Your Happy Hour - The Stack Series ~ "A Bolder View ft. Cristopher Mann

Episode Date: August 23, 2026

Welcome to The Stack Series! ✨The Stack Series features new books and emerging authors sharing their stories, inspirations, and journeys with us. In this special episode, we celebrate the launch of a new book into the world written by author Cristopher Mann discussing his writing journey, character development, and the inspiration behind his series of books, including 'A Bolder View.' Discover insights into the creative process, historical research, and how storytelling can transport readers across different times and places.Check out more about Cristopher and his book here.🎧 Stay tuned for stories that inspire, uplift, and spark your abundant life!The Stack Series is produced by swartkat.co - captured via riverside.fm & shared via rss.com.

Welcome back to the Fields podcast and another episode on the Stack series, which is a mini-series we've been running as part of this podcast. And it's all about new authors celebrating books. And today I have immense privilege to chat to an author who's publishing his second book. And I know there's some more surprises on the way after that. So a really, really big welcome to the field. The Feels Space, the Fields Podcast, and specifically the Stack series to you, Christopher Mann, and a big congratulations on your book. Good to be here. That's good to have you.

So I'm really curious to chat today about, well, first I'd love for you to tell me a little bit about the title of the book. I know it's called A Bold of You. And it's a kind of sequel to the first book. So if you can maybe just tell us a little bit about how the second book is now. started coming to life from the first one. And just what has the inspiration been for you as an author? How did you end up deciding to write some books in the world?

Well, I've been writing for a while, thanks to my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Warren. I'd like to shout out to her. So I've written screenplays and I've written other books, but I came across this character that I really like, kind of a poor man's Jason Bourne. And everything is historical fiction. So all the history in the background is accurate. But then I throw this character in there.

All the books are chronological. You know, so like book one is kind of the setup. It kind of gives you an understanding of how he became to be the person that he is. And then so a bolder view is now he's a full-fledged person in his vocation without giving away what he does. And he goes on his first mission, you know. So the book is basically his very first mission. And there's a lot of characters that are reoccurring throughout the chronological series that I've planned. You know, book three, book four.

Book four is almost done too. But I would encourage people to take it in sequence, but a bolder view is out now. And it's just built to this point. That's amazing. Yeah, so I was privileged to read some of your book and to kind of delve into the world of this character and all the other fascinating characters that you've crafted, you know, and I'm kind of curious about how did they show up for you in your life.

You know, I think a lot of authors, sometimes they say like a character will just, they'll see the character and they'll start walking a road with this character. Like, how did this character show up in your life? Yeah, that's actually really accurate. So, like, there's one character in it. It's set in Spain, for the most part. That's where it's Mish's set. Seville area, primarily.

And one of the characters, which is Javier Rodriguez, is basically my older nephew on my wife's side, you know. and he's his big, blustery, boisterous character, and I gave him a name and made him that, you know. And he's kind of a, he calls himself, you know, the most interesting man, which I, you know, I disagree with because I think I am. But anyway, he's that guy.

You know, he's into wine, he's into food. He's into the joy of life. I mean, this guy, he, if there was, life was, bone marrow, he would just suck the living hell out of it, you know? He'd just bring it to, bring it to life. Yeah, so that's, that's him. So I take characters out of my life and some, like the protagonist, Zachary Ransom, he's kind of an amalgam of several people in my life. That's super interesting. And I mean, it must be fascinating to like get, you get to know the character as you're writing. You know, you kind of say, well, what would this

character do in this situation? Or how, what was the writing process like for you? Yeah, I kind of free will it, you know, and then I have to go back on the chapter. I always go back a chapter two when I start writing and reread what I wrote and say, oh, that's just not going to work, you know. And then you have to put timelines to make sure they're accurate, you know, so people aren't going, well, wait a second, that can't be possible. You know, he did this in chapter one, you know, so you're always figuring things out. But the personalities I try to make real.

They have to be believable, you know, to some degree. You know, people have to look back and say, oh, I know somebody like that. And so when I put a character together, I have a basic outline of what I think are the main traits of the character. And then I just try to bring it to life. Add the verbs and the adjectives and make the person real. And how do you come up with the story? Or did the storyline find you? It finds me.

It finds me. I have absolutely no. It's not like a screenplay where you want to develop a character arc, right? And you might have like a play, you have a beginning, a middle, and a third act, right? So it's kind of like that. But I rarely have the finishing act. I rarely have the middle act. I just started, wow, this is a great beginning.

