Dragons, Decks, and Deadlines: Inside Timothy McGowen's Creative Process

Jess: Welcome everybody to In Other Worlds. I am your host, Jessica. Thank you so much for being here with us today. We have the amazing Timothy McGowen. Timothy, how are you? 

Tim: I'm doing pretty good. Thank you for having me on. 

Jess: Do you prefer Tim or Timothy? 

Tim: Tim is fine. Timothy just sounds better author-wise. More official. 

Jess: Right on, all right. Tim it is. So, I'm just gonna dive right in. You started writing books in what, 2020? 

Tim: So my first one came out in 2020 which was Eldritch Knight. 

Jess: Yeah, and you just finished book 18? 

Tim: 28. 

Jess: 28. Okay, I was way off. 18 is very impressive, 28 is even more so in five years. That's a that's a lot of books. 

Tim: Yeah, A lot of it was actually done in the last three years. I put my first book out in 2020 and then I kind of took a hiatus because I was also a programmer, so it required a lot of mental power for me to stay focused and I didn't find as much time to write. Not that I'm tooting my horn more, I'm like “I did it in three years, not five”. 

Jess: You started in 2020 and then you took a hiatus and you still wrote 28 books. That is insane. I can't even imagine. That's a lot. 

Tim: It's just a daily clink, clink at the mines. You just get a little bit at a time. 

Jess: How do you keep yourself motivated to write that much? 

Tim: Well, motivation is fickle, it comes and it goes. So, it's funny, I'm pretty analytical when it comes to tracking things. Like, I can look here and I have it pulled up all the way back to December 2022. I can look at every single day and how much writing I got done on that day. So I can tell you that I had good months and I had bad months, but the one thing that I did was I kept going. So, I tend to kind of semi burn myself out. I'll have months where I go like months, two months, three months that I do really, really good and I get a lot of words down. And then I'll have three months where I'm just like I got 25,000 words and that's usually what I get in a week, dang it. So really what makes it work is just perseverance. Just pushing through the hard times where it doesn't feel like the writing's coming and everything's difficult. Just kind of pushing through is what's done it for me. 

Jess: Well, you're crushing it at that. Very impressive. So, your most recent published book or, I guess your most recent published series, is Dragonstone Academy. I have started book one, but I've not finished it. I'm really enjoying it so far and I look forward to books two through four. Is it only going to be four books or is it going to be more than that? 

Tim: Yeah, four books. I contracted out with Royal Guard Publishing to do four books on it and I think I nailed it pretty well in four books. There's always room for more. Path of the Titans for instance, I get it all the time where people are like I want more, and so luckily for that series, I can go back to it because it's not a publisher book so I can easily add to it. I'll probably go back and add a few books to that series here in the next couple of years. 

Jess: I mean that's a good problem to have. 

Tim: Right. 

Jess: People wanting more of the story. 

Tim: Yeah, no, it's something I appreciate. 

Jess: Yeah, give us a quick rundown of Dragonstone Academy. 

Tim: Yeah, so it's kind of your basic hero's journey story, right. You start off with this farm boy who stumbles into something bigger than himself, and destiny kind of takes over and he's thrown into this new world where there's magic and there's powerful beings and there's destiny, and he doesn't really know what to do at first. You know, it's a pretty natural progression for a lot of my stories. But he's in a place where he wants to do good and he's got a noble heart. I really I wanted to do my version of an Academy story where there were dragon riders and big epic magic, and so that's what we got with Dragon Stone Academy. 

Jess: I guess I'm about a third of the way through the first book. I'm sad that the other ones are not in print, that they're only going to be a kindle and audio book. 

Tim: I need to poke Royal Guard Publishing because I feel like if I poke them enough they'll get them to come out in paperback. 

Jess: I mean, I will poke them as well, because I want them in print. 

Tim: I had to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to getting it formatted and stuff, which is why I've been hesitant to be like, hey, let's get the next ones done, because that means work for me. I'm a pretty lazy guy in general. I like to do what I like to do. 

Jess: I mean, you can't tell. 

Tim: Yeah. Well, that's because it's writing, right? So, I love to write. And so, I love to do the things I like to do, but then when it comes to the things that I don't like to do, I'm like, ugh. 

Jess: I feel like a lot of us are that way. 

Tim: Yeah, so you just got to find that thing you really like to do and try to get paid for it.  

Jess: Yeah, so with this book, it's a little bit different than your previous books that I've read, at least as far as the system goes. So this one is a card-based magic system. 

Tim: Yeah, I guess I should have mentioned that when I was going through the spiel.  

Jess: No, that's okay.  

Tim: Also, a big thing of the story is it's card-based. But it's also my take on what I think a cool card magic system would be where it's a little more Magic the Gathering meets like magical skills, kind of an in-between. I'm trying to remember some of the specifics. I put away all the stuff when I finished it, but I had the deck that he used and the different variations of it, because I was actually shuffling and drawing out cards. 

Jess: That is pretty cool. 

Tim: So it wasn’t like, oh you know, it'd be great if invisibility came up right now. It was like shuffle and deal and I'm like hey hey heart of the cards, let's go. 

Jess: You actually left it to chance. I actually really like that. That's a really neat way to approach that. 

Tim: So, when you get to a part in the story and it feels like, oh my gosh, he just got that card and it's going to work out great, total chance. Like I didn't bend the rules at all the entire time I used it, I made sure that I was just shuffling and dealing. 

Jess: That is really cool. I really. I like that you did that. It leads to a more organic and real kind of story progression.  

Tim: Yeah, it's really fun. And it's fun for me too because it kind of adds a little different aspect to the writing. 

Jess: Well, yeah, I'm sure it also kind of, at times, can back you into a corner because you pull the wrong card and you're like shit... what am I supposed to do now? 

Tim: Right, exactly those are the times where I sit there and I stare at the screen and I'm like okay he's got to have something. There is something that's going to get him out of this. 

Jess: How do we get him out of this without dying.. 

Tim: Right, like how do we get out of this alive and not seem like it's all like hand-wavy where it's too much? 

Jess: That is really, really cool. What do you think the hardest part was of writing out a card-based system? 

Tim: The cards. 

Jess: Yeah, cause most books don't go that route. I mean there's like there's a few.. 

Tim: Having a whole deck. That's what was tricky. I think I didn't do as well as I could have, but I tried to make it to where he was getting new cards and I was adding to the deck and he was trying different strategies. And the hardest part was the cards, because I wanted to keep it fresh and I had to come up with new cards. I had to come up with other people's cards that he's playing against and they had to have decks, they had to have strategies, they had to have how they played and I couldn't just hand wavy it all away. I had to think about their cards, at least what are their main cards, what are they pulling? And I could have went even farther, where I was making every single deck and drawing, which I did for one or two battles, and I was like this is too much.  

Jess: I was gonna ask if you also made decks and drew for all of the other ones. 

