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Guest: Author & Editor Sidney Williams
32 Plays1 month ago
Gnelfs author and editor Sidney Williams and Wednesday Lee Friday talk influences, introverts, Gnelfs, and Salem's Lot. We name-drop our publisher, and discuss the ways we acknowledge or avoid the need for help with mental health issues. Plus self-doubt, writer's block, horror aesthetics, convention stories, and a Mad Lib.
A transcript of this episode can be found below.
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Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening
Introduction and Podcast Goals
00:00:03
Speaker
to The Mentally Oddcast, where we talk with creatives about neurodivergence, trauma, addiction, and all the other things that impact and inform our art. Our goal is to show everyone that no matter what you're going through, you are not alone and you can make art about it.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hi friends,
Meet the Guest: Sidney Williams
00:00:35
Speaker
my name is Wednesday Lee Friday, and you are listening to the Mentally Oddcast, brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror. This week, we have Sidney Williams, who is the author of more than a dozen novels, including the recent releases Fool's Run, Long Waltz, and Midnight Odds, which is from Crossroads Press, okay? um His early
Sidney's Early Publications
00:00:57
Speaker
publications were released by Pinnacle Books, which is an imprint of Kensington,
00:01:02
Speaker
ah You're getting a short primer in publishing here. Sydney's short work has also appeared in Cemetery Dance, Infernal Ink, Eulogy, Sanitarium, and a bunch of anthologies. He is way prolific. Sydney lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, and he's an INFJ, which we're going to get into later for people that take the Meyer Brig seriously. Hi, Sydney. Thanks for being here. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here today.
00:01:29
Speaker
right on. Listen,
First Horror Experience: Two on a Guillotine
00:01:31
Speaker
we like to start actually by asking guests to tell the story of the first horror movie they remember seeing. So let's have it. Okay. And I had I was thinking about that. And I it's it's ah It's a coin toss, but I believe it was two on a guillotine. It was between the birds and two on a guillotine. I saw them both when I was very young. I'm pretty sure two on a guillotine was first on you know a local channel, you know even though it was it was not too old a movie at that point.
00:02:05
Speaker
But for those unfamiliar with it, Dean Jones is one of the heroes who was a Disney star. So it gives you a sense of how scary that is. And yet it was terrifying to me. ah i we watched it with I watched it with my mom and dad and I was probably five Maybe, you know, maybe even a little younger than that. And
Horror Movie Suspense vs. Gore
00:02:31
Speaker
um the premise is that Sandra Dee is the daughter of a magician played by Caesar Romero. And ah he, when she is younger, she also plays her own mother. When she is younger, her mother is killed by his magic trick guillotine.
00:02:50
Speaker
And then years later, ah yeah of course, he was scarred by that. She was scarred by that. Years later, ah she inherits his house when he dies on the stipulation that she spent a week in his magically charged mansion. and Isn't that always the way? Oh, yeah. And she you know she walks in the door and a skeleton comes sliding down a wire. And they're they're all kind of magic tricks, but it It plays in that territory where we don't know if there's a ghost or not. And at the funeral, Cesar Romero is buried in a coffin with a glass glass panel on it so that you can see him lying in the coffin. And she's in for a week's worth of terrifying things like breathing in the night. ah And that just terrified me.
00:03:46
Speaker
uh, as a kid. So, and, uh, you know, stimulated my imagination too. And, uh, you know, has stayed with me for many years and, uh, you know, led my, it was the first time my parents ever, why do you want to watch this if it's scaring you so badly? You know, it's interesting because.
00:04:07
Speaker
When we we think about the older horror movies that don't have like the graphic violence that we have now We think of them as being more tame and and maybe even less scary but as you just pointed out you don't need gore or or extreme violence and to terrify people. You don't even necessarily need a monster. Because back in the day, movie monsters weren't that scary. It was all like bad makeup and hastily thrown together cheap costumes. But when you look at things like, like Two on Agilentine or ah Dementia 13, which I guess has a little more violence, but the sense of like, or you know, Spider Baby, which is not particularly violent, but is just creepy as hell. It's unsettling, yeah. And I have to wonder,
00:04:56
Speaker
what kind of impact that has on younger viewers in particular, because again, as you said, your mind is doing a lot of it. Yeah, yeah, it invites you to kind of fill in the gaps and, you know, just the suggestive things in and that, in Two in the Gear team, you know, just, just, i you know, lets you imagine all kinds of terrible things and then makes you scared of every sound in your own house.
00:05:27
Speaker
Right. Right. You
Modern Suspense Techniques in Film
00:05:29
Speaker
know, and it's the Val Luton, you know, cat people theory, you know, you know, and there's there's a, I can't think of the name of it, but there's a movie with Kirk Douglas playing a movie mogul that's kind of inspired by a cat people and Val Luton and things like that. And they look at like the cat monster kind costume and they go, this is terrible. What really scares people? The dark.
00:05:52
Speaker
And, you know those yeah those so you know, those early things, you know, are really effective. And I think some of the most, you know, we we do have, you know, the avenues for everything, for special effects, for realistic gore and all. but But today, many of the things that are still terrifying are those moments where, you know, we're kind of invited to imagine. There's, yeah you know,
00:06:19
Speaker
insidious, you know, kind of unraveled me quite a bit. And, you know, once we get to the, you know, the red face demon and all, you know, we're seeing the monster, it's a little less scary, but some of the buildup to that is just, you know, really terrifying. I agree. I agree. have Have you checked out the new Salem slot yet? I have. I have. Now, I know people have mised mixed feelings about it. I loved it, but what I wanted draw attention to is, a spoiler everybody, for those of you who don't know this story that's been around since the 70s, the sacrifice of Ralphie Glick, you don't see it. They tell you what's going to happen, and then we see other people react to it, but we do hear it.
00:07:03
Speaker
And the foley on that, my God, it is grotesque and terrifying. Because you know that they just told you that a small child is going to get ripped into pieces and devoured by that monster you just got a glimpse of, but you don't see it.
00:07:18
Speaker
And yeah yeah I think, i don't I can't speak for everybody, but what went through my mind was terrifying beyond reason. And yeah, that's my mind for you, but I gotta think I'm not alone. Way worse than if we had actually seen that, yes you know the the worst of that. ahlthough you know the I just re-watched the 70s version too, which you know is is quite effective, but you know different ballgames.
00:07:46
Speaker
And I, yeah, I liked it too. I liked the new one too. I think, you know, if we could divorce it from, you know, the love for the source material, ah you know, it is a pretty cool vampire movie. it It truncates a lot of what we're familiar with, but then, you know, gives us a new ending. If this was like ah a vampire movie and it wasn't Salem's Lot, we'd go, hey, this is a pretty cool ending.
00:08:11
Speaker
See, that's exactly where I am with this. I think everybody that is upset about the movie is upset based on expectations they had based on other media. And obviously, that's unavoidable with something that's already had too many series made of it. And it's a story that a lot of people have read, not to mention, you know, Chapelweight and all that entails. So there's a ton of story there and people are going to feel a lot of ways about it.
00:08:37
Speaker
But I think I tried as hard as I could to go in cold and and think about it as its own thing. And if you're able to do that, it is a really effective movie. And and actually, it's interesting to me because of the ensemble cast. it It's reminiscent of of other king works like, you know, Needful Things or The Mist, where you've got this like huge cast of characters and you don't get to know any of them as much as you would like to.
00:09:07
Speaker
Now in the in the book Salem's Lot, you get a lot more information. So of course readers are going to want that to come through in the film, but what they gave us was actually pretty carefully parsed out. um yeah my My thing with Stephen King is that like, I used to reread those short story and those skeleton crew and night shift in particular. I just read them until they fell apart because they're such good primers in how to parse information. and dole it out slowly to your audience for maximum impact, kind of like point of view. Like those are the kind of lessons that I took away from from early Stephen King reading. Because you know Carrie, the novel Carrie has all those different points of view in it. And there's like the
00:09:52
Speaker
you know, one person telling stuff and another person, and then there's excerpts from a textbook and, you know, a lot of different
Influences and Writing Journey
00:09:59
Speaker
ways. Even things like ah the Reader's Digest story, I survived the black prom and things like that. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. You know, I actually don't know a whole lot about your influences. Who who influences you?
00:10:15
Speaker
Ah, King is in the mix. And and Night Shift was ah you know an early influence. Early early on, you know when I was i was you know not grounded in anything yet, ah I was kind of enraptured. One of the first short stories I wrote, I was kind of enraptured by the film, The Swimmer, with Burt Lancaster, based on a John Cheever story, which I saw on TV, late night TV.
