Sarah Werner:

This is the Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner. Hello, friends, and welcome to the podcast. I have another guest for you this week. And I’m really, really excited to introduce to you my good friend, Jimmie. Jimmie Bise Jr. is a writer and an author, just recently published One Hungry Werewolf: And Other Monstrous Rhymes. I was going to say poems, but Other Monstrous Rhymes which is available now on Amazon. Jimmie, hi. Welcome to the show.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Thank you Sarah. I am so glad to be here. You don’t even know. I sweated this for… I’ve been excited since the invite.

Sarah Werner:

Oh, thank you.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I’ve been excited the whole time.

Sarah Werner:

Well, I’m excited to have you. And I really want to talk to you about your story. Can you give us a little bit of an introduction to who you are and what your writing journey has been like?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

The short version is I was the kid who all your teachers everybody said, “Wow, you write really good stories. You should be a writer.” But as I grew up, I had other influences that said, “Yeah. But serious jobs? Yeah.” Writing is kind of a frivolous thing, and there weren’t a lot of role models out there. If you wanted your big professional writers, you might look at all the stories of professional writers and all their books became popular 20 years after they died. So, everybody was like Edgar Allan Poe, remarkably popular, but not while you were an alcoholic and penniless.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

So, I stopped mostly. I stopped, and I didn’t really write. I would play around. I remember I do not have it anymore thankfully because with my occasionally bad judgment on social media, I would probably take pictures and send it. I remember writing a lot of pages in one of those big five subjects [crosstalk 00:02:21].

Sarah Werner:

Yeah. I love those.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yeah. I had one of those. And I wrote many pages. I think I filled half the notebook. I wanted to write a fantasy novel that was like Lord of The Rings and like the Sword of Shannara and like Barbara Hambly’s Darwath Trilogy. I wanted to write one that was like all of them. And I decided to start writing my story. I used an advanced author technique. And I didn’t start at the beginning because they didn’t know what the beginning was.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

So, I started writing a scene that I saw in my head. And that scene was the exciting council meeting which was roughly 50 pages of procedural argument. It was like Lord of The Rings, but C-SPAN. And it was possibly the least exciting thing anyone has ever written though, for some reason, I remember an old wizard being really, really passionate about parliamentary procedure. And I don’t know why.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I have no idea why I decided to write Robert’s Rules of Order, the epic fantasy story. But I did. And then, I did that. And I did about 50 pages. And I went back and looked at it. And I said brightly, “That’s crap. I can’t do this. This is garbage.” And I didn’t really have a guide at the time that would say, “You know what? You’re right. It is crap.” So, maybe action, maybe less sitting around a table talking. But I just didn’t take it. I bought books, and I read books. I bought a lot of books. Looking at many of them when I’ve had problems for 25 years. And I convinced myself that just doing other stuff was better.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And so, I did other stuff. I was a police dispatcher for 25 years. I did other things, and people would say, “Well, Jimmie. You should write your police dispatcher stories.” I’m like, “No. Who wants to hear about sitting in an office at 3:30 in the morning?” And like, “Surely, you have exciting stories.” I’m like, “No.” But see, that’s the thing, if you don’t think your story is exciting because you went through it, and you came out the other side. You’re like, “Well, that was…” Hey, Jimmie, tell that story about the night you sat with a shotgun near you and ordered to shoot people because you thought a marijuana drug gang was going to come get a van that was parked out in the garage to the barracks, and that’s an exciting story.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And I’m like, “Kind of wasn’t. Nothing happened. We sat there and watched TV.” I mean there was a possibility that I might have to do that. And I was totally not ready. And still, this is not a story of bravery. This is a story of what. But no. So, I just convinced myself for a long time. And then, in 2015, someone I knew through blogging decided they were a guest writer on a mostly political blog. But what they would do is they would do these picture prompts on Friday, and they would do these hundred-word stories.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And so, I looked at one. And I decided on 100 words. Well, you’re not going to cram a fantasy council meeting into that like [crosstalk 00:05:40]. So, that’s probably safe. So, I wrote a story that I called On Storm Day. And I wrote it. And when I was done, I wrote it. And I put it on my website. And I was like, “Well, that was cool. That was fun. I liked doing it. That felt really good.” And so, I did more of them. And when they did more, I did more. And then, when they stopped, I started doing it somewhere else.

Sarah Werner:

Oh, good.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And so, I actually took over. I am still part of a group. We call ourselves Phantom Sway. There’s a little website. There’s not much on it. But we’re doing some creative things behind the scenes that you may get to see in the next year or two. As you know, stuff like this takes time. And I hate stuff taking time. It’s one of the reasons I really like writing short stories.

Sarah Werner:

Well, I’m also very impatient. So, yeah, I feel that.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I could write a short story. You’re like, “Haha, short story.” And it’s like in an hour, I can write like a 100-word short story and go, “Yeah. Your story.” I love that stuff, man. I would hate going to a restaurant where it took them like two hours’ wait with food. I’d be back there snacking off the make line and stuff, going, “Look, y’all just take your time. I’m going to have a hamburger. But yeah. So, I did that. And so, I started doing the prompt there, and I kept writing. And now, I do the prompt in the I Am a Writer Facebook group. I do a Friday writing prompt there and on the Discord which if you are on Facebook and you are a creative person, you should surely join.

Sarah Werner:

Oh, gosh. Thank you.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And then, go join the Discord too because it is really cool. And then, come along on Wednesday nights and then in the fall on Fridays as well. As far as we know, this is how it’s going to work for Create-Alongs that last about two hours. They go from eight o’clock Eastern to about 10 o’clock Eastern, give or take. And they involve writing and creativity and wonderful talk. And food apparently for some reason has become a major topic in the chat. I don’t know why. But there’s a lot of discussion. We are very hungry people after we create. And then, we must eat.

Sarah Werner:

We must feed. Yeah.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

So, all these things. So, I’m doing all these things now. And then, I wrote a book. And you’d say, “Well, Jimmie. This was a fantasy story. This was a book of life.” And it was not. It was a poetry book.

Sarah Werner:

Okay. I have so many questions right now. But I also don’t want to like interrupt if you’re still-

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

No, no, no. Please.

Sarah Werner:

Okay. You started with a fantasy novel. And then, you stopped the fantasy novel. And then, you started doing, I want to say, flash fiction, micro fiction kind of whatever you want to call it. And you haven’t stopped doing that. And then, the book that you published was neither a fantasy novel nor was it flash fiction or micro fiction. It was poetry. So, why did-

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Children’s poetry.

