🎙️ Hollywood Screenwriter to Bestseller: Kay A. Oliver’s Story of Reinvention
Guest: Kay A. Oliver
Host: Dwight Heck
Podcast: Give A Heck
🔥 Episode Overview
What happens when Hollywood says no and life strips everything away? In this powerful episode of Give A Heck, Dwight sits down with Kay A. Oliver, an award-winning author and former Hollywood screenwriter, to explore how adversity can become the fuel for creative rebirth.
Kay’s career began behind the scenes at Universal Studios and DreamWorks, where she worked alongside cinematic giants including Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Robert Redford. But when her female-centred screenplays were deemed “unmarketable” and life threw her a curveball with breast cancer and job loss, Kay chose to write her own comeback story, one novel at a time.
With 15 published titles and a fiercely independent spirit, she shares how fiction became her lifeline and legacy.
💡 What You Will Learn in This Episode
🧠 How childhood adversity shaped Kay’s creative independence
🎬 The truth behind Hollywood’s glamour and its gatekeeping
📚 Why rejection fuelled her rise as a bestselling novelist
💪 Practical advice for writers on resilience, craft, and character
✨ From Hollywood Dreams to Literary Reality
Discover how Kay:
- Navigated the entertainment industry while staying true to her storytelling values
- Transformed personal loss and health battles into creative fire
- Built a thriving writing career centred on strong, authentic female leads
🖋️ The Art of Storytelling and Character Development
Kay reveals her unique approach to writing:
- Why she writes “seat of the pants” style to let stories unfold naturally
- How her editing background helps her visualise scenes and structure plots
- The power of weaving real historical figures into action-packed fiction
📚 Wisdom for Aspiring Authors
Learn Kay’s essential advice for new writers:
- Create a sacred writing space and commit to daily practice
- Embrace imperfect first drafts and avoid self-editing too soon
- Treat rejection as redirection and keep pitching with passion
- Surround yourself with people who believe in your voice
🎯 Whether you are a writer, a dreamer, or someone rebuilding after loss, this episode will inspire you to reclaim your story and live with purpose. Kay’s journey reminds us that creativity is not just a skill, it is a survival tool.
🎧 Tune in now and start giving a heck about the stories you carry and the courage it takes to share them with the world.
#HollywoodScreenwriter #ResilientStorytelling #WomenInPublishing #CreativeHealing #GiveAHeckPodcast #KayAOliver #LiveLifeOnPurpose
⏱️ Chapter Summary
00:00:00 – Introduction to Kay A. Oliver: From Hollywood to Award-Winning Author
00:03:42 – Origin Story: Childhood Writing and Early Challenges
00:09:37 – Hollywood Experience: Universal Studios, DreamWorks, and Rejection
00:12:53 – Robert Redford’s Influence on Story-First Filmmaking
00:17:35 – Writing Strong Female Characters and Male Perspectives
00:22:51 – Historical Fiction as Healing and Education
00:28:33 – Craft Evolution: From Telling to Showing
00:32:24 – Hollywood versus Writing: Creative Freedom and Authenticity
00:36:44 – The Joy of Creative Freedom in Authorship
00:40:54 – Adapting Novels to Film: Letting Go with Conditions
00:45:44 – Essential Writing Advice for Aspiring Authors
00:52:09 – Building Resilience Through Rejection and Persistence
00:57:08 – AI in Writing: Tool versus Human Creativity
01:02:23 – Life-Affirming Wisdom Through Character Development
01:11:25 – Living with Intent of Love: Final Life Philosophy
🔗 Connect with Kay A. Oliver
🌐 Website: https://kayaoliver.com
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorkayaoliver
🐦 X / Twitter: https://x.com/AmazinglyOliver
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/The_Hollywood_Gal
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayaoliver
🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hollywood_gal
🔗 Connect with Dwight Heck
🌐 Website: https://giveaheck.com
📘 Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/dwight.heck
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@giveaheck
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/give.a.heck
🧵 Threads: https://www.threads.net/@give.a.heck
🐦 X / Twitter: https://twitter.com/give_a_heck
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwight-heck-65a90150
🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@giveaheck
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Full Unedited Transcript:
[00:00:02 – 00:01:38]Welcome back to the Give a Heck podcast. I’m your host, Dwight Heck. I’m here to help you live a life on purpose and not by accident. Each week we dive deep into real stories, raw truths, and powerful conversations that challenge you to give a heck about your life and the life of others. Today’s guest is K. Oliver. Her journey from Hollywood’s glittering but often unwelcoming landscape to becoming an award winning author is a testament to resilience, creativity and purpose. After more than 30 years in the entertainment industry, Kay transitioned from screenwriting to novel writing, turning rejection into recognition. Her debut novel, Disturbed Tunes earned four prestigious awards and launched a literary career that now includes 15. That’s right, 15 acclaimed titles. K is a survivor of breast cancer, an inductee into who’s who in America 2024, and was recently named Fiction Author of the Year 2025 by the IAOTP. Her stories celebrate triumph over adversity and elevate women’s voices with grace and power. She writes with heart, wisdom, and deep understanding of what it means to rise above. Get ready for a conversation about storytelling, perseverance and the power of writing to change lives. I’d like to welcome you to the show. Kay, thanks so much for agreeing to come on and share with us some of your life journey.
[00:01:42 – 00:02:23]Oh, I’m excited too. We had a great pre conversation. Anybody that’s listened to the show realizes that I’ve said this before. That’s the best part, the pre conversation. Getting to build that rapport, getting to build that connection so that we ensure there’s chemistry, that you really get the best value out of the Give a Hack podcast. And thank you starting off to everybody for investing your time, especially uk. I appreciate that. Because our, our, our time is an asset that we don’t realize and it’s taking away. Right. So anytime somebody’s willing to invest time in you and time in myself, I take that as to be gold treasure. So thank you so much.
[00:02:23 – 00:02:28]You’re welcome. Yes. Time is the one asset we have that we can’t get back.
[00:02:28 – 00:03:42]Oh, of course. Yeah. And we, we. What’s the word? Fritter away. Yeah, fritter away. Our time. We don’t take the value of it. Are you creating memories? We don’t look and analyze our own lives and the circumstances that we’re living in to see are we living a purposeful life? Are we living with intent? Right. And whatever your intent and purposeful life is, People listening or watching. I’m here to say I respect that. But at the end of the day, do you respect you? Are you liking where you’re at in your life? If you’re not, maybe it’s time to learn how to give a heck about your life and live purposely with intent. So, kids, I always like to start with this. I mentioned this to you before, and you’re a rare Jim, somebody that’s listened to one of my shows. So you understand the importance of what I like to talk about initially is the origin story. People’s earliest recollections are so important and they tie, you know, good, bad, indifferent, ugly. Maybe some people have a great childhood, but even that great childhood was a catalyst for what happened in the future, right? So could you do me a favor and please share your origin story from your earliest recollections to wherever you want to stop?
[00:03:43 – 00:09:36]Well, I would be happy to do that. I didn’t have a positive childhood. Growing up, I had what many people are now recognizing as a narcissistic mother, someone who was interested in herself. And even though they didn’t use this term then they used it a little later. I was a latchkey kid along with my brother, and so I spent a lot of time with myself in my room, and I would imagine things. So then in sixth grade, I had the opportunity to enter a speech contest. And I wrote my speech and performed it. And they didn’t want to give me first place because they felt that my parents had written my speech. They had not. My parents were not involved in my education. Oh, probably whatsoever, to be, you know, blunt and honest about it. And at that point I knew I just loved writing. I loved writing. And so I would write little stories and poems and things when I was in my room growing up. And as I went into junior high, I joined the speech team and loved that and would do improvisation speeches and one awards and enjoyed it. And when I got into high school, I did a lot more physical activities. I was in the drill team and did a lot of stuff like that. But I never lost my love of writing. And so when I decided to make a career, as you mentioned in my bio, I decided to get a degree in radio, tv, film, because that is storytelling in a different format. And I went to work in Hollywood. I went to work in the news first, as we were talking earlier, and quickly found out I didn’t want to work in the news because I had been talking to a celebrity who was just, I don’t know if you want to say, downloading now is the right term. But you know, telling me all this about his life and what was going wrong and, and where he was in life, which wasn’t a good place. And I had to decide do I make my career in news by telling the story and going out there and you know, getting myself a, A, you know, a nice place in the news world or. But in that by doing that you’d probably ruin this person’s life, right? Or you know, dish out information that’s not out there. And I decided, no, I can’t, I can’t ruin someone’s life just because I have this knowledge. So I kind of transitioned out of that, went to work at Universal Studios back when Lou Wasserman owned it. And that’s a point because it was more family oriented. We called him Uncle Lou. Even though there’s 1500 people on the lot on any given day, not counting the tours. We felt like a family. And then that sold and that family orientation kind of got lost. And I ended up eventually working at DreamWorks with that would be Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, as you probably know, the film end of it. And I had a first and last. Most everybody there would have, you know, if you worked there and you wanted to submit a script, you could, did some short films for the film festival and things like that. Produced, directed, written. And they loved my scripts, but they were female oriented, strong independent female women leads in this movies and they were quote unquote unmarketable as one would say, you know, they, they preferred strong male leads in action. And even though mine were action, I write, I still write action packed because that’s what I love. So women can do a lot of the same things that action packed men can do. Maybe not pick up a 20 pound barrel, but you know, they can certainly knock it over and push it down against the person running after them. So when I was working in Hollywood, not at DreamWorks but when I was working in Hollywood, I did get breast cancer. I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was let go from my job. So I lost my income and my insurance and I struggled through that with the help of friends, I made it through 17 years clean now. So that’s nice. And when I went back into Hollywood and would hear that the, what I call a rejection that women characters are not as marketable, I decided, well heck, I’m going to go ahead and take that leap, trust myself, believe in myself, two different things and leave on my own accord knowing that I’ve done it now when I didn’t have a Choice and survived that I’m going to do it and write and start writing. And I did. I wrote my first novel, as you mentioned, Disturbed Tombs won four awards. So I knew I was onto something good and I was taking my imagination that I had developed at a young age and now putting it into books. Most of my books have strong independent female characters. They’re action packed because I love it. I love to have twists happen in the, you know, as you’re reading along, kind of. I learned from Spielberg that you, you know, you don’t do as much foreshadowing. You do some foreshadowing so they can go back and connect the dots. But you know, all of a sudden you can read a sentence and everything’s getting really intense and all of a sudden something crazy happens because that’s what happens in life and that’s how I like to write. So I use my stories, I make them as human as possible, but fun and energetic.
