Episode 002: Robert J. Crane - Fantasy & Fun

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SHOW NOTES

Books Mentioned:
- Die Fat Or Get Tough
​- Imzadi
- Tools Of Titans
​- Debt Of Honor
​- The Girl In The Box Series
​- Self Editing for Fiction Writers
​- Alone

FULL TRANSCRIPT

C. G. Cooper:
Welcome to Books in 30 with me, C. G. Cooper, also known as Carlos Cooper. Here at Books in 30 we discuss great books with great authors. Welcome to our listeners and a big Books in 30 welcome to today's guest, Robert J. Crane.
 
Robert is author of The Girl in the Box series, The Sanctuary series, The Southern Watch, and the Mira Brand novels. When he's not writing, Robert enjoys video games, travel, and the occasional nap. I also happen to know that he likes a good steak. He's also one of my best author friends and a Nashville neighbor. Welcome, Robert. How you doing today, man?
 
Robert J. Crane:
Doing alright, how you doing, cowboy?
 
C. G. Cooper:
I am good. It's a beautiful day here in southern Nashville. I hope you're soaking it in as much as I am....

Robert J. Crane:
It is beautiful outside.

C. G. Cooper:
Well cool. Well you know what, could you tell listeners real quick just a little bit about how you started writing so they can get a feel for who you are and then we'll move on from there.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Yeah. Absolutely. How I came to writing was, it was something fun that I did in my spare time. It was a nice hobby, a little thing I tinkered with story-wise from, gosh, my teenage years on. I never finished anything, other than maybe a short story, until I was 30. I would write a lot of story ideas down but I never got into the actual hard detail of like scripting out an entire novel. I mean I'd already had a degree in creative writing and never completed anything. I worked in the financial services industry for a lot of years and anyone who has even a passing familiarity with the financial world knows that around 2008 things got a little rough in that sector, and so, I don't know, when things got bad I started escaping into stories again, when the career downturn came.
 
I actually started writing a story that became my first novel and I just couldn't stop, I couldn't put it down. I was writing it and sending it to some friends of mine ... So anyway I just, I don't know, it became my escapism, it became my hobby. I was doing it in my spare time constantly. I was jotting notes to it down during meetings. Finally, I got to the point where I'm like "Oh my gosh, what if I could make a living doing this?" I started researching how to make a living as an author and found a path and, you know, I finished my first novel, published it in June of 2011 and now I've written 40-something books, I guess, I have a hard time keeping track at this point, and have never looked back. I've been making a living since about 2012 or so.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Well that's awesome, man, and I'll tell listeners as well that you've been a big part of my career, so I appreciate that. One of the reasons that you and I get along well is we tend to work our butts off. To all you listeners out there, we'll give you some more information about where to find Robert's books, the Girl in the Box series is his most popular. But right now, let's just, let's dive into books, man. What do you think?

Robert J. Crane:
Yeah, I love reading. I actually, I keep a tally of all the books I read by year. I was looking at it and it's a little lopsided this year. I've read 36 books and like 25 of them were mine, 'cause I'm having to re-read for series, but that leaves a little bit of space open for other stuff.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Well good.
 
Robert J. Crane:
That's just the ones I've finished. I've read other stuff too, but let's talk books.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Yeah, man, tell me about an awesome book that you're currently reading or just finished.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Actually one of the awesome books that I just finished was a book [about self-improvement]. I'm a big fan of trying to improve myself so a lot of what I have read this year has been self-improvement. One of them was called Get Tough or Die Fat, which is a pull no punches foray into the changes I needed to make in order to get on a weight loss plan that works for me. It's a bummer, 'cause I love reading fiction. If it was up to me I would read nothing but fiction, but I got some things to work on and that was one of them. That was an amazing book. I think it changed my life, it at least changed my perspective.
 
Another one is Tools of the Titans, which somebody I know recommended to me ... Carlos. Then another book I'm reading right now is called Self Editing for Fiction Writers. Just trying to keep up career-wise, improve my skills even at this stage of the game.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Very cool.

Robert J. Crane:
Those are the big ones. Fiction-wise I do have one book I've got kind of on the back burner right and it's the latest in Marco Kloos’ Front Line series. Amazing military sci-fi series.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Yeah, yeah, I think I've read the first one and maybe half of the second one.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Oh they just get better.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Do they really?
 
Robert J. Crane:
Yeah, they're amazing.
 
