S2E3 - Coming Soon™: Store 236

Actually, before we get to Mel, we may say, like, maybe I'll jump in and say today with a special guest, and then we'll have Mel special guest. Because otherwise, I mean, the bulk of the time should be set on. On interviewing you because you're our special guest, so we got to treat you special. But other than that. Yeah, okay, cool. That was mostly for me. That wasn't really for you guys.

That was the plan for Scott.

Okay. So, hello, and welcome to behind the Locked Doors, a, I don't know, chance to get together with our friends disguised as a podcast. I am Scott Paladin, and I am writing a horny werewolf noir audio drama called It Takes a Wolf.

Hi, I'm Jack. I'm working on Azin West, a spin off of Unspeakable Distance.

Hi, I'm Mike, AKA Interiority, and I'm working on a Sam Stark impression. But because I'm method actor, like, generally, I kind of wanted to kind of, like, you know, fracture my arm in a couple of places first, throw myself down the stair. I haven't had time before this. I'm sorry.

Get stabbed.

So, yeah, so, yeah, you know, stab shot, you know, something generally like that. So, yeah, unfortunately, I'm gonna keep it British for a bit, but, yeah, bear with me.

And also, we are joined today by a special guest. Introduce yourself, special guest.

I am Mel Nichols. I am working on a show called Store 236. It is a lightly supernatural, dark comedy audio drama that asks the question, what if rude customers got what they deserved?

That is such a good chat. Okay, so we're going to really quickly, very briefly check in with our regulars here about where we are, because that's part of the shtick, right? Is that where we check in? So my goal setting last time was that I was going to make any progress at all, and I kind of went on that one because I did write some words, but last night I decided I didn't like them and put them in the swap file. So I'm kind of right where I was. But I've done a lot of thinking about it, so I'm going to count it. Jack, how about you?

Yeah, no, that if you put, like, any time and effort into putting words on paper, even if you didn't keep the words, I think that should count.

Yeah, Yeah. A false ro walking down a path and then walking back. You still did the exercise, right?

Yes, exactly.

Jack, how you doing?

So I'm waiting on Sam to send me the, like, draft of the first half of the pilot episode. That's yeah, that's how I am. I'm waiting on that before I start working on the second half of the pilot. I'll check in with Sam this coming week and see where we're at on that.

And Mike, do you have anything to report?

Yes, I do. So last week I kind of said that I would like to get into a place where my first episode of the show that I'm trying to write called Sundered, which is a sci fi audio drama, get into a position where I can share that with someone and get some feedback. Unfortunately, Scoot Clerical took it right out of me. And that weekend I was pretty goddamn sick, which kind of lingered into this week as well. I did make some progress. Like despite being sick, I still wrote about 3,000 words.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's pretty. It's not bad. All of them are terrible though. Like it's the worst writing I've ever done, but it's there. So like you did it. I need. I need the time to actually make it into something that I feel not deeply embarrassed to share to other people. So, yeah, so I'm zero drafted.

That's important. We talk about that a lot.

I saw a thing online where like a Simpsons writer, I can't remember which one, but it's one of the more famous ones from the early seasons who kind of said that that was his approach to writing. He would sit down and just try and get anything rubbish, just like placeholder, kind of like gags or anything like non jokes onto the page because he found writing the first draft to be the worst thing in the world. And I feel exactly the same. Editing fantastic. Love it. So, yeah, so I'm really excited to be getting into the editing section of this.

But yeah, nice.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Okay, well then let's get into our sort of meat and bones here. I'm going to copy out these questions that Sam was nice enough to provide us where I can read them and still also look at your lovely faces.

A fun fact squad. Sam's not here.

Yes, Sam's not here. And Sam was the one who like set this all up and this. So like we're just. We're kind of floundering in.

Fuck it, we ball.

Yeah, yeah. Fuck it, we flounder. So but we've got Mel here and Mel is working on a project right now and I've seen some announcements and I've heard a lot of scuttlebutt from like the back channels from people I know about the process that erupted in this. So. All right, so you Gave us the great tagline when you introduced yourself of, like, what happens when customers get what they deserve. And that's Baller, by the way.