Tim: I tried, it became too tedious, too excessive. Yeah. 

Jess: Yeah, because there's a lot of cards. It's a lot. 

Tim: I mean even the main cast where he's gathering his you know squires. Once you get to that point in the book, each one of them have decks that have strategies and cards and it's just like, oh yeah. Looking back, I'm glad I'm done with it and it was fun and I enjoyed it, but it wasn't easy and I could have done better, I'm pretty sure. But man, doing the cards and trying to get it all figured out, yeah. It was tedious. 

Jess: That seems like it would have been a lot. What has been the most surprising feedback that you've gotten about this series so far? Are there any characters that you thought everyone was gonna love and they just weren’t as well received? Did you write any characters in where you were like, oh man, everyone's gonna hate this guy. I can't wait to put him in here and people were like he's great! 

Tim: No, I can't think of anything specific and I just pulled up some of the reviews to see if there's anything. I tend to do this, I'll introduce a really epic character at the start and then I'll just kill them off. And I've gotten people that they're like oh, I was really excited to hear more about this guy. I forget his name, is it Argon? 

Jess: Yeah, it's either Argos or Argon  

Tim: So many names. And when I start on a different project, I just start cataloging them away and it takes me a while to get it back. And even then I'll be like, oh, I think I'm using the right name. But yes, things like that. Like characters that I'll kill off or I'll have for a little bit of time and I'll build them up and it was always part of the plan that something was going to happen. Then it happens and they're like oh, I really wish this character had been carried on to the next. And it's like well, it's too late, he's dead. She’s dead. 

Jess: Can't take it back now. Yeah, he died right off the bat. Like that was, yeah, that was prologue. 

Tim: He was there to give you that was taste of the epicness that will happen. But also that it's a world that people are dying. It's not a “I'm the hero and I'm gonna win all the time”. You're going to go into battle, people are going to fall, and I wanted to make sure I started that tone off. 

Jess: I was very excited to read who he chose for his first squire and I really hope that he's okay. I don't want anything bad to happen to him. His first squire has to stay with him for all four books. That's just the way it's got to be. 

Tim: I say nothing, give no hints.  

Jess: What do you think was your favorite part of writing this series? 

Tim: Favorite part probably had to be the (and it was the most tedious part) just the cards. I really loved the dragon riding. Cause I've always loved dragons. So, I get a chance to finally write a story where I've got dragons in there and they're not just like the villain or the big bad monster. They're there to help, they're there to be partners. That was really cool for me too. 

Jess: Now, do you pronounce it Wyvern or Wyvern? 

Tim: I say Wyvern, no idea if I'm wrong. 

Jess: I think it's pretty interchangeable. I think I pronounce it Wyvern. No, I think in my head I read Wyvern. I don't know. I think sometimes it changes, but I don't think there's any one way. I think they're both pretty interchangeable, but some people get very angry about it. They're very particular. 

Tim: And there's a difference between them and dragons. I might have been giving something away by saying hey, there's dragons, because there will eventually be not just wyverns.  

Jess: I mean, it's dragon stone academy yeah. It's in the title of the book, really. 

Tim: And then, if you look at cover four, if you look ahead which don't, cuz you know, read it.. 

Jess: I've tried not to. I really did not want to. It's going to give stuff away. 

Tim: They're cool covers, though. But it'll definitely give it away if you look at cover four, because that's definitely a dragon. 

Jess: Yeah, I think I glanced past cover four and kind of noticed it and was like, oh, not looking at that, staying away from that one. So, you wrote Dragonstone Academy because you wanted to do dragons. 

Tim: And I wanted to do a card-based system, because I'd read so many and I love the card-based systems. It's so funny. I'm so backwards in the way I do stuff like that. All the popular ones are the skill based ones where it's just like one skill, one card type thing, with the exception of you know, what is John Stovall's book? They put the dog on it. 

Jess: I'm not sure which book is his. 

Tim: It's Demon Card Enforcer. 

Jess: Yeah. 

Tim: So good. 

Jess: I have yet to read that one.  

Tim: Oh, you need to listen to it, actually. The audio was really good, if you enjoy listening. Because it was done by SoundBooth Theater, I think. 

Jess: Okay. 

Tim: Checking to make sure I'm not lying.... Yeah, SoundBooth Theater, okay. So they got like the sound effects and stuff.  

Jess: Yeah, maybe I'll listen to that driving back down to Atlanta. 

Tim: I recommend it. We were actually talking during DragonCon. He was talking about how he went into the more detailed end of it all and really went into the strategy and the different stuff. I kind of glanced over that a little bit to just have a happy medium in between that and he went like full bore into it. I think I prefer the way he did it actually. I love how he gets into the strategy and stuff and you really have like a whole system. I almost spoiled it, but it's definitely worth the read and check it out. 

Jess: So now, since I haven't read his, I'm not entirely sure, but if his has a whole strategy to it, I'm assuming you have a hand of cards or something like that. 

Tim: Yeah, so you have a few cards that come out. 

Jess: But I feel like on yours, at least as far as I've gotten, it doesn't play out like that, it's just one at a time. 

Tim: No, so you pull a hand. I forget if I did five or seven, but you pull a hand out of your deck and then you get one card per rotation of time. That is like a turn.  

Jess: So the, the very beginning of the book, the big bad warden... I think towards the end of that battle, had mentioned that they were out of aura. Both him and the antagonist were out of aura. Was he also out of cards? 

Tim: So there's a period when you've used all your cards, and it goes into this later in the books I think, but basically when you use all your cards there's a period of time where your cards are kind of recharging before the deck reforms itself and you can start pulling again. They were both at that point where they'd gone through their decks, which is which is a sign of like a big bad fight. Right, everybody gets through all the cards and you still haven't defeated your opponent 

Jess: Yeah, I was gonna say because I thought it hinted that he had a pretty large deck of cards  

Tim: Yeah, I'm gonna dredge from the memory pool here. I forget if it's locked and you have a certain amount. I think it's 30 cards, or if you can have more. I honestly don't remember what rule I played into that. I think that most people just have decks of 30 though is what I was going for. 

Jess: Okay, I mean, even still with a deck of 30 cards, that's a pretty massive fight. 

Tim: Each card is doing big stuff. You know, so. 

Jess: It was not a short battle. It was pretty impressive to read. I just felt so bad for him. I felt so bad for him. So that book series is done. The last book you put out, that was not part of this series, Grimoire's Shadow. You went completely different with that. 

Tim: Yeah, I did. 

Jess: That is not LitRPG. It is very like Dresden-esque. 

Tim: Yeah, which is what I was going for. 

Jess: Yeah. 

Tim: Let me pull the cover up real quick. 

Jess: What made you move away from LitRPG for this book? 

