Oct. 20, 2025

064 - Robbie Dorman Part 1: Writing Fast-Paced Fiction & Why You Should Read Robbie Dorman

064 - Robbie Dorman Part 1: Writing Fast-Paced Fiction & Why You Should Read Robbie Dorman
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In this episode of Weird Reads, I paste two older Jason's Weird Reads videos together, both involving Robbie Dorman. The first is a short explanation as to why I think you should read Robbie's books; the second is from when I had Robbie on the show about two years ago. That episode never got released in podcast form until now. Next week, assuming the tech gods still don't hate me, you will get an all-new discussion with Robbie Dorman.

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Welcome to Weird Reads, episode sixty four. I am your host,

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Jason White, and today I'm going to be doing something

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a little bit different and something that has always kind

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of annoyed me when I've seen other podcasts do this,

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But I'm doing it for I'm doing it for a reason,

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and one reason is I've been having a lot of

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technical issues with some of the guests that have been

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coming on on both my podcasts. I'm talking about both

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Weird Reads and Short Bites.

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I don't know.

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I don't think it's on my end. I think it's

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something to do with maybe the quality of people's equipment.

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I've been having trouble with stream Yard and Zencaster. I'm

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not going to get into that, but what happened was

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this week I was supposed to have Mark Allen Gunnals

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on the show, and unfortunately that is not going to happen.

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And that's unfortunate because I hope this hasn't come to

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the point where I can't talk to him again.

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I love talking to Mark.

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I consider him a friend, and hopefully one day we

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can talk again because I love his books, and the

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better to promote him with is to talk to him

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on the show. Here, So because that didn't happen, I'm

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hoping that the next interview goes without any issues. And

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the next interview is with Robbie Dorman. Now, I've talked

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to Robbie Dorman on Jason's Weird Reads before, but it's

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not uploaded to the Weird Reads. So I'm going to

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upload it here for you to listen to. And after

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I talked to Robbie Dorman, about a week or two later,

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I did a video on Jason's Weird Reads titled why

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you should Read Robbie Dorman. So I'm going to attach

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that first, so first you get why you should read

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Robbie Dorman, and then my first interview with him. This

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was done almost exactly two years ago, and we're going

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to be talking again at this time tomorrow, unless, of course,

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the tech gods are against me, and maybe it's a

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sign I need to pull back if it is, or

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maybe it's just a sign that the issue is on

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my end and not on equipments, because I got brand

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new equipment here, so I don't know what's going on,

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so hopefully it works itself out. I guess we'll find out. So,

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as I said, this is a two part episode. The

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first part is let's get to know Robbie Dorman and

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why you should read Robbie Doorman, and then my first

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interview with him, all from two years ago. I hope

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you enjoy. And the next episode will be my brand new,

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hopefully my brand new episode with Robbie Dorman. And without

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further ado, here is my going back into history with

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Robbie Dorman. Hello and welcome. I'm Jason White and this

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is Jason's Ready Reads, and today I'm going to be

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trying to convince you to read a new author. Well

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he's not new, he's written fourteen books, but he's new

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to me and he might be new to you. And

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of course I'm talking about Robbie Dormant. I talked to

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Robbie recently and I'm going to put his interview up

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there in the cards so that you can go check

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him out. I highly recommend this book. I mean, I've

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never done a video like this. Why I think you

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should read this author? And why am I doing this

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Because while I went onto YouTube to see if I

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could find any Robbie Dorman interviews and there's like nothing,

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and there wasn't very much in the way of book

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reviews either. I would like to see Robbie. Robbie Dorman

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spoken about a lot more now, As I said, out

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of his fourteen books, I've read three of them, and

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I want to talk about I want to tell you

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what those books are. First, the first one I read

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was Conquest. The second one I read was dead End,

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which both those books. Conquest is his first written book.

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Dead End is his most recent written book. Well, Conquest

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is his first release book. I don't think, if I

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remember correctly from the interview, he wrote some trunk novels

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before and most recently, I've I read War on Halloween,

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and all three of these books are great. Dead End

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is bound to make my top ten list, and it

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made my number two in my revised in my revise

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Favorite Horror list, which you can check up there if

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you want to check it out. So why do I

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think you should read Robbie Dorman? And I think there's

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a few reasons why here and so let me get

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into them. Reason number one, he writes, honestly, he wears

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his passions on his sleeve. Now, I was listening to

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a podcast recently where Tananariebdu and her husband Steve Steve

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Barnes were interviewing Stephen Graham Jones. You're like, what does

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Stephen Graham Jones have to do with Robbie Dorman. Well,

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he doesn't actually, but he did say something. He said

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something that was very courtable. He defined what an artist is.

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He said, Stephen Graham Jones said, an artist is someone

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who walks around with their heart exposed and they rub

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it everywhere they go. And I was like blown away

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by that quote. That's like a wow, that's like wow,

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you know, like what an awesome quote. And but Robbie

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Dormant's work does that. You can just by reading his

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books you can tell what Robbie Doorman cares about. He

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walks around with his heart exposed and he's rubbing it

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everywhere for you to read point number two. His books

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are fun. Every one of these books, even though they

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have like an fairly important message attached to them, they're

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complete fun to read. The first book, Conquest that I read,

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is about Werewolf's a biker gang full of weara wolves.

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That right there is fun, but there's also there's also

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this political this small town with some serious political issues,

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and you have and the Werewolf biker gang has their

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own political issues, and you have both these sides clashing

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and there's a forest fire that's approaching. Now. This book

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is like less than two hundred pages long, and it

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surprises me how much detail he was able to squash

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into this and into the short sized book. Because the

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characters were rememberable, or that I could remember who they were.

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The plot was pretty pretty thick. This plot points were

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just crazy and it all fits. It makes perfect sense.

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There's no there's no fat It's great fucking book. Second

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book that I read is dead End. This book just

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blew me away because it's about a guy who works

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at a factory and how the people who own factories.

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It's not a factory, it's a well I took it

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as a factory because where I come from, But it's

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basically an Amazon mailing place where they send stuff out.

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They take orders in and they put them in bins

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and then they send them off to shipping. But it's

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it's almost exactly like factory work in the sense it

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is factory work, but the message being that employer employers

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at factories and these types of warehouses treat their employees

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awfully unless there's something like a union in place. And

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I experienced what that was like more than once in

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my life, but most recently I've explained that enough. I

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don't want to get into it too much. And the

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third book I should get into first is about a

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young family who recently went through something very hard. The

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mother died, so they move, and also the father lost

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his job. He was a cop and he got into

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some trouble, not any bad trouble, he was calling out

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other cops for doing bad things, and so they moved

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to this new town where where it's very Christian and

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they're against Halloween. And so there's this very evil preacher

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who this family sort of goes to war with in

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a sense, and there's like something very evil and nasty

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going on with this with this preacher, he pretty much

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controls the town. Now, those are some pretty heavy topics

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and sometimes even political topics, but you read them and

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they're still fun, like you have a blast reading them.

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Next up I have. These books are short, like I

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think the longest one I read was the Halloween one,

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and I think it was like two hundred and thirty pages.

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So they go by quickly though. You read them and

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you start reading it, and the chapters are fairly short

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so you go through like ten chapters and you're like

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thirty percent ahead somehow, and you're like, how did that happen?

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And those are my favorite types of books to read, honestly.

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I touched upon this next point. The characters in his

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books are very real. There's some authors that I've praised

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a lot on here, but sometimes they have flaws, and

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one of them is Tim Kurran. I was just talking

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about Tim Kerran in the comments or the Darkness in

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one of my videos recently, and they said, you know,

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they named what they found to be a flaw in

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Tim Kerrn's work, and I went on to say, what

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my flaw I think is in that Tim current tends

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write the same characters over and over again, no matter

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the story. They're like the same people with different names.

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But Robbie Dorman, his characters are all very different from

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each other, and so he's able to build what feels

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like real people. Joe from Dead End feels very real.

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He's got like some anger issues and he hates the

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idea of working for these large corporations who do evil.

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And his ex girlfriend is very real. She's nice enough

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to let him sleep on her couch, but she's also

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very strict at him keeping a job so we can

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move the hell out. I could go on with the characters.

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There's a lot of really interesting things that go on

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with the characters, including my next point, he can romance

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that tugged on my heart strings. I'm talking in this one.

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In the book.

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The War on Halloween, there is a girl on girl

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romance that was just utterly sweet in a good way,

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not in that make you feel sick or give you

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cavities type of way. It was subtle and yet very sweet,

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and it honestly tugged at my heart strings. And there's

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a couple of queer relationships and conquest. I think dead

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End was the only one that didn't really have any

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queer relationships that I'm aware of, but he makes them

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believable by taking out the weird stereotypes you would think

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a guy who isn't gay would write about and make

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it unbelievable. At least that's the way I took it,

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as being a straight person myself. You might be in

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the LGBTQ area and read his work and say, no, no,

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that's not right. But I found that it was very believable.

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It's just two people falling in love, and I think

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that's what it comes down to. My next point is

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sort of maybe along the same lines as you know,

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a white guy writing a white straight guy, may I

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add writing LGBTQ. Well, how about a white guy writing

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female characters. We all know that that can be very controversial,

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but I think Robbie Dorman handles it very well. There's

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no rubbing clothing, rubbing against the women's nipples. They're not

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fascinated by their own bodies. They don't even mention their

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own bodies. They just feel like real people. They might

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be a little bit more effeminate than the men, but

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that's fairly normal, right. But they all have characters characteristics

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that aren't stereo stereotypical. In my opinion, his book typically

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have great meanings, which goes with his passions. I think

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one thing I like is it's the meanings behind his

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book are easy decide to decipher. But one reason why

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I enjoy reading period is I like trying to find

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out what the meaning is behind it. If there is one,

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I don't think there's anything wrong. There's some people who

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argue against this that books don't need to have a meaning,

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and of course they don't, but I think every book

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has a meaning somewhere in there, whether the author intended

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it to be there or not. And I don't think

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there's any anything wrong whatsoever with somebody going like me,

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going through trying to find some meaning. I think it's

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just human to do that. We do that with almost

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everything we try to. We try to justify our own

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existence in a way, and we do that. One way

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we do that as by watching television shows and reading.

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We try to find ourselves in our own identity within books,

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and we also like to learn about the identity of

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other people. Okay, his book and next point here is

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his books are simply good. They remind me a lot

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of books published by big publishing houses like pocket Books,

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del Rey Tour, etc. Which isn't to take away from

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self published authors, because he is a self published author,

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but he reminds me, and this goes into my final point.

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He reminds me a lot of I guess I'll expand

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a little bit on that last point. His books have

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like that that big publishing house feel to them, and

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this leads into my last point. If you're looking for

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a comparison, if I were to compare Robbie Dorman Robbie

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Dorman's in his own category. But I would like to say,

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think to anyone who hasn't read him, think nineteen eighties

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Robert R. McCammon, those old horror books he wrote, like

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night Boat and they Thirst and.

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Stinger.

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Think of John Saul like Creature, Think of Dean Koontz

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from the eighties, like TikTok, that Dragon Tears book which

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I used to love Winter Moon. Winter Moon was awesome.

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And also I would add in a lot of Bentley

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Little in the mix, like Bentley Littl's entire catalog. If

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you mixed all those into one cauldron, one cauldron of literature,

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you could say literature soup, you would have Robbie Dorman.

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And if that isn't enough to convince you to go

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check out Robbie Dorman's books. And I don't know what

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else to do down there in the comments, I are

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not in the comments. In the notes, I'm gonna have

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a link to his Amazon author profile, So definitely go

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check them out. Go get some of his kindle books,

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or get the physical books. I don't have any physical

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physical books yet because this is a mess. I need

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to get rid of some before I can add some,

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but I definitely want to get some of his physical,

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physical books because he's like a favorite author of mine

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now and I'm looking forward to reading much more of him.

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And like I said before, I'd like to see everyone

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talking about Robbie Dorman just at least a little bit more.

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00:16:27.639 --> 00:16:32.559
Hello everyone, today, I am joined by Robbie Dorman. Robbie,

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I'm going to read your synopsis here that you have

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on your Amazon page. Robbie Dorman believes in horror. Conquest

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is his first novel. When not writing, he's podcasting, playing

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video games, or petting cats. He lives in Texas with

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his wife Kim.

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Now.

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In your bio there it says that Robbie Dorman believes

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in horror. I take this to mean that you not

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only love all things horror, but that you feel horror

266
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is a great medium to look at our modern life

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with critical eye.

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Is that is that?

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Am I close anywhere in that?

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I think so? I mean, I think that's accurate. I

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think that's actually pretty well pretty well said. I believe, Yeah,

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I think that. I don't know. I think horror gets

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a bad rap sometimes it does.

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Yeah, yeah, And Chuck paulinook he switched to writing horror

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about what fifteen twenty years ago? And he said that

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pretty much what I said there in that question, that

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horror is a great medium to you know, to criticize

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things that that are happening in everyday life. I think

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the two best genres for that are probably science fiction

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and horror.

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Yeah, and I think that's the thing knowing, but people

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will think about horror that way they think about science

283
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fiction is like a you know, as parody or satire

284
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or a vehicle to you know, social commentary. I think

285
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I think that's primarily just because of Star Trek. Really,

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I think Star Trek's because it is science fiction. But

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also most many, many episodes of Star Trek are also

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you know, carry some amount of social commentary with them.

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But people don't think about at least not modern heartor

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I think if you go back to like the Twilight Zone,

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that had it at least in popular culture and the

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popular idea of are Her. But lately I think people

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think about horror. They think of Insidious, they think of Annabelle,

294
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they think of Michael Myers, I think of Halloween. They

295
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don't think of horror as a vehicle for any kind

296
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of commentary on social themes or anything like.

297
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That, and they're not thinking of George Romero, who had

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no commentary, which sort of leads into your recent book.

299
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But we'll get we'll get to that in a minute.

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00:18:50.920 --> 00:18:55.039
Because I discovered you on TikTok and only like maybe

301
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a month and a half ago, and I remember you talking.

302
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You were responding to another TikToker who who called you,

303
00:19:04.319 --> 00:19:08.000
uh an extreme horror writer, and you were like, no,

304
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I'm not extreme horror. I have some gore in my books,

305
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but I don't really classify myself as horror. And so

306
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I was like, Okay, I got to follow this guy.

307
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And then I saw another video of yours where you're

308
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describing one of your one of your books, and I commented,

309
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I got to go read this, and I did, and

310
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I fell.

311
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In love with that book.

312
00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:27.319
You're you're going to say something there, but oh I was.

313
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I was going to say, like, yeah, I think extreme

314
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horror is very hot right now, especially TikTok social media,

315
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like it's captivated, like drabbed a lot of people and

316
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nothing against extreme horror. Uh, It's just not me, and

317
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I don't I don't want people to get the wrong impression. Yeah,

318
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nothing wrong, nothing nothing against it.

319
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I totally hear you, because I've read a couple of

320
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year books now and you do go there, but it's

321
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not it's not exploitive, you know.

322
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Trying not to. I try not to be exploited as

323
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much as possible.

324
00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:07.000
The gore and the craziness are more fitting to the

325
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plot rather than us going and having fun with it.

326
00:20:11.839 --> 00:20:15.559
Yeah, and it's I try. And also I get bored.

