The Grey NATO – 262 – Sweetwater (No Spoilers!)

Published on Thu, 16 Nov 2023 06:00:00 -0500

Synopsis

This episode is a discussion about Jason Heaton's new book "Sweetwater", which is a sequel to his previous novel "Death Charge". Jason gives some background on the writing process for "Sweetwater", including how he approached plotting and character development differently compared to his first book. He reads an excerpt from the fourth chapter to give listeners a taste of the story. The hosts also talk about Jason's recent book launch and signing events, as well as ways for listeners to purchase signed copies of the book.

The episode also touches on some other topics, including an upcoming hangout event Jason is hosting, a watch found underwater in Australia, and Jason's experience with the Oura Ring fitness tracking device.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Graynado. It's a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches this episode 262. And it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you're listening and would like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details.
James Stacey Hey, Jason, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Yeah, I am Jason Heaton and you are James Stacy. I think we... Oh yeah, intros. We decided we do that every now and then.
Jason Heaton We promise we're professionals as well as those being our names. Yeah, right. Both of those things are true. Yeah, it's gonna be kind of a cool episode. Obviously, we're talking mostly about Sweetwater today, which is your new book, and it's the follow up to Death Charge. You've been done it for the better part of... What did you say on the recent episode? Like a year?
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Give or take. This one's, this one's had a bit of a lengthy gestation period for reasons we can get into shortly. But, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's finally out in the world and, uh, our dining room looks like a fulfillment center once again. And it's, uh, it's been a lot of fun, really good response so far. So, yeah, yeah. We can get into that in a bit, but, uh, you are in the meantime, you're off to Dubai here and within a few hours, right?
Jason Heaton Yeah, I leave in about eight hours or I leave for the airport at about eight hours. It's a really late flight. And then on top of that, I'll be so I'll be gone for a week. So we're going to take the next weekend off or the next Thursday off. So if you're listening, this is 262. The next one would come out essentially on the Thursday of American Thanksgiving. So we're going to skip that one, take ourselves a little break. I will have just been back from Dubai, probably still dealing with jet lag. We'll see how all that kind of stuff goes. Um, but we're going to take that one off and then come back the next week with another special episode. We're actually like, are almost having too many interesting topics for people to talk about to actually run out of episodes. This, so taking the week off in November is, is a plus like taking it off. You know, it gives us a little bit of a chance to actually enjoy that holiday. It's a holiday for hooding key, which means it's a holiday for me. And then obviously for you, Jason, as an American, but, uh, it, it does kind of stack the counter. We're like, we'll be pushing well into December with, um, with some episodes that we still have on the list to get done this year. So it should be good.
James Stacey Yeah. Old dog, new tricks. We've still got a few good episodes up our sleeves after this many years. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Oh, always. Yeah. If you're used to most years of TGN, there's a couple you can expect by the end of the year, which should be fun. But yeah, other than that, like you said, I'm headed to Dubai Watch Week. I'll be there for a week at some point. We're working in the Slack to put together some sort of a hangout on one of the evenings. which should be fun. I've never been to Dubai. I don't even know the hotel I'm at and all that kind of stuff. I've been too busy with other things. I actually only just packed this morning. I usually pack the day before, so I'm behind my normal schedule. But speaking of hangouts, I was in Pennsylvania this past weekend. Oh, yeah. And we had an awesome hangout at Triumph Brewing in New Hope. So if you listened to the last episode or if you're on the Slack, you might have seen me and a few other folks saying like, hey, come by this. You know, if you're in the Pennsylvania area, that's a huge, huge state. if you're in the more like New Hope, Bucks County sort of area outside of Philly, maybe swing by and hang out. And we probably had like 20 ish people show up and it just an absolute blast. Yeah. Some great watches, drank a few great beers and hung out for several hours in the end. And, and, and I just want to say like a big shout out to Jan for kind of helping put everything together and bring some more folks out that they were, they do sort of a local meetup more often. And I was able to kind of co-opt on top of that. But Sarah and I drove out there. It's like a, you know, a half hour drive from where she grew up. And, um, and we had a really nice time. So I, I did want to say a big thank you, uh, to everyone who showed up and, and brought watches and chit chatted. It was a, it was an absolute treat, a real highlight of the weekend.
James Stacey Oh, that's great. Yeah. I had a couple of friends I told about and they showed up and enjoyed meeting you and the, and the photos looked great on slacks and some really cool, interesting watches that totally, that I either hadn't seen or you don't see very often. So yeah, really, really cool. And you had a bit of a busy weekend as well, right? I did. Yeah. So I, um, I was up in every couple of years, I go up to Duluth, which is about two hours North of here for kind of a full on nerd fest. Um, it's the gales of November, which is a, it's named after, you know, a lyric from the song by Gordon Lightfoot about the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And they do it in early November every year to not only commemorate that, um, but also to talk about great lakes shipwrecks and just maritime sort of culture in general. And so they always have a pretty good roster of speakers. Um, this year they had, uh, a guy who was talking about, um, rum running during prohibition across the great lakes from Canada, which was really interesting. And they had somebody talking about kind of the history of tugboats on the great lakes. And I know people are probably shaking their head listening to these topics, but then, um, there was a, a guy who had, uh, found a fairly significant and large ship shipwreck that had been missing since 1953. uh, in the middle of Lake Superior. He found that just about two months ago. And he gave a really interesting conversation or presentation about that. So it was good. It was all kind of stuff like that. And then they also had some exhibitors, you know, people, uh, from various archeological resources and, and kind of local tourism and diving companies and that sort of thing. And then, uh, they had a silent auction and I went up there actually with Matt Ludvigson, our, our friend from the TGN community and a local shout out Matt, local friend of mine here. And my old buddy, Chris Winters from Milwaukee drove up. And so we all went up and shared an Airbnb for a night and, and did the show for a couple of nights. We went up to the split rock lighthouse. They do an annual commemorative, uh, lighting up the beacon. It's the only, only day of the year they do that. And, and at the silent auction, I bid on a little, they always have like this kind of nautical ephemera that's for, um, for sale there via silent auction. And I bid on a little lifeboat compass in a wooden box that I was really keen on getting. And I, I placed a couple of bids, but I got out bids. So now I'm probably for the best. I don't need any more of that kind of stuff sitting around on shelves here. But, uh, anyway, it was a, it was a fun, fun weekend overall. And then I was back Saturday night and then Sunday I launched my signed copy sales of, of sweet water for my sub stack community over on swim proof. Uh, and then Monday opened it up for kind of general sales and, and, uh, it's been a tremendous response. So like I said, our dining room is, You know, the table is piled high with books and FedEx boxes. I have to make another run to FedEx this morning when we're done here. So yeah, it's no shortage of interesting stuff to do around here.
