TIH 305: Josh Malerman on Malorie: A Bird Box Novel, Writing Movies and Adaptations, and Selling Rough Drafts

Michael David Wilson 0:29
Welcome to This Is Horror, a podcast for readers, writers and creators. I'm your host Michael David Wilson. And today alongside Bob Pastorella, we're going to be chatting with Josh Malerman. And this is the first time in three years that we've spoken to Josh Malerman for one of these long form conversations. And as is always the case, he did not disappoint. So much energy, so much enthusiasm, and what a wide ranging conversation we have for you today. And it also comes at a time when the This Is Horror journey with a house at the bottom of a lake is winding down, because next month, it will no longer be on sale. So if you haven't picked up a copy of a house at the bottom of a lake by Josh Malerman now is the time to do so. It has been hugely successful for us in terms of acclaim and in terms of sales and it's one of my favorite stories. So if you haven't picked it up, then order it online. Get it from your favorite bookstore, but for goodness sake, do experience do read a house at the bottom of a lake by Josh Malerman. Now before we get in to this fantastic conversation, a quick word from our sponsors.

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Michael David Wilson 3:05
Okay, well with that said let us not delay. It is time for Josh Malerman on desses Hara. Yash Welcome back to This Is Horror.

Josh Malerman 3:21
Thank you. Hello guys.

Michael David Wilson 3:24
So I don't know whether to say it's been a very long time because it's been three years since we had one of these full conversations. Or to say it's been a very short time because we had a cameo in Episode 300 about seven days ago.

Josh Malerman 3:40
Yeah, no, it still feels to me like it's been too long. That's the I'm still on that side of the fence. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Roll me that kind of made me feel weird. You're like it's been three years. And I think I told you in that I'm in shorter talk we had before that those last two and a half years have been an absolute blur for me. You know, when when I when I realized that Black Mad Wheel only came out two years and a few months ago, it was like, wait a minute, this has been non stop for like two, two and a half years almost. And so then I guess it makes sense that I haven't talked to you. But it also it was a little stunning when you wrote it when he wrote me that?

Michael David Wilson 4:17
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we've so much going on, it's a wonder that you've really been able to talk to anyone in that time. I mean, as you say, it's been nonstop.

Josh Malerman 4:28
Yes, yes. It really has and, and, you know, at some point hours, because when I met Alison, I was probably I'm probably writing like two rough drafts a year something like that, that average, but I didn't have a book deal yet. Um, I hadn't started writing short stories yet. And obviously there was nothing on the film side yet as well. So I was writing like two rough drafts a year but that you know, you could, you could one of those could take one month, one could Hey, you know, most of the year, whatever it was, and at some point she pointed out to me like, you're, you're doing a lot more now than you then when I met you. And I was What do you mean? I'm so read like two books a year. She's like, Yeah, but now you're like rewriting two books a year. Now you're, you know, all these meetings about the film side now. Now, there's short stories and interviews and all that. And I was like, Oh, wow, you're right. Yeah, this is different. But, to me, the thing that always matters, I'm not trying to sound so noble or something. But the thing that always matters is, are those rough drafts are those books you write? So to me, it's like everything surrounding that, whether it was before drinking with friends, or seeing family or trying to work, any job, whatever possible, or now, with all these other things happening, it to me, it seems like the same reality is occurring, which is writing about two books a year. But I understand and it took hours and like pointing that out to me, for me to like, see, like, oh, shit, dude, you're right. There's a lot more, a lot more going on these days. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael David Wilson 6:03
So it sounds like at the core, at the essence of what you're doing that has remained the same, putting those two rough drafts out per year, but it's all those surrounding forces and factors that have shifted. Yep,

Josh Malerman 6:18
there's a few things like, I don't know if they're like holes to watch out for traps to be careful of, but like, for example, so you start putting books out, right. And you have a number of rough drafts that you're that you're happy with, that you love in your office already. So what what would propel you to write another new book, you know, you know, that if you wrote, okay, let's say like, I have, like, 20 rough drafts in this office, right? If I release two a year, which is no, that's not gonna happen. If two came out a year, I wouldn't have to write a new one for 10 years, right? So what compels you, what propels you to, to let's do another new one? Well, for me, there's always been this sense of, I loved how the bands in like the 60s would release like an album just about every six months, and you got to watch The Who, The Beatles, The Kinks, you got to watch them grow. Like actually in pretty much in real time, you got to watch them grow as like artists, as thinkers, as writers, whatever. And I'm really afraid of losing that I'm afraid of like three years going by not undocumented, but three years going by and turning, turning around and being like, Oh, dude, you haven't written anything new in three years. Like that is a very even one year. That's like a frightening, like, I missed like, I missed something. Not that I don't know how to explain it. It's not that, you know, it's so important that I that I get my thoughts to the world. It's not like that. It's something. It's something a little more spiritual than that. It's more like, I need to check in the whole root of this whole thing is writing. Right? Yeah. And so you need to like check in with that root. At least twice a year.

Michael David Wilson 8:08
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's like training a muscle or playing a musical instrument. And whilst you're not going to forget entirely, you will get a little bit rusty if you leave it too long. Yep.

