No Easy Way Back
by Josh Jensen
Season 2 Ep. 16

Josh: And I got to 50,000 words in a hurry, and it just didn’t feel right. I felt like I was trying to write what I was supposed to write, and I said, “Screw this,” and just, you know, kind of go scorched earth and restart it.

Mark: Welcome to the Thriller Writer Lab, where every thriller goes under the microscope, one book at a time. I’m your host, Mark Nadon, and this is where best-selling, award-winning, and emerging thriller authors share the craft, research, and real-world experiences that power today’s most gripping stories.

 Joining me today is Josh Jensen, and we are putting his neo-Western thriller, “No Easy Way Back,” under the microscope. Josh, thank you for joining us today

Josh: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here

Mark: So let’s start with your pitch for the book. Tell me all about “No Easy Way Back.”

Josh: “No Easy Way Back” is a neo-Western thriller. I’m not sure if that’s an official categorization. That’s what I’m going with. Um, I’m trying to own it. And it’s set in my home state, in my, my hometown in Utah, and it centers around a protagonist named Graham Hayes that’s a member of a– former member of a Tier 1 unit called the Regimental Reconnaissance Company.

Throughout my research and stuff, I found out that it’s pretty, uh… not a lot to, to go on there, so it gave me some creative freedom and gave me a non-Navy SEAL type ex-military protagonist. And,, at its core, it’s, uh, it’s a story about redemption. He reluctantly returns home to Utah when his, kind of estranged, chaotic brother finds himself at the, in the center of a storm he can’t really navigate.

And Graham returns home and faces his demons and also some very real threats from a, from a, uh, corrupt venture capitalist with some cartel ties. And there’s a lot of Western undertones and themes and things like that. So I really tried to blend the modern thriller with Western storytelling.

Mark: Awesome. So let’s talk about that a little bit more. Neo-Western, what does that mean? What does that mean to you if, if someone picks up this book and wants to read it? What should they expect? Are we talking about… And obviously I’ve read the book, so I know the answer, but just for the reader, should they expect, you know, horseback and cowboys, or should they… I mean, you mentioned modern warfare or modern tier one teams, so let’s talk about that a little bit.

Josh: No, I, I, I, really tried to make it very Western themed in a modern thriller sense. So I think a lot of these, quote-unquote, “modern Westerns” are thrillers with cowboy hats and, uh, I– that’s not what I wanted, that’s not what I set out to accomplish. That’s pretty easy to do, take a large scale plot like fate of the world and stick it in Montana.

No, that’s not what I wanted to do. I want it to be centered around like Western themes and landscape and family and things like that, that, you know, your favorite Westerns probably touch on to some extent or another.

Mark: So what was the inspiration for this book? I know I’ve– in your bio, you talk about you were 13, there was a murder that rocked your town, and that inspired a book. It– I wasn’t quite sure if it was this book. So where did this one come from?

Josh: It, it started as that. So I had a, um, at the University of Mary my freshman year of college, I took a narrative writing course, and the, it was basically this, but not this. It was a different character, different plot, things like that, but it was a thriller set in Payson, Utah. Little random Payson, Utah. You know, I think we’re known for is, uh, it’s the place where the original Footloose movie was filmed. But I, I, always wanted to write something set in, in that setting, that rural Utah setting that, um, hasn’t been explored much. Um, there’s a lot of Wyoming stuff and a lot of Montana stuff, um, but there hasn’t been a lot of, like, Utah thrillers. So that’s, have always, what I wanted to try to do.

Mark: Okay, so break me through how this story actually came about. Like, what, what came first? Was it the vision of Graham and this redemption story you mentioned? Or was it just, I, I have this landscape, now what do I do with it?

Josh: The setting came first uh, I just always wanted to put something in the, the mountains and the, the towns, the town that I grew up in. Um, that, that’s really where it started, and then as I started reading more and more thrillers, like my dad’s a huge CJ Box fan and Robert Ludlum fan, so there were just thrillers all over the house. And, so that’s, you know, what I started reading pretty young, probably too young. Um, but yeah, so the setting came first, and then as I started to really just love and appreciate thrillers, I decided to, to merge those two things.

Mark: So talk about the timeline a little bit because you were 13 when the murder happened. When did you, when did you feel like you were ready to write this story? And then how many years did that take to build this book? How did that go?

Josh: Yeah, so I was in… So, like I said, I’ve been reading thrillers for a long time, and I was reading, um, Blue Heaven by C.J. Box on a work trip in Atlanta, just, like, bored in my hotel room. Was in 2024. Yeah, like spring of 2024. And I was reading that, and I started writing it right then and there in the, the hotel, and it just kind of flowed through.

And I got to 50,000 words in a hurry, and it just didn’t feel right. I felt like I was trying to write what I was supposed to write, and I said, “Screw this,” and just, you know, kind of go scorched earth and restart it. And, uh, I got the first draft done in probably 10 months, and then from there it was, you know, another probably six months of just editing like a madman, revising, having people read it, and all that stuff that comes with writing a first, first book.

Mark: And you mentioned, or so are you a plotter or a pantser, I guess would be y- you know, the popular terms or somewhere in between? So writing 50,000 words and then starting over is sort of like the world’s longest outline or

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: Outline you can have. How did the writing process for this come out? Was it like sort of pantsing, flying by the seat of your pants, you know the term, building into it, or, or did you outline it and, and build on it?

Josh: Um, I knew like a few things I wanted to touch on. Like I had the character, and then I had kind of the villain, and then I had kind of the transformation, the journeys that they wanted to go on. But how I got there is it was kind of going on feel. I’m a, I’m very much a momentum writer. Some days I can write 5,000 words in a day, and other days it’s like 300’s the best I can do. It just, it’s not clicking, and uh, I don’t push super hard on those days. I just, you know, reset and come back the next day. And so it’s, it’s like this. It’s all, all over the place. I’m, I’m not a very like strict, “I write 1,200 words a day,” and call it good. If I’m flowing, I’m, I don’t, I don’t stop.

Mark: That’s great to have in the process because it can be really hard. Forcing ourselves to sit in the chair is like one thing, and then trying to force a, a word count is another. Or for me, I write to a certain amount of time. Like, I’ll sit there for, you know, however long it takes for time rather than a number of words.