Tim: I was looking for a palette cleanser. I had just grinded my nose to the stone and gotten books two, three, and four of Dragon Stone Academy done one after another and I was really burnt out. I had some really good months and I was just in the flow and everything felt good. I was pumping out like seven to eight thousand words a day and it wasn't hurting me. It felt great. I was like I got to keep this going. I had had this idea before. I wrote like 10,000 words or a couple chapters two years ago of Gabriel Gray and his story and I just liked the idea of this supernatural cop that is freshly out of college, living in San Francisco and having to like survive. Kind of like my wife and I when we were in San Francisco and we’re living there and you have to get any job because you need to get money coming in, but also you're trying to go to school and you're trying to finish this and you're trying to get into your career. I wanted to take those more mundane aspects and put them into a kind of straightforward supernatural cop story where he's investigating, but there's always a little bit in the next chapter or every other chapter where you're having to deal with the mundane. 

Jess: Like getting a job at a coffee shop.  

Tim: So, it was just a palate cleanser. I was wanting something as different as possible from what I normally write. 

Jess: It read like that too, it was just nice. It wasn't overly heavy, it wasn't. You know, because some of your books are thick. You write some thick books. 

Tim: It was only 83,000 words, so that was pretty short for me. 

Jess: Yeah, this one was a little bit shorter, and it was just a very light read and it was good. I liked it. Do you have plans to do more? 

Tim: I actually started on book two right after finishing book one. 

Jess: Nice. 

Tim: I got about, I want to say like 20,000 words in, and then I chided myself and I was like you need to focus because I have contract work that I'm supposed to be finishing. Like you need to focus and get back into this. And it's funny because I did that and I said that to myself and then I just spent one, two, three, four and a half months writing the book that I needed to finish and it was it was weird. It's weird cause I went from being very hyper productive to then I had four or five months of very low productivity. It wasn't that I wasn't enjoying the story or the book, it just was really hard for me to get the words out. Part of me is like you probably should have just finished Gabriel Gray book two and then gone and done it, cause my mind was just kind of stuck there for a while. So I do have plans, it's just it's going to be an in-between books type of thing, cause it only took me 11 days to write the first one, and that was writing anywhere from four to eight thousand words a day, just knocking it out. And then obviously there's editing and everything.  I imagine on a normal, not super hyper productivity time it would take me about a month to knock one out and just get it done. So one of these months, as I look forward to my schedule, I'll squeeze book two in and get that finished, and then three. I had plans for like six to twelve books, to cover this kind of slow burn arc of story that's happening, because I tried to leave some threads to show that there's bigger stuff happening and there's bigger stuff that needs to happen without giving too too much away. I hope I didn't give too much away in the first book, but let's see.  

Jess: no, no, I don't think you did. I think it was a good balance. Do you already know where you want that story to go? Like, do you know how you want that story to end? 

Tim: So, I know the ending. I don't know all the in-betweens. I can tell you a little sneak peek into book two. I just kind of pull up my notes to see. So, book two is going to deal more with the fey and the failings in their society. And yeah, I don't want to give too much away. It's going to be called like the clock tower or something like that  

Jess: oh, I like it. 

Tim: And it's going to deal with some ancient bindings that are coming undone. The city is in danger. At the same time he's just got a slight promotion. We've jumped in time a little bit and he's put on this case with his new partner that he's going to have, and so we explore more because on the first one he was still new and he was kind of given some freedom to do his small task as a you know. More like meter made stuff, and then he, of course, took it and ran with his own direction and was like I'm going to solve this. 

Jess: Yeah, he did. Well, I also don't want to give too much away, because it's a really good book to read and it's worth picking up and reading. But in the kind of warden police department it seems like everything might not be above board. 

Tim: Yep.  

Jess: I don't know how that's gonna play out. There's a little under the table stuff going on somewhere, maybe  

Tim: That'll continue. It's meant to be kind of like a, not to say police departments are corrupt, Just it's meant to be like there's other powers at work. 

Jess: Like a dirty cop kind of thing. 

Tim: And there's kind of some dirty cops when it comes to the warden situation and it's not ignored. It comes to the top and there are consequences too, even when maybe they're not as dirty as they seem or they just seem that way at first, but you don't know the whole story behind what they're doing. 

Jess: Yeah, that's gonna be good. I like it, I like it. 

Tim: Yeah, also the audiobook. I just got the audio files from the narrator for that one. For those that are into listening instead, it looks like it'll be about eight hours  

Jess: Who's doing the audiobook for that one? Can you say? Is that like still hush-hush knowledge? 

Tim: No, so it's just through me and so it's not a secret, but it's a random that I found on ACX. I just took additions for it. His name is Craig VanSickle. I don't know what else he's done. I looked him up a little bit, but he's kind of a new voice and he really enjoyed it and I like the sound of it, so we'll see how it goes.  

Jess: I like that. You got somebody new. Who did Dragonstone Academy? 

Tim: It was Christian Gilliland.  

Jess: I have heard of that narrator before. Yeah, I've heard of him, but he also pops up on my Facebook sometimes. I don't think I've actually listened to anything that he's done. I heard he does a pretty good job on books, so..  

Tim: Yeah, yeah, that's what I heard too. I looked up at the time and he did something for Dakota Krout, which was the big one. I was like, oh that's cool. But he did other ones like First Necromancer. I mean he's got a whole host of stuff. 

Jess: Okay. Yeah, we were talking about First Necromancer at JordanCon this past weekend and someone had mentioned that he did that audio book. That's why his name sounds so familiar, because we were literally just talking about it over the weekend. Okay. 

Tim: Jealous. I wish I could have gone. 

Jess: Yeah, it was so much fun. It was great. I am currently listening to First Necromancer. He does a pretty good job. He's doing a pretty good job in that book. So tell me, what do you have coming up? What's the next book coming out or the next big thing that you're working on that you're super excited about? 

Jess: Well, that would probably be, the name is pending because it's not up to me. I have a project I'm doing with Aethon and currently I call it System Reset. Who knows what they're going to call it, so we'll see about that. So, I just finished book one. It took me a ridiculous amount of time to do it, but I still think it turned out good. Probably shouldn't share the cover, because I know they're going to redo the typography. Anyways it's System Reset. It's a story about a kind of overpowered guy and his dog. It's very John Wick meets the apocalypse type story. 

Jess: Okay. 

Tim: And so it's meant to be slightly humorous, but you're not going to read it and just be laughing out loud. It's not meant to be like all these jokes, it's just a little bit of humor here and there. Mostly directed towards dying goblins and other things happening. 

Jess: Just try to offset some of the violence.  

