Remarkable People Behind the Podcast: How to be a Writer

Hello, folks. Welcome. And this is not Guy Kawasaki, by the way. We are not him. So I'm still hearing music.

So am I. Where is that coming from?

Hello, folks. You got. Somebody's got a. I think you have a browser.

Oh, you know what? It's on my other computer. Sorry, everybody.

So if you guys are just joining us, what is going on Is Guy Kawasaki. He is actually stuck somewhere in Hawaii. And so we got a message from him. By the way, I am Jeff C. And this is Peg Fitzpatrick. We are part of the remarkable team. He is stuck. And so he said. Yeah, he said, go live. So we are going live. I see we have a Gregory here. Thank you for stopping by. More people are coming in. So I'm glad LinkedIn worked because we started late. Thank you guys for tuning in. But yeah, Guy is. I don't know if he will make this broadcast or not. We're hoping that he's paying the waiter or something now. So, Peg, how are you doing?

I'm doing great. I was ready to be behind the camera, so here we are. I have a messy bun today. You never do that.

Yeah, me too.

Whatever.

So by the way, this. This show, this live stream is brought to you by our friends over at Restream. They are sponsored of this live show and it's the way that we go live everywhere. So we're going live to YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, what else did I forget? Facebook, they're all live and they all allow us to pull the content. And so if you want to find out more about them, make sure you guys go to restream IO. Check them out. There's no way we could do this live show without them. So today's guest that's on the show is. It's kind of funny that we got to do this because it was kind of. He's one of our favorite.

Okay, wait, we know something about this guest.

Yes.

Matt Football, which was not really Jeff and my forte.

Right. Yes. This is Hugh Howie. And so you had him on some shows before. So why don't you talk about him a little bit first? Because I found him as an author. Yeah, I love his books, but you go ahead.

Yeah. So Hugh Howey is an amazing writer. It was his dream to write a book and to sail around the world. He loves sailing and he actually captains the ship. He has worked on yacht crews. He's done. So he's one of those people who. He's just. He's done so many cool things, but writing is like. Was his big dream that he always wanted to write. And he has written some amazing independent books. He self published before he was traditionally published. And the really cool thing about Hugh is that he created this hybrid model which didn't exist before he did it. So he created. He wrote his book. He wrote actually just a short little novella and put it up on Amazon. He loves Amazon, Kindle. And you just, you know, you create the book, 12, you know, 24 hours later, it's on Amazon. And he loves that. He really connects with his readers and he loved that. And his. His little first book just started selling like crazy, like thousand copies a month, then 5,000, and then it was like crazy crazy. So he was making great money. When you in. When you publish independently, you make a lot more. You make like 75 cents on a dollar, I think.

Yeah.

When you traditionally publish, you make like 30 cents, something like that. It's very like you make a lot more when you self publish. But. But you also have to foot all the bill, all the marketing, like, everything for that. And the cool thing about Hughes Books is they traveled by word of mouth. People, people just loved, loved his stories. And that's the best thing, right? When somebody likes a book and then they, you know, you obviously share it with people. So I'm curious to know, has anybody that's watching, have you guys ever read any of Hughes books? Wool is his big first one.

That was his first one, right?

Yeah, it was a novella, but then he added other stories to it, which created the first big volume. And then there's like a series, a Wool series.

Yeah, I've read all. Read them all.

Yeah.

By the way, he talks about this in the podcast and you find about the podcast@remarkable people.com. it's the one that just dropped this morning. So make sure if you haven't signed up for that and subscribe to Guy's podcast that you go to remarkable people.com and do that. And the cool thing is as he talks about that it's becoming an Apple plus series and kind of some of that stuff. Yeah. So that I'm super stoked about watching that. So. Yeah, let us know if you've read it.

Rebecca Ferguson is the star of that. She was. She was in the Greatest Showman. She was Rebecca Lynn or Jenny. Jenny Lind, the singer. And she was in Tom Cruise movie. Was it Tom Cruise? Was she in one of those?

I can't remember, but she was in.

An action adventure movie that was like super popular too.

