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From Fan Fiction to Award-Winning Paranormal Mysteries: Phil Giunta on Testing the Prisoner and By Your Side
5 Plays14 hours ago
Join Jo on What's Kraken as we dive deep with award-winning paranormal mystery author Phil Giunta, who made the fascinating journey from Star Trek fan fiction to publishing acclaimed novels like "Testing the Prisoner" and "By Your Side." Discover how Phil writes across multiple genres including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and detective fiction, following in the footsteps of literary giants like Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison. Phil shares insights on the paranormal mystery genre, his self-publishing journey, and the crucial importance of reading your work aloud. Learn about his protagonist Daniel's haunting by angelic and demonic entities, psychic medium Miranda's story of self-forgiveness, and Phil's evolution from a young writer influenced by critique partners to a confident author who knows when to hold the line on creative decisions. Whether you're an aspiring writer or paranormal fiction fan, this conversation is packed with practical advice.
Key Topics Covered
- Phil's journey from fan fiction to award-winning original novels
- Paranormal mystery genre explained and explored
- Writing across multiple genres vs. specialization debate
- Self-publishing journey and re-editing older works
- The importance of reading your work aloud for flow
- Dealing with critique partners and beta readers effectively
- "Testing the Prisoner" - supernatural haunting story
- "By Your Side" - psychic medium redemption tale
- Building confidence as a writer and handling rejection
Guest Information
Phil Giunta - Award-Winning Paranormal Mystery Author
- Website: philgiunta.com
- Books: "Testing the Prisoner," "By Your Side," "Like Mother, Like Daughters"
- Awards: 8 combined awards for his paranormal mystery novels
- Published: 32 short stories across various anthologies and magazines
- Available on: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and major retailers
Connect with Empty Hell
Host: Jo Szewczyk
All Empty Hell Links: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell
What's Kraken Podcast: Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Amazon
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Phil Junta
00:00:07
Jo
Everyone, Joe here, and today's guest is a writer after my own heart. He is Phil Junta. As long as I don't look at the name, I can say the name.
00:00:18
Jo
Phil, thanks for telling me how say your name, and thanks for joining my show.
00:00:22
Phil Giunta
Oh, thanks for the invite. I appreciate it.
00:00:24
Jo
Oh, anytime, man. Anytime. And when I say near dear my heart, what's your genre for everyone? Sex.
00:00:30
Phil Giunta
Well, I write speculative fiction, right? And that's an umbrella term that usually contains science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
00:00:33
Jo
Right.
00:00:38
Phil Giunta
And I also write
00:00:38
Jo
Right?
00:00:39
Phil Giunta
also write inspirational. I'm all
Inspirations and Genre Exploration
00:00:40
Phil Giunta
over the map, right?
00:00:41
Jo
I love it.
00:00:41
Phil Giunta
Because I'm trying to follow The writers that I looked up to growing up, the people like the Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Philip Jose Farmer.
00:00:47
Jo
Oh, wow.
00:00:48
Phil Giunta
These are guys who wrote all over the place. They were writing a science fiction novel here, a a detective story over there, ah ah space opera over here, you know, and a ghost story over there.
00:00:51
Jo
Right.
00:00:59
Phil Giunta
And and that's to me, I always loved having that breadth of ability, that breadth of work that challenges me.
00:01:04
Jo
Right.
00:01:07
Phil Giunta
So if I'm out there one day and I see you know publisher throwing out an open call for robot stories over here, and then next month I see somebody that wants a utopian science fiction story over here, then the guy over here wants, you know, talented house stories, I'm going to try for all three of them because I just love all of these genres that I grew up reading and watching.
00:01:27
Jo
That's amazing. That's amazing. So when you see the call, do you write something towards the call or do you have something already done?
00:01:35
Phil Giunta
In some cases, I'll have a little inventory of short stories that are maybe ready to go.
00:01:38
Jo
Right.
00:01:40
Phil Giunta
But there's always a a new thing out there. There's always something new that you're encountering. You know, I recently, just on on Tuesday, had a utopian science fiction story that was published in an anthology that was calling specifically for that.
00:01:45
Jo
Absolutely.
00:01:54
Phil Giunta
And as it happens, about 10 years ago, I had written a short story that dealt with terraforming an alien planet and creating a utopia on a deserted planet
00:01:59
Jo
Really? Yeah.
00:02:04
Phil Giunta
And I thought, well, you know, those characters in that story... It was a nice conclusion, but they could do more. And so I wrote a sequel to that story, and I thought, well, you know, send it in. What hell?
00:02:14
Phil Giunta
are they going to do Worst thing that can happen is you reject it, and then you have that story in your inventory, as you just pointed out, that you can then shop around later.
00:02:21
Phil Giunta
I sent it in, and they they picked it up immediately. They loved it. Almost no edits, which is a rare thing. I can count on one hand how many times an editor has come back to me and said, you know, that's pretty perfect the way it is.
00:02:31
Jo
Perfect. Yeah.
00:02:32
Phil Giunta
That's very, very rare, but it did happen. And to it was a couple of, like, typo things here or there. they And they just published a Tuesday in an anthology. So yeah I love just jumping around, just jumping around.
00:02:40
Jo
Congratulations.
00:02:43
Phil Giunta
But yeah, Paranormal was kind of what I'm known for, mostly because the first two novels I published, or three, were were Paranormal Mysteries.
The Working Writer's Life
00:02:50
Jo
Okay. And that's interesting. And I have a question. I was at a conference last year. I'm setting the question up and people are talking about genre shifting. A people were mystery writers or sci-fi writers or horror or wherever they were.
00:03:02
Jo
And when they're talking about genre shifting, the name, the concept of using a different pen name came up.
00:03:09
Phil Giunta
Yeah.
00:03:10
Jo
Do you?
00:03:11
Phil Giunta
No. No. Bill Junta and everything I do, you know.
00:03:13
Jo
Okay. Okay.
00:03:15
Jo
Well, yeah, that's the thing. I couldn't understand. I understand sometimes if they were going from like a kid's book to a murder mystery, I sort of get
00:03:24
Jo
Cause you don't mind it like cross the streams that much. But I'm thinking like, man, like, aren't you the author of the brand itself?
00:03:32
Phil Giunta
I think you are. But at the same time, being... I'm very self-effacing. I don't consider myself a big-name writer. I'm just a working writer.
00:03:41
Jo
Yeah.
00:03:41
Phil Giunta
I have a day job. I write on the side. of just published my 30-second short story. really thrilled about that.
00:03:46
Jo
Wow.
00:03:47
Phil Giunta
But to me, I think if you're a bigger-name writer and you have that large following for this genre that you've been writing in, and then you decide, to your point, I'm going to go from murder mystery to children's book,
00:03:47
Jo
Wow.
00:04:00
Phil Giunta
Yeah, maybe then this large following that you have might be a bit discontented with the fact that you just switched over to write this nice children's book, or vice versa.
00:04:04
Jo
Right.