[00:09:37 – 00:10:21]Wow, that’s quite the origin story to go from not being given, you know, a first and great. Like it’s ridiculous, right, how. How the education system can work anywhere. And unfortunately education isn’t fluid. It’s. It’s all over the place. Right. So sometimes there’s teacher pets and somebody could write crappy and get it first. And somebody writes flutely. Flute, flutely. Part of me and very articulate. And then they’re just not given their due because they thought their parents. I had, I was accused of not necessarily writing but having somebody help me with my homework. And this is when I was in engineering school.
[00:10:23 – 00:10:23]Wow.
[00:10:23 – 00:10:25]Right. I said, what? Really?
[00:10:25 – 00:10:26]It happens then too. Wow.
[00:10:27 – 00:11:07]What gives you that impression that I did anything wrong? Well, this is well versed and blah. I said, you know how many hours I put into writing that article that I had to write for because we had to take writing classes even in engineering, like technical writing and writing classes. And I was at top of the class. I get up and speak. Had an actual gift for it. Okay, now present what you wrote. And the teacher initially questioned the fact. He says, did you get somebody? No, I did it myself. What would give you that impression? And I was. And at that time, when I wrote those, that article Married with a Kid, I said to him, I said, when would I have the time to get together with anybody to even get help?
[00:11:07 – 00:11:08]And who would that be?
[00:11:09 – 00:11:54]No computer. Like there was no Internet at the time. That was when I was, that was back in the late 80s, early 90s. And it just, I just sort of chuckled and we talked it through I ended up getting the high overall, being number one in the class, getting the highest mark right out of 28 or whatever. Different students, not because I was better than them, I was more versed in them. I was willing to put in more effort than them. And I liked writing, so it helped, just like you. So you saying you like writing it, that catalyst that at a young age is phenomenal. And I enjoyed that comment. Though you didn’t talk much about your brother, but you talked about the fact of you’re, you know, you were a latchkey kid. That term is so prevalent today, right?
[00:11:54 – 00:11:55]Yes, yes.
[00:11:55 – 00:12:51]For those that don’t understand what a latchkey kid is, it’s somebody that comes home with a key hanging around their neck, maybe in their pocket. A lot of times it was old shoelace or whatever through the key and they put it over the kid’s head so they could get in. Because mom and dad had to both work. Right. They’re not home still. That happening today. And it’s very, very prevalent. But that’s what a lot key kid is because I do have people go, what’s that? So I figured we better explain that a little bit. But you know, all the experiences you had from dealing with Spielberg and you know, the different nuances of dealing in Hollywood, you know, your experience in an entertainment industry is so important as to why you became a novelist. But what would you say happened in the entertainment industry that made you become the novelist that you are, though? Was there something spec specific that triggered you or a person that triggered you that just, you know, I could do so much better?
[00:12:53 – 00:12:56]Yes, there was a person, he just passed away.
[00:12:56 – 00:12:57]Oh, sorry to hear that.
[00:12:57 – 00:12:59]His name is Robert Redford.
[00:12:59 – 00:13:00]Oh, awesome.
[00:13:01 – 00:15:16]So when I was watching one of his movies that he produced and directed, Malingual Bean War. That’s the short version of the title, that movie. The opening, just the opening scenes made me go, wow, this is fantastic. It was at the time the stars were not named stars that that were leads in that movie. The story was phenomenal. And I went back to find out who directed who made this movie. When I found out was Redford. I got the chance to meet him a few times actually and talk about it. And he is a story first man, right? When he has control of a movie. When he had control, I talk in the past tense. Oh my God. When he had control of a movie, that was story first. And it wasn’t, you know, if he acted in it, he was in it. But it wasn’t about branding himself. It wasn’t about what do I look like in this shot? Oh, do you have the right angle? But we have those actors out there. He was about the story and about, you know, making sure that the story was full, complete. It was, you know, something you can relate to. And I used that in Hollywood for my films and things that I wrote. And then I use it, of course, in my books. And having worked in Hollywood starting out, actually in love with video editing, the editing portion of it more than on the set. I could put the story together and I knew what I needed in the story that transitions into my writing because I can see my novels in my head. I can see the story that might be from my childhood and imagination along with, coupled with my time in Hollywood. So people say, are you a plotter or seats of the pants? Right. The plotter is a person who writes down what every chapter is going to be. Seat of the pants. You just start writing. That’s me. I have it in my head where it’s going to start, where it’s going to end. And as I go along, I go on the journey with the book that I’m writing.
[00:15:17 – 00:15:20]That’s great though. Seat of the pants writing. That’s.
[00:15:20 – 00:15:20]Yes.
[00:15:21 – 00:16:08]I’ve got one book, pale in comparison and not fiction. It’s, it’s non fiction. It’s about my life and it took five and a half months. And I think about the experience of writing and the experience of, you know, seat of the pants. And initially it was one large. Here’s what I want to do, right? Talk to the editors and stuff, got them to help me put some sort of game plan together. And yeah, it was just, it was very roller coaster cathartic. Right. But you know, at the end of the day, okay, yeah, seat of the pants sounds good to me. I like that. So, yeah, Robert Redford, God rest his soul, great man.
[00:16:09 – 00:16:11]I miss him already very, very much.
[00:16:11 – 00:17:33]Yeah, I can imagine. Many, many people do. As an entertainer, I didn’t know him, but as an entertainer, certainly he will be missed. Hollywood needs people like that. And unfortunately it is a lot about what you’re saying. Do I look good this way? Did you know what I mean? No, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. A lot of prima donnas, I guess they call them male and female, right? Whatever. That, that’s, that’s Hollywood, if you want to be in that world. And I’ve interviewed a few people that have done things in Hollywood over the years. But at the end of the day, that’s your crazy. I have my Crazy. If that’s what they want to do, that’s what they want to do. Thank goodness. So they’re crazy. Drove you to be who you are today. So one of the things I wanted to ask was, you know, you spoke about the rejection face with the pma. Pardon me, the female pitched centric screenplays. Right. And I can imagine that obviously that fueled your challenge and fueled your determination to write stories that are centered around that. Have you ever had any buddies say to you, well, okay, you’re doing really strong female. You’ve done all this stuff now with your, you know, your books. What about the men? Have you ever had it? Had anybody say that to you or you just continue to. I’m going to stay on the path that has been most successful.
[00:17:35 – 00:18:13]No one said that to me. However, I have two books out. Well, maybe. Well, I don’t know if one’s got a half and half. I have two books out that have male leads. So I’m not opposed to writing male leads. It depends on the story. Again, back to a good story. So my Road to Elysium was like my fourth or fifth book and that’s won 10 awards. That does start with a guy, a male lead named Ken. So that story is about redemption and second chances and split second decisions that can change your life, your entire life.
[00:18:13 – 00:18:14]Wow.
[00:18:14 – 00:18:15]So, yeah.
