Biblically Inaccurate Redemption Arc: An Interview with Gabriel Garcia

Another great interview in the books. Gabriel Garcia stopped by to talk about MICHAEL: LAST ANGEL ON EARTH. We played Space 'Em or Embrace 'Em and Never Have I Ever Spoiled My Own Book, spoiler alert, Gabriel had to spoil something. 

We love our games here.

MICHAEL: LAST ANGEL ON EARTH

In a world torn apart by darkness and despair, one fallen warrior must find his way back to redemption. Barjon, once known as Michael, the Archangel of War, now a mortal Nephilim, bears the burden of his past failures. When the forces of evil threaten to consume the world, he must confront his inner demons, embark on a quest to reclaim his Heavenly name and restore hope to a shattered land. Joined by unlikely allies, Barjon must navigate treacherous paths and face unimaginable challenges to find a lost relic that is the key to his salvation. Will he find the strength to rise from the ashes and become the Last Angel of Earth again? Join Barjon on an epic journey of self-discovery, redemption, and ultimate sacrifice in this gripping tale of faith, forgiveness, and the enduring power of hope.

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Booked All Night is produced by Rob Cook.

Edited by Jessica Mary and Rob Cook.

Hosted by Jessica Mary, K. Leigh, Julia Johnston, and Magdalyn Ann

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Book Down Knight, the podcast where hot takes meet craft notes and nobody gets enough sleep. I'm Jessica Mary and today I'm joined by Gabriel Garcia, the author of Michael, Last Angel on Earth. So welcome to the plot. I'm so glad to have you on.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Awesome. I'm so excited to be here and I'm so excited to talk about Michael.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

This is exciting. And Michael is part of a series, if I did my research correctly.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Yes, it is the beginning of a series. One of many, many series, the Last Angel saga.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Very fun. Very fun. So to kick us off, we're gonna play a quick game of superlatives where I give you a prompt about who's most likely or least likely to do something, and you just tell me the character. It can be from this work or any other work that you have. Alrighty. Okay. So the first one is most likely to buy a book because of the cover. Ooh, most likely to buy the book because of the cover.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Who I'm I'm gonna have to say that has to be that has to be Rusla, the gargoyle. Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

The gargoyle. Uh most likely to fall down a research rabbit hole at midnight.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Again, that would be Rusla.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

She is the archivist of the group. Yeah, no, that's fair. I would have like archivists kind of have to. That's part of their job description is to go down the research rabbit hole. That's fair. That's fair. Least likely to stop reading after saying one more chapter.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Ooh, least likely to do that. Ooh, that's a tough one. If I had to choose, it might be. I have to say either Van Hilder or Horace, the bounty hunter.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Hmm. And the oh, not that not the final one. The fourth one. Most likely to forget why they opened a browser tab.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Most likely why they forget to open most likely why they did that. Oof. I'm gonna say Van Hilder only because she's a gladiator. She has her mind focused on so many things. So yeah, that's definitely her.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Fair, fair. And the final one is most likely to accidentally start a second project before finishing the first one.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Ooh, if I if I had to say that, that has to be Michael. Yeah. Michael will definitely be the one that caused that.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Big same. Big same. Nobody needs to look at the folder on my desktop with half a million half-done projects. It's fine. Brings us to our very first section of questions. So these are all about the book. Uh according to the back copy, uh Bar John, am I correct pronouncing that correctly?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Yes, that is correct.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Okay, okay. Uh so Bar John was once Michael, the Archangel of War, and he now finds himself mortal and carrying the weight of all these past failures. What first drew you to a redemption story on that scale?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

That's actually a really good question. So when I was writing Michael, I wanted to think of, okay, we've seen a lot of stories with angels, angelic beings, demons, of course. What haven't we seen? And at the time when I was writing the initial rough draft version of Michael, I was watching, or rather re-watching, Samurai Jack, the final season. Lovely. And that's where it all started going from there. Of the character that we've come to know and love for many years, he's not the same person as he is now. He now has to go on a path to get to the person he was before. So I took that concept and applied it to an archangel, specifically Michael, the archangel of war, strip him of everything that makes him an angel, save for his uh nature of wanting to help, even though as a mortal, he's reluctant to help. So yeah, definitely that was the main like inspiration behind that.

