Inside Killeen
Inside Killeen is a podcast about news, events and politics in the Killeen-Fort Hood area. A production of KDH News, the podcast is recorded weekly from the Newsroom of the Killeen Daily Herald. Read more about the articles we talk about at kdhnews.com. Email us at news@kdhnews.com.
Inside Killeen
Local Killeen Author Marks Texas Writers Month
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Tyrone Holcomb, a local author of spiritual books, joins Inside Killeen hosts Kevin Limiti, Daelen Cheh and Hamida Botchway to talk about what it means to write creatively and publish for others.
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SPEAKER_02Hi everyone. Welcome to the Inside Clean Podcast from KDH News. I'm Kevin Liberty. I'm joined by Dalen Che. How y'all doing? And Hamita Botchwein.
SPEAKER_01Hi.
SPEAKER_02And we have a special guest today, Tyrone Holcomb. How are you doing, Tyrone?
SPEAKER_05I'm great, Kevin, and yourself?
SPEAKER_02Uh, you know, I'm just living the dream. Yes. So today we decided to mark the month of May, which is Texas Writers Month. And I think it's pretty safe to say that there's a lot of creativity and hard work that comes into producing any form of writing, whether it's a it's short form pieces, like it could be journalistic, it could be like nonfiction, it could be fiction. In your case, Tyrone, it's mainly spirituality-based.
SPEAKER_05Correct. That's correct. I write books that are inspirational, that they derive from the Bible to encourage people in their everyday lives.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I I know that Hamida also has been working on a screenplay. Is that true?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I think it's pretty safe to safe to say that we've all kind of like in some form or another been involved in writing. I myself am trying to publish a novel for the first time as a self-published author. And it's been really interesting to try to navigate through that process. But maybe, Tyron, you could talk a little bit about how you go through your process and what is special about the way you approach writing.
SPEAKER_05Sure. Well, let me say, Kevin, first and foremost, when it comes to me, it's not as difficult a process as it may be for someone else, because I'm a preacher. And the thing about a preacher is we got to come up with a sermon every week. So a sermon is nothing more than a chapter. So for me, I literally think about what it is I want to write and then who it is that I'm writing to, my audience. Once I ponder what it is I'm looking to write and who I'm looking to write it to, then my mind goes to, of all things, the table of contents. So I'll come up with my title of my book. And it does not have to stay with the title I came up with. That's just to get me in the right direction of my thoughts. But the table of contents, for me, Kevin, is pretty much like setting the table of a meal. Because when people pick a book up, the first thing they look at is the cover, right? And then they may go to the back of the cover and read pretty much a summary or a synopsis about the book. But immediately after that, they'll thumb through that table of contents to see what those chapters are going to be about. So I pretty much take the bulk of the beginning process, just rolling around and playing around with my table of content. And once I get down the titles of each chapter and what that table of contents does for me, it serves as a GPS. What do I mean by that? Well, it tells me, you know, where I'm going in each chapter, and I'm able to not bleed into other chapters. So let's just take, for example, if I'm going to write about what the Bible speaks of, the fruit of the Spirit, which is found in the book of Galatians. There are nine fruits of the spirit. So in the first chapter, I'm going to write about love. And in the second chapter, I'll write about peace. And then I'll write about joy. So why do I mention that? Well, in the first chapter, I won't delve too much into the topic that I'll be discussing in the third chapter. So my table of contents, it's a map. It allows me to, in my mind, say, I'll talk about this subject way down in chapter 12. So I won't allow my mind to just roam in the first chapter or expend all of my thoughts and allow it to just go broad. I'll keep it narrow.
SPEAKER_02It sounds like you use uh some form of like an outline that when you're planning your books.
SPEAKER_05Yes, yes. So when I let's say, like you just said, and that was my next step, Kevin. After I do my table of contents, now in each chapter, I create an outline. And for me, my outline in that chapter usually is no more than three points that I want to make in each chapter. And each point will have an illustration or a sub point that I'm trying to make within that point. So, yes, I certainly have an outline that I create.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and not all writers do that. Some writers prefer to kind of just write and whatever comes out, comes out. I've heard people refer to that as like panthers. In other words, you're writing by the CD or pants. I actually hate that term.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02I I think it's just like, it's just for for a group of writers to come up with a term like that to describe something so common, it seems so ridiculous.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. And for me, Kevin, what it allows me to do is I can start on a chapter and I don't have to stay there all day because I'm gonna get that first point off, and then I can go and be a husband and be a father and go be a minister and go do what I need to do. And then I'll come back the next day and pick right up where I left off into the second point. And so the way that I do it, not handicapped or handcuffed to my laptop. I have that liberty to just get those thoughts for that moment out and then walk away and come back.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. My next question for you would be is what was your why to writing about Christianity?