Jason Heaton That's great. Yeah, I'm glad to hear it. That sounds like a super fun kind of way to spend a weekend. Yeah, obviously you were you were missed in New Hope, but that's a good one. And if folks would like to catch up with you, they can put December 3rd at Lake Monster Brewing in St. Paul on the calendar. And swing by there and yeah, enjoy a beer and probably chit chat about the book and other stuff. Probably just be a pretty solid hangout as well. I know the last one was a great one as well.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. It's a, from one till 3 PM. Lake monster is kind of my sort of hangout place of choice around here, uh, given the name and they have a beer there, an IPA that's on the regular menu called depth charge, which I thought was very fitting. And they did a nice, a nice job hosting my depth charge book signing. And so we're headed back there on December 3rd and people can come and Just hang out. I mean, I'm not, certainly a lot of people have already bought the book. I'm not shilling books too heavy on that one. I just want to get together and celebrate the accomplishment and raise a few pints with some friends and sign a few books, give a few stickers away and should be fun. Yeah. So make it if you can.
Jason Heaton So again, that's December 3rd, Lake Monster Brewing in St. Paul, 1 to 3 p.m. Uh, look, I want to jump into a risk check because we have a follow up on a recent episode, but we also sadly have a different sort of follow up also on a recent episode. And we just wanted to say, you know, rest in peace to Don Walsh, uh, the star of, of, I mean, many things, but definitely episode two 42 and just 20 episodes later, uh, Don passed, uh, I believe yesterday, uh, at the time we're recording this, um, certainly lived an incredible life. I really do recommend learning as much as you can about the guy. Uh, he's fascinating, uh, pragmatic. talented and remains a highlight of my career, making things to have made something that he felt was good enough to come on and chit chat with us about. I mean, all sorts of stuff. We had a great chat with him. It's kind of wild because he, I know he was of course very old in his nineties, but he didn't seem it. And and I don't know the world's kind of a less interesting place maybe without, without Don.
James Stacey Yeah, definitely. And, and between his and, and Stan Waterman's passing earlier in the year, you know, it's, uh, these, these, these older legends, um, are, are leaving us and it's, uh, it's, uh, they've been inspiring people to kind of follow and get to know, uh, to a certain degree. And, and man, when we had Don on, I mean, you're right. It was just, uh, gosh, it was just a few months back. I think it was in June and, you know, we did a kind of a zoom call with him. Obviously there was only an audio component for the show, but we, We chatted with him over zoom and he was sitting in his study and he seemed very hale and hearty and in good spirits. Yeah. Cracking jokes, drinking coffee. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, too bad. But, um, he lived a good, long, rich life and we're all better for it. So, uh, yeah. Rest in peace, Don Walsh.
Jason Heaton You made a mark on the world. We, we, uh, we could all ask the same, I suppose, or hope for the best, right? Yeah. Right. Well, look, let's jump into some risk check. Uh, what, what have you got on, on risk for today?
James Stacey I have this Breitling Navitimer on my wrist, and it's really not been off my wrist since, well, we had our episode with Mark Hayek for which I put on a Blancpain. As you do. Yeah, as you do. But the Navitimer's been on my wrist kind of nonstop. I wore it up to Duluth, shared it with Matt, who was pretty thrilled to see it. He had a Zinn 903 on, which is kind of Zinn's version, which is an equally cool watch. It's a really neat. Very cool. But yeah, this is, This Navitimer, you know, just to kind of catch people up, you know, you can go back and listen to episode 260 in which we covered this watch and kind of its interesting backstory. But I'm happy to say that it's actually mine now. People have been asking, you know, I was kind of the sort of custodian of it after this friend found it in a thrift shop for, in an incredible story. But, uh, yeah, we worked out something and now it's, uh, it belongs to me and I will take very good care of it and, and give it its proper respect and share it as much as I can with, with other enthusiasts. So yeah, it's really fun. It's running great. Uh, I wear it. I mean, people might cringe and wag their fingers at me. I wore it, you know, raking leaves yesterday. I wear it nonstop. I mean, driving, doing stuff around the house. Uh, it's just such a fantastic piece. So that's awesome. Yeah. Really happy.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I love that. Congratulations. I think that's a, that's awesome. I also love that it just kind of, for whatever reason, like, you know, we, we already told the story in 260 about how this watch kind of found you essentially. And I like that it also kind of found you when you're probably looking for some, a little token to celebrate the release of Sweetwater.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Um, you know, the, the, the early release for Sweetwater was on November the 5th, which of course, if you're a V for Vendetta fan, uh, easy to remember the timing for that. Right. Yeah.
James Stacey Remember, remember the 5th of November.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Uh, so that's, that's awesome. You first getting the black FXD and now the Navitimer really makes me feel like I don't have to buy anything, which isn't, it's a nice feeling. It's been just relaxing over here.