Let's see where this goes, you know. And then sometimes I'll have to set the pen down for a week or two because I just have no clue. And then I'll be at the gym or I'll be working up on a roof or something. And then all of a sudden I'll say, holy shit, there you go. That's it. You know? And I'll quickly write it down. It says, okay, remember this.

You know, okay. So now I know where point B is. Now how do I get that A to point B? And that's how I write. I love that. I think it's sort of this concept of flow that you enter, you know, and it's a bit like you're not, I don't know what the better word is to channel, but you're just receiving this sort of information of where the story can go.

And like you said, whether you're at the gym or doing something random. But I've heard a lot of authors kind of say it's been very interesting to take this character from that point where they are and have to get them to the point where you've seen they can go. you know, so it's a bit like a human life, you know. I guess you see the potential and then you have to navigate how they, what actions they take. Yeah, well, that's interesting because without giving too much away, book one actually originally started in chapter two was actually chapter one. And then I just felt like, well, gosh, I really want this to be exciting. I wanted, I

want to be a page turner or create some kind of a bang where people go, oh, wow, what the hell, you know? And so the first chapter I wrote about six months after I wrote. And it's a, it shows my main character, Zachary Ransom, 15 years later. and what's become of him. And he's wondering what's become of himself. And then it jumps to when he's 12 years old, washed ashore on a beach, you know, so then it goes from there.

That's exciting. I don't know. As you were talking, I've got goosebumps. So it feels like a start of a movie. If I keep that reaction from everybody out there, then that would be fantastic. I'm sending all the goosebumps vibes. to everyone out there.

But yeah, it's fascinating. You know, I think writing books is, you probably take quite a journey into yourself too. Do you feel like you've changed as a person going through the writing process of all these books? I know it's self edification for me. You know, I'm fairly successful before this, you know, so I didn't really, I wasn't thinking about making money the first book I wrote, just like working. down in the garden. I love working in my garden, you know, so it's just, it's kind of relaxing and I enjoy it, whatever. But it all kind of manifested about 18 years ago. We have a group

called the Apostles, all right, and it's very eclectic group. The oldest couple was 60 years old. The youngest couple was 30 years old, and we traveled together, you know, Cancun, Napa Valley, in California. We all drank wine. We all ate. And we just had a blast together. So one Christmas, I decided what would happen if I wrote a book about this group? I use all their names in it, right? And I end up killing all of them in the book. Oh, well. Right?

Well, except for Jim Emery, who I made him another gender, which he really thought was funny. And so I actually paid the money to self-publish those books. So I could give it to him for Christmas presents. And it was a hoot. You know, they just loved it. I enjoyed it so much. I decided to write a second book and I did a little more research. And then I wrote a third book and they said, okay, this is a lot of fun.

Well, hey, you know, screenplays are easier. So I started writing screenplays. I wrote 20 screenplays. I've had them looked at. I haven't sold anything yet, although one thing was stolen. I won't talk about that. I said, you know what? I came up with this character and that's when I started the Zachary Ransom series.

So hoping it to be kind of like James Bondish or the Ludlam-born series, that kind of a thing. you know, where people get, get hooked on the character and just, you know, try to find out what's happening next. You know, it's a, I think it's, they're pretty fast reads, you know, grab at the airport type of thing, you know, when you're getting on the plane. And I'm hoping that people really enjoy them. The outpouring has been really nice so far. And everybody has said that incrementally the books have gotten better every time. So if I can keep that up, I'll be okay. Absolutely. And I think having a series is so nice. I really love reading trilogies or like

longer series where you really get to delve into the characters, you know, because in one book, it depends how long the book is, but it's quite hard to, it's a bit like watching one movie, you know, but our lives are long and we like to grow with characters. We like to evolve because we also kind of, I always believe books and film is there to help us learn about ourselves and feel less alone and identify, oh, this is kind of me in that situation. And, you know, this is how my life has played out. It's just interesting. So I like that there's a series. And what's the, what's your process of writing? Do you have like a certain time of day that you write or do you have like a board with all the pins of everything?

I'm a, I'm fairly prolific in the morning. You know, I'm a, I'm a contractor by trade. So I'm, I'm used to getting up early, taking the dog out, having my coffee, but I'm usually at work fairly early. But now that I'm on the tail end of my contracting, I've got family involved. There's a succession involved, so I can pretty much come and go as I please. But I rarely can sit down for more than two hours when I'm writing. And, you know, I'm kind of always moving. You know, the Bible says, you know, you work until you die, right?

