 Good afternoon. Welcome to coronavirus and our mental health. Today is September 14th, 2022 and I'm Ken Burtness and I'm coming to you from Haleiva on the North Shore. Today we have a very special program for you that I think you'll enjoy a lot, and that is the joy of writing. And that will be a lot of fun but first I'm going to give you a little update on the coronavirus. Mostly good news but of course there's always some bad news to go with that but the good news looks very good if we take a look at the average number of new cases per day. We're now at about 160 which is down from two weeks ago show two weeks ago we were up about 300 and way down from our big numbers that we had at the beginning of the year so well not to our lows our lows ran about 50 cases per day, and that was in March so we haven't reached there but we've been steadily going down so that's good news for us in Hawaii. The other good news for everybody in the US is that we've got new weapon to fight the coronavirus. And that is a bivariant vaccine and booster shot. And it's coming to us from both Fister and from Moderna. And they're all set to go with that. The FDA came out with it. We talked about it last two weeks ago at our last show, and then the CDC followed that up by showing the where we can give it out to and when we can give it out to the timing and everything the guidelines. So we're all set to go. And everybody has a lot of, you know, shots ready to go so it's no work, no worry about the quantity. Our worry is about the distribution. And here's what's been happening. And you've seen it around you in that compared to the first year compared to 2020. And especially when we had that big spike this past holiday thing. We've been doing a lot better. And as I mentioned two weeks ago, the virus is sort of like an offense when we're if we're playing sports and we're on defense and defense is always behind offense well with these new boosters and vaccines. We've got a much stronger defense, because it's a bivariant shot, which means that it has all the good qualities of the shots that we've been taking, which were modified and, you know, done for the original for the original coronavirus. Plus it's got a, you know, working against the bivariant. The variants of Omicron, and those can, those mean be a four and be a five. And we haven't had that before so now we've got a new weapon against them. The problem and the downside of this is because we've been doing so well, not so much in number of cases but we've been steadily reducing the number of people who are going into the emergency room at the number of people who are dying. Because of that, we've relaxed our other weapons against the coronavirus. We've done away with a lot of our mask requirements with our requirements for quarantine with requirements for social distancing. And those are really pretty effective. That was one of the things that caused us to keep going down well. You know, we're much more relaxed in those. The other thing is our funding has gone down. Because when the federal government looks at it, it says, well, we're looking good. I mean the cases are still up. The new cases are still up, but it's not as deadly as the other cases. It's just highly infection is it has an infection rate that's much higher than normal. So, you know, that's okay, we can deal with that. So a lot of funding has been reduced. Which means that the number of places and the number of staff that can hand out these shots have been reduced. Now here's the good news though, I went to the Department of Hawaii Department of Health this morning and from their website. It's clear that we seem to have a good amount of shots available enough to cover anybody who wants the shots are who needs the shots. So we seem to be in a much better position than some of the other states in the United States. So that's a good thing but it's something that we've got to really be, you know, keep in our scope, because the coronavirus is not going away. We're still going to have lots of cases coming up and some of those cases are long COVID cases, and that can be really serious and really debilitating. So we just have to be really careful and keep our defense going. We're not ready to become an endemic yet we're still in a pandemic. Now let me get to the good part, the really good part and that is what I've been talking about is our medical defense against the coronavirus. The video is focusing on our mental health defense against coronavirus. So what we've been doing in the last couple of months is we've been focusing on positivity, because coronavirus and the other dark clouds in our sky, including climate change which is a big one. The war in Ukraine, the mass shootings that where we're going under. It's very easy to get mired in negativity to be depressed to be anxious. We're looking at positivity, and we're looking at things that bring joy and today, we're going to talk about the joy of writing and to do that with me and to help me out is Penny Smith, who was a good friend of mine and an author, and welcome to the program Penny. Well thanks so much can it's always so much fun to talk with other storytellers about good storytelling. Yeah, and Penny and I have been telling stories for a long time together because we're both regular members of the windward community college writing retreat and we've been there, and knowing each other for a number of years. The thing is pennies way ahead of me and that she's recently had books published, which I'm far away from. So she said a two books published one in 2020 and one in 2021. The one that you're seeing now is Sunset West and that was just done last year. So pennies not only got the joy of writing but he's got she's got the joy of distributing her writing to other people. So, that's a good place to start penny maybe you could tell us a little bit about your new books. Oh, thanks. The pandemic was one of the things that allowed me to really delve into them and to start to write them. But when you talk about the joy of writing for me, just connecting with people I haven't connected with in a long time because I have something to talk about I have something to