Yeah. I'm just really excited to see it. Hope I. It sounds like they're doing a good job. I didn't. He talks about it in the podcast that it's been in development for quite a while. Some people who were attached to it and then it kind of, you know, it's kind of what you hear about Hollywood stuff. So that was kind of a fascinating, kind of behind the scenes that they discuss in this podcast too. So like I said, go check that out if you haven't yet. I want to do. You know, we were talking about how this was, this was sponsored by Restream and, and Gregory says, oh, by the way, this is, you can also go to all these different locations, which is Twitch, Rumble, Minds, Bitchit and I. So he says to get on them. So I guess we'll have to get on him. And Marina said this, she goes, I was trying to do my church stream, but it doesn't do the good quality like yours. So what I would do is I would talk to, I would talk to Restream directly and see about that. So Guy is coming on, so I'm going to see if I can add him and I'll jump off Peg. Okay, so here we go. Let me see if I can do this.

So everybody in the comments, who is your favorite, favorite writer? I'd love to know who your favorite writer is. What books are you always waiting for? Hey, look, I can just.

I so I, I, I'm so embarrassed and apologize. So literally, I was sitting in this great coffee shop in Hawaii thinking, oh, it's 6:45. I got three hours before I have to be online, except, except that I'm in Hawaii and it's 15 minutes. Not 3 hours and 15 minutes.

So sorry, you should sign up for your text messages.

Yes.

By the way, 15 minute warning, I'm gonna add your number.

Well, you know, as a matter of fact, I went into subtext and I started answering all the ones, you know, that are there. I thought, oh, God, Guy, you are so on top of it. You're answering all the text messages. You got three more hours to start. And then I get the fateful, we're on in two minutes, Guy.

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. I'm like, oh, he'll definitely be on.

Yeah, that's what Peg told me. I was like, he's not here yet. She says, oh, he's at his computer. He'll be on in a little bit.

Well, Anyway, it was 16 minutes instead of two minutes.

And now, oh, you know what? I can shut that behind me and make this a better.

Oh, he's leaving just like in the real show.

This is the real show. So wait, did anybody say who their favorite author?

Oh, there was some. Yeah. So by the way, he talked about his text message group. You can text him at 1-818-316-09-0628. So guys, and then you'll get a.

Text saying that we're going live in 15 minutes. Oh, James Mishner. That's a good choice. He wrote Hawaii. Didn't he write. He wrote one of the Hawaii. He wrote Hawaii. He writes really great travel novels.

Now it looks like I'm in a cave.

Yep.

David remembered us from the Google days. Ah, Google. Thanks, David. It's good to see you.

Google. I mean, I wish Google had not given. Given up on Google plus. Right. They should have stuck it out.

I think they had to update their system because there was like data holes.

Yeah.

Oh, so now you look like John.

I mean, I. I'm in a room that either. It's going to be really. Wait, I refuse to give up. One second.

Can't you just turn around so the light is facing you?

So Ian said when we told him that Guy was stuck in Hawaii, he says, aloha from Hawaii. Maybe I'll spot Guy. Yes. So it'd be like, where's Waldo? It'd be where's. Where's Guy?

Yeah, go to the beach. You'll see him.

You'll see him surfing.

If you see him Wednesday at like quarter to seven, tell him to get to his computer immediately. Actually, next week he'll be home. I think next week he'll be home. So.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's good.

Okay.

Okay. So we were talking about who, who our favorite authors are. That was our question. Who's your favorite author, Guy?

Oh, my favorite. I'll get you the book. One second.

He told us last week he liked the Jack Reacher books. Like for fiction.

It depends on what it is. Yeah, we'll see. He definitely doesn't have one of his other favorite books because unless he brought it with him. We'll see.

So who's your favorite author, Peg?

That's a good question. I really. My most recent. Oh, it's great. I can grab it. It's on the other side of my desk. I just read the Paper palace by Miranda Cowley Heller and it was freaking awesome. Like, debut novel. So amazing. Was so, so, so, so good. I was like on my Instagram, somebody read this. I needed to discuss it with someone, like, right away. It was so good. So she's my new favorite author. Like, I just finished that one. But I also, like, I have so many. Like, I have so many favorites. Bridget Jones Diary is one of my favorite books. So I do love Helen Fielding. How about you?

It depends on what I'm reading. So, like, I have. I'm trying to keep up with all the people on the podcast. I read the humor. Seriously book that he had. Those were. That was a really good one.

I just finished she Said by Jodi Cantor and make it to last week's guest.

