The Chris Voss Show Podcast – SHOOTOUT AT SKULL ROCKS by Polly Mcbee Hutchison

SHOOTOUT AT SKULL ROCKS by Polly Mcbee Hutchison https://www.amazon.com/SHOOTOUT-SKULL-ROCKS-Polly-Hutchison/dp/1698721153 Pollymcbee.com After the Civil War, Linc Wolf fled to Texas where at the age of fifteen in revenge for the death of his mentor he killed his first man. His deadly skill with a gun soon earned him a reputation, that forced him to keep moving trying to avoid ambitious men who sought to make their own name at his expense. As he grew older, he longed for a life free from killing. When a small fortune came his way he saw a chance to leave his violent past behind. Setting his sights on Wyoming, he hoped to find the respectability he craved. The past is not so easily escaped. He was forced to use his gun again, knowing it would cost him everything he had built, including the woman he had grown to love.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:36Speaker 01

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• 1:19Speaker 01

  Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss Show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today's featured author comes to us from books to life, marketing.co.uk. With expert publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book's success. We have an amazing young lady joining us on the show. She's a prolific author who's put out series and all sorts of books and historical novels. We're going to lead off with one of them today called Shootout at Skull Rocks by Paulie McBee Hutchinson. We're going to get in with her and find out the details about what she's been up to and what she's writing and all that good stuff. Welcome to the show, Paulie. How are you?

• 2:03Speaker 02

  I'm fine, thank you.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Thank you, and thanks for joining us today. Give us dot coms, websites, where we want people to get to know you better on the internet.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  It's www.paulie.mcb.com.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  All right. And can you give us a 30,000 overview? What's in this book?

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Skull Rocks. It's a Western. I wrote it because my doc, my father loved Westerns. And I thought I would write one for him. But I didn't, I didn't get it done until he passed.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  I'm sure he knows though, right?

• 2:45Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Now, was he, was he in the, my, I had a grandfather who loved reading the Lewis Lemoore cowboy Western books. Was he like that? Was he into that? Those types of series?

• 2:56Speaker 02

  Oh, yes. And my grandfather was a cowboy.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  They're a dying breed. It's hard to find them nowadays. Cowboys, right? And I think I'm an old cowboy, but I, but I, what's my joke here? I don't know. I'm an old cowboy, but I can't ride horses. So I guess I'm disqualified or something. I don't know. The, yeah, my grandfather, he loved Lewis Lemoore Westerns and he would be a security guard on golf courses in his retirement and earn a couple of extra bucks. And then there would be these golf, these building suburban housing projects they were building on golf courses. And so he would make a side living where we'd go and collect the balls that had been knocked into the subdivisions that from the players who were playing golf. And so he had in his whole backseat is a giant Chevy. It was one of those Chevy Impala sort of looking things, boat.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  And he had the whole backseat filled with probably a hundred Lewis Lemoore books. And I would go back there and just look at them all and be like, God, he really likes Lewis Lemoore. And I would study, I would study all the things. And he was usually, he was a security guard. So there's a lot of sitting around in the car, just watching stuff, looking for trouble might be about, and then looking for golf balls. I used to help him hunt for golf balls. But yeah, and so now was this, where was this in your line of books? How many books do you have total?

• 4:21Speaker 02

  I have 13 published. And this is the last one. It's just been published recently.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Wow. Congratulations.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  And you have one, one part, one of your 13 books, six of them is a series, correct?

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Yes, it's a series on the life of King David, I think when he was 15 and going through to his death.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  And I think this had six books in the series. Is that correct?

• 4:53Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  All right. Now this is a historical novel. Is there a certain age? This is marked to, or what is it?

• 5:01Speaker 02

  It's, it's marked to young adults and of course, older.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Wow. Give us a little more detail. Who are the characters in the book? The protagonists?

• 5:12Speaker 02

  When I was starting to write this was when I was in junior high. I went to Jamestown and I saw the story of Virginia Dare, who was the first white child born in the New World. And so I thought I wanted to write her story, but I, I didn't get around to it until I was retired. When I started doing the research, I found a more interesting story, which was John White, who went on every voyage to the New World to Roanoke.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  And he was the governor of this lost colony and he was the grandfather of Virginia Dare, the first child. I thought his story would make a better and more interesting story. And so that's what I wrote.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  So you based the character on him and kind of filled in the historical fiction then? Oh, that sounds really wonderful. Now, do you, I guess you did a lot of research about him. It sounds like, yeah, where he went to and all that good stuff?

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  And what, what, what do you think makes his character really interesting and attention grabbing to the audience that reads it?

• 6:33Speaker 02

  I think that it was because he was wanting to have the colony so that he could have property and have a farm. Because in England at that time, they were enclosing all the farms to raise sheep and people couldn't have a farm. And of course, it didn't ever work out that way for him. And, and that was the conflict.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Sounds like a bit of a conflict there going on. Yeah. And, and you wrote the book. What do you hope readers come away with this book?