Tim: Yeah, kind of offset the extreme violence that's happening. I don't want to spoil anything. What can I say about it? It's a very John Wick story, but the dog doesn't die. The dog is there, he gets kind of super powered up. He doesn't talk, but he does have higher intelligence and it was fun to write. I'm looking forward starting Monday and jumping into book two and deciding a little bit of where it's supposed to end. Book two is probably the biggest question mark. How I'm going to get it from here to there. So I'm going to do probably some outlining and stuff over the weekend and kind of firm things up and see if I'm ready to tackle it on Monday or if I need a little more time to kind of lay it out. But I've put a nice surprise at the end that I was kind of planning on and hopefully it'll have the readers not be too upset and be like, oh, I want to hear more about this thing that just got revealed, but also hold them off until book two comes around. 

Jess: Right. So when you have this deal like this with Aethon Publishing, do you go to them and say hey, I have this idea for a book, or how does that happen? 

Tim: I think it's different for different people. I can speak to my situation and what I did. I met at them at DragonCon and kind of just introduced myself and everything. I mostly met Rhett and we talked and I told him that I was working on a series. I was kind of busy, but I had another one and I kind of was just, trying to be an author and pitching him a little bit and be like, yeah, this is this idea I have. I think it's pretty cool and I didn't think too much of it. It was really nice and, personally I'm like I would love to work with Aethon because they put out so many awesome books. It would be great, and so I kind of relayed that, without trying to be too fanboy about it. And so then we got home and like a week after he reached out to me and I was like, okay, and this is where we just got talking and I told him that I was kind of busy basically for the next year with books and contracts and things. But they were still interested and I pitched him. So I put a pitch together and sent him over just a pitch about the story and whatnot. And they came back and they said they liked it and they wanted to get things made official. So we signed some documents and I had a deal. 

Jess: That is pretty cool. That's awesome. 

Tim: And it was also super nice because they were like you have this much time, which was a lot of time to do it, and I was like, oh, that takes the pressure off a little Because, like I said, I have this and this and this I need to finish. I want to finish this before I jump over to this. So they've been awesome to work with. 

Jess: Yeah, I mean, I guess it helps that you were pretty upfront with that about how busy you were, instead of being like, yeah, not a problem, I'll get over to you as soon as I can, and then them come back and be like we've got three months. 

Tim: Yeah, I'm like, oh crap. 

Jess: I bet that's... oof I do not like deadlines. 

Tim: No, neither do I. I can actually speak to that a little bit and how it affects your process. Like I love that I made a deal with them and I wouldn't go back on it or change what happened. But, man, having a deadline hanging over your head all the time, it makes it harder. 

Jess: Do you think that that can have an effect on the quality of the story? Like you get to a certain point and you're like, oh no, I'm. You know, I've got to get this done by this date. I need to rush. 

Tim: I sure hope not. Luckily I'm not rushed, I feel like I have enough time. For instance, they gave me until September to finish book one and I'm four months early. I mean, I'm still tweaking with some editing stuff, but it wasn't so much that as just having the deadline there for whatever reason. It's just like this extra weight just pushing down on you and it's like I hope it doesn't affect the quality, you know, and it definitely felt like maybe it lowered my word count and it was also mixed in with me burning myself out a little bit by having a few months of like hyper productivity coming off of another contract and projects. And then I'm like, now let me jump into this.   

Jess: Not taking any time off in between  

Tim: Yeah, and it's hard because you know when you're doing it to provide for your family. People say, like, take time off, like I'd love to, but I also need to get things finished. 

Jess: Right, like I also have bills to pay. 

Tim: If I take too much time off, yeah, these bills aren't paying themselves. So yeah that's the kind of crappy part about it. Like I wish I could just not worry about any and just write. I feel like the quality is coming out about the same as what it would be, though I think it just slows me down a little bit, because I got to think through it a little more. I got to be a little more deliberate. 

Jess: With the deadline not being until September, though I mean, I don't know how long it takes to write a book, because I don't write books. I mean that seems like even if you're just now finishing book one, that's still so much time. You weren't having to sit here and say, oh my god, I'm only a third of the way through the book and it's due in three weeks. 

Tim: Yeah. So I think the biggest issue comes with my own personal scheduling. So I schedule everything out and I have a spreadsheet that tells me that not only am I tracking every day, I'm predicting what I'll do in the future so I can have an idea of when things will be done. And that's where we ran into some issues, I expected this to be done at the end of March and it didn't get finished until like, beginning of May, actually maybe before. I think I was shooting for middle to end of March, and so I shot over the thing by about a month, which then pushes everything else back, and then I expected to be finished in this time. So then I would do this and then I could start this, and then this would come in, and then the you know, the advances would come in for those and that and this, and when that doesn't happen, I got to scramble and redo everything and try to figure out how everything is going to fit, and that was the biggest issue. I think it wasn't really their deadline, because they're so good and I'm sure, even if I needed more time, I'm pretty confident that they would have been like oh yeah, that's fine, take more time. I don't want to do that to them because they gave me so much time to start with. But no, I think now that things are going better, I think if I go into book two with fresh eyes, I should have book two and book three finished middle of September, right around the time they probably expected book one to be finished. 

Jess: Holy cow. So I mean you're ahead of the game really yeah. 

Tim: When you just look at their deadlines. I'm way ahead of the game. If you look at the self-imposed deadlines that I put on myself then I'm like crap.  

Jess: I mean, your self-imposed deadlines are important, but they're not the standard by which you know... 

Tim: Yeah, and they're the people writing the checks. 

Jess: Right, that's funny. So you've got another series that you have released the first two books on, and I think I had read on your website that you were wanting to start book three, and I cannot recall the name of it now. I think it was like Crystal Mountain. 

Tim: Journey to Crystal Mountain yeah. So that's my litRPG attempt at doing a middle grade story, so like a YA, but maybe a little bit lower than that. You know, like the 10 to 12 year old range. You're early readers. I kept it very simple, straightforward. Book three is actually finished. It's just my wife works now and she does my editing, so it takes a little longer and we've got higher priority stuff so she still hasn't gotten to it. But I've been poking her because she does the covers for it too and I was like I need a cover and an edit, like it's only 20 000 words, like come on, let's do it. 

Jess: So, what is that story about? 

Tim: So, this story is about a group of students. It starts off and Mr Shadow, the substitute teacher, gets one of the main characters in trouble, a rambunctious boy. So Zack is trying to be the class clown, so he makes a joke at Mr Shadow's expense and, of course, Mr Shadow is a little more than he seems, sends them to detention and he happens to be the teacher of detention. They get whisked away to a magical island with dinosaurs and magic, and each of them are given a bracelet, like a bracer on their arm, and it gives them specific magic that they can use, like one for instance has an inventory system. Another one has the ability to create things Minecraft style. Another one can tame different creatures and then another one uses projected light. And so they have to learn to work together to overcome the challenges that they're facing, which is like threats of dinosaurs and the T-Rex and different things happening. And there's a mystery overlapping the three books that happens, where they have to try to figure it out. How do we get out of this island, how do we get back home? And it ends with them getting kind of stuck. They've been thrown there against their will and they have to find their way back and that's what the three books cover. 