Josh Malerman 8:22
100%. That's happened to me before were trying to think oh, I when I finished my first one. First Book. He was like, it was like January, it was December of 04 January of 05. And I thought at that time, I was like, I did it. I wrote a book. Now what do we do now? What do we do climb a mountain? Right, you know? And six months later, or so I started thinking, oh, wait a minute, like, let's do another one. Right. But getting into it again, I didn't do any writing between those two. And getting the second one was Goblin actually which now has come up. But getting into Goblin was difficult because and the opening when I read the rough draft of that one, you could I could feel it. I'm like, Oh my gosh, this guy was like auto writing shape, you know? And then eventually you get into it. And especially that book was like 100 the rough draft was like 150,000 words or something. So at some point, you're you're you're rolling again. But it took a while to get anywhere just like you said if you stopped playing the guitar or piano for months, dude, it's gonna hurt when you come back.

Michael David Wilson 9:28
Yeah, yeah.

Bob Pastorella 9:30
Do you ever feel that there is a business pressure on that? And in other words, like, in this is something that we didn't know a lot including myself, everyone we all we all know that hey, you know, a Arthur a musician, a actor or director date and they don't owe us anything but at the same time. When you say that there's another group of people who are, you know, producers, publishers and things like then they're gone. Yeah, you do. So do you ever feel that there's any type of pressure from the business in that, you know, where it's like you said, you could go, hey, you know what? I really want to take some time off, but I can clean up these older things. Yeah. And send them out and take a breather. And I don't think you would do it. But I mean, it's something that probably people have done. And to me, I don't know if it if there's a business pressure on that, because you're taking something that you wrote, and it may be great, but then again, it might not be great. I know Stephen King has published books that he really didn't want to publish because he had fulfill a contract. He's been on record saying that it's like, hey, I really didn't want this book to come out. But hey, you know, I took a little break had something going there you go.

Josh Malerman 10:52
Yeah, imagine what imagine what that guy is juggling and what he juggled right. Oh my god. Um, but um, yeah. God, it's funny that you say that the beauty is when the two lineup right when the business pressure side you're talking about it, and what happens to line up with? Maybe you had, maybe I told my editor a new idea, right? And she loves it. Okay, now I'm writing a new one. So I'm satisfying that and also writing it for them or too well with a mind to give it to them. So there's those two line up, but when that doesn't happen, like for example, okay, I handed in I rewrote Mallorie in a big way. A couple of months ago, whenever I handed it in, like three weeks ago, whatever. I don't remember the exact numbers, but let's say three weeks ago, and then okay, so what am I going to do, right? For those three weeks, just wait for the notes, maybe write a short story or to like, maybe take a break. But I don't know Allison, I just moved into this new house. I'm in this office that I'm excited about being in all this stuff. So I'm like, You know what, dude, I'm just gonna write in I'm gonna write a new book. Let's just do it. I imagined very few notes coming back from from Malorie. And I'm like, I'm gonna write a, write this book. And hopefully now I get like the bulk of it done. Whatever. Before I get those notes back. Well, here's what happened. I did get the bulk of this rough draft done. But the notes from Malorie are super extensive. I just got them back like two days ago. So that's a moment when I'm like, oh, oh, shit. Okay, I have a convergence here. I'm almost done, but not quite like a week away from being done with a brand new holy cow, a new rough draft, will this one ever see the light of day, who knows? Meanwhile, Malorie is the um, you know, follow up to a to a book that was on the New York Times bestseller list. Obviously Malorie means a great deal to me in terms of career, right. And, and as I was telling you guys before, I I just love writing about her. But the point is, both those books are in completely in the same standing to me, they're both equally important to me. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to finish this rough draft First, take the five, six days to do it. Because I'm nervous that if I go to Malorie right now, I may never come back and find the rhythm of this rough draft that's happening right now. But can you imagine spending a month on Malorie and returning and being like, shit, where we're like, what was the beans in his book, man? So I think that that's a great example or answer to your question, because I can definitely see someone and maybe even me if I was, you know, 22 years old or something. I can see getting those notes back from Mallory and being like, I stop everything. I have to do this right now. And I said, Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no hold on this, this side of things is equally important to you. Get that thing done. Think about the notes from Malorie take that week, whatever it is, and then go into Malorie clean, clean had ended with the competence of having written a new book, you thought about the notes. So it to me what that is, is I've just gotten better at juggling. Whereas when I was younger, I would have definitely put this one on hold worked on Malorie, and then at the end of Malorie been like, Ah shit, man. Yeah, I don't know wind up just right. The end.

Bob Pastorella 14:18
Yeah, well, I mean, and that's, that's a good place to be to, that's where most writers want to be, is in that position of, you know, like, you, hey, I have to juggle this. I have to make it work. And you got enough experience with it that you're, you see, hey, that, you know, I'm, I'm kind of going along going here. I need to finish this line. finished this draft or I'm gonna lose it. Whereas a younger writer, I could see exactly what you're saying. They're like, Oh, I got notes. Time to fix it. Yeah, cuz that's, that's, here's the thing when you even if you sling an idea to a publisher, especially someone you work with, and they they tell you hey, I want to read that as A matter of fact, I'm probably going to publish it. That is some wanted pressure. Because now you're like, oh, wow, yeah, I've kind of almost got the damn contract. I just need to finish it. Right. And so now you have an impenitence. That's a different type of pressure than being able to juggle. So, man, it's always find that kind of fascinating that, you know, you have to be you have to be wise enough and experienced enough to know when to do what you do. It's, to me, it's like, I feel like that I could make a wrong decision at any time. It'd be screwed the pooch on that one. Yeah.

