TIH 610: Clay McLeod Chapman on Kill Your Darling, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, and Writing vs. Marketing

Michael David Wilson 0:28
Welcome to This Is Horror, a podcast for readers, writers and creators. I'm Michael David Wilson, and every episode, alongside my co host, Bob Pastorella, we chat with the world's best writers about writing, life lessons, creativity and much more. Today I am chatting to clay McLeod Chapman for the second part of our conversation. He is the author of a number of books, including ghost eaters. Whisper down the lane and wake up and open your eyes. And it should be said that clay is also the author of the novella, kill your darling. We talk about it a little bit in this conversation, but what is very timely is that kill your darling has been nominated for a This Is Horror award. So do have a look at the novella category, as well as the novel, short story collection, fiction podcast and non fiction podcast, and email in your votes to awards at this is horror.co.uk, you have until the first of May, so do get your vote in now before the Conversation with clay, a quick advert break,

Bob Pastorella 2:02
a brutal attack during a peaceful drive through the Irish countryside. Sets the stage for a grotesque tale of body horror, medical abuse and occult conspiracy theory, puppets banquet by Valkyrie le crew, Clay mcphile. Chapman calls it a blissful injury upon the reader's psyche. Fans of Silent Hill Hellraiser and Cronenberg's the brood will be consumed by its exquisite nightmares puppets banquet out May 14. Visit tenepresspress.com for more information.

RJ Bayley 2:33
It was as if the video had unzipped my skin, slunk inside my tapered flesh, and become one with me.

Bob Pastorella 2:42
From the creator of This Is Horror comes a new nightmare for the digital age. The Girl in the Video by Michael David Wilson, after a teacher receives a weirdly arousing video, his life descends in a paranoia and obsession. More videos follow, each containing information no stranger could possibly know, but who's sending them and what do they want the answers may destroy everything and everyone he loves. The Girl in the Video is the ring meets fatal attraction from iPhone generation, available now in paperback, ebook and audio. Okay?

Michael David Wilson 3:12
With that said, Here it is. It is clay, McLeod Chapman on This Is Horror. So in terms of wake up and open your eyes, we've given some people some ideas as to the thematic concerns, but what we haven't done, and what might be helpful now is if you could give the people who haven't read it the elevator pitch is wake up and open your eyes about I mean,

Clay McLeod Chapman 3:44
it's funny, I kind of take a global view on the pitch. And I usually say, imagine, if you will, that half of the country is possessed by demons, and which half just totally depends on where you get your news from. You know, is it 24 hour news networks? Is it social media? Is it even YouTube? Is it Baby shark? But yeah, it's the kind of insidious insinuation of the demonic by way of our screens and our information. That's, that's my very broad pitch on it all.

Michael David Wilson 4:31
Yeah, and it's interesting too, because you, you were saying before how perhaps, at face value, it seems like it's a critique on right wing politics. But actually, yeah, there is the the view that, you know, it's critiquing left wing politics, if you're to look at the kind of evils of social media. So that's one view. The other is the the kind of evil. Always have facts news as they are called in the stories, and can't be sued for that one. So, yeah, it's kind of, would it be apolitical? Or do we have to say it's Uber political, because there's politics in every fucking dimension.

Clay McLeod Chapman 5:20
I mean, it's been really interesting to hear kind of people like the feedback that I've gotten from readers for the book. And, you know, I, I, I don't think of the book as being a real astute kind of like criticism on politics or culture at large, but I do think of it, for me as this kind of existential whale for 400 pages of just how, how terrifying it is, you know, to be a part of a country culture that has schismed in terms of its realities that, like, you can live next door to someone, but exist in two separate realities based on where you get your information from. And, you know, I've, I have had, you know, the whole kind of impetus behind writing the book was because I have family who have, over the course of, say, like, the last 10 years, kind of shifted in their ideologies, by way of where they get their news from. And, you know, it's been really, kind of just really terrifying to, like, watch, to kind of bear witness to someone who kind of started on this end of the spectrum, or, you know, maybe didn't even start there, but like existed to whatever extent, you know, on one side, and then just gradually, kind of like shift over to the other, and I don't know, like, that kind of loss of identity that goes along with it, To the point of like it feeling like radicalization. And, you know, I saw that happen with my family. I've seen that I've, you know, heard that repeated by other people and their family members, but that that common refrain of like, you know, I didn't recognize my uncle, my grandfather, my mother, my son, like it was, like they were possessed. And I just thought, like, oh, wow, that's such an interesting thought. You know, we're using it as a metaphor. But like, has anyone just done that literally? Has they have? Has anyone done the kind of literal minded version of that, which is such an obvious like the as far as concepts go, it is so so, like paper thin, but I think that's the the vehicle like these concepts like, they just don't have to be heady or weighed down by the tonnage of intellect. Like, it could just be like, yeah, half the country is just possessed by demons. Like, that's, that's all it is. And, you know, the mileage that comes out of that is massive, because we're, I don't know. We're just at a place where, like, you know, truth doesn't matter anymore, facts don't matter anymore, details don't matter anymore. Like, it's all kind of like blended into this, this kind of, like, morass of belief systems. And, you know, it's, yeah, you know, I mean, I'm kind of getting bored of myself saying it, because I just feel like it's nothing is this is not new, like we as a culture, we as a country, here in the States, have just been constantly kind of yelling at each other. And you know that that kind of level of despair has only kind of like intensified and just the kind of like, the Yeah, um, so the right like, kind of taking the right to task was my way in to this story. But I just wanted to, like, speak of like, how wellness culture, you know, radicalizes its viewers. How Twitter radicalizes people? How you know social media, how Baby shark, how like you know, kids videos, you know, are, in effect, kind of radical is I radicalizing children? And it, you know, these are all things that have been here for years, and I just wanted to yoke them all together, because we're hitting this Zenith point where, like, all of this kind of, like gradual decaying way of our own kind of morality, or our ethics, or, you know, our social contract. Is it's all coming to a head. It's already come to a head, and now we're kind of in this post, post, post, you know, aftermath of it. And I think we're going to just keep seeing the kind of the aftershocks of it. So, yeah, this book came out at the absolute worst time, because it's the absolute best time. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 10:23
exactly. It was interesting, in fact. I mean, particularly if you look at the publication date, or was it January the seventh, for goodness sake of this year? Yeah. I mean it, it's a strange one, because it somehow is more relevant now, and was more relevant when it came out than when you were writing it. You just didn't realize it, and you probably hoped to hell that it wouldn't be,