Sarah Werner:

It is. And it’s wonderful. And can color in the book. And it’s delightful. So, why poetry? Just tell me why.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

My gosh is I don’t know a good answer.

Sarah Werner:

Yeah. That’s an acceptable answer, if that’s just-

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I don’t have a great answer. I know that I write whatever the heck I want to write. And, sometimes, it’s poetry. Sometimes, I just get a piece of dog roll in my head. And I want to write it out. And dog roll is not a bad thing. Dog roll was just quickly written poetry. The poetry that was one hungry werewolf started in Create-Along.

Sarah Werner:

Oh, that’s awesome.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I didn’t have anything else in mind to write. So, you said, “Okay. Write.” And you put down the time. And I’m like, “Well, I’m going to write something. What do I want to write?” And I’m like, “I just started writing a rhyme about a werewolf who went into a school and bit the math teacher. And now, they are two.” And I’m like, “Ah, that’s cool. One and one. The math teacher. Now, there’s two. Let’s keep going.” So, we kept going. And all of a sudden, I had a poem. And it needed some editing, of course, because I tell people I’m not a poet. But there is a book that does tend to prove that in fact I am a poet. I can’t say I’m not a poet because now the only book that I’ve ever written to be published is full of poems. I can’t-

Sarah Werner:

You can’t say that anymore.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

What I can say is I’m not like a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows, pipe smoking, or I’m not a slam poet. I write stuff. And, usually, it rhymes or sometimes I write haiku or sometimes… I don’t know. I write whatever I want to write. The fantasy novel, the biggest reason I thought about this a lot, the biggest reason the fantasy novel didn’t work was because it was about a dude taking the thing to a place.

Sarah Werner:

Well, isn’t that what all fantasy novels are really?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

It is. But that’s all it was. It was like a dude who I didn’t know really much about the dude. And the dude had a couple of friends. And one friend was a mighty warrior. And the other friend was, I don’t know. I don’t even remember. It was just a dude that was going to take a thing to a place. And when I was writing the council meeting, I wasn’t even sure who the dude, the thing, or the place were. I just know I had a big argument about the thing and the place and the dude. That’s all I kind of really knew.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I had joined a bunch of things from these other fantasy novels that I liked and was kind of slamming them together. But I didn’t know what they were. I didn’t really know what they were. There’s a really cool piece of writing advice from a guy named Dean Wesley Smith who wrote… This is called Writing into the Dark. It’s a really good writing book. And I really recommend it. And he doesn’t outline his novels. But what he does is he writes what he calls, if I remember the term correctly, he calls it discovery writing.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

So, what he does is he does a little bit of outlining as he’s gone along. So, he goes back and reviews what he’s written, gives himself a little bit of a head start. And so, he keeps track of what he’s writing. But then, as he writes more, he writes like a reader. He writes to find out what happens next in the story that he’s writing, but also that he’s reading. That really drives your interest in the story.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And it didn’t work for me because I didn’t know enough about the story. There was no interest. I don’t know why I did. I just didn’t care that much about the meeting. But the flash fiction stories were easy because I could write them really quickly. In a sense, there’s a little bit of cowardice there. And maybe, we can circle back to that later.

Sarah Werner:

Yeah. I want to talk about that.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

There’s some fear in that. So, it’s good that I write them. But there’s also a crutch. And then, the poems, I don’t just write. I write whatever is cool at the moment that when I’m done, I’ll go looking for something else. I don’t have a plan yet.

Sarah Werner:

I feel like-

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I probably need one. But I don’t have one.

Sarah Werner:

Yeah. I don’t know. I think as long as you’re creating things that are making you happy. I’m thinking of your poetry book as a sort of creative joy ride. And you didn’t really know where you were going. You just kind of got on board. And you just went. And I feel like you had a lot of fun doing that.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yeah. My favorite writers, the people who’re writing but also who’s living, I like because there are writers I like who’s living I don’t like. I like how they wrote. I like what they wrote. But they don’t like how they live. So, I can appreciate their writing. But that’s all of them I’m going to appreciate. I will appreciate no more of them. But someone like Ray Bradbury, Ray Bradbury, somebody like Richard Matheson, Ursula Le Guin, the Saki, HH Munro, they wrote everything. They did not limit themselves to anything. They wrote serious novels and fun stories, and poems, and epics, and short and long. Bradbury and Mathis both were screenplays.

Sarah Werner:

I did not know that.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yeah. They both wrote Moby Dick. The John Huston-directed Moby Dick, Ray Bradbury wrote the screenplay to that.

Sarah Werner:

That’s so weird.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Ray Bradbury wrote B-movie sci-fi screenplays before he was ever a novelist.

Sarah Werner:

That makes me happy.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Richard Matheson wrote screenplays of his own. In fact, he wrote screenplays of his own stuff. And in fact, the original Kolchak: The Night Stalker movie was actually a screenplay written by Richard Matheson based on an incomplete novel that he then encouraged the guy who wrote it to complete because it was so good.

Sarah Werner:

Oh, my gosh. That’s awesome.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

So, yeah. These people who I really liked were having fun writing. And I’m like, “I want to have fun writing.” I don’t want writing to suck all that. I wanted to sit down and go, “I’m going to write again.” So, for me, the fun is write whatever. I’m working on a longer project now. It’s not going to see the light of day for a little while. It’s going well. I can’t quite talk about it yet. It’s a cool thing. But that can’t be the only thing I’m doing. It’s fun. But I got to have more fun. I got to do other fun. So, I do Friday post or I do a little poem, or you gotta keep your hand in.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

If you are a creative person, this is going to sound dogmatic and I’m probably going to dig my heels in a little bit on this one because I feel dogmatic about it. Okay. If you’re a creative person, you cannot do just one thing.

Sarah Werner:

So, tell me about more than just one thing and what that means.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

For instance, a good jazz saxophonist doesn’t just play one saxophone. They may be well known for playing one saxophone. But they also play a couple of other saxophones and probably a clarinet, and maybe a flute, maybe even another instrument, maybe something else altogether. You look at really, really good musicians. I mean there were musicians who were virtuosi on one particular instrument. But they did other stuff. They played other instruments. If you’re a creative person, you’ve got to have your hand in a couple different things because, in my opinion, that is how creativity best works. Creativity best works when you have a lot of channels flowing in a lot of different directions so that if one gets temporarily bottled up, you have a bunch of other ones going well.

