Nov. 10, 2025

066 - Candace Nola on Shadow Manor and Uncomfortably Dark Horror

066 - Candace Nola on Shadow Manor and Uncomfortably Dark Horror
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On this episode, Candace Nola and I discuss horror movies, her writing history, how Candice deals with burnout, her publishing house Uncomfortably Dark Horror, her books Shadow Manor and Hank Flynn, and so much more! 

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WEBVTT

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Hello, Welcome to Weird Reads. I'm your host, Jason White

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and Tod with me today is Candace Nola. Candace is

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the award winning author of titles such as Bishop, Beyond

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the Breach, Hank Flynn, Hank Flynn, The Return, Shadow Manner,

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Violent Knights, and much more. She also runs Uncomfortably Dark Horror,

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a publisher of horror books and anthologies. Uncomfortably Dark Horror

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also has author services which we'll talk which we'll talk about,

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such as their three sixty editing and opportunity for reviews.

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Welcome to the show, Candice. How are you doing today.

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I'm fine. It's been a long day, but I'm good.

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I hear you. I hear you. It's been a long week,

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honestly to a long month.

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I can agree with that as well. Yeah, So I.

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Want to thank you not only for coming on and

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talking with me, I want to I want to thank

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you also because I know you have a day job,

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you have a family life, and your own writing and

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publisher responsibilities. So taking the time out to come and

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talk with me means a lot to me, especially for

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moving the time frame as I requested. I absolutely appreciate that.

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I'm welcome, So.

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I want to break the ice a little bit here.

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I know that you're a fan of horror movies, and

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just from listening to you talk on podcasts, I know

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that you, uh, that's pretty much all you watch outside

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of all the publishing stuff. So I was wondering if

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you have any sense as spooky season. I was wondering

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if you have any recent recommendations for for this time

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of year.

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Recent. Wow, that's one thing I don't get to do

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a whole lot of these days is watch a lot

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of the new stuff when it's still new. Yeah, but

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I did get to watch Talk to Me. I believe

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it was the title of it, and that came out

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a couple of months ago, in which I thought was

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absolutely fantastic.

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Was that with the Hand? Yeah, yeah, that's creepy, and

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that movie is it's brutal too.

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Yeah, it is really really enjoyed that one a whole lot.

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And then what was the other one that I just watched,

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Bring Her Back?

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Oh, bring her Back. I think that's the same people

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who made Talk to Me.

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I think it was, And that one was almost just

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as just gruesome and just creep me out a whole lot.

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I think actually watched that one twice, Like, I watched

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it one night and then I went back to it

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the very next night and watched it again because I

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felt like there were some things that I missed and

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then there were some things that were just so well done.

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I've wanted to see it again. Yeah, too much, did twice.

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I need to see that movie. I haven't seen it yet.

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Oh oh yeah, well watch it and then you know,

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I won't say too much because I don't want to.

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I don't want don't want to spoil it. But it

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was just as good as talk to me. And then

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I did watch The Long Walk last night.

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Awesome, The Long Have you read the book of course? Yeah?

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Was it? I heard its pretty close? Is that true?

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It was?

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Yeah? Yeah, this was probably the most one of the

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most well done Stephen King adaptations that I have seen,

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and I'm pretty sure i've seen almost all of them.

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Excellent. You're a big Stephen King fan?

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Huge? Yeah, I have anything he's ever written.

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Yeah, that's awesome. Have you read like all of his

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books or do you have like a number? You read everything?

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Everything? I own everything, I've read them all. I have

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them all lined up over there on them all.

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Nice.

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I've been a Stephen King fan since I was about

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ten or eleven years old.

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Awesome, I'm wearing my Stephen King shirt right now.

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Nice. Nice.

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You don't have to. But I have another podcast called

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Short Bites, a Stephen King podcast where we discuss Stephen

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King short stories. So I would like to invite you

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onto that sometime in the future if you'd be interested. Sure, excellent.

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So I asked this of all my new guests. You

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maybe answered it there. I don't know, But what is

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your horror origin story? Did it start with Stephen King?

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No, it started with Edgar Allan Poe.

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Oh nice.

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Yeah, as far as reading horror stories, it would have

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started with Poe. My first experience that I can remember

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with horror stories was an album that I had when

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I was about six or seven, and it was Alfred

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hitch Hawk Scary Alfred Hitchcock's Scary Stories for Kids.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, they were like spoken and there were like five

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short little stories on this album. And I had one

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of those record players that you know, looked like a

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little suitcase. I used to listen to this album all

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the time and they had some really creepy stories and

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I was just oh, nice, Oh that's nice. You know,

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like it was just a whole different thing than the

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little nursery rhymes and the fairy tales and things like that.

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But I was also raised in a very open minded

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horror household, paranormal household. We watched pretty much everything was

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paranormal or science fiction or horror. Maybe ease Let Zone,

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you know, the whole ninearty name.

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That sounds like fun. I didn't have parents like that.

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They didn't like restrict me from watching. Actually, I can't

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say that. In my teens, we watched a lot of

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movies together, and so a lot of horror movies and

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whatnot made it in there. I remember watching Silver Bullet

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for the first time and getting because I had no

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idea what it was at the time, but I just

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remember seeing the full moon and looking at my mom

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and my stepdad and saying, Oh, this is going to

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be a werewolf movie. I just know it.

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Oh that was one of my favorites. I don't know

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how many times I watched that movie. I know it

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was at least twelve. Yeah, it was my all time

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favorites when I was like eleven, twelve years old.

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Yeah. Going back to Edgar Allan Poe, though I was

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introduced to him at school, because I swear when I

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was in a public school, almost every year the Raven

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the poem was like, we would do something with it

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in every class that I wouldn't say every class, but

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the majority of the classes I was in it was

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like the Raven, the Raven, the Raven. Did you guys

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do that at school at all?

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We did. But my first experience with him was not

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the Raven. It was at school and it was a

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recording of The Tale Heart and the narrator was reading

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it in full character, like you could hear like the

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man going insane, Like he was reading it like full blown,

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like this is happening to him right then and there.

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And I was just hooked, like the words and how

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he was telling us, how he told the story, and

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how he kept getting like just a little bit angrier

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and a little bit louder and a little bit just

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more unhinged. I was like, this is nuts. So I

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went home and I was looking up at girl and poem,

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and I was like, I need to have whatever it

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is this man has written. And I started rating it

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reading it then. And I think that might have happened

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in third grade around October. If I'm not mistaken because

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we were doing a whole month long thing of like

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scary stories, but it was all wrapped into English and

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composition and learning how to do a report and learning

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how to write essays. So we were we had to

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listen to a lot of these real short like stories

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and they all had like a like spooky theme, like

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a scary story. I think we did the Legend of

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Sleepy hop Legend of Sleepy Sleepy Hollo too. Tongue tied,

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but yeah, one of them as well.

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So I get tongue tied all the time myself. What

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would you say was the first writer that made you

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think I want to do this as well?

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I don't know the name, but ever since I learned

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to read, it was pretty much I've known.

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Wow, So maybe that was like your calling From the

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very beginning.

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There wasn't anything else that I have ever wanted to do. Ever,

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this was the only dream that I have ever had.

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That makes a lot of sense considering where we're going

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to be going soon with our conversation here, because I

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know that you Just as I said, I did some

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research on you in preparation. I listened to a few

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podcasts this week, and I know that you wanted to

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write since you're a child. I didn't know. I didn't

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realize it was that young though. But life got in

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the way. You know, you have children, you get a

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full time job, and suddenly the writing just doesn't seem

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like such a realistic option anymore. Can you talk about

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that and what that was like for you?

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It was just one of those It was just the fact.

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It was just you know, I had kids young in

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ninety four, ninety five ish. You we didn't have the

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internet like we have now. We didn't have immediate access

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to how, what, when, where and why and how to

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do this? And hey, who to contact? And I knew

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nobody in the world that wrote or was in the

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journalism or magazines like I knew no one. I had

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no connections at all. And at the time a lot

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of authorses or they did. That was massive, just like

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twelve hundred page to writers Digest with had it had

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all the addresses and of all the publishers in the

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world and all the you know, it was magazines and

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newspapers and all the story this ever thing, just addresses

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and you had to write them, send them a letter,

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tell them what you had find out, what the guidelines were,

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and it was just a lot of back and forth,

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a lot of snail mail. And then also by the

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time the books came out, you really didn't know if

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these places were even still open or even still a business.

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And yeah, I didn't have time for all that, and

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I already knew it wasn't a viable option for me,

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at least not at that time to wait for snail

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mail to see if you know, someone was going to

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be interested in anything that I had yet, and I

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needed a job, like, you know, I was on my

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own and I was in nineteeen, I had a child,

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like I needed a job. I had my own place,

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like I was off to the races. So I was like, okay,

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well put that aside and you know, work, and that's

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what I did. I didn't quit writing completely, but I

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kind of quite on it ever ever, turning into an actual.

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I don't know.

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I wouldn't call it a career yet because it's not

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my only job right now. But I wouldn't call it

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a hobby either, because I do this every bit as

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much in as full time as I do my other job.

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Yeah, but I.

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Think look at this as an option at the time

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for like to be a source of income, and I

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didn't have anyone that was willing to, Hey, I'll support you,

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are you right? And you know I do the snail

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mail forever and I was like no, So.

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You know, you know, it's funny that you mentioned that,

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because I started writing in the early aughts, like two

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thousand and two thousand and one, and I remember well

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sending those many scripts into the mail and waiting like

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months sometimes. Well you know, in today's world, you can

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still end up waiting for years, but waiting and waiting

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and waiting, and then you get like the reply, Hey,

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it's the rejection. Yeah, and it's a rejection. Yeah. I

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hit it pretty hard for those first ten years and

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like from two thousand to twenty ten, and I think

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that was like some serious learning happened there. But something

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similar happened to me. I had a kid with my wife,

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and I also ended up doing this factory job where

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I was doing twelve hour shifts a day. I'm sure

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my listeners are really sick of me talking about this,

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but it really affected me because I couldn't do anything

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other than work. Yeah. I was exhausted all the time,

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even on my days off, and so I switched careers

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recently in the last couple of years, and that has

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00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:59.080
helped me like a ton. I'm able to write again,

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and I'm writing like a lot more than I ever

233
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used to, really okay, and reading, Oh man, I'm reading

234
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like seventy books a year, and that's the thing. So

235
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I was going somewhere with that, and I kind of forgot.

236
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Oh yeah, this sort of ties in, Like I really

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enjoyed how because I read your online bio on your

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website and you mentioned that the way you got back

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into writing was a friend approached you. They said that

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they wanted to write a novel and they got you

241
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to help out, and so you guys were co writing

242
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it and then you learned that they didn't want to

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write the novel.

244
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Well it was a trick.

245
00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:40.360
Yeah, it was a trick to get you writing again.

246
00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:43.600
That I think is awesome. That's a really good friend

247
00:15:43.639 --> 00:15:46.399
you have there. Can you talk about that.

248
00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:52.879
It was a fund that I had made. I guess

249
00:15:52.919 --> 00:15:57.159
at this point now would be about twelve years ago,

250
00:15:57.759 --> 00:16:03.559
and I probably met around two thousand, No, not twelve

251
00:16:03.639 --> 00:16:08.039
years old, about eleven, around two thousand and fifteen or so.

252
00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:11.759
I met her and she was just like an online

253
00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:18.840
friend and we had this online mobile game that we played,

254
00:16:18.919 --> 00:16:21.159
which is how we met in one of the chat

255
00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:23.720
rooms where you could talk to everybody he played with.

256
00:16:24.840 --> 00:16:27.840
And I won't tell you anything else about the game

257
00:16:27.879 --> 00:16:30.159
because it's a whole story, and I'll go off on

258
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a tangent with her. And I met there and she

259
00:16:34.039 --> 00:16:39.399
is an aspiring author as well, and I used to

260
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talk with her a lot about her stuff, and she

261
00:16:43.919 --> 00:16:49.000
was working on a couple of kids' stories and I

262
00:16:49.080 --> 00:16:54.320
used to help her brainstorm a whole lot, like a lot.

263
00:16:54.639 --> 00:16:57.320
It turned into like an almost every night thing. And

264
00:16:57.399 --> 00:16:59.879
she was always like, you need to get back into

265
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you're writing and you need to still be doing this.

266
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And I was like, I'm working twelve hours a day,

267
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like I don't have time. I just got married, my

268
00:17:09.319 --> 00:17:12.519
kids like in college and working, and I got a

269
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young son that I just had a few years ago,

270
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and I was just like, I don't I wouldn't even

271
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know how what to do, like where to start. I

272
00:17:20.240 --> 00:17:23.880
was like, that was, you know, a teen age dream.

273
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I was like, and I probably cannot even compete with

274
00:17:27.720 --> 00:17:29.559
half the writers that are out And I was like,

275
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I don't, I know. I was like, it's just fun,

276
00:17:33.319 --> 00:17:37.319
like I'll help you, like this is this is nice,

277
00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:42.440
but you know, no, I'm good. And in twenty nineteen,

278
00:17:42.519 --> 00:17:48.960
it was early January two thousand and nineteen, she called

279
00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:53.440
me with this, Hey, I found a contest I want

280
00:17:53.519 --> 00:17:59.440
to write for and it's this speculative fiction piece and

281
00:17:59.480 --> 00:18:03.440
it can be sci fi paranormal. She's like, I thought

282
00:18:03.480 --> 00:18:06.599
maybe you would help me write a story and we

283
00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:09.160
could enter it. I was like co authors and I

284
00:18:09.200 --> 00:18:12.119
was like, oh, that's cool. That sounds you know, like

285
00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:14.319
it might be fine, but I don't want my name

286
00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:15.960
on it. I was like, but I'll help you like

287
00:18:16.759 --> 00:18:20.400
Bradenstorm or whatever. And she's like, well, she's like, how

288
00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:27.279
about you just give me like in opening monster whatever

289
00:18:27.319 --> 00:18:30.720
to start with. She's like, give me a way to

290
00:18:31.079 --> 00:18:34.559
open a story, add in a monster that we can

291
00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:38.359
like work with, and you know, I'll just jump in,

292
00:18:38.519 --> 00:18:41.839
you know. I'm like, okay, whatever. So, like that night,

293
00:18:42.240 --> 00:18:45.880
I had the opening to my first novel written and

294
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:49.519
it was like twenty five hundred words, I think. So

295
00:18:49.559 --> 00:18:51.400
I sent it over to her that night. I'm like,

296
00:18:51.440 --> 00:18:54.559
here you go, and she read it and she thought

297
00:18:54.599 --> 00:18:56.960
it was great, and I'm just kind of laughing at

298
00:18:56.960 --> 00:19:00.559
it like, okay, whatever, and I was like, well ahead,

299
00:19:00.640 --> 00:19:04.599
like whenever you want and send it back or let

300
00:19:04.599 --> 00:19:06.880
me know whenever you're stuck or whatever. She's like, no,

301
00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:09.880
just keep adding on. She's like, can just send on

302
00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:13.839
and then I'll jump in on on my end and

303
00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:16.279
when you finish it, I'll send you like what I

304
00:19:16.359 --> 00:19:19.799
have back blah. I'm like okay. So I kept adding

305
00:19:19.839 --> 00:19:21.839
on and adding on, and every couple of days i'd

306
00:19:21.839 --> 00:19:23.240
send her what I had and she's like, oh, this

307
00:19:23.319 --> 00:19:25.119
is great, this is great. She goes loving him, like

308
00:19:25.119 --> 00:19:29.240
what whatever. Long story short, In about six weeks, I

309
00:19:29.319 --> 00:19:32.640
had my first novel written and I sent it to her.