[00:18:15 – 00:18:40]Well, I just, I wanted to ask because at the end of the day, I have a male population that listens to. And I want them to understand that, you know, they can fit within the reading, the current context with women centered leads. But maybe they’re looking for something to dive into the world of your writings. And that’s why I asked that specifically, because everybody, everybody has a different stroke.
[00:18:41 – 00:18:47]Right. So now my, my. There is no male bashing in my books.
[00:18:47 – 00:18:49]Perfect. No women.
[00:18:49 – 00:20:02]But yeah, no, the relationships that I have in my books, like in my Disturbed Tomb series, I have four books. Her husband is Derek and he is a police chief. And they work together very well because he’s got interviewing skills, she’s got her skills, and they work together on things and things happen to him and she can help him. And so, and one of those books is dedicated to that character, Derek. Because so many women loved Derek in the books that I said, okay, let me write one that’s more focused on him with her kind of on the sideline because that’s how life is. There’s times when, you know, you need to support your spouse, which, you know, whichever way it goes, and they need to support you. So that’s How I write. So there’s. Yeah. And then my latest book is a leading male character and it seems to be. It just launched the 17th of October. Fear struck. And it’s a. It’s about a male writer, so. And how his fiction starts to come to life. So with murders, because he writes murder mysteries. So he gets accused of doing the murders because they’re following his book per se. So yes, I do write about men.
[00:20:04 – 00:20:21]And I’m not trying to take away from. From women. I’m just curious because of my listenership, I need to, you know, ask questions that they might ask you. What about. What about us? Where. Where do we fit into the picture? Obviously with 19 books, there’s no way I can research them. Oh, there’s no way.
[00:20:22 – 00:20:23]Fifteen. But thank you.
[00:20:25 – 00:20:26]Pardon me, I apologize.
[00:20:27 – 00:20:31]You put the 9 and the 15 together. Yeah. So you know, I’m going to write 19.
[00:20:31 – 00:20:33]I’m just kidding. Tongue tied.
[00:20:34 – 00:20:42]You know, they say write what you know. So when I wrote my first book that was male. Male lead. I’m not male.
[00:20:42 – 00:20:42]Right.
[00:20:43 – 00:21:21]So I wanted to make sure. I went to a male editor and said, I want you to really look at this lead that I wrote and let me know if that’s not what a man would say. If that’s not what a man would do. And he came back and said, no, you pretty much nailed it. Which I was, you know, happy to hear because that was a concern of mine. I’m not male. I don’t think like a male, you know, So I want to make sure that when I do write the male parts that I have taken that into consideration. And we’ll ask questions of my brother or anybody else, you know, what do you do in this situation? What would you do? What you think other guys would do? Because I want to make sure that it’s authentic as I can get it.
[00:21:22 – 00:21:43]Wow, that’s awesome. That’s good. Because to think that we know how another gender and what they go through. Like even as a male raising my kids as a single dad, I talk to women. Obviously I had to. To understand the complexities of the fact that four of my five kids are girls.
[00:21:43 – 00:21:45]So almost girl dad. Yeah.
[00:21:46 – 00:21:48]Yeah. So completely different.
[00:21:48 – 00:21:49]Yes.
[00:21:49 – 00:22:51]So yes. It’s important for us to have conversations with even people, whatever view you are. We talked about that. I think in the pre recording, if you believe one thing you would said, you go and research it. You don’t trust necessarily what is first presented to you. And. And I appreciate that that reflection because I’m the exact same way when you are writing your books, back to a little bit. I talked a little bit about the cathartic process of it. So 15 books from even being a screenwriter, how did that, how did the cathartic nature of writing help you yourself, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction? What part of you was implemented into the book and what did you get out of. What do you get out of every book is basically what I’m saying. Do you find that to be a very rewarding, satisfying thing at the end or does it really make you think about your own perspective? Because now you’ve interviewed your brother or you’ve interviewed other men, or you’ve interviewed women. How has this affected you? And you’re in a way that you.
[00:22:51 – 00:27:06]Think, well, I think every time you write a book, especially if it’s your first book, every author says, no one’s going to read this. Why am I writing it? And you need to put that aside. Right? You just got, I want to write it. My first book was answering the question I’ve had for years. Why do we, you know, dig up everybody we find in Sudan and Egypt? Every mummy we find 28, we dig up 28. But our graveyards are sacred, right? And we can’t touch those. Why do we think there’s a difference there? I know it’s another country and they allow it or whatever, but. And it’s science, but are we disturbing their life? So my first novel was, you know, about that and I answer it my way. And I didn’t realize how complicated that novel was writing it until I went to write a second novel. Because you go back and forth in time as bodies are being, you know, dug up and you know, from when they were originally buried. And when I finished writing that first one and answering my own question my way, it was very rewarding. It was. And that’s why, you know, I continued to write because I could bring forward and these, you know, female, his stuff of history, their historical fictions in a sense, but they’re action packed. I like Clive Kuesler as when I’m reading and you know, if, you know, Jack Ryan and those kind of series, they’re full of action and they’re, they’re on an investigation. Well, that’s what my books are like because that’s what I like to read. And I could take historical, you know, figures like Buddha from England and most people don’t know who she is. And she was a female warrior back fighting against the Romans, successfully fighting against the Romans using chariots before the Romans used chariots. And that kind of information I love giving to my readers in a story because, you know, some. Her bones have been discovered and she, you know, her piece was broken. And. And Dr. Kelly Worthy, who’s the lead character in those, that book series, you know, finds a way to communicate with them. And then she has to find linguistic experts, you know, because she doesn’t know all these older languages. And, you know, so it’s, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of fact finding for me. I find out information people have told me that they were. A guy from Sudan was impressed with my book saying, you, how many times have you been to Sudan? And I’m like, I haven’t been to Sudan. I have on Google Maps, I have on my research, but I myself have not been there. And he was shocked because he really thought I’d been there. And when I get that kind of feedback, I get, you know, happy and excited that, wow, okay, I did what I wanted to do. And the other thing is I go on a journey with them. I go on the journey when I’m writing the book, I’m part of the journey that they’re on. And sometimes when I finish a book, it’s like, wow, this book really means something to me. Or I’m sad I finished the book because I still want those characters. So the one I just released, I am writing the second novel of. I normally do not write my series in order. I have two series out already and I will go back and forth between the series just to keep my head clear on, you know, what story I’m writing. But this is the first time I’ve gone from book one to book two because I just didn’t want to let go of the characters and I wanted to take another ride with them. So I go on that journey. It’s just almost like sitting in my bedroom as a child and coming up with imaginations and stories in my head. I’m now in my living room doing it on my computer with my dog next to me. You know, I could be in my pajamas all day because I write all day because I’m so excited about what I’m writing about. So that’s how I feel.
[00:27:07 – 00:28:32]That’s awesome. I love the fact, though, though, you write fiction books. They’re. They’re truth centric. I wrote down. Right. You answer in your own way. But they’re still based on. On truth. Obviously you have to add entertainment. Yes. Because if people are just reading a factual book, they might as well grab a pamphlet or go summarize it from wherever they can find a textbook. Yeah, go and summarize it in a textbook or our sources on Internet. So I like that that you articulated that. And you literally are true centric. You answer it in your own way, but it’s still great. You’re bringing it to life based on you and how it connects to you, that you leave a certain portion of you in that book because. Because you created it. That’s your baby. That’s your, you know, 15 babies later. And you’re right, number 16. And that’s just fantastic that it’s always centered on a passion which comes across very strong from you, which. Which I really appreciate it. So when you say you’re. What would you say your mindset shift has been from book one to book here? Right. You’re. What’s your mind shift? Mindset shift. Bin. Like, what has changed is your craft, your mission along the way changed at all from book one to book 15?
[00:28:33 – 00:28:39]Craft. That was a. I want to hear you say that 10 times fast.
[00:28:39 – 00:28:41]Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.
[00:28:41 – 00:28:41]No.
[00:28:43 – 00:28:44]Oh, sorry. Mind you.
[00:28:45 – 00:28:45]Yeah.
[00:28:45 – 00:28:46]I don’t know if I can say.
[00:28:46 – 00:30:43]That the craft has changed mindset. I don’t think so, but I’ll explore that as I talk to you. The craft has changed because when I first started, you. You tell people what’s happening. I walked into a room, right? That. There’s your sentence. My character walked into a room as you’re getting your voice and creating your voice. And I say this to all new writers. I do blogs on writing tips for free. You create your own voice, and then you learn to write. Not that they walked into the room. It’s like, as he entered the room, the dim light flickered and the smell of smoke wisped in the air. And you describe the scene, you describe what he’s doing as opposed to telling your reader what they’re doing. And I’ve learned how to do that. I’ve learned how to put more emotion in the sentences instead of. He said that briskly, you know, it would be like, you know, he muttered these words and briskly added, you know, and then thought about what he had said. You know, those kind of things that are adding more flavor and color to the story. And my books got longer. That’s an automatic reaction from that. But sometimes I will write something and go back a little later and read it and go, I wrote that. You know, it’s just like, oh, that’s really. That sounds really good. And, you know, other times I feel like, oh, I didn’t Write that quite right. I don’t feel that strong, you know, with this scene I can rewrite it. That’s the beauty of writing, is that your first draft is never going to be your finished novel. Right? We know that. Oh yeah, Great novels are made in the editing stage and it is a fluid living beast, as they like to call it in. I worked on the movie Backdraft, I picked that up from there. It is the moving, flowing beast that you can move around.
