These timestamps are for the video version. Add around 3 minutes for the audio.

00:00:02.62
Michael David Wilson
So I want to talk about the vile thing we created. And I mean, right off the back, what a fantastic title for a story. It kind of has that Eric LaRocca vibe to it, but I just love that. And then paired with the cover that has a kind of rungness to it and almost missing persons or a haunting, it's just deeply disconcerting. So I want to know the origin story of the book. I don't know the origin story of the title as well.

00:00:44.29
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, I was reading about something that happens in the animal kingdom. um where uh you know parents of of animals reject the child um specifically i was reading about like lions that that happens sometimes in lion prides and stuff where one is just completely like disregarded and that one sometimes will if it survives into adulthood becomes like a rogue

00:01:19.22
Robert P. Ottone
and becomes not like something that will continue going after its own pack or anything like that, but like struggles to find its own pride or whatever. And I just thought that was a really interesting, sad ah thing to occur. And then I was like, well, that happened with people, which it clearly does. Like there are some parents who just don't give a shit about their kid. And that always ends well. But I was thinking about how that would be with a a modern enough couple and you know a couple that does not particularly want to, they don't start off wanting to have children. They do it for societal pressures and and sort of external pressures and stuff. And like, how does that go? So and I'm glad you mentioned the Eric the Rocka thing because the original title of the book was different.

00:02:16.44
Robert P. Ottone
than that. And my wife hated the original title. She thought it was like super pretentious. And I was like, okay, it was a one word title. And it was like, all right, cool, fine. You know, when I sent it, because Clay Chapman only reads physical copies or something to blurb them. And so when I asked him to read it, to blurb it, I had a copy printed up a physical one and i accidentally chose like textbook size so it printed out crazy huge i'm trying to i don't think i have one in here i burned one the other day uh in my chiminea because i have two i was like i don't fucking need this so but it had the old title in it so we did a book talk when the vile thing came out and i saw that he had the title he put a question mark next to it and he asked about the title during our book talk but

00:03:08.92
Robert P. Ottone
it was that and then like sort of that trend was happening and I guess it's still kind of going on where they had like those long titles because of the Eric Larraca book having such a long title and then there have been plenty of other books that have had such long titles too and I was like all right well I guess you know I need to think about a new title I like the title of Eric's book I like Eric's book in general and I like sort of this trend of where this is going it's pretty cool And I was like, I guess, you know, what is this thing really about? What is this character? Like, how do they look at it? How do they feel about it? And that's sort of where the vile thing we created came from. It came from like a very purposeful. I wanted to be of the moment with that, the the naming conventions, but also at the same time, it just fit. It kind of fit perfectly for it because

00:04:05.37
Robert P. Ottone
I'm so glad I didn't go with that other title that I had for it. I may use that for like a short story title or something, but it came from the place of the animal kingdom, but it also came from, and again, I wrote it during COVID after my and MFA. So it came from a place of, of seeing my friends all having kids and sort of how in the beginning.

00:04:31.10
Robert P. Ottone
There was like a set pattern. They would meet their partner. They would get some kind of dog. They would get married at a golf course or a winery. And then they would squirt out a kid, usually in short order within two years or so. And then that was it. Party time was over for the most part. There was one friend who had, who, uh, he still hosts and has people over and whatnot. Not, not in the past couple of years, kids are getting older.

00:05:00.86
Robert P. Ottone
But, like, everyone else, ballgame over, fun's over, the kids are here, and if we're not having a child's birthday party, we're only having a get-together with other people who have kids so the kids can all play together and we can all drink terrible beers in the backyard, uh, and stand around in our old navy, or, uh, you know, whatever, shirts, gap, t-shirts and shit.

00:05:27.98
Robert P. Ottone
And I was always kind of like, hmm, all right, so just because I don't have any children, this precludes me from being able to participate in these outdoor gatherings just because I don't meet the prerequisite of being a dad. And that really bothered me a lot. And so I poured a lot of that bitterness and frustration into the book. And one of the things when I was writing it too,

00:05:55.61
Robert P. Ottone
I talked to a lot of those friends' wives about their pregnancies, and like really, I just wanted to hear what their experiences were, and they knew why, because I told them, I was like, I'm writing a book about a couple who has a very difficult pregnancy, and that's kind of all I told them. And they were like, oh, okay, yeah, let's talk about it. And that a lot of the stuff that happens to Lola in the book is stuff that happened to friends,

00:06:25.43
Robert P. Ottone
wives and ah very specifically the birth sequence with a lot of the things that happens to Lola in that birth sequence comes from a friend of mine's ex when she had her kid and other than her having like sort of a trippy cosmic horror moment, the actual physical things that happened. i When she told me about them, I was like, good Lord. like And i'd always i've I've always been a big believer that women are superior to men in like every fathomable way. Childbirth is like the ultimate form of strength ah that I think any individual could go through. It's it's insane.

00:07:11.57
Robert P. Ottone
But to hear what this woman went through, it blew my mind. And i just you know in hearing all of their birthing stories was incredible. But you know for the women that I spoke to, the um individuals of color, talking about their experiences with but the medical field here in America was enlightening, to say the least. and I was very lucky to have um some sensitivity readers and some medical um readers to sort of help with some of that stuff. And I was very happy to hear like

00:07:51.30
Robert P. Ottone
from women of color who blurbed the book like, yeah, you you hit the nail on the head with how it is here in in America for women like us having children and the the frustrations and the fears that we have going into it. And again, like I'm sure that's not the case for every woman ah here in the States, but the women who have read it and have taken the time to like message me or, you know, that read it before it came out.

00:08:18.45
Robert P. Ottone
have kind of been very positive and kind to me about it. um The medical stuff was sort of the last um material that I went in and revised based on Evie Knight, because she's a OBGYN. She gave me a a lot of really good feedback and material to work with for that, and she's she's just the best.

00:08:46.46
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, and I wonder, I mean, what did that editorial process look like in general? Because it sounds like, and by editorial, I guess I'm including the beta readers, the sensitivity readers, it sounds like there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle in terms of putting it together and making sure you got it all right.

00:09:09.89
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, um it actually it's it's fun because it started with Paul Tremblay because I took a writing workshop that he was running. um And, you know, I wanted to meet him because I'm a fan. That was like my main reason for taking it.

00:09:28.49
Robert P. Ottone
but also like, okay, well, if anybody's going to know how to make this book work, it's going to be Paul. So, um, we workshop the opening, I think it was like 20 pages or something. And his feedback, just with the opening 20 pages of the book alone,

00:09:46.26
Robert P. Ottone
was invaluable because it it I restructured the whole opening of the book based on his notes and his advice and everything and I'm like very much indebted to him for for really showing me how to like open the book and how to really like this is how you do it kid kind of thing.

00:10:06.07
Robert P. Ottone
um And the fact that he blurbed the book is insane too. um Like that was like such a tremendous gift. I'll never be able to repay him ever. But that was really cool. And then as, as, you know, the edits continued, there were, yeah I'm not like, I have a lot of like weird nuts and bolts things that I do that I need to like work out actually have right here.

00:10:36.77
Robert P. Ottone
funny you mentioned that, notes from the editor who gave who did gave me tons of feedback on the vile thing. And it's literally the title of the document is patterns of error. So going back in and and with these notes, I always do something where I put like apostrophes where they don't need to be spaces after and before ellipses, like ah all of this stuff.

00:11:05.61
Robert P. Ottone
Um, and so I had to go back and fix all that, which I was fine with. I actually like the editorial process quite a bit. Um, which is why I love working with my agent so much. Cause she's does a round of edits before anything goes out, which is great. Like, thank God somebody's looking at my stuff. But, um, yeah, when then, when it went to the sensitivity readers.

00:11:32.40
Robert P. Ottone
They came back with some notes and actually their notes Weren't like oh you should take this out because it's not accurate their notes were like well This is something that does happen too And so I was able to work that in to the book as well because they were giving me more material to work with so that was really beneficial and then like I said the last level was the medical stuff and That was really great too because again, like i've you know I don't have any children. I'm not a parent. um My wife and I are not going to have children. And I've never been in that situation. I have no idea what goes on with that, which is why talking to all the moms that I could possibly talk to was so helpful. But yeah, having an actual doctor's perspective was insane.

00:12:24.63
Robert P. Ottone
And it's something I would like to do again. I've gotten you know ah expert feedback on some stuff that I've worked on since then, the two books that my agent has have on submission right now. I talked to a couple people who are experts at certain things with that. That stuff I find really exciting.

00:12:47.11
Robert P. Ottone
Because it's almost like being a reporter again, and doing all the fun stuff of reporting of like, okay, will this work? Will this work? What can I do here? What can I do there? um You know, if if this is this temperature, like this, this work, all the little nitty gritty scientific key, or like real world stuff that I don't know. I love that.

