Michael David Wilson 0:10
Welcome to the this is horror podcast. I'm your host. Michael David Wilson, and today, alongside Bob pastorella, I'm going to be rejoining Stephen Graham Jones for part two of our interview. We last spoke with Stephen in Episode 92 about his new novel, mongrels, about werewolves and the mythology of werewolves in general, and common writing mistakes. We continue to talk a lot about the craft of writing. In the second part, Stephen also answers some questions submitted by our patrons over on Patreon. So that's enough of me. Let's just do it. Let's just jump straight into the interview part two with Stephen Graham Jones, with,

Stephen Graham Jones 1:12
you know, the monitors. That's that was, that was one of the things I was very consciously trying to do, was I did not, I did not want to deliver to the audience the same werewolf that people knew. I wanted to deliver a world that had a lot of the characteristics that they already were familiar with, such that they would recognize this, you know, as a werewolf. But I wanted to repackage the werewolf, and I wanted just, just to give them a world they could believe in. And of course, it had to be a world that I would believe in too, and just in kind of the particular way that I think through things, you know what you were talking about, how like Bob, but you notice sometimes I push things to the logical extreme. And I think I never thought about it before, you said that, but coming up through school, I was a philosophy major, and that's kind of the way we were trained take an idea and amplify it to its logical extreme to see if it actually holds water or not, you know. And that's probably what I do with a lot of situations, you know. Well, I

Bob Pastorella 2:06
think, I think it's very cool. And I think I think it's, it's, it's cool that you make it, you know, part of the story, and then it's not something that just slammed in there. It's like an anecdote or anything like that. And not that anecdotes don't work, you know, for for a greater, you know, to see something on a greater picture, sometimes, you know, you have to put in an anecdotal story to kind of tie it together. And I do love those things, but if you can make it organic, yeah, that's, that's the deal, yeah,

Stephen Graham Jones 2:36
that's where the, that's where the hard part of storytelling is, man, yeah.

Michael David Wilson 2:41
Well, I have a question from Jake Marley from our Patreon, and so this is more to do with the craft of writing in terms of your revisions, especially when it comes to working on longer stories or novels. Do you work day by day, chapter by chapter, or all in one marathon session. Well, I'm guessing not one session for the novel, but Yeah, he'd just like to know a little bit about that and how you plan the workout.

Stephen Graham Jones 3:14
You know for I have actually done in one session for a novel. Like all my playlists that I write to, that I write novels to they tend to be about between an hour and 30 and an hour and 45 minutes long, because that's about how long I'm useful for on the page, and not in the page, but at a keyboard. I guess then I have to go do something else for 2030 minutes, maybe a couple hours. Then I can come back, recharge, refresh, and I can hit it again for an hour and a half. But rewriting, revising is a totally different animal for me. Um, my playlist that I revise to is eight hours long. I think it's got hundreds of songs in it. And I'll just turn that on, on shuffle, and I'll just start hitting the bullet points the editor wants me to hit, or I'll if I'm doing on my own, then I'll just start cycling through what I think are the issues, and I'll go for many hours in a row doing doing revision. And I usually don't stop because I'm tired of it or worn out myself. I stop because the world impedes, you know, I have to go take out the trash or something like that. But, um, I can revise for a lot longer than I can write. I think

Bob Pastorella 4:15
you're stronger than most. I get into, if I have to get into editing mode, and I find that I get to where I just don't feel good headache, and, yeah, I don't like it, but, I mean, it's important, but it's, it's not, it's not the part of writing that I actually like. I don't think I ever will,

Stephen Graham Jones 4:38
yeah, yeah. Well, I do like a product for revising a lot, you know, because nine times out of 10 The story does improve. You know, I don't always see it at first, but what I have to do is I have to trust my editors, my agent, that they wouldn't be telling me this just to satisfy their own selfish needs or whatever, you know, unless they're selfish. I mean, yes, they. They do want to make money, and I'm totally in line with that. But, um, they don't want to ruin, they don't want to, like, detract from the literary integrity of the piece, you know, they want to actually make it better and make it available and accessible for other people. Um, and so that's what I always keep in mind when I'm going into a big revision overhaul, is I try to give the editor and the agent as much credence, if that's if I can work here as I can, like I just, I try to trust them as much as I can, you know. And I try to not trust myself as much as I can, because I'll make a stand on every little comma, you know. But, um, I need, I need not to be like that as much, you know.

Michael David Wilson 5:39
And I know, when we last spoke with you, we were talking about how quick you are in terms of just starting a novel and then having the finished product out there. I'm wondering at the moment, what does it look like in terms of time frame? So firstly, in terms of getting the first draft complete, and then, just in terms of the whole process from starting the novel to having something ready to publish, you

Stephen Graham Jones 6:07
know, for for mongrels, I wrote it, um, you know, I wrote the first chapter. What would become the first chapter, you know, as I said, in like, maybe November of 13, somewhere around there, and that was just, you know, 3000 words or so. And then I put it down. And I came back to January 1 of 2014 and I think by january 15 or 16th, I had the whole novel done. But I say the whole novel, but it was, you know, only 42 43,000 words at the point, at that point. But I thought it was done, because I could not imagine anything unless it would go in there. So then I put it put aside, and I probably wrote another book or two or something, but then I my agent came on, and this would have been about April of 2014, I guess my new agent, maybe it was May. It was April or May, and she and over the whole summer, I worked with her on mongrels like so for two or three months, we overhauled it every once way thought we had it done, then sent it to the editor. And the editor, Kelly O'Connor, she had a lot of notes too, as I said, and that took months more rebuilding. And the final result was that probably by I'd have to look at my Gmail dates, but I'm guessing by the late fall of 14 I had it probably in 85 or 90% of how it is now published, and it still had, but then I had to go through copy editing, which, you know, is a whole nother long, wonderful, terrible process, you know, and then proofreading after that, man. So it's probably like a year to get it to the final state, I bet you know, which is really kind of long, long for me, I usually don't, it's not that I don't stick with the thing that long, but I'm usually not asked to stick with the thing that long. So I'm really glad, I'm really glad that I was this time. I think it really cleaned the product, the final novel, up a whole lot, and hopefully it made it more, more like accessible to people, you know, just let it, let it better be what it was trying to be in the first place. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 8:09
do you think this slower process might be something that you take going forward? Yeah,

Stephen Graham Jones 8:16
I think so. Actually, this next novel I've written, it's called Texas is burning. Um, I wrote that in the fall of 14 I guess it was, I think that's right, yeah, yeah, that's a big, 150,000 word novel. And I gave to my agent, and she didn't even read it. She said, Well, that's too long once you cut it down by a third. And so it took me like that, took me like, three or four months, and I finally got it cut down to a third of its size, to 92 95,000 words or something. And, and now she's gone through it once and give me notes, and I've addressed those notes, and now she's about to give me her final round of notes. And so the that, I mean, I think we're, like, a year and a half in or something now with that book, you know? And, um, it's still probably not quite done, so, yeah, I do think I probably will be adopting a slightly slower, I don't know way of doing it, I guess, because not that, not that. I mean, I don't think my, all my previous books suffer from some of them being written quicker. I don't think, but, um, I do like mongrels a lot, and I like, I like the process that I took writing it with the agent, with the editor, you know. So I'll definitely give that as much leash as it needs to work again, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 9:28
so you lost a third of the novel that you're working on at the moment. So, yeah, yeah. I wonder, is there ever a conflict before, sorry, between what you want to write and what you feel you should write, in terms of taking on board commercial considerations.

