381 | Exciting episode with Olivia Barry, an Award Winning Author!

0:04  
Welcome to positive talk radio. Our goal is simple to explore evolving ideas, one conversation at a time. So stay with us. And right now, we present. And welcome to the show everybody. We have a prolific author on the on the show today. She's a screenwriter, she's written a bunch of books, and her name is Olivia Berry. And if you want to follow along, which I highly recommend that you do, go to Olivia, which is O L, i v i, a dash bury within a.com. And you can look at all the things she's done the screen writing the books, and everything. And you can even buy one there's a button to buy on Amazon right there. So, so you can you can do all that. Olivia, how are you today? Thank you for coming on the show.

0:54  
I am crazy. Thank you for having me. Excited.

0:59  
Well, I am too and it's so awesome. And you know, we've got Christmas coming up and new year after that. And then it'll be 2023 What you got happening and 2023 2023

1:11  
hopefully will be a great year to write many more books and to sell many more books.

1:19  
It's always it's always important. That's always important. Now, you're a screenwriter, you were a screenwriter first, right?

1:26  
Yes, yes. For many years, I was clean. I was a screenwriter and I'm still a screenwriter. It's not that I'm not writing screenplays anymore. But I gradually switch to writing novels simply because I'm just independent writing novels. You know, I can do it whenever I like, I'm not dependent on anybody else to tell me exactly what to do. Well, when you're a screenwriter, you're dependent on many, many people to say yes, before anything happens. So I prefer the independent

2:01  
way. And the director has got a great amount of input, I would imagine, and the original writer of the original material has a lot of input to it. And as does the executive producer, all 10 of them, or how many there are enough on a particular project. So yeah, so it's kind of like working in the corporate world, you don't get the autonomy to do what you want. You have to you know, bend to a lot of different forces,

2:29  
right? It is a totally different medium. Because as a screenwriter, you you, you may be even if you write on spec, which means it's your idea, it's not a book that is out there, it's just your idea. You write a screenplay, and you bring it out into the world. And then people start reading it. And everybody has a different opinion, people will tell you, Oh, we love it. But we don't really like the main character, or we love it, but we don't like the setting. And then they give it to certain directors, they look at it. And they might say, we like it, but we don't really love the secondary characters and so on, you know, and it goes on and on and on. Well, when you write a novel, you just write the novel, and then you sell your novel. That's, that's all? Well, I'm

3:27  
curious to know. Because I honestly don't know if this is true or not. But if you have a director and he has your, your material in front of him, and he's got a particular actor that he wants to put into a particular role, do will he tell you, Well, you know, this actor can do this really well, but he can't do that very well. Can you reach can reconstruct the character to work with this particular actor, does that ever happen?

3:57  
Yeah, yes. And no, you know, it all depends. Obviously, if, if the character is very similar to the character of written, I can, like tweak certain things and change the dialogue in a certain way to make it more fluid for the actor. But obviously, if I have a main character who is for example, a 30 year old Asian woman, and now they want a 20 year old, Caucasian woman, and so on, it might not work at all, you know, it might not fit any more into the setting and the screenplay, and that might be difficult. You know, you always try to work with people. You know, you try to be a player. That's how they call people in Hollywood. You know their players. You you You want to work with a team. But sometimes it's just too much, you know, because you change it for one person, and then the next person come into play like a producer, and they want a totally different thing again, and then you change it around again. Now the director doesn't like at any moment, suddenly, you have a different director. So it's all all really difficult and time consuming. And frustrating at times. Honestly speaking,

5:31  
I can I can imagine, are there any titles that we would recognize?

5:35  
And I don't? I don't think so. I mean, you can see it on my website. All the screenplays I've written. Most of them were optioned or bought, but not ever made. I mean, there were a couple of I made a couple of short movies, but that's a long time ago. And now.

5:56  
There, they're actually screenplays that go up for auction. And they're bought, and they never get made. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's because they can't find the money, then they go

6:08  
to their shelf. And there are many, many, I mean, we're talking hundreds 1000s.

6:15  
So so they buy their shelves? And why why would why would they do that?