James Stacey Yeah. Right. Right. And how about you? What are you, uh, what are you wearing and what are you bringing to Dubai? Are you bringing a kind of a whole roll of watches or are you going to just run with one?
Jason Heaton No, I mean, I'm going pretty maximalist on the clothing. I actually was just saying before we started recording, this will probably be the first time in years and years that, um, I'll, I'm going to check a bag. Oh yeah. Just cause it's, you know, it's like I'm there for seven, six or seven nights and I don't really, you know, I needed a little bit more space. So I don't have a full size. I don't even own a full size suitcase, which I didn't realize until today. But in terms of watches, I don't, you know, people go to Dubai to spend a lot of money and typically that's a sign for me to go pretty chill on what I try and bring back into Canada, even if it's mine. Oh, sure. Um, so I'm going to travel with a single watch. I was going to do this watch, which I'll mention in a moment and the Apple watch, but then I realized like, I don't want to, I'm just going to bring one watch. Yeah. I can, I can use my phone to say how much of the flight is left. I'm going to try it. Like I have to bring so much camera gear and all this clothes, the rest of it. I'm just like, I don't want a little complication that could cost me an hour in customs explaining why I have several watches. Yeah, that's true. I never thought about that. So I'm going with a watch for which I have all my paperwork. It's also has been a watch that I wear a little bit less recently, but I am conscious of wearing it when I'm going somewhere new. I've never been to Dubai before. Um, and I'm going to wear my Explorer too. I like having it on when I go to a new city, when I go to a new place. Um, so that's what I'm going to wear. It's not going to look at a place in that space or the dress code or that sort of thing. So Um, it may be a little bit boring or whatever, but for me, like there's a little bit of an emotional connection. I'm going somewhere new. I'm exploring a place I've never been before. I've always been pretty interested in Dubai, um, from, uh, you know, the, just the, the story of the city is, is remarkable. It has incredible tourism, which I hope I get to do a little bit of that while I'm there. And while I would like to be able to show up to say the TGN hangout at whatever spot we ended up doing it. Um, with a roll of watches. I don't know that that's necessarily prudent unless I wanted to carry quite a bit of paperwork. I'm bringing a TGN hat. So if you see the orange hat walking around, I'm sure it'll be one of the only ones kicking around Dubai Watch Week. But for those who thought maybe I'd be able to bring a handful of watches, I apologize. I've become a little bit sensitive to causing some sort of an issue with customs. So I'm just going to stick with the Explorer. I think it's perfect. And if I get to do some cool driving a car in the desert or something like that, then it's even better to have that watch in that memory.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey That seems like a good, good choice. You're going to keep it on the bracelet or a NATO or just going to do it on the bracelet.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Just cause it's, it's more of a, some, a slightly elevated dress code with some evening events. And as much as I love a NATO, I can't, I can't really wear a NATO to an evening event very easily. Yeah. Yeah. Always, always seems a bit like wearing shorts. Yeah. Right. You know what I mean? But yeah, so 16570 for me, brand new, not new, Navitimer for you, which I think, did we settle on the nickname being Navidimer? Navidimer. Got it handed to Matt again. Yeah, Navidimer. He nailed it. That's perfect. I absolutely love that. Navidimer. Man, that's so funny. Oh man. Look, I want to leave enough of this show to get into stuff about Sweetwater. So you want to jump into that now?
James Stacey Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Love to talk about it.
Jason Heaton So I've, I've several questions and a lot of, a lot of them come from people who have asked me quite like, like we were at the hangout and new hope this past week. And, uh, and people ask some questions of the book. So I think we'll just kind of do this, like a little bit of like an interview for you, uh, you know, inside the author's mind. Sure. We'll treat it a little bit like a special guest today with me. My special guest is a celebrated author. Uh, the author of the smash hit depth charge has now followed it up with his sophomore efforts, Sweetwater. And, uh, it's a pleasure to have you on the show, Jason, how are you?
James Stacey Happy to be here. Yes. Thank you for having me on the gray NATO.
Jason Heaton Uh, all right. So, uh, I guess the first thing I really do want to get into, cause we're going to, I want to keep the pace fun on this. And mostly I don't want to say too much, which isn't my strong suit. Um, I would like people just to buy the book. I have it on my, um, Kindle, which is charging directly in front of me. I will be reading it on the plane tonight and I'm very excited for that.
James Stacey Nice. Well, I do have a signed copy with your name on it as well, but I'm going to wait. I'm going to try to time it. So it gets to you, uh, as you're arriving back from, from Dubai.
Jason Heaton Oh, fantastic. I look forward to that. Thank you. Yeah. DepthCharge was a success. It went well. What do you, what, what were some of the lessons that you learned from DepthCharge that you wanted to move into the pro whether it was the writing process or maybe the fulfillment or those sorts of things? Like what did you learn from doing it one way? And maybe what did you change for Sweetwater?
