#309 – Micro Transformations and Big Lessons Writing Takeaways from Louis C.K.’s Ingram (Free-Writing Session)
Welcome to episode 309 of the Spun Today podcast. In this episode, Tony Ortiz dives deep into the craft of storytelling, sharing the inside baseball of his own creative process—complete with writing stats, recent experiments with AI-powered ads, and a practical tool recommendation for overcoming writer’s block. Through a detailed breakdown of Louis C.K.’s debut novel, Ingram, Tony Ortiz explores how character growth stems from small, meaningful lessons and how supporting characters, symbolic objects, and well-timed revelations fuel emotional storytelling. He also shares an inspiring writing tip from Steven Pressfield that invites creators to protect their work with the dedication of a parent. Plus, Tony Ortiz wraps up with a motivational free writing piece that challenges listeners to seize the present moment and move deliberately toward their creative goals. If you’re a writer or creative looking for motivation, craft insights, and that extra push to get your words on the page, this episode is for you.
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Writing Advice from: https://stevenpressfield.com/2026/09/warriors-and-mothers-2/
Ingram by Louis C.K. https://amzn.to/4yS5SPG
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TRANSCRIPT
Tony Ortiz [00:00:00]:
The most satisfying character endings aren't necessarily about getting what the character originally wanted. They're about— they're about seeing what the character chooses once they've changed. And in closing, I'd say that Ink Room is ultimately a story about a kid who starts with almost nothing and slowly builds himself out of the lessons, mistakes, relationships, and scars that he collects along the way. And that's probably the biggest writing lesson that I take from it. The story isn't really about one giant transformation. It's about accumulation of these little micro lessons and transformations. Every person gives Ingram something. Every setback teaches him something.
Tony Ortiz [00:00:43]:
Every object carries a little bit of history. And eventually, all of those little pieces add up to a person who is capable of making a choice. That the boy at the beginning of the story couldn't have made. What's up, folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today Podcast. The only podcast that is anchored in writing, but unlimited in scope. I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you listening. This is episode 309 of the Spun Today podcast, and it is a free writing session episode. What does that mean for the uninitiated? This episode, I focus on the inside baseball craft of writing.
Tony Ortiz [00:01:41]:
And by inside baseball, I just mean the shit that I've been up to. I'm gonna break down some of my writing stats for the past couple months. I'm going to share a writing tip that I picked up on that I think will be of use for other fellow writers and creatives. I'm going to do a full breakdown from a writer's perspective of what I've been reading. In this episode, it's going to be Louis C.K.'s debut novel, Ingram. And last but certainly not least, I'm going to share a throwback Free writing piece of my own where I literally just grab one of my notebooks, where I do some, uh, free writing within, and I share that with you folks. And what I wind up doing, in case folks want to check out, uh, the piece that I'm referring to, since again it is handwritten in my notebook from way back when, is I transcribe it and I post it on my website. And in the episode notes, you'll find a link to That piece as well as others that you can find at spontaneity.com/rewrite.
Tony Ortiz [00:02:44]:
So if you're into any of that, how the sausage is made type of stuff, this is the episode for you as far as any other free writing session episode, which is broken down the same way. And if not, you can skip all that stuff and go to my Ingram breakdown of, uh, Louis C.K.'s debut novel, which I think is great and you don't have to be a writer to appreciate it. It's really insightful and you'll get a ton of creative gems from the breakdown itself. So stick around for all that good stuff. Before we jump in, I want to tell you guys about a quick way that you can help support this show if you so choose. Your support means a ton. It's highly appreciated. It helps me keep the proverbial lights on here at Spontane Studios.
Tony Ortiz [00:03:25]:
There's a bunch of little to no cost ways that you can actually support. Go to spontane.com/support. for all that good stuff. You'll find affiliate links, discounts that you can get for things that you may be already shopping for, including just your random Amazon shopping, and so much more. But here is one additional way that you can help support this show if you so choose, and then we'll jump right into the episode. For my fellow writers and creatives out there, a really cool way that you can help support this show is by going to spontaneity.com/support and clicking on the Pro Writing Aid banner. If you're a listener of the show, you know that I use ProWritingAid to pre-edit all of my writing before I put it out or before I ship it off to my editor so that it is in as pristine condition as I can probably get it. ProWritingAid offers a great toolkit that helps you polish your work with easy-to-use grammar checks and a writing assistant that also looks into things like pacing improvements, typos, Punctuations, and much more.
