Matt: All right. Welcome everybody to the Write Out Loud Podcast. It is, of course, Matt Cassem, along with the spirited, sparkling, vivacious, exuberant, gleeful, and bright Christina. How do you think, what do you think about that?
Christina: Sparkling I'll go with. Sparkling. I appreciate, you
Matt: hmm.
Christina: me a little glitter and I'm happy,
Matt: Mm hmm.
Christina: but
Matt: I'm,
Christina: get you a thesaurus.
Matt: yeah, we try to find, we try to find as many different words as possible to describe you and
Christina: when someone meets me, they're going to be like so disappointed because I am none of those things.
Matt: nonsense is utter nonsense. Anywho, we are back once again, and very, very excited to introduce you to a very Very special guest.
Christina: Yes.
Matt: is Ruby Dixon and Ruby is an author of all things science fiction and fantasy romance. She's a Sagittarius and a Raylo shipper for those Star Wars fans out there. Loves farming sims but not actual housework and that's something I can absolutely align with.
Uh, lives in the south with her husband and a couple of goofy cats. Hello, Ruby.
Ruby Dixon: Hi, thank you for having me.
Matt: you so much. We're very, very excited.
Christina: I was just going to say, this is my pinnacle moment. am full disclosure, a huge fan the Ice Planet Barbarians. And so ever since I read that first one, I have been telling Matt, we've got to get Ruby on. We've got to get Ruby on. So this is exciting for me.
Matt: Absolutely. Ruby, tell us a little bit more about yourself. What would you know, tell us.
Ruby Dixon: let me think. Well, I started publishing as Ruby in 2015. That was when Kindle Unlimited was brand new and I was like, well, I write a lot, so let me, let me throw some stuff into Kindle Unlimited and see how that goes. And it was kind of like the place for the, the stuff that doesn't fit New York, shorter
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: slightly crazy things, whatever. And it just kind of took off. I don't, I don't know.
Matt: That's awesome.
Ruby Dixon: a very exciting person. I don't have like a, a big pedigree of like writer colleges. I'm
Christina: No.
Ruby Dixon: have some cats.
Christina: Yeah. Sometimes, I, that's one of the things that I wish more people knew about writing. I don't think it takes any of those things. And in fact, I think it takes someone who is to just. Create, willing to just, sit back and go. I've got this idea just go with it. I mean, some of the best writers out there have, pen and imagination and that's it. And those are some of the best writers out there. Thank you. I read an article and I wish I could cite where the article is, but it's somewhere in the internet void and I've never been able to find it since. But I had heard that you were writing for New York under a different pen name and were just feeling some burnout and that you had this idea the Ice Planet Barbarians and it was kind of sitting in the vault, like untouched, can you tell us a little bit about what, uh, Some of the burnout you were feeling and why you decided to open that idea again.
Ruby Dixon: So, let me think. I, when I initially started writing you, you start out with like, oh, it's an idea that I really want. It's like usually the most cliched, story ever. Like, I think the first one I started writing was everybody had like purple eyes and like they had special marks on them from the gods.
And, it's a fantasy
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: know, You read that later and you're like, this is stupid, but that's many years later. But when you first start writing, , nobody's there to tell you,
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: You can't write like this.. And so that was what I started out with. And then as I tailored myself towards being published more and more, you look, you pay more attention to what the market wants.
You, you write the weird out a lot of the time. You become. What the editor is looking for, what they think they will sell. And so by the time that I started writing as Ruby I had written a lot of stuff that I enjoyed writing it cause I just enjoy writing. But it wasn't something that I would necessarily like wake up and be like super excited.
Oh, I get to write, about a billionaire or whatever, you
Christina: Yeah. Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: wasn't something that I like call to me or scream to me, I guess. so I was like, you know what? I'm, I'm really kind of, fried. I don't like what is coming out. I felt kind of stalled. So I was like, I'm going to pull through my junk file and just see what calls me.