unknown 4:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

So one of the interesting elements of the blurb is that Bar John isn't trying to save the world first, which I mean, like most fantasy adventure, everyone's always trying to save the like that's the big goal, right? Uh he's trying to reclaim who he once was. How did that personal journey shape the larger story at hand?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Absolutely. So you're absolutely right. So the main premise of the book is, you know, he's not trying to save the world. That's gonna be the end goal, but for now, he just needs to reclaim his heavenly name and just go on this redemption. And the people that he meets along the way, they kind of really show him who he once was, and ultimately that whole reclaiming of one's name because our name is who we are. We're never gonna have another name in our lives. We'll have nicknames, but the name that we are born with that we have, that's personal to us. And for Michael, that is his name, it's the only name he's ever known. So he wants that name back, not just because it's his, but what that name signifies to a lot of people. Michael is the warrior, he is the protector, he is the vanguard of heaven's armies. He needs to be that person again in some shape or form. So he has to go on a quest to redeem himself and reclaim that name that has been taken from him for so long.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

So faith, forgiveness, and and hope are central themes of the novel. Were those themes present from the beginning or did they emerge as Bar John's story developed?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

That's actually a really good question. That's actually something that a lot of people have brought up was is this going to be a very preachy religious book? Because there are religious undertones and themes throughout the book, but I didn't want it to be, you know, shoved down the reader's throat. I want it to be a story that we could identify, you know, with the character. Because if you look at Michael Barjan as a figure, he is a man who has been broken down to his most basic forms. He is at the bottom of the barrel. And we all love an underdog story. We all love stories that follow a character that tries to get back to that point where they feel confident in themselves. Yeah. And for Michael, it does touch on a lot of very personal themes. Um, I didn't put a trigger warning in the book, but I have been doing it more so often in post, is Michael deals with the themes of grief, depression, and a little bit of suicide ideation in like the first few uh chapters of the book, and that's a constant theme and presence throughout the narrative. And I don't want to give too many spoilers, but there is gonna be a point in the book where the reader will see, yes, it's now time he's actually shaken off that darkness, and it gives the reader a sense of I wish we all could do this. That we can actually just grab our darkness like in the palm of our hands and just say, get away from me.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Yeah. Man, I wish I could do that with my anxiety. If like you'd give it a little slap and throw it away and go on, be gone, darkness. My final question for this section is Barjan is joined by unlikely allies on his on his quest. What makes a great adventuring party for you as a reader and a writer?

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Absolutely. So for me, it goes along to what I like to call the the friends argument. And what I mean by that is for the show Friends, like all of the characters are completely, you know, very different from each other. And you would think that, you know, individually they wouldn't work, but collectively they work so well. Not to mention in the show, who are the characters that are always paired together? It's either Chandler and oh gosh, I'm gonna get roasted by the fans of the show. Chandler and Joey, yes, Chandler and Joey, or sometimes Chandler, Joey, and Ross, uh, Monica and Rachel, or Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe, those characters bounce off each other so well. And that's what I want to do with uh Michael and his friends. You have a bounty hunter who's a former prince of Egypt, you have a gargoyle, you have a former Valkyrie, you have some humans that are thrown into the mix. And you would not think that these people would work well together, but they do, because they're united firstly by a common cause, but they also bring a lot of discussion and a lot of dynamics between the characters where you have, in some case, um Horace asking Barjan, what's an angel? Like, what is that? Because it makes sense for him to ask that because he's a character of Egyptian mythology, he's not gonna know what an angel is, so that offers up a lot of discussion. Same thing for Margaret and for Barjan, they have a lot of discussion as well, so they bounce off each other. So ultimately, as a writing tip for all the you know aspiring writers out there, write characters that are going to bounce off of each other and they flow with each other. You want them to have that connectivity where it makes sense for them to be friends, it makes sense for them to exist. You don't want them to be caricatures of tropes that we see in other books.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

I also find um I freelance edit on the side, and I find a lot of people sometimes create characters just for the bounce, but they don't necessarily like have that puzzle piece kind of fit to each other when they do finally get put into a group. But I'm like, these people suck. Like, why are they together? You know, and it kind of reminds me of a DD game where we all collectively need a reason to be at the table, but maybe our our stories don't necessarily have that backstory to come together at the table, and so we're all kind of like smushing it in there to make it fit, but it's still fun regardless.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Absolutely, and I cannot tell you how many people have said that long time ago there was an idea to make you know Michael as Angel of Earth into a DD campaign. Unfortunately, it didn't go through, but I just like the premise of how that would have worked.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah. And just to clarify, when you say angel, you mean humanoid angel and not biblically accurate angel.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Yes, not the biblically accurate angel. I mean the angels we typically see in either media, film, or any other representation. Yes, not the biblically accurate angel that we have seen recently.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Yes. Wonderful. That brings us to our very first game of the podcast, which is called Space Em or Embrace Em. So the rules here are that you are flying through the cosmos with a cargo full of tropes and cliches, but suddenly you get sucked into a black hole. In order to escape, you need to dump some of the cargo. You have 10 items, and you can only see two at a time, due to a computer error. You don't have a lot of rounds to get rid of, as many as you need, and we will come back to the list at least once after you've tossed and saved a few things. Only I know the magic number you need to get down to in order to escape. Are you ready? Let's do it. Alright, your first two, Fallen Hero and the Chosen One.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Uh, Fallen Hero Safe.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Okay. Quest for a lost relic, found family.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Found family safe.