SPEAKER_05Well, because God, first and foremost, God is real. The greatest discovery that I've ever made in my life is that God is real. Once I made that discovery, then I had to make the greatest decision. And that greatest decision was to follow him. Because everybody who says that they discovered God don't necessarily follow him. When I followed him, it it changed the trajectory of my life. I became a better husband, a better father, a better co-worker, better person in the community. So now, having said all of that, then I needed to develop who I was. And I was only able to do that by reading books, by reading books that inspired me and that encouraged me. And little did I know that old adage, you are what you eat, is true. The more I read, then all of a sudden I became a writer myself. And what I received from those books, the inspiration I received from those books, I then wanted to give that back to someone else.
SPEAKER_04Yes, sir. And to go to your audience, who's your audience exactly?
SPEAKER_05My audience, quite frankly, is the world at large. Anybody who's desiring to do better, to live better, but uh more succinctly, you would think it would be uh those who follow God, because my books take you back to the Bible, to the scriptures. And so those who follow God may be more prone to understand the accounts that I'm speaking of. And so people who are followers of Christ, they probably would be more succinct if we were to really fine-tune my audience. But I don't keep it just for the church or just for the follower of God. I'm looking for anybody and everybody who desires to just do better in life because the books that I write, they're to encourage and they're they are to inspire.
SPEAKER_04So they're encouragement, but what about non-followers are able to get that encouragement, but unbelievable?
SPEAKER_05Yes. So let's let's take for instance. I started off writing books on marriage. I have four books that I've written on marriage. Marriage Matters, Marriage Matters, Volume 2, then marriage medicine, and finally marriage maintenance. So if you're married, you could pick up my book and don't even know the Bible, but you could pick my book up and you'll receive a lot of principles to live by that will help you in your marriage. But then, marriage aside, I did not want to be pigeonholed, if you would. I did not want to become typecast as the writer who only talks about marriage. And so I broadened my scope. And the very first book I wrote after that was More for Less. How to receive God's more for your less. What do I mean by that? Well, I used the play-on words and back to my table of contents. I said, what are different words that has the suffix less in it? Hope less, aim less, help less, job less. And so I was talking to the people who felt hopeless. And I said, if you look to God, you can be you can receive hope. So he's the more, he's the hope for your hopelessness. He's the help you really need for your helplessness. So a person who does not follow God, they can follow along in my books. And hopefully, through my writings, they'll find God. But if they don't find God, they'll still find answers.
SPEAKER_01Go ahead. No, I'm just saying, I think that's nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh how do you publish? Do you have a publisher or do you self-publish? Like, how do you go about that?
SPEAKER_05Currently, self-publish. I have my own publishing company now. I I don't tell everybody that because I know once I release that information like I just did, then I'm gonna get hordes of people who want me to publish their books, and I just don't have the time and the manpower to service everybody who would come to me. So what I typically do is those people who find out that I have a publishing company, they'll reach out to me and I'll go ahead and look at their books. And if it coincides with the vision that I have, then I'll publish those books. But I started off, Kevin, going to a publishing company. And what did I do to do that? I went to Barnes Noble and I looked on the back of books, and I read the different publishing companies that were on the back of those books. So I found like seven different publishing companies, and I wrote them letters and I sent out my manuscript. And I got one rejection after another rejection after a third and fourth rejection. But I was so encouraged for one particular reason. Every letter of rejection I received, all they were conveying was, we're not looking for new authors right now. Nobody rejected the manuscript. Nobody said we read your book and don't like it. Then finally, I received a letter from a particular publishing company, and they started the letter off with, We read your book. And I perked up because now I'm paying attention to what's the results. And they said we loved it, we would love to publish it. And so for people who are looking for a publishing company, that's a method I used. I went to a bookstore and I wrote the different publishing companies on the back of those books and just waited for the responses. That first publishing company, it was very expensive. Oh, it was very expensive. And I was with that publishing company for nine years and paying the money that they were wanting me to pay. And then one day I decided I'm gonna go to a self-publishing company, like you mentioned, Kevin. But then I heard the voice of God inwardly say, rather than going to a self-publishing company, publish self. And I'm like, publish self. What do you mean by that? And then it all fell into place because someone reached out to me based upon reading my books and said that they felt uh a push to come and aid and assist me in that way. And we've been running ever since. The name of my publishing company is God Israel Publishing. And so I publish myself now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, self-publishing used to have a pretty like bad reputation, but like nowadays it's like become like a way to sort of get around the gatekeeper, so to speak. That's right. You know, and and just speaking personally, like, like, and pretty sure there's some overlap with your experience as well. Like when I was trying to publish my first novel, I went through like I tried to like sell to like literary agents, you know, they would kind of go to the published and be like, here's like, here's this book we think is great, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, I never got any traction there. And because of that, because I never got traction there, I just gave up. And the reason why I gave up is because my thoughts on what self-publishing could be useful for as a form of getting my art out to people who'd be willing to read it was completely skewed by what I had heard about what self-publishing actually was, you know. But nowadays, people who want to make a living as an offer or writer, they will self-publish and they'll do very well.