Josh Malerman 15:40
Right, because we're all practitioners of self doubt. I mean, every probably almost every artists we've ever met, or every writer and and everyone we talk about, and everyone you interview and everyone you met at the killer con and everyone I met, it scares the care. We're all you know, we all know self doubt very well. So it takes a certain like you say like little, just just a sprinkle of experience. And then you got to listen to that voice. It's like, dude, finish that rough draft. And also, here's something else. That's, that is really exciting to me is that so Ryan is my manager, you know, Ryan Lewis, and Ryan and I were like, we're like, you know, practically best friends. He's my age. He's awesome. He's not. Again, I don't want you guys picture some dude in a suit with a cigar and a pool. Dollar sign swimming pool with a puma next to him. He um, so Ryan, and I have done something that I think is kind of groundbreaking, at least for us, where we shot a rough draft recently, to accompany, um, that, that would be thrilling as hell to work with, right? A movie studio, a production company. So the reason this is a breakthrough for us is because typically so far, you you're kind of like, Hey, man, the minute it's published, we can first of all, you know, at that point, it's been rewritten, right? And you know that it's right. So then once it's published, whether it's a short story, a novella, like houses, Bible, Lake, novel, whatever it is, we know, at that point, we're good to go. Let's shop it, we like to that film side. But then, you know, Ryan and I were talking one day, and we're like, what, what about just chopping a rough draft? And, and the motivation behind that was? Typically that initial pitch is, what's the right phrase? Like, they're gonna have a million changes for it anyway, whoever you end up working with, they're gonna have suggestions, changes this or that to your family. Look at Bird Box the book to the movie, right? And so why does that? Why does that initial draft have to be perfect for them? Why does it have to be publishable? It almost becomes instead, like a really detailed pitch, if you if you know, if you want to look at it that way. So here's this book of mine. The editors at Del Rey haven't even seen it. I haven't brought it up to them. It's just in my office, we think it would make a great movie. What do you think? And now Ryan and I are talking in a real way to that company about the possibility of making this movie. Now if that happens, Ryan and I just opened the door for us, because there are 20 novels in here. The 20 more you know what I mean? 23 actually, right. The thing that that's very liberating in a way a while in a huge way for me, because it's just you know, and you could serialize podcast and book, there's a million ways to get a story out there right now. But that was that's that was interesting as you're talking to someone else about a rough draft, and making headway making like, like making headway making progress. And now talking about now I'm working on the outline of what the movie would be right? And be able to have this conversation with them at all, had I not written the rough draft in the first place. Right. So it seems there's something I don't know, it's almost like everyone was looking for so much. I don't know, I hate the word content. But everyone's looking for, like stories, and you know, all these different channels and outlets. And it seemed, it seemed like I was like, strapped to a chair or chained by what had been published when there's all these other stories in the office, and we just, we broke that ice recently. And I don't know dudes, if something comes to this, that'd be a breakthrough for us.

Michael David Wilson 19:29
Yes. And if you sell the rough draft, and it becomes a movie, then I mean, it's going to doubly serve you because the moment you tell Del Rey Well, there's this novel, and I sold the movie, it's going to be pretty easy for them to think well, of course, we want to pick up the novel and we want to publish that. I mean, last time we were chatting with you, we spoke about the phenomenal numbers of copies that bird bought shifted As soon as the movie came out, now, we know that that was an exceptional case, we know that that is not the norm for every movie deal to then generate that kind of sales with the book, but it's still going to have an impact.

Josh Malerman 20:17
Right? Right. Even even just on the publicity side alone, you know, there's like a sense, I guess, how would you put this that, um, once you accept that, that all these I think it begins with accepting that your book is going to be changed, no matter how good it is, like all about a lot of our favorite books, the movies are so different right than the book. So I think I think it begins somewhere like in there, when you realize that it's going to be changed, then why not show them the rough draft and all of a sudden your self image or whatever, like, you know, you're not as embarrassed to show a rough draft because you know, that they would also have a million suggestions about a final one. So what's the difference? And that's, that's pretty much the conversation that started the real weird thing, though. If a movie was made of that book, and then you went and rewrote the book, are you kind of doing a novelization of your own book?

Bob Pastorella 21:20
That's deep.

Josh Malerman 21:22
That's a weird thing. There's, there's I foresee this like metaphysical crisis sometime in the near horizon, if this takes off, and we're if this works for us, where, yeah, because aren't you then you're obviously going to take into account everything you guys talked about. Right. So what is that book in the end there? Is that a novelization of the movie of a book you wrote before the movie? I mean, that's that's sort of a mind screw right there. Yeah.

Bob Pastorella 21:49
It reminds me of William Peter Blatty. And how he sold the Exorcist, he got turned down by every publisher out there. And it wasn't until he wrote the script and sold the movie that we got the book, really? Yeah, he did. He did that first. Matter of fact, there was actually a little bit more to it than that he, somebody, he had a five or a couple minutes slot on or wanted to be on a certain talk show, and couldn't get on it. This is before the book was even published, and couldn't get on the talk show. And he got a call that there were two cancellations on a talk show, but he needed to be there in 15 minutes. And he happened to be in, you know, where they were shooting in New York. And he got there just in the nick of time, and got on this talk show and talked about the exorcist. And basically, you know, he, he, he didn't spoil it, but he broke the news that, hey, there's a script, there's a film being made. And then he had no problem at all. It was almost pick and choose who which publisher you wanted to go with. Wow.