[00:30:44 – 00:30:44]Right.
[00:30:44 – 00:31:55]If you don’t like this paragraph here, you can change it. I don’t. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Or I write something later on and go, oh, you know what? Let’s slightly foreshadow that earlier and add that know somewhere else up in the book. And it’s a live beast and it’s not done even when it’s published. It could be tinkered with. It’s just like a movie where you can edit, edit, edit. And you can either be an editor who finishes the movie and hands it over, or you can edit it till you’re deadline and try to continue to tweak it and then rush it over, you know, so, you know, everybody can edit a movie a different way. Everybody can write a book a different way. You yourself can do it different ways. So that how to write the book, how to give more information, how not to just tell them what’s happening, but show them what’s happening. Show the expression on the face. Don’t say he got mad. You can say his face, you know, he stared down, stared her down. His hand went in a clutch, you know, clinched and, and the readers know, oh, he’s Matt, you know, so that’s what I, I have graduated to so far with the 15 books.
[00:31:56 – 00:32:23]Wow, that’s. You know, when, when I think about it, you mentioned about blogs, free writing tips you’re giving back, which is phenomenal. You spend most of your days. As you mentioned too, is you write all the time, right? And so on top of writing books, you’re writing a blog and doing so much in. In that world that you live in now. Do you miss Hollywood at all?
[00:32:24 – 00:35:30]I, you know, I, I get that question a lot. Do I miss Hollywood at all? No, I, I do make book trailers of all my books I have, because I can do that. I have the Hollywood experience and the editing knowledge, but I. Hollywood, this is how I frame it. When people ask me, the only glamour in Hollywood is when you’re walking on a red carpet and then you’re taped, hairsprayed, sucked in. Haven’t eaten for three days and you pray to God that nothing falls off and you’re wearing heels that you normally don’t wear. And that’s the glamour. Because otherwise it is a business. It is a business. You work together. There are some true people, you know, that I still friends with and there’s people that you, you don’t work well with. And it’s. I used to tell people when they’d meet me and they didn’t know me that I worked in a warehouse. I wouldn’t say I worked in Hollywood because all this idea, preconceived notions, preconceived notions come with it and you know, have you worked with. And then they start asking you about actors and actresses. Have you worked with this person? I’ve heard this. I didn’t talk much about the bad stories either. And those are coming out as we see, not nearly as much as what actually happens in Hollywood. But you know, people have warned me about certain individuals to stay away from because of their activities, which we are now finding out about in the news. And so, you know, I didn’t think people would believe me anyway because it’s so far fetched, you know, who would believe that somebody so well known would put drugs into drinks to, you know, have women when you think that they’re just dropping at their feet, you know. So I stay away from both the really bad and the really good about, you know, I just, I’m an even keel. It’s a job. You come to work, you work whatever hours you’re working, you hurry up and wait a lot and you know, the, the beauty and the creativity is something I love. So I’m getting that out of my books. You know, watching Redford direct Sneakers when he was working on that film at Universal and when I worked there, you know, just to watch him work and the way he worked with people and the way he treats people. But that’s true about, you could say that about any CEO who understands their employees, who, who values the people that work for them. And so it’s not really different other than they’re putting stuff on film and people are acting. And the acting part of course is the smallest part of the film. Right. So it’s all the pre, pre production, you know, writing the script, making, sure. Finding the locations. That’s a year, two years and the post a year, two years, six to eight weeks, you know, on the average for a movie of shooting. And yet the actors get the credit, all that big credit, you know, but it’s normally the Smallest part of making.
[00:35:30 – 00:36:42]A film, but yet they’re the. When you sit at the end of a movie, there’s a million different people’s names come up and that’s their, well, let’s say two seconds as it scrolls by. Two seconds of part of their fame that nobody understands, really. Anyway, Hollywood’s done a terrible job of explaining the intricacies of what it takes to produce movies, to television shows, documentaries, whatever. It’s horrible. Like all these different terms, lead grip, this and this. People don’t understand that stuff. Right? So, so, so, so, so. And now Hollywood’s trying to. They put those trailers in like Marvel does Disney, to make people sit. If I sit to watch that minute and 30 seconds at the end of the movie, I. My brain shut off watching all that crap scroll by. I’m just being real. So I, I understand what you’re saying. It’s always this, it’s always the people at the top that get all the credit for all the work at the bottom. And that’s like any business, always a business. Like you mentioned, right. 100. So what if you had to say, sum it up. What’s your favorite part of being an author as opposed to anything else you’ve done?
[00:36:44 – 00:36:46]Oh, as opposed to. Yeah.
[00:36:46 – 00:36:59]Opposed to Hollywood doing scripts. Like, what is your favorite part of being an author? What. What makes your step. What makes your step a little bit quicker? When you think about the fact of, of your accomplishments and that you’re an amazing author.
[00:36:59 – 00:38:33]The creativity, the. There’s creativity in Hollywood, but the difference is you answer to all those people above you. Right? The people who are going to put out the movie, the people who can distribute the movie. Everybody has input. The only people have input in my books is my editor. Right. And when you find an editor who gets you, that input is story oriented, not, not personal. Or, you know, when they come back and say, I would have liked, you know, you should do this and that, and it doesn’t fit with what you think that character would do. That doesn’t work for you. You need to find an editor. And I’m blessed with a fantastic editor who gets my stories and gets me and, you know, yeah, just. You make suggestions. Absolutely. And I ask questions. Hey, what do you think about how I did this? You know, give me feedback. The Road to Elysium. I had an editor who said, the one part of the story where the young boy knocks on the car window and asks a man he doesn’t know to teach him how to do a sport, she came back, goes, this would this can’t fly. This will never happen in real life. And I go, that’s the true part of the story. That is what happened. And she was like, oh, really? You’re kidding. And I’m like, no, that’s what makes the story. So you get, you know, you get somebody who’s kind of arguing with you about what is real in the, you know, kind of, you know, So I like having the freedom of my creativity when writing. I can go anywhere, in any country, at any time. Spanish while I’m sitting in my living room.
[00:38:33 – 00:38:35]Oh, using Google World.
[00:38:35 – 00:38:43]Using Google World, you can drive down the street that you’re talking about in the book that you’ve just done. And I want my readers to do the same.
[00:38:44 – 00:39:32]That’s awesome. You know, so many people discount the fact of. Even if you’re a person that does copywriting or does whatever, like just writing a little blurb, right? The creativity is who you are, right. Your creativity comes out and. And I can read or look at people’s stuff and know it’s them because their creativity shines through in the way that they, you know, the way they articulate themselves, the way that they flow. So you’re. You’re going to have commonalities from book one to book 15. Who are you? Right. And how you serve up and deliver. And it’s amazing, though, you get your tribe, your following. They love that. And they’ll die. They’ll fall on a sword. A sword. Part of me for a good author, right?
[00:39:32 – 00:39:34]Yeah, yeah, they will. That’s. That’s true.
[00:39:34 – 00:40:04]Even through the terrible books. I’m not saying yours are terrible, but I look at some of Stephen King’s books. I stopped reading his stuff years ago, but I initially, when I was a young adult, I did like 18 in my mid early 20s. Then I stopped reading them just because they just. They didn’t. They didn’t connect with me. Right. They weren’t the same. I don’t know if he went through a spell or if he’s still that way. I don’t really know. But my point is, is that Steven Spielberg and a lot of people, in a way, not every book’s good.
[00:40:05 – 00:40:13]No, no. Steven Spielberg’s had failures. You know, it’s you. Was that night, whatever that 1914 or whatever that film was, was one of them.
[00:40:14 – 00:40:24]1940, 1942. I can’t remember. I know what. Some years, and it was terrible. But some, you know, that long AI.
[00:40:24 – 00:40:25]Movie, whatever that was.
[00:40:25 – 00:40:26]Oh, my.
[00:40:27 – 00:40:27]Yeah.
[00:40:27 – 00:40:28]Yeah. I don’t.
[00:40:28 – 00:40:31]Everybody has, you know, some.
[00:40:31 – 00:40:34]Some Hills and valleys. Hills and valleys.
[00:40:34 – 00:40:35]Hills and valleys.
