- 6 months ago
Today on The Cameron Journal Podcast, we are joined by Rick DeStefanis who has used his training in the 82nd airborne during the Vietnam War to write a brilliant fiction series about the conflict and what those men went through. This is a wonderful series and a great conversation.
Learn more here: https://www.rickdestefanis.com/
Learn more here: https://www.rickdestefanis.com/
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00:00Thank you very much.
00:30Today on the Cameron Journal Podcast, I am joined by writer Rix DeStefanis.
00:35He is very interesting. This will be good.
00:37He was a military veteran and former paratrooper who was with the 82nd Airborne Division from 1970 to 1972.
00:44And he has gotten really into writing about the Vietnam War.
00:50One wonders why he was at the scene of the situation.
00:53And so from his first book, Tallahatchie, to the latest ones, he's won a ton of awards.
00:58It's 2015 Reader's Award for the Gamora Principal, all this sort of thing.
01:04He's just won all the awards. Military Writers Society of America, Gold Medal Award.
01:07He's collected all the metal, all the hardware that you would want to have.
01:13And so we're going to dive into more about his career, how he got into writing, his books, all this type of thing.
01:20There are so many of them. I think I'm counting here at least a dozen.
01:24So we're going to get into all of them, find out about his whole journey, find out about his books, and go from there.
01:28So welcome, Rick, to the Cameron Journal Podcast.
01:32Thank you, Cameron. Appreciate it.
01:34Yes. So, well, let's dive in right at the beginning.
01:37Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing?
01:40Well, first of all, a little correction.
01:43I get some real hard stares whenever I say this to a group of veterans, but when I completed airborne training at Fort Benning,
01:54we had a tight-knit group of five of us that had gone through Tiger Ridge at Fort Polk for infantry training and all this.
02:03We were very close. We all received orders for Vietnam, the 101st, the 173rd, some of them, and one of them was Special Forces.
02:13But long and short of the thing was they came in after they issued our orders that night and took up orders and changed them.
02:21Of all my friends, our group, I was the only one who had these orders changed, and they were changed to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
02:28They used to like airborne. And being 18 years old at the time and pretty stupid, I was very disappointed.
02:39But, yeah. So...
02:41But not very long once you got to the scene, though.
02:45I spent a year at Bragg, and those guys began returning.
02:50Matter of fact, the first one I saw was every morning you get up at Bragg five days a week,
02:56and you fall in a formation, and you run. Combat boots, fatigue pants, T-shirt.
03:02Three miles, Ardennes Boulevard. Everyone who's in the 82nd did it.
03:07And that's the first thing you do.
03:10Well, one morning, a year later, I'm going up Ardennes in our formation running, you know,
03:15doing what Army people do, chanting, whatever.
03:18And this guy starts screaming, D, D, and I'm like, who the hell did I look over?
03:24It's one of my friends. He's back.
03:26And we actually broke formation and sat there and embraced right in the middle of the street
03:31with all the little second lieutenants going nuts.
03:35And basically, we all hooked up.
03:38And we rode motorcycles up and down the East Coast, everywhere from as far down as old
03:44Jacksonville, Florida, all the way up into New York State, Pennsylvania, up in there.
03:50And we would stay wherever we landed at night.
03:54And these guys, after a few beers or a bourbon or two, it's the only time they would ever talk.
04:00And I was around them in a lot of places and a lot of situations with a lot of people asking questions,
04:05and they would never say a word.
04:07But after a few drinks, with just us there around a campfire, usually, they would talk.
04:14And it really hit home for me because when you see a guy, 19 years old,
04:21who's hard as a paratrooper is, come to tears or have to just stop talking and get up and walk away,
04:30you know you found something.
04:32And these guys would talk about their experiences.
04:35Well, I still didn't realize I was a writer, but I started writing, taking notes,
04:42or actually writing them down when they didn't know I was writing them down.
04:46And we stayed in touch.
04:50And I asked later if I could write their stories as nonfiction stories.
04:55And they, to a man, said no.
04:58They didn't want to relive it.
05:02And later years, I went back to school, and the professor, one of the professors there said,
05:11I should write.
05:12He said it was, I had a talent.
05:14I said, okay, great.
05:16And I had a subject, so I did.
05:18And I started writing it as fiction.
05:19Most of my fiction stories are based on actual events that happened to these guys.
05:26We had one guy got tied up with a real nutty guy.
05:32He was in the special operations group, but he was kind of a freelancer.
05:38He wasn't military.
05:39He was Office of the Special Assistance, is what they call it now, CIA.
05:46And that's where the Gomorrah Principle initiated from.
05:51Oh.
05:52And he told some pretty crazy stories.
05:56And others were like, one of them was in the 75th Rangers.
06:01He was alert the whole time.
06:03And he told some pretty scary stories.
06:07And the one thing that used to really shake me up and shake him up, he couldn't hardly
06:12talk about, was the time when they were alert team.
06:16And normally on their last day in the field, if it was convenient, they set up an ambush.
06:22And they did.
06:23And they caught a group of Viet Cong coming out of a village off the coast, coming back up
06:30into the mountains.
06:32And they sprang their ambush and very successfully almost wiped out the whole group of 14 or 15
06:42Viet Cong.