Josh Malerman 23:01
Okay, wait. So then, man, I wish that he was on this line also. Oh, yeah.

Bob Pastorella 23:08
I wish he was, it would be cool. He's dead. But

Josh Malerman 23:14
I'd love to ask him how much of the finished book was informed by what they were talking about doing for the movie? Did they? Oh, in other words, did they stick to his script really tightly? Do we know that? Do you know that?

Bob Pastorella 23:25
I'm pretty sure that they did. I mean, obviously, I'm sure Fred can had some changes because he was a control freak. It wasn't like, you know, Polanski when he adapted Rosemary's Baby dabbas, his first American film, he was unaware that he could change the script. And say, and he lifted massive passages of dialogue from the book, you know, and I'm pretty sure that Levine if I'm not mistaken, I think I wrote, Levine actually wrote script for Rosemary's Baby. And so, but it was the way the books basically the script, you know, because it's so dialogue heavy and all that.

Josh Malerman 24:06
I'm really glad that you're bringing this up, because I always like you know, late night drunkenly talking to my friends. Like I always cite Rosemary's Baby as the one where, when, whenever, whenever, you know, someone's like, this is unfilmable this scene or that I always cite Rosemary's Baby. I'm like, dude, like, Polanski did it, right. He just stuck exactly to the book, and it's the horror movie. I didn't realize that he kind of felt that he needed to or had to

Bob Pastorella 24:32
write Yeah, he felt he basically it wasn't that he felt is that he didn't know. Yeah, he came in and said, Okay, I'm gonna have to take this book and I'm gonna have to adapt it and no one said, hey, you know, you can write your own script. You know, we bought the rights to the book, but we can do do it however. And so it's basically he just he was just ignorant of how they how American rights are different than certain European rights work. And, you know, to me, I mean, you know, of course, Polanski, you know, deserves to be, you know, barely, you know, set in a set sail underneath the prison, but it's same time we made a great film. He was smart enough to make the real star of the movie New York City. But, you know, yeah, it's just very, very interesting. Another point I want to make too, is, is we're talking about, you know, it's selling pitches based upon rough drafts. And I think it's important that our debt, our readers, and listeners, understand that when if you're, when you're sending in a rough draft, which you're talking about is, is something that's actually quite polished. Compared to Hey, yeah, I got my rough draft, and I've got a couple of things I need to work on, like the second 15. But I'm gonna submit it, because they're gonna make me add that anyway,

Josh Malerman 25:54
no good point, like, like, we're talking about our, you know, cohesive, from beginning to end novels, 300 400 pages, you know, like, a legitimate stab at, or just put it this way they're finished, right? It's not an outline, or, or, or like, a bundle of jumble of scenes that were like, What are we gonna do? You know, with all this? No, it's there, it just, it can be a lot better. And the writing itself could be a lot better. And I think that's kind of the side when you when I at least sit down to rewrite. You know, after months, I'll look at a rough draft and be like, Oh, God, Jesus is so embarrassing, you know, and then to think now of handing that to someone with the intention of them, just seeing the idea inside and like, what we're what this could be as a movie, it kind of like, you know, like, app, whatever, man, I hope you like it. It's kind of like, if you don't take your shirt off at the beach or something, it's like taking your shirt off at the beach. Alright, well, here, this is me. Here's the rough draft. And I hope that you glean this awesome idea from inside of it. And then it looks like in this case, so far, so good. And it's just, that doesn't mean that Ryan and I are now going to send out a fleet of rock drives or something. Well, maybe I don't know. But. But it is like an interesting breakthrough. I've just, I hadn't heard of other people doing that and how it just it makes the quote unquote, you know, backlog in this office, it makes it doesn't seem so stuck. When you look at it that way.

Bob Pastorella 27:34
right. And you're taking these and basically sending them out to movie, basically producers, directors, things like that you're not sending them out to be published. Right? That could be the end goal. What they have what they have at that point is to them, it's not a rough draft of a novel. It's just a very long treatment. Exactly. Exactly. In you haven't ads, Hey, these are novels, the draw ideas? Can Can Could one of these be developed? You guys want original scripts? Well, here you go. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So that's why you have to

Josh Malerman 28:17
And the thought to do this was the result of now having some experience of you know, I remember going to a meeting in LA to pitch like ideas before Bird Box came out. And it was really nerve racking guys, it was all of a sudden, I'm in this room at this awesome company. There was a conference room with you know, bright fluorescent lights above you know, that whole thing and you know, Ryan and the producer talk a little small talk for a while and then the producer looks at me he's like, So what So what ideas do you got what story ideas and I was like I I nervously you know, you know, muttered three or four ideas and he seemed whatever the conversation was, okay. And then when Bird Box came out, by then, I had seen all the changes that took place to the book and with the script and and in my own life, my own writing the all the different rewrites and listen that and other stuff and, and so by the time Bird Box came out after that, when I went into a meeting, I realized that I didn't I didn't need to tell him every idea or every element of the idea. I just needed to get that, that the that route, you know, like a blindfolded woman is navigating a river with two blindfolded children like fleeing a monster they can't look at you know, like that, like I needed to like distill it down to like this essence thing. And then if they like that, let's riff on top of that, and I didn't I didn't know that that first time. That first time I was like, well, once upon a time, there was...

