February 21, 2025 • 46 mins
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Bestselling author JD Barker joins me on The Nightmare Engine Podcast, sharing his incredible journey from a ghostwriter and book doctor to a New York Times bestseller. I get an insider’s look at his creative collaborations, including a Dracula prequel and thrilling projects with James Patterson. JD’s insights into the business of writing, along with his strategic genre-blending techniques, give us a deep dive into the complexities of attracting diverse audiences while staying true to his horror roots. This episode is a goldmine for anyone curious about what it takes to build a successful writing career.
I take you on a journey through the realms of fan fiction and cosmic mysteries as we dive into the excitement of sequels and reboots, including the 1990 thriller Flatliners. We explore the scientific and existential themes surrounding med students flirting with death and draw fascinating parallels with films like The Lazarus Project. Our conversation spirals into a cosmic tangent, where black holes and our place in the universe set the stage for some existential musings. If you love the intersection of science, fiction, and the unknown, this discussion is for you.
Get ready to experience the spine-tingling allure of real-life horror and folklore monsters as I recount chilling moments from Costa Rica to the Stanley Hotel, the eerie inspiration behind Stephen King’s The Shining. The fusion of real and fictional terror sparks an exploration into haunted house experiences, folklore, and the psychology of fear. With personal anecdotes and compelling narratives, this episode reveals how true stories breathe life into imaginative storytelling, blurring the line between reality and the supernatural. Join me for a hauntingly engaging exploration of horror at its finest.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of
the Nightmare Engine podcast.
It is Monday, february 10th.
It is not my usual recordingday, but I've got a very special
guest I'm really happy toannounce today.
We'll get to that in just asecond.
So we're just doing a littlebit of a different recording
session specifically for today,because there are so many cool
(00:21):
things happening in thebackground that we want to talk
to this guest about.
So, as far as my updates go, soI just announced to my private
group that there will be aScareMail ARG launching.
That's an alternate realitygame that's going to take over
your text message, your email,your podcasting, your YouTube.
Everything is going to beinvolved.
There's nothing that's going tobe safe and we're going to turn
(00:42):
your home into a haunted house.
So that is the next step ofScareMail.
Besides that, scaremail 2, theDrift, is launching, I think in
just a few weeks.
So we're going to announce itand open it up for pre-orders
for everybody else.
Besides that, my newest book,roanoke, is coming out probably
in the next few months, and I'llbe hard at work with that.
So that is the short version ofthis intro.
(01:04):
I don't really have much toupdate this week as just a few
days has passed since our lastrecording, so I won't take any
more of your time.
I'm really really happy tointroduce one of the top sellers
in the country and someone thatI know personally and can vouch
for the quality of his work, mrJD Barker.
(01:24):
How are you, sir?
Hey man, how you doing Prettygood.
I appreciate you taking thetime out of your your Monday to
to meet with me and to and tochat and to chat with with the
folks that listen, oh, in anytime.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I'm always up for it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah.
So, um, now I know it'd be kindof a shame you if nobody knew
who you were.
Let's get the skinny, let's getthe intro.
How would you describe yourselfIf you're first walking up to
shake somebody's hand and yousaid, hey, I'm JD, this is what
you need to know.
What would you know?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Oh man.
So usually when I ramble onabout myself, it's about a
20-minute long thing.
So I'm a New York Timesbestseller, started off years
back as a book doctor and aghost writer, so basically
working behind the scenes.
I did that for two decades andkind of honed the craft doing
that.
Indie published my first titlebut ended up selling about a
quarter million copies, whichput me on the radar of the
(02:17):
traditional guys.
I've captured lightning in abottle a bunch of times.
I wrote a prequel to Draculafor Bram Stoker's family.
James Patterson reached out tome and we've done, I think, five
books together.
At this point I'm currentlywriting I don't know if you
remember a movie calledFlatliners from the 90s, but I'm
writing a book to reboot thatfranchise.
So I'm working on all kinds ofcool things right now.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
That's awesome, man, and so the vein you tend to
write in.
So we kind of stick on the onthe darker side of things.
But we also know that linebetween what makes things like
horror or thriller orsupernatural thriller can kind
of blend a little bit.
Most people know me from myhorror and most listeners are
probably here for that.
But that's okay, because Ithink there are a lot of themes
and I think, like I said, Ithink that line blurs a lot.
So where where does the youknow where your majority of your
(03:00):
attention, because yourattention isn't quite a few,
quite a few areas.
Where?
Where does the you know whereyour majority of your attention,
because your attention isn'tquite a few, quite a few areas?
Where?
Where does that stick?
As far as the lightness, thedarkness, that sort of thing,
are you closer towards thethriller side, the horror side?
How would you?
How would you describe that?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So, if you believe Wikipedia, I build myself as a
suspense author, which is nomistake, because it might.
I think the first sentence ishe's a suspense author who may
incorporate elements of horror,elements of sci-fi, elements of
this or of that.
Um, I purposely did that at thebeginning, because I like to
keep my feet in multiple genres.
Um, I almost feel like aliterary pied piper.
You know like, if I feel like Ineed to, you know, grab onto
(03:36):
readers from a particular group.
I'll kind of you know I'llwrite a young adult novel.
I'll write a sci-fi novel, um,but I keep suspense out there as
that common thread and thatkind of keeps everybody coming
back.
Personally, I love horror.
I grew up like horror was my.
The first book I read, as whatI consider to be an adult book,
was Dracula.
So I've been part of the horrorcamp from the get-go.
But now that I'm in thebusiness side of this, I sell
(03:59):
way more thrillers than I dohorror.
It's just.
The market is just that muchbigger.
But I love to do both.
So I tend to go back and forthI write a horror, I write a
thriller, I write a horror, Iwrite a thriller.
And you know again, keep thatcommon suspense theme in between
all of them.
So the readers you know fromfrom the various camps are all
on board.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
That's awesome, yeah, so being able to incorporate
those elements for folks theyget a little bit.
Maybe they dip their toes intoit, right.
So like they, they can kind ofjump in and out of genres and
feel pretty comfortable with it,like, ah, you know, there's a
little bit darker than I like,but hey, we're back into a
thriller where I like to kind ofplant my feet, so that's that's
really nice that you do that.
Not a lot of people are able todo the cross genre stuff.
(04:37):
I listening, if you, if youjump into one of jd's books, um,
be sure to check out the backof it so you kind of know what
you're getting into.
But you know, I'm I'm prettysure and you know you probably
probably let folks know like,hey, you're going to get a
little bit of this and a littlebit of that.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
they, if they look at the description or read the
inside cover and that sort ofthing, right yeah, I mean, I've
never had somebody shy away fromyou know, like if they pick up
a thriller and it's got somehorror elements in there or vice
like they never really shy awayfrom it.
They I don't go too far in anyin one direction.
Um, and I think that's kind ofkey when you, when you do this
sort of thing, because I Inoticed when I, when I write a
straight up thriller, um, youknow people like it, but like,
(05:16):
if I add just a little bit ofhorror to it, all of a sudden
that's something new that theydon't normally see in a thriller
, which causes that word ofmouth, the buzz and the ratings
just to be a little bit higher.
So you know, I try toincorporate just just enough.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Awesome.
Now we slip back and we slip bytwo really really cool fact
what you just threw out there socasually and I want to bring it
back because it's definitely inthe camp that people are
interested in what you said.
You wrote a prequelquel to BramStoker's Dracula.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I did, yeah, so I mentioned it's the first adult
book I ever read.
I picked up a copy when I waseight years old at a yard sale
for 25 cents and that book justreally stuck with me.
My very first book, forsaken,was a horror novel and it was up
for the Bram Stoker Award forBest Debut.
And while I was there, dacreStoker, who is Bram's
great-grandnephew, basicallycornered me and we talked for a
(06:09):
little bit.
He had read my book and he saidthe family had been trying to
find somebody to write a prequelto Dracula for a while, using
Bram's original notes, and askedif it was something I'd be
interested in doing Obviously,something you do not say no to.
I had that history as a bookdoctor and a ghost writer, so
I've kind of dabbled in thatcamp before.
I've worked with other people.
You know a lot.
I collaborate quite a bit.
(06:30):
I've taken over projects fromfrom other people, so you know
jumping into something.
You know that Bram partiallywrote and turned it into a
full-fledged novel.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
That was right in my wheelhouse.
And what was the name of thatprequel?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
We called it Dracul, basically Dracula, without the A
on the end.
If you go through Bram's notes,that's actually what he.
Well, originally the vampirewas called Count Wampir, which
is not very scary.
And then there's a page in hisnotes where he actually crossed
that out.
He wrote Dracul all over it andthen he went back and wrote the
A at the end, so it was kind oflike an afterthought.
It kind of like an afterthought, uh, it kind of reminded me of
(07:08):
a girl in high school writingyour boyfriend's name all over a
note, you know notepad, orsomething like.
He just covered a page with theword dracul and then, you know,
there we could tell he used hewrote the a later because he
used a different pen, like thepenmanship was a little bit
different, um, but in his notesdracul, you know, basically
means devil, um, which is wherewhere all of that stuff came
from that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
so so is that available today?
Like we could go find it if wewanted to.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Oh yeah, that came out in, I think, 2018.
It's been out for a littlewhile now.
They, they wheel it out every,every Halloween.
You'll see it in the windows ofthe bookstores.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I definitely need to pick it up because I had no idea
it existed.
Like Dracula is one of myfavorite books ever and I was
like, oh my gosh.
So like when?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
you told me that it was a fascinating story because
you know, I've loved dracula myentire life and for me dracula
has always started with jonathanharker on the train, um, but in
reality that was actually page102 of the original manuscript.
Um, bram wrote another 100pages before that and a lot of
it was very autobiographical.
He basically explained why hebelieved vampires were real.
Um, he truly believed they were, to the point where he had
(08:03):
himself cremated when he died.
But the book that we, the storythat we told, was basically
that portion of it.
You know why Bram felt vampireswere real.
And the coolest part about thatbook if you do pick it up is
the author's note at the end,because you finish reading this
book, you know it feels likeit's a work of fiction.
It's got some crazy stuff inthere, and then you read the
author's note and realize,realized the craziest parts were
actually true in real life.
Um, and then we point that out.
(08:24):
We've got pictures and thingslike that to back it up.
So it was a wild story.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
That is wild.
And, oh my gosh, I, I'm already, I'm already like I got chills
because I, I, once you live oneof your best stories right.
Once you, once you read one ofyour favorite ones, you're like,
oh man, I wish I could go backand read that again, right?
And so, like, on occasion,there's that, that option where
there's like a prequel comes outor maybe a sequel, and you just
hope to god, like the sequel,please, like, do the, do the do
(08:49):
the original some justice, right, you know, hope, please, please
, don't be bad, um, that sort ofthing.
So, yeah, I would.
Um, I, I'm excited, I'm gonnago back and look at it.
And then, um, I am familiarwith flatliners, so once again,
we'll go back a little bit inthe beginning, because you're
just dropping bombs on me righthere.
So, flatliners, I'm familiarwith it Again, just like the
(09:13):
prequel for Dracula.
A lot of folks may not befamiliar with it.
So let's talk about Flatlinersand then let's talk about what
that revitalization might looklike.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, so Flatliners, it's this movie.
I think it was 1990 when itcame out.
It's got a crazy cast in it.