327
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I think I mentioned that in that video. I just

328
00:20:18.319 --> 00:20:21.480
get kind of bored writing a lot of gore and

329
00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:23.400
any you know, if I write a story with a

330
00:20:23.400 --> 00:20:26.759
lot of gore, inevitably, the next story I write is

331
00:20:26.839 --> 00:20:31.519
generally something that is less. It's I there is there

332
00:20:31.640 --> 00:20:33.960
was a I don't. I don't think I had the

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thing of TikTok. I could talk for hours about some

334
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of these things. But when I was younger, in my

335
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early twenties, I think a lot of people go through

336
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that phase where you're like chasing the dragon. You want

337
00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:48.880
to get the most, like the hardest, like most graphic

338
00:20:49.079 --> 00:20:53.519
things possible, movies, books, any kind of like narrative. You're like,

339
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I want I want to be grossed out. I want

340
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to see that, I want to be feel awful after

341
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I watch something or read something. Yeah, And I went

342
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through that phase, and then then a certain point I realized, like,

343
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there's I'm just getting to sensitized and there's not really

344
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there's nothing there at the end of this. Uh. And

345
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so I think as I was started my own writing career,

346
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it was more like, I want to tell a story,

347
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and if that story, if it needs gore, if it

348
00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:26.599
like My Conquest, my Worlf story, my very first novel

349
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has a lot of blood and guts in it because

350
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I wanted the werewolves in it to be monstrous and

351
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be awful, and you deliver that not with them being mean,

352
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even though they are quite awful people as well, but

353
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by ripping people apart and devouring them, they they're beesteal

354
00:21:48.400 --> 00:21:51.960
right And yeah, But also the book right after that

355
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truth is has no violence, no gore.

356
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Interesting. But I've always argued, and this is for people

357
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who are totally against gore and they want to go

358
00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:05.079
read a werewolf novel, I've always argued, if you have

359
00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:07.839
a were wolf novel, it's got to be there's got

360
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to be some nastiness in it, unless you just ignore

361
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the killing parts.

362
00:22:13.559 --> 00:22:18.880
I mean it is I always whenever I tackle any

363
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kind of monster archetype, be it were wolves, vampire, zombies, ghosts,

364
00:22:22.920 --> 00:22:25.799
whatever I do, I'm not going to do it if

365
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I'm just going to do exactly what other people have done.

366
00:22:30.440 --> 00:22:34.359
But I'm also going to look at those long standing

367
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archetypes and kind of build on them. Like my werewolves.

368
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I went back to the wolf Man, I went back

369
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to American werewolf in London. I went to my favorite

370
00:22:46.759 --> 00:22:50.680
werewolves in basically all in myth and in fiction, and

371
00:22:50.720 --> 00:22:54.119
looked at them and said, well, what do they do?

372
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What do I think of as a were wolf? And

373
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also what do were wolves mean in my story? I mean,

374
00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:05.839
were wolves in my story are basically like an unrestrained masculinity,

375
00:23:05.960 --> 00:23:11.519
basically like and if in my head that's like, well,

376
00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:14.920
they will whip people apart, they will eat and devour them.

377
00:23:15.079 --> 00:23:19.079
They will eat as, they will gobble down flesh. They

378
00:23:19.079 --> 00:23:22.039
are not They are awful, ugly things. Yeah.

379
00:23:22.599 --> 00:23:25.920
And is that how you came to writing your werewolves

380
00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:29.039
in that book as like a biker gang? Because I

381
00:23:29.039 --> 00:23:31.720
thought that was brilliant and I don't remember having seen

382
00:23:31.799 --> 00:23:34.559
that before, but it makes perfect sense. I mean I

383
00:23:34.559 --> 00:23:37.799
thought of the idea of like well, it all it's

384
00:23:37.880 --> 00:23:40.480
you know, it's never one big idea. It's always like

385
00:23:40.559 --> 00:23:43.079
a lot of little ideas that kind of get cobbled

386
00:23:43.119 --> 00:23:47.119
together into and then polished into kind of a cohesive thing.

387
00:23:47.799 --> 00:23:51.240
And I was like, well, if these were wolves one

388
00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:56.440
they become giant monsters and they need and they need

389
00:23:56.480 --> 00:23:57.759
to eat lots to.

390
00:23:57.720 --> 00:24:02.000
Do this, to fuel this transformation. They couldn't stay in

391
00:24:02.079 --> 00:24:06.960
one place. They couldn't They couldn't be in one town

392
00:24:07.079 --> 00:24:09.559
for a long time because if even if they were

393
00:24:09.759 --> 00:24:13.400
just eating farm animals, people would notice. People would notice

394
00:24:13.440 --> 00:24:15.880
if a lot of things got went missing on one spot,

395
00:24:16.400 --> 00:24:19.119
but if they traveled around a lot, they went from

396
00:24:19.119 --> 00:24:22.960
town to town. Yeah, you maybe a cow gets killed

397
00:24:23.079 --> 00:24:27.400
or a person dies and goes missing. If the if

398
00:24:27.400 --> 00:24:30.599
it's a one time, people will just forget about it.

399
00:24:30.680 --> 00:24:33.400
And that does happen. There's lots of missing people reports,

400
00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:36.759
a lot of you know, animals get killed, and it's

401
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:41.279
a blip. And well, like I went, what travels around

402
00:24:41.279 --> 00:24:43.279
a lot? And like I was trying to tie it

403
00:24:43.279 --> 00:24:45.920
into all all my were wolves are men. There are

404
00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:50.400
no women wear wolves in my lore. So I was like, well,

405
00:24:50.839 --> 00:24:53.559
what's a what's And I was trying to represent really

406
00:24:53.599 --> 00:24:57.039
like what's a masculine ideal, Like what is like in

407
00:24:57.359 --> 00:25:00.559
I think Sons of Anarchy was relatively popular at the time,

408
00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:03.400
but I think I just glanced I saw that somewhere online.

409
00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:08.160
I'm like, or I'd watched the documentary about biker gangs,

410
00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:12.599
about Hell's Angels, about the Mongols, and I think I

411
00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:15.720
was like that, like when those all those guys are

412
00:25:16.559 --> 00:25:23.240
this masculine archetype there, they embody the the outlaw imagery

413
00:25:23.359 --> 00:25:27.000
of especially of the America, which Conquest is a little

414
00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:29.160
bit about too. I think about I think about the

415
00:25:29.160 --> 00:25:32.640
imagery of us and of the frontier of the West. Yeah,

416
00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:35.440
it's set in Idaho, So I was like, oh, well

417
00:25:35.559 --> 00:25:38.960
that's perfect. They move around. And also I wanted power

418
00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:41.920
struggles in between the werewolves and like biker gangs have that,

419
00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:45.880
especially like you watch Thems of Anarchy, they they they

420
00:25:45.920 --> 00:25:48.880
go through that like who's in charge? Yeah, there's factions

421
00:25:48.920 --> 00:25:51.200
and all that stuff. So and that happens in the

422
00:25:51.279 --> 00:25:55.319
very first chapter, the powish struggle within the biker gang. Yeah,

423
00:25:55.359 --> 00:25:57.599
And like I also didn't want it to I didn't

424
00:25:57.599 --> 00:25:59.279
want it to dominate the story. I think that's the

425
00:25:59.279 --> 00:26:01.400
thing I'd also kind of doing all my books is

426
00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:05.720
I don't focus too much on the monsters, on the antagonists,

427
00:26:05.960 --> 00:26:08.039
even though some of the werewolves end up being at

428
00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:10.200
least one of them or two of them end up

429
00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:13.480
being decent, decent enough by the end of the story.

430
00:26:13.519 --> 00:26:18.720
But I largely try and focus on the humans, the protagonists.

431
00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:23.400
Out Conquest Man, it blew me away. It's a short book.

432
00:26:23.400 --> 00:26:26.720
It's like two hundred pages, I think, And there's so

433
00:26:26.920 --> 00:26:29.599
much going on in this book, and yet it's only

434
00:26:29.599 --> 00:26:32.200
two hundred pages. And what I really was impressed by

435
00:26:32.359 --> 00:26:34.880
was the politics within the town itself and this forest

436
00:26:34.920 --> 00:26:36.799
fire that's that's approaching.

437
00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:39.319
Them, Like, how did.

438
00:26:40.640 --> 00:26:43.680
This is your first book? Is it your first written book?

439
00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:44.559
No?

440
00:26:44.680 --> 00:26:47.799
I wrote, I mean I've been writing, That's the thing.

441
00:26:47.839 --> 00:26:49.680
It's always a complicated answer. It's like, well, no, I've

442
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:53.960
been writing for my whole life. Basically, it's not the

443
00:26:53.160 --> 00:26:57.200
first maniuscript I finished. The first one I finished was

444
00:26:57.240 --> 00:27:00.880
not good enough to publish, is actually answer. And that's

445
00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:02.480
the thing I don't Not a lot of writers talk

446
00:27:02.480 --> 00:27:04.839
about that. Yeah, they got to talk about, oh this

447
00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:06.480
is my book I published, go buy it. You know,

448
00:27:06.519 --> 00:27:09.400
they're trying to also, you know, sell things. And but

449
00:27:09.599 --> 00:27:13.079
I've I've I've a handful of manuscripts I've written that

450
00:27:13.839 --> 00:27:15.720
they're just I you know, you write, I write them,

451
00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:17.160
I put them away for a bit and come back

452
00:27:17.200 --> 00:27:20.160
to them, and I go, no, this doesn't have it.

453
00:27:20.160 --> 00:27:23.119
It's not good it's not good enough. And that's okay.

454
00:27:23.319 --> 00:27:26.559
It's it's effectively becomes practice and sometimes some ideas get

455
00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:30.359
recycled and put into other things. But Conquest, I mean, look,

456
00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:33.480
I do think about it. Like my first published book

457
00:27:33.880 --> 00:27:39.160
is has a dozen perspective characters, uh, and it jumps

458
00:27:39.319 --> 00:27:43.079
you know, across town that cross this town and through

459
00:27:43.160 --> 00:27:47.599
different like there's minor time jumps, chronological time jumps, skipping

460
00:27:47.640 --> 00:27:51.920
back and forth and mixing in like my own more

461
00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:55.319
on were wolves and and a you know political uh

462
00:27:55.759 --> 00:27:59.039
clashes in a town and wildfires. I'm like, I was

463
00:27:59.079 --> 00:28:02.559
a madman for trying to do all of that in

464
00:28:02.599 --> 00:28:04.720
what in my first book? I should like, why why

465
00:28:04.759 --> 00:28:07.200
did I try and do that? But I mean, I

466
00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:10.440
still love Conquest, even even if it is a crazy thing. No,

467
00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:12.880
It's it's crazy in a good way because it flows,

468
00:28:12.920 --> 00:28:16.279
it fits, it works, and that that's the point I'm

469
00:28:16.279 --> 00:28:20.240
trying to get across like like like this is a

470
00:28:21.119 --> 00:28:22.240
like for a first release.

471
00:28:22.839 --> 00:28:25.319
It's it's it's really really good.

472
00:28:26.480 --> 00:28:27.920
I appreciate that. Thank you.

473
00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:32.480
I mean it's Once I finished reading that book, I

474
00:28:32.519 --> 00:28:34.079
was like, Okay, I gotta I got to talk to

475
00:28:34.119 --> 00:28:37.079
this guy. And then I U I jumped and I

476
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:40.640
messaged you on TikTok. I was like, because you you

477
00:28:40.759 --> 00:28:45.039
offered a free copy of your most recent book, which

478
00:28:45.119 --> 00:28:52.079
is out today technically because this is pre recorded, that's

479
00:28:52.079 --> 00:28:55.359
dead End and you were offering people, uh free copies

480
00:28:55.480 --> 00:28:58.400
for an honest review. And I was like, you know what,

481
00:28:58.440 --> 00:29:00.599
I want not only that book, but I want to

482
00:29:00.640 --> 00:29:04.079
talk to you too. And then I read that book

483
00:29:04.119 --> 00:29:06.799
and it was like, man, yeah, totally.

484
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:13.480
I mean, yeah, dead end is it is. I For

485
00:29:13.480 --> 00:29:14.799
a long time, I da have thought I would write

486
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:18.039
a zombie story. I thought there's nothing more to say

487
00:29:18.079 --> 00:29:23.240
with them, because I think I like that there's that

488
00:29:23.319 --> 00:29:26.880
glut of zombie fiction maybe ten years ago, I think,

489
00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:28.839
you know, with World War Z and the Dawn of

490
00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:32.759
the Dead remake and uh like and then after and

491
00:29:32.799 --> 00:29:36.839
then it's like both Marvel and DC had zombie comics

492
00:29:36.880 --> 00:29:38.680
come out at the same time that ran for a

493
00:29:38.680 --> 00:29:41.640
long time or very popular, and it just seemed everywhere

494
00:29:41.640 --> 00:29:43.440
you looked there was I think I was pride and

495
00:29:43.440 --> 00:29:45.799
pajudice at Zombies also came out at that time, like

496
00:29:46.119 --> 00:29:48.599
so much zombie stuff, and I was kind of in

497
00:29:48.680 --> 00:29:51.240
Shot of the Dead, which is I mean a lot

498
00:29:51.240 --> 00:29:53.759
of that stuff's great, but at a certain point, like, well,

499
00:29:53.799 --> 00:29:56.000
what am I going to say? That's not Yeah, I'm

500
00:29:56.039 --> 00:29:57.640
not just gonna write a zombie story to write one.

501
00:29:57.680 --> 00:29:59.440
I don't write to market. I don't try and just

502
00:29:59.480 --> 00:30:01.799
write something that's popular. I write things that I want

503
00:30:01.799 --> 00:30:07.920
to write. And then I went, oh, wait, zombies working

504
00:30:07.920 --> 00:30:11.960
for Amazon. I was like that they like I had

505
00:30:11.960 --> 00:30:15.519
that idea in my head. I'm like, that's something. How

506
00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:17.640
do I write a story about that? Yeah?

507
00:30:17.880 --> 00:30:22.160
And it too comes off as really I don't want

508
00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:26.240
to say the word brilliant, but it's from beginning to

509
00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:28.680
the end where it starts off to where it ends.

510
00:30:28.799 --> 00:30:32.119
I compared it in my head to a progressive heavy

511
00:30:32.160 --> 00:30:36.920
metal song where it starts off a little slow, but

512
00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:40.880
it starts picking up pace until it reaches its climatic,

513
00:30:41.039 --> 00:30:46.079
explosive ending and it's all rah, you know, and I

514
00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:48.839
want to know how you did that, like, did did

515
00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:51.119
this book? Do you outline your books.

516
00:30:50.880 --> 00:30:54.519
Or oh yeah, yeah. I outline pretty heavily because you

517
00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:56.799
can't tell, like sometimes you can tell, but with you

518
00:30:56.799 --> 00:30:59.480
you can't tell. I mean I outline a lot. I

519
00:30:59.519 --> 00:31:02.119
have to. I mean it's different for every writer. I

520
00:31:02.119 --> 00:31:04.119
don't try and say that my way is the right way,

521
00:31:04.160 --> 00:31:07.920
because there is no right way. But absolutely I outline

522
00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:11.000
and I but I based. I go from story beats.

523
00:31:11.480 --> 00:31:13.680
I basically just write, now my whole bunch of story beats,

524
00:31:13.680 --> 00:31:15.720
what I want, what I want in a story, what

525
00:31:15.839 --> 00:31:18.720
I think will make an exciting story, and then I

526
00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:21.359
kind of outlined out of those and then and sometimes

527
00:31:21.400 --> 00:31:23.799
outline changes as a story goes. Sometimes a character does

528
00:31:23.880 --> 00:31:26.960
something that surprises me, and I go, oh, that's more interesting,

529
00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:32.039
or we'll go that direction, and so I will basically

530
00:31:32.039 --> 00:31:34.359
re outline the rest of the book out of some

531
00:31:34.960 --> 00:31:38.359
sudden shift in a character or some you know something.

532
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:41.720
I end up writing something interesting different in a chapter

533
00:31:41.759 --> 00:31:44.039
and I go, wait a minute, no, I like that more,

534
00:31:44.759 --> 00:31:49.000
let's follow that, you know. But also sometimes I add

535
00:31:49.039 --> 00:31:52.079
things afterwards and like it. Like a lot of this

536
00:31:52.079 --> 00:31:56.319
this book was a lot of it was fully like

537
00:31:56.359 --> 00:31:59.119
that it was only like ninety percent or eight percent.