00:10:45
Speaker
and it's about this guy that is is traveling through New England and he decides to go to his own house and that he can swim through these different swimming pools and it will be about ah you know as if he is swimming home. The depth of that story, our film didn't really you know, hit me as a kid, but it it just struck me. And so I wrote a story about a guy who has kind of an aimless day. ah And so I guess, you know, I was kind of casting about, I knew I kind of wanted to write from a very young age.
00:11:20
Speaker
Uh, but a couple of things came into the mix, um, around the same time, uh, I'd seen them around, but I picked up an Ellery Queen's mystery magazine, uh, you know, at the drug store and, uh, read those short stories and go, wow. Okay. Mystery short stories are pretty cool. That's something to think about. And I read, uh, you know, read those, uh, Lawrence b block was frequently featured in there and, and in Alfred Hitchcock's mystery magazine also.
00:11:49
Speaker
And he wrote a column for Writer's Digest, which I was reading at that time, as lardine you know learning to do things or finding my way. And I read some Lovecraft early on, although Lovecraft took a little longer to actually sit with me because, like a lot of people, I picked up like the first Delray Anthology and it had the tomb, which is not you know it was the first story. and that's you know and you're You know, my first thought, you know, unformed as I was, is this is, you know, interesting. It's got really, you know, nice, you know, purple prose. I can see, you know, the elegance of the prose, but didn't didn't grab me like some things later would. ah But, you know, started fooling with mystery stories and things like that. And then
00:12:37
Speaker
I think Salem's Lot, the miniseries came on TV. you know Carrie was something when I was in junior high that all the girls discovered first. um Yeah, that'll happen. Yeah, yeah. and you know and in that the You know, there's a lot to to resonate there, surely. And ah Salem's lot, the first paperback edition ah came out, which was kind of, you know, it was ah was black, blue black cover and a girl's face, and maybe one, you know, kind of an embossed face and one drop of blood. And I noticed that, but it didn't, you know, it didn't quite hit me that it was something I wanted to pick up.
00:13:19
Speaker
ah And then around the same time, there was an interview with King in Writer's Digest and he wasn't quite Stephen King yet. right But you know it was a cool interview and he seemed like a cool guy. And then the miniseries came on and I thought, okay, I need to you know look at this because this is a pretty cool you had a vampire story. So I got the movie tie-in edition and I got Night Shift and The Stand. you know All of those things were floating around about that time.
00:13:49
Speaker
And, you know, you read read Night Shift and go, wow, this is cool. And like you're saying, you know, Night Shift, I read Salem's Lot and then Night Shift is so, so cool. And you thought, wow, these are such great stories. You know, Springhill Jack and, ah you know and know, oh, he's using the Necronomicon in there. can You can do that.
00:14:14
Speaker
and ah just, you know, was enraptured by him. Around the same time, I was reading Chandler and Ross McDonald. And, you know, it was understanding that, you know, Ross McDonald was doing some interesting things. I read John D. McDonald, who was an influence on King, of course. And, you know, as a, Poe was a very early influence. My dad read Poe to me. and just reading a bit of the Raven in a introduction to a collection of short stories that once upon a midnight dreary. Just that you just a little snippet that that was woven into the introduction of who Poe was in like a kid's Whitman collection of Poe stories, you know, just just had me hiding under the bed.
00:15:10
Speaker
so So, all of those things were in the mix as I began to write. And I discovered Dean Koots when I was in college. And the thing, you know, it's there in King, like you're saying, where you have the multi-view point. I had been writing private eye stories and, you know, kind of feeling I didn't have anything new to bring to that genre. And I read Koots, and I read a book Koots wrote about writing.
00:15:38
Speaker
and I decided to write in third person and reading Kuntz's whispers and thinking back on King and the stand. At that time, it kind of opened some things up for me and and it it became very freeing to write and just you know be able to tell everything I wanted to about various characters and everything in the setting. And so all of those were you know kind of flowed together.
00:16:07
Speaker
And Charles L. Grant, as as the 80s crept forward, caught my attention. ah Carl Edward Wagner's short stories I thought were really good. David Shao, seeing red, caught my attention. And so you know all of the you know all of the greats from from that era were were influences for sure. Wow. So who do you read these days?
Current Reading Tastes
00:16:34
Speaker
Oh, I read you know a lot of of different people. Oddly enough, I picked up a Michael McDowell ah just recently that I had not read The Elementals and really enjoyed that. I read Blackwater back there that same time we're talking about when it was published in you know sixty different or five or six different you know books as one long novel.
00:16:59
Speaker
So I read those as they came out or, you know, they were all out, I guess, but I, you know, I grabbed them. And and once I started reading, I got to get more of these. oh ah like a lot I like a lot of the ah domestic thrillers these days. and Names are going to escape me now, but the the Paris apartment, I liked a lot.
00:17:25
Speaker
but I try to read very widely as well. I just read Graveyard Shift, a novella that I picked up. I was in picked it up for a train ride and read it in one sitting and that was great. It's about 110 pages. Nice. but Just a great story about these quirky characters who meet because they all wind up in this old graveyard to smoke cigarettes late at night.
00:17:53
Speaker
you know, slipping away from night jobs where they can't smoke and things and cool little, very tight little story. Megan Miranda, I like a lot, Ruth Ware, Horror Wise, Still Reading King, you know, just read the new, you know you like it darker. I like Holly quite a bit, you know, a lot of people, Holly is a mixed bag for some people, but I have liked you know, all of the Mr. Mercedes books and the Holly books and the Holly novella and if it bleeds and, uh, uh, just all of those and, uh, try to read very eclectically in, uh, the short story realm. And, uh, so, you know, some of everything I still do because it's, it's writing fuel, uh, to, uh, reach, you know, read. Well, plus, I mean, you're like me, you're on the internet, you know, you know, a lot of writers on Facebook and,
00:18:49
Speaker
When I like someone, I want to like their writing. And so I end up, first of all, reading things that I wouldn't normally read, like outside of my regular genres, because I like the people. But, um, it's always interesting because when people read what I write, I'm always a little bit self-conscious if it's someone that I have like an internet relationship with. I wonder what they're going to think of me when they know that these things are bouncing around in my mind.
00:19:19
Speaker
Um, do you, do you find that that it, it can color how you see an author for, for better or worse, you know, it's not always negative. Yeah. Yeah. and it I do have that thought. you know and um and i you know and early Early on, I just wondered what anybody would think you know because I was writing darker work and you know crime horror and and things like that. I don't think about that as much but um as i as I once did.
00:19:50
Speaker
but
00:19:53
Speaker
it It is. and a i I should mention Tom Lucas, who is a good friend of mine. By the way, someone I read, and he has a a book out that's a Lovecraftian crossed with Encyclopedia Brown. Oh, nice. that's ah That's a really cool book called Research Randy and the Half-Eatin' Pie of Despair.
00:20:16
Speaker
ah But Tom and I were were friends before his book came out. So it was kind of fun to see what he did because he does a masterful job of taking Lovecraftian elements and blending them with the boy detective. That is so fun. I am so intrigued by that. Yeah, yeah it's it's it's cool stuff for sure.
00:20:39
Speaker
but But yeah, i in some ways, I find it hard to read people I know, or I'm a little guarded, you know because you you are bringing something to the table. And so I don't you know don't do it with trepidation, but I do it, yeah's yeah I kind of step forward slowly, I guess, reading something by people I know.
00:21:04
Speaker
Well, it's rough because occasionally, especially when it's somebody who's just starting out, you might read their book and not like it. And then it's that thing of you have to go to Amazon and think of nice things to say about it that are true, but that also, you know, that that's such a hard line because for me, if I buy a book and I read it and I don't like it, I can say any damn thing I want about it. But if someone sends me a book and says, Hey, can I get your opinion on it?
00:21:34
Speaker
Sometimes I'll contact the author and be like, man, I thought this had a lot of flaws and I'm not sure if you want me to review it. And I'll give them a chance to say, well, no, if you didn't like it, don't review it. Yeah. I have run into that and I, you know, I've certainly, you know, uh, read books and thought, well, you know, if I were editing this, I would tell them this, you know, maybe, yes you know, it's out, but maybe I, you know, and you maybe I should do, uh, maybe I should do this and, uh, you know, maybe delicately mentioned some things. Well, I, I always want someone to to put a, if you've read the book and you really don't like it, I would like to know why I would like to hear constructive criticism.