Bob Pastorella 30:01
I can only imagine in your right because like they want you, they want you to have like one or two sentences, you know, you're in there going well see this thing happens and these other people they know, but one of them doesn't know about thing, but this other end, he doesn't say anything, and then there's vampires, right? No. And you're like going Oh, okay. Yeah.

Josh Malerman 30:25
Yeah. And then the way I see it now is when you when you go to pitch a story to like a film person or even an editor or whatever, do it the same way you would do. If you were sitting at the bar, and you're telling your buddy, what your books about that you're working on? That same? You the same exact thing, that same Oh, dude. So this is what it's about. And then your buddies like, oh, that sounds good. I didn't you you drink and you talk about other stuff. You don't tell them the whole thing. You give them like three sentence, you know, tiny little thing. That's what you tell your friend. That's the same spirit that you should be pitching it to other people.

Bob Pastorella 31:02
Right? And it's, you know, you get you get that like, you went to scares that care. And you you have people in your riders and things like that I just came back from Killer con. So everybody knew as much as we shouldn't. We do like to talk about things we're working on. You know? Yeah. Because it's like, you're like, Hey, what are you doing? What are you working on? Now? You know? And it's like, well, you know, and then, but if it's like, the first person you talk to, you may take you a little while. And then you know, after a couple minutes are like, Oh, dude, I want to read that. But then if you next person asks you, so you've already had a little practice, right? So you done to the point is, is that practice your pitch? Because you never, never know who you're going to be speaking with expressing you go to a con expressed if you go to, you know, any any, even if you're not even a production meaning, you know, someone could overhear you saying that. And the next thing you know, they're like, Well, hey, this is my card. And I run this and you're gonna be going, oh, oh, oh, shit. Okay. And then you're like, and they're like, send that to me in an email. And you're like, okay, yeah, never. No,

Josh Malerman 32:27
no, dude, I have so much to say about what you're saying right now. Because that's, and Allison really always points this out for me, because sometimes I forget to say this is that, um, when with Bird Box, I had been just posting online, you know, I finished a new book today. And then sometimes I'd even say what it was about. This was like, on MySpace or something, you know, this is a bit ago. And that led to my friend from high school contacting me and saying, Hey, I see that you're constantly like finishing a book and seems like every, like few months, like, Can I send one to this lawyer friend of his, this guy that he had worked with? And I was like, what you know that I've told you guys that story. But the point. The point is that all started by like what you're saying, just don't be ashamed to talk about it. Like you're out with someone. There's always this Oh, I don't want to. I mean, I tell them what the story I'm working on. What do you think is more interesting than that? The baseball game.

Bob Pastorella 33:25
Like, right, and talk

Josh Malerman 33:27
about what you're working on. And it's okay to like, excitedly, like, oh, man, I've got this great one about this cardboard woman, you know, it's like it's okay to like do that. And it feels good even.

Bob Pastorella 33:41
Yeah, the key is to not overdo it. It's to keep it as general as possible. Because, you know, there is that you run that risk of I told my story to 15 people over the weekend, and now I don't want to write it anymore. Right? Yeah. You know, you blew it. So you got to keep everything kind of very, very, very general. And, you know, shoot, and I know, you know, where I'm coming from, by the end of the weekend. It's like, Hey, what are you working on right now? And you can rattle off in two sentences. And they're like, Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Could you practice it? You know, weird. Yeah, no,

Josh Malerman 34:19
you're right. And I think that there is a certain, it's almost like, where the confidence for the whole, like writing of the book flowers from is being able to turn to your, you know, your mate, your friend, your, your family member who's like, oh, well, so what's the new book you're working on? Sometimes people will say to me, they'll be like, so what's the new one you're working on? Like, you know, in the shortest, you know, you just give me like a shortest explanation as if they're almost like saying like, hey, you know, I'd like to hear what you're working on. But like, I don't want to hear about it for an hour.

Bob Pastorella 34:52
Right.

Josh Malerman 34:56
But I do think that the confidence for the whole thing For me, kind of blooms from there, because it's like, I told Allison and I felt good about it, and it sounded good. And she was like, Oh, shit, that one sounds good. And all of a sudden, now you're, you've begun the momentum that you're gonna need, man, when you're 3540 50,000 words deep, and you feel a little out to see, and you know how it ends, but you haven't reached there yet. And that whole thing, you're going to need that sort of that confidence that that enthusiasm, like these little tricks that we're talking about right now.

Bob Pastorella 35:31
You do need those because if you don't have it at that 50,000 word, Mark, and you know, you've got another 30,000 words to go, yeah, you start getting thoughts like, I can print this and take it to the beach and burn it was ripped off, I could do that.

Josh Malerman 35:47
What a great story, it would be if this was the book I burned.

Bob Pastorella 35:52
It's like what happened to the book, I got frustrated with it and burned it.

And you don't want to do that those, those are bad. Those are bad. We want to keep the monster top down. We want to have pretty happy thoughts. You know,

Josh Malerman 36:09
I'm exactly at 50,000 By the way of this stuff that. Yeah, so it's sitting literally, you can hear it. Can you get this? Paper? Yeah, it is literally sitting next to me on the desk. And so to hear you say that I looked over it like no, no, no, don't burn. No, no, no, no, no, no, and I'm not gonna go to the beach. You're gonna stay around here. I love you. I love you.

