The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – AG Flitcher, Author of Award Winning Fantasy Series, Boone and Jacque

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

AG Flitcher, Author of Award Winning Fantasy Series, Boone and Jacque AG Flitcher is a six time award winning author who placed finals for Fantasy Series for the OZMA Award. Gifting his work to foster children in an act of compassion. In addition, he has taught many the art of storytelling to novice writers and avid readers. His obsession with questioning the good and bad in life, the grey areas, and the scary parts of life, is what makes his work enthralling and colorful.

We'll be right back. CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Thechrisvossshow.com. My gosh, folks. We have theoss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. My gosh, folks, we have the most amazing show for you today.

You are going to be so excited, delighted. And if you love mysteries and thrillers, thrillers and fantasy, actually, not mysteries and thrillers. Let me cut that. If you love thrillers and fantasy, or if you just love any sort of great books uh you're gonna love the guest we have on the show he's a very prolific offer author with a series of four books that we'll be talking about today and we'll be talking about his latest one that just came out uh let's see may i'm sorry july 4th 2022 2022, Independence Day in America here, but he's from Canada, so we'll talk about why that's a thing. And he's the author, A.G. Fletcher is on the show with us today.

The newest book that came out is called Boone and Jacques, Citrus Moonlight, and it's a series of ongoing books to my understanding. We'll verify that with him when he comes on the show. In the meantime, when we talk to him, we'll want you to go out and watch the video. He's got some amazing paintings behind him on youtube.com, Fortress Chris Voss. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Voss. See everything we're reading and reviewing over there. Go see all of our groups on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and we're trying to get shows up on TikTok. We're trying to get the format right over there, and we should be putting up some shows. It's really cool.

That should be soon. He is the author of these amazing books, and he's quite prolific. He's got the quiet thing going. It took me 53 years to write my first book, which means another 53 years when I'm 106, the next book will come out. A.J. Fletcher is a six-time award-winning author who placed finals for fantasy series for the Osmo Award, gifting his work to foster children in an act of compassion. In addition,

he has taught many the art of storytelling to novice writers and avid readers. His obsession with questioning the good and bad in life, the gray areas, and the scary parts of life is what makes his work enthralling and colorful. Welcome to the show, AG. How are you? Hi, everyone. How are you doing? Awesome, Sauce.

It's wonderful to have you on the show, my friend. Give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebages. All right. It's actually pretty easy for everybody. You can use the same handle on your search engines for AG Fletcher, for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. There you go. There you go. So you're coming into us from where? Canada. I think I dropped that earlier. How's Canada these days? I'm from British Columbia, Canada. Yeah. Well, it's pretty cold today.

I went to go walk my dog before this interview, and I was like, Jesus, do I really want to walk my dog? I don't know, Leo. It's pretty chilly outside. I wish I had fur like you, but I had to anyway. My dogs always give me that look. I have two Siberian Huskies. They always give me that look when I have two Siberian Huskies. They always give me that look when I put my cone on.

They're like, really? Yeah, my dog is a routine dog. He's like, excuse me, why are you still sitting? Get up. Yeah, get up, get up. My dogs look at me, and they're like, what a dumb species you are. You're born without fur. What idiots. And I'm like, yeah, but you guys don't have opposable thumbs, so screw you.

We got the nuclear bomb. So anyway, there you go's wonderful to have you on the show uh give us a little bit of background as a writer uh what made you want to become a writer and what led to the uh the genesis of these uh four books that you have out now and i guess more to come well it actually started uh with tragedy i um lost my mom like almost eight years ago so uh when that happened i was looking for some kind of creative outlet to i don't know get through everything and over time i started to talk to people So it was just easier to balance things out. So it was good to talk to people every now and then. Yeah. And what I noticed is that I had to balance my creativity with humanity. So rather than fixate on some,

you know, artful outlet, I just saw it as my catalyst to, I don't know, pass on how I dealt with trauma as opposed to leaning on my creativity and seeing it as more of just a fun thing and also educational thing through entertainment for others. Did you write before? Did you do any writing earlier on?

