This episode contains some mild spoilers, so if you haven't listened to the first 99 episodes, you may want to check them out before listening to the interview.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-thieves-guild--6141933/support.
Some secrets are worth dying for. Some are worth killing for.
Want to binge The Thieves Guild with fewer ads? Every Friday night we release a bonus episode of the week's previous five chapters, with fewer ads in between chapters and a seamless listening experience!
Perfect for a weekend binge!
---
If you would like to view a map of Ness, you can find it here.
---
Check out our other audiobook podcasts!
Artifacts of the Arcane
A historical urban fantasy set at the beginning of World War Two.
The world has abandoned magic, but magic hasn’t abandoned the world.
Thursday
A cyberpunk VR thriller.
No one can be trusted when nothing is real.
---
Find out more about writer/show runner Jake Kerr: https://www.jakekerr.com
Follow Jake on Bluesky @jakekerr.com
00:00:00
(Music) The Thieves Guild
00:00:04
by Jake Kerr.
00:00:10
Episode 100,
00:00:16
Celebration.
00:00:23
Hi, everyone. I'm George Turner, your narrator for the Thieves Guild.
00:00:29
Welcome to episode 100.
00:00:32
This week, we will be celebrating our 100th episode with something different,
00:00:37
an interview with our esteemed author, Jake Kerr.
00:00:41
Thanks for joining us, Jake.
00:00:43
I'm really happy to be here, George. Um, thanks for having me.
00:00:47
And b- by the way, everybody,
00:00:49
George Turner, the amazing narrator of the Thieves Guild.
00:00:53
What an amazing job you do.
00:00:55
Thank you. I'm quite enjoying it, which is why I'm so happy we've gotten
00:01:00
to 100 episodes, which reminds me, this is about
00:01:05
you. So let's begin, shall we?
00:01:08
So how do you feel reaching 100 episodes?
00:01:12
This has been a real labor of love. Um,
00:01:16
obviously, it started out as a, uh, book series, and
00:01:20
turning it into a podcast was something I've, uh, thought about and, uh,
00:01:26
decided, like, "Hey, let's do it." So getting to 100 episodes is crazy.
00:01:30
Didn't even
00:01:31
think I'd get to 20 because of, uh, you know, who would want to listen or
00:01:36
how do I get the podcast out there. So, uh, very, very happy.
00:01:41
Tell me a little bit about yourself and your background as a writer.
00:01:45
Yeah, sure. I, um, I started... Well,
00:01:50
to be honest, um, I started writing wh- (laughs) in my head when I
00:01:55
was really little. I, uh, I always was, uh, creating
00:01:58
stories in my head. I'd be going to church on Sunday, and, uh,
00:02:03
would, uh, just essentially
00:02:06
create scenes about the church with superheroes coming in and bad guys
00:02:10
robbing, uh, everything. And, and, it's just t- to, to pass the time,
00:02:15
I was creating stories in my head, and I did that when I was at school and when I was at home.
00:02:20
And, and really, I've been a storyteller, uh, to myself, uh,
00:02:25
my whole life. But I really started writing
00:02:28
in the, uh, probably right around 2000.
00:02:31
A good friend of mine, um, had a, uh,
00:02:35
bestselling book and I wrote her and said, "Congratulations." And she was like, "Hey, you know,
00:02:40
you're not writing. Why?" And I said, "Well, ever since I graduated college, I didn't really think I was
00:02:45
very good at it." And, uh, and she recommended that I, uh, start writing,
00:02:50
and she was very enthusiastic, and I appreciated that.
00:02:53
So I started writing in 2000,
00:02:55
and, uh, I had no idea what to do, so I just started...
00:02:58
I joined the, uh, the Writers Garret in Dallas, which is a, a writer's group, and we
00:03:03
just did writing exercises constantly.
00:03:06
For years, I, I would, uh, write, you know, a scene of dialogue only and no
00:03:11
description, a scene description only with no dialogue.
00:03:13
So really, I just, uh, started writing in that way.
00:03:17
And then, uh, one of the members said, "Hey, you're, you're really good.
00:03:20
Why don't you join, uh, this writer's conference called Viable Paradise?" Which I had
00:03:25
never heard of, and I was like, "Uh, okay, that sounds fun. A, a week in Martha's Vineyard?
00:03:29
You don't have to convince me twice." So I went there, and, uh, that's where I learned
00:03:34
about,
00:03:35
you know, uh, submitting t- um, to magazines and things like that.
00:03:40
So, um,
00:03:41
I wrote a story, and, uh, got a very nice rejection, and the person said, "Hey, this
00:03:46
isn't really a science fiction story. You're submitting it to a science fiction magazine.
00:03:50
It has science fiction in it, but it's not really that important.