It had a Kiefer Sutherland,Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon,
Billy Baldwin, Oliver Platt likeall these people that we know
today as household names,basically at the start of their
career.
And it's about a bunch of medstudents who decide to basically
kill each other to see ifthere's life after death.
(09:39):
So they kill each other, thenthey bring themselves back one
after the other and end upbringing something else back
with them at one point.
It's a great story.
It's a really cool premise and,honestly, it still holds up
today.
I've seen it more times in thelast couple of months than I can
count, but the guy who wrote ithis name is Peter Filardi.
He's actually on one of myother projects.
(10:00):
He was working on Dracul for awhile and I you know we had
talked about this a while back.
I told him I had an idea toreboot the franchise, to get it
going again, and unfortunatelythe studio still had the rights.
So I didn't think it was goingto go anywhere.
And then I got a phone callfrom him about a year ago and
he's like hey, I just got therights back from Columbia if you
still want to do this.
So what we're doing is basicallywriting a novel to take the
(10:22):
entire franchise, the story idea, in a totally different
direction than where people havegone with it in the past.
Book is coming out first, withthe hopes of a movie to follow.
We've had a ton of interestfrom the film side, so I'm
pretty sure that that's going tohappen.
But we're kind of going aboutthis backwards.
I mean, typically withsomething like this, you know
the movie would come out andthey just write a tie-in novel
for that that movie.
(10:43):
So we're going the other wayaround, with the book first yeah
, I mean even the premise.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Like that premise, if there, if it hasn't had its
justice, you know, there'salways an opportunity to do
something, something new with apremise, you know, like that's
um, there's a movie that cameout recently I I can't remember
the actress's name, but, um, shewas on house.
She was pretty famous for thatseries, but um, the it was
called the lazarus project.
Um, I don't know if you've seena great movie.
(11:08):
I love that movie.
It's an amazing movie.
I mean goes from, like science,pseudoscience, to this weird,
like just I mean satanist type,demon, demonology type.
I mean it just goes off therails.
But it's kind of the same idea,right, cheating death, I mean
that's's it.
They're just trying to cheatdeath, um, and then somebody
makes a horrible, horribledecision, and that's always how
(11:29):
these things seem to go down.
But are there any?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
what scares me about.
I mean it's a great movie, um,a lot of people haven't seen it.
I don't.
I didn't.
All the time in labs anduniversities, you know,
literally just you knowscientists, med students just
trying things and you don't hearabout it.
And I think that's the partthat's scary, like the fact that
(11:54):
it is believable it couldactually happen.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, and I mean it's , and I guess it's all it's kind
of relative to like what doesit mean to actually die?
Like I'm?
I'm a, I'm a cop and I've donecpr on quite a few people and
people then have, you know, beengone for minutes and we're able
to continue cpr until we canget them to the ambulance.
The ambulance hits them withmedication and and, um and uh,
(12:19):
the, the defibrillator, and thencontinue, and then eventually
they come back and you're likewhere have have they?
Have they been gone?
Like you know, the it's, it'sreally kind of relative.
You're like where did they goif they went somewhere?
You know, so it's such a such acool, cool premise, um and uh,
anyways, I, I'm a big fan.
(12:40):
I'm gonna kind of pivot a littlebit because I'm a big fan of
space stuff.
And this kind of pivot a littlebit because I'm a big fan of
space stuff and this is justkind of random because I'm
talking about interesting thingsthat I like seeing in the news
and seeing the stories, and Iwas watching a guy and I don't
know if it's true or not, andthis is along the same veins of
like kind of what you knowversus what you think you know,
(13:01):
and this is about black holes,and I talk about these all the
time because it's crazy to thinkabout it, just conceptually,
about how small we really are.
But with a black hole, we usedto think that it would, just
things would go in and it wasimpossible for anything to come
out, right, because of theamount of sure force that's
there.
That's there.
(13:26):
Um, I was watching a video andthis guy was describing that
scientists had discovered thatthere was a black hole sucking
in a planet or a star andsometime later it starts
spitting the star back out andyou're like what?
How is that even possible?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
right, and so go ahead it just makes me think
that there's so much like thatwe just don't know.
You know like I'm smart enoughto know there's a lot that I
don't know.
Yes, um, and you know like I,when you see something like that
, I mean it's, it's, it'sfascinating.
But you know like there's newthings like that popping up all
the time.
I just saw, um some video theother day from mars on that elon
(14:02):
musk had put out and theyactually found square structures
on the planet surface.
You know, like literal squares.
It looks like the foundation fora building, you know, from a
very, very long time ago.
You know it couldn't be anaccident.
You know like when you see itand you know there's theories.
You know like the sun is slowlyshrinking, like there could
have been life on Mars at onepoint and then it became
(14:22):
inhabitable and that life mayhave ended up over here.
You know, in a few billionyears it might move from here to
the next planet and the nextplanet.
But like that kind of stuffreally backs it up.
And I saw a story this morning.
It looks like he's going toactually fund the mission to
Mars all on his own.
He's going to get a profit fromStarlink, you know.
So this, this guy is, you knowhe's, he's, he's like a real
life tony stark.
(14:42):
But like he finds us out thereand like he just decides, okay,
we're going, and he's paying forit.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
I've always heard that mother nature doesn't
create in straight lines, right,I mean, that's no, and this is
when you see the pictures of it.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I mean they are perfectly clear in like 4k or 8k
or something crazy, and itlooks like the foundation for a
building.
Um, yeah, it's about the samesize I think they said is the
great pyramid.
So it's not, you know, notsmall oh my gosh, all right.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
So once again, something else I gotta look up.
This is nuts, but and thereason I bring up something so,
so colossal, like this right, isbecause we as writers take
these, just these ideas and wetry to condense them down right
and force characters to eitherdeal with realizations or deal
with the thing.
(15:25):
Dracula is the same way, right,I mean dealing with the monster
.
That's kind of where, you know,that's kind of where we as
humans connect best, I think,with the characters and stories,
because the only way we canreally do it is as humans.
You know, we there's alwaysthat power, that that you know.
When you, especially when you golike fantasy and sci-fi, like,
(15:50):
okay, well, now the human hasthis capability or this
technology and they can solvethe problems that way, um, but
most of the time they're justdealing with the issues and and
you know, you and I we writedarker themed stuff and where
our characters are normally atthe pits, right, I mean, that's
pretty consistent across theboard you throw a character into
a really really deep, dark pitand then they've got to kind of
claw their way out and theydiscover things along the way,
um, and I think that makes itmakes it fun.
(16:12):
I mean, I mean it makes ithumanizing.
I I mean, do you agree, or isit, or am I?
Am I just kind of breaking thisdown a little too much?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
no, I mean, that's that.
I mean for me, like you know,there's two camps when it comes
to writing.
I don't want to get into theweeds too much.
You've got your your panthersand you've got your outliners
For me, when I write a horrornovel, I need to be a panther,
which basically means I createmy plot, my scenario, I create
my characters and then I dropthese people into the mix of
some you know crazy thing.
That's just sort of happeningand for horror, to me it works
(16:43):
that way.
I can't outline a horror novelbecause as the author, I don't
want to know where it's going.
I want my characters to kind oftell me, and I think that's
where that kind of thing comesfrom.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, it's fun, right , I mean.
To discover it along with themis kind of how it is right we're
on this adventure.
All we're doing is playing itin our heads and putting it down
on paper for other people,right?
I mean that's.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, yeah, that's.
That's all it is.
I mean, it's almost like I'mwatching a movie in my head and
I'm writing it down as fast as Ican.
One of the things that reallyjumped out at me with with
Dracula when I was working onthat.
Bram, you know like, he startedDracula when he was 43.
We found notes dating all theway back to when he this
literally his entire life and abig section of his notes.
(17:23):
He had documented vampires, allyou know, through different
cultures all around the world,and he found that they existed
virtually in every culturearound the world.
And you know they existed longbefore we all started hopping
into boats and sailing andtalking to each other, which
makes you wonder, you know, likewhat is that based on?
You know there's got to be sometype of element of truth, you
know, as a kernel behind all ofthat, and that's, you know.
(17:46):
To me that's the scary part andbecause now, all of a sudden,
you're taking something.
You know it's not a, you knowan anirisist, you know vampires,
it's not a sparkly vampire fromTwilight.
This is something that you knowmost likely existed in some
form or another all around theworld and people just, you know
they talk about it, but it'sjust, it may not be here anymore
, or maybe it is.
You know, who knows?
Speaker 1 (18:06):
yeah, I mean I I had um jonathan mayberry on the on
the show and jonathan was reallybig into other cultures and
exploring those to find theirmonsters right, and I can't
remember what country he said itwas from.
He was like, hey, look he.
He wrote about vampires andwhen he created this basically a
monster book talk about thedifferent cultures and vampires
(18:26):
and I I think it had othermonsters, but I think it
might've just been vampiresacross different cultures.
But in in this culture and thisis a particularly cool one if
you get a chance to look it upI'll see if I can find the title
somewhere but basically thevampire, it would infect
somebody and then its head andspine would detach from the body
and float around at night andthen would reattach itself to
(18:48):
the body.
That was the vampire in thatculture and I was like, oh my
gosh, I'm like what a, what ahorrifying monster and like we,
we, we've downplayed it tosparkly vampires and ultra super
wealthy vampires and when othercultures, like you describe
(19:11):
their grain of truth could be somuch more terrifying than we
could even imagine could be somuch more terrifying than we
could even imagine.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, I think horror authors spend a lot of time
going through other cultureslooking for that one unique
thing that we haven't heard ofyet in the US in order to be
able to write that book andbring it out.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, and I mean I wrote about this thing the other
day and a lot of times.
For me, inspiration is verysimple.
It's just like I need somethingcool, I need something
terrifying, what's something Ihaven't seen before that I think
other people would just eat up.
And one of the things I lookedup was the leshy.
Have you heard of a leshy?
No, I don't think I have.
Yeah, it's um, I'm not surewhere the folklore comes from,
(19:50):
but it it essentially is a likea godlike trickster of the woods
, and as somebody who's anabsolute diehard fan of Adam
Neville and anything that has todo with the woods, with weird
rituals, with cultists, blairWitch, that sort of thing this
was right up my alley.
(20:11):
And so the Leshy is thistrickster god that, depending on
what's happening with you, it'seither going to lead you astray
in circles forever I mean, justlet you just keep roaming and
just messing with you constantlyuntil you basically lost your
mind Um or if you're, like,really grateful and you show
(20:32):
that, uh, an appreciation forthe forest, or you show an
appreciation for the God, thatan appreciation for the forest,
or you show an appreciation forthe god it will actually help
you.
It'll deliver things to youthat you need, or help you and
guide you and get out, and I'mlike what's worse than a monster
with a conscience like you knowwhat, though?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I mean I bet you'd probably, you know, if you
pulled a bram and you startresearching that you'd probably
find that same monster inmultiple cultures described just
a little bit different.
I mean, that's almost a gin,right, or almost a genie.
Um, you know, it's it.
And again, from my standpoint,I started looking at that like
what is the actual basis, likewhat is the origin of these
different things, becausesomebody didn't just, you know,
sit down one day and make thatup yeah, do you have any?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
do you have any kernels like yourself I'm use
your term Do you have anykernels that you made up
yourself, that you're like ohman, this is unique and nobody
else has thought about this, orif they had, it's really buried
deep.
You know something that wasjust.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I don't know just thought about this and I spent a
lot of time researching otherauthors.