But that could be with your kids or grandkids or, you know, working in the garden or getting on podcasts, you know, things like that. Absolutely. Yeah, but I'm best in the morning. Yeah, I think mornings are a great time to, yeah, I think we're still quite close to like our sleep time. We're not like in our days too much yet. And I also on the topic of work all your life, I kind of, a lot of people speak about work-life balance. I just speak about life-life balance.

To me, it's all life. You know, like you said, whether you're writing a book or playing with your grandkids or going to office, you're doing life until you die, you know. And so whatever you fill that time with. And if it's writing books and you find joy in that, that's incredible. Well, that's exactly right.

We have a second. home out in the desert and I find that area really conducive to writing. I really enjoy the mornings out there more than here. Of course out there I don't have the work covering over me, you know, so or the honey-doos, things to fix around the house, that kind of thing. But yeah, mornings are best. Amazing. And what do you find has been like your something that you've learned in the process about yourself or writing, like that, you know, if someone is listening, wanting to be an author, what would you kind of pass along as like a bit of advice or recommendation? Well, I think I've grown more patient because the whole,

the whole process can be, the outside sources can be, you know, kind of undoing, you know, if they don't go according to plan, you know. And then, of course, for myself personally, not having an idea where I'm going to go if I get stuck someplace, you know, but it typically doesn't last very, very long. I don't know. It's, it's a passion. I have to say that. I, I truly, truly enjoy it, especially when I get on a run. And I'm going paragraph after paragraph. I've got the dialogue down. I'm like, holy crap, this is really rolling, you know. Get out of the house. Everybody leave, please, I'm doing it. You know, you take the dog out.

You know, I'm not doing the laundry today, honey. Come on, you've got the kitchens. But for people wanting to write, if you want to write, write, right. Just try to write something every day. If it's not a book, just write. You know, have a notepad next to your bed, you know, put something down. If it comes to your head, you know, don't forget it. Put it down and then just write about it.

You never know. I mean, I thought maybe I would do children's books or, you know, Things like that. You know, self-help books, there's all kinds of ways you can go. I mean, it's very hard to break into the commercial fiction market. You know, trying to find literary agents. It's almost impossible, unless you're writing Moby Dick or Tale of Two Cities or Farewell to Arms. They're not, you know, they're going to look at you and go, well, how do I market this?

You know, it's just very, very difficult. Then you've got to search the country looking for researching agents. agents that do your kind of work. And most of the majority of the agents out there are women, you know, and they, they want biographies. They want LBGQ formats, things that lean towards those children's books. So, or commercial, I mean, or literary fiction. So commercial fiction is a little bit, a little bit harder, you know, to find, to find agents.

So that's, that's the difficult part, you know. you can but if you enjoy writing just do it you never know you know everybody's got a voice it's just how you want to put the voice out there yeah i agree you know i whenever someone says that to me i have this echo of a good friend when i was young and i also used to say i just i'd love to write a book one day and he was like just do it for you just do it for yourself first you know and that's exactly what you're saying. Just follow your passion and put the words down. And it's an experience of life.

And other people will resonate with that because they'll feel the passion and the joy that you've given to it. And have you done that? Have you written a book? Have you started writing? I actually have and I just haven't published it. Well, let's talk about your book. No, no, it's not on you. No, about your book.

But it's every time I speak to an author and I see, you know, seeing your passion, and I appreciate that so much, and it's inspiring to me each time, you know, and maybe, maybe that's why the stack series came into my life. But it's really great to see people expressing themselves and being able to live these characters in different ways. And I'm curious also about, you mentioned like historical fiction and the accounts of places are real. What's the research process like for that? Well, timing. I mean, you know, if I throw Zachary at 1950, you know, and I, and the CIA is not, they just formed, the OSS is there, you know, and here we have this covert group called Otter 1 that is funded by unknown nationals. Patriots, you know, because they want to get things done on their own terms, right? So we're in 1950 the start of the Korean War, you know, so Google is fantastic, you know, you can sit there and you can, what was it like in Seville, Spain, you know? Yeah. Were there flamenco dancers?

What was the main boulevard that the flamenco dancers you'd find them on, you know, and, you know, the Koreans, you know, the North Korean were proxies for China and Russia. And then basically, United States was a proxy for the South Koreans, you know, in the war. You know, so you can find out who the generals are and who's doing what, who was our president, what music was playing at the time, you know? What was Savannah, Georgia like, you know, where Zachary's coming from at this point? how did the people dress? What were the name of the high school?