Jess: So what made you decide to do a younger series? 

Tim: I've lots of nieces and nephews. I have kids of my own as well that are kind of getting to that age and I just wanted something that's a little easier to digest, a little shorter, because each of them are only 20,000 words. So if you were an adult, you could sit down and knock it out in an afternoon and be fine, whereas the kids it's gonna take them a little while, but still. 

Jess: Yeah, I mean a lot of the books in the litRPG genre that are geared towards ya or a little bit younger, are still not. I wouldn't say they're super great for like 10, 12 year olds. They're still a little borderline. They got some adult jokes that might fly over the radar for younger kids, but they're still in there. 

Tim: So I tried to avoid a lot of that and I tried to simplify my writing as much as I could as well, without being patronizing. You know, like I talk simple for you, but you know, kind of an in between and I think I nailed it for that. Once I get the third book out, I'm going to have another cover done and combine them and do an omnibus and try to push that a little bit more and actually market it in the groups because I haven't really said much about it. If you've heard about it, it's because you've read my other stuff and you happen to notice that there's something else that's there. 

Jess: I do a lot of research before I do an episode. 

Tim: Yeah, so it's the same with fans. When the find something that they like, they'll poke around a bit and they'll see it and I'm like, oh, okay, that's cool, but it's still geared towards kids, so it's not always something that you're going to want to jump in and read. But yeah, it was really fun to write. I could I knocked out a book like that in a week or less, so it was really fun. It was kind of fun to play with the more simple themes of stuff, while also leaning into the friendship and working together kind of stuff. 

Jess: Yeah, I mean, sometimes I can't imagine having to write a litRPG or a gamelit book and really having to come up with the entire system and the stats and all of that. It can sometimes just get so heavy. 

Tim: Yeah. 

Jess: I'm sure this just keeps it nice and light. I mean it has to, if it's for younger readers, otherwise they'll just get completely lost. I get completely lost as an adult sometimes.  

Tim: I try to keep it to almost Minecraft-y kind of skills, where it's very simple and straightforward. There was still leveling, so it's litRPG. You know they're leveling their skills and stuff, but it's straightforward. It's very much like you use it a few times, you get a level, you use it in a new way, you get a level. 

Jess: I like it, I like it, and so you have several completed series and then some that are not. You've got Eldritch Knight. 

Tim: So, these are the series that it has listed for me. The Nethergate Wardens, which is the Dragonstone Academy. Path of the Titans, which is complete, but also not. I'm going to add a couple books because I feel like it got a really good reception and there is more that I wanted to explore. This was actually meant to be my 12 book series that I wanted to go like super crazy into. I have notes for every three book series that was going to cover different aspects of the Titans that are being awakened or you're feeling the effects of them. I don't know if I'll go that far, but there was a kind of a finishing arc that I wanted to do and I'll probably explore that and maybe do a slight time jump. But getting off topic, then I have Lastborn of Kadarth, which is my Reincarnation Series. There's obviously Arcane Knight six book series and that's finished. Haven Chronicles, which is two books and it's not finished. It's going to be finished at either three or four books. It's an important series for my overarching universe, for the books that are included in that. I need to make an infographic on that, because people ask me for the reading order or which books are part of the series or part of the universe, and it's like well, not all of them. Yeah, and then I have Elemental Realms, which is a three book series as well  

Jess: Yeah, so that's actually what I wanted to mention. So, you've got some of these series that you've written? They all take place in the same universe but at different times so none of them are happening at the same time? 

Tim: And different parts of the cosmos, the world. You're not always in the same part of the universe so it's even that big I would say. You're not leaving the galaxy initially. Well, once you initially leave Earth, you're going into a galaxy where it's kind of all together but it spans the universe. I set up a magic system that has rules that I know and I have to follow. All my magic systems that are slightly different within that system have to follow those core rules if they're going to work right. And you get a little bit of that if you've read my Reincarnation series, The Lastborn of Ki’darth. I don't know if you have, but  

Jess: That one I have not  

Tim: So in that one he ends up going somewhere different and he sees his stat sheet and everything begins to change as it orients to this different location within how the magic systems work, which is really cool, and it's got a lot of lore from my universe, so it's definitely one to check out. Eventually it looks kind of sci-fi but it's very much fantasy sci-fi. It's got a touch of sci-fi because it's aliens and different worlds, but it's very much heavy fantasy. 

Jess: And do you think at some point, they'll all or some of them will intersect or there will be an overlap.  

Tim: So there is overlap. 

Jess: I've not read enough of them. 

Tim: So, the biggest overlap you'd notice, you've read Arcane Knight, okay, and you've read Path of the Titans. So you know that Mah’kus, or however you say it, he's obviously showing up in both of these books as a character who is kind of pulling threads. What you don't know, because you haven't read the Last Born of Kadarth, is that Atex, the jolly heroic fellow he is, is actually one of the main characters from that book series. 

Jess: Okay, and he was in Path of the Titans. 

Tim: Yep, and he was in Path of the Titans, so he jumped over, and so there's a little playback there. The plan is there's going to be more crossovers as I kind of finish a few things. I'm not sure that I'm putting out any more book series that are in the universe. I've done what I've done and I'm focusing on finishing. So Haven Chronicles, the Eldritch Knight series, is kind of the base of the conflict and where the conflict will eventually end as well. 

Jess: Okay. 

Tim: So, without saying too much, I don't think you've read Eldritch Knight. Have you, or did you? 

Jess: I read the first one. Yeah, I've read the first one. 

Tim: Yeah, so book two audio for that is also coming out. I just sent back all the corrections to him and it turned out pretty good. And everyone that's read it and listened to it said that it's better than book one, which I mean it was my first book versus my like 20th something book. I was like I'm glad you're saying that but at the same time, you know, I hope that book one holds up a little. 

Jess: It's still wild to me that you've written that many books. That's a lot, so many books. 

Tim: I have a plan for the universe and I have a capping series that I'm going to do that takes all your favorite protagonists that have survived and brings them into one huge story and just finishes off the main conflict, the one that I've been building throughout all these series and hinting at. 

Jess: Yeah, well, that implies that some of my favorites won't survive. 

Tim: Some people don't make it. 

Jess: Great. 

Tim: I think some of the fan favorites are definitely going to be there. 

Jess: Good. I would be excited at some point to have like a reading order in timeline. 

Tim: Yeah, I need to do an infographic saying what order to read it. So how I wrote it, and this was planned, is you can basically read in any order and you're not going to miss out on anything, you'll get the information. However, if you fail to read certain ones, like Last Born of Ki’darth or Reincarnation, because maybe it doesn't look like it's going to be your story, you will miss out on chunks of information that are going to be useful when you get to the end. But at the same time, I want to write it in a way that you're not hindered by having not read it. Maybe you choose not to read one of them. You're still going to get enough information that you know enough of the characters, that you're going to be like Oh, okay, I get what's going on. 

