S5E14 - Kevin G. Chapman
This week’s guest is Kevin G. Chapman, Assistant General Counsel at Dow Jones and Company, and crime fiction author.
Kevin is a labor and employment lawyer who started out in law firms. But, for the last 27 years he has been in-house counsel having started out at The Wall Street Journal. He has resided in Central New Jersey for that long too.
As a lawyer, Kevin writes a LOT. But it was when he got laid off from a firm 5 years after finishing law school that he started writing his first fiction novel, Identity Crisis which he published via a small publishing house. His next book took 10 years to complete and was self-published.
We get into how he approached writing differently when he decided to write for the purpose of selling his work starting with his first crime fiction novel, Righteous Assassin. Also, how he went about learning to market his novels and the business of self-publishing. Kevin has written an entire crime fiction series focused around the main character he created, NYPD Detective Mike Stoneman. One of those novels, Lethal Voyage, was even a Kindle Book Award finalist in 2021!
Hear about what Kevin is working on next and the communities he is a part of both as an independent author and as in-house counsel. He also plays tournament poker!
Note from Rabiah (Host):
I have not read Kevin’s books yet but I’m very curious about Mike Stoneman so that’ll happen soon. I intended too but time just didn’t allow it. One thing that came up in our chat was that Kevin is a member of an author community. I have learned so much about how important community is and it is more prominent in my life than it used to be. It has been a theme of this podcast too. I’d love to hear what communities listeners are a part of.
Rabiah (in he London flat) chats with Kevin (in his New Jersey basement home office).
Find Kevin
Lethal Voyage (Winner of the 2021 Kindle Book Award)
Mentioned in the Episode
Jencey Keeton Episode of More Than Work
In the Intro:
Transcript
[00:04:13]
Rabiah (Host): This is More Than Work, the podcast reminding you that your self worth is made up of more than your job title each week. I'll talk to a guest about how they discovered that for themselves. You'll hear about what they did, what they're doing and who they are. I'm your host, Rabiah. I work in IT, perform standup comedy, write, volunteer, and of course podcast. Thank you for listening.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for listening wherever you are. And whenever it is that you're listening. This is the April 13th episode, but you could be listening anytime, which is the beauty of this podcast or any podcast. First of all, I want to let you know if you are listening in April of 2022, Podchaser (podchaser.com), P O D C H A S E R is doing an initiative right now where they're donating 25 cents for every review left [00:05:13] on their site. So you can review episodes or you can review the actual podcast and that money is going to World Central Kitchen's efforts in Ukraine. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you saw me look over that because I wanted to make sure I was getting it right.
But, um, I guess I'll just talk really quick this week. I mean, I don't want to get into too much. I just want to kind of get to the episode. But I did see a couple of musical acts that were really fun in London. And I just want to pass them along to you. So YardAct, they're an Arctic Monkeys kind of sound post-punk, but have a political little edge to them.
So that was a lot of fun. That was a concert where I realized I'm a lot older than I was a couple of years ago when I was standing in a music club for four hours bouncing up and down. My knees definitely felt it. And then I saw Ann Liu Cannon, A N N L I U C A N N O N. Those are three names and she's a singer songwriter out of London.
And I heard she was going to be working on an album, but she's amazing. So [00:06:13] look her up. And then True Strays. They're an Americana kind of band out of Bristol, England, and, oh man, it was so cool to see them too. And, and Lou cannon is why I found them, but. Anyway, they're all great. They're all a lot of fun in their own different ways.
Although I did cry during Ann's set, so maybe that's only fun for some people who want to cry or who are prone to doing that. But it's just nice to get out and see live music again. I really enjoy. Uh, this episode, this guest is a novelist, but also a lawyer. And he started out a lawyer, but now he's, he's a novelist too.
And it, this was a pure like episode of More Than Work. I mean, it really was what I was thinking about when I started the podcast; talking to someone who's in a career, but also find something they love doing and they pursue it. I know a lot of people have said, "I want to write a book. I think I have a book in me." But, I don't know, just listening to this guest, Kevin, it was, it's hard to do. And I think he's shown a lot of [00:07:13] dedication. I also like his approach of researching a lot to, to do certain aspects of it. So I'm going to leave it at that just because I w I want to get to the episode and want you to have a listen. Again, you know, leave a review if you would like. If you can subscribe, that'd be awesome.
I see reviews and subscriptions and those kinds of things coming into my numbers and I really appreciate it. I just appreciate you giving me this time. Every week or just on this episode, if you don't come back, but thanks for listening and enjoy, and also have a great day, whatever day you listen.
Rabiah (Host): My guest today is Kevin G. Chapman he's assistant counsel at Dow Jones and Company, and a crime fiction author. So we're going to be talking about both of those things. Thanks for being on today, Kevin.
Kevin G Chapman: Thanks for having me glad to be here.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, I'm glad you're here too. So where am I talking to you from today?
Kevin G Chapman: I am hunkered down in my basement home office in central New Jersey.
Rabiah (Host): Oh, wow. And were you always working at home or was this new [00:08:13] from the pandemic?