00:22:14
Speaker
And I think even on Amazon or Goodreads, if a I get a bad review, then it shows that people are reading my book that are not my friends or family. You know? that's That's true. And, you know, i was um I was thinking about that because, you know, my first couple of books, I just really, you know, and it was the 80s, you could write long books in those days, you know, for for a a traditional publisher. and And they wouldn't say cut you know two-thirds of this but um there is a review of ah my very first novel which was written you know on that wave of I can tell everything about I want to and there's one guy on uh you know fairly recently on Goodreads said what a boring book oh no it's you know and you you you you take it with a rule of thumb I'm fortunate I think these days that I uh
00:23:08
Speaker
You know, I don't let any reviews hit me too hard. I, you know, just, you know, roll with them because, you know, I also read enough books and I read things I really like. And then you read the reviews on Goodreads and something, you know, there's always, you know, even a what you thought was a really good book that somebody's finding to be a slog or whatever, because they just weren't, you know, sometimes sometimes it's just like,
00:23:35
Speaker
It seems like they're not that into storytelling. you know but i used to I used to keep a review open on my desktop and it was just a negative review of the Godfather. And this guy was going off about how Puzo doesn't know what the hell he's talking about and nobody would like this. And and i I kept it around because it's it reminds me that sometimes reviewers don't know shit.
00:24:01
Speaker
And then, but, but they think they do, which is much worse. Cause you know, if you're a dumb dumb and you know, you're a dumb dumb, so you keep your mouth shut, that's none of my business. But if you've got to go around spreading your dumbness in the air, okay you know, come on that that's not good.
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah, that that's problematic. The other thing I hate is when you know somebody would do one star and run you know or whatever, it two stars, one star. and you know there's no There's no review. they just you know ah Read it, click it, affect the percentages and don't say anything. you know And you also, you have enough other feedback and you know enough other reviews that are, again, happily not your cousins or anything. that you know counter you know you know I don't think this is a one-star book. you know Yes, it's mine. but
00:24:58
Speaker
And and those are the those are the things I hate. but You know what? I always wish that I would get, and I never do. I never get those reviews that are like, this book is so offensive. This language is awful. The the violence is out of control. This person is sick. Why doesn't anybody read my books and say I have a sick mind and I should be stopped before I like book again or something? i i don't It's not fair. i I want to cause a controversy and an outrage, but for a good reason. Um, yeah. So, so you know what? It'd be nice to get those. Yeah. Right. Well, and you know, I spend some time on the internet talking to MAGA people and sometimes I'll, I'll trigger some little MAGA boy and they'll think that they're super getting me back.
00:25:49
Speaker
by going to Amazon and leaving one star reviews on my books. And it's it's just so comical. Like some guy called one of my collections, the most low effort book he'd ever seen. And I'm like, you can't use Trump quotes and then think that we don't know what you're doing. Come on, dude. Exactly. Let let me guess, it it was bigly bad. It was the the worst book we've ever seen. Then a big veteran came up to me crying about that.
00:26:17
Speaker
like It's kind of the chopsticks version of reviewing.
00:26:24
Speaker
Right. So I am aware that you, sir, are an introvert and there's a lot of misunderstandings about introversion and what it means. Some people think, you know, they confuse it with agoraphobia and not liking to go out or that people just don't like crowds. Like how does that manifest for you being an introvert?
Challenges of Introversion
00:26:45
Speaker
It, um, yeah.
00:26:47
Speaker
I yeah can enjoy sitting at home, but I you know mentioned I think I had been traveling. i was I'm just back from New York City and yeah I had not been in a ah couple of years because of the pandemic and everything and you know kind of settled back into walking around you know and you know massive crowds and did fine with that. um And yeah I don't You know, struggle with a lot of the things that, yeah, like you're saying, are usually associated with introversion or or that people imagine it's about.
00:27:25
Speaker
ah
00:27:28
Speaker
It's you know more discomfort at the outset, um you know and and certainly I can walk you know a crowded street with no problem. A party may be a little more challenging, and i where it really kicks in is I don't do well.
00:27:46
Speaker
ah initially ah with people, you know, or, you know, in in in some settings. And then after a while, when I'm comfortable, then I, you know, I seem gregarious and you would not even know I was an introvert, but I'm not a good conversation starter. And whether it's by luck or just happenstance of who i try to start conversations with but you know i'm hanging around in a room and there's somebody else there and i try to start the conversation it'll go something like me hello them what the hell do you mean by that well i i totally totally relate to that because i think
00:28:27
Speaker
that if I am in a new situation, like when I went away to undergrad, I was on campus. I didn't really know anybody. There was a guy from my high school there, but he was really mean to me and didn't like me. And I didn't, I didn't eat because I was a fat kid and I was embarrassed to go in the cafeteria and sit by myself and eat food. So I just didn't go.
00:28:48
Speaker
You know, and, and one day I was sitting out in the lobby of the cafeteria and I just started crying because I was so sad and upset and hungry. And one of the RAs came and said like, what, what is this? What are you doing? You look awful. You look pale. Are you just sleeping? And I was like, I don't know anyone here. And it wasn't so much that it was introversion, but it was like terror at feeling like I don't have a place here. I don't belong here. I don't have people. And, you know, once I, I made friends and got comfortable, I turned out to be kind of a big fat loud mouth, but, um, but I, and that that's me too. Like if, if I don't feel like I belong here, I have some purpose here, then I'm not comfortable. I can't just relax and talk to people. And I also.
00:29:41
Speaker
I find it very draining to be around even people that I like for long periods of time. I'm that person that's like, yeah, I know it's not even midnight yet, but I think I'm gonna leave this party and go home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've been there. And at certain certain settings, you know, and yeah writers, you know, are our own tribe, yeah for sure. And when we're in different groups, um certainly that can kick in.
00:30:09
Speaker
Years ago, I worked in corporate marketing and I was a loaned executive for the United Way, where I was with ah you know nice guys, but bankers and things like that. were right I don't know, I did a retreat or something, but we were in a club in Fort Worth, actually, not Dallas.
00:30:29
Speaker
And you know it's kind of like, I'm not quite like these guys. you know And you you know you realize that there's a a different vibe that that maybe you're you're not you know you're is not kicking in when you're with you know certain people that are not not quite like you. yeah yeah And i mean yeah we'll we'll talk about it. but there' you know Probably for me, there's quite a few people that are not like me. So so as a writer, introversion and self promotion. Yeah, that, that seems like they, they wouldn't get along too well. So how do you reconcile in being an introvert when you have to get out there and market? Cause I know you're at Crossroad press. I also have stuff at Crossroads press. Those guys are awesome.
00:31:19
Speaker
But boy, they get stretched pretty thin. They do a whole lot of stuff for a whole bunch of writers. And so a lot of the marketing is left to us. How does that break down for you? um Yeah, it is. you know And you know it's true, really. When I was at Pinnacle, it was true, too. you know A lot of it still falls on your shoulders.
00:31:41
Speaker
oh and i you know If anybody's friends with me on socials, you you would not think it, but but I hate self-promotion. I hate saying, look, I did this. um and it it It does take a while to get past it.
00:32:00
Speaker
ah and just to and you know And I continued to do better and better at it. I used to do some comics with a publisher. Well, I did for Malibu Graphics and for Silver Line Comics. And we used to go to cons.
00:32:16
Speaker
And I would just be very quiet at a con to at a you know a ah merchandise table. ah And it you know was some of the same stuff. i you know My friend would sit there and go, hey, stop. Have a look. It doesn't cost anything to look. you know He'd go to the bathroom. Somebody would stop buying. I'd go, hey, have a look at our stuff. It doesn't cost anything to look. I'd get you better damn well believe it doesn't cost me anything to stand here and look.
00:32:43
Speaker
so and So, you know, there is some cross, you know, cross pollination there, but it's just gradually overcoming. And, um you know, interesting, i'm I'm not that bad about, ah you know, I don't have a big fear of public speaking. You know, I've done enough of that over time, I guess. And you're in a little more control when you're doing a reading or something too, versus, yeah you know, being at a party where you're trying to initiate conversation. And the same is true at a signing.