• 7:13Speaker 02

  I, I hope that they have a fun read and learn something about our American history at the same time. That's what I used to love by historical novels was it was a fun way to learn history. And so I tried to write my historical novels so that they are history and not his fiction.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now, Shootout at Skull Rocks, after the Civil War, Linc Wolf fled to Texas where at the age of 15, in revenge, the death of his mentor, he killed his first man. Sounds like it's quite one of those dramas of Westerns and shootouts?

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Sort of. He's a gunfighter who gets a big reputation. But he's, by the time he's in his twenties, he's tired of it. And when he gets a small fortune, he thinks that he's going to be able to get a fresh start if he could go somewhere where no one knows his reputation. So he goes to Wyoming. And I set this, the story in Wyoming because that's where I was living.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Okay. You write what you know. That's what we always tell new authors on the show. You write what you know. A lot of people have stories all around them. They just need to kind of look around, right?

• 8:40Speaker 02

  So, so I found a ghost town that was near Cheyenne that now is nothing.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 8:52Speaker 02

  But, but I had pictures from newspapers and stuff that showed what it looked like. So I used that for my.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Background and also right about fifty miles from Cheyenne was a state park called Vitavoo. And it's it's an unusual park in that its boulders just stacked on the top of each other. And I thought that would make a good rustler's hideout. And so just on a whim, I looked up on the internet, what was Vitavoo called before Vitavoo? And it said Skull Rocks and I said, oh, that's perfect. So that's where I got the title and.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Skull Rocks, so you're staying within the historical context, right?

• 9:45Speaker 02

  I set the whole thing in, and though I don't say that outright, I made sure everything lined up with that. Historic, when I named the towns in Arizona that he was, his ranch was near. Those towns existed in eighteen seventy eight. And, and then I had this conflict, the heroine came from back east. And so she was attracted to this guy, but she was repulsed by the fact that he had killed people.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  And so that made a conflict of interest there and what would happen and everything.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  That's pretty interesting. So you wrote that out then, and people can check that out. Do you see this becoming a series, maybe a future character rollout of the guy?

• 10:45Speaker 02

  No, I think I pretty well tied it up.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Okay, all right, tied it up. Now, let's see, the other book that we had that we want to talk about was Roanoke, The Seductive Dream. Tell us about this book.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  As, as I said, it was the story of John White. He went on the first exploration to find a colony. And he came back and went on the second one where, where they tried to find a col- colony. But the whole thing was bad luck and they lost all of their supplies. And so they had to cut the colony back and they sent back all the farmers and workers and kept all the soldiers and adventurers. And so they were mistreating the Indians around them and, and it collapsed.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  And they ended up having to go back to England. And then John White was made the governor of the next colony. He was trying to get it to be farmers and people that would really make up a colony. But, but they put him in the wrong place and he had to go back to England to try and find help for the, the colony. And that was at the time when Spain was invading England with the Armada. And he couldn't get back.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  And finally, it, when he did get back, it was the lost colony. And so his daughter and his granddaughter and everybody had disappeared.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Oh, that's not good. Unless you really don't like them, then that's fine.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  So I did, I faked my death to get away from my kids. No, I'm kidding. I don't have any kids. Or at least I don't now that I faked my death. Anyway, Roanoke, now who's Roanoke is, is that the city location, the name of the character?

• 13:00Speaker 02

  It's an island.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  It's an island.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and it's not really in Virginia.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  If, what, what the colony was called Virginia at that time was larger. And it expanded up into the Chesapeake and everything.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  So Tudor era, historical fiction, Elizabethan adventures, stories of early American colonizations, maritime exploration narratives and culturally layered historical drama. All packed into one book, folks. What a good deal. And this, and this talks about the John White guy. I think you mentioned him earlier in the show too. Yeah. And so why do you call it The Seductive Dream? Can you tell us without, without revealing too much?

• 13:50Speaker 02

  It was, he left everything. He sold his house and left everything to go to fulfill this dream. And it just failed.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  And he, he came back and he didn't have anything. He'd lost his granddaughter, his daughter, the colony. And he had nothing. So it, it was rather a very sad ending.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, very sad ending, as it were. So this book, this is standalone two as well. There's no series forthcoming from it?

• 14:35Speaker 02

  No, not, not unless I tried to do the Virginia Dare story.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  But does, it does seem like you like this character and story, maybe. I don't know. I'm just getting that vibe.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  You get familiar with an era and everything and it's what, what you want to do.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally, totally. Now, let's talk about some of the other books you have or offer us on your website. What's, what on your website do you offer for, do you have any stuff you're selling there, marketing, anything like that?

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Just, I, I am offering a free download.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Of the first David book.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  And so.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  That'll get people into the six book series that you have now?

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Yes, that's, that's the idea.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Ah, the six book series, and so people can get into that, but they can get a free download, they go to your website? And, and off you go then. All right, sounds good. Free is good and kind of introduces people. And then if they love it, they can take and, and do the, do the full, the full thing there to learn all this stuff, as it were, I guess.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Now, is there any future books forthcoming from you that we want to know about?