Kevin G Chapman: No, this is only since COVID I am lucky. I have a home that is only about 15 minutes from my office, so my commute was never a big problem, but I worked from home almost never and now I'm working from home almost, always for the last two years.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Well, it's good. Do you have like a dedicated space? That's good at least.
Kevin G Chapman: This is the fortune of having grown children. So, I have my basement all to myself.
Rabiah (Host): That's good. Nice. Well, so first of all, being a Assistant General Counsel at Dow Jones and Company, when you set out to work in law, did you think you were going to be at a company like that or were you setting out to do something else?
Kevin G Chapman: To tell you the truth, when I left law school, I knew that I wanted to be in this field. I'm a labor and employment lawyer. I had done some work in my law school days in that field. I thought it was a nice area to be in, but it never really occurred to me to be in-house in a corporation as opposed to working for a law firm.
So, I went to a big law [00:09:13] firm in Manhattan for five years then got laid off from my job at the law firm. That's always fun. And then got another job at a different law firm for three years. At that point, my wife and I were living. Two bedroom apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan with two children.
And things were starting to get a little cramped. And we started to think about the future and my, my then five-year-old was in preschool at a lovely place called The Calhoun School on 66th and the tuition for preschool was a lot. And we started doing the math about how much it was going to cost us to put our two children through private school in Manhattan and then college.
And then we said, you know what, the suburbs are starting to look really good? So, at that point I started looking around for what I wanted to do career-wise and the idea of going in-house at that point really was attractive because you're going to have more time. You're not going to be always [00:10:13] at the beck and call of your clients on nights and afternoons and weekends.
So I started looking at, I interviewed at you know four or five, six different companies. But I landed at The Wall Street Journal at Dow Jones and it has worked out really well. We have an office here in South Brunswick, New Jersey. So it central New Jersey, just a little bit north of Princeton.
And so, Hey, we have a job now and we can get a house now. And we got a house that's 15 minutes away from the office and then miracle of miracles, 27 years later, I have the same job. I haven't moved the same house, the same office, the same commute for, for that whole time. So it has worked out really well for me.
Rabiah (Host): Wow. That's amazing, actually, that really is. And yeah, and it's good that too, going in house, it changed her work hours and things like that because even other professions can relate to that. Like if you work for a marketing agency or digital agency or I'm in consulting and it's true, you end up adjusting [00:11:13] your hours to what a client needs and it could be two different clients.
I had a client one time when I was living in California, one in Europe and one in tech. And that became a really weird long day, you know? So I totally relate.
Kevin G Chapman: It's always been a job where you have to put in hours I mean no legal job is, is a nine to five but, I was always able to leave my office, come home, have dinner with my family, see my children. And if I had to do three or four hours of work later on in the evening after the kids had gone to bed or whatever, fine, I can deal with that.
But having a lot more control over my life was was the big part of moving in-house. So my, my son actually now is just getting ready to graduate from law.
Rabiah (Host): Oh, wow.
Kevin G Chapman: in may. And so I'll have a lot to say to him about the virtues of leaving the law firm life at some point, and thinking about a corporate corporate law position.
It's been good.
Rabiah (Host): Cool, so you've been doing this job for 27 years, but at some point within that you started writing fiction.[00:12:13] When did that happen?
Kevin G Chapman: Yeah.
well, it's actually thirties 39 years now, if you, if you count my, my my time at the law firms. And that's how I got into writing really is when I got laid. From my very first job. So I was, let's see, it was my, it was my daughter's second birthday. I remember the day. And so I'd been at the firm for five years out of law school.
So I must've been 29, 28, 28, 29 years old. And now I'm suddenly out of a job. And I got to start looking for a new one, but I found myself with a lot of spare time because looking for a job, although that's a full-time job, it leaves a lot of empty space in the day and you can't rewrite your resume a hundred times.
And so it was during that lull in my professional career that I got an idea for writing a novel and I'm always been a closet writer and frankly, being a lawyer, I'm a writer professionally because that's what I do. I [00:13:13] write briefs, I write memos, I write instructional materials and, and so writing has always been something I've loved to do.
And I had the idea, okay, well, I've got this time. So I, I had an idea and I started working on a book. So I spent three months working real hard on this book because it gave me something to do while I was just looking for a new job. That was 1991.
Rabiah (Host): right.
Kevin G Chapman: And then I got a new job and stopped working on the book cause I had a new job, but I kept, I kept working on it off and on.
And at that point I had just the one child. But it doesn't still leave you a lot, a lot of free time. But I dabbled at it and worked on it from time to time. And uh, finally finished it up about, I want to say 1995 or 1996. And then of course, you know, what do you do with a book that you just wrote in 1996 and Amazon doesn't exist?
Self-publishing doesn't exist. Made some inquiries about trying to figure out how you got a book published and [00:14:13] quickly learned that I had no chance of getting a book published because who was I? I got my, I'm not a celebrity. I got no name. I've got no credit. So it kind of went on the shelf until 2002, when my wife who is wonderful, uh, coming up on our 20th wedding anniversary said, "Hey, you know that book how about as your anniversary present, I pay to have it published?" Because by that time they were vanity publishers out there that were willing to publish a book. So I, I went to a company called Xlibris, which I think still exists, which was an offshoot of, I think it was Random House at that point, but it was strictly a you pay and we'll publish your book. And by publish, we mean, we'll print it for you. You know, we'll provide no marketing support. We won't put it in bookstores for you. You pay us and we will print copies.