You know, like stephen king inparticular, trying to figure out
how he got from.
You know he literally wrotecarrie sitting between a washer
and dryer.
You know, in a mobile home andyou know to where he is today.
Um, and if you go back and youbreak down his books, you know,
like his very first one, carrieit was about telekinesis.
(21:48):
The second one was salem's lot.
It's about vampires.
The third one was the shining.
It's a haunted house story.
You know, like he didn'treinvent the wheel, he went back
and looked at the tropes thathave been used over and over and
over again and just told thatsame story, but did it
differently or did it better.
Um, so I think you know I don'tknow that there are any new
monsters at this point.
I think there's just uniqueways to talk about the monsters
(22:10):
that we all know about man, whata just wisdom.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
And bombs.
For me, man, just new ways totalk about the monsters we all
know.
Wow, um, so what?
What would be one of the morerecent monsters that you were
like hey, this needs arevitalization, right?
Um, flatliners, great example,but like what's one of the
newest monsters you're like weneed?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
more.
I've got a book coming out inmay.
It's called something I keepupstairs, um, and it's one I've
been working on, for it took meabout four years to write.
Now I can write a book in aboutthree months, you know if I sit
down and start to finish, um,but this one, honestly, just
kept scaring the bejesus out ofme and I had to put it aside and
kind of come back to it later.
Um, and I think a lot of thatis because it's actually based
(22:54):
on reality.
I live on a little island offthe coast of Portsmouth in New
England.
I go for a run every day.
It's about four, I think, it's4.2 miles to do a lap around the
island and at one point Icrossed the beach.
And if you're standing out onour beach and you look out over
the water, about a quarter mileout there's another little
island.
It's only about an acre, it'sreal tiny.
There's only one house on it.
It's a white house with a redroof, so you can see it from the
(23:17):
shore.
You can't really tell what'sgoing on out there because it's
just far enough away.
But like that fascinated mefrom the very first moment I saw
it.
You know, like the what if?
Gene within me kind of went off, like what is this is going on?
What if that's going on?
I got to know the people, who,who owned it.
It used to be a lifeguard, uh,or a coast guard life-saving
station.
Um, that fell into completedisrepair and a company took it
(23:39):
over and they're turning it intoa museum.
So the guy who was in charge ofthat, he's like hey, if you
want to go out there, I'll takeyou out there.
So I hopped in his boat one day.
We motored out to this, thisisland, and I'm standing in the
middle of this house and like II don't necessarily believe in
ghosts or the paranormal, butbut I felt something very weird
like in that house, like to thepoint where I just did not want
to be in that house anymore.
(24:00):
Um, and then even going out onthe beach, like the whole Island
kind of gave off that, thatvibe that I just wanted to get
out of there.
Um, and I started researchingthe Island itself and then I
realized that long before thecoast guard put that house up
there, it had been used as aquarantine zone for the yellow
fever.
Um, it was a prison during theSpanish American war.
Um, they used to take, likewhen they captured a boat during
(24:21):
the Spanish American war, theywould make them dock out there.
Uh, they wouldn't let anybodyleave the boat.
Um, you know, and whattypically would end up happening
is they would run out of foodor illness would spread or
whatever, but they would waitfor literally everybody on that
boat to die and then they wouldjust take the boat because they
wanted the boat.
Water is surrounded by sharks.
That's how they got rid of thebodies.
All kinds of dark, scary stuffbasically happened on this
(24:44):
picturesque little house ifyou're looking at it from the
beach.
And I ended up incorporatingall of these things into the
book.
The tagline for the book is fora haunted house to be born,
somebody has to die.
So you know, kind of you know,you know your premise going in
cause.
I knew I wanted to write ahaunted house story, but I
didn't want to do the typicalhaunted house.
I wanted to do something thathad never been done before.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Well, I mean, and what's worse is, exactly as you
said earlier, is that this, this, there?
There is so much truth in thisthat's horrifying when you
really think about it and you'relike, oh my gosh, we did that.
I mean, it makes sense that youwould not feel good going to
that place, right, like to just,I mean, I don't want to say I
believe in ghosts, I don't know,but I haven't, like completely
(25:29):
dissuaded myself from theirexistence.
You know, like there's a lot ofthings that I believe that some
people would be like, oh comeon, you know, but in truth that
happened there.
I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I love mixing truth with with fiction.
Um, so in in the story a 17year old kid he, his, his
grandmother actually owns thehouse in my book.
She passes away and she leavesit to him.
So the 17 year old kidbasically inherits a house on
its own private Island.
Um, and you know, he doesexactly what you would expect
him to do.
He turns it into a party housewith him and his friends.
So they go out there, you know,and they have, you know, they
(26:05):
have fun for a little while.
But then eventually somebodylands on the idea well, you know
, what would it take to makethis a haunted house?
And they don't know the house'shistory.
You know, to them it's just anormal house sitting on an
island.
So then you come back to thetagline for a haunted house to
be born, somebody has to die.
But you know the fact that it'sa real house, you know, like a
real place, like if you're herein Portsmouth, everybody knows
(26:29):
like everybody's got a storyabout this particular house, you
know, and all of that kind offuels the fire.
We're actually doing a funcontest with it too.
We're actually going to draw aname on publication date for one
person and allow them and threeof their friends to spend the
night in the house, which shouldbe interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Oh, wow, you know, and and that that type of stuff,
that that interaction itreminds me of.
Do you remember the old dayswhen the first Blair Witch came
out.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
You know, just yeah, I mean that, that, and that's
why it got you right, Becauseyou know it was the shaky cam
footage like, up until thatpoint, all we had ever seen was,
you know, highly processed,highly edited.
You know lighting is perfect,audio is perfect, this and that.
All of a sudden you've got this.
You know crappy camera footage,um, and you know that made it
seem extremely real.
Um, the funny thing is, intoday's world I think we see
(27:14):
more of that type of footage, um, than we do the process stuff.
You know, if you watch the newslike, you don't get shocked by
it anymore.
We're used to seeing people'scamera footage from their phones
, uh, pop it up on the screen.
So I like it wouldn't work intoday's world, but it, you know
it was the timing of that wasperfect.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Well, it looks like you're about to bring it.
Make it real for somebody youknow, I mean we're.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
We're trying something different, like I love
doing, you know, somethingpromotional for for every book.
Um, for me, like, the one thingthat sells more books than
anything is word of mouth.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Um, and with something like this, I mean, a
lot of people are talking aboutthe contest yeah, I mean, and
and what I like about all thistoo, especially as a writer, you
have.
We have to imagine thatsomebody who's picking up what
we're reading or what we'rewriting is going to have to
dissuade themselves of realityto enter into the story that
(28:04):
we've created.
And that's what makes horrorhorror and that's what makes
thrillers thrillers is becauseyou try to adapt those feelings
that the characters are goingthrough, because it's so
relational.
You know, like, um, I went to a, I went to a haunted house and
one of the most, one of the most, um, I guess, realistic parts
of it was the fact that I hadeverybody standing in a room
(28:25):
together and then say thiswarning on the wall that
everybody had to read.
That's basically like theyclaimed it was their liability
waiver.
If you say it aloud, it's onrecording.
Here's the video.
And what I think it did is itput everybody in the mood.
It puts you into the mood andyou're like, hey, I'm going to
break this barrier between meand the supernatural down just a
(28:47):
little bit enough to say youknow what?
I'm all, I'm okay, I'll say thewords that I'm okay with what
comes next, you know, and, um,and I think that's what makes I
think that's what makes horrorstories so interesting for us is
because we we all feel fear I.
It makes us, it's part of whatmakes us human.
But we don't want to feel fearall the time.
(29:09):
But we'll jump into it for ahorror story and be okay with it
in the short term.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Well, the real difference there is you were
standing in a haunted house.
You were standing in a business, right, you were, you know.
So you know, like, on somelevel it's like going on a
roller coaster.
A roller coaster may be scary,but you know you're going to
walk away from that rollercoaster, you know you step into
that haunted house, you know, inthe end I just paid admission
to come in here.
I'm going to come out of it atsome point.
I'm going to laugh about itwith my friends, even if there's
(29:41):
a couple standing here.
You basically go out.
You can only get there by boat,you know.
So you have to hop in a boat.
You have to go out to thisisland and literally stand in a
house that's haunted.
Like who?
I don't know that I would do it.
I don't know that I would spendthe night out there, you know,
for 24 hours and someplace likethat.
We've got a bunch of paranormalinvestigators that are coming
out that that want just, youknow, check out the island.
(30:02):
They want to do their thing.
Um, so we're gonna let thathappen too.
But like it's the idea, I think, of you know, staying there
overnight, like that that'sfrightening because, like you
don't know what you're going toencounter, but what you, what
you do know is like, whateveryou do run into it's, it's not
manufactured.
You know, like this, whateverhappens out there is real um
right, I think that's you knowwith the book.
I think that it works in a lotof ways because you finish
(30:23):
reading this book and very muchlike what you're cool, you know
the parts that you think arefiction.
You get to the author's noteand you realize wait a minute,
that happened, that happened,that really happened.
You know you can jump on Google, you can go down that rabbit
hole and research some of thesethings, but you know it's all
based on fact and even in thosemoments it's real enough to the
person there, right?
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I mean, if they believe it.
That level of reality is enoughsometimes to spook people.
You know, yeah, the.
Okay, I want to bring thisincident up.
I want to know your thoughts onit.
I don't know if you're familiarwith it and mainly and mainly
(31:04):
because it's well, we'll talkabout a different one, because
it was because it was mentionedearlier and we kind of talked
about it.
Um, if you're going to ahaunted house, you have a.
You're going in with a level ofexpectation you're like, okay,
I might encounter something like.
That's the point.
A lot of, a lot of the times,these investigators, they'll go
(31:25):
in and they're like I'm gonnafind nothing because their
entire job is to debunk whatever.
If that's the angle they'rechoosing.
You know, kind of fortelevision.
You know, if you, if you're the, if you ever seen that movie um
?
God, I don't think it was, Idon't think it was.
Like the zach baggins make funof movie um, but basically, they
, they, they go in to prove thata haunted house is not real.
At the same time, prove it'sreal, I mean.
(31:46):
So it's a different angle.
They go in to find a hauntedhouse and they don't.
They don't think it's haunted,but it really is, etc.
So, um, the idea that you'relike you're going into a
situation knowing that somethingcould go wrong or nothing will
go wrong at the same time, itreminds me of like spelunking,
right, spelunking, or cavediving.
There is only two outcomes withthat you make it or you don't.
(32:13):
And it's kind of the same waywith a haunted house right, it's
either going to be haunted orit's not.
And I don't understandspelunking, because the risk in
spelunking is you get down thereand you can't get out, or you
you're starting to head in andyou still get trapped.
And now you're, you're trapped,getting in versus trapped
getting out.
I mean, either way you'retrapped, and the other option is
(32:34):
just life itself.
And so I wonder I'm like whatperson, what sane person, would
put themselves in that scenariowillingly, just like we do with
a haunted house?
It's kind of the same thingthere's going to be something or
there's not right.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, I mean, splunking is one of those things
I would never do.
And there was a movie God, Iforget who was in it, but it was
a guy.
He gets trapped when he kind ofgets stuck.
I think he's got to cut his ownarm off in order to get out.
It was like 16 hours orsomething like that yeah, yeah,
something, something like youknow true story, um, and like
that kind of stuff.
