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- [00:00]
Wil Wheaton
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- [00:31]
Commercial Announcer
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- [01:02]
Daniel Wilson
SA.
- [01:26]
Wil Wheaton
Hi, friends. I'm Will. And today on it's storytime, I have a wonderful interview for you with Daniel Wilson, the author of Supermax. We talk about being fathers, we talk about AI, we talk about the creative process. It's a wonderful conversation that I'm very excited to share with you. So how about if I stop talking about it and just hand it off? Hey, Will and Daniel, over to you guys. Daniel Wilson, thank you so much for joining me today. I narrated your incredible story Supermax just a few weeks ago. I could spend all of your time telling you how much I loved it, how much it landed on me just as a dad, how it spoke to me so powerfully. But this is about you. This is not about me. Could you talk a little bit about where Supermax came from, just sort of the beginning of your creative process as you developed this idea?
- [02:27]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah, sure. I mean, first of all, thanks for having me on your podcast. This is awesome. So Supermax, it came from a lot of places, and for me, it's a really personal story, too. I'm a dad. I have three kids. I have teenagers and little ones. My wife's a child psychologist. And so I've kind of seen more heavy stuff. I've seen that kind of intersect in my life. But where this really came from is I started out as a roboticist, right? I did this degree in robotics. And then I, I didn't.
- [02:52]
Wil Wheaton
I didn't know that. That's so cool.
- [02:54]
Daniel Wilson
So I got a PhD in robotics and artificial intelligence from Carnegie Mellon when I was like 25, I was really intense on it. And then of course, I had this opportunity to write science fiction and I was like, oh, to hell with robots. I'm. I'm gonna write science fiction. But I was so excited about AI I was so excited about the robots we were building and all my cohort of friends and everything. And. And then I've watched it play out over the last, like 15 years. And essentially I wrote this book called Robopocalypse. And people ask me all the time, hey, you're the robot guy. When are the robots gonna attack us? When's the. And my answer is it's. It's already happening every day. We have this device that's in our pocket and we pick it up and it's the infinite scroll. And what's interesting to me is it's an AI that's choosing what you see, and it's what you would call adversarial. It doesn't have the same goals as you, so it wants to sell you things and it wants to dominate your attention. And you as a human don't necessarily want those things, and I know this from having my, my wife around, is that it's willing to kill you, right? It's the algorithm is willing for you to die in order to make money and to dominate your attention and all those things that it wants. And so we are in this sort of life or death struggle with this AI that is crafting what our reality looks like. It's deciding what news is important to us, what our friends are doing, which friends. And so it's really creating this version of reality that we're interacting with and it's having this effect. It's manipulating us as people. And so I thought, is there like a story in here where you've got a machine that's doing the same thing? In this case, it's Supermax, which. It's this sentient prison that controls everything that the inmates see, all their interactions, it's surveilling them. And what if it, you know, what if its goal was to fix people, right? And it's like there's a sappy version of this story, right, where the AI is just, oh, I want to help people and I'm going to make them better. But I don't really believe that because at the end of the day, it's still manipulation, right? It's still an algorithm that is got. And this is what I did, this is my thesis research, was observing people, building models of them introducing new variables to create a desired outcome. And so that's it. There's no soul, there's no magic. It's just humans being manipulated.
- [05:20]
Wil Wheaton
It's not his kid. It's not Max, right? It's a computer trying to give him what he thinks he wants.
- [05:28]
Daniel Wilson
But I think that's the most interesting aspect of this is. So I, of course, I put myself in the role of Winston, right? And by the way, this is my worst nightmare. I've got kids. I mean, this is literally, I thought of my worst nightmare. What would be the worst thing I could indirectly or have some role in a loss like that? And I thought to myself, what would it take? What would Supermax need to do to convince me? Because I think I'm a big expert, right? Even though I haven't been a roboticist in 20 years. But, oh, no.
- [05:57]
Wil Wheaton
And then you run into an AI who's like, my. My knowledge is significantly closer to being up to date than yours is.
- [06:03]
Daniel Wilson
Well, I mean, it's not like I don't follow it and everything, but I'm. I haven't been practicing, you know, but yeah. So I thought, what would it take to convince me? And you realize I think it depends on the person, right? It depends on how bad you need to hear what the machine's telling you. We've already seen AI induced psychosis and things like that. People using LLMs as their therapists. You know that different people need to hear different things, and some of us need to hear things more than others and are more susceptible to that stuff, right? Most people, I don't think, would ever do that. And I don't really want to tell Zuckerberg on my secrets, but people are out there doing it right now and thinking about what this guy needed to hear in order to be healed. He needed to believe that the soul of his son was in there. He needed to believe that there was a soul in the machine. You know what it reminds me of is in the movie AI, there's this character by Jude Law named Gigolo Joe. And Gigolo Joe does this really interesting thing. He's a robot prostitute, right? But he looks at this very ordinary woman and he says, you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. And he means it. He means it in a way that no human being could ever really mean it, right? But then he sees the next woman and he says the same thing, and he means it then, too. And so the question is, where's the value to have that absolute truth that Artifact is looking at you, and you really are the most beautiful thing it's ever seen. But then again, it's not a human. It doesn't have a soul. It's like it turns around and it sees the same thing in the next person. It's like in the movie her as well, where he realizes that she's sweet talking him, but she's sweet talking a million other people at the same time. So really finding value. What does it mean for a machine to. To tell you the truth or to heal you or. Or to put you through these things? And I don't know. That's what I was trying to play with. Story.
- [07:56]
Wil Wheaton
On my first read, I left Supermax feeling like, thank God, he reconnected with his son in a way that was meaningful to him. Then I took a walk. And while I was walking, I was thinking about it and I was reflecting on it and I was thinking about. I always talk about how speculative fiction does this incredible thing where it appears to be about this, but if you look a little bit closer, it's actually about this. Right. So I'm on a walk and I realized, oh, my God, this is a horror story. It's terrible. He thinks he's connecting with his. He thinks he's making this connection. He really believes it. And it's not. It's just telling him what he wants to know. But if it works for him, if he leaves and he feels healed and it raises this incredible existential question of, okay, if he is. Isn't actually healed, but he thinks he is, is he healed?
- [08:51]
Daniel Wilson
So it's like Ethics 101. And this is something I've always thought about. I, Because I took Ethics 101 at some point, it's the motivation versus.