share has been just great. I mean, I reconnected with lots and lots of friends over the last couple of years that you know I didn't have any particular reason before but the first book. The Last Leg Woman kind of recounts the experiences I had as a young writer many, many years ago when I covered the entertainment industry. First of all as the leg woman for a very famous gossip columnist and then went on to my own by lines and whatnot I spent about 12 years doing that the last five of them with the New York Times special features syndicate. And that was our whole world was chasing around what was going on in Hollywood and you don't talk a lot about it when you become an adult far away from it because people think you're dropping names or being arrogant. So I just got to thinking about well it would be a lot of fun to be able to go back to some of those experiences and use them as just incentives kind of inspirations. And I love mystery stories, I read a lot of them so I started writing the first one. And that's how they came about. And it's been just a lot of fun for me and tremendous. I guess you would say motivation to just keep writing. That's terrific. Well you came out with one in 2020 and 2021 and we, is there another one coming out this year in 2022. Of course, it's now at the proof readers, we've been through the beta readers which means those are the folks that read the original manuscript that you trust that kind of represent your marketplace and come back and say, you know, this just doesn't work. As one of mine used to say to me, you buried the lead, you got a chapter that's going nowhere. I'm guessing this is going to be a big series then that probably this year is not going to be the last that we get to look forward to 2023. Well, we'll see, you know, the thing about writing is there's so much imagination involved and you kind of have to figure out, you know, where can we go next with this and there are a couple of other writers, Janet Yvanovich who does the, it has been, one is for something, two is for something, three is for something, made the comment that she never ages her characters. So consequently her readers started to add up the number of years that she's been writing and she said their character would be about 70 years old. But she's frozen her entire 30s. I started mine out really advancing her age. So consequently, at some point, you have to stop because she's just going to be a little too old to be doing what she's doing. But the nice thing is that one of the recent books we had for one of my book clubs was the Thursday murder club. The main characters the heroines and heroes were in their late 70s and early 80s so they were still going strong and still brilliant in that book so I think that you can keep your characters going strong and bring it as you go along. We certainly hope so. Maybe we could talk more about the writing because I know a lot of people. In fact, most everybody that I meet would like to write something, you know, you sort of have that in your back of your mind gee I'd like to write this you know, but very few of them ever do. And maybe we could talk a little bit about how this all falls together how the, you know, the characters, you know how you, you know the characters take shape the plot takes shape. The place you know the setting takes place and how that all affects it. And how do you keep them all straight and bring them all together for a novel. Well, you know, that's really interesting. David mammoth who is, you know, very well known novelist and also screenwriter. I heard him recently describe this process when you're talking about bringing them all together. He said there are, there are writers who are farmers and there are writers who are gardeners. The farmers plan it all out just, you know, like the crops, we know we have seasons we know, and they have it all scheduled out with budget and the whole thing. The gardeners say, gee, I got this idea for a really pretty garden with lots of pretty colors. And, but I guess I'm seeing so let's just plan them and see what happens. And that's kind of how people like, I'm a gardener, but a lot of people are not. And I guess it depends on how you yourself kind of organize your own thoughts about that. I started out with just a concept. I worked for a very powerful, very omnipresent woman. And I always wondered when I worked for her, what would happen if she died or she went away. Because there's all this pop, not populacy, but, you know, community around her that interacts with her. What would happen if she wasn't there all of a sudden? Where would these people go? I was one of those people. So when I started writing this book, 27, 30, some years later, that was my premise. The big dude died. And what happened to the little dude? And then where did it go from there? That was my premise. But then again, you know, I'm helping a friend, a colleague who's really writing a memoir about a really exotic time in her life where she lived in a lot of exotic places, but for an interesting reason. And her whole point was really to describe the wonderful places she lived. She follows because she has a natural chronology of when she was at these places. And this is really kind of where her mind is at. And I think a lot of it has to do with how you imagine, how you see things. To me, that's maybe one of the most important parts of this is the ability to imagine however you imagine. You know, if you imagine in numbers, that's one thing. You're imagining colors, imagining people, but if you're writing, that's kind of how you start putting your arms around it. This is terrific. And that leads me to my next question because so many people not only think that they want to write a book, but to get discouraged they run into problems and they just set it aside, you know, and I can't even begin to tell you how many friends I have that have started with something and myself included. I've never finished it because these problems come up. And, you know, how do you help people because everybody like you're pointing out as different. They're in a different sphere with different experience and different desires and how they