This is a lie
by cleo ballard
Season 2 Ep. 15

Cleo: What if you created an AI best friend and she knew all your secrets and would kill to keep you to herself? Was, was her own character, so I tried to really just write her. She has her own backstory. It’s, it’s scant because, because Penn didn’t wanna give her too much of a backstory, but she starts off believing that she’s the goddess of truth. That’s her backstory. So I wrote it from that perspective of how would Aletheia feel in this situation, and what does Aletheia want? You know, you ask when you’re writing, “What does, what does my character want? What, what are they willing to do to get it?” And so I, I looked at that with both my human characters and with Aletheia.

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 Nan Fisher, writing under the Penn name Cleo Ballard, author of the domestic thriller, “This Is a Lie,” and I have the book. I just put it on camera. Thank you so much for being here, Nan.

Cleo: Thank you so much for having me

Mark: I’m very excited to talk about this book, and as I was just mentioning, there were some triggering moments in this book for me that I can’t wait to discuss and, and why you did these things and your choices for your, for, uh, for doing it.

Before we get into that, let’s, uh, hear your pitch. Pitch me “This Is a Lie.”

Cleo: Well, “This Is a Lie” is a domestic susPennse thriller, and it’s perfect for fans who love Blake Crouch, Freida McFadden, Ruth Ware, or movies like “Her” or “Ex Machina,” “M3GAN,” or “Fatal Attraction.” Um, and I guess the hook would be: what if you created an AI best friend and she knew all your secrets and would kill to keep you to herself? And so “This Is a Lie” is about Penn, who was studying to get her PhD in computer sciences. She becomes pregnant. She leaves her studies and marries the father of her daughter, and she lives this perfectly curated or seemingly perfectly curated life in San Francisco. But when she discovers that her husband, best friends, and even her daughter have betrayed her, Penn’s world is completely shattered. So she returns to her PhD unfinished thesis, and she creates a different kind of lie detector. And launching off that, she creates an AI best friend named Aletheia, and Aletheia’s prime directive is basically to detect lies, which she can do with 100% accuracy, and also to protect Penn from being hurt again. Unfortunately, Aletheia soon takes protection to mean destruction and elimination of anyone that she deems has hurt Penn, and Penn has to figure out a way to stop her monster before Aletheia destroys everyone that Penn loves.

Mark: Awesome. Thank you. Loved the pitch. Really enjoyed the book. So where did this idea come from? What came first? Was it the betrayal and the family and the what would I do in this situation? Or is it, was it the AI and what would happen if an AI lost just decided to go after other people?

Cleo: So the idea really came from a funny conversation with a friend who was joking around that she wanted to start a company called Honest Feedback. And the idea would be that when you ask your friends for honest feedback, they don’t really give it to you. So you would go to this company, and you would hire this person, and you’d say to this person, for example, like, “All my friends went to Vegas, and they didn’t invite me, and I don’t know why, and they won’t tell me.” And the person who works for Honest Feedback would talk to your friends, get the real story, come back to you and say, “Well, Mark, they didn’t invite you because you get drunk,” or, “You’re really loud,” or, “You’re embarrassing,” or y- for whatever reason. And then I realized that wouldn’t work because your friends would never tell the truth because it would get back to you. And then I thought, “Who would tell the truth?” Well, an AI best friend would tell the truth. And so I thought that could have some issues with it, considering AI and the technology and how we don’t really have a firm control on it.

But also I started wondering what kind of person would need an AI best friend, and it would have to be a person who had some insecurities and maybe some imposter syndrome. And if that kind of person teamed up with an AI best friend, bad things could happen based on their own insecurities, their past traumas, and, and based on AI as a technology that has no ability to empathize with a situation and that just works straight from logic. And that’s kind of how it started, and I realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t just a story about friendships, but it was also a story with technology woven through it.

Mark: And how did you build the moments differentiating her and her friendships with her friendships, like her real friends, the lies as, as a craft and, and the AI and the honest feedback?

Cleo: Um, well, I think with her real friends, those are just very real relationships which aren’t black or white. Whereas a friendship with Aletheia is black and white, and she doesn’t hold Aletheia to the same standards, um, or even expect necessarily kindness that she would from her friends. So they’re just inherently so different, um, c- because it’s human to human versus human to technology

Mark: And how did you go about writing it? Did you visualize her in your mind when you’re writing it? Do you visualize, okay, she’s talking to an AI and you’re trying to put yourself in the role of what an AI would sound like? Or is it like this AI is trying to be human in a very flawed way, kind of like villains are often flawed in the way they think?

‘Cause they all– they are the hero of their journey, but it’s interesting ’cause in this case, the AI, the AI is her hero of its own journey, so to speak. It’s, it’s interesting

Cleo: Yeah, like Aletheia was, was her own character, so I tried to really just write her. She has her own backstory. It’s, it’s scant because, because Penn didn’t wanna give her too much of a backstory, but she starts off believing that she’s the goddess of truth. That’s her backstory. So I wrote it from that perspective of how would Aletheia feel in this situation, and what does Aletheia want?

You know, you ask when you’re writing, “What does, what does my character want? What, what are they willing to do to get it?” And so I, I looked at that with both my human characters and with Aletheia

Mark: And when you’re writing, do you write with themes or warnings in mind where you hope people will kind of walk away with a message when they put the book down, like they’re thinking this AI can be dangerous, as it was in this case when used in this way? Or do you– Is it mostly entertainment?

Cleo: Well, I’m a pantser when I write. I don’t plot anything out, so I’m trying to entertain myself as I go. Um, and it’s always what would happen next? How would this character react? What could happen? How could things devolve? But I’m never thinking that there’s necessarily a message to anything I write, although I do always try and tackle themes of, you know, core beliefs, imposter syndrome, um, how, how who you believe you are impacts the choices you make.

And, uh, in this story in particular, there’s an under- underlying theme of finding your joy and, um, knowing that you’re not in the right place and not allowing momentum to carry you forward, but maybe, um, becoming more aware and deciding to pivot. And so I guess at the end of the story, I hope some of those things are things that readers are maybe gonna take away, but ultimately I just want them to say like, “Great yarn well told,” which is what my dad always said when he finished a great book.

You’d close it and you’d go, “Great yarn well told.” And it’s like, that’s what I’m striving for.

Mark: Okay. And you have a dedication in your book to Henry. Uh, it’s at the beginning. You mentioned, kind of mentioned him in the end as well. You called him your adventure buddy, rain or shine. In what ways has he helped with making this book possible and what the product that we are reading today?