538
00:31:59.160 --> 00:32:01.680
There After a couple of revisions and after I went

539
00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:04.400
through my beta readers, it kind of got that last

540
00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:07.039
ten to twenty percent push that I think really made

541
00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:08.799
it perfect the way I wanted it to be. Like

542
00:32:08.839 --> 00:32:10.720
I think I've described it as the it's the best,

543
00:32:10.759 --> 00:32:18.240
the way the best book it could be. It's it's not.

544
00:32:19.440 --> 00:32:22.519
I think that's a I don't know if readers realize this,

545
00:32:22.680 --> 00:32:25.640
but writing a book is so iterative, like there's so

546
00:32:25.720 --> 00:32:29.359
many it's like adding things, taking away little things over

547
00:32:29.400 --> 00:32:33.079
and over and over and over again. And then when

548
00:32:33.079 --> 00:32:37.720
the one when a reader sees it, it's it is

549
00:32:37.799 --> 00:32:42.119
like it's it's the same as when it started, but

550
00:32:42.160 --> 00:32:45.200
it's also very much not the same as when it started.

551
00:32:46.160 --> 00:32:50.359
Yeah, I guess maybe that's where I can't tell, because

552
00:32:50.359 --> 00:32:53.079
there's some books when you're writing or reading, I should say,

553
00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:56.680
and you can tell because the characters will make a

554
00:32:56.680 --> 00:33:00.599
plot point decision, but your your characters don't make plot

555
00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:04.079
point and decisions. The story progresses as though it should,

556
00:33:04.599 --> 00:33:05.519
like very naturally.

557
00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:11.920
I mean I I tried to just make it driven

558
00:33:12.039 --> 00:33:17.960
by Joe, right, I just I want the protagonists to

559
00:33:18.319 --> 00:33:22.000
feel like they have some sort of agency, even in

560
00:33:22.079 --> 00:33:25.079
the story that is largely about how he has no agency.

561
00:33:25.359 --> 00:33:28.319
How Joe his life isn't a spot where he just

562
00:33:28.400 --> 00:33:31.279
doesn't have many choices. He can good choices, he can make,

563
00:33:31.319 --> 00:33:33.599
it's all bad choices, like, oh, do I work for

564
00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:36.039
this bad company or this bad company? Do I take

565
00:33:36.039 --> 00:33:39.960
this bad job or that bad job? And I think,

566
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:43.799
you know, he's a like a lot of my protagonists.

567
00:33:43.839 --> 00:33:46.880
He's a somewhat version of myself at a different at

568
00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:48.920
different times in my life. He's a little bit more

569
00:33:48.920 --> 00:33:53.799
anger than I ever have been. But he's a he's

570
00:33:53.799 --> 00:33:57.039
a little he's a little angry. Joe's a little he's

571
00:33:57.039 --> 00:33:59.759
a little upset. But I don't blame that. He's had

572
00:33:59.759 --> 00:34:01.920
a hot he's had some tough times. I don't blame

573
00:34:01.960 --> 00:34:02.759
him for being upset.

574
00:34:03.960 --> 00:34:07.359
Yeah, that's why I attached myself to Joe so much,

575
00:34:07.440 --> 00:34:12.559
because he was like the living embodiment of what I felt. Well,

576
00:34:12.599 --> 00:34:15.400
I worked in a factory for eight years. I just

577
00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:16.960
got out of that job, and I'm in a new

578
00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:19.800
job now, which hopefully is a lot better for me,

579
00:34:20.119 --> 00:34:22.840
a better fit for me. But when I was in

580
00:34:22.880 --> 00:34:26.880
that factory for eight years. The way Joe felt was

581
00:34:26.920 --> 00:34:29.119
a lot of the way I felt, not just like

582
00:34:29.199 --> 00:34:32.679
against the people who are ruling over you, because they

583
00:34:32.760 --> 00:34:36.960
do rule over you, but just being on the floor

584
00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:38.079
and working.

585
00:34:39.239 --> 00:34:42.519
I mean I worked in a a co warehouse for

586
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:46.760
an aluminum construction company for three years, and like those

587
00:34:46.800 --> 00:34:53.960
feelings of walking on concrete floors and your body falling up,

588
00:34:54.039 --> 00:34:55.679
like you feel like you're falling apart at the end

589
00:34:55.719 --> 00:35:01.159
of every single day. And also but also being incredibly bored,

590
00:35:01.679 --> 00:35:03.679
like you're doing you're doing a work. You're doing work

591
00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:06.400
that is not challenging to you mentally. It can be

592
00:35:06.480 --> 00:35:08.880
challenging to you physically, but the work is just like

593
00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:11.920
move this hair, move this over there, do this, you know,

594
00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:15.280
clean sweep, and you're like, okay, it takes up my

595
00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:17.599
time and I get paid for it. But what is

596
00:35:17.639 --> 00:35:20.239
your mind doing while you do that? Yeah thing? It's

597
00:35:20.280 --> 00:35:23.119
just wandering and you're you end up, you know, just

598
00:35:24.039 --> 00:35:27.320
thinking about, well, what is this life? What am I doing?

599
00:35:28.360 --> 00:35:30.400
And that's a lot that's a lot of driven that's

600
00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:33.199
Joe's mindset. A lot of it is driven by that

601
00:35:33.320 --> 00:35:36.239
time I spent, you know, working in a warehouse and

602
00:35:36.239 --> 00:35:39.039
and also in my relationship with Amazon, you know, but

603
00:35:39.320 --> 00:35:43.440
in everyone's relationship with Amazon, because inevitably most people end

604
00:35:43.519 --> 00:35:46.480
up using them to buy things, and I sell things.

605
00:35:46.519 --> 00:35:50.679
I sell my books on Amazon. It's intrinsic to my career, honestly. Yeah,

606
00:35:50.719 --> 00:35:54.599
And it's complicated, you know, you have complicated feelings, were like,

607
00:35:54.639 --> 00:35:56.920
I don't want to do this, I don't, but it's

608
00:35:56.960 --> 00:36:01.440
literally the only way I will. Yeah, exactly, there's no

609
00:36:01.519 --> 00:36:02.039
other option.

610
00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:07.480
And you know, I appreciated that too, because I think

611
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:10.480
we all have complicated issues with Amazon.

612
00:36:11.960 --> 00:36:12.360
It's like.

613
00:36:14.559 --> 00:36:18.159
It's it's it's a good service to have, and yet

614
00:36:18.440 --> 00:36:21.440
the way they treat their workers is so like we've

615
00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:22.880
heard stories horse.

616
00:36:23.480 --> 00:36:25.159
Yeah exactly. I mean that's and that's part of it,

617
00:36:25.199 --> 00:36:27.840
where like you hear, you know, over the years of

618
00:36:27.960 --> 00:36:29.840
you know, you hear those news comes out about a

619
00:36:29.880 --> 00:36:33.480
worker who was stuck stuck working there in a tornado

620
00:36:34.679 --> 00:36:37.480
destroyed the warehouse and killed a bunch of people, and yeah,

621
00:36:37.599 --> 00:36:38.800
they wanted to go home.

622
00:36:38.920 --> 00:36:40.079
And they were told to stay.

623
00:36:40.719 --> 00:36:41.280
Yeah.

624
00:36:41.400 --> 00:36:44.280
Yeah, that's insane. One thing I really liked about dead

625
00:36:44.400 --> 00:36:47.159
End and also a conquest for how real the characters

626
00:36:47.199 --> 00:36:51.159
felt to me, Like one thing that surprises me about

627
00:36:51.199 --> 00:36:55.519
your work is I'm I'm awful at remembering character names.

628
00:36:56.960 --> 00:36:58.920
Every If you watch my videos at all and you

629
00:36:58.960 --> 00:37:00.760
see me talking about a book, I'm always like the

630
00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:05.000
main character, the the what's his name? The protagonist, and

631
00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:07.320
then I'll be like, okay, the villain. But with your books,

632
00:37:07.320 --> 00:37:09.079
I go to talk about them and your names, the

633
00:37:09.159 --> 00:37:11.840
names just appear. And it's because I think their personalities

634
00:37:11.960 --> 00:37:15.199
just to attach themselves to me. So I remember Joe

635
00:37:15.239 --> 00:37:20.400
and Wally, Helen and Anna from Dead End, and I'm

636
00:37:20.440 --> 00:37:22.920
just wondering how you develop your characters, because they do

637
00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:23.960
come off as very real.

638
00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:28.679
I mean sometimes especially with main I mean, it's it's

639
00:37:28.840 --> 00:37:32.320
it's a thing that I think varies wildly by the book.

640
00:37:33.280 --> 00:37:37.400
Certain books, I have a character already in mind, and

641
00:37:37.480 --> 00:37:40.480
they're kind of almost fully formed, maybe not fully fully formed,

642
00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:45.280
but they're they're mostly there. In other books, it is

643
00:37:45.400 --> 00:37:46.559
somewhat informed.

644
00:37:46.199 --> 00:37:49.320
By the plot and by what the plot is going,

645
00:37:49.400 --> 00:37:52.800
what what the plot is going to be, and how

646
00:37:53.320 --> 00:37:58.480
a character will best fit into that puzzle piece and

647
00:37:59.280 --> 00:38:02.119
if they're going to be doing this, what is their

648
00:38:02.199 --> 00:38:03.679
personality going to have to be?

649
00:38:04.079 --> 00:38:07.840
And but also all all of this always feeds back

650
00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:11.239
into well, they have to be believable, they have to

651
00:38:11.280 --> 00:38:13.559
be real, they have to feel human. And I think

652
00:38:13.599 --> 00:38:16.639
I I, you know, if you listen to me on

653
00:38:16.840 --> 00:38:20.559
any on tiktoks or on my podcast or anything like that,

654
00:38:20.599 --> 00:38:22.960
I go back to that well a lot about humanity.

655
00:38:23.639 --> 00:38:25.880
And I think that's ultimately what I just try and

656
00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:29.320
do is make my characters feel human. And sometimes that

657
00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:32.639
means and generally that means they're flawed, they have problems,

658
00:38:33.119 --> 00:38:37.239
they're not perfect people, they do the wrong things sometimes

659
00:38:38.719 --> 00:38:42.159
and but human but relatable. And I think that ultimately

660
00:38:42.719 --> 00:38:45.800
makes for protagonists, for characters that you can connect to

661
00:38:45.960 --> 00:38:48.400
for a reader or for a writer, is someone who

662
00:38:48.480 --> 00:38:54.440
is has flaws but is trying their best and as human,

663
00:38:54.599 --> 00:38:58.000
is recognizable as as and like honestly, in horror stories,

664
00:38:59.119 --> 00:39:01.880
I really try and make my characters human and then

665
00:39:01.960 --> 00:39:04.400
I make the monsters inhuman, right, and the monsters in

666
00:39:04.440 --> 00:39:06.440
this case are, yes, they're zombies, but it's also this

667
00:39:06.519 --> 00:39:11.039
giant company. The company isn't human. They make they make

668
00:39:11.119 --> 00:39:15.440
they make decisions every day that are anti human and

669
00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:20.280
I want and you know, in the best case scenario,

670
00:39:20.280 --> 00:39:23.840
I want my readers to root for the protagonists even

671
00:39:23.880 --> 00:39:26.039
when they do bad things or make bad decisions.

672
00:39:26.239 --> 00:39:30.280
Yeah, because you know, companies like Amazon, Uh, that's what

673
00:39:30.320 --> 00:39:36.079
they want. They want zombie employees. And having worked in

674
00:39:36.119 --> 00:39:39.039
a fact, like a factory that I worked at, they

675
00:39:39.079 --> 00:39:42.280
want not only they want zombie employees because they want

676
00:39:42.519 --> 00:39:45.880
you to be a company person, regardless of what they

677
00:39:45.880 --> 00:39:50.599
put you through. Yes, And if you're not the company person,

678
00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:54.079
then you're kind of on a lower tier within within

679
00:39:54.159 --> 00:39:56.000
the hierarchy of the company.

680
00:39:56.599 --> 00:40:00.320
Yeah. I mean it's some people get let go because

681
00:40:00.320 --> 00:40:03.559
of that. Yeah, And I mean I think it's largely

682
00:40:03.559 --> 00:40:08.199
it was just like when I'm think about, you know, Mike,

683
00:40:08.239 --> 00:40:12.199
the company in my book Nile, very like obviously it's

684
00:40:12.239 --> 00:40:14.440
just Amazon, Like I don't you know, it's the very

685
00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:23.000
thinnest of of analogs. But it is when like when

686
00:40:23.039 --> 00:40:25.119
I think of and when you think of zombie stories

687
00:40:25.159 --> 00:40:29.239
in general, like in the Romeros, like the zombie movies, Like, yeah,

688
00:40:29.360 --> 00:40:31.880
zombies are there, but zombies is almost never the main

689
00:40:32.440 --> 00:40:36.639
like they are a vehicle for an evil system. Uh.

690
00:40:36.679 --> 00:40:38.800
And I think, you know, I was trying to think of,

691
00:40:38.840 --> 00:40:41.800
like what is the modern day version of that, and

692
00:40:41.840 --> 00:40:44.599
that is Amazon. That's a Nile. That's even or Apple

693
00:40:44.800 --> 00:40:50.119
or any of these billion trillion dollar companies where they're

694
00:40:50.800 --> 00:40:57.280
you know, they become we're profit and uh, success of

695
00:40:57.320 --> 00:41:00.440
the company is all that matters. And and you can

696
00:41:00.519 --> 00:41:02.960
just roll people over up in this giant machine and

697
00:41:02.960 --> 00:41:06.960
they get just chewed up and spit out. Yeah, and

698
00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:11.199
that's I don't know. I was trying to And when

699
00:41:11.239 --> 00:41:14.199
I made Joe like he is literally Joe, because he's

700
00:41:14.199 --> 00:41:17.360
a work in Joe, it's that it's that simple. I

701
00:41:17.360 --> 00:41:21.400
don't try and get too too complicated with it. He,

702
00:41:23.199 --> 00:41:25.880
I feel like, is a guy that is very relatable

703
00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:28.800
to many many people because many people are facing those

704
00:41:28.840 --> 00:41:31.000
things where they're like, I need to pay my bills,

705
00:41:31.800 --> 00:41:34.679
my you know, in Joe's case, his mom is sick

706
00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:37.639
and ill and she needs care. And like, I know

707
00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:42.199
so many people who are there trying to support family members,

708
00:41:42.239 --> 00:41:44.800
working a bunch of jobs that they don't want, but

709
00:41:44.840 --> 00:41:47.320
they have to do it because they don't have a choice.

710
00:41:47.760 --> 00:41:50.519
Yeah, and he's willing to sacrifice himself for his mom.

711
00:41:51.079 --> 00:41:54.320
And I found his relationship with his mom very touching

712
00:41:54.519 --> 00:41:56.280
because I don't think too many people have that.