Sarah Werner:

So, say I’m a writer and I’ve been working on this novel for 10 years, and I’m afraid to take the time away from that novel to maybe write a poem or try a different story. What would you say to that and what would your advice be?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

You’ve been writing the novel for 10 years. One more week ain’t going to kill you. If you’ve been writing a novel for 10 years, and I don’t mean this in a bad way, but you’re not on deadline. If it takes you another 10 years, then, okay, it takes you another 10 years. But you know something? Maybe, the reason this thing takes you 10 years is because you step on it every day like it’s a hike in the Skulls, and you only wanted to go 10 miles, and this sucker is taking you 20. Maybe, you’re looking at this thing like a burden. Maybe, loosening up a little bit.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Look, I understand when I was scribbling in that five subject notebook, that thing was the most important creative work in the world, and I got it. I do. But you gotta do some other stuff to keep yourself loose and free and happy and eager to sit down and do something interesting when you write or sing or paint or draw or whatever it is you do. You gotta keep your hand in a couple different things because you got to keep yourself fresh and flexible and just ready because you’re going to get stuff from all different places. Ideas are going to come to you from all different places. And, sometimes, you have to be ready just to grab one and slap it down on paper and do something with it.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And if that means you take an extra day or two from your novel, okay, that’s fine. You’re good. You are your own boss. Don’t worry about it. The novel is not your boss. You are your boss, the novel does not tell you what to do. You could. If you really wanted to, close up the novel. Put the novel in the drawer, and never touch the novel again. It’s not your boss. You are your boss. You make things. Things don’t make you. To do three or four things at once, if you feel bound up, be bound up. Go do something else. It’s cool. It’s okay. And the people who love what you do will tend to look fondly on all the things that you do even if, and this is going to happen, another thing that you do isn’t for the same group you have over here.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

People do this all the time, and that’s you’re allowed. You’re completely allowed. You’re allowed to bake cakes and cupcakes and bread and eclairs. You’re allowed to do all of those things. And not everybody’s going to buy one of everything, and that’s fine. It doesn’t matter. It’s your bakery. It’s not your very small cake shop.

Sarah Werner:

I really appreciate that analogy. I appreciate that a lot. And it’s one of the things that I like to talk about and think about a lot, is that what you create isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be for everyone.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Sometimes, what you create isn’t even for you.

Sarah Werner:

Well, and let’s talk about that too because who are you writing that first fantasy novel for?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I don’t remember. I was writing it. Here’s the thing. I want to write a fantasy novel one day.

Sarah Werner:

I think you should.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I don’t know why I want to write a fantasy novel one day. I want to write one, one day because I think I can write a fantasy story that someone else will find as cool as I found those stories. And that’s kind of why I wanted to do that. Now, it would be nice to sell a billion copies. But, okay. Maybe, I didn’t sell a billion copies of One Hungry Werewolf yet either though if you are a billionaire and would like a billion copies, they are available, and I am fairly sure we can get you a discount through Amazon. I’m fairly sure that it’ll happen. Really, Jeff Bezos, you and me, let’s talk.

Sarah Werner:

I was about to say especially if the billionaire listening is Jeff Bezos. So, yep.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Right. I don’t know how many copies of this book you need. But I know your company can make all of them. You need a lot of them. You need that many zeros behind that cut number of copies. You need a custom made quantity picker on your drop down list. It’s like one, two, three, four, five Jeff Bezos. That’s what you need right there.

Sarah Werner:

And it’s just an eternal and unspecified amount. But-

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Sometimes, you write something, and you look at it. And you’re like, “It’s good. But I don’t like it.” I’ve written a couple of stories like that. And I have a couple of very trusted friends that sometimes I will run… Sometimes. Who am I kidding? Every single time, I will run a story past them before I do anything else with it. And I will run a story past one of my super trusted friends, and I’ll say, “So, what do you think about it,” because they’re clever and really snarky and like to play judo with me that way. And I’m like, “What do you think about it?” Like, “No. I really like it. What don’t you like about it?” And then, I just start telling all the things they don’t like about it, and they’re like, “Me, that’s fine with me. I like all that stuff.” That’s cool. I like that.” I’m like, “Which is the confounding thing about being a creative person if we can pivot a little [crosstalk 00:21:24]-

Sarah Werner:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I’m going to say a writer. But just when I talk about me being a writer, you fill in whatever creative pursuit you have, all of them if you’d like, put them in there because that’s cool. As a writer one of the things I’ve learned is I have literally no idea who is going to like what I wrote. I have put stuff out there that I really liked, and people went, “Yeah.” And then, I put stuff out there. And I like something I wrote in an hour. And people were sharing it. People were texting me. And I don’t get it. I don’t understand it. But you know something? I probably have just stopped trying. I don’t understand. You’re like, “You can be a good judge of your own work.” How?

Sarah Werner:

No.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

How?

Sarah Werner:

I think [crosstalk 00:22:13] you have to know what you like, I guess. But I’ve had the same thing happen with the Write Now Podcast. I’ll put so much time and research into an episode. Release it. Just, I hear nothing about it. And then, another week, I’ll record an episode just off the top of my head. I’m in a rush. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about releasing. And then, I get people writing novels to me about how it’s like, “Oh, this made a huge difference in my life.” And I’m like, “No, you were supposed to like the one that I put all the work into.” And you just can’t control it. And it can get really frustrating. And it just serves as a reminder that there’s really no guarantees about that bridges the gulf between you creating and people receiving what you’ve created.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

But it also teaches you as a creative person that you can’t use a technical term. You can’t write to market because you don’t know what the market even is. If you don’t know how people are going to receive your work, you can’t know how an editor is going to receive your work or how a publisher is going to receive your work or a… You can’t know these things right away. All you can know is did I fit my work into their parameters? They set up rules for length and style, and subject. If you fit into those, you can’t write to market because you don’t know what the market is.

Sarah Werner:

Right. And to some degree, do you even want to? There’s this question of artistic integrity and are you writing to sell to a magazine or are you writing to create something that you’re really, really proud of and that really speaks to your experience and your hearts? And I think that takes us back to one of the original statements you made in our interview here, and that was talking about these artists and writers who only succeeded posthumously after they had passed away. And suddenly, their work becomes popular because they didn’t write it to market. And then, later, the market decided that that’s what they wanted. But the author creator was already gone. And so, I don’t know. I think I guess what I’m saying is I think about that a lot.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I do too. And I admit that I am not one of those great posterity artists. I kind of would like the positive feedback to my writing if possible to arrive in the form of currency.

Sarah Werner:

Hey, no one can blame you.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yeah. If we can arrange for that, I mean, yes, critical acclaim is fine And the later plaudits of the critics after I’m gone is all wonderful. But also, mortgage [crosstalk 00:24:57].