C. G. Cooper:
That's good. I know he's been churning those out pretty well. Let's go back to the first book you mentioned and, obviously, we'd love to focus on our listeners, what they might like. Why might they want to pick that book up from a bookstore or from Amazon?
 
Robert J. Crane:
Oh the Get Tough or Die Fat?
 
C. G. Cooper:
Yeah, man. Nobody wants to die fat, right?
 
Robert J. Crane:
I know I didn't. 'Cause, you know, I've been busy this year I probably had put on about 35 or 40 pounds over my optimal weight. So in my case it was one of those things where looking in the mirror and just not happy with what I'm seeing. My issue is I hate dieting. I hate it. I didn't really like exercise at all. What it did for me is it just, it taught me some different ways to look at it, to change my mindset. It's been, it's not easy, it's never going to be easy but it really makes you think about the ways in which the goals you set and the results you achieve from that would be worth it. For me it's all about finding the price you're willing to pay and then going for it. That helped me a ton in that regard.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Was there one kind of wow moment or even a punch you in your face moment that you're like holy cow this totally relates to me right now?
 
Robert J. Crane:
There were about a hundred of them! It's broken down so that, I mean you can read it in five minutes a day, and it's probably better if you do, because it is, it's a constant. And the author says it flat out in the text. He goes, "You know this is not a nice book," and he goes "And I'm not a mean person by nature" but he's like "I feel like there are things that I need to say and so we're just going to pull our punches" and I mean he gets brutal. There were some moments where it's like, I mean I was holding up the mirror to my own face and going "Oh yeah, I've used that excuse before." It's not for the faint-hearted, but it's quite good.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Good. Well good. Yeah. It's funny, especially as writers we tend to hermit up in our holes and diet kind of goes by the wayside as we're cramming stuff in between chapters. Yeah, we'll have to check that out and listeners out there have to check that one, Get Tough or Die Fat. We'll have a link after this on the website on where you can get that as well.
 
Let's move on, some fun stuff. What about favorite books? Tell me about your favorite book of all time.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Oh man, that's tough. Can I do a top two or top three at least?
 
C. G. Cooper:
No, we like to hold you to your word here on Books in 30. No, I'm just kidding, one or two is fine.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Alright. I would say, and I really did spend some time trying to narrow this down, and I got it down to two. One of them is a Star Trek book called Imzadi by Peter David. It is one of the coolest. It's the Star Trek: The Next Generation book actually. It hits right at the geeky heart of me. I think it was probably the best selling Star Trek book of all time, if I remember correctly. Just a fantastic ... Yeah it was great. It's a story about Counselor Troy and Commander Riker and their love story basically but, you know, with a lot of sci-fi geek twists to it. It's fantastic. It's wonderful influence.
 
The other one though I think a lot of your listeners would probably be more familiar with, Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor, which is peak Clancy, I would say. It's not that he went downhill or anything after that, but that was a book where everything was hitting on all cylinders. It's a slow burn. Probably, what, a thousand pages in hardback, and it doesn't move fast at the beginning, but it's like a train ratcheting up out of the station and it gets to runaway status by about page 500 or so. You can't put it down.  It's so amazing and the way he follows certain threads, for 800 pages, to have them pay off at the end…It taught me more about how to write a long-term thriller bent into my novels than anything else I've ever read. Probably, obviously, it was one of the most enjoyable things 'cause it made an impact on me.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Very cool. Tell me, and you kind of went right into what I was going to ask you and that's how these books have kind of shaped, maybe not just your reading habits but your writing. How have these two books, or just books in general, how have they shaped who you've become as a writer?
 
Robert J. Crane:
Oh tremendously. I mean one of the things that I think anyone who knows a bunch of writers knows is that, especially the successful ones, are typically voracious readers at least at some point in their career, or life I should say, if not presently. Again, I've read 36 books this year, but 25 of them are mine, so I don't count that. In an ideal year I'd be reading 30 or 40 books that aren't mine. Everything I read tends to have some sort of shaping effect, even from a book I don't really like I learn some lessons about well, hey, maybe I don't want to do it this way because it doesn't produce an effect that I enjoy.
 
Those specifically, for Clancy, he wrote the most amazing slow burn novels. I mean they'd keep you involved enough in what was going on from page one that you want to keep reading. Just the way he would ratchet up with momentum over time until finally, the snowball is rolling downhill and if you don't get out of the way you're going to get plowed down kind of thing. I mean, it made an incredible impression.
 
