Dan Allen, a scientist, writer, and comic who is out to fill the world with funny, is the award-winning author of “Pizza Boy and the Super Squad”. From his secret-not-so-secret laboratory in the attic, he shares his experience writing his first book on a dare and how he has looked to his kids for character ideas. Dan has also lit a three-story electron accelerator on fire, designed sensors for smartphones, and enjoys having fun with his kids and his drummer-artist wife.
Dan Allen, a scientist, writer, and comic who is out to fill the world with funny, is the award-winning author of “Pizza Boy and the Super Squad”. From his secret-not-so-secret laboratory in the attic, he shares his experience writing his first book on a dare and how he has looked to his kids for character ideas. Dan has also lit a three-story electron accelerator on fire, designed sensors for smartphones, and enjoys having fun with his kids and his drummer-artist wife.
Dan Allen
00:00 Connie: Welcome back, I'm Connie Sokol, your host, and we have a fabulously fun guest today. If you're an author and you're wondering how to get into this write-and-get-published business then, especially as a parent, we've got you covered. Because today we have a guest who is the author of middle-grade books for kids with superpowers, and it tells all about what they do and how they do it. And his own superpower is being by day a physicist in Silicon Valley and by night a bonafide published author.
00:28 Connie: Welcome, Dan Allen.
00:30 Dan: Hey, glad to be here. I guess this is a first for me doing LDSPMA, so that's exciting.
00:35 Connie: This is awesome! And I have loved studying about what you're doing and on the research, seeing your books and just the fun feel. It's so hard as we get older to keep that fun connection to childhood, and so we're going to talk about that. Let's go ahead and jump in, because that really is a big question for me.
00:51 Connie: It's the same thing with Brandon Mull and all these others. How do you keep that sort of Peter Pan creativity mode and still do your day job, right? When you're just in the throws of adulthood and paying bills and all those things, how do you keep that creative imagination going?
01:06 Dan: I'm not gonna lie. I'm not as creative as I was 10 years ago. It's the truth. I'm just not. I'm 43 years old now. I started writing about 15, 20 years ago, and I looked at myself and I'm like, I am not as creative as I was. I'm just not. So I had to actually get my kids to help. I was writing the book and I said, Guys, I need ideas for characters. I need ideas for villains. And I just enlisted them, and we did it together.
01:32 Connie: And you went to the horse's mouth. I love that. And you have five kids, 19 down to nine. Is that right? And you said two years apart and all born on their due dates.
01:40 Dan: All two and a half years apart.
01:42 Connie: Oh, Two and a half years apart.
01:44 Dan: We got the system going, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, just scienced the heck out of it.
01:48 Connie: Oh my goodness. Talk about science guy. I mean, I really want to tap into that, and I love the background that is like the not-so-secret laboratory that you were sharing.
01:56 All the lab equipment over here, right?
01:58 Connie: Where all the good stuff happens. I love this idea of you talking with your kids. Did they come up with some memorable moments or some memorable characters or traits that you were like, Oh my gosh, that is spot on?
02:11 Dan: So we actually storyboarded the whole story together. Me and three of my kids sat down and we did the entire story of “Pizza Boy and the Super Squad” together. I actually videotaped us storyboarding it, but I couldn't release the video because it's got spoilers, right? So we sat down and I said, I need a low moment, low point. And I taught them about theme and what it means to have a choice between one value and another value. And so we started with a theme and then we developed characters from there, and in about 45 minutes we'd pretty much blocked out the story and I was able to write it.
02:42 Connie: That's amazing. Did you talk to them about the dark night of the soul and all of those pieces? Or did you just keep it really mellow?
02:48 Dan: I think I used the seven point plot method with the kids. I since kind of honed it a little bit more. I don't use that method anymore. I find that writing is more about the emotions than it is about the events. I think when we think about writing a story, it's going to be, Oh, I need to write a story as a sequence of events. But in reality, a story is a sequence of emotions.
