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Talking storytelling, music, publishing, PR, art and philosophy with Lilian Sue
As a PR coach and publicist, Lilian Sue is in the storytelling and relationship building business. She empowers creative entrepreneurs to push past limiting beliefs and gain the confidence to learn how to build strong PR and marketing mindsets and learn how to build and launch successful PR campaigns.
Why? Because she believes that inside every entrepreneur is the potential to become a global industry leader and it is her goal to make sure that entrepreneurs feel empowered, and have the confidence to advocate for their goals when working with a publicist or PR agency as well as the tools and knowledge to launch their own strategies.
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Transcript
Introduction & Support the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Ken Vellante with some ways you can support the podcast. I think you know you can do a review. Reviews are just wonderful. We'll be happy to have a review of the podcast on Apple or anywhere you listen. Also, make sure to subscribe and follow the podcast. It's easier for us on the podcast side.
00:00:20
Speaker
To see who our followers engage listeners are and appreciate any input you have. As you know, this has been a free podcast and been working on it over the past four years with over 200 episodes and really appreciate any few moments you have to.
00:00:38
Speaker
Put in some time and say, hey, this is the podcast that I like or independent podcasting or I like philosophy. And this is the type of thing I want to hear. It really takes those efforts. Happy to have you support the podcast with the words, your kindness. Check out the website, recommend guests and really, really love you for listening. And I hope you enjoy the content as we go into the future.
00:01:05
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Volante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
Guest Introduction: Lillian Su
00:01:20
Speaker
Hey everybody, this is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. I'm super excited to talk to Lillian Su, who is a writer, creator, and has their own service in retrospect, writing services. And with the recent attention on just doing a lot of talking about writing, thinking about books, getting excited about books, Lillian, it's a great pleasure to connect with you and have you on the show.
Lillian's Journey to Marketing & PR
00:01:51
Speaker
You too, Ken. Thanks for having me. So to kind of get into it a little bit and talking about writing and storytelling, it's funny that we're getting into this because my day job, my business is really on a professional business level, helping people get their own stories out there. That's kind of how I got started was in the
00:02:19
Speaker
social media strategy and the writing copy side. So I was doing copy for websites, print collateral back in the day, radio ads, taglines, that kind of thing. And I started doing that because as a university student,
00:02:39
Speaker
I sort of fell in love with the advertising marketing side and I thought, okay, how can I spin this into making a living with it? And that stemmed from my desire when I was really young to be a novelist.
00:02:53
Speaker
originally, like I'd gotten published in a couple of short story anthologies, thanks to my amazing grade 12 English teacher, shout out to Mr. Como, you know, gave me those opportunities. So I initially really actually wanted to be a novelist, but this was before self publishing was a thing.
Passion for Writing alongside PR Career
00:03:15
Speaker
So a lot of family members, my older brother in that basically said, Hey, you're gonna starve.
00:03:21
Speaker
if you're waiting for a traditional publisher to pick anything up that you're doing. So that's when I decided to turn to the professional marketing side of storytelling and helping folks get their own stories out there, initially through copywriting and social media and then through public relations. So
00:03:43
Speaker
sharing their stories through interviews, through events, that kind of thing, just basically helping my clients book something like what we're doing right now. And throughout all that, I never actually stopped writing. I was doing some poetry here and there, some short stories, not ashamed to say I'm still a huge fan of fan fiction. That's something I still read and write a lot. So I never stopped writing, but it wasn't until
00:04:13
Speaker
probably a few years ago when I started working with and talking to a lot more authors. So a lot of the clients that I've had and a lot of the authors that I have in my own audience are, you know, we're talking the fantasy folks, the crime thriller folks, some horror guys, romance people that I started thinking, you know, maybe
00:04:41
Speaker
It's time for me to go full circle and that maybe I should actually think about publishing something.
Writing a PR Book for Authors
00:04:49
Speaker
And I'm actually working on two books right now that are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. The first one that I'm closer to publishing, I'm actually in the middle of crowdfunding for, is my first nonfiction PR book.
00:05:08
Speaker
And as a business book, I structured it basically how I structure my business, I focus on not just demystifying the world of PR for authors and creative entrepreneurs. I talk a lot about mindset in the book, why that's important. We talk about goal planning and positioning their books and their stories the right way. And then I really dive into
00:05:35
Speaker
all the individual pieces of how do you create a cohesive strategy, step by step from beginning to end, along with real world examples and tools that they can use to save time and energy. And this one I decided to do because I had author clients and authors in my audience saying like, you know, following you on social media is fantastic. I get a lot of actionable tips out of it and everything.