Some people will do things that will future burgeoning stuff. I would write little limericks or little poems and stuff when I was a kid. No, actually. I didn't always want to be a writer. Before, I wanted to be a filmmaker, a journalist, a chef. You know, I never could make up my mind when I was younger. I was, I've always been a random person. I have thoughts upon thoughts piling on each other in my head.

So when I was thinking about all these different avenues that I was contemplating, I realized that they all had to do with creativity and being organized. So once I started reading more diverse books and trying to pick up on cadences and all that stuff, I realized that, you know what, I think writing is my thing. And once life started to become more challenging and more interesting and, you know, all the ups and downs. I was like, you know what? I think there's something about storytelling that can marry the two of kind of navigating through life's chaos. There you go.

I mean, this is why we appreciate stories. This is why we value stories because not only is a great way to, like you say, navigate through life's crisis or life's chaos, and sometimes to give us peace, sometimes to give us a time out. It's good to maybe think about something else other than maybe what you see on the news every day or

pestilence, everything that's on there. That's just what's on. I don't have a joke for that. There was a lead in somewhere and I lost it. Um, but you know, it's, we, we, uh, we need a little bit of tune out time. We need a little bit of fantasy time where we disconnect from the real world and, and think of good things and better things. Or sometimes we like to think of challenges.

I think the mind is an interesting, uh, the mind is an interesting thing, especially, you know, if you have like six personalities like me, because all six have their own minds. But stories are the way we learn. Stories are the way we learn about life. I told my niece and my nephew, when they graduated high school, I said, collect stories. Be a story collector, because it's how you learn. And some of the greatest things I've ever had in my life are the stories and my memories and stuff.

And God forbid I should ever lose that, you know, at least, you know, whatever half of my mind I still have left. So you started out as a screenwriter, is that correct? And you made a couple short films? Yeah, on a very, like like zero to shoestring budget. You know, I, I once shot a short film in three hours going to three locations.

And the thing about that process is what really encouraged me to really educate myself before doing any kind of proper writing. I mean, it was fun, you know, the, know, the whole excitement of go, go, go. But the thing about filmmaking, whether you make a break or not, there's something about the, I guess, the active destruction you go through before the final product that makes you go, you know what? There's something about being excited about, oh no, oh no, the whole time that makes you want to, you know, keep trying. Yeah. It's, it's quite the adventure.

And is screenwriting much different than writing for a book? Yeah, because screenwriting is very formulaic. Because you're not writing something set in stone. You're writing literally a blueprint for what's going to be translated on screen. You're not reading, you know, no one's going to read it. You know, no one reads a movie, they watch a movie. So really, you're giving a director words on paper that they can translate on screen. So I'm not writing an action sequence.

I'm writing what I think could look good on screen, and then it's their job to see how that can translate visually. So really, my job is to just say, does this work for you? I don't know. Let me know. There you go. So what motivated you to write your first book and the first book of four in the series and make that final step to move from screenwriting to book writing? Well, I still remember the first time I sat down to write the first book. I was in a parking lot for Starbucks and I was panicking because no one knows who I am.

I don't know if it was even worth my time. And instead of worrying about that, I saw it as a chance for me to revitalize my process of writing. And instead of seeing it as some Hail Mary attempt to make a living out of it I just had fun with it so really my first book was just my attempt to stop worrying about what the outcome is going to be and whether it gets attention or not and just do it for myself exactly you know when I I wrote my book, um,

I crammed it over three months and banged it out over three months. I was lucky that, uh, I, I had all these stories that I collected. Again, we're back to stories, uh,

that I collected for 53 years. And I've been telling these stories to people and, and they loved them and they were interesting and funny and stupid. And people were like, what is your problem, dude? Anyway, to people and they loved them and they were interesting and funny and stupid. And people were like, what is your problem, dude? Anyway, but that's my Facebook audience, clearly. But I'd been telling these stories forever, so I got a chance to really have them purified down. And I've been telling them at different places, at different places where I have to, you know, get them concise and get them, you know, cut down from, you know, telling, you know, 5,000-word stories I usually do.

