Bookwild - Alex Finlay: The Night Shift

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

On this episode, I talk to Alex Finlay about his fast paced crime thriller The Night Shift.You can also watch the episode on YouTubeAuthor LinksInstagramGoodreadsWebsiteCheck out the book hereThe Night Shift SynopsisIt’s New Year’s Eve 1999. Y2K is expected to end in chaos: planes falling from the sky, elevators plunging to earth, world markets collapsing. A digital apocalypse. None of that happens. But at a Blockbuster Video in New Jersey, four teenagers working late at the store are attacked. Only one inexplicably survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again.Fifteen years later, more teenage employees are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive.In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who’s forced to relive the horrors of her tragedy; the brother of the fugitive accused, who’s convinced the police have the wrong suspect; and FBI agent Sarah Keller who must delve into the secrets of both nights—stirring up memories of teen love and lies—to uncover the truth about murders on the night shift.Twisty, poignant, and redemptive, The Night Shift is a story about the legacy of trauma and how the broken can come out on the other side, and it solidifies Finlay as one of the new leading voices in the world of thrillers. Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

Hi, my name is Kate and I love to read. Like, I was carrying books around with me before Kindles were a thing. So I decided to start a podcast where I interview the authors of some of my favorite books, ask them all of my questions so that I can read between the lines of the books. Welcome back to another episode of Between the Lines. I'm here with Alex Finley, the author of The Night Shift, which I just finished last week and could barely put down. So thanks for being on the podcast, Alex. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So before we get into the book, I did want to learn a little bit about you. So when did, you know, that you wanted to be an author,

or when did you kind of have like your first idea for a story? Well, I wasn't one of these people that, you know, that knew they wanted to be a writer from a young age and, you know, took creative writing classes and did all that. Like I've met people who kind of just knew. For me, it came much later. I was a lawyer, practiced a lawyer, and I kind of gravitated to the writing side of the law, the appellate world. And so I enjoyed the writing already. But the creative outlet, when I was younger, I had been in bands and played guitar and did those kind of things, which I had kind of lost in my life. And so this was a way to combine something I was doing at the time and have a creative component to it.

And so that's what kicked it off. Nice. That's awesome. So what is your writing process like? So when you go to start writing, like how do you start planning it out? It's a lot of thinking for me. Basically, I think of it like a movie. I think about scenes.

And I just, before I write anything down, I kind of think about the section of the book that I want to write and how I get to A to Z and this one part of the story. And I just think about it a lot. And then once I get to a point where I'm like, okay, I think I know where I'm going to go, I write really quickly. I actually write on my phone while I'm walking. Wow.

So I go on long walks. And yeah, everyone always finds it really weird this process. Yeah, that's the first person ever say that. Yeah. So it's it that developed as, again, as a lawyer when I, when I began writing. I would do it on the subway, you know, they're in Washington, D.C. And it takes, even though my office is on me about seven miles from my house, it takes about an hour to get there, a door to door. And so I would, you know, on the walk to the subway, on the subway, be tapping on my phone.

And so I'd get a good hour in, in the morning, an hour in the evening. And then at the end of the week, I would put it all in a dump it all in a document. And it would be, you know, a lot of it's garbage and just, you know, often, you know, just even the, typing on the phone you miss words but it gave me stuff on a page which i think for me just i just always i'll be more motivated to sit down and do it if i have something to start with i don't know if you had that experience yeah um so that that was really how i began and then the pandemic came and i wasn't going into the office anymore and so and i was struggling getting uh you know getting words on a page and i realized it's because i wasn't walking so i just started going on like like two three hour walks

Washington DC and I'd leave in the morning or, you know, in the evening and just go until I, you know, sometimes I'd look up. I wouldn't even know where, you know, how far I'd gone, that kind of thing. That is so unique. I love that. And so do you, so like typically everything is written on your phone? Like, do you ever, do you ever, like, transition? I'll say the first drafts on the phone. I couldn't add it on the phone. I, it's really, best way to describe it is, is the most skeletal rough first draft you'd ever see. But it's enough that usually by the end of the week when I put it in a Word document, it ends up being about 50 pages of just, you know, not the greatest pros or any of that.