And then we'll deliver those copies in big boxes to your house, and [00:15:13] then you're on your own from there. But I, I still have a few of that, the original and only printing of this book called "Identity Crisis". And I gave them out as presents to friends and I sold, you know, maybe a hundred copies and It's available still on Amazon because you know, Amazon and now anything can go up there. But it, that was my first, that was my first book and that got me kind of going. So while I was working, I started that, but it was very slow, very slow process. then in after that, about 2003, 2004, I started working pretty hard on what I w the working title of the book was called "The Great American Novel". I said, "It's time for me to write the great American novel." So if you look in my old archives on my, on my laptop, there's a, there's a file under writing called "G A N".
That was the name of the working title of that book. And I spent 10 years working on that. [00:16:13] And as my kids were getting older and I was, you know, working on different things and I really enjoyed that. But it was a long slow process where I'd pick it up for a month and put it down and pick it up two months later, put it down.
And I eventually got it finished, quote unquote finished in 2016. So about 10 years I spent working on it. And by then Amazon, Hey Amazon. So I was able to self publish that book. And it is a serious piece of literary fiction. It is. It is about politics and self identity and morality. And it's, it is, it is wonderful.
And it is, you know, it's this generation's, The Great Gatsby, and nobody was interested in buying it or reading it because literary fiction is not a real big seller. And again, I don't, I'm not a name. Nobody knows who I am. So, so the book is called "The Legacy of One". I actually re [00:17:13] edited it a couple of years ago and republished it with a new cover.
And I cut 20,000 words off of what was a way too long a manuscript. And so it was a little better now than it was, but it's still, it just sits there. And every once in a while someone will buy it and read it and send me a note and say, oh, I really liked this. I said, great. Yeah, you and a couple of dozen other people.
Okay. But I got it out of my system. I did it. I wrote it, you know, and after I die, people will start reading it. It'll be taught in college tech college courses on American literature, but I'll be long gone by then.
Rabiah (Host): So your first two books, I mean, basically were done over about 20 years then or something, right? So that's, but I guess when you look at it though, you said he would start and stop and things like that. How did you handle it as far as what you'd tell people you were doing?
Because I think what I've seen people do and what I've maybe done. Like when I was starting the podcast, I told a lot of people, I was starting it and then if I didn't, it would have been [00:18:13] embarrassing in a way to not have done it, right? And I know like one friend I have was writing a book and he was obsessed about.
then I asked them that day, what happened to your book? He goes, oh, it wasn't very good. And it just kind of stopped and had, did you have any of those experiences or how was it for you and how did you handle it? You said you were a closet writer or before
Kevin G Chapman: Yeah, I I tell you when I was writing A Legacy of One, I didn't tell people I'm writing a book. It had been going on for such a long time. And it was something that was so sort of far out in the future that I would ever get it finished, that I never really made a big deal about it and said people to people I'm, I'm writing the book.
I had the other book that was available which was a much more sort of accessible book. It's a detective, but per PI book. But no, I didn't, I didn't really make a big deal about it. It was really more for me than it was for other people. I talked about it a little bit when I went to college class reunion because the I went to Columbia, [00:19:13] undergrad, and and the book is set there about half of the book, the book involves characters who all went to Columbia and met each other at Columbia and then the lives that they there, that they, that they had after that.
And a lot of it is flashbacks to college. So I talked to people at Columbia about it. I think there was a note in the alumni magazine about it after it was published, but didn't, didn't really make a big deal about it.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Kevin G Chapman: I wasn't embarrassed about it. I just didn't think people would be interested.
Rabiah (Host): No. And, and it's interesting. I had someone on relatively recently. It was Jencey Keaton. She has an art gallery now, but she was talking about how people don't create just for fun or just for themselves. Like we're in this world now where people create things, whether it's work of writing or paintings or whatever, to post them in a way. Like, there's no connection for us as far as like what we enjoy.
So it's interesting to just hear about you writing for the enjoyment of it and for you, and to get a story out, but not [00:20:13] necessarily for this other purpose, right? I mean, it would have been nice. Yeah, of course. If it sold millions of copies, whatever, but I like just hearing about that kind of experience that you had.
So then just looking at the writing practice you had, which seems to have been kind of on and off, now you have a series of novels that we'll talk about; is your writing practice different now that you're doing more in series and how has that changed?
Kevin G Chapman: Oh, yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I used to find occasional times to to, to pick up the book and work on it because I'm busy. I've got children, I've got work obligations. I was traveling a lot in those years too, for business. I do a lot less traveling now for a variety of reasons, not just related to COVID. But it was something that I would do when I had time, but it was never the first thing on my to-do list ever.
It was always down there through third or fourth on my, on my to-do list. Then,. I got to the point after I finished A Legacy of One, got that out, two of my kids [00:21:13] had graduated from high school were off to college. I just had one, one kid at home at that point. And it was, you know, the rest of my life was kind of sitting there in front of me where we're not going to have children at home.