03:10 Dan: You think about a play like 12 Angry Men. It takes place in a room where literally nothing happens. But it's incredibly intense if you've seen the film or read the book. It's incredibly intense because it's a story of emotions.
03:22 Dan: And so I think the number one cause of writer's block is people who are trying to write a scene, and they've plotted their story or they haven't plotted it. It doesn't even matter whether you're a pantser or a plotter. What matters is that you're trying to write a scene and if you have no emotional goal for the scene, you have no idea where to go.
03:36 Dan: So you write it and it's bad. And you try and write it a different way and it's bad. And you're like, I'm stuck. I don't know what to do with this scene. Well, you're trying to write without a goal. So when I write now, I call it the Magic Moments Method, where I try to pick—and all my writing stuff is on my website. It's all free, just download it and watch the videos. The idea is that at the outset you decide what…when you watch a movie, there's those moments that you just want to hang on to or that you remember when you walk out of the theater, right? The magic moments that just grab you.
04:04 Dan: And so it's like, Okay, in this story, it's about a boy. I want to have a moment where he has it out with his dad. I want to have a moment where he stands up to his dad once and for all. I want to have a moment where he gets caught doing something wrong and feels really bad because someone else was hurt because of a mistake he made. Or I want to have a moment where he is mortifyingly embarrassed. I love moments like that in a story. So essentially then what you do is you just order those and you make sure that those moments line up with plot reversals where he's going to try and follow one value and it's not going to work out. And he's going to try and follow the other value and it's not going to work out. You line them all up and then you just pants your way between them.
04:45 Connie: And for those that are listening, can you explain the pants? Cause we know what that is, but they may not.
04:48 Dan: Flying by the seat of your pants, being a discovery writer, making it up as you go. And it turns out that it's a lot better to plan the emotions and then make up the events, than plan the events and then have to pants the emotions. Because you'll end up with writer's block. It's so hard.
05:05 Dan: And I'm really surprised that more writers don't do this. And what happens is really good writers do this automatically, without thinking. When they plot they're deliberately choosing plot events that lead to strong emotions. But they don't teach that, and, as a writer, when you're learning, you think, Oh, I'll just be a plotter. I'll plot out the story. But there's no guarantee. I mean, a lot of times you could read a pitch for a book or a movie and think, Oh, that's going to be great. And it's “Transformers”.
05:34 Connie: Part 22, right?
05:35 Dan: Yeah. But on the other hand, if you can start with the emotions you want to feel, like in the books that you've read, in the movies that you've seen. What are those emotional moments you want to feel in your story? And then you get a character, and Brandon Sanderson will teach you how to create great characters. What he's got is fantastic.
05:51 Dan: And then you just choose a segment that sort of amplifies that conflict between the two values that you've chosen for your theme, and you'll be good to go and you'll never hit writer's block. The story writes itself. And that for me was a big transition I made about five years ago from being a person who just created stories in my head and wrote them down, events driven versus being emotion driven.
06:13 Connie: That is genius. And I love that Magic Moments Method. That is fantastic. And especially you taking a concept that Brandon Sanderson can do in a thousand pages, and you're doing it in a few pages in the middle-grade book.
06:24 Dan: I don't have as much budget, right? I'm cheap in every way. I mean, this is my lab. Look around.
06:32 Connie: It's on a budget. I love it. Writing on a budget. I love it. And that is most people. So let's go to that for a second. How is that pathway for you doing this writing and being a parent? So you've got your day job, and then you're doing this. Where do you find time to write? How do you keep those two pathways going? Do they weave together, are they parallel? How do you make this work?
06:53 Dan: I think you've got to have a time in the day where you write, either it's early in the morning or it's late at night. In the middle, you really gotta be a parent and be with your kids. For me, when I get into the drafting phase, my kids enjoy it because they expect a bedtime story every other night. So if one day I can write and the next day I can do a light revision of that chapter, then my chapter qualities don't continue to degrade.
