David Darling, author of Edge Of Time

David Temple: All right, we're, that may or may not be included, you know, sometimes I reserve the right to do whatever the hell I want because it's my show.

David Darling: I know that, I'm very good with that, that's fine Dave.

David Temple: And welcome to The Thriller Zone, David Darling.

David Darling: Well, thank you very much for having me, David.

David Temple: You can call me sweetheart if I'm gonna say David darling, you gotta say David sweetheart and then we'll

David Darling: Well,

David Temple: just be it's the lovefest, right?

David Darling: obviously, yes.

David Temple: Yeah.

David Darling: You prefer Dave or David? I've never

David Temple: I like

David Darling: heard

David Temple: David

David Darling: anybody

David Temple: myself.

David Darling: ask this. Okay.

David Temple: Yeah. When I refer to myself, I always use Dave. I don't know why. I guess it's... Who the hell knows why? See this book here? Ladies and gentlemen, Edge of Time. We're gonna be talking about it. Also, uh david I don't do this often And you if you don't want this you just tell me to go bite myself, but

David Darling: Alright.

David Temple: I got a couple of Tidbits a little insights. I would be happy to share with you if you would like them after the after the show That has to do with the basically formatting things

David Darling: Yes, I am up for literally everything. However, that is a rough copy and things have been revised five times since that edition in your hand. So yeah.

David Temple: Ladies and gentlemen,

David Darling: Yeah,

David Temple: Double D is legit.

David Darling: putting the effort in now, so it'll pay off later.

David Temple: Yeah, well, we've got a lot to talk about. I want to say this out of the gate. I went back and checked my Twitter factory, my little blue bird chat box, whatever bullshit that means. It was 11, it was November 16th of 2021, when we were first really kind of talking on the twit. The book was Great Choices and you sent it to me and it's here in the room somewhere amidst my two thousand books but um... Sorry we never got to that but we are getting ready to get to Edge of Time shortly. So... Dude we've been talking for two years.

David Darling: That's kind of crazy actually. Yeah, on multiple platforms from YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and now podcast. So

David Temple: Yeah.

David Darling: that's great.

David Temple: And not to blow smoke up your skirt. I don't think you're wearing one, but I want to say that you are one of the most, I guess the best word is to say loyal fans. I mean, you take loyalty to a new level. You're always encouraging. You're always retweeting. You're always building up the community. And I'm telling you something, and this is coming from my heart. I think that's one of the... single reasons you're going to launch because you see the big picture. You're not just out there banging the words. You're really invested in the community. I appreciate that.

David Darling: Well, first, not a problem. And you're right about one thing. It is a community and writers talking about reviews, podcasts, even book releases, everything. And everybody comes together for that event. And that's part of the community that I've really enjoyed as well as an author. As you can tell, I love to read as well, but. I enjoy your shows and your interviews with writers because you don't ask them just normal questions. You ask them stuff about writing as well. So as an author, man, I've taken some notes, you know, when you're talking to the big guys and how do they do things? Are they pants or are they plotters? What goes on? And it's such a relief as the new guy on the block to- that people who are on book 30 of a series or have been doing this for 20 years have the exact same problems I have and are going through it and they deal with it too. So as a writer, boy, I can't thank you enough for those kinds of questions. So it's really appreciated. So,

David Temple: Awesome. I think you, I'm wondering if you're referencing, I was just talking to my wife, Tammy, you've met, you've met Tammy or seen Tammy on the show

David Darling: I've talked.

David Temple: before.

David Darling: Yep.

David Temple: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Darling: Sure. Oh, for sure. We

David Temple: Yeah.

David Darling: go way back.

David Temple: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we were talking, I think it was Bob DiGoni and I asked Bob, I wanna see if this rings a bell for you. I said, Bob, do you, do you still get nervous? Do you wonder if

David Darling: Yeah.

David Temple: you still got the juice? And he said, yeah. And I'm like, what? He goes,

David Darling: Every

David Temple: yeah.

David Darling: book he said, yeah.

David Temple: Right? I said, dude, you've written what? 30, 25, 30 books. And he goes, yeah, every single time. I just, I, you know, I just wonder. And I'm like, and that's what you're referring to. I think that's so cool because we think, you know, somehow, somewhere we put people on pedestals that truth be told, they don't need to be there. Now you're talking to a guy who has been in and around show business and I use show business in a broad term since I was about 15. So. I learned early on, we're all putting on our pants and rubbing our cracks the exact same way. So don't

David Darling: You got

David Temple: get

David Darling: it.

