Lou Diamond Phillips, THE TINDERBOX
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[1:34]The second episode in my weekly children's book blast is with the actor, director, author,
[1:42]Lou Diamond Phillips, who I knew from La Bomba, but of course, has been in a zillion other things.
[1:47]I interviewed both Lou and his wife Yvonne. I didn't know she was coming on, but it was a pleasure to have her.
[1:53]And the two of them are close collaborators, so it was fitting that she joined him.
[1:57]Here's a little more about Lou Diamond Phillips, and we're going to be discussing his new novel called
[2:01]The Tinder Box. Lou Diamond Phillips is currently starring in the Fox series,
[2:05]Prodigal Son, having recently starred in the acclaimed Netflix series, Longmire,
[2:10]based on the Walt Longmire mystery novels by Craig Johnson. Other recent credits include Amazon's
[2:16]Goliath, Syfy's, Stargate Universe, CBS's Blue Bloods, and recurring roles on Fox's Brooklyn
[2:22]99, and Netflix's The Ranch. He received an Emmy nomination for outstanding actor in a short form
[2:27]drama or comedy for his roles in both Amazon's conversations in L.A. and History Channel's Crossroads
[2:33]of History. Recent film credits include Warner Brothers 33, Created Equal, directed by Bill Duke
[2:39]and Sundance Festival favorite Philly Brown for which he was named Best Actor at The Imagine Awards.
[2:45]As a director, he has recently helped episodes of AMC's hit series Fear, The Walking Dead,
[2:50]Longmire, and ABC's Marvel's Agents of Shield. As a writer, Phillips's co-written the screenplays
[2:57]for trespasses and HBO's Dangerous Touch. He wrote the Miramax feature ambition. He recently
[3:03]produced his play Burning Desire, a romantic comedy in two acts, which received its world
[3:08]premiere at the seven Angel Seater in Waterbury, Connecticut. Phillips, I'm still going here.
[3:12]Phillips was also asked by his good friend, novelist Craig Johnson, to write the forward to
[3:16]his collection of short stories called Wait for Science. Originally born in the Philippines,
[3:20]Phillips was raised in Texas and is a graduate of University of Texas at Arlington, with a BFA
[3:25]in Drama. Drawing from a lifetime of work in the film industry, Blue used his screenwriting
[3:30]experience in order to write an original science fiction novel called The Tender Box,
[3:34]Soldier of Indira. It is his first novel, inspired by a reading of the famed fable of the same
[3:39]title by Hans Christian Anderson. And now we'll hear all about it. Well, welcome to mom's
[3:44]ton of time to read books. I'm delighted to have you here. Thanks for coming.
[3:48]Hey, thrilled to be here. Thank you. So your latest book is called The Tender Box Soldier
[3:54]of Indira. Indira, correct? Actually, like Indira Gandhi. Yes, okay, perfect that I know.
[4:01]So can you please tell listeners what this book is about and the amazing story of how the whole
[4:06]thing transpired, which she wrote in the authors noted. Okay. Well, the original inspiration,
[4:11]my inspiration, so I'm going to start there and we'll back that up first. Okay. My original
[4:16]inspiration were her drawings. When Yvonne and I first started dating and getting to know each
[4:21]other, you know, how it goes. She started reading a lot of my work and she started showing me
[4:26]sharing with me a lot of her art, which is amazing. And in that batch of original art was a series
[4:33]of drawings in manga style that was inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's The Tender Box.
[4:38]So, you know, looking at the drawings, I go back. I read The Tender Box, which is like a three-page
[4:43]five-page, you know, famous fairy tale. Yeah, it's very short. No one of his more famous ones.
[4:48]And it just sparked, you know, this whole idea in my head and her drawings to me were very
[4:56]evocative of kind of a post-apocalyptic, you know, Mad Max kind of wasteland, you know, feeling.
[5:01]And it went from there. And I told her it was, you know, a great idea for movie. And she said
[5:04]it wrong with it. And I did, you know, I'm basically ambushed, you know, and hijacked her idea.