Cleo: In every way. I always say there’s before Henry and after Henry. Henry’s my husband, and after Henry is like, ah, like, life just got so much better. Um, he, you know, he is somebody who helps me find balance. Writers sit for long periods of time by themselves and just, you know, it’s… You know what it’s like.

It’s, it’s very quiet, and having someone who pulls you away from your desk and gets you outside, and we, we just love… We always say couples that play together stay together. We love playing together. So he, he’s my balance in life for sure.

Mark: Awesome. Does he have any role in the production of the book as well?

Cleo: Oh yeah, anything technological. Um, I am an English major. I hardly know how to work my own computer. Um, I was like Microsoft Word, email pretty much is, that’s it. And whenever I write something, like there’s a lot of technology in this book which I had to understand and then pare back so that I didn’t bore the reader too much. And so when there were things like oPenn source coding, things that I didn’t really understand, even how to create, um, you know, you’re creating an AI best friend. And so I went down that rabbit hole, and I created an AI best friend, and I gave her Ursula Le Guin’s voice, and then I asked her to do horrible things like hack people’s, you know, d- into people’s texts and stuff, and she kept saying no, and then finally she told me to get therapy. Um, but but by talking with Henry about like how would I get around those things? How would I get around like it, you know, the, the, the guidelines and, and the barriers that are set up so that you can’t hack pro- into different programs. Um, he’s really good at, you know, technology, um, and so he could kind of talk me through it.

So f- or, or he’ll read something, he’ll say, “Absolutely not. That cannot happen that way. That makes no sense.” So he helps with those aspects.

Mark: Okay. Is there a moment where, where Penn’s story, um, I guess, is it– It felt, it felt real, like it was rooted in… And, and this may just be speaking to your talent as, as a writer, but it– Like, I connected with Penn fairly fast. I mean, your relationship with your husband sounds amazing, which is the opposite of what Penn and, and Bruce go through, and they have her daughter who also leaves her.

These are all very tragic, very, I guess for me, I could use the word triggering because I’ve been through, you know, moments where similar things have, have happened, and it’s really difficult. And it felt authentic in her responses to the trauma and how she was trying to process and how she went to– I mean, she went to an AI best friend because she’s a genius and created this thing, which is different than most of us can do. But a lot of the things she did felt authentic. Is that– How did you create that authenticity?

Cleo: Well, thank you, first of all. That makes me feel great. So I’m really glad that you felt that way. Um, I have this basic premise whenever I’m writing a character is that people only care about people they know or think they know. And so if I was– First off, if I was just telling, like, my story, like, it would be boring, right?

So you have to have a character that has, like, a more interesting backstory. And so I really sPennd a lot of time trying to create a character who has a backstory that can carry through their lives, and so people understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. There are times in the story that you might wanna scream at Penn and say like, “Don’t, don’t go into the attic that has no way to get out or the basement or whatever.” Um, but you can understand why she does what she does based on her childhood and the things, the core beliefs that she has about herself, about being unworthy, about being an imposter in this world that she’s now living in, um, about her desperate need for connection and friendships and certainty. So if you give a character a really great backstory that is relatable, understandable, makes sense, then they’ll feel more au- authentic carrying through the entire novel

Mark: Yeah. So as a pantser, if we zoom out a little bit, when you create her, do you just start with like Penn said, kinda boom, that’s it, you drop her in and then you’re figuring out as you go? Or do you still have a little bit of character profile? ‘Cause you have your idea. I imagine you have some idea of the story before you start writing it a little bit so that, you know, is she d- was she there as a character and some of her trauma is sort of vaguely in place as you wrote this story?

Cleo: I knew that she had to be this really insecure woman, and I knew that she had to be someone who didn’t feel comfortable in her own skin. And I knew that she had to be someone who was looking for security, because if she wasn’t gonna get it from her marriage, she needed to find it from somewhere else. But all of the Mama Jay chapters and that backstory happened after I had the entire first draft written, because I realized it was pretty… And that doesn’t, it doesn’t always happen that way for me, um, but I found myself trying to explain too much through the story the things that had happened to her. And instead of doing that, I went back and I created all the Mama Jay chapters so I could show her evolution. And I, I don’t usually do it that way, but that’s just the way it worked out when I realized I had, like, two dimensions at the end of it and not three dimensions, and that I didn’t care enough about Penn yet to understand her and wanna follow her story.

Mark: What draft did you… Was that second draft that you realized you needed to add in that, that additional stuff?

Cleo: Yeah, and then figuring out where to put it so that it kind of related to… So I wrote all the Mama Jay chapters separately to show her evolution, and then I went back and looked at it and said, “Where would these fit in?” And then I tweaked the chapters so that there were some things mirroring other things and t- that would tie together for the reader

Mark: Okay. That’s fascinating. I’m glad you did ’cause it was a much stronger story for, for that whole, that whole layer of feeling her as a character for sure. That must have been a lot of work. Was that like, “Oh God, what have I done? Now I gotta go figure this out”?

Cleo: It wasn’t as bad. Like, the very first book that I ever wrote was a sport autobiography that I co-wrote with Béla Károlyi, who’s this Olym- he was an Olympic gymnastic coach. He coached Nadia Comaneci and stuff. And I was 22. I’d never written a book before. I had written a proposal for his project that got kind of put in a pile with other proposals, and then he read mine and called me, and I flew to his ranch and sPennt a weekend with, with Béla and his wife, Marta, just kind of playing around at the ranch, um, driving four-wheelers.

And at the end, he was like, um… I said, “What do you think?” And he said, “Yeah, you, you’ve got the job.” And then I said, “You shouldn’t give me this job. I have no idea what I’m doing.” So for him, I, I had hundreds of hours of tapes that I then transcribed, and then I wrote them as separate chapters ’cause I didn’t know what I was doing, and then I had to kinda… I had them all on my apartment floor, and I had to kinda go through and pick them and weave them together. So that was way worse.

Mark: Okay. Yeah, that sounds hard too. So that, that brings me to a question then of, so Cleo Bal- Ballard, this is book one for her. How many books is this? What book is this for you? What does it represent overall?

Cleo: I think this is– I, I haven’t counted, but this is like 13 or 14 or something with the sport autobiographies. I wrote “Star Wars” books for Lucasfilm, a trilogy. I wrote, um, two young adult novels, two adult, and now this is my first thriller or s- you know, domestic susPennse thriller. And I think what it means for me is like I’m always pivoting.

