TIH 572: Paul Tremblay on Horror Movie and Masks, Metallica, and Defining Success

00:01.70
Michael David Wilson
So another integral part of horror movie, and indeed of many horror movies, is the mask. And I wanted to talk about when you knew this was going to feature in the story, and then just kind of the significance and representation of masks in horror in general.

00:27.95
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, I knew sort of like right away like when I started thinking about like what I was going to write that. Yeah, the thin kid would be sort of this masked figure. um You know, and also sort of at the end of like Because it was filming in 93, which was before Scream.

00:45.93
Michael David Wilson
Yes.

00:46.52
Paul Tremblay
I made sure it was before Scream, but still sort of at sort of at the end or the tail tail end of the 80s sort of slasher cycle.

00:52.38
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

00:54.18
Paul Tremblay
So yeah these young filmmakers would would would have the knowledge of all these sort of masked killers. um So, yeah, and as far as the second question, that's kind of hard to answer. because I think my answer would be really obnoxious, just be like the book horror movie is sort of like, you know, me thinking about masks. You know, there's a bunch of characters at certain times talk about like sort of what what being behind a mask means, sort of like some of the power that I can give you and. You know what?

01:27.44
Paul Tremblay
You know, maybe even like sort of the power it has over like the viewer, too. um I don't know. I mean, for me, that was sort of like fun to explore. ah Because for me, like, my my favorite, like, I'm not a huge slasher guy. Obviously, I've seen most of them. And there are some that are obviously, you know, universally great. And, you know, I would say, you know, we already mentioned Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And maybe, folks, we haven't made fun of anybody yet. I'm not making fun of him. But I think Stephen Graham Jones would maybe argue against Chainsaw being an actual slasher movie, ah you know, according to his slasher rules, which I do not want to break because i then I would probably end up in his murder basement. um But where was I going with this? Oh, so for me, like, you know, my my favorite movies growing up, you know, were men in suits or, you know, you know actors in suits, you know, like Godzilla, a Creature from the Black Lagoon, like, you know, so those kind of mac masks.

02:21.49
Paul Tremblay
And, you know, without maybe getting too spoilery, it's a little bit of, a you know, the mask in my story. might Maybe it's a little combo of both. I'm not sure ah why I'm sure. I'm just saying that to be ambiguous. um I would say the other thing I was sure, I was 100% sure about was I did not want any of the book's artwork to have a mask on it. Because one, I felt like it probably wouldn't look great. And also like I didn't want any particular image, any visual image that's on something to be. Oh, that's going to be fixed in your the viewer or the readers. I said viewers had the reader's head. So I thought that was really important to the story that every person who reads this sort of has their own image of what the mask is. You know, I mean, that they'd all look similar, but probably a little bit different, ultimately. That's not to say me I love having art and books. and yeah know And usually I'm asking my publishers, can we have art for certain things? But this is like the first time I was like, we cannot have a mask.

03:17.82
Paul Tremblay
on the cover or anywhere near it, ah you know, for the reason I sort of described because I thought that was very important.

03:25.69
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it makes me think how you'd go about doing that if it were to be adapted into a film.

03:36.60
Paul Tremblay
Sure.

03:37.49
Michael David Wilson
I mean, because it is kind of the dilemma as to whether to show the monster or not. This is like whether it to show the mask.

03:43.95
Paul Tremblay
sure

03:45.71
Michael David Wilson
I mean, it if you don't in the film version, it is a somewhat challenging.

03:50.76
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

03:51.81
Michael David Wilson
But I suppose, you know, if you have the thin kid in kind of like shadow and so like you know it's like kind of partially obscure then that there's ways of going about it.

04:04.97
Paul Tremblay
Absolutely. if If someone were to just throw a pile of money at me and say, hey, Paul, direct this, even though you don't know what the hell you're doing.

04:06.19
Bob Pastorella
Uh-huh.

04:10.75
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

04:13.57
Paul Tremblay
that's I mean, it's sort of like you just sort of said how I would approach it like I would want. ah I would want there to be like multiple masks and have them look differently. and like you know But try to trick trick the viewer a little bit. like When it's full daylight, you see it. But like when there are the scenes where it's like shaded in darkness, it's going to look different. And actually, you make it look different by it being like a somewhat different mask. And you can sort of play with perception that way.

04:38.45
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, yeah.

04:39.55
Bob Pastorella
Yeah.

04:39.67
Michael David Wilson
I love that idea of there being literal different masks and then depending on the lighting will depend which one and you're just fucking with people. What's going on here?

04:49.76
Bob Pastorella
Yeah.

04:50.38
Paul Tremblay
Yes.

04:52.18
Bob Pastorella
I mean, ah another way to do it too, you can still do that, but I'm thinking that if there was a film adaptation that you would, we would see the mast from the person wearing its point of view. In other words, you would see the eye holes.

05:07.34
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

05:07.84
Bob Pastorella
And so because it's saying the monster, mean especially in horror, if you're going to do it properly, you don't really reveal the monster until the third act anyway. And so you would go through the first two acts of the story if they, if they chose to do it in an act form, but let's say like your last, you know, 25 minutes or so of the movie is when you would actually reveal the mask. not the person wearing the mask and then, but still have multiple mask, you know, because when you review in that way, you, you, you could still have that.

05:38.73
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Yeah.

05:47.46
Bob Pastorella
Cause I love that. I'll freaking love that. But to have that type of reveal later subverts the the classic reveal, you know, so I don't know, maybe

05:57.87
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

06:01.09
Bob Pastorella
if somebody If somebody's listening and you were thinking of adapting this, do that. yeah but

06:10.33
Michael David Wilson
Which begs the unasked but heavily implied question, are there any talks of this becoming a movie? I mean, it seems like if any book were to become a movie, the one called Horror Movie would make quite a good horror movie.

06:28.55
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. One would think, yeah. So the no, no offers, but also like my reps are just sort of at the start of like pitching it sort of far and wide. But like, as we also did talk, discussed earlier, you know, it's probably not the ideal time to be pitching things in Hollywood, but who knows? I mean, I think in some ways it'd be kind of hard to film, but in some others, it's like, man, i just need someone who's creative and willing to take a chance. I mean, I would love like something like Ty West, where you get multiple movies. Like how about, how about you make sort of, the experience of what's happening modern day as one movie.

07:01.24
Paul Tremblay
And then how about you make like the actual original horror movie. That's your second movie. You know, make the actual, you know, what was in the screenplay. But that's also me just being greedy.

07:14.14
Michael David Wilson
Well, and it makes me wonder as well, because I i kind of associate Tai West closely with the VHS series.