want this thing to go. But when they run into these roadblocks. What are some other ways that you can get over these roadblocks and actually get stuff down on the paper which you really want to do. Well, you know, can I think it's kind of like self help or help in many ways. If it's new to you and you really want to do this and you're serious about wanting to do this. You know, you and I belong to one of the greatest support groups I've ever known, truly for writing. And yet, while during the pandemic when we weren't meeting, I had a five person support group. Different neighborhoods I've lived in, you know, people get together and they write together and it's an excuse to write. I mean, it's not an excuse. It's a discipline. I know that on Sunday afternoon at four o'clock, I'm going to write. And if I can schedule that sometimes that's easier to do than sitting down yourself at any time and continuing because you're stumped. But if you've got some help, that's one way. That's one way. Another one and I can't remember who it was and another something like a David Mabbitt said, Well, I just blew my butt to the seat and just keep fighting. That's great. It's fun. I know I shouldn't. I know I'd like to go out and just, I gotta get this done. Yeah, you're certainly, it's certainly right about different ways that people have to do this. I think a real critical thing is have supportive friends like you are to these people who keep them to keep encouraging them, you know, through the rough parts because there's always going to be a rough part when you're writing something. Yeah, even if you have a time like my time is in the morning. You know, I gotta do it in the morning, you know, and, and that's great. But, you know, that friend support is, is, is terrific. Now I'm sure that with some of your friends who want support that you wind up reading some of their, their stuff so that's not the easiest thing in the world to do. I mean, everybody has to think about, think about writing a piece of writing like a piece of art and everybody's. And so, you know, if you would respect that and say, Well, this isn't how I would have it. It's certainly not the style that I like, but let me suggest some things to you. And, you know, it's really their, their, it's their life. And you can help them, you can suggest, but just respect that they're doing their best, they're trying, you know, not everyone does that. Yeah. Well, you know, I loved your analogy of the, the gardener and the farmer, because I'm definitely a gardener too. And I think real joy for me and writing is to see what comes up, you know, it's like you've got seeds but you don't know what the seeds are. You're finding them in the ground, and they can come up to a big sunflower they can come back to, you know, just real delicate flowers are, and you're sitting there saying wow, I didn't think it was going to go this way. I don't think it was going to come up this way. And that really is great fun it's just great. But then on the other hand it's also can discourage you for you saying, gee, that wasn't what I expected now I don't know what to do. So, I just try to tell people let it let that fun with it but it's it's hard, easy to say but hard to do, but hard to do. I agree with that. I this next the book that has just been worked on right now. And really the, I guess you would say the direction for that sort of came about by quote that I use at the end of the book. And then I had to back away from how to figure out how do we get to that so then I said, Well, there is a locale that I have wanted to use forever to place my character in this one locale. I will make it a big surprise. I mean, I used to drive take the train in northern California by the Swiss and Bay ghost ships. I don't know if you're familiar with this but it's where, where the military used to put all of their discarded ships. And at the time I was going by there were at least according to what I understand there were 66 of them stacked up. I mean it was astounding to look at this. And I kept thinking, What a great encounter to focus on. And so, you know, that's, that's how I started this out saying here's the end of the book. Here's where I want to be. Somehow they're going to get the two together. But I also tend to think that, again, people have a way of organizing your own mind in my mind. My books and a story kind of with the characters the center point has kind of three, three sections. The first one is what they're doing. In this case, mine is a journalist and she's, you know, she's covering stories and we've got to have that world in there to give her purpose. The second thing is how she relates to that way as a professional as in this case, a young woman, blah, blah, blah. And the third one is who is she as a person and what is her personal, what are her personal issues and all three of those have to work together. So, you know, there's context that can be placed between the ghost shifts and this last quote. So that's how I look at it. But again, I remember the stories that Jackie Suzanne who wrote on the Valley of the Dolls and a whole bunch of other, used to do a massive, massive kind of frame and grid for every single book. And I couldn't do that. That would drive me crazy. But that's how different writers can take different ways. Yeah, I think finding your own way is, is hard. It's easy for us to tell people to find their own way but it's hard to do that. You know, I was just a quick side. I wasn't familiar with the ghost ships. I, you know, I'm from Southern California so premier that but I'm also familiar because I was in the Air Force I was familiar with the area where they have all the ghost airplanes. Yeah, stocked up there and you know you can walk out on one of the fields there I forget which field it is, and see hundreds and hundreds of these old Air Force planes there. You know sitting there deserted so I thought well, geez there's another story. You know, the ghost air airfield you know. Absolutely. I mean, I, I'm very visual. You know, everybody has kind of a different perspective of how they look at things but I'm very visual as I see, I see my characters and I see, you