In this captivating episode, we sit down with A.G. Flitcher, a ten-time award-winning author known for his explorations of the human spirit through various genres, including fantasy, supernatural, crime, drama, and romance. A.G.'s stories delve into the art of understanding the human condition, examining whether our tragedies and triumphs make us better or bitter. Join us as A.G. shares insights into the power of embracing every visceral emotion, the importance of accepting help, and the complexities of being human.
Key Topics:
- The power of letting go of pain and embracing every visceral emotion
- The importance of accepting help and recognizing personal limits
- Patience and perseverance as an independent author
- Creating rich worlds and strong female characters
- Psychological complexities between characters
- The magic sauce of storytelling
Guest Bio:
A.G. Flitcher is a ten-time award-winning author who has also placed as a finalist twice for the Fantasy Series and once for a Fantasy book for the OZMA Award given by Chanticleer. With a passion for questioning the good and bad in life, the grey areas, and the scary parts of existence, A.G.'s work is both enthralling and colorful. He has taught many novice writers and avid readers the art of storytelling, making a significant impact on the literary community. Through his diverse and powerful storytelling, A.G. aims to reach readers who appreciate deep and meaningful narratives.
Links:
- Amazon Author Page: A.G. Flitcher on Amazon
Social Media Promotion:
Facebook: A.G.Flitcher
Twitter/X:[@agflitcher](https://twitter.com/agflitcher)
TikTok:[@agflitcher](https://www.tiktok.com/@agflitcher)
Instagram:[@agflitcher](https://www.instagram.com/agflitcher)
YouTube [AG Flitcher](https://www.youtube.com/@agflitcher)
Join us for an enlightening conversation with A.G. Flitcher as we explore the depths of human experience through the lens of his diverse and powerful storytelling.
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on this episode of "Tell us a story." I say fantasy because it's the world that I've always been fascinated by. First fantasy series, which has seven awards, was a series finalist, and finalist for another award. So, in Black Rose Cacoon, what is the through line on that? There is this commonality that they all have, which is something that he believes in, which is the relationship between life and death. So, when she kills these young girls, it's to really ask the mothers, how do you feel now compared to when you have that love? It's not often that we can talk about the levity of child murder and tax insurance. Welcome to "Tell us a story," the podcast by Belmont City Press, where entrepreneurs and sales professionals share their journeys, insights, and strategies for success. In each episode, our guests reveal how to overcome challenges, establish their brands, and leverage their stories to promote their businesses so you can too. I'm Red Hilton, your host for this episode. Today I'm joined by A.G. Flitcher, who's an author of Black Rose Cacoon. So, A.G., tell us a story. Well, my story for those who want to buy into who I am, I'm a fantasy author. Honestly, saying that doesn't really captivate all of who I am, I say fantasy because it's the world that I've always been fascinated by, but really what is beyond that genre of writing is just good storytelling. And to me, part of good storytelling is memorable characters that connect well with the world. So, I guess that you could say that's the kind of writer that I am, and that's really what I sell as an author. I don't sell fantasy or horror, that's just as kinds of stuff that I am really into. So, I may be the author of Black Rose Cacoon, and I'm also the author of Boond and Jack, which is my first fantasy series, which has seven awards, was a series finalist, and finalist for another award. So, it's obviously been well received, and that's part of why you should buy into what I'm saying, but also most importantly is that is what I try to captivate, what I really try to focus on, which is the human spirit, whether it's good reaction to the good and bad in our life, or negative reaction. Sometimes we progress, sometimes we regress. So, that's who I am. Who would you say is the audience for your books? Who do you find it speaks to the most? Well, based on progress and change of targeted audience, I would say it's mainly adult women who love adventure and thriller, and essentially anything that feels authentic as opposed to lavish and crazy. That is part of the aesthetic that I do, but there's a certain realism that I try to keep with my storytelling. So, that's the kind of people that I tend to not just attract, but also there's this sense of constant urgency in my writing, and that's the kind of clientele, I guess, that really buys into what I'm selling, because I try not to pander to too many people. I just write what feels real to me and what feels necessary for the story, and that tends to be the market that I'm able to not just find, but also define, and then try to embrace it. And that's who you connect with the most. Yeah. So, in Black Rose Cacoon, what is the through line on that? Sort of take us through how it came to be, and how it ended up? I was watching this interview with Guillermo Del Toro, a Mexican film director, who, if you don't know who his name is, but you'll know his movies, you know, Hellboy, Penn's Labyrinth, Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley, all these very nightmarish, very eccentric and dark type of stories, but there's this commonality that they all have, which is something that he believes in, which