Thank you.

So good.

But can you give us a little bit more about what the overall sort of, you know, the top line draft of what the show is beyond that?

Yeah. So it's set in a value store, kind of like 5 below ish vibes, following the associates of that store. And they all have kind of these quirks of how they deal with customers that are things that would generally get you in a decent amount of trouble, but nothing ever seems to happen to them. And it's, you know, is it because corporate doesn't care? Is it because it's just like a weird store? No, it's because the manager is a supernatural entity and she will punish rude customers for bad behavior. Does anyone know that she's a supernatural entity? One character does, and everybody else is just kind of vibing.

Okay. And so I'm getting a little bit of the tone here, but is this. Is it sort of intended to be sort of comical or are we looking or is that just coming across in your.

No, it's definitely dark comedy more than horror. It's got like. It's more like if bad things happen, they happen in a funny way.

Good. Okay. Okay, cool. Good. Then I was reading that correctly. The concept is great. Can you tell us how this first came to you? Like, what, did it arrive fully formed? Or was it, you know, drawn out or.

Yeah, so it came from about a year ago. I was at my old job. I was having this week where there was just a lot going on and things were really stressful for customer service. And there was this one week where customers were being really awful to me specifically, and it was really frustrating and exhausting. And the one day after work, I was sitting on my couch trying not to cry and had this moment of just like, God, what if these people just got what they deserved? And it was like a light bulb went off. I was like, wait, what if these people got what they deserved? I was like, holy shit, is that an audio drama? Did I just come up with an audio drama? So the last year. I love the podcast.

Hold on.

I love those lightning moments of. You're like, oh, no.

I'm like. And I've always joked that I've never had an original idea in my life. So, like, this is the first time I was like, holy shit, wait, I had an idea. I'm having an idea. This could be something. So over the last year, it's evolved a lot in terms of my original ideas to where it is now, all in a really fun, good way. And it's, like, landed at a place where I'm like, okay, this is a nice little vessel for telling this story. Yeah. I'm just generally really excited about it.

Okay, so you said that it. It's evolved over a year. Has that been a. Like, were you mulling over on this idea for a long time before getting to writing, or did the writing come early?

I really only started writing within the past few months. So between having the idea and where I am now, I moved states, which I feel you.

Yeah, yeah.

So this is always kind of in the back of my mind the whole time. But, like, I did not actually put my brain on this until things had settled. Things with, like, work had settled. I was moved in. So it was really sort of in the fall that I was like, okay, I should put some words in a document if I want this to actually be something.

Okay. By the way, Jack and Mike, feel free to jump in. I'm not trying to, like, overrun. Well, yeah.

I mean. Yeah. All I can say is kind of. You know, I know the general cut and thrust of the questions, and it's usually kind of along the lines of like, mel, why are you so cool? And how dare you be so cool?

There's some of that in here. Yeah.

Truly, I have zero answers for any of that.

I would say, from the outside. Like, you know, I'm sure this is not actually the case, but as someone who's kind of, like, tangentially involved and kind of like in the early stages of you kind of, like, you know, coming up with the idea and thinking it through and stuff like that. The actual writing process seemed to happen within the course of two weeks, which we are all incredibly salty about, especially when. Especially when we came to kind of read the first drafts. And not only is, like, most of the stuff there on the page like, that you would need, but the character dynamics are just so fully formed. And like, even without kind of, like, you know, like, actor input or anything like that, I can hear these characters. I can kind of, like, the chemistry they've got, the bounce off is all there. And it seems like you just came up with that right off the top of your head. Like, you know, like, it feels like that just came very, very easily to you. Please disabuse me of that. Otherwise it may affect our friendship. Yeah.