00:03:53
You need to write a science fiction story." So I wrote a story called The Old Equations and sent
00:03:58
it off to, uh, a couple of magazines, and Lightspeed Magazine, uh,
00:04:03
bought it, and it subsequently was nominated for the, uh, Sturgeon Award, uh, which is a
00:04:08
juried prize from the University of Kansas, and the, uh, and the Nebula Award,
00:04:13
which is, uh, the award given by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
00:04:17
And, uh, that kind of pushed me into a bit of a spotlight, and I've been publishing short
00:04:21
stories and, and then started on writing novels ever since then.
00:04:25
So
00:04:26
it's, it's kind of like a, uh, a journey of a slow start,
00:04:30
and, uh, and, and then a, as I got older, uh, a, a quick
00:04:35
launch (laughs) , and, and then, uh, some pretty significant, uh, success
00:04:40
after a lot of writing exercises.
00:04:43
You mentioned being nominated for a Nebula Award.
00:04:47
What was that like?
00:04:49
It was, uh, it was interesting because I, I knew it was a good story.
00:04:53
The editor, John Joseph Adams, um,
00:04:57
uh, really was supportive, and, uh, I put a lot of work into it.
00:05:01
I put a lot of work into the story.
00:05:03
And, um,
00:05:05
and I thought it was good. I, I didn't know if it was award-worthy. I had hopes.
00:05:10
Uh, once I got nominated, really nothing changes so much as,
00:05:15
uh, doors open. You have that kind of credibility of having been
00:05:20
nominated for a Nebula Award. But even then, in, in the writing community,
00:05:25
uh, while doors open, uh, they don't mean you, you're gonna get published everywhere.
00:05:29
It's still kind of a struggle to write, uh, a great story.
00:05:33
Uh, but really, the biggest change was I, I think that, uh, I, I was taken seriously
00:05:38
at, at more places.
00:05:39
And, uh, that has a, a real benefit.
00:05:41
And this was for your first published story.
00:05:45
That's actually true.
00:05:48
Uh, and I will go further and say,
00:05:51
um, post 18 Years Old,
00:05:54
uh, it wasn't the first story I've written.
00:05:58
Uh, I wrote stories in college. Um,
00:06:02
but it was the
00:06:03
first story...That got published from me, yeah.
00:06:08
Uh, I'm trying to, like, position it for you so you can get a sense of like how much of a rookie (laughs) I
00:06:12
actually was, even though I was, uh, in my for- like, uh, around 40 years old.
00:06:17
Um, basically,
00:06:19
I came out of Viable Paradise having never written a story since college
00:06:23
and I wrote a story at Viable Paradise that I, that I polished up and I sent out, and that's the
00:06:28
one that came back and they said, "Hey, this is a good story but it's not science fiction." And that was a
00:06:32
personal rejection that I value to this day.
00:06:35
Uh, so The Old Equations was actually my second story I wrote as an
00:06:40
adult,
00:06:41
wrote, and my first published story, and that was the one that got nominated for a
00:06:46
Nebula. Now that sounds kind of arrogant and, and, uh, even though it's true, the, the
00:06:51
reality though is, and I, and I think people miss this, that I had spent the previous 20
00:06:56
years
00:06:57
more or less
00:06:58
writing constantly. Writing essays, writing
00:07:02
writing exercises, and, and I like to tell people this, like, my first published story was nominated for a
00:07:06
Nebula Award but I had written a million words,
00:07:10
literally written a million words before I even had a story published. So, there's that.
00:07:14
(laughs)
00:07:15
You mentioned the Thieves Guild didn't start out as a podcast, but as a book
00:07:20
series. What made you want to do it as a podcast, and can you see
00:07:24
publishing more books or will this be exclusively a podcast moving
00:07:29
forward?
00:07:30
That's a good question. I, um, I really wanted,
00:07:34
uh, to continue the series in book form and I probably will, but it is gonna be primarily a
00:07:39
podcast from here on out. And why did I choose to do it as a podcast?
00:07:43
Um,
00:07:45
I loved the idea.
00:07:48
It, it's meant to be a, uh, a serial. It's meant to be one of these things that's
00:07:53
consumed in small pieces. That's how I wrote it, even though it was packaged as a book series
00:07:58
and, and you can read them all in one sitting, but it was really meant to be a chapter by chapter
00:08:03
released type of thing. But there was really n- at the time I wrote it, there wasn't really a, a, a,
00:08:08
an outlet for serial fiction, uh, like that.
00:08:12
Magazines wrote, produced stories or, or published stories and there weren't really, uh,
00:08:16
serial fiction outlets. So when podcasts starting to be huge and
00:08:21
the ability to create your own podcast was becoming more and more accessible, I thought
00:08:26
this would be really cool and I figured if I'm gonna do it, let's do it whole hog.