713
00:41:57.760 --> 00:42:03.599
It's I mean it is I think his relationship to

714
00:42:03.679 --> 00:42:08.280
his mother is kind of the foundation of his humanity

715
00:42:08.400 --> 00:42:10.559
in a lot of ways in the story, and it's

716
00:42:10.679 --> 00:42:14.199
very important that it gets established. There's a multiple scenes

717
00:42:14.199 --> 00:42:18.519
where you see there kind of little vignettes of their

718
00:42:18.559 --> 00:42:21.599
relationship throughout the years, even when he was a little kid,

719
00:42:22.320 --> 00:42:27.239
and there's not a lot else he has. I think,

720
00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:32.360
you know, his relationship with Helen is a little bit

721
00:42:32.440 --> 00:42:35.639
of that, but it's most But his relationship with his

722
00:42:35.719 --> 00:42:39.440
mom is the one thing that is like connecting him

723
00:42:39.480 --> 00:42:44.880
to to humanity, honestly, to what the best, what the

724
00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:47.920
good is right, what the great, what a great thing

725
00:42:48.320 --> 00:42:53.639
humanity can be? And it's that anchor point. And I

726
00:42:53.719 --> 00:42:55.960
mean some of it. I train all my own relationship

727
00:42:56.280 --> 00:42:58.679
with my own mom, Like my mom did sacrifice for

728
00:42:58.760 --> 00:43:01.639
me a lot when she was when when I was younger,

729
00:43:01.639 --> 00:43:04.119
when I was growing up. Like there's a scene in

730
00:43:04.119 --> 00:43:06.519
the book where he's taking his mom to chemotherapy and

731
00:43:06.559 --> 00:43:08.840
he was sitting in the waiting room. I had that

732
00:43:08.840 --> 00:43:11.840
That's exactly what happened to me when I took my

733
00:43:11.840 --> 00:43:14.199
mom when I was when she was going through breast cancer.

734
00:43:14.719 --> 00:43:17.800
Like it's the same, like I just took that bait,

735
00:43:17.920 --> 00:43:20.599
not one to one, but very similar situation where it

736
00:43:20.719 --> 00:43:24.320
was like because it's another situation where Joe's just has

737
00:43:24.400 --> 00:43:27.119
no agency, he has no choice in any of this,

738
00:43:27.360 --> 00:43:29.400
Like he can't just choose to snap his fingers. And

739
00:43:29.400 --> 00:43:32.119
his mom doesn't have cancer anymore. His mom's not sick anymore.

740
00:43:33.480 --> 00:43:37.000
And that's a lot of the scenes with Joe are

741
00:43:37.079 --> 00:43:41.639
like meant to make you realize, like Joe doesn't have

742
00:43:41.679 --> 00:43:45.079
any choices he can make, right, He's he can make

743
00:43:45.119 --> 00:43:47.039
a lot of bad choices. He has two bad choices

744
00:43:47.079 --> 00:43:47.719
a lot of the time.

745
00:43:48.559 --> 00:43:51.320
Yeah, and Joe represents a lot of us because of

746
00:43:51.320 --> 00:43:55.400
those little to no choices. And that's what makes Joe

747
00:43:55.559 --> 00:43:59.039
very angry, and because he would rather work a job

748
00:43:59.079 --> 00:44:02.079
where he's happy and he feels that the corporation isn't

749
00:44:02.159 --> 00:44:05.400
evil and still make a lot of money, but there's

750
00:44:05.440 --> 00:44:06.559
no options in that.

751
00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:09.519
No I know, And then like I don't know Joe

752
00:44:09.800 --> 00:44:14.280
is it's sometimes difficult to make a character that is like,

753
00:44:14.360 --> 00:44:18.119
he's not spectacular. Joe is not a spectacular human, you know,

754
00:44:18.159 --> 00:44:21.119
He's like he doesn't have any he's he's relatively smart

755
00:44:23.079 --> 00:44:26.440
and he's a hard worker. But that I think there's

756
00:44:26.440 --> 00:44:28.400
a lot of people like that. But he's I tried

757
00:44:28.400 --> 00:44:34.440
to make him basically at his heart decent and and

758
00:44:34.440 --> 00:44:38.280
and I think driven by that that outrage. I think

759
00:44:38.280 --> 00:44:40.960
that like that you can I can feel it. I

760
00:44:40.960 --> 00:44:43.880
think a lot of people feel it. Whenever you read

761
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:47.559
something about not just Amazon, but you feel you read

762
00:44:47.599 --> 00:44:51.599
something about society, you read something about uh, you know,

763
00:44:52.519 --> 00:44:57.639
the economy or whatever it is, and you there you

764
00:44:57.880 --> 00:45:01.320
just feel I just I particul I feel I get

765
00:45:01.320 --> 00:45:04.679
a burst, You just get that burst of sudden injustice,

766
00:45:06.239 --> 00:45:10.440
of like and you wanted, you want desperately to be

767
00:45:10.519 --> 00:45:14.280
able to affect this, to make the thing the world

768
00:45:14.320 --> 00:45:20.239
feel fair, I think absolutely, And you can't. You can't

769
00:45:20.239 --> 00:45:21.960
make the world feel fair. Yeah.

770
00:45:22.199 --> 00:45:24.400
One thing I really loved about Dead End was how

771
00:45:24.400 --> 00:45:27.880
it kind of reminded me of a George Romero film

772
00:45:28.440 --> 00:45:31.039
without being a George Romero film. It was just the

773
00:45:31.079 --> 00:45:37.239
social commentary within it. We talked about zombie fiction briefly.

774
00:45:39.079 --> 00:45:42.280
How I think zombie fiction, even way back when White

775
00:45:42.360 --> 00:45:46.079
Zombie was the only real zombie fiction out there, it

776
00:45:46.119 --> 00:45:51.400
was still a social commentary. I think that's where zombie

777
00:45:51.400 --> 00:45:55.079
fiction lost its way was suddenly it's more fun and

778
00:45:55.360 --> 00:45:59.119
lighthearted rather than us poking our finger at ourselves.

779
00:46:00.199 --> 00:46:05.440
Yeah, and I don't. I I'm just I made a

780
00:46:05.599 --> 00:46:07.519
TikTok about it this just the other day, so maybe

781
00:46:07.559 --> 00:46:11.559
it's just fresh on my mind. But I escapist fiction

782
00:46:13.079 --> 00:46:16.199
to me doesn't really exist, Like that's a made up thing.

783
00:46:17.400 --> 00:46:20.880
Because if you are escaping into any kind of fiction,

784
00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:25.880
any kind of narrative, it's largely because you agree it

785
00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:28.920
aligns with your beliefs already, whatever they are, and whatever

786
00:46:29.119 --> 00:46:32.960
the fiction may say, it just makes it. It reinforces

787
00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:35.840
whatever you already believe to be true about the world,

788
00:46:36.559 --> 00:46:40.719
and therefore you consider it escapist fiction. For but another

789
00:46:40.760 --> 00:46:43.159
person it might not because it doesn't align with their beliefs.

790
00:46:43.760 --> 00:46:47.920
And I so when I tell a story and if

791
00:46:47.920 --> 00:46:50.519
it happens, they have social commentary in it. Not all

792
00:46:50.519 --> 00:46:54.159
my books have social commentary. I only include it when

793
00:46:54.159 --> 00:46:57.079
I feel like it belongs or like and I'm like,

794
00:46:57.199 --> 00:47:00.119
I don't even think of it as social commentary. I

795
00:47:00.119 --> 00:47:03.360
think of it as truth. Yeah, I think I think

796
00:47:03.360 --> 00:47:06.360
of it as Oh, I'm just talking about a common

797
00:47:06.400 --> 00:47:08.719
thing that happens to many people, like in in this book,

798
00:47:08.800 --> 00:47:11.639
like we've been talking about it for this whole. A

799
00:47:11.639 --> 00:47:14.920
lot of this conversation about how we how you know,

800
00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:18.119
how you get so angry about at these big companies

801
00:47:18.119 --> 00:47:21.199
when they do terrible things and nothing bad happens to them.

802
00:47:21.239 --> 00:47:24.039
They get there's no come up ends, there's no justice.

803
00:47:24.559 --> 00:47:26.440
And I feel like that's common and I don't think

804
00:47:26.480 --> 00:47:30.639
it's controversial to say things like that, but sometimes you

805
00:47:30.719 --> 00:47:33.440
get blowback from it, and you're like, you don't believe that,

806
00:47:33.559 --> 00:47:36.760
you don't have that feeling in your heart sometimes about

807
00:47:37.800 --> 00:47:41.599
Amazon or Apple or like Starbucks where I just saw

808
00:47:41.639 --> 00:47:47.199
a big labor decision against them this week, the George

809
00:47:47.239 --> 00:47:49.440
ra Mayro social commentary, and I think the same is

810
00:47:49.480 --> 00:47:51.679
true about George Rameirow. I don't think George is like, oh,

811
00:47:51.719 --> 00:47:56.360
I'm gonna show them, I'm gonna I'm gonna show people consumerism,

812
00:47:56.599 --> 00:47:58.920
you know, I'm gonna show like in for Donnavan Dead

813
00:47:59.199 --> 00:48:02.119
or I'm gonna show people racism. Not Living Dead. I

814
00:48:02.119 --> 00:48:05.199
think he was just like he's speaking truth and like

815
00:48:05.280 --> 00:48:07.280
it just lets it be a part of the story.

816
00:48:07.519 --> 00:48:10.760
And the social commentary and the first night of Living

817
00:48:10.800 --> 00:48:14.719
Dead was happened pretty much just by happenstance. It wasn't

818
00:48:14.760 --> 00:48:15.559
even it meant.

819
00:48:15.440 --> 00:48:19.039
But yeah, really his actor was like the black guy

820
00:48:19.079 --> 00:48:21.119
was the best actor. He's just like you're you're higher

821
00:48:21.159 --> 00:48:23.360
because you're the best one I can get. And it

822
00:48:23.440 --> 00:48:25.239
just happenstance turned into.

823
00:48:25.800 --> 00:48:27.840
Yeah, because in the script it wasn't meant to be

824
00:48:28.119 --> 00:48:30.639
necessarily a person of color or anything like that. It

825
00:48:30.800 --> 00:48:33.480
just he was, like you said, he was the best choice,

826
00:48:33.519 --> 00:48:36.679
and so in the script the guy was gonna die regardless,

827
00:48:37.079 --> 00:48:41.039
and in the movie it became a racist thing.

828
00:48:41.599 --> 00:48:44.039
And I mean it, I mean, it still works, and

829
00:48:44.079 --> 00:48:47.519
it's still very great, and I mean, to be fair,

830
00:48:47.639 --> 00:48:49.719
like the themes of Night Living Dead are still very

831
00:48:49.760 --> 00:48:53.800
much like, oh, you know, once they get inside that house,

832
00:48:54.039 --> 00:48:58.880
they don't there's you know different, Well, we should just

833
00:48:58.880 --> 00:49:01.039
wait it out. We have to try and escape. We

834
00:49:01.079 --> 00:49:04.079
can't stay in this house forever, you know, there's different things.

835
00:49:04.199 --> 00:49:06.880
And where do the zombies come from getting angry at

836
00:49:06.880 --> 00:49:09.400
each other? Like there's already kind of seeds of distrust

837
00:49:09.400 --> 00:49:12.440
and paranoia, but when you add in a person of

838
00:49:12.480 --> 00:49:18.400
color as your protagonist, effectively, it just it deepens it.

839
00:49:18.519 --> 00:49:20.760
It makes it more interesting. And I think that's honestly

840
00:49:20.800 --> 00:49:23.159
a lot of it as well as like I think

841
00:49:23.199 --> 00:49:26.320
a plane Jane, Oh, zombie monster, we go kill zombies

842
00:49:26.519 --> 00:49:28.559
is kind of boring at this point, Like, I don't

843
00:49:28.599 --> 00:49:33.760
find that very exciting. Yeah, I want when you add

844
00:49:33.800 --> 00:49:38.440
in giant evil companies, when you add in a working

845
00:49:38.440 --> 00:49:42.039
class protagonist, that makes the story more fascinating to me.

846
00:49:42.119 --> 00:49:43.800
And that's why I wrote this one. Is just like

847
00:49:44.440 --> 00:49:46.320
again in some of it was like yeah social comments here,

848
00:49:46.360 --> 00:49:48.519
I'm like, well that I find that stuff fascinating. I

849
00:49:48.559 --> 00:49:50.920
find that stuff exciting. It makes stories better. I don't.

850
00:49:51.880 --> 00:49:55.239
It's I don't want it to be necessarily escapist. Really,

851
00:49:55.280 --> 00:49:58.519
I want it to be engaging and real. Yeah.

852
00:49:58.599 --> 00:50:01.599
And so far the two books that I've read of yours,

853
00:50:01.639 --> 00:50:06.559
Conquest and Dead End, Uh, they're exactly that that they

854
00:50:06.559 --> 00:50:09.519
speak truth, but they're also a lot of fun to read.

855
00:50:11.960 --> 00:50:16.360
How do you how do you make it fun? I mean,

856
00:50:16.400 --> 00:50:17.599
I write books I want to read.

857
00:50:18.199 --> 00:50:22.440
I don't. I still do often read literary stuff and

858
00:50:22.599 --> 00:50:25.679
long stuff with purple prose, and like that's like, oh wow,

859
00:50:25.719 --> 00:50:28.159
the language is so beautiful that a lot of people

860
00:50:28.159 --> 00:50:31.280
probably would start reading and go this is boring. Uh,

861
00:50:31.320 --> 00:50:34.840
and then and it stop. I do read that stuff.

862
00:50:34.960 --> 00:50:38.400
I'm a lit major. Uh, so I've read you know,

863
00:50:38.480 --> 00:50:42.880
the classics, so to speak. But most of the time nowadays,

864
00:50:42.920 --> 00:50:47.639
I read punchy short like for fun quote unquote for fun,

865
00:50:48.119 --> 00:50:50.800
even though everything is fun when I'm reading it is

866
00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:54.360
I read short, punchy things. And that's so that's what

867
00:50:54.440 --> 00:50:56.760
I write, and I mean I structure it to be

868
00:50:57.119 --> 00:51:00.440
I want to write page shorters, like I like reading

869
00:51:00.480 --> 00:51:03.480
things that like I can't put down. Yeah, uh, and

870
00:51:03.519 --> 00:51:07.079
I so I write shorter, shorter novels that are I

871
00:51:07.159 --> 00:51:09.880
try and write patterners, and like, I think that's part

872
00:51:09.920 --> 00:51:12.719
of it. It comes straight from part of my process

873
00:51:12.760 --> 00:51:15.679
where like I start with story beats, which is just

874
00:51:15.760 --> 00:51:19.320
like I don't write down a story beat, Oh we

875
00:51:19.440 --> 00:51:23.039
have a boring dialogue scene. I write someone a mystery

876
00:51:23.079 --> 00:51:27.159
is revealed, or this character discovers this thing, or this

877
00:51:27.239 --> 00:51:31.119
character does this impact. Like I write the impactful in

878
00:51:31.920 --> 00:51:34.360
the powerful moments in a book, the things you remember,

879
00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:37.840
and I structure around that so that you know, those

880
00:51:37.840 --> 00:51:40.039
story beats common the end of a chapter, so that

881
00:51:40.239 --> 00:51:42.239
when you get to the end of a chapter and oh, wow,

882
00:51:42.360 --> 00:51:44.599
something really exciting has happened, I want to go to

883
00:51:44.679 --> 00:51:48.599
the next chapter see what happens. Yeah, And I mean

884
00:51:49.559 --> 00:51:54.880
it's I don't think of it as very complicated. I

885
00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:58.679
just it's what I want to read too, like I write.

886
00:51:58.719 --> 00:52:03.039
I Yeah, it's also part when I'm writing. If I'm

887
00:52:03.079 --> 00:52:07.760
writing a scene, I'm going, this is boring, like what,

888
00:52:07.840 --> 00:52:12.719
there's nothing at stake in this scene? Like even if

889
00:52:12.880 --> 00:52:14.800
like and not to say that, I don't write scenes

890
00:52:14.840 --> 00:52:17.079
where characters are just sitting and talking to each other.

891
00:52:17.719 --> 00:52:20.519
I love dial I love one on one dialogue scenes.