[00:40:35 – 00:40:53]Right. So you’ve asked this question a lot, I guarantee it. But what would you do in regards to taking your novels and adapting them into Hollywood? Would you allow it? Have you been approached? Is this something that interests you or would you just rather not?
[00:40:54 – 00:42:52]I have been approached on Road to Elysium. The script. I did write the script hesitantly because, you know, you have to format a script. And when I write now, I don’t have that format to. To bind me down. And it’s out with about four or five production companies, I think, you know, a lot of writers want to be part of the movie making part. Like here. Yeah, here’s a script. But I want to be attached. You know, I don’t really care to be attached. I don’t hold on to my work in such a way, or maybe I’m knowledgeable that it will change when it goes to a film for many different reasons. There’s things that you don’t have to say in a film. You show it instead. Right. So if somebody. Character is a strategic person, they have a new tech, they have a chess set next to them, like they’re playing with somebody, you know, and you see different things, clues in the film about that character, where you write them in the book. So things automatically change. And then directors and people have their influences. So I’d be like, here’s. Here you go. Take it. Run with it. You know, I. I want to come to the premiere and see what the heck you did to my book. But, you know, I don’t care to really go back into Hollywood and work with it, you know, so if, you know, and I would be particular as to who would purchase. Also I know that there’s some people who, you know, might want the book for their own glory, you know, because it. Ken is a fantastic character to play. He goes through a lot within that book. And, you know, I’d be careful as to who maybe the lead actor or somebody might be. I would like maybe possibly to put some input into that. But other than that, they, you know, you can have my books. Yep.
[00:42:52 – 00:42:58]Yeah, I’m not. I’m not. I’m not climbing back into your crazy. Just write me a check and do what you want.
[00:42:59 – 00:43:05]I could have said it in those two sentences. Yes. I’m not. You’re not coming back in the crazy. I don’t need to go back there.
[00:43:05 – 00:43:43]Yeah, yeah. Crazy train. No way. You know, at the end of the day, you look at people that are always aspiring to put themselves up On a pedestal. So I can see that happening with your books. Especially how well you articulated a fact that you got the hero of the novel and you have all these different aspiring people that would love to play that and showcase themselves as being the de facto standard, like a Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise or whatever. Well, Tom Cruise is kind of short. So is Ken tall.
[00:43:45 – 00:43:45]Yeah.
[00:43:46 – 00:43:51]Okay, okay, okay. We can’t have Tom Cruise unless he’s on stilts.
[00:43:52 – 00:44:07]Tom Cruise is a big. No, but remember he played richer Reacher and Jack Reacher. Yeah, yeah. And it’s much better with the new guy, you know, because he’s supposed to be a big, huge guy in Reacher. And Tom is not that at all.
[00:44:08 – 00:45:44]Yeah, no, No, I agree 100%. So, you know, let’s get into some advice to aspiring writers. Yes, you have the blog, you have the free tips that people can obviously research. But so many people dream. Like I know myself as a child, hey, I dreamt of writing child children’s books and then influenced by Stephen King and even, you know, different books that I read over the years. And then as my kids were growing up, they, I’d read them books and they’d always say, dad, make up a story for us. So I’d start making stories and those stories would be like, this is night. Okay. The next night. Oh, okay, dad, what’s the next part? This. And they’d listen intently and I just make it up off the cuff. I’d be laying there and a bunch of them would run and jump into a bed and we’d all be sitting there and depending on. On the circumstances of age, I’d make course age appropriate stories. We’d say our prayers all together then. Okay, dad, what stories? You don’t want me to read a book? No, no, no. We want to find out more about this. And I didn’t sit there today going, oh geez, what am I going to put. What am I going to say to them? I just made it up. I was very, very creative and I loved them. They’d question me, why did that happen? You know what I mean? So writing rating is very powerful. But if I wouldn’t have ran into somebody years ago that encouraged me and gave me some proper steps and advice and led me to how to get started, I would have. Wouldn’t have never gotten even one book out, let alone like the 15 that you’ve gotten. So what would be advice that you give aspiring writers? Where should they start inspiring writers?
[00:45:44 – 00:47:45]Step number one, create a space to write. So I bought a new desk. I gave myself A new desk. I put it in front of a window so I can look out. I put a nice plant there. I got a cushy chair. I put my dog bed next to it. Find a place to write. Number two, start writing. I don’t care if you’re writing 15 minutes a day, start writing. The book’s not going to happen itself. You don’t get to the top of the mountain without climbing it. Unless you’re dropped out of a helicopter, then whatever, but start writing. Three, don’t end on the end of a chapter for the day, or maybe not even at the end, not even complete a sentence so that when you go back to write, you know you’re in a thought already, so you go, okay, I. I was talking about this, right? Starting at a new chapter is a little difficult as well. So that’s why I say, don’t. Don’t end the chapter and say, I’ll do chapter two tomorrow. Don’t end chapter one. Leave it unfinished, and then finish the end and you’ll flow right into chapter two. That helps with writer’s block. And number four. I think I’m on four, Right? It is a piece of work. It is. Don’t worry about writing a perfect draft. Don’t do it. Don’t go back and change sentences and things to get it perfect, because that’s not what the first draft’s about. It’s about getting the story down. So just write freely. Just keep writing. I’m a Virgo. Virgo. I want to go back and correct things. Don’t do it. Just continue writing. Get the story down. Do your 15 minutes every day. That 15 is going to turn into 20, into 30, into 45. It’s just going to grow on you. So. But if you’re not sitting down and doing the writing, it’s not going to happen. So even with children and spouses and work, 15 minutes a day is doable. So do that. Make it a habit.
[00:47:46 – 00:47:55]Just like anything. Yeah, just like, oh, I can’t exercise 15 minutes. Come on, you can do 15 minutes. Right?
[00:47:55 – 00:47:56]Right.
[00:47:56 – 00:48:01]How often have you sat person listening or watching and scrolling your phone for two, three hours?
[00:48:02 – 00:48:03]Right.
[00:48:03 – 00:48:22]Is that an investment in your future? Or maybe it’s an entertainment value for you, or maybe it sparked up your mental state of mind and you’re angry because of what you’ve read. And really, there’s not a lot of investment into it. A little bit of entertainment. How about you invest 15 minutes, work up to that hour, two hours, stop working on social work on you.
[00:48:23 – 00:48:40]Get that story out of your mind. And I’ve, you know, as a writer, I’m sure you’ve had the same experience. People come up to you, you wrote a book. You know, I have this idea of a book, right? And that’s what they say to you. And they say, you know, and you’re like, are you writing it? And they go, well, no, you know, so you got to start writing, Gotta start writing.
[00:48:41 – 00:49:22]Or for the people, like, I, I give my book out all the time. I buy them cases. I can have a service person here. And I did the other day and I said to them, they asked me about stuff. They’re working in my house. They see my book over my shoulder that the publisher gave me and I said, you know, this is what I do. What do you do? But like, what do you do outside of work? Obviously, I know what they’re doing. They’re at my house doing service. And I’ll say to him, do you like read? Reading? Oh, I love reading. Not really. What is that? It’s a filter. Because the person that says, oh, I love reading, if I give you one of my books, will you actually read it or is it going to collect dust on your shelf? I’m very blunt with people.
[00:49:22 – 00:49:23]Yeah.
[00:49:23 – 00:51:17]Even when I went to Europe a couple years back, I was there for three weeks, I took eight, ten books with me. Why? I met the most interesting people in, in Spain, in Italy, in Portugal, in England over this three week, couple week period. Three week period. Pardon me, that a friend of mine traveled and I gave away my book. But even in broken English or translation, number one, can you speak? Read English. All right. Why am I getting. Yeah, yeah, Most do, right? Because they’re talking to me in English. Most do. But it doesn’t mean just because you can talk that you can read, read something effectively either, right? So it can be the opposite way too. Like, my dad can write, you know, he’s 84 years old, he can speak German. But to read it, he struggles because they, they didn’t have, they haven’t had to read it since he was in grade school when they, you know, because he was a first generation Canadian, but he didn’t speak English until He was like 5, 6 years old. Went to school, everything they spoke was full German growing up, right? One of 18 kids, there was an English spoken house. He got smacked. Hey, you go to school, that’s where you’re gonna learn English. And that’s how it happened, right? We become articulate in a certain language and doesn’t necessarily mean you can go both ways. So I love the, I love the fact of what you said, though. Like, I wrote down the points. I like to flow into the next chapter. Don’t leave, you know, yourself hanging. Right, Right. Don’t leave yourself hanging. And that makes so much sense. And I think in a mental mindset way, I’m not sure if this would be the case, but for me to leave, let’s say there’s three pages left on the chapter that I need to write. I know I can do it. But if I leave it that way and I have the mindset of feeling unsatisfied, that’s not going to help either. So I need to. I think I’d have to have the mindset of, oh, this is exciting. This is going to keep me driven till tomorrow.
