- 9 hours ago
Today, I’m stepping into a different kind of circle. I sat down with Mathius on Reverse Your Thinking to explore the intersection of identity, storytelling, and how we can practice better narrative stewardship during life’s big transitions.
We dove deep into nervous system awareness and the importance of honoring nuance in our digital lives. If you’re looking for a conversation that moves beyond traditional frameworks and into the heart of purpose, I’d love for you to join us.
Tune in LIVE today at 3:00 PM PST. :microphone2: Listen here: https://www.kmet1490am.com/
We dove deep into nervous system awareness and the importance of honoring nuance in our digital lives. If you’re looking for a conversation that moves beyond traditional frameworks and into the heart of purpose, I’d love for you to join us.
Tune in LIVE today at 3:00 PM PST. :microphone2: Listen here: https://www.kmet1490am.com/
Category
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CreativityTranscript
00:00She lives in a lovely neighborhood. If you live there, they say you're living good.
00:09Pretty lawns with fancy landscapes. She stares ahead with a blank gaze.
00:17In her lovely neighborhood, where the living is good.
00:24And welcome back to Reverse Your Thinking. It's my pleasure this week to introduce you to Cy Marie Johnson.
00:33She is a polymathic creative, she'll explain what that means, and ceremonial advocate based in the Pacific Northwest,
00:40where she treats storytelling as both archive and restoration.
00:46Her work spans published literature, podcasting, digital space curation, and mythic stewardship,
00:52always centering dignity, nuance, and legacy.
00:57She is known for transforming everyday exchanges into transmission entries that honor lineage, emotional literacy, and regional truth.
01:06Through her creative and advocacy work, she cultivates relationships and narratives that reinforce sovereignty, clarity, and restorative impact.
01:15Cy, thank you so much for making the time to join us this afternoon.
01:18Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
01:20Terrific. Maybe the best place to start is for you to give our audience a little bit of a background on you.
01:27Like, where did you grow up? Where did you go to school? What were your influences?
01:31What got you from wherever you began to where you are now?
01:36Well, that's quite a journey.
01:39So, I was born in Eugene, Oregon, and I'm in my 40s, so I was born in the 80s.
01:46So, I lived in Oregon most of my life up until I was about 11 years old, and then my mom moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
01:56And the reason why that happened was because she wanted to be closer to her mother, and my grandmother was in the country music circuit.
02:06And she, you know, she'd been in some small-time kind of showgirl stuff, and when my mom was younger and things like that, it ended up making her way to Music City, and my mom just wanted to be closer to her mom.
02:21So, we moved there, and of course, this was very much a culture shock moving from West Coast to, you know, to Nashville.
02:29It is a cool city for different things, I will say that, but we moved there the summer of 95, and I lived between Nashville and Alabama and Florida for like 15 years.
02:44So, that gave me a lot of, you know, different kind of experience to, I guess you might say different diversity in how the country looks in different places and how people are and stuff like that, which was cool.
03:01However, in other ways, I really missed being, you know, in the Pacific Northwest, I missed there being an ocean and a beach and all those kinds of things that you don't really have in Tennessee.
03:13So, as I was older, I decided to, you know, come back to Oregon, and that was in like 2014.
03:22Little did I know, at that time, it was a perfect choice I had made, because my dad, maybe like a year later, he took ill, and he passed away in 2022.
03:36So, I got to spend like, yeah, I got to spend like eight years when I moved back with him, though, and he got to be a pretty good part of my kids' mind live.
03:47So, that's kind of like where, you know, a little bit of the move around, but as I was doing these things, obviously, I also got married, I had children, I went to college, and what propelled me towards writing, I honestly was kind of always a writer.
04:08Like, I've always been a little bit of a storyteller, since I was a little girl, and I was highly, my biggest hero and influence is Anne Rice, so I was highly inspired by her, and I was reading her probably long before I should have been.
04:23A little anecdote here, my mom was a pretty big Anne Rice fan, and in the early 90s, when Interview with the Vampire first came out, we went and seen it.
04:34And she had several, like, she had the entire Mayfair Witches series, and she had several out of the Vampire Chronicles.
04:44So, after I seen the movie, I was like, addicted, I was like, I have to have more.
04:49And she was like, well, I don't know if you should read her books yet, you might not be old enough well.
04:55I didn't care what she said.