David Temple: too terribly, you know, caught up in it all because the same way you rise is the same way you fall. So

David Darling: Standing.

David Temple: yeah, I just want to say that. Now, folks, in case you're hearing the about, that is Canada. David Hills from Canada. What part of Canada, by the way?

David Darling: I live east of Toronto in Ontario, so not too far from Buffalo.

David Temple: Dude, one of my favorite cities in the world is Toronto.

David Darling: Come on down, next time you're back, bring the wife. I'll take my wife, we'll go out for dinner. We'll go to the CN Tower. We'll do all the corny tourist stuff that you could go to the casino at Niagara Falls. We could do all that stuff.

David Temple: Yeah, there's something about Toronto. Now, I don't like the winters. I'll be honest with you there. Who does? But I did some business back a few years ago with some clients up there and I was there many times anywhere between Toronto and Vancouver, another

David Darling: Right.

David Temple: fantastic city.

David Darling: It

David Temple: But

David Darling: is.

David Temple: Toronto is neat. Toronto reminds me of, and I don't mean this in any offense to anyone in New York City because I lived in, I did two tours of duty in New York and I loved them, but it's like a clean New York.

David Darling: when they're filming here for big productions and they're filming up and down the streets and it's supposed to be a location in the States, they actually bring in garbage to litter the streets to make it look more like New York. Obviously they clean it up after. Yeah, they just did that in Matthew Quirk's novel that just went,

David Temple: station,

David Darling: no, the Night Angel.

David Temple: night agent,

David Darling: Night

David Temple: night,

David Darling: agent.

David Temple: yeah.

David Darling: Yeah, they did that on that scene. I got it somewhere in here too. They did that on that scene. And the only reason we knew it was filmed in Toronto was we saw Canada Post, our local mail delivery trucks drive by on the street. And we were, a few of us caught that and we were laughing.

David Temple: Yeah.

David Darling: So.

David Temple: Hey, I'll give you a little inside secret on how Hollywood works. Those are, that's just paper and stuff balled up. It's not actual trash in the bags. Just want you to know. Okay,

David Darling: Hahaha

David Temple: Sean. All right. All right. Listen, so we're going to get to edge of time, but I... I went looking at your website, which we're going to cover a little bit later, which is daviddarlingbooks.com. And I did not see a whole lot of about page and I'm kind of a fanatic, as you know, about research. So I like to know, I like to know about my people, my boat, uh, my guests. So, um, enlighten me and my listening friends here on the Thriller's Own podcast as to what you do in your real or other life will say. We'll start there.

David Darling: Oh, thanks Dave, David. Some may know and some may not. I was in the army reserves for 17 years. And during that time, I was full-time for over half of it. And I would teach literally everything from basic training to how to drive tanks. I've polished your boots to firing the main gun of a tank. So, as well as being a crew commander. I've done... I've taught leadership courses. So that part of it I really enjoyed. And when I wasn't doing that, I've been a letter carrier with Canada Post. So I've been the mailman. But when winters are getting pretty cold, I would go teach with the army. And I did that for quite a long time. So I left the military in 2009 after 17 years, and it was enough. I'd been there, done it, and... It was no longer enjoyable. So,

David Temple: Okay.

David Darling: but I did tanks, an armored unit for the majority of it. And then when I moved to Ottawa in Ontario, I was in an artillery unit, 30th field regiment. So we're doing the Howitzers, the 105 Howitzers. I was still teaching and having a great time. But when it came time to move back to Toronto area with my wife and her job, and I said, time to hang up the boots. And that was, I was good with that. So great times, great memories and some sort of hazy memories.

David Temple: Oh sure. Well first of all, thank you for serving.

David Darling: Well, thank you.

David Temple: And also thank you for sharing that with me because I never knew this. I, you know, I didn't scour too deep. You should, you should go ahead and put that on your website. Let people know that's that's a proud accomplishment. And being a postal carrier, that's no, that's no easy layup. My brother used to do it and he used to talk about it. It's, it can be brutal work. I mean, it ain't for the faint of heart.