892
00:52:20.559 --> 00:52:22.960
I love them. It's my favorite thing to write. I

893
00:52:23.039 --> 00:52:26.760
used to hate it, now I love it. But even

894
00:52:26.760 --> 00:52:29.199
those one on one dialogue scenes where there it's a

895
00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:32.719
calm moment, so to speak. And what generally my stories

896
00:52:32.760 --> 00:52:37.280
are fast paced, scary, scary things. Even in calm moments,

897
00:52:37.280 --> 00:52:39.920
there have to be things at steak. Yeah, And I

898
00:52:39.920 --> 00:52:43.639
think ultimately that is what is what propels stories forward,

899
00:52:43.800 --> 00:52:46.639
is like, what's at stake in this chapter? Not at

900
00:52:46.679 --> 00:52:48.320
what's like you have to have you start with the

901
00:52:48.360 --> 00:52:50.800
big picture. What's the stake for the book, what's the

902
00:52:50.840 --> 00:52:53.000
stake for this part of the book, what's the stake

903
00:52:53.039 --> 00:52:56.360
for this chapter, what's his stake for this scene? And

904
00:52:56.960 --> 00:53:00.400
as long as you have something in every single app

905
00:53:01.400 --> 00:53:04.440
you can, it keeps the keeps you turning the pages

906
00:53:04.559 --> 00:53:08.239
keeps you reading, keeps me writing, But ultimately it makes

907
00:53:08.280 --> 00:53:12.639
the story I don't know, fun because there's always something

908
00:53:13.199 --> 00:53:18.119
that you know, the the jj Abrams mystery box thing. Oh,

909
00:53:18.159 --> 00:53:20.119
you have to keep your pull, your reading, pull your

910
00:53:20.119 --> 00:53:24.000
readers forward with with mysteries. It's not really that necessarily.

911
00:53:24.480 --> 00:53:28.679
It is more like making sure that people understand. Like

912
00:53:29.000 --> 00:53:31.760
when a character is at the edge of a mental

913
00:53:31.800 --> 00:53:35.480
breakdown and they need to go have a drink. You

914
00:53:35.519 --> 00:53:37.679
can show that scene even though it's not as exciting

915
00:53:37.679 --> 00:53:40.440
as being attacked by zombies, because as long as your

916
00:53:40.440 --> 00:53:42.480
readers understand, oh, this guy's on the edge of a

917
00:53:42.519 --> 00:53:46.159
break he needs to relax, and while you're doing that,

918
00:53:46.320 --> 00:53:49.480
you can have him talk about his life, about what's it's,

919
00:53:49.519 --> 00:53:53.639
what's going on with this with the plot of this story.

920
00:53:53.719 --> 00:53:56.840
You know, there's no limits, but it gives you is

921
00:53:56.840 --> 00:53:59.119
when there's things at stake, it gives you opportunities to

922
00:53:59.199 --> 00:54:02.480
kind of deepen a characters a character's relationship to a

923
00:54:02.559 --> 00:54:07.400
reader because the reader has like, oh, well, I care

924
00:54:07.400 --> 00:54:10.639
about Joe because Joe's trying to do this thing, So

925
00:54:10.719 --> 00:54:13.880
I can use that that hook I hook I planted

926
00:54:13.960 --> 00:54:19.239
to deepen the relationship. Yeah, hell I.

927
00:54:19.280 --> 00:54:22.199
As I said earlier, I discovered you on TikTok. I

928
00:54:22.239 --> 00:54:24.440
can't even remember who followed who first, but I'm pretty

929
00:54:24.440 --> 00:54:25.199
sure I followed you.

930
00:54:26.239 --> 00:54:26.920
I could be wrong.

931
00:54:27.199 --> 00:54:30.360
Anyways, I wanted to know if you if did you

932
00:54:30.440 --> 00:54:32.480
find and we were talking about book sales a little

933
00:54:32.519 --> 00:54:35.079
bit before I hit the record button, but I wanted

934
00:54:35.119 --> 00:54:37.679
to know if you found that your your your book

935
00:54:37.719 --> 00:54:40.000
sales have gone up at all since joining TikTok and

936
00:54:40.039 --> 00:54:41.280
talking about your books.

937
00:54:41.840 --> 00:54:44.679
I think some a little here and there. It's again

938
00:54:45.440 --> 00:54:47.960
it's hard to track things like that, Like I don't

939
00:54:47.960 --> 00:54:51.679
know if readers understand, Like a lot of time authors

940
00:54:51.719 --> 00:54:55.800
when we're indie indie authors, self published and we're looking

941
00:54:55.800 --> 00:54:58.599
at our sales numbers, sometimes you can go, oh, that

942
00:54:58.679 --> 00:55:00.599
makes sense, I sold a lot of books write this

943
00:55:00.760 --> 00:55:02.840
point where it sold a number of books at this

944
00:55:02.920 --> 00:55:05.159
point because of this other event, because it ran an

945
00:55:05.159 --> 00:55:08.960
ad because I was at a con, because of whatever reason.

946
00:55:09.639 --> 00:55:11.199
But most of a lot of the time, it's like

947
00:55:11.599 --> 00:55:13.760
it's just kind of like you're getting waves of information

948
00:55:14.159 --> 00:55:16.719
and you're never sure what correlates to what. Why did

949
00:55:16.760 --> 00:55:19.199
I sell a bunch of books that day? I don't know.

950
00:55:20.039 --> 00:55:22.280
Maybe maybe it's because I was on TikTok that day

951
00:55:22.360 --> 00:55:24.559
or the day before and someone read it or saw

952
00:55:24.599 --> 00:55:27.199
my video and bought a couple of books because they

953
00:55:27.320 --> 00:55:30.400
liked me, or they found what I said interesting. But

954
00:55:30.480 --> 00:55:35.760
I definitely I'm pretty new to TikTok. I'm basically been

955
00:55:35.760 --> 00:55:39.199
winging it for the for the few months of melon there,

956
00:55:40.639 --> 00:55:43.440
but I've found it. I think I've been recommending it

957
00:55:43.480 --> 00:55:46.559
to people other authors at cons that have been at recently,

958
00:55:46.599 --> 00:55:48.599
where I'm like, you should get on TikTok. For a

959
00:55:48.639 --> 00:55:51.519
long time, I resisted it, but like, you know, no,

960
00:55:51.559 --> 00:55:54.079
it's it's a it's a good place, and also like

961
00:55:54.119 --> 00:55:57.920
it it helps you be present, right, And I have

962
00:55:57.960 --> 00:56:01.079
a lot of books now. Dead End is my fourteenth

963
00:56:01.159 --> 00:56:05.159
book I published, So it's very much like I can't

964
00:56:05.519 --> 00:56:08.119
like it. This is might be getting in the weeds.

965
00:56:08.119 --> 00:56:10.480
But you know, also like I could pay for advertising

966
00:56:11.039 --> 00:56:14.199
on Facebook or wherever and reach people with my books,

967
00:56:14.199 --> 00:56:16.079
but a lot of that money just goes directly back

968
00:56:16.119 --> 00:56:21.320
into Facebook. And it's in everything I say about Amazon,

969
00:56:22.119 --> 00:56:26.280
whies also to Facebook and to TikTok. These giant companies

970
00:56:26.280 --> 00:56:28.800
they don't care about us. They want money. But it

971
00:56:28.960 --> 00:56:31.639
is like a part of being part of that system.

972
00:56:31.760 --> 00:56:34.119
But I also don't want to necessarily give Facebook Mark

973
00:56:34.199 --> 00:56:36.880
Zuckerberg a lot of money to help advertise my books

974
00:56:36.920 --> 00:56:39.039
when I could kind of do it for free if

975
00:56:39.079 --> 00:56:40.519
I'm just active on TikTok a lot.

976
00:56:41.079 --> 00:56:44.360
Yeah, and I really like the things you talk about

977
00:56:44.480 --> 00:56:48.280
on TikTok to the point where I wished that you

978
00:56:48.360 --> 00:56:51.480
made more videos. But you know, it's cool that you don't.

979
00:56:51.480 --> 00:56:54.440
I'm not saying make more videos. I mean it's it's

980
00:56:54.480 --> 00:56:57.400
a matter of time. It's really like it. Yeah, it is.

981
00:56:58.039 --> 00:57:02.199
Yeah, and like having a quiet house and making me

982
00:57:02.280 --> 00:57:04.880
a like I don't know. I also think there's a

983
00:57:04.920 --> 00:57:07.679
matter of like if I'm when I make a video,

984
00:57:07.800 --> 00:57:11.760
I want it to be impactful. I wanted to say

985
00:57:12.360 --> 00:57:15.519
something interesting. I don't do not that you know, people

986
00:57:15.639 --> 00:57:18.760
doing just fun you know, meme videos or with viral

987
00:57:18.800 --> 00:57:23.039
sounds or whatever is bad. But I'm not. I think

988
00:57:23.239 --> 00:57:26.000
I think my my my, my apple. My strategy for

989
00:57:26.039 --> 00:57:28.079
most social media is just be myself and do the

990
00:57:28.119 --> 00:57:29.679
thing that comes natural to me, and to me is

991
00:57:29.719 --> 00:57:31.920
like I'll make a two minute video of talking about

992
00:57:31.920 --> 00:57:34.480
the thing I care about or something I'm interested in

993
00:57:34.840 --> 00:57:38.559
relating to my stories too horror in general. Yeah, and

994
00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:41.199
sometimes that will happen once a week, or twice a week,

995
00:57:41.280 --> 00:57:43.320
or even three times a week, And sometimes it doesn't

996
00:57:43.320 --> 00:57:45.400
happen at all because I'm too busy or I don't

997
00:57:45.400 --> 00:57:46.159
have anything to say.

998
00:57:46.639 --> 00:57:53.920
Yeah, when you're talking about politics and books, you mentioned

999
00:57:54.639 --> 00:58:02.000
reviewer saying this book is too political, Yes, and you're like, well,

1000
00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:03.880
those aren't my readers. And I thought that was kind

1001
00:58:03.920 --> 00:58:06.199
of a brave thing to say, because it shows your

1002
00:58:06.199 --> 00:58:09.480
true colors right there, that you you speak to a

1003
00:58:09.519 --> 00:58:11.920
specific audience, where a lot of other authors are like,

1004
00:58:11.960 --> 00:58:13.719
bring them all in, I don't care, you know, like.

1005
00:58:15.440 --> 00:58:19.320
I it. There's you know, when I first started doing this,

1006
00:58:19.440 --> 00:58:23.239
I was reading a lot about oh, successful strategies and

1007
00:58:23.239 --> 00:58:26.039
stuff like that, and they're like, fine, your readers, And

1008
00:58:26.840 --> 00:58:30.039
it really is about finding the people that love you,

1009
00:58:30.559 --> 00:58:33.239
love your stuff, love your art or even like it,

1010
00:58:33.360 --> 00:58:37.599
you know, whatever, your fans, and then making sure you

1011
00:58:37.599 --> 00:58:40.559
don't necessarily want the people who are not your fans,

1012
00:58:40.559 --> 00:58:43.800
who are not gonna like what you do to read you. Yes,

1013
00:58:43.840 --> 00:58:48.519
it's limiting your audience, awesome, but it's it's a wide why,

1014
00:58:48.599 --> 00:58:51.480
like I think people really do. That's the other thing

1015
00:58:51.519 --> 00:58:54.159
when we started this interview with I believe in horror.

1016
00:58:54.159 --> 00:58:56.239
I think that's the other things. I believe there's lots

1017
00:58:56.280 --> 00:58:59.599
of fans of horror, and I believe there's a lot

1018
00:58:59.599 --> 00:59:01.760
of people who intrinsically would like my books if they

1019
00:59:01.920 --> 00:59:04.239
knew about them, if they gave them a shot. And

1020
00:59:04.320 --> 00:59:09.159
so I'm not Maybe that's just a little bit of

1021
00:59:09.559 --> 00:59:12.679
confidence in myself that I finally have built up over

1022
00:59:12.719 --> 00:59:18.039
the years. But I don't. I'm not gonna change a

1023
00:59:18.119 --> 00:59:23.079
book because it might, you know, keep a person from.

1024
00:59:23.519 --> 00:59:25.360
A person might read and go I don't like it, it's

1025
00:59:25.280 --> 00:59:28.519
too political. I will go, Okay, that's fine. I mean

1026
00:59:28.559 --> 00:59:30.639
to be fair like when people I get you. I

1027
00:59:30.679 --> 00:59:33.280
don't really read my reviews very often on Amazon or

1028
00:59:33.280 --> 00:59:35.679
on good Reads for that matter, but I know that

1029
00:59:35.800 --> 00:59:39.440
if you go to Conquests, Let's say, I know that

1030
00:59:39.480 --> 00:59:42.559
there are one star reviews talking about politics. Guarantee, I

1031
00:59:42.639 --> 00:59:45.800
know there are. When I put out Facebook ads for Conquest,

1032
00:59:45.840 --> 00:59:48.519
I got political comments on my Facebook ads where I

1033
00:59:48.679 --> 00:59:52.679
just okay, delete. I don't care about you. I'm not

1034
00:59:52.760 --> 00:59:57.880
interested in your opinions. But a lot of times, sorry,

1035
00:59:57.880 --> 01:00:02.079
it's my dog. That's fine. It's I don't care if

1036
01:00:02.119 --> 01:00:05.599
those readers bounce off from the books, because they're not

1037
01:00:05.840 --> 01:00:09.320
those My books are clearly not for them. In a

1038
01:00:09.360 --> 01:00:11.559
one star review that says.

1039
01:00:11.280 --> 01:00:13.280
Oh, this book's do a political blah blah blah and

1040
01:00:13.280 --> 01:00:19.760
it hates men, that tells that says that says a

1041
01:00:19.800 --> 01:00:23.119
lot already to other the people who are my readers,

1042
01:00:23.199 --> 01:00:25.760
they will see their review and go, oh, maybe I

1043
01:00:25.760 --> 01:00:26.519
would like this book.

1044
01:00:26.559 --> 01:00:29.639
Then yeah, they because they say one star review that's

1045
01:00:29.679 --> 01:00:33.119
from this person that doesn't that they don't like, they're

1046
01:00:33.159 --> 01:00:34.920
going to immediately go, oh, maybe that book is for me.

1047
01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:38.480
At this point in the interview, it's like both our

1048
01:00:38.519 --> 01:00:40.000
animals are trying to.

1049
01:00:40.480 --> 01:00:47.880
Of course, that's you have dogs. They know, yeah, of course,

1050
01:00:48.039 --> 01:00:50.880
yeah they do. They know they got to disrupt, They

1051
01:00:50.880 --> 01:00:56.320
got to disrupt. It seems like to me, looking at

1052
01:00:56.320 --> 01:01:00.360
the descriptions of your books, you're going for like all

1053
01:01:00.400 --> 01:01:04.079
the all the genre, like the subgenres or the tropes

1054
01:01:04.159 --> 01:01:07.519
of horror that you like, and you're writing a story

1055
01:01:07.519 --> 01:01:10.559
in them. Is this like a decision that you've made

1056
01:01:10.679 --> 01:01:17.800
or I, well, sort of, I guess I'll saws by

1057
01:01:17.800 --> 01:01:20.280
just be getting of the weeds. But when again, when

1058
01:01:20.320 --> 01:01:23.199
you started out as a self published indie author, you

1059
01:01:23.239 --> 01:01:26.719
are told, if you want to make actual any make

1060
01:01:26.760 --> 01:01:31.360
any actual amount of money on it, your cat's very upset.

1061
01:01:34.639 --> 01:01:36.199
If you want to make any kind of money on it,

1062
01:01:36.280 --> 01:01:39.960
you write a series. You write series, you write a book,

1063
01:01:40.039 --> 01:01:43.559
and then you there's like there are a lot of

1064
01:01:44.320 --> 01:01:46.400
gurus who say, you write it one book and in

1065
01:01:46.440 --> 01:01:49.760
it like that's in a very popular genre of you know,

1066
01:01:50.119 --> 01:01:53.599
some super supernatural fiction, and then you write a long

1067
01:01:53.719 --> 01:01:58.440
series like six books, and they have all the strategies

1068
01:01:58.440 --> 01:02:00.719
you follow, you just do this, And I went, I

1069
01:02:00.760 --> 01:02:03.679
don't want to do that. I like, yeah, it probably

1070
01:02:03.719 --> 01:02:06.000
would make more money doing that. I don't like that.