And most writers or a lot of writers, I shouldn't say most, uh, have. You get a lot of ideas over and over again. I think there's either you're a writer that works on one idea at a time, or you're a writer that gets like, ideas and you get more of them the deeper you get into the book that you're working on. I'm one of those people that's constantly getting ideas. So what I do is if the idea sits with me for a couple of days, I have I have a saying that like, if I, if I think about it and I don't write it down, if I remember it the next day, it was a memorable idea. If I don't remember it, it
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: Or it wasn't good enough to stick. So if I think about something for a couple of days and I'm like, that could be a book at some point, I make a document and I put all my ideas into the file. sometimes it becomes a book that I come back to years later. And sometimes it just sits there and rots. And this particular idea was Aliens, and it was Aliens with a Symbiote, and it was a romance, and I liked books about characters getting stranded, and it, it was initially gonna be like, oh, the symbiote gives them superhero powers, which didn't happen. The, just because it's in the idea file doesn't mean it's actually, like, ends up staying
Matt: Sure.
Ruby Dixon: But I wanted the, uh, story to be. A choice for the heroine because if you get dropped on like this planet and this planet is just like, oh, it's paradise, there's coconuts and every tree and sunny beaches and it's all beautiful, then it's not hard to be like, should I stay here forever? But if it's like primeval and it's freaking cold all the time and you have to hunt for all your food and there's no Starbucks, it all sounds It's a harder decision to be like, do I need to stay or am I, going to go? It makes that whole mental choice of like, yeah, this guy is awesome, but do I really want to live here?
Sort of mentality. And I
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: Something that the reader thinks about too. Like would I survive there? Would I be like, nah, somebody can just kill me now. I'm not going to make it here. So that was, uh, that was kind of my, The fun part for me was writing through it and being like, okay, how did they get out of this mess?
So, and I didn't know where it was going to go and I ended up making it a serial because I think serials were popular when Kindle Unlimited first started, and I was like, well, I'll see how that works and I'll see how it goes. And by the time I wrote book three for Ice Planet Barbarians, everybody was like, we hate the serial.
Don't do it.
Christina: Oh
Ruby Dixon: switched to doing just the complete book and dropping the complete book. So. But yeah, it was all kind of an experiment just to, just to see what happened and it ended up being great.
Christina: yeah. And one of the things is that I really felt about this series and I'd love to hear your, your thoughts on it. I started reading them, first of all, for someone who doesn't normally read the sci fi alien sort of thing, I mean, I was a Star Wars fan.
Ruby Dixon: Uh
Christina: But I'm not a sci fi if you will, but the fact that they were so, each, each book a different, like, I don't want to say theme to it, but the idea that like, okay, so, one of the gals is deaf. And so not only is there the alien language barrier, but then there's the language barrier of communication with the spouse, with the, alien. So it seemed to me you gave of the stories, a little unique nugget that really just blossomed and made the stories much deeper. So on the surface, they're great, they're fun, but there was more, more depth to them than I was expecting. So when you were, yeah, yeah. When you were going through, did you kind of think, I mean, you had this, this ship women. Did you kind of go through and go, okay, I want this one to have this. And I want this one to have that. Or was it more, as you started writing the series, the ideas started popping in.
Ruby Dixon: They were sketches when I first started writing it because I knew that the main character, Georgie, is kind of like the template. She's kind of the every girl. So, she's the Bella of the twilight, you
Christina: Yes.
Ruby Dixon: inspired or whatever, because I wanted it to be easy to fall into this story.
Christina: Yeah,
Ruby Dixon: you make the character really complicated and difficult, it's on page one and you're introducing this whole new world and you're introducing all this other stuff.
To me, as a reader, it becomes a lot to keep up with. I was trying to take away the any sort of roadblock that would be for people to fall into the story. Like, I also don't use a lot of different words, I guess. Not different words. You know when you read a science fiction book and you open it on page one and they give you like this made up title and this made up city and this made up this and that.
It's like they drop you in on the deep end. And that always makes me feel very stupid as a
Christina: yeah,
Ruby Dixon: Everybody else got this. Why didn't you? And so when I feel stupid, I tune out. So I did my best to try and keep that out of there. So I start with a sketch. Let me turn this ship back around because I think I wandered off topic. I start with a sketch. of the characters and as I'm writing I kind of find little aspects to explore. Like I wanted Liz, I liked that she was mouthy, but I also wanted her to be kind of like, uh, the tough girl and the survivalist. And then Kira was one that was like a little sadder, but she had the earpiece and so she felt like she was more responsible for everyone.