06:43Well, he got down there to search the bodies.
06:46They found about 10 of those 15 were unarmed, young women carrying nursing medical supplies.
06:53And he never got over it.
06:56He never got over that.
06:58And that's one.
07:02You'll see these stories in my books, or parts of these stories in the books.
07:08No, I was laughing when you were, I didn't want to interrupt you, but I was laughing when
07:14you were talking about getting these guys talking.
07:16I have a lot of military in my family.
07:21And my grandma's fifth husband, husband number five, was a sniper in Korea.
07:28He was at that Yalu River disaster.
07:30And he, one, when he died and was buried, he didn't want military nothing.
07:37I mean nothing.
07:39Not even a flag.
07:41Nothing.
07:41Strict instructions.
07:43And we followed them.
07:44I was there, I know.
07:45But he would never, ever really talk about any of that until he was at least a case and
07:51a half of beer in.
07:52Like, it was, like, there's a couple snippets on, like, Sunday at beer 25 for about a half
08:01hour of lucidity.
08:02You'd get a good, solid, like, tight 20 minutes about that situation.
08:08And so I was laughing when you said that, because, like, I, yeah, I know that very well.
08:13But I also was really touched.
08:15I, he had never really been to Washington, D.C., and I went several times in high school,
08:20and I did a whole photographic tour of the Korean War Memorial, and he was still alive
08:24at the time.
08:25And I went back to Arkansas, where he lived, and showed him the pictures.
08:29And I, I've never watched a grown man who works, has worked construction his whole life,
08:35grew up six children in the Depression in Arkansas before they had power and electricity,
08:40because the TVA hadn't been built yet.
08:42And all this, I mean, this man was just very, very tough as nails, dude, sort of thing.
08:47They literally break down and say, oh, my God, they remembered us.
08:51Yeah, Ken, they did.
08:52There's, there's a moment where people visit.
08:53It's in Granite.
08:54It's in Washington.
08:55Yes, yes, yes, yes.
08:56They've, they've built the whole thing.
08:58You know, and he was like, oh, wow, they remembered us, sort of thing.
09:00And he was just so touched by it.
09:01He didn't even go.
09:02He just saw the pictures of the eye had gone.
09:04So, yes, I was, I was just laughing all the time, you know, all the relatability and,
09:11and, and that, you know, relating, for some reason, I don't know why, but for some reason,
09:18men in the military love to tell me about weird or terrible things that they have done.
09:23I don't know why, but they do.
09:25Flying is terrible because I'm just kind of like, okay, we have four hours to get to Los Angeles.
09:30Tell me everything.
09:30Um, and, um, it's, and I just, the things that you've heard, but that, that feeling not
09:36to dwell on that, but to get to your point of the, um, you know, never getting over certain
09:42things, um, you know, and especially for some of my, my generation of people, my age who
09:50were Iraq and Afghanistan for them, I was always shocked by the horror, not even the horrors
09:56they did, the horrors that they saw the locals doing that was just beyond everything, you
10:03know?
10:04And, um, and it was, uh, you know, it was, it's all, it's always been quite shocking.
10:10And I, I have this short story I want to finish writing called My Tin Soldier Boys, where I
10:14write about all these stories that I've heard of the years have gone by and along the way.
10:18So I think, and so there was just so much of what you just said that I would just touch
10:21me in a very deep way and reminded me of a million different conversations with dozens of
10:25different people.
10:26And it's amazing that you've taken your experiences from your time and your friends and put them
10:33into something the rest of us can read and get together with.
10:36So that's, you know, and I think that's absolutely amazing.
10:41And I think a very important, um, narrative shift about Vietnam.
10:46Talk about a war with a muddy narrative.
10:55That's a tough one.
10:57Well, I don't mean to talk about it as in you need to pontificate.
10:59I'm just saying that war has a muddy narrative and I feel like maybe you're doing your own
11:03part to rehab it in its older years.
11:07Well, one thing, I guess what I would say about it is these stories that many of the, there's
11:17two types of stories I've read put out by other authors, the nonfiction, O'Brien Caputo were
11:24the two of the best, but the average guy, uh, writing his Vietnam memoirs.
11:30Uh, and a lot of them are officers and whatnot.
11:34When you read them, they almost read like an after action report or a newspaper report.
11:40Yeah.
11:41It's, it's, it's, it's nonfiction and they, they, whether consciously or unconsciously avoid
11:48the deep psychological questions and thoughts and feelings that, that, um, are so involved
11:56with something like that.
11:57Uh, on the other hand, the guys that I'm reading that are writing the fiction stories are writing
12:02war stories, period, end of subject.
12:07And I actually had a, uh, at one time an interest, uh, with an agent who had, uh, gained the interest
12:16of a major publishing house in New York.
12:19And after they read the manuscript and got back with her, essentially they wanted me to
12:26gut half the book about the, the female protagonist who was her thing was, she was going off to,
12:33uh, Nashville to try to become a country music singer.
12:37But my whole thought on this thing is no one goes to war by themselves.
12:44They've got families, they've got wives, sisters, brothers, what, you know, um, mothers and those
12:51people suffer along with them.
