Steve Urszenyi returns to discuss Out In The Cold

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (00:00.27)
On today's 205th episode of The Thriller Zone, we welcome Steve Yerzaney, author of Out in the Cold. If you like atmospheric thrillers with a kick-ass female protagonist, you'll dig this book. And I hope you'll enjoy our conversation as The Thriller Zone begins now. By the way, Steve Yerzaney, welcome back to The Thriller Zone for repeat performance. Well, thank you, David. It's a pleasure to be here.

I, humble apologies that it has taken us a little bit of volleying back and forth, but you know, what did my grandmother used to say? the best things are the things you have to wait for or what is it? Best things in life are worth the wait. That's it. Well, we had scheduled this like two months ago. So we're in person even, but that was my fault because I had to kibosh my Cali trip and that kind of put the damper on that one.

Yeah, I'm going to tell you straight up. I had a lot of things planned for you. I hired a camera crew. We were going to really pull out the stops on you. no. Seriously? You made up for it by sending that very tasty single malt beverage. Well, I'm glad you enjoyed that. I broke it open with my brother-in-law who came in last weekend and I said,

know what we're celebrating maybe just seeing haven't seen him for a while and I'm like I've got just the thing thanks to my good buddy and damn dude that is that is nice I've never had it but it looked nice on the website and I thought what better than a little Canadian maple syrup to send to my friend David

Maple syrup indeed maple syrup indeed. Yeah, look we're here now and that's all that matters and I love the fact that we have been able to do this you You're a big fan of the show. You're a big supporter of the show and I'm always so grateful for all the love that you show us So, thank you. Well, I always love the show. It's a great show and that's why I wanted to be there in person it just unfortunately my The plans out there fell through and it would have cost me like five grand to come and see you and though you are worth it

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (02:12.974)
For sure here comes the backpedaling folks. Yeah, Mrs. Mrs. Erzani the budget Keeper didn't think it was such a great idea. So yeah, no worries. No worries. All right, the book is out in the cold by the way I I think I've told you this before I dig whoever is doing your covers and I should take this little filter off so I can do this Yeah, there you go. I mean, it's just just so good

Well, and look at the spine. Like here's the spine. I don't know if you have on mine on the finished copy. you got the little dial on the, yeah. Yours is different. It has the graphic of the artwork for Alex. And to me that's eye catching because 90 % of the time the book's not going to be like this on the shelves. It's going to be like this. it's, I give full kudos and props to the art department at St. Martin's Press and Minotaur Books because both covers, but that one's a killer.

So I'm really, really, really pleased with that. much. like about it. I'm going to interject a little something. Your website rocks. I don't know the company that does it. I used to endorse a particular website company in the past who we parted our ways, you know, no harm, no foul. your site, I'm telling you, man, just dials it in so well. thank you. Well, let's, Walden design, I think is the name of the company and they set it up.

I gotta give a little credit to myself because I do a lot of the tweaks myself. But they start the artwork off and then sometimes I'll tweak things and they started the design off and then I've been tweaking things. So it's a bit of a partnership between myself and the designers. But thank you, I'll pass that along. Yeah, very, very nicely done. All right, well, I have many things to say and very little time in which to say it. Now, the last time we spoke, it was episode 160.

This go-around, you're going to be up at around 205. Wow. So I think we finished this year with 210 episodes here in our third year, which has been pretty amazing. Yeah, that's, if my math is correct, that's like 70 a year, so well done. Yeah, well. On average. I love my job. But the reason I bring that up is we were discussing, you were a debut author, and it was Perfect Shot, which it was.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (04:37.602)
Thank you. Now you're back with Out in the Cold, which is another riveting read. And I'm telling you, man, the accolades on this, and I was actually chatting with our mutual friend Ryan Steck this morning. Mr. Real Book Spy and I have struck up quite the friendship over the last year, and we're huge fans of one another. He's a huge fan of yours. I reached out to him. said, dude, this is a great, let me just read it for a second.

In the world of espionage and high stakes thrillers, few authors can match the adrenaline fueled intensity and pulse pounding action of out in the cold. Yeah. Ryan is a hell of a dude and his books are great and his website is one of the most authoritative in the business. So that's really high accolades. Yeah. I'm very, very appreciative of that. So I'm going to toot your horn one more time. Thank you. And here's why. These are guys that I really, really admire and respect. And I like they're good guys. Simon Gervais, you're zany.

delivers another electrifying world-class thriller, simply a jaw-dropper. And we're going to wrap this up with Jack Stewart, who was out here recently, and is going to be on the show very soon, brimming with action that grips readers from start to finish. So folks, in case you're wondering, Out in the Cold is a must-read. So with all that, I want to ask, what has this year been like? I mean, between the accolades, I've been watching you on social media when you're not riding your motorcycle all over the world.