So two weeks. I know it maybe looked that way because all of a sudden, I was. I seemed to make a Lot of progress. There was a good bit written before I got to that month where I was. I was trying to write every single day. I, like, challenged myself to hit a certain word count in a month. And there was a good bit that was already there that people didn't see in terms of the characters. Character driven stuff is always my favorite kind of media in general. It's my favorite thing to write, and I think that's writing characters, writing dynamics like that is where my strengths are. And it's the stuff in between that kind of gets messy. Because what everyone didn't see was the first few weeks and months where I had written out outlines, I had written out the scenes that I knew I wanted, and then I sat staring at my computer for hours at a time going, how the fuck does anyone write an entire series? How. How do you write an episode? How do you do the stuff in between? Why did I think I could do this? So it took a hot second before I was like, okay, wait, I can. The characters started to evolve. The characters started to kind of tell me who they were. And. And that made it easier to kind of fill in the gaps. And also, I regret to inform everyone that writing gets easier the more you do it, which is a scam.

Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those. It's.

But it is true.

It's one of those pieces of advice that, like, you hate it when you're. When you're. When you're. When you haven't done it. You're like. Everybody just tells me, like, the only way to do it is to do it and then do it a lot and then do it again. And you're like, God, that sounds like. But I want to do it right the first time, and there's just no other way. And it's awful.

Yeah.

What do you mean, I have to do it bad first?

Yeah. I echo what Mike said, that the first draft period is like. It's terrible. Oh, no. I think I froze for a moment there. Okay, here we are. Great. My whole point was, drafts are terrible, and I hate it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Great.

Yes.

Should all be in my audacity of me going, oh, wait, fuck, everything's frozen.

Yeah, that's fine. That's how it works. Yeah, that man. That, like, trying to get the ideas down on the page. Just, like, going from nothing to anything is so difficult. Like, you were just talking about that too, Mike. And, like, you're staring at, like, I don't know what. Like, when you've got, you know, a thing that you can revise and work over. At least you've got a framework. And like, also, yeah, you do really. You really do get better at it over time. I also regret to inform anybody who has been writing for a while is that if you've been doing a particular kind of thing, when you switch to something else, that also requires a certain amount of effort to learn, you know, like, which just is awful. Also, you're like, you're like, I know how to do this. Why is this hard? You're like, oh, yeah, it's because I.

Haven'T done my skills. Not transferable. What the fuck?

Even going from doing, you know, episodic unrelated stuff in breathing space to doing like a single, you know, nine episode narrative in It Takes a Wolf. I'm like, but how do people, how do people like make a plot that like fits over everything and like, how do they write so much? I mean, I can't just write the middle of the story. I have to write like all the.

Bits around it too. All the parts.

Fucking scam, dude.

Yep.

So it sounds like, I mean, obviously you've already mentioned a bit that you were draw the inspiration from this for this idea for this concept was something that came out of your own experience. How much real life experiences with customers and stuff made it into the page? Or is it mostly things that come from your own brain?

Every single customer interaction in this show has a shred of truth in it. Whether that's stuff that we've all experienced or we've seen the viral videos of people berating customers, throwing stuff, being outrageous, um, or things that have happened specifically to me or to other people. I actually kind of crowdsourced some ideas of like, hey, send me some stories of what's happened to you. Like the most insane things that have ever happened to you in a customer service setting. So there's at least a grain of truth in every single customer interaction that you will hear in this show. And some of the more like off the wall lines you might be like, how on earth would you come up with something like that? Or things that were actually said to me. Like there's some. There's a moment in the, in the first episode where a customer says, you are so uncaring to one of the associates. And that is something that has literally been said to me about something that I could not control.

Oh yeah, it's great. I love customer service.

It's the best. It's so good.

Customers.

Yeah, you're reminding me. It's been a while since I've been customer facing, but I was for a long time supporting ers. I was a. I was a control, like, handling the software for emergency rooms. And the number of times that a doctor tried to pull a if you don't fix this right now, somebody's going to die. Statement on me was like, you shouldn't be leveraging people's medical care and lives to try to get me to, like, break the rules to make this thing work for you. Like, that's not how this is supposed to work.

That's so stressful. Also, like, that introduces a level of pressure and stress on you over something you probably can't control. But it's just, like, so above and beyond.

