The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Single & Cooking: Book 1 by David Jay Collins

Episode Date: February 28, 2026

Single & Cooking: Book 1 by David Jay Collins https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FMP12647 Davidjaycollins.com Dr. David Lisk, a popular English professor, is on sabbatical at a vintage cottage in... Rehoboth Beach. He has planned a quiet summer of research but soon discovers new possibilities with love and career. While the risks of following his heart are far greater after age 50, so too are the possible rewards. The summer that changes David’s life unfolds among a town full of vibrant characters, with pointed commentary on the changing landscape of historic beach towns along the Atlantic. About the author David Jay Collins lives in Chicago. Gaybash, his first fiction novel, is available in ebook, audiobook, and paperback formats. Summerdale, the first novel of his LGBT horror series, is available in ebook and paperback formats. Single & Cooking, a two-book romance series, is available in ebook and paperback formats. Gaybash is about a reserved gay man who fights back against two attackers and changes his life. Summerdale is about four gay men, four addictions, and one landlord from Hell. Single & Cooking is about an English professor taking new chances with love and career in his fifties. Follow David on Instagram at davidjaycollins

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Starting point is 00:01:33 Anyway, guys, we have an amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking to him today about his series of books that he has and some of the things he's up to as an indie author. He is the author of the latest book to come out. A single N. Cooking, Book 1, David J. Collins joins us on the show. This came out August 15th, 2025. You can find out where refined books are sold out there. David is the indie author of six novels spanning LGBTQ plus, 155. fiction, horror, and romance over 50.
Starting point is 00:02:07 At the heart of his work are powerful themes standing up against oppression, finding, chosen family, and embracing second chances. Since releasing his debut novel, Gay Bash, 12 years ago, David has become a familiar face at festivals and cons around Chicago. Recently, he has launched a speaking business to inspire others to connect with their own creative passions. Welcome to the show, David. How are you?
Starting point is 00:02:30 I'm great, Chris. I'm really excited to be here with you today. We're excited to have you as well. Give us your dot-coms and tell us where people can find you on those interwebs in the sky. Absolutely. The website is David J. Collins. That's David J.A.Y.Collins.com. And on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, it's also David J. Collins. Again, that's David J.A.Y. Collins.
Starting point is 00:02:54 So give us a 30,000 overview. What's in the side of this book? Single and Cooking. Yeah. It is about a result. and popular professor who is on sabbatical in Rojobith Beach, Delaware, and he discovers new possibilities with love and career while he's at the beach over the summer. All right.
Starting point is 00:03:17 Well, that's great then. He finds love. And what's the cooking part about? Yeah. He is out at the beach and he's just had a breakup. So he doesn't want to go into town and possibly run into, you know, the X and the evil friends. So he starts hosting dinners. at his vintage beachfront cottage that he's renting for the summer.
Starting point is 00:03:38 He's been a renter there for many summers. And it turns out that he starts making matches with the invited guests. And they turn into engagements. And where it starts spreading. And soon this, you know, professor who expects to be doing research and, you know, writing papers and kind of being away from the grind of teaching is starting to get a lot of interest in the, in this beautiful beachfront. front town called Rojahobah's Beach. And it's all about him taking chances with new opportunities
Starting point is 00:04:10 and also finding that after 50, love has been right in front of him the whole time. After 50. After 50? I wrote this because this isn't a genre that really has a lot of characters, first of all, who are LGBTQ, but it's also a genre that doesn't have many characters, central characters who are over the age of 50, regardless of who those characters are. And I wanted single and cooking to be a complete one book, you know, two book series. The second book will be out this June. And the response has been really positive. My number one reader, as I found by you mentioned earlier, I'm at a lot of festivals and cons. My number one reader is actually straight women. Straight women, really? Yes. Her romance, fiction. And that's something that I love because it kind of
Starting point is 00:04:58 reaches across demographics, and it's been great to meet people in person that way. You know, dating after 50 is quite interesting. I think you're single. I am at your age. And then I'm single, too, and I've been dating in the dating markets. And boy, it's a lot different than when you're 20. It is a lot different. I'm in 20, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:05:19 Yeah. You know, half the time, I'm just kind of, do I want to date? My back hurts, and I can't feel my legs. And, you know, yeah, I just. it's a go to go to kFC or go on dates hmm i don't know it's go to the gym you know all that shit you got to do yeah but you know it's harder too because you're kind of
Starting point is 00:05:41 set in your ways and i think in your field yeah absolutely you're kind of like no i'm not putting up with that bullshit when you're 20 you're like whatever whatever she wants to do yeah okay yes year yes you yes you yes here okay whatever yeah yeah yeah and when you're 50 you're just like yeah no you've been there and you know Unlike when you're in your 20s, you don't have this feeling like, oh, I have decades ahead of me to get this right.
