Indie Fantasy Aesthetic: Finding the Human Behind the Magic | Mythic Mirror ep 37

Transcript

Speaker: Who made the magic? Why do we care? And does it matter?

Speaker: Welcome to Mythic Mirror, the podcast for lovers of myth and fantasy who want to live magical and fulfilling lives. I'm your host, Mary C. Kehoe. And I'm your co-host, Carolina Carter. And we are talking about the aesthetic of indie fantasy today.

Speaker: How do you feel about that? Well, okay. This is a good question because we at ah this is my first experience with being so close with it. um Last episode, everybody, we were preparing for Mary's book launch. It has happened. It was fabulous. People came. They ate the delicious food. I've had a lot of comments about how good the food was. and We had a delicious sparkling drink made by our beloved Jennifer, um and which also and a spiced hot drink, which has to do with the book.

Speaker: um And we backed Mary's book in the first hour, um which was... I'm just so still still so happy and dizzy from it um Mary tell us what else has happened with your Kickstarter since then we have reached the five thousand dollar stretch goal which I did not think would happen this quickly and I have just been blown away by the amount of love and support um from people that I didn't expect um

Speaker: And so from from the author's side of it, going indie and making that making that decision to muscle through and and do it all myself, um it turns into do it all ourselves. you know there's There's so much support and

Speaker: I don't think I would have gotten that same type of support with it being traditionally published. I think people would have congratulated me as much, but it wouldn't have become something that the community is doing together.

Speaker: And, you know, because why? They don't need to. It's being put together by, you know, a big traditional publishing company with all its prestige. So we don't need to rally around that. We could just say, oh, great job. That's so exciting and move on.

Speaker: um And that's nothing to say against traditional publishing. i I think, you know, many authors that I love have traditionally published. but it is a different experience and I'm really enjoying how personable it can be and how that connection directly with a reader is, can be pretty magical.

Speaker: And I think some people are afraid of it. It's very funny because I feel like the the most questions, the question I get asked the most is people ask me if I've read it. It's like, yes, absolutely. And they go, is it good? And I'm like,

Speaker: Yes, you dummy. But I think it's funny because it's their, and unused to being so in touch with the person who created, i mean, a book, you know, like, I think it's just, um my only experience with putting things out has been music. And it's like a song is three to four minutes long.

Speaker: People don't have to ask if it's good. They'll like take a little tiny listen. It's such less of a commitment. and it's so much of a different process to create um and especially anyway I can go into that more or less but basically it's like if I put out music people can listen to it people cannot that it's not really like i don't know it's just it's so different than this this is so intimate and like I think people are a little blown away. Like the the next thing they usually say about it is they go, yeah, wow, that's so impressive. A whole book. And I'm like, yes, it is.

Speaker: Here's the Kickstarter link. um Because it is. i mean, it's huge, Mary. Yeah, I just was listening to a podcast with um us a screenwriter who has started writing novels, and he's been writing screenplays in Hollywood for 30 years. um and And he was talking about the difference. and And one of the things he was mentioning was that um i I might get the percentages wrong, but about 70% of the people who start to train for a marathon run a marathon. And if you think about all of the physical hardship that goes into training for a marathon and and just the amount of...

Speaker: ah self-discipline and, you know, stick-to-itiveness that has to go into that. And then 11% of people who start a book finish writing it.

Speaker: Whoa. Yeah. So he was talking about how why and how is this harder to finish? Why is a book harder to finish than a marathon when you're just sitting there writing, supposedly?

Speaker: I have one more stat for you that's going blow your mind. All right, go. Less than 1% of podcasts make more than one episode. We are winning. I think we're ready to run a marathon is what I'm hearing. I'm hearing we already did. I already did it.

Speaker: We did it. Done. Check that off. drain Nope. You mentioned um it being... such an intimate experience of reading a book. And I want to dive into that a little bit more because now we won't talk about it too much, our dear listeners, because we know if you listen to podcasts, you've probably been inundated with this subject. But I did want to touch on AI a little bit here because of what you just said about it being when you're reading a book written by someone, how it is

Speaker: more of an intimate work of art and you're, you're diving into someone's world and and the the creation that they have. Right. You and I were, and I wanted to ask you about, Oh, go ahead.

