to know the world makes sense to them from their own experiences and their own history and their own life. So the lesson they have to spend is and one thing I like to do is play with a language like in the new books and all the ancestors. In the previous series, I have introduced this to the show tonight with the people from the Far West, and I'm using variations of the hashtag here and all that stress to make the readers narrators for the audio books.

00;20;45;04 - 00;21;18;07
Speaker 3
Oh boy, how do you pronounce it? Yeah, hello. I know I'm gonna tell you, when you think of a stereotype like the different European nations, Italians with the hands, me and and the language matters. The rhythms of language matter and I wish, I wish. Like in the new books, I'm using The Hobbit. Yes. Thinking languages you know, I make them now, but thank you, because I think it helps to find the culture that I'm putting out there.

00;21;19;04 - 00;21;27;21
Speaker 3
And I wish I love it. I love playing with language. I wish when I had started college, I had, you know, phone token. They've gone into linguistics.

00;21;27;29 - 00;21;33;21
Speaker 2
So how do you keep your creative world fresh? And full after all these years?

00;21;33;28 - 00;21;37;06
Speaker 3
It's actually really easy. My books are about people.

00;21;37;14 - 00;21;42;01
Speaker 2
So convention people watching this real good read oh, I'm a people watch.

00;21;42;27 - 00;21;59;15
Speaker 3
I'm I was I know I had to train myself to not be the shyest person in the world, but like my high school years, I sat at one end visibly watching the I'm a people watch. You're going to have to stand up. Just watch people have you cold.

00;21;59;16 - 00;22;01;22
Speaker 2
Anything from your people watching to.

00;22;01;24 - 00;22;29;20
Speaker 3
Your books nothing. I mean, potentially. Oh, darn. I want the team. Yes. Actually, a lot of my books and when I see something and I really want to know what's going through that person's mind. So when I wrote a book in the morning and the prequel series, I broke up called The Highwayman and a friend of mine, his brother was born with cerebral palsy.

00;22;30;20 - 00;23;04;15
Speaker 3
And you see him walking downtown trying to of town. And I wonder what life was like growing up what he's not doing with brains. I mean, his brains all they're fully functional thinking, human being, but his body doesn't read the signals. Right. And so I wrote the highway and tried to put myself in his shoes. I think everybody has so much in common with everybody else, but I want to know where the difference is for him.

00;23;04;28 - 00;23;27;13
Speaker 3
But my books are about characters. What is great to me all the time I got a great idea for a story. He said every human being on this planet has a great idea for a story. Is the execution and the best advice I ever got. Robert Cormier and the young adult author and the Choose Chocolate War Fame, right.

00;23;27;27 - 00;23;49;16
Speaker 3
Here's from my hometown and he would come the time to like the Boy Scout troops, the classrooms, the writing classes and everything. And when I got my first rejection letters, you know, Bob's actual phone number was in the movie for Iron, which is so I called him. I didn't know, but I called him. He tapped me on the phone for hours.

00;23;49;28 - 00;24;13;05
Speaker 3
He was so generous. And the advice he gave me them and that guy, this is character, character, character. A character is more important than what. Because if you give the readers a character, they care about a hang on. They'll care if they don't care about the characters. There's no way you're going to build tension. They don't care if the character was just character, character, character.

00;24;13;05 - 00;24;14;26
Speaker 3
I took that to heart. What's your.

00;24;15;03 - 00;24;17;01
Speaker 2
First approach for building a.

00;24;17;01 - 00;24;38;13
Speaker 3
Character? I let them tell me where they are as we write. As I write, I have a general idea, like the end of at the end of a crystal shard thank you. Regis the Halfling goes into the town of Bryn Chandor and he sees a guy there and notices the dagger he's wearing and he knows all that's out of this.

00;24;38;13 - 00;25;04;16
Speaker 3
Contrary, he's like the most deadly assassins. Macallan He's here for me. So I've built this character out and it's a tree. That's all I know about him. That's all I wrote about him. And the next book, he's trying to pitch riches. And the third, well, he's supposed to trip by that point. I wanted to know more about the number one thing I wanted to.

00;25;04;16 - 00;25;19;20
Speaker 3
Why is what? He's not really a dirt bag. But he's an assassin. That just doesn't make sense to me. Tell me a story and let him tell me his story. And he's still around. Sorry.

