Ep. 156: Jeremy Spillman on Taking Nashville Songwriting to a Novel

Kentucky born and bred, Jeremy Spillman moved to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue his dream of success as a songwriter at 24. It would be five years before he landed his first cut by a major label artist and signed a publishing deal. Since then, Jeremy has had songs recorded by Eric Church, Tim McGraw, Keith Urban, Reba McEntire, Luke Bryan and many more. Spillman lives with his wife and four sons south of Nashville, TN. He considers his role as a father the most important in his life. When he’s not writing novels and songs or recording music, Spillman is supporting his sons at football and basketball games and spending time with his family at home. Spillman’s debut novel, The DeVine Devils, was released September 24, 2019, with an accompanying soundtrack EP and full-cast audiobook. The music was written by Spillman with Nashville songwriters Randy Montana and Dean Dillon and recorded and produced by Spillman at his home studio. For more about his debut novel The DeVine Devils and the soundtrack, visit www.jeremyspillman.com.

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode 156 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. I’m recording this on December 5th, 2019 and I am thrilled that you’re here today. I am talking to the fabulous, Jeremy Spellman, and I like to try to get a little bit of a cross section of people on this show, and he is a Nashville singer-songwriter who has translated those skills to writing a novel. And I just thought it was fantastic to talk to him. He was charming and sweet, and I could listen to that accent all day long, ya’ll. So I know that you will enjoy the interview with him. Hold tight for that. 

A couple of things, just update around – what’s going on around here, I’m writing continuous pace on the thriller. It now has a working title for my publisher. Hush Little Baby. Which, I like a lot. I really do. Uh, there’ve been a couple of books titled that, but nothing huge and you can’t copyright a title. So nothing huge, nothing recent. So, Hush Little Baby, it will be HLB as I like to call it. And yesterday, I was lying in bed thinking about how I wanted to get a draft done in like a month, and you know 4,000 words a day or so on the days that I write. And then I was lying in bed, unable to sleep last night, dreading my next 4,000 word-day. I just don’t like doing 4,000 words a day. 2,000 to 3,000 is really comfortable for me. So, you know what I did?

If you’re watching on the video, you can see me holding up my calendar. Uh, I just wanted to mention, this is something I do a lot and something I teach a lot, is the art of rejiggering. When something becomes onerous, we, we, we, we jigger, we rejigger it so that it is not onerous. So that is not something to dread.

Also, I learned in teaching that a British people say rejig. Isn’t that interesting? They rejig things. We, Americans rejigger is how we say it. So I liked learning that fact. I rejiggered and I’m going to get it done by the end of January, which means I only have to do 2200 words on my writing days. And I was really honest.

When I do this, basically what I do, is I print out a blank calendar. I do not look at Google calendar, which is what I use everything else for because that’s too confusing. I print out a blank calendar and I do it on paper. I could make X’s through every day I’m not going to write, I try not to write on the weekends.

I know that I don’t write on travel days, no matter how much I tell myself I will. I have a silent retreat in January. No books, no phones, no paper. So no writing. So I will not be writing. Then I’m traveling a lot of January, so I needed to take out those days and do the math. And then once I know how many days that are actually good writing time, or I’ll get my one to three hours of writing on those days, uh, you can write whole books in just 30 minutes a day, people.

I promise that’s how I did it for a long time before I went full time. Um. Then I get- then I’ve got a new math, and I’ve got new math to hit, and it is always okay to rejigger your goals. We do it a lot, and relaxing around that and accepting the fact that things change and you’re not doing anything wrong is huge.

Speaking of not doing anything wrong, just about, oh an hour ago or so, I finished this uh, course, this semester’s course of the 90 days to done class that I teach. This was the –  I do in 90 days to done class, where you write your book in 90 days with me, and then I do a 90 days to revision class where you revise it.