00:04:08
Phil Giunta
Actually, probably more vice versa. Here you are, this writer who writes these innocent children's books, right?
00:04:13
Jo
Yeah.
00:04:14
Phil Giunta
And, you know, you have a massive following of parents who buy these books and kids who love these books. And then you go over and you say, I'm going to write this, you know, slasher horror novel.
00:04:21
Jo
Yeah.
00:04:22
Phil Giunta
And you're like, maybe I should use a pen name because I might disappoint all these parents who think I'm this kindly, nice, and, you know, ah children's writer.
00:04:26
Jo
Just in case.
00:04:30
Phil Giunta
And here I am writing a slasher, blood and gore slasher horror novel. So in that case, you might think about maybe putting the pen name
00:04:35
Jo
Yeah, your mileage may vary. Or like Stephen King using a pen name in the same genre.
00:04:40
Phil Giunta
it. Well, yeah.
00:04:42
Jo
I'm too prolific. I'm about to use a pen name for my own stuff now. like but This is great. So you do paranormal. Okay. Paranormal mystery. Walk me through that genre. If I'm brand new to it.
00:04:52
Phil Giunta
Right.
00:04:53
Jo
What's the one?
00:04:53
Phil Giunta
It's basically, it's a mystery story. It has paranormal elements, right?
00:04:55
Jo
Okay.
00:04:57
Phil Giunta
So for example, let's just talk about, you know, testing the prisoner.
00:04:58
Jo
Okay.
00:05:01
Phil Giunta
For example, my very first novel was published by a small press some years ago.
00:05:03
Jo
Yep.
00:05:05
Phil Giunta
They went out of business. I republished a second edition, uh, in 2023 and went through re-edited, gave it a whole new cover, cover art, beautiful new book.
00:05:14
Jo
Right.
00:05:17
Phil Giunta
But really what it is, is, Think of this way. So, testing a prisoner. Small-town mayor, survival of child abuse, finds himself one day on the eve of his estranged mother's death, haunted by a demonic creature and an angelic creature, both of whom adopt his likeness.
00:05:32
Jo
Right.
00:05:33
Phil Giunta
And they are at war with one another over him. So, in order for him to solve this haunting, he has to go back and relive his abusive childhood in order to make a decision on something very important. Okay?
00:05:47
Phil Giunta
Someone, the fate of someone's soul. So here you have a mystery.
00:06:02
Phil Giunta
it
00:06:03
Jo
I like that. I like that. And it reminds me of it Isaac Thorne because the books that can happen, the paranormal mystery. Yes.
00:06:13
Jo
But the paranormal is there. You still have the mystery concept of it. It still works as a mystery. It still works as the, you know, grounded in reality.
00:06:24
Phil Giunta
Right.
00:06:25
Jo
And the paranormal is there.
00:06:25
Phil Giunta
Right. Yes.
00:06:26
Jo
Maybe the guy's hallucinating. We don't know, but you know, there,
00:06:29
Phil Giunta
Exactly. And so as it happens, he has an old flame who reemerges into his life from the past who also has psychic medium abilities. And like Luke had his Obi-Wan to guide him through something he didn't quite understand, our protagonist Daniel in this story has his old flame who has an ability to see things he can't and discern things that he can't in the paranormal.
00:06:37
Jo
Right. Right.
00:06:51
Phil Giunta
and to guide him through his misunderstandings or where he thinks things are going, and maybe they're not going that way. And she sort of keeps him on the path of trying to understand what's happening to him.
00:07:02
Jo
That's cool. It's very Bronze Age, too. they I was just thinking of something that's what would you happen that we have the people who could talk to the gods, talk to the spirits, and then the interpretations of, you know, sometimes it has to come along with that because otherwise protagonist might not know what's happening to me.
00:07:13
Phil Giunta
Right.
00:07:18
Jo
You need the Obi-Wan Kenobi.
00:07:20
Phil Giunta
Right, right. And that's, you know, very much the hero's journey, elements of the hero's journey of your protagonist and the mentor, you know, who helps them through up to a point.
00:07:21
Jo
I love it.
00:07:25
Jo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:31
Phil Giunta
The mentor only helps up to a point.
00:07:33
Jo
Yes.
00:07:34
Phil Giunta
Because I strongly believe in my life experiences that you can have all the support, emotional support and support that you need from friends and family. But in the end, you fight your battles alone.
00:07:43
Jo
Yes.
00:07:44
Phil Giunta
It's you against whatever it is you're fighting against.
00:07:46
Jo
You're demons. Literally sometimes.
00:07:47
Phil Giunta
You're demon. In this case, it actually is the character's demons.
00:07:49
Jo
Right.
00:07:50
Phil Giunta
It truly is.
00:07:51
Jo
Exactly. Yep.
00:07:52
Phil Giunta
And so he, in the end, has to make the decision alone the end of the book of what to do.
00:07:58
Jo
Always.
00:07:59
Phil Giunta
And so, you know, again, one I mentioned and in when we corresponded over email before this was high concept rating. And so in this point, you have elements of dysfunctional family.
00:08:13
Phil Giunta
Everybody knows what a dysfunctional family is like.
00:08:16
Jo
Yes.
00:08:16
Phil Giunta
Child abuse. Well, even if you've never experienced child abuse, you either know someone who has, you've read about it on the news, or it's there, we all know what it is.
00:08:19
Jo
Someone did. Yep. Yep. Right.
00:08:24
Phil Giunta
We all know how horrible it is. And also the common elements of forgiveness and redemption. Oh, that's just everywhere, right? So these are high concepts that anyone can relate to.
00:08:31
Jo
Yeah.
00:08:36
Phil Giunta
And I think that's why the book has done well. It's won eight awards. It's got great reviews. I just had media influencer give it her best indie read of February, of month of February.
00:08:44
Jo
Wow. That's cool, man.
00:08:45
Phil Giunta
I was thrilled. I mean, I think it touches a lot of people who have experienced child abuse and family dysfunction and and rift in a family and the need to really overcome and forgive and and redeem.
00:08:51
Jo
Yeah.
00:08:58
Jo
And that's what I really love about fiction is because you can do these higher concepts and package them to a part where it's entertaining so people can get into it and then see something of themselves in that book and learn something about themselves.
00:09:16
Phil Giunta
Yes.
Fiction Reflecting Reality
00:09:17
Jo
And I think it's brilliant.
00:09:17
Phil Giunta
And I that's the best part of fiction is that it turns a mirror to reality and shows you things that either you were too afraid to look at, too afraid to admit, were overlooking or whatever.
00:09:20
Jo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:26
Jo
Yeah.
00:09:28
Phil Giunta
But, you know, I think writers and artists, they have an eye to reality that can skew it a little bit and see a different point of view.
00:09:36
Jo
view askew kevin smith so when you say you had it as a novel first by a different publisher and as any publishers go they you know sometimes they're here sometimes they're gone later days sometimes next year whatever it is and you repackaged it you got the re-editing you got a new cover did you look at the original book as it was and going i can do better right now
00:10:01
Phil Giunta
Yes, because 15 years since then, you know, obviously we all learn and grow.