Well, life is great, first and foremost. I'm a happy camper. I'm writing full-time. I'm working on my Alexander, special agent Alex Martel series. that there's been no official announcement. We just haven't made one for some reason, but officially I signed a contract with St. Martin's Press Minotaur Books again for a third installment of the series. So that's coming and I'm wrapping up writing on that. You know, as you know, putting another book out and then working out a deal for yet another book.

editing. just it's been a whirlwind. Perfect Shot was nominated for three literary awards, which I'm so grateful for. And as they say, and it's true, it's it's an honor to be nominated this year or this year. had the misfortune of being nominated against if you want to call it against alongside with I.S. Barrie, Alanna Barrie, The Peacock and the Sparrow, a fantastic book, a great read. I have no ill will towards her for.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (07:00.93)
you know, beating my pants in the International Thriller Writers Best First Novel Award category. She's been taking home so many prizes. So, but yeah, just to be nominated for multiple literary awards has been a thrill and I'm enjoying going to the conferences, Thriller Fest and BoucherCon. So it's been great. Yeah. A lot of fun. I want to take five seconds here on I.S. Barrie. Alana, she is, I got a chance to meet her.

Let's see, was Basher Khan San Diego. That would have been last summer, I believe it was. And I was doing little, I would call micro sets where I was interviewing a bunch of artists back to back there at downtown San Diego. That was the first time I'd met her. I had just started reading her book and I didn't have enough time to fully prepare, but I was instantly taken with her graciousness, her kindness, her...

affability her her like you know i'm just writing a book and that book is probably and i i don't think i've given it the accolades that i need to get it easily in the top ten books of this year peak against just just stunning the book is unassuming it kind of sticks up on you with just a quiet little literary work of spy fiction and it kind of matches her personality so it's it's it's a terrific reading that by great writer

I want to cut to the chase about out in the cold. So I'm curious. Let's do this. Let's just shoot out the gate and give me the story. Because Alex, I could talk about Alex for a while and I've got a couple of questions for you. So what's the book about? Well, the book is, you know, if I go by sort of the the copy, the ad copy, it's it's a book about Alex being thrown back into a world of deception when a series of attacks threatens to ignite World War Three. You know, someone's tampering with the NATO alliance and picking on a little NATO.

Which is the well now it's the second newest member of the Alliance and who's doing that all fingers are pointing at Russia It's a conspiracy thriller spy thriller, but who is it? Is there really Russia is it somebody else? What's going on? So Alex is not exactly put on the case. She kind of is kind of isn't it's Alex so she goes after it kind of like a dog with a bone and Tries to get to the bottom of what's actually going on. So it's a spy caper and it's an Alex Martell Thriller all wrapped up in the one

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (09:24.366)
Yeah, she's so good. am curious mainly because you and like me and several other dudes who write thrillers chose to have a female protagonist and what was behind choosing a woman, Alex, to be your ass-kicking special agent? It's, it's, you know, I, I, answered this question a fair bit because it's unusual both in the genre and for a male to be writing that character, but

I didn't pick Alex so much as she picked me. And while that sounds cliche, it's a truth because I'm a pantser, which means for those who don't know, there were kind of two schools of thought in writing. One is guys and gals who write by the seat of their pants, not having a clue what they're doing when they sit down to write and stare at a blank screen and a blank page. And there's plotters, those who know where they're going and kind of plot things out quite intricately. So they have the story all mapped out, but that's not me. I'm the pantser dude.

And I started off some really bad stories about a dozen of them featuring male protagonists, but they all look like Humphrey Bogart in my head and sounded like him worse than that. They sounded like him. So basically I was ripping off the Humphrey Bogart franchise. And if you want to use the phrase appropriating the voice of a character that's 60, 70 years old by now. So it wasn't until I started writing a female character.

that I really started to develop my own voice as a writer through that character that turned out to be in the long run, turned out to be Alex Martel. And the character herself, she's informed by, you know, some people have expressed some dismay or disbelief rather at a woman being able to do these things. That's just a silly thought because we know kick-ass women.

in this world. And I've worked with a lot of those kick-ass women. And as a paramedic and as a tactical medic with the police, I don't care who's standing beside me, man or woman, they better be able to do what they need to do in the moment. Literally, my mind's been blown by how many fantastic operators I've worked alongside over the years, where that's again, paramedics or police officers. Really, and those people helped inform the character. So that's kind of the longer version of the short answer. No, no, no, I love that. I love that insight. it's so true. mean, look at...