That's really good.

Last week's guest.

Who's your favorite guy? Who's your. Who are you going to show?

Gotta slide it over.

Okay.

You like Thriller, right?

Yeah. So Daniel Silver, his main character is a guy named Gabriel Alon who is in charge of the Israelis. Is it Mossad or, you know, one of those Israeli agencies? And he's. He's in charge of the agency and he's an art restorer. So it's all about Swiss money and Russian money and Israeli intelligence and assassinating people and, you know, and that's the first chapter.

That's cool.

But we want to know who your favorite authors are. We had a couple people put theirs in there. Let's see. This is so David says, Ian Rankin, famous Scottish crime writer. I haven't read any of his.

That's my latest favorite. And the COVID on it, it's amazing. You're never supposed to judge the book by the COVID but look at that cover. So good. So, so good. Anyway, so getting back to writers and who our favorite writers are. This week on the podcast, we have Hugh Howey, amazing and independent author. We. We started talking about him a little bit.

Well, yeah, I mean, the amazing thing about him is he was a bookstore clerk working at. You know, I never know if I'm saying this right. Is it Appalachia? It's not Appalachia. I know that. It's Appalachia. Right, so, Appalachia.

Okay, go ahead.

Yeah, I think Appalachia is wrong. That's like, that's what. That's what liberal Democrats pronounce it as, but it's Appalachian. It's Appalachia, I think. Anyway, he was a bookstore clerk at Appalachia State University. And now, you know, he wrote the first episode of Wool and started selling it for 99 cents with the Amazon self publishing program, Kindle, and the rest is history. So that's. That's just a great inspiration. When Peg and I were writing Ape. Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur, the book about self publishing, he was a great inspiration for that book. Right, Vic?

Yeah. And then we met him at the book fair in New York, which was amazing. The book fair in New York is like, if you want to talk good swag, you can't even carry the amount of free books that you got home. It took me so long to read all the books that I brought home from there. My husband was like, why do you keep getting books? It was like my two daughters that I were like, books, books. But we did work with them on Amazon there, and we did a live tweet Twitter chat. But Hugh was like, he is so. One of the things about him as a writer, he's very generous to other writers. He shares how he does it. He shares his processes, and he even shares his worlds. One of the cool things he innovated is the Kindle worlds, which is he wrote Wool, and then he allows other people to take his world that he created and write their own fan fiction from it and. And publish it, which is very generous. Some writers are like, no way. But he's all about, like, open and free.

We should. We should. We should start fan nonfiction where they can just take. Take the principles of evangelism and expand upon it. How's that?

Right.

So did. Did. So Will came out before you guys wrote Ape?

Yes, I think so. Yeah.

Yeah. Because he was there promoting it.

I didn't think it was that old.

Wow.

Yeah, it's been around for a while. Yeah, he was there promoting it because I actually got signed copies from him. I have a signed Wool here, and my girls met him and they thought he was awesome.

And now they're making Apple TVs. Making a movie, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Which is very cool. And it's cool because you kind of talked about that process a little bit, that it's been optioned a bunch of different times, but this is the first time that it's been picked up. So I guess somebody can option a book and pay, like, $50,000 to option it, and that kind of is a placeholder. Is that how that works, guy? And then if they want to buy it, it's however much.

Well, I think you auction off the rights. But the way it works is if you don't exercise the rights, after a while, the rights revert back. And so Ridley Scott. Ridley Scott, I think, had the rights the first time, and then they never made the movie. So he got the rights back. So that's a beautiful thing. You can just keep selling the rights.

Right. So you make the 50,000 or whatever it is. Right. And then it goes more.

More than 50. Yeah.

Well, and what he said in the Podcast, too. Was that because Ridley Scott was attached? When it came back, it was like, okay, this big guy, you know, optioned this. This was. Must be worth something. So it helped him, you know, continue to keep the ball rolling. So that's kind of cool.

Yeah, yeah, it's very cool. The book. The book that I was telling you, this one, the Paper palace, she actually worked at. What network did she work at? I think she was at hbo. I'm not sure about that, but her books already been optioned. Yeah, she worked as hat. She was head of drama at hbo, and she worked on, like, the Sopranos and Big Little Lies and, like, all these big shows. And her book was already optioned before it even was published.