00;25;19;24 - 00;25;26;00
Speaker 2
If anybody wants to read your book, what would you recommend they start with and what do you have coming out next?

00;25;26;05 - 00;25;39;17
Speaker 3
OK, you're into Dungeons and Dragons world and you're in for a year. It's really like sword, sorcery, elves, dwarves, all that. And it's the first book in the series that's like the one I'm most known for.

00;25;41;23 - 00;26;13;02
Speaker 3
If you love worldbuilding and a more human centered Fantasy Demon Awakens or any of the first books of the four series in that world of highwaymen that I talked about earlier, Demon Awakens, Child of a Mad God who has, which has probably my favorite character. And people hate me for saying that, but howling, which is like, that's Death Spartans or Pimples falling off any of those demon wars.

00;26;13;11 - 00;26;35;13
Speaker 3
That's one World Worldbuilding series. I wrote a trilogy of books that are kind of like The Three Musketeers, and it's is kind of like the movie, the movies, The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers. With Peter in New York. I was like, New York was in it. Hell, Welsh was in it. And in the early seventies, there was like this rollicking, you don't know what's up.

00;26;36;01 - 00;27;16;25
Speaker 3
I'm no serious. They are so much fun. They are so much fun. And that's what they are. They're fun. I did the saw the beneficiaries just along with my highway, have all of it barracks as a highway in a short time and you know, and it's just fun. And then I wrote another series. So back this, the first of all, this office here will do scales that's almost like autobiographical, except I was kidnaped by that hobbit and Gary in the book was kidnaped by a leprechaun and he was actually taken some fantasy tokens in my mind that they took him there.

00;27;17;21 - 00;27;43;11
Speaker 3
So I've got different series do different things. The one that most people start with them in my work. So I was one of the people maybe even awaken to find the whole world for that seven book series. What do I have coming? I have this second book and then the Buccaneers trilogy, The Winter, which is coming out in February.

00;27;43;22 - 00;27;55;20
Speaker 3
That's that's that follows up on characters in the Coven Series, The Mad God, that series, one of the characters from there. But it all ties together.

00;27;58;23 - 00;28;23;12
Speaker 3
And then I have a novella coming out. It's called Betwixt Two Worlds and it's a that's an audible solution for a while. I mean, all of these probably for about three years I had done another one called One Nature Acts about Girl, actually one of the favorite characters in that series. And that's really it. Now, I'm writing the third book in this series.

00;28;23;12 - 00;28;28;04
Speaker 2
Now, the last question we always ask because this is literary hype. What else are you hyped about right now?

00;28;29;00 - 00;28;54;29
Speaker 3
What books and I hate about right now? I'm trying to remember the name, but Terry Brooks is sending me one. Listen, you have to read. I don't know. Sorry, Terry. I've got to be published. The book I read everything Bob Woodward writes but is the moment that the divers, the deep, the women, maybe 3 hours and one of the islands over there women divers and my wife read, they pass the book around.

00;28;54;29 - 00;29;08;05
Speaker 3
I get very excited about it. It's astounding. And I think we outlook is I really want to go back and read it. And I guess I'll just start watching The Last Kingdom.

00;29;08;05 - 00;29;12;08
Speaker 4
Again for like the millionth time. And Falwell's just so.

00;29;13;06 - 00;29;26;22
Speaker 3
He's just so and I'm very sad to see how sorry, Brooks, this is a show I to finish. And I always said thank you so so that's a view.

00;29;27;01 - 00;29;29;04
Speaker 2
Thank you so much for taking time out of your year.

00;29;31;19 - 00;29;33;02
Speaker 4
It's my pleasure. This is great.

00;29;35;14 - 00;29;36;16
Speaker 2
Thanks again to Bob.

00;29;37;16 - 00;30;05;26
Speaker 1
Salvatore for hanging out with me at New York Comic-Con to talk about all things writing and creativity and just his he's such a wealth of knowledge. And I definitely going to be playing back this conversation a few times whenever I get around to working on my writing projects. Who knows when that will be? So if you'd like to check out any of his books, including Homeland Pink, Michael's Folly, there's so many books of his to check out the links to look at some of them.

00;30;05;26 - 00;30;18;11
Speaker 1
Some of his more popular ones are going to be down in the show notes for you. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the literary podcast. Give us some stars and share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.