Police Officer By Day, Author By Night? Find the Time to Pursue Your Creative Passion | Rodney Carpentier

Rodney Carpentier (00:00)
we don't like to use that word quiet in law enforcement. But it was quiet.

And I'm at my desk, I'm supposed to be reviewing reports and I'm like just losing it. And then this thought runs through my head.

what if somebody who grew up in an adoptive family, as an adult, you wanted to try to find that biological family. So you go and you do the the DNA test and,

you actually find out that your mother is an unidentified cold case murder victim.

And now what do you do with that?

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (00:31)
Our guest today on the God and Gig Show is Rodney Carpentier.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (00:35)
a sheriff's lieutenant with 18 years experience in law enforcement.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (00:38)
And in this episode, you're gonna learn how somebody with an incredibly important and stressful job was able to also build a creative career,

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (00:48)
an entire world out of the people and the procedures that he knows best.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (00:57)
Rodney, Carpentier, welcome to the God and Gig Show. How are you?

Rodney Carpentier (01:00)
Very good. Thank you very much for having me.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (01:03)
most people are probably meeting you for the first time, at least online. So I'd love for them to get to know you the person before they get to know you, the author, the novelist, and the law enforcement officer.

that's why I love the kind of set this backdrop for everyone to see like, well, where did this come from? Where does the inspiration, where does the discipline and the motivation to write when you are already

in a full time profession, which is super important. So I guess I need to start with that as well. Just to talk about your law enforcement career. was it something that was a childhood drive in terms of dealing with justice and law enforcement, something that maybe in your family that you saw as a example?

Rodney Carpentier (01:44)
I know I've written before that I always wanted to be a police officer. I don't know if that was always true. I was very interested in legal studies and law in general. So the you know the college part of me wanted, you know, I thought I wanted to go to law school.

and as I kind of explored some of those things and more and more I was like law isn't exactly what I want. That's not I'm not

This isn't interesting to me,

And what I did was my wife and I got married two months after I graduated. So I was we were married very young, didn't have anything set up, I didn't have a career or anything, and we decided to move across the country to the great state of California and we lived in LA for the first year of our marriage. And it was difficult finding a job.

And one of the things I started looking into because they paid it had a good had a good salary was the LAPD.

So I started going through the LAPD process and the more and more I kinda researched the the job and ki I kinda found it as a vocation. And, you

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (02:51)
Okay.

Rodney Carpentier (02:51)
know, it was it was more than just, you know, hey, I I I need to go swing a hammer for, you know, you know, a couple of days a week and bring home a ca check. It was like I wanna be doing something that I find

has I'm gonna get more out of it in in the sense of the service and the you know helping people kind of thing.

long story short, obviously I didn't make it in LA. I didn't we didn't stay out there. We ended up moving back.

I'm a native New Yorker. I grew up in the Albany area, which is the capital region or upstate.

But that that desire for a law enforcement career kinda came with me.

the first first opportunity that came to me was actually working in corrections and I got hired

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (03:36)
Okay.

Rodney Carpentier (03:36)
by s the state corrections department.

I worked two years in state corrections, and but I always wanted to be a cop. I wanted to I didn't want to be behind the fences and the walls and all that stuff. I wanted to be out in the public and with the community. wound up getting an opportunity with the sheriff's office, and you know, I've been there for nearly the last

Last 18 years. And I've had so many great experiences. I've had an opportunity to do all sorts of really cool things. I worked patrol. I became an investigator, started working on stuff that was super challenging, working on fraud cases and all sorts of financial crimes and white collar things.

got introduced into computer forensics and started kind of messing around with that stuff for a little bit. and approximately a year ago I got promoted to lieutenant.

Now my job is to get the tools and get the things so that the the the deputies and the sergeants and the and the guys on the road can do their job. So I work with grants, I work with accreditation, I work with policies, I work with all that stuff.

help I help coordinate getting that grant funding and setting up those things so that we're doing more for our community.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (04:52)
So you must have seen so much of life, so much of the actual

day to day of what people actually go through in corrections, the it the issues when it comes to justice and law, I mean how many different times you've interacted with people must have given you such a rich tapestry, which of course we're going to talk about in terms of your writing. But my first question in terms of that is when you're in such a high pressure job, how do you maintain a kind of

I guess hopefulness or are there any times that the position that the job you have has kind of, you know, made you feel a little bit bad about human nature in general? 'Cause it's gotta be a stressful job that, you know, creators, most of us, we try to see things as, you know, hopeful and and redeemable and things that tell great stories are usually in the positive, but you've seen a lot of negative. So how have you maintained that kind of sense of just seeing, you know, the world and life as a a a place

that's not so down and, you know, depressing when it comes to some of the issues you had to deal with.

Rodney Carpentier (05:56)
I think one of the major things I've always I've always had as part of my personality is I'm very I I don't see the the black and white. There's there's there's nobody that's you know, a hundred percent moral and good and there's nobody that's a hundred percent evil. You know, those those two dichotomies, unfortunately, you know, as as much as, you know, when you're when you're writing you wanna kinda have those those extremes. You know, you have your Harry Potter and your Voldemort, you have your Sherlock Holmes and your Moriarty, you know, the the

the two the two th you know the two pillars on either side.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (06:29)
Yeah.