00:06:04
Speaker
What I'm not getting is the complete picture of what all of this is, how it works, what it all means, why I should think about doing it, you know, because they're only getting bits and pieces on a daily basis from me. So I said, OK, let me create something that folks can refer back to and really learn how to harness the power of this so that they can
00:06:34
Speaker
continue to get out there, share their stories with the readers, and use the media essentially as a springboard to get in front of readers where they spend their time. So that one is one that I'm in the middle of doing revisions for right now and self-editing and looking at publishing hopefully early next year.
Creating Adult Contemporary Romance
00:06:55
Speaker
The second book, completely different, Other End of the Spectrum, my first adult contemporary romance,
00:07:03
Speaker
Why am I doing that? Because I have a lot of romance authors in my audience. We talk all the time. I read their stuff all the time. I got inspired to just go, hey, I've got some of these ideas floating around in my head. Let's see where I can take it. And what I do is because I've been writing and reading fanfic for, good god, 20 plus years now.
00:07:29
Speaker
that I take a fanfic idea and I tweak it a little bit like what's the central premise that I can then turn into something an original IP that I can publish and there's a lot of people that say you know I can't I couldn't imagine working on two books at once I said it's easy for me right now because they're totally unrelated
00:07:48
Speaker
you know, the business one is a lot more straightforward. It's just more form and, and function. Whereas like the romance one, there's a lot more design stuff and character development and trying to figure out, you know, am I repeating myself too much? Because I'm in the middle of editing that one as well. What are the things that I can kind of cut out and everything else? And just looking at what I can learn from
00:08:17
Speaker
the authors in my audience, what I can learn regarding the publishing process and really when it comes down to writing, what kind of happens when writer's block hits or other things happen. I've been lucky so far that with both of these books, they've kind of lived rent free in my head for so long.
00:08:38
Speaker
that I haven't really had issues with blocks and stuff like that. But with some of my other ideas, like I'm kicking around a crime thriller one because I'm a huge true crime fan. I have most of my life to.
00:08:51
Speaker
true crime and police procedurals, right? So that one I'm anticipating, just the logistics of it. There's probably gonna be blocks and stuff there. But for the moment, I'm lucky enough that I haven't really had to deal with a lot of that, right? With either one of my books so far, but I know it's coming with some of the other ideas. So it's just trying to figure out like, how do I kind of balance everything, the business side versus the creative side?
00:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, and I wanted to ask you about that because I think you would have a unique perspective. You know, a lot of times, you know, we have different components of ourselves. So in talking to you, you know, I could hear, like in your mind, you know, there's this business piece, you might extrapolate from
Balancing Business and Creativity
00:09:34
Speaker
that. And of course, there's the more, you know, like, you know, creative side of fiction. I wanted to hear about maybe your unique insights. You would
00:09:45
Speaker
You're talking about having both of those components. I know you must run into authors. Let's just say who are the authors, the writers, the ones that are there. And then there's this whole component here that you would know of the practical usefulness of what is the strategy. That's fine to be a brilliant artist, but what is the strategy? It is brilliant. How do we make sure that the public understands that it's brilliant?
00:10:11
Speaker
What are you able to do with those folks? I'm just a writer. I'm just doing this piece right here. Do artists that are in that frame of mind understand what you're trying to help them with or how to use that to tell the story? Yeah.
00:10:31
Speaker
It's interesting because as creatives, again, I see both sides, right? Because I have my day job with my business and then I'm definitely the creative writer as well. And I find that with a lot of authors, for the folks that really just want to write as a hobby and to leave their own legacy and to share their stories just for the sake of putting it out there,
00:10:58
Speaker
they're not in the right frame of mind to really think about building it as a business, right? Because for them, it's a passion project, they don't really care how many copies they sell, they're not really looking to make an impact, they just want to get the story out there and call it good, call it a day, right? And for those authors, I really respect what they do. But we don't have
00:11:22
Speaker
much of a business relationship. I try to help them out in sharing their work on social media when I can and we talk about the stuff we have in common and that's really as far as it goes, right? Whereas other authors, fiction and nonfiction, that want to really kind of push the envelope, that want to make more of an impact with what it is that they're doing, that want to
00:11:51
Speaker
grow that want to learn that want to take this author's journey and building an author brand as a learning opportunity as an education. Those are the folks that I really talked to on the business side and talk about, you know, okay, well, what, what exactly are your goals here? Because just saying, Hey, I want more sales is not is not a goal. Everybody wants more sales. My question to you is,
00:12:19
Speaker
How, you know, let's say you want to grow at 20% in three to six months. How are we going to get there? What are the different methods that you're willing to try that's going to help us get in front of people? Like I have a client who's a former filmmaker who basically turned his film and web TV series idea into a graphic novel.