Tony Ortiz [00:04:29]:
Go to spontoday.com/support, click on the banner for ProWritingAid, and check out their free option as well as their different tiers of paid options. spontoday.com/support. My writing stats. For June 2026, I wrote 12 out of the 30 days of the month for a writing percentage of 40%. And you're going to see a pretty significant dip here as I— as we get into the summer months. Better weather, went on a vacation. The 9 to 5 has been extremely hectic second half of the year, very busy there. So excuses, excuses, right? Pull out your little violins for me.
Tony Ortiz [00:05:15]:
July 2026, my writing stats were 10 out of 31. So I wrote 10 out of the 31 days of the month for a writing percentage of 32.3%. Not great. And then in August, we have the biggest drop-off where I literally wrote just 1 out of the 31 days of the month for a writing percentage of 3.2%. Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah. I have since picked that up a bit in September so far. Stay tuned for those stats. During the next free writing session episode.
Tony Ortiz [00:05:51]:
Trying to finish off the quarter strong, especially since my primary goal is to finish writing the first draft of my second novel, which is the continuation to Fractal, which by the way you can check out at spuntare.com/books along with the rest of my writing. But yeah, that's my paramount number one goal for the year. And I am not there yet, so I definitely want to finish the quarter off strong. I also told you guys about my recent ads experience, right? I started using Amazon Ads to help promote my books and leveraging AI to do so, figure out like what to tweak, what not to tweak. And I've used both. You can check out previous episodes where I broke it down more granularly, but I leveraged ChatGPT, then I moved over to Claude where I was seeing better results. But over the past 3 months, most were yielding no results and some like very little. So it was like little to no results.
Tony Ortiz [00:06:55]:
And I recently paused all the ads because in terms of sales, they were negligible, you know, uptick obviously from not doing any advertising whatsoever, but the cost benefit just wasn't there. And I was seeing though, however, an uptick in KDP downloads, which was more significant. KDP is like the Kindle free download library where like authors don't, you do get some payment from it based on like how many pages of your books are read and stuff like that, but nothing significant. It's more for exposure purposes 'cause folks that read a lot via Kindle, have like some sort of subscription-based model where they can like download and like rent the books essentially. And the ads were generating an uptick there on that side, which is again good for exposure and potential ratings and reviews and things like that, which then, you know, snowball into more exposure and ratings and reviews and hopefully sales. But again, nothing too significant. So I decided to pause All the ads that I had going with the Amazon ads, chill for a few weeks, and then revisit. And in the next iteration, just to have like a sample set to compare it to, I think I'm going to try Facebook ads, which I also have not done before.
Tony Ortiz [00:08:16]:
And then hopefully by the end of the year, have enough of a sample from both the Amazon ads, Facebook ads, to see what works, what doesn't work, what I can potentially move forward with or other advertising outlets that I may want to, want to try. If you guys have any ideas, definitely feel free to hit me up and let me know. @SpunToday on everything. I'm also still using the Tome tool, T-O-M-E, that I again broke down in a recent episode, which is great. It's a web-based tool that really helps me flesh out ideas of the novel that I'm working on, and it's a great thing to do for when you're not working directly on like writing prose for your book, but still want to make progress and enrich your creative muscles because it has these really great prompts within the program and questions that it asks that make you think about your tradecraft, if you will. And it helps you go into the minutiae of your novel and think about things that you need to think about, But maybe haven't yet. And if you have, it helps you like flesh those things out in a very intuitive and creative way that I find really helpful. So it's something that, you know, if you're feeling writer's block or if you just don't want to write a specific scene that you have in mind for whatever reason, switch over to Tome and just continue going through the path of unlocking like the next thing within the tool because it's, it's set up that, you know, you start, let's say, on one particular prompt, and after you finish that, it unlocks a different one, so on and so forth.
Tony Ortiz [00:09:49]:
And you can bounce around. It has like different sections for like plot and story and character arcs and this and that, or you can just continue the trajectory. But yeah, I find it super helpful. Still using that. And if it sounds interesting to you, check out Tome again, T-O-M-E, which I'll link to in the episode notes. The writing tip I wanted to share with you guys this episode comes from none other than Steven Pressfield. A Spunt Today favorite. It's from his Writing Wednesdays series, specifically from September 23rd, 2026, and it's titled Warriors and Mothers.