Will you give yourself so much time or will you… Like, you sit down, you start writing these words, and then you feel like, “Okay, I’ve, I’m, I’m distracted. I wanna go on my phone. I’ve h- this is good enough for today.” How do you do it?

Josh: I, I very, I don’t have time constraints, so every day is different. So like a lot of us, I have a full-time job, and I coach high school wrestling in my spare time as well, so my writing window is like, you know, start at 10:00 PM most of the time, and it could be until 1:00 or 11:00, you know, just depending on on how things go.

Mark: Okay. So 50,000 words this book was in its, let’s say, its first draft, if we even wanna call it that. What are the, what are the differences when you s- when you say scrap a book as opposed to rewriting it or heavily editing it, what does that mean to you? What changed, without spoilers I guess, what changed between this, this book of 50,000 words that you wrote and then coming back to do it again?

‘Cause I imagine you would almost– it would be really hard not to fall back into the same 50,000 words or you’re- Yeah … or you’re almost trying to get yourself to somewhere in the 50,000 words where we can reuse some of that, right? It’s like, “Oh, that didn’t feel right, but if I write these 10,000 words, maybe I can hit word, you know, 20,000 from my last manuscript and then continue from there.”

And you know what I mean? Or, or copy and paste and juggle things like… Or did you just like delete and I’m doing something completely different? Like, what happened?

Josh: Uh, it was pretty much from scratch. I took a few things, but it was a different… the characters had similar names, but there was even some changes even there with, like, character names and backstories. Um, initially I had the, the two brothers. They’re both kind of– I had, like, the ex-military reclusive brother, and then I had a cop brother, so it’s totally different.

Um, yeah. I was like, “All right, I’m gonna switch. I’m gonna go with a, kind of a loose cannon screw-up brother and, kind of have some tension there.” So yeah, tot-totally different. The, Graham Hayes is the main character. There’s a conflict involving his brother and a cartel, and that’s about the only similarities between that version one that was– We’re not even gonna be titled “No Easy Way Back,” and then what’s, uh, you know, out now.

Mark: How painful was that?

Josh: Um

Mark: to hit delete? And was there a time between deleting this draft and writing another one where you were like, “Okay, I know this direction. I know what I need to do and I’m pumped for it”?

Josh: Yeah, so I, I knew when I got to 50,000 words I could do it. I was like, “Okay, I got there,” and the second time around it came fast. I was… I had a lot of momentum and, like, confidence, and I was pretty, you know, just hellbent on, on getting that story done, ’cause I… That was the one I wanted to write initially anyway, and the first one was me trying to, you know, follow the, the template, and it just, it never felt right to, to follow the, the, the template

Mark: Okay. What do you think of as a template? When you think about, I assume you mean thriller template, like the shorter chapters and things, like what went wrong in the template as you see it?

Josh: So I, I found myself kind of slipping into, I don’t wanna like call out any authors ’cause they’re more successful than I am. But, uh, I just found myself like slipping into like the, just the super common like tropes and, and things like that. Like I still do the short chapters. I think that’s great structurally a lot there.

But like the, the tropes and the, just like the, the main set pieces, I was kind of trying to follow that, and it just didn’t feel right to me. It didn’t, didn’t do my character justice. It’s not how I operate in my personal life. I’m kind of a contrarian in some ways. And so I just, uh, wanted to, to do it my way

Mark: Okay. So when you wrote this draft of this book close enough to the one I’m reading, did you write it with any themes in mind or any warnings or anything for people to, when they close the book, beyond entertainment, was there something, a message that you were hoping that they were gonna stop and think about?

Josh: Yeah. So there’s, um, obviously there’s some stuff with, uh, Graham’s father who’s kind of like a, a character within it, but he’s not o- he’s not around. And, um, so it was really like family centric, you know, blo- blood thicker than water type of messaging. And then just general resilience. You have his older brother who’s a alcoholic and he’s, he’s battling that as well as getting hunted down by a bunch of murderers. And, uh, so resilience is, uh, just kind of the word I kept going back to as I wrote is these are resilient people. Like they’re, they’re in a tough spot and they’re, they’re gonna have to tough it out and it’s not gonna be pretty. , It may not be super clean, but, uh, yeah, like what, what can you power through and, you know, what are you willing to do for, you know, the people you care about?

Mark: Yeah. When you knew family and resilience was part of it, did you then shape Graham and Colt to be who they are as people because hardened characters is what you needed for this story?

Josh: Yeah, for sure. I, I wanted them to, you know, be, ’cause they’re– the, the one event that I, you know, I, I’ll try not to spoil that’s, you know, in the past, but that kind of is the reason for Graham being withdrawn and his brother being an alcoholic is the same one. And, uh, so I really want that to be the, the central thing and to show how different people respond to the, the same incident and how it could create two very different people even though it’s the same incident.

Mark: Yeah And when you’re building characters, once you have them in your mind, do you have a sheet of paper where you have it laid out like Graham is this person and he’s like a tier one and he’s, you know, he’s struggling with these things mentally and then here’s his brother. Like how do you keep him and his brother who have so many similarities ’cause they are family, how do you keep them separate as voices and characters?

Josh: , I wish I had a good answer. That’s something that’s, uh, pretty, pretty natural to me is, I’ve, you know, I’ve been lucky. I guess you– everyone has been, but I’ve been around a lot of people and, I’ll just, you know, I’ll be at the airport or whatever, and I just kinda listen to people talk and, and, uh, it’s– I’ve… You know, that’s, you know, one of the things I’m kind of a natural at, is I can just kind of write people as people. Um, I don’t focus too much on characters. I, I try to write people

Mark: Okay. So you might have, like, an actual persons in mi- like you’ve cast your

Josh: Oh,

Mark: so to speak, from just these

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: in an airport.

Josh: yeah, well, even like people I know, like, uh, the character Jack Hillman in there is is based on, you know, in the book, he’s a former high– he’s a former Green Beret turned high school teacher, and that is a real teacher I had. I had a teacher in high school that was an ex-Green Beret and I, I maintained a relationship with him even after I graduated. He, uh, gave me a, like a wrestling mat, like a training mat, years after I graduated high school. And, uh, so I had a lot of conversations with him over the years and, uh, yeah, so that’s a real, kind of a real person in a lot of ways.