But it's a lot faster for me to, you know, have it, have it there. And it sparks ideas. Sometimes I'll forget what I wrote and it gives me a fresh take on it. And so it allows me to build on it. but I definitely, I edit in a lot of different forms. I edit on the screen. I print it out. I try and, you know, I'll have it on the iPad just to experience it how different people read it.

Because every time I read in a different way, it's easier to edit. That's a really good point. So it's kind of, you said you think in terms of like scenes. So it's kind of like the part you do on the walk is like getting the scenes out. And then once you get into like the editing, you kind of switch up what you're doing. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. And it's certainly wouldn't work for everyone, you know, and I'm, I'm a lot of you that like anything to get you words on a page.

Yeah. If you don't do that, you know, I know a lot of people want to write a book, but often they're waiting for that perfect, you know, sunset or that inspiration to strike or this or that. And the truth of it is, is it's just getting words on the page. If you can do that, you're halfway there, you know. And, but if you don't, you just keep waiting for the perfect time. You're going to end up with nothing at the end of the year. Right. That's so cool that you've like, you've kind of like figured out the hack that gets you to do it then.

That's really cool. So what about your characters? Do you, how do you plan them out? Do you playing them out in that time when you're walking or do you kind of flush them out after you have kind of the scenes together? That's a great question. And I was thinking about that. And it's really a back into the characters. and I'll give you an example, like for, it really starts with the story for me. So for like my last novel, every last year, I have the idea. I love that one too. Oh, thank, thank you. For that, I, I had the idea of, you know, this family on vacation, you know, and they're abroad. And it's everything's wonderful as it would be on a, you know, beach vacation.

And their oldest son is away at college because he couldn't come because he's, you know, at school. and they all perish. They all die. And it seems like a gas leak, but it's suspicious. And the thinking was, well, what would my son, like, you know, he was at NYU at the time, is kind of irresponsible. You know, what would he do if we all died in the situation? And so that was the seed of that idea.

And from there, you know, I need people to drive the story. And then naturally, it was the family and the family members. And so it was really the story that picked the main characters. And I needed a law enforcement person. Yeah. To help kind of guide because of the college student protagonist wouldn't be realistic for him to be able to figure it out of his own. And so that's how I came up with those characters. And a similar thing happened with the night shift.

The night shift, the idea came about these awful workplace crimes that happened far too regularly. I mean, I've learned how often they happen. And for me, it started like I had just had a scene in my head of a blockbuster video. And for those of us of a certain age, like that on a Friday night, you know, 20, 30 years ago, that was where you were. And an awful workplace crime where all the employees are marched to the back room and attack, and only one survives. And flash forward 15 years, same town in an ice cream store, the employees are attacked and the customer. And again, only one makes it out alive. And so the thought was these two parallel crimes 15 years or so apart.

And that naturally lends itself, well, who's going to tell that story? And the obvious people to tell it were the two survivors of the two different attacks. So I thought that would be interesting to have someone who'd been through this kind of guide or help someone who's younger and, you know, just had this happen. And then I started to think about like, well, who else would I need for the story and who wouldn't be so obvious? And for me, you know, just think about these crimes, like, who do they have? fact, I thought, well, the police think they know who did this and the suspects have been on the run, what would have his family deal with, do? You know, how would his family deal with it? So I thought it'd be interesting to have the younger brother of this 17-year-old accused be one of the

point of view characters and kind of follow them through this awful, you know, the event in their life. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So you do often, kind of from what you were even just saying with those two books, you often have like a rather large cast. Like it's not even just two people alternating and telling the different stories. So do you, so basically like sometimes like it'll end in a cliff hanger kind of with one character and then switch to another character. Do you write in like the full character's perspective and then kind of put the character or the chapters together or when you're writing are you actually typically alternating through the chapters while you write. It's a little of both, which is a terribly dissatisfying answer.

It basically is whatever gets me to the next point. And sometimes, like my motto is, if I'm on a role, we're writing the same, I'm writing the Chris character, and it's just flowing and it's going well. And I know pretty much where it's going to go. I just go until I fizzle out. And so that may be two chapters, that may be 10. If it's 10, then I have to catch up with the other characters. and then I might do what you said, which is kind of have these two different storylines. And, you know, print them. I often will print them out and, you know, juggle them around, put the jigsaw puzzle together. But other times, it's more linear where I, you know, I write a couple chapters of one character.