is the relationship between life and death, and that they're both tethered to each other, which means that when life begins, it has to end. And we don't really think about that. We don't think about the beauty of death, the opportunity of having an expiration in our life that encourages us to maximize and see the value, the opportunity that life has for us. And that's when I started to explore the concept of death as this sort of metronome where we decide not just as people that have families and friends, but also being part of a society, where when we hear about someone passing away that we have no connection to, we have to decide how does that make us feel? Do we just see it as a news that has no personal effect to us, or do we feel some kind of, I guess, distant loss that you do recognize the value of any life and that you do feel something, but you could also feel nothing. So that's the kind of the question that I ask the audience in part. But I also really focus on the relationships of victims, family members towards the memory of not having that person in their life at such an early stage. And I really want people to understand that it's not me trying to be too dark, it's more like me asking questions, me asking the morality of being a human. So that's what kind of started this whole process because I don't know if you can see here. Yeah, so for those listening on the podcast, you're holding up a copy of "Black Rose Macoon." Yeah, so I can actually describe it for your audience listening. So on the cover is this Victorian looking woman in a red dress with a white trail around her neck and she's holding a bleeding heart and has sort of like an 80s, very I guess Amazonian hair black and a bit of I guess I can see both a queen and sort of a pixie sort of like blush interface and there's a purple decaying wall behind her and a gold painting frame on the cover. Now the reason why I chose that is to put an accent on how this serial killer sees herself because she's not Victorian. She was set in 1986, but she sees herself as a very Victorian powerful woman that is trying to embrace or I'm sorry, encourage society to embrace a certain message with her whole body count for her targeted kills which is unfortunately young girls and sometimes moms due to some of her childhood trauma but also her understanding of love. Where to her love in motion is not love at all. Love that is concrete and something that she can actually like physically keep to herself is easier to maintain and control that therein lies the whole taxidermy that she does sometimes because she doesn't like the idea of reaching out to someone not knowing how long or how concrete that love is. So it's not real to her, it's just some fleeting emotion sheet and she doesn't want to feel it. So when she kills these young girls it's to really ask the mothers how do you feel now compared to when you had that love. Does it feel more real now now that you're grieving this loss or was it more real than that when your daughter was alive in the opposite of I no longer have a mother for guidance how do I feel now as a young girl that has to basically grow up by herself or has to go to therapy now so it's really just a big picture of what is love really is what I try to really make a theme here. What is your main character's name? We think they have a main character there is one that has I guess more lines in the story which is Rosaria who is the first. Rosaria do one that is the serial killer in the taxidermy? No that's Chelsea. Chelsea is the serial killer. Rosaria is the detective. Chelsea seems important to the story. Anyone that is murdering in taxiderming people I suppose is going to be important to a story. So let me ask you a question before we go anything let's just take a step back. Is your asking questions about you know love and the realness and that sort of thing what is your own answer to your own questions? Oh okay. Try it on me. Good idea. I'm just asking. I'm teasing. Okay. To me love is diverse. There's all forms of love and that's why I did this because this serial killer only sees love one way and doesn't want to hear anything opposing to that. There's the love you have with your siblings, your parents, your friends, your life partner, even your coworkers or your neighbors. So it's a matter of proximity and emotional connection that you really question not just value of love with that person but also value of what that person means to you in terms of how much you need them for whatever variety of things you have in your life. What do your parents and siblings think about your books? Do they read them and then? I only have one parent now for the last nine years. My mom passed away nine years ago. I don't really talk about my books with my dad anymore because he always just talked about money and I got tired of listening to that perspective because it just made me sad. I don't even want to know what he asked me sometimes. How is writing going? Do you really want to know? Is it the writing or the results he's looking for? Yeah, so I just let that go. But with my sister, it's the opposite. She is very supportive and very proud of the fact that no matter how long it will take me to make this my primary function of income, that it is getting out there. It is getting more people to appreciate what I'm trying to do here and is enjoying it as well. So she's always, you know, she's the person that's in my corner. That's fabulous. So you've had tremendous success with regards to your books. They've been well received. If somebody was a new author, what advice would you give them as far as, you know, we all hear the