00:10:03
Jo
yes Right.
00:10:06
Phil Giunta
And for me, looking back on it, and I'm doing this now with some of my short stories, I'm releasing two-volume collection of my own short stories over years, and I'm going back, I'm like, oh yeah, I could tweak, not to the point where I'm completely changing the story, of course not, but you're tweaking the language, you're cutting out, when I was a young writer, let me you you a little story, i I was a young writer,
00:10:19
Jo
Right.
00:10:26
Phil Giunta
I was easily bullied by the critique partners and the beta readers and every other chef who had their hands in a damn stew.
00:10:33
Jo
Oh, yeah.
00:10:33
Phil Giunta
mean, you need to do this and you should do that. and should put this in the book. And I was sort of bullied, right?
00:10:36
Jo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:37
Phil Giunta
Because I'm young. I don't know. I'm starting off. I know what my story should be. But at the same time, here were all these experienced critique partners and these experienced beta readers who were telling me what I should be doing in my story.
00:10:49
Phil Giunta
And when you're young and you're a little bit more malleable and you don't quite have the judgment being, of years of experience behind you.
00:10:55
Jo
Right.
00:10:57
Phil Giunta
Okay, I'll put this in, I'll put that. Then when look back it, I thought, no, you know, now it's my turn to reissue these on my own.
00:11:02
Jo
Yeah.
00:11:03
Phil Giunta
I've been editing for 15 years, anthologies and other people's stories. I am not afraid. I'm not one of these writers who's in love with his own writing, but I'm afraid to cut my own stuff. I will trim this book to where I think it's going to be a good story.
00:11:15
Jo
I
00:11:15
Phil Giunta
And so I did it with both of them, Testing the Prisoner and By Your Side. And I cut several thousand words out of Testing the Prisoner and the same with By Your Side. and trimmed it to make a lean, mean story that really just, you know, appeals to, has been great because I said it's won these awards, getting great reviews.
00:11:32
Jo
was like, that apparently works. Yeah.
00:11:34
Phil Giunta
I clearly knew what I was doing.
00:11:36
Jo
Yeah. And that's the thing. You said it was 15 years. Yeah.
00:11:40
Phil Giunta
Yeah, it came out, testing the testing of prison i first came out in 2009.
00:11:44
Jo
Oh, 2009 has been 15 years ago. Oh boy.
00:11:48
Jo
Oh boy. I thought that was like, Oh wow.
00:11:49
Phil Giunta
Right. That would have been 2024. So now we're into 16 years. Right. So I released released it in late 2023 or 2024, somewhere around there.
00:11:53
Jo
Oh man. Oh man. Oh man.
00:11:58
Phil Giunta
And it was my first dipping my toes, if you will, into self publishing. I never self published anything before. But having worked with small presses and asking the right questions, right, and and being there in the meetings when they say this is what we're going to do and this is how you do this, this how you buy ISBNs, this is how you upload to Amazon and upload to Draft2Digital and do all these things.
00:12:16
Jo
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Publishing and Feedback Evolution
00:12:20
Phil Giunta
I learned. I soaked it all up. And I said, okay, when it comes time for me to do this, I'll have that knowledge.
00:12:25
Jo
Absolutely. And that's the thing. When I first was coming up, like I guess, and we're all malleable, as you say, were young, right? It was like the self-publishing was like the vanity. You can never, ever, ever.
00:12:36
Jo
Now it's like, well, I can't earn all my money? Like, why can't I now? As long as I'm doing it correctly. And you are. You learned. You got your ISBNs. You know how to upload it. You know editing is important. You know the cover is important.
00:12:50
Jo
You know all these things have to go into it.
00:12:52
Phil Giunta
Right.
00:12:52
Jo
And yeah, it's why give someone else money.
00:12:56
Phil Giunta
And when I say I went back and re-edited the books, that was no offense to the original editors and the publishing houses who the did the editing.
00:13:01
Jo
No. Right.
00:13:03
Phil Giunta
It was just back then, it was a different mind frame, different mindset, and readers change over time.
00:13:05
Jo
That's exactly Absolutely.
00:13:08
Phil Giunta
So when I went back and re-read them, thought, you know, tweak this, tweak that. I think readers today have a... It's always changing. Attention spans are constantly changing.
00:13:16
Jo
Short or short. Yeah.
00:13:16
Phil Giunta
Cases are constantly changing.
00:13:18
Jo
Yes.
00:13:18
Phil Giunta
And you have to... Sadly, in some ways, and and I never like to dumb down my work at all, I never do, but at the same time, you have to find that but fine line to accommodate what readers are looking for today.
00:13:30
Phil Giunta
So I went back and re-edited, sharpened up some of the dialogue, put out some of the excessive descriptions, and just really tightened up both stories.
00:13:33
Jo
Right.
00:13:37
Phil Giunta
And very proud of doing that, but by knowing that I wanted to adopt them to how I write today and make them the definitive editions.
00:13:43
Jo
Right, absolutely.
00:13:45
Phil Giunta
And I'm not touch them again after this. I'm done. I'm not going to reissue anything
00:13:47
Jo
Oh, touch wood. No, that's it. And exactly. ah ah And Stephen King, if you're listening, cut out some of the descriptions. I think that's important. we all know those authors. I just mentioned We're like, great book, great story. But 15 pages later, it's still a whale, Melville.
00:14:02
Jo
You're just inscribing what whaling was for 15 pages in a footnote.
00:14:05
Phil Giunta
Exactly. And that's, and that's the audience of the time.
00:14:07
Jo
So we go back.
00:14:09
Phil Giunta
And that was the Charles Dickens wrote that way. Very, very weird.
00:14:11
Jo
Yeah. The serial.
00:14:12
Phil Giunta
And yeah, you know, so so and some of my favorite authors that I grew up with, you
00:14:13
Jo
Because he was doing the serial, yeah.
00:14:18
Jo
Yep.
00:14:18
Phil Giunta
Arthur Conan Doyle. I love Doyle. love Edgar Allan Poe. I love all these classics. As well as, you know, the more modern folks, like I mentioned earlier, like Harlan and and Bradbury and Philip Zay Farmer Ted Sturgeon.
00:14:26
Jo
Oh,
00:14:29
Phil Giunta
And, you know, it's funny. I write a lot of paranormal, but I read a lot of vintage sci-fi. That's really my love, my heart. But I don't write that way because I know we don't read that way anymore.
00:14:35
Jo
wow.
00:14:38
Phil Giunta
And readers don't want to read that way anymore.
00:14:40
Jo
Right, so you grew up...
00:14:40
Phil Giunta
But my heart is still with the ones I grew up with. I still love
00:14:43
Jo
Right, it's things we grew up with. It's the Isaac Asimov, what was it, Strange Tales or Weird Tales or little anthology book.
00:14:52
Phil Giunta
There was Weird Tales magazine, yeah which has been revamped and and reborn, edited by Jonathan Mayberry.
