Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller! Sherri Crichton & James Patterson, ERUPTION
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[0:30]A eruption is a very special book, which debuted at number one
[0:35]on the New York Times bestseller list,
[0:37]which was co-authored by Michael Creighton and James Patterson.
[0:42]You will probably know that Michael Creighton passed away in 2008,
[0:46]but his widow Sherry came on the podcast to talk to Jim Patterson
[0:51]and me about her finding the manuscript and the path to collaborating
[0:55]with Jim on this title.
[0:57]So here are both of their bios and know that Sherry,
[1:01]his widow, is the one who's on the podcast with me.
[1:04]And, okay, Michael Creighton was the author of the best-selling novels,
[1:08]The Terminal Man, The Great Train Robbery, Jurassic Park,
[1:11]Sphere, Disclosure, Prey, State of Fear,
[1:14]Next, and Dragontie, among many others.
[1:17]His books have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide,
[1:20]have been translated into 40 languages,
[1:23]and have provided the basis for 15 feature films.
[1:26]He wrote and directed Westworld, The Great Train Robbery,
[1:29]Runaway, Looker, Coma,
[1:31]and created the hit television series E.R.
[1:34]Creighton remains the only writer to have had a number one book,
[1:38]movie, and TV show in the same year.
[1:41]James Patterson is the most popular storyteller of our time.
[1:44]He is the creator of unforgettable characters in series,
[1:47]including Alex Cross, The Women's Murder Club,
[1:50]Jane F. and Smith and Maximum Ride,
[1:52]and a breathtaking true stories about the Kennedy's,
[1:55]John Lennon and Princess Diana, as well as our military heroes,
[1:58]police officers, and E.R. nurses.
[2:00]He has co-authored number one best-selling novels,
[2:03]with Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton, told the story of his own life
[2:06]and James Patterson by James Patterson,
[2:08]which by the way, I loved and he came on the podcast
[2:10]and we talked about that too,
[2:12]and received an Edgar Award, 10 Emmy Awards,
[2:15]The Literary Award from the National Book Foundation,
[2:18]and the National Humanities Medal.
[2:20]As for Michael's widow, Sherry Creighton,
[2:23]her role in this book is incredibly special.
[2:26]She was pregnant at the time of Michael's tragic and untimely death,
[2:29]and it took her over a decade to find a co-author,
[2:32]worthy of honoring her husband's legacy and final passion project.
[2:36]She beautifully speaks to the significance of this book
[2:38]and magnitude of this moment to both her and her son
[2:41]on a personal level, as well as to the millions of Creighton
[2:44]super fans throughout the world.
[2:45]She and James have created a close bond and friendship
[2:48]in the making of this book.
[2:50]Thank you so much to both Sherry Creighton and James Patterson
[2:54]here to discuss eruption, which is co-authored by Michael Creighton,
[2:58]the late Michael Creighton and James Patterson.
[3:01]Anyway, that was a long introduction.
[3:03]Welcome to Bethview.
[3:04]Thank you for coming on.
[3:05]Thank you.
[3:06]Thank you, sir.
[3:08]Oh my gosh, eruption.
[3:09]This was like, I'm so afraid.
[3:12]I mean, I thought COVID was bad.
[3:14]Let's just put it that way.
[3:15]And then you read this book and you're like,
[3:17]oh, we're so vulnerable.
[3:19]It's ridiculous is how I feel about it.
[3:21]Okay, so tell me about your collaboration.
[3:23]Sherry, I read your author's note of finding the manuscript.
[3:26]But tell me the story of the whole story of how you all teamed up.
[3:30]Well, I mean, really the short story is I found that partial manuscript
[3:35]very early on.
[3:36]It was about in 2010.
[3:38]And it just it was so emotional for me because of Michael's connection
[3:43]to the island and me always hearing about this volcano story.
[3:46]You wouldn't go into detail, characters, nothing.
[3:48]And I just knew about it.
[3:50]So it was very emotional after he passed that I felt so close to him
[3:54]through this book.
[3:55]And it went on like a year pilgrimage to find all the pieces.
[3:58]I mean, years of pilgrimage to find all the pieces.
[4:02]And then when it was finally put together where I finally felt
[4:05]like I am ready to launch this with the right partner,
[4:09]I was like, now what?
[4:11]Now who?
[4:12]I was like, let's go to the top.
[4:15]Let's go to the top.
[4:16]Are you not doing anything?