07:15 Dan: I figure if I just keep doing rough, rough, rough, rough, rough like that, the quality of the story degrades and you have to go back and fix it. So if I can do a chapter one night and then a revision the next day, then I can sort of keep that up. I'm going to run into vacations or other things, then you can pretty much get a story out in about a month and a half. And the kids enjoy it, because when you're reading it out loud to the kids is probably the best way to actually hear how it sounds and how it's flowing. And they suffer through the worst of the writing, but it really helps.
07:43 Connie: Look at what they're learning. And that is one of those tidbits that is absolute. Reading it out loud is a totally different experience. You hear so much. I love that your kids are . . .they're coauthors, they're Beta readers. They're all in the mix. So how do they feel about what they've shared or their suggestions? Do they see them in the books? Are they excited about it? Are they embarrassed by it? How do they feel about all this?
08:07 Dan: I think they love it. It's pretty casual for them. Their dad's an author and that's just been part of their life. You know, my daughter just was doing a college application and she said, I got more into writing last year. I started getting more involved, Beta reading my dad's work. I gave him feedback, and then he won an award. And she was able to put that on her resume and say, Hey, I was part of this, the book I helped with turned out really good.
08:28 Connie: And isn't that such the payback. I had that experience–I am a speaker–and my daughter was able to get into BYU, Hawaii, because she was like droppin’ that, Oh, my mom went there and she spoke there and she did, you know, all the name drop stuff. You're like, finally it pays off. You're like nudge, nudge. Right? But I think doing this together…Years ago, I don't know if you remember this, but it seemed like things were so parallel and separate paths for parents and children. And it seems like now it's so much more accepted for it to be woven. I think maybe Zoom and COVID, because you would never have kids coming in the back of your meeting before, and you would try to hide it.
09:05 Dan: I wonder if it's come full circle from the middle ages when you were named Cooper because you made barrels, you know. My dad made barrels and I made barrels, so my name is Cooper.
09:16 Connie: This is exactly it. So does anybody else want to be a writer? Has anybody else got bit by the bug?
09:21 Dan: You know, I think the oldest one was just a reader. He just was a consumer of media. And I think there's different types, some people create and some people consume, and if there weren't consumers, then the producers and authors wouldn't have anyone to read their books. He was just glad to hear the story, so that was perfect for me. The next one likes art a little bit too much. The next one, she really likes stories. I think she might have an interest in it.
09:41 Connie: That is fabulous. And for you, what's the favorite part of the process for you? Is it starting to get the ideas? Is it getting them from here to paper, to screen? What's the favorite part?
09:53 Dan: I'll tell you what the best part is. The best part is walking into your daughters’ bedroom to tell 'em to turn off the light and go to sleep and seeing 'em with your book held up over their face. Then you just close the door and you walk away quietly and leave them in Narnia, as it were. And just like, that's the big payoff right there. When you see your kids reading your published book, and they're just lost in that world. And it's like, Yeah, they can stay up and read that. It's my fault. That's the biggest payoff when you see someone reading it, when you get a message from someone saying, I missed a plane flight because of you. And you're like, Yes! Or like my wife completely ignored the kids for five straight hours. Thank you. You're welcome! For me, it's all about the reader's experience. Everything else before that, it's enjoyable, it's fun. I can't not write. I just write.
10:49 Connie: I love that. And the reader experience, and especially from your kids. I know that my daughter has quoted me stuff from my book, and I didn't even remember that someone said it. And I know exactly what you're saying…
10:53 Dan: She's using your words against you.
11:00] Connie: She is. They are getting so smart. But being able to see it's actually been a positive for your family, and I think that can be a big concern for authors. I know I hear this a lot from people and maybe you can speak to this. As far as trying to, like you said, choose the same time writing, if you can, every day. But are there other balance tips and tools, and especially between you and your wife? She sounds really supportive. So is there any kind of secret sauce that you found there, especially between spouses being supportive of this, where it seems like it's kind of a non-essential, right? But for a creative, this is essential. So how do you navigate?