Starting point is 00:06:03 You really don't when you're in your 50s and your 60s. You've been there and you want to get a lot more serious about who you're going to partner with. So your character, Dr. David Lisk. Yes. And he's an English professor. So does he become like a, does he end up getting some good dates and maybe. Oh, yeah. Or just be, okay.
Starting point is 00:06:23 I wasn't sure if he was just making great matchmaking because I've done that before. I've helped other people get in relationships. And I'm just sitting here single going, what am I, my chopped liver? I am actually. Chop liver is the title of my Tinder profile. Wow. Okay. Chop liver.
Starting point is 00:06:40 Out there for everyone. I might actually do that. According to chicks, I'm just chopped liver. Nice. But Chris, you know, you just mentioned something is that the matchmaker is sometimes never matched. And as, you know, LGBTQ folk, we know that role very, very, well in books and movies. We've so often been the sidekick. We're the one who sets everything up for the main character and then just kind of disappears and is never seen again once our job is done.
Starting point is 00:07:08 In this case, the matchmaker also finds his match. And it's by someone named Eldon who has been his longtime best friend. These guys have known each other for a long time. And now that David is single, Eldon finds that it's his chance to kind of step up to the plate. And there is a lot of, it's not spicy. I will say that. It's It's a not spicy romance, but it is obvious that these guys are into each other. And that's something else you don't see is desire portrayed among characters who are in their 50s and 60s. Even with a lot of the big romances and the big dating, you know, streamers and all of that, it's all young people. And they're beautiful.
Starting point is 00:07:48 And those stories are all valid. But there's not enough stories centered on people who are over the age of 50, who have just as much desire and just as much. to offer a partner in life. Oh, yeah. And sometimes more because, you know, we usually kind of have our brains and our shit together by 50. At least some of us do. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:08:06 Some of us do. Or I've seen Twitter. That's Twitter callback joke. But, yeah, I mean, it's harder. You're stuck in your ways, too. I mean, I think that's, I mean, I'm over, I'm almost 60. I'm 58. I guess that's the first time I've had to admit that one.
Starting point is 00:08:22 Excuse me. Choking a little bit here. But, you know, I'm at the point now where if I ever got in a relationship, I'd be like, okay, you have your house over there, and I got mine over here, and we're just going to keep it that way. Yeah. Yeah. We'll be in a relationship, but you go, I had one guy over on my show. He's a big, I think he started out of a position, but he's on TikTok, and he has a house, and he does all these crazy stunts with his house.
Starting point is 00:08:49 He cuts the floor out, and there's two things. And so when he came on the show, I said to him, I go, how in the hell does your wife let you do all this stuff to her house? and he goes, no, Chris, we have the perfect relationship set up. And I go, what is it? He goes, I bought the house straight across from her for me in Las Vegas. And so she has her house straight across the street. And I have my house and I can do anything I want my house, but I can't do any of the shit that you see on Tinder or TikTok to her house.
Starting point is 00:09:18 And I'm like, that's fucking brilliant. And that's a relationship that's going to last. Because you know, once you start living together and it's like, I put the tooth. paste in the wrong whatever and out of yada yada you'd put the dishes in the dishwasher wrong wrong yeah there is a right way apparently and it's not the way you do it exactly same thing with the toilet paper rolls but it's nice you know you know when you're 20 you're like yeah let's have six in the morning you know this would be great you know me at 50 I'm like I'm like look unless
Starting point is 00:09:53 I have four to five shots of espresso in the morning people will die there's like a sign on my espresso machine that says no coffee, no talky. Everyone knows you don't bother Chris in the morning until he's in my language. Like at least 12 hours and then finally I can be social. Yes.
