Welcome to Finally Friday with John and Melissa.

In yours, and they're in that. So we've got to get out of that.

Okay.

And then that's in Chrome. I'm in Firefox. I can try DuckDuckGo. I can try this with— what's your login? That's logged in as Phoenix. What's your password? Sounds good.

Super. Yeah, it's fine. Now you gotta do the same thing on yours, right?

Thank you, Lord.

Maybe he's streaming. There's something obviously we need to learn about how to switch the setup.

We just never fucking use Whatever it is, you got to know you this side fucking long. Hello. That was a bloody short one.

Hello, TikTok.

Hello, uh. Instagrams and Xs and Facebook.

Good to see everyone.

Everybody, sorry we're a bit late. We had us a technological hitch, but, um, welcome to Finally Friday. Woo! Good to have you here. Um, so how's your week been? Our week has been good. Um, we've enjoyed it. Um, so yeah.

Yeah. Creativity.

All the creativity abounds. Abounds. Abounds. So, hey, listen on. I hope you guys can see us on Instagram because we're not sure whether or not our camera's working.

Oh, that's a bit better.

Yeah, but they still can't see. Been a moment since I've seen you in my feed. Hello. Good to see. We're still figuring out our cameras. So let's see, kind of weird. Like, if we do it this way, does it turn up better?

No, that was good there, how you had it.

We just gotta sit close.

Be friends.

Be friends. That we are indeed. So, hey, welcome to Finally Friday. The aim of Finally Friday is to have a chat, have a chat about the week, talk about creative things. And talk about life in general. And we'd love to talk to you. Glad you popped up, Coaster. Am I crazy or did you live in Florida? No, I've been to Florida. I've been like Florida, enjoy Florida. And so, yeah.

Love Florida man things.

Man things. So we've had a great, we've had a great week, exciting week in a lot of ways. And so my agent has just started shopping the book out to— the novels out to a range of different places. It's like a list of 17 at the moment of the top-tier people, which is really, really exciting.

So we got through this email from her today and it had a whole list of publishing houses that she had submitted to this week. So that was super exciting for both of us.

It was exciting because it's been a journey. You know, I've written all my life. I've written 32 books and this is the first time I decided I wanted to go out traditionally. And the process has been long. It's a long process publishing a book, particularly if you're trying to get it traditionally published. And so if any of you want to write a book or you're thinking about trying to get it out there, then, you know, I want to encourage you to do it, but don't give up along the way. Yeah, I said 32, brother, 32 nonfiction books. And I've just, I've wrote it 7 years. I've written 5 fiction books. And, you know, Harlan Coben talks about write the first 3 books because the 4th one will be good. And so I thought the 4th one was good. I actually wrote a 5th one and that's the one that got my agent excited. And I think it's because I learned about writing so much.

I think so. I think the past 2 years have been almost like a pressure cooker for you.

Yeah. Learning how to edit, learning how to write, learning how to take critiques. And I think that's all part of the process of being an artist. There's this sense that if you're an artist, then you don't take input from other people. Now, would you say that's true?

Yeah, I think it— well, As artists, we are sensitive. So it's hard to take critiques, but it is part of the process.

I think, I think it is. I think you have to be, you have to be aware of your audience. I think, you know, you, you, you try and stay true to your art, your voice, but you have to be aware that at the other side of it are people that you're wanting to impact and touch with your art, whether it's writing, whether it's drawing, whether it's creating you know, structures, buildings, whatever it is, you're wanting people to, to have that as a sense, um, in, in who you are and what you do.

And sort of interact with your art like they want. You either want them to feel something or understand something that you're feeling, or, uh, be entertained even, or be made to think. But some people are real activists in their art. So I think You, you have an end goal in mind, and I think critiques along the way can help you know if you're accomplishing that end goal.

Yeah. Hey, BJ, good to have you on. BJ's hopped on.

Hey, BJ.

BJ's a great author friend of ours. If you've ever had a chance to look at her books, I'd encourage you to. She's a tremendous author, a great Texas writer.

Her latest one was called Unfavored Children's Club, and I will plug her new book, BJ, could you type the name of it? Because I don't know yet. Yeah, it's coming out in March.

Yeah, it's awesome. So she's a, she's a great— follow her on Instagram and, um, give her a, give her a shout out.