00:33:16
Speaker
you know you're youre There are frustrating things about signing. I've been in like at slow signings and bookstores where you know people come and ask you where the road atlas is, yeah you know which yeah is not fun. ah But ah i by and large, you know can make conversation when I'm talking about work. you know sitting at a table or whatever and I continue to get better and I ah found you know the biggest con I've done ru recently was scares that care Williamsburg scares that care ah St. Louis just finished but I was at scares that care Williamsburg in the spring and I realized I'm doing a lot better at like shouting at people as they walk by
00:34:01
Speaker
Well, and when it's when it scares the cares, you have that underlying like, no, no, I'm not here for myself. I'm here for a purpose. and Yeah, it is. It is for a cause. And yeah, that that definitely helps. And you know, and everybody that's there he loves, you know, they're there for books at at yeah at that con.
00:34:21
Speaker
ah So, you know, it's just, it's been, you know, build up and I guess it's, you know, the same as getting comfortable in a strange room, you get more comfortable with saying things. And also I think we watching other writers work and, you know, share things and and do the repetition thing, which is, you know, one of the most important things is just keep, you know, keep saying it.
00:34:48
Speaker
it's It's a lesson I probably should have taken to heart years ago but John Stieckley who wrote vampires was the ah with the vampires with the dollar sign was ah the toast master or whatever at a con I was at and I had a comic out at that time called The Scary Book.
00:35:07
Speaker
And so he introduced me and he goes, now, what have you got coming out? And I go, well, the scary book is the most recent thing I have. And I was being my usual retiring self. He goes, the scary book you say, you know, yes, yes, the scary book. And he he can engage me in this conversation where we repeated the title many times, both myself and him. nice And, uh, Dean Anderson, C. Dean Anderson was a really good friend of mine back in the day. He has sadly passed away. But Dean ah and Stieckley Nina Romberg, Dean's wife, used to do signings together. And Dean told me one time that Stieckley was, his father was a ah car salesman.
00:35:45
Speaker
And so he and inherited a lot of those traits and ah you know have I've learned yeah from that retroactively. I didn't implement some of it probably as soon as I should have, but oh it it you know it's something you get more comfortable with as you go along. And then you just, you know you kind of forget everything else and say, hey, here, here's my work, dig it. yeah Well, speaking of which, I was checking out your book, Nelfs. Am I saying that right? That's it. that's That's exactly right. Cool. So I, first of all, the cover is, is stunning. It actually reminds me of the the horror photographer, Joshua Holfein. I don't know if you know him at all. I do. I do. I actually quite a fan of his stuff. Yeah. So so do do you get that too? Like the same kind of vibe?
00:36:37
Speaker
It he does. it it has it you know it It is that photorealism ah look. and yeah very much yeah it it It aligns with the wonderful, scary and uber-realistic stuff that that Huffing does. Well, and the whole children in peril. and just i mean that That makes the the fear so much more visceral when you see it through the eyes of a child because It's so much easier to put yourself in, in their place and, and, you know, remember what it felt like to be that small and that frightened. Yeah. And, uh, the, the, the, the, the young lady is named heaven. And, uh, you know, we get the other brilliant thing about it is that we get a shadow, you know, and we don't see what she's seen. We see her fear. And so, you know, especially back in those days, you didn't have a lot of.
00:37:34
Speaker
you know, control over the covers. And you kind of breed the sigh of relief when something came back that wasn't a foil embossed skeleton, you know. And ah that yeah, I was lucky with all of my pinnacle covers, but that one, yeah, is just particularly wonderful. And he yeah I don't think, you know, you could do the...
00:37:58
Speaker
ah cover with a Nelf depicted, which Nelfs are or killer cartoon characters come to life. And I think you would spoil some of it. You know, you take the imagination away from it if you showed them. Yeah. yeah There was an e-book edition that david david David Wilson had done and with a it was a British artist, but what he did was just one hand.
00:38:24
Speaker
Oh, wow. With sharp nails. And so that was, I thought that was really effective too. But, you know, when ah David and David decided to get the, you know, see if the original cover art could be had, ah yeah it was really exciting to get that back because it is you know, so, so much, you know, flavor of an era and just so beautiful, too. ah It is happily the trade edition. I hope people will Google, you know, and look as G N E L F S. We'll have our links in the description. Excellent. Excellent. Because, you know, yeahre seeing it, you can really appreciate it. And the cool thing was that the actual painting was bigger than a mass market paperback originally allowed.
00:39:11
Speaker
And so um with the trade paper edition that Crossroad has done, more of the painting is in there. You didn't see the, you know, it's it's the young lady sitting up in her bed holding a teddy bear. yeah And you didn't see the bed posts before those were cropped out. And they are, you know, they have like shiny knobs at the top of them. And it just, you know, it's photo realistic and and you just you know, there's a sense of the light and everything and It really displays it better than it's ever been displayed. So that's that's a really awesome thing So I actually did not have a chance to read this book before the interview and I'm pretty bummed about that um But but Nels is actually having a resurgence right now. So so what's up with that? What's been happening?
The Cult Status of Nelfs
00:40:00
Speaker
I Yeah, I'm not sure where it started David has always
00:40:06
Speaker
yeah Years ago, David did a you know like a couple of ebook omnibuses that that had a number of you know novels in them. you know Maybe at Christmas time he did that. yeah I'm actually in one with Jack Ketchum, which ah okay makes my life. man i couldn't I couldn't believe that I was able to actually be in an anthology with Jack Ketchum. It still blows my mind.
00:40:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's fabulous and it's very fun. Well, that was the one you know David picked to put in there. And you know I would have maybe picked another book at that point. But Brian Keene has told me that his copy of Nelf's, he read it until it was falling apart. And I tweeted him recently, he goes, well, I found that old tweet where he had said it was falling apart. And I said, well, good news, you can get a new edition.
00:41:05
Speaker
But and he was really cool about that. but You know, I think there was more ah interest in it than, you know, yeah we didn't have the and connectivity when that came out in the 90s, early 90s, the way we do now. So, you know, and you you you didn't have online reviews to go check out or whatever. um So, i yeah, I think maybe there was more following than I knew even back in the day, but then David, you know, included in the omnibus.
00:41:36
Speaker
and ah really where I started to know, I guess, you know, David and David were already working on putting the new edition out. and You know, we had to get the rights to the art and all there. they they They did. I had to find out who the artist was, which was a guy named Richard Newton who wrote, who did many covers, you know, back in the day. But ah the British author, Mark Morris,
00:42:04
Speaker
posted, wow, I finally found a copy of Nelson. he had I think he had found one of the original paperbacks and you know there's a lot of algorithm stuff these days and you know a book will be a hundred dollars or something or a thousand dollars. Sometimes it's just ludicrous.
00:42:21
Speaker
oh But, and yeah you know, I realized that he was, you know, interested in it. And he goes, well, you know, there's this podcast where they just really loved your book. Or, you know, it was a YouTuber. There were a lot of YouTubers behind it. And, you know, it was just a really sought after book. It is not in Paperbacks from Hell, but Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix, you know, reawakened that era, and you know, and interest in that era. And, you know, even though it's not in the book or anything it you know somewhere in the mix it became a sought after cover and uh yeah people just you know and now it it has you know new fans and happily some strong advocates out there for it which is is a blast that is so great yeah it's just fun speaking of you know mario puzo earlier you know it's it's been said you know you know how it is i mean you know you look back on something you wrote years ago and you you don't
00:43:20
Speaker
you know, you know, you know more now. And you look back, but, you know, Mario Puzo, you know, after the movie was made and everything said, if I'd known the Godfather was going to be this big, I would have written a better book. yeah i Kind of like, if I'd known Nelson was going to, you know, fly like it is now, I would have, you know, i I think I was writing the best book I could in those days, except I think it was written in my, right, like Faulkner era.
00:43:48
Speaker
where i thought you know long sentences are going to be iry for for some reason you know what i have i have to interject here because i'm i'm stuck on what you said about puzo because it occurs to me that the next big thing that he wrote after the godfather movies came out was superman too.
00:44:10
Speaker
true true is he wrote so well I assume he must have written Superman 2 and 3 because those were kind of like done together and then separated for theaters. But I find that i that used to blow my mind as a kid that the mafia guy was the guy who wrote the story about the guy who like your father insulted me and now I'm coming to get you.
00:44:32
Speaker
yes it Yeah. such I mean, it is basically like the space mafia, you know. Yeah. And of course, the first one does carry Brando through. That too. yeah But yeah, but yeah, you know, i you know you never know exactly. I yeah guess, you know, it's probably documented somewhere. But, you know, yeah what executive thought, why don't we get the guy that wrote The Godfather to work on this Superman script? Yeah, that sounds like something that happened at a Hollywood mixer once the drink started flowing.