310
00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:34.559
I'm like, well, I'm done with my part. I don't

311
00:19:34.599 --> 00:19:36.880
know what you're gonna have, but here you go like

312
00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:39.680
feel free. And I was like, I guess when you

313
00:19:39.759 --> 00:19:43.039
get through, like I'll go back through it and try

314
00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:45.200
like connect it all and make sure it's all like

315
00:19:45.319 --> 00:19:48.359
nice and smooth. And she just started laughing and she's

316
00:19:48.400 --> 00:19:52.240
like yeah, no, She's like I'm not adding into anything.

317
00:19:52.359 --> 00:19:55.880
She's like, there was not really a contest. She's like,

318
00:19:55.960 --> 00:19:58.839
I just wanted you to see that you still had

319
00:19:58.920 --> 00:20:01.759
what it took. She's like so what are you going

320
00:20:01.799 --> 00:20:02.839
to do with it? And I was like, what do

321
00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:04.279
you mean? What am I gonna do with it?

322
00:20:04.400 --> 00:20:04.519
Like?

323
00:20:04.680 --> 00:20:08.920
What do you mean? I was like, what are you

324
00:20:08.960 --> 00:20:11.079
going to do with that? She's like, you have a novel?

325
00:20:11.160 --> 00:20:14.480
And not only that, she's like it's fantastic. She's like,

326
00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:18.160
don't call me back until you publish it. And she

327
00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:20.920
hung up on me. And I was like, oh, all right,

328
00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:24.640
well back down from a challenge.

329
00:20:24.799 --> 00:20:27.359
So were you mad at her for that at all?

330
00:20:27.720 --> 00:20:28.240
Or like?

331
00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:32.119
I was like, more like amused? And I was like

332
00:20:32.960 --> 00:20:36.680
all right, yeah, and I send it all to my

333
00:20:36.799 --> 00:20:38.440
mom and dad and I was like, well, I mean,

334
00:20:38.559 --> 00:20:40.240
you guys have been after me for a while to

335
00:20:40.279 --> 00:20:44.720
get back into my writing. Here you go them. I

336
00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:48.160
really didn't plan on doing anything with it just yet.

337
00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:50.799
I was like I don't, I don't know, but I

338
00:20:50.920 --> 00:20:54.160
let my mom and dad read it. My dad absolutely

339
00:20:54.359 --> 00:20:57.880
love loved it. My mom was like, I mean, what

340
00:20:57.920 --> 00:20:59.480
are you gonna do? And I was like, she asked

341
00:20:59.480 --> 00:21:04.039
me now to whatever. So I sat down and I

342
00:21:04.079 --> 00:21:07.839
started to re search it, and I feared, well, I

343
00:21:07.880 --> 00:21:10.799
can self publish it if nothing else and.

344
00:21:11.519 --> 00:21:18.480
Yeah, yeah, did that become breach? Breach? Yeah, awesome. That's

345
00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:21.759
that's a really cool story. That's like completely unique and

346
00:21:21.799 --> 00:21:22.160
I love it.

347
00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:26.680
Yeah, it's uh. It turned into a whole thing like

348
00:21:26.759 --> 00:21:30.519
I did, and I had no planned There was no outline,

349
00:21:30.559 --> 00:21:33.000
there was no plan. I had nothing in mind. Like

350
00:21:33.079 --> 00:21:36.200
I just sat down and wrote the opening and I

351
00:21:36.400 --> 00:21:37.119
just went off.

352
00:21:37.680 --> 00:21:43.440
So that's awesome. How did you go from writing Breach, uh,

353
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:48.039
which we just discussed uh, to writing so many books

354
00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:51.440
that you've published and then and then adding on something else,

355
00:21:51.559 --> 00:21:54.400
publishing other people with uncomfortably dark as well.

356
00:21:56.680 --> 00:21:58.920
I don't know, it.

357
00:22:00.359 --> 00:22:03.279
Just kind of like I guess, it was like a progress,

358
00:22:03.319 --> 00:22:08.519
like each day something new would come and build upon it.

359
00:22:08.279 --> 00:22:12.440
More or less. So I wrote the first one, and

360
00:22:12.920 --> 00:22:16.799
of course it was a disaster. If you had seen

361
00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:21.240
the actual first published copy of Breach, it was bad.

362
00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:25.480
The cover was not good, the interior was just awful.

363
00:22:25.599 --> 00:22:28.400
It needed edit it again and all that stuff. And

364
00:22:28.680 --> 00:22:32.119
I took it down after about six months because I

365
00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:38.079
got a mentor to the Horror Writers Association and he

366
00:22:38.200 --> 00:22:41.440
was super great and he looked at it and he

367
00:22:41.559 --> 00:22:43.799
was like, listen, first of all, you can to unpublish

368
00:22:43.799 --> 00:22:45.680
this right now with me on the fan. He was like,

369
00:22:45.759 --> 00:22:48.279
go out there and unpublish this. He was like, and

370
00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:49.680
I'm going to tell you why. He was like, it's

371
00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:53.079
not story. He was like, it's the formatting, it's the editing.

372
00:22:53.119 --> 00:22:55.160
It's like, it's everything. It's the way it looks. He's like,

373
00:22:55.960 --> 00:22:57.680
I know you can do. He's like, I'm here to

374
00:22:57.720 --> 00:23:00.599
help you. So let's you know, get this and I'm

375
00:23:00.599 --> 00:23:03.039
going to show you what you missed and what you

376
00:23:03.079 --> 00:23:07.240
need to do. And we worked. I worked with him

377
00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:09.839
for about four and a half months, even though the

378
00:23:09.880 --> 00:23:12.599
mentoring was not supposed to be for about three. But

379
00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:16.640
we got along extremely well and he really liked our

380
00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:20.319
one on ones, I guess, and he was like, hey,

381
00:23:20.359 --> 00:23:22.240
I want to help you get to the end of this,

382
00:23:22.440 --> 00:23:25.319
so you know. So we worked on that. I got

383
00:23:25.359 --> 00:23:32.319
it edited again and formatted, put a whole new cover

384
00:23:32.519 --> 00:23:35.880
on it and everything, put that out again and then

385
00:23:35.920 --> 00:23:38.079
he's like, okay, well now what he was like, you

386
00:23:38.240 --> 00:23:40.440
need a presence. He's like, if you're going to be

387
00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:44.039
an author, you need a website. You need people to

388
00:23:44.079 --> 00:23:46.880
know who you are. You need to start making some

389
00:23:46.960 --> 00:23:49.319
friends in the industry. He's like, are you on Facebook?

390
00:23:49.359 --> 00:23:51.640
Are you here? Are you here? So I took all

391
00:23:51.680 --> 00:23:55.640
of his all of his advice, and I took all

392
00:23:55.680 --> 00:23:59.640
the notes and I made my website. But I knew

393
00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:02.599
I was was going to need some sort of like

394
00:24:02.680 --> 00:24:09.640
a brand, something that people were going to easily recognize

395
00:24:09.759 --> 00:24:15.519
and connect with me. So I really planned out the

396
00:24:16.200 --> 00:24:20.880
web site before I had planned anything else. So that's

397
00:24:20.920 --> 00:24:26.240
how you got the Uncomfortably Tark website. Because I'm uncomfortable

398
00:24:26.279 --> 00:24:28.759
all the time and I write dark stuff, so that's

399
00:24:28.799 --> 00:24:35.200
where the name is from. So I had that first,

400
00:24:35.319 --> 00:24:39.200
and then I joined the groups and things on the internet.

401
00:24:39.279 --> 00:24:43.799
He took me to join on Instagram and Facebook. I

402
00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:50.240
joined the Books of Horror group and started to meet

403
00:24:50.319 --> 00:24:57.519
some of the indie indie authors that way, and then

404
00:24:57.759 --> 00:25:00.240
I started to read a lot of them because I'm well,

405
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:01.759
if I'm going to do this, I need to know

406
00:25:01.799 --> 00:25:04.200
like who's who and who's writing what and you know

407
00:25:04.240 --> 00:25:08.680
all that. So I jumped in, you know, just beat

408
00:25:08.759 --> 00:25:14.920
first and started to read a lot and review a lot,

409
00:25:15.240 --> 00:25:19.400
and then I started the posters on the website. And

410
00:25:19.480 --> 00:25:21.720
in the meantime, my mom and dad were like, hey,

411
00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:24.480
what do you write next? What do you write next?

412
00:25:24.559 --> 00:25:26.319
My kids were like, hey, what are you doing next.

413
00:25:26.359 --> 00:25:29.960
I'm like, I don't know, you know, I started to

414
00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:35.400
work on the next one, which was Bee on the Breach.

415
00:25:35.640 --> 00:25:39.160
So I was working on that one while I was

416
00:25:39.519 --> 00:25:43.160
sort of making a name in the industry as a

417
00:25:43.279 --> 00:25:48.599
newer author, but a reviewer more so than anything else

418
00:25:49.079 --> 00:25:51.200
at the time, because I mean I only had the

419
00:25:51.279 --> 00:25:57.200
one novel out. Yeah, So I made some friends and

420
00:25:57.519 --> 00:26:01.160
did the whole reviewing thing for a while and published

421
00:26:01.799 --> 00:26:04.480
Beyond the Breach too, and then by that time I

422
00:26:04.519 --> 00:26:08.960
had quite a few friends in the business, and then

423
00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:12.119
they had decided there like, oh hey, let me do

424
00:26:12.200 --> 00:26:14.480
an antho because that looks like a lot of fun.

425
00:26:15.599 --> 00:26:18.160
Not have any clue how much work that was or

426
00:26:18.240 --> 00:26:19.920
what I was doing, but I was like, oh yeah,

427
00:26:20.039 --> 00:26:24.079
let me do that. And I asked all my friends

428
00:26:24.119 --> 00:26:28.920
to people that most were like help the first group

429
00:26:28.960 --> 00:26:35.079
of folks that were most helpful and welcoming to me

430
00:26:35.480 --> 00:26:38.440
in the industry. So there was about ten or twelve

431
00:26:38.440 --> 00:26:41.400
of them that I had become very close with, and

432
00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:44.359
I was like, hey, you guys want to write for

433
00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:48.160
this antho? Like I have an idea. I don't have

434
00:26:48.240 --> 00:26:51.680
any money, but I got an idea. I was like,

435
00:26:51.759 --> 00:26:53.839
I tell you guys this, but like, do you want to?

436
00:26:54.599 --> 00:27:01.039
But everybody said yeah, which I kind of was not expecting.

437
00:27:01.240 --> 00:27:05.000
But everybody said yeah. And I've even asked a few

438
00:27:05.519 --> 00:27:09.119
folks that I had been reading for a while that

439
00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:12.079
I was like a fan of, like a big fan of,

440
00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:14.039
and I was like, I mean, I bet they're gonna

441
00:27:14.039 --> 00:27:16.359
say no. But then they even said yeah, and I

442
00:27:16.400 --> 00:27:19.039
was like, holy shit, I guess I'm doing this. And

443
00:27:19.559 --> 00:27:23.039
the Bags dozen was made, and that was nominated for

444
00:27:23.160 --> 00:27:27.400
a spot Er Punk Award in twenty twenty one, nice

445
00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:30.359
the same year it came out. So that kind of

446
00:27:30.359 --> 00:27:33.920
put me on the map then and there and then

447
00:27:36.119 --> 00:27:36.599
here we are.

448
00:27:37.119 --> 00:27:41.720
Is Baker's Dozens still available? Awesome and check it out.

449
00:27:42.920 --> 00:27:48.480
You know, I've often pondered doing something like that myself,

450
00:27:48.519 --> 00:27:51.799
but I've heard many, many stories on how much work

451
00:27:51.839 --> 00:27:55.880
it takes. So Noy is a little hesitant because, yeah,

452
00:27:56.799 --> 00:27:59.319
because you know, I have something similar, because I have

453
00:27:59.359 --> 00:28:02.279
like a publishing house, you could call it that I

454
00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:05.039
put my stuff out on. I don't just publish it

455
00:28:05.119 --> 00:28:07.799
under my name. I have a name for the publishing

456
00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:10.440
and if I would do something like that, it would

457
00:28:10.440 --> 00:28:14.799
be under under that name. So who knows maybe in

458
00:28:14.839 --> 00:28:20.640
the future. Now I'm comfort going to yours. Now, I'm

459
00:28:20.680 --> 00:28:24.599
comfortably dark fiction. Uh, I want you to talk about that.

460
00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:31.079
What is it? What does it do? Plug away the website,

461
00:28:31.559 --> 00:28:37.319
like just the thing, like like the organization itself.

462
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:42.039
It's so basically, I mean, it's it's not just me.

463
00:28:42.279 --> 00:28:47.960
It was just me. I am the creator of it,

464
00:28:48.079 --> 00:28:52.119
in the owner of it and all of that. But

465
00:28:52.240 --> 00:28:58.839
right now we have a seven person no a sixth

466
00:28:59.039 --> 00:29:06.839
person viewed team. We post indie horror reviews every day

467
00:29:06.880 --> 00:29:13.480
of the week on our blog. On the website, we

468
00:29:13.839 --> 00:29:27.559
post special interviews, reports, new release news, we host cover reviews. Now.