BJ makes the best videos on Instagram about their ranch. They have like this beautiful ranch.

And I think that— let's talk about that a little bit. Let's talk about the creative space.

Oh yeah, so John and I were talking about this a lot this week. We were sort of daydreaming about, okay, if we built a house, because we've never done that, you know, we've never built a space together, um, you know, what would we include and what would we leave out? Um, and so we've been talking a lot about how your space, um, can either input— impact your creativity positively or negatively.

Or drain it.

Yeah. Um, and so like our current house, we We have slowly over, you know, well, I say slowly, over 6 years, that's pretty fast.

Yeah. Um, but not really.

We've updated the whole house and we've, um, sort of made it fit how we want to move through the world. And that means that I have a studio space. John has his writing shed. Um, our living room, we, we didn't mount our TV on the wall. We put it on a rolling thing.

Roller.

Yeah. So it can, it's on a stand and you can just roll it away when you don't want to see it.

And that was that was a decision. It was a deliberate thing because we didn't want television to be the focus of our life. We wanted to be able to look at our artwork that we have hanging on the wall, or we wanted to read, and we wanted it to be such that if we wanted to go and watch TV, it was a deliberate thing. It wasn't an accidental. We've got nothing else to do. We want to sit down and do it. How you going, TikTok? Great to have you on Facebook out there. YouTube. Good to have you. So I think, I think wherever you are in whatever stage of life, I remember living in a house, I had no space and I would shut the door to my bedroom and sit in the toilet on a fold-out table and a chair because I had to make a space where I was free from the kids and free from distraction to write. And so I think if you Whatever it is you wanna do, if you're achieving creativity, you can discipline yourself to do that. But you've gotta have that discipline to do that.

You can, and you can make space even when it seems like there is no space. Like for a minute there, I didn't have an office or a studio in the house and like there was something else in that room. And so I sat at the kitchen table and I had to haul my art supplies out.

Yeah. And actually we had one of the kids come and stay with us and we turned what was your office and studio into their bedroom. And so that was a sacrifice of life. So when we're looking at building this next place, we wanna have studio space, living space, you know, separate studio spaces. Because, you know, she plays music and paints and I sit quietly and smoke tobacco.

He doesn't need noise. And we also wanna have a woodworking shop.

To make frames.

To make things. Like frames. Frames and like maybe little chickens or something. I don't know.

BJ's book is Papa's Gold, due out in February 2027.

Yay, Papa's Gold.

So she's on Instagram. Give her a follow, keep track of her and follow her weird stuff her and her husband Steve-O do out there. So let's talk about the nature of creativity. I've got a mate who runs Silvercrete Structures. Best, best sheds you can get. This is one of their sheds. And if you were to tell him, Al, you're creative, he'd go, in his very like ex-armish way that he does. But Al is one of the most creative guys I know. And he, his craft, his ability to be able to build with wood is phenomenal. And I think creativity is tapping into that side of your brain, your problem-solving side of your brain, where you look at a situation And you come about it in a new way. Like, you can be a plumber, electrician, a mechanic, um, and you can do anything to, um, that taps into that other aspect of who you are, your soul, and create something from it. Wouldn't you agree, dear?

I do. I think anyone who, um, gets up every day, they take their hands, they cause something to come into being that doesn't already exist. I think that is a creative person. You know, they solve a problem that needs solving. That's a creative person.

You know, very much so.

They take a wrench and make something work that wasn't working. That is a creative person.

So any of you out there, do you have anything you'd like to share about your creative spaces or things that you try to do in terms of cultivating creativity? Because we'd be interested to talk about that. Um, I, I know I'm looking forward to going down to BJ's ranch. Mel's doing a commission for her and Steve, and we're looking forward to going down and seeing there. I, I don't know how much time they spend there, but I would imagine going down to that place, um, would be good for your soul.

Yeah, I think anytime I, um, am outside, it's great for my creativity.

And that's what BJ says. BJ says you need A pleasant view.

Yes.

And I think that's part of the contemplation is being able to detach yourself from the world. I think things like making sure you turn your phones off.

Yeah.

You know, if your creativity is something you've got to carve out time for, like an hour or 3 hours or 4 hours or a whole Saturday or something, is deliberately detach from those things that are a distraction. Deliberately detach from those things that are a distraction because that you're literally moving from left into right. Is that the right one? Was it right and the left?