00:14:54
Jo
what the magazine. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:58
Jo
Really?
00:15:00
Phil Giunta
I'm sure you're familiar with Jonathan Mayberry.
00:15:01
Jo
Yeah. I didn't know you doing that.
00:15:01
Phil Giunta
He is the editor right now of Weird Tales.
00:15:03
Jo
Cool.
00:15:04
Phil Giunta
I believe he's still editing it. It was resurrected. I think he's one who resurrected it a few years back. And, yeah, so it's out there again, Weird Tales. Magazines are making a comeback. There's a nice magazine called Black Cat Weekly that does – suspense suspense suspense, mystery, fantasy, and sci-fi. And I just had my first story published with them in January.
00:15:24
Phil Giunta
And it's edited by a guy named John Betancourt. And John has been in the business for freaking ever. This guy knows his stuff. He's written, he's edited, he's amazing. And one of the, kudos to John, we just shot this out to John, because he's one of the few editors who will come back to you and say, like your story.
00:15:37
Jo
Yeah.
00:15:41
Phil Giunta
If you just tweak these three things or four things, send it back to me. We're golden. How many editors these days have the time to do that, especially at Betancourt's level? Nobody.
00:15:49
Jo
Yeah.
00:15:50
Phil Giunta
If they see one thing they don't like, but they've got 500 other submissions over here, you're out the door.
00:15:50
Jo
It's usually button. Yeah. Right.
00:15:54
Phil Giunta
They just go to the slush pile and pick up the next one. So this guy took the time to come back to me and say, hey, just tweak these things, and you're good.
00:15:56
Jo
Oh, absolutely.
00:16:00
Phil Giunta
Psh. great you know I just submitted a Halloween story it's going to come out in October same thing it came back soon I'll publish it as is but if you just change these little things I think you can make it little bit better and I did because he's so nice you know so I said sure here you go yeah
00:16:07
Jo
Right.
00:16:12
Jo
It's great. And it's generous and it's amazing. Generous. You're right. At most editors, if anyone's ever submitted to anthologies or magazines or even like publishing, novel publishing whole different beastie.
00:16:25
Jo
But usually it's a small team of hungry people, meaning they haven't had lunch yet. And they got 5,000 more to go through. Like, oh my God. And so anything they can reject, boom, gone.
00:16:36
Jo
Okay, next one.
00:16:37
Phil Giunta
Yeah. Right. Right.
00:16:38
Jo
Just to clear the schedule out have actual feedback.
00:16:39
Phil Giunta
right
00:16:41
Jo
And I'm not saying you did this, but know writers sometimes miss the beginning and they miss an ending. The story's all there. Cut this part, cut that part, and you're good.
00:16:53
Jo
Yours could have been just like you this tweak of a small character or whatever it's gonna be. Have you ever gotten a vice... from that level that was just stuff you're like, no, I just can't.
00:17:05
Phil Giunta
uh there was time i mean sometimes here's thing when i write my first draft is for me in my eyes only and i'll go back and create a second draft i'll self-edit create second draft at that point it goes to critique partners and beta readers and and who i know are the editing business who will do it for me because i believe in submitting my best work right i always run through the mill of critique partners and beta readers etc
00:17:10
Jo
Right.
00:17:16
Jo
Yup.
00:17:30
Jo
Right.
00:17:30
Phil Giunta
So for me, what I do is I have a small group of writers who critique my work, come back with feedback. And then I have a second critique group where we, like this, like you and I are doing right now, we're on a call.
00:17:40
Jo
Right.
00:17:41
Phil Giunta
I will share my story on screen and then read it out loud.
00:17:45
Jo
Right.
00:17:45
Phil Giunta
Reading out loud, by the way, I'll tell any upcoming writer, do that before you submit anything. Read your story out loud. Read it out loud continuously until you have no more changes you can make.
00:17:57
Phil Giunta
Until you've made all the changes, until it's perfect.
00:17:57
Jo
Yeah.
00:18:00
Phil Giunta
Keep reading it out loud.
00:18:01
Jo
Absolutely.
00:18:01
Phil Giunta
That is absolutely what to do.
00:18:01
Jo
Cool.
00:18:03
Phil Giunta
So I polished it up as much as possible before I send it, right? So I had a couple of instances where an editor could really find almost nothing to change.
00:18:13
Phil Giunta
So what this one editor she said to me, you have a a a mom and child in this story, daughter of about eight years old. And her name in this story, I think the daughter's name was Candace. and Her nickname was Candy.
00:18:25
Phil Giunta
And the mom's name was Hannah. And she says to me, ah ah child of that age, if you look at the census, would not have had the name Candace at that age if she was born in X year.
00:18:37
Phil Giunta
Really? Really? You're getting to the point. You can find nothing else wrong with this story.
00:18:42
Jo
Yes.
00:18:42
Phil Giunta
You had to go looking at a census to find out where the kid's name would have been popular name of that year?
00:18:47
Jo
Wow.
00:18:48
Phil Giunta
Come on. So I ended up just flopping the mom and and daughter's name, and she was perfectly happy with that. So it was just like really, come on, you get changed by character.
00:18:54
Jo
Amazing.
00:18:57
Phil Giunta
I guess the rest of the story was perfectly fine.
00:18:59
Jo
Yeah, everything else great.
00:19:01
Phil Giunta
It's like this little, petty little thing.
00:19:02
Jo
Just name those. Yeah.
00:19:05
Phil Giunta
I've had a few. Yeah, I mean, you know, think when you get any editorial responses back, whether it's your critique group, your beta readers, whoever, you as a writer have enough agency to know this is my story.
00:19:12
Jo
Yes.
00:19:18
Phil Giunta
This is the story I'm trying to tell.
00:19:20
Jo
Yes.
00:19:20
Phil Giunta
And yeah, I'll have people come back and and maybe four out of five pieces of advice. I'll take that. The fifth one, I think that one, no, I don't agree with that.
00:19:31
Phil Giunta
Or three out of five or 80% of the time.
00:19:31
Jo
Right.
00:19:34
Jo
Right.
00:19:34
Phil Giunta
I'm always willing to work with anybody. Like said, I'm not so in love with my own writing that I'm perfectly happy to change anything that doesn't work for, you know, and especially if you have, let's say,
00:19:45
Phil Giunta
five critique partners and four of them come back and say, I have a problem with that. Well, then I guess that is a problem. You know, that, you know, if two of them come back and say, I have a problem with that, but the other five or six are like, no, that was fine.
00:19:58
Phil Giunta
Then I guess, then you have to make a decision.
00:19:59
Jo
Yeah. Might be their problem with it.
00:20:01
Phil Giunta
Is it really a problem in your story or is the way they read it or they read it with enough critical eye or enough perception?
00:20:01
Jo
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:08
Jo
Bad day.
00:20:09
Phil Giunta
Yeah, really, it's all judgment.
00:20:09
Jo
Anything you know.
00:20:11
Phil Giunta
You as the writer, it's your story in the end.