04:56So, she had a shelf with all of her books, and I'm talking, like, V.C. Andrews, Stephen King, like, all of the greats.
05:07And I was like, oh, Anne Rice, okay, Vampire Lestat, I'm taking that, and this one, and that one.
05:16But, and I was a speed reader.
05:17So, I took them, and it was one day in the summer, and I took them when she had went to work early in the morning, like, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock in the morning.
05:26And she got home that afternoon at, like, 6 o'clock.
05:30I had already done read them, and they had already put back.
05:34Okay.
05:34So, she never even knew until finally she did catch me with Queen of the Damned.
05:39And so, yeah, that was, that was kind of where the influences of all the stories came from.
05:46I just was very enthusiastic about books, and my parents were very encouraging of reading and literacy and going to library and stuff like that.
05:55So, I was reading way beyond my age by the time I was, like, 8, 9 years old.
05:59I was reading adult books.
06:01I was just pretty advanced.
06:02And even at that time, I can remember being in, like, the 4th grade and writing, like, short stories or trying to attempt screenwriting in my journals and diaries.
06:14And, you know, it was just, like, what I considered stupid notes or doodling or whatever.
06:19But as I advanced with life, I continued doing it.
06:22And when I got into English in high school, I was actually referred to a program.
06:27They were like, we feel like you should go into honors English, and you should do all these things.
06:30Well, some, a little bit more of my background.
06:33Because I was from the West Coast, I was kind of an oddball out down there.
06:38And I moved to a town where a lot of students in my high school were more privileged to me.
06:44They lived in, like, gated subdivisions and communities while I lived in, like, a trailer park.
06:49So, knowing that, even though I was super talented and I loved storytelling and I was really gifted with English,
06:55a lot of the girls that bullied me were in the advanced honors classes.
07:02Okay.
07:02And I didn't, I was already at the top of my class in my regular English class, and I did extra credit just because I liked to storytell.
07:09Like, I would do stuff because it was fun to me.
07:12And so, where I had, like, 108 average, and she goes, you know, I have to, you know, I can only give you 100.
07:18But it didn't matter because she was ready to recommend me, and they meant, they did this meeting and everything to give me commendations to go to honors English.
07:26And I, I baff, I was baffled, and I was just like, no, no, I don't want to do that.
07:32I just, I don't want to do that.
07:33I'm fine just going to regular English.
07:35And my teacher told me then that I would probably regret that.
07:38Well, in some cases, that was kind of true later.
07:41But in remembering it, the thing that ticked me off the most was when my youngest son, he's about to be 15, when he was 11 months old,
07:52I was a stay-at-home mom and my pregnancy and that delivery was awful.
07:56It was just terrible.
07:57But I was kind of in postpartum depression, and I kind of just had a thought one day of, like, what could I do, like, to be a voice for those who have none,
08:06like, to use the writing skills that I have.
08:08And, you know, I was already writing, like, short stories and doing blogging anyway just because I enjoyed storytelling, as I've described.
08:17And then I had a mentor who stepped into my life, and he got a hold of one of my blogs, and he read it, and he goes,
08:22why are you not making money doing this?
08:24And it really hit me that day.
08:26I was like, and I mean, my first argument to him was, well, I don't have any formal education.
08:31I have not gone to college.
08:33And he goes, well, change that.
08:34Do it.
08:35You know, like, make the difference.
08:37What do you do to get from where you are with this raw talent and refine it to where you can be getting paid for it?
08:44Like, there's got to be a way you can build a bridge here.
08:48And I was like, well, I'm a, you know, I'm a stay-at-home mom.
08:52At that point, Obama was president, and there was all of the different packaging for mothers to go to school.
08:58And he goes, you know, I don't really like this guy for a lot of different reasons, his political beliefs or whatever, but here's what I can tell you.
09:05He still is our president.
09:06That means he's in service to the people.
09:08Here's what he's offering.
09:09You might as well take advantage of it and use it to try to build yourself the American dream.
09:14Just, I mean, you never know what will happen unless you try.
09:17And this person was, like, 50, so, I mean, as he was telling me this, and I'm, like, 26 years old, you know, I was like, you know, maybe you're right.
09:27And I went ahead and decided to start doing some research, and I found the college that I went to twice and got my master's degree from.
09:36But even while I was going to school, I already decided, I don't know, he, like, lit a fire under my butt, you might say.