00:13:07.10
Robert P. Ottone
So yeah, the editorial process was a lot of fun, actually, even though like there were many layers to it, it was still a lot of fun to just dive back in and go wild. And it also was really cool because all the people who beta read for it and offered feedback and stuff like that were all people who blurbed it too. So it was like nice to have those people just be like, oh, do you want to blurb for this also? And it's like, well, yeah, like if you're offering, sure, that'd be amazing. Like, thank you.

00:13:38.71
Robert P. Ottone
But yeah, it was it was awesome. I had the best time writing that book as dark as it is. like ah it was a great It was a great experience writing it. And I hear, so like I do like a soundtrack for everything that I write. When I hear one of the songs that I remember as being on the soundtrack to The Vile Thing We Created, I get like that sense memory of writing and working on the book again. And it's like, All right, I like this. It's like, I remember this now.

00:14:09.60
Robert P. Ottone
all the joy division and stuff like that.

00:14:10.96
Michael David Wilson
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And a lot of Joy Division references within the book itself.

00:14:14.18
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah,

00:14:18.08
Robert P. Ottone
yeah I can't help it. I just, I love Ian Curtis so much. He's one of my heroes. um And I just, I think about his lyrics and I think about what he was going through when he was writing these things and all of his like, not just the whole the the relationship stuff that he had going on with his wife and his lover and all that stuff, but like his medical issues and stuff that he could never get a hold of and he had to feel so terrified all the time that like the next time he had a seizure, that was it. You know, like he just wouldn't have known. So I think about him a lot and I think about their music a lot.

00:15:00.84
Robert P. Ottone
And I also think about Joy Division specifically, how out of this horrible sadness of Ian Curtis killing himself, they became New Order. And it's like, that's two of my favorite bands of all time.

00:15:16.47
Robert P. Ottone
one became the other. And it's just, it's insane to think about. I just, i we were unpacking and stuff still. And we have a bunch of pictures and whatnot that we're going to be framing. And I have this beautiful print of Bernard Sumner of New Order. And it's just his face. And it has ah some of the lyrics to one of the songs I've written above his head as if he's like thinking about them. It's like a thought bubble, like in a comic book or whatever.

00:15:46.41
Robert P. Ottone
And I'm just like, I'm so excited to frame it and put it up in our record room. Cause it's just, I just love Bernard Sumner so much, which of course is where Ian and Lola's last name comes from Bernard Sumner's last name. Um, and obviously Ian is after Ian Curtis. Cause like when I started writing the book in my mind, I kept picturing him as the husband, as the the guy and like his emotionality.

00:16:13.08
Robert P. Ottone
and how like intense he was when he performed. If anybody out there has not watched footage of Joy Division performing, I could not recommend it more. like just Just find any video of Joy Division performing live. You'll see Ian Curtis do stuff on stage. like You've never seen any other lead singer do. And I was picturing that kind of like raw energy and raw reaction to things when I was writing Ian specifically.

00:16:41.94
Robert P. Ottone
And yeah, so Joy Division is like the DNA of the book. And I was just, I was listening to a ton of Joy Division at the time. The last, I guess, act, if you want to call it or whatever, at the end of the book is literally called Love Will Tear Us Apart Again, um which is not my favorite Joy Division song, but it's their most popular one. So like, all right. But yeah, I just love, um the music having a musicality or like emotional touchstones in the form of music and everything that I work on. And in this case, Joy Division is certainly like their stuff is like the emotional touchstone for Ian and Lola specifically.

00:17:26.45
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, and with regards to Ian Curtis, it's remarkable how much he achieved in such a tragically short life. I mean, you know, when you think about it, he died when he was 23.

00:17:41.77
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:17:41.95
Michael David Wilson
And yet he's one of the most influential artists on music as a whole, I would say. And, you know, talking about after his passing You know, the the birth of new order as well.

00:17:57.31
Michael David Wilson
it It's remarkable. It's almost the kind of thing where people would say it's impossible to have that impact in that time. And yet he did.

00:18:05.88
Robert P. Ottone
I know. It's I how many bands? have completely fallen apart after one member passed away, whether it's a lead singer or guitarist. like So few, I can't even really think of any others, other than Joy Division to New Order, that were able to succeed. I mean, the Beatles, obviously, they all had success individually, which is great. But like as a whole, like you lose one integral part, and then somehow it still continues. And like the idea that Bernard Sumner didn't even want to be the lead singer,

00:18:37.23
Robert P. Ottone
of New Order and it's just kind of fell to him to do it. Like it's insane. I saw Peter Hook, the bassist of Joy Division and New Order. I saw him live a few years ago and he was amazing. Like just unbelievable. And I don't know how old he is, but the guy has not lost a step.

00:18:57.29
Robert P. Ottone
And it's just, it's amazing to see like one of our, probably one of the best bassists in the world continue to just be amazing. And like he, such such an incredible talent. I would love to somehow see New Order. You know, they're they're one of the few bands that I have not seen that I'm like desperate to see.

00:19:18.58
Robert P. Ottone
um If they were to come to New York, i would I would move Heaven and Earth to try to see them. I would really, I really need to see them. Because I've gotten to see all of my favorite bands that are still together and still alive and everything. They're the only one that I haven't.

00:19:40.58
Bob Pastorella
Yeah, a band that comes to mind and I got to say, I love how you use the music to get into, you know, the narrative, the story, the characters, it's, it's, it's interwoven. I love that kind of stuff.

00:19:59.89
Bob Pastorella
I've done it, I've done it before. I'm i'm doing it now. um And I feel that, you know, the same, the same way the band that I'm using now is Alice in Chains.

00:20:09.67
Robert P. Ottone
Mmhmm.

00:20:09.99
Michael David Wilson
Oh, I was gonna go there, but you've done it. You've done it before me Bob.

00:20:13.46
Bob Pastorella
Yeah, because that's, that's a band that lost a very integral part.

00:20:17.86
Michael David Wilson
Yes.

00:20:19.65
Bob Pastorella
And going through, going through their history, it's, it's, it's amazing because they, Like the last thing that Lane sang with them was get born again.

00:20:33.91
Bob Pastorella
And that was, that was at the time. I mean, it was, it was probably about four years before he died. I think they recorded that in 98 and it was for the music bank album.

00:20:45.36
Bob Pastorella
And, uh, Jerry Cantrell won't talk about that experience, but, uh, the producer did, he said that Lane probably weighed less than 80 pounds.

00:20:58.15
Bob Pastorella
And so he was in, in the, the really, really bad part of addiction. And, and he died what 2002, I think.

00:21:08.37
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:21:09.11
Bob Pastorella
And at that point I thought that they were done, you know, and, and I had a feeling that, that Jerry would continue because, you know,

00:21:22.49
Bob Pastorella
He, he, he, at the time when it all that happened, I was like, man, hes he's, he's a driving force in the band. Now I know that he was like the main force of the band and I'm using that.

00:21:38.08
Bob Pastorella
You know, their, their, their music, my, my, my, uh, playlist for this project I'm working on has got every, everything, uh, mad seasons in there.

00:21:51.36
Bob Pastorella
Um, all of Jerry's, uh, solo, he's got a new song coming out next month.

00:21:51.54
Robert P. Ottone
Mmm.

00:21:56.56
Bob Pastorella
Uh, and then there's going to be a new house and chains album and when the ball has. you know, fill those, those shoes of Lane with his own presence.

00:22:07.20
Bob Pastorella
And so that's, that's definitely a band that lost an integral part and they're still going. And I think they're, they're new stuff. except The stuff with William is very mature.

00:22:19.73
Bob Pastorella
Um, but it still has that, that same drive and he is not trying to copy Lane at all.

00:22:27.38
Robert P. Ottone
No.

00:22:27.59
Bob Pastorella
He's doing it his way.

00:22:29.65
Robert P. Ottone
I saw them live with with William as the front man and they were awesome.

00:22:29.83
Bob Pastorella
And, uh,

00:22:36.34
Bob Pastorella
Mmhmm.

00:22:36.66
Robert P. Ottone
And I'm so i'm glad you mentioned Alice in Chains. So here's like a weird thing about me. When I'm in the car and I'm listening to music, there's two bands who I never skip when their stuff comes on my iPhone, Joy Division, Alice in Chains.

00:22:52.96
Robert P. Ottone
They're the only bands I do not skip. It's crazy. ah outside It's wild. i i think about It's such a like i mean it's just such a hugely popular song of theirs, but like the fact that rooster is about his dad in Vietnam,

00:23:08.68
Bob Pastorella
Uh-huh.

00:23:10.14
Robert P. Ottone
It's like unbelievable. It's like you hear that song and you're like, what is he possibly singing about? And it's like, that's his dad. He wrote a song about his dad.

00:23:16.54
Bob Pastorella
Yeah.

00:23:17.72
Robert P. Ottone
Like that's awesome. Just so, like everything about Alice in Chains is so cool.