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (11:38.762)
I'm loving the fact that on movies and television series right now, you're seeing more and more women who are showing, yeah, I can kick ass just as good as the next guy. And I love that. been a big fan of that. One of my series is a woman who does the same. And another thing about this book, it kind of explores, in my opinion, this theme of survival and resilience and challenging environments, of course, the cold. And I wondered...

What inspired the unforgiving landscape? it, was it just your appreciation for it? Is it because in Canada where you live, you get to see plenty of it? I mean, that's probably a good point. And maybe subconsciously that works its way into there. you know, high school literature was all about, you know, man against man, man against nature. And that's a theme in Canadian literature for sure. And for me as well, I mean, I'm an outdoors guy, camp, I hike, I canoe, I kayak. I love being out in the woods. but really.

When it came to this series, it was about exploring Alex as a character and knowing that she's not so much a lone wolf, but she's certainly an independent character, someone who likes to challenge herself. And I wanted to put her up against stark conditions and stark contrasts and make her, you know, have people understand that this is someone who works within an urban environment. She's someone who thrives in that context of by herself against whatever forces come her way.

And I love that, and it's the perfect tip for this because the book deals with isolation on many levels. And that's one thing when I was reading the book, I felt I really absorbed that isolation and lone wolf, if you will. So there was isolation both physically, emotionally. To drill down one step further, what informed that approach and, two-part question, what informed that approach and what do you hope readers will take away from it with that in mind?

The isolation theme, both the internal, the personal, the human, as well as the environment again, Helsinki, which is where a lot of the story takes place. is kind of, Lynn and I visited, my wife Lynn and I visited Helsinki to do the research. I was actually quite, we both were quite surprised by how much it resembles our own, where we live, the sort of the Canadian shield, the Laurentian shield, the granite hitting the surface of the land, very much a rugged,

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (14:02.67)
landscape for alex i wanted people to know not just what she was like where she was but who she is and that whole rugged the challenge of how she was raised being raised independently by her dad the general her dad being an army general we meet briefly and out in the cold i can tell you he makes a major appearance in the next book and her mom who we refer to i think in perfect shot but don't get a glimpse of both of whom

She was a doctor, both of whom very independent characters who imbued that sense of toughness and resilience and independence in their daughter. So I like to set the story. was natural for me to set the story in a way that really reflected those qualities of Alex and showed those qualities off. Well, one thing I've noticed about you, and I think, you know, it's so funny. First of all, let me make this point. You're a big fan of research. It's very clear.

You do the travel, you put in the time, you go to the places. And you can tell me, new writers can tell me, dude, can just Google it. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you sure can. You can Google it, you can do flyovers with Google Earth and all that stuff. But there is something visceral, electric, magical when you actually walk through the streets of the towns that you're writing about that you can pull in those little nuances, those tiny little things that you think nothing about.

that you think you can pull through a Google search and yet you're a walking example of this. You pull those tiny little visceral things out of the atmosphere and you embed it into the book and it really helps. Yeah, thank you. And Finland, I mean, it was important being in Helsinki because you get everything I did and saw in Helsinki, almost everything, found its way into the book in one way or another, whether it's a thought, whether it's a sensation, whether it's a breeze coming at Alex.

whether it's a little plush toy, a Moomin, whatever it is, you know, I use a little funny tidbit there or the steps that are seen on the steps of the cathedral, the Helsinki Cathedral, which was that it's part of a foot pursuit. But that scene came directly out of something we experienced live in Helsinki at the time. So Lynn and I in the steps of cathedral saw much of what Alex sees in that foot pursuit about certain people coming out of a side street type of thing.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (16:27.084)
So yeah, think Google will get you so far, Google Maps, Google Earth View, all that stuff. But like in a third book I'm doing now, you can't get the sights and smells of a place from Google. You've got to be there to absorb that whole atmosphere. And I look at it this way. If research, in my opinion, research can be easily half of the story, meaning

that fuels your impression of the area and again fuels the little nuances. So yeah, if you just want to sit down and talk about generic New York City, yeah, okay, you can probably nail it. But having written a couple of my first books, living in Manhattan and being able to sit at a diner and with the windows open and be able to share the sights and smells and sounds of the city, I don't know, I just, I'm a big, big fan. Listen,

back to the accolades on the book cover and you're being compared to classic writers. So I'm wondering in that comparison, do you have list for me some of the authors that have heavily influenced you? Cause I think that's going to tell me a lot about Steve. Sadly, we recently lost one of my biggest influences, Nelson DeMille, who was a terrific writer. And I found the John Corey series 20 years ago, whatever it was. And

consumed everything after that, whether it John Corey or his John Sutter character from the Gold Coast. I learned so much from his writing and his writing style. And I hope that find its way into my books. And even to the point where I try to use in every, almost every John Corey story, Nelson DeMille story, he would use the phrase apropos something, apropos of, apropos this.