[5:10]And you know, kept going back to the source material because, as I've said in other interviews,
[5:16]I mean, it's, I've always been a fan of art that begets art. What side story from Romeo and
[5:22]Juliet? A book called Grendel-Bajangarner that was, you know, the bad guy's point of view of Bailwolf,
[5:28]which is really hard to understand. I understood Bailwolf a lot more after I read Grendel.
[5:34]And just, you know, let's, let's create this fantasy, you know, sci-fi world. And it didn't,
[5:40]it's nothing, sci-fi jumped out at me. It's that originally we thought it would be a good movie.
[5:45]And Game of Thrones hadn't happened yet, you know, when we first started this process.
[5:49]And so it's like, well, we're going to make a movie, you know, and then we're going to set it,
[5:52]you know, in this sort of other world, the fantasy, you know, thing. Let's kind of take it out from
[5:56]Star Wars and, and, you know, do it in the galaxy. Yeah, exactly. And it galaxy far far away that,
[6:02]you know, where we could create our rules and then, you know, have kings and queens and
[6:07]princesses and soldiers and whatnot. So that was where it all started. And the story's very simple.
[6:12]It's a soldier on a foreign planet who falls in love with the princess. It's very Romeo and Juliet
[6:17]in that respect. Amazing. And how did you, if I know, did you feel about what happened to the
[6:22]drawings after the beginning? Well, my original concept was not sci-fi or whatever the world
[6:30]this is. I basically started drawing it back in the 90s because I was really into the
[6:37]manga comic book style. And this is before the internet was available. So you couldn't Google
[6:41]images or just go to the store. It wasn't readily available. I remember that time of life.
[6:47]I understand. So that's so you need to go to the comics shop and order something from a catalog
[6:53]and wait six to eight weeks for them to order it. And so I decided I was going to create my own
[6:58]content and, and I'm not a writer and I'm very familiar with fairy tales. I'm from Germany.
[7:04]I grew up there and a lot of grims and hands pushed in Anderson and all those stories that
[7:09]I grew up with that I took one of the lesser gnomes because, you know, we know the little mermaid
[7:14]and we know all the, so I went, I'm going to go a little bit lesser known. And I started animating
[7:20]a story that was already out there and in the manga style and he says it's kind of post-apocalyptic
[7:28]and it was but it was definitely not outer space. It was, it was first bound. It was, you know,
[7:37]still witches and princesses and, you know, maybe more game of throne and fantasy or found
[7:43]not outer space. I'm sensing a little display here. So when he took the idea and said I'm going
[7:52]to write a screenplay, I basically watched my hands of it. I'm not going to animate or draw or
[7:59]illustrating a screenplay and that was pretty much do whatever you want with it. Take the story.
[8:03]It's kind of a, the cool story. Expand on it. Do what you got to do. I thought I was finished with it.
[8:09]And now here we are. Yeah, I mean, that's, well, that just did. I mean, it took on a one
[8:16]zone. I mean, it really evolved. It, you know, it kind of took over. Now, yeah, and I think
[8:20]people have to understand that this has been a 10 year process. You know, the father of the hero
[8:25]is King Ross of the 47th and the reason he's King Ross of the 47th is because I was 47 when I wrote
[8:30]the screenplay, you know, and so we write the screenplay in his fantastic and I'm very happy with
[8:36]that she's very happy with it. And then we realized that this is going to be really, really
[8:40]expensive. And nobody is going to let, you know, me directed and us produce it and then,
[8:46]you know, we'd probably, you know, make a little money, you know, by selling it. But it's like that,
[8:50]that wasn't really what we wanted to do. I mean, this started out as a project for the two of us.
[8:55]And there was always the thought, you know, to novelize it, you know, just as part of the whole
[8:59]world, if you will. And then Game of Thrones happens. And, you know, my manager, JB Roberts says,
[9:04]well, you know, write the novel. I mean, at the very least, you've got that. And then, you know,
[9:09]if you sell the rice or whatever, you've created the world. And so now, and, you know, I kept
[9:13]bouncing ideas off of, you know, Yvonne and checking in with her on, on, you know, plotting and
[9:18]just an overall feel for it. And, you know, when about the process of actually writing the novel
[9:24]and then creating the world in more detail so that even if it gets bought out from under us,
[9:29]you know, this is what it looks like, you know, we've established that.