12:53And so every book I write about Vietnam has a strong secondary protagonist.
13:00Some of them are Vietnamese, uh, some of them are nurses, some of them are just the person
13:06back home.
13:07And, uh, that was important to me.
13:09And then I actually, my Vietnam series, uh, is divided into two different series now during
13:16the war and post-war.
13:18Uh, three of them, uh, birdhouse man, uh, Rayford's MVP and, um, Miss Molly's, uh, final mission
13:27are stories that mostly take place after the fact.
13:32Like, uh, birdhouse man, actually much of the Vietnam experience is told in there, but
13:39it's by a old veteran who's a professor.
13:42And, um, Rayford's MVP, the first six chapters take place in Vietnam, but the remainder of
13:52the entire book is this guy dealing with post-traumatic stress.
13:55And as many of the veterans told me, um, not sure what I can say here, but I laughed my, uh,
14:02butt off.
14:03How's that reading this?
14:05He said, I never thought I would, but I saw myself in it and, uh, the, uh, so Rayford's
14:15and, uh, Miss Molly's is just a, a, a love story.
14:18Basically it's, it's, it's about a, uh, former, uh, pilot Vietnam who goes to Central America
14:25and, um, tries to rescue some missionaries that have, uh, are trapped in a mountain village.
14:32Anyway, the others actually take place.
14:35Gamora, Melody Hill, uh, Valley of the Purple Hearts, uh, those are in the, um, what I call
14:42the heart of, heart of the soldier combat in Vietnam, I think is the name of the series.
14:46Um, those are actual, take you from, uh, the beginning to, and all of them do include
14:54some post-war.
14:56Now, you know, the, you know, the soldiers don't just come home and go away like they
15:00do in probably 98% of every war story, fiction war story you read out there now.
15:06Yeah.
15:07Um, so I guess I'm a big, uh, what I'm saying is, uh, believer in, in focusing on, on the
15:18entire experience, not just, uh, okay, we were in a battle and we really shot up the world.
15:24No, no, that's not the way the soldier even thinks.
15:28He's thinking about home half the time.
15:29He's thinking about that girl somewhere, whether it's in Vietnam or whether she's a nurse or
15:35whether she's at home, wherever.
15:36And then after the war, like I said, they don't just go away.
15:41No, I mean, I think, you know, and we know this from history back to antiquity.
15:48Um, nothing changes of society faster than conflict, even if you don't lose, if you end
15:55up with a draw where nothing really happened, you know, nothing really moved or you end
16:00up, you know, winning.
16:02It still has a profound change on society.
16:06Um, and I mean, sometimes we, we know it because it was so large, like world war one, you know,
16:12you don't kill 5 million people without having any major effect on society.
16:16And it did, um, economically, socially, everything.
16:21Um, and, and there are some people for whom, um, you know, that's, that's going to be the
16:29significant thing of, of their life and through injury or something else, they're going to
16:34need to be cared for and looked after for a very long time thereafter.
16:38Um, and then there are still others who come back and, you know, join the workforce and
16:44build a business or build a career or whatever have you.
16:47And sometimes I feel like they maybe need some looking after too, because they look fine,
16:51but aren't maybe not always.
16:53Um, that is so true.
16:55They compartmentalize.
16:56I have, I have at least one, I know I have several friends who have gone all through their
17:02lives and they were in the thick of it.
17:07Look, everything was great for them.
17:10They went through life, got into their later years in their sixties.
17:15Normally, all of a sudden it hits them like a hammer.
17:19Uh, I have one guy, uh, two of them this way, when both of them were, saw a lot of, one was
17:26a Marine and one was a, uh, army officer.
17:29And, and both of them in later years, I, matter of fact, one was a former boss, uh, that I
17:36had, uh, when I was working at FedEx and he was, uh, well thought of high level, uh, executive
17:44management.
17:44And, uh, you would have never, the only way I knew it was, was his box in his office with
17:52about 10,000 medals.
17:54I said, my God, and, uh, just cool, level-headed.
17:59And even he later told me, he said, never had a problem until I got in my sixties.
18:05And same thing with the Marine, two purple hearts.
18:08He came back.
18:08He was a union representative in Detroit, uh, for, or in Michigan for a long time.
18:14Um, and, um, then he owned a, um, uh, gunsmithing and a sporting goods shop and said he never
18:20had a problem.
18:21Got into his sixties.
18:22It hit him like a hammer.
18:24Yeah.
18:25And that's, um, yes.
18:28And so, so, but yeah, we do always kind of feel like this is, and I, I, you know, even
18:32see it, um, you know, now as we, um, especially with our more recent conflicts, because they were
18:40so long, I mean, I, I, I about died of laughter one time when someone remarked, we were in
18:46Afghanistan for so long that a young man's father had been at the same base that his son
18:53was now also serving because we had been there for so many years.
18:56Um, which I thought was, you know, absolutely hilarious.
18:59And I think people, um, hilarious, but dark comedy.
19:03Um, and that, uh, yeah, yes.
19:06Hilarious, but in a dark comedy way.
19:08Um, and that, um, and all the, all the ways in which, even though the military represents
19:13only 1% of our population, you know, these people are, are around.
