Deadly Vision by T.D. Severin
TPP EP 08

TPP Episode 8 T.D. Severin

Mark: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast where you come for the pitch and stay for the story behind the story. I’m your host, mark p Jay Nadon, and you are listening to episode eight. This episode is brought to you by my upcoming novel, the Resonant. It’s the final to the Armageddons Descendants trilogy. Think The Road meets the Institute with a sprinkle of X-Men. If you’re an author and want to sponsor a future episode, head to markpjnadon.ca/thrillerpitchpodcast.

Today’s guest is T.D. Severin, author of the Medical Thriller, Deadly Vision. It is the winner of the American Fiction Award in 2025. He’s been publishing since 1994 with work appearing in journals and magazines around the world. When he is not writing, Todd runs a rock record label and he’s already at work [00:01:00] on his next medical thriller. Hello Todd, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here today.

Todd: Oh, I’m thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for taking time and having me

Mark: And I have your book with me here today. Deadly Vision. I absolutely loved it. Obviously we’ll be getting into it, but this has gotta be, I think this year it’s gonna be one of my favorite books of the year, honestly. And I don’t, I, I don’t, I don’t say that lightly. I read a lot, but I absolutely love this book.

So we’ll get into it. Thank you for sending me a copy, an autograph copy.

So let’s hear your pitch.

Todd: First of all, thank you. I mean, that’s, that was high praise. I, I really do appreciate it. So the book, deadly Vision is a high tech medical psychological thriller. It’s based around a major character redemption arc. Our hero has invented a technology to perform heart surgery entirely within virtual reality, and the forces that be both within the medical center and the toxic politics of medical centers in the United [00:02:00] States, as well as the politics of an ongoing presidential election combined to try and stop him from being able to complete his quest of getting this technology live.

And, as the story goes, there’s increasing obstacles placed in from his way, including madness and murder that he has to overcome to get his technology to fruition in time to save the life of somebody he loves.

Mark: That’s great. Thank you. A wonderful pitch. It really sums it up very well too. So yeah, let’s get into it. Where did this book idea come from?

Todd: You know, I, I’ve actually played around with this idea for a long time. This, this book has a a long odyssey of a story to tell. The original concept came to me way back in 1994, and if you look at the opening quote, one of the, the two quotes I used, one’s from Benjamin Franklin, the other one is from a virtual reality report in 1994, because in 1994, I was starting to research the possibilities [00:03:00] of virtual reality and how have medical applications. At the time it was really being used just for surgical simulation or maybe some training sort of techniques, educational techniques. And in my mind, I was just trying to fathom where could this go? Where could this lead, how could virtual reality become a daily part of, of medical science? So that was the genesis. I said, way back in 1994.

But what I really wanted to focus on then was this concept that you can have virtual reality that you really can’t have with any other sort of life, technology, or existence. And that is the duality of existing both within the virtual world and in the fiscal world at the same time, and how this duality of experience in these two different worlds could be colliding with inside somebody’s brain and how that could be having an impact upon a certain character.

And this concept of duality of existence, which is really fascinating to me, you know? [00:04:00] The original draft of the novel actually delved more into the virtual reality side of things. It’s it a little bit more, a little more fantasy elements that were going on inside virtual reality at the time, but the whole goal was to see what would happen to this character who is existing in one world and in the virtual world at the same time.

And I just became fascinated with that. So that that was the story, Genesis. Then over the years and trials and tribulations, I just kept massaging the story until we got to what you read.

Mark: And how long between like where the plot points came together, where had like a solid idea in the actual writing.

Todd: So I actually wrote the first draft of this novel way back in 1994, and I did get an agent for it, and it made the rounds going through the major New York publishers.

And one of the senior editors at Warner Books wrote me back and she said, I love this. You know, this is, I’ve never read anything like this.

It’s really a fascinating idea, but I don’t know what to do with it. She goes, it’s, it’s [00:05:00] part medical thriller, part cyber thriller, you know, part science fiction. I, I don’t know what to do with this. And I was trying to make the case that this is not science fiction, that everything I was writing about is, is actual medical science.