Rodney Carpentier (06:30)
It's the real life is everybody in the middle. I've met I've met law enforcement officers who you know I've I've never met anybody corrupt. I've never met anybody that was, you know, an an all out criminal, like you know, dirty cops or, you know, you know, the these kind of, you know, movies from the eighties and nineties where you had guys that are on the take and doing all that stuff. But I've also seen them

you know, do and say things that are kinda, you know, out out of you know, out of sorts and and and and it kinda you know, they have that role as as public servant, but they also kinda have a negative, you know, and it it might be a built in thing or it might be something that, you know, that that that wearing down of of the of the career, of the job

that kind of taints how they look at things. While they're still willing to go and help people, they also they also see the the other part where people aren't a always as grateful.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (07:33)
Yeah.

Rodney Carpentier (07:34)
Or

or you know, or it's it's people doing things and harming themselves so that, you know, it's like we're going to help them, but then they keep putting themselves in a situation. So it's you know, so there's a little bit of that, you know, that atlas pushing pushing the rock kind of thing, or I mean or the sisyfus pushing the rock kind of thing, where it's like, you know, why am I doing this? You know, I'm not making I'm not making a difference. So, you know, you kind of get that cynical part of that. You know, and then there are people who are, you know, you know, we'll call

and justice involved, you know, that are, you know, we we transport people to court all the time. That's one of the things that we do as part of the Sheriff's Office Patrol. So I've met all sorts of people who are arrested for all sorts of different things. And

You know, I've never really met anybody that was a complete jerk. They all yeah, I've met I I've I've arrested I arrested a eighteen year old girl in her in her dad's house because sh she she stole somebody's credit card when she was working the front desk at a hotel. You know, it was another another young couple, they were using a credit card, she got that, so she decided to just buy some stuff locally. It wasn't a lot of money, you know, you know, she wasn't you know, she was an al capone and stealing all

you know, she stole and she she she didn't do the right thing. And I've stood in that house and spoke to her father and I and, you know, just that that disappointed look on her face. And he didn't fight us, he didn't argue with us. He said, you know, I think he realized that there you know, there was an issue and we were there to hold her accountable. Not to treat her poorly, not to, you know, punish her, hold her accountable. And that's how I've always kind of seen things. Like it's not about punishing and and

and and doing s something negative to people. It's it's about accountability and you know, and that's that's that's everybody in life. You know, I I hold my bosses and I hold my subordinates as accountable as I would somebody on the street that is you know, you know, in in a in a rough way or in or in a bad situation. You know, it's about accountability. You know, you gotta make your own decisions too.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (09:47)
yeah, the accountability and just your perspective on life. That's why I wanted to start with that because I think as we talk about what you do and then what you write about

your perspective means everything. And for you to have like this very balanced look at human nature, being a police officer and not, you know, just saying everybody's a criminal, everybody who's evil is 100% evil, now can give us room to say, my stories that I'm telling, I can also have a different perspective than everybody else. let's talk about your creative work.

I believe I read in your bio a little bit about a moment where you were overnight and the idea hits you for a novel or for a story. tell me a little bit about that. Was that always something in the back of your mind and what was the actual process of going from I'm doing this for a profession to I'm writing about it as with novelists?

Rodney Carpentier (10:40)
So I worked midnights for for about three and a half years as as a sergeant. And during that time I I I had the natural progression, I call it, from listening to music for a while.

until you start hearing the same songs over and over again After a while you're like, okay, I'm done with this. and I switched over to

podcasts, I discovered podcasts and being a cop and you know having a little bit of interest, I've listened to true crime podcasts a lot.

and

so I switched from midnights to afternoons, but this specific night I worked a double. So I worked all I worked my afternoon shift and then I worked into the midnight shift. So

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (11:26)
Okay.

Rodney Carpentier (11:26)
I've been on since three o'clock in the afternoon. It is now two in the morning and I'm beat. It's the end of my week. I'm tired. And we don't like to use that word quiet in law enforcement. That's that's the Q word. We don't we don't we don't use that word. But it was quiet. Like

nothing was happening. And I'm at my desk, I'm supposed to be reviewing reports and I'm like just losing it. And then this thought runs through my head. And it was the it was just a very interesting premise. Again, listening to a lot of true crime podcasts and talking about you know, different circumstances and how you know how how, you know, justice can be done, you know, years and years later, you know, and the the most

inane thing can be the thing that kind of breaks something open. I said to myself, what if as somebody who grew up in an adoptive family, you know you you knew you were adopted, you know, you had a good experience through life, but as an adult, you wanted to try to find that biological family. You wanted to kind of make that connection. So you go and you do the the DNA test and, you know

you know, a little bit of a turn, instead of finding out, you know, your uncle was the Golden State killer or something like that, you actually find out that your mother was the cold case is an unidentified cold case murder victim.

And now what do you do with that? And so that was where the idea started. And I'm like, wow, this is that's interesting. And it so it woke me up and so I'm like, all right, I got something there and let me let me just start writing it down. So I used to when I was writing as a when I was younger, I used to just take a a blank piece of eight and a half by eleven sheet of paper with no lines or anything and I would just kinda write, you know, and I would I'd start descriptively like, you know, where are we? What are we doing?

And as I kinda got through this and I started talking about this character that was gonna experience this, I was like, I don't have anything to draw from on this.

You know, I grew up traditional, you know, nuclear family, you know, I knew my parents and everything. you know, I knew my parents, I wasn't adopted, definitely not doing DNA tests. I I don't have that that experience. So I was like, so this character is really interesting, but I'd like to discover this character through somebody else.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (13:47)
Okay.

Rodney Carpentier (13:47)
So I said, Well, I've been a cop at that point for I think fourteen years. So I said

Well what if? You know, 'cause that that's what you do when you're writing. It's like, well what if this? You know, how do we complicate this more? How do we how do we filter this or change the perspective? You know, I I I come up with ideas all the time and especially since then and it it's always, okay, that's a great idea for a plot. Who's telling the story? Whose story is it?