Mark: Oh, cool. So was he, was he like a good guy? Like, it sounds like he was like a really good guy. I

Josh: Oh yeah

Mark: I had a teacher that was a colonel in the military, and he was, he was crazy. His like, the discipline and everything he expected in his classroom, it was, it was nuts.

Josh: Yeah. No, th-this guy was great. I mean, he was a little crazy too, and wa-wa- you know, walked to the beat of his own drummer, but, uh, really good guy. I mean, he would do anything for ev-anyone, even if it was like, quote unquote, “against the rules.” If, if a kid needed help, he was gonna help him by any means. And, you know, cussed a lot in the classroom, and kids loved him for it. And, uh,

Mark: Okay.

Josh: just, you know, he’s a… I always say he’s like a real-life Hemingway character. Um, you know, I had some pretty, you know, for a high school kid, some pretty serious conversations with him about, you know, stuff that he experienced. He got blown up and, and, , thing, things of that nature

Mark: So I wanna jump to, in your book, I think it’s at the back, you have a QR code to the playlist for the book, which was– I think is really unique. I’ve seen playlists before, but to have a QR code where the people who read the book and then go and listen to the book, and it sounds like the playlist was built not just like, “Here’s the random music I was listening to while I wrote the book,” but it sounds like the music really had like tones for like perhaps this song fits this scene and that song fits that scene. So what’s, what is it?

Josh: Yeah. No, it’s, it, uh, it’s a real thing. I mean, I, I listen to music the whole time I’m writing. You know, I have just, I have a playlist that’s 40 th- no, not 40,000, 40 hours long. Uh, I have a whole work week of, of, um, of music right there, and, um, it’s really impacted how I write. Um, I’m a huge, huge fan of, um, like outlaw country f- from the Texas and Oklahoma guys that, uh, don’t have record labels and came up through the bar scene and things like that.

Like Co- Cody Jinks, who I reference in the book, as well as, like my all-time favorite artist. I finally got to see him in concert last summer, and he’s a fantastic writer. If you go to the song credits, he’s the lone writer on most of his tracks. And he explores a lot of themes of redemption and resilience and, and screwing up and, uh, has his, had his own, you know, sobriety journey that he’s pretty open about in his music, and I use that a lot for, for Colt

Mark: And I think it says somewhere that the songs, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but the songs also impacted, like you, you used chapter titles, which is also unique. It had like the chapter title had a theme for every chapter that we read. So how did that play in?

Josh: Uh, it was just, I thought it was fun. So I’m a huge fan of, uh, Greg Hurwitz, um, right there. And he, he gives every ch- in his Orphan X books, he gives every chapter its own little, like, title. And,, I decided to go a little leaner. Like, some of his are a little longer, and every, you know, every chapter is one or two words ti- titled. And there’s a couple of them that are just literal song titles. Like there’s one Always Running, off the top of my head. That’s a Cody Jinks song.

And so I, I weave in a few references to songs, some overtly, some more under the radar more for me, my own amusement than anything. If people pick up on it, they pick up on it. But yeah, it’s a huge factor in just themes and well, as well as writing and how to phrase things.

Mark: Do you feel like when you’re playing like a fast-paced song, you need a fast-paced scene, and then when you’re s- you’re writing something emotional, you have to change the song from your playlist to make it like slower and…

Josh: No, it’s, it’s more about the words. I try to f- I try to focus on the words themselves and, yeah, try to listen to stuff that’s, that’s well-written and has, you know, real writing behind it. I, you know, don’t… People get mad at me all the time when I, they have their favorite artist and I pull it up and I’m like, “There’s 11 writers on this three-minute song. I mean, how authentic can it be?”

Mark: That’s fair

Josh: So, um, I’ll, I’ll start a few arguments in that way.

Mark: Oh, I love that. It’s very unique. So the other thing that you mentioned was that your dad and your grandfather helped inspire you to write the book through, through having books around the house and things. Was there anything else that they, they helped inspire as far as being able to get this book out into the world?

Josh: Yeah, I mean, my, my dad has always just had my back. He was my first wrestling coach when I was five years old, and, , he’s just, just always supported me. I remember one time I was in college, I, uh, I was at a tournament in Fargo, North Dakota, and I came off the mat from my first match, and I had won. I was just exhausted, ’cause that’s just the nature of it, and I was just soaked in sweat and exhausted.

And I get up there and my– I didn’t know he was coming, and my dad was just hanging out, like in the stands. Just, just showed up and, and watched me compete. And so that, that’s kind of… I always use that story to kind of describe who he is, and he’s that way with all my siblings. There’s four of us and, he’s… whatever you’re doing, he’s got your back. And, uh, and in the case of this endeavor, he’s read a lot. He has an English degree, and so he was like hands-on helpful. He was my first be- he’s my first beta reader. Um, I hand it off to him and he’ll text me and be like, “Hey,” like, you know, “This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t make sense, um, X, Y, Z.” Like, you know, he’ll, he’ll give it to you.

Mark: Ah, I love that. I hope my son writes books someday too. He’s not, he’s not into writing, but I hope he does someday. Oh, that’s awesome to have, to have someone in your corner like that. I have found a lot of people who have found success in writing have, whether or not it’s like you have your dad, people have like husbands or wives or s- just someone in their family that they’re able to beta read or just someone to encourage them in their corner. As a writer, I think it’s super important.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah, so that was my dad and then my, my grandpa is, uh, he is partially… So, you know, I’ve mentioned Graham’s father is a kind of a big factor in, like, who he is, and he’s kind of a mixture of my dad and my grandpa. My grandpa is right now at this moment 85, 84? 84, 85 years old. He saddles up a horse and he goes and rides mountain trails a couple times a week. He’s retired and probably works harder now than he ever did. He shoes his own horses still, and we’ll go help him hau- we’ll go help him haul hay, and he thinks it’s funny to try to, like, beat us to hay bales. We’re like, “Dude, go, go watch. Go, like, go hang out. We got this.” And, uh, he’s just like the king of one-liners and just kinda earthy, you know, salt of the earth wisdom.