Stephen Graham Jones 9:50
Yeah. I mean, my goal has always been to make my like heart stories be commercial stories to find a commercial. Way to express them, you know, but, um, but, no, I think you're right. I think probably all writers feel that to some extent. I think the, I suspect, the writers who feel it the most are those who have a successful series going on and and the publishers tell them they can't stray from this set of six characters in one location, in one era. You know, that feels like that'd be very limiting, like I would go kind of slowly crazy having to do that, I think. But at the same time, at the same time, you're cashing good checks. So how do you say no, you know, but, um, but yeah. Like, you know, actually, the sensible novel for me to write following mongrels would probably be a sequel to mongrels or another, or a hard house novel, or just something kind of more or less the same shelf space, you know, but, um, but instead of that, I wrote a small town Texas crime novel, you know, so where I grew up, and um, and who knows what the publisher will like it or not, they may say, Well, this is good, But we need some werewolf in there. You know,

Michael David Wilson 11:04
it's just another novel that you have coming out with Willie and Morrow. They haven't

Stephen Graham Jones 11:09
actually seen it yet. No, my agent is still trying to get it to a state that she thinks is Submittable. Okay,

Michael David Wilson 11:15
so publisher to be confirmed, yeah, but Morrow

Stephen Graham Jones 11:20
does have first option on my next book. They'll get the first look at it anyways. You know?

Bob Pastorella 11:25
Well, you were so prolific for so long that you, you know, you established a pattern. And I think the only people that are going to be mad are the ones that are used. And I won't even, I wouldn't even say mad, but probably disappointed. Yeah, it's like, you know, hey, golly, a whole week's gone by, we still haven't got nothing. Steven, what's the deal? Is he slowing down? Is he getting older? And it's like, but hey, if you could take longer, and the products even better. I mean, shit, man, that's worth the wait.

Stephen Graham Jones 11:59
That's what my agent says, she says that, um, like, I think I had one year or I had four books. The next year I had either four books or five books, and, and she said that that's actually too many books, you know. She said that I'm I'm splitting the audience. And she says each book needs to be an event when it happens. And the way to make an event is to make it more scarce, you know. And I think, I think she's right. She knows the whole industry so much better than I do. I just know how to tell little stories, you know, but she knows how the big machine works, and so I'm taking her advice, you know, she's taking me places, and I'm happy to go, of course. But, um, I do miss, like, being able to do multiple books a year, definitely. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 12:38
it's interesting to see how the traditional publishing environment in terms of release schedule, contrast with the self publishing environment, because speaking with Ian Rob Wright the other week and hoping to also speak with Michael Brent calling but they they almost rely on getting a new novel out every three or four months just to keep that in stream. Sorry that that income stream, uh, going so it Yeah, but I can see Yeah, certainly from a traditional point of view where you have more money to market it anyway. It does. It ceases to become an event if it's coming out every few months. Anyway,

Stephen Graham Jones 13:29
exactly, yeah, exactly. And I just am just trusting my editor. My editor says that too. I'm trusting my editors and my agents to lead me right on that, you know, yeah. And it does get complicated too, because when I have four books come out in a year, and I'm doing like, publicity for them, and people always ask, What's your favorite novel? What's your the novel you're most happy about writing and all and, um, it gets confusing, because I'm like, Well, is it that one that came out in August, or is the one that comes out in October? You know? Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 13:59
did you ever consider self publishing weather as way of an experiment, or just as a way to monetize, perhaps projects that are commercially less viable, like their creative non fiction anthropology books we were speaking about. You

Stephen Graham Jones 14:20
know, I never have declared it, but it's not because of any stigma associated with it. It's because I know that I am a very, very poor business person, and I think in order to actually make self publishing work, you have to have some sort of business acumen and some sort of like ability to self promote, in a way. And I mean, I mean, I'll promote all I can, of course, but I'm, I don't think I'm as proactive as I probably could be, or should be, or I would need to be, where I self publishing, because the way, the model I prefer, of course, is to plug into somebody who has distribution, who has marketing, who has everything in place. And I'm just a, like, a. Bearing that goes through all that, you know, but um, that's why I've never considered self publishing for myself, just because I don't think I have the right kind of um, acumen or charisma to really make it work. I mean, I'm not saying I would never do it. I may, I may do it eventually. I don't know. But um, right now I don't think I have what it takes to make it work, and I definitely don't have what it takes to help design a good cover.

Michael David Wilson 15:27
Yeah. Well, I think the majority of self published authors that are finding success with it, unless they come from an artistic background, thankfully, they're out sourcing the cover art, yeah,

Stephen Graham Jones 15:46
hopefully, oh, you know. And I mentioned, you know, I was talking about my editor, Kelly O'Connor, and actually, I still consider, I mean, she's the one who helped me make more girls what it is, but actually, she's since moved to a different publisher. So, um, it's, it's kind of, it's kind of weird, you know, but, um, it's cool, too. I've had to happen a lot of times. I've had publish, I've had editors who acquire the book and help me with it end up getting hired away somebody else, you know, that's just part of the, part of the process, man. Also, we were talking about me not having any books in 2014 I did the faster redder road came out, which kind of got it made me feel like I had something on the shelf. It's really, I can I consider that Theo van Aust book, he's the one who edited. It's a selected stories thing, but, um, I still put it in my own shelf of books that I've published, you know, because I feel, because it's all my stories, um, but I do consider it his book. Just, I'm in it a lot, you know, right? Yeah, but it's still, it's super cool. It's such an honor. Like, I was at a where was, I was at World horror, maybe last year, I don't know, some sometime, and talking to Don Doria, and I was saying, Man, this is so weird. I'm gonna have a selected stories come out. I think it's all downhill from here. And he explained to me that, um, he said, selected stories are very good, but collected stories are bad, because if you have a collected stories come out, that means you're dead, you know, and I don't want to be dead yet.