usual, you know, the perseverance and, you know, getting a coach or whatever it happens to be. But when you make that decision to write a book, what are some things that you would want someone to know? I always say, you know, be the person you needed when you were struggling. What is it that you can provide someone that may be listening that's thinking about writing a book that has doubts or doesn't feel like they would be good enough or they're really sure of the direction of going? Mainly understand that when you're first starting out is not about being professional. It's about just giving it a shot. And by giving a shot, I mean, you don't have to ask publishers or give it to publishers or even try to self-publish. You can just create a blog site and do that chapter form for writing. Because, especially like a company like Incit, Incit is a German company, I'll spell it for the listeners. iankitt.com is a free platform where you can put either short or long form storytelling and even poetry and readers read it. So that way, even though it'll feel small and probably insignificant in terms of the outcome you hoped for, it's still enough groundwork for you to feed off of and see what the first perspective is of your first attempt at storytelling. Even if it's like 10, 30 pages that you wrote, it doesn't matter. You never put yourself out there before. And I know there's this is the tricky part with convincing aspiring authors to do it, is that the nerves never go away. It doesn't matter where you are in the line of your career as a writer. It's always there. The only evolution that happens in your career is that when you do get your first sort of wave of, I guess, bigger domain positive feedback is that you can relax a little bit, but it doesn't mean that you're fully relaxed. You never are. Because then you start asking, okay, so this book or this short story or this poem had a good outcome. Now what do I want to do? Do I want to keep going? Do I want to try something else or the same thing in a slightly different vein? So it's really just about asking yourself where do I want to go with that first step? Not where do I want to go in the future? Where am I now? And where can I go after? And if there's no response to the first thing that you tried, then that's when you start to do things for free as in getting people to volunteer their time to read like one or two pages. Just so you get a sense of what do people understand of not just your writing style, but also how you translate whatever is in your head onto paper. And really it's kind of like someone giving you a cheese sample where you just take that little bite and go, I don't know if I like that. Let me try that piece. Let me try that. So that's what I mean by you have to try all the small things first and then work towards the bigger piece of cheese, I guess. The wheel? Yeah. Go with the wheel. When it comes to writing, do you believe done is better than good? Sorry, you can say that again. When it comes to writing, do you believe that done is better than good? So as writers writing a book and everything else, you know, you could always never be done. There's always something and everything else. You know, sometimes good enough is good enough. So how do you know when you're done writing and when do you feel like it's good enough or does that ever happen? You're done when you want to throw up. No, but I mean kind of. The way I see it is as how revision goes. Meaning the final revision is when I'm tired of looking at the story and I want to give it to an editor. And if you're doing your own editing, it's the same question. Do I want to keep cleaning this up? Or is it as clean as it can be? Now I just have to format it for production. So really, it's not really a definitive answer for I'm done or good. Good is like saying that was manageable and I was able to understand my own story and so was my editor. And yes, editor can also mean yourself. So if you're an English major or a PhD and you were happy with the grammar and the overall structure of your story and you felt something I guess magical by the end of it, then you can say you're done because you're always going to ask yourself but I could have done better. I could have done more. We always, we all think that with everything in life, it's not just writing. Are you advocating for editing your own book? No, it's more like I know that there's a lot of people out there that don't have the money for an editor. So it's more like I'm just trying to include everybody here because I know that not everyone is lucky enough to have the money for a good editor. A good editor, depending on where you are, it's about $3,000, depending on the size of your book. But that's where you have to really do your research and understand that there are editors that try to gouge you for a lot of money and may not be credible. So it's not about how much it costs, it's about the value of their work. So that's what you always going to ask for samples. How many books in total have you written? Eight. Eight. And did you know how many books have been published? Yeah, all of them. I mean, I always dreamed of being with a traditional publisher, but knowing how many people try to go that route without having first established a very solid target audience base. It's not really something that a lot of authors are even thinking about anymore. There are actually a lot of authors who are in control there, but there's also more work there. So that's really the question of, do I want to keep doing the work or do I want someone else to do it? But the big dilemma with that is that traditional publishers, and especially it's a hybrid, it's either hybrid or... Randy? Yeah, that basically have total control. So if you do... We don't look down to contracts and what it is that... Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. Because there are some companies that will say, we have control of your manuscript, we can move this chapter here and there, and we can even erase this and put that there because this doesn't fit our market or this would work better here. So that's why you have to be accepting of the fact that doing more work means you get what you want at the end. The only thing you're really paying for is printing and distribution costs for whatever copies you have. And if you spend money on social media ads, that's money there too, but it's you doing the ads. So really, you understanding not only who are you selling this to, but what are you selling? What kind of story is this? I think, you know, I hear a lot of authors talking about self-publishing because they want that control, which I can completely understand. And you may be able to negotiate that depending upon your audience and the importance, I guess you could say to a traditional publisher. Because with a traditional publisher, they may have the ability to cast your book wider, but you get fewer less royalties, that's sort of the rub. But then people sort of always say, okay, self-publishing, you get more of the royalties, but your book is not cast as wide. And I always say to people, it's like, you know, you talk about self-publishing, but you also then don't understand the costs that you're going to incur. And they think it's cheaper to publish, which it, theory, it might be, but it costs you more on other ends as well. So it's sort of that whole, what's important to you when it comes to your book and recognizing, you know, which direction you may want to go in. Most people, I know a lot of people who will not publish a book of a traditional publisher doesn't pick it up. And the shame in that is they're sort of standing on ceremony and waiting for a traditional publisher who may or may not as opposed to getting their story out there. Yeah, I mean, what I'm trying to say here is I'd rather have credibility first as an author with an audience before sending it off to a publisher. It's not about disassociating with traditional publishers. It's more like I understand what they're asking for before putting it in. Because there are so many authors that think that they can just like catch the wide net and just send it to as many traditional authors as possible. Thinking that having that huge stack of rejection letters means that they're on their way to success. It's like, no, you're invisible to these publishers. So until they see that you can make them money, they're not going to buy what you're saying. It doesn't matter what the quality is. It's a matter of who are you already exposed to. Not who can you be exposed to. They don't know. They don't know who your audience is. Even if they read your book, they won't know. If they see some kind of clarity, even if it's in a small group of who they can market it to themselves, then there's less resistance from them. It's not about saying no to a publisher. It's about them saying no to you because they don't know who you are. You're basically invisible until you, how can I put it? Prove yourself? You're invisible and they're Google search. Right. Well, it's not about the book. It's about the business. Unfortunately. Yeah. And if you self publish, it's about the book. And then you have to provide the business. And that sort of thing. What's one of the biggest misconceptions you have? Are people have about being an author or the process? What is it you're sort of educating people on on a consistent basis? The thing I'm basically educating people on for their misconception is that there is no one way of writing a story and there is no one way of succeeding. So you have to go trial by fire until you find what is successful, but also you define who you are as an author regardless of how diverse you become over time. Because you don't really, how can I put it? You don't really have a clear footing of who you are until you put as much out there. Like, I've written eight books, like I said, and I'm just starting in the last year or two to get recognition. So that's the whole patience thing of no one's going to recognize you until there's this sort of like building of a database of whatever products you create for the audience that's out there. I mean, think about all the famous movie makers. They didn't get their popularity with one movie. They had to make several in order to be recognized. And yeah, their first movie might be great, but if they didn't continue to not just find work, but also to make a name for themselves, then they would have fallen flat. And the well-known filmmakers that stopped at a certain point because of whatever issue they had financially had dug themselves whole because of ego and whatever reason. So that's the other thing too, is as you get more confident, you have to be aware of your ego and who you are as a person outside of writing. That's a really big thing for me, is understanding that you are a human first and a writer second. So it doesn't matter how technical you become as a writer or even as a marketer, but also how you go about the evolution of environment around your writing. How does A.G. Flitcher define success as a writer? When someone says, "Thank you for your work," I truly felt connected to these characters, which I've had that. So I can say that I'm successful now that, especially in my book, Black Rose Bakoon has gotten