And so there was a lot that I had that was, like, in the can, basically. It just needed to get put on paper. And I remember writing it, and it was a slam process to do three months and then edit in two and then publish. I think it was edited technically. Well, the editing dragged on for, I think, five weeks. And then, you know, we were editing until the last second. You're always, like, finding stuff. You're like, hey, that period's in the wrong way.

And, you know, at the end I was out of my mind and I think I was in a place that a lot of authors get to where they're, they're just kind of losing it. And they're just like, is anyone going to read this piece of crap I wrote? You know, you just, you have that self depreciation mindset going in your head and you're just like, you know, this is, man, you know, and I reached a point where I was like, you know what? I've told my story. These are stories I've been carrying around for 53 years. I finally put them on paper for all of eternity or however long. Amazon, you'll keep reprinting after I'm dead. And which my understanding is as long as they're around.

So they'll probably be around longer than i am at this point yeah um although you know knock on wood i mean they could go my space i suppose but uh segues aside uh the uh i was how i got up down and i i came to this i finally just came to the dead end i don't know if it's a dead end but i came this dead end where i just went you know what i don't give an F if anybody reads this book, anybody cares or whatever. I got my history on paper. I just immortalized myself. I don't care.

I told my story. I said what I said. And I'm happy with it. If no one buys it, I'm going to be happy with it because I just achieved something most people don't do. You know, and most people can't do is write a book and get it published. So, uh, I kind of reached that point too. I know what that's like. And a lot of my author friends were like, yeah, man, you know, when you reach the point where you're that frustrated and you're, you know, just go a little bit further, you're almost there. So, uh, yeah, I mean, being able to write something and, you know,

be happy with yourself and go, you know what? I, you know what, it doesn't matter to me whether anyone likes it or not. And a lot of the greatest things I've ever done in my life are things I did for myself. So it's a good journey to go on, huh? What made me switch in terms of my motivation is once I started to free myself from, I guess we would call self-traps from repressed emotion with trauma, the more I valued my work because when people tell me how my work affected them, the more value I saw, not just in my work, but in myself. And it made my writing that much more freeing and a lot more cohesive. Because I worried less about how much I was putting myself in there and how I incorporated other people in and instead of uh worrying about what is going to be in the context of my writing i just saw it as a piece of art that i created and however little or however big this you know gains attention i'm going to be happy with it because the fact that I'm not worrying about the finance of my writing is, to me, a sign of growth.

But I'm not seeing this as a selling tool or something that I'm trying to sell. I'm seeing it as a creative opportunity for me to evolve as a person. There you go. There you go. Sometimes sharing how we evolve and how we do things is the best way to inspire others. So that's always important. So let's talk about your book. You created a four-series book based upon, I believe, two characters, Boone and Jacques.

Yeah. based upon, I believe, two characters, Boone and Jacques. What made you settle on writing fantasy thrillers, and what made you want to talk about these two folks, and who are they? Well, if I'm being honest, these are two versions of me. Boone is the, for those who are watching this on YouTube, Boone, that guy here, sorry, now it's in frame. He's more of my goofy and down-to-earth, salt-of-the-earth kind of guy. And Jacques is my studious and book-reading side, and very philosophical and logical so really at first it was about me understanding who i am as a person and as an author but once i once i distanced myself from the characters and made it more about their growth and not mine it became way more um gripping

because i i made less about myself and said, you know what? I can't keep making it about my pain and who I am because then I'm becoming a selfish author who's just like, I'm going to write about me. No one cares. Well, I mean, some people do. Some people do if you're doing self-help books, but I mean

for those who are reading fiction or really fantasy books because sometimes what authors do when they're trying to use writing as a catalyst for their emotions, you can tell that it's becoming more and more narrow as opposed to fully enveloping the story, meaning you involve other components and something that's a bit more grounded in a bigger picture of what you want the story to be. So that's how the series evolved. Hmm. There you go. So you started the book, and then is each book kind of like a semi-standalone book, or do you have to start at the beginning and read the whole series to understand what's going on?

