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CrazyFitnessGuy Healthy Living Podcast - Crafting Cliffhangers: Megan Linsky & Alicia Rades on...
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Jan 1, 2025
Send us a textJoin Jimmy as he welcomes USA Today bestselling authors Megan Linski and Alicia Rades for an in-depth conversation about their mesmerizing Academy Magical Creatures series. Their discussion uncovers the creative process behind the series' enthralling storyline, memorable characters, and surprising plot reveals. Megan and Alicia share insights into their writing approach, the significance of diverse representation in literature, and their upcoming projects. This episode is a must... Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/23821477?utm_source=youtube
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healthy living podcast where we strive to Mo at people who are on the autism spectrum to live Healthy Lifestyles if
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is please welcome your host Jimmy CLA who is a motivational speaker autism Advocate author and founder of crazy
6:00
Fitness guide.com welcome to another episode crazy fit Health podcast that's recation with
6:07
crazy fness guy uh today's two guests are two USA today's bestselling authors
6:14
Megan Linsky and Alicia rays and I'm
6:19
looking forward to talking to them because I've been reading their Academy magal Creatures book and I am so
6:27
addicted to this the series uh let's just say I it's been a long
6:32
time since I've read a series that has kept me up until like super late at
6:38
night and yeah uh no wonder why I have Megan and sleep because I keep on wondering I want to know what happens to
6:45
the characters and it's it's literally torture when I go to bed it's like I need to know what happens and it's just
6:52
not fair and really found so many Cliffhangers but so let's welcome today's guest though and I've been like
6:59
literally just counting down the days to get to meet these two and uh I I swear
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they're like at my top favorite authors of all time so here's Megan and
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Alicia so uh my first question for both of you uh uh well my first question for
7:26
you is how with this books um why do you keep uh let's just say why do you keep
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messing with the main group for a group of characters it's just so
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me with pres fun there's no there's no story if the main character doesn't go
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through trials and tribulations and the best stories are where you watch the main character succeed at all cost so
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that's why we put our characters through what we put them through because we want people to know that you can be a hero no
7:57
matter what you're going through what's your answer that Alicia H or would just Echo what you said I mean there is no
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story if they're not going through something and learn something at the end because of it well so my next question
8:12
for you guys are how did how did you come up with this amazing story and did
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you know it was always going to be uh six books to
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series we did not um so when me and Alicia first got together and started to
8:30
co-write we agreed to write a Trilogy of three short books and by the time we
8:36
were about halfway through the fire prophecy which is the first book of The Academy magical creature series we
8:42
realized that those were not going to be short because the first half was the length of the book that we wanted to
8:49
write originally so we decided that we need to expand it to five books and then after that we decided that's not good
8:55
enough either we need to go to five and or six sorry I'm Alia and I cannot like
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I don't do numbers so at Le she know the numbers for me but anyway we just kept
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on writing and it kept on getting more and more ideas and we just could not put it down and that's where we ended up
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well it's it's really impressive especially because I I can relate it's I
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I found for myself every time when I read another chapter in the book I can
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read to literally all the characters at once and was like I was my smart moments
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and then I have let's just say I have my Liam moments where I went to like last
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three weeks I was in a total Funk and I was like how I was like I really feel very close to Liam right now it's like I
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really just want to uh I was at the point of just like just throwing everything away but then I was like
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what's the point of that yeah we all have our Liam moments I
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think everybody has that time where they get really depressed and down on themselves and they don't know how to continue forward or what to do but
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that's part of why we write what we do because we want to inspire people to keep going even when they're in their
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darkest moments and I think Alicia can testify to that yeah 100% you're just
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taking all the words on my I'm stealing everything we are
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co-writers so we kind of work on the same wavelength anyway so yes and we're
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pretty much the same person and we have each other's thoughts all the time and that kind of thing so it's easy for us
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to Cate together because we bounce off of each other all the time so my next
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question for you is how did you guys come up with the uh was one of the main
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one of the characters uh uh Madam doya because she's a she's just a pain in the
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butt and she reminds me of my 12th grade English teacher what book are you on I'm curious I'm on the fifth one o
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what part of this book are you play very well there uh I I say I'm