So it's one of those things, like, never, never underestimate. Like, you can't compare, like, what you can come up with in your own head to just, like, meeting a bunch of weirdos, people who are just out there.

Yeah, it's funny. Like, I think if someone listening to your show, Mel, has not worked customer service, it might seem, like, absurd that humans would say such things to other humans, but let me tell you, as a customer service employee, currently, it's all real. Like, people do just say the most bonkers shit to you.

People are gonna be like, there's no way that actually.

Stop being a human in front of them.

It's like, yeah, there's no way that actually happened. Oh, no, it did happen and it happened to me.

Yeah, like, that was a real thing that happened to me in real life. Yeah.

Yeah, there's. Yeah, there's no replacement for just a bunch of weirdos. Like, people are always more extreme than you could imagine.

Yes.

So, okay, let's see here. So we have touched a bit on what seemed like a real theory of white. Or. Theory. Is that the word? I don't know. Frenzy. That's the word I was looking for. Or a frenzy of writing that happened at some point with regards to this project. So you said you actually sat down with a challenge to write a certain number of words every day. Was that a what. What led you to the decision to make. Led you to make that decision of like, I am setting a.

That's really interesting.

So it actually wasn't my idea. It was something that was going around Tumblr. It was somewhat. They called it no Rhymo in response to, like, NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo. And, like, their shitty stance on AI. Someone was like, yeah, the shit that.

Went down with NaNoWriMo.

So someone was like, it, we're doing N O in December. You can write as many or as few words as you want. And they had, like, several tiers of, like, they broke it out. If you want to do this many words in a month, it's this many per day. And one of them was literally like, what? Write one word per day, end the month with 31 words. You have 31 more words than you started with. And I liked that because I'm very much a recovering perfectionist myself. So it allowed me to be like, okay, I can. I can kind of set the goal maybe a little lower than I might have because, hi. It was December. It was the holidays. I didn't write every day.

Right.

And, yeah, so, like, that gave me some, like, wiggle room and some grace to be like, okay, I can take it easy on myself while still, this is, like, an impetus to, like, get this thing written. Because I really wanted to. And I knew that I wasn't going to sit down and get those, like, those middle parts. I was like, how do I connect these scenes? Like, I needed to make myself do it because, like, like we said, the only way to do it is to do it. So, yeah, shout out to whoever it was on Tumblr who had that idea and shared it with everyone, because that is the reason I have eight episodes now.

Yeah, there's something really to be said for the, like, there are lots of people for whom, like, concrete goals that are like, you have to write thousand words a day. You have to write 2,000 words today. You know, like, all those things. There are lots of people for whom that is, like, the way to do it. Right. Like, they need to have a metric. But there's also that other often former gifted kid who, like, when they see that, they're like, well, if I didn't make that, I failed. Right? When that's like.

And I'm a bad person.

Like, and like. And so the. The structuring your goals in a way that, like, allows you to have some grace and some ability to, like, no, progress is progress. And, like, you're not like, you're going to. You know, anything that you do is. Is working towards your goal. So it's more about, like, setting yourself up for making good, you know, progress down as you're. As you're working on it, rather than, like, you know, there's all those. Some of these pieces of advice sound really stupid, and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Where it's like, just open the document every day or, like, look at it, reread what you've done already. You know, like, just make yourself engage with it as a way to, like, to get your brain churning on it, you know?

Yeah.

And that's that kind of hear him getting himself fucked up. Sorry.

That, like, extended itself into January because I was like. Like, this was cool writing. Trying to write every day was cool. Like, I'll maybe try to do that again in January. But then we had, like, it got to the point where I didn't have writing to do every day in January. I, you know, I had the scripts fully drafted. I was waiting on feedback. I was seeing, like, what else. What people thought, like, what needed tweaking. So I got to the point where I was like, what if. Okay, so, like, anything I do to, like, think about work on the show is going to count. Like, if I just, like, fucked around with the social media, like, yeah, that counts as writing. That counts as moving forward. If I, like, connected with my graphic designer about the logo, like, that still counts. That's progress.