This was the first one, the writing the book and the people in it. Oh, my heart. My heart is so full; I can’t explain what it is like to be the one witnessing the community coming together. It was a writing community coming together to support each other, and I cried during the call. I cried afterward when one of the people who just finished her book today, her first book today, on the last day of class, uh, when she emailed me, I just feel incredibly verklempt and overcome and again, this is a plea to you to find community where you are. I cannot write my books by myself. I mean, I actually could, and I did write my first one by myself, but I was, it was so hard. It’s so much easier to do it with community and you’re already part of this one. So, um, if you have not joined my onward writers Slack channel, do that. It’s free. You just write your goals, people talk back and forth to each other. Uh, that link is always www.howdoyouwrite.net and or on any place else, you can find that or email me if you can’t find a link to that Slack channel. 

One thing that is brand new community that I did want to mention to you is, I don’t think I’ve said this on this show, but I’m doing this thing called, Tuesday Morning Write-ins with Rachael and we just started it this last Tuesday, and it was phenomenal. Basically what it is, you can join if you’d like. It’s $49 a month, and for that price, you show up on Tuesday mornings in the United States and we write together for two hours. What happens is we show up in the zoom room, simple app to use. Um, everybody can see each other and we wave at each other, and I talk a little.

Encouraging talk to you for a few minutes and then we share with each other what we are going to be working on. And then guess what? We write for about 45 minutes. We take a little coffee break, we go brush our teeth if we need to do what we need to, and then come back and we write for another 45 minutes or so together.

And I know it sounds weird, but you can always flip over to zoom and see people with their writing faces on it. And it’s really funny. I know my writing face is ridiculous and my mouth is always moving back and forth. Of course, if you want to turn the screen off while you’re writing, you can do that, but I really encourage leaving it on because nobody’s looking at you. They’re looking at their words, unless they’re glancing at you and then you don’t feel alone. You are writing together. You’re not looking at Facebook, we already closed all that. Your phone is not within reach. It is the early morning and you’re doing your work once a week on Tuesdays together. So if you are interested in that, go to http://rachaelheron.com/tuesday. 

http://rachaelheron.com/tuesday is so cool, and what was the other thing I wanted to tell you? Oh yes, it is hella early for West coast of the United States. I neglected to say this at the very beginning. We write from 5 to 7 and the reason we write, write from 5:00 to 7:00AM is because looking at all the United States time zones, then the East coast is doing from 8 to 10 and I know that really gets in the way of things like, child running around and working. So that’s about the latest that the East coast can go. So West coast, we’re looking at 5 to 7. What that means is we have started basically hashtag smug club, because once you do your writing on Tuesdays, you wonder around the rest of your day feeling completely smug because you have done this with community.

And boy, do you sleep well that night? If you live on the West coast and haven’t gotten up at like 4:55 to get to the screen at 5, you do not need to look good. Bedhead and pajamas are encouraged. Please wear clothing of some sort. Um, it’s really great for Europeans. However, it’s about 2:00 PM for them. I believe I’ve got one or two Europeans attending, New Zealand and Australia, you are unfortunately, I know that you’re three hours behind me tomorrow. So that would be 2:00 AM for you so I don’t think we’ll ever be seeing the Southern hemisphere in this particular iteration, but it is fun. So check that out if you would like to.

I’d like to thank a couple of new Patreon subscribers. Thank you so, so much Amy Tessakata. Hi, Amy. She upped her edit, her- she edited her pledge to the $5 level at which I become mini coach for those many podcasts. Thank you, thank you, Amy. Clint White is new, as well as Johnston. Thank you again to all of you who support me on Patreon. It means I get to write the essays that I love and that I release nowhere else. The, none of these are out in the world yet they’re just on patreon and they are about living your creative life, so thank you very much for that.

So yes, I hope that your writing is getting done. You’re getting a little bit if you are not, if the holidays have you frazzled, sit down and rejigger it. Honestly, really pay attention to the voice that says, “Oh no, you are not going to write on the day that aunt Jane is coming into town” because she’s such a pain in the ass and you are going to be frazzled from the morning you open your eyes. And perhaps you’ll look at your calendar and write down those Tuesday mornings that you’ll be writing with us. Hell, I don’t even care, you don’t have to come to the zoom room. You could be writing at that time period, which is 5:00 AM Pacific standard time on your own, not in the zoom, but knowing that there are a bunch of amazing people doing the same thing at the same time. So think about that. Get some writing then, let me know how it goes. Thank you for listening and please, please enjoy Jeremy Spillman. 

