February 2025: Tyler Merritt’s This Changes Everything

Jen: I would love to welcome everybody to the show today for what I consider a very special guest. Very special guest. Thank you for coming to my home.

Tyler: He’s attractive too.

Jen: He’s attractive, he’s interesting. He’s smart,

Tyler: Sexy.

Jen: I don’t always do this with podcast guests, but he’s staying here tonight.

Tyler: The fact that you say that you don’t always do it. I mean,

Jen: Special treatment.

Tyler: It is special treatment. It’s, but thank you for allowing me to stay with you.

Jen: In my home.

Tyler: I feel like that’s the agreement for this podcast engagement.

Jen: You’re welcome and I am so happy to have you here. In this house and in this studio and on this show,

Tyler: This studio is conducive for us to be speaking softly.

Jen: Because everything feels loud in our earbuds or whatever.

Tyler: It just, we, everything feels so gentle right now. Aw.

Jen: That’s not what people use. That’s not the word people use to describe either of us.

Tyler: This is true.

Jen: Gentle, like I don’t think that’s it.

Tyler: I feel like Amy’s gentle.

Jen: Oh my God, she’s so gentle. She’s gentle. So much so that our first handful of episodes had to consist of me and Pepper gently parenting her by saying, you’re just gonna have to speak louder. Yeah. Just a little bit louder. But that’s her voice.

Tyler: It is. It’s her voice all the time.

Jen: Yeah. That’s just who she is. And then I was like, Hey, how about you wanna be a podcast host for your new job?

Tyler: But you guys are great though. Thank you. I like it. I do too. I do too. I love having a partner, but I really love having you here today and I’m so excited to celebrate your book. This podcast is particularly dedicated to the Jen Hatmaker Book Club, for which you are our featured February author, and everybody was so excited to have you.

Let me just say what an honor it is to be a part of your community again with this book. I underestimated your book club with I Take My Coffee Black because, I do a handful of meetups for book clubs, either virtually or

Jen: Yeah.

Tyler: First of all, your book club is massive.

Jen: Yeah.

Tyler: And even we’re on tour right now and we’re in Dallas last night and there was an East Uhhuh Jen Hatmaker Book Club and a west side. Yeah. Like a gang almost.

Jen: It was, like rival Dallas, JHBC gangs.

Tyler: But when you’re in this community for the month where your book is there. It feels like a whole deal, and it’s because of the community that you’ve built, and it’s brilliant and I love it, and I’m so excited.

Jen: Yeah. So are they Tyler we had Tyler’s book in our book club maybe two years ago. Yeah. And his first book, and so for the duration of the month that he was featured, and we don’t normally do this was a special like advantage because obvi we gave Tyler access to our JHBC private Facebook group just for the month.

Normally that’s, that’s only, that’s members only. And, but for the month we were like, here you get access to the community for 30 days and at the end of it, everybody was like, can he just sign up and like just be a normal member because you were constantly in our little community and you were, whatever it is that you do,

Tyler: Yo,, as soon as you let me back in for my book February 1st. I will be there. Almost every day. Just kicking it. And then I respectfully left at the end of the month, the last day I bowed out and I missed them.

Jen: We did revoke your privileges if, to be fair. But ’cause our Facebook group is just always popping off every day.

Yes. We talk about our books and all of that and reading and literature and la but also it’s just whatever. And so yeah, you were a much beloved member of the community for those 30 days and you’re about to start again.

So he just mentioned it. But this is what we’re doing here. We are discussing This Changes Everything, which I realize this is gonna come out later ’cause this podcast actually comes out on the last day of the month of you being in book clubs. This is coming out the end of February. But the, as we’re recording it, this book has only been out for eight days. And I would like you to know right out of the gate that it is a USA Today bestseller. A national bestseller. No shock here. Absolutely no shock. Shock. No shock. I knew that. I knew that. I knew it. And I told Tyler, that’s my favorite list. I love USA Today because it’s the people’s list. And that is by the numbers who loved what. And your book is on that list. I’m so proud of you. And we are, when I say it’s not really we, it’s been a we, but tonight’s the end of We.

Tyler is on a book tour and he started in Nashville. And then last night was in Dallas and tonight is in Austin, here where I live. And I have been with him at all of those stops so far. So it has felt like we thus far. It’s been fun.

Tyler: I just have felt like it has felt like we, it has been super fun. And I’m going to miss you on the next four dates.

Jen: Same. I’ve got FOMO about it. Yeah. I really do. Yeah. Like I really do. I feel like we’ve started something and now I’m like abandoning ship.

Tyler: What’s so great about it is because it’s not your tour, you’re so relaxed into this.

Jen: Yeah.

Tyler: So our Q and As are just comfortable.

You’re just in the room, just Yeah. You feel like supportive, but you also are just in it because people love seeing you, and our banter is so great. Just ’cause you’re the second funniest person I know.

Jen: I had like you to just take a gander at who he thinks is the first funniest person that he knows. And this is a real thing for him. I’m not joking, just last week we were texting about something and I was being funny ’cause I am. And he was like, he just texted me back. He’s you are literally the second funniest person that I know. And I was like, is the first funniest yourself? And he was like, it is.

It’s so that’s just in case you thought I don’t know what you thought, but it’s himself. It’s a one two punch here between me and you.

Tyler: To be fair, it all came from on tour. Somebody asked me, they literally were like, yes, your book’s hysterical in the lineup of your friends, who’s the funny, where do you rank? In the midst of the funniest, which made me think. And I was like, I have some really funny friends.

Jen: Yeah. And I guess a funny girlfriend, she came in second. You’re so funny. If you’re not first year last,

Tyler: You really are funny.

Jen: Okay, we’re both funny.

Tyler: Yeah. But I don’t know if people know.

No, I of course. ’cause you’re, you write funny. Yeah. And you’re funny on social media and all that, but people don’t really get to know how really funny you are in real life. And oftentimes a podcast, you have to cover topics, you have to do interview mode and all of that. But just in normal, everyday life, you are damn funny.

Jen: Thanks baby. We are funny together, which is why we never get anything done. Like it’s just jokes.

Tyler: This is also why we set our life up to not have to do anything when we’re together.

Yeah. Like we don’t usually have tasks. It’s just a good time.

Jen: It’s just a good time. That’s so true. Even this, you guys, like we flew in here by the seat of our pants.

We drove from Dallas to Austin a minute ago, just this very day. These were my road clothes that I also wore yesterday. So what I’m just say to you is like, when we do work together, and I’m doing finger quotes when I say that it is. It is half baked it. It’s half baked at best.

But you know what, let’s get into this because this is an exciting time for you. You have written two books and that’s not a small thing. And you’re still in the memoir space. But This Changes Everything has a really different scope than I Take My Coffee Black. And so let’s do this first.

For the people who are just hearing about it for the first time. I can’t imagine how, if they’re in my ecosystem, they’ve just, maybe they’ve just emerged from a two month coma.

Tyler: You have been cheerleader Supreme.

Jen: I’m into you. Aw. I’m into you. And I’m into this book. And so tell, let’s talk a little bit about, it’s the framework of this book, ’cause a lot of people read, I Take My Coffee Black, which essentially covered the time that you were born a baby. Pretty much. Until this book starts.

Tyler: I’ll tell you one of the things, I didn’t plan it that way, but what’s exciting is I like when movies do that.

Or a TV show, like something ends and then when it picks back up, you’re like, oh my gosh, I missed you. Yeah. And now you’re back. People ask me all the time, the subtitle for this book is called A Surprisingly Funny Book About Race, Cancer, Faith and Other Things We Don’t Talk About. And people ask me all the time, why do you not talk about cancer in I Take My Coffee Black? And the reason why I don’t take a talk about cancer is because I found I had cancer after I turned, I Take My Coffee Black into my publisher. So I turned it in, and then I was diagnosed with this truly rare form of cancer called Liposarcoma, which absolutely changed my life.

And yes, I Take My Coffee Black is born a baby until basically the pandemic.

Jen: Yeah.

Tyler: And then This Changes Everything picks up shortly after. And it’s set up in such a way I wrote it to where I can talk; it’s like the movie Inception a little bit. Remember when I was writing it, I kept saying it’s kinda like Inception ’cause we’re bouncing around.

So it’s written in a way where I’m able to talk to you in the present, like in the actual what’s going down in the moment. I’m able to jump back all the way back to my childhood to talk about some former stories and then I’m able to jump back just a couple years before when I had the surgery for my cancer.

So we live in these different time spaces, but it’s all based around, I wanted to experiment with writing live. Where I have to go into the hospital, I have to go to the doctor and see my doctor every six months for him to review if they have to go back in and do another surgery for my cancer.

And so every six months I go in, they take scans and they tell me how long or when or if I’ll have to go back in to do a second surgery. And so I’m walking the reader through that whole experience.

Jen: Yeah. So it’s in real time and it has this sense of kind of urgency because you are, you’re following along this six month ticker tape and what’s next and what’s gonna happen next.

And so it’s got this sort of breathless, what’s gonna, I told Tyler a hundred percent because he, ’cause of the way that he leaves it the way that the story kind of wraps, I’m like, a hundred people out of a hundred that read this book are gonna close the last page, go straight to their phone and Google: is Tyler Merritt still alive.

Tyler: And you were so not wrong. The way my inbox even in the past eight days is filled up and they’re like you need to know. I loved your book. Yeah, I laughed through it. Yeah, I cried. It’s one of my new favorite books. Are You Alive?

Jen: That’s right. I see you. I think, but I’m just checking. Yeah, because it’s a bit of a cliffhanger.

Tyler: Yeah.

Jen: Uhhuh for sure. So that sounds perhaps like heavy duty if you’re listening right now. But it’s weird to explain that yes, you are writing about a pretty serious cancer, surgery, a waiting period, complications, death. Death. And somehow the book is hilarious.

Tyler: Yeah. It’s surprisingly funny.

Jen: It’s as a matter of fact, yeah. The subtitle happens to say A Surprisingly Funny Story About Race, Cancer, Faith, and Other Things We Don’t Want To Talk About. Alright, let’s talk about that part now. Anybody who knows you, and certainly anybody who read, I Take My Coffee Black already knows this.

Tyler: Can I tell you what I love about this interview right now? You have no notes. We’re just talking about it. We’re just like, yeah

Jen: We came into this driveway on two wheels. I put on some lipstick and I’m like, let’s just go out to the studio. Let’s just, let’s drop it. Drop it like it’s hot. Yeah. Okay.

Back to my very good question. Yes. Let’s talk about some of the humor that you’ve injected in this is who you are. It would be impossible for you to not be that way. When I try to think about you writing 65,000 words in a serious tone my brain cracks in half. So that’s not, that’s just simply not who you are, but give them some examples.

Tyler: Okay. I wanted to say I’m very upfront at the beginning of the book to say I found out pretty quickly that I was using a lot of humor to cover a lot of my fear. But I also just see humor in everything. The truth is that sometimes even in the worst possible scenarios, some things are just funny and you can’t not recognize these things. For example, the first time that I met my oncologist’s name is Dr. Marcus Tan.

Jen: Oh, yeah.

Tyler: He is an a hundred pound Asian man who has a black name, Marcus. I’m like, that’s Dr. Marcus. And he has an incredibly strong Australian accent.

Jen: Yes.

Tyler: So he walks into the room and he’s just, I just laughed at the guy.

And then also, and I talk about this in the book, I feel like I’m getting a little bit away, but we’re in book club, so now many of you have read it but I tried to make a analogy, a sports analogy with him. And so I asked him, Hey, do you watch sports? And he was like, oh, I love sports. I was like, what’s your favorite sport?

And he said, ah, cricket. And I just, in real time, I laughed at him and I didn’t even laugh. I just looked at him like, Uhhuh, bro, what makes you think I know anything about cricket? Yeah, why? Why would you say that to me here?

Jen: That’s right. That’s right. This is America, Dr. Tan.

Tyler: It’s just little things like even meeting my oncologist and spending the first 20 minutes with him, so much humor came out of this scenario. And so then when I sat down to try to write about the experience, which was actually harrowing and scary and crappy ’cause he is telling me I have cancer. There was also just so much humor in it.

Jen: Yeah.

Tyler: And the rest of my experience, even though I was sometimes walking with death, it felt like if I looked around there was humor. And what I loved about it is humor is a kind of a train to joy.

Jen: Yeah.

Tyler: And so even in the midst of the craziness, I was still finding joy.

Jen: All throughout the book, Tyler did this in the first one as well. There are footnotes at the bottom of a page. What was it that Publisher’s Weekly said, remember the word, ’cause I’m like, that’s not derogatory, that’s just factual. Digressive. Yeah. Publishers Weekly put him on the cover and his book a couple of months ago as a preview, like this is coming in January and hit an incredible review. And one of the sentences was like, it’s a funny, digressive, something novel.

And I think Tyler’s editor was mad. I’m like, that’s not rude. It is digressive.

Tyler: She was mad. ’cause I didn’t get a star.

Jen: Oh, okay. Listen, editors have their own situation, right?

Tyler: Yeah.

Jen: But it’s digressive because constantly he’ll say a thing up in the writing, but then he needs to digress and say a little something about it additionally. And that’s in a footnote. Like I, I was just hoping for one to find an example. And here’s the first one I found. This is when Tyler is writing about getting prepared for surgery. Okay, so let me see. Here we go.

Before I left as a preparation for the surgery, I had to drink this awful black chalky drink that basically emptied out my entire digestive track. Tasted like someone had taken a charcoal briquette, rolled it around and crushed aspirin, had 14 cats pee on it, and then ground the briquette up into lukewarm dirty creek water, or about as disgusting as a single banana. He has issues about bananas. The theme of lament jumped out at me again. There was no pretending with this black, milky fluid. I couldn’t pretend this was delicious.

And there’s a footnote on that sentence, and if you go down to the bottom of the page, it says, if this were a milkshake, it would bring zero boys to the yard.

This is what you can expect. Okay. That’s the kind of stuff you should be able to expect is just in the words of Publishers Weekly, digressive footnotes. ’cause he needs to say a thing about a thing he said. Yeah. And they’re throughout.

I’m in a footnote.

Tyler: You are in a footnote. Yeah. So many things are in a footnote. Yes. But let me explain why this happened. Okay. So when I wrote, I Take My Coffee Black, and a lot of people know this ’cause we’ve talked about this before previously. It was the first book I ever wrote and no one gave me any rules. And yes, you’re supposed to every, if you write a book, it’s typically the publisher’s agreement is like, it needs to be at least 60,000 words, 60 to 75,000 words. I turned in an almost 160,000 page book for I Take My Coffee Black.

Jen: I know this, of course we’ve talked about this a hundred times and every time I hear it. I fry a circuit. If you’re not a writer, what does that even mean? You’re like 50,000, a hundred thousand. I don’t even know how much that is. What I’m just saying to you is the average book that you read is around 60 to 75,000 words.

Yeah. So how many did you turn in again?

Tyler: Like 165. 168,000? I think it was like three books. I basically wrote three books. And then I had to cut it down, and then I ended up cutting down to around 90,000 words, which is still really long. But imagine how many I had to cut so this is actually my third book because I wrote a kid’s book. But This Changes Everything, I learned. And I realize not every single thought that I have needs to go in my book. Not every thought and every word.

Jen: Some of them just stay in your brain.

Tyler: You also know this. There’s certain niche things that I think are so interesting. Like with I Take My Coffee Black, I wrote three pages about Lea Salonga and like a whole chapter almost about Counting Crows, just stuff that you were like, nobody wants to read this except you and four other people.

And so with This Changes Everything, I just found myself writing and I would write something like, oh. It felt like a black, milky shake. And I was like, oh my gosh, that reminds me, My milkshake brings all the boys…. No boys would be brought to the yard with this shake, and then I would crack up thinking about it. I’m like, that’s really funny. I can’t put this… wait a minute! Footnote.

Jen: Oh my gosh.

Tyler: And so the book is just filled with footnotes all the way through. And that’s one of my favorite ones. Another one, and I can’t quote it ’cause I don’t have it in front of me and I don’t have my glasses to look at it, but it’s a simple footnote where I simply say, I’m talking about candy.

And I’m like. I basically am saying when we were kids, nobody had peanut allergies. Everybody ate peanut butter and jelly four times a week. Like every human person did it. And so I get to this….

Jen: You’re cracking yourself up?

Tyler: I’m cracking myself up because really, mainly because when you write a book, it’s published for eternity. And people let me write books and put things in them that will always be there and this joke should not exist in print is what I’m getting at. And so I just, Lucy said something like, and it’s I was like, can you imagine if you were allergic to peanuts during Halloween ’cause all the best candy has peanuts in it. And so then I start naming all of the candies. And then I get to a final line of that footnote and I’m like, all of the best candy has peanuts in it. And then I said except for Mounds. Mounds doesn’t. I said Almond Joy has nuts. Mounds don’t, which is an old commercial that only 10 people remember.

Jen: But baby, I a hundred percent remember, Almond Joy’s got nuts. Mounds don’t

Tyler: I just wrote it like in a sentence without giving any context really. And every time I read that footnote, I crack up that’s a, it’s a joke that’s in a book.

Jen: They let you do it and now it’s inked. And it’s permanent.

Tyler: But the point is that we’re talking about Almond Joy and the book is about cancer and death.

Jen: It’s it sounds like whiplash, but somehow it all merges together. And you use restraint when you need to. And so there’s moments, it it dips into really like sobering territory. And it’s very like poignant and even serious and thoughtful. And then when it’s time to break the spell, you come in hot with nonsense. And so it’s perfect. As a reader you get the intention that you would expect to have and even want to have when you’re reading someone’s life or death story really.

And applying whatever it is that like you have in your life that is holding up a mirror. This is holding up a mirror to, and then sometimes you’re just like, I need a little bit of relief. And you do that a ton. And I could tell you had some things you wanted to include. You couldn’t get them shoehorned in or Beth said you couldn’t. Beth’s his editor.

And so that’s why you were like, guess what? Some books have appendix. Some books have an appendix and nobody says that I can’t have an appendix or two. And so you did. You took some ideas, probably you and Dave just guffawed over. We’re gonna talk about him in a second. And you’re just like, you know what? We’re gonna make an appendix. ’cause that’s a literature term that we have access to. Can you talk about that?

Tyler: 100%. There’s a part of the book where I’m saying I had to have a kidney removed. And if you know me, you know that I love musical theater. And so if you think that I wrote a Tony Award-winning play about my body part, saying goodbye to the kidney. You better believe I did. And it’s in the appendix.

Jen: Oh boy. It’s technically titled A Tony Award Worthy (subjective, I guess) One Act Script About My Brain After My Surgery. And there’s dialogue. It’s written like a play. There’s dialogue…. Brain, left arm has a role. Hearing and vision have a role. Eye, right kidney. It’s a situation. It’s a scene. It’s a whole scene.

Tyler: Here’s some behind the scenes stuff too. Okay. And so here’s the deal. The audio book, we never got to this, but we had a full plan that I was gonna get all of my either Tony Award winning or Tony nominated friends to read the roles on the audio book. And I kid you not, it was going to be James Iglehart, Tony Award winner. Kristen Chenoweth. Mandy Gonzalez. Megan Hilty. I’d already dropped them information of Hey, I might need you to be on my audio book. It just so happens, basically all of them were opening Broadway shows when I was recording my audio book.

Yeah. And I couldn’t say to them, I need you to go into the studio and record this ridiculousness for me. And because I couldn’t have Tony Award-winning people do it, I just left it. I added it as a PDF to the audiobook. I didn’t even put it in. Didn’t even read it because I was so disappointed. And then once afterwards they were all still can we get together and do it as like a extra bonus?

Jen: If you had four Tony Award winners read this nonsense, I just don’t even know, I don’t even know if I could go on.

Tyler: It was gonna be more than four. It’s gonna be like, se there’s seven roles. There’s gonna be all Tony people.

Jen: Let’s call Lin. Hell, while we’re at it

Tyler: Baby, that would be so funny.

Jen: I know you guys are up on Broadway in your shows, but we got a real situation here that we need you to lend your talent to. I’d like you to play the role of brain. Okay. Megan, you’re gonna be left arm, Kristen, you’re gonna be eye.

Tyler: You could have cast it completely.

Jen: Please don’t forget, write your reader. Who’s gonna be that? James. James is his actual best friend, so he would have to get the shitty roles, like the worst… gallbladder. That would have to be James.

Tyler: James was mad that I didn’t just call him to just do different voices for all of them. Like he was like, dude, when everybody was busy. Why didn’t you just, I could have just read the whole thing and he could have.

Jen: I gotta be honest with you, and I’m glad that you didn’t ask them to do it. I’m glad you did not waste their star power on the appendix.

Tyler: The worst is, there’s some of ’em that just have one line. So can you imagine Kristen Chenoweth, Can you please go all the way to the studio for this, for all the and she gets in and just says something like, I see, Eye.

Jen: No, I can’t. Just by way of teaser, the second appendix, did you have just the two? The two is the also riveting, The Ten Best Fictional Dogs of All Time.

Tyler: That’s good.

Jen: Last place was Cujo. That’s very fair.

Tyler: It’s so fair. Yeah. And we give reasons for Yeah. All of them.

Jen: Yeah. It’s a, it’s, there’s a little writeup about each and every one. I don’t wanna ruin it. I don’t wanna ruin it, I guess I just won’t. I won’t ruin it. But you’ll be delighted to scroll through the dogs that, from film and television and even books, I think.

Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. Because they’re all fictional. I left one out and somebody brought it to my attention day one of the book being out. And she said it and as soon as she said it I, my heart like went, darn it. And it is Annie’s dog, Sandy.

Jen: Oh, that is a good one.

Tyler: And she had a whole she was like. Annie took care of or made orphans happy. Like she had a whole, and I was like, I could have cut out one . Sandy deserved to be on that list.

Jen: We could have replaced, in my opinion, Brandy from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. That’s a deep cut. You know what I’m saying? It’s just a deep cut. Like only some people even know what that is. That is true. But if but if I do wanna give absolute props that you included Hooch from Turner and Hooch.

That was such a good inclusion. That mattered.

Tyler: And I think we bring back some memories of dogs that people forgot , but they get to shine in this. By the way, it’s all comes from me referring to the book Where the Red Fern Grows in the actual book book. And how much we all have a shared trauma from a time period of when truly so many of us had to read that book, but we never really talked about it. Like we experienced the shared trauma as kids and then never really dealt with it. But now as adults, when I bring it up, people were writing me and they’re like, dude, Where the Red Fern Grows

Jen: Where were all of our adults just letting us read this devastating dead dog story and then just being like, goodnight kids? Like, them’s the breaks. Nobody supported us.

Tyler: And it was just, if you go back and read it now, you also understand that the main character’s parents didn’t help him deal with grieving. And I talk about it in my book.

Jen: It has a point.

Tyler: Actually, everything that I say in my book outside of the footnotes has a point.

Jen: That’s true. Has a point. It all has a point. Some of them are a bit of a reach, but then you’re like, oh, there’s the bridge. There’s the bridge back into the story. You’ll find it every time For sure.

Tyler: Because we hang out so much, that this is how my brain works. We’ll start a story. This is so great, Jen. And I’ll be talking and she knows that this is go and I’ll be like, Hey, Burger King and Jen, she’ll roll her eyes like, oh God.

Jen: Where are we at?

Tyler: And then I’ll be like, I was reminded because of Burger King that this law probably shouldn’t be passed. And you’re like, okay, I’m connecting it all.

Jen: Uhhuh. Yeah, you’ll always get there. You just might need to go on a journey to find the connective tissue, but it does exist.

Would you talk just a little bit? ’cause I like your writing process and you have a really amazing partner and of course you mentioned him in the acknowledgements and this your creative process that you’ve done both with This Changes Everything and I Take My Coffee Black.

So it’s interesting. People are generally, in book club particularly, we always ask and we’re always interested in our author’s creative process and it’s all different. Yeah. Nobody has the exact same thing that they do. And so you have a really unique way of getting a book created.

Tyler: Sure. So I have a writing partner named Dave Tieche, and honestly you and I have talked about this, I think everybody should have a writing partner. Or like a second or and even with your book coming up, it’s it’s so effing good. This was one of the first time you experimented with kind of opening it up to other people’s involvement.

Jen: Pepper helped me do the brainstorm. Me and Pepper and Chelsea sat in a room and we storyboarded the book before I wrote a single word, and I’ve never done that before. And it was amazing.

Tyler: And I think a lot of people that are writers fear that if they share their experience with somebody, they might feel like someone thinks they’re ghost writing or that they didn’t really write it or whatever.

I decided when I wanted to start writing full fledged books that I did not want to type it myself. One, I’m a horrible typer.

Jen: Yes. I’ve never seen you do it, to be honest, baby.

Tyler: I sit and watch you type sometimes and it sounds like you’re trolling me. You type so fast.

Jen: No, I know. I type so fast and I’m told I type loud.

Tyler: You do?

Jen: I’m a click, click clacker. I don’t know why.

Tyler: It, I feel like you’re just joking. Like you want to sit next to me and be like, Uhhuh, I’m just gonna make a lot of loud typing sounds so Tyler thinks I type fast. I know. I’m the opposite

Jen: Uhhuh. That’s right. You’re a phone typer.

Tyler: I will text the shite out of a phone. And every time I sit in front of a computer, I’m so mad that I didn’t pay more attention to typewriter class. Anyways, so I decided I didn’t want to actually type the book. My, one of my favorite rappers, and if you spend any time with me, I always say this is Jay-Z.

He established one of the reasons why they call him a hove or because he has a God given gift of, he’ll go into the recording studio with no pen or paper and he’ll hear the beat, and he’ll sit there and do this mumbling thing for a minute. And then just lay down the track. And he got that from when he worked in Marcy Projects, selling drugs, this, that and the other, he would pay a ton of attention to words and memorize them and build stories in his head without a pen. I ended up taking that same mentality to writing ’cause I walk so much. There’s a period of time where I was walking like four miles a day. That’s how I wrote I Take My Coffee Black. I would go out on a walk and write a whole chapter in my head and I would be walking along and laughing and being like, oh yeah, that would be funny. Or how do I connect this story to here? I’ll go sit on my bench in Nashville. Close my eyes, my headphones, and just dream a whole entire chapter.

I’ll go home, I’ll write down the key connections, the key stories where I want to go, exactly what I want to do. I’ll sit down with Dave and I’ll go, Dave, let’s write. And Dave has done writing for authors before, but for me it’s very different ’cause I give him everything. And then we start to lay down how we want the story to go.

What makes it so great with Dave is I just happen to luck out with, he and I, we’re around the same age. We have some of the same experiences, a lot of the same musical history. So there’s like a simple little joke, which some people will completely get. It’s in This Changes Everything. Or I say something along the lines of, and so they gave me a back massage and I didn’t like it. So unlike Johnny Gill, they didn’t rub me the right way.

With Dave, because we have the same history, I’ll say something like that and he will just think it’s hysterical. He’s God, Johnny a Johnny Gill reference. Hell yes. Yeah. Or New Kids on the Block or New Edition. One of my favorite parts of this whole book, again, I can’t believe, let me write it, is one of the chapters is called Did You Fall for a Shooting Star, One Without a Permanent Scar? That’s the chapter title. Which is a Train lyric. And then all of the subtitles are all Taylor Swift songs.

Unless you’re paying attention to it, you’ll eventually get it. ’cause one of them is called like Bad Blood or Back to December, and the whole chapter is just Taylor Swift subtitles. And when you’re writing with somebody, you can be like, is this ridiculous?

And they can look you in the face and be like, yes, it is ridiculous. But I think you should do it.

And so it makes it fun for me. And it also makes writing not a chore.

Sometimes I’ll see my writer friends, or they’ll go on social media and they’re like, oh my gosh, I have so many more words to do and it’s killing me. Versus myself, when I sit down to write, I’m excited. I’m like, how can we create this and try to make it the best thing possible?

And then you also know that I have an early reader group, which is something that not all writers do, but I’ll write a chapter and then I’ll send it to 13 different people.

And what I’ll typically do is ask them. I’m like, I’m not asking you to judge this. What I’m asking you to do is to point out to me the parts you loved. And if they send back to me the parts that they love, and I can see that nine out of the 13 people said the consecutive same thing. I know that’s a keeper.

If all of them ignore something that I thought was super great. That’s gonna probably land on the cutting room floor. Yeah. And so it lets me trim the fat. And hopefully I can hand over a book that is just all goodness.

Jen: Yeah. Yeah. A little tighter than a 175,000 words or whatever. Beth, it had to be the best day of her life when you sent that thing in and it was like inside the parameters of word count. She must have been like, what’s happened?

Tyler: In Beth’s defense, which was what was great about this, like I said, ’cause you spent my whole time with me writing this. I write a chapter and give it away. Yeah. The problem with I Take My Coffee Black is we were like on chapter six and we were already at 90,000 words.

Jen: Oh my gosh, baby.

Tyler: Do you know what I’m saying? But it didn’t necessarily feel like that because you’re reading it chapter by chapter. So you’re just reading this was a great chapter, but. We add all these together. Yeah. And this is a dictionary, bro.

Jen: It’s a tome. You kept in all the right information, but also this one allowed you to do that in an easier way because it really covered the scope of, I don’t know, what would you say the timeframe is more or less from beginning to end?

Tyler: From beginning to end, like in real time, nine months.

Jen: So writing about nine months is slightly less daunting than writing about 45 years.

Tyler: And we were living through it. So what was happening is I, some days I would sit down to write and it would be what happened the day before.

Somebody very close to me passed away in, during the writing of the book. As I get towards the end of it, they I found out somebody passed away in real time. And so I chose to write about that happening while I’m dealing with my own thing.

Jen: Yeah. I mean it was literally like the next week, that you were writing it?

Tyler: You and I were, this is a little background information, but there’s a part in the book where I’m talking about, I’m taking a trip, I’m driving to go spend some time, and I think in the book I just say to with somebody that I care about. And it’s me driving to, what’s it called? The farms.

Jen: Oh, Blackberry.

Tyler: Blackberry Farms. And remember I showed up to Blackberry Farms in tears?

Jen: Yeah. Remember it exactly.

Tyler: And so one chapter is literally just me driving to Blackberry Farms. That’s really the whole chapter and it happened in real life while it was happening. While I was writing the book, and I knew in real time while it was happening, I was like, I’m gonna write this. And so I started to do my Jay-Z thing. Where while it’s happening, I’m like taking in every moment I’m looking around going, remember what the trees look like here.

Because you’re gonna want that description, remember exactly how you felt, what was on the radio, what you were listening to. And it comes out that way in the book. Yeah. And, I don’t talk about how I showed up to Blackberry Farms and I was like, this thing happened. But it, it made it in the book and that was a thing that was exciting about writing in the moment.

Jen: Yeah. Totally. Pulling from a moment before it’s a memory.

Tyler: Yeah.

Jen: And that’s a different kind of writing that it, that reads on the page.

Tyler: And because it was somebody who I grew up with I, that again, that Inception thing happened. I was able to talk about what’s happening in the moment, but jumped back to when we met.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Tyler: It’s it ended up being such a fun yet riveting, also difficult in times, because I was jumping around in time. There was one time where Beth wrote me and she was like, I need some clarity on what time period this is. Yeah. And I was like, that is a fantastic note because I’m jumping you all over the place.

Jen: Now you mentioned, and this will just be worth telling, particularly the book club, ’cause I will have all read it by the time this comes out, it’s the last day of the month. I am in your life for the exact duration of this entire story. We were already in a relationship before you, you started writing this before you pick up this piece of your story.

I actually met you one year about to the date after your first surgery. Yeah. So I was in the story, but you don’t see me in this story. And so you talk about that kind of at the very end just in case somebody’s, I know that bitch was there. Yeah. I know when this happened.

Tyler: There’s a footnote that, one of the footnotes literally says, if you’re keeping track, this is right around the time I met one Jennifer Lynn King.

Jen: Yeah. I know. It just what you made a choice. Because this was a story about a health journey and a simultaneous story about love in our late forties is its own book really.

Tyler: And I was also fighting the fact that I was coming off of, I Take My Coffee Black, and if you’ve read, I Take My Coffee Black, half of that book is me dealing with my girl problems. Yeah. Remember when we first started dating, everybody was like, did you read his book?

Jen: Totally.

Tyler: They were like, he has girl issues.

Jen: I got so many warnings.

Tyler: And I was just coming off of that book and trying to explain how much I had changed over the years and that I had fallen in love felt like not only like its own book, but I’m about to compare you to something and just understand what I’m trying to say here.

Jen: I dunno where it’s gonna, I don’t know what it’s gonna be.

Tyler: This is what I do right here. I also don’t talk that much about Covid in that book. This all started , my whole experience in the ICU in that hospital and everything. I was wearing a mask. We were dealing with Covid all through the book and I don’t bring it up. Because it’s too much of a story to tell and it’s its own story in the midst of this. I would’ve had to continue to have to refer to what we were doing based on it and this side or the other. So I chose to eliminate this known part of the story to tell a more succinct story. Yeah. The thing about you though is that you were a part of so many of the stories that I was telling. Even when I would hand you over a chapter, there was one very specific chapter that I handed over to you, that I warned you before I gave it to you ’cause I was like, but I’m about to, I’m about to talk about locations that I have been in. And I’m not going to say that you were there or any of the people that were there with me, which were all your people, were there, but I’m gonna talk about that experience. It’s because I needed to talk about those things, but I just didn’t have the energy to be like, and then Jen came along. And so we handle it. We wrap it up with talking about it. And I also am just very honest about it. When I get to the end and when I do bring you up eventually, I admittedly say your hands are all over this book. These stories are about my people and your people. And I couldn’t have written it without you. Even though I wrote it without you in it.

Jen: I get it.

Tyler: And because you’re a writer I knew that I wasn’t gonna have to, there might be a little bit of hurt feelings in there, but I also knew that you were, you understood, I see that you’re attempting to support the story in the best way possible.

Jen: Sure. Yeah.

What was it like? How did you find this experience, like having written the second book, which is different than the first releasing a second book is different than releasing the first, particularly in the, in your case your community is different than the first time you wrote a book. Just, there’s been a lot of changes. So did you finish this writing process thinking I have, this is gonna be a part of what I do. I enjoy this. This would be something I wanna repeat yet again. Where are you at, like in your feelings about writing a book ’cause you create a lot of things.

You are a creative person and so everything that’s in your wheelhouse is building something. You’ve got it in different genres, in different spaces. Book writing is its own lane. So what are your thoughts on that?

Tyler: I would have never wanted to write a book just for the sake of, oh, people follow me, so I wanna put a book in the world, which some people do. I wanted to write a book when I had a story to tell and once I Take My Coffee Black, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to open with a girl, the woman in the truck, and close with the woman in the truck. I knew that’s what I wanted to do and how I was gonna fill in the middle. I had a perfectly good vision about it. I Take My Coffee Black grew in popularity. When I first released it, nobody knew I was, I could write or cared if I wrote. So I had to sell that book. Yeah. I basically had to spend two years telling people, I promise this doesn’t suck. And word of mouth built it and built it and built it.

So of course when I went into the second book, it was fantastic to have people anticipating my next thing. Which was a completely different feeling than the first I’m gonna tell you, I painted myself into a corner because when I read, I Take My Coffee Black. One of the reasons why I didn’t wanna write another book is because I genuinely, we’ve talked about this, I genuinely thought I will never write anything as good as I Take My Coffee Black.

Not because I thought it was the best book in the world. I just remember going, this is actually good. I feel so proud about this and I just don’t think I’ll ever write anything is good. As soon as I realized what I wanted to write about with This Changes Everything and I knew what it was, I went, okay, I have the thing. And about four chapters into it, I think I text you and was like I think I might be writing something better than I Take My Coffee Black right now. And that excited me to get through it, to put it all together. But let’s be very clear, as soon as I ended this book with the top, The Ten Best Dogs and all this, I’ve closed it, found myself wildly excited for it to come out. Say I ended it on a Wednesday. I wanted it to be out on Thursday. I just wanted to get out in the world and I waited a year. ’cause we waited for the election basically. And soon as I closed that book, I thought to myself, I’ll never write anything as good as This Changes Everything ever again.

Jen: Oh, yeah.

Tyler: And so I want to write, I have to write a kid’s book here shortly. Yeah. But I want to write another print adult book, but I don’t wanna write it for the sake of just writing book. I want to know exactly what I wanted to write about. And I had quite a few complications.

Yeah. From what happens after the end of this book. There’s some things that are right about Worthy.

You know what I mean? For example, the pain part of my life. God, I don’t know if I wanna write about why I was there, but I never experienced that before. And I remember when I was going through it thinking, Ooh, if I write about this, I think there are gonna be a lot of people who get it.

Jen: For sure. For sure. That brings me to, I guess probably my last question, which is, what are you hoping? I always have a hope, like when I write something and I put it in the world. Okay. I have several ideas competing at once for me to say ’em all.

Tyler: I love this right now. This makes me happy.

Jen: You put a book out. It’s your heart on a page. It’s what you know it to be. But I’ve learned after so many books, when you put it in the hands of readers, it then becomes something on its own. It takes on a life of its own because readers bring their own story to it and they bring their own pain to it and their own perspective to it, and it transforms in their hands into something outside of really even your control.

Even the scope of your imagination. Which I love that alchemy. That is always like a miracle to me every single time. And so it’s a loaded question because you can only hope for this book as far as you can imagine it, which is your own personal story. And you don’t have any idea what people are gonna do with it or what they bring to it or what they’re gonna take away from it.

But as far as it depends on you, what are you hoping that people walk away with that read This Changes Everything?

Tyler: I would say for the people that are in the horrible club that is that of cancer, which I’m a member of, I hope that those individuals on a complete utter just side note, I hope that they can laugh through a book about this thing that’s really crappy.

And what I’ve learned in the past eight days is that’s happening. Even on this tour or with messages, we’ll have people that are like. I cannot believe I was laughing so hard at this thing that was so horrible. And they’ll be like, I know what I was going through. Or last night on tour, I met a guy, I think he came over and talked to you. I think he had one too many.

Jen: Yeah. Yeah.

Tyler: But he’d been at the bar. He had been at the bar, but he too had some catheter experiences. And so he’s just I didn’t know anybody else talked about catheters. So there’s that piece, right?

Like stuff that we’ve gone through that I want them to laugh at. But more so than anything, I wrote a book about dealing with change under the premise of a book about cancer. So if you’re reading this book, you don’t have to know anything about cancer or have ever had cancer or anything like that. If you have ever had a, something in your life that has created change in your every day or something that has become incredibly scary because of something being different, then this book is for you. And the hope is that by the time you close the book, you’re able to understand that you’re not alone. You’re able to learn how to lament more. You’re able to understand that we are ridiculously blessed to still be here and breathing. And if that is what you’re left with, how do you wanna walk with and live your life in the changes that you’ve had, and all of those things, that culmination of those thoughts end up equating to hope.

Hope for the next day, hope for the future, hope for each other, and that’s what I want people to get. So now that we’re eight, nine days in, it’s really exciting to see that people are starting to respond that way.

Jen: Yeah, it has a lot of tentacles actually. And me it’s like anybody who has had loss or and it’s change that, chose you or even that you chose yourself ’cause even there it’s disruptive and rocks the boat and you’re left figuring out what’s a new normal, even if it’s change, you chose. And in this case, of course, you didn’t choose this, it chose you. But there’s just so many points of just human experience inside of it.

Tyler: And similarly, I Take My Coffee Black, because I’m a black dude and I love black history, I use a lot of examples of history and black moments to draw a bigger picture.

Jen: Yeah, for sure. There’s a really interesting conversation about race as a through line in this one and your first book too. Which is important. Yeah. And relevant.

And it’s relevant to what you’re talking about. It’s not just a non sequitur it is right on target with what you’re talking about in healthcare, in bodies and physicality. It just, all of it’s in there. And so I think that’s also really important, which is why you put it in the subtitle, race is in there and it’s in a way that is meaningful.

Tyler: I, can I say a couple things before, of course. Before we leave one for your book clubbers. This is at the end of this, and hopefully by now, ’cause I want to get this done for your book club specifically is the official playlist for This Changes Everything. Which people love the one before I Take My Coffee Black. Yeah. Yeah. And what we do with my team does what This Changes Everything or with, now with all my books we’ve decided is anytime I mention either an artist or the song , like for example, I said, Johnny Gill will Rub You the Right Way.

We’ll put that on a playlist and we’ll put it all in order. In order. Yeah. So you’re gonna be able to push play and every single reference will be, and we always miss a couple and then people write us and we will add it to the list. Hopefully for a Jen Hatmaker Book Club, you all will be the first to have receive the playlist.

Jen: And it will be the most non thematic playlist you have ever seen, do not, don’t you dare think it’ll be inside one genre. Yeah, it is literally all over the place.

Tyler: All over the place.

Jen: I don’t think there’s a genre you didn’t touch.

Tyler: I completely agree. Yeah. For instance, I Take My Coffee Black, one I think one moment has Sandy Patty, which is a super popular Christian artist from years ago, and then a Dr. Dre song.

Jen: Precisely. Yeah. And don’t forget all the Broadway musicals.

Anyway, the first one was like eight hours long. Like eight, eight hours. That’s how many references he just has. And there’s gonna be a lot of T Swift

Tyler: There’s so much T Swift. Yeah. One of the chapters in the book is called, maybe I’m Just Like My Father. So there’ll be Prince on there. The first, of course, RENT. I think the first three chapters, not three paragraphs of the first chapter, I make two rent references. So it’s all gonna be in there. Yeah. I’m saying all that to say get excited. It’s gonna be dope and it’ll be available on Spotify.

Yeah. This other thing I wanted to say to you really quick was. I started off by saying what an honor it is that you chose. This book is a part for your book club and that we get to discuss on the podcast. But you said something to me once, and I want to say thank you for this. And I know this is really cheesy because you’re gonna probably be like, yeah, but of course, ’cause I wouldn’t, whatever. But when I said, I thank you for choosing my book, for your podcast, I mean for your book club, you said it’s a good book and I would’ve chosen it anyways.

Jen: Yeah.

Tyler: And even though that was just a soft thing to say, it meant the world that you actually enjoy the things that I do. And I’m saying this as a person who is a fan of you, as a writer, as an artist, all of those things. Having you as somebody who appreciates this part of me is super duper special. So thank you.

Jen: I do, and that’s the truth. And it’s not a surprise that I, my community loves you and so I, it’s not a gamble. Jen put her boyfriend’s book in the book clubs. This is a skip month. It’s not like that at all. It’s it’s a guaranteed home run. Like they are going to love it. It’s funny, it’s smart, it’s interesting, it’s important.

Places of it are challenging in a good way. Yeah. And it’s just, and I do wanna say this too, you’ll wanna have a hard copy, but for the people who listen to their books, you’re gonna wanna have the audiobook. Tyler reads it, it’s very theatrical. Like it’s the book plus there’s so much extra stuff in there.

Dr. Tan, as previously mentioned, is on the audio book god, Tyler made him come in. It’s just, there’s so much bonus stuff packed into the audio book and if that is any way you ever like to consume books, or even if it isn’t, you’re gonna wanna have the audio book for sure.

Everybody always says that. They’re always like, don’t forget to mention the audio book. I’m like, I couldn’t.

Tyler: I kind love that people have fallen in love with I, ’cause I wrote the book knowing what the audio for it, what the audio book is gonna sound like. Exactly. And I love the fact people responded to it.

Jen: They did. So I, I love it and I love you and I’m proud of you and I’m excited. We’re, as we speak, just barely into it. So we’re, you’re just starting to collect the responses and the feedback, but that’s gonna grow into a mountain. And so it’s exciting to watch people read it and respond to it. And respond to you and to each other. Like even in their own lives, there’s, it holds up a really fascinating mirror for what you’re going through. And anyway, good job. Good job. Good job writing a book. Good job telling your story. Good job being funny.

And so I’m gonna put links up. If you are new here, I guess you just I don’t know, moved to the planet and hadn’t heard me speak of it yet, but or maybe this is just your final sign.

You’re like, fine, I’ll read it. I’ll read it. I’ll just do it. Fine, fine. It’s is all this, that’s all I can hear from you. So I’ll put up links to Tyler’s socials, which you’ll wanna follow, of course. And the book, everywhere it’s at. We love indie bookstores too, so if you have an local indie store that is your jam, run your little legs over and get it from them.

In fact independent bookstores are the hosts and sponsors of Tyler’s book tour, which is awesome. We love to see it here in Austin. It is Book People, which is like our number one by a mile independent bookstore in the city. And it’s beloved by all. He started out in Parnassus. And we love these indie stores that have come alongside of the book. And so if that’s how you love to get your books, we’d like to see that too.

Tyler: I don’t know on this podcast if we’re supposed to look like this way or that way. But you’re fun to look at. So I’ve looked at you the whole time.

Jen: I looked at you when you were talking as well. So it’s, if you are watching this video on YouTube, it’s just this, it’s just back and forth. It’s, we’re staring at each other like lovers do.

Tyler: Gonna make it weird.

Jen: My friends hate that word so much. They’re like, don’t say the word lover lovers. It’s a good word. It needs to make a comeback.

Tyler: So does making love.

Jen: Oh gosh. That’s their second least favorite. Because it’s just, it’s earnest. It’s so earnest.

Tyler: Do you wanna make a love tonight?

Jen: Oh no. Yeah, I don’t love it.

Tyler: Who does love it?

People. People love it. Earnest, precious people, I think.

Are we gonna make love later?

Jen: Oh God. I guess that’s what they say,

Tyler: Right?? That’s horrible. It’s my…

Jen: Okay, I guess there’s a place for it. I just don’t know of it. But I don’t care. I’ll still use the word lovers and nobody can stop me. It’s my show. It’s true. Do what I want. Alright everybody thanks for being with us and I look forward to hearing what you think about this book. So what hit Tyler up. The weird thing is he will respond to you. He will.

He will. He is a high level internet, social media responder. I don’t know when you do it, but that’s your deal. So don’t get your feelings hurt if I don’t respond.

Tyler: I sat here not saying anything but I was thinking it strongly. I was thinking it fully.

Jen: It’s just, it’s, that’d be like a part-time job.

Tyler: I understand but the people are important enough for me.

Jen: Okay….

Tyler: So you guys, I don’t know what you’re gonna do with your life tonight, but go and make love.

Jen: Okay. On that note…

Tyler: Create love.

Jen: Okay. Signing off. See you next time.

 

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

 

This Changes Everything: A Surprisingly Funny Story About Race, Cancer, Faith, and Other Things We Don’t Talk About by Tyler Merritt

Jen Hatmaker Book Club

I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America by Tyler Merritt

Publisher’s Weekly synopsis

A Door Made for Me by Tyler Merritt

Cujo

Annie

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

Train – Drops of Jupiter

Blackberry Farms

This Changes Everything playlist

Sandi Patti

Taylor Swift

Prince

RENT

AUDIOBOOK: This Changes Everything: A Surprisingly Funny Story About Race, Cancer, Faith, and Other Things We Don’t Talk About by Tyler Merritt

Book People (Austin)

Parnassus Books (Nashville)