00:20:11
Jo
Yeah.
00:20:13
Phil Giunta
You really have to judge.
00:20:13
Jo
Absolutely.
00:20:15
Phil Giunta
you know, what it is you want to say with this story, what point are you trying to make? What moral tale are you trying to tell?
00:20:18
Jo
Yeah.
00:20:21
Phil Giunta
In the end, it's up to you. But I work very easily with everybody.
00:20:22
Jo
What's your name?
00:20:23
Phil Giunta
I mean, I'm just happy to be in this business.
00:20:26
Jo
Well, I think you hit it on the head, having your beta readers be there and having, reading out loud, by the way, if, I agree, if you've not read your stuff out loud, you will miss a lot of stuff.
00:20:39
Phil Giunta
yeah
00:20:39
Jo
Because you're, you know, reading and silently in your head, your mind fills in a lot of gaps.
00:20:44
Phil Giunta
Absolutely.
00:20:44
Jo
It will fill in a little bit when you read it loud, but a lot fewer. And you actually hear the words in the rhythm like, oh, that's clunky. Oh, oh.
00:20:51
Phil Giunta
That's another point too. You know, your tongue will trip over typos that your eyes and mind will gloss over.
00:20:56
Jo
Yes. Right. Yeah.
00:20:56
Phil Giunta
But you just brought up a great point is the rhythm and cadence of your story. You know, if it reads clunky, and used to read when I started my YouTube channel over the pandemic many years ago,
00:21:06
Phil Giunta
The sole purpose I started it was for, you know, conventions were being canceled and book fairs were being canceled, obviously, because of the pandemic. So where were writers going to read their work out loud?
00:21:16
Phil Giunta
Well, they were turning to YouTube. They were turning to, you know, various video formats. So I would just, well, okay, I guess I'll sit down and read some of my short stories on my YouTube channel just to entertain people for a while, looking for something to listen to.
00:21:26
Jo
Right.
00:21:28
Phil Giunta
And, you know, so I became very much accustomed at conventions, at book fairs of getting up in front of a microphone and reading out loud.
00:21:35
Jo
Good.
00:21:35
Phil Giunta
Um, so, so, you know, that's that's to your point, you want to make sure that you have that good rhythm and cadence to your stories, mix your long sentences with short sentences.
00:21:43
Jo
Yes.
00:21:44
Phil Giunta
I've read too many books where there was these run on sentences that would go on for paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs.
00:21:49
Phil Giunta
I'm like, Oh God, did nobody read this out loud to see how droning that is, you know, to see just how boring that is.
00:21:53
Jo
Right.
00:21:56
Phil Giunta
so yeah, it's wonderful. to And I just love reading my work out loud anyway. You know, when you, when you know you've got a good story, it's always fun to share it with the world.
00:22:03
Jo
Yes.
00:22:04
Jo
You always want to share.
00:22:06
Jo
That's what we do. That's why we do stuff. And then you two books that you redid. So the first one was Testing the Prisoner. The second one is By Your Side. What's By Your Side about?
00:22:15
Phil Giunta
So I mentioned earlier that the protagonist in Testament Prisoner had some assistance from of mentor character, an old flame who had abilities to see beyond the veil.
00:22:21
Jo
Right.
00:22:24
Phil Giunta
When that book ended, I realized that his story was done, but she could go on forever with stories. So By Your Side was a story about her her name is Miranda.
00:22:29
Jo
Brilliant.
00:22:34
Phil Giunta
And this is a story about self-forgiveness. So for all of her great abilities of being a psychic medium, she failed to predict the impending suicide of her own brothers.
00:22:44
Phil Giunta
Right after that happens with this guilt that she's feeling this morning and grief, she's actually called out to a small town in Pennsylvania to investigate. Guess what? A series of suicides. It seemed to be have a supernatural cause.
00:22:55
Jo
Right.
00:22:56
Phil Giunta
There's addictive ghost in this town who has been raised from, who basically lived in a home that was demolished.
00:23:03
Jo
Right.
00:23:03
Phil Giunta
She died in that home. was actually murder suicide. She was murdered and her husband committed suicide. And so, uh, a very unsavory character comes into town, hiding out from the police under a completely assumed name, builds a new home on this ground, and awakens this vindictive spirit.
00:23:25
Jo
Oh, wow.
00:23:25
Phil Giunta
Actually awakens four spirits, and so it becomes a mystery as figure out which one is actually the one that's pushing people to commit suicide and why.
00:23:36
Phil Giunta
So Miranda is called in
00:23:36
Jo
I like that idea.
00:23:39
Phil Giunta
to investigate this with the weight of her own brother's suicide on her shoulders that she couldn't even predict with her great psychic medium abilities.
Storytelling and Potential Adaptations
00:23:46
Jo
Right.
00:23:47
Phil Giunta
Where were my abilities with my own brother? So she has this guilt. And now she, of course, what happens when you have guilt over something and you, and you feel you sometimes overcompensate something else to, to try to make up for that.
00:24:00
Phil Giunta
And in this case, she catches herself doing that and another life is lost. So now she really has to buckle down and, and, go up against these this vindictive spirit and and try and stop it
00:24:13
Jo
That's an amazing logline. Have you ever thought about taking your stuff to a a miniseries slash film?
00:24:22
Phil Giunta
i have but know have an agent so a small press author indie author you know and really that business is very much a closed system you really do need to have an agent to represent you and get in there and i haven't really pursued that
00:24:26
Jo
Right.
00:24:35
Phil Giunta
I've had people tell me the same thing because they've enjoyed both books and they play a movie.
00:24:38
Jo
I was like, man. but know, right?
00:24:40
Phil Giunta
It's like a TV show. And most of my short story is the same way. no, I haven't really gone down that road yet, you know, because it is tough to find an agent. And I haven't really tackled that yet.
00:24:49
Phil Giunta
But, you know, who knows? That may something I explore one day.
00:24:55
Jo
you Absolutely. And what also is making a slight comeback along with magazine, it's the radio drama.
00:25:02
Phil Giunta
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:25:02
Jo
Oddly, oddly, it's just voice acting. I mean, not just voice acting, but it cuts down the budget a lot.
00:25:08
Phil Giunta
It does. And the gentleman who owned the small press that first published me, his name is Stephen Wilson, he few awards, like the Mark Time Award and some other awards for his radio dramas. He actually started off writing science fiction, original science fiction radio dramas.
00:25:24
Jo
Oh my God.
00:25:25
Phil Giunta
Then he novelized them, and that's how he became published, self-publishing.
00:25:27
Jo
That's brilliant.
00:25:28
Phil Giunta
And also, he was also the founder of a science fiction convention called Farpoint down in Merrill. This guy does not sleep. I think he does everything. He was amazing. When I first met him, was like, my God, do you ever sleep?
00:25:38
Phil Giunta
But Steve was a wonderful mentor to me early on. And he would read my fan. like I started off, if want know where I started off writing, was fan fiction.
00:25:44
Jo
Yeah, yeah. Really?
