April 13, 2022 • 44 mins
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🎙️About the Episode
Ever wondered what goes into co-writing a unique story? As horror authors, we (David Viergutz and Jay Bower) shed light on our experience of sharing a vision, and the importance of having a healthy working relationship with a co-author. Tune in to listen to our sculpting analogy of shaping and reshaping each other's work to create the perfect narrative. This episode will give you a sneak peek into the intricacies of creating a story with multiple perspectives, and the delicate balance it requires in character development and story structure.
As we discuss our latest works, like Jay's short story collection Hanging Corpses, and his upcoming novel Every Time I Die, as well as David's cultist tale Old Scratch, you'll also hear about the excitement that surrounds the completion of our latest book project. We're overjoyed to share our plans to celebrate, which includes a book giveaway and a cover reveal. We promise you won't want to miss out on all the thrilling details of our indie author journey!
Finally, we also share some insights into the upcoming events in our calendar like the 20 Books Vegas, a convention for indie authors, and Scares That Care Author Con, a charity event. We aim to bring you into the heart of the indie author community, with an episode brimming with writerly insights, horror, and a glimpse into the world of author conventions and charity events. So grab your headphones, sit back, and let's dive into the dark, exciting world of horror writing!
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You can also Tweet me @ViergutzDavid and tell me what horror author you want to hear from next,
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Nightmare Engine Podcast with
your hosts, horror authors DavidVirgoots and Jay Bauer, where
they discuss all things horror,books, movies, stories.
Nothing is off limits, nothingis safe, and neither are you.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome again to episode 9 of
the Nightmare Engine Podcast.
We have been out on hiatus forjust a little bit, but happy to
be back in the studio this time.
We've got some really reallycool updates, some some new and
different stuff that thatreaders hopefully you guys will
come to just absolutely eat up.
So, jay, are you there, man?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I am Hello David.
How are you man?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm good man, I know it's um, I know it's been a bit
since we've been together onthis type of stuff, but I'm glad
I really enjoy these and and Ithink the readers enjoy it too.
So we're gonna try and get alittle bit more consistent.
I think that's fair to you know, fair to everybody else and
kind of fair to us is get alittle more consistent.
Think we're pushing for everyother week.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I think that'll work yeah, I think I would love to do
that so that everyone that'slistening can know when to
expect some new episodes andkeep us on our toes.
But I think I think it's doableand I think I think it won't
overburden any of it.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, and and that gives us plenty of time to to
schedule out authors in advance.
Trying to get three of us fromoften, you know, three different
parts of the world is sometimestough, like we get a lot of had
an author of Boris is fromSerbia, that was interesting to
get him on.
We had Lee Mountford from theUK.
So we just we've got peoplefrom all over the place and
(01:48):
we're trying to get you guyssome, some new and interesting
faces in the indie, in the indieauthor, indie horror community.
So we're doing the best we canshare with us.
We got families, got lives, butwe are gonna be working on a
consistency over the next comingweeks.
But speaking of weeks, what?
What have you been up to?
Man?
I know we talk from time totime, but let's get a fish with
(02:10):
it.
Let's put it on the record.
Let's let's get.
Give me the news and theupdates?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
yeah, for sure so, but by the time this releases,
everybody will know that I'vegot my short story collection.
Hanging Corpses just came out alittle over a week ago.
I'm not sure when this episodeis gonna come out.
So hanging corpses came out inMay 23rd and it's been pretty
(02:36):
well received so far.
The cover has just beenabsolutely stunning.
That's been pulling so manypeople in and then when they
start reading it they're like,oh, this is pretty good, which
is an awesome feeling.
But hanging corpses came out 15short stories and just
something that I I enjoy doingthe short stories.
(02:57):
I started writing with shortstories and just they built up
over a while, you know, over acertain amount of time, and then
get put those out.
You know got the three deadblood books that came out
earlier this year.
Those have been really wellreceived as well.
You know nothing like putting avampire in a world of zombies
(03:17):
to try to find some fresh blood,you know, but that's that's
gone over really well.
I'm working on a couple otherprojects at the moment.
One of them is a novel that'scalled every time I die, and
that one I don't want to say toomuch about my plans for it.
(03:37):
I will talk a little bit aboutthe story.
That's not a problem.
And in this particular piece ofman is basically cursed he.
He has to commit murders everyonce in a while for this
specific demon.
If he doesn't, then he's cursedto die a horrible death.
Then he gets to come back, hebasically he gets to be
(03:57):
reincarnated as himself againand has to keep doing it.
So he has to keep killing orget killed, and so it's kind of
brutal little little demon inthere.
A lot of fun to write.
I will say that I'm actuallyalso working on another book in
the dead blood series.
About a third of the way intothat one, just kind of
(04:21):
continuing the story, I've had acouple people say like hey, man
, book three ended really well,why are you doing more?
I was like there's, there'smore story there.
There's a lot I'd like to doand I've had a lot of ideas for
a while about what could becoming after those first three
books.
So we'll see how many more itgets.
And then I've got anotherproject, but we'll save that
(04:42):
because I'm talking about thatin a little bit as far as kind
of what's coming up soon.
So what about you man?
Give us a recap where you're atwhat's been going on and and
what's what's happening yeah,man.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So in in the process of currently reskinning a bunch
of my books and I think that'sit's really important and just
from author to reader, like Iwant you guys have have awesome
covers to look at, you know, tobe able to look at that book and
just get a feeling from it,because you know covers really
do sell the book.
If it's not an interestingcover, I don't think you're
(05:14):
gonna pick it up, you know.
And so I owe it to you to makesure that you guys have some
really, really cool covers thatreally attract your attention.
You know, kind of give somepride and ownership, you know,
be a look at them in the shelfand, like man, you know how
about the people walk by, solook at that, and so that's,
that's a big one for me.
And then I'm currently at there-edit stage, since I have a
little bit of time before Istart my next big project on
(05:38):
finishing up and re-editing oldscratch.
And so this is one of myfavorite types of tales and that
is cultist style tales.
You know religion and cults,you know, I think David Koresh
and you know the branchDavidians, jonestown, that sort
of feel, and I really, reallylove to capture the fanaticism
that comes with the cults.
So, finishing up those editsand then, once that new skin is
(06:01):
in, I'll make sure you guys haveit right away.
So that's gonna be probablywithin a week or two at most.
It's about time I release itand it's just just a story that
needs to finish up.
And that's the fourth book andthe other archives besides that.
I finished up the last shortstory that was a part of my
Kickstarter for my dark fantasyseries, and so I was able to
finally, you know, close thepage on that and say, okay, you
(06:24):
finished one Kickstarter andthen you know I've got another
one that I've lined up.
That's later on this year as Iget the final touches on that,
and that's more of a passionproject.
It's not horror, so don't don'tgo looking for it under my
horror belt, but I will say thata lot of my readers I'm gonna
give you guys an opportunity toread it because I think it's.
It was just a passion project,something from my my childhood
(06:45):
that brought a lot of nostalgia.
That's gonna be really cool.
But besides that, my main focusis gonna be on co-writing.
So I've got two authors onejust happens to be present with
me, I think everybody kind ofsaw this one coming of us
writing a story together andthen, you know, I have another
one lined up for right afterthat and I think we're gonna be
either looking at deep space ordeep sea.
(07:06):
I think that's what we're gonnabe for an entire horror series.
So think in the vein of alienunderwater, the abyss sphere,
that sort of thing, maybe someevent horizon type, feel less
sci-fi or space horror.
So that is my main focus isgetting with a couple other
authors and really combining ourskill sets and and and really
(07:28):
bringing some cool stories about.
So let's um, well, I got youhere.
Let's, let's talk about this,this new book that we decided
out in nowhere.
We're gonna, we're gonna do andwe're gonna, we're gonna make
it happen yes.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
So yeah, you mentioned about two authors you
co-authoring, with one of thembeing me and then another author
.
I, too, have a possibleopportunity to work with another
author besides you, so we'vegot a lot coming up.
Man, it's really cool.
I like these combining forcesthings.
I think it's.
It can be a lot of fun.
So, anyway, let's talk aboutthis thing.
(08:03):
You want to.
You want to divulge the name ofthis piece?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yes, so the name kind of came out of nowhere and it
fit perfectly for what we wantedto do and so that the title of
this new, this new standalone,it's gonna be a standalone, I
think.
Pretty sure I'd say, I'd saythe way we want to write it's
gonna be standalone.
It's called slaughter Lake Howl, perfect.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Slaughter Lake.
I love it, man, obviously, butsuch a cool name.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, and it fits, and the cover is just simple and
it's wicked.
So we're gonna be reallyexcited to release that to the,
to folks to see.
And the premise of this book isreally been, I Think, something
that we want to work on craftwise, and so we don't talk a lot
about craft on this show, butyou know it's good to do so.
Craft wise, my main focus hasreally been diving into the
(08:55):
characters.
That's where I want to seemyself focusing on this year and
and taking even a mundane Storyand making it awesome because
of the characters.
And so this one is gonna befocused heavily on Five
characters two couples and myfavorite character, fifth wheel.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
So if we a good old, he was named fifth wheel because
we named our couples right andthen.
But we kill, still keptReferring to this other person
as fifth wheel, fifth wheel, andwe're like, let's just keep it
named fifth wheel.
We I named him the other day.
We can always change it, but Ifigured we need something more
(09:33):
than Good old fifth wheel.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, and it fits great and I love, I love the way
we design the character, so wethought about him.
As for people who want to,he'll taste.
We like him to be Similar tothe character I don't remember
if anybody what's that actor'sname from spider-man, the old
spider-man, franko JamesFranco's character in spider-man
yeah, osborne's crazy Osborne'sson, a Kimber, was named
(10:03):
anyways.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Harry.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Harry Osborne, yeah, so kind of that Sly but
intelligent, good-looking guyand he's got a lot of problems
and so a lot of problems thatare under the hood.
So we say, but yeah, we'regonna be focusing on five people
in a cabin.
I know the story has been tolda hundred times, but I don't
think it's been told this way.