Well, this is the question we have, too, for our audience that. I mean, we know Peg and Guy have already had books in them, but any of you guys in the audience, do you have a book in you? Have you always wanted to write a book? Have you wanted to publish your story? Would it be a fiction book? Would it be nonfiction? Do you guys. We want to know. Let us know down below, wherever you're watching from, if you have a book in you. Yeah, see, I'm a poet. I should write poetry.

And if you can get that book out of you, that's the key. Can you get the book out if it's in you?

So how did you get it out of you?

I just started writing, actually. You want to know the biggest way that I was able to get the art of social media? Actually, it was the art and science of social media. When I started it was that I worked on Ape when Guy. I worked on what the plus with Guy, a book about Google for all you Google. And then he worked on Ape, which was author, publisher, entrepreneur with Sean Welch. And I worked behind the scenes on that. And there is a template that Sean created for creating your own book. And so I learned, obviously, I learned so much from Guy. It's like a shortcut in how to write a book. First, step one is you just work with Guy. You have to have your own. But having that template in a Word document makes you feel like you're automatically, like, writing. So the first thing is that Guy always says, I'll just quote him, even though he's right. Here is to create an outline. That's how Guy likes to work. He likes an outline. And then you work from your outline, and you can create your whole table of contents. And then it's just a matter of writing it. So easy.

Just a matter of writing it.

It's Just a matter of writing it.

But, you know, we interviewed for the podcast both Paul Thoreau Thou and Julie Cameron, and a lot of authors still write in longhand. They write in longhand and then somebody transmits it, transforms it to digital, and then the editors get at it. So that's crazy. Yeah, I don't. We work in Word and a lot of people, like, they go crazy when they hear we work in Word. And you know, because there's like this anti Word, anti Microsoft, like line of reasoning. But for me, you know, Word has that view that is the outline view. So you can toggle between text and outline. And believe it or not, the. The process is we write it in Word and then we export it into Adobe, what's it called? InDesign.

InDesign.

Yeah. And so Adobe InDesign is looking for word styles. So every paragraph of a book we write has a word style attached to it. So if you wanted to change like the font of that particular heading, all of the headings change at once. And so that is a beautiful, beautiful thing when you want to make a lot of changes to the format font of that paragraph. By the way, one of the things we did in Hawaii is we had a lay making class for those of you who follow me. So this is one of the lays we made. So I'll just show it.

I always thought that lays were like only a necklace. Yeah, see, I brought.

Well, until. Until two days ago, I thought that too. But I learned something, so that's pretty cool.

Well, how long will that last? Can you drive that? Can you dry it?

It's. It's getting dry already. So this is actually my son's girlfriend's one. I don't know where mine is, so. Yeah. So what do you think? New avatar pig?

Yeah, I think I would like to see Beth. Did Beth make one?

I can go look for it. One second.

Don't go get it. Don't go get it. I'm just saying I think Beth would be amazing.

Don't ask questions that make him leave.

Sorry.

So a couple of you guys had said on YouTube about the book they said from LA do have an idea for quite some time, a nonfiction book. People are saying yes, they have a book inside of them. And so Charles says I suck at writing. Scares me to death. So yeah, that is a big writing. So was your first. So getting. Let's talk about the getting that book out of you, Peg. How you know, you wrote with Guy, but still, that's still a lot of like nerves. Like, when were you nervous to send your like stuff for the first time to let him look at or how did that go?

Yeah, I mean, the first. So the first thing, guys, I hear, he'll just hear the story again. So the first thing is I came up with the idea for the Art of Social Media and I sent it to Guy. He was like, yes, let's do that. That'll be amazing. But then like a week later, Guy said, you know what? I don't want to write a book about social media. That doesn't sound that interesting to me. There's too many. And I was like, alright. Well, I still think it's. I was like bummed for like a day. And then I was like, I'm gonna do the whole thing. I'll just write it anyway. So then I kept going on it. And then the scary part was I did send it to Guy and that's scary because Guys are written like 14 books and he's a great writer. So I sent it to Guy and then he was like, hey, this is really good. So then I was like, yes. So that's. Then he was like, let's work on it together and make it better. So I was like, cool. So. So it was. But still, it's the process of like everybody, lots of people have ideas for books. The key is to really just. You have to keep working at it. It's a lot of work. Like, it's very hard and you do have to. Like the one I was telling you by Miranda Cowley Heller, she had. She said it was like in a desk. She was kind of working on it for like six years. She had like six different books. She was like juggling. She would just do it like sometimes in between work or things like that. Like, it depends on if you're a person who's lucky enough just to be a writer that you don't have to have other work tasks. Otherwise you have to like plan to write around work.