Clay McLeod Chapman 10:58
yeah, I mean, I, I've said it before, but it's like I, I started writing it in 2023 and I was responding to Donald Trump's first time in office, and specifically with January 6. Like January 6 was really the kind of the riots at the Capitol, you know, regardless of what, what you think of that moment, that day, like I watched footage of it, like just the kind of the kind of static, no edit, just like nothing, but just kind of raw footage. And I just find something so traumatizing of that day, of just like the kind of like the sheer wave of humanity approaching that building, breaking into that building, consuming that building and then dissipating. And I just, I just, you know, and I don't want to speak hyperbole, but I do think that, like, there's just something really, just kind of more to find about like, I do feel like that was really, like, I remember, like, just being so kind of affected by it that, you know, I, I didn't see I, it's been hard for me to kind of see beyond January six, in a lot of ways, like, I, I'm, I've like that, that day in particular, just for some reason, for me, particularly, specifically like it, just it. I just found it very kind of, like, damaging. And I wasn't there, like, I was just, I mean, it was, it was just like, I wasn't the bystander. I wasn't like, I just watched it from home. And I don't know. I don't know. I've never been a part of a civil war. I've never been a part of like, a culture clash. But like seeing that, and just the kind of, like, the the amount of determination to just plow through any barrier, to push through any barricade, and like it. You know, it just seemed, I mean, we've seen so many zombie movies. We've seen so many kind of fictional horror movie narratives that, like, have that image of, like, I mean, World War Z, where it's like, you know, just like mounds of bodies, just like consuming buildings and, and you can watch it, and you can say to yourself, like, oh, wow, that's really, that's really scary. But like, seeing January six, I could I, I, you know, I'm, it's, it's almost like putting the it's like reversing the cart in the horse, or, you know, like, you know, it's no longer the metaphor of, you know, the monster. It's, it's, it's the kind of the thing that was underneath the metaphor, without the zombie, without the kind of veneer of a Halloween mask. It was just people, and they were like, they were attacking this building and like that. I don't know I should shut up now, because I've just been mouthing off, but like, yeah, that's, that's where it started. And I was like, Okay, I'm gonna write this book and and then I thought that by November, 4, fifth, sixth, we would be in a different world, where there would have been a different outcome. And i i The book had originally been scheduled to come out in October. October of 2024, and the due to circumstances, the book had to be pushed back to January 7. They were actually going to put it out on January 1 for a moment there. And you know, through a lot of kind of discussion, they I wanted it to go back to October, but they said that they would be willing to push it back to January 7, which, in retrospect, thinking specifically about January 6, it was an ideal, like cheeky time to release the book. But yeah, after election day i i thought that the world at large would not want to be reading these narratives, like reading a book like this, like that. We would be in a country, in a world where we would have our first female president, and books or culture, or art or anything that kind of like, focused on this kind of chapter in our lives, people wouldn't want to engage with it, because we're looking through the front like through the windshield. We're not looking in the rear view mirror like we don't want to we don't want to look behind anymore. We want to look ahead. And I was really bummed, because I thought this book was just going to disappear because nobody would want to read it. And then the election happened, and it the outcome was different than the one that I had kind of expected and hoped for, and and all of a sudden, I was just like, Oh no, no, this book is coming out now in this world, and what's that going to be like and like? I have just been clenching and chewing my nails ever since.

Bob Pastorella 16:51
I want to say that. I think that, you know, because I've seen a lot of the raw footage, raw footage myself. And I don't want to harp on this, but I don't think people realize how close we were to literally losing it. We were if, if the end result of that attack would have culminated in the goal, which seemed to to go around a gallows at that point right there, if, out of if I would have witnessed that on TV, I said, we're we're fucking done, yeah, and that we debt that did not happen is a testament to good people trying to do the right things. Yeah, I

Clay McLeod Chapman 17:48
mean, it was literally, it was, I mean, for me, it was just the like you have two opposing forces. You have a body of people, just multitudes of people pushing against these barriers, pushing against these doors and these windows, and then on the other side, you have a much smaller number of people who are doing everything in their power to just hold those barriers up and like that. That kind of tension point of two opposing forces of humanity, like, like, basically just clashing with one another, and and, and then one side just pulling back because, like, there's just just too much. There's just too many. And you know, for the fact that, like, once they're inside the building, it kind of kind of fizzles at a certain point. It just kind of dissipates into random body, chaos and anarchy. It just doesn't, like, there's no, there's no kind of end result that's just, like, it's just them, you know, yeah, it's

Bob Pastorella 19:01
like there was no organization once they, once they, it was like they, once they hit that goal. It was kind of like, well, we're here, yeah, just got the beer, yeah, you know, yeah. And it's like, but, I mean, at the same time, I shudder to think about what, what would have, you know, if there would have been there, there, there, he or she is, yeah, get them, yeah. You know that that to me, that that would, that would have been the scariest shit. Yeah,

Clay McLeod Chapman 19:36
yeah. I mean, you, you acknowledge that the the sentiment is there, the neat, the desire for it is there. What wasn't there? Was the structure, the kind of like, Okay, we're here and now let's do this. Like there

Bob Pastorella 19:54
wasn't forward. Was no organization, yeah,

Clay McLeod Chapman 19:57
yeah. And I. I don't know. I mean, like, now we're just kind of spitball in here, but like, if that's if that were ever to happen again, I feel as if people might be a little bit more prepared. So

Bob Pastorella 20:11
I don't know. I also think the opposition would be just as prepared. I

Clay McLeod Chapman 20:16
applaud your optimism. Is that optimism? I don't know. I don't know. I

Bob Pastorella 20:24
don't think it would be a good outcome for anybody, but I don't think it's

Clay McLeod Chapman 20:28
gonna be good, you know? Yeah, I don't think the outcome is gonna be good for anybody now, but you we're just living day by day. We're in real time right now. Whatever happens now has never happened before. Yeah, and like, we're constantly living in the now, in this way where, like before you could, you know, you could be dissatisfied and frustrated with all of these systems, but the systems remained, but now these systems are collapsing and like, like, things just happen.

Bob Pastorella 21:05
Yeah, they

Clay McLeod Chapman 21:06
happen at such a kind of exponential rate that it's like, I don't know what, what's happening,

Bob Pastorella 21:15
what's happening? Yeah, you know, which is terrible you're talking about, you know, if there would have been a different outcome, if you think about it, it would have been, it would have been the, probably the beginning of the end of the horror Renaissance. So, you know, hey, at least we got more.