That's a good question. The first three, which are all over here next to me, the first three are all interconnected. They don't – how can I put this? They're interconnected, but they don't all follow the same pattern. So once you go into book two we're outside of saddleton which is the hometown so we're in this kind of you know dark tower stephen king series uh uh wasteland then they go back into town but it's far more different. It was a bit, a very, uh, dark vibe and a lot more, um,

sinister. And then in book four, we go to Citrus, a new town that was uncovered due to a certain final event in book three. Ah, yeah. And is that, do the,

do those events of, of, uh, that are each in each of the four books that they weave together throughout the four books. So you'll, so there are references in each book to keep them connected. Yeah. The least ratings and stuff.

Yeah. There are Easter eggs. Even in, um, the final book that I'm working on now, these are just the four published books. I'm working on the final book right now. I do make mention of certain things from each book to kind of,

you know, just bring everything full circle. But it's not in the sense that I'm backtracking. It's more I'm tethering the things that the main characters either forgot about or purposely tried to forget. That's pretty interesting. That's pretty interesting. That's pretty interesting. So are Boone and Jacques, are they like detectives?

Are they just kind of amateur detectives? Professional detectives? Are they like Thomas and Harvey maybe? Jacques becomes an actual detective in book four. It's more like they're just two curious kids and then they became teenagers and they're just trying to understand life on their own kind of like a series of unfortunate events where none of the

adults are paying attention to them and they learn from each other in their own life uh but boone is more lost at the beginning than than jack is he has a longer journey at the beginning of understanding himself and his purpose in life. And it wasn't to be a detective. That's just how their curiosity comes off. They're always so curious

in a detective manner. But it is only Jack that really sees himself as a detective. Ah, there you go. So they go on different adventures and, uh,

they're best friends and they, they, they go through, uh, all these different things they're always discovering. Now you mentioned that you're working on the fifth book and that will be the end of the series. End of the series and their main character arc,

but they may show up in other standalone novels. Do you have anything else planned you're working on that it sounds like you have a plan? After the series, yeah. I'm writing this, or working on this serial killer origin story called

Black Rose Cocoon. And I had interviewed a couple of criminology professors, actually, to get some information on how the mind of a serial killer works and what is more rare, what is the difference between a female and male killer. And the female killer intrigued me more,

not just because of its rarity, but the mindset as well, where a male killer is more of an impulse thing where it's just at random. There's no rhyme or reason for why they do it. It's just an impulse

that they can't control. There's no therapizing them to stop. It an impulse that they can't control. There's no therapizing them to stop. It's just something they can't control. Where a female killer who has the same impulse, but she's more of an opportunist, meaning there's some kind of

reasoning behind her kills. Some kind of, not human, but there's some kind of logic to why she does it. So, for example, Eileen Wuornos, she had a certain target, which was middle-aged white men. And it was surmised that it was due to her father issues. So really it was her utilizing her impulse and whatever tricks she could come up with to lure people to, I guess, work through her trauma. But because of the impulse, there was no way of her to see any kind of guilt from her actions.

It just got worse and worse. So it just became her. As the police say, I was listening to their album Synchronicity the other day, murder by numbers. Once you make a killing, it's hard to stop. Something like that. I can't remember the exact line from murder by numbers by the police. But once I hear that song, it's stuck in my head.

I was walking around Walmart last night singing, murder by numbers from by the police but once i hear that song i was stuck in my head i'll be i was walking around walmart last night singing murder by numbers one two three and uh and uh like people are looking at me and i'm like yeah you don't sing it to me uh you know hey sting road i didn't write it uh so there you go uh so this is really insightful, was this Force book the first time that you tackled a murder? Yeah. When I was thinking about what do I want to do after this series is done, I wanted to do kind of the polar opposite of what the core message was of Boone and Jack, which is that I'm obligating them to learn about how to deal with their emotions and how to deal with trauma. And they end up doing that.

They end up becoming well-adjusted adults somewhat, and they are settled. But in Black Rose Cocoon, I'm doing the opposite, where I'm showing what could happen to someone if they were to repress trauma for so long and have an impulse they can't control, that could do the complete opposite for them. Where they're so far gone, there is no helping them. So it's not just showing how someone became a murderer. It's also showing people what can happen to you minus the impulse if you don't deal with it.