1071
01:02:06.159 --> 01:02:09.440
I like writing, and for horror stories in general, one

1072
01:02:09.480 --> 01:02:13.159
and done is my preferred I like reading horror stories

1073
01:02:13.159 --> 01:02:15.480
that are one and done. I read a book and

1074
01:02:15.960 --> 01:02:18.199
whatever happens happens at the end of the book. Usually

1075
01:02:18.239 --> 01:02:22.320
the protagonisties are dead or crazy or traumatized. They're not

1076
01:02:22.320 --> 01:02:24.639
going to be have another adventure that was their adventure

1077
01:02:24.679 --> 01:02:26.559
for the rest of their life, or they're dead. You

1078
01:02:26.599 --> 01:02:29.239
know that's possible. They died at the end. By the

1079
01:02:29.320 --> 01:02:33.199
end of the book, the protagonist died and whatever happened. Yeah,

1080
01:02:33.239 --> 01:02:37.360
and I went, you know, sometimes there is a conscious

1081
01:02:37.760 --> 01:02:42.440
everything is a conscious decision to not do that, like

1082
01:02:42.559 --> 01:02:44.840
I could could I write a series? Yes, I can

1083
01:02:44.880 --> 01:02:46.960
do that. I can force myself to write almost anything.

1084
01:02:48.320 --> 01:02:50.079
But I want to write the things I like. I

1085
01:02:50.159 --> 01:02:52.440
want to write the things that I excite me, right,

1086
01:02:52.519 --> 01:02:54.079
I want to when I sit down to write, I

1087
01:02:54.079 --> 01:02:56.360
want to be excited about what I'm going to write

1088
01:02:56.360 --> 01:02:58.519
that day, the scenes I'm going to write that day.

1089
01:02:58.800 --> 01:03:04.320
And to me, that's like I get crazy disparate ideas

1090
01:03:04.360 --> 01:03:08.039
about I have probably a dozen ideas right now of

1091
01:03:08.400 --> 01:03:11.840
my next book. I could write at any given time,

1092
01:03:12.639 --> 01:03:20.239
and it's I don't know some authors. I don't know

1093
01:03:20.960 --> 01:03:23.880
the like some I think some authors do this on purpose,

1094
01:03:24.000 --> 01:03:25.679
when they build up this myth of stuff like oh,

1095
01:03:25.679 --> 01:03:28.280
this book called to me, I had to write it.

1096
01:03:28.320 --> 01:03:32.480
I'm like, no, you didn't. You made a decision. You went,

1097
01:03:32.639 --> 01:03:35.559
Oh that excites me, I'm going to write it. Yeah,

1098
01:03:35.599 --> 01:03:39.559
And that's what I largely do. I you know, I

1099
01:03:40.360 --> 01:03:42.880
do HW two like, oh, I am going to be

1100
01:03:42.920 --> 01:03:46.400
known as a horror author, so I'm going to mostly

1101
01:03:46.440 --> 01:03:50.280
write and publish horror novels. I get plenty of ideas

1102
01:03:50.280 --> 01:03:53.039
that are not horror I related. I've only published one

1103
01:03:53.039 --> 01:03:56.480
of them, Burial, which I love. I adore Burial. It's

1104
01:03:56.519 --> 01:04:01.760
a revenge western, but it's not a horror story it

1105
01:04:02.320 --> 01:04:04.639
But largely I just go, oh, I put them aside,

1106
01:04:04.800 --> 01:04:06.760
I write them down, I put them aside, and maybe

1107
01:04:06.920 --> 01:04:09.760
you know, sometimes during a year like this year, I'm

1108
01:04:09.760 --> 01:04:12.159
going to try and write a non horror story. I

1109
01:04:12.719 --> 01:04:17.079
probably won't self publish it, but I'm going to make

1110
01:04:17.079 --> 01:04:20.519
time for that. I've made a decision to allow myself

1111
01:04:21.000 --> 01:04:24.400
some time to write something that is not the commercially

1112
01:04:24.519 --> 01:04:27.519
the smartest thing to do. The smartest thing for me

1113
01:04:27.559 --> 01:04:30.039
to do is continue to do what I'm doing now

1114
01:04:30.039 --> 01:04:32.800
that I've kind of established a brand, and just do

1115
01:04:32.960 --> 01:04:36.400
that forever. But I also like, if I wanted to

1116
01:04:36.440 --> 01:04:38.320
just be the person that makes the most money doing this,

1117
01:04:38.400 --> 01:04:39.920
I would not have done this. I would not have

1118
01:04:39.920 --> 01:04:41.960
done this the way I do it.

1119
01:04:42.039 --> 01:04:46.000
To begin with, I'm glad that you don't write series though,

1120
01:04:46.039 --> 01:04:50.280
because I personally I'm terrible. I am so terrible at

1121
01:04:50.320 --> 01:04:53.000
reading series. I'll start a series, I'm like, this is

1122
01:04:53.000 --> 01:04:55.639
going to be the series that I love. Yeah, and

1123
01:04:55.679 --> 01:04:57.400
I read the first two or three books at the

1124
01:04:57.400 --> 01:05:00.079
most and then that's pretty much it in.

1125
01:05:00.199 --> 01:05:03.079
The same way. And I mean, that's that partially influences

1126
01:05:03.199 --> 01:05:05.800
why I just write. I have one book in a sequel,

1127
01:05:06.559 --> 01:05:08.960
Warren Halloween and Warren he managed a good sequel. But

1128
01:05:08.960 --> 01:05:11.320
that's that's it. There's just two books, right, there will

1129
01:05:11.360 --> 01:05:13.800
not be more I write. Writing the second book made

1130
01:05:13.840 --> 01:05:17.000
me realize why I don't write series is like, at

1131
01:05:17.039 --> 01:05:21.320
a certain point there's diminishing returns, like the first book,

1132
01:05:21.760 --> 01:05:23.360
you know, those two those two books in particular, I

1133
01:05:23.440 --> 01:05:26.760
feel like very like Terminator and Terminator two, where Terminator

1134
01:05:26.800 --> 01:05:29.679
is like this small story about this, like in a

1135
01:05:29.719 --> 01:05:33.840
small setting, and Terminator two is big, blockbuster, bigger, you

1136
01:05:33.840 --> 01:05:38.599
know more, I don't know, superfluous. And that's the same

1137
01:05:38.639 --> 01:05:41.280
way with those two books. But I don't want to

1138
01:05:42.400 --> 01:05:44.639
do that all the time. I like jumping around. I

1139
01:05:44.679 --> 01:05:47.480
like writing, you know, my sixty thousand word zombie story

1140
01:05:47.760 --> 01:05:50.639
and then immediately jumping into something completely different. Sure it's

1141
01:05:50.639 --> 01:05:54.840
still horror, but there the word horror is so like

1142
01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:57.559
when I say I believe in horror, I also believe

1143
01:05:57.559 --> 01:06:00.840
horror is really big. Horror is a huge genre with

1144
01:06:01.119 --> 01:06:04.159
so many subgenres, so many, so much room to explore.

1145
01:06:05.480 --> 01:06:07.039
I could easily write hard on all the rest of

1146
01:06:07.039 --> 01:06:10.199
my life. Like it's not there's just so much and

1147
01:06:10.280 --> 01:06:13.239
like I've done fourteen books, I've not even crashed the surface.

1148
01:06:13.320 --> 01:06:15.239
There's so much more I could easily do.

1149
01:06:15.559 --> 01:06:18.639
That's awesome. And I'm glad that you mentioned war on

1150
01:06:18.679 --> 01:06:23.000
Halloween because this is the time of year is and

1151
01:06:23.079 --> 01:06:26.079
I just started reading that one last night. I just

1152
01:06:26.119 --> 01:06:28.519
read chapter one. I would have read more, but I

1153
01:06:28.559 --> 01:06:31.480
was so tired after work and everything. But I was

1154
01:06:31.480 --> 01:06:33.159
wondering if you could tell us a little bit about

1155
01:06:33.159 --> 01:06:34.280
what Warren Halloween is.

1156
01:06:35.239 --> 01:06:37.760
Warren Halloween is, I want to write a Halloween book.

1157
01:06:38.039 --> 01:06:40.239
To begin, like, the initial impetus was literally like I

1158
01:06:40.320 --> 01:06:42.920
want to write a book about Halloween. I wanted to

1159
01:06:42.920 --> 01:06:46.320
write a Halloween book. I love Halloween and I want

1160
01:06:46.360 --> 01:06:48.960
and I don't feel like and there are Halloween books

1161
01:06:48.960 --> 01:06:52.239
out there sort of, but I wanted to write something

1162
01:06:52.440 --> 01:06:58.000
like a lot of the Halloween books are not about Halloween, right,

1163
01:06:58.119 --> 01:07:00.360
Like literally, I wanted to write a book about what

1164
01:07:00.599 --> 01:07:03.280
is Halloween and why do I love it? And why

1165
01:07:03.320 --> 01:07:06.039
do I think it is an INCREDI And part of

1166
01:07:06.079 --> 01:07:10.400
it's inspired by I went to a private Christian school

1167
01:07:10.719 --> 01:07:14.079
in grade school for for for a while and they

1168
01:07:14.079 --> 01:07:17.639
didn't have Halloween. We didn't have Halloween, we had Fall festival.

1169
01:07:18.719 --> 01:07:20.440
And it's and that kind of is brought up in

1170
01:07:20.519 --> 01:07:23.639
this book where I my elevator pitch for Warren. Halloween

1171
01:07:23.719 --> 01:07:29.239
is footloose, but instead of dancing, it's Halloween awesome. And

1172
01:07:28.960 --> 01:07:31.679
and like there's an evil. There's a pastor that kind

1173
01:07:31.719 --> 01:07:34.480
of runs this town. This family moves in, the family

1174
01:07:34.519 --> 01:07:37.559
loves Halloween, and the pastor doesn't allow Halloween in his town.

1175
01:07:38.159 --> 01:07:40.719
And you find out this pastor has secret power, sinister

1176
01:07:40.840 --> 01:07:43.679
powers he uses to kind of control the town, not

1177
01:07:43.800 --> 01:07:47.360
just about Halloween, about everything. And there's a few develops

1178
01:07:47.400 --> 01:07:49.559
between this family and this pastor and it kind of

1179
01:07:49.559 --> 01:07:54.800
spins out into chaos. But it's really about why is

1180
01:07:54.800 --> 01:07:59.000
Halloween great? And Halloween to me is an excuse for

1181
01:07:59.119 --> 01:08:04.199
you to be as weird as be your true self honestly,

1182
01:08:04.320 --> 01:08:07.199
to let your whoever you are, to let it all

1183
01:08:07.239 --> 01:08:09.760
out on Halloween Night. You can dress up as anything

1184
01:08:09.800 --> 01:08:12.199
you want to be. You can cross dress, you could

1185
01:08:12.199 --> 01:08:14.920
be a weird monster, you can be something funny, you

1186
01:08:14.920 --> 01:08:16.439
can be in it, and you need nothing at all

1187
01:08:16.479 --> 01:08:18.520
and just sit sit, sit on your porch and let

1188
01:08:18.600 --> 01:08:24.680
people come up and you give them candy and hallowing

1189
01:08:24.720 --> 01:08:27.560
to me? Is that idea of like it, lets us

1190
01:08:27.640 --> 01:08:31.640
be the weirdest or the most truest versions of ourselves.

1191
01:08:31.720 --> 01:08:35.479
Let's us experiment it. Lets us be weirdos. Let's and

1192
01:08:35.560 --> 01:08:40.239
like the the protagonists and the wide supporting cast and

1193
01:08:40.319 --> 01:08:43.479
a writing and you know, emerge throughout the throughout the

1194
01:08:43.520 --> 01:08:48.720
story are oddballs, misfits in this town, right, They don't

1195
01:08:48.760 --> 01:08:54.800
necessarily belong to the church or this the cadre of

1196
01:08:54.880 --> 01:08:59.439
the church, hanger on whatever they may be. And and

1197
01:08:59.520 --> 01:09:02.680
but they're good people, there's nothing wrong with them. But

1198
01:09:02.800 --> 01:09:06.760
because they don't fit into this narrow window of what

1199
01:09:07.439 --> 01:09:12.239
people are supposed to be, they're bad. They're evil, even

1200
01:09:12.600 --> 01:09:18.560
at least in the eyes of this pastor. And I

1201
01:09:18.600 --> 01:09:22.319
wanted a book that kind of represented like fought for

1202
01:09:22.399 --> 01:09:24.880
them basically when it's more on Halloween, Like you know,

1203
01:09:25.000 --> 01:09:27.439
in the news in the past five six years, you've

1204
01:09:27.439 --> 01:09:30.159
seen this pop up every so often during October, where

1205
01:09:30.159 --> 01:09:32.960
you see people are like, we don't allow no Halloween.

1206
01:09:33.000 --> 01:09:35.399
Halloween's evil. It's and like I grew up in the church,

1207
01:09:35.439 --> 01:09:37.439
like when I went to church, like, no, Halloweens evil,

1208
01:09:37.439 --> 01:09:40.920
it's for Satanists. I'm like, are you talking about Halloweens

1209
01:09:40.960 --> 01:09:44.279
for Satanists? Crazy? I'm a kid. I want to dress

1210
01:09:44.359 --> 01:09:46.279
up as a ghost. Why am I I'm a Satanist?

1211
01:09:46.359 --> 01:09:49.600
All of a sudden, I'm like worshiping, worshiping the devil.

1212
01:09:50.119 --> 01:09:52.279
Even though I like, as a kid, I don't, I

1213
01:09:52.319 --> 01:09:54.239
didn't have any contexts for any of this. I don't

1214
01:09:54.239 --> 01:09:55.800
know what it is means. I just want to dress

1215
01:09:55.880 --> 01:10:01.000
up as a ghost, and I can't because ghosts are speaky. Yeah,

1216
01:10:01.039 --> 01:10:03.800
but everything that book kind of encompasses all that idea

1217
01:10:03.880 --> 01:10:10.680
of like fighting for people being their true selves and

1218
01:10:11.960 --> 01:10:18.640
not letting systems control that, letting a church for so

1219
01:10:18.720 --> 01:10:21.319
to speak, even though like I'm not, I don't think

1220
01:10:21.359 --> 01:10:23.359
I try. I don't think I paint Christianity as a

1221
01:10:23.359 --> 01:10:25.920
whole as some evil thing. I paint this pastor as

1222
01:10:25.920 --> 01:10:29.680
an evil thing, even though I'm sure there are Christians

1223
01:10:29.720 --> 01:10:31.760
who read my book and go that this book, this

1224
01:10:31.840 --> 01:10:37.760
guy hates Jesus or something. But it's more about I

1225
01:10:37.840 --> 01:10:39.760
knew that a lot of those people. I'd like that

1226
01:10:39.800 --> 01:10:42.600
pastor is and the people in that book are you

1227
01:10:42.600 --> 01:10:45.199
know I knew people like that when I was a

1228
01:10:45.279 --> 01:10:51.439
child and a younger person, and I it's it's like

1229
01:10:51.600 --> 01:10:54.479
and I was also warholings like my most wholesome book,

1230
01:10:55.000 --> 01:10:59.159
like it's not wholesome like for like it's not Tuesdays

1231
01:10:59.159 --> 01:11:02.960
with Morior or whatever, but it is it is like

1232
01:11:04.279 --> 01:11:06.760
it's affirming. I think that's what I really also wanted

1233
01:11:06.800 --> 01:11:09.000
to write like, And I don't know. I sometimes push

1234
01:11:09.079 --> 01:11:11.560
back on people who are like, horror can't have happy endings.