James Stacey I, you know, with, with depth charge, it was a longer writing process and it took me, I believe from start to finish before I was able to actually get to the point where it was, I had a cover and getting ready to print and it was about 18 months. And in the, in the case of Sweetwater, I think it took me slightly less than six months to, to write and finish the whole book. Um, there was a couple of wrinkles, uh, with this book. Um, but before I get into that, I mean, in terms of the writing itself, But depth charge, you know, I didn't really know what I was doing. It was my first book and I just kind of decided I was just going to kind of write in a very linear sort of point A to point B, B being the end of the book. And sure. So I just kind of wrote in a, in a forward direction without much thought of like what was going to come next. I was sort of discovering the story as I was writing it, which I quickly discovered was not a good strategy because you end up kind of painting yourself into corners and, you know, hitting cul-de-sacs, uh, in terms of the plot that I then had to kind of, you know, backtrack, walk in my own footsteps backwards to kind of figure out where the path should go instead. And then that presents all sorts of complications about, you know, characters, names and places and the timing. And so it was a bit more of a mess. And I realized it's like, uh you know don't ask how the sausage is made sort of thing and maybe people don't want to know that about that and just kind of enjoy depth charge and I encourage you to do that but with Sweetwater I set out from the beginning kind of vowing to myself that I was going to map out the plot and and do like a timeline literally on I have like a big oversized white notepad with, you know, tear off sheets. And I was just drawing timelines with hash marks on them. Like this happens now, then we jump back to this, then this. And if there's some timelines that are parallel, sort of literally sketch them out that way. Um, and then I made kind of a master document where I had kind of a table of, of characters with, I really wanted to get to know the characters before I wrote them into a story. So I would, I made a table with literally, you know, character, their name, their age, kind of physical characteristics, you know, clothing choice. Are they wearing a watch? What, you know, where did they come from? How old are they? Uh, physical appearance, all of that. And it really made it easy because even if those details don't make it into the story, you know, word for word, it helped me to kind of, you know, as I was writing that character in the book, I can envision them in my mind as I was writing about them. And so between kind of mapping out the plot and then, having this sort of character cheat sheet. Uh, it, it really was a smarter way to do it. And it made the story come together very quickly. And as, as you know, you know, being a writer, like you know how many words you can write in a day. Um, you, you, you have a sense of, of the start and the finish of, let's say it's an article for Hodinkee, like that's how I treated each chapter. And so knowing kind of having my list of chapters and what was going to happen in chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, and what has to happen in what order I would then just kind of discipline myself to sit down, if not daily, you know, several times a week and just say, okay, today's the day I write chapter four. And I would just say like, I know that I can write this many words because I've done it before writing nonfiction. And so that's kind of how I did the entire book. And when it was done, it felt good. I felt like it was in a good place and I wasn't scrambling to think like, Oh, what did I, you know, what did I miss when I had to go back and rewrite that whole section or cut a character out or something?
Jason Heaton The continuity thing feels like something I would, I would have to polish over time. So I could see it making sense of having like organization docs that allow you to, to not leave a hanging, like leave something hanging or broken or, or that sort of thing.
James Stacey Look, I'm, I'm still new to this and I definitely was with depth charge and I'm, I'm still very much, I would consider myself a beginner novelist with even with this book and it's, it's all this sort of organic learning process and I'm, I'm pretty sure that if and when I write a third book, which I, you know, I hope to do, I will improve during the writing of that one as well. I will, I will have figured out even more, more things from this book. And, and it's, it really is an interesting thing to do. It's, it's really stretching my own patience. I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm the most patient person. I'm also not someone who pays a lot of attention to, to great detail. I, I'm just not one of those people, but this has kind of forced me out of that, out of my comfort zone and forced me to be more of that person. uh, for the better. And I, hopefully it bleeds into other aspects of my life. I'm not sure it has, but now the complication with Sweetwater was that as I was approaching the end of the manuscript, uh, this was late last year. It was, it was almost a year ago now, like last October, November. Um, I was connected with a literary agent who, uh, over in Belfast in Northern Ireland, who, you know, I kind of signed on to his services and he agreed to, to send out the manuscript and work with me on editing the manuscript and then try to kind of put it in front of some publishers. And so come the first of the year I sent him a completed manuscript. We had worked on it together and polished it and he sent it to a kind of a master list that he has of publishers. And then we waited for feedback and I got a lot of good feedback. I got some, some constructive criticism. I got some, polite, uh, you know, declines like, you know, thanks, but no thanks. It's reads well, but you know, we just, this isn't a genre we do or whatever. Um, and then as time was going on, I was just thinking to myself, okay, in my head I was like itching to, and here I go back to my impatience. Like I just want to get this out in the world. I enjoy the publishing process. I realized while I was waiting, um, for news that, With depth charge, part of what really was enjoyable about writing that book was working with Paul Andrews, another TGN listener, a very talented designer on the cover design and some of the kind of graphical elements of merchandise and the map that goes in the book and things like that. I really enjoyed that. I really wanted to get back to that. I wanted to market the book. I enjoy doing things like this, you know, on TGN, I've got another podcast that I'm going to be chatting with someone about in a couple of weeks. Um, about the book and it's this, this sort of thing is fun to me. I like holding a book launch event, uh, et cetera. And so I went back to this agent, uh, whose name is also Paul. And I said, look, I really think I want to do this myself. Uh, and so he said, why don't we give it till the end of August? And so I did that. And at the end of August, uh, I, I was full, full steam ahead, um, on the self publishing route again. Uh, and then that led to where we are today. So basically from, September 1st until what a week or two ago, um, was kind of going at it pretty, pretty hard to, to get the book finalized and printed and proofed and, uh, had a great proofer. Uh, again, drawing from the TGN community, Chris soul, uh, couldn't have done it without him. What a, what a tremendous asset he was. The people's champion. Yeah, exactly. I mean, he's, uh, he's, he's such a champion. He's such a legend. And, uh, and he had such valuable input and, and talk about an eye for detail. Now he does, he has that. And, uh, I would say he really, he really kind of elevated the quality of the book. So, um, and here we are today. Uh, I would say, you know, and I'm sorry if I'm kind of just rambling here, it's sort of a stream of consciousness, but you know, in terms of a launch strategy, uh, it didn't exactly go as, as planned, but in the end it all worked out. I, when I had done depth charge, I had my author copies, to sell as signed books printed locally. Um, and then I would go and actually pick up the books and bring them home and sign and then ship them out this time around. As I discovered late in the process with depth charge was Amazon can act as a kind of a lower cost printer because I also sell the books by on Amazon. So once I published the book on Amazon, I can order my own author's copies that kind of a wholesale rate for myself to sell and sign and just have to give away or whatever. So that's what I did this time. But then, you know, the cat got out of the bag because people started seeing it on Amazon and it kind of made me scramble and, and, and get it out there sooner. But you know what, it's all worked out really well and to kind of trickle it out in the way that I have first on Amazon, then, uh, the signed copies to my sub stack subscribers and then kind of open it up in general. And I think here we are and it's, uh, it's been brisk. Um, the past three days have been pretty well nonstop signing. I've got some serious writer's cramp. Uh, and a lot of trips to FedEx.