I think this is gonna besomething different.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah, and as we get closer, as we go along, you know
, for those that are listening,you know we're gonna be Giving
you a lot of information aboutour process.
Well, the information about howwe're coming up with things and
some behind the scenes stuff,that about the stories that
could can be Spoilery.
I guess, as we go along, I'msure something will come up that
(10:48):
might be somewhat spoiler.
We can't talk about it allwithout, you know, given some of
that stuff away.
But I think this is gonna bekind of cool for you and me and
for those that are listening, tokind of see what that process
is like behind the behind theveil.
You know what's, what's goingon back there.
How do these people come upwith these stories and and how
do they work together, like aswe're gonna be doing, to craft a
(11:12):
story that people are gonnawant to read.
And I, you know, I I love thatkind of idea and I love that
we're we're kind of peeling itback a little bit for people to
see.
But Definitely there could besome spoilery things as we talk
about and things can obviouslychange as we're going through
the process.
You know we have an idea and avision right now, but by the
(11:34):
time we do our next episode,that might be completely
different, names might becompletely changed.
We make Change a character formale to female or whatever.
You never know.
But this is kind of that's partof writing.
All right, you know that's.
You start with one thing andsometimes the story takes a
different way and you followthat thread until it's
conclusion, and so you knowthat's, I think, something that
(11:58):
you'll see in some of thesepodcasts until the book is
released, and then, of course,we'll have a release.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
but yeah, I really don't want to go against a grain
.
You know, once a story a lot ofsome folks will ask us you know
, like you do write an outlineor you just, you know, swing
from the hip and or shoot fromthe hip and, to be honest, it
For my process might be a littlebit different than some folks
who were pretty rigid.
Like, I have an outline becauseI don't like staring at a blank
page.
So I'll use that as, especiallyin this, in this case, where we
(12:25):
have two authors from twodifferent parts of the country
who have got to Collaboratetogether on anywhere between 60
and 70 thousand words, we haveto be able to agree on that and
on the story.
And so we have an outline, butit's not a hard and fast outline
.
As the story gets written It'llchange.
You know, we are playing thismovie out in our heads.
We were playing the story onour heads and we're combining
(12:46):
them and kind of keying off eachother's intuition and trying to
say, okay, what direction woulddo I think Jay's gonna go?
Okay, what direction do youthink Dave's gonna go?
And then we're slapping themtogether and and hoping that
they work.
So it's really really kind of acool Project.
Imagine, you know, imagineworking on a sculpture.
We have to send it off everytime you get done with it to the
other person to work on.
And you know, and you have animage in your head of what's
(13:08):
supposed to look like.
So it's, it's kind of aninteresting, interesting but but
definitely a fun process.
It cuts the writing down byhalf, but I think it increases
the work by half too.
Oh, I agree 100%.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
You know it, because we, we both have our vision of
what a story needs to be right.
And then when I get pieces fromyou or you get pieces For me or
like that's not what my visionwas, but that's okay, we're here
to collaborate, we're not hereto, you know, tell just Jay's
story or just Dave's story.
It's gonna be our story.
So we have to be able to stepback.
(13:41):
You know, I gotta be able tostep back when you're like, oh,
you know, I took the story thisway and I'm like that's not what
I had in mind.
But then we work together tohash it out and make sure that
the vision is our vision, andnot your vision or my vision,
but ours, and that you knowwe've got it.
I think, a good enoughrelationship, we can do that and
we're, you know we've beencritiquing each other for a
(14:03):
couple years now.
So I think we're, we're okaywith you.
Know, you saying, jay, this isshit, this is not what I had in
mind, and me, the same way, likeDave, this, this is just not
working man, what this needs tochange, and but we have that
relationship.
You know, sometimes I think, ifyou, if you're not that On that
(14:23):
kind of level with someone else.
It can be different and adifferent co-writing experiences
.
It can be so different, youknow where, where I've seen some
where somebody will pretty muchdo every part of the outline
and then just give it tosomebody else that you write it
and that's like that's how theyco-write.
That's one way to do it.
That's not how I've done it inthe past, that's how I prefer to
(14:44):
do it and I don't think that'show you want to do this either.
No it's just a different kind ofcollaboration.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, and I don't, I don't, I don't take too much of
this to.
It's not personal, you know.
I know it's not personal, Iknow it's just something that we
want to see the best of whenthe story can go, and unless
it's completely out of left wingand we can't work with it, and
at that point we just have adiscussion about it, which is no
big deal.
We write fast enough, it's nottaking up too much of our lives
that we're like, oh my gosh, youknow, we just lost a month's
(15:12):
worth of work.
I don't think it's ever gonnaget to that point, not with the
way.
Oh, we write, and we writepretty quickly, I'd say, you
know, a couple thousand words aday, um, pretty consistently.
So I'm not too worried at all.
It's not like it's my baby andI'm holding on to and it has to
Be done this certain way.
I want to tell an awesome sixstory.
I want people to just Drollover the story and tell all
their friends about it, and Ican't do that if I'm so rigid
(15:36):
about the way the story must betold, because I don't think
there's a must when it comes tostorytelling.
I think it's really what's goodand what's not, and um, and.
So when it comes to when youthrow another person into the
mix and then it just becomesOkay, can we communicate our
ideas well enough that we canavoid the mistakes before the
issues, the major glaring issues, before we even get to them?
(15:57):
So we're not, you know, we'reavoiding the whole.
Hey, you got to delete thislast thousand words and redo
them.
You know, and um, and, and alsobecomes how you talk to people.
You know, like, hey, man, likecan we talk about this part?
Because I don't, I'm not reallyfeeling it, but let's talk
about it quick and see what wecan do with it.
And I think that makes theexperience so much more fun.
You know, and we want to havefun with it too.
Like, every time, I know whenyou're gonna write something.
I know I'm gonna have somethingcool to look at the next time I
(16:20):
open that piece, and so I get alittle piece of the story too,
um, and so I think that's reallyimportant in that you're, every
time that I get something backfrom you, I get to relearn the
story and the direction it'sgoing and your characters and
how you're doing it.
So that's another thing wedidn't mention is how we're kind
of dividing it up.
You know, a lot of people thinkwe're my two.
You know 30,000 words a piece,you know, and then hand it to
(16:42):
the other person and say, hey,good luck, finish the story and
that's.
I'm sure that's a way thatpeople do it, but not us.
So let's talk about thesecharacters just a little bit.
Let's give a taste about whothey are and maybe not reveal
all the deep stuff, but justkind of give people an image of
who these characters are and howwe fit into developing them.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah, and I had to pull up our spreadsheet here so
I can get those details, becauseI don't remember their names
yet.
I mean we just crafted them.
So our story is going to followfive main characters.
I'm sure there's going to be afew others in there, but it's
really going to be a lot ofisolation.
You know, a cabin in the woodsin Northern Wisconsin is where
(17:20):
we're thinking and that's wherewe want to put all of this.
So again, who knows, by the timewe write this thing it could be
like a cabin in like New Mexico, who knows?
But right now it's a lakesidecabin in Northern Wisconsin and
we've got these five friendsthat are going on a reunion trip
(17:44):
up to Slaughter Lake, somethingthat they've done for, used to
do on spring break is kind ofwhat we talked about.
And so this is about five yearsor so after graduation from
college and they haven't kind ofmaybe not been in touch much
and they're getting together fora reunion.
And so we split it up to havethe five characters and the two
(18:09):
of us taking on a couple andwriting their stories, so we can
interweave it, you know.
So we're going to basicallyhave four POVs is, I think, what
we were talking about.
What's a POV, pov point of view, so one chapter will be one
person's point of view and otherchapters is someone else's
point of view.
(18:29):
It's kind of what we'replanning.
And then with our fifthcharacter I don't think we
planned on him having his ownpoint of view I thought we were
looking at maybe it coming fromthe other four characters, but
that's kind of our initialthoughts on how we were going to
structure this.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, and the characters themselves.
So we've kind of got adifferent, several different
dynamics here.
We've got the individualcharacters and then how they
behave as couples, which we knowthat if you ever talked to a
married couple they might be alittle bit different together
than they are separate.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I mean, do you want to get into their details?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
or what I mean.
I do because I want to talkabout it, but I don't I mean, we
can, it's it doesn't matter tome.
Well, let's talk in generalities, let's do generalities, okay.
So let me talk about mycharacters first, because I have
I'm running from something thatI'm uncomfortable with, and so
(19:25):
a lot of people know that mycharacters are normally bad
people.
I write bad people very, verywell.
I mean, consider my job andwhat I do.
I see it all the time, and so Iwrite people with a lot of
flaws, and I say bad people.
I think it's a spectrum.
You get this scale right.
You got good people left, badpeople on the right and
somewhere in the middleeverybody is where everybody
actually is, and every time you,every time something goes wrong
(19:47):
, you might dance a littletowards the right side, towards
towards the wrong side orwhatever, but I don't think
anybody's inherently good or bad, but I have to write people who
would generally be on themorally good side.
So they're people.
I don't know who these peopleare, I'm not able to judge, but
I would say is that the majorityof their actions would be
towards doing something good,and so that's outside of my
(20:07):
spectrum, that's outside of mywheelhouse.
I normally don't write a lot ofgood people in general.
I write people who just it'seasier to see the flaws.
I guess.
I don't know, I don't know ifthat's being morose or what, but
that's something for me that'sreally kind of kind of different
.
And so I get to write peoplewho just let's talk about all
the good things they do, and butwith that come some cool
(20:28):
secrets, and so the secrets arealways important.
That's the other part of it Ireally get to enjoy is that
they've got some secrets thatreally play into the story, and
so that's that's my couple.
They're just these relativelygood people, you know, but they
got something in the closet.
Do you want to share?
Speaker 3 (20:44):
names at all, or do you want to not do that?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
No only because they can change.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I know, but that's part of the fun.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
All right, you've got the spreadsheet open, so so
give my characters names,because I, for the love of me,
cannot remember.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
All right, so you have Samuel Tals and Rebecca
Crowe is your couple.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And who do we pick for fifth wheel?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
His name.
His name is Jude Parker.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
So Jude fits.