00:12:46
Speaker
Right. And by that point, he and I had known each other off and on for about four years before he came to me with the project. And he said, I really want to get this out there. I want to reach more horror fans. I want to talk to people more about this. So we basically blew it out into this whole campaign where I'm reaching
00:13:09
Speaker
my friends in the horror media, all the reviewers, all the readers, all the, you know, the bloggers, those guys to say, you know, here's a copy, read it, you know, share a review, let us know what you think, let us know if you want to do an interview. And that, I mean, I've done on this series alone, probably done three, maybe four campaigns now for him.
00:13:32
Speaker
And that's led to winning awards. He's looking at interest from Hollywood producers on adapting the graphic
Success Story: Author's Hollywood Exposure
00:13:42
Speaker
novel series. He's writing book two and he's got another story coming out. I love working with him because he came to me and he already had an idea of what he wanted to do with it. And because we had been talking for so long and we knew each other for some time already, he knew that
00:14:03
Speaker
a little bit more about what publicity was how I could help him get out there and he also didn't have any kind of qualms or any fears or anything like that about getting out there and sharing their stories because I find with a lot of authors mostly women as opposed to men I find that a lot of the men don't really have some of the same fears if anything there's with the women there's a lot of fears around telling their stories to people they don't know
00:14:34
Speaker
Right. And I was actually just talking about this on a radio show this morning, about like, for me, what I counsel my clients on is like, Hey, how did you build your author's community? How did any of us build our author's community, we found common ground with each other, we started talking about what we were both interested in, we started talking about the writing process, we started throwing around ideas,
00:15:03
Speaker
to help each other with editing and stuff like that. Take that same philosophy and apply it to the podcasts out there. Because you have stuff in common with these folks too. It's just about finding that common ground to build those relationships. And when I tell authors that, that actually really helps them look at it more so
00:15:27
Speaker
You know, oh, these people aren't strangers that are going to judge me or dismiss me or reject me or whatever. These are people that I can actually build a relationship with just like my community that are going to support me on this.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and I I like I like talking about it in in that sense because I in talking to artists. I mean i've Community is so important, right? I I talked to younger artists and in saying like Like with an artist mind you need to be bumping into art ideas you need to be finding out like who to connect with who to share with of those common problems because um
00:16:08
Speaker
It's just a tennis match in your head if it's just you with your thing a lot of the time. So that inclination towards that. And I think it's always a point in the show when I'm talking because like
00:16:26
Speaker
artists art and business right like we think about in so many different ways um the conversation go many different ways i could say art to a lot of folks and ask about business and it'd be like yeah it's the most reliable fine art investment you know million dollar investment we could think about art and you know in that way or we could think about it in a variety of different ways when it comes to the the business of i've been very impacted by
00:16:53
Speaker
a book I read called Boyant by Susie Deville, that, you know, just breaking down some of the boundaries between even what I talked about, the practical and the creative. And within the practical, there is this creative here of just having things feel less tasky, being able to be connected with a larger audience and see that
00:17:18
Speaker
When you're bringing your piece of art out there, it's not an aggressive intrusion from most folks, particularly in a sensitive environment. It's like, oh, this dude from over here did this on it. And you'd know it with the fan fiction, right? It's so detail oriented. You love whatever the fan fiction is about and the characters. There's so much in there.
00:17:42
Speaker
And I think, you know, it's business and creativity, not necessarily in opposition to each other, but we think about, you know, trying to make money off your art or how do you hustle and all those types of things.