Michael David Wilson 17:11
I bet we have a lot of people listening now who are thinking like, yeah, it was collected. What have I done? Yeah, we had a second question from Jesse Lawrence, yeah, which strategically placed so that he can be in part one and part two of the podcast. So I'm sure he's

Bob Pastorella 17:34
probably trying to call in. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 17:39
yeah. I wondered about doing that. I mean, that's a tangent, but I did wonder about getting a little, little number, see if we can get some voicemail comments in then they can literally ask their question.

Stephen Graham Jones 17:53
That'd be cool. You know, I've got one of my novels is built around a call center, somebody working a call bank like that, the long travel mill in dugati. It'd be fun. It'd be fun to do it in that model, yeah.

Michael David Wilson 18:02
But anyway, he would like to know if you have any news on Washington blood or the Dale Rio sequel. I

Stephen Graham Jones 18:14
do not have any My My suspicion is that, um, neither of them ever come out. That's my suspicion. Just because I have so much other stuff that I've written like since those that is probably closer to publication or closer to the quality that's needed for publication. I guess washing the blood I love that novel. I think it is everything I've ever written. It has the second strongest ending, I think, and the other strongest ending is in a novel that's completely broken, that I'll never put broken, that I'll never publish. But I looked into a good ending on that novel, but, um, washing the blood is set in West Texas. It's about a couple of kids coming up through high school bow hunting, you know. And it's very close to my heart. And I was actually, I've been thinking these last few months that I need to strip that story down, that novel down, and see if it would work as a screenplay, you know? I think it, it might, I don't know, it may have too many, I mean, not, I say too many working parts. That's kind of insulting to the screenplay genre or the movie making process, that movies can't contain complicated things because they can. But I don't know if, I don't know if I'm the writer to make that story work on screen or in a script, you know, but I do really like that story a whole a whole lot, and I want to make it work. And let me think, Oh, the bunny head chronicles the second one, yeah. What's it called? Oh, it's called, Once Upon a Time in Texas, and it's you that, you know, people seem to like it came from Del Rio. But one critique I kept hearing was that that kind of crazy, comical over the top, bloody scene on the front is never actually portrayed in the book, you know. And so I kind of took that to the heart, and so I made the second book completely match the cover of the first book, you know, which maybe that's not good marketing, I don't know, but, um, it's. It's got, it's just so over the top, it's got a dude with a wolf head driving a Ferrari being chased by a rabbit head dude in a Porsche. And it's got chupacabras everywhere. And it's got one guy who he loses his eye, and so he takes a big old spider and puts the spider in his eye, and the spider, his legs clamp onto the outside and it's towards his thorax, goes into his eyeball area, and it becomes his eye and, um, and there's, like, some Godzilla stuff going on. Well, I say Godzilla, there's a monster that climbs a building, the tallest building in Austin, and it's such a fun over the top novel. And, um, maybe, maybe someday I'll get published. I don't know, but I don't, I don't see it coming out anytime soon anyways, which makes it kind of sad. You know, I do like that novel. I like both those novels a lot. And also, I have a novel that Jesse didn't ask about he may have read it, I forget, called Lake X Lake xs only it's a slasher, because the slasher is the closest genre to my heart. I mean, the werewolf is the closest creature to my heart, but the slasher is the form that I see that truly encapsulates everything I think is good about storytelling. And last, I mean, I was gonna say last final girl, but no Lake access only is I tried to use the tone and voice of Jeffrey Eugenides Virgin Suicides to tell a slasher. And much like mongrels, actually each each chapter, each motion, each movement of the novel is steals a title from something else, you know. And now I love that. Love Lake access only. I'm I don't think the thing is, as is, I don't think Lake access only would work as a movie. I think it only works on the page, but I may go in and try to rehab it into a script which which will require, you know, keeping 20% of it and writing 80% new stuff. But I'm never afraid of that, you know.

Michael David Wilson 21:51
Well, I'm just thinking with the Del Rio sequel, if you really want to fuck with people, then you need to release it. And for the cover, you have art that just completely matches the story in the first one,

Unknown Speaker 22:05
I was really

Bob Pastorella 22:09
hoping that was coming out, because I was ready to give you my credit card number,

Michael David Wilson 22:15
Bob, we've told you about giving your credit card out on the podcast. This happened with Richard Thomas and Gammon.

Bob Pastorella 22:24
Yeah, I want to read that as the spider in the eye. And, oh my,

Stephen Graham Jones 22:31
it's fun. You know, I was, I was really, I was really close to, um, publishing that. And also I was close to publishing, like, access. Only it was someone else. When I signed off my son, I was my new agent. And she said, All right, pull everything back in. You're not doing any novels in 2015 you know. So it almost, almost happened. Man,

Bob Pastorella 22:49
make it happen.

Michael David Wilson 22:52
See, you said we've washed in the blood that it has one of the best endings that you've ever written. You also said another manuscript where the rest of the story isn't up to scratch has one of the best endings you've written as well. So it kind of seems like a curse that if you write this incredible ending, there has to be a flaw that means that you can't possibly publish the rest of the story. So what you need is, you need Steve and Graham Jones selected endings, not collected, as we know,

Stephen Graham Jones 23:32
be pretty cool. I think, I think you're right, though. I think that the reason that with like those two stories, why, why I ended up, like, using all the muscles I had, and even, like getting more on credit to do the ending and look into something real, was simply that, like the writer instincts, part of my mind realized that the first part of the story wasn't up to snuff, and so it tries to make up for that with the ending, you know? And so I think, I think you're right. I think that the stories that are broken get stronger endings. Because I'm trying to Plant, plant the land. I'm trying to plant it, you know, um, but now the trick is, once that ending is in place, to go back and make the front part of the novel, getting that ending work work the same, you know? And that's, that's the hard work. That's what I need to go back and do, probably,

Michael David Wilson 24:21
so maybe the trick is to just write a shabby ending, because otherwise it's not gonna. It will never live up to the amazing ending, and then you rewrite the shabby ending after that's