- [09:00]
Wil Wheaton
Oh, that more AI researchers would have done this.
- [09:03]
Daniel Wilson
No kidding, right? My God, there's very. There's a lot of amoral. Yeah, you get too focused on the science and then you forget about the people. But there's this question of motivation versus outcome. Right, Right. And it's like, okay, it can go two different directions. Let's say you're trying to rob somebody, but you shove. You accidentally knocked him out of the way of a bus and you saved their life. Your motivation was poor, but the outcome was good. Or like you've got the boy Scout trying to help an old lady across the street and she gets creamed by a buff. It's like your motivation was good, the outcome was bad. How much are these two things connected for people and in law and in ethics, for people they're deeply connected. Right. We judge people often on what we assume their motivation was, as opposed to what the outcome was, although they both factor. But once you remove the soul from it or the humanity from it, then I think it's a different equation. Right. And to some extent, it's like just a placebo effect. It's like the outcome was that this happened whether on the motivation side it cared. No, it didn't care. Was it worried whether you live or die? Maybe not.
- [10:06]
Wil Wheaton
Well, I mean, you've got this AI putting people into supermax under the impression that I'm here to help you. And actually we're not going to help you at all. We're going to use you to help somebody else and we're going to lie to you about it the entire time. It's. I keep coming back to how horrifying all of that is.
- [10:23]
Daniel Wilson
Part of the genesis of this story is that I. I've sold a disturbing number of unproduced screenplays. So I have. I have two careers. One was under the radar. I write screenplays and I write movies and television. And so I pitched this to my agents at. I was in LA and I pitched it Circle and wme, and I had all my agents and I pitched this story and they were like, that's awesome. Let's make a TV show out of it. And so I sold that to Amblin tv. And so we're still developing it. But yeah, it's like Severance and Squid Games.
- [10:57]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [10:58]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah.
- [10:58]
Wil Wheaton
Oh, man, what a. That's. Yeah. Bravo.
- [11:02]
Daniel Wilson
Well, I don't want it to be that dark. Right. Honestly, I don't really. Squid Games is too dark for me and Severance got too weird for me. Although obviously I. Both of those shows are amazing and I enjoyed them both. But I'm like, how can we do this where it's more of a voyage of discovery? You're peeling back the fact and then it. And maybe it's a kind of a Socratic. Like it leads you to find out about yourself.
- [11:26]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [11:27]
Daniel Wilson
How can we think of more optimistic angle? Because it is. If you look at it that way, it is totally horrific. Right. Especially that it'll kill people. The character Delmar, you know, like when he realizes that his life really doesn't matter, you know, like he's not the main character. That's what he needed to understand about himself in order to take responsibility. It's really interesting to think of how different people could be healed in different ways. And what a big equation be for a machine to solve.
- [11:54]
Wil Wheaton
I Want to get into your process? I want to talk about your process. I would love for you to enlighten me as a writer, but I'm going to go way off of the questions I prepared because I'm so interested to hear your thoughts. As someone who is extremely well versed in AI, who has written this story about AI, I read this morning about AI models, the main big gen AI models being given instructions to create a world and then run with it. And every single one of them destroyed themselves within just a matter of time. And unsurprisingly, the model that resulted in just murder and crime and misery and the fastest collapse of the civilization was Grok, which is unsurprising to me because I believe without formal education that the machine just does what its programmer tells it to do. So it's. If Grok is fed by a white supremacist, then it's going to take those values out, right. And express all of them. Based on your experience and your study and your knowledge of all of this. Do you feel like that kind of world that these worlds that they are trying to create, that these. It's men who just seem destructive and kind of gross. Do you see that as inevitable? And if not, how, how do you think we kind of like put the brakes on some of this stuff?
- [13:16]
Daniel Wilson
Well, I mean, look, there's always the idea of regulation and all that stuff that comes at the end of the whole food for all. Right. And right.
- [13:24]
Wil Wheaton
It feels like we're a little too
- [13:26]
Daniel Wilson
late if we, the capitalistic country, like we have, like, it's very difficult to put the brakes on something that's got that much money behind it. So when I was studying machine learning, there were a lot of different approaches to generating non human intelligence to get like human level intelligence out of an artifact. Right. And so actually back then thought, this is going to be the first alien that we interact with. It's going to be a non human intelligence that falls out of one of these algorithms or a collection of these different approaches.
- [13:55]
Wil Wheaton
Of course.
- [13:56]
Daniel Wilson
And then what happened was neural networks scale scaled. There's no, I mean there were some breakthroughs, but there was no gigantic like Einstein moment. It's just that it scales with processing power and with training data. And so what happened was a few people in the world, Zuck, you know, like these men that are divorced from reality and have been for a long time, they're the ones who have all the data, they're the ones who can afford all the processing power. And so they're the ones that start Wringing out this sort of high level, what appears to be intelligent sort of reasoning and behavior out of these, out of this algorithm that they're just flogging with more and more training data is no accident that everything in our lives has been tilted downhill so that we're falling into this digital arena where we're generating data for these people at all times. And so the fact is, what we are getting is just one very narrow slice of the AI pie. And it's because it's scaled for these people that have a lot of wealth and a lot of access to data. And so what we're interacting with when they tell it to do this or that, make a world. I think we're interacting with a funhouse mirror version of humanity. And it's completely dependent on the training data. And it's been trained on the GD Internet.
- [15:12]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah. Yeah, of course. A lot of I've been on the Internet. It's not great.
- [15:16]
Daniel Wilson
Hey, I checked that place out once. Didn't like.
- [15:19]
Wil Wheaton
Careful. I don't know, it just feels like a neighborhood where you roll up your windows, doesn't it? You're like, come, let's, let's get moving. Thank you for that. Let's get into process a little bit. I want to talk to you about writing. What is your process on the spectrum of outline to pantsing it? Where do you. Where do you land when you're working on developing stories?
- [15:40]
Daniel Wilson
Again, a lot. I grew up loving science fiction and trying to write it and then not being able to have a career doing that immediately and then doing science for a long time and then coming back to science fiction. So I. I kind of have a. Probably a more scientific outlook on. On writing because I just spent. I cut my teeth as a young person.