[4:17]He's not doing anything.
[4:19]He's bored.
[4:21]He's like, you know, he if let's find out if James Patterson
[4:25]is even a Michael Creighton fan, even if he has time,
[4:29]would this be intriguing to him?
[4:31]And Jim encompasses everything I wanted for this book,
[4:35]like an incredible storyteller.
[4:37]Fast pace, you know, you love his characters
[4:40]and you just buy into Jim's books.
[4:43]And I was like, that could be phenomenal.
[4:45]These two powerhouses meeting on the page.
[4:49]And then the big question is let's reach out to Jim and let's see
[4:52]if it would be something that he would be interested in.
[4:55]And I was reached out to him and there I was.
[4:58]And Sherry sent me the, you know, what Michael had written.
[5:02]I said, well, let me read it quickly.
[5:04]And I did.
[5:05]And I called it back.
[5:06]I said, if you want me, I'm in.
[5:08]The reasons were a lot of reasons, really.
[5:10]One was I'm a big Michael Creighton fan have been.
[5:13]And I just reread for four or five of his books again.
[5:17]But I read all of his novels, a couple of the screenplays,
[5:21]his nonfiction, ER were all aware of.
[5:25]And I just thought he was just a great storyteller
[5:28]and had kind of done something to this kind of fiction
[5:32]that hadn't been done before, which is bringing in this intelligence
[5:35]and the science or in the case of the great train robbery
[5:38]and incredible amount of history.
[5:40]So I definitely wanted to try.
[5:42]I love the challenge of, because I don't write with a lot of science
[5:46]and to see if I could keep a story going with a lot of science at it.
[5:51]And I got my own researcher then because to help with the parts
[5:54]it hadn't been written yet.
[5:55]And then talking to Sherry, I mean, it was, you know,
[5:58]we were kind of on the same page about a lot of things.
[6:01]And I had lost, as you know, the love of my life in my 30s
[6:05]of initial first love of my life.
[6:07]So we had that.
[6:09]And it just kind of clicked.
[6:11]And we were very comfortable with each other right away.
[6:14]And I love the challenge.
[6:15]And I thought this could be one of those.
[6:17]And I think it turned out that way, in my opinion, anyway.
[6:20]One of those kinds of books you don't see him anymore.
[6:23]That's sort of like wow, blockbuster,
[6:26]just because of story so big.
[6:28]It has this double, I mean, you take a book like Day of the Jack,
[6:32]and it's got one engine.
[6:34]Well, the Jack will get the goal or not.
[6:37]This had these two big engines.
[6:39]One, this volcano that's like, oh my God,
[6:41]it could be the worst volcano eruption ever.
[6:44]But there's something worse on the island, which is the waste materials.
[6:48]And Michael, as Sherry can talk about, Michael,
[6:51]the way he was always, you know,
[6:53]a decade ahead of everybody else in terms of his research
[6:56]and things that he was curious about.
[6:58]Well, yeah, it's exactly, Jim, to that point.
[7:01]I mean, Michael, he was so prolific in his thinking.
[7:04]And I look, you know, it was like,
[7:07]it was during the pandemic.
[7:08]Every time on Google, like those Google alerts,
[7:11]I kept seeing Michael Brighton, Michael Creighton,
[7:13]because of Andromeda strain,
[7:14]which he wrote 50 years ago about a pandemic.
[7:17]And he was talking about DNA before we were even considering,
[7:20]unless you were a doctor, you really aren't talking about DNA
[7:23]when he created Jurassic.
[7:25]So when this book came and it was like, you know,
[7:29]it was so heartfelt to me because I knew how much Hawaii meant to him
[7:33]and then like Jim said, it's got these two hooks
[7:36]and you cannot put it down.
[7:38]I was like, oh my gosh, this is going to require first of all
[7:41]for me to do the necessary research to go back
[7:45]into all of his papers and drives and whatever
[7:48]and find everything I possibly can,
[7:51]because this book met that much to Michael.
[7:54]And what I found out is he researched it since the seventies.
[7:58]He started writing it in the nineties
[8:01]and from the nineties forward,
[8:03]he kept going back to Polish and Polish and Polish
[8:06]but he didn't move past that initial partial manuscript.
[8:10]So the idea that I could partner with somebody
[8:14]as special as James Patterson and him,
[8:19]I say this with all my heart be so genuinely
[8:23]connected to the material but connected to the research
[8:27]and such a genuine man of integrity.