[9:33]I love how your manager is just like, yeah, just go ahead and write the novel as if that's like,
[9:36]not a big deal. Like, that's what every, that's, there are like thousands and millions of people.
[9:41]Just, that's all they want to do in their whole lives. It's like the one sell the one novel.
[9:45]Yeah, you know, it's interesting because it is. It's easier said than done. And well, it took me
[9:50]10 years because the day job kept working out, you know, I kept acting and getting a job,
[9:56]you know, eventually got to the point where I could, you know, do a film or
[10:00]TV show and write at the same time. But it wasn't as if I could devote eight hours a day
[10:05]to writing, like, you know, novelists who do this for a living are. And I think the reason
[10:09]that, you know, JB recommended that is because I've written a bunch of screenplays. I've
[10:14]written screenplays that haven't been produced. I've written screenplays that haven't been
[10:17]produced. But whenever I've decided to write something, it gets done eventually. So he knew that,
[10:23]you know, I would do it, that it wasn't a frivolous suggestion. It just took a while.
[10:28]And I think what's interesting is that speaking of the collaboration, I really painted her
[10:34]into a corner. I mean, I stole the idea, she'd wash her hands of it. And then I wrote a novel.
[10:41]And it's like, okay, you always drink this. And there's all this stuff in there. There wasn't her
[10:46]idea, you know, it wasn't what she imagined she would be doing. This is like how we learned the meaning
[10:52]of compromise in a marriage, right? Thank you. And communication. I think it turned out that we
[10:58]did compromise because I ended up going back to really old school vintage sci-fi, more, you know,
[11:06]Flash forward in Barbaraella, as opposed to the high tech sci-fi that we see in Blade Runner
[11:12]and that today. So I still took my fantasy world and kind of did a big mishmash of everything else
[11:21]that and tried a few new things that I wasn't as comfortable with and, you know, pushed the boundaries
[11:27]here and there up for myself. And I think we've got a good mix. So it's not necessarily
[11:34]sci-fi what is expected. But it's not exactly
[11:40]or found like it is today either. Well, I mean, and that's, you know, there's something that I
[11:44]I don't know. People always tell you after the fact, right? I didn't set out to write a sci-fi novel.
[11:49]Yeah. I didn't set out to write in any category whatsoever. I wrote the story as it came to us,
[11:55]you know, and now people go, well, it's sci-fi, you know, and well, it's YA. It's YA.
[12:00]I was, oh, it was a really, okay, great, wonderful, you know. My heroes, you know, are our teenagers,
[12:06]you know, they're 19 and 17, I think, they're 19 and 18. And so, yeah, I guess that makes
[12:10]a YA because it is very much a Romeo and Juliet story. But that wasn't the point, you know,
[12:15]I didn't set out to fit into any particular genre. And I think ultimately, what happened with
[12:20]Yvonne's artwork is also a hybrid, which I think is wonderful because it certainly has that
[12:26]feel, you know, like the original Hans Christian Anderson drawings, but also, you know,
[12:30]a bit of Charles Vess and a bit of the two new drawings from Lewis Carroll. And, you know,
[12:35]Alice in Wonderland. But there are those touches of not only that, that really cool retro
[12:41]steam-pumpy kind of sci-fi, but a graphic novel sensibility as well. So I think people will
[12:48]really, and she had to draw creatures that I made up. I don't draw from it. I can draw a big
[12:54]chapter. It's, I'm reading the original Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland to my daughter,
[12:59]who's seven. And I was reading it and I was like, I don't know if this can't cross my desk,
[13:04]if I would even cover this. Like, it's weird. Do you know what I mean? It's a funny story. Like,
[13:08]who thinks of these things? And it, like, there's less rhyme or reason in that book than probably
[13:12]any other book in all the different ways that it goes off. And yet, it's a classic and it's
[13:17]amazing. And there's like, I don't know, there's just no science to writing. And things just
[13:21]take off. And then they've become successful. And there's like no formula, really. I mean,
[13:26]exactly. And then, but the truth of the matter is that's like, you know, one of the biggest
[13:30]criticisms. It's your formula way, you know, right? Yeah, that's exactly. If you're going to be
[13:34]original and you're going to do something, then, you know, you kind of have to follow your art.