Tony Ortiz [00:10:30]:
And he writes, what are the virtues of an entrepreneur? What qualities of mind do you and I need if we are going to succeed as artists/entrepreneurs? One answer, the one I usually use, is to say we need the virtues of warriors, which are courage, patience, self-reliance, and the ability to endure adversity. Another way, which is even better, is to say we need the virtues of mothers. He goes on to say, I had a dream once. I was living in New York, driving a cab at night, trying to write in the daytime. A friend came to visit, and this is the real-life setup, not the dream. And my friend was one of these, like, wobbly, extroverted guys who immediately went out on the town and came back with fabulous stories of all the fun he was having. And I found myself thinking, I should be like Peter. Why am I denying myself everything, busting my butt day and night? Have fun, Steve.
Tony Ortiz [00:11:33]:
Stop being such a monk. Then I had the dream. Another friend's wife, who happened to be pregnant at the time, came to me and sat down at my kitchen table. Quote, Steve, you are pregnant too, she said. With that book you're writing, you can't go out partying. Your responsibility is to the new life growing inside you, end quote. I woke up and immediately stopped worrying. And I like that piece in particular I wanted to share with you guys because it's relatable, especially if you do— if you're doing anything within the creative space, things that take a lot of time, like writing, like podcasting even, for example, that is kind of— are kind of like these niche things.
Tony Ortiz [00:12:16]:
I myself have wondered about the opportunity cost of doing the things that I'm into, and, you know, am I spending too much time on this, too little time on that. And there's some reassurance within this advice here from Steve, or at least this post that I'm taking as advice from a writer that I look up to, which is you're not wasting your time. You're not necessarily missing out on something else that's, quote, more worthwhile. Your thing that you're into is important too, if for nothing else, to quench the creative thirst that has been birthed within you. Yeah, if you want to check out that post from this episode's writing tip, check it out in the episode notes. Again, it's titled Warriors and Mothers, and it's from Steven Pressfield's Writing Wednesdays series from September 23rd, 2026. What I've been reading. In this episode, I'm really excited to break down the most enjoyable novel that I've read In some time, and it's from none other than Louis C.K.
Tony Ortiz [00:13:23]:
Let's get into it. What if you took a character, stripped away almost everything he knows about the world, and then made the entire story about what he learns from the people he meets? That's essentially what Louis C.K. does with Ingram. Ingram is a young boy who leaves a collapsing home with almost nothing. No money, no real education, no idea where he's going, and eventually we find out not even a last name that he knows. He survives by collecting little pieces of knowledge from everyone he encounters. A stranger teaches him how to survive. A family teaches him kindness.
Tony Ortiz [00:14:05]:
A writer teaches him to save money. A waitress teaches him to read and write. A truck driver teaches him about engines. A friend teaches him to drive, and eventually Ingram becomes the person who is capable of teaching someone else. But the most interesting part is that the story waits until very late to explain why Ingram became the way he was in the first place, and that gives us a lot to talk about as writers. So like I said, Ingram begins with almost nothing. His family loses their farm. His father leaves and never comes back.
Tony Ortiz [00:14:43]:
His mother is sick and unable to provide for him, so she tells him to leave because there's no longer food or protection for him at home. He heads into the world around 9 or 10 years old with virtually no understanding of how to survive. And that premise gives Louis C.K. An incredibly useful storytelling setup, which is that everything Ingram gains can matter. Food matters, water matters, a bed matters, a pair of boots matters, a pocket knife matters, a few dimes matter. Even learning how to read becomes really significant for this character. And a good writing takeaway for us there is that if you want your character's growth to feel meaningful, consider starting them with very little. The smaller the starting point, the more weight even small improvements can carry.
Tony Ortiz [00:15:41]:
And you can use your character's point of view to make ordinary things matter. One of the most interesting things about Ingram is the way that he experiences things. He's around 10 years old, but because of his isolated upbringing, he has almost no frame of reference for the modern world. A few examples of that are characters like Ernie, who takes him to the hospital, and Ingram hears a radio for the first time, and he thinks it's a crying woman somewhere in the car because he hears someone singing for the first time and doesn't understand what he's hearing. Later in the story, Miss Ma, which is another character in the book, is Cooking and singing. And then Ingram assumes that she might be the woman that Ernie was talking about because singing is such a strange and unfamiliar thing to him. Even laughter was new. When this kid named Tab that he meets at a hospital makes him laugh, Ingram describes the feeling as almost like tasting something sweet, like sugar and honey.