07:14.67
Paul Tremblay
But I don't know.

07:24.28
Michael David Wilson
It's like, oh, you you could have multiple directors involved in this.

07:29.72
Paul Tremblay
That would be cool, yeah.

07:32.89
Michael David Wilson
Someone needs to pick this up. I know that from

07:34.92
Paul Tremblay
i Yeah, I'm open to it. Somebody.

07:36.85
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. From, from time to time, we do have these important influential people listening in.

07:40.49
Paul Tremblay
thank

07:42.93
Michael David Wilson
So that this is your moment.

07:43.34
Paul Tremblay
Right on.

07:44.89
Michael David Wilson
You got to reach out to Paul and his representatives.

07:48.53
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

07:49.40
Michael David Wilson
Um, I i mean, I kind of feel a horror movie called horror movie has sold itself.

07:58.04
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, unless they want to call it horror novel, but that would make sense.

08:03.32
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. don

08:03.75
Paul Tremblay
You have to flip it around. Yeah.

08:05.22
Michael David Wilson
Don't do that.

08:05.37
Paul Tremblay
Horror, horror novel, horror novel, the movie. Yeah, no, that's it.

08:08.94
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you you mentioned Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Stephen Graham Jones might not class it as a slasher. And so that immediately got me thinking, you know, do I, don't I class it as one? And, you know, the arguments for and against, I mean,

08:30.92
Paul Tremblay
yeah

08:35.10
Michael David Wilson
I think it can be classified certainly ah as a dark thriller or a straight horror, but then it does have a lot of the elements ah of the slasher as well. But then I guess it does deviate from, you know, when you think of what a slasher film is.

08:47.78
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, yeah

08:54.07
Michael David Wilson
So it's kind of like a Schrodinger slasher.

08:54.65
Paul Tremblay
right.

08:59.51
Michael David Wilson
It both is and isn't a slasher.

09:01.35
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, I like that man. so I'm Steven. If he hears this, he's going to write that story now shorting your slasher.

09:07.58
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, yeah you you can have it, Stephen.

09:08.32
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

09:11.16
Michael David Wilson
You can have that as one of your 10 books that you write this year, because that's kind of the work rate.

09:16.18
Paul Tremblay
Yes. Yeah.

09:19.00
Michael David Wilson
What do you think, Bob? I know that you're a huge Texas Chainsaw Massacre fan.

09:25.34
Bob Pastorella
Well, am and I am, and I'm typically, I don't really care for slashers. Um, and I know it's like, Oh my God, he doesn't like slashers. Um, I liked the first cause usually there's like nine of them. Right. And so I usually liked the first film.

09:42.55
Paul Tremblay
Mhm.

09:42.69
Bob Pastorella
And after that, it's like, okay, hey they're like, Hey, let's do the same film again, but we'll have different actors.

09:48.61
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

09:49.22
Bob Pastorella
I was like, okay, yeah, that's not a good idea. But as far as the text of Chainsaw Massacre, I feel it is one of the purest forms of horror in a film. Regardless if it scared you or not, the characters in the film were horrified by what they were experiencing. And to me, that's the gauge right there. You know, and it's it's like that argument.

10:20.99
Bob Pastorella
Well, um, all horror films have to be supernatural. I'm like, well then explain the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

10:25.23
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, yeah.

10:28.10
Bob Pastorella
Yeah. That's not really a slasher. Um, that is, is almost just pure horror. And if you have to gauge it by the characters. If they felt horror. then that's no excuse for you not having empathy. You know, and that's just, that's how I feel about it. So I don't, I don't think it's a slasher. I think it's just a pure horror film.

10:56.56
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

10:56.70
Michael David Wilson
There we go. Stephen Graham Jones is nodding along to that part.

11:02.23
Bob Pastorella
listen

11:04.07
Michael David Wilson
Well, taking a somewhat hard turn in another direction, and this will only make sense to people who have read horror movie that I'm going to ask this question. Do you think that Metallica are sellouts? And if so, when do you think they sold out?

11:25.40
Paul Tremblay
Oh, I mean, so I was never like the hugest Metallica fan. So I'm just going to go off my brother who. It was five years younger, also a big horror fan. He was the Gorehound. I was more like the supernatural horror guy and covering my eyes over, you know, with Gore. But no, yeah, my brother would definitely be like, oh, the black album is the clear line of demarcation. um Yeah. Yeah. So people listening out there like this early, not a spoiler, it's an early reference to sort of the Gen X characters, you know, making the movie in 1993, you know, discussing bands that they thought were sellouts, you know, an important sort of conversation. Well, it would have been important to me like in my mid 20s. You know, I thought that was sort of important to mention with the characters as a way of like putting them in 1993. I mean, because it's funny, like, I don't know,

12:20.81
Paul Tremblay
like I think we're all close to the same age, but for me, that was like such a formative thing of like, you know, sort of the the group that I was a part of in the 90s, you know, you know, when I was going to like pumpkin alternative shows, like the the idea, nothing could be worse than being a sellout. um And that that notion doesn't even really exist anymore. It's funny, not that I would, you know, my kids are both very artistic. I would never accuse them of being sellouts. But i I once asked my daughter what she thought, you know, define the term sellout for me. And she started off by saying, it's like, well, it's when someone has an established brand and they sort of go against it. and I was already cringing at the word brand. ah So I don't know, it's just kind of funny. I mean, I think that's, you know, you sort of asked that question a little bit in jest, but to me, that's sort of like part of what drives at least, you know, Valentina's want to make art is sort of that Gen X sellout sort of thing.

13:16.33
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think in terms of like definitely going away from the style, let's say style, because brand is overused and only came into parlance about 10 years ago anyway, if that, but

13:27.97
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

13:34.19
Michael David Wilson
I mean, cause they were clearly making fresh metal in, in the vein of, you know, Slayer and Anphrax as well. And obviously Megadeth, they've Mustang being an original member, but yeah, then the, the black album, it was definitely a lot more commercial. It was a change of pace, but. yeah yeah it It is a great rock album. It's just, you know, very different to what they did before.

14:04.21
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

14:08.36
Michael David Wilson
um They've had an interesting career, the the low point being St.

14:13.11
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

14:16.32
Michael David Wilson
Anger, which I just think I would...

14:20.36
Paul Tremblay
I know Bracken McLeod will fight people over saying anger. I think that's right. Or like, I don't think he's going to fight people over, but I think he likes that album.

14:27.68
Bob Pastorella
He does.

14:27.81
Paul Tremblay
I don't know.