[13:38]And obviously, there are, you know, certain ground rules and some fundamentals. You know, when it
[13:43]comes to writing and, you know, you apply those, but you just can't compare, you know, writers.
[13:49]I mean, I mean, friends in this is very different than like my friend Greg Johnson, you know,
[13:53]where my friend Chris Bojillion, both of those guys are different from one another. You know,
[13:58]there's styles are different. I mean, Chris Bojillion, I mean, his style will change depending
[14:04]on a subject matter. You know, which I think is just amazing. I mean, his depth and breadth of
[14:08]research and, you know, the world that he creates is wonderful. And by the way, both of those guys
[14:13]were instrumental in us getting to the finish line, you know, with this book. I mean,
[14:18]I was doing this series a long mile when I really started writing it in earnest as an novel.
[14:23]And showed Craig and his wife, Judy, the first couple of chapters. And you know, I see,
[14:27]you know, I'm wasting my time. Is this, you know, really something that, you know, this is not
[14:31]for you, you know, but they really liked it. And encouraged me. And then Bojillion and three of
[14:37]us working on a project together. And yeah, and he took a look at completed novel and literally
[14:44]pointers toward an agent and, you know, gave us some advice and has been a steadfast mentor in
[14:51]this whole process as well. So, you know, it's been, it's been a lovely journey. And we've
[14:56]acquired some great friends along the way. That's amazing. I love Chris. And it was so nice
[15:01]to have to put us in touch. She's like, and I was like, how did you, how did the two of you meet? And
[15:06]he's like, oh, we met through Twitter. Like everyone, I was like, what? What? I was going to say
[15:11]we go back decades or something like that. No, it's one of those, you know, yeah, that makes no sense.
[15:17]You know, they're in a book. They go, no, no, no, no, no. But it's funny, I was reading
[15:20]light attendant. I think it was. And we booked to a lot of reading. We're a great writer. And
[15:25]she'll read something and then recommend it to me. And then she goes on a mile. And yeah,
[15:29]oh, that's great. And so when he started reading it, he's like, is this guy on Twitter?
[15:35]This guy's on Twitter. Well, because once again, I'm reading the flight attendant,
[15:38]because this would make a great movie. You know, it makes it a party. It's already a mini
[15:44]series now. But I thought, you know, because I'm always looking for something, you know,
[15:48]to do, to direct a writer, you know, just just, and, and so yeah, sure enough,
[15:53]look them up on Twitter. There he was. Not only was he a fan, but he's a friend of John Fusco,
[15:59]who wrote both young guns films in John and I've stayed in touch over the years. And so he was
[16:04]one of those two degrees of separation. And we just happened to be going to New York within a
[16:09]couple of weeks of contacting him. Yeah, he was here. And so we had lunch and one thing led to
[16:15]another. And, you know, that's how we're working on a project that we're actually,
[16:19]we're actually in the process of adapting one of his novels once again for a mini series.
[16:24]And he wanted to take a look at some of my writing, because it was like, you know,
[16:26]you're going to do this together. That's so great. It's wonderful. Having a mentor is so important.
[16:31]And it's so funny, because you wouldn't think, I mean, look how like accomplished you are in your
[16:34]professional life. And yet you need like a person or two just to be like, yeah, you're doing okay,
[16:39]you know, it's so fun. Like, I mean, it's when you're trying something new.
[16:44]Yeah, no, it's true. It's I don't think you've been assumed to be, you know, a champion at
[16:50]everything you try. But I mean, my little career has been defined by, you know, jack of all trades
[16:56]kind of thing. You know, I write, I direct a theater film TV. And so I've said it many times,
[17:01]it's it's all different branches of your artistic treat. You know, I'm a storyteller,
[17:06]and I'm a communicator. And whatever platform or format that takes, it's it's just getting down
[17:12]the technicalities of it. Yeah, which medium to choose. It's like you have all these cards in your
[17:17]pocket. You can just deal them out. Wherever you want to stretch it. We'll see. We'll see how successful
[17:21]this is. But I mean, the reception has been has been incredible so far. It's just not only did
[17:27]the summer early reviews, which have been lovely. No, you're a beautiful writer. You're really good.