Mark: That’s great. Yeah, you didn’t have anyone– You know, it’s funny when I hear people whose parents say, “You get a real job. You gotta go work for the government. Cr-creative work, you’re not going anywhere.” But you didn’t have that. That’s great. Your dad was an English major. How lucky. So this story itself, what did it– What kind of challenge did the, did you have writing this story?

Josh: Just my own, uh, kind of insecurities, I guess. It’s pretty– It’s kind of terrifying to put your name on something and then just release it out into the, the world. ‘Cause I, I wrote it, and I, I didn’t know what I was gonna do with it. I, I wrote it just ’cause I wanted to… I just feel like a, you know, I wanted to be a finisher. I wanted to finish something like that. And I got it. I, you know, got to that, like, novel length word count, and I had it there and, I just kinda kept it to myself, and I did end up telling a friend of mine who’s a, uh… He’s active duty in the Air Force right now. Uh, he’s a captain, and good friend of mine.

We coach wrestling together and all that stuff, and he’s a fellow reader. And he finally bullied me into, like, letting him read it, and, uh, he kind of, like, was very dir- he’s a very direct person. He’s like, “Dude, this doesn’t suck. It… You should, you should put it out there.” And so then I went through and I, like, did another round of revisions and things like that, and I, you know, had that validation from, you know, from him and I was like, “You know what? Screw it. Let’s do this.” And, uh, I tossed it out there and that was, ah, a year, a year ago, and here we are.

Mark: So it went from your friend was the first person to read it. When did your, when did your dad… He was an, also a beta reader? What was the process like from, for there?

Josh: Uh, there wasn’t much of a process for the first one. the the second one had a process. Uh, the first one, no, like this friend read it, or no, he didn’t even read, read like the whole thing. He read– I think I sent him the first five or six chapters, and just, just to get some validation. And then once he kind of bullied me into pu-publishing it, then I sent it to my dad, and, and then he read the whole thing, and then I had, uh, three or four other people read it cover to cover and provide just kind of big, big rocks feedback, kind of those developmental edits. And then I hired out like copy… like a copy editor from Fiverr and a proofer just to, to clean up stuff. And so the, the first one was kind of haphazard, just, you know, you read it, you read it. Okay, now I’m gonna hire these freelance editors, and, and I’m gonna read it again and, I’m gonna read it out loud to myself and see if it sounds good and make changes based on how it sounds that way. So it was all over the place. I probably over-polished it.

Mark: Was building confidence in this story, was it challenging to just– like once you gave it the first few chapters to that one person, were you still in doubt as an author? Were you in doubt right up to the, the launch point and the feedback and reviews and stuff? And, and how did you get over that fear of, of knowing when, when is this book like, or is this a good book versus, you know, I have family and friends that are reading it, but they also love me, and then there’s this community of readers who do not, you know, and I’ve– of course I’ve– I’m talking from my own experience as well ’cause it’s a– when you get it out there into the world, it’s, it’s, it’s not just scary, but you have to know that there are people who are not gonna like something that you write and you have to deal with that.

But then you have that imposter syndrome that hits and then you have that, oh, was this book actually good or, you know, ’cause the real people who are the reviewers, like how did you build confidence and, and how did it, how did it go from there?

Josh: I, so I did have a I don’t know what happened. I don’t even know how I got a response to this, but I, I won’t name him. But I sent it just kind of cold to a very prominent thriller reviewer, super plugged in guy, and I, I sent it to him. I was hoping to get it featured on like a newsletter, things like that, and that, that didn’t happen. But he read the whole thing and his feedback was like super positive. He, he’s like, “Oh,” he’s like, “This is like y- you got good instincts. Your character development is good.” He like lists off a few things and also a couple things I could do better, and he, he told me, he’s like, “I really think you, if you wanted to, you could get traditionally published.” And so when I had that validation from somebody that like kind of reads thrillers for a living, I was like, “Okay, like, let, let’s do this. You know, it’s, it, it doesn’t suck. Let’s, uh, let’s see what happens.”

Mark: Okay. You just reached out to him cold, like

Josh: Yeah, just I s- I sent him a

Mark: happened?

Josh: I sent him a Twitter direct message and, uh, happened to get a reply.

Mark: Oh, cool.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: Nice

Josh: Yeah, so I, I didn’t get the exposure from it that I hoped I would. So but, oh well, it gave me a, gave me a boost of confidence, and i’ve… Yeah, we’re two books in

Mark: Exactly. So there, there is a book two and it’s already out.

Josh: Came out at the end of April.

Mark: End of April, right. So did you write book one with the intent of writing book two? We’ll probably get into this more in the spoiler because of how the book ends. But did you– Let’s just say as you were writing it, were you in… Now you, you ditched this earlier copy, now you have, you have this fresh copy. In this fresh copy, were you intending to write a series and a book two without having knowing what the audience and what people were gonna say whether or not it was even worth a book two?

Josh: Yeah, so I always knew I have to write multiple Graham Hayes books. I’ve, I’ve said it to everyone who will listen, I’m– there’s not going to be 30 of them. I could, I, I could write 30 books, um, but there will, there will be new characters, new stories totally unrelated to this thing. I, I don’t– I have no interest in writing 30 books about the same person.

That’s just, not how I’m wired. I don’t think his character is built for that. He’s he’s kind of reactive and just kind of takes what comes, and it wouldn’t make sense for him to continue just continually just be in the crosshairs for 30 books.

Mark: Yeah. Okay

Josh: But no, there’s always gonna be multiple.

Mark: Okay. Do you have an idea of how many? Have you o-outlined or plotted like, kind of like, “This is the concept for this one, this is the

Josh: Yeah. Right now I’m, I’m pretty set on a trilogy, um, within– Like I was– There could be some other ones, but there’s this, these first three are gonna be a, kind of a cohesive trilogy. As you mentioned, the, the first one kind of ends in a way that opens the door for the second one, and the second one opens the door for the third. And, those will act as kind of a just very tied together trilogy. Could there be some other standalones that are somewhat under- detached from those? Possibly. I have a couple ideas. But yeah, these three are gonna be a trilogy.

Mark: Okay. So then when it comes to research, how much research went into this? This is your hometown, so are you, are you like walking around with your notebook and just like, or I guess you know it so well anyway, maybe you wouldn’t even have to, you’re just sitting there. But this is, this is all real to life, like the, the places that we see, the, the terrain and stuff, this is all your hometown. So was there a lot of research or was it mostly just, just knowing every- knowing what you wanted to do and knowing the terrain already?