Stephen Graham Jones 24:37
the way it always is. When I, when I write a novel like gospel of z, I remember, um, get, I got to the end of that, and it took me probably six or eight days to write the ending. And the ending was like two pages, you know, but um, and I had to come at it 15 times, you know. Just write a totally different ending, totally different ending, totally different ending. Endings are so tricky to get, right, man, um. And if you know. We get it right and the whole novel, yeah, we'll just be forever in the drawer, because you can't put something out with a sub quality ending, you know, because the ending is how people will come to define and remember your novel, you know, yeah. Like you can. I mean, you can kind of fudge it and cheat and get by with a front 60% of the novel that isn't perfectly great. You know, if you plant the ending, if you land the land, the ending really, really hard, then people will buy into the rest of it, just like, um, like with the old movie, sleepaway camp, you know, like, scene by scene, movement by movement, act by act. It's not the best, best movie ever. But when you get to the end and you see that big revelation that kind of catalyzes in reverse fashion, the whole movie and makes it all wonderful and perfect. You know, would have certainly

Michael David Wilson 25:51
been a number of novels that initially, when I've started reading, I haven't been that into. But then after you've read the ending and assuming it's a novel that really grabbed you, really hooked you, then you go back, and suddenly it just casts a completely different light on the beginning and what went before it, and you begin to see exactly why it was put down as it was definitely,

Stephen Graham Jones 26:21
I love, I love it when that happens. The problem is, you tend to lose a lot of readers getting like, it's like they're following me on following you on trust, you know, and, and that's really something that as a writer, you can never ask for, you know, um, you really have to make everything diamond, sharp and perfect, you know, you have to tempt them into turning the page over and over. So, yeah, I do like those experiences you're talking about, definitely, but I try not to write them because, I mean, I want every part of the novel I don't I don't want to have, I don't want the reader to have to say, well, it's going to get better, you know. I want them to say, I want them to say, Well, that's good. Can you keep that up? You know?

Michael David Wilson 27:02
Yeah. And I suppose you don't really want a disclaimer that says, Don't worry, it's a lot better the second time around. That's not gonna be the best of marketing tools. I don't think

Bob Pastorella 27:17
disclaimer to being some readers may experience boredom at the beginning of the story, okay, but by the time that you reach the end, you will want to read the beginning again. And I was like, Oh, well, I'm gonna go ahead and start around page 90 and skip this stuff. I catch up with it later. No, definitely, on

Michael David Wilson 27:38
the basis of the fiction that we've read from Vincenzo bila that sounds like exactly the type of thing I could imagine him putting at the start of a book.

Bob Pastorella 27:50
I mean now, now that we've mentioned it and tied it to him, and if he listens to this, which I'm sure he will, it's probably coming now, so

Michael David Wilson 28:01
I'll happily give him that one.

Stephen Graham Jones 28:02
Yeah, you know, I really appreciate what Dave Eggers on was at the back of the title page, and Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. How he he goes off saying it's normal, it's all right, until you get to page 110 but after page 110 it's all downhill. It kind of gets crappy and disjointed and everything. So if you just want to read the first 110 pages, that's fine with me, or he says something along those lines, and and I, and I took that and I thought, Oh, he's being facetious. He's joking around. But sure enough, man, that all starts to fall apart right around there.

Bob Pastorella 28:35
That's the opposite of what Stephen King does. Stephen King wanted to like save the end of his stories and publish the books. And not, not, you know, that's a test to get the ending. Oh, wow, I didn't know, skipping to the end, and he couldn't stand that, yeah, like, you know, but he couldn't, never find a publisher to do that. Yeah, that's the exact opposite. It's like, hey, yeah, you got to read all this stuff and and then I'm you, you're going to submit some questions, I'll send you the ending, and then you, you pay for the full book. Then, you know, I was reading that somewhere, one of his interviews that he said that. And, uh, yeah, that's the exact opposite. Dave. Dave Edwards is kind of like, hey, yeah, the first part of this book's really good. The rest of it's just crap.

Stephen Graham Jones 29:21
That's cool. I had no idea he wouldn't do that.

Michael David Wilson 29:24
Well, you know, if he really feels like that, maybe he should release 110 page version. It just ends, he's like, this is as good as, yeah, like, a kind of right as cut as it were.

Stephen Graham Jones 29:42
You know, I recently, you know, I read, what is it, Joe Hills, Nosferatu, like, I think, I think I read an early copy of that even because I'd introduced him somewhere. But um, just recently, I decided to queue up the audio version of it and give that a listen, because I like the story. I want to, I want to experience it again, you know. And, um, I. And what's neat is, in that one, if you listen all the way through, you get to the end of the novel, and you're like, Yeah, I remember that. You know, that's how it ends. Then you go on into the acknowledgements, and there's more stuff there, you know, it's really a pretty cool like a easter egg hidden. And in the audio version, it's pretty cool stuff, man, I think a lot of people probably miss it, you know. But I like that. I like that. I like that kind of added content. You know, those kind of tricks. They're very cool. They make me I don't know, they don't involve me in the process as a reader, but they give me the illusion that I'm getting something special. You know,

Bob Pastorella 30:38
you find a reading experience is different between reading on a page and an audio

Stephen Graham Jones 30:42
you know, I think used to, I would have argued that, yeah, they, they kind of lodge in different parts of my mind and my memory, my experience. But, um, man, lately, these last three years, um, I still read more than an audio novel, but it's getting closer to half and half, you know, um, because I found with that it really has to do with smartphone technology and Bluetooth stuff. The more I'm plugged in, the less I want to listen to my same old playlist, the more I want to listen to a big audio novel, like right now I'm listening to Patrick Rothfuss, the Name of the Wind, which is pretty amazing. You know, Benjamin Percy told me he said I would really like that. He's really, right. It's really, really solid. But, yeah, I love, I love audio novels. And what I'm finding is it's, I think it's changing the way I write a little bit listening to so many audio novels, because it's a really good exercise to listen like, get a get a collection of stories or an anthology and audio and listen to it, but don't watch the chapters on the on the screen. Instead, make yourself guess by the intonation of the narrator, the reader, when the ending is about to happen, you know, and and that, that sense you get of the tone of an ending. That's changed the way I kind of write, I think, a little bit. And also I wish you know I think some of those actors as voice actors, who do novel after novel, watch or not, like little weakened will weakens an excellent reader. I think that those, those people could be some of the best workshoppers You could ever ask for because I think they know prose rhythm in an intimate way that even fiction writers often don't, because they have to make it work out loud, you know. And I think were they to come at, like one of my manuscripts in its formational stages, you know, before it's published, I think they could improve it vastly. You know, the trick is, um, how to rope them into that kind of thing, you know?

Bob Pastorella 32:43
Yeah. I was like, well, this book isn't published yet, and I want you to read this to me for free.

Stephen Graham Jones 32:51
Yeah, man,

Bob Pastorella 32:52
yeah, and just, but act like it's published. I mean, you could trick them, yeah, yeah.