Clay McLeod Chapman 21:31
Yeah,

Bob Pastorella 21:34
okay, yeah, if it'd be to change the name of the podcast that this is happy horror, this is happy horror. This is happy cozy horror, Oh,

Clay McLeod Chapman 21:43
yeah. I don't know if I agree with it, but like that idea that horror does better in more conservative periods, eras of presidency, kind

Bob Pastorella 21:59
of history shows. But yeah,

Clay McLeod Chapman 22:04
it seems so crass to think that, like, it breaks down, like, in terms of commercial publishing that, like, that's the case. But yeah, I mean, I'm thinking of American rapture by CJ lead, which was a phenomenal book, even something like fever house by Keith Rosson. Oh yeah, you know these books that, like, I mean, American rapture is defiantly political in its own way. But like, I don't know, like, I think that who knows what's gonna happen now, right, like, we're like, there's gonna be a whole nother crop of of books that might kind of speak to this, this kind of illness. I

Michael David Wilson 22:50
mean, one thing that Tana Reeve do, said on her fantastic podcast with her husband, Stephen Barnes, life writing is that you know, during these moments of great political despair, let's say it's really important to kind of do what you can, but to not be so consumed by Like, the kind of grief and the negativity that you get lost to it. You know, you do what you can, but try not to fixate on what you can't do. Everyone should listen to their podcast, because she would have put it much better than me. But I think you know that there's a great message to be had there, because if we do get consumed by things that are out of our control, I mean, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be angry. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be pissed off about it, but we don't want to, I guess, be paralyzed and to be powerless because of what's happening that's out of our control. Yeah, people need to listen to that podcast life writing. This is the first time we've mentioned it on This Is Horror

Clay McLeod Chapman 24:11
is great because she I feel like I go back to the reformatory so much, where just the the the notion of the situation that that she puts her characters in. And you know, if I were to either be in that book, or if I were to try to write that book, I would have no hope. I could not, I would not be able to find the hope, either as someone within the story or crap someone crafting the story. But tannery does both, where even in the midst of in the face of a hopeless situation. Characters find hope, or always striving towards hope, and as the writer of that story, she imbues her text with a sense of hope, that as dire as things are, I as the reader, never despaired like I felt like I was in like adept hands, like, like a master craftsman's hands, where I was terrified and when, like, I feared for these characters lives, but like, I never gave up hope on them. And I think that takes such a rarity. And when you see it done, it's, it's kind of revelatory. That's pretty mind blowing. I

Michael David Wilson 25:50
mean, the reformatory is not just one of the best books that was released the year it was released, which I think was 2023 it was either 2023 or 2022 but I think it's one of the best books of the last 20 or 30 years. Yeah, and I mean one of the best books, not one of the best horror books. Of course it is, because it's in that subset, but it is just one of the best books of the last few decades, I think, and I hope, and it deserves to go down as a classic, yeah, be remembered for years, to be remembered indefinitely, and it should be, because there are a lot of lessons to be learned. Yeah,

Clay McLeod Chapman 26:36
yeah, it truly does. Um, well, she wrote it for it took seven years for her to write it. And I you know, those are seven years well spent, because if that's what comes out the other end, then hot damn, there's a lesson there to learn. Oh yeah, yes.

Michael David Wilson 27:01
And I mean, you said with writing, wake up and open your eyes, that it was not an enjoyable experience. You know, it was anxiety inducing, it was difficult. It was not a fun time. Yeah, you said your fun time is kind of meeting up with fans, doing the book events, networking with the authors. Is it that you do you always not enjoy writing, or was it specifically for this book, and if you do, always have a difficult relationship with the writing process. Was it amplified for this one in particular?

Clay McLeod Chapman 27:48
Yeah, it was certainly amplified. I mean, it's funny because, like, each book kind of has its own driving emotion behind it, like, I'll write a book and I'll have this, this feeling of like this book is coming from a place of love, or I'm writing this book from a place of panic, you know, and like I wrote, What kind of mother, oddly Enough, from a place of love. And, you know, each book, like, like, I just have to, kind of like, it's, it's odd, but it's just like, where am I gonna write this book? Play? Where does this book coming from? You know, and some books I just want to have fun, like, I'm gonna write this book and it's gonna be fun. That doesn't mean every day is fun, but like, the kind of joy, like the imbuing that that kind of, like, this is the prevailing emotion for me, and with wake up and open your eyes, it was honestly, like just coming from a place where, like, I had no answers. I didn't know what answers I was looking for. I didn't have, I didn't have a compass, and I didn't have a lot of hope, and I didn't have, you know, it was just, you know, it was more it was something more active than just despair. Despair feels kind of inactive to me, like it feels like it's like negating some kind of momentum. I mean, it was literally just like screaming. I just felt like I was screaming onto the page for, you know, for months, which can't be an enjoyable reading experience. But so it goes. That was, that was like, you know, I just despaired vocally with words 400 pages.

Michael David Wilson 29:51
I think it's an addictive and a compulsive reading experience. It's interesting. Would I. Right? Would I call it enjoyable? I would, I would say that there was never a point where I where I didn't want to keep turning the pages. Let's put it like this is a very bloody good book. I feel like I felt what I was meant to feel. You know? It that there was anxiety, there was disbelief. There wasn't a lot of comedy, although the ghost shark, the ghost shark song, did make me laugh, that you decided to go there. Yeah, the comedy that was there was, you know, the kind of bleakest or or the comedy of of despair, of of of aghastness, which I don't think is a word, but I think people understand what I'm going for. There was, yeah, the book is a ride. It is a roller coaster, as well as there being something of they live, there was almost something of Magnolia, specifically the Tom Cruise. Wow, nobody is, nobody

Clay McLeod Chapman 31:12
has called out magnolia. That's amazing. I love that. God. I love that, um, I mean, yeah, that prismatic narrative quality of just like watching all these, you know, separate threads, these story lines, I love that God, that movie is amazing, has never, ever come up before. Now maybe that's because not many people have actually seen Magnolia, or not nearly enough Gotta love that Paul Thomas Anderson,

Michael David Wilson 31:49
oh, oh yeah, yeah and yeah. For some reason, even though I'm a voracious reader, a lot of my comps are normally movies or a lot when I'm kind of comparing things, and, yeah, yeah, just mag Magnolia absolutely came to mind.

Clay McLeod Chapman 32:11
Now I want to see that movie again. It's been a while, yeah, ah, I love that movie. Yeah, this is the alt right mag, a horror, zombie, demonic possession, epidemic, pandemic rendition of Magnolia.

Bob Pastorella 32:38
You know the thing, the probably the first comp that came to mind for me was, was Evil Dead, and not not sam ramms. Oh, really, but Alvarez's, wow, dead, wow, yeah. And so not, not ash versus evil, dead, yeah. The little bit more serious, yeah, you know. And it's because, and something about, I guess, the just, you know, the the whole repeating, that the you know, you know, his dad just continuously repeating. And then the concept of what, what, what he does to stop him, you know, it's like, yeah, that's so, that said that was so, that's so evil, dead. And it's crazy, because, like we were talking earlier, the whole premise is very if you try to dissect the premise of it, it's flimsy. It's like, but so, so is the Evil Dead. As soon as you start to dissect the Evil Dead, it falls apart. It's like, none of the shit should work, but it does beautifully. You know, I

Clay McLeod Chapman 33:53
mean, I absolutely bow down to the altar of Raymie and Evil Dead two is a pivotal text, as far as I'm concerned. And I absolutely ripped, not even ripped, just like ripped off Evil Dead two. I you know, for me, when I find so funny about the The Evil Dead series like the first, the original three, and then the two remakes. I I was so against the remakes. I was just resistant to them. From the moment I heard that they were doing it and I watched the first remake, the Alvarez won, and I was like, Okay, this is, it was interesting enough. And it was doing, you know, it was a remake, and it was kind of like paying homage to the the forebears, but like doing its own thing enough to feel like, okay, this is, this is the kind of like. A maximalist version of something that was already a maximalist version, like, you know, like, how do you top something that is so over the top to begin with? And I'm glad they didn't go cheeky, like in the, you know, part two, but they kept it to the the just the original Evil Dead. But then when I saw Evil Dead rise, which had to have come out in 2023 it was either 2022 or 2023 but like seeing Evil Dead rise, I was like, Oh, I can do this. Like I can. I can write, wake up and open your eyes. Because would I? Would I feel like gets lost in the like the the conversation about any of the Evil Dead movies is just how nihilistic they are, like they're, they could be humorous as all hell, but there is just never any hope. Like you're, if you are in this movie, you are going, unless you're ash, you are going to succumb to demonic possession, like it's just, it's just inevitable

Bob Pastorella 36:02
in the worst way possible.