11:36 Dan: I think you have to be willing to make compromises sometimes. For instance, about a year ago, there was some family things I needed to deal with, and I just stopped writing. For six months, I didn't do any writing. I actually spent my only time writing on Sundays and I wrote a church book, which I'm going to hopefully get published. But I put all my insights into the gospel based on my background as a physicist. And so that for me was a different writing experience.
12:03 Dan: But I wasn't actively doing any writing at all. Just wasn't the priority for the family, so I turned it off. And for some people's careers, that's okay. And for me it was fine. I had some books in the pipeline, so I just took everything off the stove and idled it, and that was important for the family and it worked out.
12:20 Connie: And don't you feel, and correct me if I'm wrong, but what I've seen in my life and other people's lives that even when we think we're turning it off, we're really just switching into a different gear. And all the ideas and things are simmering still so that by the time you sit down to write….I love that you started writing a church book. It reminds me of that Sound of Music quote that's cheesy, but so good, that when God closes a door, He opens a window somewhere…that you open a different window, and then you expanded because you put first things first. That's huge.
12:48 Dan: So, sometimes we're emotionally drained. Like grief, let's say you're going through a divorce or a broken relationship or a child is going astray, at that point, it's so hard to even just eat your breakfast, right? You know, we've had friends and neighbors go through really traumatic things. One is to find an author that does something well that you don't do well. It can be so hard to just function. and you just don't have the ability to output creatively.
13:15 Dan: A couple of things you can do. One is to find an author that does something well that you don't do well. For instance, one of the things I struggled with was deep point of view. So I got on Audible, and I listened to Will Wight's Cradle Series. He's a phenomenal author. He's a Christian author. And he does deep point of view so, so well that for two straight months I just would listen to his books on tape over and over and over again until it was ground into me how to do deep point of view, how to stop and deliberate rather than just run over those moments. So yeah, that was helpful. So you can go into an intentional consumption mode where you're consuming media, but with a purpose.
13:54 Dan: I'm going to watch movies and I'm going to watch for themes. When I watch a movie on Amazon or on Netflix, I'm going to look for themes or I'm going to look at how they're plotting the emotional core. So you can be a student, even when you're not emotionally healthy enough to be a writer.
14:07 Connie: Oh, that is gorgeous. You can be a student even when you're not emotionally healthy enough to be a writer. That is gorgeous. And I love that. I love that there's, like we were talking about, those different gears. We can give ourselves permission to shift those gears and to keep our focus on Him and what matters most so that we don't get off on those strange roads.
14:25 Connie: So have you had any obstacles that have come to you that have either been tempting or been, like, I'm starting to go down a path and think, nah, I don't think this is it, or has there been those kinds of moments? Can you share any?
14:36 Dan: Definitely. So my first book was published by Jolly Fish Press, Fall of the Dragon Prince, and my editor was phenomenal. The press got acquired by another publisher, and they really were pushing for more of the edgy young adult stuff. And they just let me go. We just did not match up. I once tried to write something more on the adult genre, more edgy, and I didn't publish it. It just didn't feel like what I wanted to represent. It was more like a thriller. But I decided, you know what, that's not my brand, that's not what I want to do. I have tried a variety of genres. I've done everything from over-the-top fairytales. I spent a lot of time experimenting with third person, first person. I tried to just write a bunch of novels, and then you have like five or six in your handbag. And what happens is a publisher will be like, Hey, we need something, What do you have?
15:33 Dan: And that's where I was with Pizza Boy. I had something and Adam was like, What do you have? I just got a big, new distribution deal with Workman. We can do a middle-grade again. I said, Great, I have Pizza Boy. And I just gave it to him, and he just took it. You know, there was no submission process or whatever. He needed something. He needed it then. And I had it.
15:49 Connie: That is beautiful. And is that the one that won the Quill Award?
15:53 Dan: Yeah, that won the Golden Quill Award for the youth category for the League of Utah Writers. That was fun.
15:56 Connie: So fantastic. And you went from there…So what made you pivot then to YA, because your new book coming out is YA isn't it?