Michael David Wilson 32:59
Well, I listened to a lot of audiobooks, although I tend to listen more to non fiction, because I just find often when I'm listening to audiobooks, I'm walking somewhere or involved in something else, and I feel the concentration that You need to listen to a fiction audio book for me anyway, just isn't so compatible with my listening habits, although with with memoirs, like fictionalized memoirs, it can work, okay, I actually listen to the audio version of your own growing up Dead in Texas, and that worked well for me. Oh, cool. What I do like in the fiction sphere is I'm noticing there's a growing trend in terms of audio dramas. And so there was a brilliant one for Joe Hill's lock and key. Yeah. And I see that the new alien adaptation from Tim Leben, I think off the top of my head, it's called Alien out of shadows, that is also going to be put out as an audio drama. And I guess it's because when you have it as a drama and you have different actors. It's really pulling it off the page a little bit more than just a straight reading would do. I

Stephen Graham Jones 34:28
think it is I like to listen to. I listen to some of those dramas as well, and it is pretty neat. Um, I think in the you can also find lots of the old classic stuff, the old time radio dramas. You know, those are really fun to listen to but you're right. When you're walking around listening to an audio novel and you're invested in that story, it does make you a much worse Walker,

Michael David Wilson 34:52
like you walk if you want to walk into things, either drink a lot or listen to an audio book. Evil will do it. Yeah? Definitely, just don't combine the two.

Bob Pastorella 35:03
Yeah, I've never read an audiobook. I'm and I don't know, to me, I think it's, I'm afraid that it's going to change the way that I read, yeah, and, you know, so I'm just going to probably have to just bite the bullet and listen to one. But, uh, because I know a lot of, I know a lot of writers and you know, who listen to it. But, I mean, I'm such a visual person, I'm really hoping that, you know, my, my first experience with a, with a audio isn't a, you know, it's like, well, you could have read a better one, you know, yeah, yeah.

Stephen Graham Jones 35:39
Well, the trick, yeah, the No, you're right. Your your your first experience kind of sets the stage for all of them that come after. You know, my very first audio novel I ever listened to, I distinctly remember it. It was on cassette tape. It was called gone, but not forgotten, by Philip Margolin. It's a serial killer thing, and it was, it was read so well, and it's such a gripping story. So that kind of set the bar for me. And so I have found that like I can listen to on the road, like Kerouac's On the road, or Great Gatsby stuff that I've read a couple times and I know really well. But I found that for audio novel stuff, I do a lot better with thrillers and horror and fantasy and science fiction and detective and crime. I have not listened to very many of what people call literary stuff through my I haven't listened to it on audio very much, except for the classics. I've listened to a lot of those that. But the trick is I've already got them in my head, because I've already read them, so I'm just kind of re familiarizing myself with them, you know? But I have found with, with the audible app, anyways, you can increase the reading speed until it sounds like chipmunks are reading to you, you know, but, um, if you do that real slowly and gradually, then it's not like, suddenly Alvin is chittering in your ear. It's like, it's like, your brain adapts, and you can, you can get through like, a 10 hour novel in five hours, and at the end of it, you have this headache, like, it's like, you it's like, it's like your Neo in the Matrix, and somebody back at the on the ship has put a new chip in and just forced Ninjitsu into your head, you know? And you feel like you got too much in your head. But it's kind of fun to try, you know? Would

Michael David Wilson 37:15
it? This is something I don't know. If I spoke about it on a podcast. It might have been in reference to the podcast, but actually, with our own podcast, if you go to the website, you can increase the speed. You can go 1.52 or if you want it to be completely crazy, you can go all out, triple speed. But, I mean, I I did that. I installed that podcast player because I actually find with my own podcast listening, I generally listen to things at around 1.5 or double speed, particularly for podcasts. And as you say, your brain adapts. It means you can get through more information. And in fact, it's quite weird, because I know if I play something and my wife's in the room, it like fucks with her head, and she like, if she wants to listen to it, I have to slow it down. But it's got to the point now where if I put it on regular speed, then it all sounds rung to me. It sounds like they're slowing down. And I don't, yeah, I don't understand what's going on. You

Bob Pastorella 38:27
need to listen to it on slow speed. Also, what I,

Michael David Wilson 38:31
I've, I've done that for, you know, just to see what it's like. But, oh man, it's ridiculous. Like, if you put our own podcast on slow. It just sounds like we're particularly wasted, particularly Bob with his text and draw. It's unbelievable.

Bob Pastorella 38:54
Yeah, I do it just to get it. There's certain things that I listen to just to get a crack up on. And so that's if I need, at the end of a rough work day, I'll turn on one of the podcasts. I just sit there and laugh at myself. And then when you put it on normal, you know, you're just like, Oh, what the man. Now,

Michael David Wilson 39:14
the only time that listening to things at double speed caught me off guard was the booked podcast recently had their 300th episode, and we sent them a message about that. And of course, I forgot that I was listening to it at double speed, and I thought, Holy was I really in that much of a rush when I recorded a message for them, I don't what's going on here and it, it took me, you know, hours later, to realize, oh, no, shit, I just listened to podcasts at double speed. So apparently, you know anyone else's voice, no problem, but my own. It's like, well, hang on, that's not me. That's not what I do. Well. Know

Stephen Graham Jones 40:02
it's like, have y'all listen to deli parking song Jolene slowed down to 33 RPM instead of 45 I guess it's really cool, man,

Bob Pastorella 40:10
so I have listened to that. It's been a while. Yeah, yeah,

Stephen Graham Jones 40:14
I like that, man. I think I would turn a lot cooler at 33 than I do at 45

Bob Pastorella 40:21
I just remember growing up, you know, you have the turntable with the different speeds, and, you know, I had some friends that had some import albums, and I went and borrowed, you know, King diamonds, no presents for Christmas, which was originally put out on an EP. So it had two songs on one side, two on the other. For those that you know that are young and don't understand that, we actually had these things called records. You buy you buy them now, and pay $80 for them. But back then we borrowed them from other people, yeah, but you had to set the speed on there. And so I had it set at normal speed. And I think on EPS that you actually had to run them at a faster speed. And I remember the first time, you know, a buddy of mine said, man, he goes, You know, it's a funny song. There's some other, there were some other good songs on there. He goes, but the no princess for Christmas is pretty funny. And I started listening to it, and I was like, This is terrible. This is the worst I've ever heard in mental life, you know. And it's, you got to realize it's King Diamond. So he sings in falsetto, and then, and then, you know, a demonic voice, and so, and it's like the falsetto was low, and then a demonic voice was almost where you just couldn't understand it, you know, I was just terrible. And my buddy's in there. You know, we're listening to it. He goes, hold on, man. This is, this is a long play. You could have changed the speed on this thing. We cranked the speed up. And I'm like, I love this song. Let's start over. So now he listened to it at the Raider speed. I was like, oh, man, it's so stupid.

