Two Truths and a Lie With Cory O’Brien

Introduction and Special Guest Announcement

[00:00:00] Brett: Hello, welcome to a very special Overtired. I am Brett Terpstra. I am here with Christina Warren and Jeff Severns Guntzel. And this week we have the Long Promise special guest Corey O’Brien, author of Two Truths and a Lie. How’s it going, Corey?

[00:00:21] Cory: It’s going great. Happy to be here.

[00:00:23] Jeff: Hi, Corey. We’re saying hello.

[00:00:30] Brett: Um, yeah, so we’re, we’re definitely gonna talk about the book. I have filled Corey in on kind of our usual format, and he’s down for, for playing along with what we usually do. So, um, I, I feel a little weird jumping right into Mental Health Corner. I want a little bit more robust of an intro.

Corey O’Brien’s Background and Career

[00:00:54] Brett: So, Corey, tell us a little about you.

[00:00:58] Cory: Uh, sure. [00:01:00] It’s a, it’s a, it’s a big question.

[00:01:02] Brett: It is. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. That was so vague.

[00:01:05] Jeff: Tell me who you are.

[00:01:06] Cory: all right. Uh, I am a writer game designer man about town. I,

[00:01:15] Jeff: that’s you. I saw.

[00:01:16] Cory: yeah, yeah. I’m all over the place. You see a guy that’s me

[00:01:20] Jeff: That’s you.

[00:01:20] Cory: watching you, counting your teeth. Uh, I, I, uh, I, I used to write a website called, uh, mire Told where I would tell mythology like it was 3:00 AM and I was drunk in a chat room.

[00:01:34] Cory: And I did that. I did that for many years, parlayed it into a small level of notoriety that somehow got my publisher to pitch me to everyone as the beloved internet humorist, which I still, I still find kind of embarrassing. But, uh, then, then over time, like what I’ve always wanted to do is write books. Uh, and so over time sort of parly the notoriety from the blog into.[00:02:00]

[00:02:00] Cory: A career writing for video games. Uh, I’ve written for, uh, the comedy dating sim called Monster Prom. And then, uh, my favorite game that I, that I worked on is Hollow Vista, but you can only play it if you have an iPhone, unfortunately, which I don’t, I haven’t even played it in its native environment. I’ve played it, I’ve played it in like a browser version, but, uh, and then, uh, and now I work for like, um, for like fancy 3D games, writing dialogue, trees and stuff.

[00:02:29] Cory: But, uh, my, my number one passion is writing books and I’m very excited that I finally have this novel out. And so that’s, that, that, that brings me to this present moment.

[00:02:41] Christina: Um, so.

Transition to Fictional Writing

[00:02:43] Christina: How, how, um, I guess what was your process, I guess, moving from, uh, have you been like, I guess like writing short stories, like your whole life, uh, you know, I know you’ve done the, the, uh, the, the humor thing and, and you’ve worked, um, you know, um, game stuff. But what was, I guess, your process of transitioning to, um, [00:03:00] uh, fair, um, fictional, like narrative writing.

[00:03:04] Cory: I, I have been writing stories for as long as like, I knew that was a thing you could do, and I, I used to write a number of short stories. I, like, I went to graduate school for creative writing. I wrote a lot of short stories then yeah, I left that part

[00:03:19] Brett: Yeah, that’s an important piece.

[00:03:21] Christina: I was gonna say that helps,

[00:03:22] Cory: But I, I, I don’t think, I don’t think that graduate school, like graduate school certainly gave me a lot of opportunity to practice writing, but I don’t think, I don’t think it turned me into a writer.

[00:03:32] Cory: I

[00:03:32] Christina: No, you already were, but, but, but, but it, but yeah. But I think the opportunity to practice is, is probably helpful.

[00:03:37] Cory: yeah. And also meeting people and being in an environment where that’s encouraged. I really think of graduate school as like paying an enormous amount of money to larp that you have the job that you wanted to have for, for like two years, which is, I, I had, I had the luxury of being able to do that. Um, but I, what I have always specifically wanted to do is write long form narrative.

[00:03:59] Cory: I [00:04:00] wanted to write novels. I, I don’t, I don’t know exactly what it is. I think my best explanation for why is that the stories that have affected me the most that have given me like a real physical, visceral reaction have been books because they can set something up over a long period and then like bring it all together at once in this rush.

[00:04:22] Cory: And, uh, so that’s, that’s always been really exciting to me. And so that’s always been what I wanted to do and I’ve just basically spent many years working myself up to that. 'cause writing books is hard.

[00:04:34] Jeff: Writing books is like existential. I, I’ve never written a book and everyone I know that has, it’s like a, it’s a journey. It’s a, it’s a dark journey sometimes. A lovely journey. Is that true for you?

[00:04:45] Cory: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I, I, I’m sure that there are some people, I mean, I know that there are some people for whom books are just like, they just, they just write 'em, they just

[00:04:55] Brett: Jeremy Robinson. Jeremy Robinson puts out a book like every two months [00:05:00] in their, their bangers, and I don’t know how anyone does that.

[00:05:03] Cory: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, I have sort of come to grips with the fact that that is not my temperament. Like, I do like writing. I do like, eventually I do like the stuff that I write when I have enough distance from it. But it is a process, especially because I’m already always doing so many things. Uh, you know, maybe if I was locked in a room like they did with Douglas Adams later in his career, I could just like write a book real fast.

[00:05:30] Cory: Generally write the first draft really fast and then like. Go insane. Trying to, trying to write the, the, the future drafts and really tear myself

[00:05:41] Jeff: oh my God, I have so many process questions. I’m

[00:05:43] Jeff: gonna

Mental Health Corner

[00:05:44] Brett: well, let’s make, let’s make this our mental health corner. Let’s make it all about Corey.

[00:05:48] Cory: Yeah.

[00:05:50] Brett: And, and I would be curious to know what your mental health was like while writing this last book and what it’s like now that it is officially [00:06:00] released.

[00:06:00] Cory: Woo. That’s a good question. I don’t wanna be the only person doing a mental health check-in though.

[00:06:06] Christina: Oh, no, no, no, no. We’ll all, no, no, no, no, no. We’ll, we’ll all go. We’ll, we’ll go.

[00:06:10] Brett: Do you wanna go first or last then?

[00:06:12] Cory: Well, I’m, I’m in your house, so I’ll, I’ll, I’ll do whatever the done thing is.

[00:06:18] Brett: Okay, I’ll go first. I’ll kick it off. Uh, I’ll keep mine short.

Brett’s Job Update

[00:06:23] Brett: Um, my job, we talked last week at length about how messed up my job situation was. Um, I went to therapy for it and my therapist was very helpful in helping me see that my manager that I have so many conflicts with also had some IFS type parts coming up.

[00:06:46] Brett: Um, and we were able to kind of hit like a working flow, but at the same time, and don’t tell my manager this, this is private,

[00:06:57] Jeff: I think you’re telling your manager this.

[00:06:59] Brett: I. [00:07:00] I reached out to a pre, like one of the first managers I ever had who had gotten moved off. There was a whole, like the first major shakeup was when she got moved off to another team.

[00:07:11] Brett: Um, and I talked to her and I said, Hey, here’s what I’m doing these days. You know, any other teams that might be able to use that skillset? And she’s like, well, I could. Um, and her headcount is frozen right now, but she thinks she might be able to make an exception. So problem might be solved just by going to a work for a manager I already respect and I already get along with.

[00:07:37] Brett: And that, that alone, just knowing that’s a possibility, has made it easier for me to deal with the present, um, and to not be in a constant state of panic and frustration. So, yeah. Uh, think things are better. This week I.

[00:07:53] Christina: Good.

[00:07:54] Jeff: awesome. What a good thing to hear.

[00:07:59] Christina: sure.[00:08:00]

[00:08:01] Jeff: Who’s got the birds? It’s such a nice sound.

[00:08:03] Brett: thought that was you.

[00:08:04] Jeff: No. Fuck no, man. We got nothing

[00:08:06] Brett: I think, I think that must be Corey then

[00:08:08] Cory: Yes,

[00:08:09] Jeff: Thanks for bringing the birds, Corey,

[00:08:11] Cory: Yeah, no worries.

[00:08:12] Jeff: tropical, uh, Chicago

[00:08:14] Brett: Well, and he is got the tropical shirt on too, so it’s just kind of a,

[00:08:18] Jeff: it the shirt? Is it the shirt I’m hearing?

[00:08:20] Cory: It is, it’s the shirt. The weather here has been wildly unpredictable. This is the time of year where you really can’t predict what the weather is gonna be from moment to moment. And

[00:08:30] Brett: was almost 80 here yesterday and tonight it’s gonna snow.

[00:08:35] Cory: yeah, yeah. That happened a couple weeks ago here, 80 into snowing. And so you see a lot of people around here, uh, when it’s 80 degrees wearing a sweatshirt. 'cause they’re like, don’t trust

[00:08:44] Christina: don’t know. No,

[00:08:46] Brett: It’s still March.

[00:08:48] Christina: that’s still marsh. No, I mean, and that’s the worst because, uh, at least for me anyway, like my, my sinuses, my, like my allergies really go badly when there’s, uh, sudden weather changes. So if it goes from like really cold to really hot or like, [00:09:00] and the barometric pressure changes, like my migraines go crazy, my sinuses go

[00:09:04] Brett: my, my pots and my dizziness get way worse with the barometric changes. Like today, with the barometer shifting the way it is, I’m like, I’m, it’s like I’m drunk walking around the house. I’m tipsy everywhere. But anyway. Jeff, Jeff, why don’t you go.

Jeff’s Workshop and Squirrel Saga

[00:09:20] Jeff: Uh, I’m, you know, this happens every year, uh, when it’s this time, but yesterday when it was 75, the rest of the week is forties. But, um. I officially opened up my workshop and, uh, and it’s all completely ready for projects. Um, Corey, I have a workshop where I rebuild very old machinery and I do some welding and, and woodwork and just general fuckery.

[00:09:44] Jeff: Um, and, and it’s like my favorite thing in the world. It’s my favorite place to be. Um, and I feel most landed in that place. And, and in a time like this, especially being able to kind of open that up and just be sitting in there, it’s the best. And I get to, um, return to a [00:10:00] project I started in the fall, which is rebuilding this a hundred year old, um, lathe for doing metal working.

[00:10:05] Jeff: It’s about two tons. Um, and, and it’s, you know, I, I, I cleared out grease, uh, from the Harding administration when I was cleaning it, and now I’m, I’m at the kind of rebuilding point and it’s awesome. And so I bring that, I, I bring that here. I mean, of all the other things, whether it’s medications, therapy, just generally taking care of myself, having a place like that where I feel.

[00:10:28] Jeff: That landed, um, is such a huge, huge thing. The problem, which I won’t go into now, but maybe future episodes, is I’m in a prote protracted war with a squirrel that insists on living in my garage. And, um, and I’ve been taking a lot of video. My wife is constantly catches me outside arguing with the squirrel.

[00:10:46] Jeff: Um, and it has become a defining, uh, part of my life over the last, uh, I think week and a half as of yesterday, it chewed through a fucking window frame to get back in. Uh, I respect this squirrel. Um, and it’s maybe giving me a, [00:11:00] this is mental health. It’s, it might be giving me a lesson in resilience, um, and durability, uh, in a hard time.

[00:11:05] Jeff: So that’s my, there’s my check-in.