[00:09:29] Hey, you’re a writer. Did you know that I send out a free weekly email of writing encouragement? Go sign up for it at http://rachaelherron.com/write and you’ll also get my stop stalling and write PDF with helpful tips you can use today to get some of your own writing done. Okay, now on to the interview.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:51] All right, well, I could not be more excited to welcome today to the show, Jeremy Spillman. Hi, Jeremy. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:09:56] Hello, how are you, Rachael?

Rachael Herron: [00:09:59] I’m good. I’m glad to talk to you and I’m looking really, I know that probably everybody says this, but I’m looking forward to your accent. Please lay it on thick. Let me give you a little bio here.

Kentucky born and bred, Jeremy’s Spillman moved to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue his dream of success as a songwriter at 24. It would be five years before he landed his first cut by a major label artist and signed a publishing deal. Since then, Jeremy has had songs recorded by Eric Church, Tim McGraw, Keith Urban, Reba McEntire, Luke Bryan, and many more. Spillman lives with his wife and four sons south of Nashville, TN. He considers his role as a father the most important in his life. When he’s not writing novels and songs or recording music, he’s supporting his sons at football and basketball games and spending time with his family at home. His debut novel, The DeVine Devils, was released just, this last September 24, 2019, with an accompanying soundtrack EP and full-cast audiobook. The music was written by Spillman with Nashville songwriters Randy Montana and Dean Dillon and recorded and produced by Spillman at his home studio. For more about his debut novel The DeVine Devils and the soundtrack, visit www.jeremyspillman.com.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:05] Welcome to the show! 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:11:07] Glad to be here.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:10] That sounds really, really cool. Especially the soundtrack. Did you approach the book writing with a soundtrack in mind or was that something that came after? 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:11:18] Um, yeah. This is a very, convoluted, it’s kind of way to tell the story. But I wanted to make a certain kind of music, so I wanted to do like cowboy rock. 

Rachael Herron: [00:11:31] Yes

Jeremy Spillman: [00:11:32] And you’re allowed to laugh.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:33] No, I’m deep into cowboy country music. I’m, I’m an old school country music kind of girl. So yeah.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:11:39] Okay. Okay. So I want to do a record, like the Eagles’ Desperado record

Rachael Herron: [00:11:43] Yes

 Jeremy Spillman: [00:11:44] or like bad company’s, bad company. And so there’s just, not much marketability for that in today’s market, you know? So, uh, I thought, well, I’m going to write this story around this record and see if I could maybe scare up some, something there. And so, so I started, uh, trying to write a story so I could make the music, but then the story kind of overtook the music…

Rachael Herron: [00:12:11] That’s so cool

 Jeremy Spillman: [00:12:12] and I ended up, yeah, the music ended up kinda – kinda more of what the book was. It’s not like a 180 from where I started musically, but it definitely, the book became bigger than the music, so the music had to fit the book. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:26] That is not what I was expecting you to say. And that is really cool and that makes me know that I’m gonna download the album too, because that sounds what I love. I’m actually in a seventies band. We play yacht rock and some of that smooth 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:12:42] How awesome! 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:43] rock of that time, so…

Jeremy Spillman: [00:12:44] What are you playing?

Rachael Herron: [00:12:45] I’m just a singer. Oh, I just show up.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:12:48] It’s not just a singer, you’re like the- you’re the star

Rachael Herron: [00:12:52] I love doing it. But yeah, in my, in my family, this is the kind of music we were raised with. So, so you’ve been a Nashville songwriter, which is, to me, kind of super, super dreamy, like that’s living a dream. Um, what, how does the writing process differ? How does it feel different? I mean, obviously, you know, a song is three minutes and a novel is however much time of your life that it took, but how else did it differ? 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:13:22] It felt like, you know, um, it felt like I was using the same muscles creatively. Um, I definitely learned I couldn’t do both things on the same day, so it took five years to write the book, and that was with a couple of, I got a cabin in the mountains by myself and like, enough food for a week and a half and literally didn’t leave. And that’s how I finished it. But, uh, you know, for a songwriter, for somebody who’s tried to condense their stories into three, three and a half minute things, it was, it was pretty liberating to be able to try to, you know, expand and expound on whatever character I was talking about. And, and, uh, I think like creativity feeds creativity. So I think writing a novel in some ways made me a better songwriter. And I think, I don’t – I don’t mean this arrogantly, but I think maybe I had a little better grasp on of a book because I’m creative. I guess, I’m saying-