(33:09):
Like when I see that that'senough for me, like I, I will
back off and say no, thank youto that.
Um, you know it's the samething with, like with you know
this, this little island thatI've been talking about, like
you know, if you stand on ourbeach and you look at it, it's
very picturesque.
I mean, you could take a photoof it and it's and it's gorgeous
.
You know you're looking outover the water.
You see this little island offin the distance.
What you can't see, though, is,like there are actually great
(33:29):
whites like in that water.
Um, you know it's, it's,there's an inland right there,
so, like it's, it's warmer, andbecause of that, you know like
all the fish come in there,particularly this type of time
of year, um, and the sharksfollow um, but you don't see any
of that.
You know, like I love the factthat you know you can look at
something.
It's beautiful, but like allthis scary, nasty stuff is
happening.
(33:49):
You know, just right outside ofyour vision.
You know, haunted houses arelike that too, like I think.
You know we don't understandwhat any of this stuff is right.
Like we don't know what.
You know where we go.
You know we talked about whathappens when you die.
Like you know, these areconversations, people, but it
happens since the beginning oftime.
Nobody has a clue.
We don't have that answer.
What I could tell or can tellyou is that people are, you know
(34:10):
, we're made of energy.
You know, to a large extent,you know, and, like, that goes
somewhere.
You know, like I don't thinkanything ever actually goes away
and I, you know, you can talkto anybody, even if they don't
believe in this sort of thing.
I can guarantee at some pointthey have stood someplace where
they have kind of felt thatweird moment.
You know where, like, eitherthey feel like somebody is
watching them, somebody is inthe room with them, something
has happened here.
(34:31):
I don't want to be in this room, I want to get out.
You know these are all thingsthat happen on an instinctual
level.
You know, in what they call ourlizard brain, that we as humans
have told ourselves we'veevolved to not accept anymore.
You know, if you stand in aroom with a cat, you know, like
that cat, if something, anythingweird happens, it will dart out
of the room and be gone in asplit second.
(34:52):
It's not going to stand thereand figure out what it was that
just scared it, you know.
A person, on the other hand, isstupid enough to stand there and
try to figure it all out beforerunning out of that room.
And it's mainly because we havelet go of those, those
instinctual reactions, and Ithink we would be better served
to bring some of them back.
But the fact that you do feelthat kind of thing, I think when
(35:12):
you're standing in some placelike that, you know that's
telling you something there.
There's something going onthere that we're not quite aware
of.
What do you think it is?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
At that particular house.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
it is?
I mean, is it reflected in thebook?
I think a lot of bad thingshave happened there.
If you go to a house where amurder took place, they can pull
up the carpet, they can repaintthe walls, they can make it
look pretty again, but thatblood is still in there.
It's in the drywall.
You know like there's alwayssomething still there.
You know, to me this house isthe same thing.
(35:50):
You know, like this house.
You know like a lot of stuffhas happened on this particular
island.
A lot of stuff has happened inthe house itself.
No matter what you do, youcan't make that go away.
That's you.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You know it lives a lot longer than the rest of us
do so some sort of just bad juju, right, bad energy, just yeah,
yeah it's just yeah, yeah,there's.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
There's something to that, um, and I don't know if
you know it's it's almost likethe the more bad energy you have
, it almost like it feeds youknow, like it the energy craves
more bad energy, or like itcauses more bad things to happen
in that same spot and and doyou think that's something
that's, do you think it can becountered?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
You know, like enough good people or enough good
things happen like that it can.
I don't know break the curse.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
You know, in theory, like if you look at it from a
scientific standpoint, my answerwould be yes, because
everything is you know.
It's almost like a magneticfield.
You know like you can counterit with the you know equal
amount of measure coming back atit in the opposite direction.
Um, that being said, I don'tknow, you know.
Until we actually figure outwhat it is, I don't know what we
can do other than run like thecat, right?
Speaker 1 (36:53):
because that's what we should be doing, or we should
go check it out, or maybe weshould go split up and cover
more ground that way oh man,like a bad episode of scooby-doo
yeah, well, and there's a moviea while back.
It was called nope and I I don't.
I don't, I don't rememberseeing it, but I think I talked
about it recently because I justlike, I was like please tell me
(37:15):
that this is one entire horrormovie where the the guys,
instead of doing the things, theatypical things that people do,
or the typical things theywould do, they they'd be like,
hey, we should go take a look atthis thing, this noise in the
basement.
The guy's just like nope, justleaves.
Or like, hey, we should splitup and we should go cover more
(37:35):
ground.
Nope, and it's just the peopledoing the complete opposite of
what should be done in a horrormovie.
If you ever stand back and youever had these moments in your
life you're like, if I go downthis path right now and this is
just me talking to JD you everhad those moments in your life.
You're like, if I do this, I amprobably in the premise of a
horror movie.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
I think we get detached.
I remember when 9-11 happened,there were people in New York
there was video of peoplestanding in the street filming
the buildings as they werefollowing literally around them.
I think we're so used towatching that kind of thing.
When it actually happens to you, it almost feels as if it's
(38:16):
happening on a television screen.
You're safe because you're justwatching it and people don't
realize that it can actuallykill you.
But we put ourselves in thosekinds of situations too.
I mean, my wife and I, we wentto Costa Rica a few years back.
Um, we wanted to go on a ziplining thing, um, so you know,
we signed up for it through thehotel.
Um, you know, we didn't speakSpanish and hardly anybody there
(38:37):
spoke English.
Uh, but we set it up and, like,the next morning somebody shows
up in a white van with like sixguys.
They load us into this whitevan, they take us down this road
in Costa Rica for like a halfhour, then we turn off the paved
road to a dirt road and drivefor another two hours into the
jungle and then we eventuallyget to a zip line.
But you know, my wife and I arelooking at each other going.
(38:58):
This might've been a baddecision because, like, nobody
knows where we are.
You know, we're literally in aforeign country.
Nobody knows what we're doingthis morning.
If something happens, you knowwe don't know what the outcome
is going to be, and then we getto the zip lining thing and it's
exactly what it's supposed tobe was.
You know zip lines, but youknow you start thinking like if
somebody actually died out here.
You know somebody, you knowthat zip line broke like they're
(39:19):
probably not going to tellanybody.
You know like the whole thingseemed like a horror movie and
and you know like there'sthere's a lot of instances, I
think, in our life.
You know, especially when youlook back on certain decisions
that you make, you know it'sright out of the first 15
minutes of a good scary movie.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
And besides the haunted house that you wrote
this, what sounds like it'sgoing to be an amazing book
about, especially with like allthe publicity and stuff, and
people be able to go see thiscrazy place and be like, hey,
this, this existed, you had noidea.
You know.
That for me is I'm gonna grabit from you because I think
that's gonna that's, that's thatfor me, that girl, that that
kernel of truth is what reallysells a book for me.
If you're like, hey, look, youknow, just like at the beginning
(39:54):
of a movie like based on reallife events, I'm like, okay,
like let me, let me have alittle bit more vested interest
in that versus something thatjust kind of came out of nowhere
.
But have you had any momentsbesides standing in this haunted
house and be like I need toleave this place?
Have you had any of those?
It's like giving you thatfeeling.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
I've had some weird ones, you know.
So, stephen King, when he wrotethe Shining, it's based on a
hotel called the Stanley, whichis out in Estes Park, colorado,
and this is, you know, the funnything is, from a business
standpoint, this hotel had nevermade any money until the shiny
came out.
And now all of a sudden it's avery profitable hotel out there
in the middle of nowhere, but,you know, it's kept a lot of its
original charm and, like whenKing stayed there it was, it was
(40:31):
literally falling apart, likethey were getting ready to
shutter the place and you know,certain parts of the hotel are
still like that, like theypurposely left it that way.
But my, my wife and I went outthere.
It was actually for a writer'sretreat with a couple of other
horror authors.
Josh Mallerman was out there,dallas Mayer, which is Jack
Ketchum he was out there At onepoint.
We were down in the basement atmidnight reading horror stories
(40:53):
to each other, which was a lotof fun.
But the following morning mywife and I were in bed.
We're just talking, it'smorning, we're waiting and
trying to figure out what we'regoing to do with the day and the
bed just started to shake andlike we didn't know why.
It was like just vibrating.
It almost felt like those magicfinger things they used to put
on hotel beds, but like therewasn't any of that.
The bed was just literallyvibrating, um, and neither of us
(41:13):
got scared, we just started.
Like you know, we we talked tothe hotel manager when we went
downstairs.
He's like oh yeah, the bed inthat room does that?
Sometimes no explanation for itUm, other other than it just
(41:37):
sort of happens.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah, here's your key .
We'll tell you about the restlater.
Yeah, yeah, exactly Awesome.
Well, I mean that's.
I mean I'm glad you took thatas you did, because I would not.
I I'm the type of I'm like youknow I might write some spooky
stuff, but if my bed startsshaking in the Stanley hotel,
knowing the history I'm running,I mean period, like it could be
, you know, it could be part ofthe and, hey, you know, might be
(42:01):
something there, you know, justa mess of guests, whatever, I
don't care, I'm running likethat's not I, I would love
nothing more than to like lookinto a corner and actually see a
ghost.
You know, like just getconfirmation that it, you know,
that's just, you know that it'sthere right or it well, and you
could either have confirmationsthere or just have an
existential crisis and you'relike, okay well maybe it's only
(42:22):
there for me, and that's evenworse, I think, than it just
then, you know.
Hey, do you see that?
No, I don't you know like.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
That's the flip side of it, because unless you
document that in about fourdifferent ways, nobody's ever
going to believe you right?
Speaker 1 (42:36):
well, awesome, man.
Well jd like we are right there.
Like it 45 minutes alreadypassed, man, like I didn't
realize how fast it was going.
But, man, the story about this,this tell me again the name of
the novel and tell me again thename of the island, because I
gotta look them both up, um surethe book the book is called
something I keep upstairs comesout in may 13th of this year, so
(42:57):
a couple months from now theisland is called wood island.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
So if you just go on wood wood island, new hampshire,
wood island, kittery, um, Ithink probably just if you type
go on Wood Island, new Hampshire, wood Island, kittery, I think
probably just if you type inWood Island, it'll come up and
you'll get some of that history.
If you're here in Portsmouth, Ithink they've got tours that
actually go out there.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Very cool, Awesome man.
So part of this I know wealready talked about it, but
part of the end of the show isto thank the authors that.
Come on, Give me the shamelessplug when do you want people to
go and what do you think theyshould start with?
Should they start with yournewest release?
Should they start withsomething you've co-written with
somebody?
If you, if you want somebody toknow JD, where do they go and
(43:33):
what do they grab?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
You know, for me as a , as a writer, my favorite book
is always the latest book.
Um, cause, just so yeah, I,right now I would say pre-order
something I keep upstairs.
Um, if you want to grabsomething that's already on the
shelves, I'd probably start withthe fourth monkey.
Um, that's the one that JamesPatterson read and it.
You know, he, he, he liked itenough to call me and asked me
to write a book together, so Iwould probably start there.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Very cool, and where do you want people to go to get
it To?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
get your to find me is JD Barkercom.
The books can be found prettymuch any bookstore.
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Well, jd, it's been an awesome pleasure.
Man, thank you.
Thank you for taking your time,thank you for sharing all this
stuff.