Then the other one, the Star Trek book Imzadi. The way it affected me is I had a different ending in mind for one of my series until I read it and I realize oh man this is like this is going to really [major]. I mean, I hate to say my artistic integrity bends in the direction of fans because it might give them the idea that I take requests and I don't. But I do keep them in mind and I realize that one of the endings to one of my series was a super downer. So it made me rethink how I went about it and the emotion I wanted to evoke and what I would have liked if I were reading it. It made me revisit that and really it helped me determine what I wanted when someone would shut the book on the last page of one of my series. It made me think about the feeling that I wanted to leave them with.
 
That's something that I, I don't know if other writers consider a lot, but it was an eye-opener for me in terms of I had already written one or two books and I was sitting there the last time I re-read it going "oh, um, yeah, I don't want to be that guy." So, I definitely want to achieve more of what this author has done and so I probably need to revisit some of these artistic decisions I was coming up with at the time.
 
C. G. Cooper:
I like that. As a writer, I totally understand. It's what's the vibe. I mean I feel with my own writing sometimes you get into a groove that it is kind of a downer, so for those readers to be able to walk away with something that's somewhat positive or up lifting, or just like they walk away feeling like “okay everything wrapped up, I'm cool.” That's an important thing 'cause if you don't, man oh man, as we'll get into soon enough, those reviews, whether unbidden or not, will come in and they'll tell you exactly what they think.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Right, right.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Well, cool, dude. Let’s, we'll wait on the mean reviews, how about we go to snippet time. How about you read us a little bit from one of your works in whatever voice you want, it maybe high elven or dwarf if you would like, whatever you want, man, it's totally up to you. Tell us what you're going to be reading.
 
Robert J. Crane:
I'm going to read just the paragraph or so from the book Alone, the Girl in the Box book one. And I'm not going to even try to attempt a voice. The narrator is a 17-year-old girl and so I can't hit that pitch.

C. G. Cooper:
Really?
 
Robert J. Crane:
I'll leave that to you Carlos.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Thanks.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Chapter One: "When I woke up there were two men in my house. As alarming as that would be for most girls, for me it's doubly so. No one but mom and I are allowed in our house. No one. That's rule number one. I sensed them creeping around in the living room as my body shocked to instant wakefulness. Probably sounds weird but I could hear them breathing and an unfamiliar scent filled the air. Something brisk and fresh that brought with it a chill that crept into my room. They did not speak."
 
That's two paragraphs actually.
 
C. G. Cooper:
No, I like it. I like it. That was your first one. That's was your first hit. When you go back and read that, what are you thinking?
 
Robert J. Crane:
You know that's one of the books I re-read this year. There are things I look back on and I go, "ah you know I could have done that better or this better" but overall I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I think it holds up pretty well overall. I have no shame, which is a good sign. I'm still pretty proud of it.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Well, good. Obviously, it's done well for you and hopefully listeners will pick up a copy after we're done with this.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Yeah, it's free.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Yeah, exactly. It's free for anybody. It's free with two more books, right, as a box set.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Yeah, that's right, the first three books in the series are free.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Sweet! Well, let's move onto the really fun stuff. What all writers love: mean reviews. Things that can stab us in the heart and knock us down for two days. Please tell me that you've got one or two really good ones that just kind of knocked you on your tail.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Oh, man, and for your listeners, Carlos and I talk pretty frequently and we've both had those moments where it's like "Dude, I got knocked on my [buttocks] last night by some inconsiderate jerk stamping all over my feelings." You can't write for an audience and be a total automaton and not feel the breath of the criticism. I mean, the thing I try and do is avoid the negative reviews nowadays because yes they did.
 
In fact, the one I picked out to read for you guys today laid me out on my office floor as though I had been in some kind of physical fight. It was pathetic. I felt so ashamed afterwards, like I can't believe I'm sitting here 'cause I got my feelings hurt by someone. But the truth is, you put hundreds of hours of your life pouring your actual life into a book and then you hope it goes out and gets well received. It's expected that you know thinly, distantly, we think "Oh yeah, okay somebody's not going to like this, somewhere" even though in our heart of hearts we would really like it if everyone loved every book.
 
When it comes in and you read it and, I don't know, there's that emotional reaction between your eyeballs and your brain where like (in mock sobbing voice) "They hated it, and they hate me, and they hate everything about me and I just want to die."
 
