November 7, 2023 • 51 mins
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🎙️About the Episode
Strap yourself in as co-host Jay Bower and I take a wild ride through our latest projects and writing processes in a thrill-packed episode that's sure to send shivers down your spine. How did Jay manage to become a TikTok sensation overnight with his unique vampire-zombie horror novel, 'Dead Blood,' and what can we expect from his new historical horror piece? Tune in to find out!
In a deep-dive into our creative worlds, we peel back the curtains on our upcoming novellas and the intricate process of collaborative writing. Get a sneak-peek into our co-written novella set featuring the ghastly Conservator of Horror, and listen in as we unravel the web of three interconnected stories, future plans of the series, and our experiences of joining forces with other authors.
In a spine-chilling finale, we crack open the coffin of Jay's haunted house project, exposing the painstaking details of choosing a time period and the daunting challenge of stepping out of his comfort zone. Plus, we're dishing out some tantalizing tidbits on our upcoming book, 'Big Fucking Spider' - a horror creature feature that promises to leave your skin crawling. So, hold your breath and step into our terrifying world of horror and suspense - you're in for a scream of a time!
🔗Connect with David
🌎 Website | 🎥 Youtube | 👨🏫Facebook | 📸 Instagram |🐤 Twitter | 🕰️TikTok
🔗Connect with Jay
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🔗Connect with David
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You can also Tweet me @ViergutzDavid and tell me what horror author you want to hear from next,
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the nightmare
engine podcast.
It has been a little bit as I'mrecording this.
We are recording this in thepast and launching in the future
because we have a very specialguest.
We want to be our first episodeback.
We'll announce that later, butfor today, you know, just like
we started, we start again thisfine day in October with my good
(00:25):
co host, my good friend here,mr Jay Bauer.
How are you, sir?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hey man doing.
Well, man, how are you doing,David?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I'm good man.
It's good to hear your voiceand to catch up.
I've been really excited tojust start this again because of
how much fun it was.
And you know, life happens andI'm sure people listening to
this are totally understandingthat life does have a way of
getting in the way of things.
You know kind of what was wasthat quote from Jurassic Park?
(00:52):
Life will find a way.
Exactly, life will get in theway, that's right.
Man, let's, let's just, let'sjust catch up.
Man, like I know we talk alittle bit in the background,
but let's, let's, let's figureout what's going on on your end.
There's been some cool changes.
I've seen some cool stuffhappening on on on your end and
(01:15):
I'm really excited for you to beable to share that with
everybody, because it's fun towatch from my perspective.
So let's, let's hear about it.
What's going on in Jay Bauerworld?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
All right, well, gosh , how much time do we have on
this?
So let me start off with my newreleases.
I'll start there, so on Friday,october 13, which I believe
this episode will have already,will air after it, so everybody
will should know about it.
But I'm releasing a book withJohn Durgan and John Lynch
(01:48):
called the conservatorscollection derelict.
It's kind of got a crypt keepertype character called the
conservator and we each wrote anovella based on a theme of
derelict and abandonment.
And earlier views have beenamazing.
We got an introduction by theone and only Mr Tim Wagner.
(02:10):
We've got custom interiorartwork.
I just we've thrown everythingat this.
And on top of that, crystalLake picked us up to do a
limited edition hardcover aswell as an audio book, and
that's in development right now.
And then also with foreignlanguage rights, and we've
(02:32):
already signed off on our veryfirst one, which is Portuguese,
for the Brazilian market.
So it's going to be super coolto see this book in Portuguese
and and have it translated,because I will get some copies
of it.
So that's, that's prettyexciting, and that's coming out
on Friday the 13th.
So we've been super excitedabout this for months now and to
(02:54):
finally get it out is is prettyexciting for us.
And on the same day I have ashort story in this anthology
that's called House of Hauntsand it's put together by her
maiden.
It was was Heather Miller, butit's Heather Doherty, I believe
it's pronounced.
(03:14):
Now she's edited thiscollection and it's 20.
It's about a haunted house andit was a 23 rooms, 23 authors,
23 stories and we had 200 yearsspan to work with, and so we got
to choose what year we wantedand kind of develop a story
(03:36):
based on that, all in the samehouse.
So it's got.
Ronald Kelly is in here, gaugegreenwood I'm blanking on some
of the names, I know it's anintroduction by Josh Mailerman,
so it's that's coming out onFriday the 13th as well, so I'm
(03:56):
really excited about that pieceand that's that's going to be a
lot of fun.
And then a short story should becoming out in December for a
Christmas horror anthology withKevin J Kennedy.
So I'm still got to get that tohim.
But and then also gosh, Iforgot.
So the Try Not to Die series.
(04:17):
Or Mark Tullius, the Try Not toDie deathfest, which is a lot
of fun and it's about.
These are kind of like a chooseyour own adventure type books,
and deathfest is all about thisheavy metal festival, and so I
got to write a short story basedon one of the 12 bands in the
(04:40):
book, and so there was 12 of usselected.
Steve Strad is one of theauthors, duncan Ralston myself
Again, I'm blanking on namesbecause there's just been so
many, so many different ones,but that should be coming out
any any day now, and that onewas a ton of fun, and I got to
actually do a crossover with mybook Cadabra is.
(05:04):
So my deathfest short story istied into deathfest and Cadabra
is, which is really really cool.
I had a lot of fun with that.
That's kind of what's what I'vebeen working on since last we
spoke, and those are the thingscoming up for the rest of this
year.
So a lot, a lot of fun.
I got a lot of great thingsplanned for next year, so so
(05:27):
I'll start with that, I'll throwit to you and then we'll.
Then we'll go, go, go back tosome other stuff.
So how about you man?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, definitely gonna want to go back, because
there's a lot there and I andthere's some cool ideas that I
want to, I want to ask you about, and so, yeah, we'll definitely
re approach it, so I'll just.
My last updates have beenpretty simple.
I finished a thriller and Istarted a system where I reach
(05:59):
out to my super fans.
I called them the NightmareRiders, and so I re-branded
everything under this idea ofthe Nightmare Engine.
That's what I call it.
So I am terrified of trains.
We've already talked about this.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Right and.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I thought what better way to use that?
And I created this entity whichwas my publishing wing, which
is the Nightmare Enginepublishing.
And then I've got we've got theNightmare Engine podcast, and
now I've got the NightmareRiders, and these are my super
fans and they get to do somereally cool stuff.
And it really motivated me to,number one, produce short
(06:36):
stories, which I didn't reallyhave any place to publish them.
I could write them, but Iwouldn't really have a place to
anybody to give them, to, anyreaders to give them to, and so
I really wanted to write shortstories and get practice with it
, and so I committed to writingone a month, and now my readers
actually get to vote on theaspects of the story.
So it makes it very unique, andso I lose a little bit of
(06:58):
creative control, but also Ialso I stop having to think so
much about what am I going towrite next, and so I get it's a
really cool interaction betweenme and the readers, and so I'd
say over the last probably aboutnine months, I've been getting
closer and closer with thepeople that support me, and
that's been really important.
They followed me as I finishedmy MFA.
(07:19):
I finished that two months ago.
I've already got a part-timejob where I'll be teaching some
English courses.
I did that for my readers, Idid that for me.
I paid for it with royalties,which was really cool, but I
finished that, that was.
That took over a year and sothat was very cumbersome for my
time.
I did finish a couple ofstories along the way and I
(07:41):
finished writing up thenightmare, the nightmare writers
.
But I've also got twohalf-fitness manuscripts.
So I've got Mr Wicker, which isone of the most challenging
books I've ever written and I'mstill.
That was part of my thesisproject.
So I submitted a horror book toa Christian university which
was quite interesting to make itfit.
But, but it happened, theypublished it and it's it's.
(08:04):
It's available now in their, intheir library.
So that's.
However, it's only a half amanuscript, so I do need to
finish the other half of that.
It's just taken a little bitbecause it is.
It is taxing on me.
It's a very complicated storyfrom both the person, the people
I'm writing about and the storystructure.
So I've got that I'm working on.
I've got a half a novel with myfriend, boris Basic.
(08:26):
We've had him on the show here.
He's a great guy and we've beenwriting our book, astrophobia,
which we are already talkingabout books two and three on
which is our homage to EventHorizon, which is a, I think is
a classic favorite of cult fit.
It's got a cult following, youknow, but that is our homage to
that and the old alien movies.
(08:47):
So there's no aliens in this,but we want that feel of the old
Nostromo spaceship with EllenRipley.
So that is our, that is ourpicturesque setting that we're,
excuse me, going to going for.
So that that is over.
It's about halfway, a littlebit over halfway, so we hoped to
gotten that one done sooner,but you know we decided to take
(09:09):
it slower and have a little bitmore fun with it, and it's
turned out to be for the better.
So, as far as what's in thechopping block, I am launching
another one of my thrillers thismonth and then moving into
finishing up a couple ofprojects, including a project
with you that we were justtalking about before this, for
the live stream here, for thestream here, and big fucking
(09:31):
spider.
So we've got a how many wordswritten on that.
Um let me look 200 for the, forthe blurb, I think maybe, if
that so we got a little work todo.
We have a little work, but wegot plenty of time.
We got five months to get thisthing into y'alls hands, but I
can tell you that it's.
It's going to be cool andwhat's it going to be about.
(09:54):
David, I think a big fuckingspider.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
There you go, there you go?
Speaker 1 (09:59):
I think so.
I think that's, I think it's.
I think it might be somethingto do with the title, and but
it's.
I mean, I can't think of a morefun horror novel to write than
the giant giant spider.
Um, and it's not going to be.
Uh, I think.
If we're going to, what are we?
What are we aiming more towards?
Like arachnophobia, less likeeight legged freaks, is that?
(10:20):
Is that a pretty goodassessment?
Yeah, I think so.
I think so.
I think we were trying to steeraway from the funny horror.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
But you know, in that that's the intent, but of
course, when we started withslaughter lake, we weren't, we
didn't, we didn't plan for it togo where it went either.
So who knows, you know, whoknows, the story will go where
it goes.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I just know, like our our thoughts on this.
So this is October 8th forrecording this.
Give us a month and we'll seewhat happens.
Things might change a littlebit between now and then.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, Maybe, uh, but it'll, it'll be fun and I'm
looking forward to to that it'sgoing to be a good one.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, so I'll be finishing out this year.