unknown 12:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Ancient prophecy or redemption arc? Redemption arc save. Okay. Reluctant leader, last hope of humanity.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Ooh, okay. Oh, that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

I'm gonna say reluctant leader save. Okay. Uh the last two unlikely allies or good versus evil. Oh gosh. Um. Uh good versus evil save. Okay. And we go back through, so we have Fallen Hero and Found Family. Ooh, probably Found Family today. Okay. Redemption arc or reluctant leader? Reluctant Leader Save. Okay, and you managed to make it out. And the remaining cargo that you have is Found Family, the Redemption Arc, and Good versus Evil. I do love playing that game. It's always fun. That is very fun. What troops are in your book? I'll just put these here on a list. You'll find I'm very petty about the games on this podcast. I've I've oh, it's so bad. I love it. So much fun. That brings us to uh round two of questions, which is all about the writing craft and your reading habits. My first question: you have a background in history, and many of your favorite authors write heavily historical stories. How does your training as a historian influence the way that you build fantasy worlds?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

That's actually a really good question. So typically, you know, when we look at modern-day fantasy stories, they are typically based on, you know, medieval European history in some shape or form. But recently, I've been reading a lot of books that are fantasy, but they're not based on, you know, medieval Europe. Some of them are based on, you know, medieval Japan, ancient China, uh, the Islamic world, North African history, or Egypt, and many more. And I like how there's that balance between the two because for a long time, history and what we would consider as fantasy and myth was intertwined with history. It was a part of their everyday world. And when I was writing Michael, when it came to the representation of the various gods and goddesses and the worlds that they come from, I wanted to be as accurate as possible to the source material, but still give my own unique style and flair to it. I wanted to balance the two because I didn't want to make something that was too overtly historical in the sense of, you know, the gods and the myths surrounding them. I still wanted to write a fantasy story, perhaps based in some aspect of history, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yes, it absolutely does. I also love that you've included other cultures in there because, like you said, a lot of fantasy is highly medieval, very Anglo-Saxon fantasy. And you're just like, okay, there's castles. That's not new. All right.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Absolutely, absolutely. And actually, probably one of the best books that I actually can probably just recommend right now to your viewers and listeners for like that really good fantasy story just off the top of my head is Treasures of Egypt by Amer Soley, who has written this incredible uh blend of Egyptian history and Egyptian mythology. I don't want to give too many spoilers, but it's such a well-written book. I actually had them on my show many, many years ago. And Treasures of Egypt, it's so good. It is so good. So if there's anyone who's looking for a good book on Egyptian history with a little bit of Egyptian mythology sprinkled throughout, and you can see how it feels and breathes like Egypt, both in the human world and in the world of the gods, I highly recommend Treasures of Egypt.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

We'll write that down. I was such an Egypt kid. It was beyond all the covers were gold and shiny. I like really had a thing for Egypt as a as a child and kinda grew out of that as I became very allergic to dust, and it seemed like I would probably not be into archaeology. Uh like, alright, cool. So looking at some of your favorite authors, what would you say are the biggest storytelling lessons that you've taken from their work and then transferred to your own? Ooh, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Um I'm actually gonna break them into, you know, each author. So I'll actually start with the author that for me has always stuck uh to my core, and that is the late Brian Jox of the the Red Wall series. And the lesson I've learned from Brian Jox is that never be afraid to take chances when it comes to getting rid of characters or killing your darlings, because there was a lot of times in those series of books that I felt, oh no, oh no, please don't do this, but yet it did happen. And I think as authors, we become so very attached to our characters that we don't want to get rid of them, but sometimes for the story we have to, and then when it comes to authors like Bernard Cornwell and Con Eagleton, it's just the scope and the size, those guys do a lot of research, they bring paths to life, which is so beautifully well done. I mean, Con Eagleton has written many books on Greek history, Roman history, and more. And you would think that because we have so much books on Roman history and Greek history, what else can these guys do? Well, that's the thing, those eras are so expansive. You can take a battle, you can take a war, and just build upon it. I mean, the Caesar series alone is a testament to that. And then for Bernard Cornwell, he really pushed me to, you know, do better research when it came to running my historical fiction uh series as well as alternative history, uh, Desmond Wolf of Rome and Son of Persia, which are history-based, but they do have fantasy elements into it. But I still wanted to tell a good story. And then, of course, I believe Victor Milan was also another big influence who really helped me in terms of, you know, experimenting with genres, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't. And then Valerie Manfredi having fun with ideas and topics. For those who don't know, he's written the books on The Last Legion, which was adapted into a film, and Empire Dragons, which imagines a unit of Roman soldiers who get transported across the Parthian desert and sold into China as mercenaries. You'll not even conceive of that, but it works so well. So all of these authors have played a huge role in my life in terms of story structure, character development, making the characters feel authentic and true, cinematic in some sense, and taking the reader on adventure, which I think at the end of the day, no matter what genre you write, you want to take the reader on an adventure and immerse them in this world that's completely different from our own.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