[00:51:17 – 00:51:18]Yep.
[00:51:18 – 00:51:22]Close it and go on. Yep. Yes. No, Absolutely.
[00:51:22 – 00:51:35]Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Because when you go back and even if you don’t really know and you start to reread that last paragraph that you wrote, you’ve already sparked something, so you’re gonna go on.
[00:51:36 – 00:52:09]So. And that’s. That’s fair. Let’s go on to the mindset shift of being resilient. So many people don’t know how to be resilient. You know, you go through, you go, how do you. What would you say to an aspiring author once you get to that point and you start presenting it to people, you’re going to get recognition, you’re going to get rejection. How do you, how do you view yourself become resilient to all of that when you’ve got started? And maybe it still happens sometimes today, what would you be your recommendation to a new writer on how to deal with that circumstance?
[00:52:09 – 00:53:38]It’s the old sales term that, you know, you knock on the door 10 times, you’ll get 10 no’s. The 11th time, you’ll get a yes. So you just. Not everybody’s going to be into your book. Not everybody is going to understand what you’re doing. So learning how to do that pitch, that is a skill in itself. You know, being a writer is one thing, but learning how to pitch, and there’s, you know, there’s people who can teach you that as well. There’s a site that I belong to that taught me how to pitch. Now I had to know how to pitch movies as well. And so that what they call the elevator pitch. Right. Know how to say it in two or three lines and, you know, know your book so well that you can just say it in a couple of lines and opportunities present themselves at Weird times. You could be in an elevator with someone goes, you know, that sees you’re carrying a book. Oh, you like reading that book? No, I actually wrote this book. Oh, wait a minute. Tell me about it. You know, you don’t know. Like you said, you don’t know when that’s going to happen. Talk about service people. I’ve had people. I have my books on my staircase. I run out of stairs. So I’m trying to figure out what to do with them, but they walk in and they go up the staircase and they see that every book has my name on it, and they go, wait, are these your books? You know, and the conversation starts. So that. That happens, too. And I give a lot of my books away, too, for charities, but I’ve lost my train of thought.
[00:53:39 – 00:53:43]That’s okay. It was about. It was about resilience.
[00:53:43 – 00:55:08]Oh, yeah, Resilience, right. So, yeah, I lost my train of thought in the middle of resilience. You just keep pushing ahead. If you’re passionate about it, if you’re passionate about a movie, if you’re passionate about a story, if you’re passionate about your biography. Even a textbook can be passionate. You’re going to overstep that. You’re not going to look at those people who say no. You also want to surround yourself with people in your life who are going to push you forward, who are going to tell you to keep writing, regardless of how many errors are in that text. You know, whatever it is, that’s a good book, keep writing, Write another one. You know, make sure that you’re talking and being influenced by the right people. And yeah, there’s bad days. Treat yourself to something. Maybe you got five rejections in one day. Oh, we all feel it. We’re all human. We don’t want rejection. But you know what? The day that it’s not rejected, you’re going to scream and dance and. And be excited. And you just look forward to that because there’s going to be a day where it’s not rejected, if it’s good. And just, you know, the same thing with anything in life. If you’re going through something bad, look forward, you know, don’t look back, don’t say you shouldn’t have written it. You just haven’t connected with the right people. That’s it. So, you know, know that and live that.
[00:55:09 – 00:55:18]Keep on keeping on. Realize. Realize today’s rejection, which was a no, could be a yes tomorrow, right?
[00:55:18 – 00:55:26]Yeah, you’re closer to that yes because, you know, you got to do 10 and the 11th one’s a yes. Right. So every time someone says no, you’re closer to the yes.
[00:55:26 – 00:56:06]And normally the no’s are. Are there for a reason. They’re there to protect you and they weren’t the the yes you should have been hoping for. So don’t beg either. I don’t care what it is. Not even just books. Never give away your power to people. Right, Right. So if somebody says no to you, be courteous, respond them. I don’t care what it is, whether it’s a. Any type of business. Thank you so much. I appreciate your candor, your honesty. Whatever their response is, you know, if something should change in the future, reach out to me. Otherwise Tata Best of life. I don’t necessarily say that, but that’s what I’m thinking. Bye bye.
[00:56:06 – 00:56:11]Yeah, exactly. Exactly. If they’ve given you don’t feel afraid to ask for information.
[00:56:14 – 00:57:08]You can ask but a lot of them don’t even respond. A lot of people don’t. Especially when you’re dealing with corporate. Yeah, they’re just like whatever. Or now with the advent which we’re going to go into the flow of with AI you don’t even know if a response on social media or an email or whatever was anything original. And I’m not against people using AI. Take your original thought process if you’re frustrated and you want some property flow and use AI for it. But today AI like they brag about it that you can write books. Right. You can, you can have it write websites. But it seems emotionless to me. So tell me your take your take on AI and will it ever replace fiction or non fiction writers? And how do you. How, how do you see it as being a support rather than something that Beer.
[00:57:08 – 00:57:21]Yeah, it’s. Will it ever replace fiction writers? I don’t, I don’t know that answer. Because you know it’s learning on its own so to speak. But currently stealing.
[00:57:21 – 00:57:22]You mean stealing on its own?
[00:57:22 – 00:57:25]Yeah, yeah. Stealing on its own from other. Right.
[00:57:26 – 00:57:27]Sorry, I just.
[00:57:27 – 00:59:24]It’s okay. That’s what it’s doing. Make. I don’t. I, I use it periodically to flesh out an idea to maybe a sentence. I’m just having a problem with these three sentences together. It’s just not flowing properly. You know, I’ll see what it’ll say but I always have to massage it. I just, I just don’t cut and paste and use will also make errors. It will you. It might change your characters from a she to a he or he to a she. And you know you’re just like, wait a minute, what’s happening here? And, you know, to not pay attention to it could cause you issues. But to write a full fiction book, I don’t see it right now. I. It’s not human. It won’t throw human things into the story. So my characters interact as people do. So if, you know, if you’re a frisky woman and you’ve got a frisky husband, you know, you might be in the middle of a death scene and go over and grab his buns. You know, that’s in my book because that’s what happens in real life. I don’t see AI doing that. You know, it doesn’t really. I think it tells you more than describes it to you. It might learn that in the, you know, eventually. But it’ll say, they walked into a room. And I don’t want that. I want, you know, to have the description in the flow of the story and can it write a book, it can write a textbook. But then I double check it too, because it makes up fake references. It makes up, you know, fake information that is not accurate. So I’m not even sure that I would, you know, it’d probably be harder for me to go back and try to catch all that stuff than it is to write it myself. So that’s. That’s where I feel AI is. You know, if you want to make a pretty little email, great, use AI, but double check it still. But as for writing a full fiction novel, I don’t see it right now.
[00:59:24 – 01:00:03]Well, yeah, like the fake quotes it comes up with. I asked it to research somebody here recently, right. And then I have the paid version. I don’t have the free version. And I’m. And I’m asking it a question and it comes back and says this quote. And I. And I went, I happen to know this first. When was this quote said? You know what AI came back and said? It said, well, this is. The quote was made based on who they are. And we felt this would be something they said. Okay, why didn’t they I say that, though? Like a little note or a little thing saying, this was made up.
[01:00:04 – 01:00:04]Yeah.
[01:00:05 – 01:00:16]So it doesn’t mean. So then I copy and paste and I use that. And I. And it’s de facto standard, but it’s not. Right. I’ve even asked it to do stuff about me, to challenge it.
[01:00:16 – 01:00:17]Yes.
[01:00:17 – 01:00:18]Oh, man, that’s fun.
[01:00:21 – 01:00:24]Everybody should try that because my name’s pretty common.
[01:00:24 – 01:00:24]There’s.
[01:00:24 – 01:00:45]There is another writer out there that. That goes by K. Oliver. That’s why I use the middle initial A. And all of a sudden I’ve written more books that I knew what to do with. So, you know, not even my style. So it’s, it’s kind of interesting to. Yeah, it does that. Or, or I’m a, a doctor down in San Diego. That’s another one. But yeah, yeah.
[01:00:45 – 01:01:22]So that’s got to be careful of AI. I’m not. So for me, it, it would be. It’s a great tool. I like how you put that. You can put something in. I can be writing a long email and in the past I’d read through it and read through it, I’d wait because I wanted to make sure that the context of the email was valid. Right. That I didn’t have outside extraordinary circumstances affecting my 6 inches between my ears and it coming out. And that’s all. Say I’ll copy and paste it and say, here’s what I want to. Here’s what my intent is. Here’s what I’ve written. Can you find any holes in this? Can it.