I remember seeing that I waslike Jude really fits that guy
for what we have planned for him.
So he's a very specialcharacter in our in our, minds.
I just prefer to miss fifthwheel and I'm probably going to
do that forever.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
So that's fine.
So then I have a couple that Iget to work with and I think you
and I kind of thought maybethese, this couple, will be in a
little bit of a darker side.
You know they do have secrets,but they're they're more known
for being a little darker versusyour couple and you know you've
got in the two of them.
(21:48):
The man of the couple, his nameis Cade Daniels, and the female
is Ella Harlow.
And one of the fun things thatI like to do when I'm creating
characters is I like to findmaybe like famous actors or
actresses for some of mycharacters and use them as my
model to base it off of, and soI was trying to figure out who
(22:11):
these characters would look likeand and all of that.
So I did a little bit ofsearching and I actually don't
know either one of the two thatI chose for my characters, but I
thought they were a greatrepresentation of it.
So I take them and I drop thosepictures into the my documents
when I'm working on characters.
So for Cade Daniels there is Ithink he's a singer.
(22:34):
His name is Daniel Padilla, Ibelieve is how you pronounce it,
so if any of you out therelistening, know who Daniel
Padilla is.
That's who I've got in mind forCade Daniels, for Ella Harlow.
I wanted to try something.
I don't have many redheadcharacters for some reason, I
don't know why, so I was like Iwant a redhead character.
(22:57):
So I came across Madeline Page,I believe.
Again, I probably butcheredthat last name, but I found a
picture of her that I dropped inon here that I could use as a
visual reference as I'm writingmy characters of like who I had
in mind when I wrote it.
So Madeline Page is Ella Harlow, and then, of course you
(23:17):
mentioned it at the beginningwith our fifth wheel guy, jude
Parker, which I think.
I think I chose Parker becauseof the whole Spider-Man thing.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, so for Jude Parker of course you know.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
James Franco is kind of who I had in mind of who that
person looked like and kind ofhis character from the
Spider-Man movies is kind of whoI had in mind for him.
Just to give listeners outthere an idea of the process and
how we come up with these,these folks, yeah, in mind,
we're just complete Googlesearches.
(23:53):
Man, yeah, I was pulling up yourhearse to see who you pulled up
, and you've got a.
You've got a sweet volleyballplayer for Rebecca and for
Samuel.
You've got some Shutterstockphoto of a dude with a nice
little hair flip going on at thetop.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah, he's got the Justin Timberlake hair flip.
Yeah, I thought that was reallyimportant.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
But I like to do that for my characters.
You know I've done it for otherbooks before.
You know I did that for DeadBlood, for example.
Just slightly off topic, youknow my vampire's name is Dorian
Wilde, which is the combinationof Oscar Wilde, who wrote the
picture of Dorian Gray, and so Ipulled the picture of Oscar
(24:36):
Wilde and that's who Ienvisioned Dorian to kind of
look like was Oscar Wilde.
Because that really helps me towrite better descriptions and
hopefully that's what comesacross to readers.
But it's just a fun way to stayengaged to your story and stay
to make your characters comealive, at least in my day.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yes, so I've never done that, but I did it in this
because I saw it on your tabs ofthe Excel document, because I
wanted to make sure that you hada good idea of what my
characters look like, and so Ifigured it's better than trying
to send you a wall of text aboutwhat they look like.
And so I was like, oh so he'sjust being nice, you know he's
helping me out.
Apparently, it's a literaryprocess that I didn't know
(25:18):
anything.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Well, yeah, but actually and I didn't I didn't
even think about that aspect ofit of you being able to see my
characters.
So you know.
But that's an amazing point,man, where, instead of like,
alright, this is what thedescription of my guy looks like
, and yeah, that's, that's cooland all, but for you and I to be
working off of the exact samevisuals for our four characters.
(25:39):
I think that's gonna be helpfulto us, you know.
So we have a better Grasp onthis cast of that we're working
with.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, as far as the characters and the story goes,
let's, let's talk just a minutehere, just a hair here, about
what we want to accomplish withthe story.
What type of story are wetrying to tell?
Are we time?
Are we talking a hero's story?
Is this about a hero thatconquers evil?
Is this about?
Is this a redemption story?
What kind of story would youdescribe this as?
(26:11):
Because I think, I thinkreaders want to know that.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
You know, I think that's something we were still
somewhat Not quite settled on, Ithink.
If I'm not mistaken in my head,I kind of think it might be a
little bit of a hero story inthe end.
I guess it depends on wherewe're going with it as we get
going, because we, you and I,talked about a couple different
endings.
You know a possibilities of howwe wanted to end it.
(26:35):
So it could be a hero, it couldbe a revenge story.
You know could be, it will.
It will be a lot of death, alot, a lot of blood will be
happening.
But I, I guess I kind of feelmight be a little bit on the
hero side and I don't know whatwere you, where are you going at
with it?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
You kind of, and and so the overall story I think
would be a revenge story.
But then the individualcharacters, especially the ones
that were really putting somefocus on things, probably gonna
be heroes, journey, you know, aKnow a rise up from where they
were.
So it just depends on whichcharacter.
I guess was kind of a trickquestion, not really, but what
depends on which character youlook at.
But I mean, in this case wereally want to shine.
(27:20):
I think we want to shine thelens on the good, conquering
evil, and so I think that's kindof the overall feel we should
give for, instead of just aslaughter box of people just
dying.
I know the name is slaughterlake, but there's a reason for
that, but and it also it fitsthe story.
Great, but it we do want to saythat this is not an extreme
horror.
Let's just make that clear.
This is not blood and gore forgore's sake.
(27:42):
This is an actual story withgood writing, with good Things
to say other than shock value.
So I mean, I'm not knockinghorror or not knocking extreme
horror by any means.
What I'm saying is that there'sthere is a fine difference
between the two and we aredefinitely steering towards just
the horror side, so that theextreme horror.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
So yes, it's maybe.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yet no, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Anyway, well.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Nothing definitive.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, nothing.
Nothing definitive, though.
Let's just keep that in mind.
We um, it's hard to talk aboutthis man number one because it's
not written.
In number two, because we don'twant to give anything way,
that's not written, so I know Ithink that's gonna be fun.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I want to see how we we continue to do these episodes
as the further we get into theproject, to see but how much
we've stuck to our original plan, how much we've changed and how
much we feel like we can keepgiving out as we go along,
because I like to give out somethings.
I think it's it'll beinteresting, but we'll see as we
go.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah and and kind of a shameless plug here.
But we are going to be doing amassive giveaway, I think, as
part of this, because just tocelebrate the two of us coming
together after almost threeyears We've been doing this
writing thing together, man, andnot once have we put something
together and said, let's, let'swrite a story.
And we finally got to a pointwe talked about.
Enough like alright, let's,let's, let's buy a cover, let's
make it real.
So we've got to cover.
(29:06):
It's got both of our names onit.
This story is happening.
So, you know, with that comescause to celebrate.
So I think we're gonna.
We're gonna do some big bookgiveaways.
I've got signed copies galoreI'm giving away.
We're gonna give away a couplekindles like we're.
We're gonna make this happen.
So if you're listening to this,just know that if you hear
slaughter lake, you start seeingstuff about slaughter lake.
We're gonna make it big.
It's really, really, it's gonnabe really cool because we want
(29:27):
to celebrate.
We want to celebrate as much asas we can, because for us this
is a lot of fun and it's a lotof fun for us to give out to
other people.
Oh for sure, man.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I'm super excited about that, I know.
You know I've been talkingabout doing the giveaway to kind
of bring some attention to itand to celebrate it, and and,
man, I cannot wait till we startkicking this out, because it's
we'll probably start that up, Iwould imagine, somewhat I don't
know about soon, but I knowwe're gonna start talking more
about it as we go along.
You know, and I don't, we'll berevealing the cover at some
(29:59):
point.
It's done.
I actually got the final one,final version of it just today
actually, so we we can releasethat at any time we want.
So we're just holding on to itfor now, because it is a sweet
cover and I think, yeah, it's,it's got such a cool look to it.
You know, you and I both, afterlooking at a ton of different
(30:20):
covers, realizing the style thatwe wanted for this and I think
I think the designers nailed it.
I think we're gonna be in goodshape with this.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, I think we went through a couple thousand
covers that one night or thecourse, an hour.
It feels like it doesn't it.
Yeah, just flipping through thepages, like 25 per page, like we
, I think we looked at likeclose to a couple thousand, but
yeah, so it feels like we'velooked at a lot.
And then we saw one.
We're like, ooh, that's, that'sit.
You know, and it didn't takemuch for us to key us first both
(30:49):
to key on it.
So yeah, so let's, let's talkabout some more celebrations.
Man, we got cool stuff comingup in the later this year and
then we got some cool coming upnext year, so let's talk about
those a little bit.
What's happening in November,man?
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Alright.
So once again, you and I aregonna be at 20 books Vegas.
And for those that don't know,there's this massive Facebook
group which I think is I don'tknow maybe 50,000 members strong
by now.
It's ridiculous.
When I joined it it was at19,000 something, but it's a
Facebook group for indie authorsthat really focuses and keys in
(31:23):
on the marketing side of stuff.
But they host a huge conventionin Vegas every year and then
where you learn a lot aboutcraft, learn a lot about
marketing and there's a ton ofnetworking.
But also they do an authorsigning day on that Friday where
you can set up and sell books,and so you and I will be sharing
the table in Vegas.
(31:44):
Oh shit, I'm supposed to bethere.
Yeah, you need to be there, oh.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
So so the cool part about this I know some people
might be like, oh why do we?
You know, why should we careabout this, this indie author
event?
The cool part about us is thata couple things is that you know
, I've been in a coupledifferent lines of businesses
and this is by far one of thecoolest and nicest.
Everybody here is Determined tohelp everybody else rise up and
to make this writing thing areality.
(32:12):
So I'm communicating that withyou guys as you're listening to
this right now is that we workas indie authors.
We work in a collaborativeenvironment where we are doing
everything we can to raise upthe other person.