Clay McLeod Chapman 36:05
There's no hope. There's no hope in those movies, right? And I you know, even at their cheekiest, like, you're just done, and that's the that is the one thing, the one thing, I think the sequels, the reboots and the remakes do better where it's just like these are the most nihilistic horror movies, because you're just

Bob Pastorella 36:33
screwed. You're fucked, even if you're the final girl, yeah, you walk away from that. You're fucked for life. You're fucked up so bad.

Clay McLeod Chapman 36:43
Yeah, no hope in those movies, no hope, but it's so fun. Yes,

Bob Pastorella 36:49
that's probably why they're so fun, is because there's no hope. You don't have, you don't have, you don't have any boundaries, yeah, and to me, that's like, and that's one of the things I like about the evil because the lore, there's not much lore. You know they, yeah, they have Wiki pages. I know I've seen them, but there's not much lore. And when, if you pull, if you pull one piece out of it, it's, it's like that little puzzle game, it just falls out. It doesn't work. But it's the whole it's that energy that none of this should work works. Yeah, it's that energy that that makes it work. It's, it's crazy. It's just fucking crazy.

Clay McLeod Chapman 37:34
Love it, love it. But, yeah, I totally ripped them off like that was like, you know, evil, dead. Two in particular, I was just like, oh, let's just go to town. Like, you know, I had that constantly in mind writing this book, like, what would Ray me do? That was kind of the motif. It was like, that was the kind of like, question I would ask, how would, what would, you know, your mom's possessed? What would rain me? Do your dad's possess? What would rain me, do, you know, like, just like, you know, there's a blender in the house. What would Raymie do

Bob Pastorella 38:05
that? The whole Yeah, and you're in your, you know, also, you know, Drag Me To Hell. Yeah. I mean, it's just yeah. I

Clay McLeod Chapman 38:15
see it's Yeah.

Bob Pastorella 38:19
Now, now that it's mentioned, it's like the I must wake up too.

Michael David Wilson 38:23
There you go. I mean, you had reluctance in terms of, you know, what the feedback would be to this novel, what the critical acclaim, what the reader reaction would be. So, I mean, we're a couple of months into it now. How are you finding that? And I mean, do you look at your reviews a lot? Do you engage with, you know, negative as well as positive reactions? By engage, I don't mean start replying to them. Are you receptive to that? Are you reading what's being said? Oh,

Clay McLeod Chapman 39:07
absolutely, I'm reading everything. If it's out there, I have to read it. And that is not the healthiest choice, but it's the choice I'm making. If I was made of sterner stuff, I would not do that. And I there's a part of me that wishes I wouldn't do that, but I do it because I'm just, I'm weak. And, you know, I'm always like, oh, some, someone's writing something about me. So I'm just gonna, I'm gonna read it and be like, Oh, they didn't like it. Oh, and that's, you know, the positive way to spin it is that I'm always trying to learn something about these books, like you put these books out into the world, and then the world tells you what they think. And for me. Be a better writer. I'm always like, How can I kind of take feedback and and process it so that I can be mindful of it to whatever extent I choose to be when I start working on the next book? And, you know, I think one could argue that going to good reads for that kind of education is probably not the best. But, you know, I guess I'm just looking for a kind of a consensus of like, you know, if you, if you hear the same kind of refrain over the course of several reviews, then it's like, oh, I can I hear that now, because, you know, and for better, for worse, the book is very vulgar, and the book, like, makes some choices that a lot of readers are finding off putting, Which, you know, I would be honest and say that's kind of the point, and feeling like we needed to kind of hit the ground running, so that you would understand that, like in terms of the possessed, and who is possessed and who is possessing, that you know, these are our bodies are not temples, and they're just, you know, puppets or play things or toys for whatever these forces are, and they're just gonna tear us to shreds. They're just gonna, like, run us right into the ground, because they don't care. I don't think demons care about the condition of our bodies. It's like, once they're in like, I don't think they're like, oh, you know, we should probably be mindful of our our vessel, because we want to make sure we leave them in the condition that we found them like. It just doesn't strike me as being demonically authentic. So yeah, but I do find that, like with reader reviews, the like, the what's really interesting for me is that, you know, every every book kind of has a ripple, like, I think of it as, like, there's like a lake. It's a smooth Lake, smooth surface, and the book is like the rock, the pebble that you toss into the lake. And then the ripple effect of it is how you gage how far the book reaches. And like the initial ripple is usually like, you know, advanced readers, friends, friendly reads and like, that's, that's your kind of initial like, Okay, well, what is this? What is, what do these people think of the book? And that's usually when things are at their warmest. And your good reads, rating average kind of stays close to, you know, somewhere between four and five and then, like, there's like every subsequent ripple. And for me, the challenge is always to break out of that first ripple, like you want to get to the next ripple or to the next ripple after that, like the second and third ripple are not your friends, not your family, not people who read yours like, those are the people that you don't know and don't owe you anything. And you can kind of see, like, how far it goes based on, you know, the fact that it's not personal to them anymore. And like the book is, you know, reaching people that don't know you from Adam and like, that's when the kind of tenor of the review also changes into something maybe a little bit less beholden to Goodwill, kindness, because people just be like, Oh, this sucks. I hated it. And it'd be like, Oh, that's a boomer. But, you know, each to each their own. And, you know, I it's so funny because, like, I had this, this moment where a book talker, like, who had, like, a lot of followers, like, I've never had a book like a book of mine get like, embraced by a book talker who was like, anyone like, but there was this one who who was like, I really like this book. And because this one book talker has like, however, hundreds of like, 100 1000s of viewers, followers, it led to an additional ripple that, like I've never really had before, and those people do not care one iota about, you know, like me, book, like it, you know, like. It's just like, like, it is a dimension of of feedback that, like, solely exists because of some like, a taste maker or a gatekeeper saying, I like this, I think you should read it so it's like, gone like it's orbiting far beyond me. Well, not really far. Like it's not a best seller. It's not like, you know, I'm not at that level. But like it, it has extended beyond my own kind of personal scope, and that's wild. But with that comes a whole new realm of like, attention or feedback that that's it's very new. It's very new to me. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 45:46
I think I probably know the book talker that you're talking about, because I had a little look at you know that they'll wake up and open your eyes Good Reads pages to see what, what are people saying as well. Because I'm always intrigued as to other people's perception. And then there was one person I noticed had left a very brief review, and I was like, wait a minute that that person has a lot of followers on on tick tock. And, you know, there's people just being like, right? Well, if you liked it, that's good enough for me. I'm buying it, you know, you you can't pay for that kind of press, and if people ask you to pay for it, then you should refuse them.