I know some of this, like we aswriters, we we put it on the
page so we don't have to talkabout this kind of stuff, but I
think it really makes us thingsfun and makes us relatable.
So, thank you for sharing.
Oh, thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
Relatable.
(44:25):
So thank you for sharing.
Oh, thanks for having me, Iappreciate it.
Yeah, so, ladies and gentlemen,mr jd barker, um, this is not a
man you guys want to miss,please.
If you have not picked up anyof his books, um, I'm personally
recommending them and I don'tdo that very often, so please go
check out one of jd's books.
Um, this has been anotherepisode of the the nightmare
engine podcast.
Um, thank, thank you all forjoining me.
I don't know what episode thisis, because I might move things
around.
It might be eight, might benine for this season, but until
(44:48):
next week, guys, thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of
the Nightmare Engine podcast.
It is Monday, february 10th.
It is not my usual recordingday, but I've got a very special
guest I'm really happy toannounce today.
We'll get to that in just asecond.
So we're just doing a littlebit of a different recording
session specifically for today,because there are so many cool
(00:21):
things happening in thebackground that we want to talk
to this guest about.
So, as far as my updates go, soI just announced to my private
group that there will be aScareMail ARG launching.
That's an alternate realitygame that's going to take over
your text message, your email,your podcasting, your YouTube.
Everything is going to beinvolved.
There's nothing that's going tobe safe and we're going to turn
(00:42):
your home into a haunted house.
So that is the next step ofScareMail.
Besides that, scaremail 2, theDrift, is launching, I think in
just a few weeks.
So we're going to announce itand open it up for pre-orders
for everybody else.
Besides that, my newest book,roanoke, is coming out probably
in the next few months, and I'llbe hard at work with that.
So that is the short version ofthis intro.
(01:04):
I don't really have much toupdate this week as just a few
days has passed since our lastrecording, so I won't take any
more of your time.
I'm really really happy tointroduce one of the top sellers
in the country and someone thatI know personally and can vouch
for the quality of his work, mrJD Barker.
(01:24):
How are you, sir?
Hey man, how you doing Prettygood.
I appreciate you taking thetime out of your your Monday to
to meet with me and to and tochat and to chat with with the
folks that listen, oh, in anytime.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I'm always up for it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah.
So, um, now I know it'd be kindof a shame you if nobody knew
who you were.
Let's get the skinny, let's getthe intro.
How would you describe yourselfIf you're first walking up to
shake somebody's hand and yousaid, hey, I'm JD, this is what
you need to know.
What would you know?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Oh man.
So usually when I ramble onabout myself, it's about a
20-minute long thing.
So I'm a New York Timesbestseller, started off years
back as a book doctor and aghost writer, so basically
working behind the scenes.
I did that for two decades andkind of honed the craft doing
that.
Indie published my first titlebut ended up selling about a
quarter million copies, whichput me on the radar of the
(02:17):
traditional guys.
I've captured lightning in abottle a bunch of times.
I wrote a prequel to Draculafor Bram Stoker's family.
James Patterson reached out tome and we've done, I think, five
books together.
At this point I'm currentlywriting I don't know if you
remember a movie calledFlatliners from the 90s, but I'm
writing a book to reboot thatfranchise.
So I'm working on all kinds ofcool things right now.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
That's awesome, man, and so the vein you tend to
write in.
So we kind of stick on the onthe darker side of things.
But we also know that linebetween what makes things like
horror or thriller orsupernatural thriller can kind
of blend a little bit.
Most people know me from myhorror and most listeners are
probably here for that.
But that's okay, because Ithink there are a lot of themes
and I think, like I said, Ithink that line blurs a lot.
So where where does the youknow where your majority of your
(03:00):
attention, because yourattention isn't quite a few,
quite a few areas.
Where?
Where does the you know whereyour majority of your attention,
because your attention isn'tquite a few, quite a few areas?
Where?
Where does that stick?
As far as the lightness, thedarkness, that sort of thing,
are you closer towards thethriller side, the horror side?
How would you?
How would you describe that?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So, if you believe Wikipedia, I build myself as a
suspense author, which is nomistake, because it might.
I think the first sentence ishe's a suspense author who may
incorporate elements of horror,elements of sci-fi, elements of
this or of that.
Um, I purposely did that at thebeginning, because I like to
keep my feet in multiple genres.
Um, I almost feel like aliterary pied piper.
You know like, if I feel like Ineed to, you know, grab onto
(03:36):
readers from a particular group.
I'll kind of you know I'llwrite a young adult novel.
I'll write a sci-fi novel, um,but I keep suspense out there as
that common thread and thatkind of keeps everybody coming
back.
Personally, I love horror.
I grew up like horror was my.
The first book I read, as whatI consider to be an adult book,
was Dracula.
So I've been part of the horrorcamp from the get-go.
But now that I'm in thebusiness side of this, I sell
(03:59):
way more thrillers than I dohorror.
It's just.
The market is just that muchbigger.
But I love to do both.
So I tend to go back and forthI write a horror, I write a
thriller, I write a horror, Iwrite a thriller.
And you know again, keep thatcommon suspense theme in between
all of them.
So the readers you know fromfrom the various camps are all
on board.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
That's awesome, yeah, so being able to incorporate
those elements for folks theyget a little bit.
Maybe they dip their toes intoit, right.
So like they, they can kind ofjump in and out of genres and
feel pretty comfortable with it,like, ah, you know, there's a
little bit darker than I like,but hey, we're back into a
thriller where I like to kind ofplant my feet, so that's that's
really nice that you do that.
Not a lot of people are able todo the cross genre stuff.
(04:37):
I listening, if you, if youjump into one of jd's books, um,
be sure to check out the backof it so you kind of know what
you're getting into.
But you know, I'm I'm prettysure and you know you probably
probably let folks know like,hey, you're going to get a
little bit of this and a littlebit of that.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
they, if they look at the description or read the
inside cover and that sort ofthing, right yeah, I mean, I've
never had somebody shy away fromyou know, like if they pick up
a thriller and it's got somehorror elements in there or vice
like they never really shy awayfrom it.
They I don't go too far in anyin one direction.
Um, and I think that's kind ofkey when you, when you do this
sort of thing, because I Inoticed when I, when I write a
straight up thriller, um, youknow people like it, but like,
(05:16):
if I add just a little bit ofhorror to it, all of a sudden
that's something new that theydon't normally see in a thriller
, which causes that word ofmouth, the buzz and the ratings
just to be a little bit higher.
So you know, I try toincorporate just just enough.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Awesome.
Now we slip back and we slip bytwo really really cool fact
what you just threw out there socasually and I want to bring it
back because it's definitely inthe camp that people are
interested in what you said.
You wrote a prequelquel to BramStoker's Dracula.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I did, yeah, so I mentioned it's the first adult
book I ever read.
I picked up a copy when I waseight years old at a yard sale
for 25 cents and that book justreally stuck with me.
My very first book, forsaken,was a horror novel and it was up
for the Bram Stoker Award forBest Debut.
And while I was there, dacreStoker, who is Bram's
great-grandnephew, basicallycornered me and we talked for a
(06:09):
little bit.
He had read my book and he saidthe family had been trying to
find somebody to write a prequelto Dracula for a while, using
Bram's original notes, and askedif it was something I'd be
interested in doing Obviously,something you do not say no to.
I had that history as a bookdoctor and a ghost writer, so
I've kind of dabbled in thatcamp before.
I've worked with other people.
You know a lot.
I collaborate quite a bit.
(06:30):
I've taken over projects fromfrom other people, so you know
jumping into something.
You know that Bram partiallywrote and turned it into a
full-fledged novel.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
That was right in my wheelhouse.
And what was the name of thatprequel?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
We called it Dracul, basically Dracula, without the A
on the end.
If you go through Bram's notes,that's actually what he.
Well, originally the vampirewas called Count Wampir, which
is not very scary.
And then there's a page in hisnotes where he actually crossed
that out.
He wrote Dracul all over it andthen he went back and wrote the
A at the end, so it was kind oflike an afterthought.
It kind of like an afterthought, uh, it kind of reminded me of
(07:08):
a girl in high school writingyour boyfriend's name all over a
note, you know notepad, orsomething like.
He just covered a page with theword dracul and then, you know,
there we could tell he used hewrote the a later because he
used a different pen, like thepenmanship was a little bit
different, um, but in his notesdracul, you know, basically
means devil, um, which is wherewhere all of that stuff came
from that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
so so is that available today?
Like we could go find it if wewanted to.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Oh yeah, that came out in, I think, 2018.
It's been out for a littlewhile now.
They, they wheel it out every,every Halloween.
You'll see it in the windows ofthe bookstores.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I definitely need to pick it up because I had no idea
it existed.
Like Dracula is one of myfavorite books ever and I was
like, oh my gosh.
So like when?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
you told me that it was a fascinating story because
you know, I've loved dracula myentire life and for me dracula
has always started with jonathanharker on the train, um, but in
reality that was actually page102 of the original manuscript.
Um, bram wrote another 100pages before that and a lot of
it was very autobiographical.
He basically explained why hebelieved vampires were real.
Um, he truly believed they were, to the point where he had
(08:03):
himself cremated when he died.
But the book that we, the storythat we told, was basically
that portion of it.
You know why Bram felt vampireswere real.
And the coolest part about thatbook if you do pick it up is
the author's note at the end,because you finish reading this
book, you know it feels likeit's a work of fiction.
It's got some crazy stuff inthere, and then you read the
author's note and realize,realized the craziest parts were
actually true in real life.
Um, and then we point that out.
(08:24):
We've got pictures and thingslike that to back it up.
So it was a wild story.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
That is wild.
And, oh my gosh, I, I'm already, I'm already like I got chills
because I, I, once you live oneof your best stories right.
Once you, once you read one ofyour favorite ones, you're like,
oh man, I wish I could go backand read that again, right?
And so, like, on occasion,there's that, that option where
there's like a prequel comes outor maybe a sequel, and you just
hope to god, like the sequel,please, like, do the, do the do
(08:49):
the original some justice, right, you know, hope, please, please
, don't be bad, um, that sort ofthing.
So, yeah, I would.
Um, I, I'm excited, I'm gonnago back and look at it.
And then, um, I am familiarwith flatliners, so once again,
we'll go back a little bit inthe beginning, because you're
just dropping bombs on me righthere.
So, flatliners, I'm familiarwith it Again, just like the
(09:13):
prequel for Dracula.
A lot of folks may not befamiliar with it.
So let's talk about Flatlinersand then let's talk about what
that revitalization might looklike.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, so Flatliners, it's this movie.
I think it was 1990 when itcame out.
It's got a crazy cast in it.
It had a Kiefer Sutherland,Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon,
Billy Baldwin, Oliver Platt likeall these people that we know
today as household names,basically at the start of their
career.
And it's about a bunch of medstudents who decide to basically
kill each other to see ifthere's life after death.
(09:39):
So they kill each other, thenthey bring themselves back one
after the other and end upbringing something else back
with them at one point.
It's a great story.
It's a really cool premise and,honestly, it still holds up
today.
I've seen it more times in thelast couple of months than I can
count, but the guy who wrote ithis name is Peter Filardi.
He's actually on one of myother projects.
(10:00):
He was working on Dracul for awhile and I you know we had
talked about this a while back.
I told him I had an idea toreboot the franchise, to get it
going again, and unfortunatelythe studio still had the rights.
So I didn't think it was goingto go anywhere.