How are we how are we presenting this? So I said, instead of that, I said, what if instead you have a young rookie police officer who is living in his father's shadow? his father was the former police chief, he's passed away at this point. and he's trying to kind of figure out life and so he's trying to be a cop like his dad and kind of understand, walk a mile in his shoes, so to speak.

And then, again, 'cause they listen to lot of podcasts, somebody, maybe a podcaster, comes to town and tells him, Hey, your dad was involved in this cold case homicide from forty years ago and

you know, the our character doesn't know about this. It wasn't something his dad told him about. Nobody's told him about it. It's kind of like a forgotten thing. Like it happened and then everybody's memory you know, everybody got that, you know, you know, everybody saw the men in black and they got the you know,

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (15:13)
Yeah.

Rodney Carpentier (15:14)
they got the they got the thing and nobody remembers it. So it's it's like now he has to try to uncover this. Lur you know, as he's learning about his dad, learning about this investigation, learning about what happened, it starts uncovering more and more.

You know, and maybe maybe eventually he's the one that kinda breaks open this case and that's how we introduce ourselves to this other character. So that's that's how it r initially started at for me on on and that's what became what I'm basing my my trilogy on. That's what I based the first book on and I've kind of built it out, where this is the second book and third book still getting there.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (15:55)
Well,

I love the fact that you talk about the moment of inspiration being in a moment of what sounds like pure boredom. You had to focus so much on everything that you're supposed to do, and yet the creative moment came at the time that you were not searching for it, right?

what I really would love to lean into now is the next point because it's great to get the idea.

It's great when you like realize, wow, like I I am an I'm still a writer. I still have creative ideas. But then to make it come to life in the midst of you keeping your full-time job, that's where a lot of us hit the the the the wall.

How do I learn about publishing? How do I figure out like do I even need to get an agent or a writ writing agent or a publishing deal? And then of course all the other things. So tell me a little bit about the writing process of actually making that book come to life while you're still working in law enforcement because that's something a lot of us are dealing with, trying to balance creative life and your your nine to five.

Rodney Carpentier (16:52)
So, the first thing I needed to do after I came up with the idea was remember how to write. I had taken some creative writing classes, but of course I was gonna be f William Faulkner, so I didn't need to take care of writing classes. but I had taken some. I took a I took a screenwriting class. I did take

some kind of creative writing class at one point, but, you know, I I sort of cheated through that. I kinda used some things I already had and I just kinda doctored it up a little bit. So, you know, I wasn't as creative as I needed to be. So but I had forgotten all the things. So but I kept all my te I still have all my textbooks from college 'cause, you know, I I paid for them. so I so I I I I I I had

you know, Robert McKee book that had, you know, story. I had Sid Field, which was a screenplay writing book. I had the myth in the movies, and I had all these different things that were showing me the paradigms of how to write, you know, the hero's journey. And so I'm starting to write this and the initial way I was writing was I was paralleling. I actually had one scene with our police officer character and then I had this other scene with this

woman in her early forties who lived in California and we were gonna we were gonna follow them until they met in the middle. But the more and more I was gone, I'm like

I'm not I I I I couldn't figure it out. So again, podcasting, lots of podcasts and YouTube videos. So I found, you know, writing coaches and I found people who could really help me understand writing process. And I need I needed something that was gonna work for my brain and work for how I think. So I listened to a bunch of things and I found this writing style call

way to plan out called Save the Cat. It's used a lot for films and you know, there's a couple of books out there. the podcast that I listened to broke down Save the Cat alongside the Hunger Games and explaining these different beats and kind of helping to push the story forward. Like you wanna get to

you know, you know, you need to have an opening image. You need to have an inciting incident and and you gotta push everything towards those. And there are different beats and some beats are multiple things. Like there's that whole whole section that's called fun and games and that's where you're building your story and your characters and and complicating things and having them solve things and setting things up for later. And I'm like, this works You know, so what I did was I sat down and I said, All right, I wanna write

You know, I basically decided how many scenes I wanted to write and I mapped out where those beats were and where I needed to get to, and I said, Okay.

Well, you know, the in you know, the opening image has gotta be this and the inciting incident has to be that and the midpoint is gonna be where, you know, we're sending we're sending Mike to California so he can so he can start uncovering this stuff. But something bad's gotta happen and I start I gotta start moving back down so I get to that that that point of no return, that kind of that low point. But then we need to build it back up so we get to that climax. And that just helped me to think about it s so much. I was always a reader.

and I read a lot of books and I was a literature major. My wife actually went to grad school. She got a communications undergrad degree, but her her c her graduate degree was actually film and television studies, you know.

So she used to talk a lot about these great films. So we actually one of the things that we kinda got found as we were growing in our marriage was that we really enjoyed these really classic movies. 'Cause again, I like the storytelling aspect and how they built it. And she explained some of the you know, the you know i whether it's classic Hollywood cinema or the noir or, you know, these elements and these tropes and and that kind of started coming back for me. So as I'm trying to write, you know, th this this

This idea of making it come and unfold like a movie made more a lot more sense to me. So I'm like, that's gonna be it. So I've had reviews and stuff where I say they I write very cinematically, where I'm really setting this scene and I'm grounding it, and it's not screenplay-ish where you know it's like, you know, fade in. This is where you are. It's kind of more like, you know, hey, now you're in the middle of the scene. This is where you are, this is what everything looks like, and go. You know, have people talk. And and

That's how I also started writing a lot of these scenes. Like, I know I where I wanted to get to, so I would pick a location and say, Okay.

we're gonna be in a diner and I need two characters. Get me this guy and that girl and that guy, put them all there. What are they gonna talk about and how's it gonna move the story forward? And I just kind of did that and forced these forced these different characters together, and as they kind of rubbed up against each other, you started kind of developing the story and developing the history and developing the backstory so it catches up to where we are presently and we can carry things forward. And that's and and that's it just kind of a natural.

it ful unfolded for me in that sense. So I needed to write the book and that was the longest part. It took me almost two years to write the first it took me about a year and a half to write the first draft and get it

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (22:35)
Okay.

