And it is time once again to get solar powered. We welcome you to another episode of the solar powered podcast. I am Ryan Hall. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today, and thank you so much for your listening, your following, your, your ratings and sharing our podcast. It really does mean the world to me. So thank you so much for being a part of the Royal hearts nation and the Royal hearts media podcasting empire, which soon to become an empire.
I mean, the 10 year vision is just terrifying, but hi. I wanted to, I wanted to just share a couple of things before I really get into the topic of my conversation here today. First of all, I just wanted to say that we're gonna be bringing long form interview conversations back. I miss doing them. I miss having just really insightful, powerful conversations with insightful, powerful people. And they will definitely, these will definitely be coming back.
And I also just, one of the things I wanted to bring to this, to this podcast, to the series is I think I wanted to really dig in a lot into the whole author storyteller process, because I really think there's a lot to be said for and for sharing my process on how I create on how I write on how I tell a story.
Now my process is probably not gonna be the same as your process or your process or anybody else that might be watching this here today, but my process can help you to inspire you to, I think, really take a look at your own process I've had to tell a powerful story. And I wanted to start this episode by telling a story. I know me telling stories. What are the odds? But I wanted to talk about a woman I dated many, many years ago. I think it was close to 20 years at this point.
I, I met her at work and I really thought she was out of my league. Now looking back on it as somebody who has had a lot of therapy and a lot of transformational work over the past 20 years, just speaking those words out loud, it feel absolutely ridiculous. But at the time I really believed it. But this woman, I mean, she was just the word picturesque comes to mind. She was tall. She was over 6 feet tall, just elegant, kind of moved at her own pace.
I mean, we didn't exactly click kind of an oil and water situation. And if you're watching on video, you can see there is no ring on this left hand of mine. But I think I can safely say this date that I'm telling that I'm gonna tell you about lasted a hell of a lot longer than the relationship did. Now on this night, we went to a movie, and afterwards, we found a bar nearby and we had some drinks. And she was not a writer herself. She was more of an aspiring actress type.
But the conversation drifted towards my own writing and my own storytelling pursuits. Now my writing was a lot different in those days. I was primarily writing screenplays and stage plays at the time, But I think the storytelling, I think the the process is very similar to what I'm doing now with my books.
I do think it's kind of funny that this woman was the one who introduced me to the remarkable book, the artist way by Julia Cameron and the idea of morning pages, which if you're not familiar is where you just sit and write. You set a timer and you get out as I like to call it, you get the crap out. So the gold can flow. No fun fact, Julia Cameron. I had no idea before I read this book, but Julia Cameron was once upon a time for a very short time in the seventies.
But once upon a time he was married to Martin Scorsese. Talk about a dream podcast guest. Well, both of them for that matter. But wait, what I love to quiz Martin Scorsese about that, about the famous tracking shot through the Koopa combana and the movie good fellows. But anyway, I'm getting totally distracted on my point here. Something this woman said to me during our date, just, I don't know. It just really it just really stuck with me like glue.
And it's really, I think, affected and inspired me as I have moved forward in my writing career. But the thing that he said to me was this, imagine your characters with the voice of the actor that you want to play that part. Imagine your characters with the voice of the actor that you wanna play that part. That one, that piece of advice stuck with me way longer than the relationship ever did.
But if you think about it, so much of that piece of writing advice has inspired my entire career because so much of my writing is tied in with a voice. So much of my writing is tied in with my voice. It's just it's essential to how I bring my characters to life. So if you've got a piece of fiction out there that you're working on, if you've got a novel in progress that you're working on, I want you to visualize maybe one minor character in that book that you're working on.
And I want you to imagine an actor playing that part with that voice, that inflection, that presence. Would you really imagine that for me? I think a great example of this in my own writing is in the eternal encore coming July 2025, by the way. Just throwing that out there. But there is a character in that book named Lewis. Now not to get too spoilery here, but Lewis is the estranged father of my protagonist, Jamar. Now this character has been through hell. It's been through absolute hell.
And I didn't do this intentionally. But as I wrote that character, as I wrote his scenes, I'm imagining the actor Forrest Whitaker in my mind hearing the lines, hearing his lines of dialogue in his voice. And I feel like that presence really helped me create a compelling character. You know, another example is there's a character named Lori who she's a minor character. She's only in like 2 sequences, but it's kind of, but she kind of delivers an emotional gut punch.
She's the mother of one of my protagonists. And the character is you know, she's kinda like the hippie artist type kind of like real bohemian kind of vibe. And as I'm writing this character, I was hearing the actress Janelle Maloney. I was hearing her voice in my head. Now, if you're not familiar with her, she was, is definitely best known for playing Donna Moss on the west wing. You know, come to think of it.
I might have written this character of Laurie to be kind of an extension of Donna Moss. But my point is that this, even though this is a work of fiction, right? This has helped me. I think more than anything to really add realism to my characters, to really add realism, really add authenticity to my characters. And I think it's one thing that it's really gonna help me that has really helped me, I should say, glow and thrive and evolve as a powerful writer.
So if anybody out there, if you're out there and if you've got a, if you've got a manuscript in progress, like I said earlier, just take a minor kinda tertiary character and imagine your favorite actor playing that part. Hear the dialogue in his voice.
Hear the, you know, kind of feel his presence, his or her presence, kind of feel their presence in the presence of a powerful act and notice how it just transformed the just transforms the way that you write that dialogue, that you write their, you know, their inner life and just like the expressions of who they're being in the world. I that get back to me. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear if there are other people in this world who can get the same value out of this that I have.
Now speaking of the eternal encore, I will be doing a devoting a lot on this podcast to that book because this is it's truly the, you know, my favorite thing I've ever written so far. I'm gonna be doing some kind of some deep dives into the characters, deep dives into my own writing process, and just really getting all excited for that book. So that's gonna be coming up on the solar powered podcast.
Another thing that I'm really excited about is, as I have mentioned a few times on this podcast, I am accepting applications for the expanding man chronicles volume 2. The just the hit, and I can safely say that it was a hit book. The hit that was the expanding man chronicles. We're bringing it back and we're talking about people's. And I want to hear from people who have stories, a transformational stories that have a definitive choice point. You could either go down the road.
That's comfortable. That's paved. That's got trees and flowers and, you know, squirrels scampering in front of you. Or you could go down the road, less travel that might have some potholes that might have some, some barbed wire, maybe some not so adorable animals, but the end goal is so much more beautiful. That is coming to Royal hearts media, in the spring of 2025. So be on the lookout for that.
So I think that'll do it for this episode of the solar powered podcast, the presentation of Royal hearts, media, for more information about me, about our services and about our books, you can visit my website at Royal hearts media.com. You can follow me on the social media machine at Ryan hall rights on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or you could just shoot me a good old fashioned email at Royal hearts media at no at ryan. Hall at Royal hearts media dot com.
That will do it for this episode of the solar powered podcast. If you like this episode, like, comment, subscribe. And until we meet again, this is Ryan Hall saying thanks for listening so long for now. I love you all, and go get solar powered. Take care.