6:21  
That's a good question. I don't know. Because at the moment, they think or believe that it's viable, and that that will be a great hit. And then things change so quickly, that suddenly it's not anymore. And suddenly they don't feel it anymore. Or you know, you have auto moments that you go into meeting and they all excited. They're really excited. They want your screenplay. And I think many, many writers, I hope some writers will hear this today. They can really relate to this, you know, and you sitting there and you so excited because it's gonna happen for you. This is your moment, right? And then two weeks later, there's somebody else sitting in the same studio, you know, in that same place, and they say out loud, no, no, it's not gonna happen. Not for you. Not today. Oh, that

7:22  
will genuinely suck that really? Yeah. So I can understand why you made the transition from being a screenwriter to being a novelist.

7:34  
Yeah, it's also age related, honestly, speaking, you know, there's a lot of people were really, really young people in Hollywood and, and like this, I just didn't want to deal with it anymore. I want it to be free.

7:50  
The young, the fabulous, they, it's amazing to me that, that they weren't even even and in screenwriting, and behind the scenes, they want younger people

8:01  
write often. I mean, there is for sure somebody out there says, right now, this is absolutely not true. But most of the time, yes. Yes,

8:12  
that's, that's, I understand. But that's, that's just me, but you know, it actually happens in the real world too. Because, you know, I reached a certain age, when I was like, 50, and I was looking for a job that I'd done before and done really well at it and and they said, No, you're too old, you want too much money. And, you know, you're not going to work as hard as a 30 year old that's on his way up. And you're going to be you know, kind of leveling off and, and getting ready for retirement. And so, you know, all of those sorts of things that they put into their heads and stuff like that. So I can't think of a better thing for you than to be a novelist and, and to come on shows like mine so that you can talk about your books and and your process and how it works for you. What was your process? How does it work for you

9:04  
surely give you a run through of my day, and how I write

9:10  
let me give you an example. I was talking to an author just the other day and she said, Because I asked her the same question. And she said, Well, I had three young boys. So I would be cooking spaghetti with one on one hand and writing on the back of a of a receipt on the other hand, because I had an idea that was going to go into the book, and then I would get so everybody's got a different process.

9:32  
Right. So my my process is more that I sit actually down and I I started writing in the morning and I I work on a particular book, I have always liked to three things going at the same time but I have always a main project. That is the most important project or I start working on my most important part drink first. Because if I then run out of steam, then I'm sometimes switched to my second most important project. So I start working in the morning, my, my kids are grown up. So there are no more little kids running around. But I used to ride with little kids running around, and a lot of noise. I like noise around me. So I love to work in coffee shops. I love always I'm in New York City. So, you know, a lot of coffee shops, and a lot of varieties. So I love to write in coffee shops, because I kind of like, you know, I like the noise around me, I like movement around me, it doesn't have to be absolutely quiet. I also always listen to music while I'm writing. And so then I start writing. You know, I have like, I know, writers always also like to know about how many pages or I write a day, or the word count. And I have like an overall weekly word count, because there's always one day when something happens. And then if I don't do my words, then I get all like upset with myself. So so so I put it as a weekly word count, which is about 6000 words a week, I write about 1000 words a day, sometimes 1500, sometimes a little less, depending I'm not very strict. You know, I don't have that many rules when it comes to writing.

11:45  
I really didn't realize that that was the thing that authors do like a word count to see how they're doing. There's a there's a kid that a young lady that I interviewed, her name is Ashanti. She's 14 years old, she's got nine books out and she averaged, she averaged 1000 words an hour is what she she averaged in what she could write. Because she had just flowed for her. And so I suspect that that's a lot

12:14  
that I mean, for me would be impossible. So for me, personally, I, the way I write I mean, I have to develop you know, I start before I actually write a book I start to develop it is a developing process I'm going through, that's maybe because I come from screenwriting. So in screenwriting, everything has to be really organized. Because you have only a certain page count you can have because every page is a minute. So you can't have 200 patrons, because you would have a 200 minute movie. So you have to be very organized. So I'm very organized when it comes to my writing. So I start out with an outline. And that doesn't mean that I stick to the outline, always I do change as well. I do make changes while I'm writing. But I do have have an outline. And I work from an outline. And when I arrived, I mean 1000 words an hour. No, that is that's that wouldn't be possible, not the type of writing I do. You know, I'm sure some people can do it. And I'm sure there are people out there they write 5000 words a day, but it wouldn't be my