Starting point is 00:10:13 And then I might want some nooky. So I mean this is kind of a, let's talk about this because this is kind of an intention that you put into your books to talk about some of these things. Is this I'm just going to take a guess here. Is this a kind of a self-reflection of your life? being at the older ages and some of the things that you're experiencing?
Starting point is 00:10:32 Absolutely. Gay Bash was my first novel. I came out when I was in my late 30s. I was reflecting in my early 30s. Somerdale, which was kind of the in the middle, it's a horror trilogy set right here in Chicago. This was kind of like reflecting a little bit behind with some of the characters and with the main character,
Starting point is 00:10:49 who was an older gentleman. It's kind of looking ahead. And single in cooking, which is a draft I've held for about 20 years before I decided to really do something with it. It's definitely where I'm at now. I'm about to be 55 and where I want to go and who I want in my life. And I've written wonderful people.
Starting point is 00:11:08 Eldon, I think, is one of the more popular characters because he just wears his heart on his sleeve. And he obviously loves David very much, even when David tries to kind of push him away in the sense of I've never had this kind of love before. This can't be real. I'm scared. And Eldon just keeps coming back. Well, that's definitely unlike any responses I get on Tinder. They never come back. Usually, we've gone ghosted.
Starting point is 00:11:33 I spent most of my time being a Playboy all my life and having fun. It didn't help them on a modeling agency for quite a few for about 10 years. But what was my point? My point is, you know, now I kind of with COVID, I kind of woke up, you know, being 50s, about the same time, I kind of woke up. I kind of woke up and I realized I was in the third or fourth quarter of the game. You know, most people don't tell you they think 50 is midlife. 37 or 38 or something, Google it people, I'm not going to do that during the show, is midlife. Because the average man only lives about 75, 70s, if you're lucky.
Starting point is 00:12:10 I mean, I got friends that are dying all around me in the 50s, and I'm just like, you know, my friends warned me about this when I was young. They're like, there's a time where you go to a lot of weddings, Chris, and then there's a time of your life where you go to a lot of funerals and your friends disappear. Yeah. It's weird out there. You're just like dodging bullets, you know. And so I kind of started taking life a little seriously. I started looking for my person, whatever that means. I don't think there's really a person.
Starting point is 00:12:34 But so someone that I could put up with, let's put it that way. And I started going, okay, maybe it's time to hang up the condoms and try and find a relationship. I just did that in my head and try and find a relationship. And yeah, and that's still not working, but we're trying. But it's kind of that perspective you get at 50 is what I'm trying to allude to. Yeah, where you're like, hey, I'm in the final stage of the game. And, you know, I mean, it's hospital beds coming down the pike here at me.
Starting point is 00:13:05 And I don't want to find somebody who can drive me in and out of the hospital. I just had two hernia surgery. So that's what that's about. Thank God for my mom, though. So, yeah, they don't release you from the hospital to a taxi service. or whatever those other things are called. Uber. They won't.
Starting point is 00:13:27 I was like, what the fuck? I don't know. They want to bring her out of them. I'm like, I mean, if I have a heart attack in the car, you know, the Uber drives against me driving back to the hospital and kick me out. Yeah, it's harder. You start getting a different perspective, you know, you start learning that, you know, and then being reckless and getting some of the shit relationships or
Starting point is 00:13:46 situationships when you're younger, because you're just like, sex is great. And then you're like, wait, this person's fucking bat shit. You know, and you've got to go through all that and there's divorces people have and wet marriages and, you know, I know people that, they fight, they spend more time on each other and around each other. And I don't mean on each other in that way. In divorce court, after they're divorced, they spend more time assessed with each other than they did when they were married. I'm pretty sure. I've seen that sometimes.
Starting point is 00:14:25 So you like to put a lot of these themes in your book about some of your personal experiences. Yeah. And then you talk about in your writing tackling a lot of isms. Tell us what that means. Yeah. Ageism is the one I'm confronting mostly in single and cooking. And that is, again, just kind of trying to react to what I don't see in the market, which is characters over 50 centered that way.