What high school exactly have gone to then? What's the history of that high school? You know, I mean, you can find all that information. It just becomes this huge rabbit hole. So I always liked history in high school. I like geography. Those are probably my two favorite things. You know, so it seemed just really natural for me to follow this.

I'd love finding out new little tidbits. Oh, my God. I can put that in the book because that really happened, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Fun. That's amazing. And you're kind of taking people on a journey through places and spaces that they, you know,

they might not have been able to visit. And we can't visit because it's back in the day, you know. But it's like, I love it when you watch a movie and it's kind of set in old style New York or whatever it is. And you remember what life could have been like, you know, at that time. So it's nice that you can take yourself and the real. readers on a journey in that way. Well, then you also get, you get a visual, you know, because you really need to paint a

picture when you're putting a scene together in a book, you know. So you can say, what are photos, photos of street life in Columbia, like the newest book that I'm working on, you know, or Cartagena, Columbia, you know, that kind of thing. and you get these from 1965 and you get these photos right you got alleyways where there's wires strung up between the apartments are only 12 feet apart in the alleyway and people are hanging their clothes on it you know and you can you can paint that picture you know Zachary jumps down from a fire escape you know or whatever you know and he gets entangled with somebody's dirty laundry you know that kind of thing so yeah Google is great

Yes, absolutely. It's so helpful. I mean, I remember going to libraries and having to make photocopies of old things. You know, nowadays, it's so much easier. But I'm also curious why then, why 1950? And maybe you can also answer kind of what the, why the title of the book. I'm quite curious. Okay. So the first book one was called Simon's, Gambit. And it shows his progression, Zachary Ransom, my protagonist, from a 12-year-old to 19-year-old. And from 19-year-old, that's where it takes off. A bolder view, he's completed training. He gets to see the world. You know, he's in Europe. So that's where the bolder view comes from.

He's working with other operatives that are showing him the ropes, that kind of thing. And all the behind the scenes, sinister things that happen, he's seeing all that in a greater form for the first time. And so a bolder view just seemed like a good name for the book. I hope it makes sense. It's a bolder view. Boulder. He's got a view.

Okay. It makes complete sense. I think it's really amazing that you, I'm quite curious what's coming for a book three. And people who are obviously listening, who are going to be reading your series of books will be looking forward to that. And I wanted to ask if you have a message for people listening, like what you would love for people to feel when they read your books, you know? to take away from them. Fun. Maybe distorted fun.

You know, to be able to escape for a period of time, to feel what's actually happening in the book, to visualize it in their heads, you know, of what's going on, and to have the flow be perfect for them, where they go, wow, that was, That was fun. I can't wait to see the next one.

You know, there's a lot that happens between book two and book three. Book three is set in Los Angeles Hollywood during 1956. And there's gangland activity with the Frank D. Simone and Mickey Cohen gangs that are offshoots from the Chicago. gangs back in the day. True, true people. And I can't tell you what happens, obviously. But we have a figure that reemerges, that causes some problems. And so it's going to be centralized around the home front in California.

Very cool. I love how you're traveling throughout the world with this series. It's like, it's a journey. It's an adventure. book four is almost done got another 20 pages i got to figure this thing out though i'm stuck in how it's going to be doing some running at the gym yeah yeah get on the bike or something yeah absolutely i'm sure it will find you in the right time and space you know these things always do and yeah i really just so appreciate that you thank you for sharing all of that and your story

and the books and i uh forever whoever's listening i hope that you can go find the book and it's now published. It's called The Bold of View. And make sure that you do read the first one in the series. And maybe you can show us what the covers look like. Yeah, there we go. Oh, it's such a great cover. I love that. Yeah. I'm very, really excited for people to delve into your series. And thank you for sharing your passion through writing with the world. I think it definitely brings light and, you know, I think every soul, that's creative, helps further more creativity in the world, you know, and that's great that you're doing that.

And Nicole, I really appreciate you doing this and enjoy my time here. No, likewise. Thank you. Thank you for coming and sharing all of that. Maybe we'll do it again for the second coming. I'm sure we will. That sounds like it's going to be a perfect title for our episode as well then as a second edition.

But thank you so much. And yeah, for everyone listening, I hope that you are really. reading. I hope that you are happy and I hope that you are happily reading. All the stack series books will be on the website to go check them out and just stay tuned for more episodes on more books, more authors and celebrating amazing creativity in the world out there. And remember to feel all your feels and have a great, great, great, great rest of the feels day. Thank you so much again, Christopher. Thank you. Appreciate it.