00:23:20.50
Bob Pastorella
Uh

00:23:22.97
Robert P. Ottone
They're just so awesome. And I refuse to skip them.

00:23:24.80
Bob Pastorella
-huh.

00:23:26.27
Robert P. Ottone
My wife's like, you never skip Alice in Chains. Did you notice that? And I was like, I didn't notice it until you just pointed it at.

00:23:31.71
Bob Pastorella
No, they're, they're, they're definitely a no skip band for me.

00:23:35.42
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:23:35.50
Bob Pastorella
It's kind of like that. and And between that and nine inch nails, if, uh, you know, depending on, on, on how the radio is going to play after I listened to an album.

00:23:46.21
Bob Pastorella
Uh, and you know how the iTunes will, or Apple music will, will kick on a radio based on genre.

00:23:53.02
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:23:53.31
Bob Pastorella
And so, uh, and you get a lot of crap with that, but you know, so you was like, skip, skip, skip. Oh, hold on. I'm not skipping.

00:24:00.50
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, and then once you land on that one song, then it gets better instantly. Like, that's how good the Apple Music algorithm is.

00:24:06.69
Bob Pastorella
Yeah.

00:24:06.90
Robert P. Ottone
It's like, oh, you do like that. Okay, we got you.

00:24:10.03
Bob Pastorella
Yeah.

00:24:10.36
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:24:10.95
Bob Pastorella
It's like, it's like, you're going and you skip a bunch of songs and then they start playing again and you're like, Oh yeah, I'm not skipping on the Allison chains. Yeah, I'm not. I know Lane sounds like shit on that album, but, you know, it's still Alice in Chains.

00:24:25.17
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:24:25.30
Bob Pastorella
And, you know, the the crazy thing is, is that he actually sounded pretty good on those last couple of recordings. But, you know, then you listen to, you know, class of 99, that the song he did ah for the faculty, and it it's like he's

00:24:32.82
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah. Yeah.

00:24:42.52
Bob Pastorella
It's like, golly Elaine, you lost more teeth, buddy. You can't even say the words. Um, sorry. It just, it ain't, it's sad just to see it, but yeah, that's, that's, and I love that. Did you weave that in? That's just, you know, music is just, I don't know. It's, it's very important to me. I know it's important to Michael. He, he, he throws in all kinds of music references and all kinds of stuff. It's, it's, it's crazy.

00:25:10.99
Robert P. Ottone
I remember there was a lot of music references in the Girl in the Video and I was like, I'm going to look these bands up because there was a bunch that I didn't know.

00:25:14.08
Michael David Wilson
Oh, yeah.

00:25:14.95
Bob Pastorella
ah Yeah.

00:25:15.11
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

00:25:20.81
Robert P. Ottone
And I was, I remember that I looked them up at the time and I was like, yeah, all right, I'm into this.

00:25:25.55
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

00:25:25.93
Bob Pastorella
Yeah.

00:25:26.62
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, I mean, I can recall most of them. and There were so many. I probably like, you know, if you put a gun to my head, well, I probably can't recall all of them, but it it was quite an eclectic mix in the girl in the video, because of course you had a lot of metal, but then there were some ambient pieces by Ulver.

00:25:47.70
Michael David Wilson
I believe that I also referenced the British hip-hop artist, Scroobius Pip, so that there's a lot there.

00:25:53.68
Bob Pastorella
and Yeah.

00:25:55.16
Michael David Wilson
kind to kind of get into with that one and I mean even with the collaborative novel they're watching that Bob and I penned there are music references but this is the time where I've been really really nerdy about it there's a very specific unifying force as to why each band or song was referenced and

00:26:00.66
Robert P. Ottone
Uh-huh.

00:26:22.17
Michael David Wilson
I don't know if ah anyone's ever picked up on it because they've never written to me to say, oh, did you do this? But one day it will happen. Or maybe on the 10th anniversary of the book, I'll just say this is what we did.

00:26:36.34
Michael David Wilson
I'll come clean.

00:26:36.74
Robert P. Ottone
I still have I still have my signed copy my pre-ordered signed copy of the book so I'm very very happy to have my my copies of the girl in the video and they're watching in this office actually on the other shelf by the window.

00:26:37.33
Bob Pastorella
yeah

00:26:53.14
Bob Pastorella
Cool.

00:26:53.18
Michael David Wilson
Hell yeah. Thank you for your support.

00:26:54.92
Bob Pastorella
Yes, yes.

00:26:56.15
Michael David Wilson
Not that that's what this podcast was meant to be about, but going him back to...

00:26:56.50
Robert P. Ottone
yeah

00:27:01.19
Bob Pastorella
Go, go ahead and give them the order link, Michael, go and give them the order link. It's cool.

00:27:06.41
Robert P. Ottone
I still remember what their watching was supposed to be called, or what the original title was.

00:27:07.69
Bob Pastorella
yeah Oh yeah.

00:27:10.66
Michael David Wilson
Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:27:13.27
Robert P. Ottone
Because it's such a good title.

00:27:14.84
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, we we we can say it. Do you want to say it, Bob?

00:27:19.36
Bob Pastorella
Yeah. It was originally called peeper ritual.

00:27:21.92
Michael David Wilson
ah Hell yeah.

00:27:24.20
Bob Pastorella
And, uh, it, uh, ah with the the guidance of ah our film manager, he said, ah I don't think you're going to be able to sell this thing, you know especially looking at it from a movie script ah point of view.

00:27:31.32
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

00:27:41.72
Bob Pastorella
and so we we and Me and Michael had the brainstorm and we came up with, ah you know we we were originally, I think the the next the next one was called ah was going to be called Don't Trust Anyone.

00:27:55.11
Michael David Wilson
um say Was it?

00:27:55.47
Bob Pastorella
And, yeah.

00:27:57.66
Michael David Wilson
I don't even remember.

00:27:58.02
Bob Pastorella
And I was like, yeah, it was going to be called Don't Trust Anyone. And I just, I don't like, you know, that just sounds like, you know, some B title Stevenson gall movie, you know, I'm just like, you know, i like so don't trust anyone, you know.

00:28:12.95
Bob Pastorella
And, uh, we kept saying the phrase, we kept bouncing around and finally we, you know, it's like, wait, we'll just call it they're watching because that's what they're doing. They're watching, you know, and he was like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:28:20.73
Michael David Wilson
Again. But I remember how that came about and I promised listeners we're going to get back to Robert's work in a minute.

00:28:28.05
Robert P. Ottone
Ha ha ha!

00:28:30.20
Michael David Wilson
This is a weird this is the weirdest fucking segue where we've we've now abandoned the interview and are now interviewing ourselves about a project that we did two years ago nonetheless for anyone interested.

00:28:34.47
Bob Pastorella
and the

00:28:47.98
Bob Pastorella
Oh,

00:28:47.85
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, I remember I had the title they're watching for another novel that's, you know, it's still in first draft.

00:28:53.55
Bob Pastorella
oh yeah

00:28:55.75
Michael David Wilson
And I was like, Oh, I've got a perfect title for our book. But the problem is it's another book of mine has that title.

00:29:03.83
Bob Pastorella
I remember.

00:29:05.29
Michael David Wilson
So yeah, then I said they're watching to you and to Ryan and, and it fit.

00:29:12.49
Bob Pastorella
yeah There you go.

00:29:12.40
Michael David Wilson
And that other book hasn't been published. Maybe I should publish it and call it people ritual.

00:29:18.85
Robert P. Ottone
Ha ha ha ha ha!

00:29:21.29
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, which which definitely would not fit that particular book, but yeah.

00:29:24.96
Robert P. Ottone
but the

00:29:28.19
Michael David Wilson
now I do sometimes wonder like, because we wrote a script for their watching, which then completely expanded the story beyond the books. So I don't know, Bob knows what I'm going to say, because every so often I'm like, why don't we write the novelization of the script that we wrote for their watching? We could do that and then we could call it people ritual. So.

00:29:55.66
Michael David Wilson
Maybe, maybe one, maybe if I say it enough to Bob, one day he'll have more time or he'll run out of ideas and be like, okay, fine.

00:29:57.21
Robert P. Ottone
I think it's a good idea.

00:30:06.62
Michael David Wilson
We're doing it.

00:30:07.12
Bob Pastorella
I know the the pra it's it's not that that it's not that I wouldn't want to do it is that I have so many plates that are full right now, you know, that it's like a win, you know, which is probably a good problem to have.

00:30:18.76
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:30:21.76
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

00:30:22.09
Robert P. Ottone
It's, I think it was, um, I can't remember who it was.

00:30:22.60
Bob Pastorella
Yeah.

00:30:26.15
Robert P. Ottone
Who was like, I'm never short of ideas. I'm short of time.

00:30:29.48
Bob Pastorella
Mm hmm.

00:30:30.67
Robert P. Ottone
I'm drawing a blank as to who it was, but it was, uh, that was something I, when I heard that, I was like, yes, correct. That's correct.