[8:29]Like he wanted to do right by Michael
[8:32]and take that story where it needed to go
[8:36]and in his words, I'm not going to say it for you.
[8:39]He's like, Sherry, I just need to know how this ends.
[8:41]So, you know, the other thing is
[8:44]the subject matter of this is so current
[8:48]because man keeps messing with nature
[8:52]and in all ways,
[8:55]whether it's because we were dumping waste into the ocean
[9:00]which we kind of stopped but we're putting it somewhere.
[9:03]So that continues and it's very, very dangerous.
[9:05]And then, you know, in terms of global warming
[9:08]or whatever you believe in, something's going on there
[9:11]and you feel that every time you take a plane right now
[9:14]because you're always bouncing around,
[9:16]you see it with, you know,
[9:18]nature is just acting in weird or weird ways
[9:20]and there have been more earthquakes of late
[9:24]and more volcano activity, et cetera, et cetera.
[9:27]So, you know, it's, I think it's a very current kind
[9:31]of a story to read as well.
[9:33]It's not like an old-fashioned story which I love.
[9:36]So how close to the end of the world do you think we actually are?
[9:40]Do you think the whole world is going to come to an end?
[9:43]It sometimes feels like that.
[9:45]Well, today feels like one of the days right or yesterday
[9:48]just puffing it in whatever, you know?
[9:50]I feel like, and this is something that really,
[9:54]Jim and I had so much fun with when we were dancing on the pages,
[9:58]really it was Michael.
[10:00]a gem dancing.
[10:01]I was like, I had the front seat,
[10:04]which was quite phenomenal.
[10:06]But nature does find it away.
[10:09]And it is truly that with this human interference,
[10:13]it can be weaponized if it's in the wrong hands.
[10:15]And I think that we all have to, Michael, used to always,
[10:18]it was so, this is like the foundation of his books.
[10:22]He would always set up these what-if scenarios.
[10:24]And those scenarios really make us,
[10:28]if you're engaged in the material,
[10:29]it wakes us up to say, oh my gosh, what-if.
[10:32]So on another level, I think what he was doing is he was setting
[10:36]the stage with this book was really like, hey, attention.
[10:39]Pay attention, get out in nature,
[10:42]make sure that we're, you know, communities gathered together
[10:47]that we're fighting for the right cause.
[10:49]That we're really-
[10:50]And Zibi, this is a collaboration obviously
[10:52]between myself and Michael and Sherry.
[10:56]But in this book, it's really about collaboration as well.
[10:58]And in terms of your question,
[11:01]how long before the end of the world,
[11:03]if we don't learn how to collaborate,
[11:07]bad things are gonna happen
[11:09]because during the next 10, 15, 20 years,
[11:12]it's gonna be a lot of things.
[11:13]Water shortage is things they're just gonna,
[11:15]really, and if we don't learn to collaborate,
[11:17]you know, the positive thing about the COVID experience
[11:21]was, oh my God, in a year,
[11:24]people collaborated and got a vaccine out there.
[11:26]But I think that's very positive.
[11:28]The sad thing is, we don't seem to have learned anything.
[11:32]We still don't get together.
[11:34]We just keep going onto these little islands
[11:37]and drifting apart and fighting each other rather than no.
[11:40]You know, okay, the border is a problem, okay,
[11:42]fine, let's collaborate and figure out
[11:43]what's the fairest best thing we can do there.
[11:46]Okay, you know, whatever problems America's facing,
[11:50]we would do better if we could collaborate
[11:53]instead of fighting each other.
[11:55]I think.
[11:56]Very true, oh my gosh.
[11:58]When it came to character development
[12:00]and all, there are so many characters in here,
[12:03]different scientists, different people experiencing,
[12:06]whether it's missing their children, post divorce
[12:09]or post having their wife's leave or missing your longing
[12:12]for a career or people who have had strokes or people.
[12:15]I mean, there's like lots of physical things,
[12:18]physical and emotional things sort of in everybody's way
[12:21]in addition to the big challenges here.
[12:23]How did that come about?
[12:24]And was that something that was already written
[12:26]or Jim, was it something that you decided
[12:28]to infuse into the narrative?
[12:31]It's a total mixed bag.
[12:33]Some of the characters, Mack, obviously was there.
[12:37]Mack's family situation was there.
[12:39]Several of the scientists were there.