Rodney Carpentier (22:36)
get it how I wanted it organized and

to to be ready to move on to something else. So I wrote the first draft and every every podcast and every video that I was listening to said, You need to walk away. Let it let it let it breathe. I let it sit for about a month and then I went back and I essentially I didn't edit it. I just rewrote it. I I I would

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (23:01)
okay.

Rodney Carpentier (23:01)
I would transpose

And I would change little things as I was going and saying, Okay, well, okay, hey, I wrote this on, you know, page ten, but later on this is this actually reads differently, you know, or this, you know, I need to change this detail because I want to set that up for later. So I know I know that. So now I can go back and kinda like start propping it up a little bit. You know, I have the shell, but now I'm gonna kinda help build those supports in there so that the whole thing really stands up. So I did I finished the second draft.

gave it a little bit of time to breathe. Then I actually went through and I edited. I read it and I'm like, I don't like the way this is worded. I don't like you know, so I'd kinda did my own edits and then the imposter syndrome kicked in. And I was like,

I'm not confident with this. this first scene doesn't work. It needs to come later. But no matter what I did, I would I I literally had stickies with the scenes out. And I'm like, Well if I do this and I move things and and it wasn't it wasn't coming again. I'm like there there was no way I could set it up where I moved the first scene of the book later. 'Cause

every you know, it

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (24:09)
Right, yeah.

Rodney Carpentier (24:11)
it it works it had to work that way chronologically. And I'm like I'm like, Wow

then I gotta change too much. So I was like, all right, I'm way too close to this. I said, I need somebody else. So

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (24:23)
Yeah.

Rodney Carpentier (24:25)
I and you know you start getting into the the publishing end of things. We I I

really started thinking about what I wanted to do. Like I didn't know if I wanted to self publish. I didn't know if I wanted to do the agent thing. Cause I I was learning about that whole process in the background. I'm like, that just sounds so stressful. It sounds like it takes a long time and I don't know if I can handle that. I don't know if I want to wait. So I said, well let me get it edited first.

I found a fabulous editor that had a good price point for me at the time.

And so she so she took it. It took her probably six weeks to go through everything. she gave me regular updates. She said, you know, hey, I'm really enjoying this, I'm really enjoying that. was very positive. she sent me the notes, like like a like a memo that had all the all the things that she thought. and then I had to go through the whole document to figure out all the mistakes that I made. you know, grammar syntax, different things like that. She'd pick up on a couple of times when I

I switched I s I switched to his head we were in and she's Nope, you gotta you gotta make sure you fix that. And and you know, a couple a couple you know but for the most part she d I she did it wasn't like butchered. It wasn't, you know, shripped to shreds. It was, hey, tweak this, fix that, you you know, that's not how you spell that word. Stop using all these semicolons. you keep repeating this same thing and it's starting to get annoying, so maybe cut some of them out. I had I one of the characters has a annoying habit

of like basically clucking his lips when he's thinking. And I wanted it to be annoying, but it was just like every time he was on the page he was doing it and she's like, I get it. Cut it back a little bit. I'm like, okay, I gotcha. I gotcha.

So did that and part of part of her program was that we got a a ninety minute zoom call and I wrote, I don't know, probably a hundred and fifty questions and I just sat down and and the first video I said, I I don't like the first scene. I think the first scene should boof back. She goes, Nope, it's fine. I'm like, Okay, you're right. Like

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (26:39)
Yeah.

Rodney Carpentier (26:40)
like like it just to have someone else's opinion and someone else's, you know, 'cause

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (26:42)
Yes, a hundred percent.

Rodney Carpentier (26:44)
I didn't do beta readers. I didn't well I try I tried to do beta readers and unfortunately I I did with

They say not to do. Don't use friends and family. I tried to have my brother-in-law who is he's a writer himself, he's a creative guy. I figured, you know, hey, I'll get his opinion. and then I had a co-worker whose wife was also a writer. She was writing in the fantasy genre. I said, you know, so I wasted all the I I wasted money printing off like like bound copies so that I could give it to them. None of them ever read it.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (27:16)
Okay, you didn't you didn't do a digital.

I got it. Yeah, I was gonna say I thought you did digital.

Rodney Carpentier (27:18)
No, and nobody ever read it. Nope.

Nobody ever read it. Nobody gave me any notes. So I was a little frustrated with that. You know, and I'm hearing about services that they can do beta. I'm like, that's gonna cost more money. And I was like, I don't wanna do that. So I was so I I I skipped I skipped over that and went right to beter I mean right to editor. So but I had so many great so much great feedback and she was so positive, like I felt a lot better about where I was at.