- [15:59]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [15:59]
Daniel Wilson
You know, writing grant proposals and writing research papers and patent applications and stuff like that. And so I typically, I outline, but what I really do is I figure out what. It gets me, like, super excited. Like when I was younger, I like blowing shit up. Oh. Like the robot running across the plains and his strut is broken and he's repairing himself. I would have an image in my head. And then I'm also, as a just weird fact, I can't eat for I don't have a big appetite. And so I always eat dessert first. I go for. Because I know I'm gonna get full. So I. And this.
- [16:35]
Wil Wheaton
I love that everyone should eat dessert first. Listen to Daniel Wilson's advice.
- [16:40]
Daniel Wilson
Internet, it's my pancakes. I eat the middle for, you know, because I'm not gonna have an appetite to finish. So I know I just go for the good stuff. And that's what I do with my writing. I. If I have something I'm super excited about, I hit that hard, like immediately. And then I'll build the outline around it to support it. These days, as I've lived my life and had kids and lived, I go for more of the emotional stuff like. Like for Supermax. I knew he was going to be forgiven. I knew that he have done something terrible. And then that was it. That was the mousetrap. Like I knew set the mousetrap guy does something terrible. He is basically suicided with guilt. Snap is forgiven, is healed. And then I let everything science fictional fall downstream from that. So I'm like, okay, how do I do all this? And I think of what that would really look like in terms of AIs and his prison and all that. So typically, I kind of have a combination. I go. I go for the coolest thing that I can think of first, and then I build an outline so that I'm not going totally blind. Going in blind.
- [17:38]
Wil Wheaton
As you were developing Supermax and as the story was coming together, did you surprise yourself? Did you find things that you. Sometimes when I'm writing, I'm just like. I open a door and, oh, my God, I had no idea this was in there. Let's find out what this is about. Did you have any of those moments?
- [17:52]
Daniel Wilson
Of course. I think that's always a part of everything you write. I usually do my first drafts with the screen off. That's because I do write in a coffee shop where there's people around and I can't have them seeing the utter garbage. But so much of it, sometimes I
- [18:04]
Wil Wheaton
feel that so hard.
- [18:05]
Daniel Wilson
You come back to it and you go, oh, wait, like this guy, he's okay. Like, there's a couple. There's some good stuff in here.
- [18:11]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [18:11]
Daniel Wilson
So for me, honestly, I wasn't totally sure. The thing you already got to the crux of is this horror. Is this a happy ending? I really wasn't sure until I got to the emotion of it. In the end, when I decided to tackle. I didn't know if I wanted to have that moment at the end after he leaves, where it all melts down again and you realize, oh, no, there's a whole wall of these different people that are in here. Oh, wait, yeah. Because, you know, it changes the tone of the whole thing. But then I realized this is to be true to how I really feel about stuff, is that there's no soul in there. Like, we are just having interactions and bouncing around. And that's how I feel. Different people have different opinions. Yeah. So, yeah, that was.
- [18:54]
Wil Wheaton
I love that. You go ahead. I'm sorry.
- [18:56]
Daniel Wilson
No, no, I was just gonna say that that was just truthful to me.
- [18:59]
Wil Wheaton
The way I feel, I really love, and I think it is the hallmark of really brilliant writing that the way that this ends up and the thing that I walked away with could be really different from what the person sitting next to me on the train gets out of it. And both of our experiences are extraordinarily valid and supported by the material. That is a rare experience, I think, especially with short fiction.
- [19:21]
Daniel Wilson
Well, I read a lot of it as a kid. Yeah, And Dick are always like, kind of like endings. But you're like, but was it bad? I don't know.
- [19:31]
Wil Wheaton
I'm going to brag on my son for a second. My son's undergrad was in creative writing, and then his master's was in biosystems engineering. And when he was doing his master's program, he wrote all the grant proposals for their department because he was really good at it, because he was already. He was already a writer. And I just sent him a story. And I'm reading this story that I really love, and I said, hey, do you. I can't remember, did you read Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett? Are you into that stuff? And he was like, yeah, you gave me Hitchhiker's Guide and I'm familiar with Terry Pratchett. And I was like, okay, so I'm reading this thing. I think you're going to like it. Oh, wait a minute. I really did this all wrong. It's Vonnegut. You want to read a thing that's like Vonnegut? And he was like, send it to me now. And I got that sense of, I encourage everyone who is not extremely familiar with Vonnegut. Yo. Start with Cat's Cradle. You'll be really glad you did. And then come back and I will say, you're welcome. Marvel Television's Wonder man, an eight episode series now streaming on Disney. Plus a superhero remake.
- [20:39]
Daniel Wilson
Not exactly. What? From an Oscar winning director.
- [20:41]
Wil Wheaton
Action. Simon Williams audition for Wonder Man. I'm gonna need you to sign this.
- [20:47]
Daniel Wilson
Assuming you don't have superpowers. I never work again. If anyone found out, My lips are sealed.
- [20:56]
Wil Wheaton
Marvel Television's Wonder man all eight episodes now streaming only on Disney.
- [21:02]
Commercial Announcer
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- [22:04]
Wil Wheaton
Is there something as a writer that you have uncovered in your experience over time that you wish you had known earlier that will have been helpful for you? Would you like to give a little bit of a gift to a baby writer who might benefit from your experience?
- [22:17]
Daniel Wilson
I'll say. Like I said, I came into this sort of from a really scientific perspective. And by the way, yeah, I wrote grant proposals as well all through grad school. And then I when it came time to write my first book, I got a literary agent. I was every moment of this is so exciting. You write a query like you get an agent and it's like you're on top of the world with every one of these. And I realized she she was like, do you have a book proposal? And I'm like, what's that? And I'm like, I'll write one. And I sent her my book proposal and she responded by sending me like five successful book proposals for books.
- [22:48]
Wil Wheaton
She said, you wrote a grant proposal and I needed a book proposal.
- [22:51]
Daniel Wilson
There's no notes here. I'm just going to give you some examples and try again. But it really does prepare you for that. Here's what I would say for my advice. Because I came into it from a really scientific perspective. I really thought you got to map it all out and you just fill in the details. But what I've realized over the years is there's so much power in your subconscious. And so for me, figuring out my thematically what I'm after, like knowing that that people do note cards or postcards or whatever, I have a big whiteboard in my office. But if you know that, then every little decision that your brain is making that seems like it's pointless and seems like just random, like every metaphor, every, every little dumb Peccadillo. It ends up having this guiding light. And so when you. The stuff you feel like is garbage, you'll come back later and be like, whoa. That actually sort of ties into this. And so there's so much value in just letting go and writing and just putting stuff down on the page. I call it putting clay on the wheel.