And I did not wanna be classified as a science fiction author, ’cause I’m not, you know, my inspirations are guys like Michael Crichton, you know, or Robin Cook, or Tess Garretson, you know, the real medical thriller sort of writers. And, but I, I get what she was saying Back in 1994, the publishing rule wasn’t ready for a story about virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

That wasn’t sci-fi, you know, ’cause those were sci-fi terms back then. So, you know, fast forward till now, those terms are now acceptable. So it was time to kind of revisit the book. Bring it out. So, original draft was done in 1994 after I wrote the book, which I did in just a heated fit of enthusiasm, I realized I should probably learn how to write a book.

And so I started [00:06:00] taking classes. I took a bunch of extension courses through UC Berkeley, worked with some great writers, started taking medical fiction writing classes with Tess Garretson and Michael Palmer back in the East coast. Learned a tremendous amount from them. They were, you know, both Tess and Michael.

Michael rest, rest in peace now. But both of them are phenomenal writers, you know, great teachers. So I learned a ton from And then I took an intensive writing course from, from Rob Dugoni and Robert Dugoni writes, you know, fabulous thrillers. And so that kind of became my foundational craft basis to then re revise the book and get into the, the current format.

So from beginning to then, it was a 30 year journey with several completed books along the way. That I kept having to, to change as, as the story was evolving.

Mark: So there’d be a big difference between the first, the first draft of this first book and the current current version.

Todd: It’s kind of funny ’cause I actually came across it the other day. I still have the very first draft, you know, it’s printed up on, you know, dot matrix. [00:07:00] This is 1994. And, and it’s a totally different story. And in fact, you know, this is just an interesting point as, as a writer for yourself. One of the things that actually got me in trouble with writing on the revisions was trying to hold onto too much of the old writing, thinking I could save myself some time, save myself some energy.

Well, I can just, you know, keep this stuff and add this and, and make it all work when it really didn’t, you know, even the voice had been changing over the years of, of learning more and delving into the craft. So, in the end, what you’ve read compared to the first draft maybe there’s like 10 words that are the same.

They’re probably, they’re probably all the maybe and, you know, but but it, it is only when I really said I had to dissect this whole thing apart again, re-concept plot from the beginning. And I’m a pretty detailed plotter when it comes to the way I write. And then I rebuilt the whole novel from the ground up. That’s [00:08:00] when it, it finally started to close.

Mark: So would you say you’re an outliner then, or was your first draft, like pantsing well, you did the research, but almost like a pantsing idea, exploring a story. You might, obviously you have the biggest gr greatest outline ever. If, if you’ve changed the book multiple times.

Todd: I think the first. Yeah, the first draft was a pants without a doubt. It was pants on fire. You know, it was, and I’m rather proud that it actually told a pretty coherent story, which again, was, you know, it got agented, you know, it was Elizabeth, Elizabeth Palmada in San Francisco agency. You know, she picked it up and it, it did make the rounds and it didn’t just get completely laughed out of New York.

It was pushed outta New York. Something heavy. Go away. But at least you know it, it made it there. So from the beginning I started to develop at least a sense that I could construct a story. ’cause you know, as a writer, man, it’s insecurities and doubt is rampant in our profession. ’cause we just never know if we’re conveying [00:09:00] properly what we want to convey.

But then once I started learning craft and I took a course from James Fray, who is, who is a, a crime writer. He got awards for his crime books, but he also wrote a, a teaching book called How to Write a Damn Good And then he wrote How to Write a Damn Good novel two. And I took UC Berkeley courses from him and it was like a eight week intensive course in novel writing. And from him, really started to learn the concepts of laying out the story in a way that has become, you know, the foundation for what Deadly Vision became, as well as what my next book’s gonna be because I’m working on the next book now, so I’m a, a pretty detailed outline now, and I outline in an interesting way though I outline graphically.