So roughly the same time as us kind of going on like, well, I need a cover. So went back on Readsy and I looked around for the right the right creative person on there, pick somebody with the right price point and and you know, communicated with her. She's like, All right, send me some examples of other books that you you know, that you want

You know, you want to kind of emulate and you know, set, you know, we're set in the mountains, so I'm like, we need to have mountains and there needs to be this. and I told her that the title of the book, the first book is called Our Lady of the Overlook, and you know, kind of gave her the blurb. And so took her a couple weeks, but she sent me something, and I remember we were on my family and I were on vacation about this time of the year, two years ago, and

I got the files from her and she sent me two. She kinda sent me, you know, A and B. And while I'm

You know, we're we're walking around Salem, Massachusetts. We were we were visiting over there and I got and I got the f and I'm looking at I'm like I open up the first one and I go, that's it. Like like it was a hundred percent and I looked at it and I'm like, other one's not bad, but I said this is it. So I said so I I went to my my wife and my daughter and I said, What do you guys think? Do you like this one? They're like, Yeah, we like that one. Like, I didn't show you the other one. They're like, Okay. What do you think? The first one. I was like, Okay. And it was it was honestly that simple.

to to get the cover made. She

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (29:14)
Awesome.

Rodney Carpentier (29:15)
she knocked it out of the park,

the you know the first time and it was awesome. So I went through, I did I did the edit, I had a cover, then I needed a proofread and I found this really awesome guy who worked super quickly. he got me my my proofread back in I think he I think he estimated like a month. He got it back in like two weeks. And he he's he's been a super fan of mine ever since. He's like, man, he goes, I can't wait for the second one. You know, like he was super excited.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (29:46)
Nice. That's always cool

Rodney Carpentier (29:48)
You know, like he he he he Yeah.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (29:48)
that's always cool when the people that work with you are like

like the work. Yeah, that they are they actually want to be a par participant, not just participant, but they actually like to enjoy it.

Rodney Carpentier (29:55)
Yes. So he was kind of,

you know, while he while he was doing the proofread, he was also kind of a beta reader 'cause he like, you know,

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (30:00)
Right.

Rodney Carpentier (30:01)
I really like this and he taught me a lot about formatting.

because I totally did everything wrong formatting. So I write my first and second draft on Google Sheets. Or go not Google Google Docs. That

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (30:19)
Okay.

Rodney Carpentier (30:20)
way it was online. So if I don't have this computer with me, you know, maybe I'm at work and I have a couple of minutes to write a couple words. Don't let the sheriff know that I'm work that I'm writing at work. I 'cause I n cause I never I Yeah, no

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (30:32)
Well that well that was my that was definitely one of my questions when you were talking about the two years.

Like how were you finding time? Like were you like were you coming home after a long shift and hitting the hitting Google Docs? Like that's that's one of the things for real. Like you you're talking about all these processes.

Rodney Carpentier (30:42)
What Yeah.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (30:46)
And meanwhile, like I said, like you still had your regular life going on. So were you s were you st I wanna say stealing, don't use that word, but were you borrowing time from other times or or w or did you have to like just

block everything out and just say, hey, I'm not going to touch anything else for these two hours or one hour before I go to work. Because I you're talking about like this is what most people don't realize is the long process of actually getting a book out.

Rodney Carpentier (31:10)
Yeah, so you know, just to switch gears to that, I was fortunate at the time that when I was writing the first book, I was actually assigned to the afternoon shift and

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (31:23)
Okay.

Rodney Carpentier (31:24)
my daughter was in school but she didn't have a lot of well, she had some extra curriculars but because I was at work when they were happening, my wife was taking care of a lot of them.

in the evenings. So and my wife works from home, so she's on calls from eight thirty, nine o'clock in the morning. So I had three or four hours at home before I went to work to just do this. so

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (31:54)
Okay.

Rodney Carpentier (31:54)
that's that's how I got the first book done. I you know I worked afternoons and I had nothing else going on. couple of

Fortunate things, the only time I've ever been injured, I I had severe plantar fasciitis in my foot, which required me to go on light duty. But before the the varieties of process to to get approved for that, I actually had to stay out sick for about eight days. And during those eight days I wrote

I wrote the heck out of the book. Like I worked I worked nonstop. Like I was home

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (32:31)
You have to use the time, yeah.

Rodney Carpentier (32:33)
yeah. yeah, I was in a I was in a walking boot, so I wasn't really getting around all that well. so I utilized that time really well. so that's how I got that's how I got the first book done. I it just the fortunate, you know, fortunate scheduling. second book, I got a great head start on it.

before my career kind of changed, I moved back to Day Shift and I became the extracurricular Uber guy to run my daughter to jujitsu and volleyball and soccer and track and violin and

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (33:10)
Yeah.

Rodney Carpentier (33:10)
I'm probably leaving

ten things out, you know, so you know, I work all day, come home, have to drive, you know, drive around. So but I got a good head start on the second book, so by the time all that stuff kinda wor started becoming a little serious, I I had pretty much that book done, so I was able to get that. The big change has been for the third book because I I keep saying, I got really important at work and it's ruining my life.

And I'm up early and I'm going to work and you know, and plus there's still law enforcement stuff going on where I have to worry, you know, there's a major event, I still have to go and do law enforcement stuff. I have to do public safety things. or I'm going to meetings or I'm sitting in meetings, you know. So there is actually isn't a lot of downtime for me to borrow time at work either. So

And then coming home and then like I said, all those all those extracurricular activities, I haven't had as much time to dedicate towards the third book. On top of the fact that because I I said from I think it's in the first page of the first book that it was gonna be a trilogy. You know, I can't I can't drag it out more and I can't just leave it where it lies. I ha I need to make sure I'm tying all these things up. So I have to really focus on where I'm going with this third book, be creative, take it in a new direction, but also

do all those things to wrap everything up while not having, you know, four hours in the morning to just completely dedicate to that. And it's it's it's it's been more of a challenge. And e each book has been a different process for me. writing, the self publishing part of things and

kind of moving forward 'cause as soon as you release a book, now you also have to worry about marketing and

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (34:55)
Marketing, yep.