Um, I'm I've been writing andwhich is kind of nerve wracking,
but it's also forcing me towrite clearer, because I write
pretty sloppy first drafts, whatI know, right, yeah, you have
inside a look.
You're not supposed to talkabout the writing group.
That's the first rule thewriting group.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
We don't talk about all right, I already broke it.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Yeah, so I've been writing this new.
I've always wanted to write, um, and I'll let my my, my super
fans pick this.
Um, uh, I wanted to write aninsane asylum story a true one.
I've written a short storybefore, but not like a true one
um, a full length novel.
And so they picked that andI've been releasing that weekly
and then I bumped it up tobiweekly, so they get a new
(11:40):
chapter twice a week.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Oh nice.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Um, and it's forcing me to write it clearly, so
that'll actually be done in afew months instead of an entire
year.
So that'll be prettyinteresting.
Um, but that story I ampantsing that one.
So I'm writing that without anyoutline, I'm just letting the
story roll and see what happens,and it's been a lot of fun.
It's challenging, but it's alsoreally cool because I have
characters that I would neverhave picked.
(12:03):
I've got a seven, 76 year oldwoman and a and a 12 year old
girl that that are my two maincharacters.
And then I've got a pair oftwins, um to uh, two men who are
uh, uh, remodelers,construction remodelers and
those are my characters that Iget to work with and those are
(12:24):
the ones that the, the, the, mysuper fans picked, and so now
it's going to be reallyinteresting and what I can do
with them.
But that's kind of the fun init, so yeah that does sound like
a lot of fun.
Yeah, so that's what I got.
Um it, it, it definitely itdoesn't.
It may not sound like much, butit is.
It is quite a bit and it's it'sdifferent than just writing a
(12:46):
novel.
It's a little bit differentstyles of writing, but still
writing and still giving, givinguh listeners and the readers
cool stuff.
So let's, um, let's backtrack alittle bit, Jay.
I want to talk about, I want totalk about this, this, uh,
novella set.
So it's, it's a little bitdifferent.
We got, not, it's not a, uh, aco-written book, it's like a
tri-co-written book.
(13:09):
So, you got three of y'allwho've written, I guess, with a
familiar character.
So tell me about this, thisfamiliar character between the
three novellas, and remind meagain, how does the full name of
this much dross?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So it's um, it's called the conservators
collection, derelict.
So the really actually there isno um, our stories are all
completely separate.
But we have, uh, the book isintroduced by this conservator
of horror character, um, and sowe've got artwork for him.
(13:42):
He's in the in the book, um,he's actually on.
We did a set of book plates sothat all three of us could sign
it, cause unfortunately we'renot really close to each other,
uh, we live kind of far apart sowe couldn't like get together
to sign a bunch of them.
So we did do a bunch of bookplates and we had a uh like I
went through and signed all ofthem.
I sent them off to um JohnDurgan.
(14:05):
He signed them all.
He sent them off to John Lynch.
He signed them all.
That he split them up betweenthe three of us.
So we have these um, we allhave them to to send out to
anyone that buys our books.
But the conservator is in onthat book plate so he's kind of
like this uh, he's kind of adistinguished looking type of
(14:26):
Crip Keeper looking kind ofcharacter, um, super cool, a lot
of fun.
So he's kind of like thatintroduces the book to everybody
.
Um, but then we each wrote astory based on the theme of, uh,
derelict or abandonment, in inin very different ways.
And so we you know, that wasthe only stipulation was we
(14:47):
wanted it to be a novella, andthen we wanted it to be um,
based on that theme.
And so we each kind of pitchedour ideas to each other and
we're like, yeah, that soundscool.
And then we just we rolled withit and they are very three
different stories, verydifferent stories, um and it.
I think that really adds a lotto it, and some of these early
(15:09):
reviews that we've been seeing,uh, have just been um, it's just
been so overwhelmingly positive.
You know about how um thestories are, are so different,
but yet they just flow togetherreally well because of the theme
and and everything that we'vedone with it.
You can clearly see ourdifferent styles, which I think
is is really good, but, uh,because I think they they
(15:30):
compliment each other reallyreally well, and so it's been a
ton of fun, and we've had a lotof people ask if it's some,
especially those that have readit already.
The early reviewers have askedhim like are you guys going to
keep doing this?
Are you?
Are we going to get more ofthis from the conservator, and
the short answer is we think so.
We went into it, um, with theidea that we wanted to do more
(15:56):
in the future.
Um, it also may be a somewhatum, I don't want to, I don't
want to say too much about, butour plan is to possibly do more
in the future.
We would love to.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
And what was the experience like working with not
just a co-author but Three,three, I mean, there are three
of y'all.
I mean, did you have?
Did you bounce ideas in a groupchat or did you just like?
Yes here's a theme, roll withit and we'll see what do y'all
produce?
Or how did no?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
no, we, yeah, we, we're in a group chat and we
chat every day and we, we threwsome ideas off of each other
about what we were wanting to doas far as the content of the
book, you know, the story ideasand and where we were going with
our stories, and we would sendeach other samples of it and
(16:47):
send each other the our finals,so we can read it and know what,
what's in it and get somefeedback from each other.
So that was really cool.
And then just bringing in thethree of us together and doing,
you know bringing, you knowwe've all released books on our
own, you know, and we've all gotour different ways of doing
(17:08):
things.
So the bringing the three of ustogether to Build this, you
know from scratch, and you knowgoing from like who do we get as
a cover designer?
Who do we get for editing?
Who do we?
What else can we do for thisbook that will set it apart and
make it special?
Because we wanted it to be asspecial as we could.
(17:29):
You know, I wanted to give itour best, our best foot forward
on this, and so we, you know, weWent with Matt Sif Barnes for a
cover.
Who's done some for John Durganin the past and Nick Roberts
and others.
We hired Candace Noah to do ourediting for us and we found an
(17:53):
Artist to do the character artfor the kind of the main
characters in our books, and sowe each Got our character and
then we also had the conservatorconservator done.
So there's this consistent lookon the inside with the
character art.
I will say our initial plan wasto do full color on the
paperbacks.
(18:13):
Oh my gosh, when I put that inAmazon and saw what the author
copy cost was on that, there'sno way we could sell that, no
way.
Yeah, it was.
I think it was gonna cost uslike I don't know, like 28 bucks
.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Holy cow.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, and it was like no way like that's.
So we had to make a compromiseon the paperbacks, and so we
still have our art and we've allused it in different ways.
I think we all created our ownbookmarks with it.
I've got a sticker with mine.
I actually have a t-shirt on mywebsite with my character and,
and so it still has, and it'llbe in the ebooks.
(18:51):
Of course, it'll all be in fullcolor, so anyone that reads it,
like on a Kindle fire orsomething, will be able, or a
Tablet, they'll be able to seethe color artwork, which is
really cool and it looksactually really good in black
and white.
And the paperbacks it's got alot of detail to it.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So I guess what you could say is that there's a
little bit more to writing abook than Writing the book.
I mean we're we're talking.
I mean we're talking projectmanagement.
Here.
We've got cover designers,we've got artwork designers,
we've got the three of y'allcollaborating.
Then we've got Reviewers.
I mean there's a lot to managethis kind of stuff.
I mean it.
(19:28):
But but look what you get outof it, right.
I mean it all paid off.
It all paid off, right.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Well, so far it hasn't released yet, so Well,
you like it.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
I mean you like in the early reviews say it's great
.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So yeah, yeah the earlier views have been just
Overwhelmingly positive, youknow, especially with some, some
reviewers who say that you knowthey don't read short story
collections which this isn't ashort story collection, that's a
little different.
But they loved our storybecause they had some length,
you know.
They had some, some meat to it,like they were.
Originally our plan was to havethree stories that were 15 to
(20:04):
20,000 words apiece.
That was, that was the, thegoal.
That's kind of what we we seton.
But then as we started writingit, especially John Lynch, his
story just was taken off on himand it blew up to almost 30,000
(20:24):
words, which is great, you know.
And and you know he kept asking, you know, or he asked John
Durgan and I like is this gonnabe a problem?
What do you guys think?
We're like no man, the story iswhat the story is, you know,
just let it go and and we're,you know, whatever it takes Is
whatever it takes, you know.
So I Think readers are gonnabenefit from that because they
(20:47):
get a really fully fleshed outstory from him and it's some of
the best work that he's done,you know, and I'm pretty Proud
and excited to be Alongside himand and Durgan in this, this
collection, because both thosestories are just amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
That's awesome man.
So really, you know, that's areally cool experience and I
don't you know you and I canshare in that and we've done the
co-written thing and we didn'tgo nearly as in depth as it
seems that you guys did to kindof create the back end of this,
to create the artwork and theoverarching theme.
I mean, you and I had a storyidea and we ran with it.
(21:23):
It's a little bit different thanyeah, you know combining three
different authors and saying,let's, let's see what your mind
comes up with and we'll see ifwe can connect them all together
and in some new you know, somenew way, and I think you guys
did that.
So I'm I really am excited toto read that from y'all.
I get a taste of all threeauthors, you know, without
having to invest in a massivebook from all three, which is
(21:46):
great, you know, especially whenpeople's you know, two-year-old
piles, kind of limited orexpansive but limiting at the
same time.
So, yeah, I want to talk aboutsomething else is kind of a new
development, and this is and.
And the reason I want to talkabout is because the story is
what did this for you is youryour new tick-tock fandom, your
(22:07):
new Fame that you have developed.
You are now a tick-tock star.
I think you can pretty muchstop writing and just do dances
and stuff.
Right, is that correct?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Man, I don't dance at all in in real life on
tick-tock.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I don't do that at all and nobody wants to see that
go to author J Bauer ontick-tock and look for him doing
this most most recent dance.
It is there.
J Bauer author.
Get J Bauer author.
Yeah, for him doing the thetick-tock dance.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, no, no dancing, but Like literally, with it's
not even been a week yet aswe're recording us, it has not
even been a week yet, but, yeah,tick-tock, tick-tock oh my gosh
, I can even speak has blown upon me, it's gone.
It's gone places I'd neverexpected it to and I'm so
(23:04):
grateful for that, you know, andit's it can be overwhelming,
you know, trying to just keepthings in perspective, but it
has blown up.