00:30:40.16
Bob Pastorella
Now, ideas are a dime a dozen. It's, it's creating the story that goes with them.

00:30:43.13
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:30:46.12
Bob Pastorella
That is, is the work, you know? Um, but AI says they can do it for you fast.

00:30:53.16
Robert P. Ottone
Oh, yeah. And it'll be great too.

00:30:55.45
Bob Pastorella
No, it'd be great. Cause it's good content and product.

00:30:59.75
Robert P. Ottone
yeah

00:31:01.25
Michael David Wilson
Okay, moving away from AI.

00:31:07.05
Bob Pastorella
yeah yeah

00:31:06.90
Michael David Wilson
yeah ah that there's nothing There's nothing good to say about it. And we're going to jump back to your book. Where did the cover come from?

00:31:18.42
Robert P. Ottone
Oh, yeah.

00:31:18.38
Michael David Wilson
It's amazing.

00:31:20.17
Robert P. Ottone
So i I had an idea of what I wanted to do with the cover and I tried to like, I did like a mock-up of it or whatever. And um I was happy with it.

00:31:31.14
Robert P. Ottone
I was like, okay, cool. And I showed the publisher what I was thinking.

00:31:32.80
Bob Pastorella
No,

00:31:35.66
Robert P. Ottone
And he hired like seven different cover artists to try to do a version of that same cover.

00:31:37.10
Bob Pastorella
no, no

00:31:45.82
Robert P. Ottone
And he rejected himself six out of the seven things that he got from the artist because he hated them. And he sent me one. that was awful and he's like this is the best of the bunch and I just wanted to show you and I was like okay and I was like it's dog shit so then I was like okay well we need a cover I want this you know we talked about the the date of when it was gonna come out and I was like I think it would be cool if we did a spring release because spring rebirth babies baby showers all that shit

00:32:17.77
Robert P. Ottone
usually happens in the springtime. Everybody gets knocked up and then they squirt the kid out in the spring. So one of the things I was thinking of was like, okay, well let's do a family thing, but let's not do black and red on the cover. Cause I'm really tired of seeing that. And let's play with, you know, pastels and whatnot. So he was like, Oh, that's a cool idea like that. So I reached out to a cover artist friend of mine, Alexis Macaluso,

00:32:44.85
Robert P. Ottone
And she's a great artist in general. She's ridiculously funny. Like very, very preposterous way of thinking. And it's like such a funny person. And I gave her the rough idea. I sent her the the rough mock-up that I had made. And she was like, okay, cool. And she came back with four different pencil drawing versions of four very different covers.

00:33:11.70
Robert P. Ottone
And all of them would make great covers for any kind of horror book. And when she sent this one back that ended up being the cover, like the rough version, I was like, wow. i move You hit the nail on the head. That's the one we're going to go with because it's great. And um she still won't tell me.

00:33:37.08
Robert P. Ottone
who the couple is on the cover of the book. She's still like, she's just like, nope, don't worry about it. I have a feeling it's somebody related to her and she doesn't want them to know. um But it's everything she did was fabulous. Like she hit the colors are beautiful. It doesn't necessarily look like a traditional horror book. It doesn't have the the Stephen King Stranger Things font anywhere near it, which I'm very happy about.

00:34:06.61
Robert P. Ottone
It doesn't, it just feels more like a summer read more than it feels like a horror thing. And I was very happy with it. The lush greens, the pastel yellows and pinks and whatnot in the back with just the the you know the greenery of the yard and everything, their clothing. um I could not have been happier with how it turned out. And i a lot of people really like it. and It was her idea to do, because I didn't have this in my original design, to do the child as sort of the shadow being that pops up in the narrative. That was all her. And she was like, I'm seeing him as this. And the way she described it was like, moldy shadow. And I was like, bingo. Go nuts. like That's cool. And that's what she did. and

00:35:03.61
Robert P. Ottone
I don't think I, in my opinion, I haven't had a better cover for any of my books. I love all my covers and all the artists do a great job, but that one, chef's kiss. Like I still think that one's the bee's knees.

00:35:18.74
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, and there's just something so special about it for all the reasons that you just described there. And I wonder too, I mean, with the fantastic title, the vile thing we created, was there ever any reluctance about the fact that obviously with the title, it is foreshadowing that something deeply wrong is going to happen, you know, with this pregnancy and with this child.

00:35:51.69
Michael David Wilson
And I mean, I, I'm not sure cause I wasn't looking in terms of percentages, but I, that there must be what 25, 30% of the book is pre child, pre Jonesy.

00:36:05.02
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't, I don't know, I think like the second you see a family on the cover of a horror novel, you know, something's going to go wrong. You know, it's like in ah Sinister. like You know, he moves into the house with his family, you're like, well, they're fucked. but So I think that's kind of the the cover. I was thinking of it like that. And the title too. But it's also I think I didn't, I sort of didn't want people to go into the book expecting like a Rosemary's baby story where like, Oh, this is clearly the mom is being gaslit by everybody around her kind of thing. I wanted it to be, I just wanted them to think, Oh, something's already wrong with this kid. Like something's, something's wrong with the child that these two created. Something is obviously vile or like evil. Um,

00:36:57.76
Robert P. Ottone
And I'm glad that, you know, people don't see like, or people didn't, they don't seem to go into the book expecting the couple to be on a united front. Pretty much from the jump. I like there's never a moment where one of them gaslights the other. um Because I just think like that's and boring because it's been done. like If you're not going to do it like Ira-11, it's not going to be as good as Rosemary's Baby, so don't even try. And I just didn't want anybody to think that it was something that it wasn't. like there's um you know there's There's a lot of really great books that have fantastic titles, great covers, and the book is just not that.

00:37:42.25
Robert P. Ottone
um And that drives me nuts because I just like did not finish one within the past like four months. And it was my first did not finish in like years. And I just could not get into it. I was so excited for it. Great cover. A lot of cool buzz about it. Great title. And then good God, it was just the worst thing.

00:38:09.04
Robert P. Ottone
And it's not a horror book at all. it's like we know You guys like do not know this person. like They're not a horror community. like Not even horror at all. It was like a comedy kind of thing and like sort of a social satire kind of thing. And good lord, it was not as advertised at all. Whereas with the vile thing, I was like, you know there's gonna be a family and you know that the kid's fucked up. um If you read it that way,

00:38:35.08
Robert P. Ottone
If you read that, that Jonesy is the one that's fucked up, it might be possible to read it and think that Jonesy is not fucked up. But who knows? That's not up to me anymore.

00:38:48.56
Michael David Wilson
I think there are multiple readings as to who is the most fucked up in the family, and you could potentially make a case for all three of them, you know.

00:38:53.65
Bob Pastorella
Thank you very much.

00:39:00.21
Michael David Wilson
And that's what's good about great fiction. It's having that ambiguity, and it's having those flawed characters, people making mistakes. If you don't have people making mistakes, you don't really have tension.

00:39:13.84
Michael David Wilson
You don't have story. and Yeah, that that's one of its strengths. And I think as well, theres there's an unpredictability to it.

00:39:20.15
Robert P. Ottone
Thank you.

00:39:24.62
Michael David Wilson
I mean, in terms of not knowing how on earth this is going to end, at least, you know, where are we actually going to ultimately go?

00:39:34.12
Bob Pastorella
Um, see, I, I'm, I'm sorry.

00:39:35.72
Robert P. Ottone
that was oh i'm sorry go ahead bob

00:39:38.08
Bob Pastorella
I was going to say, I never felt a Rosemary's baby feeling to it. The, the, if I had to give it comps and I'll probably throw one that, that you know, when it's given you yet, maybe they have, I don't know.

00:39:53.28
Bob Pastorella
But especially after Jonesy was born, I definitely had a feeling somewhat of the omen. Um, okay. And so in my other comp.

00:40:04.52
Bob Pastorella
is uh harvest home i had a very because harvest home is uh by uh thomas and i'll say his last name wrong but i believe it's trying he wrote the other which is considered uh one of the seminal works of

00:40:07.77
Robert P. Ottone
Hmm.

00:40:26.00
Bob Pastorella
you know, moving out of the Gothic into modern horror ah along with, you know, Rosemary's baby. um And so, um, he, this, this family moves to this, this area and it's just overwhelmed with, with this basically a cult in, in, in folklore.

00:40:52.56
Bob Pastorella
And then, so that, that, that was my obscure one. And I was like, you take, you take the omen and mix it with harvest comb and put it in silent Hill. And you you've got this book because the imagery is just. Monstrous is so grotesque and yet beautiful. And yeah oh man, it was, there's definitely some nightmare shit in there. And I love it. And I loved it.

00:41:19.74
Robert P. Ottone
No, thank you. Thank you. I'm glad that the Silent Hill stuff comes through too, because I'm a huge fan. Huge fan of Silent Hill.