Rodney Carpentier (34:56)
going on, you know, starting you know, starting my podcast career. You know, I've been on I've been on a you know a lot of podcasts doing great interviews like this. but that takes you know that takes an hour at you know hour, hour and a half out of your life. And and so you're you're doing these other things constantly too to support what you did originally. And it's like, well what about writing the book? And it's like you're right. You know,

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (35:16)
A hundred percent. Yep.

Rodney Carpentier (35:18)
and I went to I went to a ton of conferences 'cause I wanted to get

into you know, the writing community. I

And I had a lot of fun doing that. But again, that takes time and money and effort and it's like, when are you gonna write the book? And I'm like, eventually

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (35:32)
Exactly. And that's the the the live

the life that so many creators have to live, which is doing the thing and then talking about and marketing the thing, right? And actually being

Rodney Carpentier (35:40)
Mm-hmm.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (35:40)
able to make a living doing it. So I want to come back to that a little bit in terms of not just the process of writing the book, which you talked about being st sticking with it and finding time in your day, but also in terms of whenever you're looking at your actual job and the things you're writing about. I'm sure there are many times that you've had like

you know, moments where you've met somebody or had a a a case or whatever where you're like, this would make a great story. So how do you handle that? Like the real life things you deal with, inspiration from your law enforcement career and then actually putting things in the book? Are there things that

show up and you have to change them and how do you handle the morality of this is not something I should write about or this is not something I should even hint at because it's part of a actual case or something like that.

Rodney Carpentier (36:29)
So I've never written anything from f for my fiction that was coming from, you know, a real life case. I'll use I use a lot more of the procedural ends of things or kind of the you know, inside jokes or inside you know, the inside baseball kind of aspects of law enforcement as opposed to, you know, yeah, I had this really cool case. I've I've n

my the the trilogy is is a murder mystery involving DNA and cold cases and all that stuff. I've never done a cold case. I've never investigated a murder. I've never

I've never done those aspects of things, which is why I like my rookie police officer because he certainly hasn't done any of those things either. And you know, I can kind of build circumstances where he's kind of brought in because of the small town aspect, because of his connections and all these other things. I can make it make sense that he's helping, but he's not the one doing all the work. Like he's kind of, you know, he's kind of the wide-eyed person that's kind of experiencing things as they come along, also. So again, drawing from that

experience. and and that and that I I draw a lot a lot from my experience as as a rookie, but as a as a first night supervisor, and work in the afternoon shift, which is one of the more undesirable shifts because anybody with a family doesn't want to be away in the afternoon in the evenings, you know.

So I had a lot of young deputies that worked you know, that I worked with in that in that role. So I got to see new cops and new deputies interacting and and kind of what they were experiencing. So I could kind of pull from that. So what I try to do more is composite and make amalgamations of of people and develop these characters that way.

And you know, less archetypal, but just saying, you know, hey, I know three guys. If you put all their stuff together, you get this guy over here. You know, or they're inspired by

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (38:32)
Got it.

Rodney Carpentier (38:35)
you know, they're inspired by, you know, this group of guys that I work with. You know, I can kind of push them all together into one character. You know, especially especially

'Cause again I'm I'm dealing with a small town, so th the sh my sheriff's office, counting, supervisory staff, command staff and everything, we're about we're about a hundred people. So bigger, you know, that's that's that's a good size. The department that I write about is like, you know, ten people.

So you have to kind of amalgam these people down because you still have the same characters and the same type of people in all these departments. It's just, you know, instead of two or three of them, there's, you know, one of them. And you kinda gotta squeeze them all together. So even even the kind of the antagonistic people you meet in in in your career, the guys that are stepping, you know, stepping over people to get ahead in their career, guys that'll

stab people in the back or not be there or not be as supportive or, you know, those kind of those two faced people. You know, people you meet in your job every day, we have them in law enforcement too. You know, people are people. You know, it's really interesting. I'll talk to my wife a lot, you know, she's in a corporate world, I'm in, you know, public si s public service. We still have the same people in

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (39:52)
Mm.

Rodney Carpentier (39:53)
both those jobs. So it's it's it's interesting to say, you know, you know, it's it's there's no difference, you know. We all have we all have a boss that we hate working for because he's just a jerk.

so I I kinda took a bunch of really

annoying antagonistic people I had in my life and I kind of built them into this police chief character who is antagonistic in Mike's life and kinda is holding him back and kind of questioning him and kind of belittling him and all these other things that I you know experiences that I had coming up through and you know just again like like any career, you know, it's not easy. You don't just walk out there and you're a hundred percent a success. You know,

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (40:32)
Worse.

Rodney Carpentier (40:32)
you're you're climbing and then you're gonna slip a little bit. You're gonna come down. You need to, you know, find a new path forward.

You need to kind of add you know dodge and weave a little bit. You know, so you know, it's like any career. I wanted to kind of put bring that stuff out more than I wanted to say, hey, we had this this specific case, and I want to shine a light on it. The everything that I'm putting forth in the book, the cold case, the modern day case that kind of brings Mike forward, you know, he finds it, he he ends up finding stumbling upon a murder also that has similar elements to his dad's case, and that's

Where he kinda really gets his interest up and he starts getting more involved in the investigative part.

Those are completely fictional. Those things didn't happen, you know, fortunately, you know, or at least not in the way that I'm presenting them. I'm sure there there may be, you know, similar circumstances, but the they're not based on anything specific. So I would I I don't think at this point in in my writing career that I would ever, you know, rip from the headlines or take specific things from a case. It's more about the process to procedure and the personalities of the people

in the profession and doing the job every day and the things that they're dealing with. 'Cause again, you know, I read a lot of books and I watch a lot of movies about cops and and yes, we get very into our jobs and we're you know, when we're in our job we're in our job. But the thing is is you still have to worry about going home and sitting down to dinner with your family. You need to worry about, you know, again, bringing your kid to jujitsu or violin.