19:17I used to work at a fashion magazine.
19:19One of our photographers is on the bomb squad in Iraq and has been blown up more times, I
19:25think, than any human being should.
19:27Um, and it is a little, you know, a little giant beekeeper suit.
19:31Um, and, um, and sort of the end, the, the, you know, the trauma of, you know, driving
19:36along and blowing up and his job was to try to stop that from happening and all this sort
19:40of thing, a very difficult, um, very difficult things.
19:44There are some really good books about Iraq and Afghanistan, and I am looking forward in
19:4820 years about getting some more.
19:50Um, and so I, I, but I, I want to return to, to you and, and your own process because you're,
19:56everything you're saying just reminds me of so many things.
19:57Anyway, back to process.
19:59You are very prolific.
20:01I'm impressed.
20:02You're very prolific.
20:03How, how do you crank it out?
20:05How do you get out so much material?
20:08I say I'm very slow and very methodical and I do.
20:13Well, the books are piling up.
20:14So whatever it is you're doing is working.
20:16I normally only do one a year.
20:19Uh, the first thing is their historical military picks.
20:23I, I research, research, research, research.
20:26Uh, and that's one of the things that, uh, a lot of my readers are veterans and they,
20:32that's quite often when I get a review that they say they appreciate the accuracy of the
20:38weaponry, the, uh, soldiers, uniforms, the things they carry to use an O'Brien term, uh,
20:46the, uh, uh, reality of, and, and frankly, it wasn't a, it wasn't a big stretch for me.
20:52I trained extensively for a solid year thinking I was still going to go.
20:58Yeah.
20:59And, uh, matter of fact, the, uh, my buddies, they're, they're, they were relentless.
21:06They called me the most highly trained cherry they ever knew.
21:11And, uh, um, but, uh, yeah, it's wait, wait, you, you know, all the equipment, you know,
21:19all the tactics you've been there, you've trained for it.
21:22Um, Tiger Ridge at, um, um, Fort Polk, extremely realistic jungle style training.
21:32Um, and, um, after you've tripped a few of those, uh, artillery simulators, you were essentially,
21:41you know, they put a red tag on you and say, you're dead.
21:43You know, thank God it was just an artillery simulator, but your ears are ringing.
21:47And you can't hear them.
21:49Yeah.
21:50You kind of know, you got a feeling for what it was like probably to trip a booby trap for real.
21:56Except you didn't get perforated with shrapnel.
21:58Uh, no, I do love, I know I, but I love that though.
22:05I mean, I, I also write historical fiction and I obsessively research.
22:11So I love that discipline.
22:13Um, but it does slow you down cause it takes time to get all of that and get it right.
22:19And, um, and so I, I definitely, I, I appreciate, I appreciate that.
22:25I had written a story about, um, nuclear weapons manufacturing in Colorado at this facility called
22:35Rocky Flats.
22:35And this, one of my friends' dads had read the story and he's like, so when did you work
22:41in that industry?
22:42And I'm like, I never have that facility closed when I was three years old in 1991.
22:47And he's kind of like, how did you know all that?
22:50I'm like, I am autistic and have an internet connection.
22:54I read obsessively.
22:55Like, yes, I did look up to find out what exact kind of welding that they use in nuclear
23:01manufacturing.
23:02And I learned all about all the different types of welding and what chemicals, fortunately,
23:06I also used to work at an auto shop.
23:08So I did know something about welding.
23:09Um, in fact, I, I actually had welded my own exhaust one time under the careful management
23:13of my master mechanic German boss.
23:15But, um, I was like, no, no, I just research.
23:19I just read extensively and made sure that I had the manufacturing process for a W88 nuclear
23:26warhead that usually goes in a missile down to its exact components.
23:29Um, no one from Iran read my book.
23:30Um, it, yes, no, but I love that, that level of research and, and getting it right in every
23:37tiny detail and all this type of thing.
23:40That's very good.
23:41Well, a lot of, a lot of folks will ask me too, how did you actually know what the weather
23:46was like?
23:46I said, well, we did training exercises in places like Panama.
23:51Panama, I can tell you, Panama is a whole lot like Vietnam.
23:56Uh, absolutely.
23:58And, uh, you know, you know exactly what you're dealing with as far as leeches, mosquitoes,
24:05snakes, uh, uh, monsoon rains, all of that, you know, very real.
24:10I've, I've, I've sat in a foxhole with water up to here, muddy water.
24:18You got a poncho on, but it's floating on top of water.
24:21So I mean, I know, I know the feeling, you know, but, uh, yeah, there, there's a, there's
24:27a line that these guys crossed.
24:28They call it, uh, you know, looking the beast in the eye and, um, it's very real and I've
24:35heard them talk about it and, uh, that's where your writer's, what would you call it?
24:44Your writer's ability comes into play.
24:47You've got to try to recount the things they're saying.
24:50Matter of fact, a lot of the things they would talk about, but I actually heard it myself
24:54were bullets cracking past their ears.
24:56Well, I actually heard that a whole lot and, uh, um, things of that nature.
25:02They talk about, uh, uh, a mortar round going off, but they would be in the hole where they
25:07wouldn't catch any shrapnel, but the concussion would get them and they couldn't hear.
