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billbennett.com.au
00:00 Introduction
01:06 Summary of the book
03:25 It came to Bill fully formed
06:59 Available now
07:28 Bills writing process
10:56 A form of "channelling?"
12:12 If you are going to write a book...
16:43 'Lowering the bar' in order to start
21:06 How do you define success?
21:59 Creativity and joy
We all contribute in our own particular and unique way. We all wake up in the morning, and we try to get through the day as best we can pretty much damn near all of us try to do it in such a way that we don't hurt somebody.
Middle of winter, wake up middle of the night, the story is in front of me fully formed.
It was like it had been waiting for me to wake up. And I went, No, I'm not gonna write this. This is This is nuts. And they came back and they been the people that the whatever it was that had presented the story to me and they said, No, buddy, you're doing it. There's no question you're doing it
Tell us about “the golden bridge”.
A man wakes up one morning. It's the morning of his wife's funeral. Instead of going to the funeral, he puts on a Don's a backpack, walks out his front door, leaves the front door open, walks up the main street, goes to a dumpster and puts his wallet, his ID, his mobile phone, his watch into this dumpster and walks off into the desert.
He's an engineer. He's spent his life building bridges. He's become really quite successful. And he
was married for 38 years. He loved his wife. He killed her.
He takes back roads and he talks to a fellow who suggests that he shouldn't go to this being raucous in the centre of the of the country.
There are no names. You don't know where he is, through language on a standards in Australia. But that's about it. And the story is about how this man who has been so empirical and logical and fixed in his thinking, undertakes his journey and begins to see the world in a totally different way.
He begins to unravel through heat exhaustion, grief, guilt, the police are after him. They want to talk to him about the killing of his wife.
And he begins to believe that if he can build a golden bridge of light across this huge red rock in the centre of the country, then on the other side of that golden bridge of light will be his wife and he'll be reunited with her.
Yeah, terrific. It's a good read. I would recommend everybody pick it up on
Tim you've read it. You were one of the first people to read it. And it's very strange how it came about. It was the middle of COVID. And I had been working on this surgical film documentary called facing fear
about fear. But we had to stop we had to down tools because of COVID. And the government was giving out financial assistance to companies such as mine, that weren't able to work. And so, you know, we're receiving an income wasn't much but it was, you know, in a middle of winter, wake up middle of the night, the story is in front of me fully formed, fully formed.
I didn't dream it. I woke up and it was there. It was like it had been waiting for me to wake up. And I went no, I'm not gonna write this this is this isn't that I'm not I'm not writing this story. It's not me.
I'm not that good a writer and there's no market for it. It will take me probably eight months of my life and at the end, no one will be interested in it.
And they came back and they've been the people that the whatever's had presented the story to me and they said No, buddy, you're doing it. There's no question you're doing it.
I just wanted to ask, how did that come to you? How did that no, come on belt? This is what you're doing right?
It was a conversation. And I remember it's still very, very clearly. Just, you know, when the story came, and I ran through the story, kind of like I was going, flipping through cards, you know, like storyboard cards, almost, you know, the story was there. And at the end of it, I went, No, no, I'm not doing it. And immediately they came back, and they said, Yes, you are.
And then I gave all reasons why it made no sense to do it. And they came back and they said, Yes. And it just came back. And I can't explain it. It was just sort of like an echo. But this is like an internal internalised exchange. Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't like a voice or anything like that. It was just, Yeah, it was just. Yeah, an exchange of whatever ...
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Music "Fresh Fallen Snow" by Chris Haugen