Interview with Kris

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello. Hi, everybody. Carolyn here from secrets and lies. Thanks for joining us again. And I am super excited this go round, because I have my very good friend Chris willing here. Hi, Chris, who I have talked about on this podcast. But today we get to talk actually to her, which is nice. [00:00:24] Speaker B: You talk about. [00:00:25] Speaker A: That's funny. I have talked about you on this. I don't think I threw your name around. Yeah, people like looking you. Yeah. [00:00:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:35] Speaker A: I heard it on one of the. [00:00:36] Speaker B: Early ones, and I knew it was about me, but then we texted. Sorry. [00:00:39] Speaker A: It was. Yeah, it was. Chris and I met each other in Maryland, actually, before we both separately and inexplicably decided North Carolina is where we wanted to live. And now we are about, I don't know, what would you say, 45 minutes apart? 40 minutes? [00:01:02] Speaker B: Probably an hour ish. Everything's an hour ish. [00:01:07] Speaker A: It is true. Everything is about an hour. Anywho, Chris is my go to person whenever I need somebody to take a look at the stuff that I write to say, I have no idea what you're doing here. This is insane. Or she sends me little notes in the margins, like when something makes her laugh. And I appreciate that, because that isn't something normal editors have done for me. [00:01:40] Speaker B: They don't write lol in the margin. [00:01:42] Speaker A: No, they don't. I did have somebody that I went through the MFA program with. When he liked something, he would draw, like, little ar fifteen s in the margin. But that was definitely part of his personality. Yeah. Interesting. It was. If I got, like, one gun, it was pretty good. If I got three, then I knew he was really impressed with that portion. But most of the time, that's not the feedback that I tend to get. So it's really great. All right, a little bit about Chris. Yet another one of us lucky individuals who gets to work remotely most of the time. Do you ever have to go to an office? [00:02:32] Speaker B: I do, about four times a year. I meet with the rest of the team that I work with, the leadership team, and often in San Francisco, sometimes in New York, once in Denver, but, yeah, quarterly. [00:02:45] Speaker A: I haven't been to San Francisco in many, many years. Boucher Con and then wine country was pretty nice. Anyway, Chris is also a writer. She is yet another one of my circle who. We do our writing kind of on the side, and then we have day jobs, because that's the world we live in. However, Chris, tell us a little bit about your writing. You're mostly poetry, or certainly more so than I am. [00:03:22] Speaker B: Yes, I would say my writing. I don't know how to write a short story. I probably would like to think about writing a novel at some point. What I write is often very small, like a haiku or very long winded, like, here's a reflection about life going on. And sometimes, until I write all of my thinking down, I don't quite understand it myself. And then it just pours out, and then it's like bloodletting a little bit. [00:03:54] Speaker A: That's actually really well put. I've tried to explain to others before. Sometimes when I'm trying to process either how I feel about something or what my thoughts are on a particular thing, I have to write about it a little bit, and then that helps me organize my thoughts, if that makes sense. [00:04:14] Speaker B: Does to me. [00:04:15] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. I moved to North Carolina last spring. And you had been here for a little while at that point, right? [00:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah, we moved in April of 2022. [00:04:30] Speaker A: Oh, so you're a full year. You got a whole year ahead of me. So one of the things Vicki and I spent some time talking about as we are learning about our new home, because Vicki, as you know, lived in Florida, she and I went through the MFA program together, and then she moved from Florida up to Hendersonville also, without coordinating just this random thing where we all sort of ended up together. And recently I heard another person that we went to school with also showed up in Hendersonville. So there's some sort of weird writer vortex going on. Have found. I have found that moving to a little hallmark town like Hendersonville is, which is adorable and was quite charming over Christmas, is full of surprises that I didn't expect, the most recent one being that you cannot hear in Hendersonville. Check into, like, a local hotel if you live within 70 miles. [00:05:38] Speaker B: Really? [00:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:40] Speaker B: Oh, it's trying to weed out the charlatans. Charlatans. [00:05:45] Speaker A: That is what it is. There is some law and you cannot. There's a handful of places. There was a whole discussion about it on Facebook. There's a handful of places where you can that are more sort of like resort style things or venues for events that also have a place to stay. But generally speaking, you can't just go down to one of the places near the highway and stay overnight. They won't let you check in miles. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Why would it be 60 miles? That's so far. [00:06:17] Speaker A: Isn't that kooky? I guess they don't want people checking in for the hour or whatever. The other thing I learned is that, and we may have talked about this in a previous episode, but happy hour is against the law in, in Henderson county. You can't have drink specials for a particular portion of the day. Like from three to got. You can't do that. You can have drink specials, but they have to be drink specials all the time because they don't want to promote, I guess, people coming and overindulging. Anyway, I just find this super interesting. Like, it never would have occurred to me before. Have you found anything super interesting or surprising? [00:07:09] Speaker B: There are many surprising things about my journey to North Carolina. I would say a few that come to mind are. I don't think you've probably had to encounter this. I may or may not have asked you about it because of where I sit, which is about an hour southeast of Asheville and an hour due west of Charlote. I'm in this weird kind of middle zone. And there's something here that is served with barbecue that is called red slaw. Have you heard this? [00:07:39] Speaker A: I have not. [00:07:42] Speaker B: Well, I would encourage you to. When that is offered on the menu, you may try it, but don't be expecting to enjoy it. I think it's like four man's coleslaw. And I found so rude and judgmental to say, but it's ketchup based coleslaw, and I'm not even. [00:08:02] Speaker A: Get out. I just figured you were talking about, like, red cabbage or something. [00:08:06] Speaker B: No, it's white cabbage chopped up, like, pulverized, actually. Pulverized. A bunch of ketchup. Some horseradish and some vinegar and maybe like some sugar or something. It's so horrendous. [00:08:20] Speaker A: You know what? It sounds like something Dave would actually like, though. [00:08:23] Speaker B: Oh, funny. [00:08:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Now I'm going to look for it to stretch the. [00:08:29] Speaker B: Know. Like to stretch the. My. I've only found it in this middle section. When you go to Charlote, you don't see it there. And when you go to Asheville, you don't see it there. But something fun to look out for. I also didn't know about. I really. I knew that beer and wine you could get in the grocery store. And I don't really drink very much at all. And so, I don't know. It was months before Matt said something about something being near the ABC store. And I said, what do you mean, the ABC store? Is it like flooring? He was like, no. Like alcohol board of whatever it is. Alcohol board control. I don't know. [00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know what it stands for either. But I think we had them in Florida maybe. Or maybe I just knew them from when my grandparents were here. [00:09:19] Speaker B: But basically what it means for people that aren't from one of those states, it means that the state has made an arrangement whereby they are the ones that get to benefit from all the liquor sales. And so there seems to be a. [00:09:31] Speaker A: Pretty tight hold on a lot of activities that could be, I guess, considered, I don't know, got to control these. [00:09:42] Speaker B: Harlots that think North Carolina is the place to be. [00:09:45] Speaker A: Bring it. But yeah, I had to go to an ABC store to get. This is so lame. To get like, liqueurs that you use in baking, like a nice dark rum for fruit tarts and. Yeah, so loser. Because I generally don't need anything stronger than my bold rock cider from down the road. And even then I'm on like a two cider max and then I'm done. [00:10:12] Speaker B: Have to meet there sometime. [00:10:14] Speaker A: I love it so much. [00:10:15] Speaker B: Amazing. [00:10:16] Speaker A: I love it so much. And if you guys are not familiar with that, I will post a link on the page so that you can check it out, too. And their food is really good. They have like, a little food truck outside and they have both pretzel sticks, warm pretzel sticks that you dip in a warm, like, I don't know, beer cheese goo. And then they also have like, a cheesesteak sandwich that they use the same cheese goo on. And it's so good. It's just so good. [00:10:48] Speaker B: Anyway, I enjoy the cheese that is like