And then I got a phone callfrom him about a year ago and
he's like hey, I just got therights back from Columbia if you
still want to do this.
So what we're doing is basicallywriting a novel to take the
(10:22):
entire franchise, the story idea, in a totally different
direction than where people havegone with it in the past.
Book is coming out first, withthe hopes of a movie to follow.
We've had a ton of interestfrom the film side, so I'm
pretty sure that that's going tohappen.
But we're kind of going aboutthis backwards.
I mean, typically withsomething like this, you know
the movie would come out andthey just write a tie-in novel
for that that movie.
(10:43):
So we're going the other wayaround, with the book first yeah
, I mean even the premise.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Like that premise, if there, if it hasn't had its
justice, you know, there'salways an opportunity to do
something, something new with apremise, you know, like that's
um, there's a movie that cameout recently I I can't remember
the actress's name, but, um, shewas on house.
She was pretty famous for thatseries, but um, the it was
called the lazarus project.
Um, I don't know if you've seena great movie.
(11:08):
I love that movie.
It's an amazing movie.
I mean goes from, like science,pseudoscience, to this weird,
like just I mean satanist type,demon, demonology type.
I mean it just goes off therails.
But it's kind of the same idea,right, cheating death, I mean
that's's it.
They're just trying to cheatdeath, um, and then somebody
makes a horrible, horribledecision, and that's always how
(11:29):
these things seem to go down.
But are there any?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
what scares me about.
I mean it's a great movie, um,a lot of people haven't seen it.
I don't.
I didn't.
All the time in labs anduniversities, you know,
literally just you knowscientists, med students just
trying things and you don't hearabout it.
And I think that's the partthat's scary, like the fact that
(11:54):
it is believable it couldactually happen.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, and I mean it's , and I guess it's all it's kind
of relative to like what doesit mean to actually die?
Like I'm?
I'm a, I'm a cop and I've donecpr on quite a few people and
people then have, you know, beengone for minutes and we're able
to continue cpr until we canget them to the ambulance.
The ambulance hits them withmedication and and, um and uh,
(12:19):
the, the defibrillator, and thencontinue, and then eventually
they come back and you're likewhere have have they?
Have they been gone?
Like you know, the it's, it'sreally kind of relative.
You're like where did they goif they went somewhere?
You know, so it's such a such acool, cool premise, um and uh,
anyways, I, I'm a big fan.
(12:40):
I'm gonna kind of pivot a littlebit because I'm a big fan of
space stuff.
And this kind of pivot a littlebit because I'm a big fan of
space stuff and this is justkind of random because I'm
talking about interesting thingsthat I like seeing in the news
and seeing the stories, and Iwas watching a guy and I don't
know if it's true or not, andthis is along the same veins of
like kind of what you knowversus what you think you know,
(13:01):
and this is about black holes,and I talk about these all the
time because it's crazy to thinkabout it, just conceptually,
about how small we really are.
But with a black hole, we usedto think that it would, just
things would go in and it wasimpossible for anything to come
out, right, because of theamount of sure force that's
there.
That's there.
(13:26):
Um, I was watching a video andthis guy was describing that
scientists had discovered thatthere was a black hole sucking
in a planet or a star andsometime later it starts
spitting the star back out andyou're like what?
How is that even possible?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
right, and so go ahead it just makes me think
that there's so much like thatwe just don't know.
You know like I'm smart enoughto know there's a lot that I
don't know.
Yes, um, and you know like I,when you see something like that
, I mean it's, it's, it'sfascinating.
But you know like there's newthings like that popping up all
the time.
I just saw, um some video theother day from mars on that elon
(14:02):
musk had put out and theyactually found square structures
on the planet surface.
You know, like literal squares.
It looks like the foundation fora building, you know, from a
very, very long time ago.
You know it couldn't be anaccident.
You know like when you see itand you know there's theories.
You know like the sun is slowlyshrinking, like there could
have been life on Mars at onepoint and then it became
(14:22):
inhabitable and that life mayhave ended up over here.
You know, in a few billionyears it might move from here to
the next planet and the nextplanet.
But like that kind of stuffreally backs it up.
And I saw a story this morning.
It looks like he's going toactually fund the mission to
Mars all on his own.
He's going to get a profit fromStarlink, you know.
So this, this guy is, you knowhe's, he's, he's like a real
life tony stark.
(14:42):
But like he finds us out thereand like he just decides, okay,
we're going, and he's paying forit.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
I've always heard that mother nature doesn't
create in straight lines, right,I mean, that's no, and this is
when you see the pictures of it.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I mean they are perfectly clear in like 4k or 8k
or something crazy, and itlooks like the foundation for a
building.
Um, yeah, it's about the samesize I think they said is the
great pyramid.
So it's not, you know, notsmall oh my gosh, all right.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
So once again, something else I gotta look up.
This is nuts, but and thereason I bring up something so,
so colossal, like this right, isbecause we as writers take
these, just these ideas and wetry to condense them down right
and force characters to eitherdeal with realizations or deal
with the thing.
(15:25):
Dracula is the same way, right,I mean dealing with the monster
.
That's kind of where, you know,that's kind of where we as
humans connect best, I think,with the characters and stories,
because the only way we canreally do it is as humans.
You know, we there's alwaysthat power, that that you know.
When you, especially when you golike fantasy and sci-fi, like,
(15:50):
okay, well, now the human hasthis capability or this
technology and they can solvethe problems that way, um, but
most of the time they're justdealing with the issues and and
you know, you and I we writedarker themed stuff and where
our characters are normally atthe pits, right, I mean, that's
pretty consistent across theboard you throw a character into
a really really deep, dark pitand then they've got to kind of
claw their way out and theydiscover things along the way,
um, and I think that makes itmakes it fun.
(16:12):
I mean, I mean it makes ithumanizing.
I I mean, do you agree, or isit, or am I?
Am I just kind of breaking thisdown a little too much?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
no, I mean, that's that.
I mean for me, like you know,there's two camps when it comes
to writing.
I don't want to get into theweeds too much.
You've got your your panthersand you've got your outliners
For me, when I write a horrornovel, I need to be a panther,
which basically means I createmy plot, my scenario, I create
my characters and then I dropthese people into the mix of
some you know crazy thing.
That's just sort of happeningand for horror, to me it works
(16:43):
that way.
I can't outline a horror novelbecause as the author, I don't
want to know where it's going.
I want my characters to kind oftell me, and I think that's
where that kind of thing comesfrom.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, it's fun, right , I mean.
To discover it along with themis kind of how it is right we're
on this adventure.
All we're doing is playing itin our heads and putting it down
on paper for other people,right?
I mean that's.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, yeah, that's.
That's all it is.
I mean, it's almost like I'mwatching a movie in my head and
I'm writing it down as fast as Ican.
One of the things that reallyjumped out at me with with
Dracula when I was working onthat.
Bram, you know like, he startedDracula when he was 43.
We found notes dating all theway back to when he this
literally his entire life and abig section of his notes.
(17:23):
He had documented vampires, allyou know, through different
cultures all around the world,and he found that they existed
virtually in every culturearound the world.
And you know they existed longbefore we all started hopping
into boats and sailing andtalking to each other, which
makes you wonder, you know, likewhat is that based on?
You know there's got to be sometype of element of truth, you
know, as a kernel behind all ofthat, and that's, you know.
(17:46):
To me that's the scary part andbecause now, all of a sudden,
you're taking something.
You know it's not a, you knowan anirisist, you know vampires,
it's not a sparkly vampire fromTwilight.
This is something that you knowmost likely existed in some
form or another all around theworld and people just, you know
they talk about it, but it'sjust, it may not be here anymore
, or maybe it is.
You know, who knows?
Speaker 1 (18:06):
yeah, I mean I I had um jonathan mayberry on the on
the show and jonathan was reallybig into other cultures and
exploring those to find theirmonsters right, and I can't
remember what country he said itwas from.
He was like, hey, look he.
He wrote about vampires andwhen he created this basically a
monster book talk about thedifferent cultures and vampires
(18:26):
and I I think it had othermonsters, but I think it
might've just been vampiresacross different cultures.
But in in this culture and thisis a particularly cool one if
you get a chance to look it upI'll see if I can find the title
somewhere but basically thevampire, it would infect
somebody and then its head andspine would detach from the body
and float around at night andthen would reattach itself to
(18:48):
the body.
That was the vampire in thatculture and I was like, oh my
gosh, I'm like what a, what ahorrifying monster and like we,
we, we've downplayed it tosparkly vampires and ultra super
wealthy vampires and when othercultures, like you describe
(19:11):
their grain of truth could be somuch more terrifying than we
could even imagine could be somuch more terrifying than we
could even imagine.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, I think horror authors spend a lot of time
going through other cultureslooking for that one unique
thing that we haven't heard ofyet in the US in order to be
able to write that book andbring it out.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, and I mean I wrote about this thing the other
day and a lot of times.
For me, inspiration is verysimple.
It's just like I need somethingcool, I need something
terrifying, what's something Ihaven't seen before that I think
other people would just eat up.
And one of the things I lookedup was the leshy.
Have you heard of a leshy?
No, I don't think I have.
Yeah, it's um, I'm not surewhere the folklore comes from,
(19:50):
but it it essentially is a likea godlike trickster of the woods
, and as somebody who's anabsolute diehard fan of Adam
Neville and anything that has todo with the woods, with weird
rituals, with cultists, blairWitch, that sort of thing this
was right up my alley.
(20:11):
And so the Leshy is thistrickster god that, depending on
what's happening with you, it'seither going to lead you astray
in circles forever I mean, justlet you just keep roaming and
just messing with you constantlyuntil you basically lost your
mind Um or if you're, like,really grateful and you show
(20:32):
that, uh, an appreciation forthe forest, or you show an
appreciation for the God, thatan appreciation for the forest,
or you show an appreciation forthe god it will actually help
you.
It'll deliver things to youthat you need, or help you and
guide you and get out, and I'mlike what's worse than a monster
with a conscience like you knowwhat, though?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I mean I bet you'd probably, you know, if you
pulled a bram and you startresearching that you'd probably
find that same monster inmultiple cultures described just
a little bit different.
I mean, that's almost a gin,right, or almost a genie.
Um, you know, it's it.
And again, from my standpoint,I started looking at that like
what is the actual basis, likewhat is the origin of these
different things, becausesomebody didn't just, you know,
sit down one day and make thatup yeah, do you have any?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
do you have any kernels like yourself I'm use
your term Do you have anykernels that you made up
yourself, that you're like ohman, this is unique and nobody
else has thought about this, orif they had, it's really buried
deep.
You know something that wasjust.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I don't know just thought about this and I spent a
lot of time researching otherauthors.
You know, like stephen king inparticular, trying to figure out
how he got from.
You know he literally wrotecarrie sitting between a washer
and dryer.
You know, in a mobile home andyou know to where he is today.
Um, and if you go back and youbreak down his books, you know,
like his very first one, carrieit was about telekinesis.
(21:48):
The second one was salem's lot.
It's about vampires.
The third one was the shining.
It's a haunted house story.
You know, like he didn'treinvent the wheel, he went back
and looked at the tropes thathave been used over and over and
over again and just told thatsame story, but did it
differently or did it better.
Um, so I think you know I don'tknow that there are any new
monsters at this point.
I think there's just uniqueways to talk about the monsters
(22:10):
that we all know about man, whata just wisdom.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
And bombs.