I'm going to have a lot more free time. My, my work is still busy. Yeah.
I had an opportunity to, to spend a little more time and it was that point I just decided that I wanted to write something fun, but not just something fun, but something that I might actually be able to sell. And you're right, i, you know, I was thinking about, let me, let me write something that people might really want to buy.
And I had actually written a short story back in 2012 for a short story writing competition that was sponsored by the New Jersey corporate counsel association of all things. So, so it was all lawyers and judges and, and, and the stories had to be about crime or law. And I decided not to go to, not to go for law, but to go for crime.
And so I wrote this short story, it was called "Fool Me Twice". And it started an [00:22:13] NYPD homicide detective named Mike Stoneman. And I won first prize in the in the short story competition, which was nice. Got me a free year's worth of dues to the association and free admission to all the events that the association does over the course of the year.
So that was fun. But when I, when I sat down to say, what do I want to write now? I went back to Mike Stoneman and that short story and said, I really liked that story. I really liked that character. Let me see if I can come up with a whole novel that's just based on, on that character.
And then I started writing what became Righteous Assassin. And Righteous Assassin could not be any more different from A Legacy of One. I mean, it was, it was just fun. It was, you know, fiction it's murder. It's a serial, serial murderer case. It's got a lot of relationships in it and all the books are really about the relationships between the characters.
That's really what makes [00:23:13] those kinds of fiction books fun. And, and so I, I crank that out in a relatively quick two years. So from 2016 to 2018, I worked on uh, Righteous Assassin. And that was really the first time that I started making the writing the top thing on my to do list. So after, after all the work obligations were done, And, you know, after, you know, obviously my wife and I, and my family have a certain amount of obligations and fun things that we do.
But whenever I had a moment that was not otherwise booked on my schedule, the writing became the first thing that I would work on. And that really was a change. It was also a change in that with self publishing the way it is now, you know, over the last 10 years, I really kind of knew what I was doing a lot more.
And I, I started thinking about when I decided to publish the book, how is it going to work? I started to work on a marketing plan for the book before it [00:24:13] was published, as opposed to waiting until after it was published and then thinking about the marketing plan. I was doing a lot of reading online about fiction, about self publishing and about crime fiction and marketing crime fiction.
And I was watching podcasts and reading blog articles and trying to educate myself about the business side of self publishing. And so then that was a real change in my attitude. And my focus when I was, going through that. And certainly since then from between 2018 and 2021, I published four more books.
So suddenly, suddenly I'm a writer and, and not, not just, not just a lawyer who wrote a book. But now I really feel like I'm more of I'm, I'm an author and a, and I'm doing that now consistently.
Rabiah (Host): Has your enjoyment of it changed with just having a different way of looking at?
Kevin G Chapman: A little bit, but not that much. My, my wife and I have a, a firm commitment to the [00:25:13] idea that I'm not going to write anything that I'm not having fun with. You know, If I'm not enjoying the story, then don't write it. You know, I'm not trying to crank out books just for the sake of cranking out books. So, we spent a lot of time brainstorming over the plots and the characters and, and working on well, what's going to be an interesting twist for the, for the next book. I wrote one that was all set on a cruiseship, called Lethal Voyage. And I did that specifically because my wife and I are big cruisers. We love going on cruises. We haven't been on one for two years because of COVID, but it's always been something that we really loved doing. So particularly since COVID had started this was an opportunity for me to write a book about being.
So, and we took, we took people who we had met on cruises and put them in the book we put we took crew crew members who we had really liked or hated on cruises and put them in the book. And so it was a lot of fun. It was really a joy to, to work on that story because I [00:26:13] was reliving a lot of fun experiences of my own life.
And that was, that was great. So I, if I'm not enjoying it, I don't want to write it.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Well, yeah. And then it's, people might not enjoy reading it if it's not something you enjoy writing to, right? That could go along with it. And that book that you just mentioned Lethal Voyage, won a Kindle book award in 2021, right? So can you talk about how that came about?
Kevin G Chapman: I figured out early on that there were all these various writing competitions that you could submit your books to. And it's nice when you get a recognition of some kind, you know, the book, this book was a semifinalist or this book is a finalist and you know, it's nice to be able to say to people, yeah, this stuff is not crap because look it, you know, it, it was recognized by this book award as being worthy of at least some level of, of recognition. So I think it helps. I think it helps give you some credibility when you're an independent author who doesn't have a long track record. So I had submitted both Righteous Assassin and the second book in the series, Deadly [00:27:13] Enterprise to the Kindle book award competition.
And both of them made the semi-final list. But never advanced to the finalist list. But Lethal Voyage did very well. It was a finalist for the, for the Clue Award, which is given up by the Chanticleer Book Review. It was a finalist for the award given out by in detail magazine, which is a, a magazine that, that specializes in independent publishing.
And then it won the, the Kindle Book Award as Best Mystery Thriller of the Year for 2021. So I was thrilled to to finally get one that I actually got first place. And so, you know, that, that was just this past November. It's about 4 or five months ago. And I'm, I'm working on trying to figure out a way to take that and turn it into more sales.