Clay McLeod Chapman 46:31
Yeah, but isn't it wild that, like, you know, there are, this is such a stoner epiphany. But, like, people have amassed a following of hundreds of 1000s of hundreds of 1000s, 100 1000s of you know, like, of people who are like, I trust your opinion on books, and it's because you make compelling videos or you have great pictures, and it's like, you like, they've created this identity, this personality, this brand and and like they are a guided like, a trusted source of like information. And like that is, I mean, that blows my mind, that like, you know, and I, you know, my, my, my kind of jaundiced kind of view of it was like, oh, it's probably because they just picked the safe books, like the books that everybody likes. And like, you know, they're not rocking the boat. And like, you know, they might have a, like, a controversial opinion every so often, but it, it feels safe to kind of say like, Oh, hey, I just read this new, you know, Stephen King book, and, wow, you know. And it's like, and like, everybody, like, plays along. But like, for this one particular book talker to have said such positive things about wake up and open your eyes, I feel like that was a risk. Like, like, like, to whatever extent, like this feels like, whatever the stakes are. Like, it's not a book that it's a very polarizing book. And like, the people who like it like it, but the people who don't do not, and you know, for someone else to be like, I really like this book. I think you should read it well. Now she's putting herself at state, like, at risk for saying that she endorsed this book and like and like I like, I did a moment of like, doing a little bit of a deep dive, of like, just looking at the comments and seeing, like, how people were responding. And like, some people are like, Oh, I hated this book. And I was like, I felt a little guilty because I was like, Oh my gosh, here's this book talker who's saying nice things about my book and telling people that they should read it, but now her followers are debating her or getting you know, or disagreeing with her, or getting mad at her for saying, like, you should read this book where when they didn't like it, and it's just like, it just makes you realize the kind of like the complexities of social media book reviews, which is Insane, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 49:18
yeah. And, I mean, I wanted to ask too, what does it look like in terms of your writing versus your promotion, and how much are you actively doing to promote things? You, of course, go on the book tours, but do you leave a lot of the promotion, the marketing and the advertising to your publisher? Do you do things kind of going out of your way to come up with some mad idea, or do you take their guidance and then what does a day. Look like, in terms of like, how you're splitting your attention between the writing and the promotion, because it, I find it really interesting when I asked this question of offers, just how wildly it varies. You know, there's, there's one or offered. Well, Jason page in because he's been very vocal about it. He probably spends about 80% of his time now doing things in the realms of promotion, and 20% to writing, whereas you've got someone like David Moody, who is much more weighted towards the writing. It's something I've been experimenting with myself. And you know, I don't necessarily know what the balance is. What I do know is that I feel a lot more joy when I'm writing and a lot less joy when I'm just kind of like promoting, yeah, being on a podcast or a YouTube channel. I very much enjoy that. But if I'm kind of sending out emails trying to get somebody to buy it, will you give me a review? Will this happen? Could this happen? I think it's because it's so unknown. You know, you could send out 100 emails and you might only get a few replies. So sometimes it just for yours, like you're just eating something that isn't particularly nutritious or healthy. You're You're atrophying. And, you know, I want to have a steak dinner with some nice fresh vegetables, which is the equivalent, you know, or if you're vegan, you know, you substitute whatever a kind of nice tofu steak as I don't know I'm not vegan, but it, you know, writing is good for my soul, and it brings me joy, yeah, but as well as joy, it's nice to have money and it's nice to have people knowing about the book. So what, what is this balance looking like for you?

Clay McLeod Chapman 52:00
I mean, well, I mean, my the cornerstone to the day has to be the writing. So, like, I'm waking up early and spending the first half of the day like, up till like, you know, before the sun rises to like, lunchtime is like, just, that's the unfettered writing time, because that tends to be when the phone isn't going off as much as later on in the day, and then, like, around 11 o'clock to lunch time, like, that's when kind of, like, the more kind of promotional stuff starts. And like, you know, i i Come compartmentalize where it's, like, I know I can get most of my writing done at this chunk of the day when nobody else needs me, and then when other people wake up and are kind of going about their day, that's when I can start, kind of like doing the song and dance of Look at me. Look at me. PR, like, you know, I'm, I'm, I feel like I'm trying to figure it out and learn just as much as anybody else, because I don't necessarily believe anybody truly knows how to how it works, other than when it does. We can all point to it and be like, well, that seemed to have worked for that author. I do know that it costs money like, you know, my publisher has been willing to take me out on the road, and, like, you know, get me a hotel room here, and pay for my gas to go there. And, you know, but like, for Wake up, it was a much more kind of truncated experience, where, with what kind of mother they were. They were like, go, go, go. Like, they wanted to really take me out there on the road. And I think it was, probably was met with, like, mixed results, like, you know, like, I don't, I don't know what the metric is, in terms of, like, we send you out here, and therefore we need to get this return like, you know, I don't, I don't know what metric kind of like strikes a balance between, like, we spend x amount of taking you out and we need Y amount to make sense of it all. But I do know that for me personally, the more honest and the more kind of like personable I can be with my own my own kind of promotion, it seems to resonate more than an ad campaign or like something that feels kind of like packaged, if I just make a stupid video where I'm just like, you know, this is who I am. This is, you know. And there are people who are much more savvy about and have made like cottage in. Histories on like, on videos and tiktoks and but for me, it's just like, I'm just gonna, like, if I can just do this and speak from the heart. You know, it doesn't always land, but it feels like that's more sincere, and therefore people appreciate it more, I don't know, and that that that, to me, is the only thing I can be responsible for. Like, I can't. Like, you can throw that rock in the water and, like, maybe it'll ripple two or three times, but that might be it. And I don't know, like you always just want these books to kind of find their readers. Doesn't have to be for everybody, but it just has to be for the people who want it. Like it, you just have to find them. And that's hard, so hard. And

Michael David Wilson 55:58
I wonder too. I mean, along those lines, if you are willing to speak about it, it would be interesting to know a little bit about what the marketing input from the publisher looked like for wake up and open your eyes, compared to Doug at bad handbook with Kill your darlings. Yeah, darling. And then stay on the line with Alan at shortwave. What, what was the comparative experience, or what were the kind of things that they were doing, as opposed to what you were doing to try and make each of these books as much of a success as possible? I mean,