I don't feel like I've got more to say with that character. So I just move on to the next character in the timeline and do it that way. So it's a muddle, but it basically still follows the rule of get as many words on a page. as I can and deal with it, cleaning it up and figuring it out as it would find it later. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. So you kind of already actually described the night shift with the character question. And what you mentioned that you kind of wanted to cover like violence that happens in workplaces, was that the main thing that prompted you to write the night shift or was there anything else that came up for you? No, it was.

It was, I was in Georgetown, an area in Washington, D.C. That one day, and I passed a coffee shop. And it reminded me of when I first moved to the city some 20 odd years ago. There was an awful workplace crime at this coffee shop where all the employees were murdered. And I just remembered it vividly because I had just moved to the city and this, you know, it was big news here and they hadn't caught the person. Ultimately, they did. And that kind of, I think, just sat with me for a while.

And so I think that, never totally sure of the Genesis, but that had been on my mind in the same time period. And I thought it just these kind of crimes were particularly awful. I mean, most any murder is awful. They don't be wrong. But workplace, often these type of jobs, it's people with their first ever part-time job. They tend to be teenagers. And we, many of us have experienced that. And there was a certain, there's a certain camaraderie that goes on in excitement somehow with these kind of jobs.

and then to have it just all, you know, all these lives we take into a trash plan. And usually so pointlessly, I mean, the stakes are so the amount of money if somebody could get from a robbery, if that's the motive is so low. Yeah. It's just, it's just awful. So now that, that was kind of the starting point. Okay. Cool. Um, so we are going to get into spoilers. So if you haven't read the book, you should pause and go read it and then come back. But if you're listening, because you've already, read it. You can just keep on listening. So you kind of mentioned there a couple of the characters that are anchoring the story are a girl who survived the first attacks 15 years ago and another character who just survived the current ones. So Ella, who was a survivor from the one 15 years ago,

she has like kind of taken what happened to her and became a psychologist where she's wanting to help people process their stuff. So when you were headed into writing the book, were you planning on kind of having an emphasis on using your wounds to like help other people as well? I think what I was trying to do with L.O. was to, I mean, the way my publisher described it, but I think it was apt is the legacy of trauma is that I was trying to get at, which is that, you know, for people who experience violent crime, and I've, you know, had some people close to me who have. And in the best of circumstances, you get the therapy, you have a supportive family,

you have a support system. Even in those systems, 10, 15 years later, this stuff isn't, it doesn't leave you. And it manifests itself in different ways. And so then I started to think, well, what about people who don't have that support system? and and so with Ella, she certainly, she went into therapy because she thought she was never understood when she was, you know, getting therapy. But she had a terrible family situation that they didn't really cope with what happened to her. And so it's 15 years later. She's a professional. She holds a job. She's, you know, she aims to help people. But she makes some really terrible life decisions herself

and that has some reckless self-destructive behavior, which I thought was just kind of an interesting. interesting juxtaposition for her. Yeah. Yeah, if you've had trauma, it really, it really doesn't ever completely go away. I've done therapy as well. And that was like, when I started therapy, I was like, okay. And when is everything just going to be easy? And like, when am I going to be able to handle all of it? And I remember my therapist being like, you're going to learn tools for how to handle it. but it's not just ever going to completely go away. And the more you can kind of like sink into accepting that, the easier it is to just be like, all right, I have tools for when I feel this way to do something about it.

Yeah. No, that's exactly right. Yeah. And that's the, I mean, for me, that's the importance of therapy. And, you know, a lot of people just cram it down. I'm going to must power through it. And it will manifest in other ways. Yes.

It comes out sideways is what I hear a lot of people. A lot of people are like in the therapy world. They kind of call it that where if you don't have your healthy way to deal with it, it just is. It's going to come out in other ways and you're going to be like, I don't know what's happening, but you could. So Chris is the character that you also mentioned. He's also related to both of the sets of murders.

And his flashbacks to growing up with Vince, his brother who was, who ends up being accused of the crime. the blockbuster one. It's such a sweet portrait of Vince is what a lot of Chris's memories are. And he's pretty sure that this vlogger kind of is his brother because of some of his memories. But later on we find out that he actually isn't. So was it always your plan to have that vlogger, Mr. Nirvana, that he thought was his

brother to not be Vince? Or did you kind of like figure that out later? I figured it out later. I had been during the pandemic kind of fascinated with these travel vloggers. There's some popular ones who kind of watched a lot of their videos. And they, if anyone who hasn't watched them, it's these kind of entertaining people who live a very different life. They just travel to really unique places.