09:42Anyway, I was like, you know what, I've already got all these tools to my advantage.
09:47I need to figure out what KDP is and self-publishing and how to do this independently.
09:51And I already know how to do designing, and I'm already writing stories.
09:54I already know how to do HTML and web design and blogging and all this other stuff that I saw a lot.
10:01And I was just like, you know, yeah, yeah, let's go ahead and see what we can do with this.
10:07And I found the school I went to.
10:10What school was that?
10:12Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida.
10:15Good.
10:17And I got my first book published, actually, independently.
10:22And it was just a poetry collection because I was just getting, you know, kind of dipping my toes in the pool, if you will.
10:29But, I mean, they were some of my best poems at that time.
10:32So it was like I collected them all together.
10:34I did all the formatting, and I self-published it.
10:37And that was July 2013, and that was actually my second year of my bachelor's degree.
10:44And I ended up getting, you know, a four-year degree in my bachelor's, and then I went for another year and a half to get my MFA.
10:50So I was already kind of writing stories, and I took a lot of the stuff that I had, a lot of short stories, things like that, and I expanded on them.
10:59Right.
11:00So, like, Scarlet is one of those.
11:02So, yeah, that's kind of where my trajectory kind of went from there.
11:06That's cool.
11:07So you mentioned that Anne Rice is one of your heroes, I guess would be a good term.
11:12All right.
11:13One of the interesting things about Anne Rice's work is that it spans a pretty wide bell curve of topics, okay, which is not the norm, especially for fiction writers.
11:24They sort of get known for something, and then they do a lot of versions of that.
11:29But you've been, just like Anne Rice, you've handled many, many different topics, some of which are almost in conflict with each other.
11:38Is there a reason for that, or is it that you just decide to write about things that interest you at the moment?
11:44I mean, I guess in some ways it's a little bit of, you know, showing both sides of an argument.
11:51I am a little bit of an advocate by nature.
11:55I'm an INFJ, so, like, I kind of always have been interested in learning about contrasting topics and then how that intersects.
12:07And a lot of the stuff that I write about is based off of things that have interest me just randomly by interest.
12:14And then, you know, and ideas kind of spawned from that.
12:17In a lot of cases, people will be like, where do you come up with your ideas?
12:20And to be honest with you, Matthias, it's like some of them just come in on their own like a parading elephant parade stomping through, and we're here, and here's what's up.
12:31And other ones, you know, it's a little bit more formulaic.
12:34I've obviously expanded into doing business writing as well, and I have an LLC, and I do ghost writing services.
12:42So I do client-based work, and I do script writing.
12:45So I've kind of expanded into transmedia a lot, too.
12:49And so my storytelling is really based on what inspires me and where's kind of my trending peak interest at the moment.
13:00Gotcha.
13:01Well, you mentioned Simply Scarlet, which is an erotic novel.
13:07Is that the only erotic novel you've ever written?
13:09Um, no, I wouldn't say the other books are necessarily erotica, though, because they have, like, steamy scenes.
13:17Like, if you were looking at spiciness on, like, from one to five, obviously explicit erotica would be five.
13:27A couple of my books are probably three or fours, shying into that.
13:32More romance?
13:33Yes, I do write steamy romance, and I have had several that fall under that.
13:37Okay. And then by the same token, you've got a bunch written on many, many other subjects.
13:44I think there's a children's book or two, or one.
13:47Yes.
13:48And there's also a bunch of books on faith or on metaphysical topics.
13:54And the one you wanted to talk about today is embracing his empire.
13:59Yes, yes.
14:00Okay. So tell us about this book.
14:02So this book is kind of a sci-fi slash almost empirical dystopian story.
14:10It takes place on a fictional planet, and it's been taken over by one group of people whose planet was basically, you know, nuked.
14:21Like, it basically imploded upon itself.
14:23Right.
14:53In the process, a child who happens to be a royal child to the indigenous is taken and stolen by one of, like, the senatorial families that came from this abating force.
15:07Who, I mean, in a way, they're kind of refugee seekers at the same time.
15:10There's, like, kind of that nuance there, you know.
15:12So they come in, and when they take over this space, this baby, they were never ever able to have children, and she's a newborn infant.
15:20So they take her, and they raise her, leaving her to believe all these certain things.