1235
01:11:11.960 --> 01:11:15.520
M h. I don't like that. I think a horror,

1236
01:11:15.600 --> 01:11:17.960
any horror, can be anything like, it can have a

1237
01:11:18.000 --> 01:11:20.119
happ ending. Yes. Can I have a sad ending yes?

1238
01:11:20.279 --> 01:11:22.760
Can it be tragic yes? Can it be brutal and

1239
01:11:23.239 --> 01:11:26.359
gory yes? Can it be bloodless yes? Don't try and

1240
01:11:26.399 --> 01:11:27.279
put limits on things.

1241
01:11:27.520 --> 01:11:30.159
Yeah, you know exactly what you mean, because there's there's

1242
01:11:30.199 --> 01:11:32.960
people out there who are like, horror has to be

1243
01:11:33.079 --> 01:11:36.119
this way and it has to have this type of ending.

1244
01:11:36.560 --> 01:11:40.399
And I know what they mean, because you know, horror

1245
01:11:40.439 --> 01:11:43.439
with really bleak, dark endings really pack a punch, right.

1246
01:11:43.880 --> 01:11:47.000
But there's nothing saying that a horror story can't have

1247
01:11:47.079 --> 01:11:49.479
a good ending, because that's just life, you know, sometimes

1248
01:11:49.520 --> 01:11:52.800
there are happy, good endings to a bad situation.

1249
01:11:53.680 --> 01:11:56.640
Yes, And also like a lot of the times, largely

1250
01:11:56.720 --> 01:11:59.239
I put my protagonists through the ringer. They don't have

1251
01:11:59.279 --> 01:12:03.239
it easy. They usually go through hell, and sometimes I

1252
01:12:03.239 --> 01:12:05.279
feel like they deserve a happy ending, or at least

1253
01:12:05.279 --> 01:12:08.279
a happy year ending, after they've gone through so much

1254
01:12:09.199 --> 01:12:14.159
terrible stuff. Not to say that, I also many of

1255
01:12:14.199 --> 01:12:16.960
my stories end with the prakadag is dead or in

1256
01:12:17.279 --> 01:12:21.520
very bad, precarious situations. It depends on the story, you know.

1257
01:12:21.840 --> 01:12:24.840
I think the story all largely will tell me well.

1258
01:12:24.840 --> 01:12:27.000
And sometimes, you know, there's some stories where are like,

1259
01:12:27.079 --> 01:12:29.159
I don't know what's the right ending for this, and

1260
01:12:29.199 --> 01:12:31.960
sometimes I that the ending I will largely sometimes don't

1261
01:12:31.960 --> 01:12:35.680
write until well after I've written most of the other book.

1262
01:12:35.840 --> 01:12:39.159
I sometimes I wait and like the real ending will

1263
01:12:39.880 --> 01:12:42.039
make it self known to me over time, and usually

1264
01:12:42.079 --> 01:12:46.279
it does. Usually, Oh yeah, that's the right thing to do. Awesome.

1265
01:12:46.680 --> 01:12:49.840
Oh, before we go, I just want to talk a

1266
01:12:49.840 --> 01:12:53.000
little bit about something that you also do on top

1267
01:12:53.039 --> 01:12:56.399
of the writing, and that's you Also you co host

1268
01:12:56.399 --> 01:13:01.039
a podcast, the Cult Video Vault Podcast, where you and Greg.

1269
01:13:01.399 --> 01:13:03.159
You guys talk about cult movies.

1270
01:13:03.760 --> 01:13:05.239
Did you talk a little bit about that.

1271
01:13:07.439 --> 01:13:12.840
I mean it, I just wanted, yeah, exactly, Pumpkinhead. Uh,

1272
01:13:13.640 --> 01:13:15.439
we'll get there. We'll get to Pumpkinhead at some point.

1273
01:13:15.920 --> 01:13:18.479
We have to like literally do our best to not

1274
01:13:18.640 --> 01:13:20.800
just do all horror, because we could easily just go

1275
01:13:20.920 --> 01:13:23.560
directly and just do all horror movies, but no, we try,

1276
01:13:23.560 --> 01:13:26.680
and we did jump between genres. We're doing a big

1277
01:13:26.840 --> 01:13:29.239
for October as a sneak peak, we're doing all John

1278
01:13:29.239 --> 01:13:32.520
Carpenter stuff cool the King of cult. Obviously, I love

1279
01:13:32.600 --> 01:13:35.079
John Carpenter. It's probably my favorite director. Oh he's definitely

1280
01:13:35.119 --> 01:13:41.479
not in mind too. Yeah, but it's delving into what

1281
01:13:41.520 --> 01:13:43.520
a cult movie is, I think largely. Yeah, we talk

1282
01:13:43.560 --> 01:13:47.159
about the movies, we talk about why they're cult, we

1283
01:13:47.199 --> 01:13:49.520
talk about how much we love them or hate them,

1284
01:13:49.640 --> 01:13:52.279
but ultimately kind of at the core of it is like,

1285
01:13:52.800 --> 01:13:55.600
why is something cult at all? What is colt? What

1286
01:13:55.640 --> 01:14:01.520
does a cult movie mean? Right? And like my writing

1287
01:14:01.640 --> 01:14:05.199
is very absolutely influenced by growing up watching a bunch

1288
01:14:05.279 --> 01:14:08.079
of cult movies, watching a bunch of weird stuff, and

1289
01:14:08.199 --> 01:14:12.319
letting that, letting that inform my tastes. But it's also like,

1290
01:14:12.560 --> 01:14:14.479
I bet Greg got a con and I really liked

1291
01:14:14.479 --> 01:14:17.079
Greg and I wanted to do something with him. And he's, uh,

1292
01:14:17.319 --> 01:14:19.880
you know, he's heavily and he does weird Wednesdays and

1293
01:14:19.920 --> 01:14:22.880
Fort Worth's uh in Dallas Fort Worth, which is like

1294
01:14:22.960 --> 01:14:26.600
secret movie movie screenings where he screens weird movies, cult movies,

1295
01:14:27.560 --> 01:14:30.800
and uh, he started a movie theater. He's trying to

1296
01:14:31.399 --> 01:14:35.039
which is gonna be like do cult screenings and and

1297
01:14:35.039 --> 01:14:39.439
and weird off the wall stuff. And I've you know,

1298
01:14:39.560 --> 01:14:43.079
I've been podcasting for like ten years now, and I

1299
01:14:43.279 --> 01:14:46.720
just I'm I was down to my only my Simpsons podcast,

1300
01:14:46.760 --> 01:14:50.159
which is called the Simpsons Show, not really related to

1301
01:14:50.199 --> 01:14:53.600
horror at all, but yeah, it is a I've been

1302
01:14:53.600 --> 01:14:57.640
doing it for nearly five hundred episodes. The Cult, The Cult, Yeah,

1303
01:14:57.880 --> 01:15:02.840
don't believe me, you say, wow, I go yep, yep.

1304
01:15:04.399 --> 01:15:08.319
The culvideo Bolt is much newer. But we are trying to,

1305
01:15:08.920 --> 01:15:11.520
I don't know, just be have fun, you know, talk

1306
01:15:11.560 --> 01:15:15.039
about these movies and have you know, some to try

1307
01:15:15.079 --> 01:15:18.560
and like both cover our favorites and favorites of the

1308
01:15:18.560 --> 01:15:21.560
one that everyone knows. Like we're doing the thing. We're

1309
01:15:21.560 --> 01:15:23.479
doing big for the John Garbenter. We're doing the thing

1310
01:15:23.520 --> 01:15:25.880
which is incredibly well known movie, and then we sometimes

1311
01:15:25.920 --> 01:15:28.399
talk about that where you're like, how is this movie

1312
01:15:29.279 --> 01:15:32.279
so well known, so well revealed? We're weird right now?

1313
01:15:32.720 --> 01:15:34.800
Everyone loves the Thing. When I talk about the Thing

1314
01:15:34.800 --> 01:15:37.279
at cons with people, when people walk up underneath my book,

1315
01:15:37.319 --> 01:15:41.800
Underneath is heavily influenced by the Thing, and I talk

1316
01:15:41.840 --> 01:15:44.359
to people about it, They're like, yeah, the Thing, and

1317
01:15:44.439 --> 01:15:46.439
we're like, in our episode, they'll be out in a

1318
01:15:46.479 --> 01:15:49.439
couple of weeks. Uh, We like, how's the Thing a

1319
01:15:49.520 --> 01:15:52.239
cult movie? Everyone knows about the Thing? And then a

1320
01:15:52.239 --> 01:15:53.680
lot of it used to be a cult movie.

1321
01:15:53.760 --> 01:15:56.720
I think it used, Yeah, exactly Now I think now

1322
01:15:56.760 --> 01:15:59.439
it's just so well known everyone's I mean, I say

1323
01:15:59.439 --> 01:16:04.560
it's my favorite horror movie. But I've been saying that since.

1324
01:16:04.319 --> 01:16:07.479
Before it was cool to say that. Yeah, I mean,

1325
01:16:07.640 --> 01:16:11.000
it's the Thing is literally my favorite movie, not even

1326
01:16:11.000 --> 01:16:16.520
my favorite, harb, It's my favorite movie. And it's a

1327
01:16:16.520 --> 01:16:18.359
lot of times I think we come to the conclusion

1328
01:16:18.399 --> 01:16:20.960
like we're in the cult, right, we are the cult,

1329
01:16:21.199 --> 01:16:24.640
so when we you can't. A lot of time now

1330
01:16:24.680 --> 01:16:26.760
I think about, like if I show this movie to

1331
01:16:26.840 --> 01:16:30.600
my mom, what would she say about it? And my

1332
01:16:30.680 --> 01:16:32.880
mom if she watched the Thing, and she'd be like, Robbie,

1333
01:16:32.880 --> 01:16:36.439
what is this? What are you doing? So that that

1334
01:16:36.640 --> 01:16:38.680
is like, we're like, if you show it to a

1335
01:16:38.720 --> 01:16:41.520
normal person, when do you think of as a normal person?

1336
01:16:41.960 --> 01:16:44.439
What do they say about that movie? They would go, oh,

1337
01:16:44.520 --> 01:16:48.560
my god, that poor dog is like, I mean, that

1338
01:16:48.640 --> 01:16:51.399
movie is brutal. The thing is brutal. But that's one

1339
01:16:51.399 --> 01:16:56.119
of the reasons I love it. But it's easy to say, oh,

1340
01:16:56.239 --> 01:16:58.039
it's not a Colt movie anymore. But no, if you

1341
01:16:58.079 --> 01:17:01.439
show the Thing to a lot of people, they would

1342
01:17:01.640 --> 01:17:04.560
bounce right off of it because it's so cold, it's

1343
01:17:04.560 --> 01:17:08.800
so brutal. They would it's a great film, but they

1344
01:17:08.880 --> 01:17:10.880
would not be able to like, they would not be

1345
01:17:10.920 --> 01:17:13.520
able to connect to it. And I think that's and

1346
01:17:13.640 --> 01:17:15.479
ultimately we kind of have that discussion about a lot

1347
01:17:15.520 --> 01:17:17.680
of movies where like sometimes it's very easy to say, oh,

1348
01:17:17.680 --> 01:17:20.119
that's a cult movie, like we did one called I

1349
01:17:20.159 --> 01:17:22.000
don't know if you've seen The Greasy Strangler.

1350
01:17:22.880 --> 01:17:23.760
I haven't seen that one.

1351
01:17:23.840 --> 01:17:29.239
No, it's an experience. It's not a good it's disgusting.

1352
01:17:29.359 --> 01:17:32.960
It's a disgusting movie. But after I watched it with

1353
01:17:33.279 --> 01:17:35.319
like Greg had seen it, before I had never seen it.

1354
01:17:35.680 --> 01:17:37.199
I watch it. This is a new movie. It came

1355
01:17:37.239 --> 01:17:41.279
about twenty sixteen. I watch it and I hate it

1356
01:17:41.319 --> 01:17:46.880
every moment of it. But but it has stuck with me.

1357
01:17:47.399 --> 01:17:50.720
I think about it all the time. You can't help it.

1358
01:17:50.720 --> 01:17:53.439
It becomes a part like it has. It has become

1359
01:17:53.560 --> 01:17:57.000
ingrained in my brain ever since I saw The Greasy Strangler.

1360
01:17:57.960 --> 01:18:01.600
But like movies like that, there is no doubt in

1361
01:18:01.640 --> 01:18:03.439
your mind. You're like, oh, yeah, this was designed to

1362
01:18:03.439 --> 01:18:06.640
be a cult movie. Basically, like it's so off putting.

1363
01:18:07.359 --> 01:18:10.319
Most people will never would never want to watch this.

1364
01:18:10.359 --> 01:18:11.960
If they knew what it was in this, they wouldn't.

1365
01:18:12.000 --> 01:18:14.239
They would bounce right off of it because it's disgusting.

1366
01:18:14.680 --> 01:18:21.680
It's it's purposefully gross and vulgar and crass. But it

1367
01:18:21.800 --> 01:18:26.000
is so unique and it's special in a very strange way.

1368
01:18:26.439 --> 01:18:31.000
Because of those facts, it makes the decision like, oh,

1369
01:18:31.039 --> 01:18:34.239
why is this a cult movies? Because it has to be,

1370
01:18:34.239 --> 01:18:36.720
because there's not normal people would never want to watch this.

1371
01:18:36.840 --> 01:18:40.840
I don't even I consider myself. I will watch anything,

1372
01:18:40.920 --> 01:18:44.319
I will read anything. I have a I have an

1373
01:18:44.359 --> 01:18:47.880
appetite for the weirdest things you can possibly imagine, even

1374
01:18:48.119 --> 01:18:51.000
my own reading habits. Now, I largely go after just

1375
01:18:51.079 --> 01:18:54.640
weird stuff, not even like gross stuff, just weird things,

1376
01:18:54.720 --> 01:19:00.119
things that are strange that I could never write. And

1377
01:19:00.159 --> 01:19:02.199
that when I watched The Greasy Stranger, I go, this

1378
01:19:02.279 --> 01:19:03.359
is too much. I care.

1379
01:19:04.000 --> 01:19:06.119
I've got to hunt that movie down. I don't think

1380
01:19:06.159 --> 01:19:07.359
I've even heard of it, but I.

1381
01:19:08.560 --> 01:19:11.760
Had not either. And then it's produced by Elijah Wood.

1382
01:19:12.279 --> 01:19:15.039
Okay, it's recent.

1383
01:19:15.039 --> 01:19:18.039
Yeah, it's it's fairly recent. And but if you look

1384
01:19:18.039 --> 01:19:20.760
at Elijah Wood, he's also a bail weirdo. He likes

1385
01:19:21.319 --> 01:19:24.760
like he likes a lot of weird things, which is great.

1386
01:19:25.159 --> 01:19:26.920
You know, he's a guy with some money who can

1387
01:19:27.039 --> 01:19:29.920
help make more weird things in the world. On all

1388
01:19:30.000 --> 01:19:33.800
for it. But the Greasy like, that's that's a general

1389
01:19:34.039 --> 01:19:38.159
like we have an episode about it, and a lot

1390
01:19:38.199 --> 01:19:40.520
of the episode was like what are we? What is this? Well,

1391
01:19:40.560 --> 01:19:43.640
like what are we? Why are like you will It's

1392
01:19:43.640 --> 01:19:46.479
a fair warning to anyone out there who goes watch

1393
01:19:46.520 --> 01:19:50.960
The Greasy Strangler is disgusting. There's so much male full

1394
01:19:50.960 --> 01:19:54.079
frontal nudity. I'm gonna give you fair warning about that.