nothing but five-star reviews. So that's what means that Dix has succeeded in not just the process that I went through for making this book, but also the results of positive reception, especially for such a dark novel. Writing a dark novel that everyone can not just value, but also see the lighter side of this dark novel means that I did my job of balancing human psychology and also the thrill of the genre that I decided to write in. It's not often that we can talk about the levity of child murder and taxidermation. So do you think your novels get better over time? You feel like you're better as a writer, but the stories in the development get better? Or do you think that, you know, when you hit the end, do you think that one's better? That's my favorite, and each one becomes your favorite? Yeah, because over time I became less stressed about me permitting myself to have a different writing process per book. Before I was just trying to go about it one way, which was just turn my brain off and let's see what happens. That's necessary for being able to relax and just write the first draft, but if you don't have a clear consensus of what the overall themes are and how you want the structure to be and who the characters are, how connected are they to the world, how can you connect them to the world, then that's when you press pause and circle back to what is not working here, what is keeping me from writing? Is it me or is there something that I'm not allowing myself to do? So, yeah. Do you have a favorite character or a favorite book and are they from, are they the same? Um, my favorite character especially from the current book Black Rose Movement is actually not Earth area or even Paolo who is the hotel doorman that a lot of people love for some reason. Yeah, basically that's why. I like Scarlet who is this southern mom who was an alcoholic for majority of the beginning, but once she saw how much she was losing, she let's go of this vice and then her true fears and I guess her true reaction to loss became kind of like the version of her she didn't know and it really showed the human questioning of choice. How does she choose to react to all of this sudden change and going from a very busy New York city environment to serene and somewhat scary and then how does she find herself? And when she finds herself, who is she? So, I really liked how I was able to take a character I never written before and was able to show what happens to people when they have nothing to lean on. Spoiler alert, does she die? Do you want to tell us? I'd say, mom's the word, no spoilers here. Writers block, talk to me about that, do you ever get it and how do you unget it? So, last week sort of it's more like I didn't understand what I was missing for the world that I was creating. I'm working on a fantasy trilogy called Cresule. Cresule is a alien pharaoh/parasite in this somewhere in the southern hemisphere of Earth. I brought the two main characters Harla and Darrow, who are twin ancestors, into a forest called Fuke Forest. Now, I stopped at them landing on this hilltop with a few oak trees and nothing but a big grassy field. And I was like, this feels kind of stale and I don't know where to go from. It's almost like I'm an old fashioned animator that is doing everything by hand. I'm like Mickey Mouse is missing something and I don't know what it is. So, that means that I don't have a good grasp on what this world is and how the characters are connected to it. So, I have to find some kind of element that is not there that I want to establish. And I understand why I'm having a hard time putting a finger on it. And I realized that I had grown outgrown high fantasy not just in my style of writing but also my taste in books where it's not that I've outgrown the fun of everything. It's more like I'm getting more grounded and older in life and is becoming part of my writing. So, I had to find something that feels not just authentic but also less cartoony. So, I realized that I'm more interested now in the supernatural and horror because there's something somewhat surreal and extremely grounded in those genres that I'm pitting against real people. So, the fact that I'm writing characters with magical capabilities, I was like, okay, so they have an advantage compared to other characters that I've written. How can I take that advantage away from them? So, I was like, okay, so now that I know what I want to include, I can add something to this forest which is the first out of their comfort zone location. I have to add something that feels not necessarily like extremely dangerous but dangerous enough for them to feel unsettled. This grassy hilltop on is somewhat unsettling. There's something unsettling about the quiet and the lack of life around them. Maybe there's something there. So, I was like, okay, so that's what I have to establish so that I have this slow crawl towards the extreme and that will happen later and that helped me realize that but also, and this is very important for all beginning authors as well, is understand your message and goal for your story. Because if you don't know what that is before starting, you start to write, you don't have anything. You have an idea, you have somewhat of a rich world in characters but you don't have an end goal for these people. So... Yeah, essentially the mantra, I guess you can say. Like, I have it here on my whiteboard. I wrote, I know it's just audio so I'm going to sneak away a little bit. Fear is not the enemy. Fear is your best friend. Basically. The person or feeling the tool that pushes you in the direction that you're supposed to be going but you