[12:41]I don't want to get, you know, that specific,
[12:43]but there were some new, you know,
[12:44]I mean, the musk-like character that was new
[12:49]and the two crazy volcanists.
[12:52]But a lot of it was there.
[12:54]And then there were some new characters
[12:56]that were added as well.
[12:58]But, you know, an interesting thing,
[13:00]and Jerry and I talk about this a lot is one of the things
[13:03]we wanted to do was to try to make it seamless.
[13:05]So I challenged anyone to find that point
[13:09]where Michael stopped writing and I started writing.
[13:11]I think that's kind of a cool thing.
[13:13]I remember years ago when I did a book
[13:15]with President Clinton and in England,
[13:17]somebody went out and they did computers and all this stuff
[13:21]and they nailed them what they thought,
[13:23]that they were absolutely sure.
[13:24]This is, these are the chapters of Clinton did
[13:26]and these are the ones that,
[13:27]and they were totally wrong, totally wrong.
[13:29]So they were so shared, so shared about it, you know?
[13:33]Sherry, how does it feel bringing this book into the world
[13:38]and getting people talking?
[13:39]Not that they've ever stopped talking
[13:40]about the genius of your late husband,
[13:42]but just to have to talk about that every day.
[13:45]Is it a comfort or is it a trigger?
[13:48]It's not a trigger.
[13:49]It is a comfort.
[13:50]It's really exciting.
[13:52]And to see this book be completed in the way it was.
[13:56]I think, I mean, I'm so proud of it.
[13:58]My son is proud of it.
[14:00]I'm just so grateful to Jim
[14:02]for being the phenomenal partner that he was.
[14:05]But this material was doing no good tucked away
[14:09]and the archive.
[14:10]It felt like a really selfish endeavor
[14:12]to just leave it to me, you know,
[14:14]just to hold this back.
[14:15]And so it really does, you know, I say freedom
[14:19]because it's out there.
[14:20]I love the idea of thinking of Michael
[14:24]on every exploration that he would do
[14:27]for every volcano and all of his research for it
[14:31]to have the integrity of someone as talented as Jim,
[14:38]finish it and it'd be so beautifully told
[14:40]and the message still stay on par with what Michael had written.
[14:45]It warns my heart.
[14:46]One of the crazy things,
[14:48]when you get to haters out there and they go,
[14:49]oh, it was all about the money.
[14:51]It's not about the money.
[14:52]You see behind Sherry there?
[14:53]That's a Jasper John's behind there.
[14:55]She didn't need the money.
[14:56]I don't need the money.
[14:57]We did it because we wanted to do,
[15:00]we thought there was a potentially really, really,
[15:03]really good story here to tell.
[15:05]And hopefully now we're talking to different people
[15:08]on Hollywood, hopefully a movie as well.
[15:10]But our thing with the movie is not,
[15:13]we had a couple of people that came to us
[15:15]and they said, Oh, we're really great
[15:16]at these disaster things and we can do it down and down
[15:19]and down.
[15:20]And they wanted to do the same old same old stuff.
[15:21]And the other one of us wanted to do that.
[15:23]And we're thinking of partnering now,
[15:26]the whole idea that it's gonna be,
[15:29]Jurassic Park was, it just reinvented
[15:31]the disaster kind of scenario.
[15:35]And that's what we're hoping with the people
[15:36]we're working with.
[15:38]And not about who's gonna make the most money,
[15:40]but about we just wanna be proud of it.
[15:43]And obviously, Sherry, she wants John Michael,
[15:46]the person to be, their son to be proud of it.
[15:49]And honestly, when I read the book,
[15:52]I'm like to put myself in the mind,
[15:54]even of an actor.
[15:55]I mean, how great these characters have such depth
[15:58]and levity at the same time and to be able to play
[16:02]any one of these characters would be,
[16:04]I would just think that would just be a joy ride.
[16:07]So we've heard some cool parts.
[16:08]Yes, there's a movie in the movies, maybe.
[16:11]Yeah, here's what I don't want.
[16:13]I don't wanna be in the helicopter on the side of the book,
[16:16]you know, while it moves.
[16:18]And someone's trying to save me at a scale of heights.
[16:21]Thank you very much.
[16:22]I'll pass.
[16:23]There are such a big helicopter to see.
[16:24]There are a few bad helicopters.
[16:26]We come down hard on helicopters in this book.
[16:29]Yes, seriously.