00:08:31
Let's do a full cast
00:08:33
recording where people can be really immersed with the idea that they're immersed
00:08:38
for this, uh, you know, for a week or, or, or for on a Monday
00:08:43
and then on a Friday they get their next piece and, and they can't wait. It's, uh...
00:08:48
and that was kind of the idea behind it.
00:08:51
Oh, and, uh, you asked about doing more.
00:08:53
I, I can definitely see myself doing more,
00:08:57
and in fact, toward the end of this episode, I'll have a special announcement
00:09:02
that, uh, is specifically about that. So look out for that.
00:09:06
You certainly like to torture us, don't you?
00:09:10
Anyone who listens to the Thieves Guild
00:09:12
and waits for the next episode knows that.
00:09:15
(laughs)
00:09:16
The story starts out with simple mischief among two young friends and then
00:09:21
gets progressively more complex. Was this your intent?
00:09:25
That, that's a great question, and actually the reality is that I'm
00:09:30
writing the whole thing completely by the seat of my pants.
00:09:33
Um, I started with that opening scene of Raylan and Rafe,
00:09:38
uh, tossing the thing and I had this idea of, of a
00:09:43
Thieves Guild and, and how he would be made the Thieves Guild master and
00:09:48
I... So I had kind of like the ideas
00:09:51
very, very rough ideas, but I didn't know where I was gonna go, and that's part of the joy of writing it.
00:09:55
I wanted to just kind of like have fun
00:09:59
writing it out along with, you know, as the reader, the same way the reader is reading it
00:10:03
is how I wanted to write it. It's challenging because, uh, you know, continuity
00:10:08
becomes an issue and things like that, uh, but it's also a lot of fun.
00:10:12
And one of the things that I... one of my goals was much like Charles Dickens, you know, people would wait
00:10:17
for the Strand Magazine on, on, on, on docks as it was unloaded from the
00:10:22
ship, they were so interested in what the next episode was.
00:10:25
And you see this in some of the Pulp Fiction magazines and, and the, uh, chapters of Conan and things
00:10:30
like that. The, the idea that a chapter,
00:10:35
um,
00:10:36
w- every chapter would end with a cliffhanger. I, I kind of loved that idea.
00:10:41
So just right up by the seat of my pants, end the chapter with like, ooh, what comes next?
00:10:46
And, uh, that not only would draw the listener, listener in and the reader in, but it would
00:10:51
also make me excited about writing the next chapter.
00:10:53
How have you planned out the story then?
00:10:56
You, you had talked about increasing complexity and I think that's just the
00:11:01
nature of storytelling. You know, as you bring new characters in, the story becomes more
00:11:06
complex. And, uh, that's one of the challenges I need to face, uh,
00:11:11
moving forward is how do I
00:11:14
not make it so complex that we lose track of everything?
00:11:18
You know, each chapter is gonna be following, uh...
00:11:20
each episode is gonna be following someone along as they continue their journey.
00:11:25
But if we have 10 people on 10 different journeys, uh, you'll get tired pretty quickly.
00:11:30
So, um, the challenge for me is that it will become complex, just basically the nature
00:11:35
of the storytelling by adding characters and with different, uh, goals.
00:11:39
You're sending Mela off on her mission to Harvest House and then she gets moved in a different
00:11:44
direction, that makes it complex. Having Raylan go to
00:11:49
Goutland and meet with the, uh, with the Outlanders, uh, now they're
00:11:53
part of the story, that makes it more complex.
00:11:56
So it, it's actually something I have to be careful about because the complexity isn't
00:12:00
something you build, it's something you have to kind of contain, if that makes sense.
00:12:05
You mentioned Dickens. Were there any other influences on the
00:12:10
Thieves Guild?
00:12:12
Yeah, uh, Dickens for sure. Um, also the pulp writers. I love A. C.
00:12:16
Rice Burroughs and, and Conan, and, and I just read Zorro by Johnston
00:12:21
McCulley. And I love how they, they have a real sense of narrative.
00:12:25
You know, you may criticize their writing and their prose, and, and obviously they're writing in an era
00:12:30
where, uh, you know, men were men and women were there to, to look pretty.
00:12:34
It was very kind of sad in all of those aspects.
00:12:37
But fundamentally, as narrative writers, they're very strong.
00:12:40
They know how to end a chapter with a, uh, a kind of forward momentum, and there's a
00:12:45
lot to learn by reading them. So those were all influences.
00:12:49
Uh, I think for the Thieves Guild, specifically the,
00:12:55
the, the kind of, uh...
00:12:58
I'm trying to think what influenced me in terms of like the social
00:13:02
stratification
00:13:03
and the nature of,
00:13:06
uh, of having guilds.