I Guess I can go into more ofthe story if you, if you want.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
What is the?
What blew up?
Hey, yeah, wasn't.
And what story?
Because it's obviously a bookrelated.
So what happened?
You weren't dancing, so it'sgot to be a book.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
No, no, I wasn't dancing.
So at the end of September, Iguess I I Posted a video about
my book dead blood and it wasjust about book one, you know,
about a vampire and a zombieapocalypse is kind of my
shorthand for it and it got somelove on tiktok and I had to get
(23:50):
in like 76,000 views and I wasa full.
This is.
This is crazy.
You know, this is kind of cool.
I know people seem to like theidea.
I'm reaching a whole newaudience.
It's a lot of fun.
You know this is I'm reaching.
People have not heard of it andthis book's been out for well
over a year and a half, you know, and so I'm pretty excited
about that.
So then a week goes by and Iwas like I'm gonna do another
(24:15):
one, but I'm gonna use thehardcover that has it's the
complete series, all three booksin one.
So I do a similar video nineseconds long, super short video
Just showing the book and youknow, about a vampire trying to
survive in a zombie apocalypse,and it Just started taking off.
I don't know, and I guess I justhit hit at the right time with
(24:40):
the right people and I postedlike a four o'clock on Tuesday
and by the nine Little afternine o'clock at night when I
went to bed, it was like at121,000 views and I was like,
holy crap, what is happening,you know?
And I I remember going to bedthinking, man, it'd be nice if I
(25:01):
hit 150,000 by the time I wakeup.
Right, yeah, it was like over300 when I woke up and I was
like, oh no, this is wasn't notknowing what is a bad thing, but
I was like what is going on,you know?
So it just kept going and goingand A lot of people were
interested in it.
A lot of people like the idea.
You know.
(25:22):
A lot of people were alsobringing up a couple other
authors that had a similar idea,which I, I'm all in for, you
know, mark Tufo and oh my gosh,I'm drawn a blank the other
author, he's Chuck Wendig.
Both of those guys wrote aseries, you know, of similar
(25:47):
thing with a vampire and azombie apocalypse, and it was A
lot of people bringing that up.
But it got so much love that byThursday I hit over a million
views on this thing and justblew up.
It was just unreal and I havefound a whole new audience, man,
(26:07):
and it's super cool.
I'm so grateful for all thosefolks and I went from.
I added probably about 4,000followers and again, it's not
even been a week as a time thatwe're recording this, and so
thankful for that.
You know, hopefully I cancontinue giving them some cool
things to To look at it withsome of my, my books and even
(26:29):
with other people's books, youknow, because I like to share
books of those of other authorsthat I've read and things like
that.
So hopefully I can kind ofbring some more attention to
some others.
But it's just blown up on me,man.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
And and I want to think it's it's got to be
partially because the storyright?
I mean that that was the wholepoint of dead blood.
Is that you and I?
We've talked about this, weboth.
You know, part of being ahorror author is you've got to
one write zombies.
Number two write short stories,vampires.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I think that's pretty set in stone for any anyone
that needs to be a horror author.
No, I'm kidding, but shortstories for sure.
Part yeah, yeah.
But yeah, you know, I that azombie story.
You know and I've mentionedthis before of where I came up
with this idea, you know, withthat horror writing workshop
(27:25):
back in 2020.
My original plan was asoul-eating demon in a zombie
apocalypse, like where they getsouls if they're all zombies,
right, you know, that was myplan.
But the for that writingworkshop, that wasn't.
We had a week on tropes likeoverused tropes, and it was.
(27:48):
We had to write a short storyon a vampire or a zombie or a
Werewolf.
So I took a day to think aboutit and I was like, well, what if
I changed the demon to avampire and Put him in a zombie
apocalypse, so I can take two ofthose tropes and combine them.
Going back to my original ideaof the demon, you know, and so I
wrote a short story and it wentover really well because it was
(28:09):
just a Different take.
You know, there's others I'veknown now, I didn't know it then
but others that have writtensomething similar, but not a lot
of them have written somethinglike that, you know.
So having that just a slightlyunique twist on a common idea
Really just caught a lot ofpeople's attention in the
(28:30):
writers workshop.
Those that critiqued it reallyenjoyed it and encouraged me.
They're like you know, youcould do a whole book off of
this.
This would be really cool.
I would absolutely read it.
So I always kept that in mind.
And then you and I talked a lotabout a different series and
trying to do a horror series andI know that you had done your
Zerviral.
Did I get it?
(28:52):
They get it right.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yep, that's right.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, your Zerviral series With your zombie series
and you're with your unique takeon it.
You know well, maybe I canFinally put my zombie series you
know, zombie idea to a series,because I felt I could do a
series with that.
So I'd have my first horrorseries and that's it's what we
did, that's what I did anyway,and but it's that idea, you know
(29:18):
, that uniqueness, is whatcaught everyone's.
And the video, it's what caughteveryone's attention was like,
oh, this is cool, you know, likeI Didn't even thought about
that, you know, and that's thatwas really cool to see.
And and you know, it was sounique for a lot of people that
hadn't come across that beforethat I was seeing comments about
people like, you know, Ihaven't read a book in 20 years,
(29:39):
but I'm gonna probably do thatnow by checking this out and
like so that's a lot of pressureon me to make sure I deliver,
but also, at the same time,really rewarding that I can get
Folks inspired to read again.
You know, off of this kind ofunique premise of a vampire in a
zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, I think you'd mentioned too.
There were some, some peoplecommenting that you know they
were wondering, like they don'tnormally read that genre.
So that's a different type ofreader.
They someone versus someone whohasn't read before, which is
great.
It's always great to inspirepeople to come back to reading.
But what about the folks whoare in different genres?
I mean that's kind ofinteresting too, that you, you
(30:22):
have such an interesting premisethat you know it creates a
conundrum.
Everybody knows that a vampireis, everybody knows that a
zombie is, so you throw the twotogether and that that must
create all kinds of turmoil andpeople love that.
I mean that seems to be whatpeople love.
So you, it seemed like some,even some folks who don't read
the genre said they were gonnaread this one or at least give
it a try.
Is that, is that sound right?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, a lot of comments on that too, about like
I don't normally read thisgenre or you know, is it have
romance in it, and things likethat and I will say, no, it has
no romance in it.
It's definitely a horror andand I've you know, I've shared
with you before that when Iwrote this series, it was all
about it was horror first andzombie second was my thought as
(31:04):
I wrote this.
I wanted it to feel more horrorlike versus, like dystopian or
you know, like aPost-apocalyptic or something
like that.
I wanted it more horror feeling.
It definitely has more of alike early seasons walking dead
vibes to it, definitely.
And some readers picked up onit because they said it felt
(31:27):
like I took a vampire and puthim in the walking dead.
I was like, well, that's,that's true.
That's a lot of where my zombieinspiration came from.
You know the horror aspect ofit.
So, but it but because of thevampire.
You know there's a lot ofassociations with vampires and
Dorian Wilde.
My vampire in the series isn'tyour classical vampire.
(31:48):
I was envisioned him as alittle bit more like, more like
a biological creature, kind oflike in the strain, where it was
just more, not so much.
You know all these separateTropes about vampires, just a
little different.
Although Dorian, my character,he always likes to dress nice.
(32:09):
He's always, you know, wants abutton-down shirt, would wear a
vest you know it's still azombie of August but he wants to
dress nice and so I did havesome of those, those
Characteristics of him.
But so, but I think thatvampire association, maybe the
romantic vampire association,maybe drew some people into
reading a zombie book.
(32:29):
So hopefully I don't disappointthem because it's not gonna be,
you know, a traditional vampirestory.
It's not gonna be a A romanticstory.
It's definitely more horrorfocused.
So we'll see how they respondto that, hopefully favorably,
but you know it's you never know.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, I think when I Feel like we probably broached
this topic before.
But what interests me aboutAnything zombie because the
zombies themselves to me are abit overplayed it's what happens
, what the characters do, whatpeople do when Social order is
(33:14):
gone, I mean, when it's when.
It's that's what makes theminteresting.
The zombies just create kind ofa barrier that force people to
interact in certain ways inorder to do the most basic
things like survive and eat andand be safe and and live a life
of some sort.
So the zombies just force thatscenario and, of course, what I
think is really interestingabout them is that they're in
(33:34):
every book you read.
They're always, they're alwaysmoving, so it's never a stagnant
sign.
There's a wall around you, it'sa moving wall and it's.
It's different.
You know it's not like you'rejust trapped in a courtyard.
You'd be trapped in a courtyardbut you know, at any point the
courtyard walls could come downbecause there's too many bodies
stacked up against it.
I think that's what that makesit.
It's a very fluid situation.
Zombies make that happen, so itmakes it very, very interesting
(33:57):
.
You know, I think I think anykind of I think right now, on
the opposite end, like a somesort of Pandemic story would be
quite boring, becauseeverybody's solution to that was
to just stay inside, stay awayfrom each other.
So it's only, you know, ifyou're by yourself, you have one
character by himself in theirpandemic.
That wouldn't, that would give,kind of give you the opposite
effect of of, of, you know, aColony of people trying to
(34:21):
survive a very fluid situationthat were forces them to
interact with others.
So I think that's where wherezombies have an interest for
folks is what do the charactersdo, what do people do when
they're pushed to their limitsand forced to survive?
And in the end it I thinkyou've said this and I know I've
said it is that in the end, thebad things aren't really the
(34:43):
zombies.
They're just there, they'redoing the one thing they know
how to do, it's the people whoend up terrible and that's where
the horror really comes in.
It's not from the zombies.
It's what the people do to eachother.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yes, you know, that is definitely a big part of the
the series as well is you know,how do the humans play in this
world where vampires exist andhas also turned into this Zombie
apocalypse?
You know how to?
How does that order break down?
(35:15):
What it's it, what's it looklike?
You know what do they do.
So it's I try to explore some ofthose things and you know, as a
series in it's a three bookseries and and they're short
books, they're All three of themare just under 200 pages, so
they're pretty short.
But you know, as you progressin books two and three, you kind
of see more of the humans andmore of that world and more of
(35:41):
the vampire Dorian navigatinghis way through this and and how
the humans interact with himand how those relationships go.
So but it's, it definitely ismuch more about those people
than it is the zombies.