[16:30]You know, they're called the national bird over a kawaii
[16:34]because they're everywhere now.
[16:35]And it used to frustrate us so much
[16:37]when Michael and I would be out hiking on the trails.
[16:40]And then we put in 12 miles to get to this one spot
[16:44]so that you could oversee all of like Hanalee Bay
[16:47]or it was out on Alakai Swamp.
[16:49]It's the greatest hike.
[16:51]And maybe it was more like,
[16:53]well, I don't remember how many exact smiles.
[16:55]But then out of nowhere, these helicopters would just come
[16:58]zooming in and it would just disrupt all of nature
[17:00]just because, you know, people wanna see it too,
[17:03]but they wanna be in that helicopter.
[17:05]So I went to actually my honeymoon on Hawaii
[17:10]Lenai and Maui.
[17:12]Tell me about your honeymoon where you went.
[17:17]Well, we got married and quiet,
[17:19]but my honeymoon was in Italy and we had a side trip to Pompeii.
[17:23]I didn't really understand why Michael wanted to take me
[17:26]to Pompeii, but he had...
[17:28]Romantic.
[17:29]Very romantic.
[17:30]We're sitting at the base of Mount Vesuvius
[17:33]and he's telling me about, you know,
[17:35]action, volcanic activity and he knew everything.
[17:39]But, you know, underneath at all,
[17:40]it was one of the reasons why this is so important to me
[17:42]because underneath at all, it was like,
[17:44]ah, a research trip, I see.
[17:47]It's not a thing for like,
[17:48]people really do show you who they are when you first get married.
[17:51]And sometimes you can just like ignore those signs.
[17:53]You know, like...
[17:54]Well, it's very smart.
[17:55]You could write the trip off then.
[17:56]How many people can write off their honeymoon?
[17:59]My honeymoon was in Hawaii also for my first marriage,
[18:02]but I won't hold it against Hawaii.
[18:06]Are you doing anything with the people of Hawaii
[18:09]for this book and all of that?
[18:11]I mean, there's a lot of, you know, language and culture
[18:14]and all of that embedded in the book as well,
[18:16]which is beautiful.
[18:18]Yeah, I think at this video,
[18:19]we have all the, all the fingers are out
[18:22]and we just had a really wonderful podcast the other day.
[18:26]And if what you're asking,
[18:28]if we're going to show up and Hawaii,
[18:29]unfortunately, the two of us together
[18:32]will not be in Hawaii together for this book launch.
[18:35]But I think it is time we really consider firing up the jets
[18:38]and heading.
[18:40]We did try to be very respectful
[18:42]and Sherry certainly pushed this because she knows
[18:44]that she spent so much time there.
[18:46]And you'll notice there's a lot of the page
[18:48]and speech in throughout the book,
[18:51]which Michael had had initiated that.
[18:54]And Sherry brought up the notion of in the book
[18:57]where one of the issues is the burial grounds.
[19:02]And dealing with the burial grounds
[19:04]is getting in the way of the rescue,
[19:06]which is a big problem, but there is like that.
[19:10]And then, you know, in the coming months,
[19:13]well, we try to do some good works there probably, yeah.
[19:17]Yeah, giving it out to the people or something.
[19:20]I don't know, I feel like maybe there's some characters
[19:22]who could hold their own in another book after this.
[19:25]You know, I like you could continue something.
[19:27]We can't, we can't say who survives.
[19:30]So we won't hold it.
[19:31]I just did I say it, I didn't say it.
[19:33]There was one character who didn't make it.
[19:37]And that was a controversial,
[19:38]we had to really talk that one through.
[19:41]But that was something that Michael did
[19:43]and I frequently do, which is to let the reader know
[19:47]no one is safe, including our hero.
[19:50]And toward the end, you really don't know what's gonna happen.
[19:53]And you, I think you have some bad feelings,
[19:57]which I think is great in terms of storytelling.
[20:00]Is there a reader who is like your ideal reader?
[20:04]You're like this person has to read this book or who.
[20:07]John, Michael.
[20:07]It was John Michael.
[20:09]You've read the original pages and he didn't want to read the chapters as they came in.
[20:16]He was like, I want to wait.
[20:18]He did have some words about as parts of the other creative process with the cover and all of this stuff,
[20:26]which was fun, I wanted to make sure he was a part of it.
[20:28]But when he really finally got the book and he was able to sit down and read it.