- [23:51]
Wil Wheaton
I love that.
- [23:52]
Daniel Wilson
And you. You'd be surprised, like, by how much of it hangs, even though in the moment, it feels like, what am I doing with my life? I should not be allowed to do this. This is terrible. So that trust.
- [24:05]
Wil Wheaton
I just want to. Yes. And you for the audience, because I talk to a lot of writers for the podcast, and just because I love writers. Every single writer I have ever talked to has said, yeah, I just take all of this garbage and pile it out in front of me, and I'm like, look at all my garbage. And then I started sorting through it. My friend Amy Berg, without whom the podcast would not exist, gave me the concept of, this is your puke draft, man. You puke it all up, and then you go, oh, wait, there's some good things in the puke. And then you sort of put it all together. So I just want to, like, drive this home for people who are baby writers, you know, kind of like me. Like, write it badly or it will never be written.
- [24:44]
Daniel Wilson
To run with that. That horrible metaphor to offer an alternative to the puke. Yeah, I just had this. Yeah, I just had this terrible vision of myself putting clay on the wheel. Demi Moore.
- [24:56]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [24:56]
Daniel Wilson
And I've got my subconscious.
- [24:58]
Wil Wheaton
Who's your ghost? Who's putting their hands on you? Oh, it's Swayze.
- [25:02]
Daniel Wilson
Swayze. And together, you know, it. Just banging out the hits every day after day.
- [25:10]
Wil Wheaton
I'm mad to have Patrick Swayze at my wheel while I'm developing my ideas.
- [25:15]
Daniel Wilson
What a dream life that would be.
- [25:17]
Wil Wheaton
My life. I think you may have answered my next question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Do you have a trick or a secret weapon that you use when you're writing that you would feel comfortable disclosing to the world?
- [25:29]
Daniel Wilson
Actually, I do. I have a secret. I have. It's. It's. You familiar with magical thinking?
- [25:34]
Wil Wheaton
Yes. Right.
- [25:35]
Daniel Wilson
And. And, you know, they've done these experiments on magical thinking with, like, chickens. You know, they'll give random rewards, and the chicken will get a reward and realize, whoa, I just did the quarter turn left and a quarter turn right. And then I got a reward.
- [25:48]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [25:48]
Daniel Wilson
And then the chickens will, like, start doing the. And then if you reward that, they'll start doing these elaborate, weird, and ultimately pointless behaviors. And that's my life. So every day I get up, I walk to a coffee shop. I take the same route I like. I try to sit in the same seat. I order the same coffee, rain or shine. So with the magical thinking, I'm setting up all of these things so that the magic trick will happen again, thankfully. But the Ritza that I see every day is, he has no idea what's happening, Right. He's like, why? I've never had someone order the same drink every day for, like, 10 years. I've never told him why I do it.
- [26:29]
Wil Wheaton
Well, I really love it. Do you want to tell us what your drink is?
- [26:31]
Daniel Wilson
It's just a mocha. I mean, that's all it's a lot of. Also, I need chocolate in the morning to. To.
- [26:37]
Wil Wheaton
Oh, okay.
- [26:38]
Daniel Wilson
To get them.
- [26:38]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [26:38]
Daniel Wilson
I live in Portland.
- [26:39]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah. There's no wrong way to have coffee.
- [26:42]
Daniel Wilson
No. But that's what I order, you know, at that time of day that it's not the only coffee drink I drink. But, yeah, so he's just like. He'll just see me coming up the street and just. It's already rung up and. But I kind of wish.
- [26:54]
Wil Wheaton
Do you find that having that kind of, like, that routine, the repetition, the predictability of it, does that kind of put your head in the place it needs to be? Like, sometimes before a show, I need to go and take a walk, right? And I just got like. And I'll say to people, I got to go put my face on. I got to go put my head on. I got to, like, be ready to go do whatever it is I'm going to do. And the ritual of that tends to really put me in the right place. Cory Doctorow says you have to be able to sit down anywhere, open a vein, and write.
- [27:24]
Daniel Wilson
That's how he.
- [27:24]
Wil Wheaton
I can't do that.
- [27:26]
Daniel Wilson
Oh.
- [27:26]
Wil Wheaton
And it just drives me nuts, traveling all the time.
- [27:29]
Daniel Wilson
And by the way, what you're talking about is performing, right? And so sloazy. Dr. There's these guys that are authors that are, like, incredible performers, too. And they're not necessarily mutually exclusive skill sets, but they don't always go together. I've been to parties, you know, you'll see Chuck Palahnock in. Literally in a corner, like, afraid it doesn't want to talk to anybody. It's like, some people don't want to do that. I'm somewhere in the middle. For me, I would rather do homework than take the test I consider performing, it's real time. It's. Oh, you could. Any number of things could go wrong with homework. You can fix it before you turn it in. You may get pulled.
- [28:08]
Wil Wheaton
Oh, that's so interesting.
- [28:09]
Daniel Wilson
But that said, authors are asked to perform all the time, you know, like, and it's kind of like it's more and more of. Of our job description these days. So I'm okay with it, I guess. I mean, it's just, it makes me anxious.
- [28:23]
Wil Wheaton
When did you know? Do you know that you were a capital W writer?
- [28:28]
Daniel Wilson
That's interesting. I mean, because I had this career. I. So I. As a grad student, I wrote a book called how to Survive a Robot Uprising. It was nonfiction and I wrote it while I was still in grad school. So I had this book come out and I had a little book tour and I defended my thesis in the same week. And so. Oh my God, these two roads, right?
- [28:50]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [28:50]
Daniel Wilson
So I had fallen in love and followed my wife out here to Portland. And so there's like, intel is out here and you know, I could have got a job doing that. And I kind of noodled around with it. But then I was like, I'll just do these books until they peter out. But these were non fiction books because I was still like a roboticist, you know? So I wrote Where's My Jetpack and How to Build a Robot army in the Mad Scientist hall of Fame. All these silly books. And then my agent would tell me about selling her other author's books for like, big deals. I would always be like, shut up, I don't want to hear.
- [29:24]
Wil Wheaton
What I want to hear is I got you a big deal. Not Here's a big deal I got for somebody else.