We have positive attitudesabout everything and those
people that don't, we get rid ofthem really quickly.
You know, this isn't, this isnot the type of business where
we want to drag each other'sdown and we spent our blood,
(32:33):
sweat and tears into writingcool stories and just and making
something from nothing.
So we do not drag each otherdown, we don't bash each other,
we don't let it happen, and thegroup is very good about
policing its own, and so that'sone of the things I just love
about this business line is thatit's just non Confrontational,
you know.
And so 20 books.
Vegas is a nonprofit Event, andexcept for us on that Friday
(32:55):
where we can sell books inperson, and so Jay and I were
the only two horror authorsthere last year, and so that's
something that was really kindof cool to see is that everybody
else was kind of jam-packedtrying to figure out their their
spots.
You know, the sci-fi ad, hugesections, romance was massive,
you know, and but us Just me andyou man, and we had a
cool-looking booth, I'll tellyou what, like our I think we
(33:16):
still got some photos up Frombefore, but we had a
cool-looking booth we did.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
It was.
It was nice, you know we.
There was a ton of fantasyauthors, ton of sci-fi, a lot of
lit, rpg and fan I mean Romance, of course, a lot of romance, a
couple thrillers and otherGenres.
But we talked about it on aprevious podcast, I think, early
on.
Horror authors are very hard tofind.
(33:40):
We did get to meet Eric HenryVic, which was amazing, great
guy, but he wasn't set up forthe author signing thing.
I think you and I were the onlytwo horror authors set up for.
If there were other ones, Ididn't.
I didn't see him, but it's opento the public so anybody can go
to this event and it's just,it's gonna be amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, and I did just hear back from Boris basic today
he got a letter ofrecommendation or an invite, an
official invite letter from 20books, vegas, which is really
cool.
The owner of 20 books, or thefounder, craig Martell, actually
wrote the letter himself sothat he can get a visa to come
over from Serbia to come to this, yeah, and so I'm trying to
arrange with him see if I needto ship some of his books to my
(34:23):
house or whatever so he can gothe office signing to.
But him and his fiance aregonna try and make it make it
over here.
He has to get a visa approved,which is really tough, from
Serbia, but I think he's gonnabe there too.
And so I told him, said, hey,man, like beers on me, you know,
come meet the crew.
Like let's, let's, because thatis the other author I'm going
to be doing series with, I think.
And so him and I have been incontact about that.
(34:43):
So yeah, so I did getconfirmation, he got that letter
which increases his chances ofgetting that, that Temporary
visa, exponentially.
So.
And then the other thing atVegas we host a, and I and I say
I host, but I mean I was theone who just started the page
for it but we're doing, we dothe author Meetup for the horror
.
So if we have any other horrorauthors, I'm gonna meet us there
(35:04):
in Vegas.
I know we have other horrorauthors.
Listen to our podcast.
I'm the host of it.
I haven't picked a location.
I think we're gonna dosomething instead of just dinner
.
This time I think we're dosomething crazy Like we should
do, like a, like a I'm surethey've got a haunted house we
can go through.
I'm sure they've got.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Dude, I would not go through.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Oh, come on, dude I.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Would not go through that hold purses and cell phones
.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I am not going to imagine the production value,
though out of Vegas it's gonnabe incredible exactly that hell.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
I'm not going in that thing.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Okay, maybe we'll, just we will do an escape room
or something, oh and so here.
So this is kind of funny.
The romance authors went to amagic Mike show, which is a
strip show, for I don't know ifit's entirely stripping, but
it's pretty close to stripping,for, you know, for of men on
stage and and so I thought thatwas kind of funny.
I'm like, well, we got to dosomething thematic, you know.
(35:58):
You got to do something that'shorror author related.
So of course we got to go to ahaunted house.
I mean, come on, but Jay'sgonna be outside holding my
purse.
I don't think that's gonnahappen.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Yes, I will.
I'll hold your purse, man, allday long.
We've already discussed thisearly on in in the in the
podcast.
That hell, I don't scare theshit out of me.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, I guess this one's a man.
Hey, man, I'm just gonna, I'mgonna get you drunk.
You know, it's like I'm justgonna get you drunk.
We're gonna go to a hauntedhouse.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
You can eat a lot of alcohol, cuz it's not happening.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
All right.
So let's move on to number two,man, let's move on to the and
this is the second event thatwe're doing, and so we kind of
put together, I guess, a littleitinerary.
Just kind of thought about it.
I'm like, you know, this, this,this can work, you know, save
us some money and save us sometime and be able to hang out.
So what's the second eventwe're doing?
This is next year, 2023, marchof this, of next year.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah, very, in the March first part of April of 23,
you and I are both gonna be atscares that cares author con to
In Williamsburg, virginia.
With this past year they hadthe very first one.
I know they have scares thatcare weekend throughout the year
.
This was the very first authorcon and it was an amazing event
(37:12):
that just it was a who's who ofIndie Horus sing just amazing.
And you and I and we both werelike Look at this, like look at
all of these authors, and justit looked like such an amazing
time.
And so we both jumped in onthis and we're gonna be going
next year and we're gonna.
(37:33):
You're coming from Texas and I'mfrom Illinois and for some
stupid reason I thought it waslike an eight-hour drive and
like sweet, cool.
And I looked it up again andit's like 13.
I was like, oh, this kind ofsucks, but I'm still gonna do it
.
You know it's, it's gonna be somuch fun.
And I think we talked about youflying in here to where I live
here in Illinois and then usCarpooling it all the way over
(37:58):
to Virginia.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
So yeah, I think that'll be easier.
Yeah, though, we'll split thedrive in half or, if we need to,
in six hours, and we split costof gas and we split the cost of
hotel and just kind of and andso why?
So?
Why scares that care?
Let's talk about that, becausethe message behind scares that
care is really important too,and that's kind of why I jumped
on board, because of what it,what scares that care, the
(38:20):
author weekend and author conswhat they do.
So you talk a little bit aboutthat.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Yeah, so it's a charity.
It's they raised money forCorrect me if I'm wrong but
isn't it for, like, burn victims?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yeah, burn victims, and then, I think, rape victims
as well.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Yes, it was started by an ex-police officer and then
, just working with, I think,brian King is, has been around
since the beginning.
I think he's been heavilyinvolved from the beginning to
kind of organize this and itjust keeps growing and growing
and growing and raising a lot offunds for some really good
(38:58):
causes.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, so we'll build be present at that.
I like charity events as muchas I can do and and Knowing how
much the cost is gonna be forjust Jay.
And I said, you know what, Idon't have any plans for events
scheduled early next year.
And so I said, alright, I'm in,let's do this, let's make a
carpool happen.
What's?
It's a three-day event, for myunderstanding is three days.
I yes, yeah, so it's gonna beone of the longest cons that
(39:21):
I've ever seen, because I'venever been to a full-sized con
like that before.
I've never even done a day onethat actually, the first author
signing I ever did was at 20books last year.
That's the first time.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Yeah, I've got another big one coming up in
September.
Actually, I'm gonna plug thisreally quick while we're talking
about these, but I have one inst Louis in September called pen
con, and it is that one is forcharity as well as for action
for autism and it's been aroundfor eight or nine years,
something like that.
It's a three-day event.
(39:54):
Day one, which is Thursday, ismore of like an author Education
event with a bringing differentspeakers and they'll talk about
craft or marketing.
It's kind of a very smallone-day Vegas type.
You know, 20 books, vegas typeof thing, so you can sign up and
go to different classes.
There's networkingopportunities.
They always have amazing afterparties in the evening.
(40:15):
You know I'll have like alip-sync battle or just
different things, or VIP Partywith VIP readers and all the
authors.
It's such a cool event and itis.
It does skew a little bit moretowards romance authors but
there are sci-fi and there'shorror and there's Fantasy.
(40:36):
You know I've gone to it two,two times now and it's been a
little bit since I've gone andso I was really looking forward
to it and it's a.
So you got the one day onThursday.
It was well just for theauthors only.
But then Friday and Saturdayare the two big selling days,
you know, and it's these twogiant ballrooms full of authors
(40:57):
and I've seen Readers go to thisevent with a wagon, like to
just buy as many books aspossible.
And it's just, it's crazy.
And I have found some reallyloyal readers in this group
where it just, you know, I thelast time I went, I had a.
(41:19):
It was I had author or a readercome running up to my table.
I was like facing an open aisle, like there's two aisles of
tape, the chair or tables, andI'm against the wall facing out
and this, this girl, she comesrunning down the aisle to my
table and she wanted me to signa cop or she wanted to buy a
copy of the Dark Sacrifice.
(41:40):
It had me sign it for her andshe was telling me how she
absolutely loved the book andshe was reading it in bed one
night and her husband was like,hey, it's time for us to go to
bed.
And she's like, no, no, I needto finish this.
And he's like, no, we need to.
You know it's, we got to get upearly or whatever we got to get
to.
You know it's, it's that time.
She's like, no, I need tofinish reading this.
So she stayed up to finishreading the book and I was like
(42:03):
I got in the middle of amarriage.
Awesome, I caused me a problem,no, but it was so cool.
But, and so I love this eventit's, it's got some amazing
authors that go to it and thepeople that come visit it are so
cool and Looking forward to it.
So it's, it's, it's gonna befun.
(42:23):
It's September called pen conand it is again.
It's another charity event, sothis one's for action for autism
.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
That's awesome, man, and I love to hear these stories
, you know, about peopleconnecting with us.
I get.
One of the things I do is I getfan mail, handwritten fan mail.
I have a PO box.
I'm like, hey, send me mail andI will send you a letter back.
You know so any time.
Any chance I get to reallyconnect on that other level with
my readers is really, reallyimportant.
So that's um, that's a good,that's a good way to end this,
this, this episode, man.
(42:52):
So thank you for that story.
That's awesome.
I'm glad to hear that.
I hope they're still togetherafter that.
I'll find out in September, Ihope she's gonna come up and run
up and hit you this time.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Or her husband and be like it was you, you mother
ever.
Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Know that name.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, I'll get read my books no.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
All right, folks.
So look for us in Vegas and 20books this year.