[00:11:07] Brett: Have you seen the, he’s an engineer. He’s super charismatic. I can’t remember his name. He made the glitter

[00:11:13] Cory: Oh, like Mark Rober is, are you, is that

[00:11:15] Christina: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:11:16] Cory: Who

[00:11:16] Brett: Didn’t he? Was he the one who Yeah. The squirrel obstacle

[00:11:20] Jeff: So good, so Yeah. Okay. I’ll, I’ll link that in the show notes for anyone who hasn’t seen it.

[00:11:25] Brett: It is very entertaining.

[00:11:29] Jeff: That’s awesome yeah, I, I am sorry that you’re having like, uh, uh, you know, the, this, it seems like the squirrel is winning your, your, your battle. I, I, I am sorry for that.

[00:11:37] Jeff: so far. But the situation is fluid.

[00:11:41] Cory: I just think it’s, I just think it’s sick that you have a workshop. That’s something that I aspire to for sure. Like

[00:11:46] Jeff: It’s uh,

[00:11:47] Cory: want that.

[00:11:48] Jeff: it’s a lovely place to be.

[00:11:50] Brett: I don’t, I don’t have a place for one. Or I would start, like, as I’m able to afford machinery, I would start building a workshop. I would [00:12:00] love to get into woodworking. Uh, I would love to get into metal working. Like I’m super

[00:12:05] Jeff: Come up here, I’ll teach you how to weld.

[00:12:08] Brett: I know how to weld. I know how to lathe.

[00:12:10] Jeff: yeah. You welded in school, didn’t you?

[00:12:12] Brett: yeah. Like I know how to do most of that stuff.

[00:12:15] Brett: My, I’m a little rusty,

[00:12:17] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:17] Brett: it. I just don’t have any access to the tools. Yep. Got it, got

[00:12:22] Cory: teach me how to weld. I don’t know how

[00:12:24] Jeff: Come on over. You’re seven hours away by what kind, what kinda welding do you like Jeff?

[00:12:29] Jeff: Oh, I do. What is, what is known as the hot glue gun of welding, which is MIG welding. Uh, I would love to learn tig, but, um, I, I don’t have, yeah, it’s not, not my time.

[00:12:40] Brett: I, uh, I find a settling torch welding to be very meditative.

[00:12:46] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:47] Brett: and if you’ve never done it on heroin, let me tell you that is,

[00:12:51] Jeff: I know. I haven’t tried that yet,

[00:12:53] Brett: the most relaxed you’ll ever be.

[00:12:56] Jeff: um,

[00:12:56] Christina: Okay. I, I’m, I’m just gonna throw this out there for, for any of our, our past or future [00:13:00] advertisers, um, do not do heroin and, uh, and, and, and weld. Like, we’re not recommending that.

[00:13:07] Brett: Eh, eh,

[00:13:08] Jeff: but that’s like, I disagree.

[00:13:10] Brett: I have, I have mult. I am, I have multiple art pieces around my house that, that beg to differ.

[00:13:16] Jeff: I think when I think when one has an addiction, everything you do, you do with the addiction alongside,

[00:13:21] Christina: I’m, I’m just, I’m, I’m just saying, I’m just saying. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t like this.

[00:13:26] Jeff: this is the do not try at home. Warning

[00:13:28] Brett: if it wasn’t obvious, I, uh, I have a history of drug addiction.

[00:13:33] Cory: Okay. Yeah, I was, I was picking that up.

[00:13:36] Jeff: that up,

[00:13:37] Brett: You’re tracking with that.

[00:13:38] Brett: All right, those writers, those writers don’t miss a thing.

[00:13:43] Brett: so Christina, how are you?

[00:13:45] Christina: I am doing pretty well. Um, I don’t have a huge update, I guess. Um, and I, and I don’t wanna talk, I don’t wanna get into the, the, the specifics, um, of, of, of anything.

Christina’s New Job Experience

[00:13:53] Christina: But, you know, I started a new job and, um, and it’s been going pretty well, but it has been a transition and it’s been, um, [00:14:00] it’s been a little bit difficult because.

[00:14:02] Christina: My team is all located in other places, and so I feel sort of isolated from, you know, people because I, I have meetings and stuff and I get to, you know, meet people like over a video call, but I haven’t met anyone in person yet, um, except for a, a few of the folks that I worked with before, but I don’t work with them day in and day out, um, in the new job.

[00:14:21] Christina: And so, um, but I had a, I had a nice meeting with my, with my manager this week. Um, I’m feeling, um, a little bit better about, about things. Um, but it’s just been sort of a process and so that’s just been kinda my general mental health for the last probably six weeks or so, is just like a lot of changes, a lot of adjustments, a lot of trying to figure out new systems, new ways of working, as well as new expectations and all of that.

[00:14:45] Christina: Um, and then doing it in, uh, an environment where, you know, you aren’t, like physically with people, um, is, um, it’s challenging, but I mean, it’s not insurmountable or anything, but it’s, it’s, uh. It’s [00:15:00] different than the way I’ve, than the experiences I’ve had before. Like I’ve worked, you know, um, more remotely from my, uh, other team members, uh, frequently, but usually there were either more opportunities to get to know people like in a, uh, you know, non-work or even work context, or you at least had like one person that you knew like in real life, so you could, you know, kind of use that as a way to kind of, you know, bridge stuff.

[00:15:26] Christina: Uh, this has been, uh, a little bit different. And so that’s, that’s been the thing that I’ve kind of been, uh, struggling with because, uh, and, and I, I have even greater empathy for people who like started new jobs in 2020 when everybody was, was completely, you know, isolated and, and remote because, I don’t know, uh.

[00:15:44] Christina: I, I don’t think I would’ve been able to survive that if, especially if I wouldn’t have been able to go outside. Like, I don’t think that, that I would’ve been okay with that at all. But, uh, but no, but things are, things are improving and I, I like my manager a lot and I’m, you know, hopeful about kind of like where things are going is just a, a lot of [00:16:00] trying to sort out, okay, what are the things that I need to do?

[00:16:03] Christina: What are the things I want to do? How do all these systems work? How can I influence getting to know and get to meet the right people? Because it is just a completely different, uh, world that I’m in from, you know, what I was used to before, which I, I, I knew the systems and the people really well, so it’s just been an adjustment.

[00:16:22] Brett: Can I ask a personal question? Um, and tell me if I dig too deep. Um, 'cause this, this question could be a trigger for me. Um, but so when I’m in situations where I’m dealing with so many unknowns in like my professional life, in my personal life, I become very, uh, we’ll say inaccessible. Like I just don’t have room to be a good partner.

[00:16:48] Brett: Um, and I end up leaning on my partner very heavily to like, help me regulate all the stress. How, how are you doing with all of these unknowns, [00:17:00] with all of this? Like, I, I mean, it’s stressful whether it’s like a rough situation or not. It’s stressful figuring all this out. How, how are you doing at home?

[00:17:11] Christina: Um, I’m okay. I mean, I think that it, that things could, could be better, but I think things are okay. I think that I’m probably similar to you and that I just don’t have as much space to be able to give to other things. And so, uh, even not at home, just like my other relationships, frankly, have kind of fallen off a little bit.

[00:17:28] Christina: Like some of them, you know, my more like surface like friendships, like, you know, the group chats are pinging like a thousand times a day, and that’s really helpful. But like anything more substantive, I don’t really have. Space for that at the moment. So, yeah, I mean, I think

[00:17:42] Brett: Is your, is your partner forgiving about that?

[00:17:44] Christina: Yeah, I think so.

[00:17:45] Christina: I mean, I, but I, there’s also not really a, a, um, a choice in the matter, if that makes any

[00:17:52] Brett: Sure, sure. That doesn’t, yeah, that doesn’t always mean it’s easy, but yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um, [00:18:00] all right, Corey, you’re, you are no longer the only one to go.

[00:18:04] Cory: All right. Hell yeah. Thank you. Thank you for showing me the way.

[00:18:08] Jeff: Oh yes, yes. Come along further. Now let us go to this room.

[00:18:16] Cory: Uh, yeah.

Corey’s Mental Health and Medication

[00:18:17] Cory: So this month has been a maelstrom of events and responsibilities and travel, um, and the highest emotional highs and the lowest lows. I, um, I take, I take medication for bipolar. I, I I, I

[00:18:43] Cory: feel to the club.

[00:18:44] Cory: I, I feel weird about saying specific brand names because I feel like I’m advertising. But I will say that I took, I took antidepressants, various antidepressants for a long time, and none of them really felt like they were doing anything.

[00:18:59] Cory: And, [00:19:00] uh, that taking just like a relatively low dose of a, of a, of a bipolar medication completely changed the game for me. Like I. I, I used to struggle a lot with suicidal ideation and just like, you know, the, the smallest things would send me into a pit of despair. Uh, and I’m doing a lot better with that.

[00:19:20] Cory: The, uh, the problem is I’m very dependent on that medication, and so if I forget to take it for a day, like there will come apart, there will come a time in the next day where I will just completely crater and not know why for several hours and then be like, oh, oh, I see that, that happened to me a couple of days ago.

[00:19:43] Cory: And it, it coincided with me trying to like, work on my next creative project and like ending up lying on the floor, being like, why am I even doing this? This is so fucked. I, like, I, why did I even try and do this in the first place? It’s broken, it’s gonna take me seven more years. And, [00:20:00] uh, and then, and then like, it wasn’t until like I had to go do something else, I had to go pick up my little brother.

[00:20:05] Cory: Uh, and I was like driving on the way there and I was like. Oh, oh, I see what’s happening.

[00:20:13] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:14] Christina: Yep. Yeah, I think we, I think we’ve all had those moments. Uh, like, uh, if, if you’re on something, especially if it has like a shorter half-life where you start to feel either the withdrawal effects or like the lack of the medicine working one or the other, and you’re like, oh, okay. Um, this is what’s going on.

[00:20:30] Christina: Um, it, it’s not, not not to compare the two 'cause they’re different, but it is some similar, like, there will come a time like every month where I will be like going through something emotional or, or feeling a certain way and I’ll be like, oh, right, right, right. Okay. I’m on my period. That’s what this is.

[00:20:45] Jeff: Mm.

[00:20:46] Jeff: Yeah. is, it, I think it is similar. I think it’s 'cause it’s a, it, it, it takes a little bit for, for, for my conscious mind, certainly to catch up to whatever the sort of chemical state of my mind is.

[00:20:57] Christina: Yes.

[00:20:59] Jeff: Yeah, yeah,

[00:20:59] Brett: I, [00:21:00] we don’t, we don’t have to mention names, but I will because it is generic. Uh, but I take Lamotrigine for bipolar and

[00:21:09] Cory: do I.

[00:21:09] Brett: there you go.

[00:21:10] Jeff: that’s, that’s three of four of us.

[00:21:13] Brett: and,

[00:21:13] Jeff: Christina, we can send you some.

[00:21:15] Brett: Our guest.

[00:21:16] Christina: I’m

[00:21:17] Cory: No, don’t take some, because, because it true, it’s true. That part of the problem is the withdrawal. Like I, I do feel weird that I’m like

[00:21:23] Cory: fully addicted to it is. Yep. That’s where I was gonna go. 'cause our, our guest last week also takes Lamotrigine. So this is basically a Lamotrigine podcast at this point. Is this the moine, uh, corner but I, I will get, if I miss my dose of Lamotrigine, I will, it’ll take about eight hours, but I will get all skin crawly and it’ll feel like, it’ll feel like withdrawal and, and I’ll get crabby and cranky and then the mood swings will, like, I won’t regulate as well.