You know the zombies is justthe constant threat that
everybody has to deal with.
(36:01):
And how do you navigate yourother social relationships when
you're having to Constantly dealwith that threat that is always
there and in your face?
You know.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah, and vampires themselves.
I mean, especially when you'retalking in the more of a
classical sense, that they Tendto seek out Relationships of
some sort.
They're not really recluses.
They always seem to havesomebody there with them, which
is kind of interesting becausemost of the time you would think
that they're either they, Iguess, that turn somebody if
you're talking, you know, ifyou're talking, I don't know,
(36:38):
within the lore andhypotheticals they would turn
somebody to be with them.
But oftentimes they they don't.
They find a human to be withright, and which is weird
because you know, if you stickto the Lore which most people do
, that vampires are, you knowthey're, they can't die, so
Pairing with some sort of humanthat can is so very, very weird.
(36:58):
But I know in your story, Ithink, that that does happen.
Is that I remember correctly?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, yeah, dorian, he's.
He's been around since Beforethe Civil War, so he's got some
experience and he's got you know, some history.
And then he also, of course,finds himself in this zombie
apocalypse world and he has toOne.
He's got to find food and thenso that definitely is a big part
(37:26):
of book one is just him comingto grips with what's going on
and Finding food and making thatyour priority, which I think it
would be any of ours, you know,if we, if we find ourselves in
a situation like our, firstthing is how am I gonna survive?
How am I gonna get you know,what am I gonna eat?
How am I gonna continue movingforward?
And that that's definitely alot of book one and book two it
(37:47):
gets.
He starts branching out intomore about humans and more about
the survivors and you know, notnecessarily as sources of food,
but as survivors, you know, andhe's.
It ties in a lot with his pastand with his, his family.
(38:08):
And then book three kind ofcontinues that but also brings
in that some more of that, thathuman enemy side of it as well.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
So so you talked a little bit about you know past
and history and stuff like that.
So I want to change gears alittle bit and talk about this
other collection that youmentioned, that you're a part of
, which I thought was kind ofinteresting because of the
shared element which was ahaunted house yep, with 23 rooms
, with 23 authors across 200years.
(38:40):
So you were given a, I'mguessing you.
Were you given a 200 yearsection, or were you given a
section of those of those yearsthat, to work with that your
story had to fit in?
Or tell me more about that,that project?
Speaker 2 (38:52):
yeah.
So that one was really cool.
So basically you got to choosewhatever room.
If it wasn't taken, you got tochoose it and then you got to
use whatever year you wanted touse.
So I think you know, initially Iwant to do something more
(39:12):
modern, just because it's a loteasier to write, you know,
thinking of it that way.
But then I was like you knowwhat there's, let me try
something older, let me see if Ican do something that is more
of a time period piece and seeif I can do that justice, you
know.
So more of a challenge formyself.
So I mine was from 1818 65 Ibelieve is when I did mine.
(39:39):
So it was like at the end ofthe Civil War is basically how
mine kind of starts.
So I it's the first time reallydoing a history well, not quite
the first time, I guess, butone of the first few times of me
doing like a historical horrorpiece, you know, a time period
(40:02):
piece.
Most of mine tends to be moremodern, but I wanted to just
kind of challenge myself alittle bit and I wanted to try a
haunted story, like a ghoststory, because I hadn't really
done one of those and I'm stillconsidering doing that as a
series at some point, but Iwanted to use this as a way to
challenge myself to do that.
So when I joined the project,so some of the rooms were
(40:25):
already taken, some of the dateswere already taken, but I
wasn't necessarily given a dateand time or a date and room.
It was just, like you know,first dibs.
Basically if you, if it's openand you want it, it's call it
and it's yours.
So I chose the secret room onthe third floor and 1865.
(40:45):
So those are the two must-havesof it.
I will say the editor, heathershe had one hell of a project on
her hands as far as making surethat all these stories work
together, because it was forthis one house.
It was, it's a hail house andso all the stories had that
(41:10):
happen at hail house.
And so some things like if anauthor wrote a story about a
particular ghost in, let's say,the bedroom or something, and we
could tie things together,historical things within the
story, so like all of them aretied to the house but also tied
(41:31):
to a bigger part of it.
It's it's hard to describe, butI know she had to put a lot of
things together to make surethat they'll fit, and suggest
changes for all of us.
That to make it fit, you know,which is perfectly fine and
that's as what the project was.
But it turns out it's it's over400, it's like 440 pages.
It's a massive, massive wow.
(41:52):
But when you have 23 storiesfor 23 different authors, it's
it that it'll get that way onyou, you know, but it's, it was
so much fun and it's just very,very unique.
So I'm really excited to seeand that that's coming out the
same day.
I was looking to see if I had alist of those authors here,
(42:17):
because it's a lot, yeah well,that's, um, that's really
interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
So I was not expecting, you know, when you
told me about these projects.
I know you've done a lot ofshort story submissions in the
past and it seems like moreyou've got more collaborative
efforts.
You know we're us authors areworking closely with each other.
We're seeing a lot of the samenames you know in the same
circles, which is great.
(42:44):
There's nothing wrong with that.
I think that's, I think that'sit's a lot of fun and it should
be that way.
You start to recognize folks,especially in in this job, which
is so isolated, so sedentary,and so any effort you can make
to, you know, connect withanother author and even even
produce something, even thoughit's a very solitary task of
writing.
And so I mean I think that'sthat's why I enjoyed this, these
(43:08):
, these podcasts so much isbecause it goes a step beyond
the page.
You know we're we're goingbeyond our laptops.
We are reaching out to eachother and to, to, to readers.
You know, I think that's whyyou and I said you know, let's
write another book.
You know, I mean that's a hugecommitment to write one book but
then to collaborate withanother author and says, let's
do it again.
You know, I think that's.
(43:29):
I think that says somethingthat says it was fun and and we
enjoyed it and we're lookingforward to more of it, and I
think that's something that it'skind of hard to find, because
it is collaborative and you know, you're an artist, I'm an
artist and we have our, ourtastes and our styles, and
trying to mesh them together isjust such a challenge.
So I don't take anything awayfrom y'all at all when you say
(43:50):
you put together these, thesetomes, these stories of
interconnected worlds, and andfound some sort of collaborative
environment where everythingmatches up, because in the end,
it's not going to be us thatfinds the mistakes, it's going
to be the readers.
And if they you know the peoplewho listening to this I mean
they're the ones who are goingto point out the little things.
(44:11):
And if they can't find anything, you guys did something good,
you guys did something great, sothat's, that's really awesome.
So let's um, we only got a fewminutes left, man, so let's um,
let's waffle just for a minutehere about our collaborative
books and we're staying theretalking about the collaborative
process and, and though I thinkwe have a choice to talk about
the first one, slaughter like,but I think the second one we
(44:33):
can talk about just for a minuteis is big fucking spider.
So what?
What do you want to see andwhat do you not want to see?
And this is kind of revealingfor me too, because we've talked
about it, but it's been alittle bit so.
We wrote slaughter lake with,without the intention of it
becoming a slasher, so, but weliked what we produced anyway.
(44:54):
So where, where are we headingwith big fucking spider?
What do you want to see thatbecome?
Speaker 2 (44:59):
definitely of a.
You know, obviously it's gonnabe a big creature feature,
something that I've neverwritten, something I don't think
.
You have a little bit, maybe,like with the when to go, but
this is definitely gonna takethis to a whole nother level.
Right, it's gonna be a bigspider, so it's.
(45:19):
But I also kind of like what Ido with dead blood, right is, I
want, I want horror to be thefirst thing, like that's, if I
go into it, the mindset ofhorror you know the word choices
, the, the plot, you know the,the scenes, all of that stuff
will kind of filter through thatfirst.
(45:40):
So I want it to be horror.
But I also, you know, want togive it some character.
You know, I don't, I don'tforesee us doing this as like
horror comedy.
I mean, there's probably gonnabe some funny moments.
I mean, you know, I think weboth have talked about like this
, somebody's gonna like it's abig spider, like that's, you
(46:03):
know, and that's gonna be funny,say I gotta say it.
I mean you gotta say the titleof the book yes, that will be
funny, but I also, you know,don't think that that we're
gonna live in that comedy area.
We say this now.
It may end up being that, youknow, but I don't think either
one of us are wanting to go thatdirection, and I think we'll
(46:25):
probably be able to keep eachother in line as we go through
that.
You know, if, if I submitsomething to you and you're like
dude, this is just, this is,this is too much on the campy
side, we can't do this.
Or if you send it to me and Isay the same thing, you know,
we're really good about takingfeedback from each other and and
being able to critique eachother and and make sure that
(46:46):
we're on the same page, so Idon't see that as a problem.
But definitely horror first andand everything going through
that lens, you know not not abig monster first, definitely
horror first, if that, if thatmakes sense yeah, yeah, I
definitely agree.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
I I like to think.
I love the atmosphere, so I'vebeen on a Nick Cutter kick
lately and I love the atmosphereof the troop, the.
It was a creature feature atheart.
There were creatures in it I'mnot gonna spoil it for anybody,
but there were creatures in it.
But it primarily it was theatmosphere in the horror that
(47:25):
was created by the creature'spresence, and I think that's
where that's where things getinteresting and that's where
that's where true horror comesout, and I think that's, I think
we'll find our home there.
You know, that's what happenedwith my book when to go.
It was the atmosphere I createdthat was part of the lore that
was part of the creature itselfat its presence and the, the
privacy of people whenconfronted with such a thing
(47:48):
that they you know they're, theycan't comprehend.
So I think I definitely agreewith you about the direction
that we want to go and now itjust comes down to, yeah, five
months to write this thing.
So we should, we shouldprobably get on it we.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
We probably should put a word or two down yeah,
just a couple yeah but alright,man, well, that that's our time,
man it's.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
It's been great catching up.
I missed this.
I think you and I can prettymuch commit now to saying, hey,
we're, we'll be a little bitmore regular.
I won't say how regular, butregular, more regular than we
have been yes that's.
That's mainly because of myschedule.
I've had a long key scheduledue to my day job and you know,
I think people are forgiving ofthat.
So we're back.
(48:33):
We're back with the vengeance.
We've got a very special guestthe next go around.
So this will not be the firstepisode you hear of the
nightmare engine podcast.