• 15:51Speaker 02

  I'm working on two books right now. One deals with, is a fiction, dealing with cults. And how you can get involved in them and what happened and comparing. I have the two protagonists are twins. And one gets involved in the cult and the other one goes mainstream Christianity.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  And what, what happens to them and everything. And also I'm working on what I feel is the most important book I've ever written. And that's going to be a mentoring handbook. It's not fiction. It's going to be what I think would help brand new Christians during the first year of their new life to know what to do and how to do it and things like that.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Oh, that should be good. And that's anticipated when again?

• 16:55Speaker 02

  It's what?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  It's anticipated at what date of release?

• 16:59Speaker 02

  No, I don't know. Right now I'm just finishing it up.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  And I'm going to try and find a agent to represent me.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Need a publisher, folks out there. Check it out. She's written thirteen books. You know, she can do a fourteenth one. Cause once you get past the first one, it might be a little bit easier there, right?

• 17:20Speaker 02

  I think it's as fun to write a book as it is to read one.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  And I love to read, so.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  That's good. That's good. When did you start writing? At what age did you kind of know you had a knack for it?

• 17:34Speaker 02

  I, I started writing when I was in junior high.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Really?

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  And were you just writing little limericks or stories or?

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, stories, stories and stuff like that. My whole family has been really artistic. My mother did sculptures and painted oil paintings and my dad did carvings and stained glass and. So I felt that I had to do something.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  It was a natural for me to get into writing and I was a history teacher. So it's not natural that I got into historical novels.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  However, I wrote a romantic mystery that, that will teach anybody that they do not want to have the, get on the wrong side of an author.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  Because I was, I was dealing with this publisher. I gave him two books. And he published one, but he didn't give me my rights to read the galley proofs.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 18:48Speaker 02

  And the thing came out with so many misspelled words that I was almost ashamed to give it in to anyone.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's unfortunate. A lot of scandals in, in pod, in book publishing.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  Then he got in financial difficulties, so he took my royalties. And then he went, and then he went bankrupt. And he told me I couldn't have my other book back unless I paid him a thousand dollars. And so I told him, I laughed and told him, I don't think I gave you my only copy, do you?

• 19:30Speaker 02

  But I had a friend that he did. She only gave him her only copy and it took her seven years to write her book.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  And so she gave up writing. So.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  I might have heard of this company because I've heard this story before from a couple independently.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Yes, it's it's out there.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Might be the same company.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  No, probably, but not. It was in California.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  But anyhow, I wrote my book, The Wings of Pegasus, where I killed off the publisher.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  How do you do that? I've had a number of authors on the show that they have that rule. If you screw with them, they'll kill you off in their book.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  And I had a, I had a very good friend that said he wanted to be in a book. So during COVID, I wrote a comedy.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  Which is not published yet.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Okay. Did you kill him off or since he's a friend?

• 20:34Speaker 02

  No, no, he's a friend. So I named the baseball hero after him.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Hmm. So he made a hero. So it's, it's, so it's better to stay on your good side as an author.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Let's keep in mind, folks, never piss off your, never piss off your, ever piss off.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Writer friend.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Your writer friends because you'll end up in the book and things will be bad. So, yeah, it's, it, I've heard that some, some of writers, the, yeah, I just think it's funny when people talk about that. So when, when did you, how long were you writing and drafting from your youth? To where, what age were you when you finally, or if you want to tell somebody years, maybe how, how, when did you put your first book out? And, and realize you had a knack for this?

• 21:23Speaker 02

  First of all, I won a national writing contest.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  And my, what I wrote was put into all kinds of magazines. And then I, my first book that was published was in the seventies. And I went with Spire Books and they sold 25,000 copies in the first six months.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  So that was really good, but I didn't know what I was doing. And they did, and they didn't suggest anything and the book went right out of print. And that was it. But that's the book Breath of Rapture that is in my website. I had it republished on print, print on demand.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now, so we know about the forthcoming books. Anything more you want people to know before we round out the show?

• 22:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  You got it all on again. And I imagine the David one, the David series is pretty much designed to be, a lot of Christians would probably like that book because that was targeted towards?

• 22:40Speaker 02

  That, I don't think it would offend Jewish people either because, because it's a historical novel, not trying to push some, some position or something. And I tried to make my characters as realistic as possible. That was a 10-year journey for me. I had to really work at keeping multiple characters advancing in age without having their characters change so radically or anything.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  I, I've had really good responses on it. People have said that they think it would have been, made a good movie, but unfortunately I didn't have any contacts when all these David movies came out.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Hmm. Thank you very much for coming on the show. Give people a final pitch out to order up your books and all that good stuff.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  Okay. Thank you very much for having me.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Thank you. We certainly appreciate it. And give me your dot coms if you would as well.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  www.pollymcbee.com.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  All right. All right. Sounds good there. Thank you very much for coming to the show, Polly. We really appreciate it.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Yes, thank you.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Thank you. And thanks for tuning in. Order up your book where refined books are sold. Shootout at Skull Rocks. We profiled today by Polly McB Hutchinson. Thanks to you for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com for Chris Voss. Linkedin.com for Chris Voss, Chris Voss One on the Tik Tok, it and all those crazy places in the net. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.