But it's nice. It's nice to be able to say, Hey, this is a, this won, this won one award. It was, it was the best book of the year in its genre. And the, the Kindle book award is great because it doesn't have 65 different categories. It's only got seven categories. So it means something more [00:28:13] when you, when you win an award where you know, all of the mysteries and thrillers and suspense books are all in one category and, and your book was the, was the best.
That was nice.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
that is great. Well, congratulations.
Kevin G Chapman: Thank you.
Rabiah (Host): So as far as Mike Stoneman, you described a little bit about him, but one question is the Mike Stoneman in the original short story you did, did you have to change much of him to kind of flesh him out into this full character that was going to live in multiple novels?
Or was he kind of established really well in that short story that you kind of knew him enough to keep going with him?
Kevin G Chapman: He's morphed a lot over time. The, the, the character is the same and that a short story is a short story. There's only so much you can do about backstory for a character when you only got 5,000 words. That was a crazy thing about that competition is they, they didn't announce that there was a word limit until I had finished the story.
So the story was eight, the story was 8,000 words. And then they [00:29:13] announced that the limit was going to be 5,000 words.
Rabiah (Host): Okay.
Kevin G Chapman: I had to do a lot of editing, which is a great exercise in editing, But the, the character intrigued me. And so I, I wrote a lot of a backstory from Mike I've got pages and pages and pages of Mike Stoneman's backstory that has never made it into any of the books yet. But it's just kind of there so that I know who he is and his motivations and his history.
But he's been a lot of fun to work with. He's he's not me. There's a little bit of me in him though. so it's a, he's like my proxy in in these books, which is, has been a lot of fun.
Rabiah (Host): You're not done with him yet after five books?
Kevin G Chapman: Probably not, although I'm not writing a Mike Stoneman book right now. I got finished with the five books. At the end of book five, and I'm not going to do any spoilers here, but at the end of book five this kind of a pause. There's a, there's a been a story arc that started with Righteous Assassin and that story arc reaches [00:30:13] its conclusion in the fifth book called Perilous Gambit, which . Is set in Las Vegas,
another one of my favorite places in the world. So I got to write a story. It was set in Las Vegas. That was a lot of fun. But now I am working on a book that is set in the same universe as the Mike Stoneman books but has nothing to do with Mike Stoneman, and is a completely separate standalone story with different characters.
And here is where things change because I've been trying to find a literary agent who would be interested in taking me on as a client, and then maybe try to help me find a traditional publisher who might be interested in stories and, and, you know, in whatever other adaptations can be made from my stories, because all my, all my fans keep telling me, oh, when is Mike Stoneman going to be on Netflix? I say soon as Netflix calls
Rabiah (Host): exactly.
Kevin G Chapman: But you need an agent for that. You can't do anything on, you know, derivative works without, [00:31:13] without them, without going through an agent. And every agent I have spoken to has told me the same thing which is, we're not interested in a series that has already started and has already been self-published. Apparently publishers aren't interested.
You know, they want to get in on the ground floor or nothing. And so I've said, well, what if I wrote a book that wasn't part of the series? And they, they said, well, in that case, you know, send it to me, let me look at it. So I'm now writing a book that is very specifically targeted for trying to get a traditional publisher and trying to get agent and we'll see if it works.
If it doesn't work then fine, I'll self publish this next one. And then I'm probably, I'm going to go back to Mike Stoneman cause Mike and, and and Michelle and Jason and Rachel, and that the main characters they're not done. There's a lot them still. And I've got a, I've got a folder full of story outlines for Mike Stoneman that are still yet to be written.
So I'm definitely gonna go back there. [00:32:13] But right now I've, I've got a different focus and that focus is totally driven by marketing and publishing and you know, my desire to try to find a, an agent. And so well, sometimes you do things for specific reasons.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, that's really cool though, in that you've been able to learn more about the industry. And so you can focus there because it makes sense at some point, when you're spending this much time doing it to try to make something of it. So if someone wants to read the Mike Stoneman series, they should start at the beginning then, is that correct?
Cause there's like an ongoing storylines or can they just grab whichever one?
Kevin G Chapman: They're all, they're all standalone stories. So there are no cliffhangers at the end, so it's not like you have to read them in order. It's always good I think to start at the beginning to, to, to get to know the characters as they progress. Cause there's a lot of, there's a lot of interpersonal development.
There's there is a story arc, as I said, that there's really around the characters and their relationships and how they build from one book to the next. I wouldn't recommend jumping in at the end. I wouldn't, I wouldn't pick it up with book five and read Perilous [00:33:13] Gambit, and then go back to, to read the earlier book.
But you can jump in and read Lethal Voyage, for example. It's a totally stand-alone separate story. And if you like those characters, then you can go back and read the first two books and see what happened that, that brought them to the point where they were in, in book three and even book four, which is called Fatal Infraction which is about the murder of the quarterback of the New York Jets, which is another one of my great fantasies.
I'm a long suffering Jets fan, so I got to write a book about, about murdering the quarterback. You could read that book as a standalone, and there's a few things in there that you'll, you're picking up kind of in the middle of the relationships. But it's not a big problem. You can pick it up there and then go back and figure out what happened.