We'll have some moreinformation on that.
Look for us.
That scares, that care.
Look for for J at Pancon lateron this year.
So we'll be out and about.
Just keep in touch with us.
We'll be here.
Let's hopefully get thisepisode coming to you Pretty
soon.
And until then, ladies andgentlemen, my name is Dave for
this and you're listening to thenightmare engine podcast here
(43:36):
with my co-host, mr Jay bowler.
J bowler, ladies and gentlemen,have a good night, thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Thanks for listening to the nightmare engine podcast
with your hosts, horror authorsDavid Virgoots and Jay bowler,
where nothing is off limits,nothing is safe, and neither are
you.
Welcome to the Nightmare Engine Podcast with
your hosts, horror authors DavidVirgoots and Jay Bauer, where
they discuss all things horror,books, movies, stories.
Nothing is off limits, nothingis safe, and neither are you.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome again to episode 9 of
the Nightmare Engine Podcast.
We have been out on hiatus forjust a little bit, but happy to
be back in the studio this time.
We've got some really reallycool updates, some some new and
different stuff that thatreaders hopefully you guys will
come to just absolutely eat up.
So, jay, are you there, man?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I am Hello David.
How are you man?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm good man, I know it's um, I know it's been a bit
since we've been together onthis type of stuff, but I'm glad
I really enjoy these and and Ithink the readers enjoy it too.
So we're gonna try and get alittle bit more consistent.
I think that's fair to you know, fair to everybody else and
kind of fair to us is get alittle more consistent.
Think we're pushing for everyother week.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I think that'll work yeah, I think I would love to do
that so that everyone that'slistening can know when to
expect some new episodes andkeep us on our toes.
But I think I think it's doableand I think I think it won't
overburden any of it.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, and and that gives us plenty of time to to
schedule out authors in advance.
Trying to get three of us fromoften, you know, three different
parts of the world is sometimestough, like we get a lot of had
an author of Boris is fromSerbia, that was interesting to
get him on.
We had Lee Mountford from theUK.
So we just we've got peoplefrom all over the place and
(01:48):
we're trying to get you guyssome, some new and interesting
faces in the indie, in the indieauthor, indie horror community.
So we're doing the best we canshare with us.
We got families, got lives, butwe are gonna be working on a
consistency over the next comingweeks.
But speaking of weeks, what?
What have you been up to?
Man?
I know we talk from time totime, but let's get a fish with
(02:10):
it.
Let's put it on the record.
Let's let's get.
Give me the news and theupdates?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
yeah, for sure so, but by the time this releases,
everybody will know that I'vegot my short story collection.
Hanging Corpses just came out alittle over a week ago.
I'm not sure when this episodeis gonna come out.
So hanging corpses came out inMay 23rd and it's been pretty
(02:36):
well received so far.
The cover has just beenabsolutely stunning.
That's been pulling so manypeople in and then when they
start reading it they're like,oh, this is pretty good, which
is an awesome feeling.
But hanging corpses came out 15short stories and just
something that I I enjoy doingthe short stories.
(02:57):
I started writing with shortstories and just they built up
over a while, you know, over acertain amount of time, and then
get put those out.
You know got the three deadblood books that came out
earlier this year.
Those have been really wellreceived as well.
You know nothing like putting avampire in a world of zombies
(03:17):
to try to find some fresh blood,you know, but that's that's
gone over really well.
I'm working on a couple otherprojects at the moment.
One of them is a novel that'scalled every time I die, and
that one I don't want to say toomuch about my plans for it.
(03:37):
I will talk a little bit aboutthe story.
That's not a problem.
And in this particular piece ofman is basically cursed he.
He has to commit murders everyonce in a while for this
specific demon.
If he doesn't, then he's cursedto die a horrible death.
Then he gets to come back, hebasically he gets to be
(03:57):
reincarnated as himself againand has to keep doing it.
So he has to keep killing orget killed, and so it's kind of
brutal little little demon inthere.
A lot of fun to write.
I will say that I'm actuallyalso working on another book in
the dead blood series.
About a third of the way intothat one, just kind of
(04:21):
continuing the story, I've had acouple people say like hey, man
, book three ended really well,why are you doing more?
I was like there's, there'smore story there.
There's a lot I'd like to doand I've had a lot of ideas for
a while about what could becoming after those first three
books.
So we'll see how many more itgets.
And then I've got anotherproject, but we'll save that
(04:42):
because I'm talking about thatin a little bit as far as kind
of what's coming up soon.
So what about you man?
Give us a recap where you're atwhat's been going on and and
what's what's happening yeah,man.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So in in the process of currently reskinning a bunch
of my books and I think that'sit's really important and just
from author to reader, like Iwant you guys have have awesome
covers to look at, you know, tobe able to look at that book and
just get a feeling from it,because you know covers really
do sell the book.
If it's not an interestingcover, I don't think you're
(05:14):
gonna pick it up, you know.
And so I owe it to you to makesure that you guys have some
really, really cool covers thatreally attract your attention.
You know, kind of give somepride and ownership, you know,
be a look at them in the shelfand, like man, you know how
about the people walk by, solook at that, and so that's,
that's a big one for me.
And then I'm currently at there-edit stage, since I have a
little bit of time before Istart my next big project on
(05:38):
finishing up and re-editing oldscratch.
And so this is one of myfavorite types of tales and that
is cultist style tales.
You know religion and cults,you know, I think David Koresh
and you know the branchDavidians, jonestown, that sort
of feel, and I really, reallylove to capture the fanaticism
that comes with the cults.
So, finishing up those editsand then, once that new skin is
(06:01):
in, I'll make sure you guys haveit right away.
So that's gonna be probablywithin a week or two at most.
It's about time I release itand it's just just a story that
needs to finish up.
And that's the fourth book andthe other archives besides that.
I finished up the last shortstory that was a part of my
Kickstarter for my dark fantasyseries, and so I was able to
finally, you know, close thepage on that and say, okay, you
(06:24):
finished one Kickstarter andthen you know I've got another
one that I've lined up.
That's later on this year as Iget the final touches on that,
and that's more of a passionproject.
It's not horror, so don't don'tgo looking for it under my
horror belt, but I will say thata lot of my readers I'm gonna
give you guys an opportunity toread it because I think it's.
It was just a passion project,something from my my childhood
(06:45):
that brought a lot of nostalgia.
That's gonna be really cool.
But besides that, my main focusis gonna be on co-writing.
So I've got two authors onejust happens to be present with
me, I think everybody kind ofsaw this one coming of us
writing a story together andthen, you know, I have another
one lined up for right afterthat and I think we're gonna be
either looking at deep space ordeep sea.
(07:06):
I think that's what we're gonnabe for an entire horror series.
So think in the vein of alienunderwater, the abyss sphere,
that sort of thing, maybe someevent horizon type, feel less
sci-fi or space horror.
So that is my main focus isgetting with a couple other
authors and really combining ourskill sets and and and really
(07:28):
bringing some cool stories about.
So let's um, well, I got youhere.
Let's, let's talk about this,this new book that we decided
out in nowhere.
We're gonna, we're gonna do andwe're gonna, we're gonna make
it happen yes.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
So yeah, you mentioned about two authors you
co-authoring, with one of thembeing me and then another author
.
I, too, have a possibleopportunity to work with another
author besides you, so we'vegot a lot coming up.
Man, it's really cool.
I like these combining forcesthings.
I think it's.
It can be a lot of fun.
So, anyway, let's talk aboutthis thing.
(08:03):
You want to.
You want to divulge the name ofthis piece?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yes, so the name kind of came out of nowhere and it
fit perfectly for what we wantedto do and so that the title of
this new, this new standalone,it's gonna be a standalone, I
think.
Pretty sure I'd say, I'd saythe way we want to write it's
gonna be standalone.
It's called slaughter Lake Howl, perfect.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Slaughter Lake.
I love it, man, obviously, butsuch a cool name.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, and it fits, and the cover is just simple and
it's wicked.
So we're gonna be reallyexcited to release that to the,
to folks to see.
And the premise of this book isreally been, I Think, something
that we want to work on craftwise, and so we don't talk a lot
about craft on this show, butyou know it's good to do so.
Craft wise, my main focus hasreally been diving into the
(08:55):
characters.
That's where I want to seemyself focusing on this year and
and taking even a mundane Storyand making it awesome because
of the characters.
And so this one is gonna befocused heavily on Five
characters two couples and myfavorite character, fifth wheel.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
So if we a good old, he was named fifth wheel because
we named our couples right andthen.
But we kill, still keptReferring to this other person
as fifth wheel, fifth wheel, andwe're like, let's just keep it
named fifth wheel.
We I named him the other day.
We can always change it, but Ifigured we need something more
(09:33):
than Good old fifth wheel.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, and it fits great and I love, I love the way
we design the character, so wethought about him.
As for people who want to,he'll taste.
We like him to be Similar tothe character I don't remember
if anybody what's that actor'sname from spider-man, the old
spider-man, franko JamesFranco's character in spider-man
yeah, osborne's crazy Osborne'sson, a Kimber, was named
(10:03):
anyways.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Harry.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Harry Osborne, yeah, so kind of that Sly but
intelligent, good-looking guyand he's got a lot of problems
and so a lot of problems thatare under the hood.
So we say, but yeah, we'regonna be focusing on five people
in a cabin.
I know the story has been tolda hundred times, but I don't
think it's been told this way.
I think this is gonna besomething different.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah, and as we get closer, as we go along, you know
, for those that are listening,you know we're gonna be Giving
you a lot of information aboutour process.
Well, the information about howwe're coming up with things and
some behind the scenes stuff,that about the stories that
could can be Spoilery.
I guess, as we go along, I'msure something will come up that
(10:48):
might be somewhat spoiler.
We can't talk about it allwithout, you know, given some of
that stuff away.
But I think this is gonna bekind of cool for you and me and
for those that are listening, tokind of see what that process
is like behind the behind theveil.
You know what's, what's goingon back there.
How do these people come upwith these stories and and how
do they work together, like aswe're gonna be doing, to craft a
(11:12):
story that people are gonnawant to read.