00:13:09
Uh, I can't really remember something that I've read that influenced it, although I'm sure that,
00:13:14
I mean, I've read so much in my life that there's, there's a bunch that, uh, if you were to like
00:13:19
say to me later, "Oh, yeah, that reminds me of this book," I'd be like, "Oh, yeah, actually I read that
00:13:24
when I was 15. That's, that probably is an influence." So hard to say, hard to say.
00:13:28
But, um, the structure of it in terms of like it being a serial kind
00:13:33
of picaresque type of thing where you just go on the journey and follow people where they go, and you end
00:13:38
each chapter, uh, it's gonna be Dickens and, uh, and the pulp writers from the, uh,
00:13:43
from the '20s and '30s.
00:13:44
Do you have a favorite character?
00:13:47
Oh, man, that's another good question. Um, not really.
00:13:51
I kinda love them all. I mean, that's, I guess as a writer you, they, they talk about your
00:13:56
darlings and, and I kinda love all the characters.
00:13:58
I'll tell you what, I, what I really do have a favorite are favorite
00:14:03
scenes. You, you want every, you want every scene to be amazing, but obviously that's impossible.
00:14:07
So sometimes as you go along, there's scenes that just kinda stand out to you.
00:14:12
And, uh, a good example would be, uh, when, uh, when Raylan meets
00:14:16
Mayla for the first time, and she's just constantly insulting him as they're moving along,
00:14:21
and, and he's like getting more and more frustrated.
00:14:25
And he's like, "Hey, I was just made the guild master and you're insulting me."
00:14:28
And, um,
00:14:30
and I love that whole kind of exchange.
00:14:32
It, it shows her character so well, and, uh, uh, her kind of like,
00:14:38
you know, uh, anti-uh, establishment character. Perfect for a thief, by the way.
00:14:43
And, and Raylan's kind of in like, "I can't make sense of this.
00:14:47
What is going on?" Which, which kind of is a perfect, uh, illustration of his character as he's thrust
00:14:52
into this role. So that was a, that was a scene that I, that I really enjoyed.
00:14:57
So no, no real favorite characters, but favorite scenes, if that makes
00:15:02
sense.
00:15:02
It does, but I'm not sure I believe you.
00:15:06
(laughs) Fair enough.
00:15:08
The main setting is a city called Ness where the social
00:15:13
stratification is all based on guilds and each guild has a color.
00:15:18
I always picture the city as this patchwork of colors moving around.
00:15:22
Is that how you pictured it?
00:15:24
You know, when I designed the idea in my head of like colors being a
00:15:29
guild, I had no visual representation, believe it or not, in my
00:15:34
mind. It was only later as I was kind of thinking of, uh, o- of what the city
00:15:38
would look like, as you just did, that I realized that it would be like this rainbow of colors
00:15:43
swirling around and you would have a blue quarter and a red quarter and a, and a, and a yellow quarter.
00:15:49
And, uh, it's funny. I named the, uh,
00:15:52
the sections of the city, you know, you got the lower quarter, the upper quarter, and you got the golden
00:15:57
triangle, and, and all of these various pieces, all on like
00:16:01
physical
00:16:02
kind of pla- like descriptions. Like the lower quarter is down the slope from the
00:16:07
mountain and it's one quarter of the city for the most part.
00:16:10
And, uh, you know, the ash fields are fields of ash. So it was very literal in that.
00:16:15
But in hindsight, I kinda like, kinda what you're, you're, you're getting at or at least
00:16:20
referencing, is the idea of, uh, uh, the, the city separated into colors.
00:16:25
I love the idea of the red district and the blue district.
00:16:28
But, alas, that's not what they're named.
00:16:30
Um, but to your point, they are visually,
00:16:35
uh, gonna be seen like that. And, and as I picture the city, I do kind of picture this,
00:16:39
uh,
00:16:40
this swirling mass of color and, and, and sections where some colors
00:16:45
dominate and others don't. I, I kinda like that image even if it's,
00:16:51
e- even if it, uh, seems unrealistic that, you know, people would be slavishly,
00:16:55
uh,
00:16:56
uh,
00:16:57
wearing one color. I don't think it's that unrealistic, by the way, in term- in terms of like, uh, cultural
00:17:03
possibilities. But
00:17:05
I, I, I love how it looks, so thank you for that question.
00:17:07
I'm fascinated in how you mentioned writing the whole
00:17:12
story on the fly.
00:17:14
In an early episode, we see some books in Pietro's living quarters as
00:17:19
background description. Those books become very important later in the
00:17:24
story. Did you plan that?
00:17:26
(laughs)
00:17:28
You know, uh,
00:17:29
Bob Ross talked about, uh, happy accidents, and they don't only occur in
00:17:34
painting. Um,
00:17:36
you know, in fact, that's a really, uh, core way of how I'm writing this and how I write a lot of
00:17:41
things. I call them seeds. Basically what you do is i- when you're writing something,
00:17:46
you can, uh, c- add something, uh,
00:17:49
uh, interesting
00:17:51
that's part of the scenery,
00:17:53
and you do it there with the idea of it's interesting in and of itself, it's there.