Sarah Werner:

You want to get paid for your work. Yeah.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yes. And you know something? And that getting paid for your work is also a kind of feedback. It’s a feedback just like everything else is a feedback. And if you’re in the market and I would argue that right now as a creator, you are in a better market circumstance than any creator who has ever lived in the history of the world because you can put your stuff in front of people directly. And those people can give you money directly if almost no one else has had that. And you don’t have to have credentials. You don’t have to have a patron. You don’t have to go through a publishing house. You don’t need an agent. You don’t need anybody. You just need you.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Now, it takes hustle. It takes creativity. It takes dogged pursuit because you are then taking on the workload of all those other people. You are going to have to learn a lot of different stuff. And I will be the first person to say that frustrates the hell out of me because I suck at some things including marketing. Terrible at marketing, but you can do this. If that’s the feedback you want, you can get that feedback better than anyone ever has ever been able to, and that’s cool. Personally, I would rather both. I want my stuff at some point to be… I want some kid later on to pick up a collection of short stories, and one of my stories will be in it. That would be pretty cool.

Sarah Werner:

That would be really cool.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I would like that to happen. I can’t guarantee that will happen. But I would like that to happen. But I would also like for people today to be able to pick up short story collections and find my stories. And I hope I’m not being too mercenary. But I want people to do my stuff. But I want to be able to pay the mortgage and have a good solid artistic integrity. And I think you can do both. There are plenty of people who are doing really, really, really, really well. Both I, Stephenie Meyer.

Sarah Werner:

From Twilight. From twilight?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yeah. So many people bagged the Twilight novels while they’re horribly written. Maybe. I’m not going to argue that point. Here’s what I’m going to tell you. Roughly, more people than live on the Planet Earth bought her novels, loved her novels. There are aliens. All these alien visitations that you read about in… And you see on ancient aliens, they didn’t show up. They have no interest in building pyramids. They want Stephenie Meyer novels.

Sarah Werner:

They want Twilight.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

There is a burgeoning lure on Omicron Persei 8 is out there right now reading, and he wants another Twilight novel. Good on her. She did it right. You know something? I bet maybe early on, it bugged her that people made fun of her. But it is really, really easy to deafen the voice of your critics with wads of cash that you have shoved in your ears, but not just from a mercenary standpoint, but from the standpoint of saying those people hate what I did. Other people took their hours of their actual lives that they had converted into money and gave it to me.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I gave them my hours of my life. And they gave me back hours of theirs. And I don’t care what some critic tossed off in a half an hour in some snarky web page. All these people thought that you could only earn so much money an hour. And most of these people aren’t super ultra… Most of the people who bought these novels are just out there working a regular job like everybody else, and that’s you get paid X an hour. And you got to divide X up into all these other things. And once they divided up X, they found some room in X for Stephenie Meyer’s novel. That’s nothing. They’re giving you part of their life.

Sarah Werner:

Yeah. And I really love thinking about it that way. I feel like as artists and creators, we tend to, I don’t know, issue talking about money. But really when you look at it as validation and appreciation of your work, it changes a little bit when you look at it as an exchange.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And it also buys you room. It buys you room. It buys you space to do more of what you want to do. It buys you assistance. It buys you a marketing company. So, the more successful you are in that regard, the more space you have. It’s this really weird thing because you’re calling for time to create. But then, when you get to a certain level of commercial success, you have more time to create, and that messes some people up. I mean some people just don’t know what to do with that much time. But still, it buys you time.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Some people bought my book. People bought my book. I wrote a poem about werewolves eating people, not really eating them so much as biting. Okay. There might have been a little eating going on at some point later on. I warned everybody that the werewolves were hungry. Okay. This is fair warning. If someone says the werewolves are hungry, then later, the werewolves eat people. This is the writing rule known as Chekhov’s werewolf because if you put a hungry werewolf in the first scene up on the mantelpiece, by the second act, people are going to go, “Why is there a hungry werewolf on the mantel piece?” And then, by the third act, it needs to have eaten something.

Sarah Werner:

I like this.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Possibly, the person in the audience who questioned its existence.

Sarah Werner:

I like this. I like this. Instead of Chekhov, we’ll just call it Jimmie’s werewolf.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Jimmie’s werewolf. Sarah, I wanted to ask you. I wanted to ask you something about this. You do a lot of stuff. You may be the busiest person I know. And I know some busy people. You may be the busiest person I know. When you get your positive feedback, what do you want that to do for you? What do you want your positive feedback to do for you?

Sarah Werner:

Wow.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I mean there’s money. But also, do you want it to kind of wedge a little more room to do other stuff or is it the thing that helps you propel your way through a to-do list that’s really long.

Sarah Werner:

This is such a good question. It’s actually not something I’ve thought of before. So, thank you for asking me a new question. Oh, my gosh. I think a lot of it’s tied into ultimately what you want. But I think, oh, my gosh. So, I don’t know if you’ve ever taken the five love languages test.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I’ve heard it. I haven’t taken it.

Sarah Werner:

I’ve taken it. And I always get words of affirmation. That’s my love language. That’s how I know that I am loved and valued. And so, I mean what’s more words of affirmation-y than receiving actual words of affirmation from someone who has read your work or listened to your podcasts or worked with you in some way? And it’s so interesting to ask what you want out of that because a lot of it feels when you’re creating things at the time or at least when I’m creating things at the time, in a way, I’m not thinking about the responses I’m going to get which is why this is such a tricky question.

Sarah Werner:

This is so interesting because when I was writing season one of Girl in Space, X I would get fan mail. And it would say I can’t wait until this happens or I would love to see this character and this character get together. And so, it was affirmation. But it was also giving me potential direction. And it’s like, “Oh, do I want to listen to this and how fully do I want to listen to this?” And is this the kind of feedback that I want. So, it’s a beautiful engagement with the stuff that I’ve made. But is it what I had always dreamed of?

Sarah Werner:

And I think when you’re asking yourself that question, you just have to really say what do I want? What is meaningful for me? And really, even what is success. This is a question I ask a lot. And I have to ask myself a lot because it changes so often. What do I want? What is success? Well, today’s success is this or this. And then, we could talk about vanity metrics and meaningful metrics and what we should be measuring our success by. But we’ll ignore that for now and just say that like, “Yeah. Maybe, success is social media following. Maybe, success is getting your work finished on time. Maybe, success is making X amount of money and buying your cottage in the woods that you’ve always wanted to live in. Maybe, success is seeing your story on a big screen somewhere.”