[00:21:57] Brett: Like ups become real ups and [00:22:00] downs become real downs and Yeah. Like I have gone, it, it is, I have, there have been times I have not realized I missed a dose until the next dose,

[00:22:09] Christina: Right. Be because you didn’t feel it. Um, I, I was on a, an on an antidepressant, um, uh, fl lie, Effexor, I guess would be the, um, uh, professional, uh, name or, or the commercial name. And I’m not a, I’m not on this anymore, so this is not a, a advertisement, but I was on it for like, the better part of 20 years. And, uh, it has an incredibly short half-life, like to, to the point that it’s a problem.

[00:22:32] Christina: Like you will, you’ll feel the withdrawal like quick and, and it is, and it is a bad withdrawal. And so I got, I had to get very good about not forgetting my meds because it would be like four hours that you would start to, like, I would start to feel like. You know, like wanting to peel my skin off and, and like the, like the bitchiness would like come out like times 10 and it would be like, oh, okay.

[00:22:53] Christina: To the point that actually that medicine wasn’t working for me anymore and I needed to get off of it. And like, it was a very [00:23:00] protracted process to get off of it because the withdrawal was like not great. But, uh, so, which is all to say like, everyone, like take your meds at the right schedule. Like don’t fuck up your body

[00:23:10] Brett: this is, this is, this is a frequent topic for us. Well, and I.

[00:23:13] Cory: Take your meds on the right schedule and the smallest amount that you can get away with

[00:23:17] Christina: 1000%. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

[00:23:20] Jeff: even pulling back from specifics, I think the, one of the hard things about, like I, you know, I started, I think my first experience with medication was around 2020, like that 2020 is what we’re gonna call it. Um, and I think that like what usually leads to, in my case, what leads to me being, you know, prescribed a medication is something that I start to realize is like.

[00:23:45] Jeff: Really off, but maybe can be helped rather than just being this like static thing that’s part of me. And so then you get the medication and there’s a little bit of relief if it’s working. Um, and, and I think I let my guard down a little bit and I forget to sort of be witness to myself. And, and [00:24:00] usually then when I notice something similar to what you were saying, Corey is, it’s like, and, and Brett, it’s, it’s the point at which my skin is crawling.

[00:24:07] Jeff: And, and then I’m like, oh my God, how did I miss this? You know? Um, and, and I just like think that that experience, I was diagnosed with bipolar in 2021. And, um, one thing that came out of that that was just wonderful is I, I learned a lot about red flags. I learned a lot about where I could trust myself, but more importantly where I could trust that I couldn’t trust myself.

[00:24:31] Jeff: Um, which was painful at first, but then became. Kind of, I don’t know. It, it’s great. It’s like any, I, I look for those opportunities now inside of these experiences to be like, okay, what have I learned about myself and, and, and how can I hold that without, uh, without, you know, this context of I’m broken, right.

[00:24:48] Jeff: Just kind of like, anyway, but the specific to the ultra ultra gene, if I am, if I’m 36 hours out or less from having taken one, I am a, I am a mess. It is a [00:25:00] very, very unpleasant experience. So let us all remember. Yeah. It’s scary. It’s scary.

[00:25:05] Cory: to be dependent on something like

[00:25:07] Jeff: Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah.

[00:25:09] Christina: we talk about that a lot too. Like, like there’s, there’s like a, like the, at least for me anyway, the, the, um, dichotomy between like knowing you need these things, uh, to function and to live. And then like, also be independent on these things where, you know, like, at least in my mind, like I, I, I have this stupid notion like, oh, I should be able to just control this myself.

[00:25:30] Christina: And, and it’s like, no, but you actually can’t. Uh, that’s not how, um, the biology works. And, and that’s not how like, you know, like, like brain chemistry works. We can’t just will ourselves into these things. That’s, that’s, that’s not possible. Um, but at the same time, knowing it’s like, okay, there are these things that we put into our bodies that can have, uh, positive or negative, um, you know, impacts on how we act.

[00:25:53] Christina: And that’s kind of a, that’s cool, but that’s also kind of fucked up too. You know.

[00:25:58] Cory: yeah, yeah. I.

[00:25:59] Brett: I am [00:26:00] demonstrating great restraint by not re by not making a heroin joke at this Oh, well, I was gonna

[00:26:05] Christina: I was gonna say, I.

[00:26:06] Cory: say something about heroin actually.

[00:26:08] Jeff: Okay, well go.

[00:26:10] Cory: I, I, I was, yeah, well, I, I have a complicated relationship with like the, the idea of substance dependency because my brother died of a heroin

[00:26:18] Brett: oh my gosh. sorry to hear that.

[00:26:21] Cory: Um, yeah. Yeah. It was a hell of a year.

[00:26:25] Brett: Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I’m making light of it. I,

[00:26:28] Cory: no, I mean, that was, that was eight years of my life, but I, uh, I fortunately survived. I, uh, I can relate though.

[00:26:36] Cory: I make jokes about it all the time. Not about my brother specifically, but about

[00:26:40] Brett: Sure.

[00:26:42] Cory: Um, so it’s not, it’s not a big deal. It does get me sometimes, but, um, especially 'cause there’s a lot of, heroin has showed up in a lot of weird ways in my life throughout, throughout time. But, um, yeah, I have a, I have a weird relationship to substance [00:27:00] dependency because of that.

[00:27:01] Cory: Because, uh, you know, I don’t, I don’t wanna end up that same way.

[00:27:07] Christina: Right.

[00:27:08] Cory: Um, and the book, the book is actually partially dedicated to him too. I think. I think he, I think he really would’ve dug it. And there’s some stuff in the book about, you know, watching someone who’s close to you sort of not be able to help themselves in a way.

[00:27:23] Jeff: Older brother or younger brother?

[00:27:25] Cory: brother. Much older. Yeah. I a half brother.

[00:27:28] Jeff: Okay.

[00:27:28] Brett: Is your brother George, was your brother, George?

[00:27:32] Cory: Uh, George. Oh no, George is my grandfather.

[00:27:37] Brett: Oh, okay. Case. Case Wine Yeah. My grandfather also died in 2016.

[00:27:43] Christina: Oh, I’m so

[00:27:43] Jeff: Really? Oh my God.

[00:27:45] Cory: a hell of a year actually. Yeah. I, one of my, my, my, my only regret in terms of that dedication page is it should be dedicated to three people. It should be dedicated to case George, uh, and my buddy from grad school, Ryan, who killed himself the same year.[00:28:00]

[00:28:00] Cory: Um, he was an amazing writer and, uh, it was, yeah, it’s something that I still think about all the time, obviously, but yeah, it was just a, just a real wave of tragedy.

[00:28:13] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:28:14] Brett: We could also do a whole episode on suicidal ideation that could get really dark really fast. So we’re gonna avoid that since this is, this is technically part of your yeah. Yeah. Right, right.

[00:28:26] Christina: I was gonna, I was, I was gonna say. Yeah. But, but, but you’re, you’re mentioning like at, at the top, like you’ve had some like the, you know, like highest highs and like lowest lows.

Promoting the Novel

[00:28:33] Christina: Um, and I don’t want you to get into the specifics of, of either of those, but can you talk a little bit about, since this is, um, this isn’t your first book, but this is your first, um, novel, like what has the, the process been in terms of promoting this and like sharing with, with, with the world and like, you know, um, uh, I guess like, uh, dealing with feedback on, on what you’ve obviously put a lot of, uh, time into and, and

[00:28:53] Christina: have been wanting to do for a long time.

[00:28:55] Cory: Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, it’s, it’s been, it’s been super cool. It’s like [00:29:00] I, I, I had sort of picked as a semi arbitrary thing that I wanted to publish a novel by the time I was 35. I’m 35,

[00:29:07] Jeff: Nice.

[00:29:08] Cory: novel, so I feel like I, I achieved the thing that I wanted to achieve. Um, and you know, on, on the one hand, there’s a lot of like excitement and pride associated with that.

[00:29:19] Cory: You know, when I look, when I like, reread the parts of the book now I’m like, oh, this is actually good. Like this book’s actually good. And that’s, that’s cool. After doubting myself so much. Um, and it’s cool, you know, I went, I, I was in, I was in New York for part of the book tour and, um, it was, it was great to like have some, have a bunch of old friends show up to the book thing.

[00:29:40] Cory: And also people that I didn’t know who the publisher brought or whoever, I had a really cool talk at the book event there with, um, Maddie Lipsky, who’s a really talented like writer and, and comic artists and stuff. And she, she interviewed me for that. It was really cool getting to meet her that, you know, that left me with a lot of energy.

[00:29:59] Cory: Uh, I [00:30:00] went straight from there to Michigan and did a book event in Michigan. Um, and four people showed up to that.

[00:30:08] Jeff: Book events, huh? Am.

[00:30:09] Cory: but one of them was someone who used to read my blog back in the day

[00:30:14] Christina: That’s so

[00:30:15] Cory: that like, made me so happy that it didn’t, like it didn’t matter at all. Like, and, and the audience for all that.

[00:30:23] Cory: It was small. It was, it was like great audience. Everybody had, everybody had questions like it ruled. Um, and so, so I’ve had, I’ve had experiences like that. I’ve also had at least one book event where the room just felt dead, just absolutely dead. And I sort of felt like I, I sort of felt like a presenter in a pyramid scheme where I was like, every, you had to buy, you had to buy my book 'cause you’re here, but it doesn’t matter whether you read it, you just have to buy it.

[00:30:50] Cory: Uh, and that that left me feeling really low, left me feeling like a fraud and a scoundrel. You know, so like, it’s, it’s really, really both ends of the [00:31:00] spectrum, especially because, you know, once you crest the hill, once I crest the hill, I just see the next hill. I don’t really like, feel as if I’ve achieved something anymore because I’ve already, because I’ve already achieved

[00:31:13] Christina: You’ve already done it. So, so, so, so, so then you’re like, well, what’s the next thing? Right? Like, like, well, well, what’s the next goal?

[00:31:18] Cory: yeah. Which is make makes it easy to feel like I’m right back where I started,

[00:31:21] Christina: right. I was gonna say like, I hope you can take some time to like internalize and like be so proud of like, what you’ve accomplished and then like that you did like, set like that arbitrary goal, you know, publish your first novel by 35 and you did it right.

[00:31:31] Christina: And you’re like, you know, you have like a big publisher and you’re like, your book is out there and being read and like, you know, people are are, you know, somebody who like read your blog, like showed, you know what I mean? Like, I hope that, like that, that, I hope you can internalize and, and like feel like pride in that.

[00:31:45] Christina: 'cause I think that’s really incredible.

[00:31:48] Cory: Well, thank you. Yeah. In, in my best moments. I do.

[00:31:53] Brett: Yeah, I think we understand.

[00:31:55] Christina: Um, so, so, so for our listeners, do you wanna give us a little bit of an overview, just kinda like the, the high [00:32:00] level of, of what your book is about and um.

[00:32:03] Brett: Yeah. Let’s move into, let’s move into the two true and lie discussion.

[00:32:07] Cory: Yeah, let’s talk about it. So Two Truths and a Lie is a cyberpunk noir story set in a nearish future Los Angeles that is partially underwater, where information has replaced money. People buy, sell, and trade memories, and it focuses on this nasty old man, this war veteran named or. Who kind of gets dragged into the middle of a high profile murder investigation when it turns out it has something to do with an old lover of his, and it kind of goes from there.

[00:32:48] Cory: That’s the, that’s the book. How’s that? I’ve practiced that a

[00:32:50] Christina: No, no, I, I was

[00:32:52] Jeff: A.

[00:32:52] Christina: I was gonna say, you did a great job. So, so I, I have not read the whole thing. Brett has read it twice. I have not read the whole thing, but, um, what, [00:33:00] what I have read it, it was interesting. Um, and, and the pitch is, is, is perfect. It was so interesting to me. Um, and even the way that you described, um, it just now, but like, from what I read, like it makes sense that you’ve worked on, on games because a lot of, and, and I, I mean this in a very positive way.