David Darling: Well, the depiction of a Cliff Claven on a Cheers or Newman on Seinfeld, first it's not true. We do deliver in the rain and snow.

David Temple: Right.

David Darling: It's a little colder up here in Ontario sometimes. So

David Temple: Yeah.

David Darling: it's hard on the body. You're carrying 40, 60 pounds of mail up driveways, upstairs, downstairs, stuff like that. So now that I've been there with Canada Post for... Going on 26 years, I've accumulated enough seniority to get a better route where I'm in a truck and I can drive to like apartment buildings and do mail rooms and stuff like that, so.

David Temple: Yeah, you got to love the scenarios where the primary post is a great big multiple unit box in a complex so you don't have to go to every single door. Yeah,

David Darling: Correct,

David Temple: good.

David Darling: yeah, we call them community mailboxes up here. So

David Temple: Oh.

David Darling: I do deliver to quite a few of those.

David Temple: Good on you. Well, I want to know when did that time come in your life? Was it as a child? Was it in the army? Was it just more recently? When did you say, you know what, Ed Gummett, I got the goods. I know what I want to do. I want to be a published author.

David Darling: Five years ago I was I had shoulder surgery on my right shoulder and I was laid up and I have always liked to read and so I was reading two to three books a day kind of thing getting right into it enjoying it and then I picked up a book I had weeks and I'd almost two months off to recover so I was reading quite a bit and I picked up a book and I can't recall the author of the title And it was one of those did not finish. I was disgusted. I put it down and I said, you know what? That is horrible.

David Temple: Hehehe

David Darling: And I go, that's, and this is a big author. So I'm like, okay, I could write a better book than that. And I had about another seven weeks off. So I did. I switched gears and I just started writing a story. And while I... drew upon my military background. My first novel on the far side there, serving the shadows recruitment, and about a guy from the 75th Ranger unit, he is, his brother passed away and he could still see him. His brother was a CIA operative and died during a mission. And he could still see and talk to his brother as a ghost. That was my twist. I'm not gonna write a Brad Thor novel. I'm not gonna write all that Mitch Rapp stuff. So I stuck with what I knew and I threw

David Temple: Awesome.

David Darling: in a little twist there and that kicked me off and into my career.

David Temple: So, Serving the Shadows recruitment was the first one. And was that just something, was that also, did you ever get involved in NaNoWriMo, by the way, just side note?

David Darling: I did. I've tried it. For those of you that don't know, that's where you write 50,000 words within the month of November. And I've heard some legal problems. People are uploading their manuscripts to the official website to keep track of their word count and acknowledge that you're participating and some people have had their work stolen or compromised or rewritten and worded.

David Temple: Oh.

David Darling: Yes, I've participated, but I haven't really uploaded to make it official, but...

David Temple: Well, now that's that is I have never heard that David that surprising and disturbing. We won't go down that rabbit hole because I don't have the facts to back it up. But I

David Darling: I can't back it up, but I've heard it from three different people that I thought they were good sources. So

David Temple: Okay,

David Darling: is it

David Temple: yeah,

David Darling: true? I don't know. It's a

David Temple: point,

David Darling: lot like politics.

David Temple: yeah, point being what I really want to drill down on is a lot of people go, hey, how can I kickstart it? And I think, I think perhaps my first what I would call serious book that I decided to dig into not to make it about me but to share something with you is that along the way I went, you know what? If I could shoehorn myself into a situation that would force me to stay accountable, let me see if I can do it and I whipped one out in 30 days and I'll tell you what, I like the pressure. Matter of fact, my very first military thriller which is hilarious because I had nothing to do with the military, nobody in my family in the military. I know how to shoot a gun, that's about it. But I got caught up in this character, ended up writing three book series, each November in a row, going, well, let me see, I can do a lot again.

David Darling: Perfect.

David Temple: Yeah, my point being, I think it's great discipline. I really want to get to the word of discipline and that's what you, I bet you have found out. Alright, let's roll down here a second. So you've written, uh, Serving the Shadow's Recruitment, you mentioned that very first one. Tipping Point, which the Noah Hunter Police Procedural. Great Choices, which became the second in the series, that's the one that you sent to me and I haven't, sorry, got around to reading it. Then

David Darling: It's

David Temple: you

David Darling: not

David Temple: got

David Darling: going.