15:26And the reality is totally different, and she's actually very important because she is a royal lineage, one of the few survivors of this, you know, indigenous group of people from the original planet.
15:37Well, that's interesting. I mean, because in real life right now, we have a couple of things that sort of address that.
15:44On the one hand, you have Avatar, which is dealing with those same concepts of colonization of a planet that's already occupied.
15:53And then you also have this whole theme that's going on right now between Russia and Ukraine, where Russia took many Ukrainian children, and now they're reprogramming them to believe that Ukraine is the bad guy, so to speak, in that conflict.
16:10Were those things going on in the real world influences for the book?
16:15Not at the time that I began pinning this work.
16:17However, I will say that things from true history did play into part.
16:22A lot of, like, the Indian schools, for example, taking children from the colonies, sending them to be basically into the missionaries and to be converted into Catholicism or Christian, whatever version.
16:37Sure.
16:37And those different types of things, they definitely played a part.
16:42And, I mean, I'm 27% Native American myself, but also there's that whole European immigrant side of me as well, 73% there.
16:51So, it's one of those situations where I get a lot of the different, again, why the story is nuanced, is understanding basically the humanity of it all within so many different historical inspirations and influences, which Anne Rice did as well, like in Feast of the Saints, for example.
17:12So, it's mostly just to pay homage to all of that history in a way that I feel is more digestible right now.
17:21I got you.
17:22Okay.
17:23But by the same token, you're following Anne Rice's path in the sense that you're writing about a lot of different topics.
17:33Yes.
17:33And I would imagine it also mirrors your own trajectory and your own growth in the directions that you go.
17:41Yes, that is true.
17:42Okay.
17:43We're going to take a short break, but when we come back, I want to talk about polymathic and ceremonial advocacy.
17:50Okay?
17:51All right.
17:52You're listening to Reverse Your Thinking.
17:53I'm your host, Matthias Gertz.
17:55Our guest today, Cy Marie Johnson.
17:57We'll be right back after this.
18:00And welcome back to Reverse Your Thinking.
18:18Cy, just before the break, I said I wanted to talk about polymathic creative and ceremonial advocacy.
18:26I don't, off the top of my head, know what either of those two things mean.
18:29And I'm going to guess that at least one person in my audience doesn't know it either.
18:34So maybe you could elaborate for us.
18:36So polymathic basically just means that I am a very prolific writer, that I have multi-published in lots of different types of transmedia, lots of different formats.
18:47Okay.
18:47Basically all it means.
18:48It's a fancy way of saying it.
18:50And a creative, well, I mean, polymathic.
18:52I've created many different types of transmedia across spectrums.
18:56Okay.
18:56So now ceremonial advocacy is, I take when I do write about the topics that are very serious or I'm doing any kind of advocacy or activism work, which is something I also do a lot of, into perspective.
19:10When I said I, I wanted to become a voice for those who had none of not just like running over and steamrolling the people that I'm actually trying to speak for in a lot of cases, more so trying to elevate their voices, or if they don't have the words for themselves, trying to help them find them as opposed to just being like, I'm here.
19:29I have a loud speaker and here's how it is.
19:31In some cases that may be the truth, if that's what's necessary in that moment.
19:36But in a lot of cases, that's what I feel advocacy is more than anything.
19:39It's helping find those people that are marginalized, bringing them out, making them feel comfortable and safe so that they can speak about what needs to be talked about.
19:48Okay.
19:48And how does ceremonial advocacy pepper your latest work, Embrace His Empire?
19:54Well, I mean, I feel that it's ceremonial and that it's a tribute to all of the things that I talked about that inspired it.
20:00Um, colonialization, uh, genocide, you know, people taking people, lying about who they are, um, disconnecting them from their cultures and just kind of robbing people from their heritage.
20:14It's how it is in and of itself, though a fictional story, it is evidence of something that's happened historically through many multiple generations across tons of lands.
20:25And so if we take the time to look at these stories and actually compare them to reality, hopefully we can learn how everyone is human and how we all kind of, you know, connect so that we can make changes to policies and situations to better all of humanity rather than that domineering kind of personality and that Machiavellian dominance that you were talking about at the start of the show.
20:51I think, I think, I think you're also alluding to the, the whole, uh, male hierarchy of, of politics and relationships and, and so on and so forth, particularly in the West.
21:03Yes, but not entirely.