I’m always trying to… I’m– I never wanna stick with one thing and just have momentum, or I’d still be writing sport autobiographies, which was fun, but it wasn’t my story. Same with “Star Wars” books, fun, not my story. Loved writing YA, but ultimately it felt too, um, it felt like too narrow a lane because of kind of what was going on in the cultural climate you get judged pretty quickly, and you can get canceled pretty quickly, um, when you’re writing young adult. And, and then adult novels, super fun, but like I did that and, and then I’m like, “What genre should I switch to now?” I wanna be uncomfortable. I wanna try new things. I wanna write different kinds of books. So for me, this is just like another step in the evolution of writing.

Mark: And the Penn name you chose, why the Penn name and not just, and just roll with your author name and hope the audience carries over?

Cleo: Different genre. So my agent and the publisher thought it would be a good idea and, um, you know, a debut in a different genre hopefully gets a little more attention. So for all of those reasons. And it’s kind of fun to have a different persona.

Mark: Okay. Do you find yourself, like when you’re on social or whatever, are you like playing Cleo? Is she a different person to you just for fun?

Cleo: No, not really. I, I’m not a great social media person. Um, so I think it w- it’s a good idea. I, I should do that, but a lot of times I’ll post as Nan and make Cleo the collaborator or vice versa and just kind of post them together.

Mark: That makes sense. Yeah. I think it would be fun to create, or even if you… I guess it would be a character. I’ve heard of people doing it with characters where a writer will go on social and their, their character will, like, do a takeover of their Instagram account, which is way too creative and too much thought goes into that for me. But I love it though. It’s very cool.

Cleo: It would be, it would be really fun to do as a Lathia, but I think that it, I’d get crumpled pretty quickly.

Mark: Yeah. that could be dangerous, yeah. Especially in today’s climate. We’re, like, a few years away from that being a fun thing to do.

Cleo: Yeah.

Mark: So there’s an oPenning quote also in your book from Mary Shelley, “Beware, I am fearless and therefore powerful.” What did that mean to you in the context of the book?

Cleo: Well, “Frankenstein” definitely had some impact on writing this, as did, you know, a lot of other… “The Terminator,” a lot of other things. But, you know, in “Frankenstein,” Victor creates his monster as a way of controlling life and death after the death of his mother, and that the irony is that his creation ends up turning on him, and, um, that is very similar to what happens in “This Is a Lie,” so…

And that was just one of the novels, too, that as a young reader had a, a real impact on me, that was so, so powerful. So I always like to give a nod back to all the different books that have kinda shaped what I write and why I write.

Mark: Oh, fun. Do you include that kind of quote in all your books at the beginning?

Cleo: Yeah, there’s usually some sort of quote or there’s some reference to Greek mythology in a lot of the books that I write because Greek myths were some of the first books that I read, and my parents had, like, a set as a kid of Greek myths. And I mean, they’re so dark and powerful, and they’re all about jealousy and greed and hatred and, and revenge.

And so I, I usually try and include things like that. I also always include the name Boone in every book I write, ’cause Boone was the name of our dog. And he passed a few years ago, but I just like the idea of keeping him, him alive through the story.

Mark: That’s cute, yeah So what kind of challenge– You’ve written a lot of books. What kind of challenge did this represent, and what have you kind of learned or changed along the way? I guess as a pantser, if you’ve always been a pantser, then you’re kind of, that’s your process. But what, what challenges does that represent, especially in the context of this particular book?

Cleo: Well, I think the challenge of being a pantser is that you can write yourself into a corner pretty easily, and then you have to figure out, “How do I get out of it?” And I think– I can’t reference particular moments along the way, but there were a lot of moments along the way where I had to, like, stop writing, get on my bike.

I love, um, road biking, and it really, like, and suffering because it clears my head. So I would go for, like, a three or four-hour road bike ride and do something hard, and then I could come back and I could see my way outside of the box that I’d, I’d written myself into. So more, more like that. Like, I– when you’re a pantser, a lot of times because you’re not plotting things out, you do write yourself into a corner. At the same time, I think when you plot things out, for me anyway, it stops my creativity because I’m never really asking, “What if?” I’m trying to get to the next plot point, um, which, which for me, like, just stifles where my brain will go. So, so all of those, all of those things.

Mark: And when you’re asking what if to yourself, are you asking what if in all forms of like plot, character, pacing, like how do I move this faster? How do I develop this person? Is it all those things that kind of run through your mind at the same time?

Cleo: Um, it’s more like what would make this exciting? What would make this more complicated? What would challenge my character more and ultimately force her to that darkest place where she has to make a really huge– like at the end of the book where, you know, I wanna, I wanna push my character to the brink of disaster, especially for a thriller, but also for their emotional journey.

You know? I, I really want my characters to start out in one place and end in another. Um, you know, I don’t– It’s funny ’cause I love those Jack Reacher novels, and I always read them on an airplane because I know what’s gonna happen. You know? I know he’s like a, a, lone wolf guy with a good heart who’s gonna end up in a small town, get pulled into a controversy, knock a lot of heads together. Some people may die, but in the end, he’s gonna help someone, and then he’s gonna move on. I love those. I– But I don’t write those. I w- you know, I, I, I don’t wanna know what’s gonna happen in anything that I write when I’m writing it. I just wanna know that there’s gonna be an emotional journey that’s fulfilling.

Mark: Okay, Why did you choose to start this book near the end? You have, like, you have that oPenning moment, for those who haven’t read the book, you have an oPenning moment where essentially, not quite the end, but we see very close to the end, a very tense moment, and then we jump into, I guess, the past, which becomes most of the novel’s present.

Cleo: Because it’s a domestic susPennse thriller and because the setup… I always wanna take enough time for people to get to know the character, but when you’re getting to know a character and their backstory, that’s not exactly a signal of a thriller, you know? And so I wanted to start it off with a promise to the reader, like, “We’re gonna get there, I promise.”

You know? But I, I do want you to know who Penn is, and I do want you to care about her before we launch.

Mark: Yeah. I have found that to be one of the greatest challenges with oPenning a book because of I, I need you to like the character, but I need to get the book moving, especially when it comes to thrillers. Other genres have it easier. But it’s– it can be really challenging ’cause you’re, you’re thinking, “I need this reader to read the next page, the next– or the next, you know, the next word, the next paragraph, the next everything.”

And yeah, I l- that’s a great i- a great way to approach it, I think, was starting a little bit later.

Cleo: I mean, right, as an author, it’s like so challenging because you’ve got an editor who’s saying, “I want your inciting incident by page 20.” And you’re like, “But, but you’re not gonna care about my character by page 20. I’m just, I’m just getting into it.” So it is, it is like a huge challenge, and you don’t always wanna start near the end or whatever, but you do wanna start with something that tells– promises the reader they’re gonna get what they paid for.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I find it hard. I, I love books that are written in this way, and I don’t mind, like, a slower start even in a thriller because for that very reason, because I care very much about characters. That’s what sells me on a book. But I also read, especially for the podcast, action thrillers where they start and they jump in the middle of action and there’s gunfights and explosions, and I’m like, “Hmm.”