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in like 200 pages in at the moment haven't got the big real yet uh oh but I
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don't know I think you need to take this question Alicia because I think that you came up with a lot of her character and backstory I don't really know how to
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answer that because I think she just came through naturally like there's not really any think I can pinpoint but I do
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remember there's a scene in the first book where she's really mean to Sophia and she's um in this story they have
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elemental power so Sophia is the main character with Firepower and she comes into this world not knowing anything
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about it and Madame doya is her teacher set the candle in front of her on the desk and it's like light it like I don't
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know how to do this so she's really nean to her that was Megan's idea and I think from there I'm like okay I understand
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what this character it's supposed to be because she is supposed to challenge Sophia and kind of be almost like this
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Duality for her where she's pushing her but also like Sophia does have the
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capabilities and everything so sounds exactly like my English teacher in 12th grade she's she she pushed me but I
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don't know why she pushed me so much because I was getting straight A so
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Madam doya doesn't have to be as me as she is and there are reasons behind that that you will learn in the later in this
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book that you're reading uh no wants to spoil me
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anything spoilers we don't do spoilers oh my goodness it uh so my next
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question for you um why do these why are they why do you think the books have
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done so well and why is the characters are so relatable I I think that's like a two-part question um I think our
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characters are relatable just because we try to make them as real as possible when I was writing Liam I didn't want to
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put like any tropes or like personality traits on him that are typically in our
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genre which is fantasy I wanted him to be his own person and I wanted him to be really real about how he was feeling
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100% of the time and I feel like we're like that with all of our characters with Jonah emagin and everybody who
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comes on scene and who is a part of our cast we want to make sure that they are real authentic people so our readers can
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relate to them because it's no fun relating to a superhero who can do all this stuff and never has any problems
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and is invaluable it's just really it's kind of a boring story to be honest we want to tell stories about real people
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going through real problems even if they're in a magical setting so that's kind of our goal what do you think about
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that Alicia to add to that I think that a lot of our characters are kind of like
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pieces of us there are things that are unique to them and things that
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you know we sometimes do have to write outside of our experience cuz like I'm not a man I but we do write from a male
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point of view because the characters go back and forth in their perspective but there's a lot of Liam that comes from
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Megan because she is um a disabled author writing a disabled character and his disease is fictional but it is based
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on Megan's disease so that way it's like some of our personal experience gets put
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into those characters even though they're not directly um like us I don't
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know how to say that I think like to add on to that like I share this joke with
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Alicia all the time I'm like all of our characters are neurode Divergent because we're neur neuro Divergent they just
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like make neurode Divergent choices and it's really funny to see them interact and like a world that's against them but
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then they go out and they build a world that's suited for them and my personal like illness is common
15:02
variable immune deficiency disorder which is related to cvid and is a
15:08
condition basically where you are born without an immune system so you have to get treated in order to generate the
15:13
antibodies you need to survive so I put that experience into my books and I
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think it's really helpful for people to see the spectrum of disability because people think oh disability is just being
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in a wheelchair well no it's not there are all kinds of different disabilities out there and your experiences of them
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are going to vary based on who you are and what your world is like and to answer the second part of your question
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which is why these books have done so well I just think people really like our characters and they can relate to our
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characters because there's people out there who haven't experienced their
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story in a book and we get people all the time who are saying oh like I'm disabled or I have autism or I have this
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condition or I have this experience and nobody ever talks about it nobody ever writes about it but you guys do so
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that's why I think people really like our stuff would you agree Alicia I do agree and also I think we just really