21:04So there's going to be a sequel to this book and it's embracing his empire to start out with because, you know, she's coming into what is a patriarchal society, but because of who she is in her own influence, she has a lot of great deal of power.
21:20So the next book is claiming her dominion.
21:24And then after that, it's crowned of unity.
21:26I had to make sure that I had them correct.
21:27Cause I have two more books there.
21:29I wanted to make sure I gave you the correct names chronologically, but yes, claiming her dominion.
21:33So if I'm embracing his empire to claiming her dominion, and then obviously summarizing and crowned of unity, it's not so much, you know, I do believe a lot in matriarchy and empowerment.
21:45And, you know, women claiming their sovereignty, which is really on point with a lot of native and indigenous cultures, especially the one my grandfather came from.
21:55So with women having been the predominant leaders in that culture, that is important.
22:02But I also wanted to show how the crown of unity and how this may correlate back to like dominance and submission and things is in a good unit where someone is agreeing on consent, where they respect each other's own autonomy.
22:16It's an, it's a very beautiful, unifying thing when it's one person, just steamrolling over another, taking away agency, demanding loyalty and control.
22:27It changes the dynamics from being something a person enjoys to being a nightmare.
22:32A little bit of a difference.
22:33Yes.
22:34So, so in terms of the series, are you sort of embracing the concept of, of female led relationships in this regard?
22:42And is that sort of where you think you're headed?
22:44Yeah, she's definitely going to be, she started out very young and naive and kind of captive in the beginning.
22:50And now she's growing and now that she's learned more about who she actually is, she's starting to step, but she's going to be stepping into that sovereignty and kind of claiming more of her space as the empress, as the queen, as, you know, I'm not just belonging to this man and all of this.
23:04I am actually the missing piece that was supposed to be here the whole time.
23:07Only reason why it really became patriarchal is because, I mean, they were kind of eradicated by an unexpecting force, an enemy force.
23:16And men had to kind of step up and be strong and powerful and warrior based.
23:22So, yeah.
23:22Kind of some of the same themes in the claiming of Sleeping Beauty series by, by Rice.
23:29Okay.
23:30Yes.
23:31Some, some, some pieces in there.
23:33Gotcha.
23:33You, when, when you wrote Simply Scarlet, my recollection was that that was supposed to be the first book of a series, correct?
23:42That, that, that, that you didn't follow through with.
23:45Oh, well, it's not that it hasn't been, it was delayed.
23:49I had, I went from one publisher to another.
23:52And when that happened because of the past publisher, there were some issues.
23:55Um, I decided to hold back on letting them have the second manuscript until I got my rights back.
24:01And now, actually, with my secondary publisher, we are anticipating there being the sequel, which is Tarnished Turquoise.
24:09And it's about halfway written right now.
24:12So, I do intend on, it will be called the Prism of Lies series.
24:16Um, so I do intend on doing that, but it was mostly just delayed for just different kinds of, uh, issues.
24:25Okay.
24:25All right.
24:26Well, the only reason that I brought it up, the only reason I brought it up was you're talking in terms of writing series of books.
24:32Okay.
24:33You have series now.
24:34You have some books that are, are parts of series.
24:36Correct?
24:37And I'm involved in anthologies as well.
24:40So, I've got a lot, a bit of different types of things.
24:42Gotcha.
24:43Okay.
24:44And, and embracing his empire is, is to be the, um, the anchor for, uh, for a small series.
24:51Yes.
24:51And there's, well, I intend on being a trilogy.
24:54Yes.
24:54It's supposed to be the captive hearts of Prita series.
24:57Gotcha.
24:58Okay.
24:59Um, do you find that you enjoy writing books that are going to be parts of series more than one-offs or standalones?
25:08I am, I mean, for example, one of the books that I'm about to publish probably,
25:13I expect probably around March is does traces never fade, which is the sequel to my, my, the softer side of Texas series.
25:21And that introductory book was of the same title, the softer side of Texas.
25:26Um, when I started writing that, it was a project that I did in 30 days.
25:30It was like 53,000 word book and it's a contemporary romantic suspense.
25:35So when I did it, it was intended to be a standalone, but because so many of my readers liked it.
25:41And once I got my rights back from my former publisher to all the titles they had, um, I took it to my next publisher.
25:49One of the things they said was, do you think you can expand on it?
25:52And so I was like, yes, of course I can.