David Temple: the, um, Thriller Novella, Grim Measures, which sounds spookily fabulous. And then of course, edge of time which is releasing this weekend. So dude, that right there, that is what I call a body of work already. Now that probably to you and somewhere in your head, probably a little bit of practice, right? But you're feeling more confident with every book, aren't you?

David Darling: For sure, yeah. I'm currently working on book four in the Noah Hunter series. Book three, which kind of skipped right there, is called A Course of Action. And that snuck out last... April? May? I can't remember. Last year. A year ago. And I'm working on book four. However, I've run into a couple problems, but basically I deleted 60,000 words on purpose and then... I wasn't feeling it. I didn't like the character was acting like a special ops spy, not a police officer and while I've kept some of that material because it's really good writing, I'm going back to the turning point there and redoing that.

David Temple: All right, so wait a minute. You told me I missed one, which I got to beat myself up a little bit. It's not on your website though. We don't have to take the time to do that, but I'm looking at your books page right now and I do not see it. My friend that has got me startled.

David Darling: You're right. I think I deleted that to put on Edge of Time. Oh my gosh. My apologies.

David Temple: Mm.

David Darling: Nope.

David Temple: Mm. No, that's okay. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't doing some

David Darling: Nope.

David Temple: screw up. Alright.

David Darling: Well, now I know what I'm doing after this interview.

David Temple: Okay. Hahaha! Hey dude, I'm here to protect and disturb. Okay.

David Darling: So yeah, the whole. There's that theory that you have to write a million words before you become competent enough to be taken seriously by A, the big hitters or the public as a whole. So a million words for the average novel of 100,000 words. So that's 10 books. And I've written more than that. I've got a few of them in the back pocket, just basically doing nothing. But. now it's time to put some of them out like I just have been doing.

David Temple: All right, well, this is going to jump me into my next question, because which of these were these all? So how many of these were self published and which were or are being handled by your agent at Imagine Media Group? Literary Agency.

David Darling: Right now these were all self-published, all of them including my novella. Novella was a test, a 30,000 word test. I had to get it up and out and I found it successful. I've gone the gauntlet with Edge of Time. I've queried over 150 agents with it before I finally landed my current agent. and it's gone through so many revisions. I started with Ryan Steck. Me and him worked on that novel for over a year

David Temple: Wow.

David Darling: and we gave it some legs and even through him and his contacts, I've constantly heard and up to and including last week, great story, great writing, great premise. It's just not for me. So.

David Temple: And you know what? You can't... Ryan Steck, by the way, of the Real Book Spy, right?

David Darling: Correct, yes.

David Temple: Got it. Alright, so you don't let that take the wind out of your sails, David. I got to know that about you. You're just like, okay, it doesn't fit you. Moving on, because what's the old axiom? Every yes, every no gets you closer to a yes, correct? Right,

David Darling: Correct. Yeah,

David Temple: so...

David Darling: everybody's in this industry. You have to develop thick skin and they're coming at you. Meaning this, this just isn't for when somebody tells you great story, great writing, I really enjoyed it. You had the pace correct. Everything checked all the boxes all the way through. It's just not for me, you'll find somebody else. And you're sitting there and you're like, maybe this is for you, come on. Like this is, what's wrong then? What's wrong with the story? Why aren't you, so, and then after a certain point, you're like, it's time to move on. Let's, it's in the past and let's put it up and out and see where, let's focus on the next novel. So, I'm gonna go ahead and start with the next novel. I'm gonna go ahead and start with the next novel.

David Temple: How much time have you spent around agents? And before anyone in the audience gets ready to throw something at me, be careful. But have you spent a lot of time around agents? Okay. there's a little thing that you might want to know. And again, it's just part of the business. It's like, nobody wants to be like, okay, I'm going to take it this way. I was in Hollywood three tours of duty and in Hollywood, nobody wants to be the bad guy. Nobody wants to say no in case you go boom boom later and blow up and they go, oh, I was the guy that said no. So they'll always often, more often than not perhaps, can I waffle anymore about that, say, Oh man, it's so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's right on point. Solid, but not for me. So that way they can walk away a good guy feeling good about themselves. Now they didn't, they haven't helped you any per se, but you just have to take that and walk away and go, it's okay. That's all right. It wasn't good for Bob or Frank or Sally or whomever, but maybe the next one and you just keep going and you just keep refining. Right? My best

David Darling: You got

David Temple: piece

David Darling: it.