Rachael Herron: [00:14:23] Absolutely.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:03] I have a little bit of grasp on the creativity. I’m not that, uh, you know, obviously everybody wants to write the great American novel. Not that I did that, but I think I had a grasp on what I needed to do. 

Rachael Herron: [00:14:36] That you are used to selling commercially something that you have born from creativity. So that you, you were already over that hurdle. You’re used to that, whereas a lot of people can’t quite blend their creativity yet with, with presenting it in the world. So you must’ve had that also on top of it. So to keep five years to, to write, um, did you know where the book was going when you were writing it, or were your kind of following it?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:03] No. What do they call that? Pancing?

Rachael Herron: [00:15:05] Pancing. A-huh.   

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:07] Uh, definitely pancing. Uh, you know, I, I had the concept, and knew broadly how I wanted it to end, but no, I did not know details. So they came as, as I was writing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:19] Did you sell it beforehand or did you write it on spec and then sell it?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:23] No, no, I self-publish. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:24] Oh, you self-publish? Well that’s even better!

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:26] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:15:27] How fascinating. I love that. I am a hybrid writer. I, traditionally and I self-publish, so no wonder you got to really make this the dream of your heart then. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:38] Well, I, you know… 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:40] Especially with the music around it, 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:41] I’ve been in a publishing deal for two decades, the song publishing deal.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:46] You understand publishing.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:15:41] Well, it is you know, it’s a different thing, but you know, you’re still selling your soul a little bit. Um, but, um, I’d never talked to a publisher; there’s a couple of, uh, published authors here in Nashville. I wrote a subpetty’s; is one that lives here, and, um, I got to talk to- kind of get there, evaluation of their workload as a published author. And then I’ve got to talk to a couple of self-published people who were doing well as self-published authors. And I thought, you know, I just want to own something. So, um, I never talked to a publisher, you know, who knows what would’ve happened. But, um, I’ve proudly self-published it. We’ll see what happens.

Rachael Herron: [00:16:35] Um, same way with myself published books. Um, the ones that I don’t even offer to my agent, uh, the covers’ gorgeous too. I just assumed you were a tad published because it’s a stunning cover and you hired a publicist who contacted me about talking to you. So that’s not the norm for indie writers.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:16:50] Well, we, I think because we live in Nashville. I have access to things like that. She’s a friend, she’s a professional publicist, but she’s a friend. And, uh, but the artist who did the cover was a lady from, uh, North Carolina, Robin Boschnik. She’s amazing like, and that was her concept. I literally,

Rachael Herron: [00:17:09] it’s really, it’s gorgeous. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:17:11] I told her, I said, I don’t want two silhouettes of cowboys on the front, like every western, like, she asked for scenes, you know, she wanted important scenes in the novel and she came up to that. Props to her.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:24] Oh, that’s awesome. I’ve written a couple of westerns and my heart belongs with the western genre, I think like I was my, I broke teeth chewing on Louis L’Amour books, you know, and I’ve read every single one, and I think I’ll always be, I’ll always love that. So what is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing? And this can be any kind of writing. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:17:47] Ah, well, I think it depends on what period I’m in. If I’m in a, you know, as a writer, uh, um, I’m not, uh, uh, even kill dude, I’m high or low, and so if I’m high, it’s, um kind of focusing myself on the task at hand. If I’m below, it’s probably self-doubt and I think that applies to the book and to songs, you know, 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:15] That’s a beautifully simple way of putting it, exactly.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:18:18] Yeah