00:17:57
It could be a painting on the wall. It could be books on a bookshelf, like you mentioned, in terms of
00:18:01
Pietro's, uh, uh, quarters. Um, but they're there to kind of
00:18:06
like make it seem more interesting than just a bare wall.
00:18:09
But all of those interesting things......
00:18:12
can, you can, you can go back and look at them and use them later, and that's what I did with
00:18:16
Pietro's books. That was not planned.
00:18:19
Um, I love the idea of this hidden history.
00:18:22
And again, that came on the fly to me well into writing this that there would be, like, this hidden history of
00:18:26
Ness.
00:18:27
And, uh, I, I was struggling to come up with, like, why does a thieves' guild even exist?
00:18:32
It just kinda, sounds kinda silly, right?
00:18:34
Uh,
00:18:36
you know, uh, in terms of, like, being part of the social structure.
00:18:40
Like, the whole
00:18:42
f- opening few chapters where the thieves' guild makes a difference in terms of the ruling
00:18:47
decisions of the city makes no sense, so I kind of was like, "Well, did I write myself into a corner here?"
00:18:52
So, what I did was I just went back and, uh, and, and, and kind of said, "How can I make this make sense?"
00:18:57
And as I, as I came up with the idea of this hidden history,
00:19:00
um, s- something hidden
00:19:03
needs n- you know, needs to be hidden. You can't have a recorded history of it or something like that.
00:19:07
But then I was like, "How do you expose it, then?" So, these are the kind of things writers go
00:19:12
through in your, in your head. I don't know if people necessarily care who are podcast listeners, but you
00:19:17
think about,
00:19:19
like, like, the challenges that you create.
00:19:21
I want to get to this point, but to get there, it's unrealistic. How can I make it realistic?
00:19:25
So, these are kind of the challenges that you go through.
00:19:27
In this case, uh, I put a library in the, uh, the tower, but
00:19:32
I wanted it to be incomplete because that would fuel further kind of,
00:19:37
you know, uh, tension and, and momentum.
00:19:41
So, where could the rest of the book slide?
00:19:43
Well, I thought, there's a library that's mentioned that's in, in the upper triangle where the rich people
00:19:47
live, and I thought, "It could be there. It could be in a room there." Um, but then it hit me.
00:19:52
Oh my gosh, I mentioned that there were books in Pietro's office, and, and it was the happiest of
00:19:57
accidents. We've got Pietro, the Guildmaster thief, living
00:20:02
under the tower of the, of the merchants.
00:20:04
He's got a huge bookshelf full of books no one reads, no one cares about his books, and he's
00:20:09
guarding the history of the guild.
00:20:12
I, I, you know, I couldn't have m- planned it better and it wasn't planned at all.
00:20:16
I, I know that sounds crazy, but it wasn't.
00:20:19
So, you're not sure where things are going?
00:20:21
Uh, I, I, like I said, I know it sounds crazy.
00:20:26
George, you're gonna have to believe me.
00:20:27
I, I do not have a future planned on where this is going.
00:20:31
At this point in time, 'cause we, uh, we now have Mayla and, uh, Darla
00:20:36
fighting their way back to Ness somehow.
00:20:39
We've got the, uh, outlanders who are, are creating a distraction.
00:20:42
We've got a whole bunch of things going on.
00:20:45
Um,
00:20:46
where is that gonna go?
00:20:48
I am, uh, I'm not sure, and I think that's part of what's gonna be exciting
00:20:52
about the, uh, the next 100 episodes of, uh, of the podcast
00:20:57
is, uh, we will all be surprised and hopefully pleasantly so.
00:21:01
Do you have an ending in mind?
00:21:04
That's a fair question. I, I do think, m-
00:21:09
let me put it this way. I usually have a beginning and an end in mind when I write a book.
00:21:14
The middle is where, you know, creativity and all of the fun happens for the most part.
00:21:19
So, having an ending gives me a, a place on where to go.
00:21:23
In this case however,
00:21:25
um,
00:21:26
this series is personal. It's, it's my
00:21:31
way of creating the books that I read when I was 14 and
00:21:35
15. It's me writing out my version o- uh, my contemporary
00:21:40
version of Conan or, you know, The Land That Time Forgot or The Princess of
00:21:44
Mars. All of those books just, I consumed them when I was 14, and I
00:21:49
never wanted them to end.
00:21:51
And this is me writing that book that's never gonna end.
00:21:55
Um, you know, I can't say it won't end, but at this point in time, what I really wanna
00:22:00
do in my plan is to have these characters...
00:22:03
And again, I mentioned earlier that you have to be careful not making too many characters, everybody loses
00:22:07
the thread,
00:22:08
but have characters that pick up the torch.