you're talking about, but I don't know that I prefer cheese and goo next to each other. [00:10:57] Speaker A: I tend to overuse the word goo. I have fruit goo, cheese goo. It's melty deliciousness in like a cup in a semi liquid form. It's fantastic. [00:11:10] Speaker B: All the ways. All the cheese. [00:11:12] Speaker A: Yeah, all of the ways. All of the ways. All right, well, the red flaw thing I'm going to have to definitely check out. The other thing that happened here just this weekend is a tree fell yesterday morning across the street from my house, making a horrendous sound. And one thing that's super weird to me that I didn't understand before I lived here, too, is that the trees here, the trees here in North Carolina are like four times taller than either trees in Florida or trees in Maryland. All of those other ones feel like shrubs compared to the trees that are in North Carolina because these things are crazy, crazy tall. So if one of the trees in my yard were to fall, it could take out my house and somebody else's house because they're so big. Fortunately, the houses aren't super close together. But anyway, a tree fell across the street very early in the morning, seven ish, and fell partly on my neighbor's truck and all the way across the road. And it wasn't in a super healthy tree, so parts of it broke and whatever it made this horrendous crashing sound and then the crunching car accident kind of sound with the truck. So people just come out here and we're clear in the road and people bust out the chainsaws and it was a whole like a little community thing. Somebody's coming out with cold brew coffee for was. The neighbors here are super nice. Dave managed to live in his place in Baltimore for I don't know how long, seven or eight years. Never met any of his neighbors ever here. I hadn't even fully moved in yet. And the people who lived across the street sent over a box of baked goods from the bakery downtown with their name and stuff on the box. I mean, they're very nice. [00:13:08] Speaker B: So many, so many kind, wonderful, welcoming people here. I have had that experience as well. And in the meantime I pulled up that picture because when I had seen it on my phone yesterday on your Facebook page, I couldn't quite tell what was going on. But now I can see it's almost like a crest of a hill. And the tree literally, and then shattered into smithereens. That's a lot of pieces. [00:13:31] Speaker A: Yeah, so I could go over there and pick up the little pieces and whatever, but a neighbor from up the mountain came with his two very large chainsaws and chaps and the whole thing and started cutting it up. Yeah, I guess I have like a little battery powered chainsaw for cutting down little branches and things. They would laugh at me with the big tree, but yeah, I guess if you're not great with the chainsaw, it can skip around and then hit you in the legs and so it's a thing, I guess, that helps to protect, like a leather nicking. Yeah, your femoral artery, which would be very bad. But anyway, the tree was cleared without injury from everyone and now you can't even tell that it happened. The whole street is clear and whatever. But now I'm terrified. In addition to being afraid of bears, now I'm terrified a tree is going to fall on my house. So hopefully that doesn't happen. [00:14:44] Speaker B: That's such an interesting observation that trees are taller here. And I'm guessing it probably has more to do with how much more room and space there is than the Baltimore area or the areas that we lived in that they didn't have a lot of room to spread out and grow and I didn't think of. It's true. Generally speaking, they're all pretty tall. [00:15:04] Speaker A: It's crazy how tall they are. And I guess normally it'd be like beauty of nature. Now I'm thinking there's so much more tree to crush my new home or fall on my fence or whatever. [00:15:19] Speaker B: I have an old dog that she is part of my work day, and she was locked out of the room, so she was very confused why she was not in the corner supporting me. Sorry. [00:15:31] Speaker A: Well, I have a cat who runs the household, too, and I'm sure he'll be scratching at the door at any time to come in, so I feel you. All right. What are you working on these days for yourself? Do you have anything going on? [00:15:51] Speaker B: I love that question. What I'm working on for myself is just doing the thing, like writing every day, doing the writer's pages. Allah. Writer's way. Are you familiar with that book? [00:16:08] Speaker A: I've heard of it. [00:16:11] Speaker B: I was looking. I thought I had it right here. But it's called the artist's way, and it's written 20 some years ago. But the author, julia Cameron, talks about how, whether you want to or not, you write three pages a day, and then once a week, you