[00:33:15] Christina: I wanna be clear. Like, when I read this, I was thinking, I was like, oh, you know what? I could see a great game being based on this sort of thing. Um, and, and, and to me that’s like actually like, uh, that, that, that’s me giving a compliment because that’s, I love adaptations. I love to things, see things like that.

[00:33:31] Christina: But I, in my head, I was kind of envisioning, I was like, this could be like a really interesting narrative game in some regards. And, um, I, I am curious like.

Inspiration and World-Building

[00:33:40] Christina: What your inspiration was in terms of how you were going about kind of creating the world that this takes place in. 'cause it is new, near future and, and you know, what your process was in terms of coming up with like, what’s the, the technology that they’re using and, and what’s kind of what, what are the differences and, and the similarities between what we have and, and, um, [00:34:00] how, how, how did, uh, what was your process for, for coming up with that stuff?

[00:34:04] Cory: well, I, I definitely take it as a compliment that it would, it would make a good game. I like games, obviously. I play a lot of games and I think of the, the writing of a book, at least as, as the playing of a game,

[00:34:20] Jeff: Mm.

[00:34:20] Cory: to some degree. I had a, I had a, an instructor who I really, uh, admired in graduate school who.

[00:34:27] Cory: Said basically that in order to write to the end of a book, you have to construct a sort of game for yourself. You have to have some rules that allow you to play out and generate the novel because writing an entire book is like an impossible task to conceptualize, right? It’s like so many words and so many events and, and so much stuff.

[00:34:52] Cory: It’s very hard to like hold in your head at once. But hu I think human beings in general, certainly [00:35:00] me in particular, are able to hold very complex game structures in their heads and understand all of the sort of weights and balances, uh, and, and systems involved in a game. And so I kind of play these little games with myself, um, or sometimes rope other people into playing these games with me.

[00:35:21] Cory: So the original idea for the story came when I was in grad school and somebody brought in, I went, I went to art school. This is important for understanding this story. Uh, 'cause in one of my classes, one of the other students brought in, uh, a book that she had sewed out of $1 bills. And she was like, this shows how information has become our new currency. Uh,

[00:35:51] Brett: totally an art school

[00:35:52] Cory: yeah, it’s a very

[00:35:52] Christina: totally is

[00:35:53] Cory: project. Uh, and I, and I was like, oh, but what if actually though? Like, [00:36:00] what if for real? And so I started spinning out like, well, what would it actually take? And, and I’ve, I’ve always really liked noir A mystery Seemed like a really natural place to explore that kind of thing, right?

[00:36:13] Cory: Because information is already so important in a mystery. And so I started trying to build this out and it was really difficult. To, to make it all line up because it’s a, it is, it is very different from how our world currently works in some ways. In some ways there’s a lot of overlap. But one of the things that I would do is I would talk to people about it, and I would tell them, like, I’ve got this worked out.

[00:36:38] Cory: Here’s what I, here, here’s how it works. And they would very understandably ask me a lot of questions about it. That, and, and I would not know the answers to those questions, but I would act like I knew the answers to those questions and I would answer them. And by doing that enough times, I eventually sort of built out an understanding of how this world was supposed to work.[00:37:00]

[00:37:00] Cory: And I built out the story by asking myself questions like that. Um,

[00:37:04] Jeff: Is that what you mean when you say making it all line up? Just making sure it essentially makes sense and everything follows a thread. Every little piece

[00:37:12] Cory: Yeah, I, I try to be very meticulous about that. I like, I. I don’t think that that’s a requirement to write a story. I don’t think everybody has to be really meticulous about it, but I,

[00:37:24] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:24] Cory: I cannot be, I, I cannot allow myself to leave a, leave a loose thread or a plot hole. That kind of stuff really bothers me.

[00:37:33] Cory: So, so, yeah, so like a lot of it was stitching up holes and patching things and bringing things together, which is tough because as, as you start, as I would start to revise something, if I changed one thing, then it, you know, changes something overweight in a different part of the fabric that I’ve gotta, like, bring into line, everything gets destabilized and then it’s gotta, gotta remake it all over again.

[00:37:55] Jeff: Um, a friend of mine is, he is a author, a Raphael Johnson. He wrote a [00:38:00] great book called The Through, which I really recommend, but he had a theater background and, and so I’m, I’m obsessed with process and I could ask you questions about process all day. And like I said earlier, I’m gonna just ask a couple only, but he had this really great, I use this all the time in my own work.

[00:38:14] Jeff: He had this, he has this great way of going over hi. His writing. When he is done, it’s like a theater person. He goes, I’m gonna do a lighting pass now I’m gonna do a wardrobe pass. I’m gonna do a sound pass. Right? Like, I’m gonna do all these passes, uh, settings pass. Um, so he is going through the book over and over with just that bit.

[00:38:32] Jeff: Like it little different from making it line up, but just making sure that he’s created the world that is as kind of full as it is in his brain, but has gotten it to the page. You, you’re describing something that like fits into a category. Uh, with that for me,

[00:38:44] Cory: Ian Fleming would do the same thing, uh, from what I understand, would write, write through the book, and just get the plot beats in place. And then the second pass was like, everyone’s like, what kind of watches is everyone’s wearing?

[00:38:55] Cory: And like

[00:38:56] Jeff: Very important. The Bond

[00:38:57] Cory: and all of that, like, yeah, exactly. Yeah. [00:39:00] Uh, there’s a, there’s a really great quote that I like from Walter Mosley, who’s a noir writer that I really admire. He wrote, uh, devil in a Blue Dress, I think is,

[00:39:10] Christina: Great book or screenplay rather. Yeah.

[00:39:13] Cory: and, uh, and, and he was answering the question, how do you know when a book is done?

[00:39:19] Cory: How do you know when you’re, you’re done drafting? And he said, what I would do is I would write a draft and I would read it, I’d see what was wrong with it, and go back and fix it. And then I’d read it and I’d see what was wrong with it. And I’d go back and fix it. And then I’d read it again and I’d see what was wrong with it.

[00:39:41] Cory: I’d have no idea how to fix it. And that’s how I knew I was done. And I was like that, that I, I hold onto a lot because I can be such a perfectionist about things. And at a certain point, I just have to be like, the problems that remain are beyond my ability to solve.[00:40:00]

[00:40:00] Jeff: yeah, yeah. But you also have to, I mean, the resilience that always amazes me about people who go through and finish a novel is like, you just described this cycle, but I always wonder, okay, when you hit that point where you’re like, eh, there’s something wrong with it. That can be a, like an existential crisis, right?

[00:40:16] Jeff: Like, but then somehow you lift yourself up and go, I’m doing another pass. It’s like, almost like it’s very masochistic.

[00:40:23] Cory: yeah, yeah. It’s, you have to believe that there’s something at the end of that, right? Like you have to, and this, this happens in making games too. Making games is a similarly torturous process. It can be,

[00:40:37] Jeff: With the extra layer of the studio.

[00:40:40] Cory: yeah. Well, even if you’re making a game by yourself, like, uh, games are so complex and every game is different from every other game.

[00:40:47] Cory: Even more so than every novel is different from, from any other novel. You’re very much building the plane as you’re flying the plane. But the, uh, the thing that helps with both of them, with any kind of creative project for me is to have [00:41:00] some spark somewhere of what this thing is about. Like William Gibson, I think once, once said that he would write the first line of his book and he would never change the first line after he had written the

[00:41:13] Jeff: Oh

[00:41:13] Cory: I can’t do that. Um, I, I have definitely changed the first line of all, everything that I’ve ever written, but there has to be something that doesn’t change. There has to be something that gives the thing its identity that to hold onto so that no matter how much it changes, no matter how many drafts there are, there’s a way to know that I’m making progress.

[00:41:39] Jeff: yeah.

[00:41:39] Brett: S speaking of Gibson, um, okay, so I read a lot of cyberpunk, um, and I read a lot of Gibson. And when I first started, uh, to truth and a lie, I immediately thought this is Gibson esque. And then I had to ask myself what that meant because. [00:42:00] These days, like current Gibson, I don’t even consider Gibson esque. Uh, when I say Gibson esque, I mean Mona Lisa overdrive.

[00:42:10] Brett: I mean, like early days, I mean like way back to like 400 boys Bruce Sterling era stuff. Um, like that to me is like the, the, or what used to be called hard, hard sf like hard sci-fi. Um, and that like when I started two Truths and a lie, I was immediately imbued with this sense of the old school cyberpunk feel.

[00:42:36] Brett: But it’s more developed, like once you get into it, it’s richer than old, old cyberpunk used to be. So I felt like you, you straddled the line between what I would consider quote unquote Gibson esque, um, and like a, a more heartfelt. Novel. So I guess the question would be like, how do you [00:43:00] see this falling into kind of the pantheon of cyberpunk literature?

[00:43:05] Cory: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a good question and I definitely take it as a compliment to, to have it be described as Gibson esque, like definitely I have been inspired by the velocity. Gibson’s early writing, the way that his prose moves. One of those visceral experiences when I, that I was describing earlier when I was talking about how books made me feel was Mona Lisa Overdrive.

[00:43:29] Cory: There’s a passage in it. I can’t even remember what the passage was. I just remember, I remember where I was sitting when I was reading it, and I remember like closing the book for a moment and just going like, because it just like had such energy. Um, but I think, you know, that for me was a starting point in terms of one of my influences and how my, my, my, my prose writing developed over time.

[00:43:55] Cory: But it was very much a starting point for me because there are also things that I struggle [00:44:00] with, with Gibson’s early writing. Um, and I, I, I remain a huge fan of Gibson. I love, I I love some of his more recent work too. Like the peripheral I

[00:44:07] Cory: find Absolutely.

[00:44:09] Cory: Um, some of, some like neuro answer the first time that I picked it up.

[00:44:14] Cory: I, I got like a couple chapters in and I put it back down because there is this paragraph where like, it’s like half in reality and half in a hologram, and you can’t really tell what’s going on because the, the pros is so dense. And I, I was like, I just can’t, I just can’t parse this. This is stressing me out a little bit.

[00:44:33] Cory: And I, and I put it down, I came back to it, I think after I read Snow Crash. Um,

[00:44:38] Brett: Yeah. Steven Stevenson’s a nice break from Gibson.

[00:44:41] Cory: And I, I blew through. I love Stevenson too. Um, and I, and I, yeah, and I, and then I, and then I blew through Neuro Me and I kind of got it, uh, a little bit more. But yeah, I wanted, I wanted to preserve the vividness and the momentum of the language, um, and create more clarity, but I [00:45:00] also wanted to develop my own aesthetic.

[00:45:03] Cory: You know, Gibson’s, Gibson’s writing is very much like that. Early writing comes out of like, right, isn’t it like eighties Toronto Street culture?

[00:45:12] Brett: Yeah,

[00:45:13] Cory: Um, and I don’t have any experience with eighties Toronto Street culture. So it very much comes out of like my aesthetic more and the people that I grew up with and the, and, and what grime meant to me growing up, because there’s a lot of grime in the book for sure.

[00:45:28] Cory: Um, and then, but like, but, but again, like having that core of something to know what you’re working on, part of the core of it for me is what I think of as the core of cyberpunk. It’s not the chrome or the laser whips or whatever. It’s, uh, it’s the stories of people who can’t afford space travel,

[00:45:49] Jeff: Oh, Right on. Right on.