Speaker: You ask me first and then I'll interrupt you. So as a reader,

Speaker: Do you feel a difference between someone who has an idea and spends the time to write it versus someone who has an idea and has AI generate the words for it? That is a really good question because I was thinking about it and I was like, I don't think I've read an AI generated book. And then I had this sort of like icky feeling of like, what if I have? And I didn't know.

Speaker: And you and i chatted about this a little bit before recording just because of well, okay, here's my tangent.

Speaker: I went on a really, I went on a deep dive of AI psychosis last night on TikTok. I wasn't doing any research or anything, but just this, this, this girl, um,

Speaker: introduced introduced her AI chatbot to her therapist um because she was quitting therapy and was like I talked to my chatbot about you i think she had a name for it and um says you' you've been doing like transference on me but but just like all this stuff where like and you you you know like

Speaker: This is why tangents are dangerous. Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that AI is created to agree with you and support you, not actually help you.

Speaker: And so when you talk about that in regards to reading... And I am absolutely going to steal what you said earlier. I apologize. But you were talking about how you felt transformed by writing the book. And you're sharing that experience with the reader. And they're you know transformed by reading it.

Speaker: That doesn't have be a huge transformation. But you are, whether or not you like it. You're transformed by reading. You go on this journey together. Whereas AI, because of the way it is created, the way it has worked and what it is meant to do, it is meant to just specifically manipulate you to make you feel a certain way on purpose.

Speaker: For no other goal really than just to make you feel that way. And then for engagement. Yeah, well, we live in the United States for engagement. And so you'll buy something. I would say that's more than just the United States.

Speaker: Yes, sure. ah Yeah, well, now I don't know what to say. You've stolen my. I know. I'm so sorry. I mean, we do the Discworld Delight every week.

Speaker: And we've talked about how Terry Pratchett is so funny. And you finish the book and you feel like you're a better person and you don't really know when or how that happened.

Speaker: And yes, I think AI can create, you know, it it knows tropes. It knows emotional hit points. um It's been, you know, programmed through marketing and so how to manipulate emotions for engagement. So you feel like you want to keep reading.

Speaker: But to not have that human behind it, I mean, yes, there might be a human generating, I mean, you know, 100 books a day. But...

Speaker: to not have that partnership of artist to viewer and that we are going through it together. You know, when I read a book, it's not just, it's like, ah and when I read a book that I think is really good, I'm feeling I'm being transformed at the same time as the character at the same time as the author.

Speaker: You know, it's something all of us are going through together.

Speaker: And, or the author has gone through it already. Now I'm, I'm catching up, but

Speaker: it's, I mean, it's thinking back to, okay, the body of work of Terry Pratchett, sir, Terry Pratchett and, and how much it means to so many people.

Speaker: And And how he continued to write even as he, you know, he he knows he has Alzheimer's. He knows it's going to be getting worse.

Speaker: And he continues to write as long as he can and giving us these beautiful, wonderful books. And it adds to the meaning of these books.

Speaker: The person whose life was dedicated to these books was And if you just had, you know, however many Terry Pratchett books there are, Discworld books, generated in three years, you know, or two weeks.

Speaker: it wouldn't have that meaning at all. It wouldn't have, and and you wouldn't have the growth of the author themselves through the entire work. Yeah, and this, ah I think also, just you know to be clear to everybody, this is, Mary and I are not paragons of virtue. This isn't really like you have to live your life this way. If you enjoy an AI book, that's, God bless you for finding a spark of joy in this life.

Speaker: I think this is more just like a celebration of what we have discovered on this indie journey of just discovering this community and the celebration of human connection um The only other, the person i have heard about this through before um is actually our little sister.

Speaker: ah Just sort of like she got into the indie scene way before I did. um She was in, sorry, I want to pause and make sure, did you want to say something before I move on to this next part?

Speaker: Okay, go ahead. Okay. um I'm deeply afraid of offending people. Mary's less afraid. I think it's because she wrote the book and she knows who she is. And I i just want you all to like me.

Speaker: So badly. So our little sister ah is very smart and in the computer science world. So she and her fiance, ah i think i think they knew and played this game, which I think was an indie video game.

Speaker: which is a whole world that I don't know much about. um And like this streamer. And then they went to see, they made a movie out of this game called Iron Lung. I'm sure everybody knows about it.