SPEAKER_05It's actually better to go that way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, like, I think that if you publish on like KDP, which is like Amazon's like Kindle publishing like platform, like you can keep like, I think, like between 50 or 70% of uh of sales. So it's actually, it's really actually not a bad, like if you can somehow make it work, it's actually not like it's it's not like an issue. It's it's actually a viable way to to make to get the book out, yeah.
SPEAKER_05If you have an if you have an audience already, then you don't even have to go through those vehicles like Amazon or Kindle. You can just go ahead and go to a self-publishing company, get the book printed, and then advertise your own book. Because even when you go to these companies, they'll make you all sorts of promises, like we'll put you on our website, we'll advertise you in our monthly, quarterly magazine, yada, yada, yada. But what they can't promise you is that the people are gonna purchase it, right? And and with these big companies, what motivates them is if you come to them and you have one or two things, name or numbers. And what do I mean by that? Name, they want to know, are you famous? Because if you're famous, they'll write the book for you. They just want you to put your name on it, right? Because they know that the audience is going to pick the book up because of your name. Or what I just mentioned earlier, the numbers. If you have an audience. So if you're on social media and let's say you are having like 500 to a thousand more followers, and and to a larger degree, they're looking for hundreds of thousands of followers before they'll really back up your project. So it's best to just do what you said, Kevin. Go to the self-publishing route. But you can, if you have a website, create your own website. And like what you guys are doing here with your podcast, you talk about certain subjects and say, hey, you can just go to the link and look at my book and so forth and so on. So, what really promotes the book is you, the author.
SPEAKER_04You have your own podcast, correct? Correct. So, did you start that podcast to promote your books? Not at all. Or is that a new outlet of spread the word?
SPEAKER_05I never even had books in mind when I started my podcast. Again, like the books, I started my podcast just to be an extension of my ministry, which was just to encourage people, to keep people, uh, minds in a positive lane, to keep people moving forward in life and not giving up. So that's why I started my podcast. But then as I write my books, then there are times that I'll advertise the book on the podcast. Where I get the bulk of my sales is if I do a conference, if I'm at a church service or something to that effect, because if they hear me, they get excited about what they just heard. Then I can say, come to the table. And then they come to the table and grab what they just heard. So that's for me the most effective way is people hearing me, seeing me in person. And then they want to take something home that they just experienced.
SPEAKER_02Do you uh do any like autograph signings at like the conferences? All the time. All the time.
SPEAKER_05And not only do I do autograph signings at the conferences, but whenever somebody orders my book off of my website, and I don't care if it's a hundred books, my wife will tell you, I literally sign and send the hundred books off to people.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's nice.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I feel like that special touch makes the difference. You know, that, you know, we don't always have the author of a book who can sign something to us. Not only that is what a lot of people are surprised by, is I'm a pastor, I'm a leader here in the community, I'm an author, a father and a husband. And if you purchase my book here locally, I'll bring it to your house personally. And people don't know that. But and I don't make that advertisement. I don't tell them, I just tell them, you'll get your book. And then some of them will look out the window and say, What's that Tyrone who dropped the book off? And my wife used to say to me, Why don't you just mail a book? And I say, No, I want to give them that personal touch. If they ordered the book, if they spent their hard-earned dollars, then I want to get the book to them as fast as possible. And what sells the next book is the book. If the book is good, it sells itself. And then it's word of mouth. They'll go and get more books for family members, co-workers, and so forth.
SPEAKER_02What do you think about the City of Killeen's writing community, like on a on a whole? I mean, I imagine it must be, must be pretty small. But and yet I have seen a couple of like bookstores like open up, like for instance, although it's I I should be clear, it's focused purely on the romance genre, but there was a downtown bookstore that recently opened up. Do you know do you remember what the name of it was, Hamida?
SPEAKER_01Oh no, I forgot, but I do know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, it's it's right there in downtown Kaleen, and it looked it looks like a relatively like small place. But but anyways, do you think like that that Kaleen has a strong set of like writers that populate the city? Or do you think it's something that maybe needs to be encouraged?