And the thing is, and of course, with all of that, there is a point where you still eventually have to actually do the work. Everybody knows, and almost everybody who's listening to this probably has been the person who has a project that they've been thinking about for just forever, right? You know, like, you're churning on it. You're working on it. It's. It's a work in progress. It's the thing you can't show people yet or whatever and then. But you never actually make any progress. So, you know, like, both of these things are true, that, like, you. Anything that you do is progress, but also eventually do need to do the work. And figuring out how to get yourself to do that is also one of the tricks, right? Like, of, you know, how do I. Is it something like, fuck no. Rhymo, where it's like, I'm going to, you know, I've got a structure where I know I'm doing with other people. Is it hitting a goal of I'm going to show whatever I have to somebody on these days? Is it maybe starting a podcast with your friends about checking in, about what your progress is? Whatever. Whatever brain hacks you can use, like, make yourself actually do the work. Very important.

And actually, I should also say that hyper fixation played a part because I have adhd and there were just like, oh, yeah, like, that's occupied a lot of my brain. So those two weeks where you probably saw a lot of stuff was just my brain being like, this is all we're going to think about right now. So I can't take full credit part of that Goes to being neurodivergent.

The brain chemicals, sometimes it's just the stars line up and you look within yourself and you release the monster within and you write the whole thing.

And then you draft eight episodes of the podcast and you're like, where did these come from?

It happens. So I think we've covered most of what Sam wanted us to ask. Oh, yeah.

If we didn't. Sorry, Sam.

Yeah, sorry. What you get for not being here. You can't, you can't control the narrative. So where you're. I've seen some, some posts on, on social media that sounds like you guys are getting sort of into production, but like, where is the project at right now?

So where the project is, is the scripts are fully drafted. I've taken editing passes, at least one editing pass on every script. I'm. I want a bit more feedback on them because there's part of me that's like, I did not get enough criticism on these. They can't possibly be right yet.

Sure.

So I am at that point. But a lot of the writing is kind of done at this point. I'm working on getting a little bit of name recognition and social media exposure because I'm very, very close to being able to release the casting call, which I'm super fucking excited about because I do have some existing casts, but some of the characters just started talking to me and voices of people I knew and I was like, all right, like, I need to grab that person rather than like audition that role.

Yeah, yeah.

But, yeah, my. What I said I were three criteria for me to be able to do the casting call, what did I say it was. I needed fully. I needed a fully drafted season with scripts that I've edited. I needed to have any, any feedback, any edits I was making needed to be in progress. And I wanted episodes one and two to be essentially recording ready. And we are very, very close on those last days.

And so it sounds like this is going to be a fully hobby project style volunteer or you're not doing a pass.

Yeah, at the moment, no. If it were to turn into something slightly bigger in the future, I would love that. But at the moment it's.

Yeah, it's one of those decisions that, you know, it's one of those inflection points where you just kind of have to make the call. You figure out, am I doing this as a funded project as I'm doing this as a volunteer project, Stuff like that, where you have to kind of figure out what you're doing so that you can make other decisions down the line. Right. And those are one of those things that you just. I mean, there's not like for any particular project, there is a right answer and a wrong answer, but overall, it just depends on so many other circumstances that you just kind of have to figure it out. But doing one with volunteers as a hobby thing is absolutely probably the right way to do things at the start because you don't have to worry. It makes it so much less complex.

Exactly.

To just feel like, not money.

Who's willing to do it.

Yeah.

Who's willing to help?

And it's, I think, easier to maybe try to make it into something bigger, maybe get money involved when you have a product to show and you have a name that people have heard because, like, at the moment, I'm just somebody with like, 20 Blue sky followers. Shit. Posting memes into the void.

Yes. So when you say you're, like, getting ready for your casting call, are we talking. Are we looking at, like, a very large, expansive cast or is it. Have you narrowed it down and did questions like that come up during the writing process of, like, I know I'm going to have. Am I willing to get more people for this or am I going to keep tight on. On.