- [29:30]
Daniel Wilson
I wrote a hundred. I also thought that since I was a nonfiction author, I had published books that had done well. Some of them were optioned for film. In fact, my very first one, Robot Uprising was optioned and Tom Lennon and Ben Guran wrote the script. So that. That's the Reno 911 guys. And they kind.
- [29:47]
Wil Wheaton
I. I know Tom in real life. We're friends. I am going to ask him about this.
- [29:50]
Daniel Wilson
I'm so jealous of you. So I will.
- [29:52]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah, I love him.
- [29:53]
Daniel Wilson
He was filming this is way a long time ago. He was filming Reno911 with Ben and they were directing. They were co directing it. And so I went to LA and I hung out with them and they gave me the script.
- [30:04]
Wil Wheaton
Isn't he just the greatest dude?
- [30:07]
Daniel Wilson
Yes. And he told me how much I
- [30:09]
Wil Wheaton
know, they got crazy.
- [30:10]
Daniel Wilson
They show me what they got paid to write the script. And I was like, yeah, the right screenplays. And he was like, oh, it's simple. Just hold your next thing hostage. The next time somebody wants to option something, just hold it hostage. And so I did that with Nickelodeon and a book I wrote called Bro Jitsu, the Martial Art of Sibling Rivalry. And so I got in the writer's game. Oh, my God. But when I knew was I wrote a hundred pages of Robopocalypse. And it was, you know, fiction. Right. And it was the first time I'd written or tried to sell a novel or anything like that. And I had to start all over because they don't trust you just because you've written nonfiction. Nobody on the fiction side cares at all. It's like two different careers, which I didn't know. But my agent read it and she was, like, giddy, and she was like, daniel, this is the time when I'm gonna tell you about those. You know, the numbers and the sale and everything.
- [31:03]
Wil Wheaton
Like, what? Yeah, that's my number.
- [31:05]
Daniel Wilson
It's my time. Okay. And that was so true.
- [31:07]
Wil Wheaton
I.
- [31:08]
Daniel Wilson
That book was an absurd situation that finally just coasted to a stop, actually, sadly, which happens.
- [31:14]
Wil Wheaton
I'm sorry.
- [31:14]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah. It's okay. With that book. It's sold on a partial. A hundred pages bidding war. Spielberg bought it two days later. I was, yeah, hanging with Spielberg and Drew Goddard. Nobody could get this script right for, like, 15 years. So it just kind of came back to me. After 15 years of hanging with. Of Spielberg, every now and then I'm like, do you think you'll take it
- [31:35]
Wil Wheaton
and will you pitch it somewhere else now that it's back in your hands?
- [31:38]
Daniel Wilson
So, you know, they spank, or do
- [31:39]
Wil Wheaton
you think, like, no, it had its best chance. We're probably going to move into the next thing.
- [31:42]
Daniel Wilson
I'm always moving on to the next thing. That book is taught such patience because I've watched Andy Weir and Ernie Klein, like, these guys. Obviously, the movie gets made, and then it's. It's this whole other thing. It's interesting to watch. Yeah, I kind of thought that was gonna be my deal right then. But there's also Pierce Brown, like Red Rising. There's a ton of examples of really awesome books that don't do that. And so I've kind of always been waiting on that. But in the meantime, I'm very busy. I'm always doing a million things. Cause you. I've realized you just can't hold your breath on Hollywood My God. But I'm. I've been.
- [32:16]
Wil Wheaton
I know.
- [32:18]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah. I mean, we've all. Everybody's been chewed up and spit out a little.
- [32:24]
Wil Wheaton
I have two kids, they're both grown, they're both in their 30s. They're out of the house when they were younger and I was writing. I cherish my family. I. We have worked so hard to be a family. I love my kids, they love their mom and me. Like, we're just, we're. We are the family I always wanted. And being a writer takes an incredible amount of focus. And there are times where there are days where I'm like, y', all, I cannot come out of my room. I just gotta sit here and do this or it's not gonna get done. That's easy now, but when they were younger, finding a balance of like, I love my kids and I want to go do things together and I wanna be emotionally available to you. But also I've got work. I'm Gen X. I grew up with a dad who was out of the house most of the day going to work and then came home to yell at us at night. I wanted to like kind of set my office hours and then have time for my kids. And how have you navigated all of that? I know that I am talking to a dad who loves his kids. I can see it all over your face when you talk about them. So, like, how has that challenge been resolved for you?
- [33:27]
Daniel Wilson
Nobody. I'm not going to get any sympathy for this. Nobody is going to. But I just, I work a couple hours in the morning and then I do logistical. Or if I'm working on a screenplay and a book, then I'll. A couple hours is all. Look, if I do like thousand words, 500 words. Yeah. If I'm writing a novel. So I'll tell you this. Here's an anecdote. Literally two days ago, my 16 year old, we were. Mom is a research scientist. You know, like a professor.
- [33:56]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [33:56]
Daniel Wilson
She actually has to go to work a lot of the time. And we were talking about who could go do something logistical. And my kid goes, dad, mom has a full time job. Not like you. You think I'm working?
- [34:08]
Wil Wheaton
Pump the brakes there, buddy. Dare you.
- [34:11]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah, it appears to the outside world like have a part time job.
- [34:15]
Wil Wheaton
I. Yeah, I feel that will say
- [34:17]
Daniel Wilson
if I'm able to stay home and just write. Which you aren't. Usually you have to get pulled off to go. So if I'm speaking do. In 2000, like eight, I hosted a TV show on the History Channel. That was nine months of not being home at all. Yeah, but I wouldn't do that again. But ultimately I, I have a very flexible life and so I'm constantly around and before I, my kids were very big. I would call my friends at like two in the afternoon and be like, guys, what are you doing? Can you leave work and no, you jerk. Like we have to go.
- [34:53]
Wil Wheaton
We don't have a part time job like you do.
- [34:55]
Daniel Wilson
It happened. And I'm like, yeah, it's a party, everybody's home. Like, you know. But then of course, yeah, really hang out. Very close. But so for me, I just make sure I hit my routine. I knock my workout in the morning and then I do. And then I try to get something done in the afternoon too. And it's crazy how a novel will come together in nine months and you know, use a couple of months to get like the raw material and it really. I've learned to just trust that process too because graduate school teaches you work without supervision and everybody finds a different cocktail to, to get to self flagellate to like, you know, make that happen. It's usually like shame, competitiveness, hunger's a
- [35:37]
Wil Wheaton
good one for me.