Clay McLeod Chapman 56:39
it's, it's tough because, like, I mean, okay, short wave and Alan and stay on the line. Like, short wave is just really Alan. I know he has, he's, he's brought on other people to kind of help, but like, that is as close to a one man band. I mean, same with bad hand. Like, you know, when you recognize and realize that, like these companies are usually one or two, if at most, three, people who just believe so much in these, in the stories that they're publishing and getting out there, you know, like, there's no money in it, like, PR for shortwave and bad hand is just Alan and chest just post, like, like, Please, please. You know, like, you know there, there there is no PR budget, and I feel like what someone like Doug is building off of is kind of name recognition, or I feel crass saying it, but kind of a brand recognition where, like, if you have a bad handbook coming out, you are kind of, you're essentially, kind of guaranteed a certain caliber of story from a certain particular author. And you know, you could be inclined to pick up a bad handbook because it's from bad hand just as much as who the author is, or you'd be at least willing to take a shot, you'd be like, Oh, I like, bad hand. Like, I, you know, I read spec O dark like, like, let's, let's check this out, you know, so but like, it is just morning, noon and night. Doug or Alan posting or trying to get people to pay attention to it, but, like, what's phenomenal is like, you know, stay on the line got reviewed by the New York Times, and we didn't ask for that. You know, we like it never entered into my mind that Gabino Iglesias would put stay on the line in his review roundup for the New York Times Book Review section like that, just I mean, and this is not a knock to Allen or shortwave, but they are so small and so independent that like, you just never like, you know that just doesn't happen. And I actually don't know how it happened, other than Gabino asked for a copy and read it and reviewed it and like, that's just, like, what like it just, it was, you know, so, you know, maybe the thing that has been in like that, I'm Intuit in here, is that, like, it's like, at a certain point, if you put in the legwork and the time that, like, outlets or PR sources. Or review sites like, suddenly, kind of like, pay attention to either the author, the publisher, or, you know, on these kind of micro, independent levels. Because if they're putting out work that like, kind of merits their attention, they'll say so they'll do something where, with Quirk and wake up and up in your eyes, you know, they're kind of a mid level, mid tier, independent, medium sized publishing company with major, you know, big five distribution. And it was, it was a constant conversation of like, how are we going to package and promote this book, which is polarizing and is is going to effectively rock the boat for anyone who picks it up, for better, for worse. So the conversations of like, you know, they like, you get a marketing plan when you're working with someone like a publisher, like quirk, and they're going to tell you, like, we're gonna, you know, hit these people up. We're gonna go to these, you know, we're gonna, you know, do some sort of book campaigns and and, you know, there's a plan. There's like, a plan in place, and that requires money, which folks like bad hand and shortwave just don't have. And even at quirk, it's, I'm it's not like, it's not big five money as much as it is, just like we have these limited resources, and we're going to target who we think we can kind of best utilize these, these funds for. And I Yeah, but I think, and I, and I don't want to get in trouble by saying it, but I think that everybody's just waiting for lightning to strike that like No, one knows for sure if any of this is ever gonna work, and you can just hope that it does, and when it doesn't hit, you're just like, No, okay. But if it does, you're like, what? Like, wow. Like, but at the end of the day, like, I don't think, unless you're a publisher who has the money to say, Oh, this is the book that everyone's going to be reading next year. And then you just dump money onto that book being The book which happens to certain select books. But like for us mere mortals, we're just like, waiting for word of mouth to get, like, it's that ripple effect you just have to get beyond. You have to get, like, four or five rings out, you know.

Michael David Wilson 1:02:54
Yeah. So on a similar note, we have a number of people who are listening who are kind of first time authors would have just wrote their first few books. If you're at the start of your career, you had a novel ready to go. You got different options. You can send it to a smaller publisher, you can send it to a larger publisher, you can send it to an agent, or you can independently publish it yourself. In what order would you kind of target these options? Are there any you absolutely wouldn't do? What would be your strategy?

Clay McLeod Chapman 1:03:37
Oh, man, um, I, I'm a pretty meat and potatoes kind of guy, so I would do it in probably a traditional order of like agent first, and have the agent submit it to the larger houses, and then, based on the feedback that you would get from the editors at those big houses, if they take It great, and if not, then I would expand the kind of submission pool to smaller houses, and then, based on that and what feedback you get from them, if there are no nibbles, I would then publish it myself. And that probably is, what, a year, if not more, of your life right there that you've gone from like seeking out an agent to seeking out a traditional publisher, to seeking out a independent publisher, to publishing it yourself, like, that's a that's like a it's a long time, but I feel like that. That's the order I would do it in. But if there's a clock ticking and you like want these book, if you want the book out tomorrow, then maybe reverse it and do the do your own. Publish it yourself. Of and then see if you can kind of build a readership to then get the things like an agent or a contract with a either a large or independent sized publisher. But yeah, that's, I think that would be my guess.

Michael David Wilson 1:05:16
So in terms of trying to get an agent, at what point would you abandon that like, How many would you send the book out to? Or if you were, if you felt you're not getting enough bite, would you then target the smaller presses? Or would you write another novel and try to get the agent with the second one, you know, I think these are questions and things that people you know can consider a lot, and they're things that people will ask me. And of course, we have the caveat always that your mileage may vary. So to claim a cloud Chapman answer that this shouldn't be, you know, the definitive answer for everyone. But, yeah, I think it is interesting to ponder.

Clay McLeod Chapman 1:06:08
I mean, I got my first agent. I I didn't buy it, but I, like, sat in the Barnes Noble with a copy of the Writer's Market, and I comb through that thing, I spent a whole afternoon just sitting on the floor with a notepad just copying out all the addresses of agents who I thought might be interested in what I had to offer. And I think I got third I sent out a story with a letter to 3030, different agents, and 28 of them wrote back and said, No. And one of them wrote back and said, maybe. And one of them wrote back and said, Yeah, and or I want to read more. And she said, I want to read five stories. And then she read those five stories, and she was like, I want to read all of them. Like, so, like, like, it was, it was a process. So it wasn't like, I she said yes right away. But she was like, kind of testing, you know, testing the waters a little bit more and more, dipping a toe in, dipping a foot in, dipping a leg, and

Bob Pastorella 1:07:28
you set you snail mailed though,

Clay McLeod Chapman 1:07:30
oh yeah. I mean, this was like, yeah, that's

Bob Pastorella 1:07:32
pointed, yeah.