So, yeah. So that kind of led you into this new series that you're working on then, I guess. Yeah, and it's just, it's something to kind of counterbalance what I'm working on now. And then in the future, I'll start working on other things.

Like I'm working on a brother-sister adventure story and then a three-in-one book fantasy series that's kind of like a prequel to Boone and Jack, where I'm introducing basically the source of where all this magic and chaos comes from, which the only spoiler I can give you is that there's a sister planet for Earth in this universe that I created, and I call it Theranosita.

Ah. So that's going to be interesting. You know, we have a lot of writers come on the show, and some are very prolific. They've written 50, 60 books, and they have, like, all these different book series they're doing with, you know, where they have, you know, these guys over here and these guys over here and they're completely different book styles. But they flip around. They'll do like one series of books that have like 10 or 12 in them of some folks. And then they'll have another series going, 10, 20, 30 books or whatever. And, you know, they're just constantly hopping around.

And it kind of helps them keep fresh is my impression it kind of helps help them develop stories better and and be fresh at uh at coming back to old older characters with stuff they worked on kind of like a little vacation if you will yeah i mean i have some like old unfinished unfinished uh film scripts that I'm turning into books too. There is this, it was only eight pages and I stopped, but I did my twisted version of the notebook in which I call it getting to know Hank and Lucy, where all I wrote was this opening scene where this middle-aged couple was walking on a beach and they see a man in a tuxedo washed up ashore

with a big vintage trunk. And they carry him to their house and the box, too. And they uncover in the box an old picture of the wife and this man that washed up ashore. And they're trying to understand who the other one is. Wow. That's a whodunit or whonut. That's definitely an adventure.

That would freak me out, man. I'd be like, yeah. Why is there a dead guy with our pictures in him? And are we next or whodunit? It's a disturbing picture that keep you up at night i'd be like you took all those windows and doors and yeah what you know it's funny about what you're saying i just posted a uh this morning i posted a um a video teasing uh the serial killer story and uh one of my illustrators who works with me, she said it made her jump

like three times. It was only two and a half minutes long. She was just like, I'm like, okay, I guess I did my job then. There you go. There you go. So it's not like writing. You're getting it really down. You're getting a passion.

The books are quite thick. I think the latest one was like 400 pages, I think I saw it. Yeah, my books average between 450 and 420, or 420 and 450. That's a lot of mystery and thriller in there, a lot of fantasy. Yeah, I mean, the reason why my books are so thick and why I'm so detail oriented is because of the author that I look up to, which is Stephen King. Ah, yeah.

Yeah. I, I love his work and I'm still dreaming of the day that I meet him. There you go. I mean, it's good to have heroes. I mean, he's definitely prolific.

We've tried to get him on this show, but you know, he doesn't need to appear anywhere anymore. He just, he's like, I just publish. And I'll just pretend that he's watching the show. Hi anywhere anymore. No, he has the money. He just is like, I just publish. And I'll just pretend that he's watching the show. Hi, Stephen. Hi, Stephen.

Please come on the show if you're watching. Stephen Fallon, I want to be on your show. Yeah. We have a lot of authors on. I mean, we have a couple of authors. We have a writer for James Bond on the show. That's a cool, interesting series. They switch out the authors, but I guess he did the,

I think it was the last two or four books. They all have to be improved by the owner of the thing who makes the films. I forget their names. The Broccolini's? Broccos? Broccolini? Broccoli's? But they're a family family the wife inherited it from

the husband uh who created the whole movie series but uh uh you know we've had people that are really prolific i don't know how many books stephen king has now like probably 100 plus or something now yeah like i like i what i i have authors come on the show and they put a book they write a book in about four months on a novel. And then it takes about, you know, it takes the publishers, the big publishers, it takes about almost a year to get it out. Or I think they have it banged out to where they do their books in about eight months. But, you know, they do those lead out.

But I just saw one of my other prolific authors. I think he's in his 30s books. He might be in his 40s. He bangs them out like every four months. And they just punch him out. And he just scheduled again for the show. I think he's been on five times now. And, you know, a lot of these authors, they just really are prolific.