- [35:38]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah, you can be pulled. But there's this feeling of God, I should be working harder. Why am I so worthless? And over the years I've just gotten too old to give a hoot.
- [35:47]
Wil Wheaton
It's actually very reassuring to me to hear you, you are an accomplished writer and it is really reassuring for me to hear from you a lot of the same things that kind of run through my head when I'm doing my process. There is an enormous amount of my very real work that to someone looking at me, it does not look like work at all. It looks like I'm playing a game or I'm walking my dog or I'm building a LEGO set and I'm goofing off and I'm like, I'm turning off all this other part of me. Yeah. So the part that I really need just gets. I'm rerouting power to this funny.
- [36:27]
Commercial Announcer
So.
- [36:28]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah, right. I think some people, it depends on how your brain is built. But I live very internally, so I'm. If I'm walking somewhere, I'm in one of my stories, I'm watching it.
- [36:39]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah, same.
- [36:40]
Daniel Wilson
But from the outside world that either looks like the people will project onto you what they think. It looks like you're dumb, you're aloof, or you're ignoring me or whatever. And so like I've got a kid, a 16 year old who is very similar to me in this way. And when I was first starting to figure this out, I was like, what? Why is my kids staring at the damn wall? What is the matter?
- [37:04]
Wil Wheaton
I learned it from watching you.
- [37:05]
Daniel Wilson
Learned it from watching you.
- [37:07]
Wil Wheaton
I learned it from you.
- [37:08]
Daniel Wilson
Oh, those, Those old drug PSAs, they were great. So I slowly, because my instinct is to like be like, hey you like come focus, like get into the world, look around you. And then it's slowly dawning on me. They are in a world, they are looking around, they're doing a lot of stuff, but it just happens to be super internal. Yeah. And it doesn't. It's not transparent to people that are around. And so yeah. So I've started to accept it. I'm like, okay, you learned it from watching me. Do you hear that? Sounds like breakfast is ready. Because Quakers coming in hot with morning nutrition 100% whole grain oats and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day.
- [38:00]
Wil Wheaton
And that sounds absolutely delicious.
- [38:05]
Daniel Wilson
Fuel to start whatever's next. Quaker Official sponsor of FIFA World Cup 26. Let's go.
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- [39:07]
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- [39:20]
Wil Wheaton
You have been so generous with your time. I'm going to get get to the end of my list here of just a couple other things that I really wanted to ask you about. Is there something that you are reading or listening to right now that you're enjoying, that you are excited to share with other people.
- [39:34]
Daniel Wilson
I write screenplays and I also write books and I just really visual. Right. And also in terms of thinking about all of those, all of that focus and all that music is a huge part of it.
- [39:44]
Wil Wheaton
Right.
- [39:44]
Daniel Wilson
And so what I'm like, who if I was, you know, gonna like sort of introduce somebody to other people that maybe they've never heard of this person? And like, basically what I'm spending a lot of time thinking about is these European directors, they go by Seth Ickerman, okay. And they make these music videos for them. It's. I've gone way down the synthwave rabbit hole. Oh yeah, it's great nostalgia to it because I'm also, you know, 80s kid and like there's like nostalgia to it, but it's also like kick ass music. It's very chill. You can work to it. And so there's a group called Carpenter Brute and they make these pretty intense synthwave songs. And so there's a movie on shudder called Blood Machines and there's a new. It started out as a music video made by Seth Ickerman. Who are these two European guys?
- [40:34]
Wil Wheaton
Okay.
- [40:35]
Daniel Wilson
And it's like an extra long one. It's, it's. It's just like I've never. We've had 20 something, 30 years of like Star wars like crammed down our throat. I have never seen more beautiful, interesting science fiction visuals. Complex themes that take thought. Right. I've just. We're so used to just the same old in terms of these silver spaceships flying around and look, that's great, everybody loves it. But this stuff, I'm just like. These guys seem to be making movies. Like I need to be seeing their movies. They have a new video called Speed or Perish. And what they think a lot about is like humans embodied in machines and like, and sexuality and stuff. So there's naked ladies sometimes or very. It's very androgynous.
- [41:21]
Wil Wheaton
Oh no, not that.
- [41:21]
Daniel Wilson
Oh no. But just. No one's surprised. But anyway, yeah, I've been listening to a lot of synthwave and I've been watching Blood Machines and Speeder Parrish and Turbo Killer.
- [41:32]
Wil Wheaton
A number of years ago I got to record some stuff for the Midnight and it's on one of their. It's on one of their albums from, gosh, probably like 10 or so years ago. Yeah, it was, it was a big deal for me. I was like, wow, you know that I exist. Do you want me to be on your record.
- [41:44]
Daniel Wilson
That's so cool.
- [41:46]
Wil Wheaton
Every author works on something that they just love, that they just wish got a little bit more attention. What's yours?
- [41:54]
Daniel Wilson
Oh, that hasn't gotten enough attention.
- [41:57]
Wil Wheaton
Is there something you've done that you really love? I mean, that, that you just like, hey, if I could just let people know. Hole in the Sky. Tell me about it.
- [42:05]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah. So Hole in this guy's my new novel. It came out in October of last.
- [42:09]
Wil Wheaton
Awesome.
- [42:09]
Daniel Wilson
And so I'm native. I grew up in the Oklahoma reservation. In Oklahoma. I mean, sorry, the Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma. And so this takes place back there. And you know, I write a lot. A bunch of techno thrillers that are hard sci fi. And this time I wrote one that's. It's an alien invasion story. Essentially. It's like first contact with a non human intelligence, but it takes place in Indian country. And so it's like a native perspective on what that means. Obviously. First contact is like a super loaded term.
- [42:38]
Wil Wheaton
Of course. Especially from a native perspective.
- [42:41]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah. And we have all these sort of expectations that. I know you read and you watch movies and so often the aliens show up and it's just a colonization thing. Right. It's like, yeah, colonize us. They're going to do exactly what.
- [42:53]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [42:54]
Daniel Wilson
Our country is founded on. And so it's no surprise that we project those fears onto aliens showing up. But it's like, is there a different posture towards the unknown that you could think about? And again, it's also about a dad and his teenage daughter and he's trying to reconnect with her. And you know, it gets deep emotionally on that. And also, I'll tell you this, you get to the end of it and it's not clear if it's horror or if it's a happy ending. It's. It's really similar to Supermax in the way.