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put our heart and soul into this series because we initially were kind of like
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we don't care how it sells let's just write what we want to write and so we
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didn't you know worry about what kind of tropes we were putting in we were picking the ones that we loved and the
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ones that spoke to us and then things that aren't necessarily tropy as well and I think that really shows through in
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our writing how much we really loved this series and writing these characters well I I definitely some this I
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definitely can relate to Liam a lot especially not just uh but with his uh
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disability or because it's time I got bullied a lot in uh middle school and
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elementary school and high school for eight years and uh I remember some
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people telling me that uh I'm a freak basically and I was like and I remember
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that part in the book where overheard everybody saying that
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he well just end it right then and there uh see the freak and it's like a these
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guys a bunch of cold harded go and like I just I was like it was like if I was him I was like I would just just walked
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in the room and like screw all I'm really sorry that you had to go
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through that that wasn't fair to you thank you um but yeah to be honest
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because like I I like Liam it's like I wouldn't really have a story if it wasn't for those bu and I wouldn't be
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where I am today without them though even though it stinks but I don't think
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any motivational speaker and uh have a has a good story with some kind of extra
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challenges just like the characters in the book I I think you're right go ahead
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I love that positive outlook on it and um Megan and I are really into like
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personal development and stuff like that so we always try to include that in our stories and try of find the good even in
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bad thing well I also think that like really successful people can sometimes be those people who are you know victims
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of bullying I was bullied all throughout Elementary School Middle School and you know high school I had my lunchbox and
18:32
my stolen food eaten out of it you know I was you know called names and picked on you know after I got diagnosed I was
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told well your mother should have just aborted you if you were going to turn out like this I don't think it's an unusual experience especially from
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people with disabilities or who have neuron Divergence to be told they shouldn't be here and they shouldn't exist because they don't have the right
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to exist but that's completely not true and that's a lie and in my opinion the people who have these kind of challenges
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espe early on can sometimes grow up to be the most powerful people who make the most change because they've been through
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so much early on and they've learned how to struggle and how to pursue through it I definitely agree with that 100%
19:12
there's uh there just some people who I just
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say they don't know how to treat others like they want to be treated as well and
19:25
uh like I kind of see it time and time again in the book with like the like the
19:31
elders and whatnot I was like everything that they done is like it's like Cara's
19:36
gonna come around and bite them in the butt at some point or there I like why is this just starting to sound so
19:42
familiar in this day and age it's like stay with us we'll be right back
19:51
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I think people who are like that who are the Bulls of society either they haven't been throwing up themselves to
21:06
understand perspective of somebody's struggle or they have been through it but they chose to go the opposite way
21:13
and become bitter instead of better because when you go through things you only have two choices you can either
21:18
Excel or you can basically wither and the people who wither become the bullies so my next question for you is how did
21:25
you guys come up with all the twist and turns because it seems like every single
21:31
chapter there's like uh like my uh my my e reader like
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tells me like how much like is left in the chapter like how many men is left in the chapter and it's like it seems like
21:43
after let's say for instance like one chapter I think is said an hour left in the chapter it's probably based on my
21:50
how fast I read or half uh or how many pages I read that day I don't know but
21:57
anyway uh it seems like after that dur at the last bit of the chapter it's like
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you think you're going to know what happens and then you all a sudden you just drop and it's like and this happens
22:11
and I'm like how many twists and turns do you put in one book I'm gonna leave that question to
22:17
Megan because it's usually her fault it is usually my fault because I'm evil I just I it it sounds bad but I really get
22:24
entertained by putting characters through wor circumstances and seeing how they're going to come out of um you know
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like I said I think some readers really like cozy stories where not much happens and it's really comfortable but I'm not
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that kind of reader I'm not that kind of author I want to see my characters go through the worst of the worst and come out on top because it's like a victory
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for them and then it becomes like a victory for the reader too so I really like putting in all this crazy stuff
22:48
that happens because it just amps the takes up and makes things more interesting yeah funny thing you say
22:54