C. G. Cooper:
It's happened to me. Just like you said. I mean it's because you poured your heart and soul into something and then having somebody just kind of dismiss it like you were trying to be that bad, it's [an awful feeling].
 
Ok, Give us a little context. What book is this feeling from and then we'd love to hear it?
 
Robert J. Crane:
This is from my first book, which is called Defender. The first book in the Sanctuary series. I mean, just for context, because it was my first novel there are things that I could see plain as day. The review came in about six months after it had been published and so there were things I saw as soon as I read the review. I'm like "Aw man!" like "Wow, you just called my baby ugly and now that I'm looking at my baby I'm seeing the baby as ugly, thanks for nothing jerk. You've ruined my baby for me."
 
Anyway, here goes the review:
"I have read many fantasy novels before and am a fan of the genre, but this book was just plain awful. It begins with a mysterious man who arrives at a site that has been destroyed and then takes you back in time to explain what happened. Since in the title of the book it clearly states that this is Volume One, you expect that the adventure will continue but what you don't expect is this book doesn't have its own ending."
 
I wrote an ending to this book, I don't understand what the problem is, I wrote it, it's there. Sorry. To continue:
 
"Chapter upon chapter it's about the main character, Cyrus, who is an adventurer whose been trained to be a warrior. He belongs to a guild whose supposed purpose is to defend and help those less fortunate. The only thing that he is not defending anything or anyone from is foes. Instead, he uses his skill to steal. Apparently in this book you're noble if you successfully steal britches from dragons, goblins, and gods. Three-quarters of the way through the book, it is explained that these expeditions are to keep the guild members on their toes should real danger appear."
 
Did I miss something? I didn't think it was bad if you steal from dragons and goblins and goddesses. Is that wrong?

C. G. Cooper:
(laughing) Depends on what world you live in I guess.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Yeah, it didn't seem wrong. I mean dragons are burning people alive, you'd think that'd be okay. They forfeit some property rights there. Anyway:
 
"Then suddenly the leader of this guild begins with ominous predictions of some terrible fate to come, dangerous weapons have possibly fallen into the wrong hands. The 'hero' - air quotes - and I use that term loosely since I don't find stealing is heroic, has to strengthen his guild's numbers in order to defeat this threat. We are then subjected to pages of this recruitment and his enlightenment that he is falling in love with another one of his guild members who has some type of secret that is never revealed."
 
Because love is yucky people. Yucky, yucky love.
 
"Then suddenly after the threat is dealt with we are brought back to the present day with no explanation of what has happened in the intervening years or what caused the destruction of the site."
 
It's almost like there are other books in the series. Oh sorry.
 
"I assume that this will be explained in the next book, but this book had no ending and no plot. It was just a series of disjointed adventures. I would not recommend this book and I'm sorry I wasted my time reading it until the end."
 
'Cause I had super better things to do, like sit on my hands and play tiddly-winks. My joke's better if I could actually deliver it.
 
C. G. Cooper:
I like how you got deeper and deeper into your voice as you went along.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Well, I threw in some asides and I tried to vary the voice to show that I was going off review on those, but yeah it's one of those things where especially the last part about “this has no ending and no plot.” I put in an ending and I put in a plot very specifically. I know. I spent lots of hours on the book trying to put in a plot. Painful. Jerk.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Hey, you know what, opinions will vary, right?
 
Robert J. Crane:
Well that's the thing, I mean it, the book overall has a really good review average. I mean 4.2 out of 5 stars on 188 reviews. When you read the box set, I think it has a thousand reviews and it averages 4.4 or something like that. So, it's one of those things that we all have books that we read and we go "Oh I don't like this for whatever reason.” Sometimes it's serious mechanical errors. You can read a book and go "Oof, this is actually almost illegible." Then there are other ones where you just go "You know what? This just really is not my speed."
 
I think the issue that hits authors hardest is when we read one of those books and we think it's someone saying "This is just not my speed" but they don't say it like that. They say "This book sucks." It is what it is, but we take it personally when in reality it's "I don't like what you've written here" it's not "I hate you personally" probably.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Yeah, well I mean-
 
Robert J. Crane:
-and your mother too!
 