Sarah Werner:

And it’s really interesting because where I’m going with this is we don’t always know what we want, and we don’t always know that we’re allowed to want things. So, I started writing as a means of escape. I started writing as a defense mechanism, like a protective measure. I was creating my own friends and my own safe spaces, and I was telling my own stories. And I was just really creating somewhere I could go and be myself, and be safe. And I loved books. And I venerated authors. But I never really thought one day I cannot wait to have people buy my work. It was more just like survival. It was more like I just needed to write because I need to create a space for myself where I can exist as myself and be safe.

Sarah Werner:

And so, it’s really interesting now seeing those two worlds collide. There’s this inner world of, hey, I started writing because it was fun, and it was freeing, and it was empowering. And now, it’s like, “Oh, other people are reading this, and that’s really weird.” And so, I’m getting words of validation and words of affirmation from some of the things that I’m writing while also that wasn’t really something I was seeking in the first place. What I was seeking was a place where I could be myself and express myself. So, gosh, have I even gotten close to answering your question?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

In a lot of ways because I think the important thing I took from that is that it’s important to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. You asked me earlier why were you writing the fantasy novel. Well, the biggest reason that fantasy novel failed is I didn’t know why I was writing. I didn’t know. I had no idea. And after I wrote a number of flash fiction stories, well, I started writing flash fiction stories to see if I could write flash fiction stories. That was once I decided, yeah, I could write stories again, well, then what?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

So, will you say you redefine success, the feedback, you do something. You use the feedback to gauge whether you have that level of success that you wanted in the beginning. But you have to know what that level of success is because if you don’t, it’s just a whole bunch of dopamine that don’t do anything for you.

Sarah Werner:

Right. It’s dopamine and noise. Yeah.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

But the dopamine just drives you crazy because then you kind of get hooked on the dopamine. But they aren’t taking you anywhere.

Sarah Werner:

And they’re not meaningful.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Your pedal’s to the floor and the accelerator. And you’re smoking your tires. And you’re not going anywhere. But it’s really cool because burnouts are really cool. But you’re not going anywhere. You’re just burning up your tires, right? But the fact that you started writing for one reason and now you’re writing in a realm, you’re writing publicly. You’re reading publicly a lot and all that public writing is not the stuff you were doing in the beginning. Maybe, you’ve kept a couple aspects of that from the beginning. But now, you’re writing publicly.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

This is not just you creating a world that you can feel safe in this. This is you can’t feel safe in a world that you’ve released publicly. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean that once you let your story go-

Sarah Werner:

It’s not yours anymore.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

… it’s not your story anymore.

Sarah Werner:

Yeah. Exactly. Yes.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Other people can do whatever to it they want, and sometimes you look at the story, you’re like, “Oh, no. No. Why?” Okay. It ain’t that precious. Got to go write another one. So, your feedback, your words of affirmation now, they have to do something different for you. And it just depends on what you want them to do, what your success is and whether you get the feedback you’re going to get through. But what is the feedback you seek because I think there’s a difference. There’s a difference between the feedback that you’re after and the feedback that you get.

Sarah Werner:

Oh, I like this point. Oh, if I can jump on this for a second.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Please, yeah.

Sarah Werner:

Oh, my gosh. It’s so interesting. You talk about going from sort of writing for yourself to publishing and writing publicly. And you have all these ideas of like, “Oh, I’m going to get feedback.” Okay. Well I would love it if this author and this author, and this TV personality, and this person over here who I really admire would read and listen to my stuff. And instead, you’re getting comments. And some it is still validating. But it’s not from those people from whom you want it or from whom you originally wanted it. That’s still your idea of success. So, you’re getting in validating comments. And it looks like success. But you’re still not satisfied because you want this person, and this person, and this person to notice you, and they’re still not noticing you. And you’re just in this weird uncomfortable place.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yes, I’m looking at it from the other way around that maybe you’re getting, for example, maybe you’re taking your stuff and you’re putting on your Facebook feed, and that post gets a like and a like and a like and a like and a like. And it’s a bunch of likes. But there aren’t as many comments or maybe people aren’t clicking through the way you want them to. So, you’re getting a lot of feedback. And it looks like really good feedback. But it’s not feedback that actually serves what you need for success, how you define success. Then, you can go seek out those other personalities and go, “Hey, I’m doing this. Would you look this over?” And you have to understand that they will probably say no because they don’t know you. But sometimes, they’ll say yes.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

You’re going to get feedback when you put your work out there. Probably, you’re going to get feedback whether you want it or not. It just depends on whether the feedback you’re getting serves… You can’t control what an audience does with your work. You can only control what you do with what they do.

Sarah Werner:

Oh yeah. No. I like this. I like this. And I want to ask more about that, and I also want to ask if your ideas of success have changed. So, if I can ask a two-fold question.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

The second one first.

Sarah Werner:

Whatever order you want.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yeah. I’ll do the second one first because, yes, because it turns out that before I could do anything, really, and I’m still doing this by the way, I know I sound a crusty old veteran, but I’m not. I’m old, and I’m crusty and old, but I’m not a writing veteran. I mean I’ve got a few years on me. I’m not a spring chicken. I am late to this game. And I know, I know, I know Grandma Moses didn’t paint reverse painting until… But you know something? For somebody who kind and wants to make just a little bit of hay on his writing as well, I am post-50, and that is not the easiest time to kind of to kick that into motion. There are not many top 50 over 50 lists out there in the creative world. And I get why there isn’t.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I used to get mad about it. I can’t get mad about it. That’s the way the world is. I can’t change the world. I can only change the way I think about the world. So, when I put a story out there and the audience loves it or they hate it, I can’t control that. What I can control is how I react to that, what I do with that feedback, is how I take what they give me, and then what do I do with it? How do I use it? How do I use the fact that I use the feedback I’m getting from Social Atlas as a diagnostic tool to improve my marketing that says, “I am not going about this the right way because I’m not getting the right feedback I want from this channel.”

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And I do have a little control over how that comes. I can do calls to action and all that stuff that maybe make things a little bit better. I could do that. But sometimes, you just take and go,

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

“You know something? People like my stuff but not that much.” Sometimes, that’s a handy thing to know. People like my stuff well enough to click a button. But they don’t like my stuff well enough to actually type I like this in a comment box. Okay. Maybe, that means I need to ratchet up my stories.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Maybe, I need a little bigger emotional punch to what I’m doing. Maybe, this is something that I look at my stories, and I don’t look at them in a clingy sort of sense or in a this is my identity because it’s not. The stories you write aren’t you. You are not what you write. You put a little bit of what you write, sometimes, a lot of what you write and everything you write. But it’s not actually you. You took a little of your heart. And you made a little fictional homunculus.