don't know what that direction is. So... So fear is not the enemy. Fear is your best friend. Yes. Okay. So writer's block, you are at a point where you're sort of fleshing out exactly what it is you want to say and you're trying to figure out how what is your process for working through writer's block? Well, like I said, as long as I figure out what I'm trying to accomplish, then I have a clearer sense of where I want to go. That's why I was stuck because I didn't know where I was going. So once I figured that out and I guess the missing spice is now there then I can get over that because it's like the ideas are there and the direction is there. I just didn't really realize what it was until I understood how it changed as a writer through all these eight books that I've written so far. You know, before it was all finding games and working through my own past, through my characters and then no longer doing that and then Black Rose Pukun being, I guess, my starting point of distancing myself in terms of selfishly putting in my own life completely in my writing and now asking myself, okay, I'm going back to fantasy now. How do I marry the two of letting the characters be their own person in a world that I have never written before? And how can I get over that fear of a new world that I've never written before? And really, it's a question of what themes that I'm familiar with that I want to tackle in a new way can get these characters at the current point that I'm at to not rush it. This is what I'm trying to say. Because sometimes you get so excited about an idea that you're just like, I want to skip to the end. No. And also, the message goal is not essentially a conclusive message. It's more like the overall theme that I want to run throughout this series. Talk to me briefly about Stephen King as I see a copy of it. Yeah, I have the first editions behind my head and then over there, next to the TV, I have Revival, which is a book I intend to read. He is important to me because when I was in university for creative writing, when I completed my bachelor's, I chose to read it by Stephen King because I had never read a book that was that big before. I was like, I wonder if this is going to be super boring and super tedious, or am I going to like it? The only thing I didn't like, not the version you see behind my head, but I had a newer version where the editor chose to write in all italics the interludes. Every interlude was all italics and it hurt my eyes. I was like, how is anyone supposed to read this? So anyway, I wasn't working at the time, I was going to school full-time, and I read that book in like seven weeks, and it's like 1,200 pages, basically. So the reason why he's so important to me is the fact that he was able to basically write a big monster book and make it well-rounded with politics and even bigadism and racism, all these subjects that are really hard to write without, you know, being controversial. And he is a controversial author. So the fact that he can be controversial, but still make a career out of himself, regardless of how bold he is in terms of subject matter, and he especially focusing on a fear for basically all of his books, that shows that he was not only able to create a brand for himself but also be able to create meaning with every book, even if he was freaking cooked up for a lot of his books when he was first writing. We all have our vices. Very quickly, I just wanted to go back to something you said, do you think having your creative writing helps you as a writer or is it more, do you think someone needs that in order to be a good writer? I think it depends on how you absorb knowledge by books. Sure. Because really, university for creative writing is not going to help you in terms of like getting a job. So let's put that out there, unless you get really, unless you get certain electives that will help you with a backup. But in terms of understanding the craft of writing, that's really just all in practice, and yes, if you follow Facebook groups and get some knowledge for other writers, and especially those who are award-winning and at least have some credibility, you can do it that way too. But really, it's just if you're able to take books on writing and whatever other format you use to get educated on writing, then you don't really need a college or university education. That helps in terms of like being exposed to other writers that want to do the same as you and seeing how teachers of that level have an understanding of storytelling. But what I noticed, especially in the school that I went to, is that for yourself, most of those teachers are poets and have written fiction, but because they're more of an educator as opposed to a writer, it's not really the same thing. Like I learned more about writing after I graduated, especially when I just went trial by fire with Boone in Jatay. I'm very proud of that series, especially the fact that it became award-winning, but I feel like since Black Rose Cucoon I'm now in a more, not just practiced hand mentality, but also I can separate what I learned academically to the real world. And that's why I'm thankful in terms of timing for my business of writing class, where the teacher there, Dr. Ross Laird, he explained to us the bridging of the real world and academic in terms of what you learned here for the foundation of your writing and how the world sees you as a writer once you're out of that bubble where you're just spending money on tuition and books. And that you have to be aware that as a writer, especially in the beginning, and I'm talking about years here, you know and you're going to