Tony Ortiz [00:16:48]:
And the writing takeaway we could take away from interactions like that is That the less your character knows, the more opportunities you have to make familiar things feel unfamiliar. So you don't always need an exotic setting. Sometimes you just need an unusual perspective. Circling back to some of the characters in the book, the structure of Ingram is almost like a series of temporary relationships. He meets the Mountain, quote unquote, as he named him, who becomes a voice of survival. in his head. Throughout the book, he remembers the lessons that he taught him, such as how to find water, the fact that you can't go multiple days without water, but you could go multiple days without food. If somebody is smiling at you, don't trust them.
Tony Ortiz [00:17:34]:
They're trying to get something from you, so on and so forth. Which admittedly, jaded perspective, right? But when you're living on the streets, it becomes a handy one. Then he meets Ernie, Who gets him to the hospital, where he then meets Tab, who teaches him something about toughness and how to stand up for himself amongst the other orphaned kids that were there. Miss Ma gives him a place where he's welcomed for the first time. Pa gives him boots, food, and a bed for the night along with Miss Ma, a knife. Which he carries out throughout the story, and a lot of advice. The character Jackson, which he meets and is the writer in the story, he meets, uh, when he's working on a farm, teaches him about saving money and helps him plant the seed in his own mind of wanting to save money for a truck, like establish a goal and reach it. Bull is a character that he meets and teaches him about the world in a very different way.
Tony Ortiz [00:18:34]:
He's Like a runaway convict and teaches him how to get things from people, like how to get a free meal, how to get a girl, so on and so forth. Mary Ann, which is a waitress at a diner that Bull gets a free meal and bed from and winds up sleeping with, and in doing so teaches Ingram a little bit about what sex is. Mary Ann provides them shelter and then When Bull gets rearrested, she winds up teaching him, teaching Ingram how to like read and write because she lets him stay with him for a while. Bart, which is another character, she teaches him about engines and how to fix them and teaches him how to drive. Cinema, which is the daughter of Ma and Pa, eventually helps him figure out what he actually wants to do with his life once he gets older. And none of these people throughout the story stay with him forever. But we see that they don't have to. And a good writing takeaway for us is that good supporting actors don't just move the plot forward.
Tony Ortiz [00:19:36]:
They do that, but they also leave something behind in the protagonist. The story becomes the accumulation of those encounters. Now let's look a little bit at Ingram's wants. For a long time, Ingram doesn't really have a destination. Or a want. He's just literally trying to survive. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? Then when he meets Jackson, which again is a writer that's passing through the farm for a week or two to earn some money and working there, which is one of the places where Ingram wound up for a while because he had a bed, he had food, he was making some money. Ingram says that he wants a truck, and Jackson tells him to stop wasting his money on whiskey.
Tony Ortiz [00:20:20]:
Because that's all Ingram was doing essentially was he got to a point where he had the bed, he had food, he was working, and all there is to do on the farm was to eat, sleep, work, and drink whiskey. And that's what he saw the older folks doing. So he just joined in and was like stuck in that cycle. So Jackson gives him the perspective of that he shouldn't be wasting his money on whiskey. He should save his earnings and buy a truck and then leave the farm before he winds up just dying there. And that conversation gave Ingram a concrete goal. And suddenly the journey has something physical attached to it. He starts saving dimes.
Tony Ortiz [00:21:01]:
He eventually leaves the farm and then later makes his way and gets the idea to go work in the oil fields that he winds up thriving within. But we'll touch on that a little bit later. And he finally gets the money to buy that truck. So he satisfies that want, that goal. And then Cinema pushes him toward something more important, towards pivoting that goal a bit, which was instead of simply just buying a truck for the sake of buying a truck, maybe he should use his gains from the oil field to find his mother and to reestablish a relationship with his family. And the writing takeaway for us there is Give your character something concrete to chase, even if the thing they think they want, in this case the truck for Ingram, isn't ultimately what they need, which was a resolution with his family. Now I want to speak more about every person leaving something behind, like for Ingram. And this is probably one of the strongest, like, structural ideas of the book.
Tony Ortiz [00:22:02]:
Ingram is constantly Receiving things from people. The Mountain leaves him survival advice. Pa leaves him his knife. Jackson leaves him the idea of the truck. Marianne leaves him literacy and stories. Bart leaves him knowledge about engines and driving. Cinema gives him the dictionary and more importantly, helps him think differently about his future. He never really thought past survival.