So yeah, just being a writer. That describes about 0.000001% of writers. Right?

Right. It's Paul the Hugh Howey.

And Julie.

Cameron and Julia Cameron. Yep.

Show your leg. Show off your. Your. You went to go get. Yeah.

Yeah. So these are more the. This is how it looks. I mean it dries very quickly because these were bright. These were bright colors, you know, a few days ago.

Yeah, that's fun.

So there was another question that so from. So looking for inspirations to kick start the process of writing a book. So Guy, when you were, when you did your first book, first of all, why did you write your first book and what did you use for inspiration to get started?

My first book was called the Macintosh Way. And at the time I was CEO of a company and I was really unhappy in the role. I was not getting along with my co founders. So writing the Macintosh Way was cathartic in the sense that I wrote a book about how I thought a company should work as opposed to how the company I was running, running was working. So that was cathartic. And, you know, I thought that was the first and last book I'd ever write. The first book is kind of easy because you have all this pent up stuff in you to say. And by the time you're at the 14th or 15th book, one of the biggest challenges is, oh shit, I have to say something different. Otherwise it's the same book. But then if you say something too different, then someone would point out, well, you know, in book 12 you said this, in book 15 you said this. They conflict, which is it? So you have to be consistent but not identical. So it gets harder and harder. Now I will tell you, I have an idea for my next book. If there is a next book, which I have said 14 times. This is my last book.

I think you said last week you weren't going to write another one. So this is new.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think, I think the book that's just sitting there, I'll use the biology analogy correctly. It's the high hanging fruit, not the low hanging fruit. Because the high hanging fruit, just so you know, is the fruit that is exposed to the sun and is the ripest. So when everybody says they're going after the low hanging fruit, they're actually being biologically wrong that the low hanging fruit doesn't get sun and isn't ripe. But I digress.

Anyway, I thought that was because it was easiest to pick.

Well, yeah, but it's also the greenest and the least desirable. So anyway, so the high hanging, hard to pick fruit is to write a book about the art of being remarkable or how to be remarkable. Because I have now about 90 episodes of people telling me how to be remarkable. And I could just write the lessons that I've learned from the book. Yep. That would only, you know, that that's the logical thing to do. Yeah, yep. And then it's easy to make a speech about how to be remarkable. And that speech is widely applicable. You know, it's also.

It also could be a Netflix series.

That's true. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

So, hey, to a Netflix series. I just watch Ronan Farrows. That's based on his podcast.

Yeah, well, we know. Well, we know. See Netflix series. We had Sid and Sid and what's shay Miguel. Yeah, McGee McGee.

Yep. Miggy. Sorry. Yes. And they got nominated for an Emmy. They're nominated for an Emmy. And then we had Dr. Sheila Nazarian and she skin decisions and she is also nominated for an Emmy.

Really?

And now we've got two who have gone to Apple Plus. We have Hugh is getting his on Apple plus and the travel writer.

Yeah, Mosquito coats.

Yep, that's there.

And then if we want to go back farther, we have Margaret Atwood, who's on Hulu with Handmade.

That's right.

And we have, we have two MacArthur Award winners, Stephen Wolfram and Angela Duckworth. Yep. What a great, what a great podcast. I mean. Yep. Like, like I keep telling people it's NPR without the pledge drive.

Don't say that anymore. Now we say every episode makes you a little more remarkable.

That's right.

So back to this week's podcast, though. If you guys want to write a book, and there was quite a few of you who did, you need to make sure that you listen to this episode with Hugh because he shares a lot of great information. And also on his website, Hughhowie.com he has a lot of information on just like how to write. He's very generous with his information. And also you should get a copy of, I think I have it behind me somewhere, a copy of Ape Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur by Mr. Kawasaki, because that is very helpful in writing a book.

Don't forget Sean Welch, she's co author.

And Sean Welch. Mr. Sean Welch, Co author, and Kansas.