13:33  
that would be a lot. But so you see, I've talked to writers and some of them will say no, I just sit down and it just kind of flows and they just start the book and Jeff, one chapter bleeds into the other. And others like yourself that will say, No, I have an outline. And I have a character's somewhat developed and what they're going to be doing and kind of their I have even talked to people that have done a complete background of each character before they even start the book, which would be how old they are, what their education is, what kind of relationships they have, what are their fears or phobias, all that kind of stuff. Do you need to go that far?

14:21  
And no, I'm not going that far. I kind of know I write one paragraph for each character that appears in my book, or screenplay, you know, and I have one paragraph where I kind of know kind of a little bit of what their education is and in their age range and how they will connect them to another character but I don't write extensive bios for my car characters and I also you know, my outline is very limited. I write like Have a small paragraph for each chapter. I don't I don't have big, huge long outlines. I know there are some writers who love to, to work from very long, extensive outlines. I don't have this my outlines, honestly speaking more security blanket. Because I can fall back, you know, when, when I write, I write, and I type and type. And suddenly I come to a point where I'm like, Oh, what, what is going to be next, you know, and it's like, kind of those moments where you say, Oh, I don't know, I need another 100 pages. And I really don't know what is interesting here. And then I fall back to and look at my outline. And something always sticks out this little tiny thing that tells me, ah, that would be interesting. Let's play around a little bit and see how it will work in the story. How can I integrate, it doesn't work or it doesn't might not work. And then I throw it out again, you know. So it's always a process. I'm also a writer who loves to edit. So

16:16  
that's a that's unique. Because mostly, most authors have to send them away to get edited, then they have to do a rewrite and another rewrite. And yeah, like yourself,

16:26  
I like I like to write my first draft. And then I go through it very often, many, many times, I have a first draft, and then I write another 1520 drafts, depending if it goes through over and over and over. And every time. There's something more you can do. But there are different types of editing. Also, there's the development and editing that style. It's early on, you know, after the first draft, the second third and fourth draft is about development of the story of the characters. And then I do a dialogue draft there as I look, especially a dialogue that it sounds as you can hear, and English was actually my second language because I was born in Germany and lived in Europe for many years before I came to United States. So it's not my first language. So what I do is, I read it out loud to myself. And then I see if the dialogue works or not. Actually, people told me that some people said in screenwriting, especially the most they liked about my scripts was the dialogue, which was odd to me, but, uh, well, I took it as Oh, yeah. Great. Thank you, you know about so I, I have traffic for development of characters and settings and everything, then I have a dialogue draft. And then I start to get into the itsy bitsy things, you know, like, other sentences too long? Does it drag some words boring? You know, you have to be honest with yourself, because not everything I write is so great. You know, you like the passages. Even I get bored. I'm like looking at it and saying, Oh, well, it could be better.

18:41  
But there's a certain point. Yeah. But I did want to talk to you also about the book that came out this last September, which is which is called the hours in between? And it's, it's about a lady. I believe it's a lady Correct? Yes. Correct. Who's got six months left to live? Yes. And what, what motivated you to come up with that? Was that from your personal experience? Or?

19:12  
No, not really, from my personal experience, but I mean, partially, let's put it partially but not I was not involved in it. people I knew who died really young, and who had a lot of regrets. And I don't know I because I'm actually a person who loves to write like romantic comedies and things like that. So I was astonished myself when I came up with this idea, but it fascinated me at the subject, you know, because we never know what is tomorrow. So it's always about today. It's about I love meditation and are things like this. So it's about living in the moment. And we tend to live so much in the future or in the past. We don't live a lot, actually, in this very moment, you know, this is what we have right now. But we, we, we search for so much more in the future, well, what can I do, where can I travel to, and so on, or what happened in the past my ex husband, my, in laws, my whatever, you know, and, and the moment gets the moment, this very moment gets lost. And I wanted to write about that. And I wanted to write a novel about that. And so I just came up with this idea about this woman and her journey about living, because she decides, because the thing is, the thing is, it's not a book about dying at all, it's a book of living,