Tony Ortiz [00:22:29]:
And even his difficult encounters leave something behind, like the tornado that winds up breaking his arm, Bull introducing him to another side of the adult world, the oil field disaster which ultimately lands him in the hospital but gives him the financial means to purchase a truck, get a place to live, have money for his own clothes and shoes, and have the funds to search for his family. And a writing takeaway for us There is when your protagonist encounters an obstacle or a supporting character, for example, ask, what does this person or event leave behind? And that something can be knowledge, an object, a wound, a goal, a relationship, or a new way of seeing the world. I think that's a great, helpful tip for All of us writers and creatives. Now, a bit about letting the character become the teacher. So, one of my favorite turns in the story is when Ingram finds Kyle. Kyle is another young orphan who's really defensive and alone. He's even younger than Ingram was. And instead of simply continuing on by himself, Ingram takes Kyle with him.
Tony Ortiz [00:23:44]:
And suddenly, Ingram is no longer just the kid learning from everyone else. He's teaching someone. He tells Kyle the stories that Marianne taught him. He passes along things he learned from other people. He takes responsibility for someone younger than himself. And Ingram realizes that having someone to look after takes his mind off his own hunger and loneliness. And a good writing takeaway for us there is that a character's transformation becomes much clearer When they start treating someone else differently than they were treated. Ingram was abandoned, and now he's making sure someone else isn't alone.
Tony Ortiz [00:24:23]:
And it was cool too in the story, seeing Ingram become good at something. He gradually develops a real skill. Bart introduced him to engines, like I mentioned before, and like how they work and how to fix them. And then at the oil Ingram starts reading manuals and learning everything he can about repairing and maintaining machinery. And the reading again is from like the reading and writing that waitress Mary Ann taught him when Bull essentially left him with her. And eventually he's good enough that he gets involved into engine repair instead of doing the more dangerous work that he was doing before. And his supervisor eventually fires him because Ingram is trying to maintain engines that aren't broken rather than waiting until something goes wrong and then fixing them. He was reading the manuals and learned that if you maintain the engines and, you know, do minor upkeep here and there, they'll last longer before something more expensive breaks.
Tony Ortiz [00:25:22]:
And then ironically, shortly after he's fired, the entire oil field is destroyed in this huge explosion. And that explosion happened where his prior job was. You know, working deep in like the oil fields and with the rigs and stuff like that. Ingram's skill is what ultimately keeps him from being in the middle of the work when that disaster happened. And this explosion is what wound up landing him in the hospital and getting him a settlement from the oil company, so on and so forth. But the writing takeaway that I wanted to point out there is to show competence developing before the plot really needs it. When we see the character's ability become important later, it feels earned rather than just convenient. Now, throughout the book, we see that there's like this major mystery surrounding Ingram's childhood, and we ask ourselves like, why did his parents make him sleep in the barn, which was one of the things? Why does he have such a strange relationship with his family? Why does he seem so emotionally disconnected from his past? And the story doesn't immediately answer any of those questions.
Tony Ortiz [00:26:27]:
You just think high level, you know, his dad was a piece of shit, abandoned them, left them. His mom didn't know what to do, sent him out on his own. He's 9 or 10 and slowly started, you know, piecing his worldview together from there. But instead of the story, like, answering all those questions for us right away, while he's riding with a truck driver toward the oil fields that, you know, he hitchhiked towards, Ingram begins telling the story of his life. And as he gets closer to the part about sleeping in the shed, something breaks through and he starts remembering. He panics, he blacks out, he urinates on himself. His reaction strongly suggests something traumatic happened to him. And I thought it was some sort of sexual abuse or something like that, but we still don't get the full explanation yet.
Tony Ortiz [00:27:15]:
And a good writing takeaway for us there is that sometimes the audience should understand that something is wrong before they even understand why. Mystery isn't only about hiding information, it's also about controlling when the emotional meaning of information arrives. And I like something that the book does, which was essentially using the second half of the story to redefine the first. Now, near the end, Ingram He finally finds his father. His father is a drunk living in terrible circumstances. He says the country fell apart, there was no work or food, and he didn't know what he was supposed to do. And Ingram looks at him and thinks about Pa, the other Pa that he met with Ma that, you know, gave him bed temporarily, food, the pocket knife, so on and so forth. And he thinks both men faced hardship, but Pa stayed and worked and protected his family and even helped Ingram, and his own father abandoned him.