00:22:11
You know, I could see at some point Ness become stabilized and maybe there's a
00:22:15
leader and, and the focus isn't on
00:22:19
Raylan anymore. Even though the, the, the, uh, he's the Guildmaster thief and the, the,
00:22:24
the series is called The Thieves' Guild,
00:22:27
maybe the thieves become supporting characters to someone else and they carry the torch.
00:22:32
Maybe,
00:22:33
maybe it goes with Mayla and Darla and we discover the land.
00:22:36
They're sent on a mission to discover what's on the other side of the mountain,
00:22:40
or they're sent on a mission to find the ocean that's past Gautland.
00:22:44
Uh, all of these things, uh, are, are, have so much potential around them, I just can't
00:22:49
foresee an ending.
00:22:51
Um, I don't know. Maybe a meteor
00:22:53
hits and the dinosaurs take over.
00:22:55
Do you worry that people will get tired of the story?
00:22:59
Wow. Uh, you know, that's, that's, that is a concern,
00:23:04
and that's one of the reasons I try to weave in new, new storylines or
00:23:09
subplots and things like that.
00:23:11
So, if you're tired of Raylan fighting against The Man, you have Mayla and Darla
00:23:16
discovering the Magic Guild. If you're
00:23:19
really not too keen on what's happening with Rafe up in the, uh,
00:23:24
tower, you've got, uh, Rogers trying to rally the Harvest Guild.
00:23:28
So, um, I try to make sure that it's not a tiring read, that
00:23:33
everything is new and every chapter ends with some kind of element of tension to it.
00:23:38
But it is a concern. I do worry that people get tired of it.
00:23:41
I mean, there have been books that have gone on for dozens and
00:23:45
dozens and dozens of books, and I'm not even close to that yet.
00:23:49
Uh, so I do know that it can be done, um, and I'm hoping that I can do it.
00:23:54
Let's talk about the podcast. There are no credits or lengthy intros
00:23:59
or outros.
00:24:01
Why is that?
00:24:02
Well, I'm, I'm sorry I don't highlight you, George (laughs) . That was all by design.
00:24:07
One of the things that I've been annoyed with when I listen to podcasts are
00:24:12
these interminable
00:24:14
intros that go on for two minutes and, um,
00:24:18
the, uh, you know, even songs, like intro scores that are, are
00:24:23
f-You know, a minute long. When I was, when I was
00:24:27
getting the, the intro music, which I love by the way, for the, the
00:24:32
podcast, the, the one guideline I gave was has to be under 30 seconds.
00:24:37
So, uh,
00:24:38
the goal was
00:24:40
when I, when I approached it was I have 30 seconds, less than 30 seconds of
00:24:45
music, and we're in the story by the time the music ends. So, I had 30 seconds.
00:24:50
30 seconds is enough to do,
00:24:52
you know, the name of the podcast,
00:24:54
uh, the title of the, uh,
00:24:57
uh, episode, the number of the episode,
00:25:01
um, the, the... my name, you know, at least give myself credit.
00:25:05
Sorry, George, not you, but me. And, uh, and that was it.
00:25:09
So, you know, as you're well aware, as I talked to all of the...
00:25:12
or as I kind of crafted all of the pieces together,
00:25:16
and, uh, you know, from the end music to the intro music to, uh, all of the
00:25:20
voices and, and, and things like that, I decided to just focus on the
00:25:25
story. So, um, there's that. It's, uh, it's by...
00:25:30
entirely by design.
00:25:31
I don't mind actually. I like your approach of diving
00:25:36
directly into the story.
00:25:37
Well, thanks, George. I'm, I, uh, I, I, I think it works.
00:25:43
Uh, I'll, I'll just say that.
00:25:44
The length of the episodes are usually around 10 minutes.
00:25:48
Did you plan that?
00:25:50
That was actually another happy accident.
00:25:53
Each, uh, episode was gonna be a chapter in an already written book series.
00:25:57
Now, we're moving beyond that now, but, uh, it's gonna continue, and each chapter
00:26:02
just happened to be around 10 to 15 minutes.
00:26:05
In hindsight, again, thank you, Bob Ross. I'm talking about these happy accidents.
00:26:10
I love the length of the episodes. They're short.
00:26:14
They proje- project story and character,
00:26:18
and they're easy to consume, uh, quickly if you're on your way to work or something like
00:26:23
that. They're not hour-long narratives and, and dramas and things like that.
00:26:27
Uh, they're, they're meant to be serials, like, like the old 1800s, uh,
00:26:33
magazines where Dickens and Wilkie Collins were published, and, and people would read them
00:26:38
in the carriage, or they would read them, uh, at home before they went to bed, and then they would wait for
00:26:43
the next episode. So, uh, I kind of like it. Wasn't by design.
00:26:47
Uh, it was a happy accident. But, uh, again, I, I feel like I've had a lot of these on this, and I'm very
00:26:51
grateful.
00:26:52
Unlike a lot of podcasts, you produce two episodes a week.
00:26:57
How do you make that work?
00:26:58
Well, I have an efficient production, so that helps.
00:27:02
But, but more than anything, it's the fact that I already had material written going back
00:27:07
100, you know, basically 99 episodes.
00:27:09
So, when you have something written, it makes it a lot easier to get it out because it's already produced and
00:27:14
all you need to do is, uh,
00:27:16
uh, have all the rest of the stuff added in.
00:27:17
Not that it's easy, but it, it's, it's not as time-consuming as, as literally writing
00:27:23
all of that. Uh, and that's why, uh, announcement number one for
00:27:27
everybody, starting with episode...
00:27:30
uh, starting next week, we're gonna be moving to one episode a week, and the reason is simple.
00:27:35
I'm gonna be writing the, the works instead of, uh, using previously written stuff.
00:27:39
Now, I'm very excited about that because,
00:27:41
um,
00:27:43
I, I will be able to experience the story as it goes along.
00:27:46
I'll be able to read your feedback, and, uh, and I'm not so, uh...
00:27:50
uh, I'm not so enamored with my own genius that I wouldn't take your ideas if you wanted to, like, toss
00:27:55
them in comments and say, "Man, I wish it went this way." Can't say I would take those ideas, but I
00:28:00
love how writing and reading is a collaborative experience, so we're gonna go to one episode a week, uh,
00:28:05
starting, uh, next week.
00:28:06
So, one episode a week starting next episode.
00:28:11
If my math is correct, it sounds like it will be two years before we get to
00:28:15
episode 200.
00:28:17
Well, now that you put it that way, George, I, I wanna do two episodes a week 'cause I want it to come
00:28:22
faster
00:28:23
(laughs) . But, alas,
00:28:25
I, I can only write so fast. So, uh, yeah, thanks for bringing me down, George.
00:28:30
Hey,
00:28:31
I'm not the one only writing one episode a week.
00:28:36
Do you have anything special planned as part of this 100th episode?
00:28:40
Yes, actually. We are going to be giving away
00:28:45
a paperback version of the first two books of The Thieves Guild that the
00:28:50
podcast has been based on, these first 99 episodes, and, uh, they
00:28:55
will be both signed by me and, uh, sent off to you.
00:28:59
Um, there will be a sign-up form in the description if you want to, uh,
00:29:04
have a chance to win the, uh, the paperbacks.
00:29:07
And, uh,
00:29:08
the... I will, uh, be open to mailing them internationally as well, so this is not limited
00:29:13
to just the United States.
00:29:16
Am I eligible?
00:29:18
Uh, no, George, you are not.
00:29:21
Oh, well. For those listening, check out the description for the link.
00:29:25
Anything else before we go?
00:29:28
Actually, I do have a surprise announcement.
00:29:31
A surprise announcement. Now, that's what I was
00:29:36
hoping to hear. What is it?
00:29:38
I actually have a
00:29:42
young adult series called, uh, Tommy Black. It's about...
00:29:46
starts with Tommy Black and the Staff of Light, which was, uh, fairly successful, uh,
00:29:51
about, uh, 10 years ago or so. And, uh,
00:29:56
the, the, uh, first book is Tommy Black and the Staff of Light.
00:29:58
The second is, uh, Tommy Black and the Coat of Invincibility, and there's a third book that
00:30:03
hasn't been written yet. And I decided I'm gonna do the same thing with Tommy Black
00:30:08
that I've done for The Thieves Guild.
00:30:09
I am going to produce it as a podcast. So, uh,
00:30:14
uh, I still have to get it in place. It's, uh, you can s- you know, we'll, we'll announce it
00:30:19
here, um...But, uh, it's probably gonna be in about two months,
00:30:24
and I haven't decided whether it's gonna be a full cast or a single narrator.
00:30:27
I kind of like the idea of a single narrator, and, uh, and George, you can thank
00:30:32
yourself for that because, uh, I really do love your narration.
00:30:35
So, um, but it might be full cast too. There's, there's something interesting about
00:30:40
having a full cast that, that I really like, but, uh, we will find out.
00:30:44
So, uh, probably in, let's say,
00:30:48
September. It looks like it's gonna be September, we'll be launching the Tommy Black
00:30:53
series, uh, podcast. Still haven't come up with a name yet.
00:30:57
I don't think it's gonna be the Tommy Black Series.
00:30:59
It's gonna be something more, uh, (laughs) evocative, but, uh, that's coming, uh, in two
00:31:03
months. So, that's an exciting announcement, or at least I hope you think it's exciting.
00:31:06
That's wonderful. Can I narrate that one too?