21:02  
you know, I can't decide. So perhaps, since you've thought about this a great deal, you can help me, I can't decide whether or not it's better to have to sit down at a doctor's office and have them say, Okay, you are sick, and you're terminal, and you've got six months to live, or, to wake up one day, and or to go to bed at night, one night, and then not wake up the next day, I can't I I think there are value to both. One one of which would be if you've got six months left to live and you know that you're we're all gonna die, but you have a timeframe, that's been fixed to it, that you can then make changes in your life that or to reconcile with people or to change what you have time to do your well, that you everybody puts off doing their well until, you know, the very end and then and then, so it doesn't get done or whatever. So in your frame of reference, which would be better for you. So you have six months to know that you got six months to live, or to just, you know, go to bed at night, and I wake up the next morning.

22:09  
I mean, for me personally, I would rather go to bed and not wake up the next morning. Because I think it's a very difficult journey. You go on, if you know that you have to die in six months. I mean, my character went on a very difficult journey, but she went on on a beautiful journey. So having that said, I feel it is easier for the people you love and leave behind to have the opportunity to say goodbye. It's very, very hard. Sorry. It's very hard for people, you know, who what I learned when I did a little research and so on, for people, not not being able to say goodbye to somebody they love, you know, and suddenly that person is gone. It's done. You know, it's very hard. Yeah.

23:09  
Well, and that that actually happened to me. My mother, who was 90. And I've told this story before, but it bears repeating. Because it was my mom after all, yeah. And she went to dinner and played bridge on Wednesday night. She went and hung out with some friends on Thursday night, and had dinner again. And then Friday, she went home and died. And she was found, you know, Saturday morning. We were she was like we said she was 90, she was convinced that she was going to live to be 106. So we as children were like, wow, you know, we've got lots of time. With and she's, she's, well, she's not she doesn't have cancer, or she doesn't have or dementia or anything that would lead us to believe that her time was short. And then she was here. And then she wasn't. It was the weirdest thing thing. Because, you know, fortunately, we talked on a weekly basis. And so we kept up and stuff but I can understand if you if somebody passes away and you don't have a chance well as an example, if somebody dies in an accident, and you don't have an opportunity to to say you had a fight that morning and whatever it was and you don't have an opportunity to to make up or to settle. What's going on between you that would that would be a very hard, complex guilt ridden thing to go through I would think,

24:36  
yeah, I think definitely and not even. It doesn't even have to be that people had a fight or that you had a fight with your husband or wife or mother or child or whatever. It can be simply the thing. Suddenly the person you love the person or good friend is not there anymore. You know, you can't talk to them anymore. You can't say one little thing that you maybe wanted to say and never said, and, and so I think for the people who stay behind, it's definitely harder if somebody suddenly dies. Yeah,

25:19  
you know, it's interesting that we are now gaining a lot of different communities in within our, within our country and around the world. And one of them is a community that's out west is a widow and widowers club of sorts, and it's for people who have lost a loved one, a husband or a wife, and then they can go get help from other people who have already been through it, and understand it and stuff like that. We're getting more and more of that. So it's kind of good to see, don't you think that the, and books like what you've written here, will kind of shed a little bit more of a, of a light on, on, on death and stuff like that, and make it a lot more acceptable? I think, what do you think?

26:11  
Yes, I think so. I mean, I, I'm always a firm believer that it's good to have groups of people who went through the same thing. And you can talk to people, it's the same thing, if you have a certain form of cancer, it's good, probably to talk to somebody who has the same or had the same for and seek advice and are just like, and somebody who listens to you and how you feel, you know, so I feel it's a wonderful thing. And I just feel the more of those groups we have, the better it will be to connect to people also like, really, to find your, your group, you know,

27:00  
I know, I agree. So how is the hours between doing for you, since it came out in September Is it is it selling,

27:09  
it is selling, it is selling it is selling properly? You know, because I'm, I self published this book by choice. Because I wanted to get it out as quickly as possible. And I also, as I said, Before, I wanted to be really independent. And so it is selling it is selling, what it's not for me as much about the numbers it is, as it is about how many people come to me to tell that can relate to the book, and that they had a lot of emotions, reading the book. And that was my goal. And so I'm happy about it,

27:59  
I really enjoy talking to writers and musicians and, and people who do what I do and stuff, because they really do have an impact on other people. And like I keep telling authors that this book that you've written, is going to be out there, and somebody's going to pick it up might be next week, it might be five years from now. And it's going to mean something very important to them. And you'll never know that.