Now, you know, you said for those of you who believe you have a book in you, but the other market for Hugh Howey's book is those of you who want to sail around the world as your full time job, because that's what he also does. Right. So if you have either of those two aspirations, listen to this episode.

If you just want to reach a dream, if you have a dream, it doesn't even matter what it is. I found like just knowing that he had two very big dreams. Those are two very big, very separate goals to reach. Don't you think? So, I mean, like Guy, what would you say if you had to choose two, two goals that you wanted to ever do? Like, what would you say they were?

It would be walk to the nose of my surfboard.

Yeah, you've been working on that one.

I've been working on effort. Well, I've worked on it for six years, and it takes four steps to get to the nose. I can do two, so I think it takes three years per step. So in another six years, I'll be able to walk to the nose of my surfboard.

Is it a confidence thing or is it a. Is it just that difficult to do?

What's the difference between those two things?

That's true. Can your kids do it? Can your kids.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, it's nothing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, they're young. When you're young, you don't care if you fall off the surfboard.

Yeah, but I'm better at editing podcasts than my kids are.

True.

I haven't tried yet. But what's one thing that you would want? What's one goal you had, Joff, that you. That you have reached?

That I have reached. I'm on a show with Guy Kawasaki. I mean, how better is that? That's my goal right there. No, he was my first big guest on my show. I remember that. And I was so nervous.

I was.

Yeah. So Peg got you on my show Way back on Google. And the funny thing was, is I had just. We were in the green room and I had one of those plastic bottles from Walmart, and I went to start the show, and I knocked the bottle and the whole bottle bottom fell out, and all the water went into my crotch, and it was like, hey, we're live and I'm on with Guy Kawasaki. And I was, like, surprised the entire time because my. I had ice water in my crotch the entire show. So.

So. So basically, I'm such a great guest, I made you literally pee in your pants.

That's right. Yes, exactly.

He says it was water, but yeah, I have.

I. I have that effect on men.

Yeah. So I wear Depends now every time because I never know when Guy will.

Be on the show.

So.

You just got to make sure I know what time zone I'm in.

Yes, I trusted that you knew because you were emailing. I would have texted you sooner, but it was all good and we didn't lose.

So, I mean, you know, I. There's this a company called Foodland in Hawaii, and they used to be like a middle of the road market, you know, nothing. Certainly not a Whole Foods level kind of market or Trader Joe's kind of market. And now they've just gone totally upscale. Like, I swear, it's the best market I've been in. And the one. The branch that I go to is much smaller, but still beautiful. But it's very weird because with their WI fi, when I started coming there, you could receive email in your email clients, but you couldn't send because they were blocking ports. And now you cannot send or receive email using email clients on your Macintosh. So I either have to use a browser or now I tether off my own phone. But then if you think about it, going to a coffee shop to tether off your own phone kind of defeats the purpose. Right. You might as well just stay at home. But.

Unless you want quiet and coffee. And then.

That's true. That's true. So if anybody out there works for Foodland, it, you need to fix your WI fi because it's blocking ports. Okay.

They probably do that on purpose.

Yeah, yeah. So people don't sit there for hours like me.

Yeah. Maybe it's so people don't waste their life doing email. Maybe it's a Hawaiian thing. They don't want you to bother your. They don't want you to spend your quality coffee time sending email.

Maybe they want you focus on your writing.

Yeah. I do have to bring up this comment from Tracy because it's. She goes. It depends when Guy is on. Good one, Tracy. So, Hugh Howey this week, if you have any interest in writing or like Peg was saying, following your dream, I mean, this one was just. Plus, he's just a cool guy. I mean, his Twitter feed is hilarious. Peg sent me one this morning. He's just a down to earth cool guy. You wouldn't think he's this huge author, but he's just smart. The questions were great from Guy, so I mean, you got to check this one out and you can find that@remarkablepeople.com because it's amazing. So who's. Oh, and even we have an even cooler one.

Not cooler, but not even cooler, but another cool.

Another cool one next week. So I'm excited about. I just finished editing.

Who is it? I forget. I'm in Hawaii, man.

It's co. It's Cody.

Yeah.

Oh, Cody Keenan. Yeah. So Cody Keenan used to be Barack Obama's speechwriter. I mean, can you imagine that? Holy.