Jess: This is cool. So you might miss out on just a little bit, but not enough to ruin the story. 

Tim: I will say that Lastborn of Ki’darth is one that I urge people to listen to or read, because there is a lot of lore that comes through in the last couple books on that one. Like, it starts off kind of light and then it gets a little heavy and you get information that, having read path of the titans already, you'll be like, oh, that's interesting, this person is being mentioned and this person is here now.  

Jess: Yeah, interesting. I actually want to go back and reread Path of the Titans. I enjoyed it. 

Tim: Well, if you wait long enough. I was actually going over my schedule today, so I will either. This is funny, so I'll either write book four and five in 2026, halfway through the year, or I won't get to it until 2028. 

Jess: So long. That's quite a ways away. 

Tim: And that's me trying to kind of rein in my writing. Because I want to keep it going and I want to be consistent. I don't want to stop, but at the same time I'm going to be taking a step back into the workforce and trying to earn a little more money, while also trying to get back into programming, and I'm going to be going back to school to get my master's actually. 

Jess: That's a pretty hefty plate you've got there. 

Tim: So things are going to get a little more tight time-wise. Luckily, I do a lot of my writing very early in the morning. I wake up at 4:35 and I knock it out while my brain is still fresh and all my other responsibilities don't matter yet. And so by the time I'm finished, you know, it's 7:38 and I can go and worry about work and school and things. But because of that, I'm only estimating that I'll be getting about six books done a year, as opposed to 2024, I did one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten books. So, the number's gonna go down, but I'm gonna keep it going. I'm gonna keep it consistent. I think I can still get a book out every two months or so. I do have a secret project that I'm hoping to work on. I just don't know if I'll be in the right headspace to do it and I don't want to do it a disservice, and I don't know how much I should say about it because it's still kind of on the ropes and whatnot. 

Jess: Secret project is secret. 

Tim: So, it's my first attempt at working with someone else while writing. 

Jess: So, like co-authoring. 

Tim: So, I'm co-authoring with somebody else. It's very exciting. I just don't want to spoil anything because if it doesn't end up happening soon as whatever, and it's like, oh, it's three years later, where's that, you know? 

Jess: Yeah, I've always wondered how co-authoring a book would go and what the biggest hurdles for something like that would be. I would imagine you would have to find someone that is very in sync with how you write. 

Tim: So, it's actually a narrator that I'm working with, which is kind of cool. 

Jess: Yeah, I think I heard about this. I think I heard little snippets of this at DragonCon. There were little tiny conversations at DragonCon. You still kept it very hush-hush. 

Tim: Yeah, and we'll probably talk about it more LitRPGCon. But I'm very excited. I wanted to take a break and do the first book before I did System Reset, but I'm trying to be responsible, both financially and to honor the contracts that I have. So I was like, no, I need to start this first. And good thing I did, because it took me a while. But yeah, that project, if it happens, will be really awesome. It's an interesting kind of dynamic working with somebody else because there's kind of expectation there, and you almost second guess yourself a little bit and I'm going to be doing the majority of the writing. But he's going to be doing a lot of the interludes and specific chapters with specific characters. But still, a lot of the heavy lifting is on me, but then because he's a narrator, it's going to sound amazing and it's going to be done awesome, which is another reason why I want to at least get book one finished next year, if nothing else. 

Jess: Well, I think that that's going to be pretty cool.  

Tim: It will be so awesome if we can get it done. 

Jess: Barring, you know, that you have time and can get it worked out with your co-author narrator. That's pretty exciting. 

Tim: It is, and I wish I could say more. 

Jess: You have so much in the works and you're just everywhere, your fingers are in everything and it's impressive. 

Tim: I have the books planned up until 2028 that I need to write and I look at the ones in 2028 and I'm like, can I move these forward? I want to get to these a little sooner. 

Jess: I just want to write them now.  

Tim: Like, for instance, there's a book called Fall of Haldred that I want to write really, really, really bad. If I could just stop right now and start writing it, I would. I've written like 70,000 words in it. My first and probably only standalone where you'll get a full story, but it's because the book is long enough that it might as well be a trilogy. But it's a concept I've been working on for years and I have so many notes and things and I want to get it done. I even have a cover. I just haven't been able to get to it because it's not LitRPG. It's more of a darker fantasy sword and sorcery. 

Jess: Ooh, okay. 

Tim: And I think the idea is awesome and it's great. You got this overpowered character who is overpowered but only to the specific enemy that they are fighting and he has a lot of his issues, and things come with the social dynamic where he's very good at fighting and doing this but he's not good at navigating situations with people, and so you get it. It was just. It's really fun and I wish I could spend more time on it. 

Jess: You've written a small part of it already. Do you think it will be difficult to go back and pick it up and continue that momentum when you get around to having time to finish it? Or do you think you will have maybe lost some of the story? 

Tim: So this is actually an interesting point. So I will, and this has to do with my ADHD, I'll get an idea and I'll just start running with it and I'll get several chapters out and then I'll have to step back because I have responsibilities and I have to be firm. Otherwise I'll just be everywhere all the time. Which medication helps with, but at the same time, I still do it. Arcane Knight was an instance of that. It came out in 2022. But in 2020, when I was taking a break, is when I wrote the first 50,000 words for that story, and it was supposed to be a short story. Turns out it's a million words now total. And it meant to be a short story. I was like I'm gonna write this short story and it's gonna be great. It's gonna be like very, very basic LitRPG, like straightforward. And it ended up becoming this like behemoth of an idea because it kept growing and I'm like, well, this has to happen and this is gonna happen and this is how this is gonna tie into this. And then it was just like, oh crap. I have to stop. So I stopped and worked on finishing Lastborn of Ki’Darth instead. And then the same thing happened with Path of the Titans. Around the same time, like maybe a month apart, I started on that and I wrote a 50,000 word chunk. So what I'm getting at is that actually helps me a lot because I can read that and it gets me back into the mind space of it and then I'm able to do my best. I always feel, coming back to it, like I would have done better if I had just finished it at the time, because I have that inspiration. It's at it’s most raw. But I feel like I did all right with Arcane Knight and Path of the Titans, kind of carrying the same feeling through yeah, so it's possible. It can make it difficult, but I find that having something to read and to look at kind of sets me up for success when coming back to it as well.  

Jess: I also imagine it might give you time to come up with maybe different ideas. Like you said with the other one, it was only supposed to be a short story and then it just kind of snowballed. So who knows, maybe if you had just stuck with it right there, it might not have been the same story. 