SPEAKER_05Honestly, I don't know the writing community of Kaleen. And so maybe the answer to that is it could be stronger for people like myself who don't know they exist and don't hear their voice. So I would say it could be stronger, but we don't have a lot of brick and mortar stores like you were just saying, where people can ask to get their books on the shelves. They closed a lot of those down and pretty much left us to our own devices. What we just was talking about, opening up your own online store. And that's not difficult to do. There's a company, y'all probably heard of it, but Wix, I believe it's it's called. Oh, yeah, yeah. And you can create your online store and and and website on Wix for free. Now it's not charges now. They charge now? Wow, that's a shame because that was a great start for me. But I'm sure it's not expensive. I think there's still a free version.
SPEAKER_04It's like go to now with a lot of businesses. I know I couldn't. I was starting one myself for my mother's business as time went on. Right. It was at a good price, but because everyone was on a you know, demand.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, supply and demand. All of a sudden, they started filling themselves.
SPEAKER_04Yes, sir. Especially when she was a little, she's an established business as well.
SPEAKER_05Right. Well, you know, I would say this. Hopefully, there are still some websites, I mean, excuse me, companies out there that will allow you to create websites for free. You just have to be diligent enough to search for them. But like anything, Wix, like we just said, because of brand and they become known, then they felt we can charge. But I'm sure there are some companies out there that, if not free, very inexpensive. You just have to, you know, do the research.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, WordPress, I'm pretty sure it's free. But if you want to get like a domain in like Tyrone Holcomb.com or something, like you have to like, you have to pay it. But yeah, actually.
SPEAKER_05And you gotta go to GoDaddy as well for those.
SPEAKER_02No, no, I think they actually do it like right on the WordPress. I recently did it for my side. And uh so I was kind of I was kind of happy how smooth that went. But yeah, it would be nice if there was like a writer's workshop or something in Kolean, like someplace where writers can gather and read each other's work. I I used to participate in some of that when I was in New York, and you know, I have and like, you know, it sometimes it could be hit or miss, but like but for for the most part, I think if people really want to improve their craft, I think that it would be nice to have something like that at the library or at Starbucks or whatever.
SPEAKER_05Right. All it takes is the right person. I know that I could offer a lot of advice, but then it's like the time that it would take. But all it takes is to go online with a podcast and just make the announcement that, you know, whosoever would like to be a part of this community, yeah, you know, let's go ahead and go step one, step two. Now, I do that for people on an individual basis. They'll reach out to me like you're doing now and ask me, what is your process? And I'll give them the way that I go about it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, maybe somebody listening to this podcast will be inspired to do that. That'd be that'd be really great. Uh Himita, I did want to ask you if you would talk about your screenplay a little bit, just like how you went about writing it, and maybe if you could tell us a little bit about it.
SPEAKER_01So I'm currently working on a script. It's called Hypnagogic. I can read the log line for you guys.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure, go for it.
SPEAKER_01So it's carefree summer getaway among friends at a remote cabin slowly unravels as a fragmented as fragmented memories, subtle distortion in reality, and the footage they've captured reveal the truth. None of them seem to remember. So I can't say too many spoilers, but we're still in the writing stage, and we have most of this grip down, but our process, I don't know. I feel like it's kind of different from I guess regular processes. We start with the characters and develop their personalities first, and then we go from there and kind of do a bit of role-playing on how they would react to real world situations, and then we throw them into the plot of the story and then go from there.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, that sounds like some sort of like if if we were to compare it to to literature, like a very character-driven uh literary story. Um, you know, sometimes sometimes the development of characters is more important than the plot itself. I think a lot of people believe that, although it's not always the most popular style of writing out there, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Our story is definitely character-driven.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, well, for me, I mean, I'm just trying, I mean, like I said, when I was telling you before, Tyrone, like I had like these novels that I thought maybe I could forward just dead because nobody would pick them up. But now all of a sudden I feel realize I realize, wow, I could actually publish it and people either will like it or not. Right. You know, and I'll leave it up to them to decide kind of thing.
SPEAKER_05I mean, let me ask you this, Kevin. Why are you writing?
SPEAKER_02Well, that's actually a very good question. When I was into it.
SPEAKER_04Into that question.