For me, man, just new ways totalk about the monsters we all
know.
Wow, um, so what?
What would be one of the morerecent monsters that you were
like hey, this needs arevitalization, right?
Um, flatliners, great example,but like what's one of the
newest monsters you're like weneed?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
more.
I've got a book coming out inmay.
It's called something I keepupstairs, um, and it's one I've
been working on, for it took meabout four years to write.
Now I can write a book in aboutthree months, you know if I sit
down and start to finish, um,but this one, honestly, just
kept scaring the bejesus out ofme and I had to put it aside and
kind of come back to it later.
Um, and I think a lot of thatis because it's actually based
(22:54):
on reality.
I live on a little island offthe coast of Portsmouth in New
England.
I go for a run every day.
It's about four, I think, it's4.2 miles to do a lap around the
island and at one point Icrossed the beach.
And if you're standing out onour beach and you look out over
the water, about a quarter mileout there's another little
island.
It's only about an acre, it'sreal tiny.
There's only one house on it.
It's a white house with a redroof, so you can see it from the
(23:17):
shore.
You can't really tell what'sgoing on out there because it's
just far enough away.
But like that fascinated mefrom the very first moment I saw
it.
You know, like the what if?
Gene within me kind of went off, like what is this is going on?
What if that's going on?
I got to know the people, who,who owned it.
It used to be a lifeguard, uh,or a coast guard life-saving
station.
Um, that fell into completedisrepair and a company took it
(23:39):
over and they're turning it intoa museum.
So the guy who was in charge ofthat, he's like hey, if you
want to go out there, I'll takeyou out there.
So I hopped in his boat one day.
We motored out to this, thisisland, and I'm standing in the
middle of this house and like II don't necessarily believe in
ghosts or the paranormal, butbut I felt something very weird
like in that house, like to thepoint where I just did not want
to be in that house anymore.
(24:00):
Um, and then even going out onthe beach, like the whole Island
kind of gave off that, thatvibe that I just wanted to get
out of there.
Um, and I started researchingthe Island itself and then I
realized that long before thecoast guard put that house up
there, it had been used as aquarantine zone for the yellow
fever.
Um, it was a prison during theSpanish American war.
Um, they used to take, likewhen they captured a boat during
(24:21):
the Spanish American war, theywould make them dock out there.
Uh, they wouldn't let anybodyleave the boat.
Um, you know, and whattypically would end up happening
is they would run out of foodor illness would spread or
whatever, but they would waitfor literally everybody on that
boat to die and then they wouldjust take the boat because they
wanted the boat.
Water is surrounded by sharks.
That's how they got rid of thebodies.
All kinds of dark, scary stuffbasically happened on this
(24:44):
picturesque little house ifyou're looking at it from the
beach.
And I ended up incorporatingall of these things into the
book.
The tagline for the book is fora haunted house to be born,
somebody has to die.
So you know, kind of you know,you know your premise going in
cause.
I knew I wanted to write ahaunted house story, but I
didn't want to do the typicalhaunted house.
I wanted to do something thathad never been done before.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Well, I mean, and what's worse is, exactly as you
said earlier, is that this, this, there?
There is so much truth in thisthat's horrifying when you
really think about it and you'relike, oh my gosh, we did that.
I mean, it makes sense that youwould not feel good going to
that place, right, like to just,I mean, I don't want to say I
believe in ghosts, I don't know,but I haven't, like completely
(25:29):
dissuaded myself from theirexistence.
You know, like there's a lot ofthings that I believe that some
people would be like, oh comeon, you know, but in truth that
happened there.
I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I love mixing truth with with fiction.
Um, so in in the story a 17year old kid he, his, his
grandmother actually owns thehouse in my book.
She passes away and she leavesit to him.
So the 17 year old kidbasically inherits a house on
its own private Island.
Um, and you know, he doesexactly what you would expect
him to do.
He turns it into a party housewith him and his friends.
So they go out there, you know,and they have, you know, they
(26:05):
have fun for a little while.
But then eventually somebodylands on the idea well, you know
, what would it take to makethis a haunted house?
And they don't know the house'shistory.
You know, to them it's just anormal house sitting on an
island.
So then you come back to thetagline for a haunted house to
be born, somebody has to die.
But you know the fact that it'sa real house, you know, like a
real place, like if you're herein Portsmouth, everybody knows
(26:29):
like everybody's got a storyabout this particular house, you
know, and all of that kind offuels the fire.
We're actually doing a funcontest with it too.
We're actually going to draw aname on publication date for one
person and allow them and threeof their friends to spend the
night in the house, which shouldbe interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Oh, wow, you know, and and that that type of stuff,
that that interaction itreminds me of.
Do you remember the old dayswhen the first Blair Witch came
out.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
You know, just yeah, I mean that, that, and that's
why it got you right, Becauseyou know it was the shaky cam
footage like, up until thatpoint, all we had ever seen was,
you know, highly processed,highly edited.
You know lighting is perfect,audio is perfect, this and that.
All of a sudden you've got this.
You know crappy camera footage,um, and you know that made it
seem extremely real.
Um, the funny thing is, intoday's world I think we see
(27:14):
more of that type of footage, um, than we do the process stuff.
You know, if you watch the newslike, you don't get shocked by
it anymore.
We're used to seeing people'scamera footage from their phones
, uh, pop it up on the screen.
So I like it wouldn't work intoday's world, but it, you know
it was the timing of that wasperfect.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Well, it looks like you're about to bring it.
Make it real for somebody youknow, I mean we're.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
We're trying something different, like I love
doing, you know, somethingpromotional for for every book.
Um, for me, like, the one thingthat sells more books than
anything is word of mouth.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Um, and with something like this, I mean, a
lot of people are talking aboutthe contest yeah, I mean, and
and what I like about all thistoo, especially as a writer, you
have.
We have to imagine thatsomebody who's picking up what
we're reading or what we'rewriting is going to have to
dissuade themselves of realityto enter into the story that
(28:04):
we've created.
And that's what makes horrorhorror and that's what makes
thrillers thrillers is becauseyou try to adapt those feelings
that the characters are goingthrough, because it's so
relational.
You know, like, um, I went to a, I went to a haunted house and
one of the most, one of the most, um, I guess, realistic parts
of it was the fact that I hadeverybody standing in a room
(28:25):
together and then say thiswarning on the wall that
everybody had to read.
That's basically like theyclaimed it was their liability
waiver.
If you say it aloud, it's onrecording.
Here's the video.
And what I think it did is itput everybody in the mood.
It puts you into the mood andyou're like, hey, I'm going to
break this barrier between meand the supernatural down just a
(28:47):
little bit enough to say youknow what?
I'm all, I'm okay, I'll say thewords that I'm okay with what
comes next, you know, and, um,and I think that's what makes I
think that's what makes horrorstories so interesting for us is
because we we all feel fear I.
It makes us, it's part of whatmakes us human.
But we don't want to feel fearall the time.
(29:09):
But we'll jump into it for ahorror story and be okay with it
in the short term.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Well, the real difference there is you were
standing in a haunted house.
You were standing in a business, right, you were, you know.
So you know, like, on somelevel it's like going on a
roller coaster.
A roller coaster may be scary,but you know you're going to
walk away from that rollercoaster, you know you step into
that haunted house, you know, inthe end I just paid admission
to come in here.
I'm going to come out of it atsome point.
I'm going to laugh about itwith my friends, even if there's
(29:41):
a couple standing here.
You basically go out.
You can only get there by boat,you know.
So you have to hop in a boat.
You have to go out to thisisland and literally stand in a
house that's haunted.
Like who?
I don't know that I would do it.
I don't know that I would spendthe night out there, you know,
for 24 hours and someplace likethat.
We've got a bunch of paranormalinvestigators that are coming
out that that want just, youknow, check out the island.
(30:02):
They want to do their thing.
Um, so we're gonna let thathappen too.
But like it's the idea, I think, of you know, staying there
overnight, like that that'sfrightening because, like you
don't know what you're going toencounter, but what you, what
you do know is like, whateveryou do run into it's, it's not
manufactured.
You know, like this, whateverhappens out there is real um
right, I think that's you knowwith the book.
I think that it works in a lotof ways because you finish
(30:23):
reading this book and very muchlike what you're cool, you know
the parts that you think arefiction.
You get to the author's noteand you realize wait a minute,
that happened, that happened,that really happened.
You know you can jump on Google, you can go down that rabbit
hole and research some of thesethings, but you know it's all
based on fact and even in thosemoments it's real enough to the
person there, right?
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I mean, if they believe it.
That level of reality is enoughsometimes to spook people.
You know, yeah, the.
Okay, I want to bring thisincident up.
I want to know your thoughts onit.
I don't know if you're familiarwith it and mainly and mainly
(31:04):
because it's well, we'll talkabout a different one, because
it was because it was mentionedearlier and we kind of talked
about it.
Um, if you're going to ahaunted house, you have a.
You're going in with a level ofexpectation you're like, okay,
I might encounter something like.
That's the point.
A lot of, a lot of the times,these investigators, they'll go
(31:25):
in and they're like I'm gonnafind nothing because their
entire job is to debunk whatever.
If that's the angle they'rechoosing.
You know, kind of fortelevision.
You know, if you, if you're the, if you ever seen that movie um
?
God, I don't think it was, Idon't think it was.
Like the zach baggins make funof movie um, but basically, they
, they, they go in to prove thata haunted house is not real.
At the same time, prove it'sreal, I mean.
(31:46):
So it's a different angle.
They go in to find a hauntedhouse and they don't.
They don't think it's haunted,but it really is, etc.
So, um, the idea that you'relike you're going into a
situation knowing that somethingcould go wrong or nothing will
go wrong at the same time, itreminds me of like spelunking,
right, spelunking, or cavediving.
There is only two outcomes withthat you make it or you don't.
(32:13):
And it's kind of the same waywith a haunted house right, it's
either going to be haunted orit's not.
And I don't understandspelunking, because the risk in
spelunking is you get down thereand you can't get out, or you
you're starting to head in andyou still get trapped.
And now you're, you're trapped,getting in versus trapped
getting out.
I mean, either way you'retrapped, and the other option is
(32:34):
just life itself.
And so I wonder I'm like whatperson, what sane person, would
put themselves in that scenariowillingly, just like we do with
a haunted house?
It's kind of the same thingthere's going to be something or
there's not right.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, I mean, splunking is one of those things
I would never do.
And there was a movie God, Iforget who was in it, but it was
a guy.
He gets trapped when he kind ofgets stuck.
I think he's got to cut his ownarm off in order to get out.
It was like 16 hours orsomething like that yeah, yeah,
something, something like youknow true story, um, and like
that kind of stuff.
(33:09):
Like when I see that that'senough for me, like I, I will
back off and say no, thank youto that.
Um, you know it's the samething with, like with you know
this, this little island thatI've been talking about, like
you know, if you stand on ourbeach and you look at it, it's
very picturesque.
I mean, you could take a photoof it and it's and it's gorgeous
.
You know you're looking outover the water.
You see this little island offin the distance.
What you can't see, though, is,like there are actually great
(33:29):
whites like in that water.
Um, you know it's, it's,there's an inland right there,
so, like it's, it's warmer, andbecause of that, you know like
all the fish come in there,particularly this type of time
of year, um, and the sharksfollow um, but you don't see any
of that.
You know, like I love the factthat you know you can look at
something.