00:45:01
Speaker
Let's get the Godfather getting ready. That'll bring a whole new layer to it. Superman is Michael Corleone. Well, I mean, he's not from here. He gets judged for it, just like Michael Corleone. Yeah. yeah Okay, so we we did talk a little about how authors are sometimes known for just one work, even though they write a lot of stuff. And I always think about Robert Block in terms of that, because I know people Not necessarily horror writers, but like, you know, normies that only know Robert Bloch from Psycho. They don't even know that he wrote a Psycho II. And because there's not a movie of Bloch's Psycho II, the movie that they made of Psycho II is like a whole different thing. But so if Nelff's is the thing that you're remembered for, are you going to be cool with that?
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah, actually, ah you know there's other stuff I've written many other things and I would you know i would love them to be found. ah you know Speaking of, I mean i heard you know a podcast the other day, it was like a horror podcast and somehow Block came up and the people on the podcast were, I didn't know he wrote Lovecraftian stuff. What? And these people that are immersed in horror,
00:46:23
Speaker
um And I thought about, is it Richard Connell that wrote The Most Dangerous Game? Because he wrote many, many, many books, but you know, The Most Dangerous Game is is what we know Richard Connell for. But no, I'm okay with it because...
00:46:41
Speaker
You know, I've had the thought, you know, hey we all would like, you know, more fans, more sales, more everything. But then you also see, you know, posts from people that are really frustrated. And, you know, it's such a, you know, so much saturation now that it, you know, it's a, speaking of self-promotion, I mean, it's an, it's an ongoing effort. And, uh, yeah, I thought,
00:47:09
Speaker
Nelfs is something that's become in its its small way and it's it's little you know cult following or whatever, you know kind of iconic. And yeah, it's kind of high concept, maybe the highest concept, especially in my pinnacle books. So you know I'll take it. um you know A lot of people don't get a Nelfs. And so, oh you know that it that people are reading it and liking it uh you know i don't know but like we're talking about there and i know there are people out that are not liking it but a lot of people have read it and liked it and and uh you know friends have read it and told me that they liked it and these are people that you know are friends but yeah i think they're they're being honest too they really are yeah my friends would certainly tell me if they thought my writing because i had a book come out
00:47:59
Speaker
pretty recently, actually, it was a sequel, and and I had never written a sequel before. it's it's It turned out to be a trilogy, and people did contact me and be like, were were you okay when you were writing this? Like, are you was was everything... and And in fact, everything was not all right, because that was the year that I almost died. And I got COVID, and it was like a whole crazy thing. But but the thing is that, like, your friends, your actual friends, especially if they're writers,
00:48:29
Speaker
They'll tell you the truth. If your book sucks, somebody is gonna tell you. Maybe they'll phrase it as gently as they can. Maybe not. Because if, I mean, yeah if if I wrote a book and it sucked, I need to know that that's information that no one should keep from me. Because if I published it, that means I don't know that it sucks. Yeah. know Yeah. Yeah. If you let it go. Yeah. you How else am I going to find out if no one tells me, you know, it's like you having toilet paper stuck on your shoe. Maybe you'll see it eventually, but probably not. If you're just walking around with that out there.
00:49:03
Speaker
Um, so we actually, uh, you, you mentioned that you also ah deal with anxiety and also like writer's block and that there might be a connection there. Um, I think first of all, if, if, before we talk about it.
00:49:18
Speaker
We should talk a little bit about what writer's block is. I'm not even sure that I agree with it, that it exists, but it might just be a name that we give to any number of things that keep us from meeting our our productivity goals. How do you define writer's block?
00:49:35
Speaker
ah I think it's sort of anti-productivity. I think you you use you know you mentioned productivity and ah the amount of productivity we would like.
00:49:46
Speaker
and think it yeah when the self-doubt that is writer's block sits in. It will keep us from from polishing things and and moving forward with things. And you know we may start things, but we don't forge ahead through all of the you know ups and downs and get a a a finished draft that we can then perfect or hone to as much perfecting as as something as big as a novel.
00:50:20
Speaker
I can be or even a short story. I've worked for a number of years in corporate marketing and that was my least productive creative time, I think. you know I was writing yeah ads and things, but everybody is an expert in a company on marketing.
00:50:41
Speaker
And, you know, they don't want to list listen to anything about best practices. yeah And so when you were, ah you know, speaking of mafia types, there was one department at the company I worked for that, you know, they're very mafia like, they wore dark suits and everything. they knew way more about everything than you did, content management on the internet and ad writing and, ah you know, search engine optimization, any any of the things, they they knew way more than you did, because they looked at the internet and they could get their password out of the drawer and log on and show you. That's all it takes, right? Yeah, yeah. And so you know you hear from people like that enough and it it impacts you. ah And so it is just that. I think it's it's it's kind of a paralysis and maybe ah at least an inability to get enough on the page to work with.
00:51:41
Speaker
It's interesting. so so you You seem to define writer's block not just as a lack of of ah like a lack of general productivity and that it probably stems from anxiety and self-doubt. Am I hearing that right? I think so. I think yeah and yeah the the mixture of of those two.
00:52:00
Speaker
you know you know is is is what I'm writing boring. is you know Yeah, there's that, certainly. Yeah, how do i get how do I get to this exciting point that I know is coming in an interesting way? And ah you know and then we start pouring over the the the part that we're trying to perfect and not ever getting to the interesting part. and up Well, and they say the parts that you don't want to write are also the parts that nobody wants to read.
00:52:31
Speaker
So once that starts bouncing around in your head, I think yeah I've also heard writer's block described as just an inability to churn out new pros as opposed to not being able to give your existing pros the attention that it deserves or not being able to get into the groove. Like I find that I i don't really use the term writer's block um I'm not even sure why, but but I don't. um But sometimes i can't I can't get into the phase where I take the prose that I've written and and punch it up, especially for work, you know, when I'm a sex writer and I'm writing like, it's like a journalistic style article, I'm giving information to people, but I want it to be funny. So you have a reason not just to read it, but a reason to read me telling you how to find the clitoris instead of someone else, because I'm so witty.
00:53:26
Speaker
um But that that is a block that I get because it's so based on my mood. So if I'm in a bad mood, it's hard to be funny. Or if I am funny, it's a more i sarcastic, angry kind of funny, which also not really what you you want to find when you're looking for the clitoris. Yeah. yeah
00:53:50
Speaker
ah so So yeah, that's that's interesting because If your writer's block is caused by self-doubt, it seems like it might be easier to reason your way through it if you recognize that's what it is. Would you agree with that? I think so. And I can say that really getting over it was I can describe the process of that because it was you know it was kind of a series of fortunate events, I guess. I left my corporate job and I i took a teaching job, creative writing, and you know a lot more supportive environment for for a writer.
00:54:39
Speaker
and
00:54:42
Speaker
de David was bringing out my my older books and I had re-edited those once they were scanned. Some of some of those I did. that Some of that was while I was still in the corporate job and it was kind of you know it was kind of exhausting to work the they marketing job and edit.
00:54:59
Speaker
in Sure. But got into the teaching job and I i got a call, actually they found David first, but it was a producer who was interested. I wrote three young adult novels under the name Michael August and a producer had found one of those and was interested in trying to do ah a TV movie.
00:55:22
Speaker
because the Ariel Stein things were hot at that point. and right He he had worked and in had worked for CBS and he had worked in children's programming part of the time and so he had some contacts. Anyway, somebody was interested in something I had done back in the day and happily he wrote a nice review after he read it on Amazon.