15:57 Dan: I was always originally doing YA Science Fiction and Fantasy. That's really where I felt really comfortable. A couple of years ago, I had this really strong impression come to me that the world needs to laugh more. And I didn't know where it came from and I'm kind of a nutty guy, and I just thought I'll just write a funny book. So I sat down with my kids and I did my first foray into contemporary middle-grade humor, which is more of like upper middle grade. Sort of the area where your kids have read Harry Potter, but you don't want them reading Twilight.
16:34 Connie: Beautiful way to describe it.
16:35 Dan: It's more like a friendship romance than a real romance. And so that was really fun for me. And you can just cut loose. I had done another novelization of a board game that was middle-grade for Future House [Publishing], It was the Super Dungeon Series. And that was a lot of fun. So you can just cut loose and have the door fart and clear the room.
16:55 Connie: Which they love that stuff.
16:57 Dan: By the same token, it's great to work with a publisher like Future House because they have standards. I remember one time I wrote a scene where the monkeys, they'd got to the hot springs or whatever, and the monkeys came and stole their underwear out of their backpack and ran away with it. I thought that was hilarious. Monkey stealing underwear, so funny, so funny, right?
17:13 Connie: Any nine-year-old would be rollin’.
17:14 Dan: That's not appropriate. Emma wouldn't let me do that. And I'm like, Oh, come on, Emma. But she's very sensitive to the audience and everything. And so, you know, sometimes you get the monkeys stealing underwear cut out and that's okay. But it's great to have the publisher doing that to me rather than pushing me the other direction, like, Where's the underwear in this scene?
17:31 Connie: Exactly. What are you going to do to like dice it up? I love that. I remember Sarah Eden being told that she needed to spice up her kisses, you know, and that's with Deseret Book, Shadow Mountain, that kind of thing. So I just think that's funny where there's all these different expectations out there. And it sounds like you found your niche and the thing that's authentic to you that you're writing in that zone of genius, that is the thing that you love.
17:57 Dan: I feel conflicted on that because I am a scientist. I love science fiction. I love fantasy. I love living in my imagination. I love doing fantasy worlds. But then I started writing contemporary humor. I did not grow up as a kid who wanted to read about other kids' emotional problems, you know. Where's the explosion? Where's the science? So I'm actually okay being in a place where I don't know where I should be. And being a multi-genre writer is hard because you don't build a following that's really loyal and reads every book you have. But by the same token, it's cool that when the kids do read Pizza Boy and the Super Squad, they can go look up my other novels, which are like science fiction and fantasy. Like Exalting, it's a scifi fantasy crossover.
18:40 Connie: I think that is fantastic. I love that you are comfortable, cause you're right, most people would say you need to niche down and not be multi-genre. But people make it work. And I think the point that you're making and what I'm hearing is, people like your voice. They like feeling that they can feel and hear you through your writing, no matter what it is you're writing. And I find that with an author that once I love their voice, it doesn't really matter if they switched to historical fiction. I love going with them because I just liked their voice.
19:03 Dan: It could be their voice, but it also could be some of these fundamental skills of deep point of view really drawing you into your experience in this story as if you're the main character. Like when I read Harry Potter. I'm going to Hogwarts. I'm getting a wand for the first time. It's not Harry Potter doing that. And so getting that deep point of view, those skills translate to any genre.
19:30 Dan: One thing I would suggest, though, is definitely reading outside your genre. You know, every story has romance. Every story has action. Every story has suspense. And so reading outside your genre, especially reading classic literature and seeing how people weave storylines, like Dickens and so on. Getting those basic skills, I think they translate quite well. There are some really genre specific things that you have to nail. Like if you're in romance, you just have to nail those things. But, the basic process of storytelling of capturing the magic moments and having theme in your story. I think those things translate really well. You've seen a lot of writers be able to just pivot and go from writing thrillers to writing. Like, great example, if you ever read Skipping Christmas?
20:10 Connie: Yes.
20:11 Dan: by John Grisham. He writes suspense, but my stomach was cramping so hard when I read that book. I think I was listening to audiobook or something, and I was crying, it was so funny. And this is the guy that wrote The Pelican Brief.