469
00:29:28.400 --> 00:29:31.039
We do all of that on the website because not

470
00:29:31.119 --> 00:29:36.359
only is it my own my own publishing house, but

471
00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:45.319
it started as an indie horror community's support platform more

472
00:29:45.480 --> 00:29:49.880
than a publishing house, because I started as a reviewer

473
00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:53.720
and I didn't want to take that aspect away, because

474
00:29:53.799 --> 00:29:56.319
I had gotten to be pretty well known as well

475
00:29:56.359 --> 00:29:59.519
as my website got to be pretty well known as

476
00:29:59.599 --> 00:30:04.279
a big indie horror reviewer. So when I moved on

477
00:30:04.400 --> 00:30:07.079
to writing a lot more and taking a lot more

478
00:30:07.559 --> 00:30:11.000
on I had some reviewer friends that were like, hey,

479
00:30:11.039 --> 00:30:13.480
if you need help, So I was like, well, I'll

480
00:30:13.519 --> 00:30:15.480
just give you a page on the website, or I'll

481
00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:17.799
give you a day. And then, because it used to

482
00:30:17.799 --> 00:30:21.039
be they all had a page on the website, but

483
00:30:21.079 --> 00:30:23.680
since I was the only one they had access, I

484
00:30:23.839 --> 00:30:25.920
had to go in at the end of every week

485
00:30:25.960 --> 00:30:29.359
and post everybody's reviews to their page, and that was

486
00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:32.720
taking me like hours to do on the weekend. So

487
00:30:32.759 --> 00:30:37.359
we moved everything to the blog, which allows everyone to

488
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:40.119
just go in and post their own so that saves

489
00:30:40.160 --> 00:30:43.400
me a ton of time now, so they all post

490
00:30:43.519 --> 00:30:48.960
on the blog every single day, and then I post

491
00:30:49.160 --> 00:30:54.200
the interviews and cover reviews, and then of course all

492
00:30:54.240 --> 00:30:57.400
of our own stuff. The end of every week we

493
00:30:57.480 --> 00:31:03.799
do like a up which is either our news, whatever

494
00:31:04.279 --> 00:31:11.160
is going on in the industry, new release stuff, all

495
00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:16.279
of that. Let me see. And then about almost years

496
00:31:16.279 --> 00:31:18.880
ago now I decided that, oh, hey, I'm going to

497
00:31:18.920 --> 00:31:21.079
be a publisher too, because why not. I have plenty

498
00:31:21.119 --> 00:31:25.759
of time on my hands. But you know, it's thought, okay,

499
00:31:26.279 --> 00:31:29.960
So then I made that little an announcement and that

500
00:31:30.039 --> 00:31:32.119
kind of grew and went off the rails, and now

501
00:31:32.119 --> 00:31:36.799
I have like fourteen signed authors and no idea how

502
00:31:36.839 --> 00:31:40.359
that happened or why, but here we are, so we

503
00:31:40.759 --> 00:31:45.759
publish indi or of folks as well. And I also

504
00:31:46.119 --> 00:31:52.240
started to do some free lance editing about a year

505
00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:55.079
and a half in so about twenty twenty one, the

506
00:31:55.119 --> 00:31:57.880
end of twenty twenty one, I started that, and I

507
00:31:57.960 --> 00:32:03.599
started to learn from other indie presses, and then I

508
00:32:03.759 --> 00:32:07.000
offer to do some editing for free for some of

509
00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:09.000
the folks I already knew and some of the people

510
00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:14.400
in the industry. I kind of like made my review

511
00:32:16.759 --> 00:32:21.119
reputation that way by just editing for free for folks

512
00:32:21.160 --> 00:32:24.799
and learning and learning learning, And now I do that

513
00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:27.319
as well, and I do have a person that works

514
00:32:27.559 --> 00:32:30.799
with me on that as well, so we do to

515
00:32:30.920 --> 00:32:38.759
three sixty editing, which is me and him, and we

516
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:43.400
edit for a couple of the indie presses now, and

517
00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:47.759
I've edited for any I think a little over sixty

518
00:32:47.799 --> 00:32:52.319
different indie authors now and dresses and publishers and as

519
00:32:52.359 --> 00:32:54.000
well as all of my own stuff and all my

520
00:32:54.039 --> 00:33:00.400
own author stuff. And I have two awards for the

521
00:33:00.519 --> 00:33:07.880
editing that I've done. And we also offer reviews on

522
00:33:08.119 --> 00:33:12.359
the website too, so it's not just what my reviewers

523
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:16.240
read on their own like we have indie horror folks

524
00:33:16.240 --> 00:33:19.480
that actually go on to the website and they send

525
00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:22.319
us their stuff like right there, and that all goes

526
00:33:22.359 --> 00:33:25.799
to the team and then they just read through that

527
00:33:26.279 --> 00:33:27.039
list of stuff.

528
00:33:27.279 --> 00:33:31.359
So yeah, that's that's a lot. I'm really interested in

529
00:33:31.400 --> 00:33:38.000
that utilizing your three sixty editing myself because it's affordable.

530
00:33:38.519 --> 00:33:39.680
Yeah, that's that.

531
00:33:39.920 --> 00:33:43.440
Even the three sixty is like the if I'm I

532
00:33:43.480 --> 00:33:45.559
read into it, and I'm pretty sure the three sixty

533
00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:50.000
is like the cap off, like that's the highest that

534
00:33:50.079 --> 00:33:53.279
you'll charge somebody is three hundred and sixty dollars, and

535
00:33:53.359 --> 00:33:55.039
that right there is a deal.

536
00:33:57.640 --> 00:34:03.279
Very much aware of that one. I needed the extra

537
00:34:03.599 --> 00:34:07.839
income because when I started all this, I had recently

538
00:34:08.920 --> 00:34:14.239
moved out of my house and became a single woman

539
00:34:14.280 --> 00:34:17.719
again with you know, kids at home and all the

540
00:34:17.719 --> 00:34:20.400
bills of had my own again and all that. So

541
00:34:20.519 --> 00:34:24.519
I kind of needed the extra income as well as

542
00:34:25.519 --> 00:34:29.159
remembering what my first novel looked like when I published

543
00:34:29.199 --> 00:34:31.840
it and didn't have an editor and didn't really know anybody.

544
00:34:32.280 --> 00:34:35.199
I'm really really good at English, you know, I have

545
00:34:35.360 --> 00:34:36.719
been my whole life, and I was like, oh, I

546
00:34:36.760 --> 00:34:42.039
don't need an editor. It doesn't matter who you are, Yeah,

547
00:34:42.119 --> 00:34:46.079
you do, because what happens is you're so close to

548
00:34:46.159 --> 00:34:48.719
that story for so long and so many months that

549
00:34:48.840 --> 00:34:52.519
your brain automatically fills in what you think you wrote

550
00:34:52.639 --> 00:34:54.400
or what you know you're supposed to be reading on

551
00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:58.360
the page. But it's not there. It's not there, you know,

552
00:34:58.519 --> 00:35:03.119
and it doesn't matter. You cant ad eyes like you

553
00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:08.559
need another person to look at that. And also at

554
00:35:08.559 --> 00:35:11.840
the time, like I could not have afforded any one

555
00:35:11.960 --> 00:35:14.800
of these editors that I have met in the industry,

556
00:35:15.719 --> 00:35:19.800
and even right now I probably still cannot afford any

557
00:35:19.840 --> 00:35:22.800
of them. And not to say that they're not worth it.

558
00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:26.719
I'm sure they are, and I know personally that many

559
00:35:26.719 --> 00:35:30.159
of them are. They're fantastic of what they do. I'm

560
00:35:30.159 --> 00:35:33.320
also very very good at what I do. Is just

561
00:35:33.400 --> 00:35:37.719
a matter of when I started. One of the biggest

562
00:35:37.719 --> 00:35:42.639
complaints I heard from new folks like me, the readers

563
00:35:42.719 --> 00:35:45.719
were ripping everyone apart that was new because oh, they

564
00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:48.199
need they don't have an editor, they don't have an editor.

565
00:35:48.280 --> 00:35:50.800
They don't have an editor. Well, okay, but they're new

566
00:35:50.880 --> 00:35:53.440
and they're trying, and hey, you try writing a book.

567
00:35:53.760 --> 00:35:56.559
But that kind of stuck with me and I was like, well,

568
00:35:57.440 --> 00:36:01.920
I could use the extra income. I'm not really in

569
00:36:02.039 --> 00:36:04.159
this end of it to make a lot, but it

570
00:36:04.199 --> 00:36:07.159
would help me a little extra with what I need

571
00:36:07.199 --> 00:36:10.239
to pay every month. And I could help the newer

572
00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:14.679
folks actually get eyes on their book, teach them, you

573
00:36:14.679 --> 00:36:17.000
know how, to what they've missed, you know how you

574
00:36:17.079 --> 00:36:20.400
do really need an editor, and also keep it very

575
00:36:20.519 --> 00:36:25.519
very affordable for a new indie author or someone who's

576
00:36:25.559 --> 00:36:29.400
maybe having a rough ton time right now to get

577
00:36:29.679 --> 00:36:34.920
quality editing that they can afford and put a book

578
00:36:34.960 --> 00:36:38.079
out into the world that a reader is not going

579
00:36:38.119 --> 00:36:38.719
to rup apart.

580
00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:44.840
Yeah, I love that. Do you do you edit I

581
00:36:45.039 --> 00:36:48.599
because I just well, I didn't. In twenty twenty, I

582
00:36:48.719 --> 00:36:51.840
paid over one thousand dollars I think it was closer

583
00:36:51.880 --> 00:36:57.360
to fifteen hundred dollars to and for a book that

584
00:36:57.440 --> 00:37:00.320
I wrote and it's not out yet. It was out,

585
00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:04.000
but it went unpublished and I wanted it edited again

586
00:37:04.159 --> 00:37:08.119
because I knew that the it wasn't edited properly the

587
00:37:08.119 --> 00:37:12.000
first time around. Right, So, like I said, I heard

588
00:37:12.039 --> 00:37:14.719
that editor and they were very good, very thorough, But

589
00:37:14.760 --> 00:37:17.880
I was still working that job. So that thousand dollars

590
00:37:17.880 --> 00:37:19.760
that I spent on that just sort of sat for

591
00:37:19.800 --> 00:37:22.960
like four years without me doing anything with it. But

592
00:37:23.039 --> 00:37:26.239
I've recently gone through those edits and I just finished

593
00:37:26.239 --> 00:37:29.000
them last week. It took me like six months to

594
00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:33.599
go through those edits. There were so detailed, but it

595
00:37:33.679 --> 00:37:36.320
was it was worth it. But you know, it's very

596
00:37:36.440 --> 00:37:38.079
I'm not going to make that money back. There's no

597
00:37:38.159 --> 00:37:39.039
way I'm going to make that.

598
00:37:39.639 --> 00:37:43.039
And that is a large part of it as well,

599
00:37:43.119 --> 00:37:48.920
because the editing is so expensive. And again, don't get

600
00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:52.519
me wrong, it's worth it. A good editor is worth

601
00:37:52.639 --> 00:37:56.119
every penny you're going to pay them. But problem is

602
00:37:56.280 --> 00:38:00.239
when you're newer, or you were not established yet, or

603
00:38:00.360 --> 00:38:04.079
you're trying to you're just struggling to make ends meet,

604
00:38:04.159 --> 00:38:09.000
and it's your first novel, or you're third and you're

605
00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:11.559
not established yet, you're not well known yet, and you're

606
00:38:11.679 --> 00:38:16.239
still trying to build a reader ship up. It doesn't

607
00:38:16.280 --> 00:38:20.920
really matter how much you spend on editing. Chances are

608
00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:23.440
you're not going to make that money back with that

609
00:38:23.599 --> 00:38:27.280
first one or that second one. It takes time to

610
00:38:27.360 --> 00:38:29.760
build the readers up. It takes time to get your

611
00:38:29.840 --> 00:38:31.360
name out there and to get the word out there

612
00:38:31.360 --> 00:38:34.800
and get the reviews out there. Whatever you're spending for

613
00:38:34.840 --> 00:38:38.159
that first one or two or three worth it for

614
00:38:38.559 --> 00:38:42.239
the story. Yes, And that's great, and you do want

615
00:38:42.280 --> 00:38:44.079
good work out there, and you do want it to

616
00:38:44.079 --> 00:38:48.480
be edited. But yeah, you're not going to make that money.

617
00:38:49.039 --> 00:38:51.159
It's going to be like book number four or five,

618
00:38:51.400 --> 00:38:54.559
you know, whenever you start to see like some traction

619
00:38:55.079 --> 00:38:57.880
the games and all that. So I keep everything low

620
00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:00.480
because it's like, I know that, and I know what

621
00:39:00.519 --> 00:39:03.880
that feels like. Because Breach didn't sell anything for like

622
00:39:03.920 --> 00:39:06.840
two and a half years. Breach didn't move a mark.

623
00:39:06.960 --> 00:39:11.639
It sawd maybe like ten to yeah. Yeah, But by

624
00:39:11.719 --> 00:39:14.039
then I had moved on. I'm like, well that's out there,

625
00:39:14.079 --> 00:39:15.840
and I wrote Breach too, and then I wrote Hank

626
00:39:15.880 --> 00:39:18.639
Flynn and then I won the award for Bakers Doesn't.

627
00:39:18.679 --> 00:39:22.719
But by then people were going back and now they're

628
00:39:22.760 --> 00:39:25.599
reading Breach and they're reading Being on the Breach and

629
00:39:25.599 --> 00:39:29.000
they're reading that. So the books are there and they're good,

630
00:39:29.239 --> 00:39:32.480
and they're edited as they should be. So whenever they

631
00:39:32.519 --> 00:39:37.679
do go back, they'll find a good story, well edited waiting.

632
00:39:38.199 --> 00:39:40.840
But it's just a matter of in those first couple

633
00:39:40.920 --> 00:39:43.360
of years, you're probably not going to make that money back.

634
00:39:43.599 --> 00:39:47.280
Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. That

635
00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:50.159
book the first time around made no money at all,

636
00:39:51.199 --> 00:39:53.760
and same with I released a collection way back in

637
00:39:53.760 --> 00:39:57.920
twenty twelve and that I don't know how much it made,

638
00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:00.519
but it was like less than probably t dollars. I

639
00:40:00.559 --> 00:40:02.920
think I got a ten dollars check from Amazon for that,

640
00:40:03.039 --> 00:40:05.880
but that was about it. But I do you guys

641
00:40:06.199 --> 00:40:11.079
does editing three sixty? Do do you guys edit short

642
00:40:11.119 --> 00:40:12.239
story collections as well?

643
00:40:13.719 --> 00:40:14.079
Yeah?

644
00:40:14.199 --> 00:40:17.400
Yeah, I'm okay. I'm probably gonna hook you hook up

645
00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:21.079
with you within the short future. The book I was

646
00:40:21.119 --> 00:40:23.360
just talking about, I'm releasing in about a month or

647
00:40:23.440 --> 00:40:25.639
month and a half from now. I haven't got a

648
00:40:25.719 --> 00:40:28.280
specific date yet. But after that, I've already got the

649
00:40:28.280 --> 00:40:30.360
stories lined up. But you know, I just want to

650
00:40:31.199 --> 00:40:34.519
do some other stuff first. But yeah, I'm gonna hook

651
00:40:34.599 --> 00:40:39.920
I'm gonna hook up with that. So I've heard through

652
00:40:39.960 --> 00:40:41.800
the grape vine that you don't sleep much.

653
00:40:42.400 --> 00:40:45.880
No, everyone knows that I don't sleep much.

654
00:40:46.239 --> 00:40:47.400
How much sleep would you say?

655
00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:50.400
You get about three and a half to four and

656
00:40:50.480 --> 00:40:52.679
a half hours a night?

657
00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:57.480
Ouch. Is that something that you've always suffered or is

658
00:40:57.519 --> 00:41:02.320
it a sin, I a lot, and so it will

659
00:41:02.360 --> 00:41:05.599
be your own internal clock then, because oh man, I

660
00:41:05.639 --> 00:41:07.559
would you know, I kind of are you tired all

661
00:41:07.559 --> 00:41:09.480
the time, because I wish I could sleep that little.

662
00:41:09.800 --> 00:41:14.679
I am now like I'm older, now, I'm I'm old.