about that because like uh to be honest like I was in the midst of between uh a few
23:02
different series and I was like looking for another book to read and then when I
23:08
and then like I I don't always use the my Nook uh reading app on my uh tablet
23:15
and everything and I uh I I stumbled across the fire prophecy and I was like
23:22
this looks very interesting and I I was and at the first few pages I got H
23:29
because I was like only looking for like maybe a book or like a book just to get
23:34
me through it until another author of mine comes the and I was like I'm only gonna get
23:41
the first book see what see if I like it or not and I'm in the fifth book I'm
23:47
like this wasn't supposed to happen that's kind of what happened when
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we wrote it too we were just going to write three short books the first book ended up
23:59
being as long as a Trilogy we wanted to write so it definitely it's like this
24:04
story just took a hold of us and maybe that's why it takes a hold of readers too because it was then to be hold so my
24:12
next question for you um how which characters do you most relate
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to and why I relate to Liam l most I would say I write Liam and Alicia writes
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Sophia and Liam is my character I was going through a lot in my life at the time that I was writing Liam so a
24:32
lot of my feelings and like internal you know monologue was processed through Liam because even though I wasn't going
24:38
through his exact same circumstances I was still reflecting myself onto him because I needed to
24:44
figure out what I believed about the world and I don't relate to Liam as much anymore because I think I'm grown and
24:50
turned into a different person since that time in my life but I still think that that piece of me is personified in
24:57
him and the person that become by the end of book six because he goes through his whole Arc and his struggles with
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depression and his struggles with his disease and his struggles to figure out okay well is am I worthy enough to keep
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living or not and he ultimately finds out yes I am and I can provide value to myself and the people around me and I
25:17
think that that is such a powerful message that I was able to learn and process through him what about you
25:23
Alicia I think mine would probably be Sophia but in the same way I do think
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I've grown a lot since we wrote her because we did finish this series like three years ago I think um when five or
25:38
years ago but at the time like Sophia was almost um I don't want to say she
25:44
was me cuz there's a lot about her that is like her own person but there are parts of her that are like she would
25:49
react the same way that I would react in a way that she's kind of like More Meek at the beginning um more kind of like a
25:57
people pleaser um doesn't really know how to step into her power and things like that Megan
26:03
would actually have to like push me for Sophia to even to like stand up to her
26:09
bully in the book because that's not something I would have done like as a person at that time and um so yeah she's
26:17
kind of like almost like a part of me has been like immoral lied in her uh at
26:22
that time but at the same time like I have grown out of a lot of that as well
26:28
I think for me I kind of feel like I have it's not I kind of relate to all4
26:34
like I can relate to Jonah as being like relaxed and laidback like I don't give a
26:40
gosh Dar crud and trying to keep it PG I thought of another word but I'm not
26:46
gonna say that and then uh and then uh Liam there's kind of like different
26:53
personalities of Liam that I can relate to where I was in a depressed mood at
27:00
one point or another during the bullying and I just hated every aspect of everything I just had like this huge big
27:07
dark C Cloud over me and then but then there's other times where like they
27:14
seems like really cool and laidback and and it's like oh why I like why can't I
27:19
be [Music] cool and then Sophia I can relate to a
27:26
lot where sometimes where I just sometimes I can't always handle the word
27:31
no uh depending on like certain things like no from a company for certain
27:38
things I'm not gonna give a specific example because I'll just go on a rant on that and or yeah so so sometimes with
27:48
that and then uh and in legent I would say I relate to her because I do have
27:55
some of my genius moments and then some times I I have my SM
28:01
whatsoever and I was like how can this possibly be I can relate to all four characters at the Cent I think it's
28:07
because they're all people love each other I mean they're all different people but they're all really close
28:13
friends and they still reflect that love and a genuine friendship for each other
28:18
at all times so even though they can be total opposite they're also identical kind of in a way and I decided to before
28:27
I actually next next question I have to say that Haley
28:32
character uh she's really just playing evil she
28:38
not does anything ever happen does he does something happen to her that like does karma come around to bite her in
28:45
the butt somewhere and Karma will always come around to our
28:51
characters for the good guys not the not the ones who just keep beating them up
28:56
though have saying in his Legends world that there will always be a happy ending by the end of book six but there's going
29:03
to be hell to pay for the main characters to get to the end of book six so they always have a happy ending but
29:09
there will be a price to pay to get to that happy ending you guys ever seen having a book Seven not in that series
29:17
because sophan Liam's story is dumb but they do um okay A little bit of a
29:23
spoiler alert they will come back in another series so the prison for
29:28
Supernatural offender series you will see them after their journey in the Academy of magical creature Series so it
29:35
follows some other characters in this world um but they kind of make some cameos so in total how many books have
29:43
you guys written so far together or apart together together we Universe like
29:51
does everything kind of connects anyway even if we only do it so together we have six in the Academy of magical
29:57
creatures series and five in the prison for Supernatural offender series they're set in the same world some of the same
30:02
characters crossover and then Megan has six in the University of sorcery Series
30:07
so she wrote that on her own but it still is in the same world and then I have five right now in the College of
30:13
Witchcraft series which is also that in that thing World geez H don't you how
30:18
guys get tired frighting they get tired but not tired of writing we'll keep writing till we