Yeah, That's a lot of pressure for getting your words right.

No, that was a great interview that he said.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

That was just a great interview too, because the behind the scenes stuff and the way he's talking about, I mean, these, these two about writing that we just had kind of almost you know, serendipitously back to back to each other are just really, really good about. You Know the best way to do this kind of stuff, the behind the scenes advice and tactics. And I mean, it's just. It's just really good.

There's a lot of pressure. Those speeches, though. Like, he's standing there, there's a picture, and, like, he's writing and Barack is, like, standing next to him. I would just be sitting there going, oh, my God, the President is waiting for me to write something. I'd be like, could you go, like, in your office and just let me. I don't know if I could write under that much.

My favorite picture is the one where he's sitting there and he has, like, a Chicago Cubs baseball hat on. No, not Barack. Cody. Cody's like, I think Cody was there on a weekend and he didn't expect to see Barack or something like that.

Right.

So. And, you know, we. We're obviously in Hawaii and on. On Verbo. Now, you can rent the house in Kailua that the Obamas used to stay at. It's a mere ten grand a day. But I'm gonna try to rent it for an hour.

See if you can rent it for a photo shoot. I saw this cool thing that somebody made this thing. It's kind of like Airbnb, but you can just rent it for photo shoots. So you don't even rent it overnight or anything. So you can just rent people's houses and then just go do the photo shoot. There's.

Well, that's like an Instagram special, right?

Yeah.

Yep.

Huh.

Crazy.

I hope it. I hope it doesn't have any cliffs around it. Jeez.

Yeah. That's not.

Yeah. I mean, some of those things are truly disturbing. I mean, people got to be careful, man. Wow. Yep. Wow.

You just gotta fake the photo. You don't have to, like, hang on the cliff.

People die every year from that kind of stuff.

That's why I only do food.

I did one in the Grand Canyon, but it was like a total fake. Like, I was like, over the edge, but not of the edge edge. It was like there was a lot of other stuff there, you know?

Ooh. This is a great question. I want to bring this up from Jonathan. Is there a formula template for organizing thoughts when writing that I can use on my remarkable tablet? That's a great question.

Yes. There are many, many templates for the remarkable tablets. You can, number one, make your own in Canva, which I like to do. You can make your own template, and then you just save it as a PDF on your computer, drag it into your remarkable app, and then voila is there. Or you can search on Creative Market and Etsy. There's people that sell Remarkable Templates, and there's also a lot right in the. Oh, wait, mine's right here. Let me see if there's any writing specific. I just have my tablet right here, but there are a lot already built in, too. So were you looking for an outline, like bullet points, or what in particular?

She just said a organizing thoughts guy. What? Do you use a specific template when you're doing your interview for guests?

No. Basically, I watch their videos, I read the articles about them, and I read their books, and I just write questions in Google Docs. So my procedure is I do the research. I'm writing questions as I go in Google Docs. And the reason why I put it in Google Docs is sometimes I share it with other people for them to comment on the questions.

And.

And then right before the interview begins, I print the Google Doc to PDF, I sync the PDF to the Remarkable Tablet, and then I'm using the Remarkable tablet during the interview to organize the interview.

Very cool. Yeah.

So there's. In the Remarkable Tablet, there's all kinds of. There's, like, regular paper, there's lined paper, there's grid paper, there's check checklists. There's also storyboards. So depending on what you're writing, there's a lot of formats already built in here. But if there's something you wanted in particular, like to organize a story or anything like that, you could create your own in Canva. Like I said, it's very easy to do that, but there's already. There are some built in.

Yeah. I love the storyboards feature in the Remarkable Tablet because I like to sketch stuff out. Like when I'm doing like a animated opener for something, I can actually put the text, kind of do it and see it visually first before I start opening up Photoshop or After Effects or something.

How often do you guys take it and then email it to get the ocr?

Never.

Yeah, once in a while. Once in a while. But my handwriting is so bad, it might as well just type it.

Yeah. What we're talking about is you can take a Remarkable Tablet document and email it, usually to yourself. And you can also select the option of having Remarkable ocr. The text. So you get text, digital text, as opposed to just a static PDF.

Yeah. Somebody said that this was a good writing guide. I have not used it. Gregory says that Dr. Jordan Peterson has a good writing guide that you can get. So thanks for that, Gregory.