I'm kind of jealous. I think that's why I'm talking about it. Well, you know, if I didn't have a day job, I'd be doing the same thing. But I got to eat. You're getting there. You're getting there. You know, one author we have on, she started writing back in the 60s. And, you know, writing for women wasn't a big thing back then

uh you know it was kind of discouraged by her husband at the time because you know it was that sort of era and um and then she became single and divorced i think her husband had an alcohol problem and so she started writing for a living and everyone's like no one's gonna want to read your books but they did and she got a fan base and she's built it over all these years and and she comes on the show about every i don't know six months or so eight months i think it is but she she just punches out a book and and she's got multiple you know storylines that are going on so it's really cool what are anything else you want to tease out about your book series, about the books, the newest book?

Anything you want to tease out that we haven't touched on? Well, one of the important things in I'm Going to Jack is diversity. So, for example, Jack is pansexual. So I wanted to make sure that that is part of his identity because I wanted the concept of love is love to be strong throughout the whole series, that regardless of sexual attraction, a person is a person. And I don't even classify anyone with whatever gender or sexual orientation

or even their race because I want people to see these characters as human beings. So when I describe how they look, I don't say black-skinned or dark-skinned. I say a certain actual tint, like

this person has cinnamon skin or this person has mocha skin or they have, uh, what's, what's that called? The vitiligo where they have a discoloration in their skin. Oh,

okay. Now, is that where they, they have, it's, there's a patchiness to their skin. Yeah. Uh,

vitiligo. So, yeah. Yeah. So the, for example, in a book, uh,

four, there's this doctor who has cinnamon skin with vitiligo, and he has red hair. So it's a very unique look, and he's also very tall. And he has this very nonchalant demeanor. So he gives off that uh that sincere energy or sorry uh sinister energy but it doesn't mean that he's a killer or anything it's just how he looks so yeah some people have that look like i have a resting bitch face look that looks sinister half the time. Like people like, you know, I've had girlfriends say to me,

are you angry right now? I'm like, no, I'm just resting bitch face. But no, that skin condition, there's a lot of inclusion for stuff like that nowadays in everything. I'm, you know, I've been playing the latest Modern Warfare 2, and one of the load screens or one of the i don't know just one of the screens uh on the on the game has a person with that skin condition yeah and uh so you know there's a lot of inclusion going on pansexuality let's see it's a sexual romantic

and emotional attraction towards people regardless of their sex or gender identity i've been seeing more of the pansexuality in my dating pools and like Tinder and stuff. It seems to be a lot of wives that want to play but still remain married or something. I don't know what that's about. But they'll be like, I'm pansexual and I think they like both

sexes. But it's kind of interesting. They need to make a category for an evidently in Tinder so it doesn't show up on my feed. I really don't want to date somebody who has a husband. That's kind of not my thing. But, hey, I'm not judging. I'm not judging.

That's your thing. That's totally cool for you. It's just not cool for me. Yeah. Hi. Well, there was something else. Oh, okay. So to really sell diversity, uh,

I have in, at the end of book three, uh, Jack marries a transgendered woman of color who is a half Puerto Rican, half Moroccan. Oh, and, her name is Exantia.

She identifies as a woman. Um, and the thing that I made that I thought was interesting for book 4 is that the energy of Citrus is that honesty is key so

if you're transgender that's who you are on paper but because of Exantia's perspective of herself, meaning she sees herself as a woman, she opted out of being a detective for the agency because they were trying to obligate her to be on paper as transgender. But once they really needed her, they accepted her for who she is. And same goes for anyone who came aboard the agency. So when you read book four, you see that not just for those characters, but for everybody. Everyone is seen the way they want to be seen.

And that the only way they're being judged is by their thoughts that come out loud and their actions, which to me is the only kind of judgment that has reasoning. Definitely. I mean, people are going to judge in biology, but it's important that people have their identity and what they want to take and do and the influence they want to take and have. So that's awesome. Do you find that it resonates with the LGBTQ community?