Sarah Werner:

Good use of that word. Yeah.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And you turned it loose. And it went out there and did whatever it does. But that’s not you. You didn’t diminish yourself that if someone sees your homunculus running along the street and then stomps on it, they didn’t hurt you. You’re fine. So, you can take that and go, “Okay. I can use this feedback to maybe change things.” My success right now though is figuring out that I can actually do this stuff. I am still not convinced that I am a really good writer. I don’t know what it will take to convince me. But I know that I will get there if I keep writing stuff and looking at what I’m writing.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I don’t think I’m good enough yet, but I’m going to get there. So, all my feedback is what are people saying about what I’m writing? When they say stuff about what I write, what are they keying on? What are they looking at? Do they make comments about certain aspects, certain things, that’s a good character, that’s a good whatever, that’s a good twist? Then, I know the stuff that I’m doing well and I’m not doing well because I don’t have a formal writing group. I don’t have a formal writing mentor. I’m not in a class or anything like that. The world is my teacher, and I need to take lessons from everywhere I can.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

So, right now, my definition of success is figuring out that I’m actually good enough to put my stories up there for submission and really mix it up, really mix it up. I know. I have a book out there. I know it’s not quite enough yet. I haven’t quite figured that yet. So, now, I got to do more. And that’s what all my feedback is trying to serve me for right now. That’s the work I needed to do for me is, yes or no, more or less. I know mostly yes, but what? How? Where? Find the channels. I’m pouring water, and I’m watching it run down the hill. And I need to see where it’s running because that’s where I’m going to dig.

Sarah Werner:

Okay. My question is what happens? I like this water analogy. What happens if the water goes into soil that’s already saturated, or what happens if the water goes off of a cliff into an ocean or what if it goes into the cup of someone who is thirsty? I think what I want to ask is I love this idea that the world is your teacher and the world can validate you. But also, are you vetting the people whose opinion you value and trust?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yeah. Oh, boy, that’s a good one. I didn’t. For a long time, I didn’t. I treated every feedback as the same weight. And that weight was heavy. So, if someone said you’re writing, if John C. Rando, if Rando Calrissian came down from his Cloud City of Snark and said, “Your story sucks,” that carried the same weight as someone who had some writing experience who I trusted to know their way around the story who told me, “Your writing is good.” And you can’t do that. So, you have to wait for everything. You have to consider all your sources. Some random person has an opinion, and their opinion has value especially since you’re dealing in, I hate to keep bringing this, but you’re kind of dealing in a market where are there a lot of get, don’t get, share, don’t share. There are a lot of those decisions.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

So, if someone says, “No, I’m not,” and they’re willing to say, “No, I’m not,” it’s worth at least considering why they’re saying it. But you don’t have to keep it. You can look at it and go, “Okay. That was handy,” and keep the part you like and toss the rest out. So, if some of the water falls off a cliff, some of the water falls off a cliff. That’s what happens. Sometimes, you have waterfalls. You don’t go chasing them. And you stick to the rivers and streams you used to. But sometimes, it happens. And sometimes, people dip into that and take some out and drink it, and they’re refreshed.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And that’s good because, you know what, that’s a channel I want to dig more deeply. I want a little more water to go into that channel so I can have more people go in there so that more people can drink from that. That’s good use. I like that. If the water flows in a place where there’s a lot of saturation, well, I got two choices. Either I can stop or I can somehow distinguish my water from the rest of the swamp. Maybe, my water is just swiftly flowing channel while everybody else is stuck in an eddy. I won’t know till I take a look. But I’ll at least take a look.

Sarah Werner:

Good.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Not everything matters. Sarah, when I ask your opinion on something, your opinion holds huge weight.

Sarah Werner:

Thank you.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And it holds huge weight not only because you know me well, you know what matters and doesn’t matter to me, but also because I trust your skill as a storyteller.

Sarah Werner:

Thank you.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

So, if you read a story of mine and go, “That is a solid story,” I know I have a solid story because a person who I know is a good storyteller told me so. And also, I know that you know me well enough that you won’t attempt to buffalo me even well intentioned buffaloing is even a happy buffalo is a buffalo. And you should not agitate the happy buffalos. I think that may be a rule of life. But that’s all, is the feedback’s always going to come at you. You’re out there. You’re in the arena. Stuff’s going to come at you. You can’t stop it. You’ve got to figure out what matters to you and what doesn’t.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And everything’s useful. It’s just how [crosstalk 00:49:00]. That’s all that matters to you, is every piece of your super mercenary, your super mercenary, piece of feedback comes in your first thought is, “How can I use this? How can this make my story better?” You look at it and you go, “Well, that doesn’t help at all.” Out, it goes. You’re done with it. It helps you not at all. Finished. Other stuff needs your attention, and that also takes your ego out of it, right?

Sarah Werner:

Yes.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

You aren’t hurt if you’re eating a bag of Doritos, and one Dorito is at old, brown, shriveled up, burnt one. It does matter. It’s a bad Dorito. Throw it away. When you get a bunch of internet comments, some of the internet comments will be bad, and they’re bad comments. Throw them away. Some people will one star your book because Amazon delivered it and the corner was crinkled.

Sarah Werner:

Oh, I hate that. I hate that so much. Yeah. And what do you do? You can’t-

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Some people would go-

Sarah Werner:

Yeah. You can just choose how you react to it, right?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Some people will go, “This writer sucks. I hated this book.”

Sarah Werner:

Was it Neil Gaiman, I think, who said when somebody says that something about your story needs to change, they’re usually right. But when they tell you how to change it, they’re usually wrong.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Right. Yes. And I love that advice because they can tell you that it doesn’t work. They can’t tell you how to fix it. All they can tell you is, and you can consider this or not, all they can tell you is what they think would work for them. And if you want to write that, if you trust that person enough and you want to write that because you want that story to resonate with them and you hope that if it resonates with them, it will resonate with other people as well, okay, fine. You have a reason. That reason has a nice logical… If you’re doing it because, well, they hated the story and I want them to love it. Why? Why do you want them to love it? What do you want them to do when they love it? Just one person, you know something, don’t spend four hours on your new story just to make one person happy unless that one person is also holding a check with a lot of zeros.

Sarah Werner:

I thought you were going to say unless that person is you.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Well, you know something? See, here’s the other thing. Maybe, you don’t spend four hours reworking some part of a story because that someone is you, because sometimes, a lot of times, that’s how it takes you 10 years to write a novel. I come across so many people, and I feel bad for them. I really do it, and not in a bad way. I feel I’m now working on my ace at it. No, too many. Too many.