00:41:27.67
Bob Pastorella
yeah

00:41:29.67
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, i I haven't heard the Harvest Home ah comparison for sure. like that's ah the The other is one that it was compared to, but not Harvest Home. But that's nice to hear too, because I love Harvest Home. And I love the other as well. But yeah, i I was always very... I'm very flattered by people making any comparisons to anything, because it's like...

00:41:56.12
Robert P. Ottone
you know, it's just and a tremendous honor. It's just like, oh, this reminds me of this or this is like this. It's like, oh, great. That's awesome. That makes me happy. I know that, um you know, like when I think of it, and it goes back to what you were saying before, like you're inspired by things that you love, you know, like the inspiration behind this in a lot of ways was, you know, the, my, the personal stuff that I was dealing with with my friends and how,

00:42:24.33
Robert P. Ottone
relationships change and all that stuff. But it's also like, I was thinking too about the writers who inspire me and like the ways that they challenge themselves and they push themselves forward. And they, you know, they're every time like Paul Tremblay is a good example. Like he does something different every time out. And it's really thrilling to read. You know, I haven't gotten to horror movie yet. But a friend of mine is like, it's his best book.

00:42:51.38
Robert P. Ottone
And I'm like, well, come on, Kevin at the end of the world is perfect. And he's like, no, he's like, I'm telling you. I'm like, okay. But I'm just very excited by people who do something different every time out. So like I was like, in my thinking was I just want to try to do something so different than the triangle. If the triangle is a young adult book,

00:43:14.33
Robert P. Ottone
I want to write something now that's the complete opposite end of the spectrum, something that's so different. Whereas the triangle ends, you know it has like a dark ending, but it's also at the same time like

00:43:30.70
Robert P. Ottone
you It has a feeling of, oh, okay, you know I could see positivity here. With this, I just wanted to like live in the the dark areas of where these two are exploring parenthood for as long as I could and bring in some Silent Hill love along the way. like so i cause Also, the Silent Hill-type elements in this book are something I'm going to explore more in the future.

00:44:00.56
Robert P. Ottone
Because for the longest time, Konami was doing nothing with Silent Hill. And now all of a sudden we're getting all these new games and stuff, and one of them was dogshit. The interactive movie thing was awful that they did. But like, the game, the free one, was good. So it's kind of encouraging to see, like, oh good, Silent Hill is back, and...

00:44:24.91
Robert P. Ottone
I still have my version of Silent Hill that I can play jazz with anytime I want. like So i'm I don't know, it's just really exciting to see. And I just love Silent Hill so much. And oh, so like, this is probably my favorite thing anybody's ever said about me. Brian Keene said on his podcast, if Konami ever does ah book a Silent Hill book and they don't hire Mary San Giovanni or Robert Oton they don't know what they're doing and I was like I could retire now I'm good that's high praise from Mr. Keene I'll take it so that was that was like the coolest thing that I heard after the vile thing came out I had um so after it it had if after it sold the thousand books

00:45:19.54
Robert P. Ottone
I had cigars made, it's a boy cigars, with a special band that my friend Lewis designed. ah He's an author as well. um So that was really cool of him. And Lewis Paritas is his name. But he designed the band and I had the cigars made. They were hand rolled by a guy who I love his stuff.

00:45:43.98
Robert P. Ottone
And I was, I sent them out as like a thank you and to celebrate the book and everything. And I know, I know Kean smoked his and he liked it. So I was like, all right, that's good. And, you know, a couple other people smoked theirs. Ken Kane smoked his. I know he enjoyed his.

00:46:01.51
Robert P. Ottone
I only have two left. So like my own personal stash is dwindling. But, uh, that was a fun thing to have made is to have the, the it's a boy cigars with the base. So there was two different bands. There was one that was like the prenatal baby and then the prenatal baby with the scratches on his face, like the cover of the book. So it was very cool. My publisher loved it. He was like, that's a really fun idea. So it was, it's like,

00:46:30.18
Robert P. Ottone
I get excited to do stuff like that, and I get excited to like, the so like when the viral thing came out, which was April, I was going around to like, and doing events for six months straight. So like from April to October.

00:46:47.97
Robert P. Ottone
And it was a that was a long, that was a long time to be like promoting the one book with the stoker happening two months after the release. Like that was nuts. So that like revitalized it even more. And so I'm excited to do something like that again, to do like another big like go to different bookstores and do different readings and do this, that like, I love that shit.

00:47:17.03
Robert P. Ottone
And like I'm just waiting for my agent to email me and be like, hey, we sold this book. So I could be like, all right, let's get ready to start planning again and get all my ducks in a row and all that. like i just I love that stuff. So like getting an opportunity to do things like that is fun for me. I just talked for so long. I'm sorry.

00:47:39.44
Michael David Wilson
No, I mean, that's what the show is all about having a conversation. Gotta talk for a long time. if If you want, then it would make for a pretty dull podcast.

00:47:47.21
Robert P. Ottone
Okay.

00:47:50.87
Michael David Wilson
But I mean, I've got to say in terms of comparisons, I mean, yeah, it's always going to be very easy when There's like a kind of pregnancy gone rung or a ambiguously demonic child for people to either mention Rosemary's baby or the omen that kind of the cornerstone I suppose of the genre the sub genre as it were but for me another two that kind of.

00:48:20.57
Michael David Wilson
Popped up where I know because of just the, the kind of psychopathic and dysfunctional relations, like we need to talk about Kevin kind of came to mind.

00:48:32.23
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:48:32.07
Michael David Wilson
And then also for the, let's say family secret, a little bit of black sheep by Rachel Harrison.

00:48:42.57
Michael David Wilson
So those were the two, you know, alongside the other references that we've mentioned that came up for me.

00:48:44.51
Bob Pastorella
Mhmm.

00:48:50.91
Robert P. Ottone
awesome well thank you I love Rachel Harrison and I love we need to talk about Kevin so I I definitely had we need to talk about Kevin in mind too when I was writing it because I in that you know the mom very clearly rejects her offspring and it's disastrous. um But I was thinking too, going into the finale of The Vial Thing, I had a very different finale originally plotted out. And I didn't think it was, when I was getting down to it and I was really thinking about it, and actually Nine Inch Nails kind of came into play during that original finale that I had in mind, it just wasn't, it didn't,

00:49:37.37
Robert P. Ottone
touch all of the notes that had been touched on with the town, with like the where the Silent Hill type town, Kirkbride's Bluff or whatever. it didn't It just wasn't all there. So then I went back and I looked at the finale and I was like, well, what can I do that makes connective tissue?

00:49:54.21
Robert P. Ottone
between what happened there and what happens at the end of this. And that's sort of where the different finale came from. um And we need to talk about Kevin again, going back to that. they The finale of that is obviously so, or you know learning what happens with with what Kevin does is so horrific and it's such a real terrifying thing.

00:50:21.79
Robert P. Ottone
The finale of the Vile thing was originally a little more grounded in the reality of something like that. It wasn't as impactful to the community, let's say, for those who haven't seen. I don't want to spoil, we need to talk about Kevin. But it was very impactful to the ah parents, to Ian and Lola, and it would have been a very different ending.

00:50:46.74
Robert P. Ottone
um It probably, it would have been, probably just as dark, but dark in a different way if I had gone with that original ending. And I'm trying to figure out maybe I can use that in another story or in another book, that particular ending, but I don't know that I will. It's just, it's very dark in the way that, like, Vile Things ending is dark, but this is dark in, like, a much more personal way, I guess, to the characters.

00:51:18.28
Robert P. Ottone
So that, but that was very much like a we need to talk about Kevin moment. So I'm glad that that comes through.

00:51:25.06
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, I mean, there's always possibilities to release an expanded edition or an alternative ending edition. Like i I love it when we treat books more like films and we have like these director's cuts or the ultimate edition.

00:51:42.18
Michael David Wilson
I know that Brian Keane has done similar things with his work and Wrath James White as well. And more recently, Eric LaRocca with the book with have Clash Books.

00:51:49.65
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:51:54.08
Michael David Wilson
Or was it Everything the Darkness? I don't know. some something and Everything the Darkness eats, I think.

00:52:00.17
Robert P. Ottone
Yep.

00:52:00.85
Michael David Wilson
yeah so i mean yeah like Books should be more like films in that we can have multiple editions. I think that's a really fun way of doing things. Authors should be more like rock stars. Let's have these weird events. let's

00:52:16.43
Robert P. Ottone
yeah

00:52:16.84
Michael David Wilson
Let's fuck something up. hey You know, we don't have to just yeah do these straight readings.

00:52:23.55
Robert P. Ottone
we

00:52:23.47
Michael David Wilson
I mean, I suppose it's not as impactful if at the end of the performance you smash up your book.

00:52:24.16
Robert P. Ottone
um mucu the this so i give my we've been talking about like something So I gave my i my agent two books to get out on sub right now.