I like that. I also like the lesson of, you know, kill your darlings, as producer Rob said to me recently, as well as a few other friends. Uh but uh there is something to be said about the plot armor that happens in a lot of modern day fiction where like somebody will go into something very dangerous, but you're like, I'm not really scared because I know that nothing has happened to any of the main characters of this series. So to flip that on its head and be like, well, guess what? That main character is now dead. It suddenly makes you your emotions as a reader escalate because you're like, well, now none of my favorite characters are safe if you would harm this particular character. And I think it's a really good lesson for writers to take away. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

And I wanted to give another example of what you said, you know, plot armor, and that actually comes to in Michael. There was one chapter I was really struggling with. It's like, how do I execute it? Because I know the main character, he's not going to stay dead, but the death has to be impactful for the readers, and I struggled with that. I struggled with how do I write that scene the best way I know how. And for those that have read it, you know what I'm talking about. For those that do not know, um, I also want to showcase my version of what a half angel would be. So he's what we would consider almost like a demigod-esque type character where he has super strength, he has incredible dexterity and speed and warrior skills, but he can get hurt. He can get hurt, he's not all powerful like his former self. And for Michael, you do see that. You do see instances where he almost bites the bullets several times. And in that chapter, which I famously mauled after the Battle of Helm's Deep, the movie version, I must specify it was. Was a very fun scene, but a very difficult one because you had to follow this character up to this point where it's like, oh, he's actually going to do it. He's actually going to you know sacrifice himself. And I'm thinking, well, how is that gonna work out? And I pretty much said in the book, he has a drug. He's given an elixir that gives him everything he was when he was an angel, but there's a caveat. The more he uses it, the faster his life drains. And that's what ends up killing him for the moment. But because he's the main character, he doesn't stay dead. But it works so well. And it almost kind of goes into another writing element, which is Chetznov's gun. Which is if you introduce something that's going to be impactful, you better use it. The elixir is one of many Chetnoff guns in the book.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Yeah, we definitely have been talking about uh Chekhov's proverbial smoking gun uh this season as we are reading through the Hunger Games, and we're like, wait a minute, that never comes up again. What is what is that thing over there? Uh last night specifically we were talking about certain technology and characters being like, I've seen that before. And we're like, hold up, where? Because you know we've never seen it before, and this is the last book of the series. When have you seen this before?

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Absolutely, absolutely. I think as writers, we get so immersed in our stories, but if we introduce like the magic MacGuffin in our books, we have to use it. Or if we don't use it in the first book, we at least have to mention it throughout the series. Otherwise, what was the point of ever referencing it or making a big deal of it in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yes. If you're going to draw my eye to it, you'd better have a reason for it. Otherwise, leave it alone. Like, yeah, absolutely. You dropped this a bit earlier, but we didn't really go into depth. But you also host your own podcast, which is Tales from the Wandering Scribe. Would you say that interviewing other authors has changed your way of thinking about your own writing process?