00:55:44
Speaker
as as well, but it was interesting in you know trying to get something off the ground and that led me to talk to a Hollywood agent who ah was able to, you know, she was finding some success with contained thrillers at at the time. And so I thought, well, I had this short story I wrote years ago for Cemetery Dance. It all takes place in one setting. So I said, I can turn that into a screenplay. And she goes, well, let's try that. And so I wrote a screenplay that expanded the short story. And that ah didn't go anywhere, as most things, you know, Hollywood-wise don't, or many things don't. But
00:56:30
Speaker
oh I had done the heavy lifting of turning that short story into a screenplay, and that becomes a fabulous outline for a short novel. And so I turned that into a book that became a short novel called Dark Hours, and that was my first new thing in quite some time, other than comics work and some other short stories and and things like that. And so you that kind of got some of my confidence back
00:57:00
Speaker
post-marketing job and all that. and and wow you know kind of discovered thing, even though you have a great outline, you know, you you always discover things that you write. And so new twists came in as I took, you know, a very short story and turned it into a 90 page script. I thought, okay, okay, wait, okay, this is the first act. Then we get a twist here and we're going there, you know, and and things, you know, the the cool things that happen that energize you started happening and that,
00:57:35
Speaker
that got me back on the road to writing new stuff again. Wow, that is so great. I love that so much. um Okay, I would actually like to move on um and talk about mental health a little
Mental Health and Counseling
00:57:50
Speaker
bit. Now you've told me that you do not have an official mental health diagnosis. You did not go to a doctor who then said, this is your diagnosis. Is that that's correct, right? That that is true. I mean, I have you know seen counselors a few times at different, you know, different ups and down points. And but, you know, did whatever the, the the you know, the
00:58:11
Speaker
We call them the instruments that they have you fill out, you know? And, you know, Come Back is not, you know, not showing any of the usual, was it DSMV for? The DSM, yeah, I guess it would have been. Yeah, I think in the 90s they were on four. I think it's, we're like, they're editing the next one, I think. I don't know, I haven't been correct. The number has gone up. Yeah. But anyway, you know, there was, you know, I didn't hit any of those. I was down a bit.
00:58:41
Speaker
ah you know It was about a newspaper job at the time. ah and But yeah, I don't have any any solid diagnosis of any ah ah you know any kind of disorders or anything. okay and you know no of no not on the spectrum or anything like that. So that that sounds accurate to you? Not having an ad? I think it is. I think it is. I have read about it. you know I think we mentioned INFJ and ah I have read, yeah I looked up one time are INFJs autistic and they yeah did did there some this so shared traits there, but no. And so so i think it is I think it is generally accurate.
00:59:26
Speaker
said That's interesting because I'm pretty close to you actually. ah The last time I was tested, I was an INTJ. That's what my wife is. yeah The thing about the Meyer breaks is that I get a different result every time I take it. I think I've taken it three times and all three times they've said something different. And I don't know if that's because I'm just that frigging nuts or if if the test is not, you know, somehow not not grasping me.
00:59:55
Speaker
um I don't know, but um it's interesting because you do live with anxiety and and with ah some some introversion that if I'm hearing you right, it does sometimes, even if it's not keeping you from doing things you want to do, it does impact the comfort with which you're able to do them.
01:00:15
Speaker
it Yes, it it can it certainly it certainly has done that. and you know i certainly you know you know These days, you know ah I think anxiety is just part of life. I mean, you know we have Milton right now, as as we're talking, headed toward Orlando where a lot of my friends are.
01:00:35
Speaker
yeah ah And you know we have, of course, just the general state of the world. yeah So so you know if you're not experiencing anxiety right now, why not? Kind of. kind of but but yeah yeah it it Fortunately, I guess, have learned to work around it in in writing. And especially during the pandemic,
01:01:04
Speaker
ah you know the worst of the pandemic and everything, I kind of find found working on books to be, ah you know I was escaping to those worlds. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was that was actually helpful, it was especially though you're not able to leave, you know, to go to the grocery store safely. You know, we did delivery during a lot of that time just because, you know, but my my wife's father i died from covid. And so, you know, I'm sorry. Oh, thank you. You know, but, you know, we felt you know you just didn't know how susceptible you would be if you contracted it. And so we were very careful.
01:01:43
Speaker
And so being in a you know immersed in a world that was not ah the world around me was a lot of ah lot of fun. i you know And I guess I'm good at generating coping mechanisms. Now I can remember during you know the early worst, fearful days of COVID,
01:02:04
Speaker
having seen a meme, and I was lying at night. I was lying you know in bed at night, and I was just very tense about everything. And there had been a meme that looked like, I think, the BBC breaking news graphic, but it was breaking news. And the meme was breaking news. Oh, good Lord, what the fuck now? ah Yeah, I just lay in bed thinking about that meme and laughing at it. And that you know was that was a way of processing the anxiety somehow. Certainly, certainly. I'm a huge believer in in dark humor yeah you are as a coping tool. But really, what I want to point out here, and this is not at all a ah critique of of you or your mental health journey.
01:02:54
Speaker
But I talk to so many people honestly, I'm gonna be more straight than that. I talked to to to a lot of men and who um and They say it's uncanny. It's almost the same thing that they say they say Yeah, I've got some mental health stuff going on but I would hate to take time away from people that have real problems or I would hate to to conflate my issues with with people that really struggle with with mental illness and I i can't like I wouldn't say necessarily everybody needs counseling. I do think most people could benefit from getting an outside perspective that is educated on issues that they're going through. I think that most people would find that helpful. But I also i i always wonder how much of the reticence to get help
01:03:47
Speaker
is based on this idea that it is more brave and strong to forego any sort of assistance with mental and emotional health issues. what Do you have any thoughts on that? I do. and i you know i you know i wanted you know At the outset, when we were just talking you know when we were talking before before I was going to do the podcast or whatever, ah yeah I did very much want to say you know, I don't have a diagnosis. I don't, you know, I don't want to, you know, be a guy who's putting myself out there going, look, I have this problem. So let's, you know, because I especially, you know, teaching, you have students
01:04:28
Speaker
That you know i've seen a lot of students with a lot of struggle and have students that you know some days are at the can't get out of bed stage or whatever you know what they post uh you know what you see them post or what they will tell you And so, you know, I was very concerned not to, you know, put myself out there in any way that suggested any struggles I have or worse than they are. But yes, and I would say, you know, thank you, you know, maybe pre-show, pre-context, we mentioned the maleness of, you know, being tough or whatever.
01:05:04
Speaker
and a As an INFJ or whatever whatever, I'm probably more in touch and as a writer, you know, and writers are, you know, again, our own tribe, um ah probably have...
01:05:20
Speaker
ah
01:05:23
Speaker
you know, a little more, I'm a little more in touch with my feminine side, we might say. But no, I did think about that when I was doing the questionnaire and everything that, that yeah, I am a late, late era baby boomer. I technically would fall into baby boomer of the Generation Jones a category where, you know, I was a kid in the 70s watching Salem's Lot.
01:05:52
Speaker
But oh I am of ah an age and of an era where where things like this were not discussed as much.
01:06:03
Speaker
And yeah even telling you that I had seen a counselor in the pre-shelf questionnaire was a little difficult. Really? you know Yeah, it was. And you know yeah i hear I will hear young people speak so much more freely about a diagnosis and everything in there.
01:06:24
Speaker
oh in their discussions and in podcasts. I've heard writer podcasts where where younger people will say, you know, I decided to to do this even though I felt an episode coming on or something. And ah you know I think maybe it's it's's era as much as as ah gender that that, you know, make me a little more reticent about talking. But no, I do believe in talk therapy and I have benefited from it at different times. I, you know, mentioned the time that I was just, I kind of, you know, everybody's job is a pressure cooker and yeah my ah my newspaper job was very, you know, was very brutal. And so I talked to a counselor at that point and had a few sessions. I mean, you know, we went through the session and, you know, did the, you know,
01:07:22
Speaker
catch and release or whatever. You know you would say that he he did, and he was a very nice guy. And you know at a point they're gonna say, okay, here's what I'm hearing. Here's you know ABC.
01:07:34
Speaker
ah you know this is what you you know You're saying this, but here's what's coming through. And yeah and initially at that point, I was i was i was thinking, you know what is talking about this gonna do? And what's a counselor gonna say? Life's a bitch, learn to live with it.
01:07:50
Speaker
You know, but it does, you know, I give it fully will say, you know, they're, they're, they're certainly benefit from it. And I have benefited in the times that I've, that I've gone through therapy. And, uh, I, uh, you know, had a couple of sessions where I have a MFA, uh, from Goddard colleges now, you know, sadly going away, but I have an MFA from Goddard college and, uh,
01:08:14
Speaker
There is, I won't name names, but there was a professor there that, oh gosh, maybe even 10 years ago, now broke the internet after he stopped teaching and wrote an essay for a underground newspaper or whatever, you know, in Seattle. ah But I had a brutal experience with him and I went to a counselor and, you know, I had a number of books out and he was just like,
01:08:42
Speaker
It was savage with everybody and it kind of, we're in a low residency program. So we, you know, everybody was not able to read as readily compared notes and to say, my God, this guy. Uh, but you know, it was one of those things, uh, at the time you just wouldn't talk to somebody about it, you know? And then later, you know, you get validation. Oh, he broke the internet. Okay.