25:12Well, I've actually had that with those artillery simulators.
25:15They, they were supposed to be buried in the ground, but the, at least one of them got me
25:21was the, the, the, the pin from the trip wire didn't come out.
25:28It pulled the artillery simulator out of the ground and I'm sitting there kicking it off
25:32my foot when it goes off.
25:36So, uh, that, uh, that was a fun thing.
25:40Um, not never, never, um, no, that's, that's quite, yeah, there's all, one of the things
25:47I love about, um, that level of detail in writing is how much, um, how, how it's those small details
25:58that make it very realistic.
25:59And you, you have to be careful with them cause you can make it too much and it becomes
26:04very tedious for the reader.
26:05Um, but picking the right ones that really add that just extra teaspoon of realism, that's
26:15what makes for great, absolutely great writing.
26:18I don't know if you were going to go here, but when you talk about that, I've read, oh,
26:24so many authors and even some well-known, uh, authors who are well thought of get off in
26:35the weeds with pages and pages of ridiculous detail.
26:41And I found one, he doesn't even write in a genre I really care for, but the guy is just
26:48freakishly good.
26:49James Lee Burke.
26:50He writes detective or private, private eye novels in, um, take place in Southern Louisiana,
27:02New Orleans, and all the way across, you know, in the Bayou country.
27:07That man will start telling his story and he's telling his story.
27:13And the whole time you don't realize it, he's painting a picture.
27:17You see the, the, uh, Spanish moss hanging from the trees and he's still telling his story
27:24and you see the, the, the misty rainfall in that morning and dripping from the cypress
27:29trees.
27:30You see gators slivering off the bank into the water and he never stops writing his story
27:37the whole time.
27:39And that's, that's, that's, I think that is the one thing that I get a lot of, um, positive
27:45feedback from writers.
27:46I mean, from, uh, readers and, and their reviews is the realism of the, without stopping the
27:53story.
27:54And I think that's the key.
27:56No, I mean, you, you do have to strike that balance and keep things moving along while,
28:02um, while, while, while also providing important bits of detail along the way.
28:09It's a, it's a, I was having a discussion with a friend the other day.
28:12It's a very hard thing to balance out.
28:15Um, and, um, and it's a very, um, it's, it, it, it definitely, you have to pick your, what
28:23you're going to stick with, you know, very carefully.
28:26But if you get it right, it makes for very powerful writing.
28:30Um, and I, I had an experience, um, I did, I completed my, my MFA a couple of years ago
28:37and I, my project I worked on in that program, I unfortunately for a year had an advisor who
28:44was a Cuban man from South Florida and who'd never seen Gone with the Wind.
28:49And I was writing Downton Abbey set in the Antebellum South.
28:53And so he's asking for every little tiny detail that I'm kind of like, literally, if you go
29:00watch Gone with the Wind, you will not have 90% of these questions.
29:04Like I'm, you know, I've got out my 1851 cookbook to describe every single dish, every
29:10morsel of food, every bit of, because he has no mind conception of the South in 1850.
29:17And so I switch advisors at one point and, um, and the next lady comes along who actually
29:26does have a cultural consciousness of the Antebellum South.
29:29And she's like, there's an excess amount of description, half of this needs to go.
29:33And I said, yeah, I've spent the last year stuffing more in unnecessarily, in my opinion,
29:39um, to please someone who just doesn't have anything in his head, nothing culturally to
29:45draw from sort of thing about this.
29:48And she's like, yeah, you were not necessarily well served on that.
29:52And I'm kind of like, oh, I know.
29:55It's, um, yeah, that's the challenge with it right now is picking out what details are
30:00interesting and what details are not.
30:04I think you nailed it.
30:05Yeah.
30:06And making things a little bit more stark than they are right now.
30:09That's a little overdone, but yeah, I think you nailed it when you said, find that one
30:14little key element.
30:16I'm sure you said teaspoon and that's exactly what you have to do.
30:19And that's what a lot of people say, uh, or I've had said several times is no one else
30:26would know about that.
30:28Yes.
30:29Yeah.
30:30Yeah.
30:30A little detail that they bought in.
30:33And that, that's, and that's what it really takes, um, is that little detail that makes
30:38it very, very real.
30:39Um, and the, and, and in order for it to work, there can't be too much of it, which, you know,
30:45which is always a fascinating, a fascinating thing and a hard, you know, balance to balance
30:52to strike.
30:52Like, and I think what for me is always exciting is when people kind of light up about it and
30:59they're telling you about it and you're like, oh yeah, that's when this, you know, became
31:03really real for you sort of thing.
31:05That's, that, that's always a cool moment to, to hear about and everything.
31:10So, yeah.
31:12Um, so let's also keep, let's keep talking about process though.
31:15Um, so are you, uh, are you, uh, do you outline, do you just write it out?
31:21How, how do you go?
31:23That's a good question.
31:24Uh, Cameron, in the beginning, um, when I started writing, um, I just wrote free hand,
31:36whatever came to mind is what came out on the paper and it's more or less stayed with me.
31:42Actually, though, as I get older, I will say, okay, I've got to establish my ending first
31:49because I have written two or three novels that have never seen the light of day because
31:53I didn't know how they were going to end.