14:27.76
Michael David Wilson
mean I mean,

14:28.06
Paul Tremblay
So like the, the the yeah. yeah So like you know it's obviously like easy for us to you know sort of dismissively say, yeah, this is when they sold out. But I mean, there's that, you know as an older sort of writer now, like the you know I've written a bunch of books and it's like, I would hate it for people to be like, oh, this is when he sold out. Yeah. That means like, oh, like where, where's artistic growth? Like, you know, you know, when we say Metallica sold out, but at the same time, I think we would criticize them if they had made like the same album over and over again.

15:01.53
Paul Tremblay
So it's almost like a no win situation in some ways.

15:04.02
Michael David Wilson
i' I mean, some people might, but I'm very help happy that Motorhead made the same album again and again for for decades.

15:08.26
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

15:13.63
Michael David Wilson
And, you know, one could argue the same with Slayer, but I mean, for yeah, what what kind of makes the Metallica situation complicated is that I do think that the Black Album is a great album. It's just a very different album. So I don't know. Is is that selling out or is that just having a change in direction? And then to add further complication, I mean, after Saint Anger, you know, the the three albums after they've been going back to a more fresh metal style or so.

15:39.60
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

15:51.51
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

15:54.35
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, I think there's a number of actors. I think maybe John Travolta was one of them who like kind of his pattern was to to do a film that he really cared about and then to just do a film for the money. And I suppose maybe the novelist equivalent would be taking like a kind of franchise like a, you know, like a movie tie in or a video game tie in and doing that purely for the money, then getting some money.

16:23.71
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

16:29.42
Michael David Wilson
And, you know, writing the project that they really care about and

16:33.84
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

16:35.00
Michael David Wilson
I don't know if there's anything wrong with that. And if there is, then maybe writers need to be paid more.

16:38.20
Paul Tremblay
No.

16:42.09
Michael David Wilson
So we've gone full circle to where this conversation started.

16:43.76
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, yeah, no, no, it is interesting. It's more it's more musicians that would get that label. ah I don't think I've ever heard people discuss actors in that way. Uh, which is interesting. Um, yeah. And maybe not so much writers either. Uh, you know, for like, it seems almost like a solely musical thing to at least Gen X style be labeled with, uh, with the, uh, the sellout thing. Cause I mean, uh, I don't know why maybe because it's more easily to see like there's, or more easily to hear and detect like this actual change in, you know, the art that they've been producing. Whereas maybe if it's acting or writing, it's harder to,

17:23.88
Paul Tremblay
Not hard to detect, but yeah, I don't know. It's interesting.

17:28.82
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

17:29.02
Bob Pastorella
Yeah, it's it's, it's a weird, it's a weird dynamic, especially looking at Metallica's, you know, at their trajectory. Cause you know, we had injustice for all that had the worst mix ever on, it on an album ever. Um, and you, had and you had these, uh, superindulgently long solos. And I can, you know, and they find, and they get with Bob Rock and, um, I'm, there's probably conversations like we we want to become millionaires and Bob's probably like, well, this is how we do it. And there's probably a little bit of mental wrestling, um, with, uh, having to deal with the fact that they're going to make their first music video.

18:02.24
Paul Tremblay
Mm.

18:08.02
Bob Pastorella
And that was when that, you know, when the inner Sandman video came out, which I liked and I liked the song, the word sell out.

18:11.36
Paul Tremblay
Mm

18:15.38
Bob Pastorella
It came out of my brain. I'm like, oh, look, Metallica made an actual video. Yay, they're sellouts.

18:21.16
Paul Tremblay
hmm.

18:21.73
Bob Pastorella
you know in a and it's you know they they didn't do I think that they they had a video for one, but it was there was really kind of performance in there, and they had you know Johnny got his gun, and I forgave them for that.

18:32.63
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

18:37.15
Bob Pastorella
you know, because I thought it was a very, very well done video, especially pulling in parts from from that film, you know, and ah so I'm like, Okay, so that that's pretty cool.

18:43.51
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

18:46.29
Bob Pastorella
But then they have actually like a concept video. It's like, Oh, well, yeah. But then you got to look at their other trajectory. They got, you know, load and reload. I mean, these these albums were definitely children of the 90s albums.

18:55.08
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

18:59.21
Bob Pastorella
You know, they had this very alternative style. Um, You know, but it it was still kind of edgy. I mean, the album covers are body fluids.

19:08.94
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

19:08.93
Bob Pastorella
So I mean, it's like, you know, there's still this kind of, Hey, yeah, you know, um, were they contractually obligated to put out those albums? And they just said, you know, you know, what are you doing for body for, uh, for album covers? Well, we're going to use body fluids. Don't worry about it.

19:21.95
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

19:22.54
Bob Pastorella
You know, so, but yeah, they, they've come back full circle because full circle means that people are actually liking their stuff. It's just taken them a long time to get to where they're comfortable. Again, you know, but, um, I don't, I don't know. I don't feel their silence now. I think they've kind of come back, you know?

19:44.65
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. I mean, they they don't need to be sellouts. They've got so much money.

19:49.29
Bob Pastorella
Right.

19:50.25
Michael David Wilson
They never need to do anything for the money, you know, ever again.

19:51.64
Paul Tremblay
it Yeah.

19:54.70
Bob Pastorella
Mm-hmm.

19:56.22
Michael David Wilson
And I mean, St. Anger was an interesting one because I think they were trying to kind of jump onto the new metal kind of train, but also had their own spin. And obviously, that was a very turbulent time where the band were, you know, going through some issues to put it, you know, lightly. right how That the snare drum just isn't working on that album. Yeah, they they tried. I mean, a lot of

20:34.13
Michael David Wilson
different bands like tried to jump onto to Nu Metal like Machine Head decided to do that and put out a couple of really terrible albums but you know then Nu Metal all largely went away and I and don't think that's

20:45.71
Bob Pastorella
Mm hmm.

20:53.27
Michael David Wilson
A bad thing, really, isn't it?

20:54.62
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, no, I would agree with that.

20:55.00
Michael David Wilson
Now I've not only upset Bracken, I've upset all fans of New Metal, so that is probably a larger pull.

21:06.12
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Well.

21:07.41
Michael David Wilson
I don't want to physically fight anyone over it, especially not Bracken. I'm not an idiot.

21:12.08
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, no.

21:12.79
Michael David Wilson
I have opinions, but he's much bigger than me, so why would I do that?

21:14.69
Paul Tremblay
Yes.

21:17.71
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, now this is just a peaceful dissing of ah records and bands, yeah.

21:21.96
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a number of Patreon questions, so I want to jump into those now to make sure that we give them...