So I knew like little bits about them but the characters really developed as I was writing it. I I don't remember what exactly made me decide to give Lila to make her deaf, probably because at the time I had just been fitted for hearing aids. I'm hearing disabled or hearing impaired.
I don't know the correct term for it. But, so I was probably going through something with that and decided to, what would it look like if you couldn't talk to anybody?
Christina: yeah,
Ruby Dixon: and you really couldn't talk to anybody because of course, people that are hearing impaired also have sign language. But if nobody speaks sign language, in addition to
Christina: yeah,
Ruby Dixon: it's doubly difficult. I always like to try and make things a little difficult for characters just to see how they kind of crawl out of the hole, so to
Christina: yeah,
Matt: That's awesome.
Christina: Yeah. I I actually really like that you went a little off course there because you actually said how I, I initially feel reading science fiction. I think that's why sometimes I just avoid it because, know, you're, you're dumped into this world and you don't. Know anything and you're trying to learn terms and, that, that bogged down. And I think the ice planet barbarians was the perfect speed for me because, you, you do kind of get into the story and, you're given little bits and pieces along the way, first you learn about the women and, what has initially happened to them before they crashed and they crashed and it's, and. Your humor too, the, the Hoth not Hoth really, because again, a seventies gal growing up with Star Wars with Empire Strikes Back being on Hoth. so yeah, so I think there was just, just enough of the science fiction of it that I just, I forgot I was learning it.
I was, I forgot that I didn't know this, this world before, but yeah, I. I just, I really thought I was going to stop after the first one. Okay. Everybody else stopped bugging me to read them if I just read the first one. And then I just became a huge fan. So,
Ruby Dixon: a lot. get a lot of like, I'm going to pick this up as a joke. And then like somebody will post on social media and I'm eight books in. It's not a joke
Matt: No
Christina: yes, exactly.
Matt: Well, one of the things too that Christina had mentioned, and, and I I'm gonna reiterate what I understood that you had said. So you correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the things that she said you did such a fantastic job of in that series is just intricately building that world so that everything, kind of expands through each of the books, right.
And that you don't feel like. Like, there's just so much to discover, right? As it grows and kind of becomes this larger thing. So tell, like, I'd love to know a little bit more about the process so that, that you've got this like larger world that you're building. It's going to span several books, but it's not necessarily the same character, whatever.
Like, how does that all come together? How did you make that work?
Ruby Dixon: So I always feel that my, and maybe this is imposter syndrome because science fiction and fantasy has primarily been playground for the past 30 years or so. I mean, there are women in there, but I've always felt like, as a romance reader, it's always been in the territory of like, Oh, the only fantasy women like is with unicorns, or something along those lines.
So have always. I guess tried to pull it back and be like, okay, what do I want my fantasy? I want it to be accessible because I don't want readers to get lost on page one.
Yeah. So I would think about like, you just kind of mentally spin out for a while.
I would like go for a ride in my car and be like, okay, what is he wearing? How did he get those clothes? Okay. What, what, like, let's say he's wearing leather. Okay. Where did leather come from? What kind of leather would you wear? Is it like from animals? Okay. Is he hunting those who is preparing the leather?
How often do you get the leather? Is the leather rare? Is it, like what happens if you spill a drink on your leather? So, kind of have to mentally pull apart everything. I actually, in the spin off of the spin off of Ice Planet Barbarians, I started to set up an underground culture. And I was like, okay, well, what does that look like? How, what is it like if you live underground? You probably have vitamin deficiencies because you don't have sunlight. You probably have a very, uh, regimented diet. You have a, probably a very regimented lifestyle. Style. If you're living in a city that's been there for like, say, 1000 years, what do they eat? What do they drink? How do they get close if they're not going to the surface? So it was all kind of things that I had to think about. And you just kind of build from there and I would create a file and write all this information and then I would forget the file exists and never look at it again. But as long as I wrote it down, it felt like it kind of like anchored it in my mind. And so I might have ideas for everything, but I'm only showing the reader like one or two pieces that. character is seeing. And it helps to write in first person because that character only knows what they know.