28:26  
Exactly. And and I hope it will touch people in some form and, and that people think about things, you know, it's called the hours in between, because it's the hours between life and death. Basically, it's the hours in between we have and we don't really know how many hours leaves, you know, for some people, few hours for some people and enormous amount of hours. You know, I mean, it's like, but we do we most of us don't know. And and it's about how we live, and what we can do to live life without having too many regrets. That's what the book is about. And that is the response I get from people from readers. They say, Oh, I always wanted to do this and that and I always like postpone it because there's another thing but now I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go out and I'm going to do it or I'm afraid it doesn't have to be the big thing, you know, doesn't have to you don't have to travel around the world and spend all your money or two huge things that can be like, or when one lady said she always wanted to learn how to do rock climbing. She always was afraid. And she says, Now I read the book and I said, why not? I'm just doing it. I'm just taking a class. I'm just inviting a friend to come with me. You know, it can be a little thing. A little thing that changes your life and gives you courage to do more. My main character, Liz has a lot of courage, because she picks up her whole, nothing. Her life changes completely from what she had before to work, she has been, you know, because she learns that she's sick, and she picks her up, and she travels to the west coast, from east coast to west coast, just to change her life. And so many wonderful things happen to her, because she opens herself up to the universe to two possibilities. If we don't do that, nothing happens to us, you know, we have to go out and open ourselves up to opportunities and possibilities, even if we are scared sometimes. And believe me, I'm scared, I can get very anxious about certain things, you know, but sometimes you have to push yourself just a slight little bit and say, Okay, I'm gonna do it.

31:03  
Absolutely, because if you talk to people that are hospitals, workers, and they take care of people that are in the last six months of life, they'll tell you, virtually to a person that the biggest thing that people have is the regret of things they didn't do. It's not the amount of money that they have had. It's the things that they didn't do that they wanted to do the impact that they wanted to make, but didn't make in the world and that sort of thing. And then, and so that's, that's important. And the closer we get, I don't know about you, but I'm getting closer to the end than I was ever before. And I want to make sure that I'm doing the things in my life that will have a positive impact on myself and other people. And that's, that's important. And it's important for all of us. It's part of this. I think it's part of our psyche. It's part of why we're here.

31:56  
Yeah, it's, it's, I think it's so easy to postpone things. And then we might have regrets. You know, sometimes it's okay, just to say yes, right now, in this instant, in this minute, it's nothing will be ever perfect. You know, there will not ever be the perfect time to have kids. There won't be the perfect time to get that Pat, you always want it. There won't be the perfect time to travel to certain plays, because you don't know what happens. I mean, I might travel. You know, I just came from New Orleans and I was there when there was the tornado would have I didn't know about a tornado, I had to look it up. What's the difference between the tornado and the hurricane? Because I was like, Oh, God, a tornado, you know, it's like this, this, this notion of the perfect time of the perfect moment. It's, it's, it's just not happening. You know, do it now do it. Now. That's what I say change your life. If you want to. If you have the perfect life, then obviously not you know, but the people who don't have perfect lives, but more people than not, I believe. They say Oh god, I I've been with this man forever, and I can't stand him anymore. And I say okay, then you have to leave and and be free and live your life you have to live it now.

33:33  
While there's never gonna be a good time for it. Because you know, if you wait until the money is absolutely right, and you wait until you're secure. And all this you might be too old at that point, to be able to go via as an example. I could no more go rock climbing and flying to the moon. You know, that's that's just not happening. Not that I really want to do that. But if I did, I'd still would be not be passed. Right? Right. or years ago I could.