663
00:41:17.639 --> 00:41:22.360
I'm more tired now recently, maybe in the last year

664
00:41:22.440 --> 00:41:25.039
or so, than I was in the first like four

665
00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:28.599
five years. But now, like I think it's more of

666
00:41:28.800 --> 00:41:34.400
a mental drain than actually being physically tired. Yeah, because

667
00:41:35.599 --> 00:41:39.280
the amount of things that I do now compared to

668
00:41:39.400 --> 00:41:44.880
when I when I started, it's amplified by about a thousand.

669
00:41:45.159 --> 00:41:50.320
So in my brain is always on, like it's always on.

670
00:41:51.159 --> 00:41:54.239
So which is why I work so much. Because I

671
00:41:54.280 --> 00:41:57.079
would try to go to sleep between nine thirty and

672
00:41:57.119 --> 00:42:00.400
ten thirty a night, depending, but I would late for

673
00:42:00.519 --> 00:42:03.039
just hours and hours and hours just be why the

674
00:42:03.039 --> 00:42:06.119
way my brain just does not shut up. So now

675
00:42:06.159 --> 00:42:08.440
I just work up until the point where I'm ready

676
00:42:08.559 --> 00:42:10.199
just to pass out. Then I go to bed and

677
00:42:10.199 --> 00:42:12.239
I pass out and I'm up again at five.

678
00:42:12.800 --> 00:42:18.360
Wow. Yeah, working like that though, I imagine you do you.

679
00:42:18.880 --> 00:42:21.800
I imagine that you do suffer from burnout here and there.

680
00:42:23.039 --> 00:42:25.679
If not a lot I don't know. But if you

681
00:42:25.760 --> 00:42:28.840
do experience burnout, how do you deal with it?

682
00:42:29.679 --> 00:42:32.119
I just move on to what I was next.

683
00:42:33.239 --> 00:42:36.239
You just keep going and you find the burnout will

684
00:42:36.239 --> 00:42:37.679
just kind of pass on its own.

685
00:42:38.320 --> 00:42:42.519
Well, I don't usually have that, so like I do,

686
00:42:42.679 --> 00:42:48.880
but I don't. And I can simply explain that by saying,

687
00:42:49.880 --> 00:42:53.079
I have so many things to do and so many

688
00:42:53.119 --> 00:42:56.559
different things right now that I'm working on and actively

689
00:42:56.679 --> 00:43:01.360
working on that if I get stuck on a particular story,

690
00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:05.679
I can just switch hats, Like I'll move on to

691
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:08.679
an edit job that I have, I'll on to my

692
00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:11.599
website and I'll post a bunch of blogs, or move

693
00:43:11.639 --> 00:43:15.280
on to the Patreon and post a bunch of Patreon posts.

694
00:43:15.400 --> 00:43:18.360
I'll move on to a different type of story, like

695
00:43:18.440 --> 00:43:21.239
maybe I'm working on a slasher, maybe I'm working on

696
00:43:21.880 --> 00:43:25.559
a grief you know story, or a short story. Like

697
00:43:25.639 --> 00:43:28.320
I have eight different projects that I'm working on right

698
00:43:28.360 --> 00:43:33.280
now and for editing jobs that I'm currently in the

699
00:43:33.280 --> 00:43:37.480
middle of, and my publishing house has three releases coming

700
00:43:37.519 --> 00:43:40.719
out the next two months. So like, I just kind

701
00:43:40.760 --> 00:43:47.760
of change hats because I do get stuck. But if

702
00:43:47.800 --> 00:43:51.360
I can think about something else and keep my brain

703
00:43:51.639 --> 00:43:54.880
just moving along onto the next and onto the next.

704
00:43:54.960 --> 00:43:56.800
Chances one when I go back to the thing that

705
00:43:56.840 --> 00:44:01.800
I was stuck on, I'm now I'm unstuck. So I

706
00:44:01.920 --> 00:44:04.679
just keep moving and just kind of change gears.

707
00:44:04.760 --> 00:44:06.880
And I know, I kind of know what you mean,

708
00:44:06.920 --> 00:44:09.920
because I'm the same with the show versus my own writing.

709
00:44:10.880 --> 00:44:12.679
If I get stuck on the writing, I'll just move

710
00:44:12.719 --> 00:44:15.719
over to like questions I want to ask a guest

711
00:44:15.719 --> 00:44:18.679
that's coming up, or maybe I'll just research that author

712
00:44:18.760 --> 00:44:22.800
for a while, or even maybe look for a new

713
00:44:22.840 --> 00:44:26.000
author I want to ask to come on the show.

714
00:44:26.679 --> 00:44:27.920
It does keep things fresh.

715
00:44:28.599 --> 00:44:32.039
That kind of gives you sort of a mental break

716
00:44:32.039 --> 00:44:35.639
from wherever you will stop. But meanwhile, it's like working

717
00:44:36.320 --> 00:44:38.719
all up here in the back. You know, It's like okay,

718
00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:44.239
because my brain doesn't shut off, and I use a

719
00:44:44.239 --> 00:44:48.760
lot of compartmentalization. It's a very long word. I get

720
00:44:48.800 --> 00:44:54.320
to it. Yeah, And I'm aware of that not everybody

721
00:44:54.440 --> 00:44:59.639
is capable of this, And I don't think I'm unique,

722
00:45:00.119 --> 00:45:02.599
because I do know some other folks that are like me.

723
00:45:03.239 --> 00:45:09.239
But like, I can work on multiple stories mentally in

724
00:45:09.480 --> 00:45:12.920
the background while I'm doing everything else because I don't

725
00:45:12.960 --> 00:45:16.559
write a first draft. I don't outline, I don't really

726
00:45:16.800 --> 00:45:20.400
take notes on anything. It's all done up here. Yeah,

727
00:45:20.639 --> 00:45:23.360
and then when my in my head, when I'm like

728
00:45:23.719 --> 00:45:26.880
that one's ready, Like when that story is ready to

729
00:45:26.920 --> 00:45:30.159
be written, when I can hear it, it's ready to

730
00:45:30.199 --> 00:45:32.679
be written, so I can just sit down and just

731
00:45:32.800 --> 00:45:33.280
write it.

732
00:45:34.519 --> 00:45:37.679
So what comes first to you? Is it the story

733
00:45:37.880 --> 00:45:41.239
I'd like, the situation, the what if situation? Or do

734
00:45:41.320 --> 00:45:42.440
the characters come first?

735
00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:48.519
I will get in idea for the story, regardless of

736
00:45:48.559 --> 00:45:51.400
how that comes, whether it could be what if a

737
00:45:51.440 --> 00:45:55.639
person did this? Or wouldn't this name be a good

738
00:45:55.960 --> 00:45:59.840
name for a character that maybe does this? In that

739
00:46:00.039 --> 00:46:06.559
and I get the character in my head once I

740
00:46:06.599 --> 00:46:09.599
hear them, then the story kind of starts, kind of

741
00:46:09.599 --> 00:46:10.639
working in the back.

742
00:46:11.960 --> 00:46:15.440
Excellent. How would you describe your your writing style?

743
00:46:16.320 --> 00:46:21.400
Yeah, all over the place.

744
00:46:23.840 --> 00:46:27.719
Whatever is it ever anything or has it ever been

745
00:46:28.960 --> 00:46:32.559
speaking of your writing voice or your writing style? Has

746
00:46:32.559 --> 00:46:35.079
it ever been anything that you've been concerned with? Because

747
00:46:35.199 --> 00:46:38.960
the reason why I ask this is because I see

748
00:46:38.960 --> 00:46:41.719
this all the time in forums and whatnot, people asking

749
00:46:41.719 --> 00:46:44.719
how do you find your writer's voice? But I've never

750
00:46:44.800 --> 00:46:47.360
had that problem. I just write the story. And I've

751
00:46:47.360 --> 00:46:54.159
never worried about my writing voice. Are you similar? I've

752
00:46:54.239 --> 00:46:56.559
kind of come to that, like should I worry about this?

753
00:46:57.440 --> 00:47:01.000
No, I was never really concerned about it. But it's

754
00:47:01.119 --> 00:47:07.239
one of those If you read through my work from

755
00:47:07.599 --> 00:47:10.960
Breach all though up until now, you're going to see

756
00:47:11.039 --> 00:47:15.480
the improvement, like the growth. There's a lot of growth

757
00:47:15.519 --> 00:47:18.599
between that first one and where I am now, and

758
00:47:19.800 --> 00:47:23.880
that's a good thing. Like you want every book to

759
00:47:24.039 --> 00:47:28.639
be improved, you want every book to outshine the last one.

760
00:47:28.800 --> 00:47:30.880
That is a part of it. That's how you learn.

761
00:47:31.679 --> 00:47:34.559
I think my first couple of books are great, the

762
00:47:34.639 --> 00:47:38.039
stories are fantastic and everything. But I'm also very much

763
00:47:38.079 --> 00:47:43.599
aware that I wasn't quite into my true like the

764
00:47:44.320 --> 00:47:48.599
voice that I am now. I finally have hit that

765
00:47:48.840 --> 00:47:51.480
in the last maybe two or three novels that I

766
00:47:51.519 --> 00:47:55.719
have written, and like I'm there now, like I know

767
00:47:55.920 --> 00:47:59.519
that I'm fully into how I am to write and

768
00:47:59.559 --> 00:48:04.480
how I want My story is the sound. And I

769
00:48:04.519 --> 00:48:08.320
think if you read enough of my work, if you're

770
00:48:08.480 --> 00:48:13.320
a fan of mine, you can read a short story

771
00:48:13.320 --> 00:48:17.119
of mind Blind and you'll you know it's me, Yeah,

772
00:48:17.320 --> 00:48:20.599
Like you'll be like, that's her, well, I feel like

773
00:48:20.599 --> 00:48:21.519
I'm there now.

774
00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:28.320
Yeah, I think so too. There's an interesting uh juxtaposition,

775
00:48:28.440 --> 00:48:32.079
I guess you could call it, and you're writing I

776
00:48:32.079 --> 00:48:34.079
don't know if that's the right word, but there's two sides,

777
00:48:34.199 --> 00:48:37.840
like you can be very brutal, but you can also

778
00:48:37.840 --> 00:48:43.800
be kind of tender at points, and that's not everybody can. Well,

779
00:48:43.840 --> 00:48:45.920
there's some people who just stick to the brutality, and

780
00:48:45.960 --> 00:48:48.440
then there's other people who stick to the tender, sort

781
00:48:48.480 --> 00:48:50.960
of quiet horror. But as you said at the beginning

782
00:48:51.000 --> 00:48:52.960
of this question, you're kind of all over.

783
00:48:54.079 --> 00:48:56.159
I can't write pretty much anything.

784
00:48:56.639 --> 00:48:58.199
Yeah, awesome.

785
00:48:58.320 --> 00:49:01.079
I also know I I know that now. I mean

786
00:49:01.159 --> 00:49:06.519
I will always write a horror story over anything else.

787
00:49:06.599 --> 00:49:09.760
But if I wanted to write a romance, I could.

788
00:49:09.840 --> 00:49:12.559
If I wanted to write a fantasy, I could. If

789
00:49:12.599 --> 00:49:14.840
I wanted to write anything else, I could. I don't

790
00:49:14.840 --> 00:49:19.719
want it, but I can because I know how it

791
00:49:19.800 --> 00:49:24.239
works now. And I've read thousands and thousands of romance

792
00:49:24.239 --> 00:49:28.599
books and Western books and supernatural and fantasy and romanticy.

793
00:49:28.960 --> 00:49:31.679
I've read them all, and I love them all. But

794
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:36.280
this is where my home is, and as far as

795
00:49:36.360 --> 00:49:39.639
my range, I can write anything from extreme horrors, about

796
00:49:39.639 --> 00:49:44.880
the punk to the grief and the loss, and the

797
00:49:44.960 --> 00:49:48.239
quiet horror and the creature feature and the mainstream horror,

798
00:49:48.639 --> 00:49:53.119
because I'm literally interested in every subgenre of horror there is.

799
00:49:53.159 --> 00:49:54.960
I want to play with it all, I want to

800
00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:57.639
be in all of it. And it's just one of

801
00:49:57.639 --> 00:50:00.079
the things that at first it was, Oh, why, I

802
00:50:00.119 --> 00:50:04.519
wonder if I could write something that really pushes my boundaries.

803
00:50:05.079 --> 00:50:07.239
So I did, and then it was like, well, hey,

804
00:50:07.920 --> 00:50:10.159
what if you did a comedic corror thing. And I

805
00:50:10.199 --> 00:50:13.280
was like, I don't really know if I could, But

806
00:50:13.320 --> 00:50:17.360
then I did and it went over very well, and

807
00:50:17.360 --> 00:50:19.119
people like, how in the world did you come up

808
00:50:19.119 --> 00:50:20.760
with that? I was like, I don't know, you know,

809
00:50:20.960 --> 00:50:23.880
but I found out that I could write that as well.

810
00:50:23.920 --> 00:50:25.880
And then I tried a Haunted House store and I

811
00:50:25.920 --> 00:50:27.880
was like, oh, but I wonder if I could pull

812
00:50:27.920 --> 00:50:30.760
this off, because that is my absolute number one favorite

813
00:50:30.800 --> 00:50:34.239
story to read is the haunted house story. And there's

814
00:50:34.280 --> 00:50:36.159
just such a way that you have to write them

815
00:50:36.199 --> 00:50:40.000
because the house, the house has to be, you know,

816
00:50:40.119 --> 00:50:43.440
the part of part of the story. It's a character

817
00:50:43.480 --> 00:50:45.840
in the story. And that was my one thing and

818
00:50:45.920 --> 00:50:48.000
I was just like, oh, my god, I don't know

819
00:50:48.039 --> 00:50:51.639
if I could pull this off, Like the atmosphere has

820
00:50:51.719 --> 00:50:54.679
to be like on point in the storyline and just everything.

821
00:50:54.920 --> 00:50:57.480
And I wrote one of those and everybody loved it,

822
00:50:57.519 --> 00:50:59.239
and I was like, well, I guess I could do that.

823
00:50:59.639 --> 00:51:02.800
And there's a horror of Westerns which I'm writing now

824
00:51:02.880 --> 00:51:05.960
with Hank. Hank Flynn was my first one of those,

825
00:51:06.039 --> 00:51:09.920
and love Hank, so I'm continuing Hank and.

826
00:51:11.719 --> 00:51:13.599
Talk about some brutality.

827
00:51:13.880 --> 00:51:17.519
I mean, I was raised on a horror like horror

828
00:51:17.679 --> 00:51:23.079
movies everything Dracula and Slashers and Jason Friday the Thirteenth

829
00:51:23.159 --> 00:51:27.280
in Texas, like everything supernatural all the way up, and

830
00:51:27.480 --> 00:51:31.199
I just I think it's all just great. And so

831
00:51:31.400 --> 00:51:36.039
far I've not tried a trope or concept or a

832
00:51:36.320 --> 00:51:40.719
style that is out there that I haven't done pretty

833
00:51:40.760 --> 00:51:44.760
well at I won't say great. I'm sure not every

834
00:51:44.800 --> 00:51:48.239
single one of my stories is fantastic, but I feel

835
00:51:48.239 --> 00:51:51.840
like I have done a pretty good job with everything

836
00:51:51.880 --> 00:51:54.960
that I have tried, and everything after that I've only

837
00:51:55.239 --> 00:52:00.559
improved on because you learn with every single story, so

838
00:52:01.159 --> 00:52:03.719
like you just adding that stuff that you've learned and

839
00:52:03.840 --> 00:52:05.519
you just make it better.