They only recognize what they recognize. So if I, I might know that this, yellow fabric is made from mushrooms that are dried and pounded and like the stock is very woodsy. Uh, and so then they weave it like, a bit like cotton or linen, but the reader doesn't care about that because the heroine just sees yellow cloth. you kind of have to pull it back, and first person really is best way to, it's cheat mode, they only see, they only know what they know. It's like the iceberg where you only see the tip, but there's the big old boulder underneath.
Matt: Yeah. That's awesome.
Ruby Dixon: an
Christina: Yeah. Yeah. But to me, I think that's one of the things that makes, somehow it makes, writing, like, oh God, how do you, I'm not finding my words. When the reader is reading it, we feel the depth, but like you said, we don't know the depth. And I think that's one of the things that makes the characters so real is the fact that it's so real with you and that you've created this whole world and using your iceberg, this whole depth that we don't see. Cause we're just at the surface with the tip of the iceberg, but there's so much more to it that, I mean, I think that's one of the things that I hear most often from writers is how much actual thinking and on that kind of stuff, and, and even though it's not written into the book, like you said, she doesn't know what's made for her.
She doesn't know that, but it, It makes it feel real. And like, I think if the author believes that it's real, that comes across the reader, just, somehow knowing that the character, I mean, there, there are some books that I've read that you're like, okay, this character is so two dimensional. I don't know anything about them. And I often wonder, did the writer actually, know anything about the character or did they, just implant them? So just hearing you talk about the depth, stuff that we don't read in the books.
Ruby Dixon: huh.
Christina: it shows me again, how much depth there is to them. Because later on, if you do write about the mushroom, made shirts, it's going to make sense because it was made from mushrooms from the beginning, but you just didn't bring it in until, book 10. So
Ruby Dixon: always try to think I try to think a couple of books ahead, like, oh, it'd be really exciting if X, Y, and Z happened and I try to, like, save myself a couple aces in the hole for, like, it's getting kind of boring. What can I do in the next book to really shake it up? And
Christina: yeah,
Ruby Dixon: Cave the mountain
Christina: I was just going to say,
Ruby Dixon: destroy everything, start
Christina: yeah,
Ruby Dixon: a saying that like, if your book gets boring, have a man enter with a gun. So, and I forget who said that. I want to say Hemingway, but I bet it was not. That's the kind of I, I find that interesting from a writing perspective. I don't know
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: comes across to readers, but from the writer, it's kind of fun.
You'd be like, oh,
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: it all up?
Christina: Well, as much as I can talk about Ice Planet Barbarians all day I do know that there are other books that you've written, other Universes. So, can we just enter into Ruby verse for just one moment? At what point, at what point did you think to yourself, okay, ice Planet barbarians are great, but I wanna write something more.
I wanna do something more. also I have to wonder if the success played a part in that. Like it gave you the freedom to try another thing that you hadn't been expecting or. Talk a little bit about that piece of it.
Ruby Dixon: Ice Planet Barbarians started to do well, I had other books that I had written that were sitting in the trunk. Basically firing his blood was one of them. It was a book that I had written way back in the day, and I had pitched it to my then editor. Not Cindy. And she was like, Oh, dragon romance.
Thanks, but no thanks,
Christina: Yeah. Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: I was like, okay, fine. It's just not right for this world, I guess. And then after RWBY started to get successful, I was like, well, this is the same sort of like, slightly scary, monster y, protective hero who is very secretly soft for the heroine.
Christina: Right.
Ruby Dixon: and with the kind of world.
And I was like, I bet Ruby's fans would like this. So I self published that one and it did really well. So it's like, it was more like, okay. Ruby's fans are, are with me on this. We're on the same wavelength, I, I can try some, I can try some weird stuff and, uh, see what goes out here. And so I, it was kind of freeing in that like, oh, maybe I'll pull out this idea for like a prison planet and see, what I can do with that.
And it's a lot of fun too, because it doesn't have to be a full length novel when you self publish it. It can be just, the story can be as long as it needs to be. I've written some that are like 25, 000 words and I'm like, you know what? That's good. I don't ever have to come back to it.
I'm happy with what I did. And there's some that I've self published that ended up being like 180, 000 words.
Matt: Hmm.