Yeah. So I went back and forth on, like, am I going to grab people? Am I going to cast it? And I. At a certain point, I was like, if a character starts talking to me with a voice that I know I'm going to try to pull that person in. Otherwise, I want to audition it. So the main cast. The main, like the associates, There are six of those, plus the manager, a couple of side characters. The thing that's going to be big is I need a pool of customers who can do.

Yeah.

Hopefully do different voices, voice different customers, because total. Including some that I would do is like a VW or you upcasting is there are 40 some customers who show up.

Yeah, that's. So I need over eight episodes. That's huge.

Yeah. So I need a group of people who can do multiple voices who can jump in and do, you know, some of it's, you know, I'll, like. I'll say, okay, I want this person to voice this customer. And then some will be like, hey, throw people. Like, throw me some. Some takes of these and I can. I can grab one.

So. So, yeah. So it sounds like then you. You threw caution to the wind during the writing process and just said, I'm just gonna throw in. I need to. I need to put in as much as possible, as much as the writing allows, basically. Not not letting the concerns for later come in.

Yeah, well, okay. Here's what I'll say too, though, with customers specifically, like, they are in and out of your life, in and out of the narrative so quickly a lot of the time that, like, you don't need to cast a whole entire human person to play one single customer who's only on beyond.

Exactly.

That makes perfect.

No, no, you're absolutely right on grabbing people who can do multiple voices. And I'm sure, like, if anybody who's not anybody, but lots of people who are good enough that you'll get them as your principal cast, you can also just have them do a voice customers and other stuff when you're not like, there. That's 100% true. And. But Mel mentioned AVW and U up casting. Those are. I don't know if those are. Those are not official terms. I'm going to define them for the audience in case anybody who. I don't know if anybody who listens to this isn't a breathing space person, but there is.

I do have a friend who listens to it who is also a big breathing space fan. So there's at least one.

Oh, shit. Mel has a friend.

One male.

And this is like behind the scenes people. Those are both things that I came up with. AVW is additional voice work only because they were credited as additional voice work. Bye. Blah, blah, blah. And then U up is literally like, we're going to record now. Who's here?

Yeah. Anybody up wants to do it?

And the idea behind. And the idea behind AVW is it's stuff where it's just like, you just send me, like, it's. You can't cast it because it's too small. Like, the casting call would be the same size as the script. So you just send me what you've got and I'll pick you. And so they're just very small parts that don't necessarily require a full casting call. Yeah. In case anybody wanted to know what that meant.

Yeah. Sorry for the jargon.

No, no, no, no. I would just give me a chance to talk about stuff from behind the scenes. From Breathing Space, which we do every episode.

Yeah, basically every episode.

It's only because it ruled my life for, like, four years.

Yeah.

As a note, if anybody is listening to this, thinking about. And they're in the process of writing for it. Absolutely. If you feel strongly about the concept and the size of the cast that that concept needs like this. Yeah. There really isn't a way you could do this concept without just having a ton of different voices for your characters. But it is probably worthwhile. So if the. What I was going to say, if the story, if what you're trying to create requires it, go for it, you will work out those things. Other than that, as you are in the creative side of the process, it is worthwhile to think about, do I really need this number of voices?

Because it is a logistical consideration. For real.

It's one of those exponential problems, right? Like, if you are trying to get. If you're trying to get a call with two people, that's relatively easy. Trying to get a call with three people, okay. Like, it's like 50% harder. That makes sense. Trying to get a call with like seven people on the same simultaneous recording, it just will not happen. Like, yeah, like, just assume that if it has ever happened in the past, that is a statistical rarity and can be ignored. It is an exception to the rule. So things like those kinds of practical concerns are things that are worth thinking about. They are not the end all, be all rule. Like any other piece of advice with creative stuff, it's not a rule. You can break it and you can break it on purpose and it'll work great. But it is something to be thinking about in these kinds of stages. So you are almost about to cast in that case. That will pivot us into more production sides of stuff. So you said you've been working with a graphic designer already. Are you thinking you're going to be doing simultaneous recordings with like a full cast? Or are you going to be doing passing outsides and having people submit?