00:25:47
Phil Giunta
I started writing Star Trek fan fiction.
00:25:49
Jo
wow. Yeah.
00:25:49
Phil Giunta
Star Wars fan fiction, Indiana Jones. I even had an Indiana Jones amateur comic book made up with another guy who who did some artwork. We just did these things, what I call it my training wheels, my training ground.
00:26:01
Phil Giunta
Can I even write? Well, okay, let's try writing in the stuff that I've enjoyed growing up reading and watching.
00:26:15
Jo
Right.
00:26:16
Phil Giunta
I wasn't trying to sell wasn't trying to make money. It was just fan fiction for fun.
00:26:18
Jo
Getting the going.
00:26:19
Phil Giunta
And to see if I even had the ability to write at all. And so Steve also did the same thing.
00:26:23
Jo
Yeah.
00:26:25
Phil Giunta
He started his own fanzines for Star Trek fan fiction. different all in this fandom community together.
00:26:29
Jo
Cool.
00:26:29
Phil Giunta
And what I realized... when I got into fandom and got into the community was, man, you can throw a stone in any given direction and hit somebody that has amazing talent, writers, artists, pod, you know, podcasters before there was podcasting, you know, you know, uh, you know, amateur filmmakers, you know, making their own little sci-fi films and there's their parody films and things.
00:26:47
Jo
Right. Right.
00:26:51
Phil Giunta
And these people are extremely talented. of them have stayed with it. Some of them haven't. Some of them have dropped off the earth, but at the same time, was great to gather, this group of talented people together and be with them. So yes, he was my mentor early on. We wrote fan fiction together when he got published with his original work.
00:27:09
Phil Giunta
And I had this testing, the prisoner novel is ghost story. And I had nowhere to go. I'm going to do with this? Like it's going to take me me years to find an agent, you know, editing. I'm very daunted by the process of it. He said, I've got the machine already going here.
00:27:22
Phil Giunta
Send it to me.
00:27:22
Jo
I love it.
00:27:23
Phil Giunta
Send it to me. You know, I'll read it and we'll go through it together, edit it, get it polished up and we'll publish it. So I did. And I had no regrets.
00:27:30
Phil Giunta
I mean, he retired mostly for personal reasons. It wasn't because of financial problems or anything like that.
00:27:34
Jo
Right.
00:27:35
Phil Giunta
In fact, he blogged about the reasons why. So it's nothing personal. It's very public. He blogged about it. And so I thought, well, I learned a lot from him, enough to self-publish.
00:27:45
Jo
That's great.
00:27:52
Phil Giunta
so
00:27:52
Jo
That's brilliant. and I love that you're doing this as it's a carrying on the lineage is an homage to your mentor and being able to, especially since you're a perfect ah short story writer, put the stories into anthologies.
00:28:07
Jo
That's as a great idea.
00:28:08
Phil Giunta
Yeah, I've been fortunate enough
00:28:08
Jo
work's done.
00:28:11
Phil Giunta
think you and I are both fortunate enough and any writer in our current generation, to live in a time when there are so many publishers out there are looking for short stories across so many different genres.
00:28:21
Jo
Yeah.
00:28:25
Phil Giunta
And I, as I said, i i love writing across different genres because that's, in my mind, when I grew up reading the Bradburys and the Harlan Ellisons, and he's, by the way, Harlan Ellison's like my writing god. He's like my favorite that I grew up with.
00:28:40
Phil Giunta
partially for his personality, but also for his writing. You know, those, that, you know, the Ursula K. Le Guin's and Kate Wilhelms and people like that wrote all over the map.
00:28:47
Jo
yeah
00:28:50
Phil Giunta
That to me was a a writer. A writer could tackle anything, you know, challenged by anything and not just the same genre over and over again.
00:28:54
Jo
Right.
00:28:58
Phil Giunta
I have no offense to anyone who specializes in horror, in sci-fi and stays in that. That's perfectly fine. If you're happy and content and you're successful, go for it.
00:29:04
Jo
Yeah.
00:29:07
Jo
Follow you. Yeah.
00:29:08
Phil Giunta
And it's very, writing again is very subjective, right? What do you like to write?
00:29:12
Jo
Absolutely.
00:29:13
Phil Giunta
Now, I know people who are adamant about writing to market, you know, just write to market.
00:29:13
Jo
It's got to be passionate.
00:29:19
Phil Giunta
And that's a great concept. and And there's, if you're successful with that, that's great. But for me, I'm just enjoying, you know, writing whatever that theme comes up that I really love to write, you know, and it may not be the hottest thing right now, but it gave me great joy to write it.
00:29:27
Jo
Right.
00:29:35
Jo
And that's what it is. And success is measured is also subjective, by the way. Success is always subjective.
00:29:39
Phil Giunta
Yes. Yeah.
00:29:41
Jo
And sometimes, and it should always be success against yourself.
00:29:45
Phil Giunta
Yeah.
00:29:46
Jo
Like how far did you come? And when you first put out testing the prisoner, that was you at the time.
00:29:52
Phil Giunta
Yeah.
00:29:54
Jo
You know, this is you now.
00:29:55
Jo
We all get better. is repetitions. It's weightlifting. It is for mind and our art. That's how we grow. And absolutely, I'm glad you went back and had the opportunity to put these out. And like testing the prisoner and by your side, they saw them.
00:30:10
Jo
way, fantastic selling them because they sound absolutely stellar and all the awards are absolutely deserved.
00:30:14
Phil Giunta
Thank you.
00:30:17
Jo
And I can see all these spinning off characters. Have you written a novel with a spinoff in mind?
00:30:25
Phil Giunta
Uh, what's funny, uh, like I said, uh, the psychic medium from Destin the Prisoner, Miranda, it's been off into By Your Side and actually spun off again into a novella called Like Mother, Like Daughters.
00:30:29
Jo
Right.
00:30:34
Phil Giunta
And that was, that was something I'm also going to reissuing eventually with a sequel.
00:30:35
Jo
Wow.
00:30:39
Phil Giunta
Uh, that's a story about, Miranda and her daughter Andrea going on to a ghost hunt. And during the process of this ghost hunt, a shocking event occurs that actually shocks Andrea's psychic, latent psychic medium abilities to show up.
00:30:48
Jo
Right.
00:30:56
Phil Giunta
She's a late bloomer. Her mother, Miranda, had this ability since she was six, and that's actually covered in Mother Like Daughters, the origin story of Miranda when she first saw her first ghost and was able to communicate beyond the veil.
00:30:57
Jo
Right.
00:31:01
Jo
Right.
00:31:06
Phil Giunta
She was six years old. Andrea is a teenager now, late teens, and she never seemed to exhibit this ability until one of her closest friends is murdered.
00:31:17
Phil Giunta
And finding this out shocks the ability, and now all sudden she sees ghosts everywhere. And so like mother, like daughter is reason why it's called that is while Andrea at the warning against the warnings of her mother who was experienced in this field, do not go listening and doing everything these ghosts want you to do because it is dangerous.