840
00:52:05.800 --> 00:52:10.519
Just keep going so yeah, absolutely, everything I've read of

841
00:52:10.599 --> 00:52:13.039
yours has been great so far. But I feel like

842
00:52:13.119 --> 00:52:20.000
I'm just tipping the tip of the iceberg here. I remember, though,

843
00:52:20.039 --> 00:52:23.400
when I first heard about you, it was with the

844
00:52:23.440 --> 00:52:26.519
book Bishop. I haven't read that one yet, but it

845
00:52:26.559 --> 00:52:29.800
was a lot of people on book Tube I was

846
00:52:29.840 --> 00:52:33.159
talking about Bishop, but I think it got rather popular

847
00:52:33.199 --> 00:52:38.559
on TikTok as well. Was the popularity of Bishop? Was

848
00:52:38.559 --> 00:52:42.480
that a turning point in your writing it all? And

849
00:52:42.599 --> 00:52:46.440
people who maybe you haven't networked with yet, like reaching

850
00:52:46.480 --> 00:52:47.320
a farther audience.

851
00:52:47.639 --> 00:52:55.320
Yeah, it was huge for me. I think between the

852
00:52:55.400 --> 00:53:04.320
combination of well, it was the Splatterpunk Award nomination in

853
00:53:04.360 --> 00:53:07.760
twenty one, they kind of put me on the map,

854
00:53:08.760 --> 00:53:11.119
and then when I won it in twenty twenty two,

855
00:53:12.559 --> 00:53:17.679
I had already announced that I was writing that Bishop,

856
00:53:17.760 --> 00:53:21.159
and then that came out the very next spring. So

857
00:53:21.199 --> 00:53:26.920
it's like between the two like kind of really put

858
00:53:26.960 --> 00:53:29.719
me on the map with as far as a bunch

859
00:53:29.760 --> 00:53:36.239
of new authors and establish authors and bigger authors readers,

860
00:53:36.360 --> 00:53:41.000
and then of course the whole bookstagram crowd and the

861
00:53:41.039 --> 00:53:44.599
TikTok crowd and the reviewers, like people started to reach

862
00:53:44.639 --> 00:53:47.880
out and people started like going backwards and reading my

863
00:53:47.960 --> 00:53:50.920
work and finding all of my other stories and all

864
00:53:50.960 --> 00:53:57.840
these anthologies, and those two events certainly helped me get

865
00:53:57.880 --> 00:53:59.440
to where I am now.

866
00:53:59.559 --> 00:54:05.440
So yeah, yeah, I first started reading you at the

867
00:54:05.519 --> 00:54:11.079
very beginning of this year twenty twenty five. The first

868
00:54:11.119 --> 00:54:14.280
book of yours I read with shadow Manor. I absolutely

869
00:54:14.320 --> 00:54:16.679
loved it, and it was one of those things where

870
00:54:16.679 --> 00:54:18.519
I had like a whole bunch of guests I had

871
00:54:18.519 --> 00:54:20.000
to get to and I was like, I really want

872
00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:22.280
to ask Candace to come on the show, but it

873
00:54:22.360 --> 00:54:24.519
kind of went to the back burner, and so here

874
00:54:24.559 --> 00:54:31.760
we are in October finally talking. But we corresponded by email.

875
00:54:32.119 --> 00:54:35.239
You mentioned that shadow manner. You're really proud of that one.

876
00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:38.880
Can you talk about it? I feel like not enough

877
00:54:38.920 --> 00:54:41.519
people are talking about this book online and I love it,

878
00:54:42.039 --> 00:54:44.639
so I also want to know why you're proud of

879
00:54:44.639 --> 00:54:45.360
it as well.

880
00:54:46.480 --> 00:54:50.719
Because it was the first Haunted House story that I

881
00:54:50.760 --> 00:54:58.480
had written like that, and also it was the second

882
00:55:00.159 --> 00:55:05.800
vella I Guess that I wrote after I knew I

883
00:55:05.840 --> 00:55:11.719
had come into my actual style of writing. That one's

884
00:55:11.800 --> 00:55:14.719
just all me going through and when I sat down

885
00:55:14.760 --> 00:55:18.960
to actually write that that one, it just came out.

886
00:55:19.280 --> 00:55:21.679
I did not outline that one. It was not planned.

887
00:55:22.159 --> 00:55:27.440
I had a concept in mind. I knew what the

888
00:55:27.519 --> 00:55:33.679
two timelines were, like how I wanted to unfold the story,

889
00:55:34.400 --> 00:55:38.760
but beyond that, I just let it come out when

890
00:55:38.760 --> 00:55:41.800
I sat down to actually write it. Which was also

891
00:55:41.960 --> 00:55:45.239
kind of hard for me to do because I wrote

892
00:55:45.280 --> 00:55:51.800
that story live on my patriton each week, So I

893
00:55:51.880 --> 00:55:56.119
had to physically make myself stop every single week writing

894
00:55:56.199 --> 00:55:58.280
that story, even though I was in the zone and

895
00:55:58.360 --> 00:56:01.000
could have sat down it probably written it in a month,

896
00:56:01.639 --> 00:56:04.760
But every time I sat down to pick up the

897
00:56:04.840 --> 00:56:08.440
next part, it just came out, and it just flowed,

898
00:56:08.480 --> 00:56:10.159
and I didn't have to think about it. I didn't

899
00:56:10.199 --> 00:56:13.119
have to really go back over it and edit anything,

900
00:56:13.360 --> 00:56:16.239
revise anything like. There were a few like small things,

901
00:56:16.239 --> 00:56:18.559
but I wrote that one. So when I write a

902
00:56:18.639 --> 00:56:21.079
story live on their more or less, it's not like

903
00:56:21.119 --> 00:56:24.119
I'm on zoom or anything. But what I do is

904
00:56:24.239 --> 00:56:28.360
I wake up every Sunday morning about six o'clock, I

905
00:56:28.440 --> 00:56:31.320
come out here, I get my coffee, I sit down,

906
00:56:31.320 --> 00:56:34.519
and I write the next piece right then and there,

907
00:56:34.559 --> 00:56:37.039
and I post it when it was soon as it's done.

908
00:56:37.280 --> 00:56:39.639
I don't edit it. I don't revise it. I don't

909
00:56:39.760 --> 00:56:42.559
even read it over again. It gets posted. Whatever I

910
00:56:42.559 --> 00:56:46.719
wrote gets posted. And the point of it is is

911
00:56:46.760 --> 00:56:50.440
so they can kind of see how I write when

912
00:56:50.480 --> 00:56:54.119
it's raw, from you know, first draft, and then at

913
00:56:54.119 --> 00:56:59.599
the end of it they get the completed, fully edited, revised, rewritten.

914
00:56:59.719 --> 00:57:04.199
Here you go, and everyone on there gets that story

915
00:57:04.320 --> 00:57:07.519
about two weeks to a month ahead of everyone else.

916
00:57:08.119 --> 00:57:10.400
But if so they can see the Yay. I make

917
00:57:10.480 --> 00:57:12.800
mistakes too, and I mess things up too, and I

918
00:57:12.840 --> 00:57:15.000
have plot holes and I have things like that. But

919
00:57:15.119 --> 00:57:17.880
once you see it go from the raw like every week,

920
00:57:17.960 --> 00:57:19.880
every week, every week, you get this, and you get this,

921
00:57:19.960 --> 00:57:22.199
and you get this, and then the end you get this.

922
00:57:22.800 --> 00:57:27.320
You know. So that's not that one, but.

923
00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:31.000
That's really cool. Can you tell us what shadow Manner

924
00:57:31.079 --> 00:57:31.559
is about?

925
00:57:32.159 --> 00:57:39.199
Shadow Manner is? It is about a young woman who

926
00:57:39.840 --> 00:57:44.840
gets stranded on this date that goes really really wrong

927
00:57:45.920 --> 00:57:50.760
nineteen and she's just very angry at not only her date,

928
00:57:50.960 --> 00:57:54.360
but kind of at herself for not really listening like

929
00:57:54.440 --> 00:57:58.320
her mom and not paying attention like the red flags

930
00:57:58.400 --> 00:58:01.840
and what she really wanted. And she's just kind of

931
00:58:01.920 --> 00:58:07.159
an angry sort of misunderstood. Halfway there between being like

932
00:58:07.840 --> 00:58:11.880
a young girl to being a somewhat mature keen about

933
00:58:11.880 --> 00:58:13.880
to go into the world. And you know, she's right

934
00:58:13.920 --> 00:58:18.000
at that height of me me, me too, having to

935
00:58:18.079 --> 00:58:21.119
learn about the world itself and how her actions unpack

936
00:58:21.199 --> 00:58:25.559
everyone else around her and all of that. So she's

937
00:58:26.360 --> 00:58:29.960
walking trying to find somewhere to get home, but she's

938
00:58:30.039 --> 00:58:32.760
stuck in the middle of this massive storm and she

939
00:58:32.840 --> 00:58:33.599
finds this house.

940
00:58:34.719 --> 00:58:36.360
You know, yeah, it was just.

941
00:58:36.360 --> 00:58:38.880
Right a house in the middle of nowhere. And she

942
00:58:38.960 --> 00:58:41.360
finds this house and she walks into this house and

943
00:58:41.400 --> 00:58:44.880
she's like, oh my god, you know, like I can't

944
00:58:44.920 --> 00:58:48.159
be outside. But all the things go through her head,

945
00:58:48.320 --> 00:58:50.559
like what if there's like people in here? What if

946
00:58:50.559 --> 00:58:52.840
there's squatters in here? You know, what if? So she

947
00:58:52.960 --> 00:58:55.360
goes through all the things and tries to check out

948
00:58:55.480 --> 00:58:58.199
the whole house and everything, and she figures out, Okay,

949
00:58:58.440 --> 00:59:02.039
I'm empty, I'm just gonna hang out here and then

950
00:59:02.159 --> 00:59:04.880
in the morning, I'll call my mom and I'll make

951
00:59:04.920 --> 00:59:06.960
my way home or whatever. So she spends the night

952
00:59:07.000 --> 00:59:09.760
in this house and it's just this massive house and

953
00:59:09.800 --> 00:59:13.199
there's a library and there's this big dining room kitchens

954
00:59:13.239 --> 00:59:17.559
and everything, and it's this really lovely estate at one time,

955
00:59:18.039 --> 00:59:20.480
but now it's kind of sad and lone, lean old.

956
00:59:20.559 --> 00:59:26.679
And so as the night goes on, she starts exploring

957
00:59:26.960 --> 00:59:31.360
the house because why wouldn't you, you know, nothing, So

958
00:59:31.480 --> 00:59:36.920
she's exploring the house and she finds a journal and

959
00:59:37.079 --> 00:59:41.079
she opens it and she realizes that it's a handwritten journal,

960
00:59:41.280 --> 00:59:44.480
and from the first page or so, it reads like

961
00:59:44.679 --> 00:59:49.800
it once was it belonged to the woman who used

962
00:59:49.800 --> 00:59:53.519
to live there. So she takes it back downstairs with

963
00:59:53.559 --> 00:59:56.400
her to the library, because you know, her Manner has

964
00:59:56.440 --> 00:59:59.480
to have a library, you know, And of course she's

965
00:59:59.559 --> 01:00:01.960
chosen a library to hole up in for the night,

966
01:00:02.000 --> 01:00:05.519
because you know, books, right, yea. So she takes it

967
01:00:05.559 --> 01:00:08.400
back to town with her, and she starts to read it,

968
01:00:08.880 --> 01:00:14.239
and the journal starts to explain the story of the

969
01:00:14.280 --> 01:00:16.920
woman who used to live there and everything that went

970
01:00:17.000 --> 01:00:21.039
on in that house. But also the storm gets worse

971
01:00:21.320 --> 01:00:23.960
the night goes on, and she starts getting creeped out

972
01:00:23.960 --> 01:00:26.440
a little bit by what she's reading, and then she

973
01:00:26.480 --> 01:00:29.280
starts to see something out of the corner of her eye,

974
01:00:29.559 --> 01:00:34.280
and lo and behold, there's the Manners, not quite empty

975
01:00:35.119 --> 01:00:38.559
and she learns over the course of the night, the

976
01:00:38.639 --> 01:00:45.360
story of the actual house what occurred in that house,

977
01:00:46.239 --> 01:00:49.000
but she also learns a couple of things about her

978
01:00:49.000 --> 01:00:50.039
own life as well.

979
01:00:50.320 --> 01:00:56.880
And yeah, yeah, I like the gothic ghost story aspect

980
01:00:56.920 --> 01:01:00.039
to it. Was that something that you wanted to a

981
01:01:00.440 --> 01:01:03.320
sort of I want to say approach, but that's not

982
01:01:03.360 --> 01:01:06.440
the right word, but you know, do I guess?

983
01:01:06.599 --> 01:01:11.000
Yes? Yeah, that was the story that I was afraid

984
01:01:11.079 --> 01:01:11.880
actually write.

985
01:01:12.400 --> 01:01:14.039
Oh really, yeah.

986
01:01:13.599 --> 01:01:17.519
Because I love a haunted house story more than anything,

987
01:01:18.199 --> 01:01:20.719
and it was the one trope that I was like,

988
01:01:21.079 --> 01:01:25.119
I'm not sure if I can pull this off because

989
01:01:25.159 --> 01:01:29.360
I knew the house itself in the atmosphere or they're

990
01:01:29.440 --> 01:01:32.440
like fifty percent of the story if not. More like,

991
01:01:32.519 --> 01:01:35.840
you have to have that right in order for the

992
01:01:35.880 --> 01:01:38.719
person to feel like they're in a haunted house, like

993
01:01:38.760 --> 01:01:42.320
they're really reading something and that's creeping them out. And

994
01:01:42.360 --> 01:01:45.760
it's not just the story, but it's the atmosphere of

995
01:01:45.800 --> 01:01:48.880
where you have them, and it's the whole experience, and

996
01:01:48.960 --> 01:01:51.920
the house itself almost has to feel like it's a

997
01:01:51.960 --> 01:01:56.079
living part of the story. And that's my favorite aspect

998
01:01:56.079 --> 01:01:59.199
of any haunted house story, Like it's the house itself. Yeah,

999
01:01:59.320 --> 01:02:02.519
it feels like it's whispering all of the secrets.

1000
01:02:02.360 --> 01:02:03.719
The house as a main character.

1001
01:02:04.199 --> 01:02:04.599
Yeah.

1002
01:02:04.719 --> 01:02:04.960
Yeah.

1003
01:02:05.119 --> 01:02:06.880
I was like, I don't know if I can pull

1004
01:02:06.960 --> 01:02:09.559
this off, but I feel.