It will be the second episodefor this season, and what
perfect timing, right aroundHalloween.
So, unless you got anythingelse, man, that's, that's what I
got for the day you gotanything no man, that's, that's
it we.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
We kind of hold everything back up and and let
everyone know what's going onyeah, it feels good.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
It feels good to be back, feels good to talk about
it.
So, ladies and gentlemen,you've been listening to the
nightmare engine podcast.
I'm your host, dave for goods,with my co-host here, mr J Bauer
.
Mr J Bauer, sign us off alright, man.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Thanks for listening to the night managing podcast.
We will see you again soon.
Check out my website for all mybooks.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
J Bauer author, calm David and you can find me at
David.
Very good, calm, alright, folkshave a good night.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the nightmare
engine podcast.
It has been a little bit as I'mrecording this.
We are recording this in thepast and launching in the future
because we have a very specialguest.
We want to be our first episodeback.
We'll announce that later, butfor today, you know, just like
we started, we start again thisfine day in October with my good
(00:25):
co host, my good friend here,mr Jay Bauer.
How are you, sir?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hey man doing.
Well, man, how are you doing,David?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I'm good man.
It's good to hear your voiceand to catch up.
I've been really excited tojust start this again because of
how much fun it was.
And you know, life happens andI'm sure people listening to
this are totally understandingthat life does have a way of
getting in the way of things.
You know kind of what was wasthat quote from Jurassic Park?
(00:52):
Life will find a way.
Exactly, life will get in theway, that's right.
Man, let's, let's just, let'sjust catch up.
Man, like I know we talk alittle bit in the background,
but let's, let's, let's figureout what's going on on your end.
There's been some cool changes.
I've seen some cool stuffhappening on on on your end and
(01:15):
I'm really excited for you to beable to share that with
everybody, because it's fun towatch from my perspective.
So let's, let's hear about it.
What's going on in Jay Bauerworld?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
All right, well, gosh , how much time do we have on
this?
So let me start off with my newreleases.
I'll start there, so on Friday,october 13, which I believe
this episode will have already,will air after it, so everybody
will should know about it.
But I'm releasing a book withJohn Durgan and John Lynch
(01:48):
called the conservatorscollection derelict.
It's kind of got a crypt keepertype character called the
conservator and we each wrote anovella based on a theme of
derelict and abandonment.
And earlier views have beenamazing.
We got an introduction by theone and only Mr Tim Wagner.
(02:10):
We've got custom interiorartwork.
I just we've thrown everythingat this.
And on top of that, crystalLake picked us up to do a
limited edition hardcover aswell as an audio book, and
that's in development right now.
And then also with foreignlanguage rights, and we've
(02:32):
already signed off on our veryfirst one, which is Portuguese,
for the Brazilian market.
So it's going to be super coolto see this book in Portuguese
and and have it translated,because I will get some copies
of it.
So that's, that's prettyexciting, and that's coming out
on Friday the 13th.
So we've been super excitedabout this for months now and to
(02:54):
finally get it out is is prettyexciting for us.
And on the same day I have ashort story in this anthology
that's called House of Hauntsand it's put together by her
maiden.
It was was Heather Miller, butit's Heather Doherty, I believe
it's pronounced.
(03:14):
Now she's edited thiscollection and it's 20.
It's about a haunted house andit was a 23 rooms, 23 authors,
23 stories and we had 200 yearsspan to work with, and so we got
to choose what year we wantedand kind of develop a story
(03:36):
based on that, all in the samehouse.
So it's got.
Ronald Kelly is in here, gaugegreenwood I'm blanking on some
of the names, I know it's anintroduction by Josh Mailerman,
so it's that's coming out onFriday the 13th as well, so I'm
(03:56):
really excited about that pieceand that's that's going to be a
lot of fun.
And then a short story should becoming out in December for a
Christmas horror anthology withKevin J Kennedy.
So I'm still got to get that tohim.
But and then also gosh, Iforgot.
So the Try Not to Die series.
(04:17):
Or Mark Tullius, the Try Not toDie deathfest, which is a lot
of fun and it's about.
These are kind of like a chooseyour own adventure type books,
and deathfest is all about thisheavy metal festival, and so I
got to write a short story basedon one of the 12 bands in the
(04:40):
book, and so there was 12 of usselected.
Steve Strad is one of theauthors, duncan Ralston myself
Again, I'm blanking on namesbecause there's just been so
many, so many different ones,but that should be coming out
any any day now, and that onewas a ton of fun, and I got to
actually do a crossover with mybook Cadabra is.
(05:04):
So my deathfest short story istied into deathfest and Cadabra
is, which is really really cool.
I had a lot of fun with that.
That's kind of what's what I'vebeen working on since last we
spoke, and those are the thingscoming up for the rest of this
year.
So a lot, a lot of fun.
I got a lot of great thingsplanned for next year, so so
(05:27):
I'll start with that, I'll throwit to you and then we'll.
Then we'll go, go, go back tosome other stuff.
So how about you man?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, definitely gonna want to go back, because
there's a lot there and I andthere's some cool ideas that I
want to, I want to ask you about, and so, yeah, we'll definitely
re approach it, so I'll just.
My last updates have beenpretty simple.
I finished a thriller and Istarted a system where I reach
(05:59):
out to my super fans.
I called them the NightmareRiders, and so I re-branded
everything under this idea ofthe Nightmare Engine.
That's what I call it.
So I am terrified of trains.
We've already talked about this.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Right and.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I thought what better way to use that?
And I created this entity whichwas my publishing wing, which
is the Nightmare Enginepublishing.
And then I've got we've got theNightmare Engine podcast, and
now I've got the NightmareRiders, and these are my super
fans and they get to do somereally cool stuff.
And it really motivated me to,number one, produce short
(06:36):
stories, which I didn't reallyhave any place to publish them.
I could write them, but Iwouldn't really have a place to
anybody to give them, to, anyreaders to give them to, and so
I really wanted to write shortstories and get practice with it
, and so I committed to writingone a month, and now my readers
actually get to vote on theaspects of the story.
So it makes it very unique, andso I lose a little bit of
(06:58):
creative control, but also Ialso I stop having to think so
much about what am I going towrite next, and so I get it's a
really cool interaction betweenme and the readers, and so I'd
say over the last probably aboutnine months, I've been getting
closer and closer with thepeople that support me, and
that's been really important.
They followed me as I finishedmy MFA.
(07:19):
I finished that two months ago.
I've already got a part-timejob where I'll be teaching some
English courses.
I did that for my readers, Idid that for me.
I paid for it with royalties,which was really cool, but I
finished that, that was.
That took over a year and sothat was very cumbersome for my
time.
I did finish a couple ofstories along the way and I
(07:41):
finished writing up thenightmare, the nightmare writers
.
But I've also got twohalf-fitness manuscripts.
So I've got Mr Wicker, which isone of the most challenging
books I've ever written and I'mstill.
That was part of my thesisproject.
So I submitted a horror book toa Christian university which
was quite interesting to make itfit.
But, but it happened, theypublished it and it's it's.
(08:04):
It's available now in their, intheir library.
So that's.
However, it's only a half amanuscript, so I do need to
finish the other half of that.
It's just taken a little bitbecause it is.
It is taxing on me.
It's a very complicated storyfrom both the person, the people
I'm writing about and the storystructure.
So I've got that I'm working on.
I've got a half a novel with myfriend, boris Basic.
(08:26):
We've had him on the show here.
He's a great guy and we've beenwriting our book, astrophobia,
which we are already talkingabout books two and three on
which is our homage to EventHorizon, which is a, I think is
a classic favorite of cult fit.
It's got a cult following, youknow, but that is our homage to
that and the old alien movies.
(08:47):
So there's no aliens in this,but we want that feel of the old
Nostromo spaceship with EllenRipley.
So that is our, that is ourpicturesque setting that we're,
excuse me, going to going for.
So that that is over.
It's about halfway, a littlebit over halfway, so we hoped to
gotten that one done sooner,but you know we decided to take
(09:09):
it slower and have a little bitmore fun with it, and it's
turned out to be for the better.
So, as far as what's in thechopping block, I am launching
another one of my thrillers thismonth and then moving into
finishing up a couple ofprojects, including a project
with you that we were justtalking about before this, for
the live stream here, for thestream here, and big fucking
(09:31):
spider.
So we've got a how many wordswritten on that.
Um let me look 200 for the, forthe blurb, I think maybe, if
that so we got a little work todo.
We have a little work, but wegot plenty of time.
We got five months to get thisthing into y'alls hands, but I
can tell you that it's.
It's going to be cool andwhat's it going to be about.
(09:54):
David, I think a big fuckingspider.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
There you go, there you go?
Speaker 1 (09:59):
I think so.
I think that's, I think it's.
I think it might be somethingto do with the title, and but
it's.
I mean, I can't think of a morefun horror novel to write than
the giant giant spider.
Um, and it's not going to be.
Uh, I think.
If we're going to, what are we?
What are we aiming more towards?
Like arachnophobia, less likeeight legged freaks, is that?
(10:20):
Is that a pretty goodassessment?
Yeah, I think so.
I think so.
I think we were trying to steeraway from the funny horror.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
But you know, in that that's the intent, but of
course, when we started withslaughter lake, we weren't, we
didn't, we didn't plan for it togo where it went either.
So who knows, you know, whoknows, the story will go where
it goes.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I just know, like our our thoughts on this.
So this is October 8th forrecording this.
Give us a month and we'll seewhat happens.
Things might change a littlebit between now and then.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, Maybe, uh, but it'll, it'll be fun and I'm
looking forward to to that it'sgoing to be a good one.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, so I'll be finishing out this year.
Um, I'm I've been writing andwhich is kind of nerve wracking,
but it's also forcing me towrite clearer, because I write
pretty sloppy first drafts, whatI know, right, yeah, you have
inside a look.
You're not supposed to talkabout the writing group.
That's the first rule thewriting group.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
We don't talk about all right, I already broke it.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Yeah, so I've been writing this new.
I've always wanted to write, um, and I'll let my my, my super
fans pick this.
Um, uh, I wanted to write aninsane asylum story a true one.
I've written a short storybefore, but not like a true one
um, a full length novel.