Speaker: Or I'm sure everybody,

Speaker: I'm sure everybody who knows about it knows more about it than me. ah ah um My point is that in this world where content is just being pushed out every day on this massive level where you cannot possibly consume everything, not everything that has been put out can be consumed, you do develop these micro niches that of interest and it can create magic and this streamer youtuber who created this movie had this backing from this group of people and I think he created something really awesome for them all to enjoy and um I got a little bit obsessed with it so I was on the reddits and reading all the things about it and all the things they did and how cool it is and everybody's theories and I think there's just something really amazing about when you have a ah smaller community come together with that much passion and that's what the indie world has come to mean to me and I've certainly begun to see it with your book of just that strong community.

Speaker: Yeah that reminds me of a book that was okay so this was a book that was traditionally published and I read it back Probably in grade school, would say. Howl's Moving Castle. So I read it years and years and years ago. And then Studio Ghibli made um a movie of it. And it's had just such a resurgence. And it's been so fun to see people discover this book and get into fantasy from...

Speaker: you know, from anime and and vice versa going, you know, it's it's cool to just see how artwork of yeah um different kinds, you know, interweaving and people finding this book that I'd read so long ago that and I hadn't seen anyone talk about it.

Speaker: The only other person who had ever known about this book was the friend who had lent it to me. And all of a sudden, decades later, everyone knows about this book and it's becoming such a favorite of people. And it's just it's fun to see art give new life to things.

Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. ah i don't know what I was going to say to that, but I agree so emphatically, Mary. Oh, good. Should take a pause for a Discworld delight?

Speaker: We should. That's exactly what we should do. All right.

Speaker: Give me a second, I gotta get my story straight. Okay, pumpkin. Here are our guesses. Weird sisters.

Speaker: Weird Sisters. We're Sisters, which I think it auto-corrected from Weird Sisters. And Weird Sisters. We're Sisters.

Speaker: And the book is Weird Sisters. Nailed it. Achoo! Sorry.

Speaker: I like how offended my cats get when I sneeze.

Speaker: I cannot believe you just made that out of that racket. Okay, here we go. The Nakmec Fiegel couldn't be trodden on or squeezed. They worked in groups, running up one another's backs to get high enough to punch an elf or, preferably, bash it with their heads.

Speaker: And once everyone was down, it was all over, bar the kicking.

Speaker: Now getting back to independent indie authors... I was laughing at what you said about about you know just wanting people to like you. That is something I do think choosing to go indie and in choosing to, because there's a lot of work that goes into publishing a book, and you have to really believe in yourself in order to get that work done.

Speaker: And I think that's why, one of the reasons why it takes so long to get the first book out is because you have to deal with that self-worth and i spent a long time studying traditional publishing and looking at how long, you know, agents and how to write a query letter and and how long it'll take. You know, you you send the query letter and you might hear back within three months. It might be longer. You might never hear back. And then if they do accept you, it takes another, you know, you who knows how long it'll take.

Speaker: A lucky person could get picked up by a publisher quickly. Other people, it takes longer. And then when it goes to the publisher, it still takes another year to get published.

Speaker: And studying all of this and writing my query letter and working on it. And I had interviews with agents and had agents look at my query letter and not just perfecting and perfecting, spending months perfecting this letter that goes out to people who may or may not get back to you.

Speaker: And then I decided before before even sending the letter out after spending months and months on it, um I just reached out to an editor and sent my book to her or sent the first 50 pages to her. She got back to me the next day saying she'd read 15 pages and she thinks we'd be a great fit. And, you know, let's work together.

Speaker: And this is an editor who i had found, I'd seen because of a book I had read that I liked that had had thanked her as the editor. So I knew already that I liked, you know, stuff that she'd worked on.

Speaker: And it was so freeing to... just be treated as a professional instead of someone coming to ask, you know, to be granted a favor. And i and I'm sure once, you know, I'm sure, I mean, I've heard from, you know, traditional publishers talk about how much they love their agents. And, you know, so I think once you're in it, you you are treated as a professional, but it feels very much on the outside when you're trying to you know, you're just begging at the door.

Speaker: Please, please, would you read yeah two pages? and And just to be given the consideration of an answer and an answer mean within, you know, 48 hours, it felt so invigorating and like, oh, i could really do this. This is, I can move forward as an adult and a professional.