And I always loved that because it was kind of in the middle of nowhere and he would use this kind of puffy saying apropos, which just sounded so bougie, but knowing Nelson DeMille from reading about him and knowing his books and his characters, not bougie at all. But I love that. So I try to put apropos of something into all my, into my books now. but there's Nelson DeMille, there was Tom Clancy, of course, and Robert Ludlam. These are the greats I read.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (18:40.574)
you know, going back to the 80s and 90s, as well as, you know, the Eric Von Luss spaders who took over the some of the series and wrote their own stuff and Frederick Forsythe and, you know, going back to my dad's days, John Le Carre. And so I read, I tried to read broadly of the greats. And of course, these days you've got more greats who've both written their own series and taken on series of others. So the Mark Rainey's Simon Gervais with his writing.

Jack Stewart, who's become an influence, he's a friend of mine and he kind of started after me and look at him now, he's soaring, figuratively and literally, because he's so good at taking on and just making thrillers his own in his own unique genre now. So these are kind of all my influences, past and present. It's so funny and so coincidental that you'd pull those three names up because I learned of Simon Gervais probably

Into my second year first or second year of the show and did not know of him very well come to really respect his talents Mark grainy probably one of the biggest best writers doing it today. I mean I I would I would venture to say that he's at the very top of the game with a gray man and then jack stewart like you said I read that first book and i'm like hey jack nice job, then he comes around with the second book. I'm like jack

What have you been doing? He goes, I've been working. I'm like, it's very obvious. And then he was into town recently and we sat down for brunch and he told me what was on his plate. And I was like, holy bananas. I'm like, dude, nobody's working as hard as you. So yeah, big accolades and you've named some of the biggies, but I'm telling you, without blowing smoke up your skirt. And I probably would say this, if you weren't in the room, you're going to be up there right there, dude, with all those kids. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it.

I do want to say as we kind of start wrapping, you know, one of my favorite things is we wrap the show and I don't know that I asked you this in episode 160 because I'm not sure I'm not even sure I was doing it back then, but best writing advice now before you do that, I'm going to tee this up. You brought up pantser and plotter, which Chris Hottie and I are mutual friend. We laugh about this all the time because that those two phrases get used all the time. But do you, do you find that

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (21:01.794)
Did you, and this is something I meant to ask earlier, did you find yourself trying at one time to do Outline and then it didn't work or did you just always say, you know what, I'm flying by the seat of my pants, I'm hoping the muse is gonna show up, I've got the imagination that it takes and I'm just gonna roll with it? Yeah, Simon Gervais who had multiple projects going on at one time suggested to me I try to...

be more of a hybrid between a plotter and a pantser. And I tried that with book two and failed miserably and had to literally delete the first 80 pages and start again. So I've tried plotting. It doesn't work for me. Now the best I can do is give a synopsis of what I think the story is going to be. Because a publisher, my publisher, when, you know, to know they're going to, when they want to hire me to write a book, basically, which is what they're doing, they want to know something about the book. So I do have to do a little bit of a synopsis for them initially.

But by no means it's not extensive. It's like two or three paragraphs of what I think the story will be. And then as I start writing it, it may or may not deviate from that. So I just have to stick with the pantsing side of it. Well, you're telling me that you can sell a book on two to three paragraphs. yes, sir. Yeah. Bravo. Thank you. So far so good. All right. So I want to now drill down on that best writing advice, cause I know you got some.

Well, I'm to get best and worst. Yeah. Let's start with worst. Okay. Worst is write what you know. Don't write what you know. That's so boring. No one wants to hear about my life as a paramedic. I mean, maybe there's some good stories out there, but don't write what you know. You know, we got a, being a writer means stretching your, your literary wings, your imagination and going places people don't go. Write what you know. So does that mean people who write about serial killers should go ahead and

participate in that. I don't think so. So nevermind that advice. Don't write what you know. And then the best advice I ever got, which I give credit because I had dabbled in writing for years and I stopped because I hit a wall and I wasn't a plotter and people said, well, then you're not a writer. If you're not outlining, you're not writing. But it was years after that, I met some people, some showrunners of a TV show who said to me when they knew I wanted to write, they just said, Steve, if you want to write, just write. Yeah.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (23:27.918)
So the best advice to anybody thinking about writing is just do it. Don't worry that you haven't got enough words in your mind to put on the page, just start writing. Put words on a page and the words will flow and the ideas will flow and they'll spark other ideas. And if you're a plotter, it'll help you plot faster. If you're a pantser, it'll get you from one chapter to the next pretty quickly. So just write. I so applaud that and back you up on that because you know.