I'd say so. I mean, a lot of my readers are from that community's very subtle, but there's this, I guess, hospice scene where all of these elderly people are just, you know, with each other. And I showed something that I thought I would, I have never seen publicly in like the 50s, 60s kind of thing, I had a gay couple who were in their 80s. And it was two men. I've never seen that before. I mean, I've seen pictures of soldiers

that were gay and it's just not really brought up that much. So I wanted to exemplify the importance of not just youth being vocal about their sexuality, but people from previous generations as well. Most definitely. I mean, it's always been around.

I mean, a lot of people had to hide it back in the old days where it was frowned on and society wasn't as accepting and kind of stuck in their old ways. So it's really interesting. And it's great that there's an inclusivity there where people can feel like they have roles and characters they can identify with because for a long time, you know, I remember when they said to me that one of the Teletubbies was, was,

you know, LGBTQ. And I was like, I don't know. Really? i've watched that show i mean yeah i don't i even created this uh get it but i get it i whoever figure that one out i created this this uh magical species called uh the midnight walkers and um essentially, when you look at them, they're made of basically the galactic nature of the universe. So you see all the stars and galaxies through their body, but they have different shades of lipstick and eyes. So the idea behind that was that I'm marrying the concept of we are one part of the

universe with humanity. So, so these creatures are able to manipulate their body into any kind of matter or shape and protect people. There's actually the scene I thought was, it was a surprise myself when I wrote it Where There's people walking through the

Ancestral grounds of this Of this tribe I guess And to protect them From this looming creature They created this galactic Dome over them with their bodies Where they became one and created A cocoon around them until

This demonic being passed Over and then they were safe to Keep walking bodies or they became one and created a cocoon around them until this demonic being passed over and then they were safe to keep walking. Wow. Yeah. I would love to see that. I'm picturing in my head. I don't think anyone's ever done anything like that, especially with technically quote unquote aliens.

That seems pretty, that seems pretty interesting. Yeah. I mean, I enter my books in the cinematic book contest from ScreenCraft every year in the hopes that I get to... because I'm a very cinematic person

when it comes to writing, so I always submit it for cinematic book contest because I know that this has true potential to either be movies or a Netflix series or Disney plus, whatever streaming service is interested. I mean, I'm always trying to pitch that because I truly believe in the value of my

work visually and emotionally. There you go. There you go. Well, this is all pretty interesting. We want people to go out and buy the books. Of course, we can't tell them how the ending works.

give us your.coms or wherever people can find you on the interweb and get to know you better. Alright. You can find me at AGFletcher at the following social medias. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Make sure you watch TikTok because I did two months of acting

classes and I really tried to use that to entertain you guys. So you'll get to see every weird version of me and other characters. My favorite is the new one I just did, Larry McGillicuddy. I realize I'm Texan. So make sure you watch those. There's 1,540 people watching. So that's to make that a million people, huh?

There you go. There you go. That's awesome. You know, we a one writer who came on the show she does a series it's a fantasy series and uh there's kind of she's like a elfish sort of character that's her main character and so what she does is she does these photo shoots of her she's a fairly good looking woman so she can dress up as the fairy or the elf person that she is in her character books. And she dresses up and she'll like act out scenes or do readings.

Or sometimes she just takes pictures of like, here's some of the characters in my book. And it's quite interesting what she does. And she really turns, it's part of her, it's technically part of her art. Because if you, it's bringing her character's life, I guess, and things like that. I thought that was quite interesting. I, of course, always appear as the character in my books. But they're all boring. I did a couple of skits with Boone's dad.

Oh, really? Yeah, because Krom is an alcoholic and abusive father. So I did this short film, like six minutes long on TikTok, where I pretend to be his dad in his work clothes but it's a really weird one because it was both him being it's like as if he's caught between the the living world in the and the dead world where he's he's always an alcoholic and he's kind of like foreshadowing Boone's inevitable demise in a certain way. I don't know. I was just having fun with showcasing that character.

There you go. Bringing characters to life and sharing them makes people, I think, gives people an added dimension. Maybe they should do that more with books. I'm, of course, always the character who appears in my books. People are sick of me already. But they're business books. They're boring. People love novels.

I should write novels. I have so many great novels like yourself that come on the show. And I really should write in that genre. But I have no imagination. So there's that. I just have crazy dreams. But it depends on which personality of mine is running the show. My imagination is always going off.