Speaker: I've been an adult for a long time, but now I feel like it in the book world. um

Speaker: So it it does, it's interesting because it is yeah all of the work, you know, you have to do the cover design or hire someone to do the cover design. You have to figure out all the levels of of publishing in it. So takes a lot.

Speaker: um But having that independence and having that ability to choose other professionals and partner with them and work with them and kind of choose your own book community, that's another side of it where it's just fun to be involved with these these other humans.

Speaker: I just found the proofer. And just when you see people go like a little above and beyond – what you expected and just, I don't know. It's, it's, it takes a lot of work, but also being able to be the one to find and hire that proofer instead of just, you know, okay, now I'm with a publishing company and they, and they have the editors, the proofers, the cover design, you know, that's all out of my hands.

Speaker: Adds a level of of uh don't know fun and and it brings it even that much more personal yeah and you get to work with other small creators and you know it's it's likely that none of you this is your full-time job but something that brings a spark of life to each of you you you get this opportunity to work on and work together and meet people and it's just so cool And, you know, something funny is that actually a lot of editors who work for traditional publishing houses also edit indie books. So you can work with the same people. That's funny.

Speaker: Wrapping up our love letter to indie fantasy, I think the other little piece of magic to it is... um again, you know, I'm going to go back to music because that's something I've studied and know, but just that payola really works with music. Like if you play a song on the radio enough, eventually people just like it because they recognize it.

Speaker: um And when you do something in the indie world, it's like these reviews are real. The people are real. the If it's well-loved, it is actually well-loved. And I think that is something people... That organic feel is something that people are coming to crave a bit.

Speaker: Again, with like the overconsumption, I think they just went... I think we're all looking for, and and with AI, i think we're all looking for both that human flaw and that human spark.

Speaker: And that's just, I think, ah so beautiful and such a testament to the human spirit. I think we are we are so much more than we think we are and I think we're so much more powerful than we think we are and we don't even mean to be like yes we can focus on doing the right thing but I think intrinsically our soul craves what's real and what's beautiful and what's true and I love that about humans yeah that's really that's really beautiful

Speaker: Yeah, I don't know. You summed it up. I don't know that I have anything to add. On that note, do you have a spark of the week? Yeah, I mean, this whole launch has been my spark. Just, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, and you know what? I would say specifically, it would be the people who have surprised me who I have, you know, i have friendly interactions with, but when you you don't realize how much someone wants to support or is is happy for you until, you know, you're doing something like this and and and people who I just never would have thought of coming out of the woodwork and and giving me hugs, congratulating me. Oh, I bought the book. I'm so excited to read it. And

Speaker: It's just, I don't know, it really hum it's humbling and and makes me want to be a better person to deserve that kind of support.

Speaker: Well, you deserve that support and you are a lovely person. Probably the best person I know. i think I've introduced you as that to people. This Mary. She's the best person I know. I'll put that as my tagline.

Speaker: Mary Sikio, the best person you know. Yeah, ah because of that, that just made me realize ah our little sister is going through some old, old photos and she sent us a photo of one in a high chair and Mary is standing over her

Speaker: left shoulder and I am in this like creepy vizier crouch and Mary just looks like standing up straight and true and good and smiling and I look like I'm whispering like like little worm tongue in her ear like yes yes you will grow into great power like why Why? I think we can, can we put that picture up on, I guess we'll get Aurora's permission. We can blur out her baby picture, but like, can we put that up so people can see? I felt like it really encapsulated something about you and me that ah really captured something true. oh man. Oh, that's so funny. I had not noticed that.

Speaker: we have to look at that picture again. You'll see it now. um My Spark of the Week was also your launch. I was ah obviously had all the hope and excitement in the world, but there's a little part of you that's like, how is this going to go? You just don't know. And then it went swimmingly and has continued to go swimmingly, and I'm just so proud of you.

Speaker: And I'm so grateful to be on this journey with you. Yay, me too. We talk about rainstorms all the time, so I feel that I should mention this. During the book launch party, which we had open, the you know glass garage doors are open on the balcony, so people are getting to sit up out, protected but outside.

Speaker: And it was just pouring rain in a beautiful way. And when you read the book, you'll get how much how even more how special that was. And then we had a beautiful rainbow as well. So it it felt as if nature herself was celebrating with us.

Speaker: It was beautiful. I agree. As always, we are grateful to be spiraling through this universe with all of you. It's not always easy, but no good story ever is.