I actually plot out on a sheet of paper the basic heroic journey that our main character will be going through, because even though these books are high tech thrillers, I’m referring to the next one by these. ’cause there’s only one so far. You know, the, the technology’s only as interesting as, as [00:10:00] the human impact.

So Deadly Vision is really a tale of a guy who’s going through this incredibly extraordinary circumstance to reach a desired end. And the whole point of the story is to have that character evolve and to grow and to develop and change. So I, I essentially plotted that out, you know, with the major intervening points that are gonna be the major obstacle points.

The, the early crescendo, the bottoming out. Final plateau, making sure that he’s ending at a place which is different than where he started as far as his, you know, development, his, his psychology, who he is as a human being. And then along that path for this event to happen, you have to have this, this, and this preceding.

So each of these became what I call obligate scenes. And then I took all the obligate scenes and I put them on by five index cards. And then on that three by five index card, I make a little notation as to which. Research technology I was gonna be including or talking about within [00:11:00] that passage. So in the end, I had this stack of three by five cards, which is all scenes laid out.

And each scene would talk about, okay, here we’re gonna be talking about the virtual heart project. Here we’re gonna do, like I, in the book, I talk about how they, they now have this open MRI that projects images onto the human body. So, this is where that’s gonna go. You know, this is where the leg lab technology’s gonna go and have all those little guides as to what was gonna happen.

Then writing simply became turning over a card and this is the scene I’m gonna writing now, and I just start writing. So that part is, is carefully crafted, but the scene itself is still being written in the moment. You know? So it’s kind of a combination of outlining and pantsing, I guess, is the best way to to

Mark: Yeah, I love that idea of the cards

Todd: You know, I just recently saw a quote and I, I had not heard before. In fact, Quentin Tarantino hadn’t even made a movie when I first started writing. That’s how long ago it was but apparently Tarantino has said that to write a movie, you need 70 [00:12:00] ideas. You write down an idea is a scene.

You write down the scene on a card, and once you have 70 cards, you have your movie. And I, it’s exactly what I do. In fact, I have my, uh, it’s. Probably right behind me, but I have my next book. It’s on, they’re, they’re pink index cards, and so I have my, my next book written out. It’s a stack of index cards

Mark: I may have to try that. ’cause one of the things I was really, really impressed with was how you kept pace with so many plot things. And how we all brought it all together in the end because there’s so much going on and you have a lot of different, you know, characters that are being touched on and you bring it together so beautifully in the end. I was wondering how, that was one of my questions, but you already answered it now.

Todd: So what I would do then is, again, more than you need to know probably, but so I, I’ve told you I grafted out my main character’s arc, but then I also looked at each of the supporting characters and you know, we have Malcolm and you have Sherilyn and you even have, the [00:13:00] Senator. These are all important characters in the book.

You have Crawford. I took the main character arcs there because every character has to have some sign of development throughout the course of the book or else it’s in stasis, right? Everybody’s gotta be moving forward. Particularly a character like Malcolm, who is our computer genius, and he exhibits a lot of growth throughout the book.

So I would then plot out their character arc and I would then kind of do the same things with them as far as the scenes that they needed to have, and they got their index cards. And then when it came to looking at the book, and if I get a new idea, I just have another index card and you flip through the cards, you go, okay, this will fit right in here.

And I put the card in there and then you can kind of flip through the book just as these index cards and you can get a feeling for how it’s all gonna play out. So that’s kind of how I kept track of all of these different subplots going. And you were right at the end I was thinking, I mean, don’t get me wrong I wrote myself into a corner a few times and at the end of the book I’m going, okay, how in the [00:14:00] hell am I going to get this all to end? And I knew I needed to have an ending where all of these open subplots got concluded at one exact moment in time. know, it couldn’t be staggered. It would’ve lost any impact it had.

So I had to come up with a way to get them all one big bang for the money and you know, that’s hopefully what I did.