1005
01:02:09.360 --> 01:02:13.280
Like I think you did, right. I mean, yeah, I

1006
01:02:13.639 --> 01:02:15.920
read it and it made me a fan instantly, and

1007
01:02:16.760 --> 01:02:21.880
I loved it, And yeah, I hope it does well too, because,

1008
01:02:22.000 --> 01:02:24.039
like I said, I think more people. I think I've

1009
01:02:24.159 --> 01:02:26.360
I've added it to a list or two on my

1010
01:02:26.400 --> 01:02:31.239
book tube channel, and it might make the top ten

1011
01:02:31.480 --> 01:02:35.679
at the end of the year. I think it probably will. Yeah.

1012
01:02:36.280 --> 01:02:40.079
Uh so, yeah, yeah, it made me a fan. So

1013
01:02:40.559 --> 01:02:44.079
I love Haunted House. I like gothic stories. Yeah, And

1014
01:02:44.119 --> 01:02:45.679
at the time, I was kind of I was I

1015
01:02:45.719 --> 01:02:48.440
wouldn't say studying Gothic, but I was doing an episode

1016
01:02:48.519 --> 01:02:51.920
on this weird Reads podcast with a friend of mine

1017
01:02:52.039 --> 01:02:55.840
and we were we were diving into gothic fiction, and

1018
01:02:55.880 --> 01:02:57.480
so I was reading a bunch of books and yours

1019
01:02:57.639 --> 01:03:00.599
is one of them, and that was a lot of fun.

1020
01:03:01.559 --> 01:03:04.079
But you've recently released, like, you released a lot of books,

1021
01:03:04.079 --> 01:03:06.519
so you're every time I was like, okay, I'm gonna,

1022
01:03:06.559 --> 01:03:08.719
I'm gonna. We've been talking for a while that you're

1023
01:03:08.800 --> 01:03:12.199
we're going to be on the show, And every time

1024
01:03:12.239 --> 01:03:13.920
I look you up, you got a new book out,

1025
01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:16.199
and I'm like, oh no, I got to try to

1026
01:03:16.239 --> 01:03:20.159
read this maybe, but you recently released your second collection.

1027
01:03:20.400 --> 01:03:22.599
I believe it's your second collection of short stories. Is

1028
01:03:22.599 --> 01:03:23.960
that right? Violent Nights?

1029
01:03:25.599 --> 01:03:28.480
Violent Knights would be collection number four?

1030
01:03:28.840 --> 01:03:34.360
Oh wow, okay, so collection number four. And I read

1031
01:03:34.400 --> 01:03:37.400
a little bit into that just the other night, and

1032
01:03:37.519 --> 01:03:39.559
I read the first couple of stories, but I wanted

1033
01:03:39.599 --> 01:03:44.000
to talk about the second story, Skins, because that one

1034
01:03:44.159 --> 01:03:48.400
was like, Oh my god, what can you tell? Can

1035
01:03:48.440 --> 01:03:50.400
you talk about that story? And how did you come

1036
01:03:50.400 --> 01:03:53.960
to write it? It's it's a fascinating story. I loved it.

1037
01:03:54.480 --> 01:04:03.880
Yeah, Skins is yeah, wow. Believe it or not. Skins

1038
01:04:04.000 --> 01:04:12.719
is actually very emotional story. It's a very personal story.

1039
01:04:13.119 --> 01:04:24.920
It actually appeared in Jack Bantries Spotterpunk's Basement of Horror

1040
01:04:24.960 --> 01:04:27.880
about two and a half years ago, maybe almost three

1041
01:04:27.960 --> 01:04:32.920
years ago. But Skins is about a young woman who

1042
01:04:33.719 --> 01:04:40.440
struggles a whole lot with who she is and how

1043
01:04:40.480 --> 01:04:47.679
she is con continually rejected by anybody that she cares about,

1044
01:04:48.119 --> 01:04:53.280
whether it's a friend or her home life. Or a

1045
01:04:53.320 --> 01:04:57.280
new man or whatever, you know. With every attempt at

1046
01:04:57.280 --> 01:05:00.679
her trying to make friends or trying to you find

1047
01:05:00.719 --> 01:05:04.840
someone that loves her or whatever, she tries to reinvent

1048
01:05:04.960 --> 01:05:08.480
who she is to match what she thinks they want

1049
01:05:08.639 --> 01:05:12.599
her to be, rather than just allowing them to love

1050
01:05:12.639 --> 01:05:14.960
her for who she is and letting them find out

1051
01:05:15.039 --> 01:05:19.199
who she is, because she's been rejected so much that

1052
01:05:19.320 --> 01:05:22.559
she thinks, well, if I find out what they like

1053
01:05:22.679 --> 01:05:27.039
and what they're into and turn into that, and you know,

1054
01:05:27.119 --> 01:05:29.760
dressed like them, and start talking like them and you know,

1055
01:05:29.880 --> 01:05:33.559
look like them, then maybe they'll love me too, Maybe

1056
01:05:33.599 --> 01:05:36.320
they'll want to be my friend too, maybe they'll include

1057
01:05:36.360 --> 01:05:40.519
me too. And she's just so lonely and depressed and

1058
01:05:40.679 --> 01:05:45.639
just heartbreak and that every iteration of this just breaks

1059
01:05:45.639 --> 01:05:49.400
her more. It just it just doesn't work. It never

1060
01:05:49.599 --> 01:05:54.440
ever works. And when the story opens, she's on the

1061
01:05:54.519 --> 01:05:58.760
last one and she's finding out that the last person

1062
01:05:58.920 --> 01:06:02.880
she was with has rejected her once again, and of

1063
01:06:02.880 --> 01:06:05.719
course she goes and finds out who they are with,

1064
01:06:05.800 --> 01:06:09.440
and she tries to become the new person. She's like, look,

1065
01:06:09.480 --> 01:06:11.719
but I look just like her, Like, isn't this what

1066
01:06:11.920 --> 01:06:15.920
you and you don't understand. It's not that it's who

1067
01:06:15.960 --> 01:06:17.719
she is and she's like, but I looked just like

1068
01:06:17.800 --> 01:06:20.239
her like And it had nothing really to do with

1069
01:06:20.280 --> 01:06:24.480
her looks. It was just the personality of the person

1070
01:06:24.519 --> 01:06:28.079
that they had now found. It was who they were,

1071
01:06:28.239 --> 01:06:33.000
not they're outside or what they were into. It's just

1072
01:06:33.000 --> 01:06:37.840
who they were. And she comes to understanding no matter

1073
01:06:37.920 --> 01:06:42.679
what she does, or what she thinks, or what attempts

1074
01:06:42.719 --> 01:06:46.960
she tries to make to reinvent herself, no one wants

1075
01:06:46.960 --> 01:06:51.360
her in that way, like in that light like. She

1076
01:06:51.800 --> 01:06:55.800
just doesn't understand why, because her whole life, she's never

1077
01:06:55.880 --> 01:07:00.119
been wanted, she's never been accepted for who she is,

1078
01:07:00.159 --> 01:07:03.360
not ever, so she thinks she has to keep trying

1079
01:07:03.400 --> 01:07:07.280
to be someone else. So it opens up with that

1080
01:07:07.400 --> 01:07:13.679
last rejection, and ultimately she's making her way down to

1081
01:07:13.719 --> 01:07:18.159
the bridge and she's going to jump, and on her way,

1082
01:07:18.280 --> 01:07:23.559
she's removing the parts of her that aren't her. She's

1083
01:07:23.679 --> 01:07:28.440
stripping herself of everything, including yes, the skin that she

1084
01:07:28.599 --> 01:07:32.400
made to become like this other person that she thought

1085
01:07:32.719 --> 01:07:36.880
the last person wanted her to be. And at the bridge,

1086
01:07:36.920 --> 01:07:40.320
she finally becomes who she is, and for the first

1087
01:07:40.320 --> 01:07:43.880
time in her life. She's standing there, yeah, naked, but

1088
01:07:44.199 --> 01:07:49.320
she's standing there as who she is, vulnerable and sad

1089
01:07:49.440 --> 01:07:54.639
and broken and just she's just her, like there's nothing left,

1090
01:07:54.639 --> 01:07:57.320
there's no more acting left, there's no more mask left.

1091
01:07:57.639 --> 01:08:00.519
It's just her and all she ever wanted someone to

1092
01:08:00.559 --> 01:08:04.039
just see her, and as she is, just she just

1093
01:08:04.039 --> 01:08:08.880
wanted someone to see her. But as she's going through this,

1094
01:08:10.519 --> 01:08:15.039
she basically the whole story, almost almost the entire story,

1095
01:08:15.119 --> 01:08:19.239
unfolds in her fall, in the free fall from the bridge.

1096
01:08:19.239 --> 01:08:22.800
She's already jumped, she's on that first rail and she

1097
01:08:23.039 --> 01:08:27.520
takes that step and she's falling. The whole story unfolds

1098
01:08:27.600 --> 01:08:32.119
in that fall, and she's booked just like a line.

1099
01:08:32.159 --> 01:08:33.880
There's a couple of lines that I use in there

1100
01:08:33.960 --> 01:08:37.159
where it's like she blinks and you see another part

1101
01:08:37.199 --> 01:08:39.720
of her life, and then there's another blank, and it's

1102
01:08:39.720 --> 01:08:42.640
another part of her life. It's another rejection. It's another rejection.

1103
01:08:43.239 --> 01:08:46.520
But along the way you see the one person who

1104
01:08:47.000 --> 01:08:49.960
was trying to help her, who was actually her friend,

1105
01:08:50.560 --> 01:08:52.800
and he you come to see at the end of

1106
01:08:52.840 --> 01:08:55.159
it that he's sort of been like helping her and

1107
01:08:55.239 --> 01:08:58.239
like trying to like clean up after her and clean

1108
01:08:58.359 --> 01:09:01.199
up her messes because while he may not have wanted

1109
01:09:01.239 --> 01:09:04.800
her romantically, he was trying to be a friend and

1110
01:09:04.840 --> 01:09:08.159
he was trying to help her. And he also blames

1111
01:09:08.319 --> 01:09:13.880
himself for being that final rejection that he was trying

1112
01:09:13.920 --> 01:09:17.479
to like save her from herself before she ended up

1113
01:09:17.479 --> 01:09:21.199
in jail or worse. And he gets to the bridge

1114
01:09:21.560 --> 01:09:25.840
just before she hits the water, and in that final moment,

1115
01:09:26.439 --> 01:09:32.159
he sees her just her. He sees her as she was,

1116
01:09:32.279 --> 01:09:36.439
and he sees her for that little child that was

1117
01:09:36.520 --> 01:09:40.720
already so lost and broken and everything that she was,

1118
01:09:41.239 --> 01:09:43.800
and he just sees her without all the games and

1119
01:09:43.840 --> 01:09:46.680
all the masks and all the makeup and all the

1120
01:09:47.079 --> 01:09:53.359
He just sees her and she dies like just but

1121
01:09:53.479 --> 01:10:00.840
in that moment, that moment, she dies at rest because

1122
01:10:01.760 --> 01:10:06.600
she knows that in that moment when he connects with her,

1123
01:10:06.880 --> 01:10:10.920
their eyes meet and she she just knows he sees

1124
01:10:10.960 --> 01:10:15.960
me without the rest, he just sees me, and she

1125
01:10:16.119 --> 01:10:19.520
dies at rest. She dies, but she's for the first

1126
01:10:19.560 --> 01:10:25.439
time at peace because someone finally saw her for just her.

1127
01:10:25.960 --> 01:10:29.359
Yeah, it's very tragic, but I have to admit the

1128
01:10:29.439 --> 01:10:33.119
reason why that story really stuck with me is because

1129
01:10:33.159 --> 01:10:38.199
of maybe not trying to find my own identity, but

1130
01:10:39.359 --> 01:10:42.720
or trying to. Like it kind of spoke to like,

1131
01:10:43.119 --> 01:10:48.680
maybe the story could be a representation of neurodivergent masking,

1132
01:10:50.760 --> 01:10:53.920
trying to fit in with other people, because when you

1133
01:10:54.000 --> 01:11:00.640
just show yourself you're you're considered weird and people won't

1134
01:11:00.680 --> 01:11:03.119
accept you for who you really are, and so you

1135
01:11:03.159 --> 01:11:07.319
find yourself masking. I find myself doing that all the time,

1136
01:11:07.399 --> 01:11:10.079
even now, even if I'm not trying to mask, if

1137
01:11:10.079 --> 01:11:13.439
I'm with people I'm not comfortable with to be myself around,

1138
01:11:14.359 --> 01:11:18.119
the mask just comes on immediately and and I'm a

1139
01:11:18.159 --> 01:11:24.159
totally different person. And so I I've never read a

1140
01:11:24.199 --> 01:11:26.720
story quite like that before, and it really touched me.

1141
01:11:28.880 --> 01:11:32.880
The ending was just absolutely well, the whole thing is

1142
01:11:32.920 --> 01:11:35.760
absolutely tragic, but the way you know the end result

1143
01:11:35.880 --> 01:11:43.520
is just gut wrenching. Yeah, So how do you how

1144
01:11:43.560 --> 01:11:47.279
do you when you're first off, how do you decide

1145
01:11:47.319 --> 01:11:49.840
it's time to make a short story collection? And then

1146
01:11:49.920 --> 01:11:52.039
how do you go about picking the stories for it?

1147
01:11:56.359 --> 01:12:02.640
I don't know the first one. Well, what happened with

1148
01:12:02.840 --> 01:12:09.680
my first one? I was asked to do a series

1149
01:12:09.720 --> 01:12:18.560
of chap books for death Heads Press. Too Many S's

1150
01:12:18.600 --> 01:12:20.439
and now I'm I was like, which one was pooral

1151
01:12:21.920 --> 01:12:25.720
And that was before they changed hands and sold their

1152
01:12:25.880 --> 01:12:33.760
business to Dead Sky. So Death Heads Press was the publisher,

1153
01:12:33.840 --> 01:12:39.119
the original publisher for all of the splatter westerns, so

1154
01:12:39.159 --> 01:12:42.920
they sold all of that in their Everything Else to

1155
01:12:44.479 --> 01:12:48.039
ted Sky. In the midst of that, I had already

1156
01:12:48.119 --> 01:12:55.800
been asked and given a contract to write three chap books. Well,

1157
01:12:56.239 --> 01:12:59.680
ted Sky reached out afterwards and asked if they could

1158
01:12:59.760 --> 01:13:03.399
keep that, and they wanted to make it a collection instead,

1159
01:13:04.000 --> 01:13:07.800
and could I add a couple more stories. So that's

1160
01:13:07.840 --> 01:13:14.159
how my first collection was made, and that is Demons

1161
01:13:14.399 --> 01:13:20.520
in My Blood Strain, which came out about a year

1162
01:13:20.520 --> 01:13:23.119
and a half ago, So that's that one came out

1163
01:13:23.119 --> 01:13:26.840
with them. And this one ended up having six short

1164
01:13:26.840 --> 01:13:31.479
stories in it, plus one reprint that already had made,

1165
01:13:31.520 --> 01:13:35.239
and it opens with an opening home that I had

1166
01:13:35.279 --> 01:13:39.359
written that Matt Well, it is the title of the book.