[20:32]Yes, his endorsement was all I needed.
[20:36]I love it.
[20:37]Yeah, he's a really, really smart.
[20:39]I finally met him a week or so ago, a really smart, really tall young guy.
[20:43]And my wife still loved it and so did our son Jack.
[20:47]So that's our other tough audience.
[20:49]Well, that's wonderful.
[20:52]When you were making the book as propulsive as it is,
[20:56]I know there were a lot of short chapters.
[20:58]There are the structure of the book itself is designed to be consumed readily.
[21:04]And sometimes scientific passages are outlined.
[21:07]And then sometimes they're embedded, but there's never too much at one time.
[21:12]Is that something?
[21:13]What are some of the things?
[21:14]Was that one of the things in drafting it that was like, OK,
[21:18]I want to make sure that we don't overwhelm the reader with this type of jargon.
[21:22]Or I want to make sure they go to the next chapter quickly.
[21:25]Or what were some of those major considerations?
[21:27]You know, me, Zibi, I mean, that's kind of what I do.
[21:30]Michael does it too.
[21:32]I would say if Michael had done the whole book,
[21:35]some of the chapters might have been a little longer.
[21:38]But that's about the only minor change.
[21:42]He also was very smart about not overwhelming you with the science.
[21:46]He knew when to get off.
[21:47]And you know, he really had a sense of his storyteller.
[21:50]You kind of know when you've said enough and people are starting to glaze over.
[21:54]And we've got to get going here.
[21:57]And in that great sense of, you know, the whole, I will say that that initial helicopter thing,
[22:03]that's the thing that has all Michael.
[22:06]Wow.
[22:06]That's all Michael.
[22:07]That was intense.
[22:08]We were, I was in it, ready to keep going on the topic.
[22:11]That was like, ripping.
[22:13]But I will say that, but you did so superbly, Jim.
[22:19]And Michael does it in his books that you lay in the science to where it's
[22:26]information you actually need to know.
[22:29]And once you've been, when you, once you come off that, that, that scientific jargon,
[22:34]you're smarter.
[22:35]You walk away from a book a little smarter, you know, a little bit more.
[22:38]Michael was famous for that, where you, you know, you, you kind of walk,
[22:42]you walk away thinking, you know, a little more about quantum physics and timeline or,
[22:47]you know, DNA and gene pattern, I mean, cloning in some of his other books.
[22:52]But in this, I think, I think the reader will find that they're a little smarter when
[22:56]it comes to knowing volcanic activity and the horrors of toxic waste.
[23:02]I was tested and my IQ went up two points just working on the book, which kind of cool.
[23:09]What, what are sharing the challenges of sort of preserving the canon of work of a legendary
[23:15]author, you know, what, like, how do you approach that and how do you think about it?
[23:21]Well, there are movies coming to and more of the movies, you know, from Michael's works.
[23:25]Jurassic, I think there's another one.
[23:27]Are they, what are they doing?
[23:28]Is that an in pre-production or are they shooting?
[23:31]No, I don't think they, they start shooting until maybe next month or on August.
[23:36]And yes, there's twisters that's coming out this summer.
[23:40]And there's always something going on.
[23:41]I think that's the most remarkable thing about Michael's work.
[23:46]It is so, it was so brilliantly told and so captivating.
[23:52]And so before it's time that it has this, this legacy of, you know, like it's not going
[23:59]out of style, you know, it continues on and continues on.
[24:03]There were so many different elements of it.
[24:05]So really like in all of Michael's work, it's, it's really doing pieces like this,
[24:11]which are really important for me and continue to kind of, you know, honor this man
[24:16]that we all, you know, and he had just such a phenomenal cultural footprint, something
[24:22]along the way, whether children are reading, getting inspired by his books, you know,
[24:28]with reading Jurassic Park or going to the movies or, or how he touched people's life,
[24:34]whether it was ER and people were inspired by that.
[24:38]He really was somebody who was quite inspirational on the way he wrote and the way he
[24:44]told stories.
[24:45]And I think that the bottom line is he was always curious.
[24:50]He was just always curious and needed to know the why.
[24:54]And once he, he was captivated by a subject, he would begin writing.
[25:01]And it was, it was effortless and it wasn't the job.
[25:04]I think he really enjoyed the research more because he was constantly, he was an adventure
[25:08]at heart, but he, he, he loved it.
[25:13]It was his passion, writing was truly his passion, which I'm sure it is for, for Jim.