And I, you know, I I love thatkind of idea and I love that
we're we're kind of peeling itback a little bit for people to
see.
But Definitely there could besome spoilery things as we talk
about and things can obviouslychange as we're going through
the process.
You know we have an idea and avision right now, but by the
(11:34):
time we do our next episode,that might be completely
different, names might becompletely changed.
We make Change a character formale to female or whatever.
You never know.
But this is kind of that's partof writing.
All right, you know that's.
You start with one thing andsometimes the story takes a
different way and you followthat thread until it's
conclusion, and so you knowthat's, I think, something that
(11:58):
you'll see in some of thesepodcasts until the book is
released, and then, of course,we'll have a release.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
but yeah, I really don't want to go against a grain
.
You know, once a story a lot ofsome folks will ask us you know
, like you do write an outlineor you just, you know, swing
from the hip and or shoot fromthe hip and, to be honest, it
For my process might be a littlebit different than some folks
who were pretty rigid.
Like, I have an outline becauseI don't like staring at a blank
page.
So I'll use that as, especiallyin this, in this case, where we
(12:25):
have two authors from twodifferent parts of the country
who have got to Collaboratetogether on anywhere between 60
and 70 thousand words, we haveto be able to agree on that and
on the story.
And so we have an outline, butit's not a hard and fast outline
.
As the story gets written It'llchange.
You know, we are playing thismovie out in our heads.
We were playing the story onour heads and we're combining
(12:46):
them and kind of keying off eachother's intuition and trying to
say, okay, what direction woulddo I think Jay's gonna go?
Okay, what direction do youthink Dave's gonna go?
And then we're slapping themtogether and and hoping that
they work.
So it's really really kind of acool Project.
Imagine, you know, imagineworking on a sculpture.
We have to send it off everytime you get done with it to the
other person to work on.
And you know, and you have animage in your head of what's
(13:08):
supposed to look like.
So it's, it's kind of aninteresting, interesting but but
definitely a fun process.
It cuts the writing down byhalf, but I think it increases
the work by half too.
Oh, I agree 100%.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
You know it, because we, we both have our vision of
what a story needs to be right.
And then when I get pieces fromyou or you get pieces For me or
like that's not what my visionwas, but that's okay, we're here
to collaborate, we're not hereto, you know, tell just Jay's
story or just Dave's story.
It's gonna be our story.
So we have to be able to stepback.
(13:41):
You know, I gotta be able tostep back when you're like, oh,
you know, I took the story thisway and I'm like that's not what
I had in mind.
But then we work together tohash it out and make sure that
the vision is our vision, andnot your vision or my vision,
but ours, and that you knowwe've got it.
I think, a good enoughrelationship, we can do that and
we're, you know we've beencritiquing each other for a
(14:03):
couple years now.
So I think we're, we're okaywith you.
Know, you saying, jay, this isshit, this is not what I had in
mind, and me, the same way, likeDave, this, this is just not
working man, what this needs tochange, and but we have that
relationship.
You know, sometimes I think, ifyou, if you're not that On that
(14:23):
kind of level with someone else.
It can be different and adifferent co-writing experiences
.
It can be so different, youknow where, where I've seen some
where somebody will pretty muchdo every part of the outline
and then just give it tosomebody else that you write it
and that's like that's how theyco-write.
That's one way to do it.
That's not how I've done it inthe past, that's how I prefer to
(14:44):
do it and I don't think that'show you want to do this either.
No it's just a different kind ofcollaboration.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, and I don't, I don't, I don't take too much of
this to.
It's not personal, you know.
I know it's not personal, Iknow it's just something that we
want to see the best of whenthe story can go, and unless
it's completely out of left wingand we can't work with it, and
at that point we just have adiscussion about it, which is no
big deal.
We write fast enough, it's nottaking up too much of our lives
that we're like, oh my gosh, youknow, we just lost a month's
(15:12):
worth of work.
I don't think it's ever gonnaget to that point, not with the
way.
Oh, we write, and we writepretty quickly, I'd say, you
know, a couple thousand words aday, um, pretty consistently.
So I'm not too worried at all.
It's not like it's my baby andI'm holding on to and it has to
Be done this certain way.
I want to tell an awesome sixstory.
I want people to just Drollover the story and tell all
their friends about it, and Ican't do that if I'm so rigid
(15:36):
about the way the story must betold, because I don't think
there's a must when it comes tostorytelling.
I think it's really what's goodand what's not, and um, and.
So when it comes to when youthrow another person into the
mix and then it just becomesOkay, can we communicate our
ideas well enough that we canavoid the mistakes before the
issues, the major glaring issues, before we even get to them?
(15:57):
So we're not, you know, we'reavoiding the whole.
Hey, you got to delete thislast thousand words and redo
them.
You know, and um, and, and alsobecomes how you talk to people.
You know, like, hey, man, likecan we talk about this part?
Because I don't, I'm not reallyfeeling it, but let's talk
about it quick and see what wecan do with it.
And I think that makes theexperience so much more fun.
You know, and we want to havefun with it too.
Like, every time, I know whenyou're gonna write something.
I know I'm gonna have somethingcool to look at the next time I
(16:20):
open that piece, and so I get alittle piece of the story too,
um, and so I think that's reallyimportant in that you're, every
time that I get something backfrom you, I get to relearn the
story and the direction it'sgoing and your characters and
how you're doing it.
So that's another thing wedidn't mention is how we're kind
of dividing it up.
You know, a lot of people thinkwe're my two.
You know 30,000 words a piece,you know, and then hand it to
(16:42):
the other person and say, hey,good luck, finish the story and
that's.
I'm sure that's a way thatpeople do it, but not us.
So let's talk about thesecharacters just a little bit.
Let's give a taste about whothey are and maybe not reveal
all the deep stuff, but justkind of give people an image of
who these characters are and howwe fit into developing them.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah, and I had to pull up our spreadsheet here so
I can get those details, becauseI don't remember their names
yet.
I mean we just crafted them.
So our story is going to followfive main characters.
I'm sure there's going to be afew others in there, but it's
really going to be a lot ofisolation.
You know, a cabin in the woodsin Northern Wisconsin is where
(17:20):
we're thinking and that's wherewe want to put all of this.
So again, who knows, by the timewe write this thing it could be
like a cabin in like New Mexico, who knows?
But right now it's a lakesidecabin in Northern Wisconsin and
we've got these five friendsthat are going on a reunion trip
(17:44):
up to Slaughter Lake, somethingthat they've done for, used to
do on spring break is kind ofwhat we talked about.
And so this is about five yearsor so after graduation from
college and they haven't kind ofmaybe not been in touch much
and they're getting together fora reunion.
And so we split it up to havethe five characters and the two
(18:09):
of us taking on a couple andwriting their stories, so we can
interweave it, you know.
So we're going to basicallyhave four POVs is, I think, what
we were talking about.
What's a POV, pov point of view, so one chapter will be one
person's point of view and otherchapters is someone else's
point of view.
(18:29):
It's kind of what we'replanning.
And then with our fifthcharacter I don't think we
planned on him having his ownpoint of view I thought we were
looking at maybe it coming fromthe other four characters, but
that's kind of our initialthoughts on how we were going to
structure this.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, and the characters themselves.
So we've kind of got adifferent, several different
dynamics here.
We've got the individualcharacters and then how they
behave as couples, which we knowthat if you ever talked to a
married couple they might be alittle bit different together
than they are separate.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I mean, do you want to get into their details?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
or what I mean.
I do because I want to talkabout it, but I don't I mean, we
can, it's it doesn't matter tome.
Well, let's talk in generalities, let's do generalities, okay.
So let me talk about mycharacters first, because I have
I'm running from something thatI'm uncomfortable with, and so
(19:25):
a lot of people know that mycharacters are normally bad
people.
I write bad people very, verywell.
I mean, consider my job andwhat I do.
I see it all the time, and so Iwrite people with a lot of
flaws, and I say bad people.
I think it's a spectrum.
You get this scale right.
You got good people left, badpeople on the right and
somewhere in the middleeverybody is where everybody
actually is, and every time you,every time something goes wrong
(19:47):
, you might dance a littletowards the right side, towards
towards the wrong side orwhatever, but I don't think
anybody's inherently good or bad, but I have to write people who
would generally be on themorally good side.
So they're people.
I don't know who these peopleare, I'm not able to judge, but
I would say is that the majorityof their actions would be
towards doing something good,and so that's outside of my
(20:07):
spectrum, that's outside of mywheelhouse.
I normally don't write a lot ofgood people in general.
I write people who just it'seasier to see the flaws.
I guess.
I don't know, I don't know ifthat's being morose or what, but
that's something for me that'sreally kind of kind of different
.
And so I get to write peoplewho just let's talk about all
the good things they do, and butwith that come some cool
(20:28):
secrets, and so the secrets arealways important.
That's the other part of it Ireally get to enjoy is that
they've got some secrets thatreally play into the story, and
so that's that's my couple.
They're just these relativelygood people, you know, but they
got something in the closet.
Do you want to share?
Speaker 3 (20:44):
names at all, or do you want to not do that?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
No only because they can change.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I know, but that's part of the fun.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
All right, you've got the spreadsheet open, so so
give my characters names,because I, for the love of me,
cannot remember.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
All right, so you have Samuel Tals and Rebecca
Crowe is your couple.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And who do we pick for fifth wheel?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
His name.
His name is Jude Parker.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
So Jude fits.
I remember seeing that I waslike Jude really fits that guy
for what we have planned for him.
So he's a very specialcharacter in our in our, minds.
I just prefer to miss fifthwheel and I'm probably going to
do that forever.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
So that's fine.
So then I have a couple that Iget to work with and I think you
and I kind of thought maybethese, this couple, will be in a
little bit of a darker side.
You know they do have secrets,but they're they're more known
for being a little darker versusyour couple and you know you've
got in the two of them.
(21:48):
The man of the couple, his nameis Cade Daniels, and the female
is Ella Harlow.