00:17:56
Speaker
with books, books, it's always tough. Do you think the environment right now, and you talked about yourself before with self-publishing and that was when you were thinking about writing, it wasn't really a vibrant way to get your stuff out there. What do you think about the situation like right now, right? With self-publishing, I've read a bunch of great things. There's so much great writing out there, even if it's not in that book form where you can order it.
00:18:26
Speaker
But what's the market like now?
Opportunities & Challenges in Self-Publishing
00:18:29
Speaker
What's it like? How do people sort through all this? Is that what you help folks do? Yeah, that's a big part of what I help them do in regards to, to your point, finding the creativity on the practical side is really about getting creative on how do I want to get my books out there?
00:18:52
Speaker
Who's out there? Let's run in a book club. Who's got an independent bookstore I could maybe talk to, right? What about book festivals? That kind of thing. Like, that's where I find a lot of the creativity can happen when it comes to building the relationships and the PR side of things. Because it's not sales. I tell my author clients all the time that it's really about building those genuine relationships and sharing your story.
00:19:22
Speaker
through those genuine relationships and doing so in a way that really prioritizes your energy and doesn't burn you out because so much of the traditional kind of industry insiders would have you believe that, you know, you have a book launch coming out. Oh, well, you've only got a two week window. After that, it's all done. It's, you know, you're moving on to the next thing.
00:19:49
Speaker
I've never believed in that because I've had clients that when they've come to me, their stuff came out six months ago, a year ago. If you didn't do anything in the beginning, what you're doing now is reaching a whole new audience of readers who had no idea who you were.
00:20:10
Speaker
when you first released the book. They don't care whether you released it six months ago or a year ago. What they care about is that it's there now and that they can read it now, right? So a lot of the creativity, it's not the same kind of creativity as you would with writing, but it is also creative.
00:20:32
Speaker
because you are trying to find different ways to build relationships with people, different ways to get out there. And I know that for a lot of writers, because I'd say my audience is pretty evenly split between the folks that self publish and then the folks that are trying going through the query trenches to try and get an agent and then do the traditional route. You know,
00:20:59
Speaker
I would never dissuade anybody from doing that. I'm not a fan of it personally, because for me, I don't like the idea of somebody else telling me whether there is a market or not for what it is that I'm writing. Not a fan. And I'm not a fan because I'm already building my audience. I know my market, right? So just because
00:21:27
Speaker
You think there isn't an audience based on your experience and the clients, you know, I don't buy that because the, you know, the author clients that I have and the friends that I have and even the work that I'm doing myself, we're already out there boots on the ground, getting, getting in front of the right people, building those relationships, getting out to indie bookstores and doing book signings and everything.
00:21:57
Speaker
you don't need an agent or a publisher to tell you differently. But I think a lot, the reason why a lot of authors go for this kind of thing is because certain genres do do better if they are traditionally published. And also because if you do get with a decent publisher, then they do have more resources, right? You're earning royalties instead of spending a lot of your own money. And to an extent,
00:22:27
Speaker
They do take care of the distribution and the printing and stuff for you, but the marketing side, that storytelling and relationship building side, I think a lot of authors tend to overlook that even if you do sign with a publisher. Heck, I was just talking to a friend of mine today who said she's having trouble getting her publisher to print copies of her books for book festivals and stuff because she's not a priority to them, right?
00:22:56
Speaker
So that's a side of the creative business side that I think a lot of authors tend to overlook in thinking that, oh, if I sign with a publisher, I'll sign with an agent, somebody else can take care of that for me. And for me, it's like, trust me, I get it.
00:23:16
Speaker
Most of these folks are in the business of writing. They're not in the marketing business. They're not, that's not how they make a living. That's how I make a living. So I get it. There's a lot of like, you don't know what you don't know. You only have so much time and energy to devote to all of this. But I'm still a huge fan of coaching people and teaching people how all of it works so that in the event you are working with somebody.
00:23:44
Speaker
You have more confidence around the process. You understand how it works and you can say to them, this is what I want. Because I've had other authors too who have come to me and say, hey, you know, I went through all of that. I did the PR marketing stuff. I did the interviews. They came out great. Problem was, I don't think I was in front of the right readers the entire time because
00:24:12
Speaker
I didn't feel comfortable speaking up on what I wanted. So the publicist just kind of assumed and put me in front of whoever, right? So like, I think the market today is such that there's always going to be like, particularly relying on social media, there's always going to be a lot of noise. There's always going to be a lot of people.