But it's always better to start at the beginning.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So do you ever, at this point suffer from writer's block? I know some people I've read, I've actually read an article that said writer's block doesn't exist. And I'm like, well, you know, I don't know. I guess you haven't had it, but do you ever [00:34:13] face that now, or since you're making up the story, you pretty get pretty clear before you even go?
Kevin G Chapman: Well, yes and no. I mean, I, I'm a, I'm a compulsive outliner. So when I start working on a story, I have a general concept of the really broad outlines of the story. But then I sit down and write. Outlining the major plot lines and the major characters, and then what's going to happen. And by the time I sit down to actually start drafting and writing dialogue and describing scenes, the book is done in my head because I've, outlined basically every chapter of the book.
And now it's just a question of filling in the details. But for me, I'm not doing it full time. I mean, I still have a day job. And so my writing is a diversion from my, from my work. And in that respect, if I have writer's block in the sense of I'm working on the outline for a book, and I'm just [00:35:13] kind of stuck on what's going to happen next, eh, so I just put it down for a week and I focus on other things. I mean, I've got plenty of other things I can focus on. And then I can come back to it. I will tell you, I get a lot of my best ideas in the shower. Wake up in the morning and I'm sitting in the shower and I'm oh, wait a minute. What if I did that?
And now my biggest problem is trying to remember what I was thinking by the time I get out of the shower and dry off and get dressed and go downstairs and make a note about what I was thinking. I guess my memory is not as good as it used to be, I guess.
Rabiah (Host): You know, I'm, I'm the same. Like I do stand up comedy and I'll think of something. If I don't write it down, then it's gone. It will, it may or may not come back. And sometimes it's a bummer that it doesn't because I was like, oh, I was really laughing earlier. What was I laughing at?
Kevin G Chapman: Do you have a pad of paper next to your bed?
Rabiah (Host): I have them everywhere.
It looks like, you know, like in that movie signs where that girl had all the water glasses everywhere? I'm like that with my paper. There's a lot of paper in this place. [00:36:13]
Kevin G Chapman: yeah, if it dream something and you wake up and then what was I just dreaming about? Okay. Write it
Rabiah (Host): know it's hard. So, are you an avid reader?
Kevin G Chapman: I am. I, I don't read as much as I used to just because of time constraints. Oddly enough, what has happened to me is that I am a member of a book club at, at my, at my workplace. So I read whatever, whatever the book club reads, some of which is very disappointing. Unfortunately the things that are on the bestseller list that are on the Oprah book club list, and you read them and like, Eh, eh, that doesn't really impress me that much.
But I read a lot of independent work because I'm a member of a couple of different groups of, of independent authors. So we read each other's stuff. I do some, some beta reading for some of my, some of my author friends to help them, you know.
Get feedback on their stories. I'm a member of a group of authors who exchange books and read them and, and and do critiques of each other's stuff.
And so [00:37:13] I ended up reading a lot of independently published material, but very little bestsellers. I mean, I used to read John Grisham and I read a lot of, I love Sara Paretsky and Linda Barnes and, and Michael Connolly, all of Michael Conley's stuff. And, since I've really been focused last three or four years on, on the writing and trying to get these books done, I've had less and less time to just sit down and enjoy a book.
Just for the sake of reading. No that's, but I think you have to read, you have to read other people's things. You can't just focus on what you're writing without, without reading other people.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's part of it for sure. And I find too, like when I'm performing comedy more, I'll see it cause I'm at the clubs. So I'll see other people. But I don't like when I'm home, I don't focus on watching it. A lot of friends like, oh, did you see this special? You see this special?
It's like, no, because I was out in the club till 11 o'clock. So I couldn't, you know, but yeah, that's cool. I like too, that you guys have a [00:38:13] community of people that are, sounds like supportive of each other rather than in nasty competitions or something like that.
it's, it's funny with, I think with creative people and it's something I think coming from also from the corporate world, it's a different mindset that creatives, like, they tend to be more supportive of each other. Then there are like weird little interactions with certain personalities, but overall it's more supportive because it's kind of like if someone succeeds, they succeed, it doesn't change the fact that you might or might not succeed. Where corporate life, if someone gets a promotion, you didn't, and it's very cut and dry.
That's what my experience is.
Kevin G Chapman: I can see how that might be the case for a lot of people. I'll tell you that as an in-house lawyer I'm a member of an association of, of in-house counsel called the ACC Association of Corporate Counsel.
And I've been very active in that group. I'm the was for a couple of years, the chairperson of the labor and employment section of the, of the group. That group of people is amazingly supportive because we're all [00:39:13] doing pretty much the same thing for different companies. But, you know, so I can pick up the phone and call one of my colleagues to say, "Hey, I'm dealing with this, what are you doing about this? Because you probably have dealing with the same problem." I've got I've got a telephone call later today with about a hundred in-house counsel. We've been having this phone call every two weeks for the last year and a half. And it's talking about COVID. You know, what are you doing about this?
What are you doing about that? What are you doing about vaccinations? What are you doing about you know, social distancing? What are you doing about contact tracing? And we're all sharing with each because we're not really in competition with each other. We're, we're all trying to do the best job we can for our companies.