Tony Ortiz [00:28:18]:
So he's like, why is that? And then his father reveals something much worse. He never loved Ingram because he blamed him for the death of his older brother Albert. And that's when Ingram's memories that he was blocking out finally returned. His brother Albert had pneumonia, and Ingram stayed awake Beside him as he died, and his father found Ingram beside the body afterward and blamed him, calling him an animal and sending him to sleep in the barn. And suddenly the entire character makes that much more sense, both Ingram's character and his father's character. An irrational response, obviously, but an understandable one, at least logically, right? Like, you see The father's thought process. Definitely don't agree with it, but you see why he was acting the way he was acting. And a writing takeaway for us there is a late revelation can do more than answer a question.
Tony Ortiz [00:29:15]:
It can change the meaning of everything that came before it. And the best revelations don't simply add information. They reorganize the story in the audience's mind. Now, I wanted to speak about a couple of the objects within the story. that quietly carry, like, emotional weight. The knife that Pa gives to Ingram represents protection and the first real sense that someone is looking out for him. The dimes that he's always carrying around represent the first concrete thing Ingram saves for himself and his eventual escape. The truck begins as a simple goal but becomes a symbol of independence and freedom.
Tony Ortiz [00:29:56]:
Marianne's stories become something Ingram later passes on to Kyle, and eventually Ingram gives Pa's knife to Cinema, which is the daughter of, of Pa, while she gives him a dictionary. And those objects are doing more than just existing in the background. They're carrying relationships and history. And a good writing takeaway for us there is give important ideas Like those of symbolic independence and freedom and a sense of someone looking out for you, protection, so on and so forth. Give those important ideas physical objects. If an object can represent something emotionally important, it can help the reader— the reader feel— it can help the reader feel the story rather than simply understand it. Now, circling back to Ingram's memories coming back and recontextualizing the character. Once Ingram remembers Albert, we finally understand the deepest wound underneath everything.
Tony Ortiz [00:30:59]:
It wasn't this sexual abuse that was kind of like alluded to in the story. He wasn't simply a strange, isolated kid who didn't understand people. He had experienced loss, guilt, rejection, and trauma, all before he was old enough to process any of it. And his father essentially told him that he was responsible for his brother's death and that he wasn't part of the family anymore. So when Ingram spends the rest of the story moving from person to person, learning how to survive, there's another layer underneath it. He's been trying to figure out what family and belonging are supposed to mean. And by the end, he has actually experienced both kindness and responsibility from other people, which he never really experienced from his own family. And a good writing takeaway for us there is, ask what your character thinks happened to them and what actually happened to them.
Tony Ortiz [00:31:58]:
And sometimes the gap between those 2 things is where the emotional story lives. Now, I like the way that Louie ended the book. With a choice that proves who the character became. Now, the story could have ended with Ingram finally getting the truck that he wanted. He now has some money, he has clothes, he has a skill with repairing engines, with which Cinema helps him realize is something that he can always like apply to get a job and be good financially. He has a plan. He survived the oil field disaster. He could simply just drive away and live his life.
Tony Ortiz [00:32:37]:
But instead, Cinema tells him to find his mother and gives him that deeper goal, that need. And eventually, after confronting his father and remembering Albert, his brother, Ingram wakes up in the motel and tells his drunken father that they're leaving. And his father asks where they're going, and Ingram answers, to find my And that's the final movement of his character. The boy who was once told to leave because there was no family left is now choosing to go look for his family. And a great writing takeaway for us is that the ending should demonstrate who the character has become. And I thought that Louis did that masterfully here. The most satisfying character endings Aren't necessarily about getting what the character originally wanted. They're about seeing what the character chooses once they've changed.
Tony Ortiz [00:33:37]:
They're about seeing what the character chooses once they've changed. And in closing, I'd say that Ingram is ultimately a story about a kid who starts with almost nothing and slowly builds himself out of the lessons Mistakes, relationships, and scars that he collects along the way. And that's probably the biggest writing lesson that I take from it. The story isn't really about one giant transformation. It's about accumulation of these little micro lessons and transformations. Every person gives Ingram something. Every setback teaches him something. Every object carries a little bit of history.