31:55And they just kind of went off in la la land and disappeared and just didn't work as a story.
32:01So, yeah.
32:03Uh, I had a really great mentor.
32:07Um, I wouldn't know that if you'd call her a mentor, but we were pretty close.
32:11Uh, she was, uh, uh, um, an English professor at the university of Nebraska and she used
32:17to do their, uh, writer's conference up there every year.
32:20Uh, her name was Johnis Agee and Johnis, uh, she, she didn't take ownership of the term.
32:27Um, uh, I think she had heard it somewhere else, but she hammered it home quite often is let
32:35your characters tell the story, you know, be detailed on who your characters are, what
32:40their emotions are, what their feelings are, um, not necessarily all out on the page, but
32:46know what they are and let them tell the story and then write your story.
32:50She said in this manner, think of yourself as you're driving across the, the United States
32:58at night in your car.
33:00And she said, as far as you can see is into your headlights.
33:05She said, write your story that way and let your characters react and tell you what happens
33:12next.
33:13And I've done that somewhat now.
33:16Uh, I mean, I did it for years with most everything I wrote, but now I'm, I do it.
33:20I do tend to, uh, slightly outline somewhat, uh, not a lot.
33:26Uh, I'll, I'll say, well, in this chapter, I want them to do this and this chapter.
33:29And a lot of times what I'll end up is plugging additional chapters in or changing and say, no,
33:34I don't want that to happen and go off in this direction or something like that.
33:39No, no.
33:40I mean that that's, I, of all the people I've had on this show, um, that's the most common.
33:46I am the opposite, which is why I always ask.
33:48Cause I always, I'm always fascinated by what people say.
33:50I'm the opposite.
33:51I plan obsessively.
33:53And I, I, I, I, in fact, when I teach writing, I teach outlining and even storyboarding.
33:57I plan obsessively.
33:59Nothing happens because I, the way my brain works, if I don't plan it out in advance, when
34:04it comes time to write the prose, I won't know what to do.
34:07Nothing, you know, brain broken, nothing comes out.
34:10Whereas if I can look and say, okay, we're doing this, this, this, and we're going to
34:14write this scene, all this type of thing, then things move much more quickly.
34:18So.
34:19That has a problem for me.
34:21Yeah.
34:22I'll run into dead ends.
34:23Whereas if I had done what you said, I could probably tell my story more effectively or
34:29faster.
34:30No, my, my first novel, I had that problem to just a lot of years of dead ends before
34:38I finally was like, okay, what's, what's the actual story we're trying to tell?
34:41Where are we coming from?
34:42Where are we going?
34:43It sort of thing.
34:44And that, that's when I got absolutely addicted to, to outlining and planning in advance, but
34:50don't feel bad.
34:51You're in the majority.
34:52Um, I'm not sure that's always, uh, the best thing, but okay.
35:00Yeah.
35:00Yeah.
35:01Let's also talk about, um, cover logistics and everything.
35:05Um, how, how do you come together for your imagery and your cover and your branding and
35:10all that sort of thing?
35:12It's very, very, been very slow going.
35:15Um, I actually did very little of any of that in the beginning.
35:20I probably wrote Melody Ill, Gamora and, uh, Valley of, not Rayford's MVP before I actually
35:29ever thought about doing much of anything, uh, as far as marketing or branding or anything
35:36of that nature.
35:37And then I realized that they were just sitting there dead in the water on Amazon and not doing
35:46much and actually up to just, uh, probably a year or two ago, all I ever did was, uh, run a few
35:54Amazon ads period.
35:56Now I did go and, uh, I got invited up to places like John has invited me up to do a little talk
36:02up there, uh, the Nebraska conference one year.
36:05And I got the same thing down in, uh, oh, I don't remember who that was in Florida.
36:11And then, um, my professor there, the one that got me writing at university of Alabama,
36:16had me come back and talk to him, uh, creative writing class.
36:20So outside of that, I mean, I've done a few book signings, you know, but I've done much marketing.
36:27Now, uh, I've actually, um, this, this latest novel is coming out next.
36:35I actually, um, I'm co-authoring it.
36:40Uh, I'm the lead on the writing and the story.
36:44The other person was a, uh, lieutenant, uh, in, uh, Vietnam.
36:50He was a, uh, psychological operations officer in Saigon.
36:55Uh, and that's all he did.
36:58And he, he contacted me and said, I've read a lot of different authors and I was wondering
37:05if you would help me with mine.
37:06And, uh, he said, I, you know, I'd like you to co-author it with me.
37:11And first I said, no.
37:14And, uh, but then I got to feeling guilty.
37:17I mean, this guy needs help.
37:19Uh, he actually, I said, just send me your manuscript and I'll help you with it.
37:23You know, a little bit, but you know, you, you can write it.
37:26Well, when I got the manuscript, I realized it needed a lot of work and I really didn't
37:30want to spend the rest of my life coaching and training like you do.
37:34Uh, it can be very, uh, time consuming and, and, and, and, and, uh, in a tough task.
37:41Matter of fact, I admire and appreciate folks like you who will take the time to do it.