And so they picked that andI've been releasing that weekly
and then I bumped it up tobiweekly, so they get a new
(11:40):
chapter twice a week.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Oh nice.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Um, and it's forcing me to write it clearly, so
that'll actually be done in afew months instead of an entire
year.
So that'll be prettyinteresting.
Um, but that story I ampantsing that one.
So I'm writing that without anyoutline, I'm just letting the
story roll and see what happens,and it's been a lot of fun.
It's challenging, but it's alsoreally cool because I have
characters that I would neverhave picked.
(12:03):
I've got a seven, 76 year oldwoman and a and a 12 year old
girl that that are my two maincharacters.
And then I've got a pair oftwins, um to uh, two men who are
uh, uh, remodelers,construction remodelers and
those are my characters that Iget to work with and those are
(12:24):
the ones that the, the, the, mysuper fans picked, and so now
it's going to be reallyinteresting and what I can do
with them.
But that's kind of the fun init, so yeah that does sound like
a lot of fun.
Yeah, so that's what I got.
Um it, it, it definitely itdoesn't.
It may not sound like much, butit is.
It is quite a bit and it's it'sdifferent than just writing a
(12:46):
novel.
It's a little bit differentstyles of writing, but still
writing and still giving, givinguh listeners and the readers
cool stuff.
So let's, um, let's backtrack alittle bit, Jay.
I want to talk about, I want totalk about this, this, uh,
novella set.
So it's, it's a little bitdifferent.
We got, not, it's not a, uh, aco-written book, it's like a
tri-co-written book.
(13:09):
So, you got three of y'allwho've written, I guess, with a
familiar character.
So tell me about this, thisfamiliar character between the
three novellas, and remind meagain, how does the full name of
this much dross?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So it's um, it's called the conservators
collection, derelict.
So the really actually there isno um, our stories are all
completely separate.
But we have, uh, the book isintroduced by this conservator
of horror character, um, and sowe've got artwork for him.
(13:42):
He's in the in the book, um,he's actually on.
We did a set of book plates sothat all three of us could sign
it, cause unfortunately we'renot really close to each other,
uh, we live kind of far apart sowe couldn't like get together
to sign a bunch of them.
So we did do a bunch of bookplates and we had a uh like I
went through and signed all ofthem.
I sent them off to um JohnDurgan.
(14:05):
He signed them all.
He sent them off to John Lynch.
He signed them all.
That he split them up betweenthe three of us.
So we have these um, we allhave them to to send out to
anyone that buys our books.
But the conservator is in onthat book plate so he's kind of
like this uh, he's kind of adistinguished looking type of
(14:26):
Crip Keeper looking kind ofcharacter, um, super cool, a lot
of fun.
So he's kind of like thatintroduces the book to everybody
.
Um, but then we each wrote astory based on the theme of, uh,
derelict or abandonment, in inin very different ways.
And so we you know, that wasthe only stipulation was we
(14:47):
wanted it to be a novella, andthen we wanted it to be um,
based on that theme.
And so we each kind of pitchedour ideas to each other and
we're like, yeah, that soundscool.
And then we just we rolled withit and they are very three
different stories, verydifferent stories, um and it.
I think that really adds a lotto it, and some of these early
(15:09):
reviews that we've been seeing,uh, have just been um, it's just
been so overwhelmingly positive.
You know about how um thestories are, are so different,
but yet they just flow togetherreally well because of the theme
and and everything that we'vedone with it.
You can clearly see ourdifferent styles, which I think
is is really good, but, uh,because I think they they
(15:30):
compliment each other reallyreally well, and so it's been a
ton of fun, and we've had a lotof people ask if it's some,
especially those that have readit already.
The early reviewers have askedhim like are you guys going to
keep doing this?
Are you?
Are we going to get more ofthis from the conservator, and
the short answer is we think so.
We went into it, um, with theidea that we wanted to do more
(15:56):
in the future.
Um, it also may be a somewhatum, I don't want to, I don't
want to say too much about, butour plan is to possibly do more
in the future.
We would love to.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
And what was the experience like working with not
just a co-author but Three,three, I mean, there are three
of y'all.
I mean, did you have?
Did you bounce ideas in a groupchat or did you just like?
Yes here's a theme, roll withit and we'll see what do y'all
produce?
Or how did no?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
no, we, yeah, we, we're in a group chat and we
chat every day and we, we threwsome ideas off of each other
about what we were wanting to doas far as the content of the
book, you know, the story ideasand and where we were going with
our stories, and we would sendeach other samples of it and
(16:47):
send each other the our finals,so we can read it and know what,
what's in it and get somefeedback from each other.
So that was really cool.
And then just bringing in thethree of us together and doing,
you know bringing, you knowwe've all released books on our
own, you know, and we've all gotour different ways of doing
(17:08):
things.
So the bringing the three of ustogether to Build this, you
know from scratch, and you knowgoing from like who do we get as
a cover designer?
Who do we get for editing?
Who do we?
What else can we do for thisbook that will set it apart and
make it special?
Because we wanted it to be asspecial as we could.
(17:29):
You know, I wanted to give itour best, our best foot forward
on this, and so we, you know, weWent with Matt Sif Barnes for a
cover.
Who's done some for John Durganin the past and Nick Roberts
and others.
We hired Candace Noah to do ourediting for us and we found an
(17:53):
Artist to do the character artfor the kind of the main
characters in our books, and sowe each Got our character and
then we also had the conservatorconservator done.
So there's this consistent lookon the inside with the
character art.
I will say our initial plan wasto do full color on the
paperbacks.
(18:13):
Oh my gosh, when I put that inAmazon and saw what the author
copy cost was on that, there'sno way we could sell that, no
way.
Yeah, it was.
I think it was gonna cost uslike I don't know, like 28 bucks
.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Holy cow.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, and it was like no way like that's.
So we had to make a compromiseon the paperbacks, and so we
still have our art and we've allused it in different ways.
I think we all created our ownbookmarks with it.
I've got a sticker with mine.
I actually have a t-shirt on mywebsite with my character and,
and so it still has, and it'llbe in the ebooks.
(18:51):
Of course, it'll all be in fullcolor, so anyone that reads it,
like on a Kindle fire orsomething, will be able, or a
Tablet, they'll be able to seethe color artwork, which is
really cool and it looksactually really good in black
and white.
And the paperbacks it's got alot of detail to it.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So I guess what you could say is that there's a
little bit more to writing abook than Writing the book.
I mean we're we're talking.
I mean we're talking projectmanagement.
Here.
We've got cover designers,we've got artwork designers,
we've got the three of y'allcollaborating.
Then we've got Reviewers.
I mean there's a lot to managethis kind of stuff.
I mean it.
(19:28):
But but look what you get outof it, right.
I mean it all paid off.
It all paid off, right.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Well, so far it hasn't released yet, so Well,
you like it.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
I mean you like in the early reviews say it's great
.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So yeah, yeah the earlier views have been just
Overwhelmingly positive, youknow, especially with some, some
reviewers who say that you knowthey don't read short story
collections which this isn't ashort story collection, that's a
little different.
But they loved our storybecause they had some length,
you know.
They had some, some meat to it,like they were.
Originally our plan was to havethree stories that were 15 to
(20:04):
20,000 words apiece.
That was, that was the, thegoal.
That's kind of what we we seton.
But then as we started writingit, especially John Lynch, his
story just was taken off on himand it blew up to almost 30,000
(20:24):
words, which is great, you know.
And and you know he kept asking, you know, or he asked John
Durgan and I like is this gonnabe a problem?
What do you guys think?
We're like no man, the story iswhat the story is, you know,
just let it go and and we're,you know, whatever it takes Is
whatever it takes, you know.
So I Think readers are gonnabenefit from that because they
(20:47):
get a really fully fleshed outstory from him and it's some of
the best work that he's done,you know, and I'm pretty Proud
and excited to be Alongside himand and Durgan in this, this
collection, because both thosestories are just amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
That's awesome man.
So really, you know, that's areally cool experience and I
don't you know you and I canshare in that and we've done the
co-written thing and we didn'tgo nearly as in depth as it
seems that you guys did to kindof create the back end of this,
to create the artwork and theoverarching theme.
I mean, you and I had a storyidea and we ran with it.
(21:23):
It's a little bit different thanyeah, you know combining three
different authors and saying,let's, let's see what your mind
comes up with and we'll see ifwe can connect them all together
and in some new you know, somenew way, and I think you guys
did that.
So I'm I really am excited toto read that from y'all.
I get a taste of all threeauthors, you know, without
having to invest in a massivebook from all three, which is
(21:46):
great, you know, especially whenpeople's you know, two-year-old
piles, kind of limited orexpansive but limiting at the
same time.
So, yeah, I want to talk aboutsomething else is kind of a new
development, and this is and.
And the reason I want to talkabout is because the story is
what did this for you is youryour new tick-tock fandom, your
(22:07):
new Fame that you have developed.
You are now a tick-tock star.
I think you can pretty muchstop writing and just do dances
and stuff.
Right, is that correct?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Man, I don't dance at all in in real life on
tick-tock.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
I don't do that at all and nobody wants to see that
go to author J Bauer ontick-tock and look for him doing
this most most recent dance.
It is there.
J Bauer author.
Get J Bauer author.
Yeah, for him doing the thetick-tock dance.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, no, no dancing, but Like literally, with it's
not even been a week yet aswe're recording us, it has not
even been a week yet, but, yeah,tick-tock, tick-tock oh my gosh
, I can even speak has blown upon me, it's gone.
It's gone places I'd neverexpected it to and I'm so
(23:04):
grateful for that, you know, andit's it can be overwhelming,
you know, trying to just keepthings in perspective, but it
has blown up.
I Guess I can go into more ofthe story if you, if you want.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
What is the?
What blew up?
Hey, yeah, wasn't.
And what story?
Because it's obviously a bookrelated.
So what happened?
You weren't dancing, so it'sgot to be a book.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
No, no, I wasn't dancing.
So at the end of September, Iguess I I Posted a video about
my book dead blood and it wasjust about book one, you know,
about a vampire and a zombieapocalypse is kind of my
shorthand for it and it got somelove on tiktok and I had to get
(23:50):
in like 76,000 views and I wasa full.
This is.
This is crazy.
You know, this is kind of cool.
I know people seem to like theidea.
I'm reaching a whole newaudience.
It's a lot of fun.
You know this is I'm reaching.