Tony Ortiz [00:34:18]:
And eventually, All of those little pieces add up to a person who is capable of making a choice that the boy at the beginning of the story couldn't have made. He doesn't just survive the world, he learns enough about it to decide what kind of person he wants to be within it. And that's a great idea to build a story around. So definitely check out Louis C.K.'s debut novel, Ingram. Which is linked to in the episode notes. Now, one last final thought that I'll add, which is more of a bigger creative takeaway, is not to be afraid to cross mediums. Because one of the reasons I wanted to cover Ingram in the first place is because of Louis C.K.'s overall career as a creative. Like, most people know him primarily from his stand-up, of course, he's a great stand-up comedian, from his television shows, Like Lucky Louie and Louie are one of my absolute favorites, like things that I've ever seen, which is Horace and Pete, which is a short series starring Louie and Steve Buscemi as his brother.
Tony Ortiz [00:35:22]:
But Ingram is a completely different form, and that type of thing is interesting to me because creative people can get trapped by the idea that they have to stay within one lane. But writing a novel exercises different creative muscles than writing stand-up, for example. Television exercises different muscles from either one of those, and trying something completely different can actually teach you things that eventually make you better at the thing that you're already doing. You know, there's like cross— creative cross-pollination, if you will. So I guess an overall creative takeaway for me is that your creative identity doesn't have to fit inside one medium. Sometimes the most useful thing you can do for your primary craft is go do something completely different. Shout out once again to Louis C.K. This episode's free writing piece is titled What's Your Next Moment Going to Be? As always, check this free writing piece and all others at sponsorly.com/ freewriting.
Tony Ortiz [00:36:32]:
This particular piece, I have a quote from The Art of Living. It's an Epictetus quote, and then I just rewrote this little blurb after it. And the quote is, quote, now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer, end quote. And what I wrote to that was, here's to ushering in a new era where it all cometh to fruition. What the fuck was I thinking with cometh? Be who you're supposed to be already. What was all the waiting for anyway? The only constant is time, and clearly it's indifferent to you and all else. Every moment, fleeting as they are, will be one that you either capitalize on or do not.
Tony Ortiz [00:37:27]:
What's your next moment going to be? And I wrote that on Monday, January 8th, 2024, at 6:55 a.m. And yeah, going back to the where it all cometh to fruition, I don't know what I was going for there. Sounds douchey as hell though. And the be who you're supposed to be already, it's like, I get the sentiment behind that, but definitely not practicing it. It's not like, okay, I'll be who I'm supposed to be, just snap a finger. But I do like the sentiment of, uh, you know, not getting— like my first book, Steps for Getting Out of Your Own Way, right? Don't put hurdles and blocks in your way, like self-imposed hurdles and blocks. Get past all that bullshit and go towards who you're supposed to be already. That's how I'd probably like reframe that.
Tony Ortiz [00:38:14]:
If I was writing this today. And what was all the waiting for anyway? Probably trying to figure out life as we all do, probably until our dying days. The only constant is time, and it clearly isn't different to you and all else. Agreed to that. I think that still holds true. The one sentence that I'll definitely stick with here from this post is that each moment, if you break it down to like an atomic level, Will either be a moment that you capitalize on or that you don't capitalize on. So your focus and energy should be towards capitalizing on the moment that is in front of you, whether that means you making the decision between writing and not writing, exercising and not exercising, establishing a relationship or not, mending a relationship or not, so on and so forth. Try and be on the side of capitalizing on the moment in a positive way.
Tony Ortiz [00:39:06]:
Yeah, I wrote that post in 2024. It's posted on my website if you guys want to check it out. It's spontaneity.com/freewriting. The date of the post on the website is September 25th, 2026. That's when I transcribed it onto there. And you can check out that freewriting piece and many more at, again, spontaneity.com/freewriting. There's a comment section in there. Let me know what you guys think.
Tony Ortiz [00:39:34]:
And that, folks, was episode 209 of the Spun Today podcast. Sorry, 309. Just set myself back 100 episodes. Episode 309 of the Spun Today podcast. Thank each and every one of you for taking the time to listen. I really do appreciate it. It means a ton. And if you'd like to support this show, which does mean a great deal, please do so by visiting spuntoday.com/podcast.