Bob Pastorella 36:34
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, unknown project. And

Josh Malerman 36:40
we were talking about a different book. Yeah.

Michael David Wilson 36:44
But you said before that sometimes if you tell too many people, you can lose some of that magic, or the impetus to write the story can write their fear. And I know exactly what you're talking about there. And I mean, I tend to find that the best way to deal with that is, when you're talking about a story, make sure it's something that you're quite near at a minimum, the end of draft one, so you're fully committed. So there's absolutely no reason why you would abandon it. And I mean, on a similar note, Josh spoke about telling Alison ideas. And for some reason, if I tell my wife, Joe, it doesn't matter how fresh the idea is, I mean, I could have even not written a single word telling Joe is an exciting thing. And it just means that rather than lose it, it spurs me on to do more sadly, I mean, I think it's good to have a person or some people who, rather than it being crippling or stifling, it will actually spur you on. And to be honest. Yeah, and even just talking about an idea to Jo, I'll then realize, oh, hang on, no, I could go in this way. Or I could go in that direction. Or then she'll come up with something that I hadn't even so often. So it's literally evolving and growing within that conversation.

Bob Pastorella 38:16
I have people that I bounce ideas off of all the time. And like, you know, I have a really, really good friend. And usually, this is what happens when I bounce off. One of my crazy ideas is I get the, the puzzled look on the face, and he looks at me goes, That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. And usually, I'm like, and that's why I'm going to do it in the 80s. And he's like, then that's why you're gonna do it, and you're gonna make it not be the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. And then a couple, maybe a day or two later, and everything, you know, you run into him again, they're like, hey, that idea. Just tell me I can't get out of my head. It's not really that dumb. And sometimes I'll say it, especially if this could happen. You're like, well, hold on. Don't Don't Don't throw a monkey wrench in there. But, um, we'll consider that, you know, it's so it's kind of, always, to me, I think, because we're so closed in and when we write, it's all about, you know, it's just us in the page. And our imagination, which is internal, but so vast, that occasionally we need to have another person to bounce things off up to, like, brainstorm, and if you don't have that kind of little brainstorming network, they don't necessarily have to be writers, when they have to be people that you kind of have some alignment with. You can brainstorm like that. That debts to me. That's how a lot of the things that I do get, get, you know, get done, just because I've bounced ideas off of people. And I think it's only natural as being creative and you know, create gives like to share, we have a passion to tell stories. The whole key he is is that? Yeah, sure, we could sit there and run all these stories and put them on a computer and never shown to anyone and have in draw some kind of pleasure from that. But the idea is, even though we're writing these stories, and you have to read it, the concept is it goes all the way back to the original tradition. If we weren't, we're just telling a story. That means that other people should hear it. And it's when you have that kind of push and pull relationship with your peers, the brainstorming, that's where some of those great ideas actually come from. Because you might have the what you think is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But because of your limited scope, limited experience, you're gonna have that one friend, it's like, oh, yeah, just like the didn't this movie and this movie. You're like, going, fuck what? Who wrote all that? Yeah. Can you write all those names down for me? And they're like, sure, yeah, I'll put it on my email you a list. There's 400 There you go. Your ideas? Not that original. But I like it. See what you can do with it. You got to have that kind of bounce. Yeah,

Josh Malerman 41:14
I have a dude, James, who we send each other the smallest, from the smallest idea to the biggest, you know, I'll send like, Man goes camping pose tent out of bag sets up. 10 different man steps out of tent. You know? I'm like, then when he'll be like, yeah, right. That's great. That's a good short start, you know? And then he'll send me you know, man receives haunting in the mail. You know? Great, James. That's great. Right? And I mean, there must be my god, there must be like, 100 200 each, that we've sent each other. And so I will then go through our it's on Facebook chat really. Well, I'll just go through our thread. And just keep looking at it. Like, oh, and then I'll even you know, you don't just find your own you actually, you tell your buddy to like you say like, you tell your buddy, you're like James, did you write that one about the haunting in the mail? And you remember that one? That one's good. You should write that one. Like stuff like that. Yeah. You like you start to really fuel each other. Yeah.

Bob Pastorella 42:15
And that's, I mean, it's like what me and Max boot do. One of the things we bounce stuff off each other all the time. And usually, he's the one that says that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And then he's like, write it. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 42:27
yeah. Yeah.

Josh Malerman 42:29
Yeah, I love that guy.

Michael David Wilson 42:30
I mean, you wrote something similar the other day, either on Facebook or Twitter. Josh, it was something along the lines of two men talk in their sleep, then they realize they're having a conversation with. It's like, yeah, I don't know what that would look like, but I want you to write it.

Josh Malerman 42:51
I'm going to man, I'm on that one. But then yeah, that that is what you just said, that's exactly what I would send to James and what he would send to me. And that's and then all you need, all I need. All I need. Is that one spark at the beginning, not necessarily someone else, saying it was a good idea. Just that one? Like, is this one going to fly? Because if you really think about it, even if you were like, the most prolific person in the world, what do you like? What would that mean? Like 70 bucks or something like that? Don't even know. So you're still talking about like, something you only do like, you know, once a year or something you send me like, like, like, you get what, like that idea, that idea for that book. In other words, the books you write are like, those are sort of like, rare in terms of like, ideas that made it this far. Exactly. Point. You're like, you look down and you're like, oh, shit, you made it like this. You know, I've had 1000 I'm looking at that rough draft right now. I've had 1000 ideas between you and the last one. But you made it You mean it's like, it's like a sperm making it through or something?