also have an artist date. It's time set aside for yourself as an artist to do something creative or something that's just for you. Yeah, it's really cool. So it is very much lined up with my self care goals for 2024. There are many related to that. And so just kind of like, pushing through and writing when I don't want to is new. I think I've always. I have so many journals with, like, the first 18 pages. Yeah, I think it's a thing, right. It doesn't stop me from buying new ones. So I'm doing the thing I'm writing, and what I'm finding that it's doing for me is clearing debris that allows for space for actual writing or things that are more interesting. I always have notes in my phone that I write, and haiku is often how it comes out as a start. [00:17:30] Speaker A: I used to love. For those of you watching, Chris had a haiku group on Facebook, and I can remember being at the gym and walking on the treadmill and then writing a haiku about how much I hate exercise or whatever and posting it or how mad I was at somebody I was seeing or whatever it was. It was just being a thing because it's short. A short little nugget. But I haven't actually done that in a long. [00:18:03] Speaker B: I maybe I'll just kick it back up again. I had started a group. I've done haiku on Facebook over the years, but I had started, like, a year in haiku, and I was writing a haiku a day, but I made it too much work for myself. I made it so that I was prompting everyone, and there are people that would respond in haiku, which delighted me, and that was wonderful. But I got tired of bringing the prompts together. [00:18:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:29] Speaker B: So I just have my own note. And so now I have a 2024 haiku note, and I probably wrote six yesterday. [00:18:35] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. I like the exercise of it. The puzzle of it. Exactly right. One of the things when I'm talking to people at work or teaching classes or whatever, where we talk about trying to compose your thoughts, that you're going to do that first draft and then you're going to try that exercise. I think of in my mind as more of a fiction or prose kind of exercise, but the whole idea of distilling down to very small amount of words, the emotion or response or concept that you're trying to get across, I think is such a great mind puzzle that I really enjoy that, but I haven't done it in poetry form in a long time since that, and even then they were silly. [00:19:37] Speaker B: I really love when you share with me, like when you're doing a contest where there are three prompts, or it's like, here's the genre, here's the item that you have to say, and there's a theme or something, and then I love doing that. That's a puzzle, too. And then it's like, can I form a cohesive narrative? That's so fun for me. [00:19:59] Speaker A: So maybe those contests generally NYC midnight, and I'll post a link to those things, too, where you're given a very short window of time. They release hundreds and hundreds of writers, and you're put into little groups, and your group will get a genre, an object or something, and then some other thing, a word or some other thing that you have to incorporate. And these things don't go together. This is like the chopped challenge of the writing universe, where you get a basket of just crazy and they're like, turn this into something. Yeah. That is a good mind exercise. And if they're short stories, which usually they were for me, then you would get 24 hours or 48 hours or something to come up with something good there. Lately, though, I've been submitting short stories to anthologies and things, and they often have themes or things that you need to incorporate in some way, I'm still waiting to hear back, by the way, from the story. The last story I wrote that I sent in for the Nashville Bachelor con next year, the one with music. You haven't heard a thing. [00:21:17] Speaker B: Okay. [00:21:19] Speaker A: I have been thinking, and I want to know what you think about this idea. I have been thinking about rereleasing some stories, because I have a bunch of stories that I wrote for contests like that or for things like, you remember the thing at the Ghost story fire pit? That story and some other things that have sort of dissipated into the ether because following years, those stories have then been published online, and now you can't find them anywhere. And I'm like, I should collect up some of these things and perhaps rerelease them as a separate collection. [00:21:56] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:21:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm thinking I may do that this year. That might be my 2024 project. [00:22:03] Speaker B: I like it. I was going to say, I had this thought last night when I sent