David Temple: of advice there. Yeah.

David Darling: Well, somebody had dropped this novel, Edge of Time.

David Temple: Mm-hmm.

David Darling: Four weeks ago, they dropped the first four chapters on Tom Colgan's desk and blew my mind because Tom emailed me on a random Sunday afternoon four weeks ago, long after I've planned on self-publishing this novel and getting it out. And he asked for the full manuscript.

David Temple: Tom

David Darling: Blew my mind.

David Temple: Colgan?

David Darling: Yeah, Tom

David Temple: Editor

David Darling: wanted.

David Temple: to the stars?

David Darling: He wanted the full manuscript. So him and a team of people read the story and he says they passed. However, it took them, him and the team a while to decide because he liked my writing and he thought my voice was quite engaging and I know how to move a story along. So, you know, I take that as a win, a solid, huge win. I just can't.

David Temple: Yeah!

David Darling: Thank you, Tom, for even considering. Like, it's just, like, I got nominated. It's an honor. This

David Temple: Yeah.

David Darling: really was. So

David Temple: Yeah.

David Darling: I know how busy Tom is, and I appreciate his time. It's very valuable, so.

David Temple: Uh, that's rarefied air, sir. I mean, the fact that you even got allowed into the room and you took a seat for even five minutes is rarefied air and you should pat yourself on the back because I know a lot of people who would be banging on the door, camping outside the door hoping to get in. So, good for you.

David Darling: Well, long as my foot was in the door, I kind of said, well, I let him know that, you know, this novel might not be for him. And I go, but I just finished one called Signs of Anubis. I just finished it in second week of March and it just got back from the editors and I just finished putting some polish on it. And I'm going, well, my agent's now pitching this to publishers and I go, if you want, here's first crack at it. I just attached it to the email and I sent it back to him. Maybe something will happen with that, maybe not, but we'll

David Temple: Yeah.

David Darling: see.

David Temple: All right. Well, before we run out of time, because we're all tight on time today, let's talk about

David Darling: Thanks

David Temple: edge

David Darling: a

David Temple: of

David Darling: lot.

David Temple: time. Do this for me so that I don't give it away. It's a riveting read. It pulls you in. It doesn't let go like great books do. Tell me about, because I'll tell you this guy right here, Brad, oh yeah, Bradley Holman, man. Tell me about Bradley. Don't have to do not go into really don't give me all he bought these shoes at this one store back in the day. No, give me the elevator pitch so that the listeners who are thinking about tuning out and reaching for that dial, they may go, uh, there's a radio tune, a radio term in it. Um, well, they'll go, wait a minute. Maybe I should take a look at this book. It's dropping this weekend. Tell him, talk to me.

David Darling: Okay, well the whole premise is FBI agent Brad Holman, he's working with a farmer from the 1700s to stop a black hole from destroying the planet. And there's your pitch. And it all starts with the impossible break in at Fort Knox. How was this achieved? And Brad Holman's the number one lead investigator with the FBI, he's a rising star. And the president brings him in with the director of the FBI for this. Hush Hush investigation and it takes off from there.

David Temple: How much time did you spend inside Fort Knox researching it?

David Darling: You would be, first, YouTube is a wonderful resource because since 9-11, there's no more tours of Fort Knox. So, but you can download, you can see the plans for it. You can see the floor

David Temple: Wow.

David Darling: plans. There's people, there's old videos of people giving the tour up, right in through the vault. Everything I wrote in there is factual, including the way to the doors, the second vault door. the alarm systems that are built into the ground surrounding Fort Knox,

David Temple: Yeah,

David Darling: the depository.

David Temple: I would have sworn

David Darling: So

David Temple: you had been there. I mean, come on.

David Darling: everything's true. So, um, like I did throughout the whole entire novel, if I'm, I researched it and if I didn't know it, I made calls. For example, the particle accelerator at this University of British Columbia. I, well, three years ago, I made... a lot of calls to British Columbia. I talked to the staff there. I talked, emailed back and forth, getting some, making sure some of the facts were correct and about, and I studied diagrams of particle accelerators, which is just, yeah, I was the guy that had problems learning in school and the army taught me how to learn. Thank you. I appreciate it. So now I'm studying quantum physics on my own to make a novel.