33:59  
Yeah. Or it was sometimes you know, we have things from our childhood that people say, Oh, I'm a bad painter. I I don't know how to paint because because my mother always taught me that it's horrible what I'm doing and I don't want to do it because I'm afraid I said take that class. Just go nothing that can happen. You know, you know, you do it for yourself. Also, you don't necessarily have to do everything for everybody else. You can do things for yourself. And and and you see in my book, she's doing finally things for herself. That's that she's going on a journey. But the interesting part is what happens to her because she's taking those initial steps because she's not planning much more than just traveling to be with her two kids in on the west west coast. So she, but what happens? The steps in between that is what, what is the exciting part, you know, that is, for example, she's booking a flight to get there quickly. But then things happen and she's not on that flight. So it's like, it's the middle moments, it's the little touches of things. That's why I also can't write more than 1000 words a day, because there's so many tiny little things, you know, and I hope, I just hope for readers, My wish is really that they can relate to this journey and get something create out for themselves, you know, that they read the book and they feel empowered.

35:53  
That's a, that's a, that's a big deal. Is is to be is to feel good about it and to be empowered by it. So and what do you what do you got cook it in the works?

36:06  
Oh, well, I can talk about that. No, I can I love your bed, I have actually. And that's also the lovely thing about being a writer and self publishing, because you can actually write what ever you want. And nobody will tell you no. And, and I like that. So I am, I'm actually working on a nonfiction book. That that kind of relates a little bit to the hours in between, because it's called 50 words in the morning. And it's just about writing 50 words in the morning about something that just comes to your mind, it could be anything, it can be the cross oil, you're looking forward, it can be the child you have to bring to school, it can be just the outfit, you have to choose trust, right, something that you think about, and be creative with it. And so it's a neat little book, and I only we're putting it out on Kindle simply. So on a tap, basically, and not in paperback or hardcopy simply because it has a photography of mine and, and a lot of more cheese and a lot of little quirky little fun things. So we could pack expensive to content. I mean, it would make no sense. And I also want to connect it to several charities, just to give back a little bit, you know, and and it's just a fun project. That's my passion project. And then I'm working on another novel, of course, and the only thing I can say, there's once again a house. And that plays a big role. Like in the hours in between, there's also a house that plays a big role in the book. And in, in my new novel, there's another house that also but very different. It's a very different book. It's far lighter than the one I wrote. It's still the genre, I would say still in like upmarket fiction book club, fiction.

38:46  
It's cool that you're continuing to write stuff. And you've got and you've got, we've got a ton of stuff on the I'm looking at your website. By the way, if you want to go to Olivia dash berry.com, you can look at all of her. I love the premise of the TV pilot for Miss President, which is a obviously it's a single woman who has to be over 35 but the first female, unmarried President of the United States, could you imagine what that was? Oh, well, you didn't imagine that. What that would be like because you wrote about it. Yeah. Did you have an episode about her dating?

39:26  
And I? Yes. So I wrote the pilot about it. And I'm desperately trying to sell this one because I love I love the Miss President pilot thing she is so the thing is, she is unmarried. But doing so she she is elected, obviously to become president of United States, which is already a big thing. Right? And, and then she finds out she's pregnant.

39:58  
And she's single and she's And oh, boy.

40:01  
Yeah. And then she, she that's obviously a love interest in in the White House, which happens to be the dog walker. So it's a funny it's a it's like a comedy type romantic thing. But it's also about how would a woman president handled certain situations different probably from men? And how, how would she deal with being a mother? But also being the most powerful woman in the world?

40:45  
And and how long does she turn the power over to the vice president when she's in labor?

40:52  
Exactly. That's the question. The Vice President is not the nicest man, let's put it this way.

41:03  
I was just thinking, you know, the wonderful things that you can have happen would be one of them would be not only she pregnant at but she has a baby. And it's a mixed race, baby, and they don't know who the father is. And then I mean, that that would cause a lot of a lot of really interesting conflict within the country.

41:22  
Yeah, yeah. I would be open to it. I mean, I was asked by, it's been with several producers. And it wouldn't be it's a show that cost a little bit of money. So it's harder to make, you know, than other shows. But But I was often asked, can the President the African American or Hispanic? And I said, of course, why not? Make it happen? Make it happen in America? We can do anything. Yeah. And we have to be, you know, I'm open open to rewrite it. Important is that somebody's out there? Oh, says hello. That's a show I want to see. But you know, so far, it's difficult. Yeah. It's difficult.