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And I want to give a huge shout out to all of my authors that have been on the show, even artists, narrators, editors, historians, and history buffs. I've learned a lot from them and they push me to be a better author. And it really does help because for us indie authors, we have built our own community in the industry where, you know, there may be some gatekeeping from the higher-ups, from the big five, in terms of, you know, how do you approach storytelling or how do we help with characters or anything like that? Yeah. And I knew nothing about the industry before I made my podcast. When I made my podcast and started writing at the same time, I started interviewing authors. Initially, it was just to, you know, chat with friends and colleagues, but I realized there was a mission here. And that mission was twofold. To not only help other indie creatives and give them a platform to showcase their work and their talent, but to learn from them. And I've learned so much from all the amazing people, which I am not going to say because there's about 200 of these guys that I've interviewed, so I don't want to miss anybody's name, but to all of the authors, to my wandering scribe family, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Absolutely feel that. One of the things I love about interviewing authors here is I think we've had about 50 since the relaunch of the 50, maybe 30. I think I'm counting from prior to when we took a big break during COVID, but everybody has their own approach to things, and everybody has a struggle to getting words on the page, whether it's just like I haven't put enough caffeine in my system yet, or I have mental illness, or I'm a parent, or I have a day job, or like any of these other things. And it was really nice to hear that like most people don't actually just sit down and bleh, there's my novel. And that made me feel really happy because for the longest time the industry narrative was I sat down and did it. And especially from big five, they're like, oh yeah, like we put we put this out within a year. They sat down, they wrote it, we edited it, and now it's on the shelves. And I'm like, but that makes no sense. No sense at all. And I think you're lying to me.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

I just yeah, absolutely. Like from Michael alone, like I wrote this one again during the quarantine. All my books were written during the quarantine era, but they were published within a year of each other, and that was also a huge learning experience in terms of what kind of author I wanted to be, how I wanted to market, how I wanted to publish. Because I knew Jack of all of that, and that's a good thing about you know, doing these interviews and talking to people is that you learn from them and you add their tools and trinkets to our own arsenal to help us out.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Yeah, I do love that. My final question is uh, what is something that you've learned while writing your four books that you wished that you had known prior to starting on your journey as a writer and an author?

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Take your time. Take your time. And what I mean by that is not just the writing, but getting it to print. I made the mistake at the time of getting trying to get all my books published within a year. And when I did that with The Gathering, that was my first book. The reception was good, but it wasn't great. When I did the same thing for Son of Persia, I didn't do a lot of marketing. For Michael, I started doing a little bit more. For Decimus, I learned from my previous mistakes, and it was probably the best I've ever received. But it took me a year to get all them, you know, published. Yeah. And that includes, you know, writing the books, beta reading, uh, alpha reading, getting it edited, going to another editor or with the same editor for another round, and getting arc readers, and doing all the prep work. And I think what I'm doing now for my future works is I'm just going to write, and wherever I finish, that's where I'm going to begin. Okay. Now I'm going to take a break, approach it again, and then if I know that it's at the point where I want it to be, then I can go through it. I'm not going to go, okay, book is done. Let me get to my editor. Because for me as an author, I want my book to be the most polished version it can be. So that way it's not a lot of work for my editor. As an editor, I appreciate that sentiment. Thank you. Thank you, and a huge shout out to my editor, uh Lori Ball. She has been extremely helpful in my editing process. She's been an absolute dream. I also want to give also a huge shout out to my friend Kim Applegrimm from South Africa, who in the beginning was also my editor as well. So I also want to give kudos to both of them because they have stuck by my side from day one. Kim has been my biggest cheerleader. Always, she's always hyping me, always tagging me, always promoting my books. So I want to give a huge shout out to her. And I want to give a huge shout out to Lori Ball, my editor based in the UK. And I always love telling this story. She's Welsh, she's very brutal with her comments and feedback. And I would not be the author I am today had not been for her giving me about 10 pages of edits where she writes several paragraphs of okay, you've done this for chapter 10. You need to change. That's what I love so much about working with her. She is the absolute best, and she's very consistent.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

A confident editor is like a dream send as a writer, I will say that. And I also want to comment that like the break between drafts is so important. Not just because like you yourself need to take a break, but there was a point when I was writing the piece that I'm currently querying that I could recite my entire first chapter to you because I had seen it so many times. Which means you're gonna go over big, big plot hole things and just be like, whatever. And you're gonna go over the little grammatical things and be like, whatever, because you know what you meant to write. And it just all kind of mushes together with the plans that you had for the manuscript. So to leave it alone for like a month and let it clear from your head and then come back to it is really beneficial for the process, I think. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Or if you're like me and you're working on multiple projects at the same time, it is quite a nightmare because my brain is working on two different things. I have a short story, I have another book, and I have a series of short stories that I'm working on at the same time. And I realize I I have had to take a step back and focus on only one. Because doing all three at the same time initially was a nightmare.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Yeah. I can only imagine. I used to, when I was an English major back way back in the day, I would read multiple books at the same time, and I was routinely in like six literature classes because I was trying to graduate on time, which by the way, for folks at home, I do not recommend doing. Do not take six literature classes at a time. They will yeah, yeah, no, um absolutely not. Would zero out of ten, do not recommend. Uh, but like there were times where I'd be writing a paper and just, you know, it's college, so you haven't slept in like four days, especially when you're trying to read six books in like a day so that you can write these papers, and I'd be like, and then Mr. Darcy went to Odysseus and grabbed his bow and told him that he loved wait a minute. I mean, these things didn't go together and like forget mispronouncing a million Greek names, right? I just oh everything gosh. If I have to hear Antigone one more time, I'm going to scream, but it's fine. But they would all just mesh together, and that's kind of what happens. Like for me, especially when I work on multiple projects, I I start blending them together and I'm like, wait a minute, there's no magic in this particular sci-fi universe that I've built. What's going on? And then you gotta take a step back and you have to like re-separate your brain. And so, like, if you are capable of working on multiple manuscripts, I am legitimately jealous of you and the ability to compartmentalize the brain to be like this project goes over here and this project goes over here. I personally cannot do that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