37:45I've done a few of those.
37:47Um, they're just, it's, I don't have the patience.
37:51Um, I guess you would say I'm a type A and I just want to write.
37:55I want to write.
37:56I want to write.
37:56I want to write.
37:57And everything else is a distraction.
37:59That's why I've never marketed.
38:01And, uh, well, it's just so happens.
38:04This guy is a primo marketer.
38:07He's the one.
38:09He said, do podcasts, do this, do that.
38:13And I said, do I really want to do that?
38:16He said, yes, you do.
38:18So here I am.
38:19No, no.
38:20I mean, I, I took it to the other extreme.
38:22I built an entire platform to market my own writing.
38:25So there you go.
38:26Um, so it's a, it's a difficult, uh, it is a difficult thing.
38:32And I, yes.
38:33And I, I, I, I feel you on that.
38:36Sometimes I had an appearance this week for a lovely podcast in Nigeria and I had to do
38:42it at 11 o'clock at night because of time zones.
38:45And it, it was difficult to be kind of like, I don't want to get dressed and put makeup
38:50on at 11, 10 45 at night.
38:53Like, no, but it was, it was really good.
38:56We had a great conversation.
38:57It's one of those, you, you complain about the entire time until you show up and then
39:00you show up and it's great and it's fine and you love it and it's wonderful.
39:03Um, and it was really great.
39:05We had a really great conversation and I, I always love doing international stuff because
39:10they ask tons and tons of interesting questions and their enthusiasm is always fantastic.
39:15Um, and you get enthusiasm you never get when you appear in America and sort of thing.
39:19And so, um, it, yeah, it is, there is definitely two sides to the writing life.
39:25There is the writing and there is the marketing end of things.
39:27I'm trying to rebalance right now towards the writing end of things.
39:31Um, I, part of the poem is I have, I, we produced a book for a client this year about not losing
39:37whose author actually was a doctor in Vietnam at a hospital in Thailand, which is fun.
39:43Um, and, uh, and then I have a book coming out and we have another person in our hybrid
39:49program at soup who has the book coming out.
39:51So I have not had a ton of time to write.
39:53So when you like your wisdom about avoiding some of this is very apt because I haven't really
39:59worked on new fiction or anything in a hot minute.
40:03Um, because of, of being kind of stuck in other people's projects.
40:07So I'm trying to rebalance as well, because I have several, I would say like, you know,
40:14sort of half done things that either have problems and I need to sit down and fix them.
40:22Or in the case of one, I just need to sit down and finish it.
40:25There's no problem.
40:27Just finish it or anything.
40:28So, um, it is definitely, I would say in any writing community, any group, you always have
40:33that difficulty of balancing writing versus marketing and especially, you know, a lot
40:40of us can't afford to be right full time.
40:44That's not hardly a viable business model anymore.
40:47So we're also usually working as something else.
40:50Um, and so it is definitely hard to find the time, space, and energy to do all of it sort
40:59of thing.
40:59So I was amazed at what you have done.
41:02Uh, I went through your website and prepped, uh, and look at, Oh my heavens.
41:09How does this man, when does he sleep?
41:12You know what?
41:13Honest lately, I didn't, I know very seriously.
41:18I didn't for a very long time.
41:19Um, and in the last couple of years, I've gotten myself into a very nasty case of post
41:25COVID fatigue slash burnout.
41:27And so I, I've, I finally have slept, you know, and also getting nearer to 40 than not.
41:35And it's starting to show the, the, the, I mean, when I was 25, I would work all day,
41:42um, go to the gym, keep up a four day a week gym schedule, go out at night, host an event,
41:48go to bars after it's get up and do it all over again.
41:51That is not even possible anymore.
41:53I'm like, I could do one of those things now pick one of those things.
41:57Um, and so, well, unfortunately, unfortunately for me, I got really used to that cadence and
42:02pace of life where it's like, if I was awake, I was doing 50 things at once.
42:07And, um, that all kind of came to a grinding screeching halt a couple of years ago.
42:15And, and so, yeah, it, it, so there's definitely been a lot of rebalancing.
42:20Things are going to take a lot longer.
42:22Um, some stuff has to get let go, you know, sort of thing, you know, it just, all the priorities
42:28have to shift because I'm, I'm used to doing it all and the body just won't do it anymore.
42:33And I find that endlessly frustrating, but I have to live with it.
42:39Yeah.
42:40Yeah.
42:40And that's, that's something that, uh, I think the medical community is now figured out that
42:47they've, they've really, really pushed the importance of, um, exercise and it is important.
42:55Okay.
42:55I agree a hundred percent, but sleep is almost equally as important.
43:01And they've started to figure that out.
43:04Uh, these folks that brag about, oh, I only have two hours of sleep a night.
43:09Yeah.
43:10Well, I can tell.
43:12No, no, no.
43:13Very seriously.
43:13And for a long time, I lived on five hours of sleep.
43:17I mean, the first time I went to grad school, I was in grad school full time.
43:20I was running my first magazine full time.
43:22And I also was literally running a party house.
43:25Like literally the party was at my house sort of thing.
43:29Um, and I slept for maybe three or four hours a night for about two and a half years sort
43:33of thing.