Bridging Authors and Readers through PR
00:24:39
Speaker
But
00:24:40
Speaker
think what a lot of authors tend to do is that they rely on that and they rely on email because it's free pretty easy to use you know and They can kind of experiment how they will but the thing the thing about PR that makes it a lot more powerful is that you are a
00:25:02
Speaker
It's not just you tooting your own horn. And it's not just your audience tooting your horn, but you have somebody, a third party coming in the middle who has a good reputation, they're trustworthy, they're credible, and they have clout, and they're supporting you. And then all of a sudden, their listeners, their readers, their viewers will be like, oh, hey, so and so was featured on this podcast I love, maybe I should check them out.
00:25:31
Speaker
And that becomes a way to bridge the gap between you and new readers who may not know who you are, right? Because the struggle is always going to be about how am I going to get in front of new readers the right way, because it's impossible for any of us to get in front of folks one on one. We can't reach everybody one on one.
00:25:56
Speaker
So doing what I do, that is your way to take a shortcut, basically, to get in front of the right readers where they spend the time, where the podcasts they're listening to, the blogs they follow, the reviewers they trust. The more relationships you build with these folks, the more you'll get in front of those readers and then they'll be like, hey, I should follow this guy. I should sign up for his newsletter. Maybe I should check out his book.
00:26:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Lillian. Um, we're talking with, uh, Lillian Sue in retrospect, uh, writing services and, uh, Lillian, you have a special place because, uh, you help, uh, you help writers and storytellers get in front of the audiences that need to hear their stuff. So I really, really appreciate that. I want to ask you one of the big questions of the show. You work with a lot of artists. You're a creator. You thought about, uh, you mentioned the different things that you're writing right now.
Art as Cathartic Expression
00:26:56
Speaker
What is art? Art to me is basically cathartic creative expression. And I think that for the longest time, people tend to focus a lot on the traditional definition of it as being, you know,
00:27:19
Speaker
Oh, performing arts, your acting, your theater, your music, or your visual arts, you know, painting, sculpting, film, you know, that kind of thing. When really art and creativity doesn't have to be pigeonholed into these, you know, two categories, you can embrace art in a wide variety of ways, like a carpenter, a woodworker, he's creating art.
00:27:50
Speaker
You know, somebody, every chef out there that is working in a commercial kitchen is creating edible art, right? And I think it's cathartic in a way because as creatives, we always put at least some part of ourselves into what we're creating, whether it's a book, whether you're writing a piece of music, whether you're, hell, restoring a car.
00:28:17
Speaker
Still, you are putting a part of yourself into that project because you're taking the time and the energy and you're putting in, well, sweat equity to create it. And I find that it's a fantastic, tangible, physical way to essentially conduct your own therapy.
00:28:45
Speaker
So many of the authors that I speak to and I work with have always talked about how much freedom they found and how therapeutic it was to kind of write their own stories and get out there regardless of whether they're selling millions of copies or not.
00:29:06
Speaker
It means a lot more to just kind of put it to paper because it's something that's, I think for us creatives, we all kind of have this thing where these ideas have been following us for life, have been following us from childhood that we need to put pen to paper or we need to sculpt that piece of clay. We need to get under the hood of a car. We need to fire up the frying pan in the kitchen, right? There's always these ideas.
00:29:37
Speaker
that we have and I think that the mistakes that people make in thinking that they're not creative is that their definitions are too rigid. You know, it's not just about writing a poem. It's not just about creating a painting. There's so many different ways in which art lives in life.
00:29:59
Speaker
that I don't think that we spend nearly enough time on a daily basis truly appreciating that and showing gratitude for what we have and our ability to actually have the ability to do that, to undertake all of these things, you know? Yeah, I really connect with that. I mean, the show is developed into one where it's tough to pull out the therapy
00:30:29
Speaker
or the healing. Not all art operates exactly like that but I'm talking about the process and what things do for people and talking about music and what songs do. It's so powerful and I think you're right spending the time appreciating it. I'm filled by awe by it. I've done so many podcast episodes talking about it. I'm filled by awe because awe is great and you can't resolve this piece
00:30:58
Speaker
I like the non-resolution because it just seems so vibrant. What do you think the role of art is and just connected to that? You made some comments along those lines. I've asked folks lately, you know, has the role of art changed? Has the role of art changed now? 2023, when I talk to people, times feel different, last few years, what have you. 2023, is the role of art any different now?