21:32.73
Paul Tremblay
The first one's from Lars Ulrich. No.

21:35.95
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. That would be something. The first question is from Jeremy, and Jeremy would like to know, Have you ever had a supernatural experience that changed the way you write and interact with horror?

21:57.68
Paul Tremblay
Well, uh, yeah, no, definitely not.

21:58.80
Michael David Wilson
It's the hell of a question. yeah

22:02.97
Paul Tremblay
Uh, yeah, I don't, I don't think I've ever had a ghost experience or supernatural experience. I mean, uh, once we were kids, we were messing around with a Ouija board and it spelled out like a message that was upsetting and we freaked out. But like, but then like when I was a teenager, my dad worked at Parker brothers and I helped mass produce Ouija boards ah that kind of lost. I lost some of the fear of Ouija boards after that. um Yeah, no. ah I. I haven't had a supernatural experience and I. You know, typically like when asked because we're you know, horror writers are asked often like yeah if you ever seen a ghost, do you believe in ghosts in my my pet? My pet answer is usually oh, like ninety five, ninety seven percent of the time.

22:54.06
Paul Tremblay
Like, you know, I don't believe in that stuff. But like, there's a three percent where like, if I have a terrible dream or I'm alone in the house and it's dark, you know, and then the next day I'm like, oh, you're such an idiot. I've said that answer so many times. And in the presence of Stephen Graham Jones, he what he got sick of me saying that. And on a panel, he said, you keep saying that. But like, if you if you say you believe, you you know, you believe 97 don't believe 97 percent of the time, does that mean you believe three percent of the time? So you do believe. And it was, ah yeah, it was you know I had no comeback to that.

23:26.83
Paul Tremblay
One, because I know Steven hates math. like He hit me with math. It was like, whoa, below the belt, Steven. So yeah. So the short version is like, no, I don't i don't have an experience that sort of changed the writing. I'm kind of glad I have it. I don't want one.

23:42.52
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was going to ask, do you want a soup?

23:46.79
Paul Tremblay
No.

23:47.38
Michael David Wilson
But, you know, you've no desire for that.

23:48.50
Paul Tremblay
I do not. No, no.

23:51.26
Michael David Wilson
And so to kind of test the 3% and maybe see if we do or don't get it to four or five, yeah, if somebody said, we will pay you a significant sum of money for you to stay in this,

23:57.86
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

24:07.75
Michael David Wilson
purported to be haunted house. And it a lot of bad shit apparently went on.

24:12.99
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

24:13.86
Michael David Wilson
This this isn't a mild haunting or some serious haunting, but it's serious money as well.

24:15.80
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

24:20.72
Michael David Wilson
It's like, you know, the money you got from cabin. Now I don't know, but this is what they're saying. Well, we're going to double that. So there you go. There's some math. I was going to add enough.

24:32.43
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

24:33.13
Michael David Wilson
No, we're just doubling it.

24:35.00
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, yeah.

24:35.69
Michael David Wilson
So ah you are you going to stay there?

24:38.79
Paul Tremblay
No.

24:40.15
Michael David Wilson
OK.

24:40.47
Paul Tremblay
ah yeah The annoying part is like, you know, I'd say like, it's bullshit. I don't believe in it, but yeah, no, I'm not going to stay overnight and that thing. Well, yeah. I mean, that's a decent chunk of money, but yeah.

24:53.07
Michael David Wilson
I mean, if we triple it, does it change the answer?

24:56.61
Paul Tremblay
Well, I mean, because it's like so theoretical, i would I would easily say no, but I mean, I would have to like seriously consider it.

25:04.58
Michael David Wilson
yeah if If you were offered double money and you said no, how do you think your wife will react to this knowledge?

25:04.83
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

25:13.95
Paul Tremblay
Uh, yeah. If this is like a real life thing, I should be pissed. Yeah.

25:17.35
Michael David Wilson
yeah like a light I don't know what percentage she believes in the supernatural.

25:20.73
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

25:21.95
Michael David Wilson
Like if if she's like a 98%er and really believes, then she might be relieved.

25:22.15
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. No.

25:28.30
Michael David Wilson
But if she's a 1%er,

25:28.84
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

25:32.88
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, I'm not sure. I think she's probably in the same range that I'm in, though. Yeah.

25:37.17
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

25:37.44
Paul Tremblay
Actually, I take that back. She definitely believes in ghost stuff. No, actually retracted. No, she believes in ghosts. And my daughter gets mad at me that I don't, too. So yeah, they definitely believe in like, weird ghost stories that get passed around, like social, the social medias.

25:56.13
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

25:57.66
Paul Tremblay
So maybe she would she would cut me some slack.

25:57.68
Michael David Wilson
Do you remember that? Talking about things that get passed around on social media, do you remember when And if email but became a thing and there were these like weird chain letters that sometimes it would be like, I'm a girl who died 20 years ago. And if you don't forward this to 20 of your friends, also with Hotmail accounts, then I'm going to curse you.

26:20.40
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

26:24.60
Michael David Wilson
That was a, that's a weird time. weird attempt that they The letter.

26:27.52
Paul Tremblay
It was a weird time. Yeah. I never, I never succumbed to the, the, the cursed email. I didn't, I didn't participate.

26:36.53
Michael David Wilson
yeah ah that occasionally people would forward one to me and it's like no that is getting deleted and unless the the so-called dead girl has got a very long game then she has not turned up yet but maybe maybe tonight is the night

26:40.52
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Yeah.

26:44.08
Paul Tremblay
Yes.

26:50.80
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Right. Uh,

26:56.83
Michael David Wilson
Well, moving to a different question, Amber says, Paul's books have some of the best covers. Paul Bearer's Club also had the amazing red lines. How involved in the design process are you?

27:15.98
Paul Tremblay
Uh, yeah, thank you for the question, Amber. Um, a little bit like, but never enough to make me like dangerous and get in the way. Uh, you know, with the Paul Bears club, but when I turned in the word document, that's how I wrote it on Microsoft word. Uh, it looked like the book looks like, like, you know, I, I went into the text boxes and it wrote in the, and wrote in the marginal comments or not the marginal comments, but the margin comments. ah As is so at least I could say hey, I you know It was important to me to have my editor and other people read it just so they saw how it worked as opposed to like Having it not because I think it would have been really hard to visualize that it would have been necessary to to print it that way um Otherwise for like cover art, you know, they'll they'll send some early mock-ups or ask for suggestions but like, you know very loose suggestions so like I'm not too

28:10.88
Paul Tremblay
I wouldn't describe myself as being involved, but I do appreciate that they'll ask my opinion and and things like that.