42:14  
Well, somebody has to have a little bit of vision. Yeah. And they have to be willing to put a little bit of money behind their vision, and to be to get the pilot made so that they can shop it around. And yeah, that kind of thing. But I think that would be why gosh, there are. There's so many channels now. And there's there's some really interesting, not really interesting shows, but some shows that I would have wouldn't have thought 1520 30 years ago, they never would have been made. And now they're they're all of them are being made, and they're on different channels. So I hope, I hope that this guy hope that this gets picked up.

42:52  
Oh, I would love it. I would love it. It's a very diverse show. So it has so many roads, so many characters, obviously, it's the White House, you know, and it's a very, very diverse show. So there are so many roles for all, all people.

43:11  
Yeah, it would be, that would be great. And you've got like the million million dollar date. You've got changing Billy who was a teenager who was quite heavy and his father died. And then he decided he wanted to run the New York Marathon. Yeah, that's absolutely cool.

43:29  
He wanted to run and he hooked up with a kid hood, who is in the wheelchair, that kid in the wheelchair becomes his best friend and trains him actually to run. So, so

43:42  
that's really cool.

43:44  
I like it. I like it, because, you know, it gets out to people with handicap the people who have handicaps, a little bit motivation. And here are possibilities, you know, we are a unified, we should be a unified world where everybody has a place, you know, we want everybody to have a place in this world and not more now than ever, you know, it would be crazy to create that. That's more like an overall theme I like

44:23  
he would be really quick about Yeah, it would be really great to create, I don't know a TV show or maybe maybe even a radio show. You could call it I don't know, positive talk or positive talk radio or something like that. Something something to be positive. They were trying to help humanity to get out of the where we are now, which is a lot of hate division and fear. And and, you know, it's like we were just saying if the President was a woman, and she had a baby out of wedlock, this country would a third of the country would go nuts.

44:59  
Probably Yes, but But why not? What? What does it mean? You know, she can be still a fantastic president, you know, of course, she would need some help. You know, she will not stay at home bake cookies all week long. But but that's not the point. The point is, why not? Why not? You know why? Why not? I mean, one nice word has so much more impact than 10 negative words, one positive word, have you go to one person, and you say one nice little thing. It has such an enormous impact that we sometimes don't know, if I, you know, sometimes I like to do little things. Like, for example, I'm in the coffee shop. And I saw these two workers who were like, I mean, they were trenched. It was raining outside. They were like, I don't know what they were preparing or doing. But they were waiting behind me. So I just said to the woman in front of me, I pay for them, whatever they have. I mean, they were they were thanking me. Half an hour later. Still, I said, Stop already. Thank you. It's okay. It was just like a coffee and a pastry. It was not like a life saving act. I did. But but you know, it made a big impact, because I'm sure they went home. And they said to whoever is at home, Oh, listen, today, I went to the coffee shop. And the lady bought me, like the crow song and cup of tea or whatever. But they had, you know, and so if everybody would just do a little test, or help somebody to pick up something or, or or move their cart for them, or like, to whatever, little tiny, tiny thing. It would change the world. You know, instead of all the hatred and the negativity and people, like not accepting other people for who they are. And it's just like, No, let's think positive. That's why we have positive talk radio.

47:22  
That's absolutely. You know, it's interesting, because I believe, and I could be wrong, but I believe that we are in the middle of a really large change in our society and how we're looking at things. I interviewed a gal a week or so ago. And one of the things that she was, she had it in her heart to do something she kept on seeing, and hearing hope. The word hope was was like, everywhere for her. All right, somebody's giving me this message. somebody's telling me this is something I needed to do something with this show she was looking at, I think it was Amazon. And she was looking at, you know, different things as you found these rocks. And they're polished black rocks, and they have a gold lettering on them that says hope. And there's just a little Little Rock. And so she bought a bunch of them. And so now she goes around your community. It's a small community. But if you see somebody who is having a bad day, that is down in the dumps, she'll just walk up to him doesn't say anything. She just says, You look like you could use this.