Tim: This is kind of random and off topic, but I went back to Arcane Knight after I had the whole hospital stay with my arm and I hadn't written anything. Well, that's not true. I finished book three of Lastborn of Ki’Darth, but I was itching to start Arcane Knight. I literally would write in the morning and do my Lastborn of Ki’Darth book three and then I would jump over to Arcane Knight and I would just start editing what was already there and like adding sentences, adding a chapter here, like oh, we need to explore this a little more, and like throwing it in there. I had such an exciting time and I think a lot of that had to do with being able to take a good amount of a break and then jumping into it and it ended up being 180,000 words. But to me it was one of the shortest writing experiences because I was so involved and I loved every word of it. I was just like this is great. Moral of the story is I should probably take more breaks. Eventually I'll be able to, Just not right now. 

Jess: Yeah, you've got too much going on, but at some point take all the breaks. Just all of them, take all of them. 

Tim: Plus, I have so much I need to get done and I want to get the stories done and then it's a bummer because at this rate I won't get to Haven Wars. It’s the series that's going to cap off my universe. Haven Wars is the working title. At least I won't be getting to that until like 2029 or 2030, which is feels like forever away. 

Jess: It does feel like forever, but you know so six months is going to go by and it's going to be 2030 and then we're going to be like shit, where did the time go? That's how it's going to go, but you have so much planned out now, that's exciting. 

Tim:  There so much that the next couple years, if you're a fan of my writing, there's gonna be plenty of good stuff coming good. I also have a series that I'm gonna be writing under a pen name. 

Jess: Oooo, you're doing a pen name book. Is this also gonna be in the LitRPG genre, or is this gonna be something else? 

Tim: So it's LitRPG harem. It's not something I've dipped my toes into before, but I had an idea that was just so good and it involved having the harem aspect to it, so I'm gonna give it my best shot. There's a good chance I'm not gonna be able to finish it because I don't know how well I'll be able to do the spicy stuff, and you know that's a big part of it. So yeah we'll see. I probably won't ever mention what that pen name is 

Jess: Ah, I was gonna ask what name was. I'm assuming that you're choosing to use a pen name because you don't want it to be associated with your current body of works. 

Tim: Yeah. I don't want to mix because I have an expectation of what I write. I don't want people to be like, oh, let me pick up the next Timothy McGowen book, and it's like holy moly, and it'd be a harem. Which is a shame because it's such a good LitRPG story. Right now, I haven't gotten to the harem aspects and I'm like 20,000 words in which might be a problem because people, they want their things happening at some point. 

Jess: A slow burn. A slow burn can be good.  

Tim: Is very much what I'm writing. 

Jess: I've read two or three different series in the harem genre and the first one I read, I did not like at all and I almost never picked up another harem book. I was like I can't do this. I just can't. This is not for me. And then Richie and Joel from Chattin Stats, shout out to them, they were going to do an interview with another harem author and they were like just give it a shot, just try it, this one's really really good. And so I did and I'm like, ok, I don't hate harem, I actually really enjoyed it. So if you do write it, I'm going to want to read it. 

Tim: Maybe I'll tell you in secret and swear you to silence. 

Jess: I'll keep your pen name identity a secret. I won't tell anyone. 

Tim: Yeah, but I don't know. I'm so torn. I go back and forth, like I want to do it just to you know, experience it, see what I can stretch myself as and you do and whatnot, but at the same time it's like a really well-rounded, cool universe that I've created so it’s gonna be a good story. 

Jess: That's the beauty of the pen name. 

Tim: I'm excited to get the story out to people and hopefully I do the smutty parts well too. We'll see. 

Jess: I mean, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be like really like hardcore. It can be like light and mild smutty. 

Tim: It's not gonna be fade to black, but there'll be smut. It's definitely not gonna be like some of the ones that I've read, for instance that are just like oh yeah, we’re going there. 

Jess: Yeah, yeah, they can get intense, but one of my favorites was Magic's Mantle by Bruce Sentar. I don't know if you've read that one. 

Tim: It sounds super familiar. 

Jess: It was really, really good. It was harem, but it wasn't overly graphic, and the harem aspect of the book was used to propel the story forward. It wasn't the main focus. It's just really really well done. 

Tim: Okay, so need to save this one. But, uh, you check that out because I definitely need to immerse myself a little more into it, because I've read my fair share of harem stuff, but not nearly as much as I probably should. 

Jess: I've read the first three. I think there might be four out at this point, but I listened, to the audio book because they're narrated by Jessica Threat, who I absolutely love, and Christopher Boucher, and they did a fantastic job on it. I listened to the first book and was like I immediately need to listen to the second one now. And then just as soon as I was done with book two, I was like I have to listen to book three now and I, just back to back, inhaled them. They were so good, they did such a good job on them. 

Tim: Yeah, I'm going to have to check them out for sure. Then. 

Jess: Yeah, yeah. If there's one harem series I can recommend, it's that one. 

Tim: Good, I will read that, then I'll probably listen to it. 

Jess: And then you can keep it just mildly smutty. 

Tim: The idea behind the main harem mechanic is skill sharing. The more relationships and the deeper his relationships, not sexually, but just emotionally as well. The deeper their relationship and bond goes, the more skills they can share between themselves. So as they grow as a party, and the closer they are together, the more they can rely on each other and use each other's skills to get through the challenges that they're going to face, which is cool. 

Jess: Definitely check out Magic's Mantle then, because it's a little bit similar. So, it does have a little bit of that. I don't think they share each other's powers, but they can kind of help feed each other's power. So, it kind of runs along a similar vein, but it's not exactly like that. It was done really. 

Tim: Well, cool yeah, no, that's exciting I have saved it in my folder of harem so good that I keep. 

Jess: Okay, so enough about the harem. I could talk about that for probably way too long. What was your introduction to LitRPG like? How did you find this genre? 

Tim: Oh man, so I was a security guard back in 2017, 2018 or something, and I was doing graveyard shifts and I was trying to find books to read on my phone so I could listen, but I was mostly reading at that time, and I found, um, it was dungeon slime or something. Which was actually a dungeon core type book. Anywho, I found this book that was okay. But after the first book it kind of really went down in quality and so I ended up picking up the Divine Dungeon by Dakota Krout and so I started reading that. You know, it's not quite LitRPG, but it's LitRPG adjacent. And so, as I started reading that, I went and found groups where people were talking about it, but they were also talking about LitRPG, and then I was like LitRPG, cool. So then, of course the next book I read was The Land, which I was like oh this is awesome, like this is really cool. I like this stat stuff and then from there it just kind of blossomed into basically any LitRPG I could get hands on at the time, which was a lot of the early classics which I'm bad at remembering the names of. 

Jess: Oh yeah, seems to be the theme of the LitRPG genre and the readers in it. It's like we find that book that introduces us to the genre and then it just takes over our lives and then it's just non-stop, like we just consume it like it's air. 