And we're all, we're all trying to help each other. So it's, it's a great organization of, of in-house lawyers. So we don't really, I don't really feel that competition with them. And so that's also a very supportive group, much like the writers groups that I work with. I mean, we're all trying to sell the same product more or less to the same audience, more or [00:40:13] less, but the audience is hundreds of millions of people. And, you know, the time between books is such that, I mean, I have a newsletter, so I plug other authors to my newsletter readers, in between my own books. Because if my newsletter readers are just waiting for my next book, it's going to be a year. And you know, so they got to read something else in between.
So I'm happy to, to help other authors. If I think the authors are writing good books, don't mind, I don't mind trying to direct my readers to, to those other authors, especially if they're running deals and they can get their book for 99 cents or a buck 99 or something or free. Oh, here, here's a book you should, you should think about getting, because my next one's not coming for a little while.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Yeah, no, that's great. And that's good with the professional association too. I think it's more what I've seen is when you're in the same company with people who are in the same kind of job. So besides [00:41:13] writing and and your career as corporate counsel, you also are a tournament poker player, correct?
I do, I do play, I used to play a lot more would like to play a lot more, but you know, COVID did, did a number on that as well. But yeah, I play, I play poker, which is a lot like what I do for work in the sense that, you know, I, I do labor negotiations and labor negotiations and poker have a lot of similarities.
So, how did you get into doing that at the tournament level versus just casually playing?
Kevin G Chapman: That's an interesting question. I mean, I always used to play poker with my buddies and just, you know, the home games and things, but I guess it was really when internet poker became a really big thing in the late nineties. Even after that, I guess the early two thousands. I was not getting out a lot in those days. I had three kids at home and playing poker online became something that was, that was fun to do. And on that, [00:42:13] you can play, you can play tournaments or you can play cash games, but tournaments were always the more fun for me. And then, Atlantic City is not that far, abo ut 90 minutes from where I live.
So my buddies and I would a couple of times a year, we'd take a little trip road trip down to Atlantic City, and we would play poker and poker tournaments down there. And that's really how I kind of got into it. But it's been, it's fun. It that's another nice diversion because when you're sitting at a poker table, you're totally focused on what's going on and you totally forget about all the other cares you have in the world work or family or stress or whatever it is.
It takes a total backseat and the just focus on what you're, what you're doing at the table. And so I.
Rabiah (Host): Awesome. That's great that you have these other things outside of work to balance you out. I think that's really important. And I'm kind of inspired just by what you're doing with writing too, to be honest cause it's, I think I'm one of those people who always said like, oh, I have a book in me. Do you have any advice or a mantra that you would [00:43:13] like to share or that kind of resonates with you a lot that you go back to?
Kevin G Chapman: Ah, for me, it, I mean, at this point, I mean, I'm, I'm 61 years old and one day I'm going to, I'm going to write a memoir. But I'm not old enough yet. I got, I got a few more years of experience in front of me, but you got to find things you like and just do them. I know too many people who complain that they wish they had something in their lives that they really enjoyed. I say, well, why don't you? Go find it, and, and do it. It's, they're, they're out there. And, you know, for me, there's my writing and my, my poker, you know, I'm a big big New York Mets fan. So I'll, you know, baseball season, which is a little tough right now with the, with the work stoppage, but
ah, you find something you enjoy and you just go do it. I mean, if you want to do a podcast now do a, do a podcast, you know, find a subject matter that you're interested in and just do it. I mean, you know, there there's a thousand, a million people out there who have the same interest [00:44:13] as you, just go find them.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's actually, I think really good. And I feel like every time someone hears that advice, maybe another person will do something. And that's what I always hope. So if you do something write to me and let me know and I'll let Kevin know too.
Rabiah (Host): So the last set of questions I have are called the Fun Five, and it's my way of kind of putting everyone into a control group really, I guess.
What's the oldest t-shirt you have and still wear?
Kevin G Chapman: I will confess to being a huge star Trek nerd. And so I actually have a t-shirt that says Starfleet Academy that I got from the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas in about 2003 or something like that. And I still, I still pull that out and exercise in it. don't wear it out in public a whole lot, but it's definitely still in the active rotation.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. That's cool. And that's a [00:45:13] good age. Sometimes I have people who are, they're really young where people just go wide. I throw everything away and I'm like, oh, you know, but I like that you've kept it. Good. Thank you. So as, as we all know, I mean, during the pandemic, especially during the, well, it's still the pandemic, but during the time when we were isolating, it felt like Groundhog's Day for a lot of us, like the movie. And so what song would you have your lawn alarm clock play every day. If it was Groundhog's Day and you were Bill Murray,
Kevin G Chapman: I was Bill Murray.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. I mean, that'd be cool, but
Kevin G Chapman: It would be nice to be bill Murray. Good to be Bill Murray. I do, I do remember one time in my life when, when the alarm went off right at the moment that Van Halen was singing Jump. And I say that that will wake you up in the morning and jump
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Kevin G Chapman: I'm awake. I'm awake. Cause I think that's probably it.
That's probably my, my, my, my wake-up song is a jump.