20:25 Connie: The Firm.
20:26 Dan: The Firm, you know, with these gritty, nasty lawyers. I think sometimes it just translates over. Maybe we just need to be less afraid to try new things.
20:35 Connie: I love that. And that probably translates into a new energy and new life into your writing as you graft that in.
20:42 Dan: It does. So, from my exploration, as I started writing, I wrote an over-the-top fairy tale, I wrote a science fiction book, I wrote a fantasy book for YA and these were the first three books I wrote. So I tried to just stretch that balloon as wide as I could. And then now I can hopefully find a place that I can be really productive and creative.
21:05 Connie: And that begs the question, What's the next thing on the horizon for you?
21:09 Dan: I've got a sequel for Pizza Boy in the works, which is fun. Pizza Boy and the Super Squad. It's more wannabe superheroes living in Southern Idaho, facing malevolent work-from-home-criminal-mastermind soccer mom.
21:20 Connie: I love that and towering in the PTA and all of this. I love it. This is something that parents, if they're reading aloud to their kids. That is the best, when you can read a book or watch a show together that has some things for adults and some things for kids, and you're both . . .
21:35 Dan: Yeah. Clever things like Toy Story had plenty for parents to laugh at.
21:40 Connie: And I think that's one of the reasons why they were so successful. I mean, you want to watch them again rather than, Do we have to do this one again, right?
21:47 Dan: Yeah. It's not Teletubbies.
21:48 Connie: Oh, please don't. Please don’t. It's giving me PTSD. I'm just wondering in this whole journey for you as a writer, as we start kind of like looking at, we've asked other people their journey with their faith in being able to create expression. And you've talked about being able to have some boundaries that are healthy, that you've set. How have you found, anything about your faith, that's helped you to be actually more expanded in what you're doing or more able and more capable?
22:23 Dan: I think having faith gives you the ability to have a bigger perspective on the universe. I mentioned Will Wight's Cradle Series, very clearly using Christian concepts in his storyline. And that's what makes him so powerful. Same thing with Star Wars, having these Savior-type themes or other things like Chronicles of Narnia. I think people who live a black and white life are more alive, write characters that are strong. And I think one of the big things that's missing from most modern literature is people are writing gray characters, because they've never had to stand up for anything. And so gray people write gray characters and they're just not that compelling. So if you are a moral person, you have had to make a stand for what you believe in, your characters are going to be stronger. They're going to face moral decisions to make.
23:06 Dan: I want to write characters that the people can cheer for. They're going to face struggles. They're gonna face hard decisions, but they're going to make the right decision. Because, in the end, I have a choice, I can create a character that's gray, a Dirty Harry-type character or I can create a character that's actually good and trying to be good. And so I choose to do that. And I think that's one way that I can make a positive influence on the world is by creating characters that people want to emulate.
23:33 Connie: I love that. And I love how you said, I want to write a character that people want to stand up and cheer for. Yes, that is such a fulfilling book or movie to experience because you are overcoming your own challenges and your own setbacks or your own moral issues that you're having to stand up for. And it can inspire you to do that very thing. Have you had anybody who's read your books who has said, This really helped?
23:58 Dan: Not until I tried writing that gospel book. I had, I think four or five people Beta read that one and most of them came back to me and said, I felt like this book was written just for me. And that felt really cool. So I think I definitely want to try to continue on that vein. I did have some fun with The Exalting, which was my sci fi fantasy crossover.
24:16 Dan:That one has a lot of Christian themes in it. There were some believers that were being persecuted and had to flee an extermination order. And they went to another planet and discovered some people that were using some science. It was very much like magic there. And that was really fun for me because it was sort of a thinly veiled mirror of the history of the church.
24:34 Connie: Yes. I was just going to say, Boy, does that sound vaguely familiar, right?
24:37 Dan: Yeah, it was great. So you can draw from the depth of your cultural and religious heritage to create great stories, great themes.