It's rough. That does bring us to the second game of the podcast. I just held up three fingers. I'm so glad we used the avatars now. Nobody could see me make these mistakes. The second game of the podcast, which is never have I ever spoiled my own book. So if you've ever been to a sleepover, it's pretty standard. Never have I ever rules I have a statement, never have I ever done X. Very common thing. And if you have done five or more, you have to spoil something from beyond Act One. Alright, alright. Number one. Never have I ever accidentally revealed a spoiler while talking about my book. Yep, that's happened. Never have I ever changed a character's fate halfway through drafting. Halfway drafting. Nope. Never have I ever fallen down a research rabbit hole for more than three hours.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Yes, that has happened. And that was a day. I believe that.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

I've done the same thing. I my husband pitched a Titanic heist story to me, and I was like, oh, what do I know about the Titanic? And four days later I was still learning about the Titanic, and I hadn't put any words on paper. I was like, this is a problem. Okay. Never have I ever written a scene specifically to make readers cry. Purposefully or unintentionally?

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Purposefully. Mmm. No, but one of my friends has accused me of doing that for one of my books. They're like, no, I was not trying to do that.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

My friend's gonna pop on here and be like, yes, you did! You liar. Never have I ever based a character trait on someone I know.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Yes, and actually a lot of my characters are actually based off of either movie characters or a little bit about me and my own uh personality. So yes.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Yeah, which is pretty common. Like I say, you know, beyond the write what you know. I mean, it that kind of personality gets stuck in your head, and especially if you've had long-term friends like that, or it's something you've been struggling with, or it's just like a part of you that you want to explore. I think that's a-okay and super fun to do. Never have I ever deleted an entire chapter after realizing it wasn't working.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Unfortunately, yes, that has happened, and it was chapters because they did not flow well.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

I believe that. One of our other hosts here, uh Magdalene Ann, actually deleted their entire manuscript the night before it was due for uh her senior thesis. So. Ooh, yep. Yeah, they were just like, I don't like it, deleted it, wrote a whole new draft. I was like, you're a monster. Okay. Never have I ever added a character who wasn't in the original outline.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Oh yes, absolutely, and that's probably, you know, true for my fourth book, Death Must the Wolf of Rome. There were characters that were never mentioned in the initial draft, but upon the recommendation of a good friend of mine, fellow author Will Solomon, he said, and I quote, too short, make it longer, so had to put in some new characters.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

That's fair. And expand the story. That's fair. That was also your fifth thing, but we have three options left, so very quickly, never have I ever stayed up way too late because you couldn't stop writing. Unfortunately, yes, I have stayed up late. Too late. I believe that. Never have I ever gotten emotionally attached to a side character.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

No, I I would not say I've gotten emotionally attached to a side character.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

And last one, never have I ever rewritten an ending more than once.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

No, I I have done that.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

I have done that. So that's seven. Uh, you have to spoil something from beyond what you consider act one.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Okay, so what I would consider act one. Oh, actually, this is perfect. This is actually in the first book. Let me see. In part one, Fall of Light, I want to say it is in chapter three, where we are first introduced to the old gods. Now, I'll play the scene out for you. Michael and his team, consisting of Yuriel, Gabriel, and Raphael, have been charged with breaking the most sacred vow of an angel, never killing a human. And Michael and his team do so, but they were under false pretense. They were instructed, or rather, they assumed they were killing demons. They weren't demons, they were humans in disguise as demons, and Michael gets his wings ripped out of his body as a punishment, henceforth making him mortal, a Nephilim. His second in command, you could say, I've had a lot of readers debate who technically is the second of his group, Yuriel, bestows upon him her power a little bit. And on that same day, the Order, I should say, the group that Michael was once a part of comes under attack by the forces of Lucifer. And, you know, standard demons, monsters, Michael and his friends think, okay, we fought these guys before, we can beat them. That's when they see two giant shadows in the sky. And the first two villains, the true villains, that we as the reader see is a giant snake and a giant wolf. That is correct. Jorman Gonder and Fenrir are the ones who lead the charge taking down the watchers' outposts and paving the way for the watchers in the name of the angels to pretty much fall and be desolate. So that is the first time for us as a reader, we see that these beings still exist. They've just been in hiding all these years.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

I like that. That lets us come to the final round of questions, which is just chaos. And just I was sleepy, and I write up this last section when I'm the sleepiest possible I can be. So if Michael, last Angel of Earth, were a breakfast cereal, what would be on the box and what would it taste like?