Tony Ortiz [00:39:59]:
You're gonna find a bunch of affiliate links there, like to Amazon or Athletic Greens and a bunch of others for like writing tools and things like that. You can also find the links to some of my merch on there. And if you go directly to spontaneity.com/shop, that is like the one-stop shop for all of my merch, including the official Spontaneity notebook, which honestly I'd hold off on because I'm in the process of Unless you guys like that design that's on there, but I'm in the process of redesigning that. But sponsory.com/shop, it'll take you to my Fourth Wall store and you can get t-shirts, hoodies. Now that the becoming sweater weather, tank tops if you live somewhere warmer or going somewhere warmer, definitely check those things out. And of course my books, sponsory.com/books, which will always be your one-stop Stop shop to my written physical books or digital books, paperbacks, hardcovers, pick your poison. sponsorday.com/books. Here are a few additional ways you can help support the pod if you so choose, and I'll check you guys out next time.
Tony Ortiz [00:41:07]:
Peace. What's up folks? Tony here. I hope you're enjoying the Spun Today podcast as much as I enjoy producing it for you. Here are a few ways you can help support the show. For my fellow writers and creatives out there, a really cool way you can help support the show is by going to spuntoday.com/support and clicking on the ProWritingAid banner. If you're a listener of the show, you know that I use ProWritingAid to pre-edit all of my writing before I put it out or before I ship it off to my editor so that it is in as pristine condition as I can probably get it. ProWritingAid offers a great toolkit that helps you polish your work with easy-to-use grammar checks and the writing assistant that also looks into things like pacing improvements, typos, punctuations, and much more. Go to spun2day.com/support, click on the banner for ProWritingAid, and check out their free option as well as their different tiers of paid options.
Tony Ortiz [00:42:12]:
sponsorday.com/support. A great way for my fellow writers and creatives out there to help support this show is by going to sponsorday.com/support and clicking on the mockup shots banner. When I first started writing and putting out content, I wanted to think of creative ways to help market my books. So I would take my own pictures, place the books in different places, take it to the beach with me, put it out in the snow. And I'd wind up with a couple good usable images and a bunch more mediocre ones. And also, in the case of the snow example, a completely soggy book. Then I found Mockup Shots. In one click, Mockup Shots turns your book cover into thousands of images, videos, graphics, and more.
Tony Ortiz [00:42:56]:
If you follow me on social, it's what I use to promote my books. You can check them out on Instagram, @SpunToday to take a look at the professional creative quality of what Mockup Shots has to offer. And now for my listeners, you can get unlimited lifetime access to the largest instant book mockup archive for 50% off. That's right, that's 5-0% off. And you can use it for any books that you currently have available or any books that you will write in the future. I highly recommend it. It's a great marketing tool. Go to spuntoday.com/support and click on the banner for Mockup Shots to claim your 50% off discount.
Tony Ortiz [00:43:37]:
You can also support by checking out my writing. Go to spuntoday.com/freewriting. Here you'll find a collection of freely written thoughts, which is intended to be a cathartic meditative practice for myself, but also winds up doubling up as motivation and inspiration for myself and others. You can also go to spuntoday.com/shortstories to check out my latest short stories and also listen to the free audiobook versions of those stories. You can also support my writing by going to spuntoday.com/books and check out what I have available for sale. Currently available is Make Way for You, which is a collection of tips for getting out of your own way. It's a great read for my fellow writers or creatives out there. Also available is Fractal, which is my debut time travel novel.
Tony Ortiz [00:44:30]:
And last but certainly not least, Melted Cold, which is a collection of short stories. Each of the books are available in all digital formats for your Kindle or iBook or any other e-reader, as well as paperback and hardcover options. Again, go to spontoday.com/books, and I'd love to hear what you chose to check out as well as your thoughts after reading. spontoday.com/books. If you're a fellow creative, a cool way that you can help support the Spun Today podcast and actually be part of the podcast is by filling out my 5-question questionnaire located at spontoday.com/questionnaire. Here you'll find 5 open questions related to your craft, your art, what inspires you to create, what type of unrelated hobbies you're into, and what motivates you to get your work done. You can choose to remain anonymous or plug your website and your work. And once you submit your questionnaire, I read your responses on a future episode of the Spun Today podcast.
Tony Ortiz [00:45:31]:
It's completely free at no cost to you. And what I like to say about it is that if your responses could potentially spark inspiration in someone else, Why not share that? SpunToday.com/questionnaire. And as always, folks, substitute the mysticism with hard work and start taking steps in the general direction of your dreams. Thanks for listening. I love you, Aiden. I love you, Daddy. I love you, Grayson. I love you, Daddy.