Michael David Wilson 42:00
We're speaking about things from back in the day. If you could give advice to your 18 year old self, what would it be?

Stephen Graham Jones 42:14
Don't sign the wrong contracts, probably or be read the read the contracts better, you know. But you know, tell the truth, every writer has bad contracts. I've signed. Um, every artist has early contract, like Bruce Springsteen, I was listening to interview with him there, and he was saying how the contracts he sound signed for, Born to Run, were terrible, you know. Um, it's kind of like that. That's your learning curve. And you come into the industry, whatever industry you're in, you know, you you start out, you just say, I'm so happy to have something coming out. I'll sign whatever you put in front of me, you know. Um, so, you know, I've done that a few times, of course, um. But as for life advice, telling my 18 year old self something, I think I would say, remember, every basket you ever make playing basketball, you know, because it's not going to last forever. Like when I was 18, my whole life was going to be Basketball, basketball, basketball. But sure enough, my body will start to wear out, and I started having to get all the surgeries, all over and everything. And so now just look back and remember a few of the shots, but I wish I could remember them all, man.

Michael David Wilson 43:22
Well, in terms of the contracts for any writers starting out who are listening, that are any things that you would say to look out for, whether it's to don't sign anything with that term, or just be a little bit cautious of this, yeah, be

Stephen Graham Jones 43:41
cautious of of of terms, of links, of terms and and have the definitions for out of publication be very strict, I think, not open to a lot of interpretation, I guess, yeah, because that's generally what's come back to bite me, is the term is worded such that it's kind of open ended, so that the rights don't roll back to me on certain things. You know, that's been the biggest thing. I mean, there was, there was a little bump in the road with when ebooks came around and publishers were interpreting contracts that I had signed for paper books to also apply to ebooks. And so some of my stuff got, you know, kind of lost in that way. But um, I think that's kind of over with now. And contracts are now all worded so carefully. They're worded carefully against coming technology, I guess you could say, but um, terms are the big thing to watch out for. I think length of terms like, um, how long will, how long will the publisher hold the rights to to this work? And in what circumstances do they roll back to me?

Michael David Wilson 44:44
All right, excellent. And we have quite a few writers starting out who I'm sure will appreciate that. I guess the big thing at the moment is also the foreign and the audio. And of course, yeah. Film rights and,

Stephen Graham Jones 45:01
yeah,

Michael David Wilson 45:02
I hear about some contracts that people sign that effectively give the publisher every single right which, yeah, that that seems to be a big thing. Yeah,

Stephen Graham Jones 45:16
that's, well, the trick is, when publishers they would that is the first version of the contract that they'll try to get you to sign, or they don't like being evil, or nothing. They're just being business people. And they say, they say, yeah, we'll publish the book. We get all the rights. But a lot of people think that that's the publishers last position, when really it's their opening bid. You know, they're, they're saying, We want all. And you're supposed to come back and say, you know, you just get half and they'll say, Well, you know, let's go 6040, or 73, or whatever it ends up being, you know. But just understand that that's that initial contract. You see, is not their final bid, you know, it's their opening gambit.

Michael David Wilson 45:53
Last time you're on the show, you recommended a number of great non fiction books the trigger in town. Yeah, yeah. Wonder book, yeah. And the other ones completely slipped my mind. But it was it by, is it Dan Pink or Dan pinker? They're two. Let me say I'm trying to think what it was. It was a book. Well, of course, it was about writing, but it was, it was more about the history of writing, hmm,

Stephen Graham Jones 46:27
I can't remember, you know, now I would add Stephen King's on writing if I didn't say that, because I think that's one of the big works. Um, Benjamin Percy has a book coming out in the fall from gray wolf press. Um, what is it called?

Bob Pastorella 46:43
That's a non fiction book as well. It's about writing, right?

Stephen Graham Jones 46:46
Yeah, it is Benjamin Percy's will be, yeah, um, it's two words. I cannot remember what it's called right now, but, um, I'm sure y'all can look it up, or somebody out there can look it up and find it called,

Bob Pastorella 46:56
read this.

Stephen Graham Jones 46:57
Yeah, let's call it that, man. I bet it's gonna be, it'd be pretty good. He has a really, he has a good mechanical mind. He's able to break down stories and storytelling in individual units. And I think those units are kind of like blocks that we can then use to put together our own stories. You know, right? I

Michael David Wilson 47:17
can, I can tell you the other book you recommended was the sense of style by Steven Pinker,

Stephen Graham Jones 47:23
yeah. No, that's so good. I've read that a time or two since I recommended that to you as well. Um, yeah, that book is that book change, you know? I say the audio novels are changing the way I write. Steven Pinker's book immediately changed the way I write, like I can feel the impact of it, you know.

Michael David Wilson 47:41
Yeah. So the question was going to be, what would you add to that? But you anticipated it. I think last time, I did indeed say that you couldn't name on writing. That was the caveat. You know, what wasn't quick enough this time. So there you go. It's in, yeah,

Stephen Graham Jones 48:02
you know, it's some somebody, a friend, just gave me. He gifted me a book by Richard layman. I think it is Rick Lehman. It's on writing. It's like a really rare book, but I've been peeling through that little by little, and it's got some really good stuff. I can email you the title for that if you ever want. I can't think of it right now.

Michael David Wilson 48:21
Yeah, if you, if you have a look as to what that was and send it me, I can include that in the show notes and in the outro too.

Bob Pastorella 48:30
Yeah, I just wish list the sense of style by Pinker, yeah, because I've never even heard of it.

Stephen Graham Jones 48:37
It's really good. It's really, it's really like, it seems like a really overly analytical approach to sentence construction, but if you stick with it and make yourself engage it at the level it's trying to get you to, then it really does change the way you think about delivering information through prose, you know, or has for me anyways, yeah.