Rachael Herron: [00:18:19] And what is your biggest joy when it comes to writing? 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:18:24] Again, I would say that that would change. I, I thought as a song writer, like, um, I always thought like having a few hits or, or whatever, getting a few accolades with, I still can say that my biggest joy is the process and, and I think that process changes. I think when I started like writing this song was the joy now. It’s more like the whole process, like recording the song and, and you know, producing the song. Anything that I get to like really big creative at, gives me joy. And, and the, you know, when something is successful, um, I’m not good at it. I’ve never been good at like feeling that, like I always don’t want to think about it. I want to think about the next thing I’m doing. And I don’t know if that’s healthy or not, but for me, it’s not healthy to look at, you know, what I’ve done or what I’ve got going on right now. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:20] Yeah 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:19:20] It’s just healthy to keep my head in the creative process. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:23] Oh, that’s awesome. That makes so much sense. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us about writing in any way?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:19:33] Uh. This is probably very elementary to somebody like you who’s written a bunch of, uh, books. But, um, when I was writing the characters in my book, I had a great editor, Alice Sullivan. She was amazing. And you know, I think, I don’t know if this is normal or not, but when she edited the book, there was, she had over like 5,000 comments. And some of them were good comments and some are bad comments. 

Rachael Herron: [00:19:58] That’s pretty normal. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:20:00] But, I was good at describing the big things, but I wasn’t good at describing the little things. If a dude popped up, you know, that had, we’ll say in a paragraph, she would say, “Hey, give me something like, tell me he’s got a handlebar mustache.” And so I think my rep, what I really learned from my editor was they have to see everything. And I know, I knew that in songwriting, like if they can’t see the song, it’s not gonna, it’s – doesn’t work. It’s being country music especially, but in the book, you know, like, I wanted to, you know, wax poetic on these big scenes, but on the little scenes I was just passing through and she’s like, “A-huh, nope.” I gotta, you know, when I turned the, the, uh, the book into her, it was 89,000 words, and after we finished the, we went with two edits, I guess, and it was over a 100,000 now.

Rachael Herron: [00:20:53] Wow. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:20:54] So, she basically had me add 11,000 words to the book, and that was all little tiny descriptive things. So that was the lesson I learned. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:03] She does sound really great. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:21:04] She is amazing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:21:06] Oh my gosh. Okay, so what thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:21:13] I think, uh, my sons and, and uh, in a, in a weird way, they, uh, uh, they make, they make me not be as selfish… that creatively, it becomes about more than me. It’s like, okay, I’m doing this so they can have a good life so they can live in a good place. And that does like, I think after you’ve done something for a while, you can lose some fire for it. You know, it’s it, it becomes old hat a little bit, but that kind of lights my fire a little bit. It’s like, okay, I’ve got these four boys, I got to get them through college, I got to do all this stuff for, that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing now. It’s not just because I want people to think, Jeremy Spillman is a brilliant writer like I did when I was, you know, in my twenties. So I think having a family has very much been positive influence on my creativity. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:10] I will ask you another question that is not on the list of questions that I sent you, but I was just looking over your bio… um, I am sober 19 months. So, um…

Jeremy Spillman: [00:22:20] Congratulations 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:22] Thank you. That’s pretty still pretty new to me. How does sobriety affect your writing and particularly now, I’m very curious about country music, because I find it sometimes, when my first year sobriety was actually hard to listen to country music because every single goddamn song was about what I wanted to drink. And you’re surrounded by that. So how, this is just, just a personal Rachael question, I want to know the answer to, how does that affect you? 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:22:46] Um, so, um, 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:48] was it 16 years, is that right?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:22:50] it’ll be, it’s gotta be 15 years. The 31st of October, yeah, 15 years. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:56] Oh my gosh. Wow.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:22:58] Yeah. I was so messed up when they put me in rehab. I didn’t know it was Halloween. I probably would’ve stayed out another day, but, uh, but, uh, you know, it was, the first year was pretty tough, creatively. Um, I did all the things, I did all of the things that you probably know about it. I really did the steps. You know, I was single when I got sober, so I didn’t date or anything for a year. I didn’t, I had an old school AA sponsor. I mean,