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Ooh, if Michael was a breakfast cereal, I would imagine it would kind of look like one of those like unlimited edition cereals, almost like you have for superheroes. I would definitely say because he is an angel and wants to be here, I would say like an elevated form of Frosted Flakes, probably. I was gonna say Wheaties, but I was like, no, that no, not Wheaties. I would say an elevated version of Frosted Flakes.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Frosted Michaels, yep. Barjan gets one day in modern Southern California. What is the first thing he becomes irrationally obsessed about?

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Hmm, if he is in modern California, which I'm a little mad, I kind of said this for the spoiler one, but there is actually something there he does go to other places in the series. And one place that he definitely would go in sunny uh California, I would definitely say that he became obsessed obsessed with is most likely I don't want to say the food, I don't want to say, you know, the coastline, he'll become obsessed with maybe the resurgence of historical fencing, maybe I know that may be a very different answer, but I was trying to think for him, because he's a warrior angel, he tends to be very, you know, private, but I could definitely see him getting involved in that and probably teaching a class since he is the warrior angel, he knows how to use almost all the weapons.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

I like it, I like it. Which character from your book would be apt would be the absolute worst person to bring on a road trip?

SPEAKER_01 43:04

Ooh, the absolute worst person to be on a road trip with. So your whole vacation is ruined because your a your car buddy just brought forth the demon, as we would maybe call a meat, even though not truly a demon, but a goddess in her own way. The devourer of souls, and then if we somehow die, our souls are gonna be weighed by a feather. And in the modern age, we're all not. Surviving that. We're all not surviving that.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

No, no, we're not. There's just I imagine I wonder how you would have to live today in 2026 to actually pass the test with the feather.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Like, yeah, I I don't know. I I really don't know. And for viewers who don't know what this is, in Egyptian mythology, if you die and you are being judged because you're in like the duat, which is almost like the what we would consider kind of like a purgatory in a way, semi-purgatory. And you're judged before uh one of the gods and goddesses of Egyptian mythology, and you have to make sure your heart is lighter than a feather. If it's lighter, you're good. If it's evens out, okay, that's fine. If it's more than a feather, your heart gets fed to a meat, the bower of souls. That's not a pleasant thing, so yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

I'm gonna be wondering about that all day now. What do you have to do to avoid like the consequences of your heart being heavier than milk by all that up? That's gonna stay with me. So your villain releases a perfume. What does it smell like?

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Ooh, okay, so there's quite a few villains. You have uh Vanthiul, you have Zadakoth, you have Dravurmas, you have um Lucifer and Lilith. If I had to say like their kind of perfume, it would be what it would smell like something to do with ash or charcoal. And it's very like hot, like when it hits your skin, it burns. And it's not supposed it doesn't feel good when it's on you.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

What would Bar John send to the group chat at 2 a.m.?

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Oh, what would he send to the group chat at 2 a.m.? Oh gosh. I would definitely say, like, okay, this I should be perfect. Group chat at 1 a.m. about a confession. If we were in the modern day talking with Ambrose Colombia Fiona, he'd be chatting like anyone got time for a confession. And Ambrose, he he most likely would, but everyone would be like, Why are you texting all of us? Like, just just just talk to him, please.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Uh, you have to replace the lost relic with something from a modern convenience store. What item gives your heroes the best chance of success?

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Items at the best chance for the modern convenience? There's nothing. They all die. They they would well okay. I'll just say this because there's two items. There's two items in the book. There's the sword and there's the shield and well, actually, sword, shield, and armor. So oh gosh. Okay. For the sake of this, I'm going to assume he has maybe the shield, but not the sword. So if I had to replace a sword, it would be just a long butcher's knife. That's all he's got.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

I feel like he could he could replace the sword with like one of those bulletproof boxes that some of the convenience stores have him. And you just take like the glass from or just walk around with it.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

Like, yeah, he he most he most likely would.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

He probably would use it. Which character would accidentally become an influencer?