1167
01:13:40.479 --> 01:13:44.079
So that was how the first collection was made. But

1168
01:13:44.920 --> 01:13:48.439
then I realized that I had so many short stories

1169
01:13:48.520 --> 01:13:51.560
out in so many different anthologies and what not in

1170
01:13:51.680 --> 01:13:55.000
the last few years, that I thought, well, why not

1171
01:13:55.239 --> 01:13:58.399
start collecting a few of these and put them out

1172
01:13:58.439 --> 01:14:01.600
in a collection and only make them available at the

1173
01:14:01.640 --> 01:14:04.520
conventions I went to for the first half of the year.

1174
01:14:05.319 --> 01:14:08.920
That gives the fans something new, and it gives them

1175
01:14:09.279 --> 01:14:12.279
a range of what I write, rather than just oh,

1176
01:14:12.399 --> 01:14:15.119
you just write extreme horror. Oh you just write this, Well,

1177
01:14:15.119 --> 01:14:18.439
now I write everything. Here you go. So what I did,

1178
01:14:18.720 --> 01:14:24.680
I took that, I tia and I ran with that.

1179
01:14:25.279 --> 01:14:27.399
So about two years ago I made the first collection

1180
01:14:27.640 --> 01:14:32.760
called Blush and Phone, and it has about eleven stories,

1181
01:14:32.800 --> 01:14:35.399
I think, and there's some flash fiction pieces in there.

1182
01:14:36.000 --> 01:14:39.119
There are some extreme horror stories, there's some comedic stories,

1183
01:14:39.159 --> 01:14:41.439
there's some mainstream It gives you just like a nice

1184
01:14:41.520 --> 01:14:45.359
range of everything that I have out there. So if

1185
01:14:45.399 --> 01:14:47.760
you've only read me for my extreme work, well now

1186
01:14:47.800 --> 01:14:50.199
you're exposed to everything else that I've written. If you've

1187
01:14:50.239 --> 01:14:52.439
only read me for the mainstream one, now you exposed

1188
01:14:52.439 --> 01:14:54.600
to hey, that's a little bit more behind me. You know. Like,

1189
01:14:55.399 --> 01:14:57.680
it just gives everyone just a nice little range of

1190
01:14:57.680 --> 01:15:02.520
what I do, and people really liked it. So I

1191
01:15:02.600 --> 01:15:05.800
continued that. So about every six months, I go back

1192
01:15:05.840 --> 01:15:09.359
through all of my old anthos stories that I'm allowed

1193
01:15:09.399 --> 01:15:14.039
to now print or re re release now and I

1194
01:15:14.199 --> 01:15:19.960
make them like a con exclusive book for the first

1195
01:15:20.279 --> 01:15:24.119
half of the year, and when those six months are up,

1196
01:15:24.359 --> 01:15:27.319
I release it and then I make a new one,

1197
01:15:27.560 --> 01:15:29.640
So about every six months or so, there's just a

1198
01:15:29.680 --> 01:15:30.239
new one out.

1199
01:15:30.920 --> 01:15:35.119
Nice. I also wanted to touch briefly on Hank Flynn.

1200
01:15:35.359 --> 01:15:39.239
I read the first book and it was awesome. It's

1201
01:15:39.359 --> 01:15:43.159
it's your Western horror, and it's a really interesting take

1202
01:15:43.439 --> 01:15:50.039
on the weird Western horror subgenre of horror. Can you

1203
01:15:50.079 --> 01:15:53.039
can you you recently? I believe it was in August.

1204
01:15:53.239 --> 01:15:55.920
I could be wrong, but sometime in the summer you

1205
01:15:56.000 --> 01:15:59.039
release the Return, Hank Flynn, the Return, So can you

1206
01:15:59.079 --> 01:16:02.279
can you talk about those books briefly, what they're about,

1207
01:16:02.439 --> 01:16:06.640
and because the first one was awesome, I haven't gotten

1208
01:16:06.640 --> 01:16:07.640
to the second one yet.

1209
01:16:08.960 --> 01:16:13.760
Well. I came up with the idea for Hank Flinn

1210
01:16:14.039 --> 01:16:19.800
when everybody who was writing the Spotter Westerns for and

1211
01:16:19.880 --> 01:16:21.720
I was like, well, what if you know? And at

1212
01:16:21.760 --> 01:16:26.640
the time, not that I'm jealous anything, I wasn't known

1213
01:16:26.800 --> 01:16:30.079
enough yet for them to have asked me. You know,

1214
01:16:30.199 --> 01:16:34.319
I knew the people who owned that particular press and

1215
01:16:34.359 --> 01:16:38.479
who the publishers were. I just wasn't quite like I

1216
01:16:38.600 --> 01:16:42.079
just wasn't quite there yet, like I was still new,

1217
01:16:42.359 --> 01:16:44.600
but I was like, what a cool thing, though, Like,

1218
01:16:44.840 --> 01:16:48.319
what a cool thing? A splatter West Western. Now I

1219
01:16:48.359 --> 01:16:51.760
am a fan of Westerns and mustard babies and things,

1220
01:16:51.840 --> 01:16:55.880
although probably the more newer, the more sort of violent ones.

1221
01:16:56.680 --> 01:17:00.239
I found some of the older Western babies be me

1222
01:17:00.239 --> 01:17:02.520
a little bit dry, you know, but I still was

1223
01:17:02.560 --> 01:17:04.680
a big I've always been a fan of the Wild

1224
01:17:04.760 --> 01:17:08.159
West though. I've always read like the historical books and

1225
01:17:08.319 --> 01:17:10.600
historical children's books and don't get me started on the

1226
01:17:10.600 --> 01:17:13.439
Little houstin Prairie because I have read them all, Like

1227
01:17:13.640 --> 01:17:16.119
I don't know why, but I just always have been

1228
01:17:16.159 --> 01:17:21.960
a big fan of that time frame whatever whatever reason.

1229
01:17:22.479 --> 01:17:25.319
So they started this whole thing with the spoder West,

1230
01:17:25.520 --> 01:17:29.479
just like how cool was that? Jake Horror and added

1231
01:17:29.560 --> 01:17:32.680
to that. So I was thinking about it, and I

1232
01:17:32.720 --> 01:17:34.079
was thinking about it, and I was thinking about it, and

1233
01:17:34.119 --> 01:17:37.960
I was talking to my dad, who got right on

1234
01:17:38.039 --> 01:17:41.960
board with my writing. So my dad and I didn't

1235
01:17:41.960 --> 01:17:46.399
always have the best relationship at all, like clashed a lot,

1236
01:17:47.760 --> 01:17:50.119
and it wasn't actually until I started to write that

1237
01:17:50.239 --> 01:17:53.920
him and I got to be closer and like he

1238
01:17:54.159 --> 01:17:57.119
just all he was all in, like, he just loved it,

1239
01:17:57.159 --> 01:17:59.159
and he was like, Yeah, what are you gonna write next?

1240
01:17:59.159 --> 01:18:02.239
Blah blah. So I told him about this flatter Western thing,

1241
01:18:02.239 --> 01:18:04.239
and I'm like, what about if I did a guy

1242
01:18:04.439 --> 01:18:07.000
like this, you know, And I kind of told him

1243
01:18:07.000 --> 01:18:09.760
what I had in mind, and he was helping me brainstorm,

1244
01:18:10.000 --> 01:18:14.880
and what it eventually came down to was he was

1245
01:18:14.920 --> 01:18:20.119
supposed to help me with the storyline and with some

1246
01:18:20.199 --> 01:18:26.560
of what Hank does in the story, because Hank is

1247
01:18:26.600 --> 01:18:32.279
a demon hunter more or less. And one thing we

1248
01:18:32.359 --> 01:18:35.600
haven't touched on yet in this is that my mom

1249
01:18:35.600 --> 01:18:38.039
and dad are paranormal investigators.

1250
01:18:38.279 --> 01:18:40.760
Oh really yeah, so my.

1251
01:18:40.760 --> 01:18:45.079
Whole life, they were always into, you know, hauntings and possessions,

1252
01:18:45.119 --> 01:18:50.760
and both of them have experienced quite a few paranormal

1253
01:18:50.800 --> 01:18:53.800
experiences and things like that. But another thing that he

1254
01:18:53.880 --> 01:19:00.600
was very much into was the demonology. So a lot

1255
01:19:00.640 --> 01:19:05.399
of the story was going to be based on what

1256
01:19:05.520 --> 01:19:13.520
he knew of the demons and some of you know,

1257
01:19:13.800 --> 01:19:16.039
the lore and things like that, and some of the

1258
01:19:16.079 --> 01:19:20.000
different things that he had read about with instances of

1259
01:19:20.039 --> 01:19:22.600
how they have appeared on Earth and things like that.

1260
01:19:23.680 --> 01:19:25.640
So he was actually supposed to help me with Hank.

1261
01:19:26.159 --> 01:19:30.039
And right before I started writing Hank, my dad died.

1262
01:19:31.239 --> 01:19:34.920
So Hank was actually postponed by almost a year because

1263
01:19:35.000 --> 01:19:39.640
I just couldn't write it. I just felt like, you know,

1264
01:19:39.720 --> 01:19:41.479
my dad was supposed to be here, He's supposed to

1265
01:19:41.479 --> 01:19:43.319
help me with this, Like I don't really know that

1266
01:19:43.439 --> 01:19:47.479
much about the temnology aspect. And my mom was like, yeah,

1267
01:19:47.479 --> 01:19:50.000
but you know enough, and she's like, we can research it,

1268
01:19:50.159 --> 01:19:51.880
Like I can help you. She's like, tell me which

1269
01:19:51.920 --> 01:19:53.399
ones do you want to do and things like that.

1270
01:19:53.479 --> 01:19:55.640
So we like talked about it and talked about it,

1271
01:19:55.640 --> 01:19:57.640
and I had to do a lot of research into

1272
01:19:57.680 --> 01:20:00.640
some different things and whatnot. But I finally ended up

1273
01:20:00.920 --> 01:20:07.840
writing Hank. And so Hank Flynn is immortal for a reason,

1274
01:20:08.319 --> 01:20:10.239
and if I say too much about it's going to

1275
01:20:10.319 --> 01:20:12.840
kind of ruin it. So I'm not going to really

1276
01:20:12.880 --> 01:20:18.119
explain right now why he's immortal. But basically, Hank has

1277
01:20:18.199 --> 01:20:23.640
been exiled from where he came from for a reason,

1278
01:20:24.159 --> 01:20:28.640
and now he's on Earth forever and ever to hunt

1279
01:20:28.880 --> 01:20:33.079
things that come up from Hell to try to hurt

1280
01:20:33.119 --> 01:20:37.800
the rest of mankind. It's the price that he feels

1281
01:20:37.880 --> 01:20:41.079
he has to pay for the crimes that he has

1282
01:20:41.159 --> 01:20:46.760
committed in the past, in his past. So you have

1283
01:20:46.840 --> 01:20:51.479
this Hank Flinn person who just fights the demons and

1284
01:20:51.520 --> 01:20:54.920
then he dies and then he gets swallowed up by

1285
01:20:54.920 --> 01:20:56.960
the earth and then you know, a day later, he

1286
01:20:57.000 --> 01:20:59.880
gets spit back out because he's not allowed to die.

1287
01:21:01.039 --> 01:21:04.000
But he dies over and over again because that's part

1288
01:21:04.000 --> 01:21:07.000
of it, that's part of the price he has to pay.

1289
01:21:07.079 --> 01:21:10.479
He dies, but then he spit back out because he's

1290
01:21:10.520 --> 01:21:12.680
not allowed to die. He's not allowed to be at peace.

1291
01:21:12.720 --> 01:21:15.960
Hank's not allowed to have that. Yeah, he dies and

1292
01:21:16.039 --> 01:21:17.840
he comes back. He dies and comes back. He does.

1293
01:21:17.880 --> 01:21:21.840
He comes back. So it's just him on this loop,

1294
01:21:22.680 --> 01:21:26.039
not looping through the same life. But it's just he

1295
01:21:26.119 --> 01:21:28.079
tracks down a demon, he does what he has to do.

1296
01:21:28.239 --> 01:21:30.800
He finds a demon, he kills a demon, lives out

1297
01:21:30.880 --> 01:21:33.520
that part of his life, and then when it comes

1298
01:21:33.600 --> 01:21:38.359
to an end, whenever it's determined that he is fulfilled

1299
01:21:38.920 --> 01:21:41.520
that part, that stage of that life that he is

1300
01:21:41.560 --> 01:21:46.840
in or that quest, he dies, comes back and now

1301
01:21:46.880 --> 01:21:51.680
he's in a new you know. So you have Hank

1302
01:21:51.720 --> 01:21:55.159
Flynn and the first one takes place in this town

1303
01:21:55.279 --> 01:21:59.319
called Protection, where he finally for the first time and

1304
01:21:59.479 --> 01:22:02.439
probably hundreds of years. He finds a home and he

1305
01:22:02.520 --> 01:22:06.239
actually is allowed to live there for quite a while

1306
01:22:06.319 --> 01:22:10.159
and have that life, like have a home there, and

1307
01:22:10.359 --> 01:22:14.840
he finds a wife and he becomes like part of

1308
01:22:14.880 --> 01:22:19.560
the town. But that's because what is coming for the

1309
01:22:19.600 --> 01:22:23.359
town hasn't quite ended yet. He's got a lot to

1310
01:22:23.399 --> 01:22:26.000
do there, so he's allowed to make that life there

1311
01:22:26.000 --> 01:22:28.760
and he lives there for quite a while until all

1312
01:22:28.800 --> 01:22:31.960
of these things comes past, and then at the end

1313
01:22:32.000 --> 01:22:35.840
of it, well there's just this horrific and ending because

1314
01:22:36.479 --> 01:22:40.920
don't forget, he's not allowed to actually be at peace.

1315
01:22:41.079 --> 01:22:44.760
So everything he's built and the happiness he has in

1316
01:22:44.800 --> 01:22:48.000
the piece that we think he has, he has to

1317
01:22:48.039 --> 01:22:51.880
give all that up and so somehow another he loses it.

1318
01:22:52.680 --> 01:22:57.079
But it's part of it and he knows it. But

1319
01:22:58.920 --> 01:23:01.319
it also helps me Hank who he is, and it

1320
01:23:01.359 --> 01:23:04.720
makes you care about Hank more than I think your

1321
01:23:05.079 --> 01:23:10.319
normally would. And it is a religious horror book as well.

1322
01:23:10.800 --> 01:23:13.600
I know everybody is into that, but it's not a

1323
01:23:13.720 --> 01:23:17.159
preachy religious horror thing. It's religious enough for you to

1324
01:23:17.239 --> 01:23:21.760
understand like where Hank comes from and why the things

1325
01:23:21.760 --> 01:23:24.000
occur in the book. The way that they occur in

1326
01:23:24.039 --> 01:23:25.880
the book, which I think I did add in some

1327
01:23:25.920 --> 01:23:31.840
pretty cool things in the book as well. But the

1328
01:23:31.880 --> 01:23:35.520
fun part of Hank being immortal in him coming back.