SPEAKER_02When I was a kid, I started writing. I always wanted to be an author, even before I wanted to be a journalist. Right. But you know, it's always been sort of like something that people consider to be like a Python stuff. But then, but recently, like putting aside like all the stuff that has to do with marketing, all the stuff that has to do with selling your book and getting, or even people liking the book, I've realized that there's something about creating art for art's sake that is extremely important for humanity. Certainly. You know, and I just don't, and I just feel like even if nothing like happens, and and you know, I would be okay doing journalism for the rest of my life because I see it as a public service at rather than simply just like a a vocation or a career. So I could do the journalism and then write. And if if like a handful of people see it and like it, then maybe that's enough.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. For for me, Kevin, the passion for writing has always been there and remains there for me. And so I write what you just said to create. I write to create. And I'm a successful author. I'm a successful author, and I say that sincerely with all humility, not because I sell thousands of books. I'm a successful author if I never sold a book. Because the author is to create the book. And for me, it's like if I have a child. If I have a child, then I'm a success in the sense that I procreated. Now, where the child goes and how the child develops, sure, I want it to be the best, right? But if I can just procreate and add to the community or to the society, so I say that to you all as it relates to your work. Don't let your work, the value of it, be determined by whether people want it or not, because so many inventors started off being criticized, right? Started off being told they could they could never do or no one would never like, but that didn't stop them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I like what you said about success there too, because people like I think Americans are particularly guilty of this, but we like to measure success by how many things were sold, how many people certainly how much money did you make. But you know, I mean, if if you're we're we're on this earth for a very short amount of time, so I think that like that placing placing value on something based on how much it sells is probably not the right way to go about it. Right. You know this would make this what makes you a doctor in the in the literary world, this is what makes you a doctor.
SPEAKER_05If you have an associate, it just means that we furthered our education, higher learning. And if you go into the field or the realm of your bachelor's, it means that you've read your particular field. But if you move from bachelor's to your master's, your master's mean you know how to research. So now not only are you one of higher learning at the associates and one who has well read. And remember, if you're gonna write books or do plays, you have to partake of them. But then you know how to research the materials and the resources, right? But then finally, what makes you a doctor of that particular field in this particular field that we're talking about, authoring, what makes you a doctor is you write a book, a dissertation, you've added to the field. So for a person like myself, who's written 11 books, you know, and then ghostwritten eight additional books, and then still write. I'm I'm currently right now writing two books at the same time. That's what I get my joy from. And I'm able to continue to add to it. And I don't wait for the results. I have the reason. I do it for the reason, I don't do it for the results. Now I'm thankful that when people read the book, they tell me, Tyrone, this book helped me. Man, I gotta get my family members, my coworkers to get this book. So those results, you know, don't get me wrong. I appreciate knowing that the books are good, but it's the reason that fuels my tank. And that's why I asked you, Kevin, and I say to you all, why are you doing it? Because if you're doing it for the results, then you're really gonna stifle your growth because everybody's not gonna bust out of a cannon and just go, you know, light years as soon as they come out. It's baby steps.
SPEAKER_01I know part of my why is I write scripts because I write what I want to see on TV. So I like to see colorful, fun things on TV. Yes. We don't really see that anymore.
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_01And I want to be the director that's putting fun things out, vibrant, non-dole stuff.
SPEAKER_05And yeah, that's what I and you know there's a lot of people in your lane. And what do I mean by that? They feel the way you feel. What happened to the colorful, fun stuff?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And so you having that desire and that passion, it's gonna fill that void. There are people who still thirst and hunger after that. It's your community. They're waiting for you to put it out.
SPEAKER_04I know I'm a little different when it comes to writing. I haven't decided to pursue that path just yet. Right now I'm still doing journalism, but I know in my writing, my lied to it, it was well, really, it's still the same way. Back when 2022 junior year, I'm like, it's just too much fiction in the world. It's not enough real going on. I'm like, things are too characterized for lack of better words. And I really focused on using poetry, description to really talk about what was really going on in the world. Now I see myself in that lane where now when I'm writing in my downtime, it's really focused on the history of why everything is the way it is. But so I know it's a hot take. I always talk about it with some of my friends. I'm like, we really can't talk about the history if we're not mentioning the Bible because there's been evidence, and I do my research on it too, and I know it's a it's a big hot take. Yes. But when I talk about it with them and I show them the scriptures and I show them the history books, I'm like, it goes together. It makes sense. Yes. So I really think that why, for my why in writing, it's really to just show that true picture of why things are the way they are.