[17:33]I mean, you really are. And you never know when you open a book, what you're going to get. And
[17:37]you're a good writer. So that's great. As you will know, you know, I'm not a lot of people automatically
[17:42]saw that. First of all, you thought it was a memoir, which ain't going to happen until I'm 90,
[17:47]I promise you that. But it's unexpected. I don't think people thought that, you know, I was going
[17:54]to write, you know, something not a fictional book that was in this world. And I was liking it to
[17:59]when I did the King and I on Broadway. So many people thought, oh, the lavender guy is going to
[18:04]fix you can be on Broadway. Well, you know, I mean, I have a degree in theater. It's my background,
[18:09]you know. And even though I'm not known as a writer, I've always written, I mean, I actually
[18:15]set out to be a narrative writer, a prose writer in high school. And then, you know,
[18:19]the acting book is whole acting career has really just derailed what your main goals are.
[18:25]Can't believe how much it's gotten in the way. Well, but, you know, what's interesting is that
[18:30]Yvonne has done so many things in her life. We met when she was a makeup artist. Yeah, I obviously
[18:36]didn't become a graphic artist or an illustrator. I went into a hair makeup and special effects,
[18:42]makeup, all that kind of stuff. Again, very artistic. Did you meet on a set? How did you meet? Yeah.
[18:48]No, she gave me hair cut, got all up in my grill. Yeah. But her art, I mean, it's just, it's a gift.
[18:57]I mean, it's a gift. She blows my mind to this day. And I've always thought, you should be doing
[19:03]this. And I've also said, you know, so many ideas. I've sold so many of my ideas and believe me,
[19:08]our production company, which is frat just day, you know, from the Jabba Walkie poem. So many of
[19:13]the projects that we have in various stages of development are her idea. So, look at that.
[19:19]I'm writing your co-tales. And I think at this point in life, she's, you know, not good
[19:24]but having an opportunity to embrace some of the things that I think she is intending, you know,
[19:28]intended to do. I mean, she's just so gifted and so smart. Well, how amazing to have a partnership
[19:34]where both of you can reach your full sort of creative potential, you know, it's amazing.
[19:39]A lot of them. I feel like this never happens the first time. I'm on my second marriage.
[19:43]And like, I feel like I have been Kyle and I have the same sort of like synergy where like the
[19:47]more we talk like the more ideas go flying out in different forms. And I feel like I never hear
[19:52]that about people with their first marriage. Like, maybe there's just too much. It's my
[19:58]first. Okay. So,
[20:00]All right.
[20:01]And then I'm wrong that I wrote out of the water.
[20:03]OK, well, you changed the trend for me then.
[20:07]That's amazing.
[20:08]In the book, the character obviously is a soldier.
[20:12]Does the, I know you have a military background
[20:15]in your family.
[20:15]Did that play in to the creation of this character at all?
[20:19]Both of us, you know, have a video.
[20:21]Yeah, a military background.
[20:23]It's interesting.
[20:23]A couple of things come to mind.
[20:24]First of all, Hans Christian Anderson's short story
[20:28]starts with the soldier coming back from an unnamed war.
[20:30]Click, click, click, click, click, click.
[20:32]And, and that is the imagery of the book, the first image.
[20:35]And the fact that it's an unnamed war.
[20:37]And the fact that he's a soldier automatically, you know,
[20:40]in my mind, put him in a certain age range.
[20:43]You know, because I think, you know, a lot,
[20:45]a lot of great war stories, you know, are from people
[20:47]who just experienced this, you know, are still in the process
[20:51]of defining their own manhood, if you will.
[20:54]And I did a movie called The Courage Under Fire
[20:56]with Enzo Washington and Meg mine, directed by the amazing
[20:58]Ed Zwick.
[20:59]And this was after he had done glory.
[21:01]And I asked him one day, I said, why do you keep doing,
[21:03]you know, war stories?