Tim: It’s a mixture of being kind of light reading where it's not super intellectual or anything crazy, and the prose is straightforward. It's there for you to enjoy, not to patronize you and be over your head. So, it's just really easy to consume. And so I just started reading everything I could get my hands on. But it also kind of kicked off my desire to write again, like I'd always said that I wanted to be a writer. Then I started reading some of the stuff and I was like you know what, if they can do it, maybe I can do it. So I was like, well, let me give it a try. And the first story I wrote was actually meant to be LitRPG, but it didn't quite get to the stats or anything, because as I built it out I ended up building more and more. I spent probably four years writing Eldritch Knight and two of those were just world building. And that world building has kind of carried me through all these other series because it kind of laid the groundwork for it, which was nice, but it really set me on my path of writing. Without discovering LitRPG. I probably don't know if I would have ever taken the step, and if I did, it would have been in a different direction. I would have focused more on just pure fantasy. 

Jess: Yeah, that's nuts. Well, I'm glad you found LitRPG. 

Tim: Me too. Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but my journey into writing wasn't really easy either. So I put out my first book and it did okay, but okay is like a fantasy, you know, it didn't do anything groundbreaking. So then my next book was a LitRPG and like an actual LitRPG, but it was shorter. I put it out and it totally tanked. I put it out in 2020 and then I took it down after four months because I was like well, crap, like it didn't do good and I knew the story was worth telling and it's just either the execution or something about it just wasn't there. And so I sat on the idea for like a year and a half before I circled back to it and I rewrote it completely from scratch, changed the main character, changed a few other things and put it back out. And it did well enough that I realized that I could do it full time if I really wanted to. 

Jess: Which book was that? 

Tim: That was Last Born of Ki’Darth, the Reincarnation book. I actually have a copy of the original. It's the same cover, different typography, but it's much thinner and it's a different story. For those that have a copy of that, it's a rare find because you can't get it anymore. 

Jess: It's a rare thing now. Okay, so at this point you wrote two books.. 

Tim: Technically three. So I wrote a novella as well, called Dead Man's Bounty, which is also down now because I wanted to rewrite it. It was a very grim, dark, zombie, detective fantasy in the Victorian era, which I could send you a copy. I think I have some still around here. 

Jess: I went through this phase at one point, when I first got my Kindle, and I hate using my Kindle, I absolutely hate it so much. But when I first got it, I was trying to find all the free books that I could and there is like a massive amount of like post-apocalyptic zombie books that are just for free, and so I was reading as many as I could get my hands on and they were all fairly good. Some of them were not great, but, yeah, I was trying to get my hands on as many zombie novels at the time as I could. Gosh. That was, that was probably 2015. There were so many. 

Tim: I wonder if I can. I still have it in my kindle library. I need to find a physical copy and I'll send it over to you. It's just a novella. It's like a sit down and read in an afternoon type of thing. 

Jess: I would 100% read it. I love a good zombie story. 

Tim: It's also on audio too, and the audio is done pretty good. I think that's still listed. Let me check. It should be. I can actually give you a free code if you wanted to listen to it too, because I have lots of those because I didn't use them. Yeah, it's still up here with the first cover instead of the alternate cover. Yeah, remind me, I'll totally send you one. 

Jess: Yeah, I will happily listen to it. It was a very intense time just reading as many zombie stories as I could and I don't even know why. There wasn't even anything about that particular time or I don't know. I very much was just like oh, it's a zombie story, I'm in, I want it, I want it. It's all I was reading at the time. I was obsessed with zombie stories. It's weird phases we go through.  

Tim: I mean as a reader, like that's pretty normal. You go through different things that are what you want to be hearing at the time. So, yeah, check that out. It's kind of a main character who is basically a zombie, but doesn't like that he is and doesn't want to be how he is, but deals with it anyways, and he's part of a force that goes around and collects artifacts because the government says they don't exist and yet there's a branch of the government that works to eliminate them and dispose of anybody and anything that is magic related  

Jess: When I drive to Atlanta tomorrow I'm gonna start it. 

Tim: And it won't take you long. It's only a two hours and 12 minutes, so. 

Jess: Really? It is a short little story. 

Tim: Yeah, and I have plans. The reason I took it down off of Kindle is because I was actually going to rewrite book one completely as well as go into book two, but then again time and everything. 

Jess: It'll be like 2035. 

Tim: Yeah, what's actually will probably happen is it'll get squeezed in in between one of these projects, which is where novellas and short stories and books short like Gabriel Gray kind of work. 

Jess: It'll be your little palette cleanser. 

Tim: Exactly that's what I want. 

Jess: Nice. Where can everyone find you? I'm going to have links to your amazon page, your website and things like that in the description of the episode, but where can everybody find you? 

Tim: You can find me on Facebook, just searching author page Timothy McGowen. You can find me on my website. If you want to purchase books from directly from me, that's the easiest way. Just go to authortimothymcgowen.com and it'll redirect you to the page. That's the best way to support an author is just buy from them directly. Where else am I? I'm on other social medias. I also have a Discord where I update occasionally with little stuff, so you'll know when books finish and you get sneak peeks at covers. I also have a Patreon, but I am a horrible patreon person and I apologize to those that are paying me money. I have not been putting up chapters of my latest book, because it's a contract book and I didn't really know where it landed with that. I also don't give many updates and I'm sorry and I will do better for those that for some reason still have not canceled and continue to pay me their money. 

Jess: Listen, we're a diehard fan base and when we support our authors we do it for a very long time. I have two authors that I subscribe to on Patreon. One is Matt Dinniman, and I think I give him, I don't know, like one or three dollars a month. And then I have SL Rowland, but usually I'll do an author for like eight months to twelve months and then I'll drop it down to like the lowest tier for, like you know, a couple dollars a month, and then I'll do another author for like eight to twelve months and then I'll drop that down. I kind of like to switch it up a little bit and try to support as many authors as I can.  

Tim: I think I have Jonathan Brooks, Sean Oswald and then maybe a few other smaller ones. I mean smaller, they're big. But yeah, I'm not good at Patreon, though I need to be better. There was a time where I was consistently putting up stuff as I wrote it, and so you'd get the raw version of stuff and you get it months before it came out, which I want to do again. But again, I didn't want to really do that with the contract books and I've been working on contract books for almost, you know, the last eight months now. 

Jess: Well, I'm sure the people who are our patrons on your patreon probably understand that. 

Tim: I should still give them an update though, Like hello everybody, Just so you know. 

Jess: Yeah, I didn't forget about you guys, I promise. 

Tim: Right, thank you for still being here, but also, why are you still here? 

Jess: I appreciate it, but I don't understand it. 

Tim: Right. 

Jess: All right, Tim, thank you so much for being on. Thank you, everyone for hanging out and chatting with us. If you have any questions, guys everyone is welcome to comment on YouTube. You can find me on all of the major podcast platforms. Don't forget to subscribe. You can also go to my website and send me any emails. Yeah, and that's it. Until next time, keep leveling up.