Rabiah (Host): Awesome. All right. That's cool now. Yeah, that will wake you up. That was a fun [00:46:13] video too. All right, so coffee or tea or neither?
Kevin G Chapman: Tea. Only Tea. Don't ever drink coffee.
Rabiah (Host): What kind of tea do you like?
Kevin G Chapman: This morning, I'm drinking Lion's Irish Breakfast Tea.
I have a tea maker in my, in my little home office here behind me. There's a I have a bar in my basement. And so I, early on in the pandemic, I brought a coffee machine down to the basement, plugged it in. So I make a whole pot of tea every morning and I drink tea all day long. And for some reason I missed the formative years.
When you learn how to like coffee, I never learned how to like coffee.
Rabiah (Host): That's not bad. It's not healthy pretty much because the caffeine is really gets a bit rough and you find that out the first time you get a headache from not having it and realize yeah, there. Yep.
Kevin G Chapman: Coffee withdrawal? No, no.
Rabiah (Host): yeah, exactly. So can you think of something that just makes you crack up when you think of it or laugh, started to cry or something happened recently?
Kevin G Chapman: I would say what else consistently makes me laugh is Monte Python. I'm dating myself a little bit there, but I [00:47:13] told you I'm old. But th that's we w we have a whole series of of Monty Python on DVDs that we still watch. And always, when you, when you need a laugh, that's a, that's where we go.
Rabiah (Host): Do you say lines each other? Like, I like to mention the shrubberies.
Kevin G Chapman: Roger, the Shrubber. Yes. Yes, absolutely. My wife and I the first movie we ever went to, to see together with the life of Brian. And, that was wonderful. Our son's middle name is Brian as a result. And but yeah, we, we, we, we recite lines to each other from movies all the time. Airplane is a big one, lots of lines from that. Yeah, it's it's we have a whole language we could, we could speak in that's just movie lines that other people probably wouldn't even understand.
Rabiah (Host): That's awesome. Cool. And then the last question is who inspires you right now?
Kevin G Chapman: Well, I mean right now?
I think that we're all inspired by Zelinsky, the president of [00:48:13] Ukraine who was a comic. So
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Kevin G Chapman: can be inspired by that. You could be the
Rabiah (Host): know. Well, I'm just like, yeah. What I do a good job. Probably not, but I'm only doing five minutes sets right now. So maybe he had worked his way up.
Kevin G Chapman: But he's, it's amazing. It's just, it's amazing to watch what, how, how he's handling this situation. And I mean, it's gotta be just every moment of every day is just anguish. And he has been an inspiration. I think that his, to his people and to the rest of the world. So he's now he's now elevated himself to a status that probably going to stick with him. I hope he lives long enough to uh to enjoy it.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, I agree. He's really incredible.
Kevin G Chapman: He's a, he's a star is rising.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. So as far as how people should look you up, where do you want them to go and how do you want them to find you?
Kevin G Chapman: Well, they certainly can find me at my website, which is very easy. It's Kevin G Chapman dot com (kevingchapman.com). And, and everything you need from me is is [00:49:13] there they, the books, the, the audio books which are their own story. I've self I've, self narrated, all my audio books. So. Yeah. that's a, that's been a whole process of what do you do with that marketplace and how do you get into it? Then you, just do it yourself sometimes.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Kevin G Chapman: And it's all there.
Rabiah (Host): Did you have to go to a voice coach or anything or you just?
Kevin G Chapman: A lot of trial and error. My father is actually a radio guy, so I grew up around, around somebody talking into a microphone, but there was a lot of, a lot of trial and error trying to figure out the technical aspects of how to create an audio book. And I made them all. Made all the mistakes
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Kevin G Chapman: And uh, five audio books, six, if you count rerecording Righteous Assassin, which I had to go back and rerecord the whole book from start to finish.
Well, it was necessary because of things that happened the first time around. That's that's, you know, a hundred hours of my life. [00:50:13] I'm never going to get back, but yeah, that's fine. Yeah, but no, it was, it was a great process. And now that I've done it enough, I feel like I'm able to do it without necessarily feeling like a novice at it. But that, that was a, that was a journey.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah.
Kevin G Chapman: It was a process,
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. I can imagine.
Kevin G Chapman: but they're all there on my website and people can find a find me there. I'm on a, I got a Facebook group for the Mike Stoneman series called the Mike Stoneman thriller group. So you can also find me there on Facebook.
Rabiah (Host): Okay. Super well, thank you. And I'll have all that in the show notes. So Kevin, it was really a lot of fun talking to you. Thanks for being on.
Kevin G Chapman: Ah, thank you. Thanks for having me. It's been a nice afternoon.
Rabiah (Host): Thanks for listening. You can learn more about the guests and what was talked about in the show notes. Joe Maffia created the music you're listening to. You can find him on Spotify at Joe M A F F I A. Rob Metke does all the design for which I am so grateful. You can find him online by searching Rob M E T K E.
Please leave [00:51:13] review if you'd like to show and get in touch if you have feedback or guest ideas. The pod is on all the social channels at @morethanworkpod or at Rabiah comedy on TikTok. And the website is more than work pod dot com (morethanworkpod.com). While being kind to others, don't forget to be kind to yourself.