Cool.

All right. Anything else before we sign off. Anything we want to talk about?

No questions. I thought this was going to begin in two hours from now. So I'm ahead.

Make sure that you sign up. And we'll make sure Guy has signed up for this to the his ohana that he'll get reminders that when we go live. Because it goes out. What is it? Is it five or ten minutes before the show goes live?

15.

15.

Yeah. So you need to do it three hours before this.

15 minutes would have been good enough. Yeah.

So I have one more question. Okay. One more question. People can send in the comments, which is, I think that having the three of us on is a better format than just me on. So if, you know, send us the comments. Do you want the three of us on every Wednesday at 10am Pacific, 7am Hawaiian, or do you want just guy?

Do we. Did Jeff and I get to go to Hawaii next time?

That's right. We could all be together. That's what.

I think. We're not traveling again, right? We're gonna stop traveling and wear masks again.

Yeah.

We could be like, you know, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. The three of us.

That's funny.

Yeah.

All right.

To bounce things off of other people, then the pressure isn't all on you to. You don't feel like you're talking to yourself.

And once again, Tracy goes. Depends on the topics.

Here, I'll show you. I'll show you Diamond Head. Here, that's. Can you see the water?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is Diamond Head.

Is that one of the best surfing places in the world?

If you're a good surfer, not if you're me. The house we're staying in is next to this house.

Mm.

But this house doesn't have a pool. And I am just so tempted to just go over there and swim.

So if you get busted, it'll be entertainment.

Yeah. We gotta bail Guy out of jail in Hawaii.

I might be late. I might be late for next week.

I think you're gonna be. Aren't you gonna be home next week? Yeah.

Coming to you live from Oahu State Prison, Guy Kawasaki.

Yay.

Oh. So with that, we thank you guys for stopping by today. Thank you. That guy came to the show. Glad that you guys. Thank you for all your comments. And there it's like, I think people are saying three of us, but. So we'll have to have an internal discussion. But do not forget. I mean, seriously, this is a great podcast. They're all great. But if you are interested in writing, this is the one that you guys need to check out until you're writing. Like, if you know somebody who is, like, always wanted to write or need some inspiration, if they feel like they're stuck, this is the episode to send them. And something that would help Guy out and he would love you to death is that if you would give us a rating review over on Apple, that helps get the word out too. That would be very, very helpful for all of us. So we love if you guys would do that.

Like, seriously, what the hell? I mean, I. I think the last rating. The last rating is like a month old, so how can that possibly be true?

Come on, people. Review. Review.

There was some issues with. There was some hiccups with. I saw with and I can't remember what. There were some issues with some buggy stuff that was going on in Apple. So that may be why. Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah. So.

But, yeah, well, yeah, there's also the updates on. There was like an emergency update for Apple. If you have any Apple products. There was like, update your products because there was some way that hackers were getting in.

So that happens every week. What are you talking about? There's an emergency update.

There was a thing that said update your Apple stuff immediately.

Huh.

And also.

We just. We just can't end this show when you have three people. Like, if you're one person, you run out of stuff to say, we have three people. We just gone for hours.

Well, one thing I wanted, there's. There's new recommendations for. Especially if you're like, sharing this to people who don't understand podcasts. Show them how to do that. And a lot of people here, the subscribe to podcast and they think that it costs money. So, like, if you're. You're wanting to like, hey, listen to this Hughes episode. It's amazing. If you're one, a writer, tell them it's free. That subscribing does not mean they have to pay for anything. It's totally free. They can sign up. Explain that to them. Because their podcasting is the only really thing where you say subscribe. It doesn't cost anything. So they're telling us to tell people to follow now. So I thought that was kind of interesting.

And then they should update that button as well.

I know, but, you know, but anyway.

That'S a whole other.

That's a whole other thing, so.

And I want to publicly acknowledge the great work that Jeff and Pig do every freaking week.

So thank you.

I could not be here without them literally today.

That is true.

And next week will be another great episode. You can. Depends on that.

Tracy. Yes, Next week. Bringing some new jokes.

That's right.

Keeping the audience going.

That's right. All right, everybody, we will see you next time.

I'm going to Aloha.

Bye, buddy.

Hey, there we.

Go.