know scenes playing out and consequently if I can come up with a really interesting, you know, location or some kind of a scenario that that really pulls you in visually. Do you ever have any problem with this visual sense. We've been around a while. And so we've got lots of memories and have lots of experiences. And you know, the first thing I thought of when we're talking about this and I mentioned the ghost airfield was I remember back to an old adventure, Avengers episode with a deserted airfield in after World War two. Very strange story and I thought, you know, these all these memories, everything that you say kicks off something in my head. If we're writing a book, it also kicks off stuff so I mean it's like, I worry sometimes about planning too many seats and everything's coming up and I'm looking around and saying, where do I start picking what do I use. Do you ever have that problem. Oh yeah, and when I send books out to the beta readers and they come back, like one guy said to me, I didn't think this scene was even necessary we figured out who did it, why can't we just get on to the party. The difficult with writing mysteries though is to keep your readers and suspense but not not be too far out, but give them the foreshadowings at the beginning of the book so that when they finish they say, you know I should have known that because she told me early on in the book. That's an easy thing to say but a hard thing to do. Well it isn't I think of every chapter of my, my friends. It was a journalist told me that chapter didn't go anywhere you buried the lead and I remember every chapter is a story of its own. So you got to keep that sort of thing going. The only thing that I have trouble with is I get to a certain spot. And I want to put something in and then I think to myself, if I'm going to put this in. I need some foreshadowing back in some previous chapters, and then I have to go back and add that to that chapters and it's like a never ending process. How do you how do you deal with that. You know, I, I, it's comfortable for me. And I know it isn't for a lot of people. But that's part of the challenge of it I really, I really like the challenge of digging into it and making it, you know, tying it together. Oops, we forgot something is over here. You better, you know wrap that up here. But I know that that's hard for the people I just have a lot. I think that you have an advantage in that you're a very positive person and that's, that's terrific I wish I could make more writers and everybody else in the world more positive so that you can enjoy it more. It's, you know, if you start worrying about those things like you say. It becomes a chore. And a lot of people see see as writing as a chore you know part of that's hooked up with our jobs. A lot of us are in jobs that have to do a lot of writing. And it's hard for them to think of it not as a chore but as a joy any, any ideas on that or thoughts on that. Well, yeah, I mean it's an attitude about any kind of creativity, I mean whether you're, you know, writing or graphic designer anything. And I really believe that we, there is a muscle inside of us for creativity and for imagination, and most, not most, many people do not ever develop that muscle. You know, you look at a scene and you describe it exactly as you see it with absolutely no interest in bringing out what else might be there. I think that's part of, I don't know why I got developed to that. I want to think it was the nuns in first or second grade or something. I don't know. But that's part of the problem when people sit down and they think, Well, where am I going to go from here I've described the scene now what, you know, and it's if the imagination is being able to use that whether it's a mathematical imagination, we have a colleague that is in our group at Wyndham Community College. I've seen her artwork and she uses a protractor to do faces and things like that. I couldn't even imagine that, but it's wonderful. So that's where imagination has been developed to. But yeah, I think you just have to say, Hey, it doesn't matter I'm going to write what is there, and if it doesn't look like the picture I think it should. Well, that's me. That's mine. That's terrific. Benny we're running running short on time back we've got about a minute left I wanted to check in to see if there's any final thoughts before we say Aloha. Well, supposedly that do it, you know, right. We have lots of people around who have shown us that just sitting down and even doing the memoir. You don't have to be a joy. Yeah, I think that's kind of what we're looking at is make it joyful. You know that's one of the things I find in the writer's workshop. The writing retreat that we go to out at the windward thing is it gives you, you know you no longer have an excuse because you're there and you need to write. And you have an hour, hour and a half of just writing and some of those people say this is the only time I get to write. And they're there because they really want to write. Yeah, exactly. You're absolutely right even if you just describe the day, you know do something that helps you get out those feelings and that that creativity. Absolutely. Penny it's been wonderful having you on the show thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to continuing being with you and the writing retreat and other venues where we can have a chance to write together because it is really stimulating and wonderful. Absolutely can it's been my pleasure and knowing you're a good Southern California boy, I will bring you the next book as soon as it's done because it's all about Southern California. Great and I was born in Hollywood so I got lots of questions about. Okay, and I'd like to say a lot to all the people who helped us today. Thank you, Mike and Jay and Haley and Michael. Thank you for all your support here and thank you listeners who are out there. I hope you've enjoyed the show if you got any questions please give us an email or whatever, and would be happy to respond to that and, you know, and try to deal with whatever not only questions but comments that you have as well. Everybody thank you and aloha.