Yeah. Right brain's creative. Left brain.

So moving from left to right, every time you pick up a phone or you answer an email or you scroll, you're engaging that one aspect of your brain. You've got to put it down and put it away and literally get into a detox space. It's okay to turn your phone off. And the other thing is when you pick up things like a book to read them, you're actually tapping into something. You're a participant in a story. You're not a consumer of entertainment. And I, I, I, I'm, I'm not a big fan of electric reading tablets. I understand they're portable and useful. Um, and, but there is something about touching paper. It's just different. It's like they've proven neurologically that having a pen and paper and writing, um, touches different aspects of your brain more than just a keyboard. And I think it's exactly the same for, um, for reading. For reading.

Yeah, I agree. I like the Turn of the page.

Yeah.

You know, um, I, you know, as an artist, uh, painter, I'm very tactile. So I like the smooshiness of the paint.

And that's a technical term.

Yes. Um, and I, I like to, you know, scratch around with crayons or colored pencils or whatever it is. And, um, I like that, the feel of the paper when I read a book.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I think that is, that's part of the process.

I do too.

And let's talk about just, you know, traditional publishing for a little bit. I hear, you know, I'm a part of a writer's group. They move, but we meet once a week or I haven't been for a while. It's a bit strange, but the group's strange.

But Well, you've been busy.

Well, yeah, but the group's strange. But, you know, you go there and you listen to these people talk about they've submitted 1 inquiry to an agent or 2 inquiries to an agent. I don't know when I submitted, I submitted 357 in like a 6 or 7 week period. Now I understand I've got some issues, you know, neurodiversity, you know, activated. But if you're gonna do this thing, do this thing. There's no reason, honestly, there's no reason why you can't submit 1 a day. It takes an hour. Is it a lot of work? Yeah, but how much do you really want it? Like, it's okay to sit around and— I'm gonna be derogatory here— fiddle around with a story. And if you want to write a story for you and it's a vanity project, enjoy it. But if you want to get a publisher, if you want to get an agent, if you want to get your book out there, then you're going to have to commit to the process and you're going to have to commit to what your end goal is. Now define that end goal. Now, Your end goal just can't be to walk into Barnes Noble to see your book.

Yeah.

Like, that's not an end goal. Your end goal is to write the best book you can, which means joining a readers group. And this readers group that I joined, it did me the world of good. Absolutely the world of good. I won't detract from some of the people I met and some of the input I got. It made me a better writer. A better editor is actually what it made me. And that's a big part of the process. But if you want, no matter what it is, if you indie publish, you self-publish, or you go with a traditional publisher, you're going to have to prepare to work this like a job. You know, gone are the days where someone turns up— actually, back in the day, even people turned up with a check and an advance, but you still had to work. You had to turn up, travel the world, travel the country, do whatever, and make back your advance. So I think whatever it is you want to do, Even with painting, like we went to, Mel joined a group. Well, I'm telling you a story now. So Mel joined a group and we were meeting every Tuesday night and it was a total waste of time.

It was one Tuesday a month.

Yeah.

But it was an art league thing and I—

Like poking your eyes out with a stick.

I think what I was looking for, I just didn't get there, you know, I was looking for some sort of community camaraderie, I think anyone who goes there and looking for that, not gonna get it.

But where she did find it, believe it or not, was she joined a museum, the Kimbell here in Fort Worth, and she goes down there once or twice a month to their events.

Yeah, they have little workshops you can join and things. And I've, I'm wondering if it's because the environment's a little different. There's a lot less competition between people. I think that Art League just set people up to compete with one another and not, like, cooperate or, you know, I, I was looking to, like, share or something.

You were looking to participate in people who were—

To make connections with other artists.

But when you come back from that, you come back rejuvenated.

Yeah.

Like, it's good for your soul because you go down, you get, you're involved in a whole range of different artwork and you're talking art with people. And you're right, there's no competition.

Yeah. You just connect with each other over art, which is Really. So I can't speak highly enough about the Kimbell. If you guys have never— if you're around Fort Worth and—

No, don't, don't tell them about that because it's really hard to get into some of those classes. You don't have tickets.