Sarah Werner:

That was me at one point too. Do you know that?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yeah. But you know something? I think that’s every new author was like, “I’m working on my ace at it.” Why? Are you inventing a new alphabet? You can only use words so many ways.

Sarah Werner:

Yeah. Well, it’s fear. It’s perfectionism. There’s so much wrapped up in that.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

It’s also you’re thinking I have to love this. You don’t have to love it.

Sarah Werner:

Tell me more about that because I like that. I like that mindset.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I remember reading a story that Dean Wesley Smith told about the first time he was involved with the writers and illustrators’ contest that the really big one that’s with L. Ron Hubbard, he put aside a big trust to run this writer’s illustrators of the future contest. And they put all their winners in an anthology book. And the very first one, Dean Wesley Smith, they asked him for a story to be in it because they also have some pros who put in it. And he didn’t have a story at all, didn’t have a story, and they’re like, “Well, can you write a story?” He’s like, “When is it due?” And they’re like, “Well, it’s due in the morning.” It’s like, “Well, I’m going on a trip. I’m flying out. But I’ll write the story.” And he wrote the story. And you know something? When he wrote the story, it was very simple. I wrote a story, and it was a good enough story. People really liked it. Here’s the thing. You can’t write the perfect story.

Sarah Werner:

Isn’t that frustrating?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

… and not… Stop trying. There is no perfect story. And I can prove it. I can prove it because if you take a book off your shelf and you say, “Jimmie, this is the perfect story.” There is a non-zero chance that I will say, “I don’t like that story,” at which point, it’s not the perfect story.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I have a friend, we haven’t talked in a while. It’s not a bad thing. You know how people drift apart sometimes. I love Watership Down. It is one of my five favorite books I go through every year, once a year. I’d read it at least once a year. I love it. Friend hates it. Hates it. Cannot stand it.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

You know something? Not the perfect story. Really good though. Really good. And if Richard Adams had said, “I’m going to take my story around, and I’m going to show a bunch of people, and they all have to say it’s perfect,” it would not get released. You are one of those 10 people. Your story will never be perfect. There is always going to be something you’re going to will at every single story. And I think this is the right mindset. You should imagine another you taking that story out of your hands and sending it where it has to go, sending it off to that publisher, sending it off to that agent, sending it off to the Amazon, sending it off to wherever. And you should always be like, “No, no, no. Wait. Wait. Wait. I need to put it. Wait, wait, wait.”

Sarah Werner:

The other you needs to be really strict. Yeah. Oh, no.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Oh, no. What about that adverb? Oh, no. Okay. So, you have adverbs. You will have to run the risk of an angry Stephen King showing up at your house at three in the morning in a clown mask demanding that you murder adverbs. You may have to live with that. You know something?

Sarah Werner:

He’s coming.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Okay, buddy. I will take off the mask down and have some hot cocoa. You had a long trip. The story is what the story is. They ain’t going, “I’m not going to go back.” You don’t have to love everything you do. You just have to kind of be okay with it. I have put stories. Sarah, I have put stories out there that I’m like, “Well, I guess this won’t embarrass me too much.”

Sarah Werner:

Well, you have to. You have to.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

So, if you spend four hours revising some little part of a story just to make you happy, stop. Stop. Stop doing it. Stop. Stop. The only way you should spend that much time is if it’s literally run you into a brick wall and you need to tear the brick wall down so the story [crosstalk 00:56:11]. I would still say don’t spend four hours tearing the brick wall down. Walk an hour back in your plot. Make a 45-degree turn to the right or left. And then, just keep going. You don’t-

Sarah Werner:

That usually fixes things for me. [crosstalk 00:56:29] Yeah. It’s not the retooling.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

You don’t have to love everything. You can like everything just okay. It’s fine. Just let it go. Let it-

Sarah Werner:

Because that’s how we grow and improve.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

We have to sing Disney. Let it go.

Sarah Werner:

That’s how we grow and improve. It’s like we publish things before we’re ready. And then, we see how it lands and then, we continue, and we keep going. And I know that during this 10-year period when I was working on this novel that I never even finished, and I was just polishing words over and over again, I wasn’t learning or growing. I wasn’t becoming a better writer. I was obsessing over creating “A masterpiece.” And that’s so different than actually being a creator.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

You can polish a stone away. You can polish a stone until there’s no more stone. You can run an engine until you’re grinding metal. I think that’s what a lot of authors do. I am convinced. If you took 10 successful authors and you put cameras on them and then, you asked them, “I want you to think right now of one story that embarrasses you, that you put out,” you will get immediate reactions because they all know which one it is. They all know exactly which one it is. And you’re going to have at least one. Sarah, you’re going to be a famous creator. You’re going to be a famous writer. Your shows are going to be made into TV shows, and people are going to talk to you, and they’re going to go, “Sarah, let me ask you about such a such story.” And you’re going to go “Oh, that one.” Let me ask you about season three episode four. And you’re going to go, “Look. I just had a plot problem I needed to resolve and decided that a wizard did it. Okay. I’m not proud. But I needed to get it done.”

Sarah Werner:

It was the wizards.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I was on deadline. A wizard did it. But it’s about a girl in space, a wizard. He showed up, magic, and went away. Live with it. Everybody has that one thing, right?

Sarah Werner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). And you have to be okay with it.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

You will too. You will too. Okay. You’re a human. You’re not a perfect storytelling robot. You’re not. You might want to be, but you’re not. It’s okay. Just do it, and let it go.

Sarah Werner:

I love it.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Just let it be. And then, go do the next thing. Don’t worry about the last thing because you’re so busy doing the next thing. And you have a book of cool story ideas. Every writer has a book of cool story ideas somewhere. It may not be a whole book. It may be a bunch of loosely pages stuck together or maybe a bunch of index cards in an envelope. It may be they’ve got a bunch of cool story ideas. And while you’re obsessing over the one in front of you, you’re not writing the other ones. I want to see what’s in the book. Show me what’s in the book.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

You can impress me with your awesome storytelling, but you can also show me all these really cool ideas that at some point you were sitting there, and you went, “Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, that’ll be cool.” And then, you grab something. You wrote it down. And it’s been sitting there for five years because you can’t get it because you’re doing this other thing. Finish the other thing, and let it go. Who cares? Get it done. Done is better than perfect. Done is even better than I love it.