Rachael Herron: [00:23:28] Call me every day?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:23:30] Yes, she had staff meetings every day, you know. Um, and I’ll never forget, I had a buddy of mine who has been a good friend, um, for a long time, and he’d been sober. He’s been sober a lot longer than me, but at the time, I think he’d been sober 10 years and there was this rock band that I’d always written with down in Atlanta, and I’ve been sober six months. And so they called my publisher in there, said, “Hey, uh, can ya’ll send Jeremy down to Atlanta next weekend? Uh, we got a bus, like we want to write with Jeremy.” And so I freaked out. I’m like, Oh my God. Like, you know, it was a good opportunity, but I didn’t know if I could do it cause I’d always, that was party central. And, um, and so I called this friend of mine who’s in the business and had been sober for a while and, and I really wanted him to go, man, you can’t do that. You’d know, better than that. And so I told him the situation and he said, um. Uh, I said, what do you think I need to do? He said, I think you need to get your ass to Atlanta. And I said, what? And he goes, dude, do you want to be a songwriter? And I’m like. Yeah. And he said, well, then you’re going to have to learn to, to handle this. Like, you know, if you can’t be around alcohol, how are you going to be in the music business? So I made peace with that pretty early. Like, and I still, I mean, I was out on the bus a month ago, you know, for four days with a band and a lot of drinking’s, some drugs. I mean, I just, they know I don’t do it, and, and It’s not a problem. Like it’s, I’ve just learned to, um… if it gets too weird, I’d crawl in my bunk, you know what I mean, pull the curtain. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:18] There’s an old timer in my group who always says, if the day gets bad enough, just go to bed. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:25:24] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:25] Go sleep and you’ll wake up and it’ll be tomorrow.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:25:27] A 100%. And creatively, I think about, we’re about a year I learned to write again, but it took me a year, because I pulled from that, you know, that ball attention that, you know, cause you’re screwing up everything and man, there’s a lot of energy there. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:46] Sure is

Jeremy Spillman: [00:25:48] Good creative juices flowing there. But I think I had to learn to pull from life. I think I had to learn to just use my brain instead of, you know, uh, being in some ways I think it was cowardly, like a, I was creating tension and drama and things just so I could be creative and I had to like actually stand up and, you know, try to be a good man and, and write from life as opposed to, you know, screwing up everybody else’s life to try to have something to write about. But, um, yeah, I think, I think for a year creatively it was really tough because I had to learn a new way to- I knew I had to go to a new will to draw. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:36] I really liked how you say that. Yeah. Um, 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:26:38] But congrats on 19 months. That’s a big deal.

Rachael Herron: [00:26:40] Thank you. The thing that keeps flooring me is, is how strong my brain is now. I really thought I was losing it. Like I just, I thought I was getting dumb and I was getting dumb. I was literally killing brain cells and the way that they’ve come back and the way I’m able to write with so much more clarity and precision and energy, 19 months later, still astonishing to me. So it’s pretty exciting. That’s one of the reasons I wanted you on the show.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:27:07] and it just keeps getting, your brain will keep getting better. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:09] It’s amazing

Jeremy Spillman: [00:27:11] It really does. 

Rachael Herron: [00:27:13] It’s so great. It’s like one of the biggest, biggest benefits, and there’s basically nothing but benefits in my life about it itself. Um, what is the best book you’ve read recently, and why’d you love it? 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:27:25] I saw where you’re going to ask me this question, I’m nervous to answer, but, but um, I’m gonna say, Oh, I always hate rooting for the big dog, but where the crowded sayings, is just blowing my mind like her, that the writing in that book is so, like, the story’s amazing to not taken away from the story, but just her use of language just, I mean, I’m just, I’m flabbergasted at how good it is.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:48] I’m glad you said it because I own it and I started a chapter and maybe I was in a bad mood I didn’t get past the first chapter and everybody says it’s a sublime, so I’m going to keep going. Just pick it up and start it over again. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:28:02] I hate rooting for the big dog and like, and when something’s got so much hype, I just naturally go, uh-uh. But it really, it’s worth it. Like she is, she’s really brilliant and noble.