28:18.07
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, and you said for this particular release for horror movie you specified not to have a mask.

28:24.96
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, when they ask for like cover ideas, like someone might've mentioned a mask, like anything but a mask, you know, I think I might even have said, you know, for this one, the the first thing they sent me was the VCR tape was like, oh, let's make it look beat up a little bit was like my suggestion, ah but that was about it.

28:27.49
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

28:37.31
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. Yeah, I wonder if previous releases rather than saying what to do if you've also said don't include x, y, or z.

28:49.74
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, no, I never really said don't include on other things. It was really the first time I was just like, no, I just knew I didn't want the mask on a cover.

28:58.82
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. Okay, well Tracy Kenworth says, I'm wondering what has been the biggest tool in your writing arsenal that has helped you push past the stubbornness that can happen in works also in fact the next one is a completely different question so let's start with that she's she's thrown in two questions and presented as one so yeah the biggest tool that has helped with stubbornness or i suppose writing blocks or difficulties right that that is one big tool

29:22.62
Paul Tremblay
yeah

29:26.46
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. a

29:36.24
Paul Tremblay
Well, the biggest tool that has helped me is John Langan. I had to work in some sort of joke there. ah that That's a great question. that's a great question i mean Honestly, I think that the thing that's that helps me the most is the what's the word I'm looking for here? um Just consistently working, if that makes sense. Just yeah the idea that you especially once its I get, you know, there are times I'll go days and sometimes weeks without writing, especially after I can finish a novel or just life sort of takes over. um But, you know, most of the time, especially when I'm in a novel, you know, it's this daily thing.

30:16.84
Paul Tremblay
ah And that that helps the idea that I'm working on it day after day. ah Because when I do run into problem areas, my brain is is... I've helped train to put my brain into that daily sort of routine. So what what I find happens is I'll solve most of my problems or blocks When I'm not writing, like, you know, I write and I'll do my thing. And then when I leave the keyboard thinking about, oh, man, I'm not sure how I'm going to approach this next thing because I've been doing it, you know, a daily thing. Like I find that now my brain is still thinking about it when I'm not expecting it and it'll and it'll give me a solution or give me an idea, usually in the shower. or and And that's not a joke. It's just weird how that usually happens. But I mean, to me, that's sort of like the fun serendipity of working on a novel. Like I really enjoy

31:11.41
Paul Tremblay
the, as much as it can be hard and frustrating, I sort of enjoy the marathon aspect of writing a novel, like they always pretty much take me 10 months to 15 months to to write a full draft. And I know that experience of of just living in it, you know, most day after day is a part of actually I really do, in retrospect, enjoy about it. um And find that that like long sort of experience with the story helps to serve the story too.

31:40.88
Bob Pastorella
There's something about embracing the mundane that releases those those moments of of where am I going to go next?

31:48.49
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

31:51.36
Bob Pastorella
The shower, um and any type of of menial tasks where you you don't have to think and you can do it cutting the grass. that I've had Eureka moments cutting the grass, which probably looks funny to neighbors watch me when I'm like,

32:00.80
Paul Tremblay
Right.

32:06.45
Bob Pastorella
You know, yeah. And then it's like, you know, you pull out your phone and you're, you know, typing and, you know, so you don't forget it. That's the key is, you know, or you have some folder name, something weird on your thing.

32:13.92
Paul Tremblay
right

32:20.32
Bob Pastorella
You're just like, what the hell's that?

32:21.82
Paul Tremblay
yeah

32:21.94
Bob Pastorella
There's nothing in it. You know, so weird now, you know, um, It's, I find that that that helps me a lot too.

32:28.20
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

32:31.45
Bob Pastorella
It's just embracing something mundane and yeah releases that that information in the man and you're in your mind.

32:31.67
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Absolutely.

32:38.63
Bob Pastorella
It's already there. You just got to release it.

32:42.82
Michael David Wilson
So I'm wondering, I mean, I know that before you said that you wrote 500 words a day. And I would imagine that when you were doing this full time for the year, that you probably increase that word count. And so I, there's going to be a few stages to this.

33:04.38
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

33:04.84
Michael David Wilson
So if you did, I'm wondering, was there a fixed amount that you said that you would do per day? then coming out of the year, have you revised now as a teacher how many you're doing per day or have you reverted back to your 500? And then linked in with that because rather than having, you know, this 500 word limit, did you find that it was harder sometimes to sustain writing because you had so much more time to be doing with it on a day-to-day basis?

33:44.23
Paul Tremblay
So I did, and i've this has happened to me at other points in my ah life as well, but I certainly did find that I was writing more but when when I had yeah no teaching. so um But what would happen though if like I had a day where it was like 1,000 words, the next day it was usually less because I had to go back to 1,000 and mess around with it. um But yeah, there was no question. I mean, like writing and yeah we Bob was just talking about training your brain for you know to to be able to work in the mundane parts of your day. It's the same thing. is like you know It's a muscle. like so yeah I was using it more, so I was writing more. But at the same time, it was a little bit frustrating. But I took some solace. I know that Joe Lansdale, who's been a lifelong writer and so prolific, yeah he talks about like he can only write for three hours. like That's his limit. And he knows anything beyond that is going to be counterproductive.

34:41.92
Paul Tremblay
um ah For me, it's it's probably more like two hours. You know, sometimes I would go over it. ah But I mean, I think that just came from like, my writing life for 20 plus years was, you know, I had school, I could only get in like an hour, hour and a half to if I was super lucky a day. So I don't know, I found myself just getting like tires like I got to the you know the two hour mark. But, you know, then I would have to go take a walk, eat lunch and, you know, take at least, you know, take some breaks, a big break after that.

35:12.71
Paul Tremblay
But I would find that sometimes I would go back in the afternoon and maybe edit or do a little bit more or maybe work on something else, which is something I usually I typically can't do ah you during the teaching year. um You know, I will notice like in the or I have noticed in the past few years, you know, that 500 word thing really doesn't fit me anymore. Like for I've noticed like at the beginning of a project, it's more like 200, 300 words. And then I build momentum as I go. Maybe by the end I'm i'm getting a lot more like 700, 800 board days, but like, you know, just, I use the 500 as ah a general, uh, thing just to make me feel good. If I, if I hit that, I'm like, okay, I got, I got to 500 today. You know, if I pass it, I feel great. If I don't hit it, I know I try not to beat myself up too much and just be like, okay, we'll get to it the next day if you can.

36:05.27
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, and have you found over the years that the amount of non-writing but writing related things that you have to do has increased? I mean, yeah.