48:30  
Oh, I love the I love it. That's so nice. That

48:37  
puts it in their hand. And so when they walk away, they get to keep it. So every time that they're thinking that I have no hope. No, you do. It's in your pocket.

48:46  
Right? Yeah, that's lovely. That's what I'm talking about. You know, it's it's a gesture. It's, it's not a huge thing. But she makes an enormous impact on the life of some people, you know, and and that's wonderful. You know, we all have different ways of doing this. Just the amount of people who should, that's

49:16  
where we're getting that getting more and more people, more and

49:20  
more people. Yeah, I think positive. Yeah, I believe. I believe there are a lot of wonderful, wonderful people out there, loving and kind.

49:31  
And that's why we have you on this show. Because you were also loving and kind and you're building a little a little book empire and you're helping people and and if somebody wanted to contact you, could you talk to them a little bit about writing if they were interested in learning how,

49:49  
yeah, they can contact me always at connect at Olivia dash berry.com. It's on my website. On my website they can call contact me through my newsletter or F also the Contact page, where they can just write me and I'm always happy to, to write back or even talk to them sometimes, you know, I mean, it depends how many people at once, so I can't promise that it will be immediately, but I try, really to get back to everybody who wants me.

50:26  
Okay, everybody, it's, you're now having an assignment. It's time for you to bury Olivia. to contact her.

50:36  
Yeah, I am happy, happy to talk to people. And, you know, if they need need some reassurance about that life is good.

50:52  
Exactly. Now, before we go, I want to give you the opportunity for the audience's listening now and those that will be listening far into the future. Because once this is up, it's up, it stays forever, to continue to tell them something that's on your heart that you'd like them to know.

51:11  
I would like everybody to know that there's always always the possibility to change your life. There's, you just have to take the first and take little steps, baby steps, don't

51:34  
think about the big picture all the time, sometimes you have to. But most of the time, it's about the little tiny baby steps we take. And I think if you need some change in your life, you can change your life, whoever you are, wherever you are, no matter how much money you have, you can take that time. And do it today. Don't do it in tents. Do today, whatever it is just reach out to somebody make a little tiny phone call, write a letter, go out for a walk, you can do it.

52:18  
And by the way, for those of you that don't know, a letter is a piece of paper that you that you write things on. And then you fold it up and you put it in an envelope, you put a stamp on it and you send it to somebody. There's a whole generation that has no idea how that works. But

52:36  
email, you can send a text and email but you can also send a letter because a letter still does make an impact. You know, a letter

52:45  
to is that takes the time to write it. It takes the time to get the address for it and to do all those things. And they can keep it permanently in their valuable treasures forever.

52:59  
Right? Right. So a letter is special. But of course write an email, write a text, make a phone call, you know, reach out to people or just do something for yourself, take that bubble bus you were talking about for five months now and you haven't done yet because you you can't find the time. Just do the rush, rush, go to the bathroom, run the water, put some soap in there and and just read a book, read a book. I mean, read in between and change your life

53:37  
and get the get the get the book that came out in September. And the name of that book I'm going to right now is the hours in between by Olivia Berry. She has been our guest today. I don't want to thank you for being here. We'll come back and talk to me more,

53:56  
of course, anytime. Anytime. It was a pleasure. Really. I appreciate it very much.

54:03  
You're a wonderful human being and and keep keep doing what you're doing because you're having you're having a positive impact.

54:10  
Thank you, Kevin. Thank you was a pleasure. Happy holidays.

54:14  
Happy holidays to you. It's this week. You know, Christmas is on Saturday and Sunday. Who knew? I'm in like ever. So So it's great fun. So Olivia, thank you so much for being here. Stay where we are. I'll be right back. Hey, thanks for enjoying this episode all the way to the end. Please give us a like and subscribe to this channel. This has been a production of positive talk radio.net Please visit our website oddly named positive talk radio.net For more details about us and our mission, which is to provide great positive programming designed to inspire us all. I'm Kevin McDonald. I'm proud of these shows, and I truly hope that you'll like them and share them with friends and family. So on behalf of our entire team, remember Be kind to one another because each other's all we got to

55:03  
do