Bob Pastorella 43:55
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's ideas in search of a story. Our job is to take that idea and to help it grow into a story. Because there's tons of ideas out there, man dirt, dirt, you know, in that's one of the things that's the beautiful thing about writing creating is that we, we have a ton of ideas and me nine times out of 10 we know most of them are stupid. But I mean, you can you can hear something from someone and not even remember where you heard it from. Oh, yeah, but it has spurred an idea. And I don't know who said it on a podcast last week, but someone said the phrase and now would be the king of the rat. And I immediately thought of vampires. And I'm like, Oh, wow, okay, there's there could be something there. And that's an that's an idea. Yeah, in search of a story.

Josh Malerman 44:56
I was at dinner once at my ex girlfriends. House. God, this was Oh, my God, this was 16 years ago or so? Well, I think I just finished writing one or two books. So like, oh five, yeah, like 14 years ago like that. And her stepdad who, whatever, for whatever reason, didn't really like me. I don't know why whatever. That was a weird scene, man. But we were at dinner. And the stepdad used the phrase decorum at the deathbed. And I don't know why he used that this was like a straight conservative, like he owned like a regular little company, you know. And he used the phrase decorum at the deathbed. And I was like, whoa, whoa, hey, was that yours? And he was like, What are you? What do you mean? I was like, no, no, that what you just said, You just had to decorum at the deathbed. He was like, I was Josh. I was just talking. And I was like, Okay, well, that's mine now. And I wrote, I wrote a novel to it called decorum at the deathbed. I just couldn't let the title alone was enough for me to like, oh my god, this could be any setting and how someone behaved while someone else was dying. And oh, my God, this is so good, you know. And all it took was this guy who I didn't even agree with or really get along that well with which is rare for me in my life. And, and even that, dude, he said something, and I just like plucked it, and I was like, Oh, my God. Now I got a book, a novel. Yeah,

Bob Pastorella 46:18
that reminds me of a conversation that I had briefly with John skip. I'm really observant. He was at killer Khan. And I noticed him. He was, uh, he had pulled out his laptop and like, kinda like, you know, off to the side. And I said, Hey, you about to do some work? He said, No, no, no, I'm just gonna look something up. And I said, I thought you're gonna do some notes. And he reaches in his back pocket and pulls out a pen and pad. He goes, No, no, these are notes. And he showed me some of them and it just like one or two words. Yeah, he goes, he goes, this is what I've gathered over the weekend. He goes, and I don't know what they are. But he goes, I'm going to their notes for something, you know. And he's like, this one here. And they just show me just some weird word. He goes that that's a project man. That's that's a project right there. And so, something we all do, we need to have some way to record it. You know, I'm notorious for having folders of shit that I don't know what they are, but I'm gonna figure it out.

Josh Malerman 47:21
Yeah, I know me and Matt. John showed me that notebook as well, when we were um, where was it? It must have been so recon. And so John man who this so so Ryan and I are now we have started. Everything since Bird Box. Everything that's been optioned in the like Ryan and I are now producers on right. With Bird Box. We were not, obviously, there was no way we were going to pull that off, right? Because we were completely unknown at the time. So Ryan and I, we call ourselves spinner black yarn. It's the title of a short story collection of mine that has not come out yet spin a black yarn, like tell a dark tale, and, and so Spin A Black Yarn, it has now reached out and we're starting to shop people's books that are not mine. So now imagine how exciting this is for me. So I come to Ryan and I'm like, dude, so I just read this book by Jonathan Janz, I read this book, you know, by John Skipp, I read it, and maybe we should look into this one, and blah, blah, blah. And then Ryan and I have shopped a few of them. There's like four or five that were shopping right now. And one of them's a John Skipp book. And I don't want to say too much because I don't know what's inevitable or what's not. But we are in development with John skip on one of his books. And John is like working on the script. And the whole point of bringing this up, is this guy is the most collaborative writer I've ever experienced in my entire life. Like, when I wrote a script, I've written a few scripts, I wrote one for a house at the bottom of a Lake. When I do it, I like I listen to what everyone has to say. I just look at the read the book, whatever, I do it on my own. I bring it out. People make notes. Okay. Oh, awesome. Okay, we talked about it, I go back and do it alone. John is like talking to everyone, like every scene every step of the way. Like, hey, so this is why this guy does this. This is why this and it's just like, it's so refreshing. It's like, it's like egoless like, there's no I'm John. It's not like John's like, this is my precious vision. And I'm gonna bring it he's like, literally talking to everyone involved, like every step of the way. I mean, it's a little overwhelming. And it's completely awesome.

Bob Pastorella 49:40
Yeah, he's the collaborative King. Yes. And the beauty of it is is that you feel as though with collaboration that in me and Michael, I've done one, and I would say that it's literally, you know, 5050 and I have a feeling that there's Some people have been burned by collaborations, because they're kind of like, well, I did add them in 20. You know, so but he's, he's the one he puts into work. It's, you know, it's like it but he, he encourages you and inspires you to if you're collaborating with them, you're doing the work to him. You can't help but if I if he said, Hey, Bob, let's do something together. Would be Hey, well, I guess what John, and he'd be like, wow, like this too. Hey, we can put that together go to his energy is on fucking believable.