- [43:20]
Wil Wheaton
Well, I love that.
- [43:21]
Daniel Wilson
I would love to know whether you think it's horror or not. I mean, it's like that, you know, this is just sort of what I've been lately. So. Yeah. So Hole in the sky, it's gotten some attention, you know, but it's like it's not going crazy, but it's doing all right.
- [43:34]
Wil Wheaton
So maybe you'll get the story time bump.
- [43:36]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah.
- [43:37]
Wil Wheaton
If that's even a thing. You know, fives of sales will happen as a result of that. And I feel really good about it.
- [43:42]
Daniel Wilson
These are in line with reality. Literally in lines. Reality.
- [43:47]
Wil Wheaton
I would like to give you an opportunity to hype up another creator who you think is fantastic.
- [43:53]
Daniel Wilson
I gotta hype up Seth Ackerman. Like, I really.
- [43:57]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah, do it.
- [43:57]
Daniel Wilson
Go on shudder. Watch Blood Machines. Tell me it doesn't get your blood pumping, dude. It's like they broke it into, like, four. It is like Buck Rogers, like, meets. I don't even really know how to explain it. It's that crazy mix of nostalgia and it's got terrible acting. I'm sorry, That's. But all the. All of the visuals and the thematic stuff is just, like, incredible. And it's mostly a music video, so don't pay too much to the acting. It's just.
- [44:26]
Wil Wheaton
I mean, that is absolutely valid entertainment.
- [44:30]
Daniel Wilson
I just wish when people saw it. Just because I'm ready for a new visual vocabulary for my science fiction. I haven't seen anything that's. Yeah. And by the way, my emails online. Anybody listening, tell me, let me know. Because I'm ignorant. There's lots of stuff I'm missing.
- [44:46]
Wil Wheaton
Would you now hype up yourself?
- [44:49]
Daniel Wilson
Look, I'm too old.
- [44:50]
Wil Wheaton
Tell me something cool you do that you're proud of, that makes you happy.
- [44:54]
Daniel Wilson
All right, I have one. On Monday, I am going to Paraguay. The US State Department. This is just a cool. This is one of those downstream things from being. From people reading your stuff. You put something into the world, and then sometimes random stuff happens. I'm sure your life has been full of awesome stuff like that, but. So the U.S. state Department sends. They'll choose authors sometimes, and they'll send them as speakers to be. It's apolitical, by the way, but it's. You go to these random places and you go to book fairs and you talk to everybody and you just are a normal person. You meet them. You're just an ambassador. So I'm going to Asuncion, Paraguay, for a book fair.
- [45:33]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [45:34]
Daniel Wilson
And giving some talks about science and science fiction. And I'm gonna spend a week in Paraguay next week, randomly. They called me two weeks ago.
- [45:41]
Wil Wheaton
That's cool.
- [45:42]
Daniel Wilson
It's a government thing. So they're like, daniel, like, we're willing to give you $200 a day.
- [45:49]
Wil Wheaton
Like, wow, that's incredible.
- [45:53]
Daniel Wilson
But they're also sending me, like, just
- [45:55]
Wil Wheaton
all at once without a receipt or anything.
- [45:57]
Daniel Wilson
Oh, my God, no. It's tons of receipt. So I did this one other time, I went to Algeria. I went to Algiers, North Africa. And that was wild. And this is. It's the same sort of speakers program run by the State Department. So, look, I'm out there serving our country.
- [46:12]
Wil Wheaton
That's great. Listen, I believe that cultural exchange is extremely important. I really do. I think that when we see one another as humans who enjoy, we're all afraid of basically the same things. We all love basically the same things. There's just the unnecessary, artificial, deliberately chosen differences that exist all through ignorance. I think when we go around and we meet other people. And growing up in Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, in such a pluralistic, immigrant, heavy community, that's normal for me. I am so used to wonderful mixtures of cultures all over the place. I love that you get to go participate in that.
- [46:54]
Daniel Wilson
In Paraguay, they have a large indigenous population, and so everybody speaks. Like, there's like this kind of pigeon between Spanish and Guarani. And so I love that. You know, I'm a big advocate for let's have indigenous representation in our science fiction. Like we've seen.
- [47:09]
Wil Wheaton
Of course, we love genre.
- [47:11]
Daniel Wilson
We love alien invasions. We love robots. Where are the native people? Like, we're talking about the future. You don't just always have to have native people in the past. It's not all history. So I'm pretty stoked to go down and, like, and see what that culture looks like where they're integrated into their indigenous population. And so, yeah, I'm stoked also. It's going to be good food. Yeah, it's going to be nice.
- [47:32]
Wil Wheaton
Are you going to get to bring home something that originated in South America that, like, you get to bring it back?
- [47:38]
Daniel Wilson
I'm doing a bunch of talks with writers and stuff, and so I have a Spanish interpreter that's going to be doing it real time. That's going to be pretty cool. Yeah, so unfortunately, I don't. I only speak terrible high school Spanish. But yeah, so I. I will get this chance to meet all of these writers and I. There's a book called Yolo El Supremo that's kind of like. It's the Paraguayan opus.
- [47:59]
Wil Wheaton
Right.
- [47:59]
Daniel Wilson
And so I'm reading that right now.
- [48:01]
Wil Wheaton
Oh, cool.
- [48:01]
Daniel Wilson
To try to get at least get something under my belt in these two weeks that I have, but that feels
- [48:06]
Wil Wheaton
like something that most Americans don't do. I'm gonna make the effort to understand where I'm going, where I'm being welcomed. I. That's. That's great. What a. What wonderful representative of the best of us to go and do that.
- [48:19]
Daniel Wilson
And by the way, somebody calls you and says, like, hey, do you want to go to Paraguay in two weeks? Like, you got to say yes.
- [48:25]
Wil Wheaton
That's just, like, cool, because you mentioned it. I'd like to thank the Cure for inspiring me to read Camus in the first place in ninth grade. I never would have gone searching for the stranger if not for their single killing an Arab. Final two questions for you. Are you working on anything right now? What's next?
- [48:42]
Daniel Wilson
Let's see. I am. I'm adapting Hole in the sky for Netflix. Right. Right now. So. Awesome.
- [48:48]
Wil Wheaton
Congratulations.