C. G. Cooper:
There's no filter. It's what you and I have talked about. What we all talk about. It's that anonymity. You're writing a review and nobody can see you, nobody can talk back to you. It's interesting, and I try to do the same, I try not to read my negative reviews, but sometimes it's inevitable. You know, you're checking up on your product page and your eyes slip, you know my eyes slip down and right. I'm like "Awe, geez, why did I just do that." Sometimes I will say that bad reviews, I appreciate the bad reviews that actually give me some good info that I can actually make changes whether it's in that book or in other books.
  
The other ones, I guess what I don't understand, and maybe you can explain this to me, Robert, why would somebody read an entire book that they absolutely hated? I've picked up plenty of books that I've put down after a couple pages or a couple paragraphs or chapters. I mean I guess I don't totally understand that mentality. Enlighten us, if you can.
 
Robert J. Crane:
I was actually talking with a buddy of mine up in Minnesota at one point, and he opened the door for me into a kind of thought that I had never heard of before. He said "I can't read your books." I'm like "Well that's good 'cause I don't really like it necessarily when people I know read my books." But he goes "No, you don't understand. I can't read your books because whenever I start a series I have to finish the series. I can't stop. I can't put them down. So if they suck I'm going to hate you by the time it's over with because I won't be able to stop until I'm done reading it." I'm sitting there thinking, "What?! Who dropped you on your head as a child? Put the damn book down!"
 
I don't read books that I hate. If I get through the first 10% or 20% and I'm going, "Aw, this is just not lighting my fire," I'm out of there. I have way too much going on in my life, between kids and writing and co-authoring stuff with other authors at this point. I don't know where you find time to read books that you don't want to read. It's occasionally a struggle of discipline for me to go back and re-read my own works when I know I have to brush up on a series just 'cause I've read them and written them myself. The idea of going and embracing and reading someone else's, not only, book that I don't enjoy, but entire series, I don't know. I mean, I really don't. If you pay for it and you paid full price, and you're just trying to get your money out of it. I don't know.
 
For me it's like if you accidentally bought… You know the old fantasy troupe of "I bought this cursed belt and I don't want to take it off even though it's squeezing me to death, because I did pay good gold for it." Maybe some people view their book purchases that way, like I've invested like five hours in this already and although it does suck, I'm hoping it will stop sucking by the end. Yeah, I don't know. I can't do hate reads. I can't do hate watching. I just, I want to watch and read things I enjoy. I don't get that either.
 
C. G. Cooper:
I'm with you. Yeah.
 
Robert J. Crane:
DNF, do not finish.

C. G. Cooper:
Yeah, maybe our listeners can further enlighten us. You know, like I guess I get that, that once you start something you want to finish it. I'm definitely that way in certain things, but I've started a series and I've gotten three or four in and I've loved all those and then I've hit one where I just didn't like it and I just stopped.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
 
C. G. Cooper:
There's plenty of other things to read out there.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Right.
 
C. G. Cooper:
So, yeah, listeners if you want to comment please visit the website, please visit us on Facebook, Twitter, whatever you want to do and let us know why you might not just stop reading a book if you don't like it. Just curious. Anyway.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Clue us in, 'cause we are clueless.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Yes, please let us know because hopefully that will help us write better books, right Robert?
 
Robert J. Crane:
Absolutely. We're not trying to disappoint you.
 
C. G. Cooper:
No, we're really not, we're trying to do our best. Well, that is all I have for you today. Any last words for our listeners before I close it out and let them know where they can get all your books?
 
Robert J. Crane:
When you said "any last words" I was like "Oh crap, did I miss that he scheduled my execution at the end of this?" That would end your show with a bang.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Yeah, man-
 
Robert J. Crane:
But not the kind of bang you want.
 
C. G. Cooper:
I'm actually, standing outside your backdoor right now.
 
Robert J. Crane:
Crap! You know, I just, I'd love to know the answer if any of you readers have the insight on that, but for other parting thoughts, no. I'd just say, thank you for inviting me on the show, Carlos. I appreciate the invitation to the podcast.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Yeah, man, I appreciate you being here. For all our listeners out there, download a free copy of Robert's most popular series, that's books one through three of Girl in the Box anywhere you buy or download books. We'll also have a link on our webpage. You can also visit Robert at robertjcrane.com. Is that right?
 
Robert J. Crane:
That is correct.
 
C. G. Cooper:
Awesome. Cool. This is C.G. Cooper on Books in 30. Thanks for joining us today. We'll catch you on our next episode. I'm out.