Clay McLeod Chapman 1:07:36
This was a 2000 so, I mean, I was a kid, and I didn't, I mean, I didn't know any better, honestly, like, I was so naive and so young, and kind of went behind the ears that, like, had I known how much of an uphill battle would have been, you know, like, but it's, it was funny, like, I was just so naive that it worked like my I kind of stumbled into my Cinderella story where, you know, I got my agent, because it's so funny, because she she was this agent. She still is this agent. She's not my agent anymore. But at the I don't know why I didn't realize this, but she had not represented any fiction authors for over 13 years, and I sent this letter out of the blue, and she was like, like, she was like, Oh, this is charming. This guy clearly didn't read the, you know, the breakdown clear enough, but she was like, You know what, I'm gonna give this guy a shot. Like, like, she literally was like, like, Oh, silly boy. Like, let's see, you know, like, she was like, I'm willing to give this a gamble. And it paid off. Like she got me a two book deal with Disney, and it was, and she was like, Oh, this is, I think I've got something here. So she started representing more fiction after that so, and, you know, it was, it was just kind of dumb luck that, like, I didn't read clearly enough to, like, know that she was not a fit, but she ended up being the one. She was my first agent. So, you know, if your question is, how long do you go before you give up or do something different? I mean, like, I don't think these, none of these things kind of exist in a vacuum, like you can do. I think you can kind of do like a multiple, like, very different, like, different things at the same time of like, constantly, like reaching out to agents and waiting for for them. I would, in terms of writing the next book. And putting this current novel down in order to write something new, in order to engage agents. I wouldn't do that unless I had been given specific feedback, editorial feedback from an agent or from an editor who was like, this isn't ready, or this is not gonna sell, or this is not gonna like. If you're hearing that and you're hearing it enough times from different people, then it might be wise to pivot to a new thing. And those books never go away. They're there, and you can return to them, you know, kill your darling is actually really a good example of that. But yeah, like, I feel like stories don't die. They just might. You just might have a harder time or a longer road to hoe to to get them into the right hands of the right people.

Michael David Wilson 1:10:58
Yeah, and I definitely think you know, if one is querying with one book and then they switch to another, in my mind, it isn't that they would then abandon that original book. It's just like, well, maybe this isn't the one to to reel in an agent. You know, I think with Josh maleman, like he started. He was going to query a different book, rather than Bird Box to begin with, but it was Bird Box that became the first book. So possibly a similar story with Chuck Palahniuk as well. So yeah, I think if we believe in our stories, then we absolutely shouldn't give up on them. But sometimes there is an awareness that a book might be a tough for sale. So I mean my forthcoming book, daddy's boy, which by from the title to begin with, you can tell maybe that this isn't the one that you send out to the most esteemed literary agents, and it's a dark comedy, rather than being a comedic horror, which so like the emphasis is on the comedy This time, and it's kind of known that in fiction, dark comedy is gonna be a harder sell. So I've got the awareness. I had the awareness. This wasn't the one to reel in an agent, so I decided to independently put it out. I just thought, let, let's just see what happens. It's completely an experiment. So I think thinking about, you know, if you've got, if you've got three novels, for example, you're in a very good position, because you can think which is the one that might attract the agent. And often, if the agent likes what you've got, they'll be like, Okay, well, what else do you have, or what are you working on? And it's like, well, I've got this weird book about an estranged father son, and there's a lot of dick jokes in 75,000 words. Are you interested in that? No, Michael, we're not. Okay. Well, don't worry, here's another more traditional Japanese horror. So it just like throwing things out there and seeing what sticks. It's God, like you said before. It's all it's an experiment. It's fun and games. It's you never know what's gonna make it. That's part of the fun, part of the fun, and for some people, part of the anxiety, it's like, What do you mean? It's fun, you know? I don't, I don't know what will happen with daddy's boy. It could absolutely tank, or it could tap into the dick joke zeitgeist, which is not something I don't I'd say on This Is Horror. Oh, you know, it cannot do well. And then in 10 years time, Zach Galifianakis reads it. He talks about it, boom, yeah, there you go.

Clay McLeod Chapman 1:14:13
It's amazing, like, I just feel like we're all playing the kind of long game here. You just have to survive longer than anybody else, if you could just outlive everybody else, yeah, yeah, that's all it takes. Easy peasy, right? Yeah, but I

Bob Pastorella 1:14:30
don't want to be like 90 years old. I like, from my book I wrote 30 years ago, is finally, FINALLY found its home.

Michael David Wilson 1:14:40
I'd rather rather be 90 and alive than be this is true, you know, Edgar and you die not knowing how bloody good you were in good important, yeah, just such a part of the literary canon. So it's like, please, if you see value in what. Doing, let let me know before I'm dead. Yes, no good anymore.

Bob Pastorella 1:15:06
But, I mean, you got, you got a book, Michael, that's polarizing. Clay's got a book that's polarizing. I think that right now, if you're doing polarizing stuff, that's where it's at. It really is because you don't want to be that, that you don't want to be that middle ground right now. Middle Ground isn't, isn't getting noticed, is the stuff that people either love or hate. And if it's both things at one time, then that's I bought a lot of books because someone said they couldn't stand it. I'm like, I've seen a lot of movies because someone said it sucked. I'm like, Well, I'm gonna, definitely, I want to see for myself.

Clay McLeod Chapman 1:15:46
Yeah, I think it's a good time just to take a stance, you know, yeah, rather than, like, going down the kind of straight, like the middle, like, just take a stance. And

Michael David Wilson 1:15:55
you said that kill your darling. Had an interesting journey, and was very much a kind of lung game. So I know that we're coming to the time that we have together, but we got to talk at least a little bit about this. So I mean, let's talk about the journey from the initial idea to the publication. I mean,