30:25
die I think yeah I I co-author a book with like
30:31
365 other authors in the book and it was just like a kind of like a daily quote
30:38
book and I'm I'm contemplating of writing my own book uh just about myself
30:46
and my what I went through and somebody said to me it's like you're not that
30:52
interesting at first and he was like H interesting well I was like I would say I'm Tony Robin's interesting but as like
30:59
I sure SE uh I I would find of interesting if I was my own
31:06
reader interesting enough well I think everybody has the story to tell and if
31:11
you want to write a book and write a book it doesn't matter how they tells you if you can do it or you can't do it people told me I couldn't write books
31:18
and like look where I am now I'm writing books so I was literally gonna say the
31:23
same thing being on the same wavelength every I was going to say everyone has a
31:28
story to tell and I am sure that yours is amazing well I I mean I I one thing I
31:36
really appreciate about uh uh the books is that it doesn't reach at the reader
31:43
because I've read some I read a lot of books in my life and I'll just say
31:48
there's some books that doesn't just take on a journey they like preach at
31:54
you say hey this is this uh you're doing this wrong uh everybody's wrong at this
32:02
and I like books that take you on a journey help you kind of escape from uh
32:09
I G say Escape I mean entertaining because I just feel like in this day and
32:15
age it's just so many things that just like kind of like could better reference black and white so
32:21
speak it's funny that you say that like we're not preaching cuz we'll get reviews that are like they're preaching
32:27
they're woken agenda and I'm like okay if having disabled characters makes us woke I guess we're woke I I'll take that
32:35
with pride stay with us we'll be right back
32:41
did you know crazy Fitness guy is not backed by any corporate company and is
32:47
just a onep person show well there's this term around the podcasting Community called Indie
32:54
podcasters we're in I'm an independent podcast creator so because I'm not backed by a huge big
33:01
corporate company well if I run out of money and and everything else crazy
33:07
Fitness guy would no longer exist no website no podcast no nothing if you
33:14
want to help support the show and keep our lights on consider becoming a premium podcast member of crazy Fitness
33:21
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33:26
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33:35
30,000 a year honestly like honestly I don't
33:45
really see that because like uh and it just from my point of view just because
33:51
like I I can because like for some being disabled and whatnot
33:58
and some from me being artistic I was like no I can relate to a lot of this and I appreciate that these characters
34:05
have their own challenges and uh there's people on the reviews I think there's I
34:11
think a lot of people are just trolls these days especially me well I can relate to what you say about a lot of
34:16
issues being black and white because I do think our world is very overized today I think it's very hard for a lot
34:22
of people to see from other people's points of view and we do put lessons into our novels but the thing about our
34:28
lessons is that the characters will learn something about themselves and then it's like the next chapter that
34:34
what they learn is turn on their head and they have to learn all over again and I don't think it's polarizing or
34:39
offensive or woke to put a disabled person into your book or any kind of person really
34:47
because these people exist The World Isn't split up into this kind of people and that kind of people and this kind of
34:54
people is the only kind of people that are allowed to be in stories the world is diverse and wide and if that person
35:00
exists somewhere in the world they can be in a fantasy novel and it's not weird and it's not offensive I think I get I I
35:08
get offensive when people say that is like these like these people are not
35:15
normal what a word like what is normal in any sense of anything anymore it's
35:22
like such thing is normal yeah the other thing I think is normal is the normal setting on my washing machine and that's
35:29
good and even that I don't even know what normal does on the washing machine still RS my clothes anyway so
35:35
what the heck I don't touch that button it will self-destruct something
35:42
I so my next question for you is uh you what makes you keep writing the some
35:49
what what makes you keep writing books even though you sometimes you get mixed reviews on them we don't listen to the
35:56
reviews so that like every now and then we'll see a review um this you know not
36:02
on purpose or whatever like we we have our audiobooks up on YouTube so every now and then we do have to go check those comments make sure that people
36:09
aren asking questions so that we can respond to them think so we do see some of the not so nice reviews there but uh
36:17
we've done a lot of work to not let it get to us and just be like you know what if they don't like this book it's not
36:23
for them and that's okay because there are people like you who really appreciate our work and we're writing
36:28
for you and not but um yeah I don't I don't care what anybody thinks I'm going to write what I'm going to write and if
36:34
you don't like it that's too tough for you but I'm GNA continue to do what I was born to do and what I was found on
36:40
this planet to do and that's right books and a lot of these silly reviews I do think they're trolls and I do think
36:45
they're people who don't know what they're talking about I got a review on my University of sorcery series one time
36:51
where my main character has the same exact disability that I have and she treats herselves using the subcutaneous
36:58
injections that she has to get every week and she has to use like syringes in order to do it well I got a very big
37:04
long review this person complaining that people with my disease can't use syringes and I obviously didn't do my
37:10
research and I didn't know what I was talking about and I had to reply to this person being like I have this disease
37:16
this is something that I go through on a daily basis and yes I do take these and this person of course deleted their
37:22
review because it made them look like they were not eligible instead of me and a lot of the one star is sometimes
37:28
you'll go through them and you'll be like well this is wrong this is wrong and this is wrong you didn't read the
37:33
book you just wanted to complain about it so I just I really don't care if people have a bad opinion of my book or
37:40
bad opinion of anything that I write about because this is my story and this is Alicia's story and we write for the
37:45
people who need our stuff we don't write for every Tom Dick and Henry that's out there I I like that you said that