25:54And does traces never fade is actually on the final editing floor now.
25:58Softer side of Texas.
25:59How many volumes are there in that?
26:01That will be trilogy as well.
26:03That's also a trilogy, right?
26:04But that one's complete.
26:06No, it book two could release this spring.
26:09Okay.
26:09The third book.
26:11No, two.
26:12Second book.
26:13Okay.
26:13So you're, so you're working on multiple trilogies at the same time.
26:18Is, is that normal for your work?
26:20That's part of that polymathic thing.
26:22Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes.
26:24Okay.
26:24I gotcha.
26:25All right.
26:26Let's continue with, with this, uh, after a short break.
26:30Okay.
26:30Yep.
26:31You're listening to reverse your thinking.
26:33Uh, we'll be right back after this.
26:43And welcome back to reverse your thinking side, before the break, we were talking about
26:56series of books and you were talking about the fact that because you're so naturally polymathic
27:02that you like to write multiple series and have multiple projects going on all at the
27:09same time.
27:10How successful have you been?
27:11And how many, how many followers do you have at this point?
27:14Do you know?
27:15I mean, it depends on what platform we're talking about, but generally speaking, I mean, probably
27:21around like 10 K around each one, but I also do, like I said, services related stuff too.
27:27So I have other different types.
27:30I kind of have my eggs in many baskets, if you will.
27:33Do you find that writing, uh, more than any of the other things that you've done speaks
27:38to you in terms of expressing yourself?
27:41Yes.
27:42I love writing.
27:43I mean, I've been expressing myself through storytelling my entire life.
27:47And when I found the ability to write, it just was like, oh, this makes things so much
27:51more easier.
27:52And I really want to advance myself right now.
27:55I'm also creative lead on three podcasts of my own.
27:58Um, and I have a full future script that's been approved by like, with really good evaluation
28:05marks from the blacklist and Buffalo eight studios.
28:09Mostly it's just kind of about finding the right investors and everything to get a film
28:14made.
28:14But those are the kinds of ambitions that I have, like the books and everything.
28:18I love doing them and I still anticipate doing them.
28:21But if I could become like Stephen King where, you know, I'm doing some books and also working
28:24on executive producing or directing and screenwriting and stuff like that.
28:30Those, those are all part of my entire polymathic vision, if you will.
28:35Got it.
28:36So let's talk about that for a second.
28:38What's, what's the title of the screenplay?
28:39Can you tell us?
28:40It's called secrets of the day is kind of like an espionage thriller.
28:46It's centered on a female protagonist who works for the CIA.
28:51Um, and she in covers kind of, um, a little bit of an indoor, it's the calls coming from
28:59inside the house, kind of double agent situation that has to do with, um, a extremely hazardous
29:07biochemical warfare agent and, um, kind of the kind of race to stop terrorists and people
29:15like that from getting it kind of thing.
29:17So it, it, it kind of ties into the societal angst that we're, we're going through of late.
29:23Okay.
29:24And, uh, and how many pages in it?
29:27It's a 90 minute screenplay.
29:2990 minute screenplay.
29:30Okay, great.
29:31Well, we, we wish you the best with that.
29:32We'll, we'll keep, uh, keep an eye out for that coming to a theater near us.
29:37Sometime soon.
29:38Granted, of course, finding, finding the money for, for screenplays is always an interesting
29:44pursuit.
29:45I remember hearing Scorsese, uh, interviewed years ago, stating that he spends 90% of his
29:50time finding the money to make his movies.
29:52So no matter what the level is, everybody's, everybody's looking for funding.
29:57I totally get it.
29:58So in, in regard to, again, in regard to the, the book that you came on to talk about in
30:04embracing his empire, who would you say would be the core readers for something like this?
30:10Oh, well, I mean, anybody who loves like empirical style romances with like, um, I feel like gladiator
30:17because my main male character, he's very kind of Spartan based.
30:23Uh-huh.
30:23That's the best example I can give you.
30:26He, you know, he's your long hair.
30:29If you liked Vikings, Valhalla, if you liked Vikings show, um, if you like the very, they
30:36seem domineering and kind of enemies to lover hate kind of tropes, but then they're actually
30:42a big, soft teddy bear and they're just very protective and they're trying to, in his case,
30:47retain his culture and his people and his tribe.
30:50If that kind of thing is interesting to you, then this story would probably be up your alley.