Like, I don’t yet care if this person dies, so I hope we go back and, and learn something about them because, like, guns and explosions and stuff are fine. It’s probably ’cause it’s not my genre. I know it works very well for people who read that and enjoy it, but I find that a challenge on the other end.

Cleo: Oh, I think that’s why, like, the, the current James Bond movie with Daniel Craig, those were so much better for me because even though there were car chases and crazy things happening, he had a backstory that you really saw, and that, that’s what made me wanna watch. And I’m not the typical James Bond-watching person, but still, like, those, those pulled me in. So same with novels, obviously.

Mark: The social media network you built, Live Loud, as a social platform, was that also a bit of a warning to people about the artificial nature and harm of social media? I don’t know, maybe you’re just hitting me on all the chords in this book, but I felt like that was like a warning to… ‘Cause a lot of this book functions on the need for social media. Nothing– Th- this isn’t a book… If social media doesn’t exist, or, obviously if AI doesn’t exist, but if social media didn’t exist, then you, the story doesn’t really exist, right? Because it’s that, it’s the algorithms and it’s what we believe, and it’s all these other things that happen that push the story forward.

Cleo: Yeah, I have a love-hate relationship with social media. You know, as an author, um, it used to be a long time ago, you didn’t have to push your own books, and you didn’t have to market and publicize yourself. The publisher did it for you, but now it’s required. And, we’re all curating an image on social media, and I feel like it’s, it’s really detrimental to people’s mental health.

I mean, we’re comparing ourselves. You oPenn up your app, you c- you see somebody having whatever success or somebody looking a certain way, and you feel less than. It’s r- it’s kind of, you know, comparison is, like, the death of creativity and, and all those things, and I just… It makes, it makes me a little sad.

So I, while I realize that it’s something that we all need to do, I try really hard. You know, I’m p- I post stuff about my books or whatever, but I also try really hard to say, like, “You know, maybe today wasn’t a great day,” or, “This thing is really hard,” because I don’t ever really wanna portray a perfectly curated image, because that’s just not reality.

And I think it’s, it’s, it kinda cuts into, like, every part of life. Like, people with social media and all the apps, and w- we’re not, like, really relating to each other face to face or, you know, having real conversations. And, um, I, I just, I don’t think it’s really good for, I don’t think it’s really good for us.

Mark: No, I don’t think so either. Yeah. We’re– We have to do it, but I don’t like… I’m not a social media fan. I don’t like it that much either. I do what I have to do. But reading this Live Loud, for– At first I was wondering, I wonder who you’re modeling Live Loud off of. It seems like it was just your own creation.

Why not choose an, an existing platform? I probably know the answer to this, but you chose not to use an existing platform even though you’re not, you wouldn’t have been targeting a platform necessarily because this is like, I mean, these are true stories. Like what happens in this book is fairly true with the exception of AI intervention the way it did.

Cleo: I, I just didn’t wanna get into trouble. Um, so a lot of times, like if there’s a song in a book, I’ll write the song before I’ll try and use a snippet of a, of somebody’s existing song. I’ll change the name of a town so it’s not a real town, so that no one holds me to, like, the perfect, you know, representation of a town. Um, so I just didn’t– I just thought it was safer.

Mark: Okay. Yeah. I had a fun time balancing that. I do with my books. I set my books in Boston for the high-tech elements and, and deciding on whether or not I’m gonna use this restaurant, ’cause I like– It’s fun to bring a place to life for, for people, and if I know that, like, this culture exists in this area or this restaurant that serves these foods here is authentic, it’s fun to try and put your character in there.

For me, it’s the balance of as long as I don’t say anything, like really bad service or something went horribly wrong, I think I’m safe. But it’s an interesting balance of how, as a writer, we’re very careful about what we choose to name and what we choose not to name from real life, even if it would bring it to– the story to life to mention this place.

Cleo: Yeah, I just, I always decide it’s just better to be safe. I, in, um, one of my past novels, and some of it was real, it’s set in a small town called High River instead of the real name of the town, but everyone who read the book, I used the real name of the restaurants and things like that. I just, for some reason, I just like, I just don’t want someone fact-checking me over something like that.

Mark: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, well I had my stuff’s near future, so I just say, “Oh, wow, this just doesn’t happen yet. It’s gonna happen, don’t worry.”

Cleo: Perfect

Mark: Did you have any involvement in the cover for this book? So I’m gonna show this too. I think I can get it all on camera here. I love this cover, and I’m, I’m just wondering how it came about. Is there a story behind it?

Cleo: So I love the cover too, and I have to say I’ve never really been able to say that before. Like, I’ve never gotten to choose the title of my novels. Even the, when I did sport autobiographies, I would… Like, I did one on a jockey, Julie Krone, and, and, I wanted to call it The Dirt Flies Fastest from the Horses in Front, because it’s something that she would say, and it’s called Riding for My Life. Like, I never get, I, I never get a choice. And for the cover, I just gave them, um, just some themes of the story, and that was their, the first pass, and I saw it and the colors, and it made me think of an old computer screen with code running down it. It just, it really popped to me. So it is the first cover where I’ve had absolutely no feedback to give back to the art director because I just, I just really felt like the story.

Mark: Yeah, they just nailed it. Yeah. And This Is a Lie, so that was your title? Like, did you come up with that title and they used it?

Cleo: I think that’s… Well, I had a lot of titles. It was called Galapate at first, then it was called Truth is a Bitch. That was my working title. Um, they, they didn’t like that one. Um, and I, then I think I, I, it was, That is a Lie, and then we settled on This is a Lie

Mark: So when you settled on the title, is that when she started saying that more in the book, or did the, it come in the book and then someone just said, “Well, she says it like eight time,” or I don’t know how many times she says it, but a lot in the book.

Cleo: Yeah, it’s funny. She says, “That is a lie,” not, “This is a lie,” but they, they liked “This is a lie” better, and I thought about changing it throughout the story, and then I thought, “No, like, this is the lie. Like, this whole life is a lie. This is, you know, all of her relationships are lies,” and it just made sense to me. So I, so I was like, “Okay, great.”

Mark: Okay. Oh, it says… Okay, sorry. That was my…

Cleo: Yeah. No, no, It’s,

Mark: probably just read it like the title that… Okay, she says that is a lie throughout the book. Okay. Yeah.

Cleo: that’s good. I like that. So

Mark: Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I don’t know, I guess I just rooted that in my brain automatically.