37:53
because you know for my podcast I know who my audiences I have a specific Target uh I
38:02
don't like the word target audience but my specific n audience let I'm going to rephrase that and they but I do cater to
38:12
our many people as possible but not to every single person because like maybe
38:19
some of really likes politics I hate politics uh might like uh all about
38:25
religion I don't go religion but my point being is that I felt bad for this
38:32
podcast that I came across in one of the podcast groups I'm part of he he he only
38:38
he only started his very first episode the other day and he had so many one star reviews on and it was because he
38:44
was approaching on like on this competitive uh M and I was like oh they
38:52
must feel stened by you if you was like what the heck like bunch of trolls it's
38:58
like I said to them like I technically I would report them to Apple and Spotify
39:03
I'm I'm going be shocked and that they have like something in their policy about b reviews and being trolls and
39:09
like go report them it's like maybe they'll take them off for you uh that so
39:15
strict no I think too that you it doesn't matter how much you try to
39:21
please everyone you're not going to cuz someone's going to be upset you know someone's going to be like oh she's
39:26
trying too hard or she's not authentic enough or whatever it is like trying to please everyone is never going to work
39:32
so might as well like be yourself and be the best of being you I mean like
39:37
literally if if I make try to make every single podcast perfect I don't think I could ever maintain it because uh or
39:45
keep doing it because I just L get every rid of every single arm or I get rid of
39:51
every single pause or every single in activity hiccup like I can't I can't do
39:59
it as being literally impossible as like I can only control for my internet I can
40:04
control for everyone else no there like we are really perfectionistic and we really try to not lead errors in our
40:11
books but there are some errors because it doesn't matter if we had a team of 100 people we're never going to be able to catch every single thing that's there
40:18
there's always going to be something that slips through and that's okay because art is meant to be abandoned not perfected so as long as you're creating
40:25
it that's the important thing and that you don't quit you don't star what I was really shocked about in
40:31
the series is when they where it said uh that one side
40:38
doesn't uh leave art has any Merit to
40:43
schools and whatnot I'm like how can that possibly be it's like if I didn't have fart it's like who knows where I'd
40:50
be today my art was my Escape in from The
40:55
Bullying actually during in the school days I was like well if I didn't
41:01
have art class I like I was I don't know if I would still be here yeah uh so my next question for you
41:08
is uh whose idea was did to uh create uh Haley and the way she is I think we both
41:16
kind of had hand and Haley to be honest I think Haley is kind of one of those
41:21
tropes that you're always going to kind of throw in because um She's The Bu of
41:27
the series and you you need someone like characters there to challenge the main
41:32
character so we can be like hey Haley is being me let's let's do something about
41:37
this and then it challenges the characters to come up with unique Solutions and um kind of leave sometimes
41:45
question things about themselves and make improvements for themselves I think one of the hard parts
41:53
of reading the series is when uh stuff always happens to the the good guys
42:00
especially with the uh just the uh just the magical creatures getting hurt or uh
42:09
not they give a spoiler or anything but nothing happens to imagin that you just
42:15
like let just say almost got rid of her I think that's reflected of real
42:22
life because of what's happening to the good guys now the good guys always have some sort of opposition and in fact they
42:28
usually have the most opposition because they're doing the right thing when everybody else wants to do the easy
42:33
thing or the thing that everyone else is doing or thing popular instead of standing up and being like no this is
42:39
what's right because I think when you're a good guy and you speak up on what you believe and you're going to get
42:45
opposition from people not even people who disagree with you there's going to be people who come and were like don't rock the boat and those Don't Rock the
42:52
Boat people can be a bigger obstacle than the people who were actually against you because they want maintain
42:57
the status quo but that's not what a hero does a hero fights for change I definitely agree with that
43:04
100% uh I'm more of a person who likes to Ark the butt on many different
43:09
things I mean I Kat you not there was I've been saying on this show for many
43:17
years that there needs to be more uh fitness programs for people with extra
43:23
challenges and the other day I found out my work platform that I Ed at home uh
43:30
started having a trainer uh who's in a wheelchair and I was like that's pretty
43:35
cool it's like this is like ground level stuff because I haven't seen anybody else done done it and and I admitted on
43:43
social media like I could be wrong that there's some maybe someone else has done it before but I haven't seen many of
43:49
them I know there's a guy on Instagram who does uh workouts for people with cystic fibrosis but that's the only
43:54
thing that I've heard of because people I I think they automatically assume oh you're you know you're disabled so you
44:00
don't work out which is not true because I grew up as an athlete I go to the gym all the time I'm literally in the gym
44:07
I'm literally working out like six days a week uh it was the time in my life I
44:12
in nine but but I was like why why am I torturing
44:18
myself I don't know I thought maybe it was cool at times and my lucky number is
44:24
nine actually it took me nine times to start a business and uh my birthday is on October 9th and I had n9e surgeries
44:32
so so uh my next question for you is uh you ever see yourselves uh having like
44:41
bring the four characters back from the book into like another series uh some point down the
44:48
road uh maybe like an aftermath of everything or yeah we definitely do that
44:54
in prison for Supernatural offenders there actually in most of the books in
45:00
that series like Liam Sophia Jonah and emag are constantly coming back there
45:05
and there's a reason for that we can't C you because spiler so and they also make some
45:11
cameos in I know Sophia makes a cameo in mine College of Witchcraft I don't
45:18
remember if she shows up in University but you do have other characters oh yes
45:23
Jonah comes back in University of sorcery interesting yeah I'm definitely going to read them all because uh uh I I
45:31