[00:45:51] Cory: That’s, I, I, that’s, that’s not original to me. I think Bruce Sterling wrote that in the introduction to Burning Chrome, but I, but it stuck with me, [00:46:00] um, because it’s like, it, this is the, what, what it is about is it’s, it’s working class science fiction, you know, like it’s, and, and, and that’s what I’ve tried to hold onto is like, it doesn’t have the same technology.

[00:46:13] Cory: You know, one thing that’s really changed, I think in the way that we think about, um, cyberpunk is the concept of cyberspace.

The Evolution of Cyberspace

[00:46:20] Cory: Uh, because cyberspace is no longer a place the way that it was when, when, when Gibson was first writing, like the internet used to be a place that you went.

[00:46:30] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:46:31] Cory: and now the internet is just sort of this, this like sludgy mist that surrounds us at all times.

[00:46:40] Cory: This sort of ever present fog, uh, that both reveals and obscures. And, uh, and so having it, having it be more of a layer, more of an ever present thing that really changes the whole like way that a, that a world works. And I think a lot of other things follow from that. And I think that’s, that’s part of, [00:47:00] part of what is going on in two truths and lies is that, you know, that, that that technical world has so merged with the physical world that people are just, you know, buying and selling and giving up and trading their memories.

[00:47:10] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:47] Brett: la of like sidewalks and green spaces with a woman who was alive then, but didn’t have the technology to capture that memory at the time. And that memory is the [00:48:00] most valuable thing he can offer her, whereas it might not be worth anything to the next guy. But like he has, he has, and, and in the book or of, is dirt poor?

[00:48:14] Brett: I mean, all things considered, uh, he’s, he’s barely surviving. Uh, he’s living at the bottom of society. Um, but he has a couple of memories that in the right context are super valuable.

Economics of Memory

[00:48:29] Brett: So how do you see, how do you see the economic impact of, of having, of memory versus what we consider currency right now?

[00:48:42] Cory: Well, it, it, it, it definitely works differently than we’re used to. Money. Working money is traditionally fungible. Every dollar is the same as every other dollar. But also, you know, money is a really [00:49:00] elaborate fiction. Money. The, the, the, the idea in theory about money is that like I could go and turn it into gold if I really wanted to.

[00:49:10] Cory: That hasn’t been true in a very, very

[00:49:12] Cory: long time. Right now, now it’s just sort of like, well, why would you ever, you just trade the money? Um, but kind of the way that the information functions in the book is as, as a more directly backed currency, right? Each piece of currency can be traded. They can just be traded by file size if that’s what people wanna do.

[00:49:31] Cory: A lot of the, a lot of the, the exchange takes place in the form of demographics 'cause they are pretty fungible. It’s just like a bunch of people’s software or, uh, soft drink preferences or whatever. And you, you, you trade those back and forth basically the way that you would trade fiat currency. Um, but all, all data has an end point where it’s uniquely val valuable.

[00:49:53] Cory: Uh, which means that like there is not a separate vault. That all of the [00:50:00] money corresponds to the information is kind of its own vault. It carries its own vault with it, it carries its own value. Um, because, you know, eventually this piece of information is going to be genuinely useful to somebody, uh, which enables more of a, kind of an, a narco synthesist, uh, government a little bit going on in, in this, in this version of Los Angeles, where it doesn’t, there, there doesn’t need to be a central authority that says this information is valuable because the information is all valuable to somebody.

[00:50:35] Brett: Sure. Yeah. No, I like that. I like that

[00:50:38] Jeff: What, did you start with this book? Did you start with that? Did you start with that as this sort of rough idea, this kind of economy of memory? Or did you Yeah. Where did it start?

[00:50:47] Cory: Um, the, yeah, the idea was I wanted information to be currency in some way. That was the kernel of the idea. And as, as, as I had to [00:51:00] actually make plot decisions, it gradually became clearer and clearer what that meant. Um, you know, originally it was a little bit more depersonalized, if I’m remembering correctly.

[00:51:11] Cory: It was a little bit more like you had piles of data, but you, they weren’t necessarily your memories. And then over time, I started to realize like, part of the reason that we don’t pay money for most information now is because. It’s infinitely duplicatable. Uh, and so to have information function as currency, it has to, it has to be handled better than NFTs were handled where you could just right click and, and save the jpeg.

[00:51:43] Cory: Like it has to actually be like a, like almost an object that only one person can possess. Uh, and so that’s kind of where the idea of, uh, taking and giving and removing memories came in.

[00:51:57] Jeff: Yeah. Because when you pay someone a [00:52:00] memory in this world, you lose that memory

[00:52:03] Cory: Right?

[00:52:04] Brett: and it, it is not, it’s not duplicatable. Is that, I can’t remember. In, in the world of the book, is that a choice? Like, can memories be duplicated?

[00:52:18] Cory: Uh, memories cannot be duplicated if they are, if they are minted to trade

[00:52:26] Brett: Okay, so they are, they are, they are. The idea of NFTs, not the execution Yeah, yeah, yeah. Imagine. Imagine if,

[00:52:35] Brett: Right, In this economy, what would money laundering

[00:52:39] Cory: oh, that’s, you’d have to read the book to find

[00:52:41] Jeff: Oh, good. Good.

Queer Love Story in Fiction

[00:52:44] Brett: So another, another topic is the kind of queer love story at the center of this novel, and I read a lot of queer fiction and the stuff I appreciate about the best of queer [00:53:00] fiction is that it doesn’t have to recognize that it’s queer. Um, it just sees like this is, this is a man who loves another man.

[00:53:09] Brett: This is, this is a man who can love either gender, all genders equally. Like it doesn’t have to be brought out as a, as a you. You don’t have to draw attention to it. It just is, um, this character isn’t gay. This character is just a character. Um, and ORs love interest in this story is another man. But it becomes clear in the reading that Orv is not impervious to the wiles of the, the feminine kind.

[00:53:42] Brett: Um, he is, as far in my reading of it, he’s pansexual if bisexual, if not pansexual. Um, and I appreciate that. That’s never, uh, elucidated like that never needs to even be [00:54:00] stated. It just is. Um, and from our, our pre-show conversation, my interpretation, and I don’t need you to, to confirm or deny this, my interpretation is that you’re a straight man writing queer fiction.

[00:54:17] Brett: Um, and you’re, you’re welcome to, you’re welcome to debate me or to correct me on that. But, um, I think it was a really well done queer love story.

[00:54:30] Cory: Uh, well, I, not that I, not that I have to answer your question, but the way I would answer your, I, I, I’m, I’m still going to, uh. I am, I, I am a, I am a cis man, married to a cis woman who has loved men. That, that, that is how I would, how I would describe myself. Um, and or is or, or does not exactly one-to-one map to my own predilections, [00:55:00] but, or Yeah.

[00:55:00] Cory: 'cause Aura is definitely a disaster. Pansexual. He, uh,

[00:55:05] Brett: I like that.

[00:55:07] Cory: uh,

[00:55:07] Jeff: Did you create that?

[00:55:09] Cory: no,

[00:55:09] Jeff: Okay. This is not a term I’ve heard, and it’s an

[00:55:11] Jeff: amazing I’ve, I’ve, I’ve heard disaster bisexual. I’ve never, I, I don’t know that I’ve heard, but

[00:55:17] Christina: was gonna say, I’ve, I’ve heard disaster buy Disaster pan though. I like, I I I

[00:55:20] Cory: yeah. I feel like, I feel like it’s, I don’t, I don’t feel like that’s much of an innovation to say that,

[00:55:25] Christina: but, but, but I like the riff anyway. I’m just, I’m just saying. I’m just, it’s, it’s a good riff.

[00:55:29] Cory: Um, but yeah, so he, yeah, he, he loves who he loves and I think that, uh.

[00:55:36] Cory: I kind of, I think I kind of took some inspiration from other noir for that. There’s a, there’s a Raymond Chandler book that I really love called, uh, farewell My Lovely. And you think of these private detectives as like, oh, they’re, they’re men’s men and they’re making out with all the women, and they’re, you know, and then, and then, and then they punch all the guys.

[00:55:57] Cory: Uh, and [00:56:00] you know, Philip Marlow, for the most part is like that. He’s really kind of scornful and horny with all the women in the story at the same time. But there’s this beautiful moment where he like meets this dude on the docks, this, this, this gorgeous man with violet eyes. And, and he, he like gets this guy’s help to get him onto a boat.

[00:56:22] Cory: And they spend a long time in the dark on this boat.

[00:56:25] Jeff: Hmm.

[00:56:25] Cory: He and he talks to the guy about how scared he is about this boat that he’s going on to, and the guy is like comforting him and trying to take care of him. And he, you know, he describes this guy, he keeps talking about his eyes and he keeps describing how he is the nicest man that he’s ever met.

[00:56:41] Cory: And like, you know, and they touch and all of it. Like, and I don’t know, I, I really don’t know how intentional it’s, but it felt like it had to be intentional. You know what I mean? Um, and so there’s this weird, there’s this, not, not weird, but like very interesting interplay of these private [00:57:00] detectives who are very, very sort of isolated by their profession, isolated by some of the things that they’ve seen and experienced, uh, and don’t necessarily know how to describe themselves or how to relate to other people, how to be close to other people.

[00:57:17] Cory: Sometimes find themselves being closest to people, uh, who. I don’t know who, who, who share something with them that they’re not even sure how to describe in themselves. Uh, and so I wanted ora to be, uh, complicated and fluid and, and tender more openly than, than like a 1950s more hero could be.

[00:57:46] Brett: Yeah, I think you did a great job. Like it reads, it reads like great queer fiction to me. And I know in your, in your, uh, what do you call it, a soundbite synopsis that you [00:58:00] gave like queer didn’t come up. Um, and, and I feel like that’s not it. It, it’s not a focus of the novel, but I think it could sell that way.

[00:58:10] Cory: Yeah. I mean, it has, you know, it has, it is, it is categorized, it’s been described that way. I feel a little bit uncomfortable describing it that way myself, because I am a cis man married to a cis woman, and so I don’t feel like, I feel like I don’t want to use that as a marketing crutch, even though it’s an element of the book.

[00:58:29] Brett: I appreciate that. I

[00:58:30] Cory: a, like, how, how do you do fellow kids kind of thing. But I just, I wanted to try and be, I wanted to give as accurate and genuine a depiction of, of love as I could.

[00:58:41] Jeff: How do you do fellow disaster? Pansexuals.

[00:58:43] Cory: Right.

[00:58:47] Brett: Oh, that’s great. That’s awesome.

Writing Dialogue Trees for Video Games

[00:58:49] Jeff: Hey, wait, now I know, I know we’re running out the clock here, but, uh, I, I wanna ask you about, um, writing dialogue trees for video games. And, and [00:59:00] if you can, uh, describe what one is, it’s a little intuitive maybe to people, but describe what one is and describe about, uh, describe the challenges of that or the experience of that as opposed to writing dialogue in a novel

[00:59:12] Cory: Oh God. quicker than that.

[00:59:15] Cory: yeah, writing, writing dialogue trees is hard, uh, because you’re anticipating a bunch of different possible routes in the conversation, and it’s, it’s difficult to do that without diluting the effect of the conversation. One of the nice things about writing a linear conversation is you can pick the most dramatic, uh, responses to every, every moment in the conversation.

[00:59:39] Cory: And when you’re writing a branching dialogue, if you want it to have the same impact, you need to have like three to five of the most, the most dramatic possible responses all prepared. And so it’s a lot of, it’s a lot of like holding a bunch of different possible versions of the conversation in your head at the same time.