1395
01:19:55.640 --> 01:20:02.479
But but it's also because it's so strange. It stays

1396
01:20:02.520 --> 01:20:03.159
with you.

1397
01:20:03.239 --> 01:20:06.439
Yeah, well, I'm definitely gonna watch that. I mean, that

1398
01:20:06.560 --> 01:20:09.560
sounds like something right up, maleey, because I've become so

1399
01:20:09.720 --> 01:20:13.199
bored with like mainstream I used to really appreciate the

1400
01:20:13.199 --> 01:20:17.680
mainstream horror movies because they're at least they're pushing out,

1401
01:20:18.159 --> 01:20:21.680
you know, horror movies, and horror movies are fairly popular

1402
01:20:21.720 --> 01:20:24.760
at the moment because of those ones. But I'm bored

1403
01:20:24.760 --> 01:20:27.319
with them, you know, and I want to see the

1404
01:20:27.439 --> 01:20:30.119
more weird and strange stuff, the.

1405
01:20:30.039 --> 01:20:33.840
Stuff that make you think it's I don't know that

1406
01:20:33.960 --> 01:20:37.479
is Greasy's Strangler to a Tea is straight, Like, I

1407
01:20:37.520 --> 01:20:40.920
don't It's not a horror movie. It's like some people

1408
01:20:41.000 --> 01:20:43.439
describe it as a black comedy. I wouldn't describe it

1409
01:20:43.479 --> 01:20:46.079
as that either. I'm sure people people do laugh at it.

1410
01:20:46.199 --> 01:20:48.239
Some people watch it and think it's funny. I didn't

1411
01:20:48.279 --> 01:20:52.079
think it was funny. I was just like, what is

1412
01:20:52.279 --> 01:20:54.560
the Every moment You're like, what are these who are

1413
01:20:54.600 --> 01:20:57.399
these people? Who are these characters? What is going on?

1414
01:20:58.239 --> 01:21:03.880
Like all oh god, oh no, please, that kind of

1415
01:21:03.960 --> 01:21:08.560
thing am I watching? Well? I mean it's absolutely like

1416
01:21:09.119 --> 01:21:11.159
I would only watch it again if I was watching

1417
01:21:11.199 --> 01:21:14.039
it with other people. I was if I was showing

1418
01:21:14.079 --> 01:21:16.039
it to new people, I would watch it again, but

1419
01:21:16.039 --> 01:21:19.239
I would never watch it again by myself. Yeah it is.

1420
01:21:19.479 --> 01:21:23.640
There's not an experience I want. But when you're looking,

1421
01:21:23.640 --> 01:21:26.239
when you're bored, right, when you're like, oh, every movie

1422
01:21:26.239 --> 01:21:30.439
that comes out feels so samey it's using the same language, right,

1423
01:21:30.600 --> 01:21:32.800
Like you see a lot of these new horror movies

1424
01:21:32.840 --> 01:21:34.640
and you kind of are like, even if they're well

1425
01:21:34.680 --> 01:21:40.319
executed and well done, well written, well acted, they feel formulaic.

1426
01:21:40.520 --> 01:21:44.920
They feel like the same like beats like you went, oh, yeah,

1427
01:21:44.920 --> 01:21:49.159
this is gonna there's gonna be jump scare in six seconds. Yeah, exactly,

1428
01:21:49.520 --> 01:21:52.319
there it goes, Oh that character they're gonna end up

1429
01:21:52.319 --> 01:21:54.720
being a bad guy. Yeah yeah they are.

1430
01:21:55.279 --> 01:21:58.079
Yeah, Like it's most most talked at house films always

1431
01:21:58.079 --> 01:22:01.239
have that children's toy that goes starts working on its

1432
01:22:01.239 --> 01:22:03.520
own rolls across the floor. I was like, you know

1433
01:22:03.520 --> 01:22:05.479
what if that if that were to happened in my

1434
01:22:05.560 --> 01:22:09.159
real life, I'd be like that again, Like I wouldn't

1435
01:22:09.199 --> 01:22:11.000
be scared anymore.

1436
01:22:11.199 --> 01:22:14.119
No, you're not You're not you. I don't know. There's

1437
01:22:15.359 --> 01:22:18.239
it's that I think the thought process about The Exorcist.

1438
01:22:18.720 --> 01:22:21.439
You know, when ex Justist came out, everyone there's there's

1439
01:22:21.560 --> 01:22:24.760
that footage right of people being filmed right out through

1440
01:22:24.800 --> 01:22:27.119
a screening and they're like, I was so scared, and

1441
01:22:27.159 --> 01:22:29.239
I was when the when the thing opened, I was

1442
01:22:29.279 --> 01:22:32.720
so terrified. And you watch that just now, and well, yeah,

1443
01:22:32.720 --> 01:22:34.800
it's a great film, right, classic.

1444
01:22:35.000 --> 01:22:36.960
It's pretty brutal in its own right too.

1445
01:22:37.039 --> 01:22:41.960
Right, it's but I think we've been desensitized by other

1446
01:22:42.039 --> 01:22:45.199
horror films, and like in when ex Just came out

1447
01:22:45.199 --> 01:22:49.800
in the seventies, it was the simple, the simple, like,

1448
01:22:49.960 --> 01:22:53.079
the horror of it was not that a shelf opened

1449
01:22:53.079 --> 01:22:55.920
by itself or something like that. The horror was this

1450
01:22:56.039 --> 01:22:59.680
little girl is possessed by this evil thing and it's

1451
01:22:59.720 --> 01:23:04.640
doing awful things and saying awful things. And it wasn't

1452
01:23:04.720 --> 01:23:08.439
big and over the top. It was this. It was

1453
01:23:08.439 --> 01:23:12.720
the simplicity of it, the brutal simplicity of this little

1454
01:23:12.720 --> 01:23:17.319
girl being corrupted by his evil thing. And now if

1455
01:23:17.359 --> 01:23:20.000
you watch The Exocist, a lot of people would be like,

1456
01:23:20.159 --> 01:23:23.319
what's scary. I don't understand because they're been they're used

1457
01:23:23.359 --> 01:23:26.680
to things flying at the screen, they're used to like

1458
01:23:27.039 --> 01:23:29.279
the haunted house settings now of like you know the

1459
01:23:29.279 --> 01:23:34.960
Abel movies or Insidious, Like the house is inexplicably dark,

1460
01:23:35.159 --> 01:23:38.479
like everything like everything is just e bathed in shadows,

1461
01:23:38.520 --> 01:23:41.039
and you're like, have these people been in a house before?

1462
01:23:41.840 --> 01:23:43.920
They haven't know how to turn on a light? Like, yeah,

1463
01:23:43.920 --> 01:23:45.800
they have lights on, and like that's part of the

1464
01:23:45.840 --> 01:23:48.079
reason I liked Extrays so much as well lit Like

1465
01:23:48.520 --> 01:23:51.359
it's never in darkness because it's the dark has nothing

1466
01:23:51.439 --> 01:23:53.760
to do with it. It's not. The scariness is not

1467
01:23:53.800 --> 01:23:58.000
because it's dark. But again, I don't know. Sometimes I

1468
01:23:58.039 --> 01:23:59.960
feel I do feel like old man yelling at clouds.

1469
01:24:00.119 --> 01:24:04.479
We're just like, ah, you kids, I'm not even that old,

1470
01:24:04.720 --> 01:24:08.159
but it's like you kids, it's only going to get

1471
01:24:08.159 --> 01:24:10.199
worse as you get older. Trus Oh, I know, I know.

1472
01:24:10.520 --> 01:24:11.560
I'm just gonna embrace it.

1473
01:24:11.920 --> 01:24:17.680
Yeah, all right, So I think we can stop there

1474
01:24:17.720 --> 01:24:19.960
for now, but I definitely want to have you on again.

1475
01:24:20.319 --> 01:24:22.720
I I generally have like a fairly close group of

1476
01:24:22.760 --> 01:24:25.720
people that I keep inviting back onto the show, and

1477
01:24:25.760 --> 01:24:28.399
they do keep coming back. So I want you to

1478
01:24:28.399 --> 01:24:29.960
be one of them. So next time you have a

1479
01:24:30.000 --> 01:24:31.800
book out, we've got to talk again. Are you good

1480
01:24:31.840 --> 01:24:36.640
for that. Yeah, sure, absolutely, So where do you have

1481
01:24:36.680 --> 01:24:39.399
anything else coming out? I mean, dead End just released.

1482
01:24:40.119 --> 01:24:42.359
Do you have anything else coming out soon that like

1483
01:24:42.439 --> 01:24:44.560
short stories or no?

1484
01:24:44.880 --> 01:24:47.600
I don't do. There's a lot of authors that do

1485
01:24:47.840 --> 01:24:49.720
a lot of anthology stuff, and I just can't have

1486
01:24:49.760 --> 01:24:53.119
the time for it. I focus on my novels. I

1487
01:24:53.159 --> 01:24:56.399
have fourteen books. So if go read dead End, and

1488
01:24:56.439 --> 01:24:58.399
if you like it, go read one of the many

1489
01:24:59.039 --> 01:25:02.800
goo my all my books and see pickup. Do you

1490
01:25:02.840 --> 01:25:04.680
like vampires? I have a vampire book. Do you like

1491
01:25:04.680 --> 01:25:06.319
were wolves? I have a were wolf book. Do you

1492
01:25:06.720 --> 01:25:10.680
do you like sports dramas mixed with folk car? I

1493
01:25:10.720 --> 01:25:13.600
have that for an odd reason. Uh.

1494
01:25:13.720 --> 01:25:15.600
After that book downloaded and I want to read it.

1495
01:25:15.640 --> 01:25:16.520
The mascot one.

1496
01:25:17.239 --> 01:25:19.439
Yeah, I've Well, now I guess I have two. I

1497
01:25:19.479 --> 01:25:21.880
technically have two sports books because I have Killer Hockey

1498
01:25:21.920 --> 01:25:23.960
mascot and I have Split Circle, which is a has

1499
01:25:24.039 --> 01:25:27.159
soccer in it. Okay, yeah, which is, but it's like

1500
01:25:27.199 --> 01:25:30.880
a cult, the Eastern Eastern Europe folk car cult mixed

1501
01:25:30.920 --> 01:25:36.399
with a soccer drama. Effectively. I love the Split Circle,

1502
01:25:36.399 --> 01:25:38.760
even though it's a weird, odd ball thing. I don't know.

1503
01:25:38.960 --> 01:25:41.720
I back again. I write what I find interesting. I'm like,

1504
01:25:41.760 --> 01:25:45.079
I want to write a book that's like Midsummer but

1505
01:25:45.159 --> 01:25:47.880
also Ted Lasso, like Hope. So I'm going to do that.

1506
01:25:47.960 --> 01:25:51.239
I don't care. I'm gonna have I'll probably have another

1507
01:25:51.239 --> 01:25:54.159
book out next year, early next year, probably. I'm not

1508
01:25:54.479 --> 01:25:56.560
entirely sure what it's gonna be yet. I have a

1509
01:25:56.640 --> 01:25:59.720
bunch of manuscripts that are done that I'm basically debating

1510
01:26:00.399 --> 01:26:03.920
which one I publish next. I think it's gonna be

1511
01:26:03.960 --> 01:26:07.479
my curse to choose your own adventure book novel mm

1512
01:26:07.520 --> 01:26:11.399
hm called choose your own Choose your own death. I

1513
01:26:11.520 --> 01:26:13.840
think is it going to be the next one. I'm

1514
01:26:13.880 --> 01:26:18.680
not sure yet, but that's what I'm leaning towards that.

1515
01:26:18.680 --> 01:26:21.199
That would I always imagined that would be difficult to right.

1516
01:26:22.239 --> 01:26:25.399
I mean, it's not literally to choose your own adventure book.

1517
01:26:25.560 --> 01:26:29.359
It only is it's about people encountering I choose your

1518
01:26:29.359 --> 01:26:31.640
own adventure book that is cursed and kills you.

1519
01:26:31.600 --> 01:26:33.479
If you choose the wrong ending.

1520
01:26:35.039 --> 01:26:37.039
I like that a lot. I have thought about writing

1521
01:26:37.079 --> 01:26:39.880
and choose your own adventure book alongside it, but that

1522
01:26:40.000 --> 01:26:42.479
was like, that's impossible. I can't do it. I really

1523
01:26:42.479 --> 01:26:45.119
want to. There'd be a lot of fun, but the

1524
01:26:45.199 --> 01:26:47.520
producing that would be too much work for me. I

1525
01:26:47.520 --> 01:26:51.720
guess I have to I have to have limits. But

1526
01:26:51.880 --> 01:26:53.840
that's probably gonna be the one that will bably be

1527
01:26:53.880 --> 01:26:56.319
out in the spring. Choose your Own Death is probably

1528
01:26:56.359 --> 01:27:00.319
going to be the title. Sweet, but it's a actually

1529
01:27:00.399 --> 01:27:02.840
like it feels like the shining a lot.

1530
01:27:02.880 --> 01:27:06.279
Okay, Yeah, awesome, that's so. I take it you're working

1531
01:27:06.279 --> 01:27:07.039
on that right now.

1532
01:27:08.279 --> 01:27:11.399
Actually, right now I'm writing. I'm writing a manuscript. I'm

1533
01:27:11.399 --> 01:27:14.359
writing my last horror manuscript for the year. It's a dark,

1534
01:27:14.640 --> 01:27:18.960
dark fantasy Clide Barker esque dark horror, dark fantasy thing.

1535
01:27:19.800 --> 01:27:22.159
It's the working title, is I Fay what you did

1536
01:27:22.199 --> 01:27:27.920
last summer? It's a yeah, I don't know. It's it's

1537
01:27:27.920 --> 01:27:30.640
not written yet, so I don't I've only have an outline. Okay,

1538
01:27:30.640 --> 01:27:36.239
but yeah, that's awesome. So where can readers and viewers

1539
01:27:36.399 --> 01:27:40.840
find you online? Robbie Dorman. Robbie Dorman is my name

1540
01:27:40.920 --> 01:27:43.319
in every social media that's for you. If you search

1541
01:27:43.359 --> 01:27:46.680
Robbie Dorman Dorman with one oh, you will find me.

1542
01:27:47.359 --> 01:27:50.399
I'm on everything. I'm most active on Instagram and TikTok,

1543
01:27:51.479 --> 01:27:53.640
but my website is Robbie Doorman dot com. All my

1544
01:27:53.640 --> 01:27:56.359
books are there if you I'm going wide with I'm

1545
01:27:56.479 --> 01:28:01.600
leaving Kindle unlimited, so all my books should be within

1546
01:28:01.600 --> 01:28:04.960
the next few months everywhere, literally every platform. You can

1547
01:28:04.960 --> 01:28:07.239
buy them in print at literally any site you can

1548
01:28:07.279 --> 01:28:09.079
buy a book. Awesome.

1549
01:28:09.560 --> 01:28:13.439
Yeah, all right, Well, thank you for coming online or

1550
01:28:13.800 --> 01:28:16.560
talking with me. I had a lot of fun man,

1551
01:28:16.720 --> 01:28:20.960
Like I think, we have a lot of similar interests

1552
01:28:22.319 --> 01:28:25.560
and it's always great to find somebody who who can

1553
01:28:25.600 --> 01:28:29.479
talk this kind of stuff with. So I'm gonna let

1554
01:28:29.479 --> 01:28:33.479
you go now. Thank you for coming on, and like

1555
01:28:33.520 --> 01:28:36.479
I said, you're invited to come back for the next book.

1556
01:28:37.039 --> 01:28:38.800
Awesome. Yeah, man, thanks appreciate it.

1557
01:28:39.439 --> 01:28:41.439
And I want to thank everyone who came out to watch,

1558
01:28:42.119 --> 01:28:44.039
and we will catch you next time.