I'm hoping to go as synchronous as possible. Like you said, it can be really difficult to get a whole bunch of people on a call at once. There aren't a ton of scenes that are full, like full cast, full associates, and a lot of those are on the shorter side, so we can like tack them together. A lot of them are kind of like one or two people interacting and then you throw a customer in there. Excuse me. See, I'm hoping to make it as synchronous as possible, but I also know that sometimes that's just not an option.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. That's. That's basically the only answer. Not the only answer. Yeah, yeah. Um, the. So, yeah, that's. That's.

Yeah.

If you're going to be asynchronous and you're not paying people, then it is basically, yeah, we'll get it as much as possible because you you are subject to the whims of everybody else's times and time zones and all that stuff. It gets really complex. If you find a good calendar app for getting people on, please tell us what it is. This is a general call that every single one of the. Hey, what is your availability Apps, they all suck, as far as I can tell. So if you or we. If anybody finds a good one, this is the general call of, like, we need a. If there's a good one out there, we all need to know about it.

We all need to know about it. Please tell us.

So. And then it's eight episodes, if that's. If I'm remembering correctly. Is that right? Okay, so after recording, are you presumably, you know, have an editing pass or do you have editors already lined up or is that something you're still in the process of looking for?

Yeah, Sam is going to do a lot of the editing, and then we have Maddie Cooper, who is going to help out with some of the. Cutting down the dialogue so that Sam isn't given these massive files with everybody's like two or three takes.

Yes. Okay, cool. And then when you get around, do you have an actual outline for release schedule or is it.

I don't.

When it's done, it's done kind of thing.

Yeah, I'll have a better idea of that once I have gotten through casting and know what people's general availability looks like. I'm trying not to put anything too strict on it because it is a hobby project and it's not, you know, I don't. I don't want to, like, really hound people about it, but also I want to get it right. I don't want to rush through it just because I'm excited. And I actually, a few weeks ago, the universe kind of like whacked me in the face to be like, you are being you. Like, you are doing this too fast. I, like, suddenly needed to find a new composer, find a new graphic designer, and I got the flu all in the same week. And I was like, okay, the universe is telling me to slow the fuck down and stop trying to push to get this done. Because I'm really excited about casting. I can't wait to meet these characters and see what people do with them. But also I want to get it right. I want to do this well because I care about this project a lot and it's worth getting it right.

Yes. It's interesting how that instinct just like, oh, I can put the foot to the floor. I'm gonna go, go, go. It Is some projects call for it, Some groups of people naturally drift towards that way. But it can lead you directly to that kind of thing we have where you hit too much all at once, and that can lead to the thing that's the real problem, which is sudden stoppage. Right. Like, if you hit too much, you know, if you have. If too many things all hit a project at the exact same time that you can't move forward, you lose momentum. And so it's better to have a slower, steady momentum than it would be to have, like, this big burst thing. And then something happens, and now you're stuck, and you're not going anywhere. And that can be so disruptive to a bunch of other processes that happen, but also just demoralizing that you're like, oh, crap. I. Yeah. You know, that can kill a project if you're going too far too fast.

Yeah. And I definitely had that moment when I felt like I had all this forward momentum. And then I was like, oh, I don't have a composer anymore. Oh, I don't have a graphic designer anymore. And I was like, oh, shit. Like, I've made all this progress, and suddenly I can't do anything. And then that's when I realized I was like, oh, I have the flu. Maybe this is the universe saying you need to slow down instead of just, like, trying to barrel through.

If you don't take breaks, your body will take them back.

If you don't schedule time for maintenance, the system will schedule it for you.

Yes, yes, yes.

Please don't look out the window, buddy. Come on. Sorry.

Scott's little dog. So nervous.

I will figure out the recording thing someday, but right now, it's a whole thing. Cool. So this sounds great. I'm super excited to see your further progress and to see the final project when it comes out. Before we get into the rest of us setting our goals, do you want to put a. You said you were trying to keep things loose. Is there a flag in the sand you want to plant that you say, by this date this is going to have happened? Or is there you still want to just, like, keep it loose and goosey and see how things are going to go?