Rachael Herron: [00:28:13] I look forward to sending you an email saying you were right, that, that’ll be great. All right. What would you like to tell us about now? Would you please tell us about the book a little bit about what it’s about, where people can find it? A little bit about the music, I love all of that.

Jeremy Spillman: [00:28:27] Um, so you can go anywhere, books are sold online, you can go find it. And, uh, um, you can go to my website, www.jeremyspillman.com if you for some reason would want a signed copy and buy one there. Um. And the soundtrack is on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, all those things. Uh, you don’t have to download it, you can just stream it. So whatever, whatever- 

Rachael Herron: [00:28:50] if I like something like, I usually stream it on Spotify first, but if I’m going to play it a lot on Spotify, I always buy it. I’m old school like that. And then you can stream on Spotify with that. Yeah, exactly. And then I can stream on Spotify to my heart’s content. I never feel guilty; you know? Yeah. 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:29:06] But the, the music was, I did it. I’m the band except the fiddle and the vocals. And so we did it here in my home studio right here where you’re interviewing me. And, uh, uh, uh, Ross Holmes is the fiddle player. He plays for a band Cobnitty Gritty Dark band.

Rachael Herron: [00:29:23] Oh, never heard of that one

Jeremy Spillman: [00:29:26] Yeah, and he, uh, and then Randy Montana is the vocal, the lead vocalist, and Ken Johnson’s background vocalist. And both of those guys are humongous songwriters. Randy was an artist for a little while, you could, you could find some stuff online about him, but, um, yeah, we just had a lot of fun. Like, it was fun for us as songwriters, because we got to kind of get out of maybe the, the commercial, the commercial lanes are very narrow as far as music goes. So we get to kind of get outside of that. But I’m working on the audio book now, which is full cast, has music, sound effects, and it’s, it’s read by, it’s narrated by my hero. This, this name probably won’t mean anything to you unless your huge country music buff, but a Dane Dylan. So Dane, is a hall of fame songwriter, he wrote all the George straight hits and a ton of other things, but they narrate it. And uh, uh, yeah, it’s very, I hope it works. It’s what I wanted. It’s very Southern. It’s very swanky. It’s like, you know, there’s music coming and going. It’s, it’s, I think it’s a very original audio book in the way it’s done, but that won’t be done till, I’m hoping we get it out the middle of November. 

Rachael Herron: [00:30:45] Oh, that’s so cool. That is so cool. I’m so glad that you are on the show today. Can I ask you the dumbest question?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:31:51] Sure

Rachael Herron: [00:30:52] That you may really roll your eyes and fall out of your chair. But, um, do, do people in Nashville or, or people like you, did you watch the show Nashville when it was on?

Jeremy Spillman: [00:31:02] I did. Now, some people do, some people do.

Rachael Herron: [00:31:08] I only watched the first two or three seasons, and then I jumped to Shark. But I loved it and I, I’ve got it. I’m going to Nashville next year for a conference in 2020, and I’m going to go to the Bluebird, and 

Jeremy Spillman: [00:31:20] I think; I think it was probably a good show. I had a song that was the, uh, on one of their commercials, I had a song that they used of mine on that I wrote with a band called Little Big Town that was, they use for their promo for a while. But, um, 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:36] Wow!

Jeremy Spillman: [00:31:37] But I think watching Nashville for a guy like me, it’s like, it’s almost like if you, if your job’s picking strawberries, you don’t want to come home and eat strawberries. You know, it was a little bit like that to me, but I’m sure it was a good show. I did not watch it because of quality or anything and just, 

Rachael Herron: [00:31:54] There was a 911 show also with Connie Britton actually, who was in Nashville and I can’t, I did 911 for years and I cannot, no, I do not want to watch that. So same thing. Yeah. Well, you’re a delight. Thank you so much for talking to us today and I’m happy writing. I’m going to run right out right now and grab the soundtrack so,

Jeremy Spillman: [00:32:12] Awesome. Thank you very much. 

Rachael Herron: [00:32:14] Thanks, Jeremy. Will talk to you soon. Bye. 

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, https://twitter.com/RachaelHerron or at my website, http://rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at https://www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers http://rachaelherron.com/write. Now, go to your desk and create your own process. Get to writing my friends.