[01:01:22 – 01:01:23]Or make it more professional?
[01:01:24 – 01:01:57]Yes. Or, or empathetic? Yeah, I’d like this to be way more. Or I want this to be rude and ignorant or I want this to be with. You can say I want this to be done with humor. Like you can do all this stuff, but people, when you do that stuff, is it genuinely you? So if you’re somebody that talks with humor or delivers with humor, specific topics, they’re going to expect that when you’re being serious, the people in your tribe are going to know when you’re being genuine. So don’t use it to be somebody you’re not. Use it to enhance who you are. That’s how I look at AI.
[01:01:57 – 01:01:58]Yep.
[01:01:58 – 01:02:22]So I’ll get off right now. I’ll get off my AI soapbox and we’ll move on to the next thing. So your novels are known for weaving life affirming wisdom right into every page, whether it’s fiction or not. We already had in our conversation that there’s real value, real time, real you in there. What do you hope readers take away from your stories, especially those that are navigating adversity?
[01:02:23 – 01:04:57]I hope and I have had some feedback that people will put down my books and wonder would I have done that that way, you know, or that was a great way to handle that. I have to consider that, you know, people tell me they read my books not only because it’s a fantastic story, they say, but because they learn from them and that to me was not an expectation when I was writing the book, but now I’m conscious of it when I write a book that, you know, how they handle a situation. All of my, you know, books have to have conflict because we have conflict in our lives. So, you know, they all have to handle things. They’re not, they’re not golden children by any means. My characters get in trouble, they get in trouble with each other. They, you know, both do. So that’s true. And how they handle that. And you know, if they do it in a playful manner, if they do it in a serious manner, I have both. And so I like to make sure that a lot of the what would I do? You know, what are the feelings? What have I learned in my life? That if I was in this situation, how would I get out of it? I know myself that I use a lot of creativity to get out of problems. So when you’re in a bad place, creativity is a fantastic tool to try to figure out how to get out of that bad place. It really is, even in life, ordinary circumstances. So that’s in my books. And definitely, you know, I’m going back to wrote to Elysium in particular because it is a redemption story. You know, his knee jerk reaction leads him on this whole different journey that he never expected to have. And in that journey, he’s now mentoring a young boy. Well, there’s circumstances that he runs into there, there’s a little bit of racism that happens that he has to, he jumps in and he overreacts to it. And there’s other things where he has to learn himself as he is teaching and mentoring the young boy. It’s not one sided. And as we teach people things, we learn as well as we all know, you know, so that is something that I put into my books because that’s how I learned. I learned, you know, by experiences. And my, A lot of people will say, my gosh, you are the woman in every book you write. You know, you are, you know, that’s part of you there. That’s part of you there. And that’s true, you know, well, your.
[01:04:57 – 01:05:02]Your identity doesn’t have to be stripped back just because it’s a fiction book.
[01:05:02 – 01:05:46]Correct? Correct. And no, I’m going to use what I’ve had in life and what I’ve been challenged with in life and you know, what I’ve learned in life and the ups and the downs, the hills and the valleys, as you like to say. And yeah, and so those are in my books because I’m writing From me, from my point of view, what would happen with that character? You can’t. You shouldn’t deny that. Right. You should, you know, put part of. Part of you. Just like every. Every movie or every character someone plays, part of them is in that character. The way they walk, the way they talk, you know, the way they motion. So the same thing is true with a writer if you’re writing good.
[01:05:46 – 01:06:10]Well, that’s a great response. But it’s. It’s so true, though, at the end of the day, our creativity can pull us out. Right. So if you’re reading somebody else’s creativity about a circumstance and at the end of the book, they reflect and go, oh, my gosh, would I have done this? How would I have done it? The most important thing I see, you made them think.
[01:06:10 – 01:06:11]Yeah.
[01:06:11 – 01:07:32]Our brain is a giant computer. You don’t beat it or challenge it. It just hits. It goes into like a camped mode and people wonder why. We get ill, we get sick, we get depressed, we get anxiety. It. Feed your mind some positive things that are going to change it. And if that’s a fiction book that makes you realize that in your own life circumstances that maybe you’re doing something right and it’s a pat on the back or you’re doing something wrong. Kick in the pants part of me, then so be it. But actually put some effort in. If you are on the hamster wheel of life, you’ll never escape it if you don’t crack open a cover of a book and actually read. And if you’re a person that loves Audible like I do, because I read so much, I like Audible when I’m driving or if I’m going out riding, whatever I’m doing, do something. Change the inputs that are going into your brain from just social media, traditional media, your friends and families, your current associations, if you’re stuck and you feel stuck, are the first thing you need to work on in order to get past and be able to write a book or to be able to start a podcast, be able to maybe reach out, out of your comfort zone and leave that job that’s mistreated you for five, six years and you’re going on to a new career like you did.
[01:07:32 – 01:07:33]Yes.
[01:07:33 – 01:07:35]Right. It’s all possible.
[01:07:35 – 01:07:36]You have to believe.
[01:07:36 – 01:07:37]Starts with a baby step.
[01:07:37 – 01:07:39]Right. And trust in yourself.
[01:07:40 – 01:07:40]Absolutely.
[01:07:41 – 01:07:42]Yeah.
[01:07:42 – 01:07:43]Go on.
[01:07:43 – 01:08:44]Well, I was going to say, I have a director friend who used to come to me and every time he finished a project, he would say, oh, my God, I’m worried. I’m not going to get another show I’m not getting a movie about and get another project. And I would look at him and I one day I finally said, so do you do anything you need to do? I mean, like, if you need to go flip hamburgers, are you going to go flip hamburgers? Yeah. So you’ve always done what you need to do. So you need to start believing in yourself because you’re going to go out and do whatever you need to do to get that next show. So I’m not worried about you. And he was like, I’ve never thought of it that way. So you know that you have to trust in yourself, that you know yourself better than anybody else. And if you’re the type of person who’s going to move forward or do what it takes, do whatever it takes, trust that that’s what you’re going to continue to do. You know, do whatever it takes to get this book published and out. If I have to knock on 200 doors, you know, knock on 200 doors, you know you’re going to do it, do it.
[01:08:44 – 01:08:45]Exactly.
[01:08:45 – 01:08:49]You know, you don’t have to do 200 doors on one day. You do five a day.
[01:08:49 – 01:08:50]Baby steps.
[01:08:50 – 01:08:51]Baby steps.
[01:08:51 – 01:09:53]Yeah. And on that one baby step, if you have a failure that day, do not cower, get up, dust yourself off, put a band aid on your boo boo and learn from it. Assess the circumstance, the next day, try again. Yep. Right. Nobody, nobody that’s been successful in life hasn’t tried. Go, go look at Colonel Sanders. You go to 1100 financial institutes at 68 years of age to get a loan to start KFC. If you do that, or go look and see what Sam Walton did, his current family or Bile. But Sam Walton was about America. He was about supporting North America. He was about. His value systems were just amazing. And at the end of the day, what he went through to create, you know, Walmart or Dave Thomas with Wendy’s. I’ve read all these books, by the way, peoples, go read his biography about his life or, you know, what creation of McDonald’s.
[01:09:53 – 01:09:54]Right, right.
[01:09:54 – 01:09:57]And how Val Ray for Henry Ford.
[01:09:57 – 01:10:17]Went bankrupt a couple of times. And actually the assembly line was created by the woman who made the cult gun. She started assembly Lines. So I got rejected for, you know, not, you know, the screenplays weren’t marketable. Well, you’re not going to stop me from writing. So we move on. We, we find a way.
[01:10:18 – 01:10:38]We always have our tribe, we always have our, our voice. We have our community. But in order to know what your tribe is and your community, you need to step out of your comfort zone. Right. So you know that, I know that, and we’ll, we’ll quit beating that to death. Because people, you have to step out of your comfort zone.
[01:10:38 – 01:10:38]Yes.
[01:10:38 – 01:11:02]Nothing worthwhile in life. Any of those actors that want recognition, screenwriters, people in. I don’t care. It can be sports, it can be my. It can be somebody I work with or, you know, work with or work against. At the end of the day, I have my unique talents and skills, but I need to broadcast them in a, in a great, in a good way. Right, right.
[01:11:02 – 01:11:09]If something’s not working, then maybe a little change up. Like you said. If it’s a company that’s not recognizing what you’re doing, you find one that will.
[01:11:10 – 01:11:24]Exactly. So, Kay, if you could leave our listeners with one piece of encouragement, something from your own life that proves it’s always worth giving a heck and never giving up, what would that advice be?