Sarah Werner:

I like this.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I can live with it. It won’t embarrass me too bad. Look, if it’s something that you’re worried about coming up at your Supreme Court nomination, maybe, give up on the Supreme Court justice dream, okay? At some point, they’re going to develop head in a jar technology like Futurama, and you’re not going to get your crack anyway. Give me the cool, but flawed story. All right. Every cool story is flawed. Raiders of the Lost Ark is, in my opinion, one of the two greatest action movies ever made. If you look at the story, you realize that nothing Indiana Jones did mattered. Did it stop Steven Spielberg from making a cool movie? It did not. Did he know it when he was making the movie? Yeah. I’m pretty sure he did. You can pick Star Wars apart for the Castle Run. You know what? Don’t care. Space Knights with glowing swords and lots of pew, pew spaceships. Give me. Give me more. Nobody cares. They don’t.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

What they want is they can use a Star Wars analogy. They want that moment where the flutes go (singing), and the camera pans down on the planet. And you hear (singing), and the blockade runner goes over top and the Star Destroyer was just dumping laser fire on it. And there are explosions. The music’s going crazy, and nobody cares about perfect because what they’re seeing is the most cool thing they’ve ever seen or heard in their lives through that moment, and they want it. Give it to them. Stop screwing around with perfect. Give it to them. Give me the cool stories. I’m a demanding public, and I demand your cool stories.

Sarah Werner:

I love this.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Sarah, give me your cool stories.

Sarah Werner:

I will. I’m working-

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

You’re doing Girl in Space.

Sarah Werner:

I’m working on it.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I know you’re doing Girl in Space. And you’re working on every day. I cannot wait for season two. Season one was cool. Season two is going to be cool. How do I know? I trust you.

Sarah Werner:

Well, thank you. Thank you.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

I like season one. Nobody’s ever written a really cool season of a story and then the next season was just… Nobody ever did that. It usually takes five seasons to go…

Sarah Werner:

Oh. Okay. Okay, good. Good. Good. And I’m not going to go that long.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Usually, it starts out bad. It just stays Cop Rock. Okay. No one ever said, “They first season of Cop Rock was a tour-de-force. I don’t know if you remember Cop Rock. It was, I think, Steven Bochco, the legendary. Yeah. He did a procedural cop musical.

Sarah Werner:

What?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yeah. If you kind of imagine a combination of Hill Street Blues, Law and Order and Hamilton-

Sarah Werner:

How do I not know about this?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Because it was terrible. And I think maybe we’ve all been flashy things like Men in Black. And they just haven’t got to me yet.

Sarah Werner:

Okay. You’re just one of the few. Yeah. Yeah.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yeah. George Lucas’s name is off Howard the Duck. I love Howard the Duck, by the way.

Sarah Werner:

Interesting.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

This is an example I think Howard the Duck is a really fun movie. And I own it on DVD, and I like it. I really like it. George Lucas hated it so much that he had his name taken off. People say, “This is one of the worst movies ever made.” Wise Quacking Duck, Evil Overlord science fiction, Lea Thompson and Tim Robbins in probably the dumbest characters they have ever been, and an ’80s punk rock Howard the Duck quack band at the end with synths and everything. It was awesome.

Sarah Werner:

That sounds amazing. Yeah.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

But you know what? If they had gone for perfect, that movie would not show up. By the way, first Marvel superhero to be adapted into a big movie like that was Howard the Duck.

Sarah Werner:

I love that. And now, we just-

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Howard the Duck was a Marvel comic.

Sarah Werner:

Well, I remember seeing Howard the Duck in the little bonus after some of the other newer Marvel movies. Howard the Duck is whatever on that planet in the collector’s shop or whatever.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Yeah. With the collector. Yeah, he actually, it looks a lot like he looked in the original comics. But he was a [inaudible 01:04:19]. But it was an actual Marvel comic. And you go back and watch that movie from the ’80s. It is Jeffrey Jones who was the principal on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And Tim Robbins, famous Tim Robbins and famous Lea Thompson and other famous people, and George Lucas directed it, and Howard the Duck. And it is dreadful, and it is fun. And I’m glad it exists. But it wasn’t perfect. Somebody just had to let it go. Someone had to turn it loose, and that’s kind of where we are. Poems about werewolves for kids and adults who like to be kids like, “Oh, there’s a poem in there [inaudible 01:04:54] for goodness’ sake.”

Sarah Werner:

I love it.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

This is not leaves of grass. I am not Walt Whitman. The rhymes are sometimes a little strained. But that’s okay because it’s fun. It’s fun. Who cares if it’s not perfect? Only you care if it’s perfect.

Sarah Werner:

I love this.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

And you’re not buying your book.

Sarah Werner:

I mean unless you really, really need the popularity to go up.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Even then, it’s not a good economic deal. You spend $10 to get a $1.50 back. That’s not a good deal. You don’t need to be perfect. Just do it. It’s cool. It’s cool. We need more cool stuff. We don’t need more perfect stuff.

Sarah Werner:

Yeah. That is so good. I see that we’re coming up on our time here. And I think that is honestly the perfect place to end. Jimmie, I want to thank you so much for doing this interview today. I also would love to hear if people are interested in following you or reading your stories or just getting to know you. Where do they go? What do they do?

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

My website is Jimmie with an IE, jimmiewrites.com. And I have a newsletter. It comes out once a week every Wednesday morning. It’s called Thursday. Actually, it’s called Thursday because there’s an exclamation point. There’s a link to it on my website or you can go to tinyletter.com/jimmiewrites, and subscribe. And it’d be really cool if you did, and tell me if you like it or not. Either way.

Sarah Werner:

It’s good, and I like it.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

Those are the best places to go and come to Sarah’s Create-Alongs on Wednesdays in back in the fall. We’re going to get them on Fridays again. Come along. And you’ll see me in the chat. So, there I’ll be.

Sarah Werner:

Come hang out with Jimmie.

Jimmie Bice Jr.:

You could tell me how crazy this was, like, “Jimmie, tone it down a little, buddy.” Less caffeine, less caffeine. Easy pal. Yeah. That’s it in. And in your Facebook group, I show up there too.

Sarah Werner:

Yes. And you provide those Friday prompts. So, if you’re a writer looking for some prompts, Jimmie, every Friday has new writing prompts for you. So, come hang out with us. I’ll make sure that there are links to everything in the show notes for today’s episode, again jimmiewrites.com, J -I-M-M-I-E. So, it’s Jimmie with an IE. And then, make sure that you are looking for One Hungry Werewolf: And Other Monstrous Rhymes out on Amazon.