Unknown So yeah.
Jason Heaton Okay. Yeah. Well, that's great. I'm glad to hear that the launch went well and that the book came together. You know, we've basically talked about how the book came together, but not what's between the covers to be clear for anybody who's worried about it. This is a no spoilers, you know, discussion of Sweetwater in as many words as, as you think work to maintain the no spoiler element. Do you want to get people a breakdown of what they can expect from the story? Maybe even start with a quick synopsis of what happened in depth charge.
James Stacey Sweetwater is for, for people that have asked, um, something of a sequel to depth charge. And some people have said, do I need to read depth charge before reading Sweetwater? And the answer is it would be helpful, um, to kind of know some background, but I was very adamant when I wrote this one that it does need to stand alone, uh, as its own book. And just in case somebody runs across it somewhere in, in, you know, a used bookshop or, or, uh, online or as a gift or something. But if you go back to DepthCharge, we have this character whose name is Julian Tusk. He goes by Tusker as a nickname. And he is an underwater archaeologist from the upper Midwest here in the U.S., in the Great Lakes region. But in DepthCharge, he finds himself doing a project in Sri Lanka where everything kind of seems to be innocent and going as planned until a friend of his is killed in a very mysterious way on the other side of the island. And he's kind of pulled into this mystery of how it happened, which, which leads to kind of bigger and more nefarious plot, uh, that involves, you know, kind of a, kind of a, a classic sort of villain character, uh, who's, who's up to no good and, and his henchmen of course, and, and there's a lot of underwater activity and diving and there's a love interest that, uh, and with the bookends he is, you know, he's narrowly escaped, he's back in the U S. And, um, that's kind of where that book closes. A lot of trauma in that book. There was a lot of kind of action and personal peril on his, on his side of things. Um, but he came through. Okay. Uh, with, with some physical and emotional scars and in Sweetwater, we sort of pick up about a year after that. And this book is set in kind of his home turf. It's in, it's in the upper great lakes region. Um, and, there it's right around the time of a presidential election and um something kind of conspires to to pull him into yet another mystery closer to home that also draws on some some history with with his own father who as people who've read depth charge will remember was a navy diver uh and and suffered from the bends um but when when tusker was a small child and then passed away um so in this book he's kind of grappling with not only the emotional scars from what happened in depth charge, but also he's has to, he's learning more and more about his father's background and, and what his involvement was with this current mystery that he has to deal with. And there, there's a lot of kind of political intrigue. Um, uh, of course, plenty of diving. Um, there's an old vehicle in this one, just like there wasn't depth charge, which I'm quite pleased about. And, uh, and yeah, uh, another love interest, uh, in this book as well. And I feel like this book is, it's, it's a more mature outing for me. I think, I think again, like I said, I'm, I'm still very much a beginner at this novel writing thing, but I feel like this book may be due to the way that I wrote it, as I described earlier. Um, it just feels like a little more of a tight plot. And I think it has some interesting kind of background elements that, um, that I hope people like. And so far the feedback I've gotten has been, has been good. People seem to like the story. I think it's a very different story. than depth charge. I'll just, I'll kind of leave it at that and, and, and hope that people like it, even though it is a, it is a bit of a different story than, than the other one.
Jason Heaton Well, that sounds amazing. I'm a, I'm, like I said, super excited to read it and it, yeah, I think if, if this makes sense for you, it's probably time to jump into the excerpt, which will be read by you, which I think people will enjoy. Maybe we'll call it a teaser for a possible audio book in the future.
James Stacey Yeah. So for the excerpt, uh, that I'm going to read, it's actually the fourth chapter in the book and it's called the Kiwanaw. And in this chapter we see Tusker, the hero kind of doing his work. He's a, he's a professor of underwater archeology and he's out for a day of, of doing some sonar scans with some students. And it kind of gives you a little window into what his work is all about, but also, uh, as you'll find out a little bit of foreshadowing in terms of the overall story of this book. So, With that, here's the chapter, The Keweenaw. Lake Superior, present day. A week after the First World War ended, three identical minesweepers steamed away from the Canadian Carr and Foundry shipyard in Fort William, Ontario. They had been built on spec for the French Navy and were headed for the far side of the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence Seaway. But on their maiden voyage, they had to cross all five of the Great Lakes. On November 18th, 1918, A gale blew up on Lake Superior as Inkerman, Sarasouls, and Sebastopol passed the Keweenaw Peninsula of northern Michigan. Facing huge waves and hurricane-force winds, the ships became separated, and while Sebastopol narrowly escaped, the other two minesweepers were lost without a trace. All hands were lost, 76 French sailors and two Canadian captains, making their combined sinking the single largest loss of life on Lake Superior. The ships have never been found. It was late in the season to be on the Big Lake in a small survey boat. Though the late October sun still had some warmth, the wind was from the north and had been blowing across the water all the way from Canada. With its chill, it also brought long, rolling swells that lifted the RV Kiwanaw up and down as she idled over 250 feet of water. Tusker stood out of the wind in the cabin's doorway, explaining the day's goals to his small crew of three PhD students. He was dressed in a pair of old jeans, a wool commando sweater, and a pair of badly neglected blundstone boots. The students were kneeling at the stern, getting ready to deploy the side-scan sonar off the rolling transom. One of them, a bearded Texan named Logan, was struggling to keep his breakfast down. There's no shame in being green, Logan, Tusker said with a wry grin. Just be sure to lean outward, or