[21:05]You know, and he was, well, first of all,
[21:06]bang bangs exciting, you know,
[21:07]there's, you know, the big explosion,
[21:09]the effects in the hardware and whatever else.
[21:11]But he's a very well-read man, a very smart man.
[21:15]And when you think about it,
[21:16]you go back to even Aristotle,
[21:18]who set a lot of things against war,
[21:20]Shakespeare set a lot of things against war.
[21:22]Exactly.
[21:23]Because you have this concept,
[21:24]but you also have a setting in which you can discuss
[21:29]the more, I don't know, grand aspects of human character,
[21:34]of courage, of nobility, of integrity, of bravery,
[21:38]of all of these things in what is truly a life
[21:40]and death scenario.
[21:42]And, you know, Hans's story is a fair tale
[21:46]and it needs, you know, a certain tale
[21:48]and there's some magic involved
[21:50]and, you know, some just outlandish, fantastical,
[21:53]you know, adventures.
[21:54]But as a novel to me, or even as the film,
[21:57]I mean, it had to be grounded, you know,
[21:59]in a real sense of humanity.
[22:01]And it's like, why are we doing this?
[22:03]What are we talking about, you know?
[22:05]And from all of that came the idea of creating this planet
[22:09]that's split into,
[22:10]we have two different races of people
[22:12]who are fighting one another.
[22:14]It's true because Craig Johnson's head, you know,
[22:16]is rather prescient, which I didn't think at the time.
[22:18]But, you know, here we are still again, you know,
[22:21]discussing race, discussing, you know, peace,
[22:23]discussing, you know, where we're at
[22:25]and this incredibly unsettled world.
[22:28]And, though it's not meant to be a message piece, you know,
[22:32]there is still very much, I think,
[22:35]a morality tale that it's fine, you know?
[22:37]The once in future King, the Thucking Arthur
[22:39]is really an anti-war, you know, statement.
[22:41]So, you know, having read, you know, my entire life,
[22:44]I thought, you know, I can't set up
[22:46]on this journey and just do it for those stories.
[22:48]There's gotta be something a little bit more to it.
[22:49]So, is it going to be a movie?
[22:51]After all that, now that you've backed into it,
[22:53]do you have any idea?
[22:54]Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
[22:56]you know, it's for sale, if anybody's that, you know,
[22:59]I don't know how many dollars laying around.
[23:00]What's interesting is that in the time it's taken
[23:05]to write the novel, that world has changed, you know,
[23:09]but what used to be a one-off, you know,
[23:11]now could easily be a mini-series, you know,
[23:15]a limited series of sorts.
[23:16]I mean, you know, I don't know how many books
[23:18]game of Thrones totally was based upon,
[23:20]but, you know, it has created a world
[23:24]and interestingly enough, I mean, a lot of the people
[23:26]who have reviewed it early on said that they still
[23:28]love this world that they would revisit it.
[23:30]She came up with the idea for the sequel,
[23:31]so I'm working on that.
[23:32]Nice.
[23:33]Oh, are you writing the sequel?
[23:34]Oh, yeah.
[23:35]Yeah, I'm already working on it
[23:36]and literally bouncing it off of her daily.
[23:38]So, you know.
[23:39]Come on, you're the mastermind of the whole thing.
[23:41]She did the masterminds.
[23:42]We had a certain idea and was towing around with that
[23:46]for like almost a year and then one day she came up
[23:48]with a different idea that was out of left field
[23:51]and I literally went, well, that's it.
[23:54]That's it because it's unexpected.
[23:56]And once again, it's about something
[23:58]and it's about something that's relevant.
[23:59]So, you know, working on that now
[24:01]and just very, very excited at this time,
[24:06]not trying not to get back into a corner
[24:09]with the drawings as much as you were already there.
[24:11]Were there on that?
[24:13]I would recommend approaching this a little differently
[24:15]for us.
[24:17]You're letting heads a couple of times.
[24:19]Last question, do you have any advice?
[24:21]I was going to say to aspiring authors
[24:23]but really anyone trying to achieve things
[24:26]in this creative way and to be storytellers.
[24:28]For me, it starts with creating your own content.