People who go, I don't know if I've got a really unique, exciting idea. I don't know if this has been the case with you, but I can't tell you how many times I've sat down and I've done this as an exercise. I said, you know I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna sit down. I'm gonna find two or three words out of the clear blue. I'm gonna come up with some little piece of an element of a story.

And then I'm going to sit down and just write one page. That's all I'm going to do. No pressure, dude. And I'm saying this to myself, no pressure. And then all of a sudden it's amazing what magic will appear. Magic being relative. So my point to that is sometimes I think you just got to give yourself permission and get out of your own way and just get into the flow. And hey, by the way, if you start writing and it sucks, then stop doing it and go do something else.

Yeah, for sure. But the reality is, as you said, it's in creating the words and putting them on paper that the ideas begin to come and flow. And you have to get out of your own way. You have to get out of your own head and thinking, I got to make this good. No, you don't. Like you said, write shit. It's going to be crap. When you want to be a performative, when you want to act or dance or paint, it's going to be awful in the beginning. the writing shouldn't be and isn't any different than that. It's going to be awful.

It's something that gets better with practice. I'm going to share something that it's on an upcoming show. It'll, think she kicks off December. Danielle Truesone was on the show. We recorded it already and she had the best thing. She goes, I have some friends who do marathon running and she goes, and they spend quite a bit of time getting in shape, practicing their craft. She goes, why do, why do we think that of a course, the athletes, got to go.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (25:46.712)
put in the miles and the time and figure the diet and so forth to become a good runner, why do we think that we can't, that we're not going to do the same preparation for our jobs as writers to put in the time and to do the practice and to do the word drills or whatever. And I walked away going, I love that. It's so simple and so good, right? The Muse doesn't fly around in the backyard waiting to come through the door. The Muse...

comes there only when you're bleeding on a typewriter and sweating over every word and just getting it out there, then the muse will show up until you're putting in the work and the labor of writing, nothing's gonna happen. And that applies to if you're plot or pants or because the muse has to show up, you have to show up and get those words on paper in an outline. If that's your way to do it, then do it. By the way, as I wrap, I want to say something. I want to thank you for something. think you're

you may be, if not the only, one of the onlys, that in the back of the book on acknowledgments, you thanked me for my work on the podcasts of Thriller Zone. So thank you for that. You're very welcome. mean, you know, where would we be without... These days, it's hard to get the word out. It's getting more more difficult in some ways to get the word out. And it's our friendships, relationships, and these...

opportunities to spread the word that we only get access to through the people doing great podcasts and shows. Not only that, you're not just giving me an opportunity to present myself, but I'm getting a chance to learn about other people and hear about what they're doing and hear your story. So it's all, you know, it's very much, it's very much about partnerships and relationships and helping each other out. This is a business of, of relationships and we're lucky to be in it. So.

Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you. And you know what? It is true. It really is a business of relationships and Ryan and I, to refer back to Ryan's tech, we were talking about this this morning, that it is all about business relationships. Yes, it's a business. Yes, it's relationships. Yes, it's art. Yes, it's craft. but really at the base core of it, it is a business. And if you're not running your business, if you're not treating this like a business and, it's a, it's a hobby. I'm, you know, well,

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (28:08.204)
Good luck, in my opinion. Good luck. You gotta treat it like a business. folks, the website, if you wanna learn more, is SteveYourZany.com. If you're wondering how to spell it like I did the first few times, I'm gonna put it right here on the screen so you can't miss it. But again, a beautiful site, beautiful book covers. And I know you hinted at it, Steve, but as we close, give me a little sneak peek. You're a pal here at the TZ. What's next? So.

Book three is Alex added again. We met her dad in book two and out in the cold and We have an opportunity to see Alex and her dad go off on a safari So they're in Africa on a safari and things go awry So lo and behold they find themselves in some mischief and the next day Alex's dad goes missing so now Alex and Company and you know who I'm referring to they need to go find her dad Why is he missing who took him? What's the story behind the story and what kind of?

Heck, will Alex be raising to get her dad back next fall? Next fall? Okay, good. Well, we wish you the best. Once again, so glad we connected and thank you so much for your time, Thanks, David. Pleasure being here as always. I look forward to seeing more episodes of The Thriller Zone with David Temple. Ooh, so nicely done.