Starting point is 00:14:49 But there's certainly in, in, Somerdale, which again is the horror, that is a trilogy about four gay men, four addictions, one landlord from hell. Ah, landlord from hell. And in that book, I'm really speaking directly to my community, the A community, about misogyny, racism, and domestic abuse and substance abuse in our community. Conversations I don't really see happening. And it's based on a house that is in a beautiful neighborhood here on the north side.
Starting point is 00:15:20 and a kindly landlord named Mr. McGreevy, who is the nicest man you will ever meet, but he is actually a supernatural sociopath who works on his tenants until the only place they feel safe is inside his house. So it is an exploration of privilege. It's an exploration of harm to self and harm to others in the community. So it was in some ways a difficult book to right. I would say that it's spicy horror for sure. There's a lot of kink in it, but it's never used to shame the characters. It's used for a purpose and to show a side of the character. And it's been very well received. Again, number one reader, even for queer horror, is straight women. You know, straight women, they really love gay dudes. My mom sometimes will be like,
Starting point is 00:16:10 I really would like to get one of those gay friends, and then I could go shopping with them and talk to them about all my stuff, but he can't talk to me about his stuff. And I'm like, that's not how friendships work, well. Yeah. Come over to one of our festivals. It's very welcoming. And, you know, one thing that I've noticed, there's actually two things. Sometimes that's, you know, aren't you ready for game at? Absolutely. It's just that by far women read for enjoyment, far more than men do. And it's also a way for women to find out about people who are not like themselves. Yeah. Yeah. The relationships, the dialogue, all of it is just an education. And when I, you know, go into a book club and sometimes I'm the only guy there, it's, you know, 12, sometimes more women. And they have wonderful questions.
Starting point is 00:16:55 They can't learn enough about people who are different than them. And it feels great that, you know, if I wouldn't have taken a chance on my own writing, I didn't know what was ahead back in, you know, in 2014. And that is something that I never would have found out about myself if I hadn't had the courage to become an indie author. I never would have met these people otherwise. Yeah. Let's talk about your other books and then let's talk about the indie author stuff. Tell us about, let's just start off with Gay Bash and then we'll move to the trilogy. Yeah. So Gay Bash is set in Lakeview, north side of Chicago. It's about a reserve gay man who fights back against two attackers and changes his life. So it's an emotional journey. The main character is very much based on me in my 30s.
Starting point is 00:17:38 Maddie is his name and he feels kind of trapped. He has a very comfortable but unfulfilling life. and doesn't see a whole lot of potential. He is very average looking, maybe a little pudgy. He doesn't dress in the latest. You know, and reflecting on myself at that age and probably even still now, you know, appearance matters in the community. And it's easy to feel overlooked when you're in spaces where those things matter. And you're trying to date and you're trying to show your best side.
Starting point is 00:18:08 But, you know, for Matt, he's very creative. He's very passionate about his work and nonprofit. He doesn't really go to the gym that month. So for him in that 30s, and I was reflecting on my own experience of that, it kind of matters what you look like. And that's, you know, a level of attractiveness that's going to, you know, bring you more dates and get you a little bit more attention when you walk into a bar, which is something his best friend Greg has in spades. So it was really looking at the, you know, how I felt in my 30s and how I wanted to feel. And that was a character of Greg. Oh, wow.
Starting point is 00:18:44 And so a lot of your life is interwoven into some of these, your experiences and some of the things you have. You know, ageism is a really big deal. I mean, you know, I find it harder to date the 20-year-olds when I'm 50. Much. For some reason, that one movie star guy, he can pull it off. What's his name? He only dates like, once they girls hit like 23, he dumps him or something. You know what I'm talking about?
Starting point is 00:19:07 I don't. The big movie star. He's in all the movies with, he's kind of a short guy, actually. so I don't know. He seemed like a short guy to me. I don't know. But Leonardo Caprio, there we go. Ah, okay.
Starting point is 00:19:20 Yeah, there's kind of a schick that the internet's figured out that he dumps he once he has 23 or 24, 25 or something. But, I mean, he can. Go for it. Hey. If you can date 20-year-olds, I can pull off 30s, but the 20-year-olds just won't go. So now let's talk about the other, the, this is a trilogy, if I understand correctly. Yes.
