“I just wanted to understand, why am I here, why am I alive, what is this all about?”
Nothing beats a good book. A great fictional story can sweep us up in a make-believe world, blurring the lines of reality and the extraordinary. A great nonfiction book can disseminate wonderful ideas that we can logically digest and grow from. But why limit our lessons to the work of nonfiction? Perhaps the best of all book genres is the highly under appreciated philosophical fiction. Sewing seeds of growth while wearing the disguise of entertainment. When we are wrapped up emotionally in a narrative both sides of our brain can interpret a lesson, and a level of deep growth can occur that is difficult with nonfiction alone. Today’s guest understands this concept well and has written an amazing piece of philosophical fiction that speaks to the collective struggle of our time. He’ll discuss why philosophical fiction is such a great medium for distilling down complex topics, and explain what the whole book writing biz is all about too.
“That feeling of almost, am I some kind of alien? Am I an imposter? All these other people that are running around, they seem like they know what they’re doing…That sense was at the heart of this script.”
“In many ways people want to try to better themselves…but a lot of these things are very external and surface. I have found that really changing is hard. It’s really hard…I really wanted to look at, what is the journey or someone who actually does [change], and what do they go through?”
Interview Contents
5:00 - The process of writing a book
14:00 - Overview of the book and the philosophical topics.
31:00 - The evolution of the book.
36:30 - Michael identifying with the books characters.
51:00 - Book promotion
58:00 - Writer's block
1:00:15 - Interesting takeaways from people that read the book in advance
1:02:00 - What Michael wants people to take away from the book
1:06:30 - Advice.
Links
THIS EPISODE WAS MADE WITH THE SUPPORT OF
Roxanna
Michelle & Jim Wortner
Janelle Swanson
Jimmy Seymour