Josh Malerman 50:35
It's unbelievable, dude. Like, I feel like I'm high energy. I feel like all three of us are here on this phone. I can't even imagine maybe he's the same or maybe he has more energy. But I can't even imagine skip when he was like, 25 I can't even imagine what that was like.

Bob Pastorella 50:51
He told us a story about and I'm not going to repeat it. It's it's it's not that it's not repeatable. It's just that we're talking to Ed but he does story hag broken. On believable. It's basically don't do this. It's yeah. And it was I was like, wow, that is crazy.

Josh Malerman 51:16
When how the bike messenger service and all that. Exactly. Yeah, no, that dude, man. I did tell me that story like that. I met him and I was like, wait, what? That's like, everyone's like dream story. Everyone's story was that story.

Bob Pastorella 51:32
Yeah, it is. It was it was amazing. And yeah, he's, he's cool as hell, man. Yep. And, you know, he just any so he said, like back when you meeting? You know, you. I felt like I had to remind him who I was. But no, he knew. I was like, Hey, John. He goes, Hey, Bob, what's happening, man? Uh, you know, he's mainly he's on point, man. And it's like, and this this guy's deal, you know?

Josh Malerman 51:58
Yeah, I love him. I absolutely love him. And I'm working with him in on this on this book is that he's he's turning into a script. Yeah. So many, so many things. I like want to, like, say. I feel like it actually is becoming something of a I don't know the right word. I don't want to say like a thorn in my side. Because it's all so awesome. What's happening. But this practice of like, you know, when you sign a deal, but you can't make the announcement yet and then like, When can you and you don't know and maybe even a year it goes by and that side of it is driving me nuts in this only imagine Oh, in like the immediate gratification social media world, you just want to like tell everyone right away, we're doing this thing we were working with John Skipp, this book of mine might be here, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. And but there's there's this sort of like, you know, professional silence until told otherwise that you kind of got to abide by or or you kind of may rock what they what the studio has in mind, you know, because maybe they want to bring just they just want to target like a certain one director or two directors or something like that. So if you make the announcement online, then maybe more people come to them. And then maybe the director doesn't feel like it was so special for them, all those kinds of things. And I respect all that. I respect all that. But it is driving me a little bananas.

Bob Pastorella 53:18
I think I think they like to build up some type of anticipation without really spilling any the beans. Because there's a art to the reveal. Yep. Yep, it's timing more than anything. I may have people that are behind the scenes that go hey, you can't announce that yet. Because this is about to be announced.

Josh Malerman 53:41
My reveal

Bob Pastorella 53:46
was that I said,

Josh Malerman 53:47
all my reveals in life are all artless, there's just like vomiting and from excitement vomit. And

Michael David Wilson 53:59
think this is why we see so many people vague book as it's been termed, because people have so many things going on. They're so excited, but they know that they can't say much. So then you just get tweets and Facebook statuses that just say things like, got some really good news or working on a new project can't tell you anything about it. And you can tell that, you know, they're absolutely buzzing and they want to say something, but obviously for legal or other reasons. They just can't Yeah, and yeah, I think when you said that people are living in this instant gratification world. I mean, that's what it is when we've got so much instantly at our fingertips. You almost wants to act that way with information. So there is no anticipation you just want to blast it out there and then yeah,

Josh Malerman 54:57
in all these cases, and there's been a number of them, and it's very exciting. But in each instance of talking about I'm very careful and other stuff. I want to like, it's the first question I asked. I'm like, Okay, this is amazing. We're starting, hey, when can I ask this? Man, and so far really since, you know, really since, well, I guess Black Mad Wheel is in development, and that was announced. And but since then, it's been pretty much like, um, well, not yet. We'll tell you when you know. And I'm like, huh, so but yeah, I mean, whatever, you know, nice problem to have. I understand that. But I do find myself. You know, like, I'm just a natural blabber mouth. I'd love to be set loose. Yeah.

Michael David Wilson 55:47
Thank you so much for listening to part one with Josh Malerman. Join us again next time where we will be back with a second and final part of the conversation. And there is a lot to look forward to. We talk about how nobody really knows what the hell they're doing. We talk about a horror story that Josh would like to see made into a movie. We talked about post bird box. So SAS and how that affects both Josh's publishing strategy and way of approaching writing. And of course, we talk about a lot, lot more. And you could be listening to this episode ahead of the crowd. If you were to become a patron@www.patreon.com forward slash, This Is Horror. And another perk of being a patron is that you can submit questions to each and every interviewee, or we have a number of great guests coming up we're going to be chatting with Mary San Giovanni, Adam Neville, Sarah Pinborough, Lawrence block, Christopher Golden, and many, many more. So if you liked the show, if you'd like to support the show, and you have $1 Then please pledge to www.patreon.com forward slash, This Is Horror. Okay, before I wrap up a quick word from our sponsors. Beneath

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Michael David Wilson 58:30
As always, I would like to end with a quote. And this is from Katherine Patterson. The wonderful thing about books is that they allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else's life. I'll see you in the next episode for part two of Josh Malerman. But until then, take care yourselves be good to one another, read horror. Keep on writing and have a great, great day.