00:52:31.22
Michael David Wilson
What was that? Sorry. yeah

00:52:44.94
Robert P. Ottone
And the second book, is I would say it's a little more commercial than the first one. but we were joking around about like, well, what kind of book release party could we have for, because we could actually have like a lot of fun with the second one. The first one's dark, second one's a little lighter at least, and we could do this, we could do that, and it takes place in New York City. So it's like, we could go to the city, we could do this, we could do that. And I'm like, yeah, I'm into that. So I'm always thinking like, what kind of fun shit but can I do with these books and like all this stuff? Like when I was i was doing, um

00:53:23.20
Robert P. Ottone
like vile little care packages people when they would buy the book direct from me or whatever, which it was kind of fun. I sent like these weird little plastic babies with every copy and like um it's a boy, uh, gummy, uh, cigars and stuff and like little like gummy bugs that you could eat and all this stuff. And Trembly was like, he was like, yeah, my wife wasn't a huge fan of the bugs.

00:53:52.10
Robert P. Ottone
but these creepy little babies are pretty good. So, I don't know, I love stuff like that, like having fun with the book and everything.

00:54:02.80
Michael David Wilson
Yeah. Yeah. I think anytime you can do something promotional or a little bit kind of off the path that fits in with the book, you absolutely should. And I mean, when I released the girl in the video via perpetual motion, now ghoulish books.

00:54:21.65
Michael David Wilson
like we sent out to some of the reviewers, like a little Polaroid with a photo of their Instagram, and then we just wrote, I know what you like, and it so ties in, and it's so it was so creepy.

00:54:35.91
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

00:54:35.98
Michael David Wilson
And, you know, when Max Booth and Laurie Michelle sent me my contributor copies, they'd done the same to me. There's something quite unnerving about seeing a photo of your Instagram.

00:54:47.85
Robert P. Ottone
I love that.

00:54:48.35
Michael David Wilson
Something very threatening, but you know he was delightful at the same time well you know max booth is the one who sent them out so i can't take any

00:54:52.21
Robert P. Ottone
That's awesome. I would have loved that if I had gotten that with my copy. That would have been cool.

00:55:04.43
Michael David Wilson
any responsibility. yeah I often try to defer my problems to being Max Booth's fault, which often doesn't work. It's not a good excuse to my wife if the washing up hasn't been done. But on this occasion, maybe there's some credibility to it.

00:55:22.83
Bob Pastorella
They manage to deflect every time.

00:55:30.31
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, yeah. But moving away from Max Booth and moving to a question from Amanda Headlee via Patreon. Do you work on multiple stories at a time and if so, have you worked on a story targeted to adults at the same time as stories targeted to YA or middle grade?

00:55:56.32
Michael David Wilson
if you have do you stay in the right voice or style on each story and not slip into the wrong age group as you say sorry if you have how do you stay not do you stay obviously if i can stay in the right voice that was me reading the question wrong how do you stay yeah yeah yeah but that that reminds me of like oh

00:56:16.76
Bob Pastorella
I'm just going to slip into the adult age group now.

00:56:22.14
Bob Pastorella
Now you think about the C word.

00:56:24.71
Michael David Wilson
But, you know, those theatres, and it was highlighted in Fight Club, you know, but particularly the movie where it's like you've got a kids thing, and then it's like, oh, we've just like put a millisecond of a cock on the screen or something like that.

00:56:42.70
Robert P. Ottone
that's ah ah That's a great question. um it's it's kind of It's easier like with middle grade than to differentiate between anything else in middle grade, because middle grade has some pretty hard and fast rules to it of like no cursing, no sex, no drugs, um so stuff like that. it's So you know going from like a middle grade story to YA stories, easy because they're so different. Whereas YA to adult, really the only thing that's different is the age of the characters. That's really the only thing. So like when I was writing um the triangle and then I went to the vile thing, it was an easier transition with the voice because, and actually since the triangle's first person,

00:57:36.58
Robert P. Ottone
and the vile thing is not, that was a little harder to shake the POV off from one to the next. And then it was even harder going from the third person POV of the vile thing to the first person of the deep, the sequel to the triangle, because I wrote that right after. So that was a little harder, but I'm usually working on I'm never working on two books at the same time of two different things. I'll usually be working on like, let's say, a middle grade or a young adult book, and I'll write a short story that I have for an anthology or or a magazine or whatever it is. like i'll And that'll be for adults. So it's not as like imperative or or time consuming to work on the short story as it is the book.

00:58:24.44
Robert P. Ottone
Because the book, if it's y if it's middle grade, for example, or YA, it's easier to stay in that zone for that than it would be to go back and forth between two books. So going from short story to book at the same time is a little easier for me. And keeping it straight.

00:58:43.51
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, and talking about different books and different mediums, I mean, I know we're coming to the time that we've got together today, but another recent release is there's something sinister in Centrefield, which was published via Cemetery Gates Media.

00:59:02.22
Michael David Wilson
And that, of course, comes too with very striking art, this time from Gemma Amor, but certainly much like the book itself, a very different flavor to the vile thing. So what can you tell us about that book?

00:59:19.39
Michael David Wilson
And I suppose linked to that, I mean, how do you kind of feel about the marketing or the presenting yourself as an author who writes in all these different modes, not just between genre, but between age groups?

00:59:35.42
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah. I like ah playing in different sandboxes. I like putting the the restrictions of middle grade on myself because I feel like it only it it it feels like lifting weights, like getting stronger at something, like really pushing yourself a little harder.

00:59:54.93
Robert P. Ottone
And again, it goes back to what we talked about in the beginning of like life lessons. If you're going to do something, throw yourself into it and try to do it the best you can. And that's the same thing with middle grade. Going from adult to middle grade, it just feels right to write for that audience because I teach middle school. So I love that age. I love those kids. you know I don't have children of my own. So I look at my students in some ways, I'm very, very protective of them.

01:00:22.99
Robert P. Ottone
like I do whatever I can to help them in the classroom and everything, but I, I want to make sure that they're okay. You know, like it's, it goes above and beyond, you know, and all of my colleagues are like that. We're very lucky, but it also feels very, I don't, I don't want to be, I don't ever want to like only do one thing. Cause I think that would be boring.

01:00:50.76
Robert P. Ottone
Like I have two books for adults on submission right now and I love that. And i I'm like dying to write this one project I've had in my mind for over a year. and But it's a very weird idea and it's a very difficult idea to put down on paper. And I've done so much research into it. um So I might be starting on that around Christmas, around the holidays or whatever, I don't know yet. But I really also wanna write another YA book.

01:01:20.06
Robert P. Ottone
because I think, oh, I have a really dark YA horror story in me. So I love jumping around to these different places. And I love jumping around and playing in the middle grade sandbox, then the YA, and then the adult, and then the short story, and then the nonfiction. I love doing all of that. So when the opportunity to write there's something sinister in center field came up with Cemetery Gates,

01:01:46.35
Robert P. Ottone
who's one of the only publishers that when I started writing, I was like, I really want to publish with them. I know everybody always has like these bucket list things or whatever. I don't have that. But like, I really love the stuff that Cemetery Gates was putting out, especially, you know, I've read a lot of their stuff, but Sticks and Stones by C.W. Breyer is one of the best short story collections I've ever read. And it's just so damn good. And it's it skews younger. So,

01:02:14.73
Robert P. Ottone
I wanted to work with them really badly, and I was having a wonderful conversation on Twitter with Joe at Cemetery Gates in the DMs when I was still more active on Twitter. um And we were just riffing back and forth, and he was like, hey, you like baseball? I was like, yeah, I grew up loving baseball. I haven't watched a baseball game since my dad passed away because we were we were Yankee fans and we had season tickets. And it's very hard for me to watch a Yankee game without my dad or without my dad in the world that I can't text him or call him and be like, did you see this? You know, like it's very difficult for me. So when Joe reached out, we were talking about the Yankees and we were talking about like, well, what would a horror story about a little league team look like to you? And I was like, well, it would look like this. And we just kind of went back and forth and just gave each other ideas and he gave me ideas and I threw my ideas at him and he loved them.

01:03:15.15
Robert P. Ottone
And we got to write this book where I got to write this book for him. And I'm very happy with it. It's very much a love letter to my dad. It's a love letter to the 1998 New York Yankees, um which in my mind is the greatest baseball team ever assembled. And it's just It means a lot to me because it scratches a lot of the itches that I had in that time. And it also allowed me to work with a publisher that I really, really wanted to work with. And it was really an honor to get to write the book for Cemetery Gates. And baseball is not a popular sport with kids these days. um Soccer, certainly in my school, it's soccer, it's basketball.