I like the characters uh I'm always for me if I don't have a good book it's hard
45:38
for me to keep reading and I I I've made myself a list of authors who I Lally
45:46
follow see when they come out with new books and whatnot and I was like okay
45:52
when this author has a book I'm going to go get that book and then if that author doesn't have a book I'm going to go
45:59
f to this other author like James Patterson even though I really really
46:05
like James Patterson I I wouldn't say I'm tired of his books but sometimes I get tired of everything like R up the
46:13
perfect B on like Alex Cross has has uh has completed
46:21
another case I'm like oh come on do you think really that's how uh detect just
46:27
can wrap up our stop quick as like I don't think so and that's never
46:33
Cliffhangers it's was like I like books with Cliffhangers apparently all Cliffhangers they're in
46:38
all up our books one of one of them um one of the
46:44
authors on uh who used who followed me my very first followers on Twitter his
46:50
name is Luke Murphy he's written um he's written um Charlene Taylor he's also
46:56
written couple other books uh I I read pretty much all his books as for one so far but
47:03
I thought he had a lot of L in terms until I read your until I read your
47:09
series it was like it it literally keeps me on my toes he like did did I read
47:15
that right they often this person and like this is hard to keep track
47:22
of on second one page this person's alive and this other one's dead
47:30
we like to do that we like to keep our readers on their toes we don't like our readers to guess what's happening next we only want to surprise them honestly
47:37
the only thing that I gotten right so far in the in the book was the I think
47:43
it was the third book that it happen or was it the fourth I it was the third or
47:48
where the uh I don't want to say let just say Liam sopia's
47:54
case I think the third one I believe or yeah and I only predicted that
48:02
because it was only the next logical thing that could happen and then but but
48:10
then after math of it and I was like I was not expecting this
48:15
either we like writing Court gazes too I think they the court gaze and every hidden Legend series they're just
48:22
fun and sometimes Megan is like you know what readers are going to know the outcome whether they win or lose their
48:29
case they're going to know that they win obviously because they're the good guys or whatever but it's the experience of
48:35
going through it that's part I think what's one thing that like uh I think
48:42
one thing that keep keeps me like what keeps me me hooked on the books is that
48:48
like to just to keep reading and everything is that they're let's just
48:54
say that you never know what's happen and then what I really find interesting
48:59
is that when you think that those characters are gone and they just somehow magally back in the picture and
49:07
like huh that's not fair was weird when they come back up
49:14
yeah like we greet for you and now you're back what the heck exactly how
49:21
iing feels in the book five and I was like okay now I know how she's feeling
49:27
it's like this character's gone and now I'm now they're just back I'm like the
49:36
audacity how dare you you know after Lally after the
49:42
fourth book uh I knew I had to reach out the to the two of you because I was like
49:48
I need them on my show because these books are just too good to pass up and
49:55
if people don't read them that's their own problem and uh I'm I'm just amazed
50:02
that that you guys write this to have a character you get to be off and then
50:08
come back on and then you find out why it happened as like this is like a great
50:14
TV show that that idea I will say that was not mine oh she says I come up with
50:21
all the evil stuff but she's guilty of some stuff too it's not all me they
50:26
blame you for it yeah you will you guys have like a board of like
50:33
okay let's go kill this character off and kill this character off and then come back around n they're not really
50:38
dead anymore we have outlines which are kind of the same thing and the last outline we did for a book was over 20
50:44
pages long and the next one's probably gonna be just as long because we talk
50:49
about like what we're going to do in a series before we even start writing so we know the ending of book six before we
50:54
even start writing book one that's something we do every single time and I think it really helps us cuz we always
51:00
know where the story is going we're never sitting here wondering okay what do we do next cuz we always know what we're gonna do next that sounds
51:06
tiring sometimes there are surprises and they fun because it's like sometimes
51:12
it's just it comes out of nowhere and it's like this is a really fun thing uh for readers to experience but then
51:19
sometimes it's like hold on we had this thing in book two we don't we didn't
51:24
have like any connection anymore now we get to connect that in book five and we didn't know about that when we initially
51:29
wrote it so that's really fun too cuz if we're surprised you guys are going to be surprised so my next question for you is
51:37
if somebody have you ever guys thought of making into a movie or a TV show and
51:45
if so who would you cast as their care for the each of the character we're
51:52
definitely interested in film we can't really say that there's anything happening right now but we talked about
52:01
it and I would love to put our stuff in the film I don't know who would cast because we've talked about doing
52:06
animation and liveaction so we're not sure what we brought we want to go with that there
52:12
are so many different opportunities that we can go and I think by the time that we were ready to put something into film
52:19
the actors that we would choose now are not going to be the actors that we would pick I was going to say when we initi
52:26
wrote this series um five six years ago we did have our Dreamcast in mind and
52:32
now they're too old I would kind of say uh if you don't
52:38
mind me sharing uh I I would I would like to see it as like kind of anime a
52:46
little bit and the reason why I say that is because maybe you've heard of the show stranger things on Netflix yeah
52:53
where you can see where a lot of time left and a characters who supposed to be
52:59
young now is very older like and it's not I would say it's a problem with some
53:05
Series where uh where that can happen but something something around like
53:12
let's just say there this series called Alex Ryder um made uh written by Anthony horz
53:20
and like by a 14-year-old kid spy but they made a TV show off uh on uh used to
53:28
be indb vaness freie and they it's only
53:34
like three seasons and basically for like 14 plus books condensed into three
53:42
seasons and because the actor is now too old to play the 14-year-old spy I was
53:48
like with the anime yes at least the person's voice even if they got deeper
53:55