you'll be swabbing the decks. The poor kid nodded under his baseball cap. The trick is to time your release with the swells. Tusker called encouragement to the students. You want to toss it in when you're at the top of a swell, not the bottom. Otherwise, it'll just end up getting thrown back onto the transom. Logan looked at him. The tow fish, not your breakfast, just to clarify. The captain, an Irish transplant named O'Connell, was leaning on the console in the small cabin, eating a sandwich he'd brought along, and he looked up and chuckled. Sarah, another student, was standing on the transom, which was awash in green water. She was wearing fishing waders and a heavy fleece jacket under a foul weather shell. She was a yuper, a lifelong resident of the UP, Michigan's upper peninsula, and the most comfortable of the three in the challenging conditions. She was checking the winch spool, making sure the sonar's cable wouldn't get fouled as it was paid out. Ming was from Malaysia, and in the final month of his PhD. Nothing ruffled him, and he was busy checking the connections on the torpedo-shaped towfish. He'd already turned in his final thesis. Something about the effects of climate change on the condition of freshwater shipwrecks. And today it was more for fun than any sort of requirement. Tusker was glad to have his quiet competence along. With a final check and with the Keweenaw riding the crest of a roller, Logan and Sarah pitched the towfish into the water. Ming released the catch on the winch and nodded to O'Connell, who slowly pushed the throttles forward. The boat moved off, trailing the towfish, which sunk beneath the surface. Logan immediately leaned over the gunwale and retched. Everyone looked away. glad to be finally moving. The idling boat, with swirling wind circulating its exhaust fumes combined with the rolling swells, was enough to make the hardiest sailor a bit peaked. Sarah, Ming, and Tusker settled in under the canopy at the open rear of the cabin, while Logan took first shift minding the towfish cable. He was glad to be in the fresh air while the others stared at the laptop screen for anomalies. Visual shapes that hint at something man-made on the lakebed. Ideally, a sunken French minesweeper. As the towfish passed over It went on like this for the whole morning. Students switching off duties on the boat, interspersed with breaks for coffee and calls of nature off the transom. Sarah dropping the tail of her bibs in front of the men without inhibition. Thought we might get lucky today, Ming said, rubbing his eyes after looking at the screen for an hour straight. There's a reason they haven't been found yet, Tusker replied. Either they went down somewhere far from where everyone thinks they did, or they're living out quiet lives as fishing trawlers in the south of France right now, he grinned. O'Connell barked a hoarse laugh and fished a cigarette pack out of the pocket of his Carhartt jacket. He offered one to Tusker, who thought about it, then declined. But seriously, this is truly a needle in a haystack hunt, Tusker continued, recognizing a teaching opportunity. Up until recently, all the searches had centered on the waters off of the Keweenaw Peninsula, but Professor Colquhoun has been analyzing the weather and currents and some reports from other ships in the area the day they went down, and he reckons they might have made it a bit further. All we can do is keep methodically expanding the search grid. And so they did, into the afternoon, with no luck. Every time they came across a ship-shaped shadow on the sonar feed, Sarah or Ming or Logan would cross-reference the GPS coordinates with those of known wreck sites. Tusker could almost recite the names when he saw the shadows of them appear on the screen. Still, nothing that looked like the lost minesweepers. Got something, Ming called out excitedly. He was pointing at the screen as a shape started to paint itself. It soon became apparent that it wasn't a ship. That looks like... an airplane. See the wings? A Gulfstream II, to be precise, Sarah said matter-of-factly after seeing the familiar swept-back wings. Ming looked at her incredulously. How do you know that? he asked. My grandfather was on that plane. She looked out over the gray-green water. November of 78. Holy shit, I'm... I'm sorry, Ming said. She nodded and waved him off. I never knew him, she said. He died before I was born. Tusker had been listening to the conversation. I didn't know that, Sarah, he said from his perch inside the pilot house. Why was he on that flight? He was flying it, she replied. Now it was Tusker's turn to be shocked. Both he and Ming looked at her with mouths open. Even O'Connell turned and looked. No one knew what to say. The official NTSB report said that it was pilot error that caused the crash. Sarah's tone grew bitter. But my mom says he was a scapegoat. Grandpa was a damn good pilot, apparently. Flew F-86 Sabres in Vietnam, and those were supposed to be really hard to land. Landing a Gulfstream at Marquette would have been a cakewalk for him. Tusker didn't mention his own father's involvement in the salvage and investigation, but it occurred to him that they had both been affected by that crash. If any good came out of it, though, she said with a cheerful turn of tone, that crash is what made me want to be an underwater archaeologist. She forced a smile. The shape of the plane had moved off of the sonar feed and the lake bed went back to an empty wasteland. They were suddenly lurched out of the somber conversation by the sound of Logan retching over the side of the boat. I think Logan has had enough for one day, Tusker said and stood up. Let's reel in the fish and head back to the dock. Live to sweep another day. As the three students coiled the coaxial cable around its spool and secured the towfish in its pelican case on the back deck, Tusker thought about what Sarah had said. That plane crash, in some ways, is what also made him want to be an underwater archaeologist. He just didn't know it at the time. O'Connell swung the Keweenaw around, now into the stiff breeze, and pushed the throttles to full. The boat slowly lifted its bow into the setting sun and headed west for home.
Jason Heaton All right, well, that was amazing. I'm even more excited than I was previously. This is going to be really cool to read, and I think it's fun to be able to kind of include an excerpt from Sweetwater in the show. Look, if folks have been listening to all of this, we haven't given any spoilers away. They heard the excerpt and now they're interested. What's the best way to go about picking up a copy of Sweetwater?