Ruby Dixon: have kept on going, which is like, a book and a half, maybe two books, and I put it all in one book. Cause I'm like, no, it's all one story. So that's one thing that I really like about self publishing is that you can just be like, this story is going to be what it's going to be, and I can, take the training wheels off and I can just see what happens and go with it.
And I know that there's going to be some portion of Ruby's audience that will be like, yes, exactly. go,
Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I'm one of them. I've read things that I didn't think I would even enjoy, but it's, it's your voice, I think, and your storytelling. And as you stated before, I don't think I could have put it in the same words that you did is the idea that you were laying it out little by little and not overwhelming.
And I think that's what really did it for me that like, okay. I am ready to go on another journey with Ruby. What are we doing next? Kind of a thing. So, know, you, you touched on it a little bit, the idea that with self publishing, it can be any length that you want, any way that you want, the story could be unto itself. And that's one of the things that I think, with New York constraints, it, It's a little bit freeing because you can have the story take shape the way you want it to rather than, okay, it can only be, 80, 000 words or whatever. Is there one that you enjoy more than the other or is it just different?
Ruby Dixon: It's, it's different. I do enjoy the freedom of self publishing, but there's like stuff that comes with self publishing that. I don't love like, Amazon will send you like error files or you have to format things or like you had a typo on page 30, even though 20 people have been over this book, you
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: has been out for 7 years and we're just now noticing it,
Matt: Hmm. Oh no.
Ruby Dixon: There's a lot more. stuff that you as the author have to do. I feel like when you're self publishing it, like, where's this cover coming from? Did you get the permissions? Like, are all the
Christina: Wow. Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: What you want. Do you like this cover? For one of the books that I self published I think the cover changed like three or four times because first cover we had, I was like, yes, that's perfect.
And all the readers were like, that is the ugliest cover I have ever seen in my life. And I was like, no! So then we like, tried changing like, one or two things on the cover and I would see like, Reddit threads come up where everybody's like, look at this ugly cover I found and it's my book. I'm like, oh no!
Matt: no.
Ruby Dixon: So, so you, you learn the hard way, whereas like, it's a little more hands off if in New York, like, yeah, if it has an ugly cover, that was marketing's problem. That's not me,
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: it lovingly craft the
Christina: Right.
Ruby Dixon: like, lay them gently on the page, so, and with New York, you do feel like there's an entire team working on it.
There's nothing that's perfect. squeeze past you. With Bull Moon Rising that is coming out. Not shameless plug there. No, I literally had edits. I want to say like 12 times on that one, because I would fix something and it would cause more errors in the
Matt: Oh no.
Ruby Dixon: they would send me more emails and they're like, okay, what about all the errors on this page?
And I'm like, crap. And
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: in and try and fix it all again. And then there would be more errors. Cause I would keep fixing and keep making more mistakes. So we had like 12 rounds and. Your self published books don't normally get that much, loving attention from like 30 people in the editing department, so.
Christina: Yeah.
Matt: good, good segue into what's, uh, what's coming out tomorrow, in fact, which is Bull Moon rising. Tell us a little bit about this, uh, next amazing project.
Ruby Dixon: It's in hardcover, baby's first hardcover, totally not nervous at
Matt: Nice.
Ruby Dixon: it is called Bull Moon Rising. It is fantasy romance and it is completely standalone. That's just one of my personal Bugaboos right now, right now. Might not bother me in a few years, but right now I don't like waiting for the next part of the story. I'm very impatient. Netflix has made me impatient. I want the whole thing at
Matt: Yes.
Ruby Dixon: So I wanted to create a story that was completely standalone. There will be a second book in the series. But it will be standalone as well. Like you won't have to read book 2 to understand book 1. But it is in a completely new world. And this is a world that is based on the transaction magical artifacts. from an old civilization. In the current world everything has been cobbled up and have taken over, like, all of the land. They're like, a little bit like city states. All of the lords answer to a king, there is one city in, kind of, in the center of everything that's, That has a guild and the guild is responsible for finding artifacts and selling them to the lords and the lords use them to protect their lands or to like show their wealth.
Normal people don't normally have artifacts and so the heroine is a very sheltered, very old old money type that lives in one of these lords. Kate. She's the daughter of the Lord. And I keep saying the Lord. He is a Lord, not the Lord. But she is a Lady Asbeth Honore. she has just found out that all of their artifacts are gone.