00:31:11
Oh, yeah. I just say something nice about you, and now I have to say something mean.
00:31:15
No, uh, unfortunately George, you're not gonna n- narrate this one.
00:31:18
I have to, uh, find a, uh, American-voiced n- narrator.
00:31:23
This is set in America. Well, actually, it's set all over the
00:31:27
place, but the, uh, the main characters are from America.
00:31:31
Can you give us some more details about Tommy Black?
00:31:34
Sure. It's set in a world... Uh, it's set in 1938 before World War
00:31:39
II, and magic has been part of the world for so long, but as technology is coming
00:31:43
along, has come along, it is replacing magic. So, magic is dying out.
00:31:48
It's become kind of like this carnival act type of thing, and there used to be
00:31:53
things called uh, uh,
00:31:55
arch mages. And the arch mages were the super powerful magicians, but they haven't been seen for
00:32:00
a long time. And there's one who is Tommy's grandfather, who's retired
00:32:05
and, and lives in, uh, in, uh,
00:32:08
Manhattan and, uh, he, uh, he, he basically is, is
00:32:13
retired and doesn't wanna have anything to do with anybody else.
00:32:16
And the world is losing magic, and he's a little bitter about it.
00:32:19
And what happens is, uh,
00:32:22
the, uh... He gets attacked with his, uh, with his, uh, grandson,
00:32:27
and his grandson is Tommy, and
00:32:30
basically he, uh, he saves Tommy in an attack on a restaurant, hands Tommy the staff and
00:32:35
says,
00:32:36
you know, "Take this with you and, and, and essentially hide it.
00:32:39
I'll get back to you later."
00:32:41
So, uh, Tommy leaves, and that begins the, uh,
00:32:45
the, the adventure, and it, it covers so much history.
00:32:49
It's, uh, it's gonna overlap World War II when the World War II, uh, is
00:32:54
gonna have magic elements to it. Uh, it has, uh, lots of cool
00:32:59
stuff. And again, book one and two are written, so this will go on, uh, at a pretty good clip,
00:33:04
like I did with the, the Thieves Guild.
00:33:07
Uh, and then we'll have fun
00:33:09
with book three. This one will have an ending.
00:33:12
Uh, the Tommy Black Series, uh, podcast will have an ending, uh, which is after the, the
00:33:17
third book, um, but I'm not sure how long that will take. Uh, the beauty of a podcast...
00:33:21
And I will be, just like the Thieves Guild, designing the third book for the podcast, not a book-book,
00:33:26
uh, is I can make it as long as I like or as short as I like. So, uh, we shall see.
00:33:30
Um, I'm excited for it. I hope, uh, I hope everybody likes it.
00:33:33
When does it start?
00:33:35
Geez, George, I said it was gonna be, like, August, September in, but you, you have to pin me down, don't
00:33:40
you? All right. I will, uh, I'll go on the record since, uh, you're being annoying and
00:33:45
making me do so. Uh, it will be September 6th, will be the first episode
00:33:50
launch of Tommy Black. And, uh, by the way, title will be changed.
00:33:55
Uh, but, uh, the first book is Tommy Black and the Staff of Light, and, uh,
00:33:59
chapter one of that book will be the first episode, which you will, uh, have on September 6th.
00:34:05
So, there you go.
00:34:06
Thanks for making this podcast a reality, Jake.
00:34:09
Uh, I'm happy to do so. I love, I love writing, and I love telling stories.
00:34:13
So, this is more,
00:34:15
you know, makes me happier, and, and if other people enjoy it,
00:34:19
that's, that's all the best, George.
00:34:20
Where can people find more information about you and the other things you do?
00:34:26
Uh, where can people find more about me? Uh, the easiest is just to go to my website, jakekerr.com.
00:34:31
So, if you go to J-A-K-E K-E-R-R dot com, you can find, uh, more
00:34:35
information about me. I still write short stories.
00:34:38
You'll find them, uh, I have one coming up in Lightspeed Magazine, in fact. It's a fantasy story.
00:34:42
Um, and, uh, you'll find, uh, news about, uh, other books I've
00:34:47
written. I have a, uh,
00:34:49
kind of a
00:34:50
cyberpunk thriller called Thursday that's available and, um,
00:34:54
uh, assorted other things. So, you can find me on, uh,
00:34:59
on, uh, on my website. I'm also on Blue Sky, if you wanna track me down there.
00:35:04
It's, uh, Jake,
00:35:07
uh, @jake.kerr.social.
00:35:10
So, uh, jake.kerr.social is my handle on Blue Sky if you wanna follow me there.
00:35:16
Um, that's about it.
00:35:17
And on that note, I'm looking forward to narrating next week's episode
00:35:23
and a long future for the Thieves Guild.
00:35:26
Me too, George. Me too.
00:35:32
(upbeat music plays)