James Stacey Yeah, there are kind of two big options. The first of which is you can simply order it. It's available on Amazon as both an ebook and as a kind of a printed paperback. And we'll throw that link in the show notes like we did last week. If you'd like a signed copy directly from me, Uh, as I mentioned earlier, I've got stacks of them on my dining table and I'm shipping off, uh, regularly here. Uh, you can go to my website, which is Jason Heaton author.com. And then if you go to the shop link, it will take you directly there and you can order depth charge as well. If you'd like a signed copy of that book, I'm happy to ship as many books as you'd like. Um, uh, it's also an Apple books as an ebook. So if that's more your thing, uh, you can find it there. Uh, I would imagine that since Amazon kind of also acts as a distributor, book distributor, uh, and the ISBN is out there in the system, uh, if you wanted to request it from a local bookshop, you could, uh, just give them the name and the author name and, uh, they can, they can find it and have that printed and brought to a local shop. Um, and I will certainly update the website and Instagram, et cetera, um, with details if it starts to trickle out in different locations, but, um, Yeah. Um, in terms of buying a signed copy, as I said, I'm very happy to sign and send, I will warn people that, uh, you know, in some cases shipping is more than the cost of the book. If you're outside the U S in some cases, uh, and in which case, you know, I've seen people order multiple books. Uh, it's kind of a good time of year if you want to give a book as a gift or whatever, or if you, if, uh, if you want to get both books, you can certainly do that to, to offset some of the shipping costs. Um, but yeah, other than that, uh, that's how you can get it. And, uh, Thank you to everyone who's already ordered. I've had such a great outpouring of support on this book. And thanks for letting me dedicate this episode of TGN to it as well.
Jason Heaton Totally. I think this is super fun. I'm so proud of you putting out a second one. It's such a treat. I'm sure the story is incredible. Obviously the excerpt was great. And I think they make just a great gift. I think last year I've Bought one or two, you sent me maybe five or six in the end. Yeah. And I gave them away to cousins and we keep a copy of DepthCharge just on the shelf at the cottage. If it's a rainy day, I've had brothers and brothers-in-law and that kind of thing. We'll just kind of stroll over and start reading it. And I know Sarah really enjoyed it. And yeah, I'm super pumped for this. And I think that makes a great gift and it's kind of a perfect time of year for it as well. Good stocking stuffer.
James Stacey Yeah, I would agree. And, uh, you know, that was completely unwittingly on my behalf. I did not plan to release it, uh, just before black Friday, so to speak. Uh, don't necessarily buy into that, but yeah, it worked out really well. And the book is largely set at this time of the year. So you can kind of read it and sort of soak up that, uh, late fall, chilly, uh, upper Midwest weather that we get here.
Jason Heaton Well, hey, you want to wrap it up with some final notes?
James Stacey Yeah. Let's do final notes. I have one from, this is a good story. Yeah, it is a good story. This just popped up, I believe, within the last 24 hours over on Fratella Watches. Once again, they have unearthed a story about a Rolex that was found in the sand, in this case underwater, in Australia. This was a story written by Henry Zwartz, who I believe wrote the earlier story as well, and it's entitled Australian Snorkelers Find Lost Rolex Submariner Before Reuniting It With Its Owner. Not a really long story, and the title kind of says it all, but Uh, in this case, uh, these guys that it's a father and son actually, they go out and do these snorkeling trips in Australia, uh, off the, uh, the Queensland sunshine coast and the Noosa river. And, um, they're always kind of out there kind of being good citizens and picking up garbage that they find underwater, uh, and kind of combining it with a little snorkeling adventures. And, and somebody had heard that they do this and approached them and said, you know, I was, I think fishing in this area. And I, my Rolex flew off my wrist and it's down there somewhere. And, uh, if you guys are down there looking for, you know, to clean up and pulling bottles and garbage out of the, out of the water, uh, keep an eye out for a Rolex. And this isn't just any Submariner. This is a 5513 from the early seventies. So this is a bit of an heirloom piece that someone had had for quite some time. And, you know, predictably, uh, as the title suggests, uh, it has a happy ending. They did find the watch. Um, so there's something about, I was going to say something like there's something in the water in Australia, but indeed there is something in the water in Australia. It seems to be Rolexes. Uh, that people keep finding. So yeah, really, really an amazing story. It's not a particularly long article. Um, it's, it's just fascinating. And there's some good photos in here. Uh, and then the watch itself, which is just super cool. I mean, you know, I thought this thrift shop, uh, Breitling was a cool story. This is a, this is right along those lines.
Jason Heaton I feel like these are like the, the little building blocks of watch enthusiasm are always, there's always a story every couple of years, every now and then about a lost watch being found and coming back. And, you know, you found a watch, uh on uh on a you know a very notable wreck a couple years back yeah and and now they're you know finding watches and time and tide had one recently of a you know a watch found uh you know in the depths and i just think it's a kind of a fascinating thing and it stands like if you're especially if you're a dive watch nerd you kind of love the idea of like treasure hunting and then now the treasure is a watch and i like all that yeah so i think people people should definitely check this out it's great that fratello covered it and it's uh it's a fun story guy got his watch back which is it's great
James Stacey And I'm very intrigued by your final note today, because I've been, I've been really curious about these. So why don't you tell us what it is?