it's like okay well anybody's voice can change so uh as like could have kept
54:02
with it like for instance this this other show called The Dragon Prince on Netflix I've watched the dragon Prince
54:09
and there's this uh one of the main actors who was who voiced Saka and avatar the Last
54:18
a bender uh he like I think his late 30s or 40s or
54:25
something yeah he's pretty old but he plays a young kid like but like his voice doesn't change or if it does like
54:34
yeah he's one of those lucky ones who can but because of anime who really cares if somebody's playing har old but
54:43
that again that's just my opinion uh I away with a little bit more because
54:48
they're college kids so they look older anyway but I think when the time comes we really have to sit down and consider
54:54
what we wanted to do yeah I just want I know my opinion doesn't give give
55:01
a hoop but uh we take our fan consideration than the perspective when we do anything you
55:08
know OB in our fan group asking our fans what they want and what they want to see but I would just like I just wanted to
55:13
share because like my uh because I was just kind of pretty bummed at the Alex R
55:18
series like over in three seasons it's like so you condense 14 bucks and didn't
55:24
even get to the the Real Enemy of the whole book I was like well that was series and I was like
55:33
uh I'm gonna finish it up but I was like okay they really should have went anime on this thing I was like because I could
55:41
it was a great show but I don't know it's I don't 14 spy to after got old
55:50
should have just went Anye I don't know that's just my opinion uh so my three
55:56
questions for you are uh who's your favorite podcaster and why and feel free
56:01
not to say me favorite podcaster do you have an answer for that one Alicia um I
56:07
love Ka and Kina of the manifestation bab podcast I've listened to F all of
56:12
hers so um it's a bit woo but I'm into that I write paranormal books M PR um
56:19
and then I've really been into James men wedmore of mind your business podcast um
56:26
so he talks about like business stuff mindset and um yeah I love both of them
56:31
I look at the name of land podcaster because I don't I I don't remember the
56:38
name but I listen to so many episodes well it's the name of the podcast oh
56:43
that's thing I don't know the name of the Pod press oh no I think we lost
56:50
Alicia we might have I think her thing might have went out oh I'm back oh yay
56:55
you're back I thought you were gone technology is evil okay I I can't
57:02
find the name of the podcast but I will tell you I really like like any girl like kind of in my age group I like
57:09
listening to like murder mystery podcast and I also really like listening
57:15
to podcasts about cults and like things like that I'm like a crime junkie so that's my thing that's probably also why
57:22
some of my ideas are so Twisted just because like I I'm really into that kind
57:27
of crime aspect of stuff so that's where I'm at with podcasting yeah my mom watches a lot of
57:35
NCIS and all the murder mysteries uh TV shows and it's like we really need to
57:41
have a you therapist talking about I had to back off on it because I think people
57:47
listen to it too much it kind of affects your mental state so I don't let myself listen to too much of it but every now
57:52
and then I will you know allow myself to listen to an episode or two I love murder mysteries as well and I
57:59
always kind of try to put some in my books uh but yeah I tried to watch
58:04
Criminal Minds and it's a great show but I started having really weird
58:10
dreams I like having I'm like I don't know if I can keep watching the
58:16
show yeah I I used to watch Criminal Minds and I I got to a point where I
58:25
could I sleep at night anymore and as like because I know from
58:32
my brain being autistic it's like a replay in your mind that goes over and
58:37
over and over again it's like oh crap it's like I I was like it's a good thing
58:43
that I can remember our lines with TV shows and movies and one I find that's cool but I was like at the same time Mak
58:50
can also depending on how gruesome the scenes are or in the book
58:57
thing I did find the name of that podcast by the way it's called leaving Eden and the host are uh s and Gabby and
59:03
I just I really like their content it's like focuses on Cults and things like that and it's very interesting to me so
59:11
I haven't listed to an episode in a while just because I've been so busy because we're producing a lot of audio books right now like I think I've
59:17
released 30 audio books this year at least but when I finally have time I'm looking to get back into it you may get
59:25
some so I it isn't isn't because I I just feel like this is what I was born to do and
59:32
this is what I do naturally and this is what I do best it's not I don't think it's difficult to do what you love I
59:38
think what's difficult is continuing to do it despite the obstacles that are in your way and my my last question for you
59:45
is where can people follow you find you where can they find your books are they all over the place so you can find me at
59:52
Megan Linsky decom and I am on Facebook as well and you can find Alicia and me
59:59
together at Hidden Legends books.com and our Facebook group is arenda Academy of magical creatures that's where all our
1:00:06
fans hang out and that's where everybody likes to like discuss fand berries and chill and you know be who they are and
1:00:14
Alicia do you want to get your website on to of that yes I am Alicia rtis author.com um as far as where you can
1:00:22
find our books we pretty much anywhere ebooks are sold anywhere our audiobooks
1:00:27
are sold and then um online you can order our print books and most bookstores can order them to the store
1:00:33
as well awesome and uh I'll leave all the stuff in the show notes uh and uh I
1:00:40
definitely look forward to read more of your books and I I literally got myself
1:00:46
into trouble with a few so few of my uh colleagues and it's like you didn't read
1:00:51
my books yet and it's like I'm stuck on reading on this series at the
1:00:57
M Meg and and Alicia it's not my fault you if you need to read this and you'll
1:01:04
understand why like I'm so addicted yeah since like I I I have like
1:01:10
a big pile up on my uh on my uh on my
1:01:16
reading app that I keep track of all my books and it's like oh some people are GNA get annoyed at me it's like why
1:01:21
haven't you read my book yet
1:01:28
it too because it's crazy thank yeah apprciate that and we really
1:01:36
appreciate you and um asking us to be on the podcast with you and sharing this
1:01:41
wonderful hour together thanks for tuning into craze of Fitness by healthy living podcast if you enjoyed this
1:01:48
episode please leave us a review your reviews help us be discovered by more people all over the world make sure you
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