No, I'm just saying, check out the Kimbell. They have a great collection down there. And when—

if you're looking at a writer and you're looking for a writer's group, you wanna find one that's going to be involved in commentary on your editing. But the spirit of the place has to be a little different. It can't be political because that just drives you crazy. And I think the second thing is the critiques you get should be about craft and, and not personal attacks. And this one particular group that I've been through, I found it was very personally attacking. They would attack writers and they would either affirm writers that were on the inside of the clique or they just have a go at people they didn't like. And I found that really immature. It's like, it's not high school. You'd sit there prepared to listen to a whole bunch of different people's stuff. And, you know, that's one of the things, reasons, like, we really connected with BJ is BJ's feedback and comments were insightful and helped me be a better reader. She would critique, criticize my work, but she would do it in such a way as she wanted me as a writer to be better. And I think you want to hang with those people because if you're going to be prepared to put your soul out there about your art in what it be, poetry or writing or whatever it was— here you go on, B.B. Naz— then you want to be able to do it in an environment where you're getting feedback, but in a way that's going to help you get you down the line and in a better position.

Useful feedback, useful thing. Yeah, I, we, we have a really great friend, an artist in Australia. His name is Jonathan Throsby. He's amazing. If you've never heard of him, follow him on Instagram.

Say g'day from John and Mel.

Um, but he, he will, I will send him my work and he will give me, um, critique really. And, um, and it all, it, it all is meant to, um, push me forward or draw more out of me as an artist. And he You know, he'll say things like, you're, you're really relying too much on your line.

I, I would like to see this.

I would like to see you push paint around more, you know, things like that. And it's, um, it, it never makes me feel, you know, crushed as a person.

And I think that's the difference with a critique, is if it makes you feel small as a person. Yeah, you can feel Critique, correct it, and encourage your art. But if it makes you feel small as a person, or even if it blows up your ego as a person, that's, that's not positive.

That's dangerous too.

That's, that's not constructive. And I think that's what I've seen with this writers group is you'll actually see pods of people follow their friends around when it's their time to read and just sit there all applauding them. It's like, well, what I heard was just dribble. But if I tell you it's dribble, you're gonna get hurt feelings and, you know, hang out a woke flag on it as opposed to just, well, this is crap. Like, no one, no one is ever gonna read that except your friends that are coming around to applaud you. And you don't want that. You actually want your craft to develop. The content, to a degree, is secondary to your craft because you can have good craft around a whole diverse range of content. And, and I think that's what Throsby— so what one of the things we loved about Thros is Throsby's art is hanging in some of the biggest galleries in Australia. And we were staying at another artist's place who was a bit— it was a tosser. And, and Throsby was there doing some other stuff, and Thros sat down, took the time, just saw Melissa sketching. And I remember the look on her face when she came away. And understand, this is— Froz was sitting there painting a house because it's a lot of us, we're doing something else till we get to where we want to go. And Froz is painting his house and, um, he stopped and looked at her and just gave her these instructions. Came back the next day, gave her a whole bunch of personal paintbrushes and stuff because we were traveling Australia. We didn't know anything about this guy. To later find out his art is hanging in the Australian—

he's like famous.

He's famous, world famous.

So nice.

But he's just sitting in crappy jeans. It was in the best Land Rover I think we'd ever seen. Yes, it was absolute—

it was really—

it was a bush car, man. Great old car. But what was different was his heart. His heart wasn't about to push down, it was to elevate. And he felt his job on the planet was to help elevate, um, people. And I, I think I think that's what you want in people in your life.

Yeah, I agree. And we all know people like that. When you come away from talking with them, you feel better for it. You know, those are the kind of people that, you know, you really wanna have input into your art or—

You do. You don't necessarily want to suggest your grandma because she's gonna, oh, yeah. Oh, love. Oh, dearie. That's, that's wonderful. And it's not, it's like slop.

If I want that kind of feedback, I just call my dad. Because he likes everything.

He likes everything that you've ever painted and you've ever done. About him. It's wonderful.

Yeah.

But it's not helpful.

Well, not when I'm, you know, needing some critique.

So what about living with another creative person and their somewhat fragile ego?

We wanna talk about that?

Yeah, might as well. Well, it's finally Friday. We'll hang up and then we'll go and have a conversation about it. Good to see you, Jay Glasser. Nice you joined. Floods Martha, Old Manita, Melissa Wright. Good to have you all here.