Bob Pastorella 48:57
Well, I'm definitely going to probably read it on the Kindle. I'm not going to get the audio CD for $90

Stephen Graham Jones 49:05
Yeah, although, you know, I've read it on Kindle and I've read it on paper, and it's actually better on paper because there's lots of little charts and graphs and stuff, and they don't render very good through the little Kindle screen. Okay,

Bob Pastorella 49:20
let me wish list that on paper. Yes, when

Stephen Graham Jones 49:24
I was the first time I was reading it, I was reading it on Kindle, and I got, I kept getting to those charts and graphs. So then I went and bought the paper version so that when I got to one of those, I could open up the paper book and look at the chart, you know. Well,

Bob Pastorella 49:36
I got it wishlist that's going to be probably my next uh, non fiction that'll read,

Stephen Graham Jones 49:43
oh, man, oh, cool. You'll be, you'll probably be hating me because it's got a chapter or two where you read it and you're like, am I even human anymore? What's going on here? But, um, it, but it, it does actually help. Man,

Michael David Wilson 49:55
I don't. It was a great book, but I think you need to. You. You have be pretty strong going in, because it will rip apart a lot of your own writing. Yeah,

Bob Pastorella 50:05
yeah. It will, man, it will, well, that, and that's, that's, I love books that do that, because, to me, it's like you don't there's not a, it's not a gradual climb to get better. Yes, steps and some steps are bigger, larger take, a lot more effort to hit that hurdle, yeah, you know. And just like in anything else, it's like, you know, if I want to learn how to play guitar, you learn in steps. Don't get gradually better one day, you know, one day you can play, you can't play the arpeggio, and the next day you Clank, you can, you know. And it's like, you just, it's practice and and all that. But it's not a gradual thing. It's these little steps. Some of them are big, yeah, and so anything that can rip apart what I do and show me how it works. I'm all for that.

Stephen Graham Jones 50:55
That's cool. I like that. Like that way of explaining it. You know, I heard years and years ago, I was at a church, and a preacher gave a sermon that said, you need to get destroyed every once in a while. And that really has stayed with me since then. He said, You need to it's kind of like, Who is it? He says this Kurt Vonnegut. He says, I like to have my heart broken every once in a while. I think it's the same kind of order of thinking or the same dynamic they're tapping into but, um, what the preacher was saying was, every once in a while you have to be torn down and rebuilt, you know. And I think that's true, and however it happens is a good way to let it happen. I figure whether it's a book or a life event or whatever, you know, we we as people, are always kind of resetting and starting over and rebuilding ourselves. You know exactly

Michael David Wilson 51:43
well. Before we wrap up, Bob, did you have any questions you wanted to ask? I know we've covered a hell of a lot.

Bob Pastorella 51:53
Oh, I know I was going back, the only thing that you know, and I'm sure he's probably tired of hearing about, you know, but I mean, what's the deal with pickles, man. I mean, you and Tremblay, y'all suggested to no pick tour. But I mean, really work, you know, I

Stephen Graham Jones 52:11
think it's, um, when I was a kid, you know, I was a big brother. I had three, four little brothers and, um, and so I had, like, the power, you know, I could scare them with whatever I need. To scare them with dead rats or, you know, weapons or whatever. But, um, the one thing that they always had is ammunition to use against me was, um, they would make these bean dip and pickle sandwiches and then chase me around the house and make me watch them eat them. And that is what I'd like. I'm just, I'm trying not to gag right now, just even thinking about that so terrible.

Bob Pastorella 52:44
That just be dip and pickles. Okay, yeah, I need some coffee. I already taste it. I like pickles. I like bean dip, but I've never caught them yet. That's a Reese's cup. I don't want to counter,

Unknown Speaker 53:04
yeah, you had

Michael David Wilson 53:05
a very visceral reaction to that, Bob. You actually started,

Bob Pastorella 53:13
well, I don't know. It's as soon as he said it, I was like torture. No wonder.

Unknown Speaker 53:21
You know, also, sorry, I

Bob Pastorella 53:22
even brought it up.

Stephen Graham Jones 53:25
Another bad association I have with pickles is in sixth grade, we used to all we know lived at this place called Greenwood, this little place out in the country, and there's a skating rink over in the next town, Stanton, had 3000 people in it, and the skating rink would send a purple school bus, like a reclaimed school bus, over to Greenwood high school parking lot or elementary parking lot. It used to be high school parking lot, and we'd all all US Greenwood kids would load up into the purple bus and go skate for Friday night at the skating rink, which was the best time ever listening to Van Halen and Prince and everything, but at the counter once, where you buy concessions, one of my friends bought a pickle, big old, jumbo pickle, and he's sitting there eating it. There was a last pickle in that big, like huge jug and and he said to herb, the guy working the counter, he said, Hey, man, can I have that pickle juice? And Herb said, Yeah, whatever. I'm just gonna throw it away. And so my friend, his name was Brian, he took that and he turned it up, and he drank that whole thing of pickle juice. And I remember being in the parking lot with him, like five minutes later, while he threw up every single thing he'd ever had inside him. And it was such a terrible thing to even be tangentially involved with that. I think at that moment, I knew I was never going to be involved in a positive way with pickles again.

Bob Pastorella 54:40
Pickle juice can be good, you know, as far as, like, if you have cramps, oh, yeah, like muscle cramps, I drink it. Now, I'm not going to drink a whole jar. Yeah, I can't even drink a whole cup. It's a therapeutic thing, you know, it's, it's like you pour a little bit into a cup. And then you you try to drink it. For some people, they can just drink it. For me, it's like, it takes me 30 minutes to get it down. But it really does help with cramps, especially if you don't have any bananas, because, I mean, you basically just need some potassium. I

Stephen Graham Jones 55:13
had no idea that's so cool, you know, on the recommendation, oh, no, go on. Go on.

Bob Pastorella 55:17
It's just, you know, it's but whole jar, yeah? And I can imagine the size of the drawer. It's one of those, yeah, like the big old, you know, Costco, man is, you know, 50 gallons. You know, we could, I'll never run out. Yeah, no, John, pickles come in those massive glass jars. God, Puke for days.

Stephen Graham Jones 55:41
Yeah, it was a terrible thing to be to see. My other association with pickles is up on the reservation. People are always making dried meat, you know, and, um, and it seems like a good, I mean, you know, get a deer, make some dried meat. It's all good, but, um, what I learned early on was I do not like that dried meat. And the reason I don't like it is because people up on the reservation, they're always, um, they save all that pickle juice and and the pickle juice is a vital component that you use to make the dried meat. Like you said, I don't, I don't understand the process totally, but you soak it in the pickle juice for a while. I guess that's vinegar or something. I don't know. And it it does so it does something to the meat that allows it to be turned into dried meat. And, um, everybody else loves it, but every time I eat it, it tastes exactly like a pickle. Man, so, and I've been, I've been starving out hunting, you know, for many hours in the super cold, and somebody I'm with will pull out a Ziploc bag and say, here. Man, take some of this jerky, and I'll bite into it. And it'll be dried meat from reservation. It'll taste like pickles, and I'll just wish I was somewhere else. Man, that was a long, longer pickle discussion than y'all probably had planned, I guess.