Starting point is 00:19:42 Yeah. Tell us about this. What's the title of it? Yeah, it's called Somerdale. And after Gaybash finished out and I started going to festivals, which I started doing because I, when it was initially an e-book, and this is again going back to when it came out in 2014, it was initially an e-book. And the Kindle changed everything for indie authors. It really kind of got us on the playing field. But I had enough people say, I don't like tablets. I want to hold a book. So as an indie, like I don't have a house, I don't have an agency. I had to find out how do you make a paperback? And as the e-books were coming up, so were print on demand.
Starting point is 00:20:20 And eventually Audible gave us the opportunity to create own audio books, which gave Ashes as well. So I went out to festivals because it scared me because the idea of rejection to my face was frightening. But I went out, I set up my little table, stacked up my books, and that's how I got into festivals and cons. and it's been a very big part of my business. Almost all of my book sales are through events and readings. And it feels great because that's the best way to get immediate response and to meet new readers. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:20:52 I mean, meeting your readers is really important, too. It can give a lot of feedback, kind of what they see. I mean, I've had some authors on the show that they've got 60 plus books. They've been doing it for four decades. And sometimes readers will come to them at shows and be like, hey, do you know your one main character is an alcoholic? look and they'll be like, what? And then they'll be like, holy crap, you're right. I, you know, and, you know,
Starting point is 00:21:16 usually they're including someone from their life who's an alcoholic and throwing them into the bus as you can sometimes do. Don't, don't piss off authors. They might write about you and kill you off in their series. But yeah, you can learn a lot. You know, people, sometimes your audience might know the character's better. And they, they follow them. It's crazy.
Starting point is 00:21:37 Yeah, they have. But after Gay Bash, then Somerdale came, and again, because I didn't have a contract, and I was going to events, I was hearing what was going on, you know, what are people talking about? And that's when horror came. And because I wasn't constrained to, you know, focus groups or being told what my next book is going to be, I had that freedom. And I decided, okay, I'm going to go with horror. And I don't know why. I've always loved horror. It appealed to me from a young age.
Starting point is 00:22:05 I grew up closeted. so no one had to tell me the symbolism of horror. I knew what the full moon meant. I knew what Bruce Banner is, you know, Bruce Banner is acceptable in society until he gets angry. Then people get scared. Well, he is kind of big and green. Lou did a great job with that. But it's like you're okay as long as you're normal.
Starting point is 00:22:27 But once there's a full moon, you're bitten by a radioactive. Something changes. Then all of a sudden you're a threat. I understood that very early on. So horror has always been a part of my reading and some of the movies I loved. So I knew when I was starting Somerdale that it's going to be a completed trilogy before I even think about pitching it for adaptation. And I wanted to contribute something that's not already in the market.
Starting point is 00:22:53 And that is, you know, their queer horror is getting bigger and bigger. There's more and more authors. And it's a really exciting space to be in. So is this a fairly new genre, gay horror? It's more recent as there simply are more indie authors, which is great. The world needs more art, not less. We do need more voices. You know, there's Romanticy.
Starting point is 00:23:18 There's blending of genres. And, you know, when I met some of the cons, it's interesting to see the fan base who are into vampires, dragons, vampire, dragon. It's just, it's a really open space to bring your creative vision into, whereas maybe a generation ago, those stories would not have gotten past the gatekeepers. Now, they have beautiful covers, beautiful artwork. They're at events, and they're selling well, and I'm here for it. Yeah. I just hit the link on Amazon under your book for under LGBTQ plus horror fiction. Yeah, wow, there's a lot of stuff here. Yeah, they're out. Now, you talk about this. You mentioned before that, you know, you went, your number one question when you go to books at book events is,
Starting point is 00:24:06 is how did you get started? Tell us about how, what this mindset was before and after your first indie novel and what you went through to finally, you know, publish and all that. Yeah, I will blame my parents in the most loving way possible. I was raised in a home and a loving home. I'm an only child. I was raised in a home where creativity was not wrong. I was never told boys don't make little houses and towns out of construction paper. boys do that. Boys don't write stories and books. Boys do this. It was accepted. So when I had this
Starting point is 00:24:44 idea for Gabash and it was getting rejected year after year after year, the six years that I allowed gatekeepers to tell me that my work did not matter, I was also looking at what did get published. and nothing like my story was hitting the bestseller list, was on the shelves of my favorite indie booksellers. And by 2014, the Kindle had come around, and I really thought to myself, if I keep trying to do this the traditional way, the nice way, it might not ever happen.