And one of the fun things thatI like to do when I'm creating
characters is I like to findmaybe like famous actors or
actresses for some of mycharacters and use them as my
model to base it off of, and soI was trying to figure out who
(22:11):
these characters would look likeand and all of that.
So I did a little bit ofsearching and I actually don't
know either one of the two thatI chose for my characters, but I
thought they were a greatrepresentation of it.
So I take them and I drop thosepictures into the my documents
when I'm working on characters.
So for Cade Daniels there is Ithink he's a singer.
(22:34):
His name is Daniel Padilla, Ibelieve is how you pronounce it,
so if any of you out therelistening, know who Daniel
Padilla is.
That's who I've got in mind forCade Daniels, for Ella Harlow.
I wanted to try something.
I don't have many redheadcharacters for some reason, I
don't know why, so I was like Iwant a redhead character.
(22:57):
So I came across Madeline Page,I believe.
Again, I probably butcheredthat last name, but I found a
picture of her that I dropped inon here that I could use as a
visual reference as I'm writingmy characters of like who I had
in mind when I wrote it.
So Madeline Page is Ella Harlow, and then, of course you
(23:17):
mentioned it at the beginningwith our fifth wheel guy, jude
Parker, which I think.
I think I chose Parker becauseof the whole Spider-Man thing.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, so for Jude Parker of course you know.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
James Franco is kind of who I had in mind of who that
person looked like and kind ofhis character from the
Spider-Man movies is kind of whoI had in mind for him.
Just to give listeners outthere an idea of the process and
how we come up with these,these folks, yeah, in mind,
we're just complete Googlesearches.
(23:53):
Man, yeah, I was pulling up yourhearse to see who you pulled up
, and you've got a.
You've got a sweet volleyballplayer for Rebecca and for
Samuel.
You've got some Shutterstockphoto of a dude with a nice
little hair flip going on at thetop.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah, he's got the Justin Timberlake hair flip.
Yeah, I thought that was reallyimportant.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
But I like to do that for my characters.
You know I've done it for otherbooks before.
You know I did that for DeadBlood, for example.
Just slightly off topic, youknow my vampire's name is Dorian
Wilde, which is the combinationof Oscar Wilde, who wrote the
picture of Dorian Gray, and so Ipulled the picture of Oscar
(24:36):
Wilde and that's who Ienvisioned Dorian to kind of
look like was Oscar Wilde.
Because that really helps me towrite better descriptions and
hopefully that's what comesacross to readers.
But it's just a fun way to stayengaged to your story and stay
to make your characters comealive, at least in my day.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yes, so I've never done that, but I did it in this
because I saw it on your tabs ofthe Excel document, because I
wanted to make sure that you hada good idea of what my
characters look like, and so Ifigured it's better than trying
to send you a wall of text aboutwhat they look like.
And so I was like, oh so he'sjust being nice, you know he's
helping me out.
Apparently, it's a literaryprocess that I didn't know
(25:18):
anything.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Well, yeah, but actually and I didn't I didn't
even think about that aspect ofit of you being able to see my
characters.
So you know.
But that's an amazing point,man, where, instead of like,
alright, this is what thedescription of my guy looks like
, and yeah, that's, that's cooland all, but for you and I to be
working off of the exact samevisuals for our four characters.
(25:39):
I think that's gonna be helpfulto us, you know.
So we have a better Grasp onthis cast of that we're working
with.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, as far as the characters and the story goes,
let's, let's talk just a minutehere, just a hair here, about
what we want to accomplish withthe story.
What type of story are wetrying to tell?
Are we time?
Are we talking a hero's story?
Is this about a hero thatconquers evil?
Is this about?
Is this a redemption story?
What kind of story would youdescribe this as?
(26:11):
Because I think, I thinkreaders want to know that.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
You know, I think that's something we were still
somewhat Not quite settled on, Ithink.
If I'm not mistaken in my head,I kind of think it might be a
little bit of a hero story inthe end.
I guess it depends on wherewe're going with it as we get
going, because we, you and I,talked about a couple different
endings.
You know a possibilities of howwe wanted to end it.
(26:35):
So it could be a hero, it couldbe a revenge story.
You know could be, it will.
It will be a lot of death, alot, a lot of blood will be
happening.
But I, I guess I kind of feelmight be a little bit on the
hero side and I don't know whatwere you, where are you going at
with it?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
You kind of, and and so the overall story I think
would be a revenge story.
But then the individualcharacters, especially the ones
that were really putting somefocus on things, probably gonna
be heroes, journey, you know, aKnow a rise up from where they
were.
So it just depends on whichcharacter.
I guess was kind of a trickquestion, not really, but what
depends on which character youlook at.
But I mean, in this case wereally want to shine.
(27:20):
I think we want to shine thelens on the good, conquering
evil, and so I think that's kindof the overall feel we should
give for, instead of just aslaughter box of people just
dying.
I know the name is slaughterlake, but there's a reason for
that, but and it also it fitsthe story.
Great, but it we do want to saythat this is not an extreme
horror.
Let's just make that clear.
This is not blood and gore forgore's sake.
(27:42):
This is an actual story withgood writing, with good Things
to say other than shock value.
So I mean, I'm not knockinghorror or not knocking extreme
horror by any means.
What I'm saying is that there'sthere is a fine difference
between the two and we aredefinitely steering towards just
the horror side, so that theextreme horror.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
So yes, it's maybe.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yet no, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Anyway, well.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Nothing definitive.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, nothing.
Nothing definitive, though.
Let's just keep that in mind.
We um, it's hard to talk aboutthis man number one because it's
not written.
In number two, because we don'twant to give anything way,
that's not written, so I know Ithink that's gonna be fun.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I want to see how we we continue to do these episodes
as the further we get into theproject, to see but how much
we've stuck to our original plan, how much we've changed and how
much we feel like we can keepgiving out as we go along,
because I like to give out somethings.
I think it's it'll beinteresting, but we'll see as we
go.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah and and kind of a shameless plug here.
But we are going to be doing amassive giveaway, I think, as
part of this, because just tocelebrate the two of us coming
together after almost threeyears We've been doing this
writing thing together, man, andnot once have we put something
together and said, let's, let'swrite a story.
And we finally got to a pointwe talked about.
Enough like alright, let's,let's, let's buy a cover, let's
make it real.
So we've got to cover.
(29:06):
It's got both of our names onit.
This story is happening.
So, you know, with that comescause to celebrate.
So I think we're gonna.
We're gonna do some big bookgiveaways.
I've got signed copies galoreI'm giving away.
We're gonna give away a couplekindles like we're.
We're gonna make this happen.
So if you're listening to this,just know that if you hear
slaughter lake, you start seeingstuff about slaughter lake.
We're gonna make it big.
It's really, really, it's gonnabe really cool because we want
(29:27):
to celebrate.
We want to celebrate as much asas we can, because for us this
is a lot of fun and it's a lotof fun for us to give out to
other people.
Oh for sure, man.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I'm super excited about that, I know.
You know I've been talkingabout doing the giveaway to kind
of bring some attention to itand to celebrate it, and and,
man, I cannot wait till we startkicking this out, because it's
we'll probably start that up, Iwould imagine, somewhat I don't
know about soon, but I knowwe're gonna start talking more
about it as we go along.
You know, and I don't, we'll berevealing the cover at some
(29:59):
point.
It's done.
I actually got the final one,final version of it just today
actually, so we we can releasethat at any time we want.
So we're just holding on to itfor now, because it is a sweet
cover and I think, yeah, it's,it's got such a cool look to it.
You know, you and I both, afterlooking at a ton of different
(30:20):
covers, realizing the style thatwe wanted for this and I think
I think the designers nailed it.
I think we're gonna be in goodshape with this.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, I think we went through a couple thousand
covers that one night or thecourse, an hour.
It feels like it doesn't it.
Yeah, just flipping through thepages, like 25 per page, like we
, I think we looked at likeclose to a couple thousand, but
yeah, so it feels like we'velooked at a lot.
And then we saw one.
We're like, ooh, that's, that'sit.
You know, and it didn't takemuch for us to key us first both
(30:49):
to key on it.
So yeah, so let's, let's talkabout some more celebrations.
Man, we got cool stuff comingup in the later this year and
then we got some cool coming upnext year, so let's talk about
those a little bit.
What's happening in November,man?
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Alright.
So once again, you and I aregonna be at 20 books Vegas.
And for those that don't know,there's this massive Facebook
group which I think is I don'tknow maybe 50,000 members strong
by now.
It's ridiculous.
When I joined it it was at19,000 something, but it's a
Facebook group for indie authorsthat really focuses and keys in
(31:23):
on the marketing side of stuff.
But they host a huge conventionin Vegas every year and then
where you learn a lot aboutcraft, learn a lot about
marketing and there's a ton ofnetworking.
But also they do an authorsigning day on that Friday where
you can set up and sell books,and so you and I will be sharing
the table in Vegas.
(31:44):
Oh shit, I'm supposed to bethere.
Yeah, you need to be there, oh.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
So so the cool part about this I know some people
might be like, oh why do we?
You know, why should we careabout this, this indie author
event?
The cool part about us is thata couple things is that you know
, I've been in a coupledifferent lines of businesses
and this is by far one of thecoolest and nicest.
Everybody here is Determined tohelp everybody else rise up and
to make this writing thing areality.
(32:12):
So I'm communicating that withyou guys as you're listening to
this right now is that we workas indie authors.
We work in a collaborativeenvironment where we are doing
everything we can to raise upthe other person.
We have positive attitudesabout everything and those
people that don't, we get rid ofthem really quickly.
You know, this isn't, this isnot the type of business where
we want to drag each other'sdown and we spent our blood,
(32:33):
sweat and tears into writingcool stories and just and making
something from nothing.
So we do not drag each otherdown, we don't bash each other,
we don't let it happen, and thegroup is very good about
policing its own, and so that'sone of the things I just love
about this business line is thatit's just non Confrontational,
you know.
And so 20 books.
Vegas is a nonprofit Event, andexcept for us on that Friday
(32:55):
where we can sell books inperson, and so Jay and I were
the only two horror authorsthere last year, and so that's
something that was really kindof cool to see is that everybody
else was kind of jam-packedtrying to figure out their their
spots.