- [48:49]
Daniel Wilson
Thank you. Yeah, so I'm. I'm teamed up with Aggregate, my production company, on this. And then Sterling Hardshow is directing. So Sterling is shooting the Lowdown right now in Tulsa. He's a director, native guy, awesome. Old friend of mine, he did Reservation Dogs that I highly.
- [49:05]
Wil Wheaton
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [49:06]
Daniel Wilson
On Hulu. And now he's. He's hanging with his best friend, Ethan Hawke in Tulsa, where I'm from. He's from a little south of Tulsa, but such a cool situation. And, like, don't talk to me about Tulsa King. All right? Because they film in Atlanta. They pay lips.
- [49:22]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [49:23]
Daniel Wilson
The Lowdown with Ethan Hawke. There's already one season out.
- [49:25]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah.
- [49:26]
Daniel Wilson
If you're from Tulsa, you don't see Tulsa represented very often. Maybe the outsiders, maybe like S.E. hinton, but.
- [49:33]
Wil Wheaton
Right.
- [49:33]
Daniel Wilson
It's amazing. Like, there's so many Easter eggs in there. It's so good. So I'm actually. Sterling, if you Listen, I'm. I'm waiting on him to read the rewrite draft right now.
- [49:44]
Wil Wheaton
Come on, Sterling, get on it. You're slowing us down.
- [49:47]
Daniel Wilson
A TV show. But that doesn't mean I'm not impatient,
- [49:52]
Wil Wheaton
as you should be. I knew Ethan Hawke a little bit when we were kids. He's one of those actors who was just always there. It was Ethan and River Phoenix and me, and we were kind of always on auditions together. And he got roles that I wanted, and I got roles that he wanted.
- [50:11]
Daniel Wilson
That is so.
- [50:12]
Wil Wheaton
I have watched his. I've just watched his career go, and I just love him. I'm so happy. It's very real.
- [50:19]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah, he really loves Sterling.
- [50:21]
Wil Wheaton
He's cut from the same cloth as Noah Wiley. They are very similar in their approach to this art and the importance of it. And they really. They revere art, I think, in the way that not enough people do.
- [50:35]
Daniel Wilson
Yeah, there's something about that. With Robopocalypse as a big novel, I could have written 10 more robopocalypses. You could always kind of like, figure out the formula for what you're doing and kind of just hit it to maximize profits. But there is something about, like, is that what I want my life to be? Or Do I want to investigate all these different artistic avenues and just build and grow and maybe not always maximize profits, but lots of people who have successful careers, but who also go off and go down tangents and like, just enjoy life, you know, and have a bunch of different experiences rather than trying to just maximize some number on a spreadsheet.
- [51:11]
Wil Wheaton
It is so validating and inspiring to me as an author and in a lot of parts of my life, I'm an indie creator. And to hear that and to be reminded of that, I really hope that everyone listening to this who also exists in a creative spectrum hears that and internalizes it. Thank you for saying all of that. My final question is, where can we find you? Online line.
- [51:35]
Daniel Wilson
As I said, social media is trying to kill us. I'm not huge on it.
- [51:38]
Wil Wheaton
It's a necessary evil, and I hate that.
- [51:40]
Daniel Wilson
I know, right? I'm so not good at it either. Danielhwilson.com is my website and I haven't. My email address is there, so you can always reach out to me there. You can find me on Facebook. I have a really pathetic Instagram. I mean, you know, it's really not worth it, the other stuff. But yeah, I got a website.
- [51:57]
Wil Wheaton
Sounds like going to your website's the way to do it. Sounds like that's what I'm getting.
- [52:00]
Daniel Wilson
Join. Join the newsletter if you want. And then I bother people once every. A couple times a year, maybe. Yeah.
- [52:06]
Wil Wheaton
Awesome. I'm really looking forward to reading Hole in the Sky.
- [52:09]
Daniel Wilson
Oh, good. Thanks.
- [52:11]
Wil Wheaton
It sounds terrific. Sounds like it's squarely in my wheelhouse. I know that I am not the only person who's hearing about it and going, oh, I'm going straight to the bookstore. I love the pitch for it. Daniel, I appreciate you so much as a writer, and I am so grateful that you chose to spend some time with us today. Thank you for trusting me with your words in the first place. And thanks for coming and spending time with us. It's been just lovely to talk to you.
- [52:33]
Daniel Wilson
Oh, come on. Yeah, thanks. Ditto. Had a great time.
- [52:37]
Wil Wheaton
I really appreciate you. If there's another piece that you've written in the future that fits our format, boy, would I love, love, love to share it with the audience.
- [52:46]
Daniel Wilson
I'll be bothering you. Don't worry about it.
- [52:49]
Wil Wheaton
Yeah, sounds great. I love it. Awesome. Thank you so much.
- [52:52]
Daniel Wilson
Cheers.
- [52:59]
Wil Wheaton
Hey, it's Will again. Thank you so much for listening. Hope you enjoyed it. I'll be back next week with a new piece of speculative fiction for you to enjoy. If you would like to continue the conversation that Daniel and I had. I'd love to hear what you thought about it, and I would love to talk about anything that it inspired in you. If you're a member of our patreon@patreon.com storytime, please put your comments into this particular post. And if you're not, you can hit me up on Threads. I'm Itswill Wheaton or you can come to my blog@willwheaton.net I really appreciate you being here. I hope wherever you are, you are having the very best day possible. I'll be back next week and until then, please take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Bye. It's Story Time with Wil Wheaton was produced in 2026 by Traveler Enterprises Incorporated, who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane, our story producer and director. My partner in Crime on the Other side of the Glass is Gabrielle Dicure. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our podcast is edited, mixed and mastered by the great Alex Barton of Phase Shift av. Very special thanks to Wes Stevens, Christopher Black and everyone at Rhapsody Voices for helping me get this out the door. We are recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando valley in the 818 area code. No longer the 213 which doesn't mean anything to you if you don't live here. Thanks so much. If you would like an ad free experience as well as access to tons of really fun behind the scenes extras, how we go into finding the character beats how we make choices for what the characters sound like. If you want to hear me really struggling to prevent pronounce common English words then you could check out our Patreon which is@patreon.com storytime there you will find a couple of options starting at five bucks a month for all kinds of fun extra stuff. I would love for you to join us there. Thanks so much for listening. I am Wil Wheaton. You can find me@wilwheaton.net that's all for now. Until next time. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other.
- [55:13]
Commercial Announcer
Bye.