01:04:02.88
Robert P. Ottone
Um, which is fine. Baseball's not as exciting or whatever as those sports perhaps, but to me, baseball is always going to mean more than any other sport. Um, so getting to write this, I got to like exercise a lot of my emotions and my feelings and whatnot. And I also wanted to have another strong female protagonist and, uh, one that you know, no pun intended goes to bat for these boys and does a good job and really in many, in in pretty much every imaginable way kind of saves the day. um And then to have Gemmo Moore do such an awesome cover, what a ray of sunshine she is by the way, my God, um ridiculous. um So she did that this wonderful goosebumps

01:04:58.29
Robert P. Ottone
inspired cover that like when I saw it I was like this is everything that I could get want from this. Like I, you know, I drew out a baseball diamond and like, cause she's British. ah So she doesn't, she, I don't know how familiar she was with major league baseball, but I drew a baseball diamond and like the dimensions of like, this is left field center field, right field. And, and she was amazing. Like she would send me updates of the cover as it was coming together. I believe it's watercolor.

01:05:31.88
Robert P. Ottone
And um it's just beautiful. It's great. I love the greens. I love the yellows on there. It's just beautiful. And she really nailed how the ah the team, the Kingfishers, how their uniforms look in my mind compared to the page. Just really a great experience. And I'm very proud of that book. Very proud of that book. And I really I love writing middle grade. It's a lot of fun. I've had two middle grade books in the past two years come out. And I'm proud of both of them. I would love to keep writing middle grade. I'd love to write a really dark middle grade book. It's hard to do super dark middle grade. Laura Semph did a great job with The Clackity. That's a really great dark middle grade book. So if I could somehow match

01:06:26.82
Robert P. Ottone
her energy and vibe, that would be really great. I love Laura, she's amazing.

01:06:34.83
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, what did you and Cemetery Gates Media do in terms of the marketing and do you have to take a different approach with the market marketing for middle grade? Are you kind of at that point selling more to schools and parents as opposed to directly to the reader?

01:06:54.16
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, it's definitely something that we're we've talked about a lot. I've gotten in contact with a lot of my library contacts in New York here, especially especially since the book takes place in New York.

01:07:07.52
Robert P. Ottone
And a lot of the libraries have been very like receptive to stocking it. I know the school that I teach in is looking to get more copies. They have a few copies already, so they're gonna add a few more. um There is a school that is doing it, there's a school in the city that is doing it as part of their curriculum this year, which is a tremendous honor. I've never had anything done as part of curriculum, but this year now I have two books that are gonna be in.

01:07:37.59
Robert P. Ottone
middle school curriculum. So that's crazy. um But yeah, it's it's has been a focus on kids, ah you know, organizations, libraries, big push on libraries. um Because kids use the library like and I know, like,

01:07:55.61
Robert P. Ottone
A lot of folks might think, oh, it's passe. Kids don't read, they don't go to the library. It's like, no, they go to any library. You're going to see little kids with arms full of books. And it's awesome. It's the coolest thing to see. So there's been a big push with that. And I know I'm very happy with it. I think Cemetery Gates did a wonderful job rolling it out.

01:08:22.47
Robert P. Ottone
the cover, the promotion. We did a a a cover reveal with a, um so I guess you would call them like one of those like retro Instagrammers. Like they they, he's like a goosebumps collector. He did the cover reveal, which I believe helped quite a bit. And that was really cool. So that was, I know Joe at Cemetery Gates is always open to trying new things, which is really exciting.

01:08:50.43
Robert P. Ottone
And yeah, it was just great. It's been wonderful. I hope I get to do something else at Cemetery Gates in the future.

01:08:58.55
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, well, fingers crossed. And, I mean, we said before about your writing routine that you do the vast majority of your writing at the weekend. You know, you're thinking of things in the week. You might be writing down snatches of dialogue, but it's the weekend where you're actually putting pen to paper or words to keyboard, as the case may be. So,

01:09:24.73
Michael David Wilson
I know too that we were talking about that balance between, you know, work and life and spending time with your family and friends. So what does this writing routine look like? And is it a strict routine or is it a case of seeing what is on each individual weekend?

01:09:45.78
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, it's usually a case of what's going on on the weekend. um I'll wake up, i I get up early no matter what, like even though I'm gonna i' up late this evening, I know I'm gonna get up early tomorrow, like my body's just wired that way now because of teaching, um which I'm fine with, you know, squeeze every dropout, I guess, of every day. And I know I'll wake up, I will,

01:10:12.19
Robert P. Ottone
Get some coffee. Some iced coffee. I only drink iced coffee. And I will have some of that. I'll take my handful of vitamins that keeps me together. And I'll have a little bit to eat. Then I will likely take a shower, get dressed, sit in front of the computer. And I'll probably bang out. I would be shocked if I don't finish either both short stories that I'm supposed to do, or one and a half.

01:10:42.16
Robert P. Ottone
you know, because I'm so pent up. I haven't written in a long time because of our moving and everything and setting up my office. It's still not 100%. But I know that I'm excited to write. Like i'm never I never look at writing as daunting. And I think that, you know, and again, it goes back to like the day that it becomes daunting or the day it becomes a problem is the day I stopped doing it. You know, whereas it it feels like a gift to get to do it. And it feels like,

01:11:11.77
Robert P. Ottone
something I'm still excited to do every day, every time I get to do it. So there's no like, I don't ever set a word count for myself when I sit down, but it always ends up being thousands of words every time I sit down. Um, I think the, you know, the least amount I ever wrote in a day was like 2,200 words or something. That was the smallest amount. The most amount I wrote, uh, in one day was like 28,000.

01:11:42.04
Robert P. Ottone
Something like that. It was like a really intense session. The most I ever wrote in a short amount of time was 6,000 words in an hour. That was that was the... like I felt like possessed when I was doing that. That was ah a short story for a Winnie the Pooh horror anthology that I was in. like That was pretty crazy.

01:12:04.77
Robert P. Ottone
um But yeah, no, like I, I'm excited, you know, I'm working on a ah new novel, but I want to get these two short stories done. um I'm also working on adding a couple stories to the re-release of my third short story collection that was originally published last October that I was able to get the rights back for. And it's going to be re-released with another publisher. So we're doing a special edition of that. So similar to what you were saying, like writers should be able to go back and play jazz a little bit. So we're going back into that. I'm writing a novella for it.

01:12:43.85
Robert P. Ottone
And I'm adding three short stories to it. So it'll be a total of 20 short stories and one novella, as opposed to just 17 short stories. But, um, so that's all stuff that I'm excited to do. And I know that I could do it in like a relatively short amount of time. Like I can get this stuff done. And, uh, yeah, there's, if it's like, Oh, you know, we're going somewhere at like one o'clock.

01:13:10.51
Robert P. Ottone
I'll get up, I'll do my morning routine and I'll start writing, but then I know like, okay, I need at least like 45 minutes to get ready to to leave and do whatever. So I'll stop at like noon, you know, and go from there. I know Stephen King does like what, four hours or something. He does like, I write for four hours every day and that's it.

01:13:27.32
Robert P. Ottone
That's awesome. I wish I could just do that. But like when I hit the groove, I don't want to stop always. Like there's been days where i've I've written for like eight hours straight or whatever. And my wife is doing her thing. I'm doing mine. She's like, Yeah, go for it. Like keep doing what you're doing. My wife's a baker. So she's always working too. She's just working in a different section of the house. So it's like, it it works nicely. I'm upstairs. She's downstairs. She's doing she's listening to her podcast. I'm listening to my spooky music and It all just vibes, you know?

01:14:00.37
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, that sounds like you've got a great setup then and yeah, your kind of pursuits compliment one another too.

01:14:09.38
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, I'm very lucky. I'm still trying to figure out how to get her to make a special treat for my next book release. I don't know. Have her make some sort of like cookie or cupcake or pie or what some something. I don't know. we She made our own wedding cake.

01:14:27.03
Robert P. Ottone
And the original plan was we were going to do a cake that I could stab, like in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it would bleed, but we shouldn't have enough time. Do you guys remember that at the beginning when he stabs the east abs the crucifix and it starts bleeding after?

01:14:41.48
Bob Pastorella
Yeah. Mm hmm.

01:14:43.15
Robert P. Ottone
That's what we wanted to do. I was going to wear the armor, the whole thing, but I couldn't find anyone to make it.

01:14:44.76
Bob Pastorella
but

01:14:49.55
Michael David Wilson
Well, there you go. You can do it for the... I don't know how long you've been married, but some anniversary, some unspecified anniversary has got to happen.

01:14:53.86
Bob Pastorella
Mm hmm.

01:15:01.68
Michael David Wilson
Well, it's been a tremendous pleasure chatting with you and... Certainly something we'll have to do again, because there's so many more things that we could cover.

01:15:12.31
Michael David Wilson
But I mean, in the meantime, where can our listeners and watchers connect with you, our viewers? I don't normally call them watchers. It sounds very sinister, obviously, because we were speaking about their watching before.

01:15:21.90
Bob Pastorella
there

01:15:25.79
Bob Pastorella
They're watching.