you that silly haiku, when I was thinking about, like, we were going to be talking, and that was my secrets and lies haiku. But I was thinking how fun it would be if we could figure out a way to collaborate. [00:22:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:23] Speaker B: And I don't know if it's like there's some kind of format that we just make up where there's a story, but sort of at the end of each section or chapter, I can kind of haiku it. [00:22:36] Speaker A: I don't know. Cool. I don't know. But I'm going to think about that now. I'm going to put it up on my crazy idea board and let that marinate for a little while and see what comes up. But, yeah, that's intriguing. Or maybe it's the other way around. [00:22:49] Speaker B: Maybe I foist some haikus over the wall and you have to make them, maybe just a game for ourselves. [00:22:54] Speaker A: Make a story for it. I don't see any reason why we couldn't try it both ways and see what fits. [00:23:00] Speaker B: That's right. [00:23:01] Speaker A: What works. That's good. What are you reading these days? Anything? [00:23:07] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. I'm reading this. The courage to be disliked. Have you heard of this? [00:23:14] Speaker A: No. [00:23:17] Speaker B: It's part of my self growth. It's interesting. It's very thought provoking. And the subtitle is how to free yourself, change your life, and achieve real happiness. And essentially, it's written in socratic style. So there's a great old wise philosopher talking to a youth, and the youth has all these objections and questions. And the philosopher kind of explains sort of this mostly adlerian psychology that is detachment, essentially healthy detachment from others and not being a people pleaser, which is a thing that I was going to say. [00:23:54] Speaker A: For those of you who don't know Chris. Chris gets along with everyone, even the crazies. I mean, we work together with some challenging individuals, and, yeah, everybody likes Chris. [00:24:10] Speaker B: Thank you. That's very kind. I really love people, and I have a very broad array of what I accept as normal. And so I think when you say that, I'm like, I wonder who she's talking about, because, honestly, everybody's just a little bit crazy. Right? [00:24:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, there's good crazy, there's interesting, eccentric crazy, and then there's like, whoa. [00:24:36] Speaker B: Like, go deal with your trauma and come back crazy. [00:24:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes. Anyway, I think that's really interesting because I struggle, and I think a lot of writers struggle with trying to write unlikable characters that are not, like the villain. There tends to be, like, this very one than zero kind of thing, and that isn't how people are. People are more complex than that. That's right. So writing characters, then, when there are things about them that are unlikable, is very difficult to do. I will want to fix that for them on the page before somebody reads it and then doesn't like them. Especially when you feel like you are putting so much energy into creating this world that this nonexistent character lists, I mean, you want people to root for them. I've never written an anti hero. I don't think. I think that would be an interesting challenge. So I don't know if that book would be helpful for that. [00:25:56] Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah, maybe. I think what it's making me think of is last night, for some whatever reason, Matt and I put on episode one of Breaking Bad. Actually, the pilot. We watched that series twice, I think, ten years ago. And then five years ago or whatever the timing was, to watch it again, just the pilot yesterday was pretty mind blowing, and I don't know all the reasons, but when I just sat with it and was present with it wasn't on my phone or distracted, I was, like, just watching these incredibly well developed characters and thinking about what I know about their arc and seeing the pilot and seeing how well each of the main characters stayed true to their character and how each of them had a very unique arc across a long period of time and how the chemistry of them is in that moment in the pilot as well as how it lands and just kind of that constellation of changes and dynamics that we get carried through is really freaking impressive. [00:27:13] Speaker A: That's pretty cool. I was trying to explain the Jack Reacher series to Dave this morning, actually, because it's like number one on prime right now. And he was like, he doesn't say anything. He calls him wooden. And I'm like, but you don't understand. That is Jack Reacher. He doesn't talk. He's just. [00:27:41] Speaker B: I know the character. Okay. [00:27:43] Speaker A: Oh, he's a very large