Hi, everyone. It's great to have you. We're talking about, okay, what if you are a creative and you live with another creative? So John writes and I paint. And how do you sort of encourage one another? Facilitate one another's creativity.

Yeah.

Is that what you meant by talking about it, living together?

So I'll write something and I'll bring it up and I'll show Mel and I'm asking from her to be my first editor. So I'll come up here and think this is brilliant. And she goes, yeah, but there's this thing. And it's like immediately on defensive. It's like, are you fucking kidding me? I just spent a month writing that chapter and I wanna punch you in the, in the ear. And she'll go, well, dear, and we'll have a conversation. But it's the same about your painting. It's like, I'll, I'll go in there and go, nah, I really like that one better. And it's not that I don't like that one, but that one I really like. She's got some—

You can always tell if I paint something that John just really doesn't like because he'll go, Oh, it's like a gambling telling.

Oh, interesting. The hand goes to the chin and she'll sit down and cross her legs and go, you know, but I think it's important to be able to have that first person that you trust.

Yeah, I think too, for a storyteller, It's someone who's familiar with your characters as well. I, I think, you know, because I, I'm like, would that character really say, say that that way? Or sometimes I'll ask you, have you already introduced this person in the book?

And she did that just for me. I've written this whole thing because this person's been alive in my head for a long time. And then she said, well, have you, does anyone but you know who that person is? It's like, oh, bollocks. No, not at all. So, and I think that, and what about with painting for you? Are there things that I do that are helpful or harmful? Like, be honest. Just a couple of hundred people watching.

Yeah. Helpful, I would say is like, you can tell because you know me, like, you know, the real me. You can tell when I'm trying too hard or when I'm painting to some idea that I think I should be painting to instead of just Painting like me.

Painting like you.

Yeah. So that's really helpful for you to like see me struggling like that and say, look, I think, I think there's, you're, you're trying too hard, or I think you need to step away, or, you know, whatever it is. So that's really helpful. Um, the fact that you buy all my art supplies for me is extremely helpful. The most, like my Patreon, I like to thank my Patreon.

Yeah. Thank you. Yes, she did say something the other day which touched me very much when we were coming back from, um, that thing.

I, I just told John how much I appreciated the fact that he has been so supportive of me in learning how to paint. And, you know, I see him making my art important in our life. And even though, like, I mean, I'm 5 years in now, so hopefully I'm getting reasonably reasonable at making some paintings. But I mean, from day 1 when it was like all crap, like—

It wasn't all crap.

You made it important because it was important to me.

It was, it was, it wasn't all crap. It was just different. But it's like my early stories.

Yeah.

They were just early. They're, you know, part of the, and I think the part of it is to be able to believe in someone and help them realize there's more down there. And but understanding collectively, we don't know what that more is like. Yeah, we don't know what the other stories are. We don't know what the painting is. And I think it was really nice when she said that because I do actively try. Am I interested in painting? No, not at all.

He watches TV shows with me.

She's got this show called Landscape Artist of the Year. I mean, I would rather hit my head with a hammer But every lunchtime we watch that together. I don't mind it. I, no, I seriously don't mind it. But she's fanatical and loves it. And so the deal is we watch it at lunchtime. Why? Because lunchtime's got an ending.

And like, we have to go back to work.

We have to go back to work. So we watch it about 15 or 20 minutes. But in all seriousness, it's really important to her. And then we'll sometimes watch documentaries on writers. We watched one show the other day called the Bookseller or something, a movie.

Oh, it was so great.

What was that called? The Bookshop?

Bestsellers?

Bestsellers.

Yeah.

It was with that guy, that English film.

I don't know.

That guy.

Yeah, it was great.

It was just great.

It's a great movie.

But I think that's what, if you're living with another creative person, the ability to be able to invest some of yourself in each other's lives. And if you don't have that at home, or if you're by yourself, you're living by yourself, you don't have that in your life. Find people around you and cultivate relationships that are going to be able to— you can speak to their greatness and they can speak to yours. Now, going back to my previous comments about the writers groups, you're not after a fan club. You're after people that are gonna be honest about what you do. And I think that's important.

I think too, sometimes it's important just to know that there's one person in the world, i.e., you, who takes me seriously as an artist and takes my art seriously.