People have not heard of it andthis book's been out for well
over a year and a half, you know, and so I'm pretty excited
about that.
So then a week goes by and Iwas like I'm gonna do another
(24:15):
one, but I'm gonna use thehardcover that has it's the
complete series, all three booksin one.
So I do a similar video nineseconds long, super short video
Just showing the book and youknow, about a vampire trying to
survive in a zombie apocalypse,and it Just started taking off.
I don't know, and I guess I justhit hit at the right time with
(24:40):
the right people and I postedlike a four o'clock on Tuesday
and by the nine Little afternine o'clock at night when I
went to bed, it was like at121,000 views and I was like,
holy crap, what is happening,you know?
And I I remember going to bedthinking, man, it'd be nice if I
(25:01):
hit 150,000 by the time I wakeup.
Right, yeah, it was like over300 when I woke up and I was
like, oh no, this is wasn't notknowing what is a bad thing, but
I was like what is going on,you know?
So it just kept going and goingand A lot of people were
interested in it.
A lot of people like the idea.
You know.
(25:22):
A lot of people were alsobringing up a couple other
authors that had a similar idea,which I, I'm all in for, you
know, mark Tufo and oh my gosh,I'm drawn a blank the other
author, he's Chuck Wendig.
Both of those guys wrote aseries, you know, of similar
(25:47):
thing with a vampire and azombie apocalypse, and it was A
lot of people bringing that up.
But it got so much love that byThursday I hit over a million
views on this thing and justblew up.
It was just unreal and I havefound a whole new audience, man,
(26:07):
and it's super cool.
I'm so grateful for all thosefolks and I went from.
I added probably about 4,000followers and again, it's not
even been a week as a time thatwe're recording this, and so
thankful for that.
You know, hopefully I cancontinue giving them some cool
things to To look at it withsome of my, my books and even
(26:29):
with other people's books, youknow, because I like to share
books of those of other authorsthat I've read and things like
that.
So hopefully I can kind ofbring some more attention to
some others.
But it's just blown up on me,man.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
And and I want to think it's it's got to be
partially because the storyright?
I mean that that was the wholepoint of dead blood.
Is that you and I?
We've talked about this, weboth.
You know, part of being ahorror author is you've got to
one write zombies.
Number two write short stories,vampires.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I think that's pretty set in stone for any anyone
that needs to be a horror author.
No, I'm kidding, but shortstories for sure.
Part yeah, yeah.
But yeah, you know, I that azombie story.
You know and I've mentionedthis before of where I came up
with this idea, you know, withthat horror writing workshop
(27:25):
back in 2020.
My original plan was asoul-eating demon in a zombie
apocalypse, like where they getsouls if they're all zombies,
right, you know, that was myplan.
But the for that writingworkshop, that wasn't.
We had a week on tropes likeoverused tropes, and it was.
(27:48):
We had to write a short storyon a vampire or a zombie or a
Werewolf.
So I took a day to think aboutit and I was like, well, what if
I changed the demon to avampire and Put him in a zombie
apocalypse, so I can take two ofthose tropes and combine them.
Going back to my original ideaof the demon, you know, and so I
wrote a short story and it wentover really well because it was
(28:09):
just a Different take.
You know, there's others I'veknown now, I didn't know it then
but others that have writtensomething similar, but not a lot
of them have written somethinglike that, you know.
So having that just a slightlyunique twist on a common idea
Really just caught a lot ofpeople's attention in the
(28:30):
writers workshop.
Those that critiqued it reallyenjoyed it and encouraged me.
They're like you know, youcould do a whole book off of
this.
This would be really cool.
I would absolutely read it.
So I always kept that in mind.
And then you and I talked a lotabout a different series and
trying to do a horror series andI know that you had done your
Zerviral.
Did I get it?
(28:52):
They get it right.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yep, that's right.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, your Zerviral series With your zombie series
and you're with your unique takeon it.
You know well, maybe I canFinally put my zombie series you
know, zombie idea to a series,because I felt I could do a
series with that.
So I'd have my first horrorseries and that's it's what we
did, that's what I did anyway,and but it's that idea, you know
(29:18):
, that uniqueness, is whatcaught everyone's.
And the video, it's what caughteveryone's attention was like,
oh, this is cool, you know, likeI Didn't even thought about
that, you know, and that's thatwas really cool to see.
And and you know, it was sounique for a lot of people that
hadn't come across that beforethat I was seeing comments about
people like, you know, Ihaven't read a book in 20 years,
(29:39):
but I'm gonna probably do thatnow by checking this out and
like so that's a lot of pressureon me to make sure I deliver,
but also, at the same time,really rewarding that I can get
Folks inspired to read again.
You know, off of this kind ofunique premise of a vampire in a
zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, I think you'd mentioned too.
There were some, some peoplecommenting that you know they
were wondering, like they don'tnormally read that genre.
So that's a different type ofreader.
They someone versus someone whohasn't read before, which is
great.
It's always great to inspirepeople to come back to reading.
But what about the folks whoare in different genres?
I mean that's kind ofinteresting too, that you, you
(30:22):
have such an interesting premisethat you know it creates a
conundrum.
Everybody knows that a vampireis, everybody knows that a
zombie is, so you throw the twotogether and that that must
create all kinds of turmoil andpeople love that.
I mean that seems to be whatpeople love.
So you, it seemed like some,even some folks who don't read
the genre said they were gonnaread this one or at least give
it a try.
Is that, is that sound right?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, a lot of comments on that too, about like
I don't normally read thisgenre or you know, is it have
romance in it, and things likethat and I will say, no, it has
no romance in it.
It's definitely a horror andand I've you know, I've shared
with you before that when Iwrote this series, it was all
about it was horror first andzombie second was my thought as
(31:04):
I wrote this.
I wanted it to feel more horrorlike versus, like dystopian or
you know, like aPost-apocalyptic or something
like that.
I wanted it more horror feeling.
It definitely has more of alike early seasons walking dead
vibes to it, definitely.
And some readers picked up onit because they said it felt
(31:27):
like I took a vampire and puthim in the walking dead.
I was like, well, that's,that's true.
That's a lot of where my zombieinspiration came from.
You know the horror aspect ofit.
So, but it but because of thevampire.
You know there's a lot ofassociations with vampires and
Dorian Wilde.
My vampire in the series isn'tyour classical vampire.
(31:48):
I was envisioned him as alittle bit more like, more like
a biological creature, kind oflike in the strain, where it was
just more, not so much.
You know all these separateTropes about vampires, just a
little different.
Although Dorian, my character,he always likes to dress nice.
(32:09):
He's always, you know, wants abutton-down shirt, would wear a
vest you know it's still azombie of August but he wants to
dress nice and so I did havesome of those, those
Characteristics of him.
But so, but I think thatvampire association, maybe the
romantic vampire association,maybe drew some people into
reading a zombie book.
(32:29):
So hopefully I don't disappointthem because it's not gonna be,
you know, a traditional vampirestory.
It's not gonna be a A romanticstory.
It's definitely more horrorfocused.
So we'll see how they respondto that, hopefully favorably,
but you know it's you never know.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, I think when I Feel like we probably broached
this topic before.
But what interests me aboutAnything zombie because the
zombies themselves to me are abit overplayed it's what happens
, what the characters do, whatpeople do when Social order is
(33:14):
gone, I mean, when it's when.
It's that's what makes theminteresting.
The zombies just create kind ofa barrier that force people to
interact in certain ways inorder to do the most basic
things like survive and eat andand be safe and and live a life
of some sort.
So the zombies just force thatscenario and, of course, what I
think is really interestingabout them is that they're in
(33:34):
every book you read.
They're always, they're alwaysmoving, so it's never a stagnant
sign.
There's a wall around you, it'sa moving wall and it's.
It's different.
You know it's not like you'rejust trapped in a courtyard.
You'd be trapped in a courtyardbut you know, at any point the
courtyard walls could come downbecause there's too many bodies
stacked up against it.
I think that's what that makesit.
It's a very fluid situation.
Zombies make that happen, so itmakes it very, very interesting
(33:57):
.
You know, I think I think anykind of I think right now, on
the opposite end, like a somesort of Pandemic story would be
quite boring, becauseeverybody's solution to that was
to just stay inside, stay awayfrom each other.
So it's only, you know, ifyou're by yourself, you have one
character by himself in theirpandemic.
That wouldn't, that would give,kind of give you the opposite
effect of of, of, you know, aColony of people trying to
(34:21):
survive a very fluid situationthat were forces them to
interact with others.
So I think that's where wherezombies have an interest for
folks is what do the charactersdo, what do people do when
they're pushed to their limitsand forced to survive?
And in the end it I thinkyou've said this and I know I've
said it is that in the end, thebad things aren't really the
(34:43):
zombies.
They're just there, they'redoing the one thing they know
how to do, it's the people whoend up terrible and that's where
the horror really comes in.
It's not from the zombies.
It's what the people do to eachother.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yes, you know, that is definitely a big part of the
the series as well is you know,how do the humans play in this
world where vampires exist andhas also turned into this Zombie
apocalypse?
You know how to?
How does that order break down?
(35:15):
What it's it, what's it looklike?
You know what do they do.
So it's I try to explore some ofthose things and you know, as a
series in it's a three bookseries and and they're short
books, they're All three of themare just under 200 pages, so
they're pretty short.
But you know, as you progressin books two and three, you kind
of see more of the humans andmore of that world and more of
(35:41):
the vampire Dorian navigatinghis way through this and and how
the humans interact with himand how those relationships go.
So but it's, it definitely ismuch more about those people
than it is the zombies.
You know the zombies is justthe constant threat that
everybody has to deal with.
(36:01):
And how do you navigate yourother social relationships when
you're having to Constantly dealwith that threat that is always
there and in your face?
You know.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah, and vampires themselves.
I mean, especially when you'retalking in the more of a
classical sense, that they Tendto seek out Relationships of
some sort.
They're not really recluses.
They always seem to havesomebody there with them, which
is kind of interesting becausemost of the time you would think
that they're either they, Iguess, that turn somebody if
you're talking, you know, ifyou're talking, I don't know,
(36:38):
within the lore andhypotheticals they would turn
somebody to be with them.
But oftentimes they they don't.