01:09:05
Speaker
with these comments, but you know in in any instance, it's certainly, yeah, top therapy certainly, you know I understand the benefit of it. Well, and the the thing about getting a diagnosis, if if you have one or if if that's something that you pursue, in general, a diagnosis is actionable.
01:09:30
Speaker
And I think a lot of people, like I certainly was afraid to get a diagnosis because then I wouldn't just be wetness. I would be wetness the bipolar person or wetness the, you know, the the schizophrenic or like whatever it turned out to be.
01:09:46
Speaker
I didn't want to have some kind of ugly label that would lead people to presume things about me because I was already like a weirdo and I was fat and I had a weird name and a crazy mom and like just all these things already going on and I wanted so much to be normal.
01:10:03
Speaker
Not only that, but when you go to a stranger and talk to them about your life, especially if you're used to being judged or intentionally your words are misconstrued, stuff like that. It is, I mean, you have to exhibit some considerable bravery and humbleness to go into a therapy session with a stranger and speak honestly. Like it's not an easy thing to do, but as you've pointed out,
01:10:32
Speaker
Even if you don't have an ah an official diagnosis, there are things that we go through in life that sometimes we just need to talk them through and it's better to talk them through with people that are not directly involved. So you're not getting biases, you're not getting second guessed, you know? And yeah and and they you know certainly are trained to to hear what you're not saying as well. yeah yeah Another experience I had was my my mother had dementia And we had to deal with you know all that that involves in getting her care that she cares she didn't want. And you know I would try very hard to make her happy. And i yeah I went to a counselor at that point. And one good thing about the corporate job is that it had a really good
01:11:26
Speaker
a behavioral health component and a, I forget what you call it, but you know, employee assistance, you know, or whatever. And then she had counselors you could go to. I had a great counselor and I went to him and I talked about, you know, the frustrations and and just feeling bad because I had to put my mom in ah a home for care and everything. And, you know, what came out of that after we had talked a while, he goes, is he says, you talk a lot.
01:11:54
Speaker
about making her happy and you can't do that. And it's not your responsibility. What you you know have to do, what your responsibility is, is to make sure she is properly cared for and to be her advocate, but you can't make her happy and you you may not make her happy about yeah you know what she needs even. And yeah, ah certainly you know there are things that you know emerge from people that know what to listen for.
01:12:24
Speaker
Yeah, very much so. Yeah, yeah, the well said. Okay, so let's... I'm trying to decide where to go next because we could go we could go lighthearted, but actually you had indicated that you're willing to talk about a time when you were in legitimate fear for your life. And that is something
Transformative Childhood Experience
01:12:45
Speaker
that we talked to guests about because it it was It's more common than I realized, so I have to think it's more common that a lot of people realized that being in fear for your life can be a transformative experience, um but it's also it's something that
01:13:08
Speaker
I guess, like I said, just more people have been through it, have had like a near-death experience or a time when they had just a legitimate fear that there was something happening that they may not make it out of. So, ah since you are willing to talk about it, I would love to hear it. Sure. And I had to think a while about, you know, when that might have happened. And it was when I was a kid and swimming. my and managed managed an apartment complex. She was a manager at an apartment complex and they had two pools, ah which was cool.
01:13:47
Speaker
and so we We, with my cousins and I would go swimming there ah quite ah quite often. And I could swim, but I was not, you know, a strong swimmer yet. And one way or another, I got oh i got ah past where I could touch bottom or where I could just put my toes down and the water was, you know, over my head. And, you know, it was apartment pool, so there were a lot of people around.
01:14:21
Speaker
But I started realizing, wait, this is getting away from me. And I could see people, but you know it was not really clear that, to them, I think that there was a problem. And water was getting in my mouth. I managed to get my mouth up just far enough, and there's water in it even, but to say, oh. Oh, no.
01:14:48
Speaker
and oh Then, you know I think maybe somebody just was close enough they reached out and pulled me or even I managed you know because my toes were touching that I got just far enough forward to get a footing again. But it was you know it was right on the cusp there where it could have gone wrong. I could have drowned right in the middle of people. I was i was talking to a guy like I was swimming again there later happily. ah you know got back on the horse, so to speak. But there was a guy that he he he was telling me, man, you scared me the other day. I was on the second, I was on my second floor balcony and I was about to climb over my balcony and try to come help you. So that there was somebody seeing me that, you know, other than people just around the edges that saw a head, but didn't realize it was ahead of the stress.
01:15:37
Speaker
But I thought about that. you know That could have gone you know a lot worse. yeah goodness Certainly you know makes you think, I need to learn to swim if I'm going to hang out in this pool. Wow.
01:15:54
Speaker
wow Okay. now Now I think we are going to lighten it up. so what What do you listen to when you're writing? right I work mostly in silence these days. ah Early days, I worked, i was a new you know, I mentioned being a newspaper reporter, I worked
01:16:18
Speaker
until one one one in the afternoon until 10 at night and usually later than that because I've had an anal retentive editor who would you know say, stay and watch this 10 o'clock news. We're in Central Time, so it's 10 o'clock news. you know Stay and watch 10 o'clock news, make sure they don't have anything we don't have or whatever. and So anyway, ah yeah get off pretty late and I would wind up resting and then writing at about midnight.
01:16:46
Speaker
And I wrote from midnight till 2 AM, which is a good time to be writing yes yeah dark and scary stories. And there's a tangerine dream album called Tiger, which pulls in Robert Blake poems. yep yeahp And I would, I would listen to that. You know, it's very, there are parts of, they're very mournful. And then of course there's Tangerine Dreams instrumentals. And there were a couple of other Tangerine Dreams albums around that time. And so I would put those on and listen.
01:17:16
Speaker
and just darker classical stuff and other you know dark material. And that worked well. I have worked with Celtic stuff on, interestingly. I started writing when I was in Texas. I did continue to write some of the time I was in my corporate job, and I started to write early in the morning then when I was fresh. I became a morning person.
01:17:43
Speaker
And I would listen to a little bit softer instrumental music that had kind of some magical quality to it. And there's like a couple of collective CDs of different Celtic musics. And you know that that did provide some spark you know at a difficult time. But I do better just with my own thoughts these days that I might have like an iPad with a TV stream on kind of peripheral where it's not really distracting me, but I can look over it when when i with my thought stops flowing or whatever. I see. I see. So here's a question. If you could ask everyone in the world to read one book, what would be the book and why?
01:18:34
Speaker
a I think ah it would of mine, right? No, any book. Any book, any book. oh That's a good question.
01:18:48
Speaker
i
01:18:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's a tough one, right? Yeah, yeah. Now, following back on, i would I would, you know, go to something kind of kind of magical. Although right now at the moment, you know, I would say, you know, we're in October, it'd be a great time to read Zalazny's Night in the Lonesome October.
01:19:11
Speaker
you know, his Lovecraftian day by day October piece. But you know, maybe something by Tolkien, if I was, you know, saying, you know, delve into something because there's so much, you know, texture and it's so, you know, it transports you to another place, especially, you know, and it might be a little dense for a non-reader, but I would say, you know, experience this and you'll see kind of what,
01:19:38
Speaker
you know kind of what we're talking about when we talk about being in fictional worlds and uh nice nice i like that so if if somebody is unfamiliar with your work in particular where is the best place for them to start i have and you know and to some degree it may be as a a problem with um you know writers are a bit eclectic uh There's some similarity between my pinnacle books, but they're they're not all exactly alike. I think Blood Hunter, ah which was I think my third pinnacle book, was a a good book. I did a demon possession novel, I did a vampire novel, and then Blood Hunter was kind of me charting new territory for me.
01:20:27
Speaker
and also they had asked me to tighten up a little bit don't write as long a book that you know the trend was already starting to move away from the you know the 80s uh doorstop books and so it made me write tighter and uh i in rereading that when uh when the e-book edition was being done i thought okay and i had some good stuff here there's some action there's some Exciting action. There's some you know, there is some bloodletting in that one, but there's some humanity underpinning it because it basically there are people being turned into monsters of a certain form there and there is a character with some innocence that You know is one of the people that's transformed and his journey is an interesting one so so it's a you know that that was very good early work for me and
01:21:21
Speaker
I certainly would like people who have not discovered Psy. Some people have found Psy Reardon, my detective character, but I would love people to find Psy because I'm writing with all of my knowledge and craft when I'm writing Psy. And I you know um had the benefit of writing a couple of new books and then Psy, the first Psy Reardon Fool's Run.