I mean, I've envisioned me being interviewed by Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert a million times in different ways. And trying to, you know, make it happen. Make it happen. There you go. There you go. Well, just keep riding, my friend. You get there. You find what works with an audience

and you get that click. I've done so many different business things throughout my life and you tinker with things and some things hit, some things don't quite hit as much as you want. Sometimes you have to build the audience and they come. And then sometimes you just

tweak something and all of a sudden the lights go on and you're just like, holy crap. So there you go. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on, AG. Thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. It was fun. Thank you. And thanks for our audience for coming on.

We certainly appreciate you guys coming on. Someone called into the show the other day over the weekend and left a really long, thankful message and just a really warm, heartfelt thing. So our thank you to those people who go on and leave great reviews, comment on the videos. You're welcome to call us every now and then. I thought it was weird. I'm not sure where they – well, I mean, my number's all over the Internet. But I thought it was fun. It was like, they left this beautiful message about how much they love the show, and they're thankful for, I think it was our Emily Flitter from New York Times episode, but thanks to

them, and thanks to my audience just for always being supportive, and all the love and outpouring you do. I was starting to think, maybe I should put up a number so people can call into the show, and you know, you can just leave a message or something. I did that for an indie author podcast where I had six people that called in and answered their questions. I thought it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. And, you know, people leave comments on YouTube and stuff.

But anybody that calls the show, and Google Voice gives us this transcribe. So, you know, I don't normally answer phone numbers because it's usually some guy going about my car warranty or, you know, we have websites all over, so it's some website scam thing. You know, it's always a scam pretty much. So I almost never answer the phone unless it's my mom. And, you know, my mom hasn't tried scamming me anytime lately i'm just kidding she never does that but you know what i mean you can trust your mom usually

yeah exactly and usually your question is like my car well yeah you use your question is the internet's out or uh you know i can't figure out how to do this on my computer or why... I had to do that many times with my mom's godmother. Andre, the TVA won't work. I can't find the remote. Help me find plants, please. Yeah, it's pretty much that. Never tell your friends and family

that you know how to fix computers. That's basically it. Anytime I get a call, but yeah, it was really beautiful. I was like, oh, okay. They left this long, beautiful message, thank me, and I was like, yeah, it's kind of good to get that pat on the back every now and then. Normally, I just sit and look at downloads and going up,

but I'm like, okay, well, they keep going up, but getting a nice, fresh thing. So what I'm doing is I'm inviting you people to please, you know, send likes to the show. Go on iTunes. Give it a five-star review if you would, please, over there. Anyway, no, my thanks for tuning in. Go to youtube.com forward slash Chris Foss.

Goodreads.com forward slash Chris Foss. Everywhere on the internet there. LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. And we're trying to get some stuff up on TikTok. I'm trying to get the format right. We put up our billionaire interview, and it and it like cut off the two ends. All you can see is like it's cut off and it didn't do well. So we're going to try and repost a lot of our content.

We had, uh, uh, the guy from Hercules, the actor from Hercules on the day, we're going to try and repost. Yeah, I saw that.

I was like, Oh, that's so cool. The chicks love that. The chicks love that dude. Like, uh, we're, you know, I'll tell you something funny because I can probably describe it better than putting it on the show.

But he's a real professional actor. And I thought about doing a bit on the show where I would have, like, we've had some questions come in for you, Mr. Sorbo, on the show. And then I reach over and grab, grab like a whole set of bras and this one says, throw this at him. Here's another bra that says, throw this at him. And then I was going to hold up a male thong, you know,

that looked a little malish. And I'd be like, someone sent this in and said, throw it at him. You know, I thought it would be a funny bit, but he seemed real professional. He's on the show, and I'm like, you know, he probably gets enough of that kind of thing.

Yeah. So, but I thought it would be a really funny bit. But, you know, whatever. We left it off. Some jokes I can carry too far, and so we have to make a call. It was more of a business show than anything, but I don't know. He might appreciate if we were just talking about acting in this thing,

but you know, he kind of knows man chicks digging. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you guys. Be good to each other, stay safe,

and we'll see you guys next time.