Her father gambled them away. And so their home is basically defenseless. And she's like, if anybody else finds this out, we're all doomed. So she's like, she is kind of a scholar and a nerd. So she's like, I know I'm going to go join the guild and I am going to get us some artifacts and save the day. And so she travels to the city, which is called Vast Warren, which is built on top of the ruins. the first city, and she gets there, she meets the hero, who is Hawk, and he's a Minotaur, and he is in the guild. And she's like, yes, I would like to be part of the guild, and he's like, no. And so it kind of starts from there.
They have to make a deal work together so they both get what they want.
Matt: Hmm.
Ruby Dixon: needs wife because there is the conquest moon coming up, which is a time of rut for all Minotaurs.
Matt: Hmm.
Ruby Dixon: So, he would like a wife to help him out in that situation and she needs a chaperone. And she's like, let's work together.
And he's like, do you even know what you're talking about? She's like, no, but let's do it. So that's kind of how the story starts.
Matt: That's awesome.
Christina: Yeah.
Matt: really awesome.
Christina: Well, your publicist well, both of us, I don't know if, if Matt read it, but I absolutely loved the story
Ruby Dixon: thank
Christina: yeah, and I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised because, on one hand, again, huge fan of Ice Planet Barbarians, But this was so different in a good way.
Different. But still the, the trademark Ruby like I said, every once in a while, you get those jokes in and the, just you saying just now made me giggle that she's totally like, know what that means, but we're going to do it because that's exactly who she is. She's just like, I'm doing this whether anybody wants me to or not.
And here I go. I mean, I loved her as the heroine. She's just. She's absolutely fantastic. So I think if you're a fan of, of Ruby, this, this book is for you, whether or not, like, again, I've never read what they're calling well, first of all, romanticy, I guess is what this
Matt: Mm-Hmm?
Christina: sub genre is called.
I've never delved into that, monsters. You know what they're calling the monster, fad. So it was a little nervous going in, but really after, all of it, I'm just like, Why did I even worry? This was just, this was Ruby verse.
Ruby Dixon: I told my husband there was going to be a minotaur in this one, and he's like, minotaur? Why? I was like, because I can make it sexy.
Christina: no, you,
Ruby Dixon: be
Christina: yes,
Matt: it
Christina: I mean, I mean,
Ruby Dixon: huh.
Christina: him the name Hawk, first of all, makes all sorts of like, hero Hmm. Vibes off of it, but just no spoilers. We're not going to get into spoilers cause of course this is coming out tomorrow. But just the idea that this really was, uh, to me one of those things that. Like when you trust author to take you on a journey and it's one that you totally expect. Not only, did I want to keep the Ice Planet Barbarians organized because I like to read things in order, but I knew that and especially after reading this one, right. I, I want to read them all. I want to read all the different Ruby versus and, and, and So, yeah, I'm, I'm just ecstatic about Bull Moon Rising and
Ruby Dixon: Oh,
Christina: I hope everyone goes to get it and Hawk and Elspeth's story and again, I didn't think I was going to get taken away the scenery, by the world building. But of course, again, going back to Ice Planet Barbarians, was taken away by the world then too. I mean, it was, it just wasn't so, yeah, you have a gift. You certainly have a gift of, creating these places that are just And I mean that in the actual meaning of the world, fantastical. So yeah, yeah.
Ruby Dixon: You're making me blush. Thank you.
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: try to I figure if you're picking up a Ruby Dixon book, I want it to have the same sort of vibe every single time.
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: Like, even if it's set in a completely different world, I want you to have the same sort of You know what you're getting into when you get the hero and the heroine. There's always going to be some humor because I don't take myself seriously at all. And there's, there's probably going to be like some crazy world building because I, I like to read nonfiction and like pick weird things out of it and then put them in my stories
Matt: Hmm?
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: Um, like, for a long time I was stuck on um, shipwrecks and naval disasters.