Yeah, I think I want to say that by March, I want to at least. I want to at least be in the process of casting. I want to have the casting call open, because part of it is.

One.

Of the things that. Sorry, I go inside. One of the things that I am going to have to do at some point is say, okay, these scripts are ready. They're done. I need to stop fucking with them and changing one word in six pages. So setting the goal of, like, this is what I want to be casting, because I can, you know, I can still tweak drafts, basically up until we're recording.

Yeah.

But I at least have said that if I recorded this today, if I release this today, I would be happy with it. So I need to get myself to that point so early March. I want to at least have the casting call open.

Awesome. And then. Cool. So that's great. I'll put the offer out now publicly. If you need help, if you also want to just bang on if you have questions or whatever, feel free. I'm sure anybody here is happy to lend whatever we can. And also, Library of curse knowledge as an organization, which is.

Mike just made a seesaw hand motion.

Mike, I have already asked you to be one of my official feedback guys, so you are already trapped. Nice try.

Yeah, you're already.

Yeah, you're already on the hook. Sorry.

But yeah, if you. If there's some way that we can help out, please let us know. And also, if. Now, if. Once I release this, if you're. If you haven't released the casting call in by early March, then you will have. We're not gonna shame you. But you will shame yourself.

I will. I absolutely will.

You said it on air.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. It's store something. I cannot remember the name, the number.

Store. 236.

So we're 236. Yes.

And you can find us on blue sky at 236 pod.

Awesome. Cool. Okay, so now we're gonna do the. The. Our own flag planting for the. For the rest of this group here. I personally. Okay. We're gonna probably be meeting in two weeks again. I want to have. I'm gonna. I'm gonna say an actual number. I want to have a thousand words written on this next thing. That's a pretty reasonable go. But I am starting a new job next week, so that feels like a tall ask, but we'll see. Yeah. A thousand words. On this one episode, I'm at a sticking point, which is kicking my butt, which is why I went backwards last time. So I just got to figure that out, and then it'll start flowing again.

Sometimes when Scott is stuck, he goes into the back channel for. It takes a wolf and just pretends like he's explaining the issue to the rest of us, but then figures it out while he's explaining. And then we're like, oh, we just watched him figure it Out.

Yeah, you just need a sounding board. Even if it's a void, you know, it's the same thing. Okay.

Right.

Jack, do you want. You're still in limbo from Sam, right? So your goals are.

Well, yeah, so what I'm going to definitely do within the next two weeks is contact Sam and try and grab that first half of the pilot script from him. And if I can manage to do that soon enough in the next two weeks, I will also begin drafting the second half of the pilot.

All right. Mike, do you have anything you want to.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I could repeat the same goal as last time, but I think, like, this week has kind of, really, kind of shown me kind of the. The extent of the task ahead of me in terms of editing and stuff like that. So I'm gonna give myself a little bit of a break. Like, what I'm writing at the moment is like a double episode. So if I can get the first half of that episode edited and to a point where I feel happy giving it someone, then I'll be happy. Not the entire thing, but the first half. Sure, that'd be good. And also, apparently I need to help Mel with some feedback first. I'm hearing about it, but, you know, fine, fine. It's cool. I got info.

Listen, if you want me to post screenshots of our Discord Chat. Our Discord Chat. I have a text.

Look out.

Awesome. Well, that's great. We will catch the audience and some of these lovely folks back in two weeks. And other than that, bye.

Bye, everyone.

Thank you for joining us for another episode of behind the Locked Doors. If you'd like to find out more about any of these projects, you can head on over to the description of this episode where we've got some links, or to our website, Library Horse, if you want to find Mel's project specifically, there is a link to the store 236 Blue sky account in the description below. If you'd like to support our podcast, why don't you head on over to patreon.com cursed knowledge maybe throw us a few bucks. I swear to God, we're only gonna probably end up spending that on art or music or actors or something in the future. So it's a good investment. Other than that, we'll catch you guys in two.