[00:59:56] Cory: Like, can players end up here from different directions [01:00:00] and will they have different information? And do I need to keep this somewhat vague so that it can work in both of the situations? You know, what are the gather points that I can use so that this doesn’t just become like an exponential mess that is like a million words for one, one-off conversation.

[01:00:14] Cory: Uh, the tools are also important and usually kind of janky. They’re finally making some better branching dialogue tools. Uh, some I like more than

[01:00:25] Jeff: What? What have you used and liked? I’ve tested them just as a creative experiment.

[01:00:31] Cory: My favorite is that I’ve used is ankle. I haven’t gotten to use it much for work, but that’s something to use if you like.

[01:00:40] Cory: Scripting generally, it’s like a scripting language, so, so you’re writing it out, um, in a sort of text editor. Other people, I think, prefer a more visual scripting language like Twine. Um, and there are a lot of visual scripting languages. The one that I use for work now, I think I can say [01:01:00] is, uh, OEI, it’s obsidian internal Dialogue Engine.

[01:01:03] Cory: I don’t know if you have

[01:01:04] Jeff: Oh, huh.

[01:01:05] Cory: but, um, but it, uh, it, it is, it is like a node based system. You connect one node to another and you make a, make a web and that’s fine. Like, it’s, it’s decent for, for visualizing the conversation. Um, I think I prefer just because of my own predilections, I guess.

[01:01:22] Cory: 'cause I like writing prose. I prefer to have it just written out as text.

[01:01:26] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. One more. Uh, uh, uh, when, when you do level design, which you, you did with red fall, um, I was asking, I, I had my, my son look through all of this, he gave me an interesting history of red fall that we probably don’t have to go

[01:01:39] Cory: Yeah, we don’t have to go into

[01:01:40] Jeff: painful. I don’t wanna, I, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna cause pain.

[01:01:45] Jeff: Um, but what is level design and, and how, you know, as opposed to narrative design for people that aren’t like immersed in this.

[01:01:52] Cory: Uh, well, arcane was a, uh, a really exceptional studio, rest in peace, [01:02:00] um, because it was a very much like level design driven studio. The way that I would describe it at the time was like, there are a lot of people at a game studio whose job is to make pizza toppings, uh, make like really delicious pizza toppings, uh, or to make the, make the crust of the pizza, to make the sauce of pizza, to make the cheese and everything.

[01:02:26] Cory: I, as a level designer would assemble the pizza. Uh, I wouldn’t even put it in the oven. I’d just assemble the pizza. Uh. QA cooks the pizza and serves the pizza. But, um, yeah, level designer takes all of the beautiful things that everyone made and arranges them into hopefully pleasing pattern.

[01:02:46] Jeff: That is a lovely way to describe it, huh? Thank you for that.

[01:02:50] Cory: Yeah.

[01:02:51] Brett: Can we, before Jeff has to go in 10 minutes, um, can we talk quickly about tools, uh, that you [01:03:00] used, uh, for the actual

[01:03:02] Jeff: Yes. And I have, I have more time now, so I,

[01:03:04] Cory: Oh,

[01:03:04] Brett: Oh, okay.

Tools for Writing and Productivity

[01:03:06] Brett: So yeah, what, what platforms do you write on? What tools do you use? How do what, what all goes into bringing your novels together?

[01:03:16] Cory: I, uh, discovered partway through the process of writing two truths and a lie, a tool that I really like. I use Scrivener.

[01:03:26] Brett: Yes. I was really hoping you were gonna

[01:03:29] Jeff: so

[01:03:29] Christina: I was too. I was too,

[01:03:32] Cory: I do have some problems with Scrivener. Um, the fact, the fact that like, you can’t select text from like multiple sections at once. I, I find irritating. Like little, little, little irritating

[01:03:44] Christina: The, the, the, the sync is bullshit. Can we just, can we all admit that, that, that their syncing stuff

[01:03:49] Jeff: I haven’t used it in a while. It was rough in the past.

[01:03:52] Cory: Oh yeah. I never, I

[01:03:53] Christina: Don’t do it. Is is basically what they even tell you. They’re like, yeah, Google Drive, it’ll probably break. Dropbox is better. Don’t use [01:04:00] Box under any circumstances.

[01:04:02] Christina: iCloud is not a thing, but like if you’re ever wanting, at least for me, if I ever wanna write something like on my iPad, and then I wanna access the same thing, I’m like, are you fucking serious? Anyway, that’s my only gripe with Scrivener,

[01:04:12] Cory: yeah, I, I, I just use it on one computer and straight up, but I will look, I could, I could, I could talk shit about all the little details, but I know all the little shitty details because I use it so much

[01:04:22] Christina: Right, exactly.

[01:04:23] Cory: it has a lot of functionality that I, that I can’t get anywhere else.

[01:04:27] Cory: Being able to rearrange, being able to rearrange chapters and sections. Um, being able to, the, the, the feature that I use, maybe the most other than that is, uh, taking snapshots of, uh, of text, uh, before I rip out a bunch of it and change it. And I, I almost never actually use the snapshots that I

[01:04:48] Jeff: But knowing it’s there,

[01:04:49] Cory: Exactly. It allows me to do the messy work and

[01:04:52] Cory: not I am like that

[01:04:53] Brett: with Git for sure.

[01:04:54] Cory: that I, yeah. That I’m gonna be like, I’m gonna be like with my guts all the way up inside the, or my [01:05:00] hands, all the way up inside the guts of the cow and then be like, oh no, oh, I shouldn’t have done this. Now,

[01:05:06] Jeff: all been there, Corey. We’ve all been there with the cow. I

[01:05:09] Cory: yeah.

[01:05:09] Cory: With the cow, we’ve all, yeah, whos amongst us. Uh, but, and then, and then the third feature that I, that I, that I love about it, that really got me through. I have a, I have another manuscript that I’m, that I’m polishing up right now. Um, and I don’t have a lot of time to write because I have my day job. So in order to get through the first draft of this newer manuscript, I was like, okay, I am gonna write 500 words a day, which is gonna give, which, which if I do that five days a week and in no time, I’m gonna have 70,000 words, which is what I’m trying to hit.

[01:05:46] Cory: Um, yeah, I, I, I feel like that was like three or four months or something of, of writing. I don’t know. You can, you can do the math. I’m done doing the math. But, uh, but I basically, I just put all of those there. There’s like a [01:06:00] writing target tool in Scrivener, and I put all of those numbers into the writing target tool and it would just be a little window every time, every time I logged on and I didn’t have to think about it, I could see a little progress bar fill up and it felt really good.

[01:06:12] Cory: And it got me through, uh, to the end of the first draft, which is the, the first major hurdle of, uh,

[01:06:20] Jeff: Okay. Here’s a question. Uh, I, I’m trying to picture, I’m imagining your Scrivener uh, uh, set up right now. And so you’ve got, you’ve got your book, you’ve got it up in the, you know, you’re in the left hand column. You, you start at the top, you’re working your way down. You see the chapters, but then there’s like the dumping ground.

[01:06:35] Jeff: Um, where you can have all kinds of shit. What kind of, like, did you have reference material in there? Is that where some of the, you know, older versions lived?

[01:06:43] Cory: Um, well, the oldest versions of two treats in the lie were just written in, uh, open office, uh, which has its own problems, especially with loading large files. Uh, as much as I, as much as I love it,

[01:06:57] Christina: Corey, are, are, are, are I was gonna say are, are, [01:07:00] are, are, are you a Linux on the desktop user

[01:07:01] Jeff: I held back.

[01:07:02] Cory: No, I, no, I’m, I’m not. I have, I have, I have, I have, unfortunately, I have windows on all my machines. Uh, I try and use Microsoft products as little as possible, but I’m not quite well versed in computers enough to go without, entirely.

[01:07:17] Jeff: He says open office. Every one of our brains goes, Hmm. Linux

[01:07:20] Christina: Hmm. I was gonna Exactly

[01:07:22] Cory: just, it’s just, it, it’s, it’s free. This is the

[01:07:26] Christina: Fair enough. Fair enough.

[01:07:27] Cory: Um, but yeah, I was doing it all in open office. It, it, it was, it was a little bit, it was a little bit rough. So the, the old versions are all like ODT files and then, and then, yeah, like pieces that I cut out would go in that bottom section.

[01:07:44] Cory: But the other thing that would go in that bottom section is sometimes I just get stuck and I still need to do my writing for the day. And so I’ll just like open up a document in that note section and I’ll just like, freak out. I’ll just be like, oh, what am I [01:08:00] doing? Oh, I don’t know what this problem is.

[01:08:01] Cory: I’m gonna try and like, let’s try and, you know, lay out at least the bounds of the problem so that I can start trying to solve it. And like that generally is pretty effective for me.

[01:08:10] Jeff: That’s great. Nice. Um, do you ever use, this is totally random, but have you ever heard, oh, you’re not a Mac user, you’re a Windows user? And so I’ll tell you, there’s this app called Silver, um, which is a, it’s a text-based calculator

[01:08:28] Christina: Yeah, it’s really good.

[01:08:29] Brett: And, and when I’m programming and I just get my, like, stuck on a calculation, I’ll go into Silver and I’ll just write out like what’s frustrating me.

[01:08:42] Brett: And like, by putting it into words and seeing it together, silver can extract from that a calculation Hmm. and. And like, give me the answer. And in the process I’ll figure out the formula I need for the [01:09:00] function to come up with the answer I desire. Um, is it’s magic. It’s

[01:09:06] Jeff: is magic.

[01:09:08] Brett: But I imagine that’s the same as like opening up, uh, a scratch document and Scrivener and writing, writing that you have a problem and writing out the aspects of the problem and what it is you’re trying to solve.

[01:09:23] Brett: And in the process, coming out with potentially an answer for the problem.

[01:09:29] Cory: Yeah, yeah. That’s, that’s definitely, that’s definitely a part of the process.

[01:09:34] Jeff: I keep two documents open when I’m working on projects. One is a scratch pad, which is just to dump in whatever you want. And the other one is called distraction dump. So that every idea that comes that I want to go look up or whatever it is I just put there, I know it’s there. I can go like explore that thing that has nothing to do with what I’m doing later.

[01:09:51] Jeff: And uh, and the amazing thing is I never do it.

[01:09:53] Cory: Yeah. gonna say, do you ever, do you

[01:09:55] Jeff: No. But it lets me keep going. It lets me keep going. Right. Like it’s amazing.

[01:09:59] Cory: I, [01:10:00] I will say the other, the other tool that I use where my actual structured note taking is, is I use obsidian

[01:10:06] Jeff: Yeah. I love obsidian.

[01:10:08] Christina: Sitting is the best.

[01:10:09] Cory: I

[01:10:10] Jeff: I finally went full in about two months ago and it stuck this time.

[01:10:14] Cory: I don’t actually use any of the advanced features of it, like I don’t link internally or anything.

[01:10:19] Cory: I just, I just have a bunch of files in there. I use it for work too,

[01:10:23] Christina: I do too. I do too. It, it’s one of the few tools that’s like allowed, like, on our corporate systems, um, which are, are pretty, uh, stringent and, um, and, and I, I can’t access my, my corporate accounts on my personal devices. Um, and so, um, it, that does make it a little bit difficult for work stuff. I have to use a different, a, a special version of Google Drive, um, to, to sync things.

[01:10:45] Christina: But the fact that I can like, use like a familiar tool is really nice, even if I can’t access my, my stuff anywhere else. But that’s okay. 'cause it’s work stuff. But yeah, it’s nice to at least be able to use like a

[01:10:56] Brett: I love that all the tools you’re mentioning [01:11:00] are cross platform. So you’re, you’re, you’re a Windows user talking to a bunch of Mac users and we’ve all used all the apps you’re

[01:11:07] Brett: talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I, I, I, I wanna believe that we’re coming back out the other side of the era of, of like jealously guarded proprietary platforms.