man. And these stories. I love the Lee child stories, in fact. And now it's being sort of continued by Andrew child. Lee Andrew child. But it's about this great big guy who is a former army mp who know, he's like six five and massive and he doesn't talk much. He doesn't have a home. He just wanders around now that he's out of the army and he finds himself in all these situations. And the books have a lot of. They're very action packed, violent, I guess. [00:28:31] Speaker B: Okay. [00:28:32] Speaker A: But there's humor in there. They're very smart. The stories are put together in an interesting way and they took a lot of flak because they made a couple of Jack Reacher movies and they starred Tom Cruise, who, as you know, is like my frame. [00:28:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:28:54] Speaker A: And although he did a fantastic acting job and the movies were enjoyable, I liked them very much. He just wasn't the character. Because the defining characteristic of Jack Reacher is that he's this massive. So anyway, so the series has that right with Alan Richson. And I was trying to explain to Dave that, yes, I know he doesn't do a lot of reacting to what's happening with other people on the screen and he doesn't talk a whole lot, but that is true to the books. He's an antihero. Now that I think about it, he will kill a whole bunch of people. And they were all very bad just to go back and quote Arnold Schwarzenegger from true lights. They were very know somehow watching it. I'm okay with. Yeah, between me and my therapist, I guess. Why is this? Why? I can't wait for the next episode that's coming out. I am reading a book, speaking of characters that have some unlikable qualities. I'm reading lessons in chemistry, which I feel like I'm late on that bandwagon. It came out last year or whatever and I bought it and then I had just getting around to it now. And that character has some issues where she's not warm, exactly, but I haven't finished it, so I'm working my way through that. And I know that they made a movie out of it, but I don't want to watch it. I'm not sure. [00:30:44] Speaker B: It's on Apple, I think. And I thought it was a series, it might be a movie. I haven't seen it either. But I listened to the book last year and I enjoyed it. But, yeah, she's not the warmest. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Stephanie had it on her list, too, her recommendations from 2023. So I'm working my way through it now. But, yeah, I haven't finished it yet. But that's another interesting thing. I'm like, wow. As a choice, some interesting choices were made by the writer putting us together. So I appreciate that and working my way through it. But the next book up is going to be the secret, which is another Lee child. And I've been sitting on that one because I didn't get it, because I thought somebody might get it for me for Christmas or something. And that didn't happen. So I'm like, yes, I'm going to probably jump on that later today. [00:31:36] Speaker B: When you first said the secret, I was like, oh, Carolyn, I didn't know you were into the law of attraction. [00:31:41] Speaker A: That's a different. No, I'm not even exactly sure what this book is about, except I think it's a throwback book to when Jack Reacher was still in the army. Some case that he and the rest of his unit, since he was in the military police, he did investigations for them. So I think it's a throwback story, but I'm not super sure. All right. How would you like to play our little game? Truth or fiction? [00:32:25] Speaker B: Well, I have something that came to mind when we were talking earlier, and I thought, like, I could tell you something that might be excellent. [00:32:38] Speaker A: Lay it on me. [00:32:41] Speaker B: So, about 12 miles from me, there is a cult that has been on world news and has been investigated a few times, and it's called word of faith ministry. And there are a lot of accounts of people who have dealt with different levels of what they would coin as persecution from this. There's a big thing in it around, like screaming the devil out of people. [00:33:22] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. [00:33:23] Speaker B: Yeah. At the top of your top of their lungs. And they only drink cheer wine, which. [00:33:31] Speaker A: Is a North Carolina thing. [00:33:34] Speaker B: And I would like to tell me if you believe that is all true. [00:33:39] Speaker A: I kind of want it to be true. Is that crazy? Yes, it is true. I kind of want that to be true. And if it's not, if that's some sort of book or thing, I want to watch it immediately or check it out immediately, because that sounds fascinating. [00:34:01] Speaker B: So it's almost mostly true. The reason I threw the cheerwine in there was. There's actually a list of prohibited