00:31:26
Speaker
then then it has been or is it still doing what it's supposed to do?
Pandemic's Impact on Embracing Creativity
00:31:31
Speaker
Well, speaking from just also my life being a lifelong musician as well, like I had 16 years of piano lessons, taught piano for a year. So I kind of know a little bit on the music side. I'm a huge hard rock fan, right? There's stuff to me that's really timeless. I mean, smells like teen spirit still speaks to me.
00:31:54
Speaker
To me, that is a song that will always be relevant no matter what. Rage Against the Machine's killing in the name of, same thing. Hell yeah. Yeah, absolutely. To look at art, I know that in the last few years, I think a lot of people maybe who didn't consider themselves creative or artistic previously undertook a lot of projects and things like that through
00:32:22
Speaker
the health crisis that was the pandemic because they did that to keep themselves from going nuts. Like what else are you going to do when you're home all the time and everything and I think that that really kind of lends itself to the the therapy piece, lends itself to empowerment, lends itself to really
00:32:44
Speaker
creating something that you yourself have personal resonance with. And for me, writing and music are the two things that kind of go hand in hand in doing that. Like when I'm working on my books, I'm always
00:32:57
Speaker
listening to tunes. What do we just get on vinyl? The Foo Fighters latest one and also Queens of the Stone Age, which by the way, fantastic albums, ripped my heart out when we lost Taylor Hawkins. I know that when I see Foo Fighters again live, I'm probably going to be bawling, just bawling.
00:33:19
Speaker
I haven't seen them in so long. My, uh, children have seen them more recently, but I haven't seen them in a bit and I want to, I want to hit a hit another show, but yeah, that was. Yeah. Well, we got sidetracked there, but you know, but you know, it's, it's, I think art is what's happened to it is that I think it's not so much people consuming or relating to it differently, if anything.
00:33:48
Speaker
What's changed is people's ability to believe that they could create it themselves, I think is really what's changed the last couple of years. That's inspiring. There's definitely things that are still timeless, like I said, the rock music, you know.
00:34:06
Speaker
I'm a 90s grunge kid. I'm an early 2000s hard rock kid. Like, you know, this is the stuff that to me will always be timeless. And certainly there's books out there that are the same way. But I think what's changed is that folks that originally applied those more rigid definitions of what is art and what does it mean to be creative and how they're not creative to themselves found out the last few years that, hey,
00:34:35
Speaker
I can create something. Maybe it's not meant to be sold. Maybe it's not meant to be put on display. Maybe I'm just doing it for me. But the important thing is I've been able to prove to myself that I can actually create it. And I think that's the thing that's really changed because when we were living our daily lives for decades, most folks are what? They're focused on work. They're focused on putting food on the table.
00:35:04
Speaker
You go to bed, you wake up, you do it all over again. So for a lot of them, until we were forced to slow down, they didn't think they had room for that kind of thing. And now it's like this piece that I created, this car that I worked on, the shelf that I built, this book that I wrote, this painting that I did, helped me through a lot.
00:35:30
Speaker
It kept my mind busy. It kept my hands busy. And I could prove to myself that, hey, maybe I am creative. Maybe I've been looking at things a little bit too rigidly all these years. And it took a pandemic to actually force me to slow down before I could actually see things differently. So I think, if anything, it's changed people's perspectives on what art and creativity means
00:35:59
Speaker
in terms of their own ability to create. Yeah, I appreciate your words. I mean, it kind of crystallizes for me that there does seem this inclination or tilt towards the individual artist or maybe greater ability or space in recent time. And certain things have changed. I even think of, you had mentioned graphic novels,
00:36:28
Speaker
Somebody you're working with I think you see that change and it made sense to me where there you see I love comic books always have and I see all the adaptations now It's graphic novels and Marvel thing like you just see the adaptations but even in graphic novels I just like well if you have the words if you've written this story and it's written in this way and it has a narrative art and the visuals are already a
00:36:54
Speaker
in there so as a creator what the visuals are the visuals are there like the idea is so vibrant and fully realized for me in the graphic novel format it's like okay i'm i'm reading the movie i'm reading the show instead of and um you know i think i see a lot of creatives moving from producing something of some merit there you know that that can get some attention to be realized uh
00:37:24
Speaker
comic book sequential art guy. I love that trend right now. I want to hit you with the big one and then want to want you to tell us where we can find you and connect with you. The big one is why is there something rather than nothing, Lillian? I think that it really comes down to the individual meaning we assign to
00:37:52
Speaker
creativity and to art. And I know that, you know, the discourse is, is that when times are tough, like when you're talking about war, economic uncertainty, go down the line, right? Inflation, all of this other kind of stuff. You know, what role does creativity and art play in that? Is there still room for that when people are struggling to put food on the table?