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Which character would accidentally become it's torn between two. Either Van Hilder for being like a sports influencer, saying, Hey everybody, I'm going to my next uh fight, wish me luck, and live streaming the fight while she's fighting in a gladiatory arena, or Horace, who is like, hey fam, I'm on my next hunt, wish me luck. And like talking about like influencing, like, here's what you're going to need to go on your first bounty hunting and doing like a product review of like the latest uh bounty hunting gear, whether it's weapons, armor, or potions, or if you're Van Hilder, like probably like also exercise influencers. Like, here's what you need to do to stay in shape as you're going into the Coliseum. It's one of those two, one of those two would definitely be an influencer.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

Love it. Uh, if your cast got trapped in an escape room, who solves it and who makes everything worse? Who makes solve it?

SPEAKER_01 48:45

It's either Rusla. Rusla's probably by far the smartest of the group. Um, definitely her. Who would make it worse? Definitely Horace. Horus is more of like a hothead. Honestly, the relationship between Rusla and Horace is that of Gimli and Legolas throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy. They pretty much work well together. And in fact, kind of a little spoiler, in the battle, which I call the battle for Vatican City, uh Horace is fighting demons and he's counting like Gimli, and he's things like, okay, I'm ahead. He looks up, Rusla is just stabbing people with her war sight, and Horace is like, Oh, I am not losing to you again, and just goes ham on everybody. So, yeah, Horace would make everything worse, Rusla would definitely figure it out. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

And my final question before we go into the outro if Barjan could have one completely useless superpower in addition to everything else, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 49:59

One useless superpower. Let me ask this. What would you consider to be what would consider be for you like a useless superpower?

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Uh, that you know what something's gonna taste like before you eat it.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

Oh, useless superpower. I I honestly, I wanna I don't want to say food, bud I would definitely think of Angel, Super Strength, Super Speed, Useless Superpower. Uh maybe able to see like a minute ahead, almost like what was that Nicolas Cage movie where he could predict everything and he knew exactly where it was. But no, then again, that can't be like a pretty good power because you would know like that's like useful. That that would be useful. So useless, useless power. That's tough. That's really tough. I'm gonna say the food one. I would definitely say the food one, even though I'm pretty sure now that I realize it, I don't think my character even eats anything throughout the entirety of the book. Somehow the characters don't eat anything, save for like a break where they have to go and they're in France getting like coffee and like croissants, but they don't eat anything else. So I would say that the useless would probably be the food one.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Okay. So finally, we ask this of all of our guests is there anyone that you would like to thank today? You did thank a couple as we went throughout the interview, but anybody from agents to editors, writing partners to friends who had to listen about your book a million times.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Oh, again, that's a tough one. Um who would like to give a shout out to that that's tough because there's a lot of people I really want to give a shout-out who have been so helpful. Um like Americ, um Chris Off of the Maximus series, um, Emily Lanco, Kim Applegram, Lori Ball, uh, there's so many, so many people I want to give a huge shout out to. It's really tough. It's really tough. Um actually, no. There is a group of people that I want to give a a huge shout out to, and that is of course the people of Audio Mazes, uh, for sort of taking me in among, you know, the first group of people for Audio Mazes for being some of the earliest writers, and have still putting a lot of faith in me when there have been days I didn't put a lot of faith in myself as a writer. So I want to give a huge thank you to them for bringing me in and giving me the encouragement among with many others. Those guys, Sophia, Colton, Tristan, uh, Carl, all the people there, Kaylee, don't want to forget her, and the rest of the authors, editors, and narrators of Audio Maze is just thank you from the bottom of my heart.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

I love that. And last official question: where can everybody find you and your books?

SPEAKER_01 53:20

Absolutely. So my books are available on Amazon and Barnes Noble in print and digital. I also have an online store at the wandering scribe.com website where you can buy ebooks from me directly. In the process of getting an online store at the moment, so that's kind of what I'm doing right now. Well, an online store for my physical copies. I do have an online store for my ebooks. I am available on Instagram at arbiter283. I'm also available on Blue Sky as well. You can probably just type up my name, Gabriel Garcia. I also have a LinkedIn profile, which you could find my name like that as well. That's where also I post my newsletter of upcoming guests, short stories, uh being part of the show, and stuff like that. And I also want to make this announcement too. If you're in the SoCal area, either in the Anaheim area, Irvine, Tussin, Orange, or Fullerton, I'm gonna be at the Fullerton Library on August 22nd from noon to 4 30 selling my books. So if you want to meet me in person, that is where I will be on August 22nd.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Perfect. Thank you so much for joining us today, Gabriel. Thank you so much for having me on the show. And hopefully I can be back again. Yes, come back again. I love having repeat guests.