00:31:30
Jo
Right. Right.
00:31:36
Phil Giunta
Of course, she's a teenager. She's not going to listen to mom. She's going to go off and investigate the death of her friend. Her mother's not there after this because her mother is invited to speak at a paranormal conference in Salem, Massachusetts, where, as it happens, at six years old, she saw her first ghost.
00:31:54
Phil Giunta
This time around, she wants to see that ghost again to learn more about who that young Puritan woman was, only to find out that she herself was that girl's mother in 1692.
00:32:07
Jo
Oh, That's
00:32:07
Phil Giunta
So it's a reincarnation story. So it's called like mother like daughters because she has a daughter back then and she has a daughter in present day and both of whom exist psychic medium abilities.
00:32:12
Jo
cool. That's amazing.
00:32:17
Phil Giunta
So she explores her own past in a reincarnation story while her daughter is out there exploring her own latent abilities that have just manifested.
00:32:19
Jo
Right.
00:32:25
Phil Giunta
And it came out as a novella in, it was actually a request when I was working with Steve at the time, he said to me, I'm looking for some 99 cent Kindle eBooks that I could put out short subjects.
00:32:30
Jo
Really?
00:32:36
Jo
Yep.
00:32:38
Phil Giunta
What do you got for me? I said, well, I could put this story together. I've been kind of outlining and playing with it for a while. And said, okay, let's do that. So I put it together. And by this time he was already, know, selling a few of his own, but they weren't selling as well as he would have liked.
00:32:53
Phil Giunta
So he sort of abandoned the idea right when I finished the book. like you go. Oh, we're not doing that now.
00:32:57
Jo
Oh, we're done now. Yeah.
00:32:59
Phil Giunta
Okay. So since we're both vintage science fiction fans, don't know you remember, but back, and I think they're probably even still in business, but they don't publish this format anymore. But Ace Books used to publish a series of books called Ace Doubles, where you would read a book and then you'd flip it over.
00:33:17
Jo
It's over.
00:33:17
Phil Giunta
And there was another novella on the other side.
00:33:19
Jo
Yeah. Oh, wow.
00:33:20
Phil Giunta
I have a collection of them. Steve collected them because we were both fans of that genre.
00:33:21
Jo
Really?
00:33:24
Phil Giunta
And he said, let's do that. He had a vampire novella that was looking for a home. I had this other novella that was looking for a home. So he said, let's do a double novel in the vein of the old Ace books.
00:33:34
Phil Giunta
I said, let's do it. So that's how we put it out. We put it out in 2018. So it's literally a double novel. His vampire stories on one side, my ghost stories on the other.
00:33:41
Jo
I love it.
00:33:43
Phil Giunta
And that was pretty much the last real full length book that that he did with me. So that book will become, my half of that book will be republished with a sequel.
00:33:51
Jo
right.
00:33:55
Jo
Very cool.
00:33:55
Phil Giunta
So I'm going to be doing that hopefully next year.
00:33:58
Jo
Oh, see, all the right reasons.
00:33:59
Phil Giunta
And then from there on, that's the last of the reissues. From there on, is whatever I write is just going be fresh out of my own brand or my own you publishing brand.
00:34:07
Jo
That's brilliant, though. And then shows lineage. It does show lineage from fanfic and all the way to republishing, repurposing to the brand new stuff. It's a great journey. Now, if you were to give a younger version of you, like we're talking like teenage version, advice, what would it be?
Advice and Continuous Learning
00:34:29
Phil Giunta
Well, you know, most time when I give young writers advice, it's always, you know know read within your genre and outside of your genre. But I was already doing that. I would say if I could sort of instill my younger self the 15 years of craft that I've learned.
00:34:45
Phil Giunta
to avoid some of the, you know, the over descriptions and the, the unnecessary bits of dialogue or, or, you know, the L Y adverbs that everyone always cuts out of their story all the time, all these little things, you know, that I could just go back and say, if I could say, write like this and you'll be fine and you won't have to bother going back.
00:34:47
Jo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:03
Phil Giunta
And, you know, when you reedit your stories someday, you you know, it'd be a little bit easier for you. know, just have fun with it. I was very uptight when I was younger as a writer.
00:35:14
Phil Giunta
I remember early drafts of my novels was, you know, some, are you writing this, this casual scene is, it looks like a board meeting that everyone's speaking in such, you know know stern, strict, formal dialogue.
00:35:26
Phil Giunta
Where's your contractions? Where's your people getting cut off in mid sentence and somebody else interrupting them? The natural flow of dialogue, the organic flow of dialogue.
00:35:33
Jo
Organic flow.
00:35:33
Phil Giunta
I was like, okay, you're right.
00:35:34
Jo
Yes.
00:35:35
Phil Giunta
Yeah. You know, it was very, you know, very, I guess I was a little little bit more influenced by those older writers at the time, you know, who wrote in that way.
00:35:43
Jo
Oh, that was a thing, right? People talk in contractions and we write the words fully out.
00:35:45
Phil Giunta
Yeah.
00:35:49
Phil Giunta
Yeah. So I learned to be, to really learn to write better dialogue, to more natural, organic dialogue in my early years.
00:35:54
Jo
Yeah.
00:35:57
Phil Giunta
And, and there's a lot of things too, that you keep, you keep in mind things like, you know, avoiding the, as you know, Bob type of stuff where you recap something that that character or, and I see this in movies and TVs to this day.
00:36:09
Jo
Oh my God.
00:36:10
Phil Giunta
I don't know what the heck I was watching.
00:36:11
Jo
Exposition.
00:36:11
Phil Giunta
Yeah, I was watching it
00:36:12
Phil Giunta
As you know, Joe, we did this, this, this, and this the lab the other day.
00:36:14
Jo
Yeah.
00:36:15
Phil Giunta
I'm like, well, Joe there.
00:36:17
Phil Giunta
He saw what you did in the lab the other day.
00:36:18
Jo
I was physically here. was with you.
00:36:19
Phil Giunta
You know?
00:36:20
Jo
Exactly.
00:36:20
Phil Giunta
Right. So these things that, you're, you know, you're explaining something to a character that's in your generation. Like, you know, on this iPhone, we have blah, bla blah, blah, blah.
00:36:30
Phil Giunta
And the other guy goes,
00:36:30
Jo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:31
Phil Giunta
I have an iPhone. I know, you know, it's when you get into explaining this
00:36:33
Jo
Yeah. Like, know what this is.
00:36:36
Phil Giunta
And what I always find interesting with writers is that they feel they feel the need right up front to explain their world to you in paragraphs and pages, rather than letting it unfold naturally as the character experiences
00:36:48
Jo
Yep.
00:36:52
Jo
Yep.
00:36:53
Phil Giunta
And so, you know, that's one thing I was sort of guilty of a little bit in the beginning, too, and had to fine tune.
00:36:53
Jo
Absolutely.