24:45 Connie: This is beautiful when you're talking, especially to the kids. I noticed that with Brandon Mull in Fablehaven, he talks about the distractor curse, I think it is. But anyway, I've used that with my kids before where Seth goes to the fountain, and he can't remember why he's there because they're trying to distort and distract him. And we've talked about that. So they've understood it better, what we've talked about, adversary and things like that, when I have something in a book they've read that they can understand what that was. So then they can make the correlation. So how beautiful is that?
26:16 Connie: I loved when you were taking like this PB and J and the pizza squad and things like that, when you're helping them go from what they're being told to do by parents–and this is kind of along the lines of what we were just talking about, standing up and things like that–and then you kind of moved to, Okay, what do you want from your life as a child? How did you help get those themes in there without being preachy, with being able to say, it's still good to listen to your parents and not be sort of black and white on that, or no, you take your own life and take charge? That's a tricky, tricky line to walk. So how did you do that, as they emerge in themselves, in their own lives?
25:53 Dan: Yeah. So with Pizza Boy and the Super Squad, I deliberately chose a theme that I thought would be relevant to the gospel. And the theme is, To be happy, do you discover yourself or do you lose yourself? And the world teaches that you have to discover yourself. And this has always kind of bugged me that to discover yourself you have to leave your family and go discover yourself. I like, that's not being a great parent.
26:14 Connie: To a galaxy far, far away.
26:16 Dan: You have to go try something new or leave or abandon the duties that are upon you in order to find true happiness and joy. Whereas the Savior teaches that joy is found by losing yourself, and becoming who He wants us to be. And so I created a character who really hated the rural town he lived in. He hated everything about the rural town. He wanted to sort of leave it, but he was in a situation where the town needed him. So he had to decide to put away his own ambition and help the town, or to continue to pursue his own discovering himself at the cost of some friendships and the town that needed him.
26:53 Connie: Very George Bailey, right?
26:55 Dan: Very much a George Bailey type thing. I think it's powerful. I think it's very relevant, and it's very anti-media, which I think is why it's fresh. I think people like that take, even if they don't realize that it's a gospel theme, I think it gives them sort of a fresh feel. It gives a more standup and cheer moment at the end when he makes the right choice.
27:05 Connie: I love that. I think that's probably why It's Wonderful Life is one of my most favorite movies, because there is such an inherent sacrifice. And yet in doing that, he becomes everything he ever wanted. And it's so right in front of him that he can't see it. I love that you are giving kids at a young age, that open file drawer so they can start looking for that, and seeing that.
27:31 Connie: I know we're kind of wrapping up on our time together, but I would love to go back to talking about, with your cute wife, what's been her thoughts and her experiences as you've gone down this road? Now you said she's a drummer artist? Is that true?
27:44 Dan: Yeah, she was just down at the high school yesterday doing the percussion for their music band performance. She's a drummer. She loves the drums. She's a graphic designer. I work in this not-so-secret secret laboratory up here in the attic. And she works downstairs in the office and does the kids and her job working full-time. So we both work full-time more or less. We make things work. It's great. I work remote from Silicon Valley. I've been let out for good behavior. So that's helpful. We try to make things balanced.
28:07 Dan: She was the one who started me. I started on a dare. I had never written a story in my life, and I checked out a bunch of books on how to write, cause I was writing some chapters of a physics book I wanted to write. And they turned out to be about how to write fiction. I was like, Huh, what's the story? And it was like, basically, pick ridiculous exaggerated characters and when the story gets boring, something horrible happened. I was like, I could totally do that. And she's like, why don't you do it then? She's like, Miss Positive Attitude. I'm like, Well, maybe I will. She's like, Great, I'll take the kids, and she left.
28:33 Dan: So I sat down and I wrote a book chapter. She came back, she's like, Ah, how'd it go? I wrote a book chapter. See, it's theoretically possible to write. And she's like, Well, why don't you finish it? I be like, Well, it would be like a big book. She's like, Finish it and then publish it. So I wrote a book.