Clay McLeod Chapman 1:16:21
the public like it's wild, because I honestly feel like, kill your darling should not be out it, it, it's a book that, like it wasn't that it was cursed, but like, every step of the way, like there was, I was, it just felt like it was never gonna go but I never, I don't know, did I give up on it? I probably did give up on it, but like, so like, in 2015 I wrote, like, a short story version of it, like 10 pages, and it never went anywhere. I don't know what I ever did with it. I don't think I did anything with it, like didn't send it out, didn't do anything. I am with a management company that, like in you know, that does film and TV stuff and publishing stuff, and they're always looking for projects for either clients of their own or for like, you know. And at that point, Liam Neeson was really big with his taken movies, and like all the films that were basically like old actor who has reached the kind of, not the end of their career, but like, you know, it's the kind of autumn of their stardom. And it's like, how do you take a celebrity, like an action star, or not even an action star, just like an older actor, and give them something new to do. Like, how do you give Where's, where are Liam Neeson action movies? And my manager at the time was like, You should write something for Lee and and it was kind of like, okay. And like, they were also kind of like, you know, because Johnny Depp was getting a little old at that point, and they're like, you know, maybe if it's not Liam Neeson, it's someone like Johnny Depp or Bruce Willis. And you know, you're just hearing all these names, and it's just so abstract. And they're just like, This is not real. None of this is real. This seems so silly, but I found this newspaper article in the Times. And it was a, you know, this father whose son had, uh, been brutally murdered, and it had been decades, it been years since his passing, and there had not been like, still, no culprit had been brought, you know, like there was no justice, and it was basically just a profile on this, like this man who kind of, like refused to give up and kind of let go of his son. And it was really heartbreaking, um, and that just so happened to kind of dovetail into me teaching a creative writing workshop for adults. And there was this one guy in my workshop who was basically, he was old, 80s, ish, older than me. I was in. I was probably in my early 30s, maybe late 20s, and this guy was a lot older than me by, like, decades, 50 years, easy. And here I am his workshop instructor, and I'm like, trying to, like he had, he came in with this. Story, which was clearly not fiction. It was clearly him speaking just about his life. And this is a fiction writing workshop, and we're trying to, like, talk about dramatic structure and, like, you know, character work and narrative voice. And anytime anyone came at him with feedback, you'd be like, Nope, that's not how it happened. And you know, you would just kind of shoot down any constructive criticism, because he'd be like, Nope, that's not the way it happened, so can't change it. And I was just like, I admired this man for the tenacity of like he wanted he had a story to tell. It was his story, and he came to this workshop in order to tell it, and it was hard. It was it was virtually impossible to work with him, but I really, like respected him, and there was just something so kind of compelling about someone like just wanting to tell the story. They like one story. It's not that he was going to be a writer, a best seller. He just, this was the story that he wanted to tell, and it was his story. So like the two, these two things, the confluence of, like meeting this old man and reading this newspaper article, and it just like merged into one idea. And that was the kind of beginning of writing kill your darling, which started as this short story. And then, you know, nothing happened with it. And then fast forward to I started working at Quirk. Quirk books was publishing like I had a two book contract with them. And the first book was called the remaking, and the second book was going to be, like, I pitched this idea. I was like, here's this idea, kill your darling. And they're like, oh, that sounds really cool. Like, and they, they gave me the kind of blessing to go with it. But like, they, like, they wanted to read a treatment, like, like an outline of the thing before, like, giving me the like, the full, full steam ahead. But I actually wrote the draft, like the first draft of it, which was like, only 40 ish 1000 words. And I was like, I sent it to them, and I don't know if they ever read it, but they read the outline of it, and they definitely read the outline of it, and in reading the outline of it, they realized that that's not the book that they wanted, and they kind of couched it in these, these friendly terms Of like, we don't think this is, this should be your next book with us. You should write something else for us. And so what I had, you know, like, what I hadn't anticipated was that they would want me to, like, write something else, because I had written this thing already, and I was like, oh shit, I have to start all over again. And we pivoted, and I wrote this other novel for them, and it turned out fine. And that was all before COVID times and but I had this thing that I had written, and nobody like quirk didn't want it. Like my editor didn't want it. I didn't know if she even read it, but like, I had it, so it's like, sat on it for like, several years, so that, I mean, that was like 2019 and and then 2023 there was an open submission call for novellas at another publisher who I don't know if I should name them or not, so I'm not going to, I'm not like, gonna gossip. But like, you know, like, there was this publisher who was like, we're looking for novellas. Send us your novellas. And I submitted. I was like, I would love to work with these people. This would be amazing. I'm gonna just give it a shot. I have it like, you know, let's, let's do it. And I think they got deluged with like submissions. I think there were like 700 there were like hundreds of submissions. And

I, you know, I don't pity the poor intern editor who had to read like, all of these submissions. But like, you know, you when you do it virtually, you know, like on Submittable or wherever it's like, you get to see the the placement you know you're at. You're like, 200th in line, 50th in line. You know, I kid you not. I finally made it to number one. Like there was like, I was like, there is one manuscript in front of me, and once they read that, they would get to mine. And I literally. Literally, no hyperbole. Here, I stayed at number one for over a year, and it was just one of these things where I was like, I would forget that it was there, and then, like, all of a sudden I'd be like, Oh my God. Like, this thing is, like, it's like, purportedly at this place, like, I gotta go check and it would, it would always be at number one from a year, over a year. And then finally, I was in a social event, you know, at us in a scenario where I was like, there with some of the editors at this publishing house. And I was like, hey, you know you did this open call, like, two years ago now. And like, you know, I think I've been number one for a while, and they were like, and they were very, kind of, like, they're very pleasant about it, but they're like, oh yeah, we stopped doing that a while ago. And like, they're like, We, you know, the person who was in charge of it, like, like, they, I think they left or something happened, and, like, they just hadn't been reading them and, and I was like, oh. And so they were like, oh, we'll read it. And then finally, like, however much long, like, maybe it was, like, a month later, they're like, Yeah, we're not gonna do it, like all of that. And like, that was, that was 2023 and then, like, by 2024 Doug, at bad hand, is like, we should do something together. And Doug, God bless him. Because, like, Doug, when he gets something in his mind, he's always like, he's always really nice about it, but he's always like, you know, you want to do something, you want to do something, you want to do something. And I had written, I had gotten a story in one of their anthologies, so we had had kind of a short hand conversation, like we were talking amongst ourselves. And he was like, You should do it. We should do something. And I mean, at that point, like, I had, like, you know, nobody wanted this damn thing, and I just had no faith in it. And I I was like, I will figure something. I was basically like, yeah, we'll figure something out. And he's like, Well, do you have anything for me to read now? And I was like, I mean, I and I was like, Yeah, I have this thing. I'll send it to you as, like a sample. I don't know why I was thinking in terms of like a writing sample, but genuinely, for me, the idea was he would read this, he would get an idea for my vibe, and then he'd be like, and then we could kind of talk about what we wanted to work on together. And quite literally, he read it, and then the next day he reached out. He's like, I want to publish this. And like, like, for something like that, I wrote the story version of it in 2015 2015 to then get it into Doug's hands to then say he wants to publish it, and then publish it in 2024 that's like, like, almost 10 years of like just one book, kind of like one idea, one story, just flipping, flopping and floundering until it got it got in the right hands, which just happened to be the bad hand. The

Michael David Wilson 1:28:33
bad hand became the good hand.

Bob Pastorella 1:28:37
And how's that for a hook?

Michael David Wilson 1:28:40
I mean it to me, this seems like the perfect book for bad handbooks, because on one level, is this kind of goodness, this this murder investigation, almost this grief horror, this traumatic experience. And then on another level, there's almost the critique of the Creative Writing critique it is. It's such a thing that bad hand books would do, or Chuck Palahniuk would do, is, you know, the different layers. So it goes to show that sometimes you write something that doesn't seem to be a publisher or audience yet, but it's because, well, the publisher that it's right for, that the universe has destined it for. They don't even exist yet. Yeah,

Clay McLeod Chapman 1:29:38
yeah, yeah. I mean, God bless Doug. He's, I mean, like, he, he gets an idea in his head, and he just won't say no. Like, he won't, um, and I really, I mean, I genuinely owe it all to him, like, because I feel like Batman does do. That weird blend of like genres. Like, is it crime? Is it horror? Like, I think the layered Baron of it all is like, a perfect kind of example of like, how you can have this, this kind of hybrid idea of genre, and it doesn't fit as cleanly into any one area. And I don't know, I really, I really appreciate that. Like, at this point, I can't imagine kill your darling being anywhere else, other than bad hand. And he, he believes in the books he puts out. Like, he genuinely, like, you know, it's just him, and he's just doing this out of the sheer sheer love of doing it. And I know he has big ideas and hopes for the future, but like, you know, to get there, it's, it's on the foundation of these amazing books by these mind blowing authors like Eric la roca and Laird and Cynthia palah And like, I mean, like, it's just, it's, it's mind blowing, it's mind blowing.