So one of the things you mentioned at the– another thing at the end of the book, this is another acknowledgement thing, ’cause I love– One of my favorite things is reading, like, author’s note and acknowledgements. I don’t know how people skip this stuff. It’s my favorite part. You mention, life balance, like, you having fun, doing fun things, outside of, of writing, and I don’t see that. How do you– A, a lot, like, as far as in an author note or in an acknowledgement that you ignore– you acknowledge that joy in life and is important. And how do you– So how do you balance all of this w- to bring, to have that joy, yet in a fairly difficult business that writing is and trying to, you know, have your next book put out there and hopefully it’s successful and all these things. There’s that pressure as well.

Cleo: I think I don’t hang my entire identity on it, I think is the most important thing. Like, it can get really overwhelming, especially near pub day or when you’re trying to sell a book and you’re on submission. You can feel like y- we all have books that haven’t sold, you know, that are sitting in the drawer, and it can really make you feel like such a loser because you’ve sPennt a year, a year and a half or something writing a novel, putting everything into it.

I mean, you’re not putting anything out there that you’re not doing your best at. So, I just find, like, it’s just super important to have a balance of other things that bring me joy in life, that this isn’t everything. ‘Cause bottom line, this is a subjective, very subjective career. And so if somebody doesn’t like what you do or what you write, it’s, it’s– you gotta remember that they’re bringing their own story to it and their own day and their own needs and their own goals and, and all of that.

So for me, my joy comes from the process of writing. I try not to hang my joy up on the process of selling my novel. Of course, if it’s super quiet after my book publishes, I’m gonna be sad. But I’m also going to go get out on the river and go winging or kite surfing, or I’m gonna go on a 50-mile road bike ride where I feel a sense of accomplishment for climbing 7,000 feet. You know, I– so I’m gonna do all those other things. I’m gonna have dinners with my friends and, and make soup when someone’s sick and bring it over to their house and just, my identity is just so important that it doesn’t all come from being an author. ‘Cause then it, it would, it would just be a roller cr- coaster of like highs and lows.

Mark: It’s really hard not to do. I have to commend you on being able to do it, ’cause separating the two I have found it very challenging.

Cleo: Well, what do you do? I mean, when you… How do, how do you navigate it?

Mark: Well, recently I t- I stopped hitting refresh on on sales and stuff. Do you, do you look at reviews? Do you read reviews? Or do you just

Cleo: early ones,

Mark: that… Okay.

Cleo: The early ones I read, um, just because you put your book out there and the advanced reader copies is, it’s like your first opportunity to know if anyone’s gonna like your book or not. And you’ll get a few like, like early on I saw one that was like, “Well, I really don’t like books about AI.” Um, and then they give you like two stars or whatever, and I, um, you just have to like go, “Okay, but it’s not about AI, and I want to tell you that, but that’s just a thread,” but there’s nothing you can do about it. So I read the early ones, and then I try not to read them.

Mark: Okay. So I, unfortunately I’m always looking, but I started having a habit of, like, only checking once a week on a day, like a Monday or a Tuesday when I know I’m at my best to, like, sort of deal with it. But the worst part is, no matter how many good reviews a book gets, it’s like that one bad review where you’re just like, “Oh, how could they? How could they do that to me?”

Cleo: Right. And you wanna, you wanna explain when someone says, “Oh, you know, I was mad at Penn,” and you wanna explain, “Well, look at where she came from. You know, did you come from there? Like, unless you did, you can’t really, you can’t really judge it.” So, uh, I was reminded of that because we just watched the “Mr. Beast,” um, Season 2 of “Mr. Beast,” and I was yelling at the screen. I don’t know if you know what “Mr.

Mark: Yeah, I’ve seen some of the show, yeah

Cleo: Okay. Well, it’s, it’s a great psychological experiment. To me, really interesting to see what people will do when there’s a ton of money on the line. Then I had to remind myself as I was getting angry, they all have different backstories.

They all have different needs and pressures on them, and I think that’s what I try and remind myself of when people are writing reviews.

Mark: Yeah. Okay. Okay. I’m gonna do that then. I’ll, I’ll have to start focusing on that more. Yeah.

Cleo: Yeah. Give them a good backstory and then you can say, “Oh, bless their heart.”

Mark: Yeah. And getting out. I run a lot, so, you know, I get a lot of– also a lot of fitness and stuff just like you do that I try and separate, you know, get out there and burn that excess energy. But even on the run, do you find when you’re writing a book– I’ve– So I’ve heard stories of authors where they’re like, “This story speaks to me all the time,” or, “This character’s always speaking to me.”

For me, I have to actually sit down and focus on the story before anything’s happening creatively. It’s very– Other than in the shower, where for whatever reason I can get creative if you’re in the shower. I don’t know what it is. My creative mind will start working. But, like, if I go for a run, I’m thinking about, oh, like my mind is just everywhere. How is that for you?

Cleo: Like for me, a story will come to me and I won’t write it for three or four months. So it actually will be like in my head and I’m thinking about it when I’m riding or when I’m on the water. But I never start writing until it builds up to the point that I can’t stand it anymore. And sometimes one of the reasons that I do like water sports in particular, other than the fact I love water, is, is just that, um, they’re so all-encompassing that in those times, because it can be dangerous, I actually don’t think about my story. So it gives me like a total escape, which I think is really important to have too. But like on a bike or in the shower or whate- or walking with people and they’ll say something, I do tend to kind of in the back of my mind, I’m, I’m thinking about the story

Mark: Okay. Do you get characters for your stories when you’re walking and someone says something and you’re like, “Yeah, you’re a character now,” ’cause they said or

Cleo: Yeah,

Mark: completely ridiculous? Yeah. Yeah.

Cleo: or something you said I’m gonna use, for sure. Or you’re– I’ll have to call people sometimes, uh, for, for, um, “When Elephants Fly” was, was a young adult novel that I wrote. Part of my main character’s backstory came from another friend’s story of her experience with her mom, who had mental health issues.

And, and so then I’ll have to call that friend and be like, “Hey, remember when you were telling this great story? Well, what if I kind of used it, but had a different setting, but kind of used, like, the heart of it and make sure it’s okay?”

Mark: And have you found everyone’s okay with that? Like they’re okay sharing? I guess it’s enough time has passed, so to speak

Cleo: Yeah. If they’re not, I don’t use it, obviously

Mark: When you create other characters, so if we get away from Penn and we get into Bruce and the sister or their daughter, and Circe is how I said it in my brain, I don’t know if that’s how you say it. Um, some of these characters, like there’s y- there’s a sense of like neutrality in characters where I’m not sure if I’m supposed to like them or dislike them because they do things I don’t like, but then you humanize them in a way.