They find a human to be withright, and which is weird
because you know, if you stickto the Lore which most people do
, that vampires are, you knowthey're, they can't die, so
Pairing with some sort of humanthat can is so very, very weird.
(36:58):
But I know in your story, Ithink, that that does happen.
Is that I remember correctly?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, yeah, dorian, he's.
He's been around since Beforethe Civil War, so he's got some
experience and he's got you know, some history.
And then he also, of course,finds himself in this zombie
apocalypse world and he has toOne.
He's got to find food and thenso that definitely is a big part
(37:26):
of book one is just him comingto grips with what's going on
and Finding food and making thatyour priority, which I think it
would be any of ours, you know,if we, if we find ourselves in
a situation like our, firstthing is how am I gonna survive?
How am I gonna get you know,what am I gonna eat?
How am I gonna continue movingforward?
And that that's definitely alot of book one and book two it
(37:47):
gets.
He starts branching out intomore about humans and more about
the survivors and you know, notnecessarily as sources of food,
but as survivors, you know, andhe's.
It ties in a lot with his pastand with his, his family.
(38:08):
And then book three kind ofcontinues that but also brings
in that some more of that, thathuman enemy side of it as well.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
So so you talked a little bit about you know past
and history and stuff like that.
So I want to change gears alittle bit and talk about this
other collection that youmentioned, that you're a part of
, which I thought was kind ofinteresting because of the
shared element which was ahaunted house yep, with 23 rooms
, with 23 authors across 200years.
(38:40):
So you were given a, I'mguessing you.
Were you given a 200 yearsection, or were you given a
section of those of those yearsthat, to work with that your
story had to fit in?
Or tell me more about that,that project?
Speaker 2 (38:52):
yeah.
So that one was really cool.
So basically you got to choosewhatever room.
If it wasn't taken, you got tochoose it and then you got to
use whatever year you wanted touse.
So I think you know, initially Iwant to do something more
(39:12):
modern, just because it's a loteasier to write, you know,
thinking of it that way.
But then I was like you knowwhat there's, let me try
something older, let me see if Ican do something that is more
of a time period piece and seeif I can do that justice, you
know.
So more of a challenge formyself.
So I mine was from 1818 65 Ibelieve is when I did mine.
(39:39):
So it was like at the end ofthe Civil War is basically how
mine kind of starts.
So I it's the first time reallydoing a history well, not quite
the first time, I guess, butone of the first few times of me
doing like a historical horrorpiece, you know, a time period
(40:02):
piece.
Most of mine tends to be moremodern, but I wanted to just
kind of challenge myself alittle bit and I wanted to try a
haunted story, like a ghoststory, because I hadn't really
done one of those and I'm stillconsidering doing that as a
series at some point, but Iwanted to use this as a way to
challenge myself to do that.
So when I joined the project,so some of the rooms were
(40:25):
already taken, some of the dateswere already taken, but I
wasn't necessarily given a dateand time or a date and room.
It was just, like you know,first dibs.
Basically if you, if it's openand you want it, it's call it
and it's yours.
So I chose the secret room onthe third floor and 1865.
(40:45):
So those are the two must-havesof it.
I will say the editor, heathershe had one hell of a project on
her hands as far as making surethat all these stories work
together, because it was forthis one house.
It was, it's a hail house andso all the stories had that
(41:10):
happen at hail house.
And so some things like if anauthor wrote a story about a
particular ghost in, let's say,the bedroom or something, and we
could tie things together,historical things within the
story, so like all of them aretied to the house but also tied
(41:31):
to a bigger part of it.
It's it's hard to describe, butI know she had to put a lot of
things together to make surethat they'll fit, and suggest
changes for all of us.
That to make it fit, you know,which is perfectly fine and
that's as what the project was.
But it turns out it's it's over400, it's like 440 pages.
It's a massive, massive wow.
(41:52):
But when you have 23 storiesfor 23 different authors, it's
it that it'll get that way onyou, you know, but it's, it was
so much fun and it's just very,very unique.
So I'm really excited to seeand that that's coming out the
same day.
I was looking to see if I had alist of those authors here,
(42:17):
because it's a lot, yeah well,that's, um, that's really
interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
So I was not expecting, you know, when you
told me about these projects.
I know you've done a lot ofshort story submissions in the
past and it seems like moreyou've got more collaborative
efforts.
You know we're us authors areworking closely with each other.
We're seeing a lot of the samenames you know in the same
circles, which is great.
(42:44):
There's nothing wrong with that.
I think that's, I think that'sit's a lot of fun and it should
be that way.
You start to recognize folks,especially in in this job, which
is so isolated, so sedentary,and so any effort you can make
to, you know, connect withanother author and even even
produce something, even thoughit's a very solitary task of
writing.
And so I mean I think that'sthat's why I enjoyed this, these
(43:08):
, these podcasts so much isbecause it goes a step beyond
the page.
You know we're we're goingbeyond our laptops.
We are reaching out to eachother and to, to, to readers.
You know, I think that's whyyou and I said you know, let's
write another book.
You know, I mean that's a hugecommitment to write one book but
then to collaborate withanother author and says, let's
do it again.
You know, I think that's.
(43:29):
I think that says somethingthat says it was fun and and we
enjoyed it and we're lookingforward to more of it, and I
think that's something that it'skind of hard to find, because
it is collaborative and you know, you're an artist, I'm an
artist and we have our, ourtastes and our styles, and
trying to mesh them together isjust such a challenge.
So I don't take anything awayfrom y'all at all when you say
(43:50):
you put together these, thesetomes, these stories of
interconnected worlds, and andfound some sort of collaborative
environment where everythingmatches up, because in the end,
it's not going to be us thatfinds the mistakes, it's going
to be the readers.
And if they you know the peoplewho listening to this I mean
they're the ones who are goingto point out the little things.
(44:11):
And if they can't find anything, you guys did something good,
you guys did something great, sothat's, that's really awesome.
So let's um, we only got a fewminutes left, man, so let's um,
let's waffle just for a minutehere about our collaborative
books and we're staying theretalking about the collaborative
process and, and though I thinkwe have a choice to talk about
the first one, slaughter like,but I think the second one we
(44:33):
can talk about just for a minuteis is big fucking spider.
So what?
What do you want to see andwhat do you not want to see?
And this is kind of revealingfor me too, because we've talked
about it, but it's been alittle bit so.
We wrote slaughter lake with,without the intention of it
becoming a slasher, so, but weliked what we produced anyway.
(44:54):
So where, where are we headingwith big fucking spider?
What do you want to see thatbecome?
Speaker 2 (44:59):
definitely of a.
You know, obviously it's gonnabe a big creature feature,
something that I've neverwritten, something I don't think
.
You have a little bit, maybe,like with the when to go, but
this is definitely gonna takethis to a whole nother level.
Right, it's gonna be a bigspider, so it's.
(45:19):
But I also kind of like what Ido with dead blood, right is, I
want, I want horror to be thefirst thing, like that's, if I
go into it, the mindset ofhorror you know the word choices
, the, the plot, you know the,the scenes, all of that stuff
will kind of filter through thatfirst.
(45:40):
So I want it to be horror.
But I also, you know, want togive it some character.
You know, I don't, I don'tforesee us doing this as like
horror comedy.
I mean, there's probably gonnabe some funny moments.
I mean, you know, I think weboth have talked about like this
, somebody's gonna like it's abig spider, like that's, you
(46:03):
know, and that's gonna be funny,say I gotta say it.
I mean you gotta say the titleof the book yes, that will be
funny, but I also, you know,don't think that that we're
gonna live in that comedy area.
We say this now.
It may end up being that, youknow, but I don't think either
one of us are wanting to go thatdirection, and I think we'll
(46:25):
probably be able to keep eachother in line as we go through
that.
You know, if, if I submitsomething to you and you're like
dude, this is just, this is,this is too much on the campy
side, we can't do this.
Or if you send it to me and Isay the same thing, you know,
we're really good about takingfeedback from each other and and
being able to critique eachother and and make sure that
(46:46):
we're on the same page, so Idon't see that as a problem.
But definitely horror first andand everything going through
that lens, you know not not abig monster first, definitely
horror first, if that, if thatmakes sense yeah, yeah, I
definitely agree.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
I I like to think.
I love the atmosphere, so I'vebeen on a Nick Cutter kick
lately and I love the atmosphereof the troop, the.
It was a creature feature atheart.
There were creatures in it I'mnot gonna spoil it for anybody,
but there were creatures in it.
But it primarily it was theatmosphere in the horror that
(47:25):
was created by the creature'spresence, and I think that's
where that's where things getinteresting and that's where
that's where true horror comesout, and I think that's, I think
we'll find our home there.
You know, that's what happenedwith my book when to go.
It was the atmosphere I createdthat was part of the lore that
was part of the creature itselfat its presence and the, the
privacy of people whenconfronted with such a thing
(47:48):
that they you know they're, theycan't comprehend.
So I think I definitely agreewith you about the direction
that we want to go and now itjust comes down to, yeah, five
months to write this thing.
So we should, we shouldprobably get on it we.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
We probably should put a word or two down yeah,
just a couple yeah but alright,man, well, that that's our time,
man it's.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
It's been great catching up.
I missed this.
I think you and I can prettymuch commit now to saying, hey,
we're, we'll be a little bitmore regular.
I won't say how regular, butregular, more regular than we
have been yes that's.
That's mainly because of myschedule.
I've had a long key scheduledue to my day job and you know,
I think people are forgiving ofthat.
So we're back.
(48:33):
We're back with the vengeance.
We've got a very special guestthe next go around.
So this will not be the firstepisode you hear of the
nightmare engine podcast.
It will be the second episodefor this season, and what
perfect timing, right aroundHalloween.
So, unless you got anythingelse, man, that's, that's what I
got for the day you gotanything no man, that's, that's
it we.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
We kind of hold everything back up and and let
everyone know what's going onyeah, it feels good.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
It feels good to be back, feels good to talk about
it.
So, ladies and gentlemen,you've been listening to the
nightmare engine podcast.
I'm your host, dave for goods,with my co-host here, mr J Bauer
.
Mr J Bauer, sign us off alright, man.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Thanks for listening to the night managing podcast.
We will see you again soon.
Check out my website for all mybooks.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
J Bauer author, calm David and you can find me at
David.
Very good, calm, alright, folkshave a good night.
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