Starting point is 00:25:20 And my parents might not ever see the love and the nurturing they gave me as a child later in life as an adult. And that broke my heart. So that's when I pressed. Publish. It went out. I dedicated it to them. They've read it.
Starting point is 00:25:38 They've actually read all my work, even horror. And it just feels wonderful. They come to my events. My family and my friends come to my events. And they're selling with me and they're helping keep the energy up when I do get rejected. You know, I've always had a wonderful, loving and supportive family. But the 12 years since then, when Summerdale came and I hadn't done my, market research. I'm just following creative spirit here. I'm not guided by, again, focus groups
Starting point is 00:26:05 who are being told by agencies, what I should be writing, what are the trends for next year. That's not on my mind at all. I'm being led by characters. The characters who told me yes, rather than the people in power who told me no. Here comes horror. And I'm using the time that I am not getting responses to a pitch for an adaptation. I'm using. I'm using the time when I am not getting reviews when I send out a press release. I'm using the time when I'm feeling overlooked and underestimated to keep churning out work. That's what I chose to do instead of feeling rejected by people who never wanted me. I've never looked back.
Starting point is 00:26:48 So now I've been free to write what I want to bring it out into the world as authentically as I can. and I'm kind of sad that single and cooking book two is going to finish up in June. I don't have a whole lot after that right now on the boards. And that feels great because these works when I send them out, they're done. They're completed works. And that feels great that I'm a writer who will finish what he starts. But these characters are kind of special to me. They've been with me a long time.
Starting point is 00:27:19 The joy of it is hearing what readers have to say about it, because I have to remind myself the characters don't belong to me. They belong to the reader. That's a really good point. The characters belong to the reader. Something for writers. And I think your story is a great inspiration, too, for many people who want to write. You know, we've really loved, I mean, sadly, it's what COVID brought, was a lot of people that finally sat down and wrote their stories out and kind of analyzed their life and said, you know, maybe I need to do something different.
Starting point is 00:27:50 I think we had someone yesterday on the show from Australia where COVID had made it to where she, I was like, I want to do something that I want to do. Yeah. And she started writing and she knows she has a great series of books like yourself. And six years of rejection from 2008 to 2014 you went through. That's just wild. Yeah. And I accepted it.
Starting point is 00:28:14 Right? They know best. They're the experts. I, that was my mindset. I didn't have an MFA. I didn't have any connections with the publishing. I'm the one who's wrong. And I accepted that for six years until I changed my mind.
Starting point is 00:28:25 mindset on that completely. Yeah. The great thing about the indie market, too, is there's a lot of, there's a lot of indie authors that, you know, show the proof of their concepts and we'll usually get picked up by the big publishers. But, you know, I mean, like I said, we have Simon Schuster and Pengel Randhouse and other great book publishers that use the show. And, you know, I talked to a lot of the authors on the site.
Starting point is 00:28:46 And, you know, you do give up some control. You give up a lot of control, actually. But, I mean, you're sharing your copyright with somebody and they've funded it and where they're promoting it or putting advertising it behind it. You know, some of the advertising we see that they spend is quite a lot to promote a book. But, you know, it's, you know, even like the covers, I'll have authors to, you know, the big publisher won't let me choose my own cover. And I'm like, you've got to look at that thing for the rest of your life.
Starting point is 00:29:11 And they're like, yeah, I hate that cover. And I'm just like, you've got to sign it at every book of it from here on out. I'm like, I would just be like, no, I'm not giving up the cover. But sometimes they do know best. I mean, they make really eight covers most times, and then they'll do that whole theme cover thing. And, you know, kind of like bands will do, you know. But 12 years now, you've been doing your indie book writing and promotion. You're going out there.