You need to worry about having date night with your wife and it you know, why while a lot of f more fictional characters have these have these issues, they they kinda like, well well I'm gonna be at I'm gonna be at work. Well, that's that's not real life. Real life is you need to eventually clock out and go home.

And I really want

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (42:31)
True.

Rodney Carpentier (42:31)
you know, I really want to have that full picture of what it is to be in law enforcement from that perspective as opposed to this romantic view of the, you know, the lone detective who's going to go out and save everything and, you know, he stops at the bar at eleven thirty at night also to, you know, drink bourbons, but he's up at four o'clock in the morning to go do a search warrant. That's not how this works. And

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (42:54)
I love this because that is

such a cool picture of what a book can do, what your stories can do. They can open up, like you said, they may not be specific cases that are for real, but it is opening up the real life of a police officer and what you guys actually go through. And the last thing I want to make sure I didn't leave this out was the nature of murder, evil.

these things that you deal with day to day and how you process them and how your characters process them have to come from some place that like you just mentioned about your balanced idea of human nature that you don't have this entirely evil or this entirely totally good persona in either case.

in real life or in your your book. So I'm just curious, in terms of the themes that you you choose to write about when you talk about justice or in this case I guess over a long period of time trying to find justice for this woman, does your faith, does your ideal of humanity come across in terms of where these books are headed?

You know, is there a redemptive quality or anything like that that you want to make sure people say, Hey, this is a horrible, scary world that I'm writing about, but in the end of the day, this is what I want people to know about, you know, the way that people actually deal with things. So I was just curious if there's any themes like that that you'd love people to get out of your books.

Rodney Carpentier (44:17)
I think there's a little bit to that. one of the things I did for my main character, Mike, was like I said, he's he's trying to come to terms with a relationship that he didn't really totally understand with his father. He didn't have this. And one of the aspects that kinda gets introduced, no no spoilers here, is Mike was actually pursuing

priesthood and going through Catholic seminary and as he's going through because he has this issue with his father, it's one of the reasons why he's in a situation is they wouldn't let him move forward because you know how can you help somebody if if if you're holding on to this grudge and you're holding this in your heart, how can you be this positive example? Or how can you do that? So there's this aspect of of of Mike that

he's he's trying to find his way forward.

And and under understanding that justice and understanding his father more so that he maybe can forgive. You know, there's definitely a a lot of a a sense of forgiveness and understanding and and un and and again that that understanding that balance of nobody's totally good and nobody's totally evil. You know, his dad was a cop, he was well respected, he he did a lot of great things in his career with this baggage and this ghost of this cold case he was never able to finish, you know.

never able to solve. You know, he goes through, you know, he goes through you know, substance abuse issues and has to try to come out of the other side of that and may have actually been coming out and and for coming to terms with this and then his life ends. You know, he he passes away and he's not able to to kind of do that. So now it's kind of the, you know, the son taking over for the father and finding that redemption for his father

do. And that's again, where I'm trying to push towards in the third book is kind of, you know, this full arc for Mike. He's he's really kind of you know, you've watched him as you lo watch his description

He is kind of you know, becoming more manly. He's he starts out very soft and childish and kind of immature and he kinda grows hard and now he he has to kind of come out of that and and become a man, you know. I I remember going through something similar when, you know, it you know, again I got married at twenty-two. I didn't know how to be a husband, I didn't know how to be that person, and I struggled.

You know, I was I was used to my mom having dinner ready d ready at five thirty every night. And then when my wife wasn't doing that for me when I got home, I didn't understand that. And I was a jerk. And you know, we kinda have to go through that and and mature. And as you mature, you become this better person. And maybe again, not black and white, perfect or anything like that, but as you mature you can kinda lean more towards that morality and lean towards the good or you see the good a little bit more.

So I think I

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (47:19)
Wow.

Rodney Carpentier (47:20)
think that's kind of, you know, I again I don't think you necessarily intentionally write themes. I think, you know, your brain kind of writes them for you. Or,

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (47:28)
Yeah.

Rodney Carpentier (47:28)
you know, it's kind of put out there and then people find them, people uncover them. Which is why I really like studying literature, because you kinda, you know, you know, without getting into the whole, you know, 'cause I had to take literary criticism too and looking at the the different theories that people had. But just, you know, what you what you as the reader can bring while you're also thinking about what the author is doing and and kind of finding those themes and like, wow.

Wow,

you know, you know, and I I've talked to a lot of I've I've had people talk to me that have read the book and they've picked up things that I didn't intend, but they're definitely there once they articulate them and it's like, Yeah, I meant to do that. yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (48:05)
Isn't it cool? Yes, exactly.

Rodney Carpentier (48:07)
That's exactly what I was going for.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (48:10)
But I love the fact that you were so clear about the fact that the character itself is living out something that number one you had to live out in terms of maturing. And so much of this again is where, you know, the the whole idea of

the fiction is a a a way to get to truth. It is a way to depict what really is happening in the heart human heart and in people's lives while doing it in a story, it actually opens up so much more as you mentioned that we don't even really realize. And so I love the fact that as you pursued your dream and that's one of the main things I wanna finish with here is you didn't let your dream die or go away

when you decided that public service and law enforcement was something that God that, you know, the world needed, you know, that you you had a fit in this world of of helping through working in the police force. And yet we also needed your books. There was also a place for that.