43:34Um, I mean, I didn't even start prioritizing sleep in my life till I was in my early thirties.
43:39It was like, that was just the pace of life that I was, you know, I was used to going and
43:44moving at and my brain would still love to move at that pace.
43:48The body is like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no.
43:52That's no longer a thing.
43:53Um, and so no sleep rest and recharging is absolutely important.
43:59And what's, I think, amazing now is we found out, um, you know, every major chemical that
44:07controls how things work, hormones, thyroid, blood pressure, every, all the big major stuff
44:12that all gets fixed during sleep.
44:16And if you're not getting enough sleep, everything else is screwed up.
44:21Um, and yeah.
44:23And it's so as, you know, as someone who, you know, was like, oh, you know, hell yeah.
44:29You know, yeah.
44:31It's like, you know, if you, you know, don't bother sleeping, hand me another Red Bull type
44:35of situation and lifestyle.
44:37Um, and quite frankly, enabled by a lot of, um, vets from Iraq and Afghanistan who were
44:43the same attitude.
44:44We're like, we don't need sleep.
44:45We'll just buy another case of monster sort of thing.
44:47Um, yeah, that definitely was, uh, it was definitely, I mean, learned the hard way that
44:53you don't eventually that sleep debt, that sleep bill has to be paid.
44:59And it's going to manifest in ways that are extremely unpleasant.
45:05And yeah, it's actually quite, quite important.
45:09So it's, um, yeah, it, it, it's a, it's a very difficult, very difficult thing.
45:17Um, I thought you were about to say something.
45:22I didn't have a question for it.
45:23I'm so sorry.
45:24Um, but, uh, we're coming close to the top of the hour.
45:27Thank you for visiting CameronJoll.com.
45:29Um, I wanted to ask the kind of, as a final question, um, this is the part of the show
45:34where we do plugs.
45:35So why don't you let us know where we can keep up with you on social media, where we
45:39can find you online and where we can buy your many books.
45:41As I said, I've never, uh, or marketed very much at all.
45:47So it's, I'm kind of behind the curve.
45:50Uh, I like all the, uh, aging people.
45:53I'll say it just to be nice, uh, referring to myself.
45:56The only, uh, no, I do, I think it's Facebook and Instagram.
46:01Uh, I don't, I don't think I have any other, I don't do X or any of these others.
46:06I mean, I'm on them, but I don't do them on LinkedIn.
46:10I don't, uh, uh, the, I do have a website and I do, uh, try to put out a newsletter.
46:19Uh, in theory, it was going to be once a month.
46:21It's not quite hit that goal yet.
46:24Um, and, but you can look at, uh, all my books and my blogs or I call blog newsletter,
46:33whatever, um, at www.rickdestephanes.com.
46:37Um, the, uh, um, all the books are on Amazon right now, although I am currently considering
46:49going wide with my Western series.
46:51I do a historical Western saga called the Rollins Saga, which begins at the end of the
46:58American Civil War or near the end of the American Civil War in 1864.
47:02And, uh, takes you out on the Oregon Trail.
47:05And instead of going all the way to California, they turn north and go into Montana.
47:10Uh, that's an interesting story too.
47:12They go to Paradise Valley and, uh, someone, uh, picked up my book, the first book, the first
47:19Rollins book and read it and said, ah, this is a knockoff of, uh, Yellowstone.
47:24And, uh, of course you don't respond, but, uh, only problem was my book was written at least
47:33two years before Yellowstone ever came out.
47:37Uh, yeah, but the similarities are so uncanny striking.
47:42Um, no, I, that, no, I, I get that.
47:46That happened to me once.
47:48Um, uh, there was a movie with Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts called August Osage County
47:53that had come out.
47:54And I was, I'd gone to a conference to pitch agents on an all about my grandmother's life
47:59called a Plains Girl that takes place in Eastern Colorado on a farm.
48:02Um, and, um, I about broke down in tears when I do my 90 second, well, not quite a 90 second,
48:09maybe 45 second pitch.
48:11And the guy doesn't even look up from his phone and just says, congratulations, you wrote August
48:16Osage County next.
48:18And I almost burst out, I almost burst out in tears to be kind of like, yeah, I realized
48:23that that movie just came out, but I've been working on this for three years before that
48:28movie came out and it's not done.
48:30So it'll come out well afterwards.
48:31But that's, I mean, yeah, that's, yes, that's how people, people definitely are.
48:37But, um, well, excellent.
48:39Well, if that, if you want to keep up with you, then, uh, they can head over to your website.
48:42We'll link it in the, in the description and everything.
48:45Um, so yeah, this has been a delightful conversation.
48:48So thank you so much for coming on the Cameron Journal podcast.
48:51Thank you for what you do, Cameron.
48:53It means a lot.
49:01That's all for this episode of the Cameron Journal podcast.
49:09Thank you so much for listening.
49:11Visit us online at CameronJournal.com.
49:14We're on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
49:18And I love to talk to my followers and listeners.
49:20So please feel free to, uh, get us on social media at Cameron Cowan on Twitter.
49:25And we'll see you next time on the Cameron Journal podcast.
49:28We'll see you next time on the Cameron Journal podcast.
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