36:16.76
Paul Tremblay
Oh, yeah, yeah a hundred fold. Uh, maybe not a hundred fold, but no, I found this year teaching it's man, it's really getting harder and harder to do both. And it's obviously, it's more of the demands of the writing side of things, you know, whether it's social media or interviews, podcasts, you know, which I'm happy to do obviously, but also like, you know, occasional like nonfiction asks or, or people want short stories, you know, and I can't say no to everything. I want to say yes to some things, but, it you know, it can be a balance. ah You know, it can be difficult, especially, you know, I have a novel due in less than a year from now. um I'm kind of freaking out because I'm nowhere near as far along as I would like to be, you know, and I'm not going to get much writing done this month because I'm going on like a a big national tour.

37:05.82
Paul Tremblay
um So I don't know. it It gets done. It always has. So hope that's sort of like my mantra. Like it'll get done somehow. We'll see.

37:17.19
Michael David Wilson
And I mean, since you were picked up by William Morrow, I think that was a head full of ghosts over that time.

37:24.66
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

37:26.78
Michael David Wilson
Have you found that the marketing and publicity demands that personally involve you have increased? I'm wondering, particularly in this kind of more digital age and I would say even post COVID there's more and more things online. Have you found that more is being asked of you or has it been a kind of constant?

37:53.59
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, I mean, it goes it goes in ebbs and flows. Obviously, when we get closer to a new novel coming out, obviously, there's a lot of asks to do. You know, but yeah, in general, I mean, it's sort of expected and and not just William Morrow, but as you pretty clearly see most publishers expect the writer to be on social media. um and You know, that's a huge time suck. It's hard. ah

38:20.19
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, I don't know what the this, you know, I joke sometimes, you know, I dream of the day of leaving social media. That's certainly it's not really much of a joke. I mean, I would certainly miss the personal connection I made with a lot of people, you know, and I would probably do something secret to keep those connections. But I don't know it. It gets to be a little bit too much at times. ah Just for me anyway.

38:43.46
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. Do you have specific times where you're checking or is it more just a constant throughout the day periodically check the phone? and

38:52.90
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, it's probably a constant periodically. You know, if I'm at school, like, you know, if there's free five minutes or 10 minutes where it's not something I'm necessarily going to get writing done, let's check email or or check social media. I mean, I although I guess in some ways I check it less like. Especially, you know, compared to the pandemic and and things like that, I really don't check my feeds all that much. Like I just kind of check if people tag me and stuff just to try to make sure I'm answering if You know, if someone asks a question or, you know, someone says something nice, I want to like it and say, thank you. You know, those are the things I try to keep up now, but like, I really don't keep up with what everyone else is saying, which that's probably both good and bad.

39:38.36
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, yeah.

39:43.29
Michael David Wilson
I will probably keep quiet on that, but yeah, there there are times where it's like, yeah, that that didn't really enrich my life, but we can we can move towards the next question from Tracy Kenworth, which is, yeah for for writers starting out,

39:48.14
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

39:53.13
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. yeah

40:03.97
Michael David Wilson
Do you recommend that they start out with small presses and publishers? Do you recommend that they look at independently publishing themselves or would you go towards the bigger publishers and bigger markets?

40:17.79
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

40:22.03
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, that's hard to, that's hard question to answer because it's, you know, every writer is different. It's also like what every writer wants is different. Like ah for me, like I always wanted to try, my my approach was always to start at the top, the top paying markets and work my way down. Um, uh, especially, you know, coming from a math background, like when the first stories ever wrote was like, these are really hard. someone's got to pay me, or I'm not putting in them out at all. Like, I mean, that was sort of my approach to it, even if it was just like, you know, 10 bucks for the stories, like I had to have something.

40:55.59
Paul Tremblay
um So, yeah, I mean, that'd be my approach. But again, like, you know, what you may want out of writing and what I want out of writing are completely different things. You know, and there's no one way to, to, to success, however you quantify or define success. um You know, I do think self-publishing is a is a hard way to go. Maybe it's no harder than actually publishing you know publishing with the big five. I'm not sure what the stats are in that. But I know, you know, the the odds of hitting on. You know, self-publishing is low, but it's not zero. I mean, there are obviously plenty of success stories like Rob Swartwood and, you know, obviously Chuck Tingle. But, you know, you know, Chuck is you know so talented, you know, any

41:41.27
Paul Tremblay
You know, he has built, obviously, and even he talked about this at StokerCon, like, you know, he built sort of like a fan base through social media and through, you know, being super active. But, you know, but not everyone can be Chuck Tingle, obviously. That's the hard part, is just finding finding the best way for your voice to somehow filter through all the noise. For me, often ways, like if I feel overwhelmed by it, then it just becomes, okay, what's the best story I can write? I think that's really sort of hopefully the default for everybody. is worry about that first. ah You know, is this the best thing I can make it and then try to figure out the other stuff.

42:19.38
Michael David Wilson
Yeah yeah I think that's definitely a good starting point and you know just the way that we're often built is to kind of jump two or three or four steps ahead but you know just get the best story then figure it out from there but you don't need to you know keep going to the next step although it's a very human thing to do and I mean kind of linked into that you were saying that

42:31.45
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Yeah.

42:44.37
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

42:48.88
Michael David Wilson
Different people are going to define success in different ways. So, I mean, how do you define success? Do you see yourself as successful? And does your definition of so success kind of change when you get to these so-called goalposts so that it's kind of moving further and further away?

43:12.69
Paul Tremblay
yeah No, I mean, yeah, I definitely feel successful with my writing in a you know in some ways beyond anything that I would have imagined you know just even like 10 years ago in terms of, I don't know, I guess the amount of people reading and having a movie made and and stuff like that. like you know You dream about that stuff, but you don't actually think it's going to happen. um But yeah, but like then when you're in it, you know there are frustrations. There are things that you want to go better. and but you know i But I also think that's a healthy thing. like I think it would be kind of hard to continue if you thought, oh, the best thing that's ever happened writing-wise has already happened. you know So you know it's easy for me to say like you know it easy for me to say that, like yeah to me, like the success is sort of like the next book, making it like the best thing it could be.

44:09.65
Paul Tremblay
I'm sure if like no one was reading it, I'd be really bummed out. But at the same time, um I take a lot of satisfaction from the fact or the idea that like everything I've written, I'm super proud of not that ah what other people don't write or super I'm not trying to say people. This isn't the case for other writers. I'm just saying for me personally, like, I've never felt like I've had to make a compromise. I've never had to make the Black Album.