00:38:19
Speaker
And for me, there's always something there and it's something that deserves to be valued. It's something that deserves to be celebrated because everyone needs an escape. Everyone deserves an escape. We deserve to be able to lose ourselves in the magic of creation, in the magic of art, in the magic of projects that, you know, can show us.
Art as an Escape & Source of Joy
00:38:47
Speaker
different worlds, different characters on a visual medium, audio medium, you know, through physical tangible pieces of art, even in an art gallery, let's say, because life is short, Ken. I mean, I don't know about you, but I would rather, you know, however much time I've got left, I'd rather not be spending it on a daily basis being inundated by negative things and being miserable. Amen. Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:39:18
Speaker
Enough of that stuff out there and art for me is really about embracing the good embracing the power of Yet that Someone has created this and and you know, we all have differing opinions. We're all fans of different things Not everything is created for everybody but I think the really powerful thing is being able to
00:39:45
Speaker
have something like that to hold on to that we can relate to. We can relate to the stories of, we can champion. And even for like the ones that maybe we don't relate as strongly to, we can still respect the effort and the energy that it took into creating something like that and celebrate the fact that it's making an impact with the audiences that it's supposed to make an impact with, even if you're not a part of that audience.
00:40:15
Speaker
right? And I think it's really, you know, it's key to get back to a place in life where we can not only celebrate art for what it is, but even respect the effort and the energy that it takes someone to create something regardless of whether or not you're a fan of it. I think that that respect needs needs to be paid. And I think there's always room
00:40:41
Speaker
for creativity, there's always room for art. And when times are tough, it is always, you know, people need that escape. People deserve that escape. They deserve to have something that they can, that's tangible, that they can celebrate, that they could hold on to, and that they can build communities around
00:41:09
Speaker
this shared common interest, this shared foundation that we all have that we hang on to and that we embrace, when times are tough and also celebrate the fact that someone out there has created a thing, because we're all creatives too. Yeah, I enjoy your comments around the appreciation of it. And it's really helpful and inspiring in thinking about that and the work that you do.
00:41:39
Speaker
which I think is appreciation and celebration. Lillian, where do folks find you, the work that you do, how you help creatives in your creativity? They can always follow me on Instagram at Lillian Sue, copywriter PR.
00:42:00
Speaker
That's all one word. My website is in retrospect writing services.com. And I'm still on Twitter at elsu23 talking to my fellow nerds about everything MCU and you know, come graphic novels and comics and stuff like that. So hey, all right. I got a we can chat about that all day long.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah. All right. So, well, I have a next assignment to drop into there. And there's a whole host of things we can get into. Love the graphic novels, MCU. Lillian, thanks so much for everything you do. And listeners, check out Lillian. And also a lot of the creatives and authors work with last I heard
00:42:48
Speaker
a true crime and romance in horror. These are all things that everybody kind of, a lot of people freak out statistically and otherwise. So if you're digging on that type of stuff and all the other work, I want to thank you for coming on to the podcast and
00:43:08
Speaker
and being able to connect in the very way you're talking about and talking about art and great music taste, great movie taste, we know that and we'll probably talk about that more in the future. Sure, Ken, absolutely happy to do it and thanks for having me because I love talking about these larger, more existential topics and really just getting into, just digging into
00:43:35
Speaker
why it still matters, right? Because I think that's something that we can never take for granted. And it's good to always remind each other and remind ourselves of that. Yeah. And I would say, too, they do panel episodes, comics-related done, too. A while back, did one called What If, just on What If comics individuals have read. The other one, just recently,
00:44:02
Speaker
I did was on Swamp Thing movies and all that type of stuff. So I'll have you earmarked for our comic geek panels on my list here. And we'll pull your services that way as well. Sure. Sounds good. Take care, Lillian. You too, Ken. Thanks. This is something rather than nothing.