30:54Okay.
30:55So, so in your opinion, is the book more for women or for men?
31:00Is it for, uh, Gen X or, uh, millennials?
31:04I mean, thoughts?
31:06I mean, it's kind of timeless in the aspect that I feel like it, I mean, I'm more Gen X
31:13and I'm the one that wrote it.
31:15So I feel like people in my age group would like it, but I also have seen some of the
31:20younger things that like, I have a 24 year old daughter, for example.
31:23So she keeps me very abreast of what's popular.
31:26Um, and she's also a big reader.
31:28So, uh, she loves this book.
31:30This is one of her favorite of my actual pin stories.
31:32And, um, she's always told me, yeah, you definitely need to expand it.
31:37It's it, it, as far as gender, it could go for either.
31:40Or if you like those kinds of gladiator fighter warriors, I have some really, you know, good
31:45fighting scenes in this book.
31:46If you're looking for romance or kind of a steamy edge with a little bit, maybe of a mythical
31:52appeal, then, you know, this will appeal to you because there are some elements about
31:57it.
31:57There are beasts of burden that aren't like on earth and things like that, for example.
32:02So it's got a little bit of a mashup where I tried to work in this world to be a, a beautiful
32:11sci-fi gorgeous planet with a lot of different flora and fauna.
32:17And then also emotional elements that could resonate with a lot of different audiences.
32:21When you write this way, um, it sounds to me that like a lot of, a lot of what you write
32:27is, is metaphor for what's happening in society.
32:30In a lot of ways, yes.
32:32It is.
32:33Okay.
32:33It sounds like it.
32:35It sounds like you're taking a lot of elements out of what, what we're experiencing societally
32:40right now and bringing it into your novels.
32:44Yes, definitely.
32:45That's great.
32:46That's great.
32:47How many books have you, have you published so far?
32:4928 of my own.
32:52And I think to date, five anthologies have featured my stories.
32:56Okay.
32:57So 28 books, where is the best place for somebody listening to us to go and find one of your,
33:04one of your books?
33:05Most of them I'm wide, um, on a few of them, they are in KDP, but like, like I'm wide on
33:11most of them.
33:11So you could get them essentially at whatever your preferred bookseller is.
33:15Okay.
33:16Barnes and Noble.
33:17Um, I'm on Amazon, obviously, just about, just about anywhere.
33:23Okay.
33:24In closing, what are some of the themes?
33:26What are some of the themes that are starting to percolate and attract you right now that
33:31you think you'll be writing about in the near future?
33:32Um, well, I've been writing a lot about systematic abuse.
33:37Um, I wrote a short story that I published on medium today, I believe, and it's called
33:42where the pulse ends.
33:44Um, it is loosely inspired by current political events and unrest.
33:48So, gotcha.
33:50Okay.
33:50So if somebody in our audience wants to get ahold of you, either as a ghost writer or
33:55something else having to do with literature or writing or arts or film or any of these
34:01things, what's the best way to get ahold of, uh, of Cy Marie Johnson?
34:06Well, I'm on Meta products.
34:07Um, Facebook is a great place.
34:09I am actually really big on answering my DMs there.
34:12And if you do, you know, message me there, I'll give you my email address so that we can
34:16connect that way because that's what I usually prefer to do.
34:19Um, I have Cy Marie Johnson website and it's got a contact form.
34:23And then of course, obviously Instagram DMs as well.
34:27So yeah, you need those work.
34:29Okay.
34:30So CyMarieJohnson.com?
34:32It's .wordpress.com at this time.
34:35Okay.
34:35And Cy is S-A-I.
34:38Yep.
34:39That's correct.
34:39Okay.
34:40Thank you so much.
34:41This was great.
34:42Okay.
34:43I really appreciate you making the time.
34:45It was a really a pleasure to meet you.
34:47Love the fact that we have Anne Rice in common and I totally expect to see you back up here
34:52when you write your, your next volumes, especially for Simply Scarlet.
34:56Of course.
34:57I would love to go back.
34:58That'd be great.
34:59We'd love to have you.
35:00You take care.
35:01And as I said, we'll see you back here again.
35:03And you, you in the audience, if you're driving home, please be safe.
35:08And when you get there, make sure you give your family a big hug.
35:11And we'll see you right back here next week on Reverse Your Thinking.
35:15Where the living is good.
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