things, and cheer wine is actually on the prohibited list. You cannot dance, you cannot sing, you cannot drink cheer wine. [00:34:15] Speaker A: So it's basically footloose with screaming and an absence of soda. [00:34:20] Speaker B: Footloose with screaming? Yeah, it's super creepy. It's way too close. I had no idea it was here. [00:34:28] Speaker A: I imagine there are all sorts of pockets of wacky. Yeah. Around here. Boy. No, that's a good one. [00:34:41] Speaker B: Pretty interesting. But if you have one for me, I'm game. [00:34:43] Speaker A: I do. All right. In 2008, a group of nine college kids who all went to school together in New Mexico went out hiking and camping out for, like, a weekend or something out in the mountains, and they disappeared. When they didn't come back, the local authorities went out and did a search. They found their campsite, but none of the students were there. The tent was all ripped up. And inside the tent, they found a bunch, like several of the students shoes. This is in the wintertime, so it's cold, like now. Found their shoes or boots. Found their coats in some instances. So something happened, and they scattered. They cut their way out of the tent and ran. Eventually, they found six of the nine bodies in different places. And some of them had some inexplicable wounds, like, two of them were crushed, and they couldn't figure out what had happened to them. Strange things. And then nothing was heard about the case, or nobody could figure out what was happening. And 15 years passes, and then they find two more of the students who had apparently been hiding in a cave, both dead. And one of them, like they had all died at the same time, way back at the time that the people had disappeared, but they hadn't been found because they were tucked into this little cave because it's winter, and one of the two had died by suicide. [00:37:00] Speaker B: Oh, dear. [00:37:01] Speaker A: So they were trying to figure out what happened with nine people. Six are found relatively soon after they disappear, and then nothing for 15 years. And then two more are found, and then there was still one unaccounted for. And in the mountains of New Mexico. [00:37:27] Speaker B: Well, that's dark and grisly, and unfortunately, it sounds mostly possible and true. I hope it's not, but I imagine it is. [00:37:38] Speaker A: It actually is Preston and child book. But they based this on a case that really happened. But in Russia, years before, people were cross country skiing and disappeared. And they were trying. I don't know exactly what happened to that group of people, but one of the writers. I love these books because they will make the most crazy situation, like ridiculously implausible thing sound totally. Yes. That could happen. And you will page Turner try and figure out what in the world went. So this is based on a case in Russia that Douglas Preston had written up as true as a nonfiction article for something, and then they were going to make a movie of it or something. And then about this case in Russia, but then the ukrainian war broke out, and so then they just wrote a story inspired by it. But anyway, I find their thing very interesting, which leads me to my tip for this week. And that is, do not abandon your completely dumb or wacky or implausible idea, because it will germinate and you will find a way to use it in something that really makes your story crazy. Campers who disappear or. There's a really good book in this series. This is a Nora Kelly book. And so there's three of these, and there's one of them that centers on, she's an archaeologist, where she does an investigation of the original Donner party site. And that's fascinating because we've heard of the Donner party, but I don't really know that much about it anyway, live. [00:40:01] Speaker B: Many years ago, and I saw the movie. So it's kind of in my memory as like, there's a movie. [00:40:08] Speaker A: I don't think I've seen a movie about it. Yikes. [00:40:11] Speaker B: Pretty old. Yeah. It's disturbing. I mean, the whole concept is disturbing, but it's really. I love those kinds of studies of, you don't know. You don't know what you would do, right? I mean, that's true. Everything every day. But when you think about an extreme situation like that, I'd like to believe that I would not. But you don't know. And what we're talking about here, of course, if anybody has lived in a cave for 100 years, it's cannibalism. [00:40:39] Speaker A: You're trapped in a snowy path that you can't leave, and there's no food. Yeah. Anyway, they excavate the. And they do really great research, but they excavate that. That site. And so even though they're weaving another story in around modern day about that site and what's happening, you get to learn a little bit about what happened before. All