[25:17]I mean, once you know, I love it.
[25:18]I always say that, you know, I don't, I don't work for a living.
[25:21]I play for a living.
[25:22]And, you know, one of the things that be is, I always think our greatest strength is usually
[25:27]our greatest weakness as well.
[25:28]And for me, it's that page turning, I'm going to do these things, I'm keep people.
[25:32]And sometimes I don't dig as deep as I should, because of Michael's research on this book,
[25:37]I really dug deeper than I usually do.
[25:39]And I think that turned out a better book than, than some of what I've done.
[25:43]One of the takeaways from the book for me in addition to, you know, world crises and all
[25:48]of that is there was one line about how a lot of the researchers are behind their computers.
[25:54]And now they're not even in shape enough to go on these big life.
[25:57]Right?
[25:58]That is a big takeaway, right?
[26:00]How are we interacting with the world?
[26:02]How are we using our brains?
[26:04]What can we do better?
[26:05]And what are we losing by?
[26:07]Yeah.
[26:08]Yeah.
[26:09]Yeah.
[26:10]That's our whole society now.
[26:11]Absolutely.
[26:12]Well, and Michael wrote in his forward to the book Micro, and he dedicated that book
[26:18]to John Michael, he, he wrote in it where we have got to put our devices down.
[26:25]We have become so out of touch with nature, we don't even know what we're fighting for
[26:29]anymore.
[26:30]The encapsulates that with like, I really do believe if Michael were here today, he would
[26:35]get rid of any interference, like he, he would really push our, our, these new generations
[26:43]out in any way that he could.
[26:45]And I'm, I'm really hoping that our, our book, Jim, does that.
[26:49]I hope it really kind of opens, you know, people's eyes and, you know, polishes, the
[26:55]lenses to say, let's, let's, let's really pay attention.
[26:58]I love it.
[27:01]So will you, is there anything left to collaborate on?
[27:03]Can you find it?
[27:04]Is there anything else in the archives to, to, to, exhume or no?
[27:08]Well, see, we're, we're, we're talking and, you know, at some point, I mean, Sherry,
[27:11]obviously, we'll do what she does.
[27:13]And in terms of, of whatever characters survive this book, we'll talk about that.
[27:17]We're going to get this one out and then probably deal with the Hollywood auction and
[27:22]a month or so or whatever the time frame is, maybe shorter.
[27:26]And then, and then we can see, you know, if something else makes sense for Sherry and, and,
[27:31]and for myself.
[27:32]Yeah, I'll probably be dealing with the Hollywood auction in a month.
[27:34]You know, most people are, wait, you know, it's just usually in the calendar.
[27:37]So whatever.
[27:38]Okay.
[27:39]Well, what advice?
[27:40]I know I've asked you this 100 times, Jim, so you're probably getting sick of it.
[27:43]But when you're giving advice to aspiring authors, give, give us some advice or even give advice
[27:48]to people who are not aspiring, but who are trying to like write their millionth book
[27:52]because you've written so many books and they keep getting better.
[27:55]So what is the secret there?
[27:58]I don't, you know, as you know, Zippy, I, I tend not to give advice.
[28:02]I just kind of talk about what I do and then people can, for me, outline outline outline
[28:08]outline and on this book, before we really agreed to do it, I said, let me, let me do an
[28:13]outline for what needs to, the rest of the book and showed it to Sherry and that was something
[28:19]where I think she felt a deep, took a deep breath and said, okay, this is, this is going
[28:23]to be good.
[28:24]outline outline outline outline, I think is huge.
[28:26]I think it saves people so much time, you'll write a better book in most cases, maybe
[28:31]not, you know, you list these, I don't know if you used an outline for that, but, or
[28:36]certainly for Finnegan's Wake, I'm sure he didn't use an outline.
[28:39]But that's huge to me and then story, story, story is another thing, you know, because
[28:44]be aware of, you know, you're talking to somebody, you're telling somebody a story and,
[28:50]and you know, my thing is always I think there's one person across to me and I don't
[28:54]want them to get up until I've finished, so what that's used for.
[28:57]I love that, amazing, congratulations, it's really good and I learned a lot too and thought
[29:05]for booking and all of that, so congratulations.
[29:07]Thank you, thank you, thank you, Debbie, as always, thank you.
[29:13]Thanks for listening to moms don't have time to read books, if you love it, please
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