Because it's important, it's serious to you.

Because it's important to me. Yeah. And so I think for you, it would be important for someone to come alongside you and say, you are a writer. I see you. You are, you're an artist.

I look at what the impact of Throsby as like a master artist impact on Melissa's life where he said, Just do this, do this. I love what you're doing. And, you know, he's in Australia. We haven't seen Thralls for a long time. Miss him to bits. But he will hop on, he'll have a look at her art and say, I love how this is going. I love how you're doing that. And it just buoys you. Yeah, it just, it speaks to you.

It's just like— Paps you along, you know.

Paps you along and say, okay, great, off you go. You can keep trying, keep trying. And I think that's what you want in an agent too. And I, you know, Gina's been very creative and very helpful for us. And what's interesting is watching Gina be not excited about my writing and then getting excited. It's a form of feedback itself. It is. But then when you finally see her excited about something and she doesn't wanna talk about anything else, she just wants to talk about this one thing. And that's the sort of person you want. You don't want someone just to take on you as an author or take on your book and say, there, there. We'll see how we go. I had another fellow who's a writer and that's what happened to him. He got an agent and she was going there, there for 3 years and nothing happened.

And, uh, let's talk about that timeline a little bit. Like how, how long from when you started to write novels, because that was a new sort of stage in your writing, um, to the decision to get an agent?

That was 7 years. And you're right, it was a different stage, but there was like 30 years of writing before that.

Right. And we had self-published a lot.

Yeah, we did. As I said, 32 books. And so all of that was nonfiction, but it was, it was, you know, in during the pandemic, you know, when I was being crazy, I had not, I, I wanted, I've always wanted to write a short story, but this short story turned up into 3 novels and about, you know, half a million words. And what I read, an interesting quote the other day that said, your first draft is always for you. And I consider those 3 books my first draft, even till it's done, which was highly published, highly polished, and had a whole bunch of—

Lots of editing.

Lots of editing done and lots of feedback, beta feedback, because I'd learned about beta feedback along the way. I would still consider that written for me. Because I've done another 7 or 8 drafts of that. And I, and hopefully it's because I need to take a break from that novel. It's killing me. It's starting to wear me out a little bit, which is—

That was book number 4.

That was book number 4. But book number 5, when Gina got— from day 1 that Gina read it, she thought, this is gonna be interesting. And she liked it so much. I'd given my character like terminal cancer, and she wants me to bring him back in a second novel. So I've had to Like get him healed again in the proposal for novel 2. But that was a long time. And there's a total different thing writing a book and then just hoping, you know, you can put it in the mail and send it out to someone and they're gonna pick it up. It's not gonna be the case if you're writing a book and you wanna go traditionally. A lot of people talk negatively about agents. Agents get 1,000 manuscripts a month and you have to be very focused in how you go about finding your agent. And so you've seen the, I don't know if you've seen the movie The Accountant, but, you know, I'm on, I am autistic, I'm on the spectrum. And there is an aspect to it which she laughed at me and said, you're like The Accountant because he applies his mind to solving these accounting problems. And I think, and in the second one, he solves, he unravels the whole how to date.

The speed dating.

Speed dating. I did exactly the same with getting an agent and I submitted 357 queries in a 2-month period.

Yeah, it was a couple of months.

2 or 3-month period. I attended 3 or 4 writers seminars, seminars, workshops. I pitched face to face, probably 35 or 40 agents. I spent probably $1,000 or $2,000. And at the end of it, I ended up with 5 offers. So I say all of that to say, if you're out there and you're trying to do what, like 1 or 2 a month, you're not gonna hit the numbers. Like, it's a numbers game. You've gotta find your person. And if you're not out there, every day working this with a passion, then, you know, you just need to find it and accept a different level. Like, if you really want it, then you have to get after it. Like, Melissa paints once or 2 days every week, which means we carve out of our life, you know, 6 to 8 hours every week for her to spend time alone in the studio.

My goal is 10 hours a week at least doing like physical painting.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, because I, um, hey, Jenny Crash Fine Art, good to have you on. Hi, Jenny. Um, so that's my goal because that's what I can afford to spend at this point. And, um, it's 520 or so hours a year that I'm adding to my craft.

And when she says we, we carve out that time, that means we carve out that time. And then we've got the privilege of working at home and together. So we're a little bit flexible. But if we get to the end of the week and she hasn't had that time, then we'll take that time out of our time.