Mark: Yeah, for sure. And what about research? Because I mean, you’re a medical doctor, right? The I was impressed with how the terminology certainly came out, which made it feel very real. Even though a lot of words I didn’t under, you know, like i didn’t necessarily understand what you were talking about with some of the medical terminology, but I could follow along enough with how you, the context of what you were saying, that it worked very well.

So I hadn’t, I knew what you were doing, even if I didn’t know exactly what you meant by some of those words. What, what kind of research did you have to do in the, on the medical side, and then also you have like the political side, you the character [00:15:00] side. You know, there’s a lot, there’s a lot going on.

Todd: Yeah, thanks. I did a ton of research, and like I said, I, I made sure that I knew exactly which bit of research I was gonna be highlighting for each individual scene. So the medical stuff was the easiest stuff for me. Just from my background. I still had to do research then, you know, certain medicines had changed from when I first started writing.

Had to make sure I had certain protocols correct, yada, yada, yada. The technology, which is the, the crux of the book is, was entirely researched because even though I was adamant that this not be a science fiction book, nothing I wrote about really exists right now. You know, it’s still taking several iterations from where we are right now to move towards what I’m writing about in the book. What I’m envisioning. I don’t like to call it science fiction ’cause everything will happen the way I’ve described it. I believe all of these [00:16:00] steps are gonna happen, it’s just gonna be a matter of time. So in order to create all of that, I really did have to research all aspects.

I’m not a computer God, I, I barely can type. I mean, I’m, you know, so all the computer stuff had to be researched, you know. All the concept of virtual reality had to be researched. But then on the flip side, most of that stuff’s made up anyways right? The neuroanatomy, all of that is real. the, the most interesting part for me, and it was kind of interesting because there was a time period of 15 years when I wasn’t working on the book.

I didn’t work on the book for 30 years straight. was a 15 year period where it really just sat on ice. ’cause I was busy with the day job. And when I pulled it back out and I started rereading it, there was a whole section in there that I, really don’t even know where it came from. It’s like, I, I don’t quite remember writing it, and I don’t really remember that it even had existed until I read it and it just flowed so seamlessly. I, I realized that I, I must have put this [00:17:00] there for a reason, but, but that is the entire robotics laboratory, the whole character of Helen did not exist in the first several versions of the book. She, the, the whole team was just Taylor and Malcolm doing all the work.

And if you, you know, in the book around chapter 10, we have the big grand round scene where Taylor’s presenting his research to the whole faculty. And there’s one moment where the faculty gets energized and they start pelting him with questions from the stage. And Taylor’s relishing this because it means he’s got their their attention, right?

If they’re asking questions and they’re interested, and one of the questions that gets thrown at him from the stage is, how does this laser move within the body? ’cause that’s the crux of the book. He goes into virtual reality inside this coronary artery. He’s walking through the coronary artery while inside the real patient microbiotics are mimicking his movements to the side of the obstruction in the artery.

And when he is at the right place. Micro laser will fire clear, the artery all done while he’s just been [00:18:00] inside virtual reality. That was the concept of what I wanted to but then this character in the book yells out, how does it move? I don’t know why he said that, because I had, I don’t know. It’s…

Mark: Who asked that question?

Todd: It was, it was just a, a, it was just a big McGuffin for me.

You know, it moves. It just moves. Okay. And then, but, but I wrote it myself and then I had to think about it, well, how does this thing move inside the body? So then I had to really envision, you know, the physics and the, the biomechanics of, of how a micro laser could move inside of the body. So then in order to do that, I had to create the whole micro robotics or the whole robotics laboratory, the farm where Helen Yang is the biomechanical engineer who is working with the team to make the robotics and she then became such an integral part of the story and an integral part of Malcolm’s development and just the entire storytelling process of the book. I [00:19:00] can’t imagine the book not ever having her. But yet she didn’t exist in the first several iterations. And, you know, just to kind of highlight a few points as somebody who’s read the book, there’s certain scenes where Malcolm is in the laboratory trying to figure out what’s going wrong.

He’s on the computer and there’s nothing in the world, possibly more boring than writing about a guy in the lab by himself on the computer, you know, typing. Oh my, I mean, how much reaction can you get, right? But when Helen came in, you know, with her robotic falcon following her and sits down, all of a sudden it had now moved into dialogue and it moved into problem solving, and it moved into increasing tension between the two of them, both within their, their own developing relationships, but also just tension on heightening of the problem. So again, I, I’ve learned so much about writing in this book about that concept of having a guy alone at his computer, tapping away, revealing [00:20:00] stuff to the audience, or having that second person now and throwing it all into dialogue and, and action in, in the moment.

It made a huge difference.

Mark: So Malcolm was the expert on everything, I’m guessing in the original draft?

Todd: Yeah. Well again, the robotics thing was just, it was kind of just McGuffin a little bit. Yeah. But it was all, it was all just up to Malcolm to figure that stuff out.

Mark: He was already pretty stressed out in this version. I can’t imagine what happened in the first version.

Todd: Malcolm, Malcolm is a bit of a stress puppy.

Mark: I loved his character. I,

Todd: He was fun to write. He was so much fun to write.

Mark: yeah, I believe it.

And, oh, and the, the cocoa thing. Where did that come from? I, that was brilliant that the more the more stressed out he got, the higher his chocolate, the cocoa and his chocolate got, that was brilliant. I loved it. Every time the cocoa got, the percentage got higher you knew he was more stressed out and I just loved that.

Todd: Well, and that, yeah, that’s exactly how it evolved. I wanted a [00:21:00] way to, to visualize his increasing anxiety. Without saying, he’s becoming more anxious,

Mark: Yeah.

Todd: Without him fidgeting more. He’s fidgety already. You know, Malcolm, you know, he takes off his glasses, he wipes them on his shirt and cleans and puts ’em back.

How many times can you do that? Right? And I’m a bit of a chocoholic myself, just so you know. So, you know, I’m always,

I always got my chocolate bars on hand. I’m also a licorice aholic. And so it started off, and this is one of those things, I’ll be honest with you. I, I can’t say that I initially planned it the way it evolved.

I just had him eating chocolate as a quirk. But as the story kept getting more tense, it just all of a sudden just made sense that was now getting off of the Nestle’s Crunch Bar is going to dark chocolate and increasing chocolate. And, and at the very end, you know, you had that one moment where when he’s in hiding with the, the Scotsman Starling and he asks for a sip of a whiskey and then, you know.

Malcolm has reached his limit,

Mark: Yeah. [00:22:00] Yeah. Oh yeah. That was great. I love that Scottish character too. Was it Salinger? Was it

Todd: uh, Starling.

Mark: nothing. Probably confusing character. Starling, right? Yeah. Liked his character.

Todd: So that place really exists, by the way, the, I grew up in a small town called Danville. And so when our character is integrating his past into the story, it just kind of made sense for me to have him go back to an area I knew so well and that area out Tassajara Road with the walnut orchards and you know, the more meet and pen fences and the dilapidated houses.

I mean, that’s, that’s the, that’s how it was when I was growing up. I didn’t necessarily live there, but that’s, that’s what that area of town was like. It was all just ranches and wanted orchards. And I wanted to kind of set him back into that milieu to kind of paint the [00:23:00] claustrophobic confines of his childhood home.

’cause that was something that he needed to break out of from the beginning and up on the hill where he goes to that tree called bear that tree really exists on the top of the Las Trumpist range. And I’ve, I’ve been there a million times. So those were like my visions looking out over Dbla Valley and San Damiano, which is the Franciscan retreat up in the hills is a real place.

There really are Franciscan monks walking around there. It’s up in the hills above town, and Danville now has about 40,000 people, and I bet you 1000 even though the San damato it’s just all up by itself, up on the hills. But I used to go there all the time as a kid. And it’s always been a place for me to go as a refuge, just when I needed my own time to sit down and think and, and be in peace.

And there’s the, the, the retreat is up to the, to the left on this little bit of a hill. And down the hill is this little white cottage. I never ever knew what it was, but I, [00:24:00] it’s been there my whole life. And so I just imagined that must be where the groundskeeper and he, he must be Scottish. His name must be startling.

So that’s how startling came about.

Mark: Oh, I love that. So your, your piece of peace and, and became Taylor’s piece of peace.

Todd: They say, write what you know, you know, and it was a place that I could really resonate because it isn’t knowing something and describing something isn’t that interesting in reading so much as the emotional resonance that comes with it.

You know, and you can describe something in a million ways, and you, and I’m not a, I mean, gosh, you read my book. How about, gosh, I, i, i’m not a, a, a great writer, you know, I, I don’t have big words. You know, I’m not Faulkner, you know, I’m, I’m barely, I, I’m simpler than Hemingway. You know, I don’t speak in complex sentences. I don’t write in complex sentences. I’m not flowery, you’re not gonna look at me for that amazing turn of phrase.

My entire goal was to tell a story. And [00:25:00] the value of the story is if there’s any emotional resonance in the arc of this particular character. So to describe something from an emotional point of view to me is just a lot more powerful than to describe it from a physical So that’s why I chose those areas ’cause I had an emotional connection.

Mark: Yeah. No, it landed well. Yeah.

Todd: Thank.

Mark: and. And that his father was also there and I wanted to ask about father that arc. I don’t want to give away too much of the story for the readers, it’s almost like inside question, I guess. Read the book, if you haven’t read the book to readers, read it, and then, but the, his father from the, from like all his fears and the trauma, did you plan that arc from like the beginning of the book where it’s very much trauma and abuse.

I know I i wanna give away what happens in the end, but. Did you plan that? Because that hit me hard, that arc, from the moment it happened to the end. Like, I’m a father as well, uh, and I’m like, I’ve never been abused or abused, but like, this still hit hard and I’m [00:26:00] just curious if you like plan that arc or if that just came out in the end.

Todd: Thank you. I’m glad. I’m glad that it, it resonated you. And just to be clear from the beginning, my father. Did not physically abuse me. Me. I did have to kind of project. But you can always reach inside of you and find your own hurt, your own every, we all have stuff, you know, and, and in writing character, what I tried to do was find that part of me that is Malcolm, part that is Taylor, part that is Ross, and then bring that forward.

So I felt like I was writing within that particular character rather than writing about a character saying stuff. The, the father and the, the mother arc, was definitely planned from the beginning, with the resultant effects on the brother. And I didn’t quite know originally how it was all gonna be tied together, but I did know that that had to have an emotionally resonant [00:27:00] conclusion.

And I think that there might have been an early draft where they ended with their final conversation, but didn’t go to the next step, if you know what I’m talking about. again, partly because at that point, Helen wasn’t part of the story. So it was just kind of, I don’t even remember how that idea was originally going to end, before it all came together for me that this is, this is what I needed to do and how I needed to conclude that arc.

With, with Taylor being an active participant in something to, to really bring resolution to his childhood. And it’s because of that, that so many people have asked me if I’m gonna be writing a sequel, you know, oh, we like Taylor, we love Malcolm, you know, we want you to write a sequel. What’s next? And it’s like, well, you know, you know, I don’t really have a sequel for this book because I feel that Taylor’s story has been told, you know, from where he started to where he ended I feel Taylor’s [00:28:00] journey has been And Sherilyn’s journey has, his wife has moved along, you know, concurrent alternatingly, high and low path, but they’ve reached a place and I needed them. Once they’ve all reached that place for me to do anything, now I’m gonna have to pull ’em back off the shelf and just mess them.

Mark: Yeah.

Todd: His story’s kind of told, but

Mark: All the doctors in the hospital go crazy again.

Todd: I, I know. Well, it’s exactly right. It’s like this. This concept of what I wanted to do has been been told. But in doing this, and here’s a little Easter egg for you, and you’re, you’re the first one to know this, so this can be your

Mark: All right.

Todd: The, the lead character of my next book, which is based on a different medical principle, has been mentioned already in the Deadly Vision

And I can even tell you the chapter if you want, but he’s in chapter three. It’s a throwaway sentence. It’s a one sentence [00:29:00] mention and it’s completely thrown away, and you’re not even supposed to pay attention But that’s the hero of the next book. And I realized then that what I can do, since I’ve created this San Francisco University Medical Center with its incredibly toxic politics, which by the way is all 100% real.

I mean that’s, that was more me recording than it was making cause I’ve spent a lot of time in academic medical and the politics are insane. But I do have all these great characters and I have Malcolm and I have Helen, and I have Ross. You know, I have these characters that if I need a computer genius, well I can pull Malcolm back out.

If I need a great biomechanical engineer, I can bring Helen back out. I, I can even bring Crawford back at least, you know part and partly in certain story arcs, I can reutilize a lot of these characters. So the, the, the milieu and the setting and the support can continue on through different books without it being a series, you know, without there being a true [00:30:00] sequel.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I’m very excited for the next, for the next book myself. If you need an early reader or something, let me know. I’m all over that.

Todd: Oh, I love it. Love it.

Mark: know for sure. Reach out.

Todd: I’m gonna the next, the next one’s even crazier, by the way. I mean, if you thought there was some psychosis in this one, just wait till the next one.

Mark: So we’re running a little, we’re running way over time, but you know, I mean, I could ask a million questions. No, that’s okay. I, I could keep going. Going and going. We’re just gonna wrap up and then we can get onto some of our bonus questions for our newsletter subscribers. A couple more questions though before we do that for authors who are listening, what advice would you give someone who had just published, like their first or second book.

Todd: The only advice I can give in that situation is to be absolutely relentless with trying to market it. That’s the hardest thing. I mean, writing the book is the biggest challenge in my life. Writing the book was so much harder than going to medical school, trust me. But getting the book out is, it’s a, a moment of [00:31:00] time and that moment’s then gone. And to get anybody’s attention in this world today with all of the multitudes of, of options in entertainment, it’s, it’s nearly impossible. So you really have to be re relentless. You, you have to work your social media platforms. You’ve done a great job with, you know, your, your Instagram platform is wonderful and your, your Facebook platform’s wonderful.

So, you know, we have to keep working these platforms. It’s just one way to, to get out there and you have to be engaging and you have to be interactive with your audience and with other writers, and do what you can to become part of the community. And the community itself can help to, to breathe life into your book and that awareness out there.

Mark: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I’ve been telling everyone about this book when they ask me what I’m up to now, so you’re getting plenty of, plenty of call outs from me. ’cause I just, I just loved it.

Todd: I

Mark: And where can people find your book and find more about you?

Todd: It’s on Amazon, you know, and it’s on Barnes and Noble, and, you know, the normal sort of places. I, I, I don’t know [00:32:00] physically if it’s in Barnes and Noble, but certainly online, it’s available there. I have my own website, tdseverin.com. I’m on Facebook, T.D. Severin author, Instagram, TikTok, all the, all the normal avenues.

I, the writing name is my initials, TD Severin. My first name is Todd, so Todd Severn has his own profile there as well.

Mark: Oh, that’s great. Well, thank you so much for being a guest. We’ll, we’ll talk some more in the, with the bonus questions for our subscribers, but I really appreciate you coming on, and if you’re listening to this get Deadly Vision, read it. You’re gonna love it.

Todd: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Mark: Thank you for listening. If you’re enjoying this show, you can support the podcast on Patreon and instantly get access to my thriller novella cognitive breach, plus short stories, novella’s, and bonus content from podcast guests. I just released a new short story on Patreon, the backup feed, which you can dive into the moment you join.

All for the price of a cup of coffee. Links are in the show notes. If you like [00:33:00] this episode, please follow, rate and share it with another Thriller fan. It really helps. I’ll see you in the next episode when I sit down with Angela Douglas, author of the Dark Psychological Thriller Every Fall.