1329
01:23:36.199 --> 01:23:38.479
I can put Hank in any part of life, any

1330
01:23:38.560 --> 01:23:42.119
part of the world, any timeframe that I want, and

1331
01:23:42.279 --> 01:23:47.159
his continue and unfold and unfold. So there's gonna be

1332
01:23:47.199 --> 01:23:48.800
a lot more Hank.

1333
01:23:49.399 --> 01:23:52.000
That's exactly where I was going with that. I was like,

1334
01:23:52.039 --> 01:23:54.600
because you have book two out. It just came out,

1335
01:23:54.760 --> 01:23:57.479
and so I was wondering, is this going to be?

1336
01:23:57.800 --> 01:23:59.880
Do you think it'll be a long running series?

1337
01:24:01.000 --> 01:24:04.680
Long running? Not sure, depends on how my interest is

1338
01:24:04.720 --> 01:24:08.319
and how the reader's interest is in the book. But

1339
01:24:08.399 --> 01:24:11.520
I can safely say that right now I do have

1340
01:24:12.159 --> 01:24:17.199
the concepts for about six more written down.

1341
01:24:18.000 --> 01:24:23.720
Awesome, a lot of yeah maybe, huh, yeah, that's incredible.

1342
01:24:23.720 --> 01:24:28.079
I like that. Now, before we go, there is something

1343
01:24:28.199 --> 01:24:31.279
that you have coming out on October twenty eighth, which

1344
01:24:31.479 --> 01:24:34.560
just a few days from here. It's called At Midnight

1345
01:24:34.960 --> 01:24:39.359
They Feast and it's you plus two other authors. Can

1346
01:24:39.399 --> 01:24:41.920
you tell us what that is about?

1347
01:24:42.840 --> 01:24:49.159
Well, that one is a anthology of sorts. I guess

1348
01:24:49.239 --> 01:24:51.319
I would prefer to color the collection, but it's only

1349
01:24:51.359 --> 01:24:55.279
not because it's not just me. There are three stories

1350
01:24:55.520 --> 01:24:58.680
in there. There are two short stories written by the

1351
01:24:58.960 --> 01:25:02.560
co authors in the book, and then there's one long

1352
01:25:02.640 --> 01:25:06.640
novella length story that I wrote. And there is a

1353
01:25:06.680 --> 01:25:11.319
story behind how this project came about. But I was

1354
01:25:11.359 --> 01:25:16.800
asked to write a Halloween themed devella length story about

1355
01:25:16.840 --> 01:25:19.880
three years ago, and it was supposed to be for

1356
01:25:20.039 --> 01:25:25.319
a small press who was doing a series of novella

1357
01:25:25.560 --> 01:25:30.800
length and apologies that they were releasing like every three

1358
01:25:30.880 --> 01:25:34.960
or four months. And what had happened there was a

1359
01:25:35.119 --> 01:25:38.000
series of sort of just major life events that they

1360
01:25:38.159 --> 01:25:43.399
went through and ended up being moved in their military household,

1361
01:25:43.479 --> 01:25:46.119
and they kept getting moved around and things like that.

1362
01:25:46.159 --> 01:25:48.359
So the project kept getting pushed back and pushed back,

1363
01:25:48.439 --> 01:25:52.359
pushed back, and it eventually was just like, hey, we're

1364
01:25:52.399 --> 01:25:54.640
really sorry, but we're going to give you your rights back,

1365
01:25:54.720 --> 01:25:58.279
and you know, I'm like, that's fine, whatever, But I

1366
01:25:58.319 --> 01:26:00.560
had this novella, you know, I got the writes back

1367
01:26:00.600 --> 01:26:02.399
to in June that I don't what to do with.

1368
01:26:03.039 --> 01:26:04.680
And they were also like, do you want to cover

1369
01:26:04.920 --> 01:26:07.800
because the covers already done, it already paid for. We

1370
01:26:07.920 --> 01:26:10.840
really want someone to use it. But the cover was

1371
01:26:10.920 --> 01:26:13.600
beautiful and it was by an artist that I used

1372
01:26:13.680 --> 01:26:16.439
almost all of my work, but it didn't fit the

1373
01:26:16.439 --> 01:26:20.000
tone of my story. Like as a standalone it would

1374
01:26:20.039 --> 01:26:21.720
have been fine for what they had in mind, but

1375
01:26:21.800 --> 01:26:24.720
it didn't fit just my story. So I was like, Okay,

1376
01:26:24.760 --> 01:26:27.399
but what do I do? Because I really wanted to

1377
01:26:27.520 --> 01:26:30.520
use it, because I mean, the cover is fantastic. I

1378
01:26:30.600 --> 01:26:32.840
was like, oh, what if I asked and there were

1379
01:26:32.880 --> 01:26:35.560
these two new writers that I have recently met, and

1380
01:26:35.600 --> 01:26:37.680
I think their work is this amazing and I think

1381
01:26:37.720 --> 01:26:39.880
both of them are going to be names that you

1382
01:26:40.039 --> 01:26:46.159
really want to watch. And they are Casandra Celia and

1383
01:26:46.439 --> 01:26:50.840
Kat Delaney and their like new Inmustry, maybe a back

1384
01:26:50.880 --> 01:26:53.159
the last year and a half or so. And I

1385
01:26:53.199 --> 01:26:55.840
asked them. I was like, would you guys be interested

1386
01:26:55.960 --> 01:26:59.239
in writing a Halloween theme story? This is what I

1387
01:26:59.279 --> 01:27:03.039
want to do, is why? And I was like, just

1388
01:27:03.239 --> 01:27:07.279
make it one of these sort of events and it

1389
01:27:07.399 --> 01:27:12.880
had to be like a haunted house attraction, a corn

1390
01:27:13.000 --> 01:27:18.239
maize sort of like a Halloween a traction like event story.

1391
01:27:19.079 --> 01:27:22.039
I gave them a very very brief description of what

1392
01:27:22.159 --> 01:27:24.640
my story was, just so they wouldn't sort of write

1393
01:27:24.640 --> 01:27:27.960
something along the same lines. But what happened They ended

1394
01:27:28.039 --> 01:27:31.319
up both writing a story that could have taken place

1395
01:27:32.159 --> 01:27:36.399
in my story, so they all like and they did

1396
01:27:36.479 --> 01:27:39.479
not read mine. They still have not read mine. So

1397
01:27:40.039 --> 01:27:43.439
it like worked out perfectly because both of our stories

1398
01:27:43.479 --> 01:27:47.560
could have actually taken place where mine is. All this

1399
01:27:48.039 --> 01:27:53.439
kind of fit your three really nice Halloween theme stories

1400
01:27:53.479 --> 01:27:56.880
in that one. Yeah, and I didn't tell anybody. I

1401
01:27:56.920 --> 01:28:02.319
was like, surprise, just released it and yeah on the

1402
01:28:02.399 --> 01:28:03.039
twenty eighth.

1403
01:28:03.479 --> 01:28:05.760
Yeah, you just announced it, didn't you, like, just like

1404
01:28:05.800 --> 01:28:06.800
a couple of days ago.

1405
01:28:07.880 --> 01:28:08.800
A couple of days ago.

1406
01:28:09.199 --> 01:28:11.239
Yeah, that's crazy. I kind of like to read it.

1407
01:28:11.279 --> 01:28:15.479
I love Halloween stories and this is the perfect time

1408
01:28:15.520 --> 01:28:18.199
to read it, of course. I mean this will this

1409
01:28:18.279 --> 01:28:20.680
episode will probably come out after Halloween. In fact, I

1410
01:28:20.720 --> 01:28:25.279
know it will. But everyone's got to check that out

1411
01:28:25.319 --> 01:28:29.600
as well. So you write a lot and you publish

1412
01:28:29.680 --> 01:28:33.159
a lot. So is there anything that listeners can look

1413
01:28:33.239 --> 01:28:35.640
forward to that you can talk about right now? Both

1414
01:28:35.720 --> 01:28:39.279
Candice Nola and Uncomfortably Dark Fiction releases?

1415
01:28:41.359 --> 01:28:48.680
We just have White Flight just came out on the

1416
01:28:48.720 --> 01:28:55.000
Godless Platform and that is written by Peter o'keith and

1417
01:28:55.239 --> 01:29:00.359
it's called White Flight. It is a sort of urban

1418
01:29:00.560 --> 01:29:06.479
haunted house story with a very tragic story as well.

1419
01:29:06.640 --> 01:29:10.520
It's about a white mom and dad who adopt a

1420
01:29:10.560 --> 01:29:14.479
black child and when she's a teen, they move her

1421
01:29:14.520 --> 01:29:18.279
to a much more urban environment, hoping that she would

1422
01:29:18.279 --> 01:29:22.800
thrive more there, and they end up losing her instead

1423
01:29:23.079 --> 01:29:30.880
in a tragic accident. And it's a haunted house story.

1424
01:29:31.000 --> 01:29:34.479
It's a grief story, but it's also a very heavy

1425
01:29:34.520 --> 01:29:41.960
look at racial situations within America, and it's very very

1426
01:29:42.039 --> 01:29:45.880
well done, so that it will actually be out on

1427
01:29:46.000 --> 01:29:54.279
Amazon on November fifth and everywhere else. Our next release

1428
01:29:54.840 --> 01:30:02.920
is Jason Nikki. Sorry I get stuck on some words,

1429
01:30:03.359 --> 01:30:11.960
but his next novella is coming out on December fifth,

1430
01:30:12.159 --> 01:30:15.880
will be our next one, and it's about a group

1431
01:30:15.880 --> 01:30:19.000
of high school friends that reunite for like a weekend

1432
01:30:19.079 --> 01:30:23.439
trip and things just go horribly, horribly wrong in the

1433
01:30:23.479 --> 01:30:27.239
bad lands the name of story. So that is out

1434
01:30:27.279 --> 01:30:31.760
dexed and for me I have on my Patreon right now.

1435
01:30:31.800 --> 01:30:35.279
There's a story about to wrap up, and that would

1436
01:30:35.319 --> 01:30:41.560
be another sort of surprise wide release next in December,

1437
01:30:41.680 --> 01:30:44.680
not next month, so that will be out soon that'll

1438
01:30:44.680 --> 01:30:47.800
be in novella length. It'll probably end about twenty five

1439
01:30:47.880 --> 01:30:54.359
thousand words, and it's called The Barista. If you're a

1440
01:30:54.439 --> 01:30:55.920
coffee fan, you may not want to.

1441
01:30:59.119 --> 01:31:01.279
Are you going to try to own coffee on us?

1442
01:31:01.479 --> 01:31:05.600
I mean not really, but this one definitely leans a

1443
01:31:05.640 --> 01:31:06.680
lot more into.

1444
01:31:06.399 --> 01:31:09.560
My extreme side of the Okay, nice.

1445
01:31:10.279 --> 01:31:15.479
So there's that, and then Bishop III hopefully will be

1446
01:31:15.520 --> 01:31:18.680
out in the spring. We did have to push that

1447
01:31:18.760 --> 01:31:22.720
one back. It was supposed to be out earlier this year,

1448
01:31:23.359 --> 01:31:26.560
but my co author got sort of swamped with a

1449
01:31:26.600 --> 01:31:29.720
bunch of projects he had to write. And he writes

1450
01:31:29.720 --> 01:31:31.800
a lot like me, where once something is in his

1451
01:31:31.880 --> 01:31:33.840
head and it's ready to be written, like he just

1452
01:31:33.920 --> 01:31:36.319
has to get it out. And that's fine because I

1453
01:31:36.399 --> 01:31:39.319
write that way as well. But we do plan to

1454
01:31:39.319 --> 01:31:41.640
have that one out in the spring, and then I

1455
01:31:41.800 --> 01:31:46.640
do have about four other short stories and anthology stories

1456
01:31:46.640 --> 01:31:49.640
that'll be coming out in the next couple of months.

1457
01:31:49.960 --> 01:31:52.600
I have a Try Not to Die story that'll be

1458
01:31:52.640 --> 01:31:56.720
out next fall, and two more novels that I can't

1459
01:31:56.760 --> 01:31:57.720
talk about yet.

1460
01:31:57.840 --> 01:32:05.199
That'll be nice. So you're definitely keeping busy. Yeah, yeah, awesome. Well, uh,

1461
01:32:05.439 --> 01:32:07.880
I think I'm done for now, but you are definitely

1462
01:32:07.920 --> 01:32:11.479
invited to come back anytime you want, or maybe I'll

1463
01:32:11.520 --> 01:32:15.439
reach out and you and ask with certain release or whatever.

1464
01:32:15.840 --> 01:32:18.039
I would love to talk to you again. Yeah, and

1465
01:32:18.159 --> 01:32:22.199
I'm gonna I'm gonna maybe after Christmas, I'm gonna hit

1466
01:32:22.239 --> 01:32:25.199
you up for that editing three sixty. If you're not,

1467
01:32:25.319 --> 01:32:27.479
I hope you're not too too busy and that you

1468
01:32:27.640 --> 01:32:30.079
uh put a hold on that or anything.

1469
01:32:30.600 --> 01:32:37.960
Yeah, I'm not scheduled for December or January yet, So excellent, Okay,

1470
01:32:38.119 --> 01:32:39.920
you're still okay, excellent?

1471
01:32:40.039 --> 01:32:44.159
Good good to know. So uh where can uh where

1472
01:32:44.159 --> 01:32:47.920
can listeners find you online? Should they want to uh

1473
01:32:48.000 --> 01:32:50.399
keep up with updates and whatnot?

1474
01:32:50.880 --> 01:32:56.119
Uncomfortably dark top Calm is the number one spot to

1475
01:32:56.239 --> 01:32:59.920
find me. If you put my name in your search bar,

1476
01:33:00.079 --> 01:33:03.680
you can pretty much find me on very Google, my

1477
01:33:03.760 --> 01:33:09.520
books on Amazon, and on good Reads to pop the

1478
01:33:09.560 --> 01:33:12.880
publishing House. You can find all of our stuff everywhere

1479
01:33:14.840 --> 01:33:17.119
if you want to follow us. We have our own

1480
01:33:17.159 --> 01:33:20.920
Facebook group, we have a Patreon. I have my own

1481
01:33:20.960 --> 01:33:28.840
personal website under just my name Candice Nola. So I

1482
01:33:28.840 --> 01:33:31.880
have my own website publishing House as a website, and

1483
01:33:31.920 --> 01:33:34.920
then there's also a storefront on the publishing house, and

1484
01:33:35.000 --> 01:33:37.439
you can order any of my stuff or any of

1485
01:33:37.479 --> 01:33:40.399
the publishing house stuff there as well, and everything will come,

1486
01:33:40.479 --> 01:33:44.600
you know, with all the swag and signed and all

1487
01:33:44.640 --> 01:33:45.640
of that fun stuff.

1488
01:33:45.680 --> 01:33:49.960
So awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking time

1489
01:33:50.000 --> 01:33:52.479
out of your day to come talk to me. I

1490
01:33:52.520 --> 01:33:55.720
really appreciate it, and I hope to talk to you

1491
01:33:55.760 --> 01:33:57.000
again sometime soon.

1492
01:33:57.800 --> 01:34:38.359
All right, sounds good.