SPEAKER_05Again, fill in that lane. Yes, sir. You have an audience waiting to hear it, to read it. And so it's incumbent upon us to provide it and not stifle ourselves caught up with where would this go? And we don't really have an excuse nowadays. It used you used the term, I think it was gatekeepers, Kevin. We had to go through the gatekeepers years ago.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05You don't have that now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, like so much of like traditional publishing, where like you you either most of the time you pitch to a literary agent who then takes it over from there is based around like markets and like trying to appeal to markets. But but you know, I mean, I'm sure that a lot of people might try to have some sort of success chasing the markets about what like will sell the best at any given point. But I I've always kind of considered that to be sort of meaningless, like for me personally, because you know, I want to write what I want to write. Right. I ha I have something that I want to say either about myself or about the world around me, and that's one why I do what I do, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_05Yes, most definitely. You know, one of the things I caution people, let me, while I'm thinking about it in terms of authors, new authors, one of the things I caution new authors with is writing the book about yourself. And a lot of times, because writing can be therapeutic, people want to write a journal and they think everybody else is interested in them. But what people really are interested in is you encouraging them and not taking them into a dark place or a dark space of where you may be.
SPEAKER_04People love what they can relate to.
SPEAKER_05Exactly. I I remember a family member of mine, who's actually a cousin, and I'm gonna give her a shout-out, Tamika. And Tamika said to me years ago, this was this before I read, ever read or wrote my first book. I was just writing poetry. And I used to write my poetry based upon how I felt and what I was experiencing. And then one day she said, Tyrone, your poems are so morbid. And I said, Well, that's what I'm going through. That's what I feel. And she said, Well, I'm not reading your poems to know how you feel. I want to read your poetry so you can make me feel better. And then she said, This is why Hallmark is a billion-dollar business. It's because they write the words and they write the expressions and the feelings that we want to say, but we can't. Yes. And I walked away from that experience and that conversation with her. And I'm talking about that moment on from the poetry to my books. My focus became how can I encourage the next person? Now, that's not to say that if you're an author and you want to write your story, that you can't, but write your story in such a way that you keep your audience in mind and you're writing your story to encourage them and not just writing your story to take them through the corners, the crevices, and the cracks of your own life, and then you leave them in them dark places.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but what you said about uh readers like saying telling you that your poetry is more of, and I can kind of relate to that. They be they read what I wrote and be like, oh, this is very depressing.
SPEAKER_05Yes, yes, yes. And and and now it becomes like, my goodness, how do I get out of this? You didn't took me into this vacuum, into this abyss. How do I escape? So for me, that's why I said to y'all in the beginning, I look to inspire and I look to encourage. And that's what people are looking for when they go to the movies. They want to make believe. Now, I'm like you, my brother. I want reality. You know, when I go, I want true grit. You know, I don't want the hero to always win in the end. I'm like, no, come up short. But my wife, she's the opposite. She says, oh no, I got reality in my reality. She says, at the end of the movie, I want the hero to win. You know, so I can appreciate that mindset. But for me, it's like, no, give me something hard, give me something real. But for the uh for the bulk of our society, they're looking to laugh. That's why TikTok and all these other social media platforms became so famous so fast because people, they're looking for something to take the edge off. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01An escape from reality.
SPEAKER_05An escape from their reality, take them somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01I'm writing, I write as an escape from reality.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Yeah, that's you know what I use as a bookmark, everything I do is deliberate. I have bookmarks. You probably will never guess what I use as my bookmarks in my books. I literally use my airline tickets. So I save all of my airline tickets, and now we're in a digital age, but I still demand, I want a paper airline ticket when I go to the ticket counter. And why do I do that? Why do I use airline tickets for my bookmarks? Because when I open the book, I'm traveling. I'm escaping, I'm going somewhere. And I remind myself of that when I check into that book with my airline ticket.
SPEAKER_02Well, I heard something like that. Like, markets tend to favor depressing fiction when things are particularly going well, and the opposite when things are going bad. And I guess that kind of makes sense because like I mean, you know, as a journalist, and and I'm sure we all relate to this on some level, but like, like I'm invested in like the 24-hour news cycle, even though as a reporter for KDH News, I mostly just cover City Hall and politics and stuff. But but as someone like stuck in that like news cycle, like I have to, uh it's it can be very exhausting like at a certain point. And you just want to kick your feet up and watch one piece.
SPEAKER_05Because what we all need is balance. Too much of anything, y'all know this, is never good. So if you got all the politics and all that, it's like, well, give me some entertainment, you know, give me some sports, because we need balance, whether it's in our diet, balance in our intake, you know, just a balanced life and our finances, you know, you can't be just a spender and never a saver. You can't just be all saving and never spending. You just need a balance. And so that's what we're talking about as it relates to what you were just saying, Kevin. If if for the for the most part, if society is in a depressive state, then they're looking for some comedy. But if everything around you is comedy, you won't mind a little tragedy. It's just that balance.