David Temple: Oh my God. Okay. All right. Can you bear with me one quick second? It's over here on the floor.

David Darling: Alright.

David Temple: All right. Don't move. Don't move. You're not going anywhere. All right. Where did I put it? It's on the floor. Here it is. I got it. I'm coming back. Here I come. Here I am. All right. I am like you, a quantum physics nut. There is so much to the universe that we don't know or we know So I went out and bought when I saw this New York Times bestseller again, sorry to interrupt your book pitch.

David Darling: Yeah.

David Temple: But if you haven't seen if you haven't seen this nildegrasse tyson talks about astrophysics for people in a hurry Do you know why this is good notice the size of it It's like a little it's like little snacks. You

David Darling: Oh, there

David Temple: just

David Darling: you go.

David Temple: you know, it's just snack bites and uh between the galaxies, black holes, quantum physics, cosmos on the table, dark energy, dark matter. David, yo it to yourself. Again, I get

David Darling: I've,

David Temple: nothing for that, but...

David Darling: I've researched the heck out of that guy. And he's pretty smart. He knows things I don't.

David Temple: pretty smart. That's

David Darling: Man,

David Temple: like

David Darling: that's

David Temple: saying the sun is pretty hot.

David Darling: it is. So I incorporated a lot of his theories of time, relativity, for example, quantum bounce. What is a quantum bounce? Well, that's when the black hole is plugged up and then redirects matter and energy outward and then possibility of forming a white hole. not a black hole. So yeah, like, so I studied all of this and I incorporated

David Temple: Yeah.

David Darling: a lot of it into the, into the novel. I've tried getting ahold of Mr. Neil, but to thank him, but it didn't go through.

David Temple: All right, here's a quick thing as we start to wrap it up. I want to know this because you have two books in the Noah Hunter series. So now you got Brad Holman coming along. So is your instinct, are you feeling more like, well, I got two in the pocket. Why don't I keep going Noah? Or are you going to branch off for Brad? Or are you going to go with time? I'll just do them parallel.

David Darling: I am doing a parallel and but for years, Edge of Time was going to be a standalone novel and that's the way it was. And until about a year ago, I had an idea for book two. So anyway, yeah, so I've already, I'm a third of the way through book two and it's incredibly heavy on research, getting making sure the historical timelines accurate. So I'm hoping to get that done within a year.

David Temple: Okay, quick question because I follow you on social media, as you know, as I mentioned earlier, and especially on Twitter. You're a really good marketing guy. Now, I don't know if you have a team behind you or you have an assistant or you do it all your own, but... You drip feed the streams with a little bit about your books and I wanted to know, give me an inside secret so I know how to do it. Are you, is your key consistency, is your key breaking up the pattern of the media that you put out? How does it work for you?

David Darling: A lot of it, well, I'm the team. So

David Temple: Okay.

David Darling: yeah, it's nice to meet you. And my graphics design, I took graphics design in college. So I have a little bit of a background with that. When I showed up, I was quite good of a student. And I knew how to research certain things like the best day to release a book is on a Tuesday. That's why you'll see this. constantly through all the big names, it's a Tuesday. And if you can nail Tuesday at the end of the month, that's great because your sales will bridge the month and automatically, so for April 25th is when edge of time comes out, it's on a Tuesday, the end of the month will keep your sales for the algorithms properly stacked. So make you more visible to the potential buyer. And there's a level of super saturating the social media with pictures and plugs all the time. If you do this two, three times a day, no one's, they're just going to scroll by. But if you do it maybe once or twice a week and then instead of replying right away to say a Twitter post, reply in three days, then you get more of a staggered effect. So it's sort of still there in the background. People are still seeing it or posting about it, but you're not super saturating and that's

David Temple: That's your trick. Okay, cool. By the way, I don't know where I, I may have said earlier, I did say earlier in the show that it was this weekend. My brain was thinking 23, but then I'm like, well, 23 isn't on a Tuesday. I know he's going to drop it on a Tuesday. So when you said 25th, I want to make sure I apologize that

David Darling: No,

David Temple: I,

David Darling: no, no problem.