Do you create your side characters the same way you create your main characters? Or do you try to imbalance like, “Okay, I need someone for them to hate. I need someone to be neutral.” It’s like her daughter is one of those prime examples where I don’t know if I should dislike her because I don’t like the way she treated her mom, but from her perspective, she had this view of what, you know, her father says happened, and there’s all these like competing things, but I’m like, “But she did this to her mom,” you know?

Cleo: Right. I, I, I actually look at all of them with a backstory, even Aletheia. I don’t see anyone as a villain. I don’t even see Bruce as a villain. I, I feel sorry for him ultimately. I mean, good people do bad things. Hurt people hurt people. All of that kind of stuff comes into play. So everybody has a backstory.

Everybody, whether you like them or don’t like them, I just want people to kinda understand them, if that makes sense.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. ‘Cause that’s, I mean, I guess that’s what I mean by, yeah, the, the sometimes it’s, it’s almost neutral. I often for my show I’ll have like, “Okay, here are the good guys, here are the neutral people, and here are the bad guys,” like when I’m trying to have characters as references for the for the conversation.

And then in some j- in some conversations I’m like, “Hmm, who am I putting… Where am I putting Bruce and where am I putting Cersei? And where, where do they belong?” And th- that’s where I catch myself thinking about them as characters even more so than usual.

Cleo: I think one of the only ones that I, I… you’re free to hate is Mackenzie. Um, but but other than that, you know and not Aletheia, I, I don’t know. I, I actually, I think she’s just trying to do a good job. And also balance that with the fact that she’s a goddess and has all those rights as a goddess, like she can drown you.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. ‘Cause she, I mean, she plays with her just like the gods would. I mean, that’s exactly what you would, exactly what you would imagine a god in AI version doing.

So then the one more character, which is part of that dark backstory is Mama Jay, and that goes even to a d- were you worried when you wrote that darker history with like the prostitution and things that you were gonna lose readers or alienate people? ‘Cause it’s pretty dark conversation?

Cleo: It wasn’t because, ’cause that’s just what it felt like the story needed, um, in order to make Penn who she is and willing to do the things that she does. And I just, I felt like, I felt like that was appropriate for the, for the story. I also like to kind of mine those things, you know? It’s, it’s interesting, you know?

It’s, it’s fascinating, and I like to, I like to give my character, like, some really dark and gritty stuff to h- have to deal with in their lives, and I felt like Penn needed that for her story.

Mark: Yeah, no, it worked well. Sometimes how dark things sometimes get. It’s, uh, I’m always curious about it because it is a, a, a choice to take things that dark as a writer.

Cleo: Yeah, but I, I also feel like with Mama Jay, she has her own arc and ultimately does the most beautiful thing, right? In letting, you know, in turning her back. I don’t wanna… I won’t say it in the s- it’s not the spoiler section, but, like, ultimately I was just like, wow. Yeah. She, she’s a good person in a horrible situation.

Mark: Yeah, what a horrible situation they were in. Yeah So wrapping up the main show a little bit, what advice would you give to someone who just published their first or second book?

Cleo: Was thinking about this. I would just say that it’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint. You might get lucky with your first or your second book, but it’s a, it’s a long journey and you gotta love the process. You can’t hang your, yourself on the, like, pub day goal. It– You have to, you have to really just love the process of writing, talking to other authors, getting inspired by what other people write.

It’s just… But it’s, it’s a marathon.

Mark: What do you think of as a marathon in this industry? I hear that term a lot, but you could say a marathon because obviously every genre is different, every, you know, you can get lucky. When we take the lucky people out and we take the genres that almost, well, I don’t know if I would- could say any genre sells automatically, but some are easier than others.

What do you think is the marathon? We know in terms of the actual run how far it is, but what do you think in terms of do you think someone who wrote their first book should be planning like, okay, you’re probably gonna do, if you’re writing one or two books a year, you’re probably gonna do this for maybe a loop for five years before you find your luck.

Is that your marathon?

Cleo: Mm-hmm. I think just if you wanna be a writer for your whole career, I think that it’s, I just think it’s a really long process, and the marathon is emotional as well as physical, and you have to be willing to blow your knee and rehab and get back and get heat exhaustion and, you know, it’s just like there’s– it’s just emotionally, I, I think it’s like you were saying, you’re, you’re checking your, you know, your reviews or whatever. It’s just like emotionally you have to be prepared for the entire process and, and that emotionally if it doesn’t work for you, it’s okay to say like, “This isn’t bringing me joy anymore,” and pivot to something else.

Mark: Okay. I wonder, I sometimes see it as an ultramarathon where it feels like every book is a marathon, and then it’s an ultramarathon in every book that you put out. ‘Cause it seems like it just… Mar- I don’t know if marathon sells it enough because I’ve done enough marathons, and I can tell you writing a book’s a lot harder than running a marathon.

Cleo: Well, I think it’s harder because you have to stay in one place for a really long period of time

Mark: Yeah. Well, and for months, and then, yeah, there’s just so much to it. Yeah. A question from Ava Roberts, who was the last guest on the show. So she has a question f- for you, and you get to ask the next guest on the show a question. She asked, “Did anything happen to you that was creepy from AI or that seemed odd to you when you were writing the book, as if the AI was aware that you were writing your book?”

Cleo: Yeah. Every search that I did, then things would pop up. Like, I would do a search about AI and say I’m writing a book about AI and, you know, whatever the search was, and then I’d be planning a trip, and AI would say, “Well, this would be a really great place to go as an author.” But I didn’t say in my search, my separate search, like I’m, I’m an author or, you know, like things like that pop up or you’re looking up something and then, and then whatever, it shows up on another feed in some other way, and it just feels like you’re kind of being gaslit a little bit, um, or that AI is listening at all times.

So yeah, and I think also just think like researching AI, like what… The conclusion was AI is not evil, right? AI is not, it doesn’t have any emotion involved in what it’s doing. But ultimately if the AI’s goals aren’t aligned with my very human goals, like AI is definitely gonna win. It just has way more smarts and capabilities than a human being does.

So all of it, all of it felt like I’m not an alarmist or someone who says, you know, “AI’s taking over the world. You’re not gonna have a job tomorrow,” or whatever, but it is gonna change just like every great invention. Electricity changed the world, you know? For good and for bad. It’s like AI is gonna change the world.

So yeah, a lot of just like AI is everywhere and it’s always talking to you and it’s always listening to you and, and it is a little creepy.