They tend to be very outgoing and they meet, you know, the local people and they do have adventures, basically. And I thought that was interesting. I didn't really know how to work it into a story. And then I decided for every last year, I had little excerpts in the book of a screen, you know, basically a screenplay or a transcript from a true crime show. And I think readers tended to like, you know, it was something unique and it gives you a break. And it gives you an opportunity to give information to the reader.

So I thought, well, let me try these with the travel vlogger and just see if they work. And my original intent was the big surprise was going to be. You're reading these travel blogs. You know that Chris is obsessed with the travel vlogs, but maybe for maybe, maybe not because he thinks it's his brother, just because it's an escape for him. And so the end of the book was going to be, you learned that the travel vlogger is actually Chris. Oh. And so that was the original thinking.

And then over time, I realized there was no real purpose for these blogs to move the story forward other than this kind of twist I liked. And so I decided to integrate them into the actual story and had changed it. So Chris is watching these vlogs thinking like, this guy sounds a lot like my brother. And there's these little hints he gives that make me think it's my brother. And then maybe the reader will think, you know, it's the game the reader is playing. Is this Vince? Is it not? Who is it?

And so, yeah, you gave the spoiler that it is not. But that that I thought was just the heartbreaking piece of the whole. you know it was so sad so it gave me an opportunity to like just have one of those moments where you're just deflated like chris is and yeah and hopefully a building ground for what happens to him at the end of the book yeah yeah which um so it ends up that he's actually been dead this whole time uh did you always know i mean if you didn't know if he was going to be the vlogger you probably don't didn't know if that was going to be his fate, but did you know Vince's fate when you started writing it? That I did plan out. And because I wanted the, I knew that the, I would try to think

of like what the fathers of at this time in the 90s, you know, it's a little more of a, I don't say macho, but kind of alpha each time, I feel like. And then so I thought like, what would they do if this, if the, if the accused killer just got released and then, you know, got released. they would be kind of this, you know, mob mentality. And so I had the idea that they, that they, Vince isn't, you know, traveling around, having a great life. He's, he's been murdered and buried, you know, on the grounds of Ellis, basically, father's estate.

Yeah. And I thought it was super sad. I thought it, and it also gave me opportunities to give little clues, knowing that what was going to happen gave me opportunity to give little clues. give little clues that hopefully you wouldn't you think back on and go oh that's why you know candy's mom said the dads were too macho for or that's why right and chris saw somebody who had kind of twitching like tick a tick you know that wasn't a drug person that was one of the dads and so it gave me little opportunities to to add in those details which i like to do and it's super hard to do it's

it's hard to give the little clues along the way without people guessing it and often they still do. I mean, mystery and thriller readers, like, they're good at this. You know, they are, they guess and they, and I still, I still have too many of them guess. But it's one of those things you really work hard to go, how can I get this balance just right of giving just enough? So at the end, they're not like, where did that come from? But not give too much to where they go. I knew that on page 13. That was the person. Yes. It's definitely a tricky one. Yeah, even as a reader, that exactly what you just described. is the thing that's hard for me too, because I've read some books where you get to the end and you're like,

but you just like wrote that so that it could be a twist, but it doesn't make any sense. And then with yours, like I did not pick up on it. It was that experience where when I looked back on it, I was like, oh, okay, there are kind of some things that could have led me to that conclusion. But I definitely did not predict it at all. So it still like, it still felt surprising. The only thing and it was still only like, I feel like I was still like 80% into the book was like the first time. I was like, okay, so Stedman seems like a little bit weird. Like the things that she keeps thinking about him are a little bit weird. That was, but I mean, it took me forever to even get to that point.