Michael David Wilson 56:50
Yeah. I mean, pickle discussions on aren't really something we plan into. This is our podcast, so there's no time is such a lot to do. It just sometimes happens. We've got Paul Tremblay coming on next month, so maybe Bob will throw in a similar question. Or maybe, you know, you've put him off so much that that question is never coming out again.

Bob Pastorella 57:17
Oh no, I'm definitely going to ask him if I'm if I'm on that podcast, I'm definitely going to ask him, and it may be first round out of the cage. I don't know.

Michael David Wilson 57:27
That's just how we're going to roll starting off pickles. And you know, like we'll be amused. Unfortunately, that's half the listenership gun. But yeah, I I kind of trust that the two hour mark, if you've made it through this far that you've Yeah, you're probably cool to stay for the pickle cat. So on that note, where can our listeners connect with you? Oh,

Stephen Graham Jones 57:56
sgj, 72 is who I am there. I'm on Facebook now and again. My site, you know, or Steven Graham jones.com or stephengrandromes.net or demon three.net, demon three.com, we gotta go to the same place. Um, man, I don't know that the main I'm on Litsy too. I just got on let you recently. L, I, T, S, Y, it's that app you can get. I think it's only for iOS right now, but it's, it's like a social media network for book people, you know, and there's only book posts, only pictures of books and talk about books. It's really kind of neat. You know, I'm liking a lot.

Michael David Wilson 58:27
I haven't been on that. I'm now tempted to check it out, but, but then, obviously, the contrast is, do I need to add any more social media to my life? It's a tricky one.

Stephen Graham Jones 58:39
It is a tricky one. Um, what I found with, let's see, is that you don't get as compulsive about it as you might with like Twitter or something, you know. You just really go there for if you want to talk about books, you know. And it's really kind of a completely happy place to be. As far as I can tell.

Bob Pastorella 58:58
I had it when I had my iPhone, but I don't have iPhone right now. Yeah, I probably will. I usually go between Android and an iPhone throughout the year. And the main reason I get the Android so I can get free netflix, Samsung and spring and iPhone in the fall. Oh, cool. Being into phone business. You can kind of do things like that. But yeah, that's pretty

Stephen Graham Jones 59:26
that's pretty cool. I hear that. I hear that Litsy is supposed to come to to Android and to browsers, you know, so it's just waiting to do it, man.

Bob Pastorella 59:35
That'd be cool. Yeah.

Michael David Wilson 59:37
So do you have any final thoughts or advice that you'd like to leave our listeners with, man

Stephen Graham Jones 59:43
just werewolves are real. You know, a big source of tension between me and my wife when my kids were young was that, you know, my kids would be five years old and two years old or whatever, and they would come knock on our door at three or four in the morning. And they'd say, they'd say, Mom, Dad, I can't sleep. I think there's wearables out there. And my wife, my wife, would say, There's no such thing as wearables. Go back to bed. But I would sit up and I would look out the window. You know, that didn't help the kids sleep any

Michael David Wilson 1:00:21
I love the idea of, you know, someone saying so in your marriage, what is the number one source of marital tension? And that's it, right there.

Stephen Graham Jones 1:00:36
I believe in werewolves for most of my life, man, so it's, remember, I feel really lucky getting to publish mongrels, hopefully, hopefully a lot of people get to read it and they believe in werewolves is too man, that's that'd be the biggest thing I could ask for. You

Michael David Wilson 1:00:50
know, I have a feeling that that won't be the final werewolf story that we'll see from you. I think this is going to be a concern throughout your career?

Stephen Graham Jones 1:01:03
Yeah, I hope so. Man,

Michael David Wilson 1:01:05
alright, well, as always. Thank you so much for spending such a lot of your morning speaking with us. I mean, it's been great. And you know, I thought maybe after fill in two or three hours before or will we be able to do it again? Well, I think we've done it, no problem. And I'm sure we could speak for for hours still.

Stephen Graham Jones 1:01:29
I bet so. Man, yeah, it's been it's always a ball talking to y'all. Man, yeah,

Bob Pastorella 1:01:34
it was great.

Michael David Wilson 1:01:41
Thank you for listening to our podcast of Stephen Graham Jones. If you would like to win a copy of mongrels, then you can just enter our competition. All you have to do is send an email to Michael at this is horror.co.uk. Subject line, mongrels, competition. If you'd like to support the podcast, then please head on over to Patreon, www.patreon.com, forward slash, this is horror, and pledge just $1 per month. Now the thing is, I may have done something a little foolish recently. You see, I decided to take up a challenge to double the amount of support that we've got on Patreon in 30 days. And so really, if you've ever considered supporting us on Patreon, this is the time to get involved. And this isn't just a challenge with no consequences, because in my infinite wisdom, I decided at 1am to pitch an article to lit reactor. As we know, the best ideas happen at 1am when you're in that kind of weird state between consciousness and dreaming. So it seemed brilliant at the time, and I said to the editors that I would love to write an article on how I doubled my Patreon support in 30 days in knowing that if it was commissioned, that I would have to do just that. And as luck or lack of luck, depending on how you want to view it, would have it, they got back to me, and indeed, the article has been commissioned. Unfortunately, I haven't doubled my Patreon support in 30 days, but I'm going to, I have to, this is how I make myself accountable. I set these bizarre challenges, and because I've told people that's what I'm going to do. I do it. Yeah, it doesn't always work. This isn't this isn't a method that I'm recommending anyone tapes on. And now, with it not being 1am, I'm beginning to question the logic in what I've done, but I would really like your help to see if I can make this a reality. If you're unsure about whether to support us on Patreon, I mean, we have a number of video testimonials available from people like Stephen Graham Jones, David moody, Rob Olsen, all people who are supporting the Sahara podcast at the moment, and I'd hope, if you've listened this far, that you might consider supporting guests, that you might think that it's it's worth $1 a month. I mean, that equates to 20. Five cents an episode. So if you think we're worth paying for, I'd love it if you could support us. You get some perks as well. You get early bird access to the episodes. You get 10% off every thinking that this is horror shop, and very soon we have this is horror T shirts, which look amazing. They've been designed by Piper. So if you can, please support us on Patreon, and please help make my lit reactor column a success and not just a tale of epic failure and how one shouldn't make bizarre promises and pitches at 1am now it's going to be an interesting article, isn't it? However, it turns out. Now, on that note, I'll catch you next time on The this is horror podcast. Look after one another. Take care of yourselves. Read horror and as always, have a great day. Believe in werewolves.