[24:31]You want to do something to do it.
[24:32]Whether it's for whether you're trying to sell it
[24:36]or do it for yourself first.
[24:38]And somehow put it out there in the universe
[24:41]and something will happen.
[24:42]Even if it's many, many, many years later,
[24:45]well, I mean, but that's the point.
[24:46]That would go toward what I have to say.
[24:48]And I've said this to you know, young actors.
[24:51]And that's never quit, you know,
[24:53]you will never get an opportunity if you quit.
[24:56]Keep doing it.
[24:56]You never know what heights you're going to rise to.
[24:59]I mean, when I said I just wanted to be a working actor,
[25:02]you know, I was actually a very good student in high school
[25:05]and whatnot when I decided to make a major in theater,
[25:09]you know, a lot of my teachers and my counselors
[25:10]oh no, oh, oh, what are you going to fall back on?
[25:12]My standard answer was my ass, you know?
[25:15]And so it's, first of all, you have to love it.
[25:19]You have to have a dream.
[25:20]But then the thing that, you know,
[25:22]so many people and I hate to say so many people
[25:24]who have this sort of overnight success
[25:27]American idol mentality, it takes work, you know,
[25:32]writing especially, I mean, you got to do it.
[25:34]You can't say, well, I want to be an,
[25:36]I mean, our 12 year old right now wants to be an author.
[25:39]And we love that.
[25:39]It's like, well, are you writing?
[25:41]Are you, you know, are you doing it?
[25:43]You know, and so some of it is just brass tacks.
[25:46]I mean, it literally is, you know, elbow grease
[25:49]and you have to put in the work.
[25:52]And even if you have a dream as an actor or an artist,
[25:55]I mean, you're a dancer or you have to put in the work.
[25:58]It's a craft, it's an art.
[26:00]It does, you know, you may be talented,
[26:02]unless you are, you know, but if you don't have discipline
[26:07]and you don't have commitment,
[26:08]then nothing's ever going to come from it.
[26:10]You know, there are certain people who get a break
[26:12]because they are talented or they're beautiful or whatever,
[26:16]but if they have no staying power,
[26:18]if they have no commitment to the art,
[26:20]they tend to go away because, you know,
[26:22]I mean, especially in today's world,
[26:24]the cycle is so fast that you were only played
[26:27]for the month for a month, you know, that's how it works.
[26:30]A month is a long time, do you say?
[26:32]No, a month is a long time, do you say,
[26:33]so I told you for our new cycle just about this last week?
[26:36]But the thing about it is, is that I've done this
[26:39]for so long as as an actor and I've never given up
[26:42]the writing, because I love the book.
[26:43]And so it literally is, it literally is just physically
[26:47]actively going after your dream.
[26:49]I love it.
[26:50]Well, thank you both for coming on mom's,
[26:51]don't have time to read books and chatting and tell me again.
[26:54]If you want me to FedEx it, I'll run down to the store.
[26:57]You're really, you hold on to it
[27:00]and when we get to be a person, you know.
[27:02]Okay, all right, feel, okay, good.
[27:04]All right, have a great day.
[27:06]Thank you.
[27:06]Okay, bye bye.
[27:08]Thanks for tuning in to day two
[27:09]of the Children's Book last week.
[27:13]I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
[27:14]I know I enjoyed recording it.
[27:17]Don't forget to check out my new podcast,
[27:19]moms don't have time to lose weight.
[27:21]Pretty soon moms won't have time to listen to podcasts
[27:24]and check out the Instagram community
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[27:28]And if you would like to join, please request to join.
[27:31]It's for anyone who wants to feel body better
[27:33]in their body tomorrow than they do today.
[27:35]And it's a supportive group of like-minded souls
[27:38]who just need the community to achieve their goals.
[27:41]Moms don't have time to lose weight.
[27:43]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms,
[27:45]don't have time to read books.
[27:46]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[27:48]at ZB Owens and at Moms, don't have time to read books.
[27:51]Also sign up for my newsletter at zBowens.com
[27:54]and sign up for my virtual book club
[27:55]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[27:58]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[28:01]for the Sound Editing.
[28:02]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[28:04]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.