01:21:45
Speaker
ah published talking about, you know, I don't know, anxiety, writing, everything. ah Publishers Weekly reviewed Fool's Run. And I think David saw it first. David Wilson saw it first and sent me the link. and But they said, people are going to like Psy and want to spend more time with him. and to the you know It's an old Ross McDonald line. He wrote blue Archer novels. He said, I am not Archer, but Archer is me.
01:22:13
Speaker
And I'm certainly not Cy Reardon, he's a lot tougher guy than I am. But but you know you know that all of our characters are us too. And I almost had to sit down when I read that line because you know there is me inside and it was very validating. nice And I've had feedback and reviews and things like that and realized I am,
01:22:42
Speaker
you know writing kind of you know at the height of my knowledge anyway and you know it's a mixture of knowledge and all writing is a mixture of knowledge and intuition and so uh so i'd love people to meet sai and experiencing experience those books because they're They're me trying to be innovative and and hopefully pulling some things off. And Fool's Run is a ah thriller and puts Psy into place for more ah more books. And then Long Waltz, the second book, is and the um like there are two now.
01:23:18
Speaker
But Long Waltz is a a mystery as well as a thriller. And ah some people have told me they were surprised by how things turned out. So so those, I mean, be very delighted for for new readers to find those and for more people to find them too, of course.
01:23:35
Speaker
Cool. Cool. Well, we're going to have links in the description so ah people wanting to purchase will know where they can do that. um If readers want to reach out to you, do you encourage that? And if so, where's the best place to find you?
01:23:49
Speaker
i yeah I am i'm very open to that. I've had very nice exchanges with the readers finding me online. I'm on most of the socials. you know My ah author page on Facebook is
01:24:06
Speaker
Sid is alive books, and I think if you search Sid is alive on Facebook, you should find me. I'm Sidni underscore Williams, a lot of places like ah Twitter and or X or whatever it's called these days. and oh Instagram. But yeah, I had a very nice discussion with a guy recently and and he said, I wish I had a podcast because you're giving me such great answers to these questions. And it you know it's certainly a blast to you know chat with somebody that's read something and they they've kind of been inside your head when they've read something of yours. So it's kind of a fun exchange to to go through one of those things.
01:24:51
Speaker
cool Well, was there anything that you wanted to talk to that we did not get to? I mean, this has been a rich, full conversation for sure. Well, I hope it is you know interesting and slash helpful if it can be to folks. I should mention, and I think you had JC on recently, but I should mention symptoms of the universe.
01:25:12
Speaker
ah symptoms of the universe I have a story in that and it's an anthology. All of the proceeds go to the Ronnie Dio Cancer Fund, and things are inspired by Black Sabbath. ah yeah so And it it actually, you know the I wrote something that's ah hopefully a thriller and scary, but also kind of Bradbury-esque, like later Bradbury-esque with ah a bit of a positive note. I was really happy with it. JC was happy with it. with what came out of that. and so yeah There's just so much great stuff in there, man. It's huge. Yeah, it is a huge, huge anthology. A lot of lot of ah ah lot of stories for them the cost of the
01:26:04
Speaker
anthology and it goes to to to benefit cancer research. so Awesome. I want to throw that out for sure. Cool. Well, we'll have a link in the description for that as well. um I do like to give guests an opportunity to ask me a question if there's anything that you want to know about me.
01:26:25
Speaker
Well, and I was thinking about that, and now you do you make soap, right? Well, we have a soap business. um We actually do what's called mountain pour soap, so I'm not ah rendering tallow and and mixing in live from scratch and doing and all that. It's really more of a craft, um and what makes it interesting at Scared Soapless is that our soaps are spooky.
01:26:47
Speaker
You know, we we've had ah we had a Hollywood artist, a sculptor make a couple of custom molds for us. So we have a soap that is Kurt Barlow from the original Salem's Lot. Ooh. We have Salem's Lot again, right? Yeah. Well, i I mean, that was the first one we did because I said, what is an iconic horror thing that we could offer that no one else has? um We have a sculpt of ah the shark, which is very clearly the shark from Jaws. It's like the midpoint shark. um So we have that. We have ah He Who Cleans, which is the Zuni fetish style from Trillium Terror.
01:27:29
Speaker
ah We have a three-eyed fish that is orange and does not come from any sort of trademarked or or copyrighted place or cartoon. um but but Very cool. A three
Scared Soapless Business Journey
01:27:44
Speaker
-eyed fish in your bath is interesting.
01:27:46
Speaker
yeah Right? Right? Getting chased by the shark. um Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so Scared Soapless is ah you know just a ah business for the love. We actually started it in 2016, and we were just at the point where we were getting into like restaurants and and bars and stuff, and then COVID happened. So, um but but our big thing that we do is the Halloween trick or treat packs, which are a lot of small little guest soaps in cool shapes. There's spiders and gravestones and body parts and all kinds of cool things. And we bag them up so that they're the perfect size to give out for tricks or treats. um We talk to a lot of teachers and parents
01:28:27
Speaker
who have a tough time finding good treats to bring to schools or to pass out to kids because of allergies you know peanuts tree nuts some kids can't have gluten now if they're diabetic you can't just be giving them a bunch of sugar so Having like fun spooky soaps is a a good compromise because they are they are fun. you know i mean i would like to If the choice was between pennies and toothpaste and and spooky soaps, I as a kid I think would want the soaps. But we also do lip balms. We have a couple different moisturizing products.
01:29:04
Speaker
And we do a nail lacquer as well. We call it talent lacquer because we're spooky like that. Um, so yeah, we're, we're on coffee. Actually, we have a separate coffee for the magazine, which also sponsors the podcast. And we have one that's sometimes hilarious horror. And then we have a coffee that's a coffee, uh, slash scared soapless, which is where we sell all of those goods. So. good so What a great question to help me to flood my soapery. So the
Creative Fun: Mad Lib Game
01:29:37
Speaker
last thing that we do is the Mad Lib. Are you ready for this?
01:29:41
Speaker
ah Talk me through it and yes. Okay. Well, i wait, are you are you not a Mad Lib guy? Have you not done Mad Lib? I have done it, but it has been a while. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's, that's common. and Um, okay. So I'm going to give you, wow, it looks like this one has a ton of adjectives in it. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven adjectives. So let's start there. So, to give you an adjective.
01:30:07
Speaker
Give me seven adjectives. Seven adjectives. Yep. Uh, fiery, green, soapy, violet,
01:30:20
Speaker
violet, furry, tall. Great, great. And now I need two nouns. Tree lamp post.
01:30:37
Speaker
All right, I need a verb. Actually, I need three different verbs that end in I-N-G. Waltzing, harmonizing, fleeing. Okay, and one regular old verb. Walk.
01:30:58
Speaker
All right, and a part of the body. Ah, elbow.
01:31:05
Speaker
A lot of places we could go there, but I'll go Elmo. Well, good, because I need one more part of the body. Ah, fingertip. Okay, and that is everything. So then I read our creation. It is called Snore No More.
01:31:27
Speaker
Snoring is a loud and often fiery sound that can be compared to sawing a piece of tree or to a freight lamppost roaring down the tracks. Fortunately, there are many green solutions to keep a snorer from waltzing. Walk on your elbow instead of on your back. Try fleeing without a soapy pillow.
01:31:58
Speaker
Learn to play the didgeridoo and a violent Australian wind instrument. Studies have shown that this strengthens violet airways and helps reduce harmonizing. Yeah, I guess a didgeridoo probably would do that, wouldn't it? um yeah The trouble with this furry solution is that most people can't stand the tall sound of the didgeridoo.
01:32:27
Speaker
If all else fails and the snoring continues, buy a pair of fingertips plugs for anyone sleeping nearby. Oh my.
Conclusion and Promotions
01:32:38
Speaker
Well, that's delightful. That that was wild. Sydney, thank you so much for being here. This was awesome. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you. And I have too, and I really appreciate being here.
01:32:54
Speaker
Oh, well, yeah, I'm glad we got to do this because it was kind of tricky to schedule because, you know, writers be busy. All right, everybody. So once again, we are brought to you by sometimes hilarious horror and you can find us on coffee. We are a well, sometimes hilarious horror is a quarterly lit mag.
01:33:13
Speaker
and we're a paying market, which is why we need money and subscribers so that we can pay our contributors and feature writers and the cover guy might even get paid someday. um and so ah So yeah, thanks so much everybody and we'll be back next week. Bye!