28:47 Dan: Of course it wasn't publishable, but it was a great experience. Two months later, I had my first giant science fiction novel, and I was like, I'm a writer. I had no idea. You can discover talents later in life. So, I at twenty-five years old wrote my first story of my life, and it was a 400 page novel. I'm like, Wow, I should probably be writing. So I did on accident. But then, 10, 15 years down the line, now it's taking more time. And I got to try to go to a conference or go visit some schools in Wyoming. And so there were times where it's gets annoying for her for sure.
29:15 Connie: For sure. But what a woman, that she is the one that encouraged you and had no idea what she just unleashed.
29:23 Dan: You have to have someone positive because too many of us are negative on ourselves. We have to be self-critical. We live in our heads. We're creatives, right? And we're all on the edge of insanity. We need to have a Rob Reiner, whether it's one of our readers, one of our fans, one of our kids. If you're going to be writer, you got to find someone who's just stupid positive, like for no good reason.
29:44 Connie: I love that. Just stupid, positive. I remember when I first attended my first writing conference and I heard people talking about characters like they were family members, and I remember thinking, Oh my gosh, I'm home. People talk like I think. Oh, it was amazing.
29:57 Connie: I absolutely agree. You have to have someone, because there's so much in the trenches and not a lot of super highs that people would think that you experience. A lot of it is that just daily grind, getting up, writing, doing, rinse, and repeat. And it is the sheer joy of developing that talent. What a gift. This is so fantastic!
30:16 Connie: We have had so many great things. I can't believe how fast this time went. Just thinking about our listeners and those who are out there, they want to write a book or they want to publish it. Is there any tip that you would give them that we haven't been able to share yet? Something that comes to mind that you're like, You know, this little piece of wisdom has given me a solid thing all these years, or really helped me at a tough time. Is there anything that comes to mind?
30:37 Dan: I would say, learning how to write with a theme is the most important thing if you're going to be a writer. Writing with the theme and writing with emotion are the two biggest pieces to being a great writer.
30:47 Dan: But behind that, it really helps to have a purpose as a writer. And so, you know, companies talk about having their ‘why’. At the core of your company at the core of your identity is the ‘why’. ‘Why do we do what we do? As a writer, Why do you write? If it's for yourself, great. You'll never need to publish. You can just write for yourself. If it's for your kids, great. If it's for the Lord, great. You can build talents that the Lord can use in other ways.
31:15 Dan: Like, I've recently been studying what makes church talks boring versus not boring, and I have learned a ton. But I pay the price to know and be able to understand what makes them boring, because I know how to captivate interest from being an author. When someone goes to write a church talk, I can say, are you connecting with your audience? Are you creating a question or a problem that needs solving? And you can hold the interest with that. So the Lord can use your talents if you create them. So take it to Him and consecrate your efforts and ask, What can I do better? Or not just help me to do what I want to do, but what can I do more? And who knows where you'll end up.
31:52 Connie: I love that, and do it for Him. Last question was going to be, How do you navigate that intersection of faith, creativity, and professional skill in one particular way? And you just gave it, Find your ‘why’. Who are you doing it for and ‘why’ are you doing it? And I love that.
32:06 Dan: Dan, it has been an absolute pleasure. For those that are listening who are going to want to go to your website. And it's a fun website, people. Can you share your website and the best way to reach you?
32:16 Dan: Yeah. It's authordanallen.com. And D-A-N-A- L-L-E-N. So author, D A N A L L E N.com. And there's a “Contact Me'' on that page. You can just send me an email.
32:27 Connie: So fantastic.
32:28 Dan: I don't get that many emails, so I will definitely respond. And there's all the author resources on there. You can see all my cosplay. It's good. It's fun.
32:36] Connie: Oh what a great thing. And thank you for sharing so many takeaways, so many tips. I got great stuff out of this. I know listeners are going to, too. Thank you so much for joining us. We wish you all the best.
32:47 Dan: Thanks.
32:48 Connie: And as always, if you love these interviews, go below and rate, review, and subscribe, and check out even more wonderful guests with more wonderful takeaways, just to help you navigate your intersection of faith, creativity, and professional skill.