So I definitely was not. Well, that's what I like here. And Stedman was truly how to make him just weird enough. Yep. Think back on it. And some people picked up on it and thought, this guy's weird. And that's right. is. Yeah. And sometimes that's good because sometimes you, you know, the reader might think,

thinking, well, I can't, I think it's him, but that's too obvious. If they pick up on something. And so we tried to, we really tinkered with what we said about Stedman. Nice. And trying to, at the publisher, they had different readers kind of read different versions and say, who do you think did it, you know, kind of thing. And so it was, it was, it was definitely a challenge because, I mean, the one thing is it's a pretty close universe. So who, you know, there are a lot of characters, but, you know, who could it be unless you just brought somebody out of nowhere? And we didn't, I obviously didn't want to do that. And so, yeah, so just like little creepy things like, you know, the way he ate a cupcake or like the stuff like stuff that certain people might naturally get that

we're trying to, trying to make not too obvious, but enough that at the end, you're not like, who is, how is this guy? Right. Right. Yeah, it wasn't even, it was. It was. It was, it wasn't even necessarily him. I think the first time I wondered was when Ella was talking to someone and she was like, I don't think he would let that kind of cyberbullying happen. I'll have to check in with it. That was like the only sentence that made me like, huh, okay, so she wants to check in with him on something. But that was like way deep into the book. So I was still pretty surprised by it. Now I wish I would have taken that line out. right

when were you a year ago it still wasn't making me it wasn't making me sure it was just the first time that I was like okay so maybe he's not just completely helpful but it was so heartbreaking when Chris and Ella

because they find out together when she's at her mom's estate what actually happens events and they're both characters that had really really like charming and like happy memories with him. So did you include their tight relationships with him in the past

to kind of like bring the impact of his death to be more a little bit more emotional? Yeah, I mean, that was an effort. I think I try to do with all the characters. You mean, your goal is doing this is you're making up a world and you're asking people to like totally suspend, you know, they know this isn't real, but they're reading these stories.

and so anything you can do to kind of get to somebody to feel anything, whether it's strong hate, you know, love for the person or just liking the person. I think it helps the reader, or at least when I'm reading, it helps me kind of escape into the world. And I like to feel when I read books. And I'm always, for me, the gold stars and somebody said, oh, I cried during the book. Like that's, you know, that for me is like, all right, that at least that piece of the book, I did my job the best they can do it because it takes a lot. You know it's not real people and your prize is the thing.

Yeah. I feel like I got I got choked up at the end for sure when they found that out because I was so invested in both of their character like Ella and Chris and like they were kind of becoming a little bit close. So it was like, yeah, it was very emotional there at the end. So Keller is the eight. agent that you have kind of working the case from the law enforcement side. And she is like confident and assertive and brave, but like I was feeling like her husband the whole book where

I was like, you need to take care of yourself, but she just cared so much. Seeing what she saw happened though and knowing she has her twins at the end, do you think her experience from solving these murders will shape how she raises her kids in the future or what do you think her experience would be like yeah i mean in some ways you can see that if not to hawk my own books but in every last fear she is a character and she um and it's after the events in the nightship so it's kind of a backwards way to write these books which is you know i have every last fear happen more present time period and then i go my next book i go back and and use one of the same characters I never intended to bring Agent Keller back, but readers really liked her.

I needed a law enforcement person in the night shift, and I really like writing her and her husband Bob. I just enjoy writing that character. So I brought her back for that, so you can kind of get a sense of who she, it was the opposite for me. I had to think about, well, okay, well, here's who she was in every last year. And she was more experienced. Her kids are five years old.

You know, she has five real twins. She's got this great relationship with her husband who stays home. And I had to reverse engineer and say, okay, what would she be like right at the beginning of her career? What was Bob? Did Bob work before they had kids? I never, you know, didn't really think about that. And what, you know, what was their relationship like that? Which was kind of fun to go back and revisit.

Yeah. And so, yeah, you know, and I think it, I think, if all the characters of people who write me emails or things like that, of readers. I get more about Keller than really probably any others. And I think that maybe because she's just, you know, down to earth, kind, empathetic, super decent. And unlike in a lot of, you know, these psychological thrillers, which, you know, people make great use of dysfunctional relationships. Yeah. And these, these kind of books, there's not a lot of like, hey, this couple's pretty, like, great. And they like each other. You know, so I think that just gave a breath, you know, when you're reading like this,

these intense scenes. Yep. It's more of like a calm in the storm. Like you got Keller chapter with her husband. It's kind of you can learn a little bit of information, but decompressed from all the other murders and all the stuff that's going on. Yeah. It did feel that way because she does have, like you feel little pockets of like safety in her

chapters kind of because of that. So most importantly. what what prompted you to let atticus die i was so worried about him like from the time we met his mom i was like oh no i hope you stay safe so what what brought you to make that decision you know that came out on the page and it's funny you said that because when my agent who reads my books before they before they go into my publisher read the read the rest it was like the last half of the book and she called me And she's like, I loved it. But I just got to ask you question, do we have to kill Atticus?