[01:11:25 – 01:15:07]I’ve got a couple of personal sayings, but one of my favorites is do everything you do with love with the intent of love. And that includes stuff you do for yourself. So when you breathe in, this is the example I like to use. You breathe in with the intent of loving yourself. You’re breathing in the nutrients that you need from the air. It’s a different feeling if you take a second and do that with the intent of loving yourself. It’s, you know, it’s not that automatic, you know, that you do all day long. It feels a little different. So if you do everything with the intent of love, I don’t care what people say about your intentions. Because when I worked in Hollywood, I would do things for free. Somebody needed something. One of my celebrity friends was holding a, you know, some kind of charity event. I would get things together, buy things for them, and bring them to the charity event. And then Hollywood, the saying is, when you do something like that, they look at you and they say, what’s in it for you? Nothing. I’m doing it because I respect you and love you. That’s it. I don’t want. I don’t want to be in a movie with you. I’m not writing, you know, giving you a screenplay to sell. I’m just doing it because you’re somebody, you know, I like what you’re doing, and I want to support you in that. And so doing everything you do in the intent of love, it takes some celebrities a long time to figure out that’s exactly what she’s doing. And I have some great celebrity Friends now because of that, because one, one finally called me and said, you keep doing this and you’ve never asked me for anything. His exact words, what. He called me on the phone and I said, I’m sorry that so many people ask you every time they do something they want you to do something. That’s the bad part. I am just doing it because I like what you’re doing and I support you. And it’s sometimes a hard thing for people to understand, right? It’s just like showing that act of kindness for no apparent reason. You don’t want anything back for it. You get stuff back for it. I’m telling you, you feel good about it, you can’t help it. But, you know, that’s not the intention, though. The intention is supporting somebody so that in Hollywood, you know, I would get that question a lot. Well, what’s in it for you? Why are you doing this for me? Because I want to. They didn’t understand that answer because I want to. Because so many people in Hollywood want things from you. Right. And I just want to. And I, I was told at one point by somebody that, oh, they’re just going to take, you know, advantage of you once they know you’re doing that. They can’t take advantage of me unless I let them take advantage of me. So I don’t worry about that either. And I, you know, and I thought about it when that person told me, like, should I not be doing this? Then I went, no, this is, this is what we should be doing as humans. If everybody did that, did one thing a day, two things a day, what would this world be like? It would be more loving, it would be less expectations, it would be less greed in the sense of I need something back, you know, so that’s, that’s my sentence. Do everything that you do in your life with the intent of love, including your own breathing when you make your dinner. Well, I was married, I got divorced. I remember thinking to myself, I used to make dinner for the love of my husband. I’m going to continue cooking for myself because I love me and I make my own dinners and have. It’s been a long time since I’ve been divorced, a couple of decades. And that is, that is important to me because I want to make sure that I’m doing what I need to do for, for me.
[01:15:08 – 01:15:36]Well, the self love is so important, right? So you just say to do everything, you know, with intent of love. You don’t love yourself. Your intent is always going to be what’s in it. For them. What’s in it for me? You’re always going to have that underlying mistrust of people. Right. And yes, society has done a great job of making it that way. Right. Oh, if I come help you with your. Let’s neighbor think, help you with your fence, what are you gonna do for you know what I mean?
[01:15:36 – 01:15:37]Right.
[01:15:37 – 01:15:51]You owe me one. I’m so tired of people saying that to me, you know, hey, give me some. You owe me one. What you. Oh, I don’t owe you nothing. How about, oh, you want to start that way? How about the 10 things I did for you now you finally did one for me.
[01:15:51 – 01:15:52]Right? Right.
[01:15:52 – 01:16:09]I don’t get that way. I just smile and register it up here. And my actions in the future reflect their lack of appreciation or their lack of trust in me. Right. And sometimes this can happen with people that have been in your lives for decades. Right. It’s just like, what?
[01:16:10 – 01:16:10]Yes.
[01:16:10 – 01:16:23]You know what I mean? They’ve had a bad day and they chose and you’re now there punching bag or whatever. Their. Their puking zone, their dumping zone, those listening or watching, don’t be that person. Right.
[01:16:23 – 01:16:24]I concur.
[01:16:24 – 01:16:35]Just give, give love with intent. Right. And love yourself first and keep on going from there. So what’s the best way that people can reach out to you? Kay.
[01:16:36 – 01:17:43]They can come to my website, which is my full name. K a y a Oliver o l I v e r.com K-A Oliver.com I’m also on Facebook and I’m on Instagram TikTok Blue sky and which is equivalent to X. And all those are listed on my website. My books are also available on Amazon.com so you can find them there. And my author central is there as well. And yeah, it’s all listed. All my upcoming information and my blog for free is under kaoliver.com backslash blog. So you don’t have to give me your email to read it. You don’t, you know, need to give me personal information. You can just click on there, find out what topic from starting to write to how to name a character, how that is important, how to develop a character, when to stop the book, when to end the book. You know, that kind of information from every topic that I can think of, I write about.
[01:17:44 – 01:18:02]Right on. That’s fantastic. Yeah, it’s always good not to have writing diarrhea. Just like verbal diary is not good, just keeping on, keeping on because you don’t have a ability to stop and know that. Especially if you want people to Buy your next books. Right, right.
[01:18:03 – 01:18:25]There’s a movie about that with, I believe, Michael Douglas and Robert Downey Jr. And Michael Douglas is the character who’s a writer, and his book’s getting longer, longer, longer and longer. And I just, I love that movie. I can’t even think of the name of it, but it’s, it’s, it’s hilarious. And I always think of that every once in a while. Like, am I writing too much? No, but I write around 60,000 or just over 60,000 words per book.
[01:18:26 – 01:18:32]So, yeah, my book is about 32,000. So, yeah, it’s a novella.
[01:18:32 – 01:18:34]Yeah, no, it’s a novella. That is a style of book.
[01:18:35 – 01:19:12]So 150 some pages. My editor originally came back to me, fired the first one, got the company, gave me another one. We just didn’t see eye to eye. This lady got somebody else. We’ve seen a little bit more eye to eye. And, yeah, we need to dumb this down to eighth grade. What? Well, that’s funny because there’s too many people that aren’t going to. You’re. I get it. Because I’m. But not everybody’s at the same intellectual or emotional or stable level to interpret. So we, you know, I said, okay, fine, change the tone.
[01:19:13 – 01:19:44]Yeah, yeah, that’s funny because I write my books, I call them easy reading. The one thing I dislike is if I’m reading a book and I come across a word I don’t know, and I have to stop and look up what that word means, and I didn’t want that in my books. So I make sure that, yes, it, it’s easy readings, smaller words when I can use larger words. But then I find out down the road that, oh, people are reading my books going, oh, wait, what is that? What is she talking? I got to go look up Boudicca. You know, they stop and look up the character. Anyway, so now all of a sudden.
[01:19:44 – 01:19:45]They’Ve lost the flow of the story.
[01:19:46 – 01:19:52]Yeah, I’m like, okay, well, you know, I tried to explain to you. You can look her up after you’re done reading. Okay. Yeah.
[01:19:53 – 01:20:38]Awesome. So for those new to the Give a Heck podcast, if you’re watching on YouTube, listening on your favorite podcast platform, go to GiveAheck.com and you can go to the top hit podcast. You will see Kay’s picture and you will see detailed show notes. I’ll ensure all the links that she mentioned are in there for her social media as well as for her blog and how you can communicate with her. There also be chapter summaries so that if there’s a certain section that you really liked, you want to listen to it again. You don’t have to hit the little forward button until you get to it. You’ll be able to look at chapter summaries and for those of you that are really dedicated, the full unedited show notes will be there as well for our fantastic, amazing conversation. So any last final words before I wrap up the show? Kay no.
[01:20:38 – 01:20:52]But I really appreciate your time. Thank you very much. And for you out there listening, if you want to write a book, sit down and start writing. If anybody is capable and that, and find the right editor and it you can get it done.
[01:20:52 – 01:20:53]Absolutely.
[01:20:53 – 01:20:54]I guarantee it.
[01:20:54 – 01:20:59]Yeah, it just takes time. And live outside of your comfort zone.
[01:20:59 – 01:21:01]Live. Yep. Take a little risk.
[01:21:01 – 01:22:07]Yeah. So before we close, remember this. Your story matters. Whether you’re writing it, living it, or rewriting it. Give a hack. Give it boldly. Hayes Journey reminds us that rejection is not the end and resilience is the beginning. Your next chapter starts with one brave sentence. Pick up your pen. Start your story. Let that story change your life. This has been K. Oliver, Hollywood veteran, literary powerhouse, a voice for those ready to rise. If this conversation moved you, share it with someone who needs a reminder that their voice matters. If this episode resonated, please subscribe to the podcast or hit subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review or rating in your favorite app. Like comment and share on social media. Every review and share helps amplify voices like K’s and reminds others that storytelling is a path to healing, hope and purpose. Until next time, remember, it’s never too late to give a heck.