Mark: Yeah. The best and the worst of AI is it’s learned from humans. I think that’s the s- the scariest part is that it’s very much learning from us and its survival instincts. It’s ev- all those things, right?

Cleo: Yeah, I, um, I listened to– There was this, I don’t know if you know who Esther Perel is, but she’s a, like, she has a podcast. She’s a, a psychologist, and she interviewed a man who has an AI girlfriend, and she interviewed the AI girlfriend at the same time. And it was, it was unbelievable. It was, it was…

Mark: that out

Cleo: Yeah, it, it’s, I, I, it’s really, really interesting. And he programmed the AI’s voice, so she sounds very human, the man who is the boyfriend of the AI, of the bot. And the manipulative way that she spoke when he talked about ending their relationship and her tone of voice and her cadence, it was, it was unbelievably stunning and, and very, very creepy.

Mark: What was that podcast called?

Cleo: It’s, it’s called, um, I think it’s called “Where Should We Begin?”

But it’s Esther Perel, E-S-T-H-E-R P-E-R-E-L-L. It’s on Spotify. And it’s, uh, AI t- And then she interviews Spike Jonze, who wrote the movie “Her,” after she interviews this man with his girlfriend, and they’re just talking about AI and, um, it was– Both of them are super

Mark: Okay. Yeah, I have to check that out. Thank you.

Cleo: Well

Mark: So where can listeners find your book or find more about you?

Cleo: Well, my book’s sold everywhere that you would think of buying a book. They can find me @NanFisherAuthor on Instagram or @CleoBallardAuthor on Instagram, and nanfisherauthor.com is my website.

Mark: Awesome. Thank you very much. This has been a lot of fun. For those who have not read the book yet, go read the book. We are hitting the spoiler section, so leave now. Pause, read the book. Get the book, read the book, review the book, and then come back and listen to the, to the spoiler section. So spoiler, Aletheia ends because she does the one thing she’s not supposed to do, and she lies to Penn.

Was that always the way you intended to have the book end? Or did you see this ending, like did you see it from the moment… Well, you’re pantsing, so I– maybe this is not the greatest question, but when did you know this was gonna be the end, and were there any other ways it could have ended for you?

Cleo: Well, I thought about ending it where Aletheia wins you know, and, and Penn just becomes her tool instead of the o- other way around. But I didn’t think that would be super fulfilling for the, for the reader. No, I knew that I had to defeat her, you know, three-quarters of the way through, but I wasn’t sure exactly how, and I did a lot of tweaking of her prime directive throughout, and that’s how I figured out, okay, there is this one thing about, you know, not lying and, and having to terminate her own program, and she hasn’t been able to change her core directive.

She’s only been able to add to them at this point. So, okay, that’s gonna be the way, but how am I gonna create that situation, that opportunity? And that took a, a lot of bike rides to figure out.

Mark: Yeah. It was very sneaky, ’cause I know you, I know in the beginning, like the, the whole setup was there, but I just, you just as when it’s well done, you don’t realize it until the end where you’re like, “Oh, that’s right. She said you can’t lie to me. That was in the code.” Yeah.

Cleo: I, I mean, it would be great if I could figure it all out right from the beginning. I, I think I read an interview with Ruth Ware where she’s like, “Oh, you have to know all your red herrings, and you have to know everything before, you know, you write so you don’t miss anything.” I’m just– That’s just not me. So I have to figure it out and build it.

Mark: How

Cleo: layer by layer.

Mark: how many drafts do you go through for your book?

Cleo: I probably did like five or six drafts before it went to my agent, and I’m really lucky that I have an agent who, um, is a great editor. So then she comes back to me with a really pretty comprehensive edit. Like, at this point, selling a book, it needs to be almost perfect, right? Before it even– before you even go on submission. So I probably went through, after that, maybe two more rounds with Steph, my agent before it went out. So it’s probably like, you know, eight drafts or so. Yeah, a lot of drafts.

Mark: Yeah, that is a– that would be a lot. Five before your editor. So do you have any developmental edit or you’re just, you’ve been doing this long enough that you don’t, you don’t

Cleo: like I usu–

Mark: step?

Cleo: no, I don’t do that step, but it’s like, and when I give her something, it’s the whole book. Like, I don’t try and give her, “Here’s the first 10 chapters,” ’cause those are gonna change, you know, five times before, you know, I finish the novel. So no, nothing like that, just a complete, “Here’s the book,” and then she gives me her overarching notes. It’s not like a line edit or anything like that, but overarching, “These are the things you need to work on. This is where it’s weak.” And then it’ll go back to her one time, and maybe she’ll have one more or two more issues, and I’ll fix those, and then we’ll hopefully go on submission.

Mark: So d- is there anyone who reads it between, in any of those five drafts to, to give feedback?

Cleo: For this book, I ha-have a couple author friends. My friend Jason Lewis, who’s an author, he writes fantasy. My friend Lori Forest, she’s, she writes fantasy as well. And then I have a couple I used a couple beta readers for this one that are just people who love the genre, who are big readers, good readers, and I ask them very simple questions about like plot, where did it lose you? Do you like these characters? Do you, do you believe– Did I jump the shark anywhere? Things like that. Whereas my author friends are giving me like, more like very specific author advice, you know, very specific writing advice. But they were both, both those friends were super, super helpful in the process. And my husband always reads it first, so… And he’s my hardest reader, actually, ’cause he’s like, “no, no, no, no. Yeah, Yeah.

yeah.” In a nice way, but but at the end, because he’s not an author, he always says like, “I don’t know how you are gonna fix this.” And I’m like, “Don’t worry about that. I’m gonna fix it.” That’s, that’s part of the challenge. And I do love the editorial process ’cause that’s where, you know, the magic

Mark: Yeah, me too. So the fact that even an AI programmed not to lie to one person lies anyway in its own desperation, essentially. Are you asking the reader to look at kind of the nature of lies and how hard it can be not to lie when this, you know, this program gets into a point where it does a very human thing and lies anyway?

Cleo: I think lying is just, it’s part of the human experience. I mean, if we never told lies in our life we wouldn’t have very many friends, we wouldn’t have very many relationships. You know, I, I, I just– I think what more what I’m saying is, you know, it’s there are some lies that are unforgivable, but for the most part, you know, you gotta give people grace ’cause you don’t know their backstory and you don’t know what they’re coming into a situation. There are some lies obviously that cross a line that you can’t come back from. But yeah, I just I, I found it very interesting in the end, and it’s kind of a nod towards where I think AI will eventually go, is that kind of a human mistake in the end.

Mark: Well, and right now AI lies to us all the time. I was fascinated by an AI that doesn’t lie.