Yeah.

Because it's, it's very important for her. And it's the same with me. Like, every Monday and most of Wednesday, I'll write. And if I wanna do more writing, I will write every Saturday and every Sunday, which means it's 7 days a week. You know, sometimes, well, We'll take Sunday morning, we'll go to church, we'll take Sunday afternoon off. And, but if you look at it, that's probably 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 hours out of the whole week. And, you know, sometimes she'll be finding it so hard to find the creative time, she'll get up an hour earlier and paint an hour in the morning. Well, well, that's not really enough time to do something, someone might say. But you've found it's been great.

It's good for me because first of all, I work pretty quickly. And if I have less time, it seems like I spend less time doing things that I shouldn't be doing anyway.

Like worrying about whether it's any good.

Yeah. Or like retouching the same area or, you know, cause you like basically just paint a new painting at that point, you know, if you go over it so many times. Um, and so there's that, but then also too, because I like to work quickly and sometimes I actually stop too early on a painting. That if I only have an hour and I'm, I'm in and out, sort of, I leave the painting hanging on the wall, like, of my studio slash office. And so as I'm in there working, I, during the day, I just glance over at it. And if it needs more, then I have an hour the next day I'm gonna, you know, do. So sometimes it's good to just have time to look at something too.

So what about some of the rest of you? Is there other things that you do or you don't do to try and fit creativity in? In your life? Are there things where you, you know, try and carve out time? But someone just popped on and said then that they do it at their lunchtime.

Oh, that's a great idea.

And they do it on their phone. They do it on their phone. They're writing a series of poetry. And so they hop on there and they just use their phone and they grab those minutes through the day.

I know our son Noah does that.

Yeah, he does that as well.

He He works a job and then at his lunch break, he'll work on his book. So it's great.

Yeah, it is. Any other questions on creativity or any comments and we'll wrap it up. You know, it's Friday, grab yourself a soda water or beverage of choice.

Yeah, we are, we're drinking San Pellegrino this week. Last week we like got a fly drunk. I don't know if you guys were here for that, but it was really funny.

And fly got drunk on some very nice Irish whiskey. Very nice Irish whiskey. And no, I didn't throw the whiskey out.

No, he kept drinking it. Fished out the fly, kept drinking.

BJ says she dreams about the changes I want to make on the chapter for the next day.

That's great.

Exactly.

You do something similar, BJ. Like, a lot of times I wake up in the morning a lot earlier than John, and— but his, like, golden sleep hour is like 5:30 to 6:30. And so I— if I'm laying there awake at 5:30, but I don't want to wake him— get, you know, get out of bed and wake him up, I'll just lay there and think about a painting. And so for the past few days, I've been thinking about a painting that I want to make that I haven't started yet.

So goals for Monday.

Yeah, it is really cool.

I would also encourage you to feed your engine, like feed your creative engine. I know this novel, this Harker novel, which was a noir, the last 2, I really write in the neo-noir niche. And so I feed myself. I've read probably 50, 60 books in the last Oh yeah, 8 to 10 months, 12 months.

I would say in this year. So we're in August. So 8 months.

Yeah, 50, 60 books. But also I watch a bunch of noir movies. I know we made fun about Landscape Artist of the Year, which, you know, maybe it deserves it, maybe it doesn't. But what I do watch is the glow on Melissa's face when we watch it at lunchtime.

I get to see other artists making paintings. Um, and just watching how other people put paint down. And, um, I do the same thing with like YouTube videos. We made this big commitment to our health this year, so we were able to get a sauna. So I sit in the sauna and watch people paint on YouTube because it does it. I, I can't be doing anything else during that sauna time, um, that is related to painting, but I can be inspiring myself, you know.

And, and when I go back and forth from the gym, I'll listen to an audiobook. And often that audiobook is about a biography of a writer. I'm listening to one on Random House at the moment about the guy who started Random House Publishing. And it has been phenomenal. Some people would find eating gravel more exciting than this book. But I love it because it's the whole history of publishing and this great, this very well-known publishing company. And the authors and what it was like. And it just feeds that aspect of my soul. And I think there's many things you can do like that today because of the nature of the mediums we have available.