know who you are. And it's not about you being a bad writer or good. It's about recognition and courage to keep putting yourself out there regardless of how small or big you start. Because it's very rare at the beginning to be recognized for what you have to offer. It doesn't matter how what's supposed to turn, how snobbish you are for yourself and how realistic you are for yourself. I had these classmates that think that you should only read extremely complex books on writing, very Shakespearean and all these things that make you don't need that. Because if that's what you want to do, great. But not most people aren't that, how can I put it? Yeah. So it literally, it's sophisticated in literature. You know, most people, they want to understand not in terms of simplicity, but they want to understand the human part of their storytelling. Not how fancy you can get with your language or how big you go, but how you can connect with these people. Like, a lot of the people that read my book, Black Arts people said that they loved it because they felt this rawness from the characters that made them so concrete and jumping off the page. That to me is good storytelling. It's not about how lavish and complex you can be, which is what people say about me, but I try not to. It's more like I'm just too busy headed to be simple. I think people want to be entertained, not always educated. Yeah, and that's what I try to do because I'm like, when I read a book, I don't want to be educated. I want to have fun while being educated. Where do people find your books? Where would they go? People can find my books on Amazon as Kindle and Paperback. Excellent. Every guest I have on, I always ask them, what is your Monty? Monty is our mascot here at Belmont City Press. So, you know, your Monty is, you know, a phrase or a mantra or something that our listeners can take away from our chat today. That is inspirational or, you know, a reminder of a lesson learned. So, what is your Monty? Love who you are and embrace who you are. That is. Let's play a little rapid fire. I like to know the person behind the guest. So, I'm just going to give you a few things. Whatever it is that you feel is your answer, you go ahead and give to me. Um, jazz or rock? Rock. Spicy or mild? Spicy. Really? Okay. Running or walking? Walking. Walking. Okay. Yeah. We can hang out. Disney or Pixar? Hmm. Disney. Sneakers or boots? Mmm. Sneakers. Reading or writing? Oh. I would say reading. Reading, really? Yeah. Cooking or baking? I'm both, actually. I eat everything. Surfing or skiing? Us. Skiing. All right. Early riser or night owl? Early riser. Nice. Nice. We can hang. We can hang. It's good. You can have the spicy food and I will have, I think, catch up to spicy. I'm not the girl you take out for food. I'll tell you right now. All right. So, our guest to guest question every time during our show, the previous guest, leave a question behind for you to answer. So, your guest to guest question today is, what is the legacy you want to leave behind? Oh, okay. Okay. The legacy I want to leave behind is, regardless of what book read of mine, is that you understand that as human beings, we all make decisions and sometimes we make the wrong decision. And that means you can either be someone who, you know, becomes bitter and suppresses everything, or you can learn how to disperse your energy that you don't want to live with you, and that that's not really a burden on people, especially if you know who to talk to for the right things in the right time. So, that's what I try to do with my writing. That is. What is the last thing you want to leave our listeners to remember? Where to find your books? Anything like that? The last thing I want to leave with my, these listeners, sorry, is that regardless of what you like to read, try to hold on to whatever you felt after, because a good book is like a good movie. The feeling that I'm trying to describe here doesn't really exist much in film industry, or even in books, but you know when you close a book or you walk up the theater and you're just kind of sitting in your car and you just think about everything in there, and that's not just like the entertainment, but also it's like, "Huh, I'm going to take stock of my life now." That's what I want people to get out of my books. I don't care about the entertainment factor. I mean, I do, but it's more about the ability for me as a writer for success, as you were asking before, is that someone can close the book and go, "Huh?" And regardless of what that "Huh" is, that they actually thought about something. It's the application in their life, the lessons they learned from you. Are you on Facebook? Can they find you there? Yes, so for social media, A.G. Flicher, so it's Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. And you have a website? No, but it will be making one soon. So you, they'll find you on social media, and then as soon as your website is available, it'll be a hop to it. And your books are available in Amazon, so we want to make sure that you can find you there. All right, well, thank you so much, A.G. Flicher, for sharing your story and insights with us today. I appreciate your time. It's extremely valuable, and I hope I honored that here today. Thank you. Have a good time. To our listeners, if you have a story to share, visit TellUsAStorypodcast.com. If you're an aspiring author, a seasoned business owner, or looking to elevate your personal brand, visit BelmontSeddyPress.com for expert advice on writing your own success story. Trust the next chapter, because you are the author. Now, tell us a story. [Music] [MUSIC PLAYING]