So I just want to make sure that you can encourage anyone that's listening, especially any fellow writers, any musicians, authors, or or any creators that are listening in terms of picking up something like this later in life, 14 years, 10 years, whatever, after you go go away from school. And you you do have, you know, a dual profession, I believe. You're not just a police officer, you're not just a writer, you're both. So can you talk to anyone just about like what you would encourage now that you know what you know, having now

picked up both of these mantles and saying, hey, I'm gonna go ahead and pr pursue my career. I'm gonna be promoted. I'm gonna do everything well that I can in terms of serving the public, but I'm also going to let this I'm not going to let this dream of writing. And now I'm on my third book. So encourage anyone that might be at the beginning of that process who, you know, may feel like, there's no way I can keep both of these things going.

Rodney Carpentier (49:59)
it it's gonna be tough. And you have to you know you use the word a lot earlier in this discipline. You need

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (50:06)
Mm-hmm.

Rodney Carpentier (50:06)
to you need to find if it's five minutes, ten minutes, an hour dedicate that time to it. you know, have you know have have the real conversations with your your family and and get them to support you and just say, you know, hey, I know

I know we used to do this for you know, I n I know you used to watch TV at eight o'clock at night, but I'm gonna I'm gonna spend fifteen minutes and I I w I really wanna see if if I can write this or, you know, I'm gonna, you know, go downstairs and and you know, play you know, play play my instrument or w whatever. I'm gonna spend a little bit of time on this

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (50:45)
Yeah.

Rodney Carpentier (50:46)
and try to, you know, try to, you know, work and cultivate and and and just keep moving forward. Don't quit.

And ecause even if e every little bit it's you know, we we we have you know in we have a we have a saying in law enforcement, you know, in a in a bad in a bad situation, it's like how do you eat a crap sandwich? One bite at a time.

And that's the only way you're gonna be able to get through it is by doing doing a little bit and move you know moving moving the needle. And there's gonna be days when you know, as a r as a writer, there's days when I go out, I can write thirty five hundred words, which is a fabulous day. Thirty five hundred words. And then there's days I'm I'm sitting there staring at the screen going, Where was I? yeah. You know, and I'm lucky to get five hundred words.

And it's just you know, you had to take the thirty five hundred word day and the five hundred word day and go, Hey, I wrote four thousand words. Not,

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (51:47)
Good.

Rodney Carpentier (51:48)
I had a bad day, I had a good day. It's like, you know

Take bigger chunks that you know, hey, I got I got to you know, I got I got to practice you know, I got to practice my my saxophone for four hours this week. You know, I'm gonna go for four hours and fifteen minutes next week. You know, you know, hey, I got a lot going on. It's you know, Thanksgiving, it's Christmas, it's Easter, it's you know, you know, my anniversary weekend, I'm gonna be doing a little bit less this weekend and be okay with that. 'Cause you have to balance those things too. And that and and again I

I've made a lot of mistakes. I've I've thrown myself one way and I've thrown myself the other. and and my wife has, you know, she's been supportive, but she's also realistic. She's like, listen, you know, your your daughter has soccer games on Sundays. You can't keep doing all these street fairs to sell books when she has soccer games 'cause you know what, she's only gonna play soccer for a little bit. And I

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (52:44)
Mm-hmm.

Rodney Carpentier (52:44)
said, You're a hundred percent right. You know, and and it's

It's but you still have to do it and and you know and hopefully you have somebody supportive in your life that's like, all right, I understand. I'm gonna give you this this amount of time, but you have to kind of take that, do what you can in that time, but then focus on

your family. Don't leave them behind. You gotta focus on your job 'cause the the way the world works now, you're you're you're not you're you're not you know you're you're not paying the bills on a creative career all hundred percent. You need a day job. And and again I I waited, you know, fourteen years to start and I'm really kinda getting it going with eighteen years in. So, you know, I have a very stable career. My wife has a very stable career. So, you know, I have I have a little bit of extra to kinda play around and to do some of these things. You know, I'm not

I'm that I didn't quit and and just sit at home. You have to balance all these things out and just not quit. You gotta y and and just kinda

you know, have the cooking fires going and just kinda watching different pots every time, you know, well, it it's gonna be a heavy week at week at work, so I'm probably gonna have a little bit less creative time this week. But when that creative time comes, you need to utilize it. I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna I've I've done this before where I've taken a day off knowing my wife's maybe traveling and out of town, my s my daughter's at work, works c you know, my work's kinda slow. I'll take a vacation day and I'll be like, all right, I have all day to write.

And you have to invest that time and just say, Today's my day to write. I'm gonna write as much as I can. I'm gonna do as much as I can and and and push things forward as much as I can today because I know tomorrow's gonna be more of an average day. And it and

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (54:31)
Man.

Rodney Carpentier (54:31)
it's it's a give and a take and it's and it's and it's it's it's balance and you know, there's no one way of doing it. Everybody has a different way of doing it. but just don't quit.

Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (54:42)
Man, such good advice. This is absolutely the kind of real life practical, but also very, very motivating. It's not just pie in the sky because you've actually worked it out and you've we've seen you do it.

I thank you so much for your service. I thank you for being an amazing creator. I thank you for being on the show. Hopefully everyone is checking the link right now to your website to go check out your work. read a couple of your books, read the third one if it's out by now, and just make sure that they are following in your footsteps in terms of being a person.

of integrity in your creative career and a person of integrity in your profession, whatever that is. So Rodney, thank you so much for being on the show. This has been an incredible, great talk. And so glad you were able to share it with us.

Rodney Carpentier (55:23)
I had a great time. Thank you very much.