Josh: No, the, the setting I, I know by heart. It’s just, it’s in my blood. I’m a f- you know, fourth generation Utahn. And my, my par- my grandpa and my par- both my parents and I all went to the same high school, so I’m just deeply rooted in a lot of the places in there. Like, uh, I talk about Midway, the, the cabin that Colt kind of retreats to is in Sanpete County, um, down south.

And my, my mom’s dad, uh, had a cabin down there for years that we visited in the summer to go, go fish and four-wheel and things like that. So I’ve even been there, and I, I really wanted to include that area of Utah as well and kind of cover a couple different counties in s- central Utah. So yeah, most of my research was in regard to like military stuff, backgrounds, some tactical things and, and things of that nature. But like local history, um, I was, I just ha- I just knew that by heart.

Mark: Do you feel like the title of the book is bigger than Graham, or did you create the story and then the title came to you after? Because this is a, it’s a brilliant title, and we don’t know how brilliant it is until, until the end essentially, so we’ll talk about that exactly. But, but what came first?

Josh: The story always comes first. Um, I try to write it all… I try to get the story out there, and then I suffer with titles. It’s the worst. Like, I, I work in marketing full-time, and my least favorite thing to write is the freaking headlines. Like, I’ll write a 1,500-word blog article or white paper or something, and I’ll just mull over title idea after title idea after title idea. And, uh, so I try to get the, the content itself done and then try to title it,, appropriately

Mark: Oh, cool. So did this title then it came after the book was written, I guess. Did you pull it from your own book as a result of having written almost those exact words?

Josh: Yeah, it came, it came straight from the pros.

Mark: Okay.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: Well, well done. It’s a very good title.

Josh: Thanks. I’m always, every time somebody reads it, um, the guy on Instagram recently did a video review on it and had ultra positive feedback and put it in front of, you know, his audience of like 3,000 people. And the one question I always ask, I said, “Dude, I always ask this. Did you catch the title in, in it?” And the answer’s almost always like, yes, they catch it. So it’s fun.

Mark: And so there’s many point of views in the book, and how did you know which voice to go to and how not to overwhelm the shifting from different character point of views.

Josh: So big, big thing that I was pretty strict on was zero head hopping. Without a clear page break or chapter break, I would stay in the same point of view the entire time and try to really make sure they were only observing things that they would observe, that I didn’t intrude too much, um, on their perspective. And so when there’s parts where I’m trying to help readers learn more about Graham, he’s this kinda grumpy introvert that, yeah, it’s, you know, getting him to talk about himself is like pulling his teeth. And, um, so I always had to make– I used other characters to kind of flesh him out. I used Jack a lot for that.

And even though Graham could be involved in the conversation, you’re not getting his thoughts on it. You’re just getting this other character to excavate it because he won’t do it himself. Um, that’s just not who he is. And so I tried to be just true to each character and make sure there’s just clear breaks and that I can just reset and write it from Jack’s point of view, Colt’s point of view, and things like that.

Mark: Do you keep track of that as you’re shifting throughout the book and the characters, or is that just all in your head and you’re able to just maintain the, the memory of it?

Josh: Uh, I kind of go by feel for sure, but there’s times where I’ve gone through and, um, I’ll go back to a chapter and I’ll rewrite it from another point of view. I’m like, “Okay, it doesn’t make sense to have it be from Maddie’s point of view. It makes more sense to have it from Graham’s in this case,” and vice versa. Um, so, so I– Some of the feedback I got early on from my, my one, my first reader, he was like, “I felt like I was reading a different, you know, the r- a different, you know, style of writing chapter to chapter at times.” And I explained kind of the method to my madness. I was like, “Well, you know, the villains is gonna think about the situation a lot different than the heroes, the protagonists.” And I tried to just be true to their perspective, as warped as that might be

Mark: And you feel like that just all comes natural. You’re not like writing, taking notes about

Josh: No, I just, you know, I try to just know who these people are and just, you know, kind of put myself in their shoes and be like, all right, what would a messed up SOB do in this situation if, when we’re talking about Wade Carson. And, uh, and I kinda hate myself for those like chapters. Um, there’s, there’s one chapter in it, uh, you know, chapter 50 specifically, a guy that’s he’s like, “Dude, that,” he’s like, “That bit made the hair on my neck stand up.” Like, “How’d you write that?” I was like, “I didn’t like it as much as you did.” But, uh, this Joe had to be done.

Mark: Yeah. What did Wade Carlson, ’cause you were just, or Carson, you know, you were just talking about him. How, what does he represent as a character? Is he just, like, a really bad dude? I mean, I guess we’ll kind of get into this in the spoiler section a bit more ’cause there’s, there’s the end and how that goes. But as you were writing him, is he just pure evil to you, or how did you approach him as a character?

Josh: No, I don’t, I don’t like pure evil. I like complicated. Um, so I, you know, kind of wrote out this whole backstory with him, um, slipping into corruption with the DEA and it, you know, starts with skimming a little bit of money from drug busts and then it just kind of spirals out from there. It’s just this, the kind of slippery slope where, you know, he might, you know, might have felt small and ex- in- in- in…

I can’t talk right now. Small and of no consequence, um, in the grand scheme of things. But, um, once you cross that line, you, you can’t always uncross it. And, um, so I tried to kind of lean into that. I don’t know if you’ve read much, um, Don Winslow, but he, he does a really good job of writing these characters that just descend into corruption, and you’re inside their head as they do it and justify it.

And, and early on they don’t think it’s a big deal, and then the next thing you know, they’re just in this pit they can’t get themselves out of. And a lot of the times they just accept it and say, “This is who I am now,” and just keep going.

Mark: Okay. So as we, as we wrap up a little bit, what advice would you give someone who just published their first or second book?

Josh: Um, what kind of advice? Just how to promote it, how to, you know, what, what kind of advice are we looking for here?

Mark: that’s just it. So what is the most important thing to you once you’ve published like book one? Is it the marketing that they need to focus on or is it book two? There’s a lot of, you know, industry talk about, about the approaches.

Josh: Yeah, so for me it was, I started focusing on the marketing a little bit later despite that being what I do for a living. But I, while I was editing, I was rough drafting the, the second book. And I wanted to make sure that the, the second one was, was just as good and I could get it out within a year of the other one publishing just to get on a like a professional cadence.

You know, you look at these, all your favorite authors, they’re releasing a book pretty much every year, same month, give or take. And I wanted to, I wanted to follow that cadence, and so I wanted to make sure as I was editing this one, the second one wasn’t going to be rushed. And so my advice would be to enjoy writing more than you enjoy publishing.

As I’ve gotten into the kind of this writing world, there’s, there’s a whole ecosystem and a lot of people, you know, to interact with and then fellow authors and, um, I see a lot of, you know, well-intentioned writers that are, they’re addicted to publishing, not writing. And I, I think it needs to be the opposite. Put out the best product you can because nothing will sink you worse th- faster than slick ad copy and graphics that take people to an inferior product.

Mark: How do you balance that then? The marketing for, for your actual time, the need for marketing because if, if no one knows it exists, then no one knows it exists, and, and the need to find ple– not just pleasure in writing, but the need to also grow as a writer and, you know, advancing your skill beyond just writing more prose, even though that is a very effective way to be a better writer.

Josh: Yeah, so my marketing is I’ve, worked for marketing agencies. I’ve been on in-house teams in a variety of industries, and, um, my marketing, I don’t– You know, obviously I’m 29 years old. I don’t have a ton of disposable income. But I figured out, meta ads to the point where I spend $2 to $5 a day, and I make that money back almost always, 99% of the time, that daily budget, I make it back. So I have some, I call them evergreen Facebook ads, and they’re, they’re not, , they won’t expire type of thing. They’re not, you know, now I’m pre-order and I don’t have to go back and fix them. They’re very, you know, character or plot-centric and I’ve, you know, created some decent graphics that are, you know, attention grabbers

and I’ve dialed in the audience. And so I just set those up and I check them a little bit and just make sure nothing too crazy is going on and just let those evergreen Facebook ads run to a very like specific audience.

Mark: Nice. I am glad that’s w-

Josh: to just write.

Mark: yeah. What about marketing advice then I’m in a lot of different groups and, and I hear all about Facebook ads versus Amazon ads versus what do we have? BookBub now people are kind of talking about, but nobody really likes them as far as like being, as far as converting to sales.

What advice would you give someone from a, let’s say cosmetic, ’cause marketing’s what you do if it’s in that, you know, cosmetic. Like what, what advice would you have for the makeup of a graphic or a book for someone who is trying to get that return on investment? Because writing a good hook doesn’t mean it may be clickable and, you may get thousands of clicks, but as you know, if those clicks don’t turn into sales you have, you still have nothing. You, there’s, you’re s- at zero.

Josh: Right. Yeah, so with, with ad copy and graphics, I just think it’s important that everything is aligned. I said earlier, nothing will sink you faster than really good ad graphics and ad copy that takes, takes you and inferior your product. Um, so make sure there’s not a quality gap, and then just, you know, do a lot of testing.

Like marketing for me is really iterative. know, I worked in an agency previously, and we would spend the first 30 days just, just trying stuff. Like, “Oh, let’s try this ad copy with this ad image,” and then, you know, try, you know, and just mix it up and just see what the, what the right cocktail is.

And then once you find something that works, you, you ride it until it doesn’t work anymore, and then you do it all over again. So, you know, be prepared to lose some money in the early going and, you know, just test.

Mark: Okay.

Josh: Test and iterate

Mark: yeah. Yeah. Good advice. So, and have a budget because you have to be willing… It’s like gambling, right? You have to go into the casino ready to lose your 500 bucks or your 1,000 bucks because you’re probably going to before you start getting anything back.

Josh: Oh yeah, I lost a lot. I mean, I’ve– I don’t try it much anymore, but I lost money on Amazon ads. I thought that was the place to be. I’m like, “All right, this is the main place my book’s for sale.” And I tried the display ads, I tried the keyword ads, and there was a handful of sales from it, but, yeah, I can’t seem to crack that code. I watch a lot of YouTube videos and things like that, and books are just differ- a different animal than other e-commerce products.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, it’s funny. You would think where the, the customer is hot to buy, which is Amazon, ’cause they’re, they’re shopping for a book, you would think that would be the easiest conversion, but it really isn’t.

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: So I have a question from Cleo Ballard. She was the last guest on the show,

Josh: All right

Mark: she wants to know, are you a survivalist, and did you take a bunch of survival courses or spend time in the military prior to writing the book?

Josh: Um, spent a lot of time with members of the military. So I was, um, and with my church growing up, I had a, uh, young men’s leader who’s I won’t name him ’cause he’s like actively doing anti-human trafficking stuff in South America, um, and is a former Marine and US Marshal, and he would take a bunch of us teenagers out and we would do high adventure camping, and he would show us how to make, snares and, you know, make a, fish, fish hook out of whatever and do a ton of hiking and orienteering and things like that.

And so, did a lot of that with my church group growing up. And then obviously I’m a, I’m a hunter, I’m a, you know, fisherman, big camper, and so a lot of this stuff has just been passed down through my family. My, my grandpa’s killed I don’t know how many deer, legally and illegally. And, and so he took… He had my dad and uncles hunting young.

My dad always tells this story. They were hunting in, on horseback in winter, and they were, they’re riding along and the trees are bent over ’cause the snow’s so heavy, and my uncle ducked and my dad didn’t see the tree and was just hanging from this bent over tree, just kicking his legs while he just kept riding. So like that’s my like lineage is, uh, just a bunch of outdoorsy, hunter types, and we’re just out and about all the time

Mark: Yeah, that’s awesome. What a, what opportunities you’ve had.

Josh: Yeah

Mark: Are you gonna write– Well, let’s not spoil, I guess, a future book, but are you gonna write like a, a s- I imagine a scene where you have all these like snares and traps and things set for people who are coming into the woods who are like hunting you kind of thing?

Josh: I’ve thought about it, um, kind of doing the Rambo thing. I’ve … We- we’ll see. Um, I, I don’t know. I think that Graham’s background is a little more like, be invisible based.