Jason Heaton So I picked up and I want to make this very clear before I start, because they are aggressive advertisers everywhere, Instagram and otherwise. I paid absolute full price for this, but I picked up an aura ring, gen three, the current model, they offered a new version that's in titanium. And basically it was one of these things where like, I feel like the aura ring has been in my arc. Actually, I should probably start with what it is in case you don't know the aura ring. It looks like a normal ring, especially now in the third generation. It wears very similar to my titanium wedding band that I had previously. Um, and it's a ring that does, uh, activity tracking and sleep tracking and stress tracking and heart rate. And it has this really fantastic suite of software that back that backs the hardware. But you wouldn't believe, you know, the ring is a wild thing to show someone if you haven't seen one, because the inside the outside just looks like brushed titanium. It's actually quite nice. And then the inside is this sort of. Suite of electronics that looks like something fake out of a sci fi film. Yeah. And every now and then in the dark, you'll look down and you can tell the heart rate must be, you know, measuring something that's kind of glowing. If you have no clue what these are, hit the link, check it out. But it's basically a kind of a premium fitness tracker. that doesn't have a screen that has no real interaction points. It doesn't vibrate. It doesn't let you know when you get an email or any of that kind of thing. It's just tracking things like your heart rate, your heart rate variability, how well you slept and kind of putting those all together and giving you an idea of how you should be acting that day based on how well you slept. It starts to kind of give you suggestions on how to improve things like HRV, um, on how to better understand why you don't feel well. It does temperature tracking, so it can kind of predict if you're going to get sick. Huh. And the thing is, basically, because it's a ring, you wear it all the time. It seems to do about 15% of the battery in a day. So that's not bad. It's tiny, of course. I can't even believe they fit a battery in this thing. Yeah. And then it charges on this little pad with essentially like a little nub that it sits on. And it charges quite quickly. So the charging is nice and easy. It's USB-C. You can disconnect this little charger. I'll take it with me to Dubai. I think it looks like maybe this will last a week. So maybe, maybe I wouldn't quite need it to. Yeah. You know, what kind of led me to this is I've known so many people who have owned them and enjoyed them and had them. And I was always just kind of like skeptical, like this or that, like I've got fitness tracking on the me band, which is a $30 thing. These are like almost 400 bucks, maybe a little more even. And Um, you know, the Apple watch does fine fitness tracking. Also like your phone does your step counting. But I do really want to, I'm starting to feel a little bit my age. Um, and that's probably more the amount that I'm working these days than it is how old I actually am. And both Sarah and I wanted a chance, there's my wife, both Sarah and I wanted a chance to kind of have a better snapshot of why sometimes we feel like we don't have any energy. Yeah. And this is just something we're like, wanted to kind of make a little investment in ourselves at the end of the year. Um, it's been a busy, but a good year. And, uh, and also the, you know, the move in the last couple of years for us has been as far as Christmas gifts, like not to just get stuff, try and get something that is either a trip or something that kind of changes your day. So exercise equipment, um, or like I said, a vacation, go somewhere new, that sort of thing. So this kind of aligns with that. My wife got one as well. And, uh, and yeah, I've had it for four days now. So it's very new. Yeah. Um, and I thought originally I was like, let's give this a month and then I'll bring it up. Um, but I didn't, I did pay full price for it. So don't feel bad talking about it so far. I'm very impressed by the product and the software, but I think the software is really something worth taking a look at. Um, like what they've got on and it's just on your phone. It's very unobtrusive. Like I said, there's not a bunch of notifications. I have it set to basically say like you should, you know, you've been sitting in bed for a little while. You should go to bed, go to sleep. Stop looking at your phone. Yeah. Stop watching a YouTube video. Now, now's a good time to wind down.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And I'm sure that there's some folks on the Slack that also have the aura ring. So I figured I would kind of put it out there that I've got one. Maybe we can have conversations about it on Slack and that sort of thing. But so far I'm super impressed. You can kind of link mine and Sarah's together so I can, you can kind of compare each other's readiness and sleep scores every day if that's what you want. Yeah. So yeah, just, we always try and make little, especially at the end of the year, try and make a little investment in ourselves to kind of start the next year off in a healthier place. So I didn't want anything with a screen or anything. And this is so subtle. Like I basically swapped my wedding band for this and it doesn't weigh anything. It doesn't feel too bulky. I thought it would feel too thick. Like, like I'm wearing a Superbowl ring or something. Yeah. And so this fits and it's comfortable. And the process of ordering, it was really easy to know your ring size or they can send you a sizing kit so you can get it perfect. And then, then you know what to order. They're not cheap. I want to say they started with $2.99 and then it's about seven bucks a month. for the app and the service. But I, you know, in, in the effort of, yeah, trying, trying to put money in, in scenarios that theoretically would improve my life or at least help me understand in scenarios that aren't great. Um, I, we wanted to give this a try and after a few days I'm impressed and I'm happy to kind of give an update in a couple months if people are keen.
James Stacey Well, I'm glad to hear it and I can't wait to hear more about it because it is something that has intrigued me mainly because I do like fitness tracking. that I get predominantly from Garmin's, but it's that dilemma of another watch, another device. Um, and I think with this, there's a little, it's less obtrusive in your life. Um, or, or at least I think it is, it sounds like it is. Um, and, and you could just, you know, you just wear it like a, like another ring and whether you put it on, you know, like you did with your, your wedding band, replacing that or putting it on the other hand or whatever, it's a, yeah, I can't wait to hear more about it. I've been very tempted by these.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I'm happy with it so far. And I'd be more than happy to either chat about it on the Slack if folks are keen or do an update in a couple of months when I've really, when I've really had it. Um, and, and I can, and I'm not no longer surprised by a number or something that it says or doesn't say that sort of thing.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Cool. Yeah.
James Stacey I'd love to hear more about it.
Jason Heaton All right. Well, that was a fun episode. Congratulations on Sweetwater. Uh, I know I speak for the whole audience. We're both proud and very excited, uh, for another book. And, um, and I've, you know, I mean, there's no, There's no like expectation that you would share necessarily share a whole episode on, on the book, but I'm really glad that we did and we got a chance to, yeah, I appreciate the opportunity.
James Stacey And again, you know, thanks to everybody for, for the support thus far. Um, I've just had such an outpouring of, of congratulations and support and orders. And, uh, believe me, it's, uh, it does not, uh, I do not take it lightly. It's really, it's really been great. And with that, thanks so much for listening to everyone out there. If you'd like to subscribe to The Show Notes, get into the comments for each episode, or consider supporting TGN directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN-signed NATO, please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive.
Jason Heaton And we'll leave you with this quote from Benjamin Franklin, who said, either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing.