Aging Well Podcast
The "Aging Well Podcast" is about, well...aging. It's for people of all ages who are interested in aging successfully. The topics include the Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social dimensions of wellness as they relate to living as well and as long as possible, as well as the financial, legal, and housing questions that everyone has about aging well. Do you have a question you want answered or topic you want discussed on the "Aging Well Podcast"? Send us an email to agingwell.podcast@gmail.com or record your question for us to use in an upcoming episode at following link: Record a message
Aging Well Podcast
Episode 202: Reinventing Yourself After 60--Embracing New Opportunities and Passions w/ DC Frost
In this episode of the Aging Well Podcast, Dr. Jeff Armstrong interviews DC Frost, an inspiring author who launched her literary career in her 60s with her debut novel A Punishing Breed. The discussion dives into DC Frost's journey of self-reinvention, the creative process behind her book, and embracing new opportunities and passions later in life. Listen to the conversation about aging well, resilience, and chasing dreams regardless of age. DC Frost also shares insights into her personal experiences as a Latina, her love for mysteries, and her future writing plans. Tune in for an engaging and enriching discussion!
Buy 'A Punishing Breed' on Amazon and support the Podcast: https://amzn.to/4fAEb4I
Learn more about DC Frost at DeniseFrost.net and @dcfrost_writer
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Welcome to the Aging World Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Jeff Armstrong. In this episode I'm joined by BC Frost, an inspiring author who made her literary debut in her 60s with A Punishing Breeze, a novel that's already made waves. with its powerful themes of resilience, empowerment, and tackling social issues. We'll dive into her remarkable journey of reinventing herself later in life, the creative process behind her book, and how she's embracing new opportunities and passions after 60. Stay tuned for an engaging conversation about aging well and chasing your dreams no matter what your age.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Denise, welcome to the aging well podcast. Let's begin by having you talk about yourself. Tell us about yourself and your journey leading you up to publishing a punishing breed and what inspired you to pursue writing a novel in your sixties.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:that's been my dream. I've always written since I was a little kid. when I was very young, I watched the Munsters if people are old enough to remember that. And I remember going to my bedroom and taking my dad's old typewriter and like out a script. And so, I think I've just always had that in me I play guitar and the way I learned guitar was to write songs. later, when I was in my twenties and thirties, I started writing short stories and became very, connected to a mentor who didn't really believe in popular fiction. It was very much about literary fiction. So, I found myself in about 2015 kind of stuck and thought, you know, what I love more than anything else is reading mysteries. So I thought I'm just going to write a mystery and, I started and stopped and started and stopped. And then, with the pandemic, I really had, you know, a lot of time I was still working, but I had a lot of time to really focus on it. I actually, um, started seeing a therapist, which was offered by our company. And he said. If you want to finish your book, maybe you should just commit to writing every day. I don't care if it's at five in the morning, I don't care if it's at, you know, midnight, just make that commitment. And that really changed everything. And so I've been writing every day, getting up at five, five or five 30, and I finished the book and I was in a writing group and there was a publisher in the writing group and she just said, let's do it. So, it took a long, long time, but when it was finished, it happened quickly.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Great. So there wasn't necessarily a specific catalyst. It was just kind of that daunting. It's always been in the back of your head. I want to write a book, got to write a book and opportunity came and especially with the pandemic. It was just like that pandemic generally kicked most of us in the butt to do things that we Probably weren't accustomed to doing
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:think that's true. And I also felt like way when I started working at a small liberal arts college, I really thought that it, sort of encapsulated a world, a world that was on a very, contained area and I, I thought that it was fascinating. I had, very flamboyant vice president at the time who, quite the drinker, kept bottles of liquor under his desk and was carrying on with several people very openly. that was such a strange, environment then seeing, the faculty members who were, tenured. the staff who can come and go. the trustees who oversee everything and the senior staff and administration. I really felt like this is like a feudal village. you've got all these people who are interacting, but all have different, Ways of belonging to this place. And I found that fascinating. I also found it, interesting when you started looking at the social justice aspects of it, you have, students coming in and we're talking about social justice all the time, but being Latina myself, I have to say, I had to understand and see that a lot of the grounds people and a lot of the, Cleaning staff were Latino and Latino. And so I kind of just thought that was a very interesting stew of people to all be together. I really wanted to explore that.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:how has your Personal experience as a latina influenced that storytelling and the characters specifically in your novel
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I'm my dad's side was my dad's name was Jack Frost. my mom's name, she was a Torres. So I'm kind of half and half. I always thought that was interesting because we always gravitated toward the Latina side of my family. Christmas, it was fun and it was the tamales and everybody coming by and dropping by on the other side of christmas day it was very like stayed and you know you didn't really talk very much so i've always been very interested in that sort of clash of cultures I also had a grandmother, Nana, who did not want to speak Spanish at home. She wanted her kids to be American. You know, they were going to be American, which is much different, I think, than a lot of what happens today. I actually wish I did speak Spanish more because I very little. so I was. wrestling with that identity. definitely when people see me, they think I'm Latino. when we go to Mexico city, my husband's half Latino, half German. They always talk to me cause he's got kind of light blondish hair and he has to answer. I'm fascinated with the culture. I'm fascinated with Mexico. I'm fascinated with Mexico city. I'm fascinated. When people come here from Mexico or from Central America, how they're perceived. I just thought that having, that kind of experience in a very small setting where you have students coming in who are Latina and they are Latinx, as we say now, who are really trying to, educate themselves and sort of rise up. so you've got that really interesting clash, and yet at the same time, I think a lot of us are still trying to hold on or find our culture again, because once my Nana, my grandma passed away, the family just sort of fluttered away in a sense. I think to have that, desire to find your culture. Is something in all of us,
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Yeah that I do find at least in myself as well. I mean i'm not latina by any means obviously by my pale skin But my family is much more Irish Scottish and, I've always kind of had a bit more of a draw into that Scottish heritage. The Armstrongs are one of the border clans in Scotland. So we have a pretty notorious kind of history in there. And we just went to Ireland, Scotland, not this past summer, but the summer before. it was very interesting to experience some of the roots that, I've only known from a distance. I think it's fascinating when we start exploring our cultures and sharing that. And I think that's the important thing you know, we recognize diversity that we talk about, not only the differences in our culture, but the shared in our cultures and the struggles that we face coming from the various cultures in this country. Cause Heck, we're in the United States. We're the greatest opportunity to discuss and to share these, you know, multiples, multitudes of culture. I mean, you mentioned your husband is, you know, German and Latina and, I'm not sure what nationality you mentioned that your father was.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Scottish
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Okay.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:my grandfather's name was Robert Bruce Frost.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Okay.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:So, I have not explored that as much. I would love to go to Scotland and really, explore that. I got into Ancestry. com and, started tracing our family, lineage back. my husband said, well, when you get to the 1300s, Let me know. I said, I'm at the 1300. So I agree so much with what you said, sharing. what we have in common is really important. I really think sometimes that when you work at a college and, university. We don't talk enough and we don't share enough about our cultures and what we have in common. And I find that to be disappointing. I hope that we can, even if someone says something that might not be correct because they don't know better. have a conversation so that we can, move forward together rather than start pointing fingers at each other. With watching culture evolve over the decades, sometimes I feel that we have gone a little bit backwards, that we don't really, embrace each other in the way that I hope, we can in the future. Finding our differences as being something that we can learn from and not that divide us.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:And that's part of our aging. Well, is, you know, being able to interact socially and have this purposeful social connections that draws together strengthens as opposed to divide us. So we've gone off on a little bit of a tangent from your book. no, that's quite all right. I love, the conversational aspect of doing the interviews on this show because we reveal a lot more of, what is driving people to be successful, to age well and so on. along that line, what are some of the challenges that you face in starting a new creative career later in life and how did you overcome them?
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Well, first of all, I think it's having faith in yourself. I was a theater major in college and I will say this story that, um, I went to a junior college and then by the time I got into a four year college, I was in the theater department and never left. it was Cal State Fullerton, which is a large school, but the theater department at the time was very small. so I had that really intensive experience of wanting to be creative. And I only mentioned that because Um, all these years later, everybody that I was close to in college, a lot of us did not make a professional living as an actor, though. Some did, every single person I know that I was close to, we reconnected in our late fifties, early sixties is doing something creative. I think that drive doesn't really go away. It may be more send to other things. I have a very dear friend who is a, Fabric artist. I mean, has done beautiful, beautiful pieces of, quilting that hang in museums.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Oh, wow.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I have another friend who's a backup singer to, Lots of famous, singers and performers. And then another friend who's a teacher, but is just starting a whole scene, where everybody can come and sing in her community. So I think the challenges are, you know, I think we feel sometimes we have to make, well, we do have to make a living, so we want to, you know, we have families, we have children, and you want to support yourself. But I don't think that creative thing inside of you ever goes away. And so I think. It's finding a way to, marshal it and to express yourself. And finally, I, you know, was it an age where my son, when I was, when he was little, I would get up in the morning and write and he would come running in and sit in my lap, but I was like, well, this isn't going to work. after time you have that time and you have to have that discipline. I think that you get when you get older. And I also feel that as you get older, you can let some of those things that you defying yourself with, well, I'm this, I'm not this and you let those go. So I think letting those things go and giving myself permission to do something I love, I love reading mysteries because they're a genre that can talk about a lot of different things and some people use science fiction to talk about a lot of different things or they'll use fantasy. I love mysteries and when I go to a different place that I've never been before, I always try to pick up a mystery by a local author so I can sense what it is to live there. we were talking privately about Michigan. I went to visit Minnesota many years ago, right at the Canadian border. I bought a local book by an author, which was all about what it's like to live in the winter there. somebody gets murdered, but really how do you embrace that winter and go outside and live in it? And I thought that was just really fascinating and gave me a sense of that place. You know, I was there in the middle of summer, but I had a better sense of it after I read that book.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:So what advice do you have for listeners or viewers Feel like it's too late to start this new chapter in their lives.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Don't wait because next year it'll be a year later. I often read things and I'm drawn to articles about, people who go back to college in their late sixties or early seventies and people ask them, well, why are you going now? we don't know how long we have to live. and that does become more apparent. I think as you grow older, I had a friend who was probably 20 years, my junior and very health conscious who passed away recently from cancer. it really was a wake up call to me and my friends, I'm 68. I may have 20 more years. I may have 10, I may have 30. But I could say that at any age in my life and it's only now that I'm realizing it's not too late, do what you love or start doing what you love and have faith in yourself because, if you keep waiting, those are dreams unrealized. So why not realize your dreams and your aspirations now?
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:We talk often on the podcast about the four ages of life, the first age is that period of dependency probably through high school, maybe college, depending on your situation. That's where you're dependent upon others. You're learning, you're growing and you're preparing for this next stage of life, which is the age of kind of more independence, where you're developing your careers, you're starting your families. And it's during that second age that we stifle a lot of the passions and explorative Personalities we had when we were younger we bury that all up as we're getting older because we got to support our families and we Got to build a career and it's not until we get in that third age where we have the opportunity now in retirement to either not find our new selves or Refind ourselves and we end up kind of going down this path of just boredom and not knowing what to do which is Or we find like you, you did, you know, there's passions that maybe got buried Cause I can't remember if we talked about this after we started recording or if it was kind of before we really started recording this episode, but you talked about as a child sitting down after watching the monsters, typing these episodes out and, brought back a lot of fond memories. Cause I grew up watching the monsters as well, but you know, it's like, How do we go about embracing these new passions and, you know, how is embracing these new passions and opportunities after 60 really enriched your lives in ways that you didn't really expect they would?
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:what's really interesting is that even though writing is. a solitary experience, you make a commitment and do it, you're, you're drawing on all of this, history that you have, you know, your working life, your personal life, but once you publish a book, it's very interesting and, I the social aspect of it. So going out and talking to people, I'm doing book groups and book events, obviously reading. But I think the fascinating thing is just listening to people and hearing, the questions that, you know, they ask you, they're seeing things and in something you wrote that you didn't see in it. And they're also asking me, well, I always wanted to write a book. I've always wanted. To start a book, a lot of people love, the idea of YA books, young adult books. And so I think it's just a really wonderful, way of moving into a different part of your life and certainly putting that intense, solitude and all that. Doing that work. But the part about being social and going out and meeting other people on a different level than I do in my day to day life has been really enriching. and the kindness of other writers and the kindness of readers because somebody who invests. You know, the time to read 300 plus page book has put some effort into it and has a feeling of ownership. And so that's interesting and surprising, people will come and ask questions and give perspectives that I never saw in that book or, never realized. So I think that exchange, that social aspect of it has been surprising and really interesting.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Well, publishing a book, especially in this day and age when there are so many publishers out there and different avenues to publish books. Can you share your experience of the publishing process as a first time author and key lessons you've learned that might encourage some of our listeners and viewers who are like, I have this book in my, my mind and my body that I want to get out there, but, nobody will publish it.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Yes. So I met my publisher. I went to a writing workshop in New Mexico, in Abiqui it's where Georgia O'Keeffe lived, the last part of her life. it's north of Santa Fe. I didn't know anyone. And my husband encouraged me to go The great part is that I met a lot of great writers and my publisher. I just kept in touch with her. And because I did, I do development work, I do fundraising. She wanted to keep in touch with me because the publisher is a nonprofit. one of the first classes I took from her was about publishing. she said, At Red Hand Press It's a very, it's one of the big little, so it's a small press, but it's one of the larger ones. It's independent. It is, very focused on diversity, on poetry, on both, fact and fiction. the thing she said in our class that was fascinating is she gets. Hundreds, if not thousands of manuscripts to read, what is it that's going to make you stand out? And she said, one of the things is the personal touch, the personal communication, she's a human being, just like all these people who are reading your manuscripts are human beings. So why not try to reach out and say, hello, get to know their first name. Say dear Kate, not dear editor. try to connect with them on a human level. I thought that was fascinating because I think a lot of times when we're involved in creative endeavors, and we have to put it out in the world, we think that things are against us or that person isn't, getting me When you put yourself in their shoes and say, what is it that's going to make this author seem interesting or have humanity and reach out to you. So I thought that was fascinating. and there are so many people who will help you. So. Definitely go up and talk to people at panels. If you're interested in, a certain genre and you go to a panel and see a writer, ask about their publisher, ask about what kind of books they publish. how can you connect and then get your work out there go and say, Hey, I, submitted a book to you. people don't like to do that, but that is one of the ways because it's a human interaction as much as it is an interaction of sending you something. you want to have that exchange We can be mutually helpful to each other.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:I think inherently people really want to help other people. if you give them that opportunity to feel like they're helping, it's going to help you a lot more.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I agree. And so there's also, I just went to VoucherCon, which is this, huge conference for mystery writers and readers so that you can actually interact with people who are reading your books. I went before I got published and I went after. So I think that there are definitely conferences like that for fantasy genre. For romance, for for all sorts of different genres. that is very helpful because then you get a sense of what that industry is like, who are the people that are publishing who are the people that are writing and also trends, I read probably, tens of maybe hundreds of mystery novels because I want to know what's selling, what are people reading? not that I'm going to write like that exactly, but at least I have a sense of that industry.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:So we've been talking a lot about the publishing process. What about the writing process? How has your life experiences informed the story and the themes of A Punishing Breed?
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:well, first being, Latino, I think that and being in that in between, I thought was something that really I wanted to explore. So my detective is DJ Arias, and he is, not a very happy guy. He is recently divorced. He has a failed relationship, that he is still mourning and he is not a good partner. he's a detective, but he's not a good partner in his professional life he goes to the school where a vice president has been murdered, but it's also a place he knows because 10 years ago he put behind bars a young Latino student involved in vehicular manslaughter. the two. protagonists are Latino. I wanted to explore that just because you're Latino doesn't mean you love every other Latino person There's a lot of back and forth between these two characters. And, also wanted him to find a little bit of his humanity. the women in the book, are the stronger characters. They're the characters who are winding their way through the story and maybe leading it in a way that he doesn't quite understand. he finds his humanity by adopting the dead man's dog, who he names Evidence. I was able to, mingle my exploration of being Latino with my love of the book. Dogs. And how I think when you are not capable of maybe having a relationship with a human being, maybe start with a pet. So all those things kind of came together. And I also have a character that's sort of a Boo Radley character who had a terrible accident many years before and is seen as sort of the other in the neighborhood. So I wanted to explore really the otherness and then the other major theme is you live your life when you're young and you think you're going to be one type of person and you're going to have a certain life. And what inevitably happens to all of us is something happens and you realize, Oh, I'm not going to be that person. I thought I was going to be, it could be, you know, a bad, a failed relationship. It could be an accident. It could be a health issue, or it could be, you know, being fired from your dream job. Then what do you do afterwards? How do you live your life after those moments of reckoning? each character goes through that in one sense or the other some gracefully and some not. So I think that was really important for me to explore.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:And I understand that character, Detective D. J. Arias, is recognized by the New York Times as one of the four great fictional detectives. First of all, congratulations. That's got to be quite an honor.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Thank you.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:this particular character resonate so deeply with the readers?
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I think because he's a seeker. he's not a perfect person. but he's a good detective. he knows he can do one thing well. it becomes the obsessive part of his life because it's the only part that he's had that successful. And I don't think that's, I think that resonates with people, you know, sometimes in our lives. If we're not good at other things, but we're good at our job, our job takes precedence over everything. he has faults. he makes mistakes. He's not perfect. some of them are excruciating, but He does seek to be a better person, I think. And, he does seek some redemption and he can, he can see when a mistake has been made there's a reckoning he needs to look at. he is so good at his job and can see through people's smoke screens. And so I think that makes him a really good detective that he calls on his past. he does form a good relationship with a young partner he has. I think all those things feed into his personality as a good detective.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:hopefully he's going to have many books that he is going to be presented in, I assume.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:So the next book should come out in 2026 and it's going to be called The Shadow of Jaguars. he has his next case, which starts in Mexico city. he gets to visit his family and then comes back and really explores Los Angeles. As a work town with the Hollywood and, um, and I don't want to explore like the child stars who, you know, go into drugs or anything like that. I really want to explore more of the people that work really hard in Los Angeles, 12, 14 hour days and who support. I always feel that Los Angeles gets kind of a bad rap, you know, it's always seen as glossy and empty and glitzy. And in fact, it's a very hard working city. one of the major industries is the entertainment business. I worked for two and a half years at variety. it was very interesting to see. I also worked in public television for a number of years. So I wanted to explore that a little bit. that's the next book and I'm having a lot of fun writing it and that'll be done in two years. not 10.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:That's good.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Thank you.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:how do you address stereotypes and explore More complex, nuanced characters in your work.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Well, I'd like to delve into someone who people see as a stereotype. I mean, DJ Arias could be a stereotype of a Latino man. But he's complex. he delves into himself and why am I this way? Who am I? He has a mother, who was not such a great, role model and a father. I try to look at that in the lens of a Latino culture where you have a very strong matriarch and maybe his father. wasn't as strong. in terms of a stereotype of someone who is the other, the character Warren in the book, people do think he might be the murderer. I think it's because we look at people who are the other and we ascribe all sorts of negative, behavior or connotations on them, but I wanted to get inside of him because he has a very constrained life. He has very like. He had parents who really held him down and then he had a really terrible accident. So to live, he has a very, he has a fantasy life. He reads comic books. He believes, you know, he goes out at night where no one can really see him and he sees the magic in the neighborhood and he collects baubles and Christmas decorations and he sees them as beautiful and jewels. And so I wanted, and he loves nature. And I wanted someone in that book, That turns that stereotype of someone who would be, you know, the kids call a monster, but is really a magical being. And he has these things that he, it allows him to live. So I hope that's turning that stereotype on its head. all of the people in the school, the landscapers, the gardeners, the people who work behind the scenes all had very full, Lives with their own stories of how they got there. I'm hoping that addresses some of those, stereotypes when you walk into an institution or a place and say, oh, well, that's that. And that's this. this person's that I don't believe in those things.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:I love talking to authors about their characters because you really get a sense for the greater depth oftentimes we think of just the depth of the individual character, but you're also talking about the depth of society within your book. that is so fascinating to me because I'm not that type of writer. I've published a textbook and I've tried to publish a book on my well centered fitness, but that hasn't gone anywhere, it's not near that complexity and depth I get, really excited for this book. I've glanced at it. We haven't had enough time, between setting this up and myself getting the book and doing the interview to have read it in detail. But I know it's a really fascinating and good book, and I'm just really excited to take a weekend and just kind of sit down and really dive deep into it.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Well, I like to listen to books and podcasts on health and being healthy.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:There we go.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I look forward to your book when it comes out. that's the other thing about getting older, you start to really pay attention to your health. I look forward to hearing more about it from you.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:And I think what should be coming out of this conversation is that aging well needs to come a little bit earlier. We can't wait until we're 60 to decide, now I'm going to write my book or now I'm going to start getting healthy. We got to start doing it a lot earlier. And this podcast is about aging well. often later in life, we find ourselves reinventing ourselves. this podcast for me is a bit of a reinvention. I've been an academic for 26 years now, done personal training, but I've never wanted to be in front of a camera and now, you know, we're kind of reinventing being on YouTube with not only the audio podcast, but The video podcast as well. reinventing ourselves often requires resilience. how have you drawn on resilience in your own life to embrace this whole new chapter as an author?
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:That's a very good question. I think that reinventing yourself. something I've always done. when I, you know, my dad, it's funny. you said my dad was an athlete. He was a football coach. And, I was a little kid, we moved about 26 times before I was in 6th grade, because my dad was always like, You know, I could be a head coach here and I'm going to go to a junior college and I'm going to go to college. So I think going into a different situation is a reinvention when you're a child. you get used to being put into a completely different environment. that. Is a resilience that I did not want to repeat when I was married, I got married and we had our son same house, but I think reinventing yourself and it's kind of like the character of Warren. I feel sometimes when your life that you are in is not the place that you feel you can be. Sometimes the resilience is looking within. And for me, when I write, feel like I'm living my life that I live that everyone sees here, but I also have a life here. And so it's a fuller life kind of like more and like magic. And that's, it makes me see things differently. sometimes it helps me to see people differently who I'm not understanding. So I think that resilience and that idea of reinventing yourself should be part of your life, no matter your age. when you do get older and some of the, time commitments free up, you can take that reinvention and resilience and build on it. I would encourage people at any age to, if you're having a tough time, like Step back, take a moment, and really look within, and that doesn't have to be writing, it can be music, it can be art, it can be exercising, it could be, you know, starting a new venture. I think that you're given one life, and that's the other thing about growing older, we have one life and it will end at some point. So What are you waiting for? Right? and i'm not saying that to be cute I mean it. what are we waiting for? I tell my son that he's 27. My son, he's in the movie business. That's what he wanted to do. we were like, do what you need to do. You know, express yourself and be yourself. I think I learned that from being told the opposite.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Yeah, I had to learn it. I was told it my whole life and my dad lived it. my dad is one of my heroes. He just passed away in February, but
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I'm sorry.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:for years lack of success rather than seeing the effort and the daring and the challenge, the self inflicted challenge that he gave himself. he married very young. He was 19 when he got married, did a little bit of acting early on in life. then he became a management consultant, did that for years. His third wife, Margaret, my step mom, she's Very much a mom to me. she took a job in New York city. So they had to leave Pittsburgh and he had to give up his consulting business. And really at his age, it was a little too late to try and do more there. And so he was kind of there in New York and she's like, well, why don't you try, you know, seeing if you can get some extra work acting. he got an agent and. started acting and he was doing all kind of stuff. He was on first season of Law and Order, Criminal Intent. He was a regular extra in the background. he had his own desk on the set.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Great.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:he was in a bunch of different shows, been a bunch of different movies. If you watch the Wedding Crashers, there's one scene where, depending on the version you see, it's either only him on screen or it's him and his other woman at the reception. he just took on these opportunities. I think it was probably before I was born, but he had to try out with the Pittsburgh Steelers. My dad never played football in high school or college, but he got to the Steeler training camp to try out for, I believe it was a punting position. And it was the year they recruited Ray Guy, who's a phenomenal punter. So he didn't have a chance, but he got there, you know, it's like, you can't focus on the fact that he didn't make the team. He got there and tried it. And it took me years to learn the importance of that. it's not whether you fail. It's that you've gone out, you've tried things, you've extended yourself. And that's all about what we're supposed to be doing is we're trying to age well. And he got into his later years after they kind of left, when they went from New York to the DC area and continued acting down there. And then when they both retired and moved to Arizona, he created this character bucked off where he, he'd travel around and was basically performing for many of the senior homes, you know, Mostly people his own age, he started painting and did a lot of writing his creative juices just started flowing a lot more as he kind of got into that later stage of life. And so what are your thoughts on this intersection of creativity and aging? do you find aging has allowed us to express ourselves differently
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:And I will say it's maybe different for women too, because I think when you're young as a woman, you're often feeling, very self conscious. You care about how you look. Everything is about how you look or you walk in a room and everyone pays attention to you. And when you're a woman, Suddenly you're a certain age, like maybe mid forties, For, no one, you walk in the room and no one looks at you and you kind of go, Oh, Oh, what happened? But there's an incredible freedom in that because after a while you're like, Oh. walk in a room and if I want something to happen, I need to say it. I need to do it. And so the part of you that is so, and I, wish people wouldn't be that focused on their looks or the outer aspects of their personality. But unfortunately, because of social media, I feel sometimes our children are even more locked in that, and more self conscious. So I think sometimes our accomplishments or our things that we do that have nothing to do with what you look like, or, how you're perceived on social media that persona is the part of you that can really thrive. So I think as you grow older, that naturally starts to happen. You either embrace it or you're angry about it. So I would encourage people to embrace it. and I hope that, we've always tried to tell our son, don't care so much about what people think, which is, So easy to say and so hard to do, but I hope as people mature that they can embrace themselves and other people and start to see people in a different way when I was younger, I didn't understand how important kindness was. as I've grown older, I understand how important kindness is in myself and in other people. And, know, if I knew what I had known when I, if I knew when I was 20, what I knew now, I think I'd probably had a lot better relationships. I would have valued other things, but I know them now and I'm going to embrace it. And I'm going to really focus on those people and those things in my life. you can't change people, but I think you can change yourself.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:So much wisdom there.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I hope I can live it.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:So I already asked you about the future books that we can expect more from detective DJ areas. and you've touched a little bit on your writing journey. Do you have any other explorations that you want to do in there? Are you looking at just continuing this detective series?
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Well, I'm going to continue the detective series, but, I will have more time in the future at some point. we just actually went to BadgerCon, which was in Nashville, and we toured the Country Music Hall of Fame. I was speechless. Fascinated about the late sixties and early 70 rock scene in Los Angeles. And I'm thinking I would love to, do something around that time period. First of all, it has the music. I play guitar. Not well, but I play guitar. My husband's 10 years younger, so he's always asking me to play 80s music, but I play 70s music. So, I would really love to think about something in that era. I love Los Angeles, I was shocked that Nashville, the Country Music Hall of Fame, had a whole floor dedicated to Los Angeles. music because it was folk rock. It was even, cow punk, which I didn't even know
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:I didn't know there was cow punk
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:So I started to think like, this is fascinating. You know, Bakersfield sound, you know, Bakersfield was a big country music, thing. So I think that would be really fascinating. I'm considering like a parallel sort of Story, not tied to the other one, but maybe trying to explore that a little bit and when I start thinking about things like that, it really excites me. So I'm looking forward to that. And I will say for anybody who's a writer out there, there's a great book by Stephen King called on writing that I just adore. it says, basically, Some people outline, some don't, but he writes that he doesn't outline because he likes just right. And it's like walking on a trapeze. You might fall, you might go to the other side or you might fly. I think that, anywhere on your writing journey, it's a great book to read.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:That is a great book. I've read that book and I really enjoyed it. I love Stephen King.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I love Stephen King.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:I could tell a story about my stepmother's car breaking down and she having to make a call and she goes up to this house and knocks on the door and it turns out to be Stephen King's house.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:He answered
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Yeah. she
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:amazing.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:sat there, you know, chatting with them in their living room is, you know, they were waiting for the, I don't know if it's triple A or whatever it was, they had to come and get the car going. But yeah,
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:great story.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:So you don't think of people like that. Being just kind of hanging out at home, you know, I guess you'd think of Stephen King as just always being at a typewriter, just writing,
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I follow him on social media. I think he's amazing. you know, someone who met one of your, idols. that would be my idol. That's a great story. I'm going to remember that forever.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:you can work it into one of your books.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Also could be scary when you walk up to a big house and there's like, hello, Stephen King. I'm Stephen King.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Okay, I have a question that we ask of all of our guests.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Okay.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:are you doing personally to age well?
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I have, started doing some fasting. there's a doctor at USC who actually really, believes that if you fast, It controlled fast that it actually helps. I think it's called auto veggie and you probably already know all this stuff. But, in he, you just got, he discovered it by working with cells yeast cells and some cancer patients before they go through chemo. If you fast, it helps your body take in the chemo. And through that, he discovered a lot of things. So I've been doing some of that. I've been trying to walk more and exercise, but, I need to exercise more and eat better. I used to drink a lot of wine. honestly, sleep and, One of the things I'm really trying to focus on this year is to get into a meditation practice, I've done a lot of yoga in my life, and I want to get back into that because I think it's such a great practice when you first start to sit and meditate for a long time. five minutes seemed like a lifetime. And then when you get into that practice, you would go into it immediately and it really clears your head. I'm doing a combination of things I'm doing now and things that I really need to do.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Sounds like you're taking the right steps to age well.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I am trying, my husband is a big exerciser, we got a Peloton bike just before the pandemic and he's on that every day. I think he's thousands of miles into it at this point. I used to do spin all the time, I'm probably more of a class person. I really like to get in a class and do it. maybe it's a competitive streak cause I always like to see if I can go faster and harder than next to me, but he's gotten really into that. So I need to step up and follow him doing that kind of thing.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Yeah, I'm much more of a solitary exerciser. I have a gym in our garage. I'm not much for going to the gyms anymore. pandemic was awesome for me getting in shape because I have an hour commute to campus and back each day. So that's like two hours I lose.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Yeah.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:having to do that for that year was great because I had time to walk the dogs every day, two exercise sessions, plus get my classwork and my teaching done. I got in the best shape, got the leanest I've been in my life, and then I got to go back to work.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:fight? Yes.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:generally it's four days a week because we're on this kind of schedule, it's two day a week classes, which I'd rather go five days a week teaching a class for a shorter period of time, have more contact with the students. Fridays are a little bit. Back and forth. It depends on what I'm teaching, what meetings I have. We always have our division meetings. As you know, with academics, there's always this wonderful meetings that we have to sit through. We have to drive all the way to campus to sit for a two hour meeting and then drive home. hopefully my bosses aren't listening to this conversation, at least this part of it. the exercise piece, it's pretty easy for me. Trying to get the nutrition honed in is always a challenge. You mentioned fasting. It's interesting. we just interviewed the CEOs of two of the big fasting companies. I'm not sure if you were talking about Walter Longo in your company. So he's with El Nutra. we just interviewed their CEO and I just completed their five day fast this week. On the fifth day of that fast, I interviewed Christopher Rhodes, who is the CEO of Mimeo, which is the other fasting, mimicking company. they have two different approaches Walter Longo's approach is nutrient dense, but caloric restricted five day fast period, whereas Dr. Rhodes is. approach is basically using biomimetics, which are the chemicals that are produced during a fast and basically having people consume those on a daily basis over time. So they're two very different approaches. both of those, I went into those interviews, very skeptical. And very much like, okay, they're just going to be promoting a product, but both of them have very good science behind what they were talking about. And it was very interesting. So this should hopefully, as they listen to this episode, they will also turn to those two episodes as well. I'm learning a lot in this process taking the steps of aging well is being open to learning new things and developing and growing. And so it's kind of fascinating too, when I listened to, My guests and what they're doing and how really connecting the dots and doing the things that they need to be doing. You mentioned mindfulness and yoga and meditation. We've talked today about social, connectedness and the importance of that. So you're hitting all the bullet points, maybe not perfectly, but we're all moving in that right direction toward aging. Well,
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:It's so fun, but I find Dr. Longo amazing. I've done two of those fasts. It's also interesting because you realize gives you a different relationship to food. I've realized now, like before I would be hungry and like, oh my God, I have to eat. And now I'm kind of like, I can wait, you know, it'll pass. where we live we have food all around us. We can definitely, Wait a couple of hours or next day to eat. That's not the worst thing. I've been listening a lot to Huberman labs and, Andrew Huberman, and he has a big thing about alcohol, like how it's poison. so there's a lot about aging and women apparently we need a lot more protein as we age. I stopped eating meat about two years ago. I do eat fish, but I don't eat beef, chicken or pork. how you get protein and how that's important to you. And also how it's more important right now, to, strengthen, lift weights and all those kinds of things. It's still important to walk, but just keeping your muscles, intact and building on your muscles. I think those things are very important.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:keep it up.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Well, I'm very fascinated by Dr. Rhodes. I want to hear more about that.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:Yeah, I wish I had in front of me what those episodes are. I'll let you know afterwards, which,
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:very
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:when those episodes are going to be coming up.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Cool.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:they'll be coming up, I believe, in October.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I'm really interested.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:so let's see, DC, this is, it's been a real joy talking to you today. I feel like I could keep going on, but I'm sure you have a lot of things to do today. And I'm hoping that our viewers and our listeners have been inspired to read. a punishing breed. where can they find the book? How can they learn more about you? Do you have a webpage? Is there social media?
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Denise frost. net is my website. my book is available wherever you buy books, amazon. com bookshop. org. it's in a lot of, bookstores, but you might have to order it separately. So probably online is the easiest way to follow it. And I'm on social media, Facebook, Denise frost. net, Instagram, DC frost writer. I'm even on TikTok. My publisher made me go on TikTok.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:am not on TikTok. I, I can't bring myself to do that, but maybe I need to be.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:it's a welcoming community. I swear to God that, you know, the more you videos you do, the more people watch, you know, are attracted to your posts. there's a thing called BookTok on there, which I actually thought was BookTok, but it's not. people just keep coming back. even my son is not on TikTok, but, I'm on everything. So come, you know, Denise frost or DC frost. I'm there.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:the description notes so people can easily find those.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I'll look for you on tick tock
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:It might be a while.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Okay.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:I am trying to make a presence on YouTube a little bit more. So baby steps.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Well, such a pleasure talking with you, Jeff. I've really enjoyed our conversation.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:You too. DC, Denise, thank you for sharing your story with us. we really look forward to reading more about Detective D. J. Arias. And just keep writing and keep aging well.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:Thank you so much. I'll be listening for all of those exciting episodes coming up.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:That's great. I hope a lot of people are doing that.
denise_1_09-21-2024_073244:I'm sure they are.
jeff_1_09-21-2024_073244:have a great rest of your day.
Thank you for listening. I hope you benefited from today's podcast. Until next time, keep aging well.