Um, so this, this third one I’m working on, um, he’s, he’s kind of getting back to his roots, not because he wants to, ’cause he has to, and he’s going into a very remote location. Um, it’s not Utah, that one that location. They all start in Utah, but the s- setting head does expand in books two and three. But it’s, uh, very much, you know, know, outside the wire reconnaissance, be- be invisible and try to leave a small footprint. So we’ll, we’ll see if there’s some, some trap stuff. He’s not a, uh, like a Vietnam veteran that’s gonna dig a, you know, a pit with the spikes and all that stuff.

Mark: Well, your, your authentic experience, I would imagine, would bring that level of authenticity to even, even simpler traps than Rambo necessarily, right? ‘Cause there are probably ways that you can, you can trap people that I would never even think of because I’ve only seen Rambo that I may never think of, but that are just super simple that you know because you have all this survival experience.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, there’s a, there’s a line in, uh, my second book where Graham quotes his dad, him and, um, his, yeah, his buddy that he’s with in the second one. He, uh, h- he says, he’s like, “I’ve learned,” he’s like, you know, “If you wanna kill something, watch a water source.” And, , his, his friend goes, “Oh, is that one of your dad’s hunting rules that apply to hunting terrorists?”

And he goes, “Yeah.”

Mark: I love it.

Josh: So a lot of that stuff.

Mark: Yeah.

Josh: Watch, watch the water source

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, it’s true. So where can listeners find this book and, and what’s coming next and more about you?

Josh: So you, you can find it on Amazon, and then anywhere that Ingram puts it on. So there’s all kinds of random websites through Ingram’s distribution that, , that it pops up on. I don’t even know all of them. Barnes & Noble online, but yeah, Amazon’s the, the main spot, but you can find it on a lot of different online retailers.

Mark: All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much. This has been great. This is the end of the main show. We’re about to head into the spoiler section. So thank you for taking the time for those who are leaving now because they are gonna put it on pause and go read and then come back. Thank

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: So spoiler, in the end, Carson is regretful. This is our main villain for those… Well, I guess everyone, if you’re here should know, should know

Josh: I hope so

Mark: you’re listening to this, you should know. He’s regretful of his decisions because of the cartel involvement, despite the things that he’s done, which are also terrible. Why write that regret into this story? What about Carson’s character were you trying to get across to the reader with it?

Josh: That even the most people that’ll do terrible things have their limit, and it might seem kind of odd, but his is, going from ex-DEA to essentially working for a cartel financier is just a bridge too far for him. That’s the final straw. He didn’t spend all that time, you know, dodging bullets from sicarios to work with them.

Mark: Okay. Yeah, yeah. No, that’s fair. That makes sense, for sure. When you were writing the end, you could have left it at the scene with Graham and Maddie at Jack’s place. Instead, you set the stage for book two with the cartel assassin coming to the airport, and then we know he’s gonna be hunting down Graham. Were you always going to write a book– Like, was that the original ending with a book two in mind because now you’ve forced yourself into book two?

Josh: Yeah, so I, I never wanted to do a, like a super clean ending. Obviously this is the spoiler chat. The cartel financier, Greg Langston, does get away. Graham gets his kind of personal revenge against Wade Carson, but there’s this, you know, the, the, the man with the money, and the, the real ties to the cartel is still out there, and he just pissed off a cartel. And so there’s that door open and,, I always wanted to just keep it, keep it rolling, and I think that clean resolutions, they’re pretty rare in life, and they’re rare in my fiction.

Mark: fair. And I would say, I don’t even know if he got away because the way you set up the moment, like the cartel and the way they’re handling him and the way they’re treating him at the end of the book with the bag and the, and the, you know, all this

Josh: Yeah.

Mark: T- sort of the semi-torture-ish stuff like, yeah, that is dark.

And even he says it in the book where he’s like, “I don’t know if I would… I’d rather stay with Graham and died than be here with the cartel right now.” So that was a, that was a good, good way to end it ’cause it made me certainly wanna to read book two. And it’s like watching them… It’s like watching, you know, when you first watch, watch like “Lord of the Rings” and you’re like, yeah the first book was, or the first movie, I guess if I’m saying watching.

The first movie is like really good. It has a bit of a resolution, but I need to know what happens, right? Mm-hmm. And, and you’ve done that with this book, which was, which was really good. But it’s, it’s… I ask the question because I know when you don’t know how good or how a book one is gonna sell or how people are gonna take it to put, to put that much effort into, to end it that way, then you know you have to write a book two.

But as I’ve, as you know, it’s obviously done very well and you did, you did your homework throughout the way, so it was very good.

Josh: Yeah, I was, I was rough drafting the second one as I was editing, so I, I, I invested a lot in that assassin character. Uh, his– I think his backstory’s really, you know, I think it’s fun. Um, kind of, you know, in-inspired by a lot of my favorite thrillers and, um, you know, and it… Yeah, so it’s fun. You know, a lot of ties to, um…

I’ve been getting really in the weeds of like private military contractors, and so his origins come from, from that side of the fence that, you know, if you picked up on chapter one of “No Easy Way Back,” Graham does not– There’s no love lost with him and the, uh, the mercenary archetype.

Mark: Yeah. There’s a moment when Colt and Graham are talking, this goes back to the title conversation a bit that we were having, after the major climax, and Graham tells Colt the story of why he wasn’t at his dad’s funeral. So they finally talk. And years of pain in that relationship, and there seemed to be, and if I’m jumping on the title a little, there was an easy way back.

The easy way back would’ve been just to communicate, but yet it feels like something, that could actually happen between, between two men, that the communication just drops and then you lose track of your life and things go on. How did you handle that throughout the story and leading to the end? Because so much happened and they never had that conversation until the end.

Josh: Yeah. So for, for me it was like they, they both, there’s, you know, hints at it. They both wanted to pick up the phone multiple times over the, the years, uh, since their, since their, dad passed away. And neither one of them would just pull the trigger because they have the same, you know, stubborn stubbornness that they, that they pride themselves in, and it’s a double-edged sword.

I think I even touch on that, where they’re like, “Yeah, this– We’re alive right now ’cause we’re stubborn and we don’t quit, but we’re also kinda messed up because we’re stubborn and won’t, , won’t proactively fix these things.”

Mark: Did you ever feel like you wanted them to have that conversation earlier and you were like, “Come on guys, you just need to talk it out?” Or was that just, you were just like, “No, these are the guys.