44:38.43
Paul Tremblay
um I'd be happy to make the Black Album. I will do the novelization of the Black Album, if someone one asks me. And honestly, part of it, I've always like, i've enjoyed I enjoy teaching and I've enjoyed it. like But for me, like part of it was like, hey, you know if someone if no one likes this book, okay, I'll just write the next one. I have a ah writing job. and yeah and And I can also say I did that. like you know My first two crime books, tanked, didn't do well. you know I was pissed about it and not happy about it. But at the same time, ah yeah after sort of licking my wounds for a little bit like I did, I just put my head down and said, OK, I'm just going to try the next thing. And hopefully that works. And I always looked at it as maybe in in a mathematical way, like if you put enough stuff out there, those are little

45:27.11
Paul Tremblay
chances, little opportunities, and playing the odds. You put an F out, maybe something hits. And it's impossible to predict what hits. you know how Again, however you define hits, I guess we'll define it as like selling it to a publisher. um Yeah, no. So I definitely do feel successful. ah

45:48.20
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, I mean, I still have plenty of goals. you know And maybe some of them are impossible, which is fine. like I'd be really worried that maybe there's some sort of, if I made all my goals, there'd be some that means there's somebody controlling the universe, like some hacker, and made some character named Paul Trembly, and this is how it had to work out. I don't want that to be the case.

46:11.24
Paul Tremblay
Am I making sense? It's really late.

46:12.77
Michael David Wilson
You are me.

46:13.44
Paul Tremblay
it's really It's really late on the East Coast now, so maybe I'm just like blathering at this point.

46:13.45
Michael David Wilson
You are me. Yeah, you're making you're making a lot of sense. And I mean, I always say that like each time you write a story, it's a ticket.

46:17.93
Paul Tremblay
ah

46:23.92
Michael David Wilson
It's a ticket to potentially making it.

46:26.09
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

46:26.40
Michael David Wilson
So I completely relate to that. And, you know, we we were talking to Chris Panettiere and he's like, well, no you know, writing more, nothing bad will happen and you'll probably get better. So just keep writing, keep writing and you know, you're increasing.

46:44.24
Paul Tremblay
That's a much better answer than I gave. Yeah.

46:47.66
Michael David Wilson
I think your answer su was really good and you know, you got another dig at Metallica in there as well.

46:49.67
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

46:54.36
Michael David Wilson
It's a complete answer. The only things missing were digs at Stephen Graham Jones and John Langan, but there's enough

46:56.43
Paul Tremblay
Yeah,

47:02.17
Paul Tremblay
yeah right.

47:02.95
Michael David Wilson
in the two episodes that we've recorded there you go that that was as memory serves that was kind of the return towards fresh metal i think that was the 2008 one that was like okay we we made saint anger we're very sorry to everyone apart from bracken mcleod for doing that but now

47:04.95
Paul Tremblay
I like Death Magnetic.

47:09.13
Paul Tremblay
definite Death Magnetic was a good record by Metallica.

47:13.64
Bob Pastorella
was great album

47:15.03
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

47:17.45
Paul Tremblay
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

47:22.03
Paul Tremblay
Right.

47:27.89
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

47:32.23
Michael David Wilson
this is our intention and yeah they've gone forward to make a fresh metal and that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned but as we said before Metallica do not care what I or anyone else thinks they have got enough money that they're presumably rolling around on right now because that's what they do with it

47:34.32
Paul Tremblay
yeah

47:37.27
Bob Pastorella
It was a great album.

47:42.20
Paul Tremblay
yeah Yeah, no.

47:53.83
Paul Tremblay
Right. Yeah. To be, clear to be clear, our comments are the equivalent of like a, a one star review on Goodreads, you know, something to be ignored.

48:02.88
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, you said that you've got a great deal of goals still. I mean, I think, yeah, everyone does. When we make a goal, we find a new one.

48:16.23
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

48:17.80
Michael David Wilson
As you say, if you didn't, then you might as well stop writing because you're like, well, completed it.

48:21.51
Paul Tremblay
Right.

48:23.61
Michael David Wilson
But, you know, and are there any goals that you have that you'd be willing to share?

48:23.73
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

48:32.15
Paul Tremblay
um Sure, I kind of like I mean, I would love to write something that, you know, while still having horror elements, you know, I would love to be like up for like the Booker Prize or a National Book Award or something like that. you know, without like necessarily saying like, Oh, my, my stuff deserves, deserves that. I'm saying I would like to write something as good or or something that would be considered for that. I mean, that's, you know, that'd be something that'd be something. Uh, yeah, I don't know. Otherwise actually, but although like, there's definitely a part of me that secretly has a goal of, Oh, okay. Like things are,

49:17.04
Paul Tremblay
You know, made enough money. The kids are through college. Don't have to pay for that anymore because it's really expensive. I'll just sit in the couch and watch all the movies and TV shows I want to watch and be done. But I know I probably would not be very happy doing that. But I can't deny there's not like some weird little desirability to that notion.

49:38.42
Michael David Wilson
I mean, there's probably a kind of halfway house in terms of that goal where, you know, if you, if you're full time writing, if you make enough money, then you can give yourself a summer holiday and a Christmas holiday.

49:44.85
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

49:52.98
Michael David Wilson
So you're writing full time, but you've baked into it the vacation that comes with being a teacher without the marking.

49:54.06
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Yeah. I like it. All right. That's my new goal.

50:04.19
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. Okay. We've created a new goal right here. And I mean, you said that you've got another novel that you're working on that has a deadline in less than a year, which apparently I decided was a nice thing to remind you of before you go to sleep tonight.

50:17.50
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Yeah.

50:23.21
Michael David Wilson
But I mean, can you tell us anything about that or other forthcoming projects?

50:27.43
Bob Pastorella
Uh

50:31.04
Paul Tremblay
ah So, excuse me, I can tell you more about the book that's done.

50:32.99
Bob Pastorella
-huh.