[01:11:21] Christina: Yeah. know if that’s true.

[01:11:22] Christina: I don’t think we are, but I feel like the web has still sort of like, despite everybody trying to kill it is still kind of, you know what I mean? Like

[01:11:32] Cory: more what I mean. I don’t mean that those platforms aren’t gonna continue to exist and exert their influence. I think that there’s just starting to be a growing appreciation again for having control over your own shit.

[01:11:42] Brett: Yeah. Okay.

[01:11:43] Christina: No, I agree with that. I agree with that. And, and I, I feel like, like cross platform or at least like not being as, as, as you said, like jealously, like guarding, you know, for one or the other. Um. It is getting better. Uh, EE even with games, right? With things like the steam deck and, and stuff like that.

[01:11:59] Christina: [01:12:00] Making it at least more accessible to access games on,

[01:12:03] Brett: seam deck? What is

[01:12:05] Jeff: Steam deck.

[01:12:05] Brett: Oh, I think

[01:12:06] Christina: deck. Sorry. Yeah. No, I, that was my

[01:12:08] Brett: gotcha. Okay. Um, speaking of tools,

[01:12:12] Jeff: Nice

[01:12:12] Brett: you guys, would you guys like to do a GrAPPtitude?

[01:12:16] Jeff: Hell yes.

[01:12:18] Brett: Corey you down for a gude? Do

[01:12:20] Jeff: Corey’s like, I’ve been doing gude for 10 minutes.

[01:12:22] Cory: feel like, yeah.

[01:12:24] Brett: Yeah. And, and, and if Scrivener is your Gude, we’re good. Um, I, I’ll, I’ll kick it off my pick for the week, and I cannot remember if I’ve mentioned this before, um, but there’s a tool called Sendi.

[01:12:39] Brett: It is a PHP server based platform that is an alternative to MailChimp

[01:12:45] Christina: Yes.

[01:12:46] Brett: I think, 60 bucks one time fee. You get your own mail list server that uses Amazon’s email service. Uh, so for about a dollar, you can send out [01:13:00] thousands of emails to your list. Uh, it can keep track of your email, your mailing list.

[01:13:07] Brett: Uh, so if you’re a blogger or a content producer that wants to keep a mailing list where you have close contact with your. Fans, patrons, viewers, um, send, makes it like the, doing the same thing on MailChimp. In my experience, like the, the Envy alt mailing list, the Envy Ultra mailing list has, uh, about 13,000 subscribers.

[01:13:37] Brett: And it got to a point where if I wanted to send an email out to all of the people on the list, it would cost me a hundred bucks. And it, it got, like, it got to the point where I just couldn’t afford to do it anymore. Given NV Ultras very extended development period, um, and complete lack of [01:14:00] income. Um, so

[01:14:01] Jeff: unrelated.

[01:14:04] Brett: And now with Cindy, I don’t have to worry about it for a buck. I can email everyone on that list and as I develop my own mailing list for like Brett secher.com, um, which is a significantly smaller mailing list. But even as such, I can for pennies email everybody. So I, anyone who has a mailing list of anything over a hundred people, Cindy is, uh, an amazing tool.

[01:14:37] Jeff: Awesome.

[01:14:38] Christina: Uh, it’s funny, I went to their website, um, 'cause I, it was the tool that I thought there, there are a couple of these like this, but I think this is the one that, um, that gets like the, the best, uh, reviews in terms of user interface. Um, and uh, like Brett, you’re right there, like on their homepage. Like one of

[01:14:52] Brett: Am I really?

[01:14:53] Christina: Yeah. One of your tweets is like right there. Or like as like a, it’s funny because our friend cable, uh, Sasser is, is on there too. And our friend John Gru [01:15:00] were like, a lot of our people, like, I’m looking at their thing, but if I scroll down, I was like, oh, yep. I was like, there you go, Brett Terpstra.

[01:15:06] Christina: Cool.

[01:15:07] Jeff: In the pocket. A big mailing list.

[01:15:09] Brett: And, and it has a good API so you can automate, like I create, when I, when I email my Brett tur.com mailing list, I write, uh, an email in markdown with a couple of YAML headers with like, uh, email subject line and send date. And then I run it through a script and it just sends it out automatically to whatever lists I need.

[01:15:36] Brett: Um, so yeah, that’s it. I’m done.

[01:15:39] Christina: That’s

[01:15:39] Jeff: Awesome. Christina, what do you got?

[01:15:42] Christina: Okay, so I was actually, it was funny because before we started about this, I was hoping that we would get to talk about tools 'cause that’d be like a good gratitude thing. And Scribner was going to be a thing that I chose, but I’m not gonna choose that now. 'cause we already talked about our, our love of Scrivener.

[01:15:55] Christina: So, and, and Scribner’s. Great. Um, uh, and it is available on, on [01:16:00] Mac, windows and, and iOS, maybe Android. I have no idea. I don’t use Android. But, um,

[01:16:04] Cory: Worth the price

[01:16:05] Christina: definitely worth a price. Not very expensive, but like, it’s like 60 bucks or something. And like, I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a good app. Um, and, and any of my criticisms about it are because I really like it.

[01:16:16] Christina: Um, I really like, also like, it’s, it’s corkboard like mode. I, I don’t know, just in terms of thinking stuff out, like I think it’s a, it’s a really good tool. But, uh, no, my pick, this is gonna be nerdier, so I don’t, I can’t remember if we’ve talked about this or not, so. I don’t have a problem with the command line.

[01:16:31] Christina: Um, but, um, I was, uh, you know, like there’s a, a cool home brew gooey app called Cork. I dunno if we’ve talked about it. Um, it is, you can compile yourself and build it for Xcode. So Home Brew, um, uh, Cory is a package manager for, um, Mac Os. Um, the, the Windows equivalent is called Wing Get, and it’s actually pretty great.

[01:16:51] Christina: But, um, basically a way to easily install software, um, if you don’t want to have to go to websites or, or other things. [01:17:00] And, um, uh, or, or if you wanna get things that, that might not be installed in a, in a traditional way. Um, but Cork is an app that, um, Are you saying cork? Or? Cork?

[01:17:10] Christina: Cork, CORK.

[01:17:13] Brett: Oh, okay.

[01:17:14] Jeff: Not taking us back.

[01:17:15] Christina: Um, uh, so it, it’s uh, like, like, like the whole thing is that like if, if, if it’s home brew is, you know, having, um, I guess, uh, casks and, and is all about like the brewing, um, idea then like cork is, is I guess, uh, taking that same kind of metaphor, but it, it, it’s, uh, the, the website is Cork mac.app, but basically it’s just a, a really nice gooey, um, app for home brew and I really like it and it wasn’t that expensive, but like I said, it is completely open source.

[01:17:46] Christina: So if you wanna compile it yourself, you can, but I really like it. Yeah,

[01:17:51] Brett: you. You can also in store cork with home brew. So

[01:17:55] Christina: Yeah, you can

[01:17:56] Brett: just brew and sell cork and you’re good.

[01:17:58] Christina: yep, exactly. And if you like [01:18:00] it, then yeah, you, you can, you can pay for it. It’s like 25 euros or something, or pounds, like through their website and

[01:18:06] Jeff: In Seattle, they use Euros.

[01:18:07] Christina: Well, no. Well, well, the, well, the developer is, the developer is, is, is, uh, is, is is British, but like, uh, but no, it’s, it’s, it’s really cool.

[01:18:14] Christina: 'cause you can also, like, you can update packages like from like the menu bar if you don’t wanna have it open. And, um, you can like access basically all the home brew features that you would otherwise have to maybe deal with the command line for. Anyway. That’s my, that’s my pick this week is cork.

[01:18:28] Brett: Very

[01:18:29] Jeff: Awesome, awesome. I’ve been installing Homebrew stuff sometimes through Raycast lately, which is

[01:18:36] Christina: Oh yeah. No, I love, I I love that inter, that inter, the raycast integration is really good too. Yeah.

[01:18:40] Jeff: yeah, in the end, I always prefer just going back to the command line. I don’t know what it is,

[01:18:44] Christina: Yeah. Um, I, I, I will say, while, while you mentioned Raycast real quick, just for the Windows users out there, um, there’s a free, um, open source project that Microsoft actually runs, but they’re really good people called, uh, power Toys. And Power Toys Run is their version of like raycast or [01:19:00] Spotlight or whatever.

[01:19:00] Christina: And I, I know that team really well, and, and they’re fantastic. And so, um, they’re actually even building some stuff in to do some solver like stuff in terms of calculation things, in terms of being able to use natural language. So power Toys is power toys is, I, I, we’ve mentioned that before, but I’d give that another shout out for anybody on Windows.

[01:19:19] Jeff: Nice, nice. Well, I could go and then Cory, if you still have one, you could, it could be a Cory GrAPPtitude sandwich. I.

[01:19:27] Cory: Okay.

[01:19:29] Jeff: Um, so I am just a, like, slight context, uh, but I’ll be brief about it. Um, one, so I work in, in my work, I work with interviews all the time. Um, I do interviews. I, I work with other people’s interviews on specific topics.

[01:19:42] Jeff: I’m a researcher and a kind of program evaluator. So right now I have a hundreds of hours of interviews with, with foster youth. I have, um, many, many hours of interviews with young people who have been in the juvenile justice system. I have interviews I’ve been doing with agronomists, um, and for [01:20:00] years as I’ve worked with interviews, first as a journalist and now doing what I’m doing now, when I could, what I would do is I would pay somebody to transcribe and I’d pay somebody different to read the transcript along with the audio and correct it.

[01:20:12] Jeff: Always someone different. And when, um, when AI came along, um, I’ve been, more than a year now, I’ve been playing, trying to get to what felt like a really, a really like. As predictable, as is realistic, um, workflow to, to be sure that some of the jargon and, and some of the, you know, dialect stuff, anything like that is being caught.

[01:20:36] Jeff: And so that I can, before I’m even reading through a transcript, I can get it to as good a place as I can. And ideally as good a place as it would’ve been with a second person, which was still imperfect, um, you could have maybe done a third and then you would’ve had it perfect. Um, and so I had, my pick is actually Notebook l lm, um, so I’ve been using Claude Chatty, GPT I’ve, [01:21:00] I’ve messed with so much of this, actually was on the phone with Merlin yesterday just learning his workflow because I’m trying to, trying to like get this workflow just right and I just had this kind of breakthrough.

[01:21:09] Jeff: And I, and I, the reason I select Notebook LM is that one thing that. Chat GPT is really, really bad at or good at, depending on how you look at it, is verbatim quotes. If I were to give it a transcript and say, even just say, do you know what a verbatim quote is? Start there, give me an example. Three examples of verbatim quotes.

[01:21:28] Jeff: Okay, if you win that one, then I say, now I want five verbatim quotes on this topic. Whatever. Right? Um, always making shit up. Always, always, always. No matter how much I like banged up against it notebook LM is amazing because it will give me verbatim quotes with a footnote that I can hover over and see exactly the point in the transcript it pulled it from, and so that I can be sure right away 'cause to be clear to anybody who might be in the field and worrying.

[01:21:54] Jeff: I don’t use quotes just because chat GPT gave them to me. I go and I find them and [01:22:00] that’s how I know it’s making them up. Um, and, and Notebook. LM has been great and what I’ve been doing, I. Which I’ve tried elsewhere, but it works better with them is I just feed it all these documents that are in the relevant area, that have all the various jargon, terms, whatever it is, frameworks, all that stuff.