David Temple: okay. So Tuesday the 25th. So I'm going to drop this show tomorrow, which is going to kick off the weekend. So hopefully this show will give you a little momentum into the weekend.

David Darling: Oh, perfect. Yeah, if you're interested in pre-orders, you can pre-order the ebook anywhere from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Chapters, Indigo, Apple Books. And then you can order the paperback copy on Tuesday from any vendor anywhere.

David Temple: awesome. All right, we as you know, you listen to the show, what's the very last thing I do with every person on here? And I'm not talking about rapid-fire questions, we're not gonna do that today, but what's the one thing I always ask? Best piece of writing advice.

David Darling: Well, I've been thinking about that. And for me, the best piece of writing advice is, this works for me, not for everybody. I gotta remain consistent. I write 2000 words a day. I'll write a little bit in the morning and I'll write a little bit at night, but it has to be every single day. If not, you'll find excuses to put it off and you'll never get it done. Oh, I'm just gonna sleep in at Saturday. Nope, my alarm goes off at five o'clock and I'm downstairs making coffee, 5.05. typing at 515 it might not be the best work but you can't fix nothing so you write something

David Temple: Dude, that is so solid and something I did not tell you. I stepped into this booth behind me earlier this morning before you and I came on. And what I recorded is going to launch this. this episode because it was every once in a while I get this thing in my head. I mean, my podcast is always about talking to you and promoting your book and making the whole thing about you. But I realize this morning as I get up real early like you either were either four thirty five o'clock. And I'm like, you know what? Some things were rolling around in my head. I'm like, I'm going to start sharing more of what's inside my head on the podcast instead of just always being about books, because I said, you know, maybe people want to know kind of how the soup is made. So, and I wasn't sure I was gonna do it, but now I sure am, because you've just said about three things that I mentioned in this little... I'm gonna call it a... you could call it a tirade, it's off the cuff, whatever it is. It's about 11 minutes, so it's gonna kick off this show. And it's just something that kind of came to me when I was reading Don Winslow's new book, City of Dreams,

David Darling: Nice.

David Temple: which is just friggin rock solid. So... I'd say all that to say you're doing exactly what I'm talking about. You want to be a writer? You got to put your ass in the chair. You got to put your fingertips on the keyboards. You got to put in the time. I don't want to feel like it. Well, maybe you want to feel like it. Maybe you want to feel like some success, so maybe you should get your butt moving.

David Darling: Well, you know that saying, if you aim for nothing,

David Temple: You'll hear it every time.

David Darling: you're gonna hit nothing, right? Your father's quote. So,

David Temple: Yeah.

David Darling: you know, I never knew my father, but we had Wayne Gretzky and he says, he said, you'll miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

David Temple: Yeah. Dude, thank you for remembering that. That was so awesome. My dad, he left me with a couple

David Darling: Oh,

David Temple: of gems. Yeah.

David Darling: perfect.

David Temple: Well, DavidDarlingBooks.com is where you can learn more about the edge of time and all his other good books. And David, I am so glad we finally carved out the time. My apologies for it taking so long, but man, it has been a freight train. Like the train was coming, I grabbed onto the bar and it kept going and I, I'm just making up.

David Darling: Outstanding. It's all good. Well, thank you very much for having me and all the best to Tammy and yourself for for everything that you've been putting out on this show. As a viewer and a friend of the show, I appreciate it.

David Temple: Well, I- I- I thank you for that. I'm humbled by that. And I, you know, you're always, you're one of the few people that get onto YouTube, which is now the thriller zone branded and get on there and make a little comment when something really affects you. And I try to say this throughout the podcast, like either in the open or the close, Hey folks, thanks for listening and drop us an email and swing by and subscribe. And sometimes I feel cheesy doing that, like I'm begging for something. But really if it isn't, if it wasn't for people like you who took the time to do that and raise the algorithm if you will for YouTube world and let people know more about it I'd be sitting in like sitting in that booth talking to myself so thank you thank you

David Darling: not a problem.

David Temple: anyway so we're gonna scoot off folks once again David darling books calm David I'll see you on social media this show will drop on Friday thank you for your time your patience and man I wish you the best you you got the you got tenacity to spare

David Darling: Thank you very much.