Starting point is 00:29:37 You're doing the vents and all those things. And the note I have here is you chose characters over gatekeepers. I think that's really important to think about. And using your time wisely. Because of those six years of rejection, you could have been publishing. and doing what you do now. Yeah, completely. Great lesson for authors out there and the stick tootiveness, you know.
Starting point is 00:30:01 Some people, you know, they send off a couple things. I was guilty of that when I tried to remember my first book. And it didn't help that iPad was just newly released, it was destroying the publishing industry. They're like, you know, we're not taking anybody new right now. We're just trying to figure out we're going to survive. And, yeah, it was pretty crazy time. But, you know, I just sent to a few places.
Starting point is 00:30:20 But, you know, it's a lot of rejection to this. the business and you know sometimes just writing your own books and then eventually you get picked up i know some people that did that that have been on the show so so you've got this trilogy and then it looks like you've got the trilogy of the books here i've got too many tabs open the trilogy is called let's get back to that summerdale yes summerdale and so you've got three books in that trilogy do you see anything more coming out from that series possible spinoff, but I finished it. I'm not anticipating a fourth book similar to single and cooking.
Starting point is 00:30:58 I don't anticipate a third book. I kind of want it to live in the reader's mind what happens next. I think that's the best place for it to be. And then you've got to, so this new book that we talked about, let off with single and cooking, there's going to be a second book coming up, right? There you go. And then do you see that? that becoming maybe a series beyond the second book?
Starting point is 00:31:21 Yeah. So in David's dreams, which, you know, I will make happen. I do see Somerdale as a three series, three season limited series. I think a streamer, it would work very well there. Single and Cooking is a two-part movie. A two-part movie. Yeah. Well, let's do it.
Starting point is 00:31:44 And then, you know, let's put this all out there. Gabash starts as a play. so it's a stage play and then it's adapted into a movie. I'm hitting all the bases here, stage and screen. Well, that's where you start getting in there. Get that movie stuff. And there's so many different outlets now, Amazon, Netflix, and people that do to help things go.
Starting point is 00:32:05 So as we go out, final thoughts, pitch people on your book, tell people where they can find you. I think you mentioned you might have some speaking events coming up or something like, or event. Yeah, I've started a speaking business. So I have a keynote called Writing Your Own Story, and it's based on encouraging people to reconnect with their own creative passion, to bring more work into the world. And it's an answer to a question I get by being at events over and over. I'm asked, I've always wanted to write a book. How did you get started?
Starting point is 00:32:36 So this is the keynote where I answer all of that. And I give some nice takeaways that are easy to get into your own system, very useful. and then you can bring that into your own hobby for your own enjoyment or maybe into your own enterprise. Either way, I just am interested in getting more people reconnected to their creative passions. Connect to your creative passions. And I'm glad you're sharing the wealth. You know, some people, when they get successful, they have this door closed behind the mentality. Like, no, I don't want to help other people come up.
Starting point is 00:33:09 Yeah. People ask me for advice on how to create a great podcast. And I'm like, no. I'm not sharing the secret sauce of the juice. But I'm a jerk. But no, sharing other people, helping inspire the people, maybe more LGBTQ plus genres can come forth. Please. Inspire some more of that. And, you know, that just, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats. You can either think from abundance or scarcity, right? Yeah. Yeah. Think from abundance people.
Starting point is 00:33:35 So as we go out, give people your dot-coms, if we didn't before, and tell us where people can find you on the interwebs to follow up with you. Absolutely. My website is David J.Collins.com. That's David J-A-Y-Collins.com. And Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook are all David J. Collins as well. Thank you very much, David, for coming to show and sharing your inspiring story. And maybe we'll get some, a lot of other people that want to put reading and the things and all that deal, you know. Thank you very much, David. Thank you, Chris.
Starting point is 00:34:07 It's been a great conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you. And thanks for tuning in. Order up his book where Refined Books are sold. and you can get that in the different places. I think you can buy it directly off your website too. Yes, signed and signed.
Starting point is 00:34:21 Thanks for coming by. Thanks so much for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortresschast, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortresschusch, Chris Foss, Chris Foss, one on the TikToky and all those crazy places in it. Be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.
Starting point is 00:34:35 You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Wall Show. podcast and lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult the doctor for any resulting brain bleed. All right, David. Amazing show.

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