SPEAKER_01That's why writers, creatives, art in general is just so important in society, in the world.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02Because without it, it's just yeah, art is one of the things that makes uh life worth living, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_04Most definitely. To go to a little bit back to that reality. I get why we all talk about that escape from reality, especially if something's morbid. But I think that really goes into my why. I'm like, well, why is it this way? Why was why is the writer feeling like this? Which is why I'm still waiting to become an author myself. Because right now, at the age of 21 years old, I know when I'm writing off my emotions is coming from a place of bias. And I've lived here in Texas for way too long. Whereas some of the great authors like Carl Thuring, hopefully I'm not saying the name wrong, Michelle Dunier, reading her book Ghetto. She, I know she traveled around the world to get the information she got and why that word ghetto has the impact it has in the history of it. That's a little bit of why I want to write the way I want to write and really talk about the real, the real of what's going on. Right. Because I just don't want to say it all in just one broad manner.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_04I want to talk about it one by one by one, just how you do what your encouragement books. Right. You're breaking it all down.
SPEAKER_05Right. Certainly. Certainly. To look behind, you know, meanings and to go into the details and to fine-tune and define what people are looking at. So what you're saying is just don't take it at face value, but let's discover origins. Let's let's discover how we got here.
SPEAKER_04Especially that's why we think the way we think. Especially that origin of escaping from reality. That's always been interesting to me. Right. Why is that escape from reality just so important? Where is that psychological mindset that we see all over the world?
SPEAKER_05Well, I can speak to it to this degree when you say the why do we want to escape from reality? For the most part, people are just fatigued. They have angst and anxiety. And so they are always in a world of worry. And at some point they need an outlet. That's with shopping malls, they took on the term outlet, the outlet stores. It was to give people an outlet so that they can release the tension. And so when you ask, well, what is that what is that derive from? People want to escape reality. It's not so much that they want to escape it in a sense, not face reality, but they're facing it all the time. And at some point, if you don't explode, you will certainly implode. Imploding is worse because people don't see it. You know, there's a crumbling, a crushing of your hopes, your dreams from the inside. And by the time people see it, it can be detrimental. This is when you got folks walking into, you know, stores and schools, and all of a sudden, it's like, what caused that person? You never would have thought that person would do that. Well, they needed to be able to escape whatever the reality was that they were facing. So that's for the most part how I see it is people wanting to escape just to take a commercial break, if you would, but not face. They don't, they're not saying I don't want to face things the way they are. I just need a release from it.
SPEAKER_04I'm sorry, is that something that you talk about in your books?
SPEAKER_05Well, I don't particularly talk about it this way, but again, in the books that I write, yes, I show you how you can be encouraged. I share with you points, principles, and precepts on how you can experience love and joy and hope and peace in a society that has given up on a whole lot of that stuff. And so in a lot of my books, when you walk away, you walk away closer to God, because I'll go into the scriptures, if you would, into the Bible, and I'll open it up in such a way and I'll say it plainly. Let's say, case in point, when I said God is real, right? I'm not the kind of person who just make a blanket statement like that, an emphatic statement like that, God is real. I'll address the elephant in the room. What do I mean by that? Well, the struggle for a lot of people when you tell them God is real, the real struggle is I don't see him. I want to believe God is real, but nobody's never seen him. So now, how I write, I'll explain to you why you not seeing him don't really matter. How so? Right now, what we have in this room is real and none of us sees it. You know what that is? Air. Nobody's questioning whether or not air is real based upon their not being able to see air. Right now, air is between you and I, right now. But I can't see it. Can you? No. No, we can't see air. But if you removed air, we'll suffer and eventually suffocate. So I'll tell you in my book, although you can't see God, many people have removed him. And is it no wonder they're suffering and eventually suffocating because they removed the God that's real. So I'll write things in my book and then I'll put like anecdotes, jokes, stories. Because one thing I don't really get off on is textbooks. Yeah, they got information, but they're boring to me. So what I stay far from are textbook writing. I'll write in such a way, one of the gifts that people say that I possess is the ability to tell stories. So I use that to my advantage. I'll tell a story from the Bible. And I hate to use that term story because it comes off like Aesop's fables or fairy tale. So I'll say events or accounts for the most part. But I'll I'll share these accounts in such a way that you may have missed it when you picked up the Bible. But when you read it in this book, you go, I didn't know it said that. But then I'll encourage you, go back over and read it again. Then you read it again and go, oh man, I get it. And then you relate it to your life. You find yourself in the account. And so that's how I write. I write it in a way where you get the story, you get the jokes, you get the meaning. And you walk away and you get something to grow on. You say, Man, you know what? I'm better for having picked that up and read that.