01:15:26.47
Robert P. Ottone
the peepers yeah ah Instagram is really the the best place to find me at Robert Otone I don't really go I'm not I don't like being on Twitter anymore I really hate Elon Musk I always kind of have

01:15:29.57
Michael David Wilson
Watchers.

01:15:44.15
Robert P. Ottone
um Yeah, I'm not on there that much. I'm on Facebook. Like if you find me on Facebook, it's a picture of me and my wife on our wedding. Just add me or whatever. But don't, don't message me with like one of those weird things. Like, let's share our writing journey. Have you guys gotten those on Facebook? Like, ugh.

01:16:02.48
Michael David Wilson
I get various spam that I kind of scan, so it sounds familiar, but i yeah, that that gets marked as junk pretty quickly or just deleted entirely.

01:16:15.60
Robert P. Ottone
It's the worst. But yeah, Instagram is where I have the most fun. It's where I post the most ridiculous pictures that I possibly can of myself and the things around me. um My friend likes to put my face on various things and then send me the picture. So like he did a whole Jaws sequence where he just put my face on Mayor Vaughn and various other people in Jaws. And he put my face on Sasquatch with Nicolas Cage. i don't know he's fucking nuts. And you could find all of that buffoonery there.

01:16:50.66
Michael David Wilson
Sounds like something the band effects twin would do. I mean, they're always putting weird. I'm not saying your face is weird, but they're always putting faces on like weird things and bizarre kind of mashups.

01:17:03.19
Bob Pastorella
Yeah.

01:17:03.89
Robert P. Ottone
Oh god, I missed those videos.

01:17:05.77
Bob Pastorella
Mm-hmm.

01:17:08.99
Robert P. Ottone
I'm gonna have to watch one of those now.

01:17:10.20
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's something trippy and almost Silent Hill fuel about them, you know, to bring it back to Silent Hill, which is always a good place to go back to.

01:17:13.35
Bob Pastorella
rubb

01:17:23.45
Robert P. Ottone
were those Were those Anton Corbin music videos? Did he direct those?

01:17:28.68
Michael David Wilson
I would have to look it up to be certain but

01:17:31.57
Bob Pastorella
Well, the the one that, that's probably the most popular is rubber Johnny.

01:17:37.40
Robert P. Ottone
Oh, I was gonna say, come to daddy.

01:17:37.83
Bob Pastorella
And I want to, yeah, that one's pretty popular too.

01:17:43.08
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

01:17:43.15
Bob Pastorella
Um, I'm just, I've always, I always thought rubber Johnny was, was really cool.

01:17:42.94
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

01:17:49.10
Bob Pastorella
Um.

01:17:49.60
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

01:17:50.37
Bob Pastorella
You know, just, uh, it's just, uh, it's, it's very disturbing.

01:17:51.38
Robert P. Ottone
um

01:17:55.38
Bob Pastorella
And then it becomes like, this is actually pretty bad ass, you know?

01:17:55.56
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah.

01:18:00.15
Bob Pastorella
Yeah. And so.

01:18:01.67
Robert P. Ottone
We used to sing, we used to sing the milkman one. I wish the milkman would live for my milk. Like back in high school, we would sing that shit and just drive around. We were so weird. Everything was so fun and weird back in the day. Now everything's boring. Kids don't do anything fun anymore.

01:18:20.06
Michael David Wilson
Sometimes we just drive around and pull up at traffic lights and really loudly put the rock steam tune on and make everyone like shit themselves.

01:18:28.20
Bob Pastorella
I

01:18:29.20
Michael David Wilson
It's like, yes yeah, he's got that really loud, do you smell what the rock is cooking?

01:18:29.56
Robert P. Ottone
There you go!

01:18:39.02
Michael David Wilson
Well, if you smell, in fact, and yeah, that did get people to pay attention. We found it very funny at the time.

01:18:46.58
Bob Pastorella
don't know.

01:18:47.99
Michael David Wilson
not Not a thing that I do anymore.

01:18:50.30
Robert P. Ottone
You should!

01:18:51.70
Michael David Wilson
I should, yeah.

01:18:53.34
Robert P. Ottone
ah

01:18:53.76
Michael David Wilson
It might be even more baffling in Japan. I mean, that there are wrestling fans, but I don't know how familiar they are with the Naughty's Rock theme tune.

01:18:59.82
Robert P. Ottone
yeah Yep.

01:19:04.92
Michael David Wilson
Only one way to find out, obviously. but Yeah, I'd feel bad because Japan is such a quiet, civilized country. You know, the UK, that they deserved that. But Japan, I just feel like I'm bullying people now.

01:19:24.06
Robert P. Ottone
Oh my God. That's awesome. I, uh, you live in, while you're, from the UK, but you live in Japan. It's like the two places that I want to go to the most.

01:19:35.67
Robert P. Ottone
Like, so I, a friend of mine lives in England, uh, in London specifically.

01:19:35.85
Michael David Wilson
Yeah.

01:19:41.17
Robert P. Ottone
And he's like, if any time you come, you have a place to stay. And I've never taken him up on it. It sucks. But yeah.

01:19:50.67
Michael David Wilson
one day you you don't have children so there's that makes it easier yeah yeah oh yeah

01:19:50.93
Robert P. Ottone
No.

01:19:53.79
Robert P. Ottone
One day.

01:19:57.04
Bob Pastorella
Mm hmm.

01:19:58.46
Robert P. Ottone
Very true. The flight, the flight to Japan is long and I'm not, I don't love flying.

01:19:59.98
Bob Pastorella
Mm hmm.

01:20:06.55
Robert P. Ottone
Like I'm not afraid of flying. I just, I have a weird thing about control. I need to be in control of the conveyance that I'm in. So a flying is difficult for me, but once we get those, those supersonic jets that we're supposed to get that cut like all flight time in half or something,

01:20:26.67
Robert P. Ottone
Japan, New Zealand, I'm coming for you.

01:20:30.62
Michael David Wilson
What if the person who creates the jet is Elon Musk? Because then that will create a dichotomy for you.

01:20:38.80
Robert P. Ottone
I have to boycott then. i've

01:20:40.62
Michael David Wilson
Yeah, yeah i'm I'm just trying to work out, is your love for visiting Japan or your hatred for Elon Musk greater?

01:20:41.66
Bob Pastorella
Mmhmm.

01:20:42.38
Robert P. Ottone
ah gone very soon

01:20:48.80
Michael David Wilson
And it seems like the latter.

01:20:51.06
Robert P. Ottone
Yeah, I just, I um i've become, as I get older, i'm I'm like a very like, I have to stick to my guns on this. Like I won't see Alien Romulus because they used AI to bring Ian Holm back. Even though his family says they're fine with it, I'm not okay with that. I don't like that. I'm not seeing that fucking movie. I haven't seen Late Night with the Devil because they used AI and that. I'm just not, I can't do it. I have to like stick to my guns and my hatred of Elon Musk Please ban me off Twitter. Please give me a reason to not check it once a week, please. um My hatred of that guy and his hair plugs is incredibly great.

01:21:33.48
Michael David Wilson
There you go. I'd say you heard it here first, but I have a feeling from the way that you're talking. It probably comes up in every conversation you have.

01:21:41.67
Bob Pastorella
All right.

01:21:42.50
Michael David Wilson
They did not hear it here first.

01:21:45.43
Robert P. Ottone
like

01:21:45.61
Bob Pastorella
Nah.

01:21:48.70
Michael David Wilson
It doesn't sound like a topic that you're shy about talking about.

01:21:49.24
Robert P. Ottone
pops up from time to time.

01:21:52.30
Michael David Wilson
There was no apprehension.

01:21:57.50
Robert P. Ottone
He's just so unlikable. And his cars suck.

01:22:03.57
Michael David Wilson
Is there anything else you'd like to share? I mean, it feels like you're holding back. like People aren't sure.

01:22:11.24
Robert P. Ottone
No, I'm just...

01:22:11.16
Michael David Wilson
What do you think?

01:22:12.95
Robert P. Ottone
it's I'm just a fan of the show and I love the books of yours that i've I've read, the both of you. So it's just really cool to be here finally. And, you know, I appreciate you guys taking the time and everything. And and I know it's late where you are, Bob, and late here. And I know you're hungry, Michael, and I feel bad. And, you know, I just, I just appreciate it. And I hope whenever my agent sells the next book, we can set something up and talk about that. And I'll make sure you guys get a copy and everything.

01:22:43.85
Bob Pastorella
Oh definitely.

01:22:44.06
Michael David Wilson
Absolutely. Thank you for joining us.

01:22:47.38
Robert P. Ottone
Oh, thank you.

01:22:47.99
Bob Pastorella
Yes.

01:22:48.22
Robert P. Ottone
And I love the show. Everybody join the Patreon.

01:22:51.91
Michael David Wilson
Hell yeah.