I went into a rabbit hole of naval disasters. And so in one of my books, I wrote like a naval like a 16th century type ship. And I was like, well, how did they use a bathroom on the ship? I'm glad you asked that because There was one bathroom and it was a hole in the side of the ship and there was a poop rope. so you would pull the rope up out of the water, use the end, and then drop it back in. And I'm like, that is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard of. to write that in a book. And so it has become legendary in my fans. Somebody will always put something in the comments when I start talking about like all the goofy stuff I'm researching.
And somebody will be like, poop rope.
Matt: Mm-Hmm.
Ruby Dixon: To me, that's just a fascinating thing you don't think about. And I'm like, why can't I throw this into my book? Like, you wouldn't think you want to read about a poop rope in a romance, but it's like the little details that make it kind of a fun read for me. know anybody
Matt: I think it makes it relatable too though, right? Like it makes it human.
Ruby Dixon: yes,
Matt: in a way, right. Versus this kind of sterile type of environment where it has to be just so and like, it just, it just makes it more human. Cause we're all very complex. We're all very chaotic, kind of creatures. Right. So when you add that kind of whimsy in there, it just makes, it makes it better.
Ruby Dixon: yes. I feel like we all have to laugh at ourselves.
Matt: hmm.
Ruby Dixon: Life is messy, so we all need to like, be like, look at how terrible this stuff is, and look at how awful it is riding on this ship, and riding, swimming on a ship, no, being, being on a ship, yes, words are
Matt: Life, life on a ship, life, life at sea.
Christina: Yeah. No, I, I, I just think, okay, so that just adds the humor that just adds again, more of the depth. that just adds more of the just. sheer joy of, your writing. I, I don't go into a Ruby Dixon thinking, okay, Oh, me feel the angst. This is when I go into a Ruby Dixon, I'm like, okay, what fun am I going to have now? And, uh, the other thing is, I didn't know half of this stuff that you've written into these books are true. When I get to that story with the poop, I'm going to just laugh out loud. And but yeah, no, I think that's, I think that's fantastic. I mean, again, that to me. Says depth. That means, you, you get taken away by the idea of like, Oh, well, how does one go on the ship? And then you find out, and that just, again, in some way it adds to the authenticity, I guess, but in, in most ways it just makes your, your stories that much more. There's more depth to them.
Even now when I'm expecting it, so, Bull Moon Rising, I was expecting, the depth and everything. But I, I, again, once again, Walked away with so much more because it was, like I said, this, the world felt real to me. And a lot of times, when I've tried different sci fi that I couldn't get through, if you will, I think it was because I just couldn't, I couldn't picture, the world that they were living in, but for some reason yours, is so full that I, I feel it, but that's exactly what you were saying. All, all that you've talked about for this podcast has just shown me, the amount of work and depth that go into this makes it what it is.
Ruby Dixon: Oh, well, thank you. I mean, I don't want it to, I worry that it sounds like I'm bagging on science fiction and
Christina: Oh
Ruby Dixon: am not.
Christina: no. Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: like, I love it, but it's like you do. I have always felt like, whenever I can't get into a book that everybody's like, Oh my God, I love this. Read this.
You will love it. And, and I like bounce off of page one because it's throwing so many words at me. I feel like it's a me problem, not, not the book. so, I guess that's one of the things that I try to solve in my own writing. I try to make it accessible for me. Because I'm trying to write what, what I want to read, ultimately, you're, you're writing what you want to see in the store on the, on the page, because I know when I first picked up Ice Planet Barbarians again, I had read a book by an indie author, and I believe they, uh, I don't know if it's a man or a woman, it's R.
Lee Smith, And they wrote a book called The Last Hour of Gan, and it was this really epic, very, very, very, very, very, very dark science fiction with a romantic story in it, and I in love with that book. And after that, I read absolutely everything I could find in the science fiction romance category, and there just wasn't enough there.
And I think that's when a lot of writers start. Pulling ideas. I'm like, I'm gonna have to write this if I want to see it out there because when you're writing it, you get to spend all that time in that world with it. That's like the best part of writing is like you get to live in that
Matt: Yeah,
Ruby Dixon: and so for me with even with Ice Plane Barbarians and like Bull Moon Rising, I was in a whole of like, I was Just watching archaeology documentaries, reading books about Egypt, the great pyramid archaeologists, they had archaeologists in the time of like, I want to say it was like Ramsey's the, the, the 19th, Ramses the Great, Ramses the Great, Ramses II, had a son, I want to say maybe it was his 19th son, who was a big archaeologist, because at the time that he was born, which is like 1200 BC the Great Pyramid was already like 1500 years old,
Matt: oh gosh,
Ruby Dixon: so he was like, well, we've got to go and save these historical sites, and you don't think about you've That there's some ancient Egyptian thinking, Oh no, there's this stuff is really old and it's ancient even to us.