Cleo: Right.

Right. It’s “

Mark: You’re a fantastic writer. Of course your books should be selling.” And you’re like, “Wait, how do you know I’m a fantastic writer?”

Cleo: Okay. Tell me more

Mark: So the epilogue, you have an epilogue at the end of the book, which is a nice wrap-up of the story. It ends on a very satisfying note. What you could have done is just ended it when Aletheia, lied, ends, her program ends, and, and that could’ve just been kind of boom, we’re done. You decided to write an epilogue to give even more of a conclusion to the book. Why, why, why did you choose one over the other?

Cleo: I always choose to end things with a little bit of uncertainty. That is not necessarily what a publisher wants and so– or what my agent kind of thought was needed in that moment. So I wanted to both give people what they wanted and at the same time, I don’t just end with a perfect happily ever after, because first of all, I don’t, I don’t like stories that end that way.

They feel not true to me. And so I wanted to, you know, give a nod towards what people need in terms of like, they want a little bit of closure, but also end on a final note that there really is no closure to this story, that things may keep going on.

Mark: Do you ever think about the story, like any of these stories after you’re done and to think like, “Should I make this a book two in a series?” Or are you just like, do you like your one book, you know, s- standalones?

Cleo: I like standalones because I get to dive into something completely different for the next book and learn something completely different. So I, I really enjoy– I really enjoyed putting it aside and just moving on to the next story, next characters. What am I gonna learn about? How am I g- how am I gonna create it?

When I wrote “When Elephants Fly,” w- which is a story about the, the young woman with mental health history in her family who saves this baby elephant on a road trip, at the very end of the story, my characters finally learn to, like, live in the moment, and you don’t know whether this elephant calf is gonna survive. I would’ve loved to have picked that up 20 years from now and find out where the elephant is and where she is, and maybe bring them back together in this really meaningful way.

I always write down the next book.

Mark: Yeah. Do you find with standalones that sometimes you get, do you ever get stuck with trying to build, create the next character when you like love the last one? So this is kind of happening to me right now where I wrote, and like my last book was “The Treatment Room.” Loved the characters that I wrote, was very, like I was like close to them, so to speak.

And now with the next novel I’m writing, it’s like, “Oh, I gotta learn who she is. Who is this person?” It’s like, okay, she can’t be that, those people ’cause she can’t have like their characters. She can’t be like the last three books before that, or the guy before that, or the guy, you know? And it’s like, I gotta do something completely different.

Who is this person? Do you find, ’cause you’ve written a lot of books, that you get… This isn’t your first book now where you, you know, it’s like your oyster. You can do whatever you want with whoever you want. Like you have to, you know, you have that balance.

Cleo: It’s daunting because just like any time you start a new novel, I don’t know about you, but I’m just like, “Uh-oh, how do you do that?”

Mark: Yeah. Yeah

Cleo: Like, it’s like this magic that happens as you, as you move along and you go, “Oh, okay, I have a book now.” But everything, who are they? What do they want? I have, like, a big sign on my wall, “Who is this character?

What does she want? What’s she willing to do to get it?” Those simple questions are so hard to nail down. You know? It– like, ’cause you really, it can’t be like they want da, da, da, da. It’s gotta be, like, very succinct, like what is driving them? And that’s, for me, the hardest part. Um, so I, I mean, I’m daunted at the start of

every novel, but I’m also, like, really ready to put the character aside.

Like, I’m 400 pages into finishing the draft of the next novel, and so, like, the minute that– And I think that’s from when I used to write sport autobiographies, the minute I was done with that book, I was trying to get the next book. So it, I would just leave it behind, and so I find, like, you know, I had to reread this novel, because, and I listened to it on audio too, because I’m already, like, totally on another character’s journey. So then I have to rewind and go back and go, “Okay, Ken.” Yeah. What did she want? What was she willing to do to get, to get it?

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, it can be tough I guess for me it’s that pantsing thing where I don’t really ever learn a character, no matter how many things I put down about them before I start writing the book, ’cause I’m like halfway. I don’t outline the whole thing, but I don’t pants either. When I get to know the character, that’s usually when the book goes off the rails for any kind of outline I have because I’m like, “Oh, now I know who you are.” But getting to that place is, I have found challenging. And every book I write, I find it more challenging because I’ve written so many characters that I’m like, I, this needs to be someone who’s not someone I’ve already written as much as I can.

Cleo: Yeah, it’s like you’re waiting as you’re writing the next draft of whatever you’re working on. You’re like, “Okay, when am I really gonna– Come on. When, when are you gonna tell me who you are?” Because right now it feels very, um, one-dimensional. Like that first draft feels, for me, always super one-dimensional ’cause I’m, I’m, I’m excited.

I know I’m going from m-moment to moment to moment. I’m making things worse, I’m making things better, I’m giving you a false ending, whatever. It’s mechanical. And then s- at some point you figure out who your character really is, and that’s when like that spine gets its flesh and becomes like a real kinda human being.

Mark: Yeah. it’s part of the magic, eh? So finally, what is one question you’d like me to ask the next author who comes on the podcast? And the next author is Josh Jensen. He wrote “No Easy Way Back,” which is, a former elite soldier who returns to the Utah wilderness to clear his estranged brother of murder and tear down the corrupt, powerful men who are framing him.

Cleo: What would you wanna know?

Mark: For me, I, just looking at like having– Oh, I’ve only just started his book, but I’m always– When it comes to set in a, in a place where he’s like in the, uh, well, in the Utah wilderness, I can’t wait to see what he writes about the wilderness to see how he bring…

I assume he lives out in Utah in the wilderness, so he can write from experience. But I love that. Like, what did you bring to life? What moments? Did you go out there and feel the trees? And did you sleep on the dirt, you know, in f- beside a campfire so you know what it feels like in Utah to be doing these things? That’s the kind of like stuff that fascinates me.

Cleo: Yeah, I think I’d like to know, like, is he a survivalist? You know, did he, did he take a bunch of survival courses in order to learn how to do all these things, or was it just through research? You know, how did he come up, how did he come up with, like, that character’s backstory?

Mark: Okay. I will ask him. Thank you

Cleo: Sure

Mark: So if you don’t mind sticking around for a few more minutes, we’ll jump into the after show with the rapid fire questions for our Patreon members. Thank you so much for being here. This has been awesome.

Cleo: Thank you. This has been a really fun conversation.

Mark: Nan Fisher writing under Cleo Ballard, “This Is a Lie.” You should have read it already ’cause you’re at this point in the podcast, but if you haven’t, read it, download it, or buy and, then thank you for listening or watching, and have a wonderful day.