It's beautiful, but like allthis scary, nasty stuff is
happening.
(33:49):
You know, just right outside ofyour vision.
You know, haunted houses arelike that too, like I think.
You know we don't understandwhat any of this stuff is right.
Like we don't know what.
You know where we go.
You know we talked about whathappens when you die.
Like you know, these areconversations, people, but it
happens since the beginning oftime.
Nobody has a clue.
We don't have that answer.
What I could tell or can tellyou is that people are, you know
(34:10):
, we're made of energy.
You know, to a large extent,you know, and, like, that goes
somewhere.
You know, like I don't thinkanything ever actually goes away
and I, you know, you can talkto anybody, even if they don't
believe in this sort of thing.
I can guarantee at some pointthey have stood someplace where
they have kind of felt thatweird moment.
You know where, like, eitherthey feel like somebody is
watching them, somebody is inthe room with them, something
has happened here.
(34:31):
I don't want to be in this room, I want to get out.
You know these are all thingsthat happen on an instinctual
level.
You know, in what they call ourlizard brain, that we as humans
have told ourselves we'veevolved to not accept anymore.
You know, if you stand in aroom with a cat, you know, like
that cat, if something, anythingweird happens, it will dart out
of the room and be gone in asplit second.
(34:52):
It's not going to stand thereand figure out what it was that
just scared it, you know.
A person, on the other hand, isstupid enough to stand there and
try to figure it all out beforerunning out of that room.
And it's mainly because we havelet go of those, those
instinctual reactions, and Ithink we would be better served
to bring some of them back.
But the fact that you do feelthat kind of thing, I think when
(35:12):
you're standing in some placelike that, you know that's
telling you something there.
There's something going onthere that we're not quite aware
of.
What do you think it is?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
At that particular house.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
it is?
I mean, is it reflected in thebook?
I think a lot of bad thingshave happened there.
If you go to a house where amurder took place, they can pull
up the carpet, they can repaintthe walls, they can make it
look pretty again, but thatblood is still in there.
It's in the drywall.
You know like there's alwayssomething still there.
You know, to me this house isthe same thing.
(35:50):
You know, like this house.
You know like a lot of stuffhas happened on this particular
island.
A lot of stuff has happened inthe house itself.
No matter what you do, youcan't make that go away.
That's you.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You know it lives a lot longer than the rest of us
do so some sort of just bad juju, right, bad energy, just yeah,
yeah it's just yeah, yeah,there's.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
There's something to that, um, and I don't know if
you know it's it's almost likethe the more bad energy you have
, it almost like it feeds youknow, like it the energy craves
more bad energy, or like itcauses more bad things to happen
in that same spot and and doyou think that's something
that's, do you think it can becountered?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
You know, like enough good people or enough good
things happen like that it can.
I don't know break the curse.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
You know, in theory, like if you look at it from a
scientific standpoint, my answerwould be yes, because
everything is you know.
It's almost like a magneticfield.
You know like you can counterit with the you know equal
amount of measure coming back atit in the opposite direction.
Um, that being said, I don'tknow, you know.
Until we actually figure outwhat it is, I don't know what we
can do other than run like thecat, right?
Speaker 1 (36:53):
because that's what we should be doing, or we should
go check it out, or maybe weshould go split up and cover
more ground that way oh man,like a bad episode of scooby-doo
yeah, well, and there's a moviea while back.
It was called nope and I I don't.
I don't, I don't rememberseeing it, but I think I talked
about it recently because I justlike, I was like please tell me
(37:15):
that this is one entire horrormovie where the the guys,
instead of doing the things, theatypical things that people do,
or the typical things theywould do, they they'd be like,
hey, we should go take a look atthis thing, this noise in the
basement.
The guy's just like nope, justleaves.
Or like, hey, we should splitup and we should go cover more
(37:35):
ground.
Nope, and it's just the peopledoing the complete opposite of
what should be done in a horrormovie.
If you ever stand back and youever had these moments in your
life you're like, if I go downthis path right now and this is
just me talking to JD you everhad those moments in your life.
You're like, if I do this, I amprobably in the premise of a
horror movie.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
I think we get detached.
I remember when 9-11 happened,there were people in New York
there was video of peoplestanding in the street filming
the buildings as they werefollowing literally around them.
I think we're so used towatching that kind of thing.
When it actually happens to you, it almost feels as if it's
(38:16):
happening on a television screen.
You're safe because you're justwatching it and people don't
realize that it can actuallykill you.
But we put ourselves in thosekinds of situations too.
I mean, my wife and I, we wentto Costa Rica a few years back.
Um, we wanted to go on a ziplining thing, um, so you know,
we signed up for it through thehotel.
Um, you know, we didn't speakSpanish and hardly anybody there
(38:37):
spoke English.
Uh, but we set it up and, like,the next morning somebody shows
up in a white van with like sixguys.
They load us into this whitevan, they take us down this road
in Costa Rica for like a halfhour, then we turn off the paved
road to a dirt road and drivefor another two hours into the
jungle and then we eventuallyget to a zip line.
But you know, my wife and I arelooking at each other going.
(38:58):
This might've been a baddecision because, like, nobody
knows where we are.
You know, we're literally in aforeign country.
Nobody knows what we're doingthis morning.
If something happens, you knowwe don't know what the outcome
is going to be, and then we getto the zip lining thing and it's
exactly what it's supposed tobe was.
You know zip lines, but youknow you start thinking like if
somebody actually died out here.
You know somebody, you knowthat zip line broke like they're
(39:19):
probably not going to tellanybody.
You know like the whole thingseemed like a horror movie and
and you know like there'sthere's a lot of instances, I
think, in our life.
You know, especially when youlook back on certain decisions
that you make, you know it'sright out of the first 15
minutes of a good scary movie.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
And besides the haunted house that you wrote
this, what sounds like it'sgoing to be an amazing book
about, especially with like allthe publicity and stuff, and
people be able to go see thiscrazy place and be like, hey,
this, this existed, you had noidea.
You know.
That for me is I'm gonna grabit from you because I think
that's gonna that's, that's thatfor me, that girl, that that
kernel of truth is what reallysells a book for me.
If you're like, hey, look, youknow, just like at the beginning
(39:54):
of a movie like based on reallife events, I'm like, okay,
like let me, let me have alittle bit more vested interest
in that versus something thatjust kind of came out of nowhere
.
But have you had any momentsbesides standing in this haunted
house and be like I need toleave this place?
Have you had any of those?
It's like giving you thatfeeling.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
I've had some weird ones, you know.
So, stephen King, when he wrotethe Shining, it's based on a
hotel called the Stanley, whichis out in Estes Park, colorado,
and this is, you know, the funnything is, from a business
standpoint, this hotel had nevermade any money until the shiny
came out.
And now all of a sudden it's avery profitable hotel out there
in the middle of nowhere, but,you know, it's kept a lot of its
original charm and, like whenKing stayed there it was, it was
(40:31):
literally falling apart, likethey were getting ready to
shutter the place and you know,certain parts of the hotel are
still like that, like theypurposely left it that way.
But my, my wife and I went outthere.
It was actually for a writer'sretreat with a couple of other
horror authors.
Josh Mallerman was out there,dallas Mayer, which is Jack
Ketchum he was out there At onepoint.
We were down in the basement atmidnight reading horror stories
(40:53):
to each other, which was a lotof fun.
But the following morning mywife and I were in bed.
We're just talking, it'smorning, we're waiting and
trying to figure out what we'regoing to do with the day and the
bed just started to shake andlike we didn't know why.
It was like just vibrating.
It almost felt like those magicfinger things they used to put
on hotel beds, but like therewasn't any of that.
The bed was just literallyvibrating, um, and neither of us
(41:13):
got scared, we just started.
Like you know, we we talked tothe hotel manager when we went
downstairs.
He's like oh yeah, the bed inthat room does that?
Sometimes no explanation for itUm, other other than it just
(41:37):
sort of happens.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah, here's your key .
We'll tell you about the restlater.
Yeah, yeah, exactly Awesome.
Well, I mean that's.
I mean I'm glad you took thatas you did, because I would not.
I I'm the type of I'm like youknow I might write some spooky
stuff, but if my bed startsshaking in the Stanley hotel,
knowing the history I'm running,I mean period, like it could be
, you know, it could be part ofthe and, hey, you know, might be
(42:01):
something there, you know, justa mess of guests, whatever, I
don't care, I'm running likethat's not I, I would love
nothing more than to like lookinto a corner and actually see a
ghost.
You know, like just getconfirmation that it, you know,
that's just, you know that it'sthere right or it well, and you
could either have confirmationsthere or just have an
existential crisis and you'relike, okay well maybe it's only
(42:22):
there for me, and that's evenworse, I think, than it just
then, you know.
Hey, do you see that?
No, I don't you know like.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
That's the flip side of it, because unless you
document that in about fourdifferent ways, nobody's ever
going to believe you right?
Speaker 1 (42:36):
well, awesome, man.
Well jd like we are right there.
Like it 45 minutes alreadypassed, man, like I didn't
realize how fast it was going.
But, man, the story about this,this tell me again the name of
the novel and tell me again thename of the island, because I
gotta look them both up, um surethe book the book is called
something I keep upstairs comesout in may 13th of this year, so
(42:57):
a couple months from now theisland is called wood island.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
So if you just go on wood wood island, new hampshire,
wood island, kittery, um, Ithink probably just if you type
go on Wood Island, new Hampshire, wood Island, kittery, I think
probably just if you type inWood Island, it'll come up and
you'll get some of that history.
If you're here in Portsmouth, Ithink they've got tours that
actually go out there.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Very cool, Awesome man.
So part of this I know wealready talked about it, but
part of the end of the show isto thank the authors that.
Come on, Give me the shamelessplug when do you want people to
go and what do you think theyshould start with?
Should they start with yournewest release?
Should they start withsomething you've co-written with
somebody?
If you, if you want somebody toknow JD, where do they go and
(43:33):
what do they grab?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
You know, for me as a , as a writer, my favorite book
is always the latest book.
Um, cause, just so yeah, I,right now I would say pre-order
something I keep upstairs.
Um, if you want to grabsomething that's already on the
shelves, I'd probably start withthe fourth monkey.
Um, that's the one that JamesPatterson read and it.
You know, he, he, he liked itenough to call me and asked me
to write a book together, so Iwould probably start there.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Very cool, and where do you want people to go to get
it To?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
get your to find me is JD Barkercom.
The books can be found prettymuch any bookstore.
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Well, jd, it's been an awesome pleasure.
Man, thank you.
Thank you for taking your time,thank you for sharing all this
stuff.
I know some of this, like we aswriters, we we put it on the
page so we don't have to talkabout this kind of stuff, but I
think it really makes us thingsfun and makes us relatable.
So, thank you for sharing.
Oh, thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
Relatable.
(44:25):
So thank you for sharing.
Oh, thanks for having me, Iappreciate it.
Yeah, so, ladies and gentlemen,mr jd barker, um, this is not a
man you guys want to miss,please.
If you have not picked up anyof his books, um, I'm personally
recommending them and I don'tdo that very often, so please go
check out one of jd's books.
Um, this has been anotherepisode of the the nightmare
engine podcast.
Um, thank, thank you all forjoining me.
I don't know what episode thisis, because I might move things
around.
It might be eight, might benine for this season, but until
(44:48):
next week, guys, thank you.
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