Yeah, we— there's podcasts. One of my favorite podcasts is called Learn to Paint, and she interviews painters. It's great. So how do some of you guys fuel your creativity?

Are there things that you do in particular? Ideas you want to share? If not, we'll go and make hamburgers or whatever we're having.

Happy Friday, everybody.

Yeah, for sure. Hey, Ginald Oak Farm.

All right.

Good to have you here.

Thanks for joining.

Carlos Way, Fontana Patty, John Divine 38, SWC, Ian Lee, Dylan O'Keefe. They'll learn. Oh, Keith, invite Nancy. Hello, Nancy. How you going? Good to have you. BJ, movies and books.

Movies and books. Yeah, I would agree.

So for your genre, BJ, what sort of movies or books have you watched of late or that have really helped you with what you wanna do? And look, if you're on Instagram, follow BJ Writes or BJ Sloan Writes. She's great. Get hold of a book, would you, too? She's got, she's got a couple of great ones out there. She was a journalist.

Forgotten Son.

Forgotten Son. Awesome murder mystery. And she wrote a book around that. Very good. How you going, Veena, darling? How you going? Pay Pay Zero AI summary. A writer and painter discuss their creative—

that's the AI summary of what I taught. I knew that on TikTok.

Technology, technology and all.

It's great.

Anybody else? What else do you watch? Do you watch movies or books? What is Alfred Hitchcock?

Oh, awesome.

That's interesting.

I, BJ told me one time that she loved Lonesome Dove as well.

Oh yeah, Lonesome Dove's good. But she writes that BJ writes that if you want to smell some Texas.

Yes. Small town Texas. She's small town Texas for sure.

Alfred Hitchcock. That'd be interesting. I could see that and how to turn a plot around and see characters, character development. And I think that's part of the thing is if you're aware, you can watch, you can write, you can watch a movie and see how the movie arc goes and see when the all is lost done and when the hero comes in and all those sort of things. And you'll actually get used to picking up those nuances in storytelling. And as a writer, I think that's very helpful. Is there anything like that in painting that, that you find is helpful when you say watch Landscape Artist of the Year? Um, actually, Portrait Artist of the Year.

One of the things that I learned at the Kimbell this week is you, just by going around and looking at these old master paintings, you can learn a lot about composition. You don't have to like the style of the painting. It might not be the way you paint. But we did an exercise where we simplified a painting, like say it was a, uh, painting of a table with a plate with a wine bottle and like oysters on it or something. Um, we simplified that down to the shapes. And so like the plate was a circle and the oysters were little ovals and, um, the wine bottle was just, you know, a bottle shape. And, but just by doing that. and making a simplified sketch, uh, of 4 different paintings, I came away with 4 different very strong— because they're masterworks— very strong compositional styles.

That's generous.

Yeah. And so, um, just consuming, I guess would be the way to say that, other artists' work, particularly artists that have stood the test of time.

Yeah.

Um, is is a great way to fuel your creative engine, but also teach yourself things.

Yeah, that's good. So I think that's very good. Well, folks, we'll probably call it done because you've all probably got— how you going, Ivan, Dimitri, Val, Susan? Good to have you all here.

Yeah, thank you all for coming on, having a creative chat.

Yeah, end of the week. I hope your dreams go good. Think about your dreams. Look, if you wanna DM us during the week and ask some questions, we can, we can bring them up next week.

Yeah, that'd be cool.

And so we can bring them up and talk about them and, you know, give you a shout out. If you've got a book that's in the process or a painting that's in the process, you know, send us through something, man. We'll highlight what you're doing. Hey, thanks, BJ. Appreciate it. Because we wanna do that. I, I just don't, I think Creativity is best when it's collaborative and not competitive. And we wanna surround ourselves with collaborative people. And so if you're a giving person, a sharing person, and you wanna share and collaborate with art painting or with writing, you know, join us and share some of those things because we'd like to highlight what you do.

Or other types of creativity. Yeah.

Like building, carpentry, carving, You know, anything, anything at all.

It's awesome.

We'd love to hear about it.

We celebrate you creatives.

Yeah, because the world needs more of us. AI slop will never replace us, which is wonderful job security for all of us. Alright. Well, cheerio. See you, TikTok. See you, Instagram.

Weekend, everybody.

Yeah. Enjoy it. Stay safe out there.