Josh: No, I, I initially, um, when he first finds him in the woods and he’s all delirious, I initially had, like, kind of a panicked kinda conversation, and I was like, “You know what? That’s not how Graham Hayes is gonna operate. He’s mission first, uh, emotional conversations later, if at all.” And so I wanted to be true to that and make sure that it was handled the way he would, which is get, get the threat taken care of first and then deal with the emotional stuff later when you have a little bit of breathing room.

Mark: Yeah. I like that about the book. I really like the short, the shorter chapters, and I liked… I was, it was clear whose characters we were looking at, and I liked how it moved from chapter to chapter, and you did a good job of building that exactly what you’re saying, like, this, these guy- they’re not spending a lot of time in their own minds.

I don’t write that way, but I appreciated that you did because I would be the one who’s, like, going into their heads for th- for two paragraphs because I, I get deep into character because that’s the characters that I’m writing. Did you, do you ever feel like there are characters that you wanna spend more time in their heads on the page, or does the pace of a thriller just dictate for you that we should keep moving?

‘Cause you know what I mean. Like, I, we know the, the time you spend, like, talking in your head sometimes in some books, it goes on forever and it’s, it’s not, it’s not good. And then there are, you know, you’re always trying to find that balance.

Josh: Yeah, so it, it is a balance. And the second one I do get in a little more introspective, um, ’cause it’s, it’s a different story. Graham is just, you know, kind of feeling a little worn down. He’s just like, “I’m tired of fighting.” Like, like, “It’s all I knew for years, and then I get… You know, I come back to help my brother, and there, there’s a fight there.

And then some events happen, and he’s just, like, pulled right back into it, and he really starts to question if, , uh, if he can ever get past it. And so there’s a few moments of, like, solitude in, um, that one where he’s like, you know, in his truck, you know, driving the mountains, and he’s, you know, looking on.

He looks on one side of the road down, you know, you see the Utah Valley, and there’s suburbs and stuff kind of, you know, speckling, like surrounded by hay fields. And then he looks right, and there’s just this, like, wide expanse of wilderness. And, uh, he kinda has these thoughts of just like, “This is the line I live in. I’m stuck between, you know, lawman and outlaw i- in a world that’s changing in ways I don’t understand and don’t really like.” And so he does spend a little more time in his head in that second one. ‘Cause th- the cast is smaller. There’s a little more time with, with each character just by less points of view. And, so I did enjoy that part of him. There’s some flashbacks that are, like, triggered by, you know, certain things. Like his buddy Louie says something to him, and it, it triggers a whole flashback that actually serves as a, uh, kind of a Chekhov’s gun for the s- for the third book.

Mark: Okay.

Josh: things like that.

Mark: Yeah, okay. That was my next, actually my next point was with like, there wasn’t a lot of like massive flashbacks or anything either. You just kept the story rolling. It was good, yeah

Josh: Yeah, so this one was like, you know, like I wrote it on momentum and it’s a story of momentum and I’ve said it to people before, I think that these real, real-life conflicts like this, they, they’re fast and they’re dirty.

And,

Mark: Yeah, exactly.

Josh: to…

Mark: Yeah.

Josh: That’s, that’s kind of what I wanted to lean into. Like, he doesn’t have weeks of, like, waging, like a b- like a range war in, in a Utah town. Like there’s, there’s law enforcement, there’s things like that. There’s, you know, they don’t have time for, for downtime.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I try to remember that when I’m writing, like when I’m in a scene and, ’cause I write psychological, so I c- I get away with spending more time in their heads. But even then, when I’m in a scene where the tension’s really high, I have to remind myself, ’cause I overwrite and then delete, I have to remind myself that I can’t rush or I can’t like cut this I can’t spend so much time in their heads when in reality in a situation that’s that tense you would be rolling, you would just be reactive, right? You don’t– And as you know, if there’s a gunfight or something like he, Graham is in a lot, you can’t… He’s not just gonna stop by a tree and be like, “Oh man, I remember this time when things got really bad for me,” right?

Like

Josh: Yeah, yeah. You’ll see, like, in the book, like the, the slower moments where it trigger memories. Like there’s one that’s, um, like he’s riding the same trail that he rode as a kid, and he kinda thinks back to those days of his dad and his brother and how different it was. So there’s those brief little flashes where like it’s a little slower and he can afford to, but then he gets snapped back to reality by like distant gunshots or, or whatever,

Mark: Yeah.

Josh: and he just tells himself to focus.

Mark: All right. So finally, what’s one question you’d like me to ask the next author who comes on the show? And the next author is Angela Douglas. She wrote “The Mentor.” It is about a best-selling author who is accused of turning a real tragedy into her hit novel when an anonymous writer begins sending her disturbingly personal predictive work through her online mentorship program, and then people around her begin to die.

Josh: Wow. I would s- I would say that’s a lot. That’s pretty layered. I, I would say how semi-autobiographical it is

Mark: Okay.

Josh: Um, uh, as, as well as you know, how do you write a writer without slipping into your own point of view?

Mark: Yeah. Oh, fantastic.

Josh: Curious ’cause I, I read, um… I’ve, I’ve mentioned Greg Kuretz. He wrote one called “The Crime Writer,” and,

Mark: yes, I read that. Yeah

Josh: okay, and then the premise of that one is he’s, like, finds himself in this murder mystery, and he’s like, “I’m not a detective, but I write about them.” And, uh, so he’s like, “I guess I’ll, you know, maybe try to do what my characters would do.” And

Mark: Yeah.

Josh: So, so I’m always curious about how to r- how people write writers. I don’t think I could. I think I would just slip into me being me, and all of a sudden it’s like it’s first person, and I’m like, “No.”

Mark: Yeah. Oh, it’s a fantastic question. I can’t wait to ask her that.

Josh: Yeah

Mark: If you have a few more minutes to stick around for the after show Q&A with, uh, some of our– and our rapid fire with our live Patreon members, we’ll be jumping right into that.

Josh: How’s it up?

Mark: Joss Jensen, “No Easy Way Back.” I’m holding up the cover again. I think you can see that.

Josh: There it is.

Mark: Read it, review it. It helps us helps authors a lot if you leave reviews. Thank you for listening and watching. Have a wonderful day.