50:35.84
Paul Tremblay
ah So it's a middle grade novel, and it's called Another. And it's it'll be published in the US next summer in 2025. You know, and I wasn't planning like a pivot, like a career pivot to middle grade, and I'm still not, you know, I just happened to write, I just happened to have the idea for this book, ah you know, and it features a, ah you know, 11, 12 year old per protagonist. um And I don't know, I really enjoyed the book and and it became something I wasn't expecting because it start. I'll say this, it started with this image of a really lonely 11, 12 year old kid and an old, a strange old guy shows up at his house with like a burlap sack and he's like, oh, I have your new friend inside here. And this is not how it's written, but this was how it started in my head. And he opens the sack and it's this

51:29.97
Paul Tremblay
like mannequin looking boy made out of clay. You know, it's got clothes on, but like the mannequin part of it is, you know, not eyes and just like the imprint of eyes or like a little bump of a nose kind of thing. But it moves and or he moves, I should say, and it can it can sculpt a smile on its face. um You know, and then things like as that. Kid stays with this other kid, like he starts becoming a little bit more lifelike and things get weird. or weirder maybe, I should say. But when I was writing it, I didn't anticipate this. um i to make you know wise I needed a reason as to why this 11, 12 year old was so lonely that he would sort of put up with this sort of an you know like accept this you know somewhat realistically. I mean, there's other sort of reasons that it can happen this way. But like, so I was like, oh, I had to set the stirring.

52:26.45
Paul Tremblay
not the start of the pandemic, but maybe a year, year and a half after the pandemic, ah where so this kid was feeling isolated, like his school was hybrid, yeah because there was it was like an online bullying thing. So like I ended up like putting a lot of my emotion and experience of teaching you know of two years of teaching during the pandemic. um into this book and it's it's probably not a secret that I, or to me now it makes sense. I hadn't thought of it until just now, but like, yeah, it makes sense that I wrote this during my sabbatical. Like one of the best things about the sabbatical was that I got to take a break from teaching after that really intense, scary period of time of teaching. So ah ah I was pleased that, you know, this book in some ways is sort of like ah a way to honor sort of all the students

53:17.41
Paul Tremblay
and other teachers I taught with during that period of time, as well as being hopefully, and I think it is actually a really creepy book in a straightforward way. like There's no ambiguity. you know when There's no bummer, trembling ending either. so kate i They wouldn't let me do that to the kids. ah So anyway, that book ah is coming out in the US next year. so yeah and Not quite ready to talk about like the adult novel. I'm sort of like clutching, clutching to the title of that book. ah But we'll see.

53:48.42
Bob Pastorella
Mmhmm.

53:51.13
Michael David Wilson
And I mean, even though it is a middle grade novel, it certainly from what you've described sounds like it fits into the horror camp.

54:02.06
Paul Tremblay
Oh, yeah, for sure. ah I mean, I felt like I had to make no concessions. I mean, there's no, there's not really any violence in the story, but the story didn't assess it didn't necessitate violence. But you know, I, so far, the response from folks has been, Oh, yeah, this is pretty, this is damn creepy. ah Yeah, so no, I'm proud of it. And I'm, um again, beyond fortunate that my editor that we talked about earlier, was able to help shepherd that book over to a to a middle grade editor, Rosemary, who's just unbelievable. And

54:34.77
Paul Tremblay
She approached the editing of the book very much like my editor did as well, like, uh, and really, really helped me with the book. So yeah, I've been, again, just another example of me being extremely fortunate or, or the universal mind hacking into it to make the Paul Tremblay avatar have another fortunate experience with the publisher. You choose.

54:58.01
Michael David Wilson
And so, I mean, is that going to be under your name, Paul Tremblay?

55:03.11
Paul Tremblay
Oh yeah. Yeah. yeah

55:04.25
Michael David Wilson
And I mean, have there been much discussion in terms of what you're going to do in terms of like the marketing and the positioning of that book? Are you trying to kind of get all Paul Tremblay fans aboard or ah are you kind of going in a different direction and, you know,

55:22.97
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

55:25.81
Paul Tremblay
Now, God, God, I hope ah by adult book fans read the book.

55:30.90
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

55:31.41
Paul Tremblay
ah Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, there's no.

55:32.23
Bob Pastorella
i'm going to read it so yeah

55:35.11
Paul Tremblay
um I mean, we haven't gotten to the point of talking about the marketing, but I mean, it's just going to be different because it is a middle grade. Like the biggest thing is like we can't market directly to the target audience, right? You can't, which is which is good. Like we should not be trying to hard sell You know to 11 12 year old, you know kids are younger um Yeah, so I mean that part I honestly don't know what it's gonna look like So yeah, we'll see It

55:55.26
Bob Pastorella
I'm going to read it, so yeah.

56:02.60
Michael David Wilson
I wonder what is the word count on that because.

56:05.44
Paul Tremblay
was 47,000 words Yeah, and there are gonna be illustrations which I'm very excited about You know like five or six not like every page but like yeah, yeah

56:08.48
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

56:14.30
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. Right. Yeah. now even at the point where you said burlap sack it was like oh something creepy yeah you you never innocuously introduce a burlap sack something is gonna go down yeah god i love that premise

56:27.04
Paul Tremblay
Yeah,

56:31.60
Paul Tremblay
burlap sack. Yes. that Yes.

56:36.80
Bob Pastorella
Yeah.

56:38.29
Paul Tremblay
Maybe I can get a burlap sack company to help sponsor that's the book.

56:43.69
Michael David Wilson
I mean, stranger things have happened, so there's a possibility there.

56:45.77
Paul Tremblay
Yes.

56:47.02
Bob Pastorella
Mm-hmm. You could have the most idyllic scene in the world and sun shining and birds flying and butterflies and just beautiful and everything and hazy. And there's a man carrying a burlap sack and boy, you know, shit's about to go down.

57:02.51
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

57:06.92
Paul Tremblay
Absolutely.

57:08.70
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, I am ready for that.

57:10.96
Bob Pastorella
Mm-hmm.

57:13.39
Michael David Wilson
But apparently I've got to wait about a year. So I will be ready.

57:16.48
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

57:18.91
Bob Pastorella
of Yeah.

57:21.41
Michael David Wilson
All right. Well, thank you so much for talking to us for the past two or so hours.

57:26.77
Bob Pastorella
Mmhmm.

57:29.29
Michael David Wilson
This is, as always, been an absolute delight.

57:31.23
Paul Tremblay
Yeah.

57:33.61
Paul Tremblay
No, same, thank you. No, it's good to good to talk to you and to see you guys now this time.

57:38.30
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. Yeah. Well, do you have. Any final thoughts for our listeners and indeed our viewers?

57:48.42
Paul Tremblay
ah I was going to try to make fun of John Langen again, but I won't.

57:53.45
Michael David Wilson
that That's always a good note to end on.

57:55.83
Paul Tremblay
Yeah. Watch out for John every copy of horror movie comes with a tool John Lincoln. No No, just thank you, you know if people do ah Pick up horror movie and read it. I hope they enjoy it Yeah, thanks for everything. Thanks for reading. Thanks for being horror people All

58:15.58
Michael David Wilson
All right, thank you again for chatting to us.