You know, the sci-fi ad, hugesections, romance was massive,
you know, and but us Just me andyou man, and we had a
cool-looking booth, I'll tellyou what, like our I think we
(33:16):
still got some photos up Frombefore, but we had a
cool-looking booth we did.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
It was.
It was nice, you know we.
There was a ton of fantasyauthors, ton of sci-fi, a lot of
lit, rpg and fan I mean Romance, of course, a lot of romance, a
couple thrillers and otherGenres.
But we talked about it on aprevious podcast, I think, early
on.
Horror authors are very hard tofind.
(33:40):
We did get to meet Eric HenryVic, which was amazing, great
guy, but he wasn't set up forthe author signing thing.
I think you and I were the onlytwo horror authors set up for.
If there were other ones, Ididn't.
I didn't see him, but it's opento the public so anybody can go
to this event and it's just,it's gonna be amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, and I did just hear back from Boris basic today
he got a letter ofrecommendation or an invite, an
official invite letter from 20books, vegas, which is really
cool.
The owner of 20 books, or thefounder, craig Martell, actually
wrote the letter himself sothat he can get a visa to come
over from Serbia to come to this, yeah, and so I'm trying to
arrange with him see if I needto ship some of his books to my
(34:23):
house or whatever so he can gothe office signing to.
But him and his fiance aregonna try and make it make it
over here.
He has to get a visa approved,which is really tough, from
Serbia, but I think he's gonnabe there too.
And so I told him, said, hey,man, like beers on me, you know,
come meet the crew.
Like let's, let's, because thatis the other author I'm going
to be doing series with, I think.
And so him and I have been incontact about that.
(34:43):
So yeah, so I did getconfirmation, he got that letter
which increases his chances ofgetting that, that Temporary
visa, exponentially.
So.
And then the other thing atVegas we host a, and I and I say
I host, but I mean I was theone who just started the page
for it but we're doing, we dothe author Meetup for the horror
.
So if we have any other horrorauthors, I'm gonna meet us there
(35:04):
in Vegas.
I know we have other horrorauthors.
Listen to our podcast.
I'm the host of it.
I haven't picked a location.
I think we're gonna dosomething instead of just dinner
.
This time I think we're dosomething crazy Like we should
do, like a, like a I'm surethey've got a haunted house we
can go through.
I'm sure they've got.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Dude, I would not go through.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Oh, come on, dude I.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Would not go through that hold purses and cell phones
.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I am not going to imagine the production value,
though out of Vegas it's gonnabe incredible exactly that hell.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
I'm not going in that thing.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Okay, maybe we'll, just we will do an escape room
or something, oh and so here.
So this is kind of funny.
The romance authors went to amagic Mike show, which is a
strip show, for I don't know ifit's entirely stripping, but
it's pretty close to stripping,for, you know, for of men on
stage and and so I thought thatwas kind of funny.
I'm like, well, we got to dosomething thematic, you know.
(35:58):
You got to do something that'shorror author related.
So of course we got to go to ahaunted house.
I mean, come on, but Jay'sgonna be outside holding my
purse.
I don't think that's gonnahappen.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Yes, I will.
I'll hold your purse, man, allday long.
We've already discussed thisearly on in in the in the
podcast.
That hell, I don't scare theshit out of me.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, I guess this one's a man.
Hey, man, I'm just gonna, I'mgonna get you drunk.
You know, it's like I'm justgonna get you drunk.
We're gonna go to a hauntedhouse.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
You can eat a lot of alcohol, cuz it's not happening.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
All right.
So let's move on to number two,man, let's move on to the and
this is the second event thatwe're doing, and so we kind of
put together, I guess, a littleitinerary.
Just kind of thought about it.
I'm like, you know, this, this,this can work, you know, save
us some money and save us sometime and be able to hang out.
So what's the second eventwe're doing?
This is next year, 2023, marchof this, of next year.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah, very, in the March first part of April of 23,
you and I are both gonna be atscares that cares author con to
In Williamsburg, virginia.
With this past year they hadthe very first one.
I know they have scares thatcare weekend throughout the year
.
This was the very first authorcon and it was an amazing event
(37:12):
that just it was a who's who ofIndie Horus sing just amazing.
And you and I and we both werelike Look at this, like look at
all of these authors, and justit looked like such an amazing
time.
And so we both jumped in onthis and we're gonna be going
next year and we're gonna.
(37:33):
You're coming from Texas and I'mfrom Illinois and for some
stupid reason I thought it waslike an eight-hour drive and
like sweet, cool.
And I looked it up again andit's like 13.
I was like, oh, this kind ofsucks, but I'm still gonna do it
.
You know it's, it's gonna be somuch fun.
And I think we talked about youflying in here to where I live
here in Illinois and then usCarpooling it all the way over
(37:58):
to Virginia.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
So yeah, I think that'll be easier.
Yeah, though, we'll split thedrive in half or, if we need to,
in six hours, and we split costof gas and we split the cost of
hotel and just kind of and andso why?
So?
Why scares that care?
Let's talk about that, becausethe message behind scares that
care is really important too,and that's kind of why I jumped
on board, because of what it,what scares that care, the
(38:20):
author weekend and author conswhat they do.
So you talk a little bit aboutthat.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Yeah, so it's a charity.
It's they raised money forCorrect me if I'm wrong but
isn't it for, like, burn victims?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yeah, burn victims, and then, I think, rape victims
as well.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Yes, it was started by an ex-police officer and then
, just working with, I think,brian King is, has been around
since the beginning.
I think he's been heavilyinvolved from the beginning to
kind of organize this and itjust keeps growing and growing
and growing and raising a lot offunds for some really good
(38:58):
causes.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, so we'll build be present at that.
I like charity events as muchas I can do and and Knowing how
much the cost is gonna be forjust Jay.
And I said, you know what, Idon't have any plans for events
scheduled early next year.
And so I said, alright, I'm in,let's do this, let's make a
carpool happen.
What's?
It's a three-day event, for myunderstanding is three days.
I yes, yeah, so it's gonna beone of the longest cons that
(39:21):
I've ever seen, because I'venever been to a full-sized con
like that before.
I've never even done a day onethat actually, the first author
signing I ever did was at 20books last year.
That's the first time.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Yeah, I've got another big one coming up in
September.
Actually, I'm gonna plug thisreally quick while we're talking
about these, but I have one inst Louis in September called pen
con, and it is that one is forcharity as well as for action
for autism and it's been aroundfor eight or nine years,
something like that.
It's a three-day event.
(39:54):
Day one, which is Thursday, ismore of like an author Education
event with a bringing differentspeakers and they'll talk about
craft or marketing.
It's kind of a very smallone-day Vegas type.
You know, 20 books, vegas typeof thing, so you can sign up and
go to different classes.
There's networkingopportunities.
They always have amazing afterparties in the evening.
(40:15):
You know I'll have like alip-sync battle or just
different things, or VIP Partywith VIP readers and all the
authors.
It's such a cool event and itis.
It does skew a little bit moretowards romance authors but
there are sci-fi and there'shorror and there's Fantasy.
(40:36):
You know I've gone to it two,two times now and it's been a
little bit since I've gone andso I was really looking forward
to it and it's a.
So you got the one day onThursday.
It was well just for theauthors only.
But then Friday and Saturdayare the two big selling days,
you know, and it's these twogiant ballrooms full of authors
(40:57):
and I've seen Readers go to thisevent with a wagon, like to
just buy as many books aspossible.
And it's just, it's crazy.
And I have found some reallyloyal readers in this group
where it just, you know, I thelast time I went, I had a.
(41:19):
It was I had author or a readercome running up to my table.
I was like facing an open aisle, like there's two aisles of
tape, the chair or tables, andI'm against the wall facing out
and this, this girl, she comesrunning down the aisle to my
table and she wanted me to signa cop or she wanted to buy a
copy of the Dark Sacrifice.
(41:40):
It had me sign it for her andshe was telling me how she
absolutely loved the book andshe was reading it in bed one
night and her husband was like,hey, it's time for us to go to
bed.
And she's like, no, no, I needto finish this.
And he's like, no, we need to.
You know it's, we got to get upearly or whatever we got to get
to.
You know it's, it's that time.
She's like, no, I need tofinish reading this.
So she stayed up to finishreading the book and I was like
(42:03):
I got in the middle of amarriage.
Awesome, I caused me a problem,no, but it was so cool.
But, and so I love this eventit's, it's got some amazing
authors that go to it and thepeople that come visit it are so
cool and Looking forward to it.
So it's, it's, it's gonna befun.
(42:23):
It's September called pen conand it is again.
It's another charity event, sothis one's for action for autism
.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
That's awesome, man, and I love to hear these stories
, you know, about peopleconnecting with us.
I get.
One of the things I do is I getfan mail, handwritten fan mail.
I have a PO box.
I'm like, hey, send me mail andI will send you a letter back.
You know so any time.
Any chance I get to reallyconnect on that other level with
my readers is really, reallyimportant.
So that's um, that's a good,that's a good way to end this,
this, this episode, man.
(42:52):
So thank you for that story.
That's awesome.
I'm glad to hear that.
I hope they're still togetherafter that.
I'll find out in September, Ihope she's gonna come up and run
up and hit you this time.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Or her husband and be like it was you, you mother
ever.
Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Know that name.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, I'll get read my books no.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
All right, folks.
So look for us in Vegas and 20books this year.
We'll have some moreinformation on that.
Look for us.
That scares, that care.
Look for for J at Pancon lateron this year.
So we'll be out and about.
Just keep in touch with us.
We'll be here.
Let's hopefully get thisepisode coming to you Pretty
soon.
And until then, ladies andgentlemen, my name is Dave for
this and you're listening to thenightmare engine podcast here
(43:36):
with my co-host, mr Jay bowler.
J bowler, ladies and gentlemen,have a good night, thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Thanks for listening to the nightmare engine podcast
with your hosts, horror authorsDavid Virgoots and Jay bowler,
where nothing is off limits,nothing is safe, and neither are
you.
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