Christina: Wow.
Ruby Dixon: me, that was really interesting. And that kind of built. Some of the groundwork for the setting for Bull Moon Rising where you have people living in this city and under the city is this old civilization and everybody's still using stuff from it. So it's like you pull pieces from everything that you read about that you watch on TV and you pull it all into like this little happy ball and then you write it.
Christina: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt: that's awesome. That's awesome.
Christina: just, just a question. You don't have to give us any details, wink wink, but you said there's going to be a second one of
Ruby Dixon: there it is.
Christina: stand alone but separate.
Ruby Dixon: Yes, same world. Some of the same characters, not the same hero and heroine, because their story is complete in book
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: And so it's going to be It's two of the characters that you do meet very, one you meet very briefly, one you are very familiar with in book two. And I wanted, it's the same sort of setting same city, same fantasy world, but I wanted to have somebody else's story.
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: I
Christina: I like that.
Ruby Dixon: or six books to
Christina: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: end. I say I don't like it, I am obsessed with Sarah Maas's books. She has me
Matt: Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: single one and I will happily read all of her cliffhangers But it's hard for me to write one and just be like aha readers can wait two
Matt: Hmm.
Christina: Yeah. Yeah.
Ruby Dixon: that I need to wrap it up and give it a little happy bow and then send them on their way
Christina: Well, I can definitely tell you as I was reading it, I kept thinking, Oh, this character has to have more screen time. This character at, or is this character, Ooh, is this one going to get a story? I mean, I just, I think as romance readers, we've kind of been trained that, characters are going to appear, so I'm happy to hear that, that there's going to be more stories from this universe for sure.
Matt: Absolutely.
Ruby Dixon: so
Matt: That's awesome. Well, again, full moon rising comes out tomorrow and it's on bookshelves and ebooks and everywhere. Right? So is there anything you want to kind of say to, like, just tell us a little bit about, like, where you might want them to go to find the book or any special messaging around tomorrow's launch?
Ruby Dixon: Support your indie bookstores. I mean, Barnes and Noble is amazing. Amazon is amazing. However, indie bookstores need your support. There are a bajillion focused indie bookstores. I actually sent a bunch of bookmarks and swag to some of them. Like the Ripped Bodice I sent to Oh, Blush Books.
I sent to a couple of different places. So if you have a indie romance bookstore near you, you can always contact them and see if they have swag and book plates. you can contact Story on the Square. They are a partner that I work with. They ship all over the U. S. They will send you a copy with bookplates and bookmarks.
Cause I'm, for me, as a, starting out as a Kindle Unlimited author as Ruby, I try to include bookmarks and bookplates I can. As a way of saying thank you. Thank you for buying a paper copy. Because it helps my books stay on the shelves. And if the books are on the shelves, then I get more readers. And everybody's happy. But indie bookstores Pantigo Books in Arlington will have copies. I'm
Matt: Nice.
Ruby Dixon: with them. So you can go on my website and look, I have links to a bunch of different places. But go to a, go to a, uh, brick and mortar store and throw your dollars down.
Matt: Awesome. That's awesome. And of course, we are going to have a link for the book as well to bookshop. org. Which if you're not familiar with, you get a chance to support your local indie books bookstore as well through that. So, wherever you can find Bull Moon Rising, you should absolutely pick it up tomorrow because you're going to love it.
We know it. Awesome. So Ruby Dixon. Thank you. Thank you very, very much for joining us. I hope you had a blast. Yes, we, we loved it. Uh, we hope to come back again, maybe in the future. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Well, that is going to do it for us for now, but again, Bull Moon Rising on bookshelves and on your E readers everywhere tomorrow.
So get it, get it now, read it. Love it. All right. Thank you very much. My dear Christina, as always appreciate you and thank you so much for listening.