[01:22:16] Jeff: And I’m able to say, Hey, reference this stuff and, and transcribe this and then clean it using that, you know, that those reference materials and, and I still end up using a combination of that and Claude both are just really good, but Notebook, lm, which I had tried early, had set aside, but they’ve now added some features, including just a huge, you know, a very generous limit to how much context documents you can give it just so generous,

[01:22:42] Christina: Yeah, no, I, I, I do know. So, so, so I, because I know my team does not work on notebook L, but it uses the underlying like, uh, Gemini stuff. Um, and so, um, uh, yeah, that, that is an important thing to note. You mentioned about the context, like that is one of the really good things is you can upload like. Like [01:23:00] hundreds and hundreds of pages worth of stuff.

[01:23:02] Christina: Um, and what’s nice about that is that especially if for what you’re doing, like transcripts and whatnot, like you don’t have to, like, it will be able to kind of keep that in. Its in its memory right then and there not having, so you don’t have to do like, separate rag stuff if you’re wanting to get specific things, you can just, you know, uh, one shot all of your, you know, files or, or, or transcripts or whatever and, and, and ask questions about it, which is really

[01:23:25] Jeff: yeah, yeah. It’s amazing. And it’s become part of the stack because look, I have four pinned tabs in my browser all the time. Notebook, lm, Claude Gemini, and ChatGPT PT because at this point in the development of all this stuff, trying to get to where you want to get usually involves kind of chaining some of

[01:23:42] Christina: Fully agree.

[01:23:44] Jeff: Um, so anyway, I, I really have appreciated coming back to Notebook lm and being like, this is now exactly what I need.

[01:23:50] Christina: That’s awesome. That that’s great. And if you have for, uh, further feedback, let me know and I’ll, I’ll get it to the right people. But, um, uh, yeah, so, uh, and, uh, Jim and I has a good, uh, YouTube [01:24:00] support now too, both in the consumer app and in the AI studio thing. So if you give it like a link, it can like, go through the transcript of like what’s, you know, in that link or give you a summary or give you, you know, like timestamps and stuff.

[01:24:12] Christina: Um, and I think it works for private stuff too. I’m not, I’m not sure. So that’s, that’s something to think

[01:24:17] Jeff: here. Here’s the feedback. Let me fucking change the word spacing. The line spacing and the fonts. 'cause the default sucks and you can’t change it at all. That’s my own. You go to Claude and it’s beautiful, right?

[01:24:28] Christina: No, that’s really good feedback. I will, I will, I

[01:24:30] Jeff: very ugly. Corey in Corey, in case you didn’t pick it up from context. Christina’s new job is that Google.

[01:24:37] Cory: Oh, cool. Congrats.

[01:24:40] Christina: Oh, thanks.

[01:24:40] Jeff: Ask her anything and she can answer. She’ll just answer with AI first.

[01:24:44] Christina: I, I, and you ask me anything and I can be like, dunno if I can answer that.

[01:24:49] Cory: Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah.

[01:24:51] Jeff: All right, Corey, take us home all.

[01:24:53] Cory: Well, I, I will, I will say first I, uh, one thing that I would’ve liked to di to discuss a little bit, unfortunately we’re gonna be out of [01:25:00] time, but I would’ve liked to talk about, uh, the, the way that AI shows up in, in two truths and a lie. Also, because I would’ve liked to talk to you guys.

[01:25:07] Cory: 'cause you have a very, like, practical on the ground understanding of ai. Which,

[01:25:12] Brett: Oh, now I really regret we didn’t get to that.

[01:25:15] Cory: oh yeah, no, what it, it’s fine. Just, just have me on again.

[01:25:19] Christina: yeah. We’ll have you on again actually, genuinely we’d love to have you on.

[01:25:22] Brett: would you,

[01:25:22] Cory: yeah. Yeah, I’d come back. I, like I said, I like talking to people, so Yeah. Bring me back.

[01:25:26] Jeff: We’ll cut you at the end of your end of your promotional

[01:25:28] Brett: right. Let’s do a part two.

[01:25:30] Cory: There it is. No, it’s so cute that you think the promotional period ever

[01:25:34] Jeff: No, that’s true. That’s true. Sorry. That’s my first day.

[01:25:41] Cory: uh, as far I, I’ll I’ll, I I, I was like, I was like frantically looking through apps on my phone, trying to figure out which one gave me a hit of

[01:25:49] Jeff: It’s what we all do at this point.

[01:25:51] Cory: yeah, yeah, yeah,

[01:25:52] Christina: literally that, that you just, you just described how gratitude works on this show.

[01:25:55] Cory: yeah, yeah. Hell yeah. So, uh, the one, the one that finally [01:26:00] stuck out for me is I went, I went to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, and I’m so tired, but it was very fun.

The Importance of Business Cards

[01:26:08] Cory: But on the way there, I realized that once again, I had forgotten to print out business cards. Ordinarily what I do is I just get nice watercolor paper, cut it into the shape of a business card, and write my business cards by hand. Um,

[01:26:24] Christina: really cool.

[01:26:24] Cory: find, people find it very striking, and

[01:26:26] Christina: Yeah, I was gonna say, I was gonna say like, that’s one of those things where like, you know, it’s, it’s like the reverse American psycho thing where you’re like, actually, like having, this is the most impressive part. Like this is the biggest flex to have this really pretty handwritten card versus my perfectly lly, you know, print red on, on, on, you know,

[01:26:43] Cory: think my handwriting is nice. So it, it, it, it works. It also, like people say, to give out your business cards like candy, I, I would rather be thoughtful about who I give my business cards to, but this year I didn’t have the paper on hand, or at least I couldn’t find it. And so I reached for another option and I [01:27:00] ended up with this app called Blink with A-Q-B-L-I-N-Q.

[01:27:05] Brett: have seen this.

[01:27:06] Cory: and it makes, it makes a business card. It lets you make a little business card and then you can, and then it gives you a widget too, where you can put a, uh, a Q QR code on some, somewhere on your phone. So I just had like a separate pane on my phone that was just the QR code. And so I would unlock my phone, go to that thing, people could scan it, it would take them to my business card, and I could put whatever information on it.

[01:27:28] Cory: I could make it look nice. And it wasn’t just a link to my LinkedIn, which as much as it’s fine to connect with people on LinkedIn, I, I am trying to create as much of a, like, network of influence outside of commercially top-down controlled platforms as I can. Um, I, you know, I wanna have people’s emails. I wanna, I want, I, I, I already, like, I already get the maximum number of spend calls possible, so I don’t really care about people [01:28:00] having my phone number.

[01:28:01] Cory: Um, so, so like, I wanna, I wanna be in direct contact with people. This allows me to give out direct contact information and get back direct contact information too. 'cause when people scan it, they get a little button to download my contacts, like, and just like, you know, get the, whatever the, the, the contact file is on your Yeah, yeah.

[01:28:21] Cory: You get a V card, uh, instantly and then it gives, and then it prompts you to put your information back in and then it sends me an email. With whatever contact information

[01:28:31] Christina: Oh, that’s awesome. Oh, it also, it also looks like they support, um, um, like Apple Wallet and, and Google Wallet, which that’s really cool. So you can share this as like a, a, a wallet item. That’s a, because I’ve actually, I’ve wanted to do that before for various things. That’s really, really cool.

[01:28:45] Cory: Yeah. It felt, it felt very easy. It, you know, it took me like 10 minutes to set up and it immediately ended my panic about business cards. So like, that’s why when I was scrolling through my apps, I was like, oh, this one actually did me a real solid recently.

[01:28:57] Christina: That’s awesome. That’s fantastic. Yeah. That’s

[01:28:59] Brett: [01:29:00] I would, I would, uh, tack on, uh, last time I went to a conference, instead of printing business cards, I developed a QR code that I, that downloaded my V card and I made it into my iPhone’s wallpaper.

[01:29:20] Cory: Yeah, yeah,

[01:29:20] Brett: Like the lock, the lock screen wallpaper. So when someone look at you info, I would just unlock my, or I would just hit the uh, wake up button on my phone.

[01:29:32] Brett: They would scan my screen and they would get my V card info. It did not have the added benefit of requesting their info and return. It was a one-way transaction, but it worked out

[01:29:43] Brett: pretty so much of this life.

[01:29:45] Brett: All of all of my QR codes on business cards go to my website slash qr, and then I just have an HT access file that redirects slash qr

[01:29:58] Jeff: It’s the most Brett thing ever.

[01:29:59] Brett: to, [01:30:00] to whatever place I want people to go.

[01:30:03] Brett: So usually it goes to like some old about me page, but I can like. or, or Like, I can redirect that to whatever the current hip, uh, like about page kind of thing is, or LinkedIn or whatever I want. Um, so just like all QR codes, go to that one URL and then I can change where that URL goes.

[01:30:28] Cory: That’s cool.

[01:30:29] Jeff: Nice. That’s a good one. Weird tip.

[01:30:31] Christina: No that. No, no, no. That’s a good one. I feel like you could use like the Blink thing, and now I’m like on Blinks website, they sell like NFC business cards, so you could like print a custom business card that you could put all your stuff in and then when somebody brings their phone up to it, it’ll just transfer that information like wirelessly.

[01:30:48] Christina: That’s actually kind of hot. That’s pretty cool. Well, great

[01:30:53] Jeff: Okay.

[01:30:54] Cory: there’s a free version though.

[01:30:55] Christina: Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. I was, I was, I

[01:30:57] Cory: be

[01:30:57] Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. It looks like it. It has like a [01:31:00] full free thing. I was just noticing and it was, but it was inexpensive. It’s like $14 to get an NFC business card, and I was like, actually that’s not a bad idea.

[01:31:06] Christina: Like that’s actually kind of a cool, like have one, that way you carry one card instead of like a hundred.

[01:31:11] Cory: Yeah.

[01:31:12] Christina: But All right.

Closing Remarks and Recommendations

[01:31:13] Brett: Well, in closing, I would like to recommend that everyone go out and buy two truths and a lie. And I do not say that lightly. Like seriously. I did not have to read it twice to do this podcast, but I did because it was that good. Um, I would love to see an audio book version of There is an audiobook

[01:31:34] Cory: version Is Yeah. It literally just saying, show it

[01:31:37] Cory: came out at the same time, uh, as, as the book. Yeah.

[01:31:42] Brett: fuck yeah. All right. did you do the reading or did someone else.

[01:31:45] Cory: I, I did not, I’m not quite Grammy enough.

[01:31:48] Cory: I got a, I got a very accomplished voice actor named Tim LBOs, uh, who is, yeah. He did a really good job with the noir voice of it.

[01:31:56] Brett: Oh, I’m gonna go get that too. I want the whole time. [01:32:00] I was like, I would love to hear how a a, an accomplished audiobook reader would, would in tone this line. Um, I also always read books from like, in my mind, I’m always trying to convert it to a screenplay, and I’m like, how would I, how would I demonstrate this?

[01:32:18] Brett: Yeah. Anyway, it gets nuts. Um, but anyway, please everyone check out two truths and a lie. It’s so good. Um, and thanks Corey for being here.

[01:32:31] Brett: I Thanks. Thanks for having me. It was great getting to know all of you.

[01:32:34] Christina: Likewise.

[01:32:35] Brett: are going, we are going to take you up on a part two. We’ll be, we’ll be in touch. All right, everyone, get some sleep.

[01:32:43] Jeff: some sleep.

[01:32:44] Cory: Oh, some sleep.

[01:32:46] Jeff: See ya.