00:36:59
Phil Giunta
and learn. And that's why I love going to writers' conferences and taking the classes and taking the online classes and reading craft books and but books on craft from various, mean obviously more experienced writers, is that you learn this stuff.
00:37:05
Jo
There you
00:37:12
Jo
absolutely yeah and just doing
00:37:12
Phil Giunta
You're always learning and growing. And then you reach a point where all the things that you shouldn't do as a writer is instilled in you during the writing process versus going back and editing it out.
00:37:26
Phil Giunta
As you're writing, you realize, oh,
00:37:27
Jo
right you start catching it you do you do it's
00:37:28
Phil Giunta
okay, here's a better way to do this as I'm writing, you know, you start catching it while you're doing it. And to the point, then you get to a point where you're even avoiding it completely. While you're doing it, you have that good, such solid judgment in your, you know, that you can do that completely, you get avoided.
00:37:41
Jo
It goes back to working out. It's you working out in front of a mirror going, oh, my form is crap. And then you adjust it.
00:37:48
Phil Giunta
Right.
00:37:48
Jo
You saw Tony Horton do it a better way. Like, oh, thank you, Tony Horton. I'll do it this way now. And then you start working on that way and then become second nature.
00:37:55
Phil Giunta
Right. It does become second nature.
00:37:56
Jo
That's what it is.
00:37:57
Phil Giunta
And so you, then you build that confidence so that when that con the time comes for those critique partners and those beta readers to tell you what they think should be in your stew, you can say, no, no, no, no.
00:38:08
Jo
Yeah. Push back.
00:38:08
Phil Giunta
That's, that's not where I'm going with this story.
00:38:11
Jo
Absolutely.
00:38:11
Phil Giunta
That's the story you want to write. You go write that. I'm going with this.
00:38:14
Jo
And that's, that's the thing. if they really want this with kittens in it, cool. There's a keyboard. Knock yourself out.
00:38:20
Phil Giunta
Exactly. Exactly.
00:38:21
Jo
How many kittens do you want?
00:38:22
Phil Giunta
Right. So I think a lot of it really has to do with having confidence in your own work.
00:38:23
Jo
Yeah, that's.
00:38:28
Phil Giunta
And, you know, and get writers, even even writers who are older than I, maybe they haven't been writing as long, but they're older in age than I am, who will come to me at a conference and say, well, like, you know, had this short story and and sent it out to a couple of publishers and they they turned it down.
00:38:33
Jo
Right.
00:38:43
Phil Giunta
So maybe it's maybe it's not that good. Stop. Maybe you just haven't found the right market yet.
00:38:49
Phil Giunta
You know, you come to the critique groups, you read your stories. I like your work. The people in the rest of the critique like your work. No one is slamming you. So maybe it's not always you. Yeah, I mean, we all have to we tweak our work.
00:39:00
Phil Giunta
We all have to grow and improve. But it may not be you. It may just be like I've been rejected a but billion times.
00:39:06
Jo
Oh my God.
00:39:07
Phil Giunta
And I just keep sending it out until it finds a new market, you know.
00:39:09
Jo
Absolutely. You have to. Yeah, you have to.
00:39:12
Phil Giunta
And when you have enough confidence in your own work, you get to a point where You don't just sulk and just say, I give up with this story. No, you just keep, you know it's a good story.
00:39:24
Phil Giunta
Maybe it needs to be tweaked a little bit, but you keep marketing it it and shopping it around.
00:39:28
Jo
Yeah, and honestly, for anyone who's tried this for short stories, especially the time an editor will give a short story in a slush pile, it's going to be, I will, this is my process, I'll skim the first couple lines.
00:39:44
Jo
And then I'm like, do I want to see the ending? You know, or like, or I'm able to skip a couple of lines. I have a headache that day and I might just reject it because I want to be done the pilot. You know, the pilot.
00:39:55
Jo
Don't take rejections personally. Rejections are actually mostly to do with the editor, not you.
00:40:00
Phil Giunta
Yeah, yeah.
00:40:01
Jo
It's like, whatever their day was.
00:40:03
Phil Giunta
Right, right.
00:40:04
Jo
That's, know, like, oh my God, they rejected me. Like, maybe he just won a lasagna that day. Maybe he just lost a bunch of money on like the Timberwolves yesterday. It's like, he was a a bad mood that day.
00:40:12
Phil Giunta
Exactly, and that's why I always say, you know, that's where your critique partners and your beta readers can come in handy to help you tweak your work, but to a point where you have to hold that line and say, okay, these four that you're saying I should make,
00:40:12
Jo
You know, you don't know.
00:40:17
Jo
Yeah, absolutely. Yep.
00:40:26
Phil Giunta
I agree with that one, but these other three over here, I'm going to hold a line there.
00:40:29
Jo
Yep. And that's experience.
00:40:31
Jo
That's experience talking, man. Cool.
00:40:31
Phil Giunta
Yeah, exactly.
00:40:33
Phil Giunta
Yeah.
00:40:33
Jo
Now, where can people find you online and where are your books at?
Where to Find Phil's Work
00:40:38
Phil Giunta
My book's pretty much everywhere. Amazon.com, barsnable.com. You just go to Phil Junta, my first and last name, philjunta.com. Click on the books link and everything's there. All the novels, the anthologies, magazines, stuff, it's all there.
00:40:52
Phil Giunta
I also have free fiction.
00:40:54
Phil Giunta
I have some free short stories up there, including, and again, this is me sort of embarrassing myself a little little bit, is I have all my fan fiction up there from the old days.
00:40:55
Jo
Oh.
00:41:01
Jo
Do you really?
00:41:02
Phil Giunta
All the Star Trek stuff is up there, all the Indiana Jones, the Star Wars, it's all up there.
00:41:02
Jo
that's amazing. Oh, love it.
00:41:06
Phil Giunta
It shows you my evolution, really where I came from and and where I am now.
00:41:08
Jo
Yeah.
00:41:10
Phil Giunta
it would just be fun to share it up there.
00:41:11
Jo
That is amazing. No, ah that's what exactly is. You're sharing your love for things.
00:41:16
Phil Giunta
Yeah, it is fun.
00:41:16
Jo
I love it. It's great
00:41:17
Phil Giunta
Yeah.
00:41:18
Jo
Well, Phil, it's been a great time. And again, testing the prisoner and by your side, these these all sound like great things. And we're definitely going to your your website. I'll put the link into the podcast now. So they just click on that and they'll take you right to it.
00:41:30
Phil Giunta
Thank you.
00:41:30
Jo
And thank you for everything. Once again, love your genre and I love talking shop with you because speak the same language, you know, and I dig it.
00:41:40
Phil Giunta
And I appreciate that. i appreciate the invitation. It's wonderful conversation. Very exciting. it was actually a very exciting conversation. I appreciate it.
00:41:45
Jo
I love it. And I'll have to always, always end with the live long prosper, right?
00:41:48
Phil Giunta
Yes. Live long and prosper. Absolutely.
00:41:51
Jo
Bye everyone. Bye.
00:41:53
Phil Giunta
Thank you all. Take care.