right, lastly, I usually like to throw in a couple of things that I think are cool that I have found in the local area if people want to check them out. And I have three for you this time. One is Dave and I went to this really cute little place right off of 7th Avenue here in Hendersonville. Called homemade pasta noodles. And we learned how to make ravioli. And this lady, Lana, she does classes of, I don't know how many of us were in there, eight or nine. And we learn how to make something. In this case, it was a cheese filled ravioli. And then we get to package that up to bring that ravioli home with us. And then all of us sit down to eat ravioli that she made with sauce that has been cooking all day. And it's like this community Italian. Like, everybody's at one table and you're talking and whatever. Yeah. You get some salad and some bread and your pasta. Yeah. And I learned how to make ravioli. So I have tried to make pasta by myself before over the pandemic, and it was a disaster. So I definitely needed professional guidance. So that was really cool. We did that towards the end of last year, so that's really fun. And then we have a new place that opened just around the corner from the pasta place called Claywood, and that is a wine and whiskey bar. And they have charcuterie boards. And you don't go in for dinner. Exactly. You go in for a board of different kinds of foods, and then they will do match wines with it and everything. It's really nice with sofas and stuff. So that place is pretty cool. And then Dave and I went into Asheville proper and went to a place which really, really liked, called curate, which is like spanish tapas. So if you are a fan of Jaleo, Jose Andres'place in DC or Bethesda, if you've ever been there, this is like that really good sangria. You order a bunch of small plates of things and share. So it's very conducive to conversation and talking and discovery, and I really enjoyed it. So I will put links to all of those places. [00:43:47] Speaker B: Thank you. That sounds amazing. I'm a tapas girl. I love all the things. Just like all the people. [00:43:52] Speaker A: I love all the things. [00:43:54] Speaker B: All the things. All the cheeses, all the dishes, all the weird humans love it. [00:44:02] Speaker A: Weird humans. I would collect little nuggets of fun and find ways to work them into something. Anyway, it was so good to see you. [00:44:14] Speaker B: It's so good to see you. And I was thinking, like you had said, you were going to give a writer's tip, but I would like to share that. For me, honestly, I don't go around thinking of myself as a writer, but you know that I am, and I can't really help it. And one day I will do more with that, and I. I appreciate that. You always push me in that way, whether you mean to or not. And you kind of remind me that I'm a writer and you appreciate my feedback and all that stuff is really meaningful. But I was going to say that I think a tip for me, and part of it is this work that I'm doing with writing every day and just being committed to it. Even if I write schlock, I think around that is also just giving space, whether that's meditation or yoga or just quiet. Because especially during the worst of the pandemic, I was very focused on listening to all the podcasts, reading all the books, doing all the input, input, input, input. And I didn't have time for my own processing or space. And so a meditation isn't for everybody. And it's not necessarily like something I'm good at or that it's easy. But I find that when I commit to it, similar to yoga, it creates space that all of the things that I've been unconsciously ignoring and pushing out because all I've been doing is listening and getting inputs, it starts to surface and swirl, and I get excited. And then I'm writing better stuff and I'm processing. [00:45:56] Speaker A: Oh, that's great. Yeah. I should do more yoga. I do yoga on Monday nights. I should do more yoga in meditation. But often my quiet time is just really early in the morning. I'm the first person up every day. No one else is up. And I come down to my office and I sit here and I drink coffee and I do the wordle. I just have my quiet time in the morning. I'm not crazy productive. I'm certainly not cranking out pages, but I'm thinking and reflecting and everything in the morning. And I love that time. I don't mind that I wake up earlier than I wish. Yes, a good tip. Thank you for that. Well, until next time, thanks for joining us again. Thank you, Chris. [00:46:56] Speaker B: Thank you. And sometime I'd love to, Vicki, I enjoy your banter and enjoy your invitation to talk about writing. [00:47:04] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. Great. All right. I will talk to you guys again soon. Thank you very much and have a great day. [00:47:15] Speaker B: Take care. Bye.