SPEAKER_01It's really good because the Bible can be hard to grasp. And the Bible has really interesting, fun stories, and for some people it's just hard to grasp.
SPEAKER_05It's very difficult. It's almost like the Da Vinci code, right? If if you're not open to the truths, the thing that I had to do when I really got serious about God is I got honest with God. And how did I do that? One day I was in my apartment as a single man, and I said, God, I want to read your word. I want to understand your word, but your word is boring. I can't stay awake reading it. So I was able to just be honest. Now, this is why I say God is real. After, well, one of the reasons, things like this, right? Wasn't just this reason, but things like this. After I had that very real conversation saying, God, your word is boring. I can't understand it. I'm going to sleep. I need a neck brace to keep my head up. This is how I was talking to God. The next day, a coworker of mine's on my way to lunch, she yells out, Tyrone. And I didn't want to stop and talk to her because I had but so much time. I wanted to go get me something to eat and get back to work. So I waved and tried to go down the steps, but she did not let me go. She said, Tyrone, come here, let me ask you a question. And I reluctantly went in her office and I said, Hey, Maggie, what do you need me for? How can I help you? And she said, Let me ask you something. Had you ever heard of this author? And the author that she mentioned is Max Lucato. He's a world-renowned Christian writer, phenomenal. At the time, I never heard of him. She said, Had you ever heard of this writer? And I said, No. She said, Well, I want you to read this book. And I didn't want to read no books, an author I never heard of. But I took the book and it was a little thin book. And I went back to my office with my lunch and I read the book in one sitting. And I brought it back to her. And she said, What did you think about it? And I said, You're a little quirky. She said, What do you mean by quirky? I said, Well, the way he talked about Jesus Christ and the way he talked about God, he talked like he was regular, human. She said, It's because he was. He came as a man to live like us. I said, Yeah, but I don't want to think about him that way. She said, Well, he was, but let me let you have this book. Read this one. And when I read the second book, it took me about a month to get through the second book. And I'm talking about now I'm seeing accounts in the Bible and appreciating them like I've never did before. And I took the book back to Maggie, my coworker, and I said, Man, this book was good. I really like this book. She said, Well, it's yours. I said, No, Mom. She said, No. God told me to let you have it. I said, Well, I appreciate that. I go back to my office, and this is what I realized. I was telling God a month ago, his word, his Bible was boring. The next day, this woman hands me a book from a Christian author as if she had my house bugged. Like she heard my conversation. And when I got this book from this author, all of a sudden it clicks for me. I'm understanding God's word. And this was the title of the book. As if God has a humor. And he does. The title of the book was God Came Near. Wow. I was like, man, that's awesome. It's like God was saying, son, I heard your, I heard your prayer the night before, and I know you're struggling with it. I'm gonna send this woman to give you this book, and I'm gonna remind you that I come near. And as a result of reading that, my preaching enhanced. And before you knew it, some years later, I started writing. So for everybody who wants to write, I tell you, you have to read. You have to become an avid reader. If you read my books, you would think I went to college to write. You would think that, you know, I was taught by professors to write. And the truth of the matter is simply this: I wasn't and I didn't. I just started writing the way I was reading and what I was feeling when I was reading, and what I was seeing and hearing that author's voice. So when I sat down at my laptop, it came out. What you put in you will come out of you. So whatever genre you're in, plays into the details, into the novels. I mean, really give yourself to it. Go to school. When I say go to school, I'm not talking about enrolling some degree plan. I mean, get the books that you really are interested in, go home and read it. And the more you read it, you're gonna begin to sound like, you're gonna begin to write like what you're reading.
SPEAKER_02Well, I really want to thank you for coming on. That was very enlightening. Thank you so much. Before we sign off, do you have anything that you want to plug, like in terms of like anything you're working on? Sure, I appreciate that, Kevin.
SPEAKER_05The the my latest book, I wrote a book strictly for men. That was a struggle for me because I never wanted to isolate men or leave out the women, but this book was encouraged by men. And so it's called Guard the Gates. Guard the Gates. And that's a book that I currently have out. You can actually get that book or any of my books from my website. My website is my first and last name, Tyrone Holcomb. That's T-Y-R-O-N-E. H O L C O M B S Boy.net. TyroneHokum.net. And if you go there and you order the books, then I will personally sign and send the books. And if you find that you don't like the books, don't worry. My wife will give you your money back.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Well, I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_05Thank you for having me. Thank you all for sitting down with me and talking. I'm I'm proud to be what you all consider a Texas author.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, this has been the Inside Kaleem Podcast from KDHs. I'm here with Dalen Che and Amita Botchwe, who is doing the technical producing. And I will see you guys next time. Take care.