Can we just, you know, he's a great character. You might want to bring him back. And it just felt so awful for me and, you know, and sad. And I was like, well, I pondered it. But at the end of the day, it just worked for the story. And he would have been a great character to bring back because I liked, I liked his earnestness and everything about him. You know, he goes to a, you know. the strip club to interview somebody and he's just kind of disgusted by it and all these

things about him I liked. So it was definitely something that others had pointed out like you had, but I just, it felt right for the story. So yeah. Yeah. When you are reading like crime fiction, you go into it knowing that there could be some unexpected or sad deaths. So in some ways it does, that's where I'm always torn because I love reading thrillers and crime fiction and that kind of stuff. But sometimes it's the fact that a character could die that actually makes the stakes feel high and like it is realistic and it's not just going to be a perfect ending all the time. But then sometimes you're like, but I really love that character. So Game of Thrones did that for people who were fans of that show, it kind of desensitized you to like wanting to care about the characters because you never

I know. Yeah, when I was writing out that question, Game of Thrones was exactly what I was thinking of because I was like, there are some shows where you're just like, just expect it. Like, just expect that someone is not going to make it through every episode. Yeah, no, it definitely set the bar. Yeah. So where can people find you and follow you so they can kind of stay updated with everything? Just sure. Yeah, I have a website and I'm on mostly on person. You know, I have a Facebook page. I'm not the most social media savvy person as anyone who's. spends three minutes on my pages, we'll be able to tell. But I'm on Instagram. I think I check it on Instagram the most. I just find it to be of all social media, tends to the bookstagram community is like really positive. Like I like that aspect. That's what I wish all social media was. Like more on the positive, less on the negative. And so that tends to be the ones I go to the most. but you can find me there and you can email me to if anyone wants i get uh you can go through my website and there's a way to email me and i and i try to answer all reader emails um nice

even the ones who tell me stuff they didn't like about the book people really spend the time to email you about what they don't like yeah i mean i mean i shouldn't be surprised yeah yeah i think you know we're in an age where everybody kind of has a right you know you're gonna you're gonna but I have had some entertaining from the aspect of like I had one I'll just give me an example where the reader sent me like a page long email about my misuse of the word cement. Oh my gosh. And it's the correct thing. You know, it's cement is the powder stuff.

Concrete. And I guess in every last fear, I must have used cement a lot because I basically got a real tutorial on like and I think that the the reader said like this is the most misused word in the you know human language or you know English language and I just thought you know one I'll never make that mistake again I didn't in the in the night shift I made sure I did not use Samara but two I just thought wow what it was more curiosity what is this person's like are they are they are they English teacher or are are they working construction I mean what that's what I wonder construction yeah yeah the passion for to really go out of their way, find me, write me this long email. And it was not like, there was no other

it was like, I read every last year. Let me tell you about your misuse of this word. And it went on. So that's, that is unique. I was just, I just finished, I think it was in secrets of our house. I just finished that book. And I was reading her acknowledgments. And one of her acknowledgments was to her editor because she was like, I don't think I'm ever going to know when to use farther versus further. I wonder if she got any emails about that then. We can emails about straight stuff. But most of the people who reach out, you know, it's usually nice. And I don't want, even the other ones, they give you something to talk about or something to think about.

And I learned, I do actually, you do actually learn stuff. I won't make them mistake. Right. Well, I guess that's a good perspective to have on it. You have to. You know, the bargain you've made when you agree to publish a novel is that you're putting it out to the world for, people might love it, they might hate it. And you have to be respectful of both opinions. Right. That's a good point. Well, I will, maybe I won't put your email in the show notes,

but I will put all the links will be in the show notes. So if anyone does want to, yeah, you can if you want to email, if you're somebody who still use the email, the website has a way to do that. Okay. Nice. So those will all be in the show notes so that people can keep up with what everything you're writing and all of that. And thank you for being a guest. Oh, thank you. And thanks for thoughtful questions. Really enjoy. Yeah.