TIH 217: Craig Davidson on Nick Cutter, Mid-Career Writers, and Creative Burnout

Michael David Wilson 0:00
Welcome to This is horror, a podcast for readers, writers and creators. I'm Michael David Wilson. I'm joined, as always, by my co host, Bob pastorella, how are you today? Bob,

Bob Pastorella 0:25
I'm doing great. Michael, how are you doing?

Michael David Wilson 0:27
I'm excellent. We just had a fantastic two hour conversation with Craig Davidson, and we covered so many different topics. Of course, we spoke about his horror writing as Nick cutter. We spoke about his literary writing as Craig Davidson. We spoke about his childhood, growing up, his influences. We got into so many different topics, and I think this is a conversation that you're all gonna really enjoy and get a lot out of.

Bob Pastorella 1:04
Oh, I agree Craig, Craig Davidson, I mean, he known for hard, hidden stories that that kind of border what I would call, you know, literary fiction, but at the same time dark, you know, and, of course, Nick cutter, same thing. You get really, really dark stories, horrific stories that kind of slide into literary category. So, you know, you have, you've got, basically just, he's a well rounded writer, uh, who pretty much has a handle on what he's doing. This is

Michael David Wilson 1:37
a guy whose work, as Craig Davidson has been compared to chuck Paula Nick and his work as Nick cutter has been compared with Stephen King. I mean, it really doesn't get much better than that.

Bob Pastorella 1:53
No, it doesn't. And you know, the really crazy thing is, is that he's had heaps of praise as Craig Davidson, from people such as Clive Barker, yeah. And that's, you know, when you, when you, when you hit it, and you're firing on all cylinders, man, you're really fired. And I think that's exactly what we got here with Craig,

Michael David Wilson 2:12
yeah. And indeed, he has had praise from both Chuck and king. He's also sad praise from Brett Easton Ellis, and now he's going to get praise from us too. So, I mean, he hasn't quite, hasn't quite lived up to the previous praise Michael David Wilson and Bob pastorella. But there you go. You can throw that on your resume too.

Bob Pastorella 2:35
And the thing with Nick Nick cutters books is that they, they definitely hit in my particular wheelhouse. The troupe is, like, you know, Lord of the Flies, written by David Cronenberg, you know. So, I mean, it's just, you know, it's, it's one, it's one of my favorite books. I've read it about three times, you know, I'm sure I'm gonna read it again.

Michael David Wilson 3:02
Oh yeah, and that's a good way of putting it. Yeah, I like your description. Okay, well, before we get into the interview, let's have a quick word from our sponsors.

Speaker 1 3:15
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Michael David Wilson 3:45
and we're back, and I believe that you have Craig Davidson's bio.

Bob Pastorella 3:51
Yes, I do. Craig Davidson is a writer who lives and works in Canada as Craig. He is the author of Rustin bone, cataract city. Sarah court as Nick cutter. He is author of such books as the troop, the deep little heaven, the acolyte, and that is Craig Davidson.

Michael David Wilson 4:14
All right. Well, on that note, let us not delay. Let's get Craig Davidson and Nick cutter on this is horror. Let's do it. Horror.

Craig, welcome to the this is horror podcast.

Nick Cutter 4:38
Well, thanks so much for having me guys, hi, it's a

Michael David Wilson 4:41
pleasure. And it's not every day that we have one guest and three offers on the same show. It's quite a unique offering.

Nick Cutter 4:53
My schizophrenic, uh, writing life.

Michael David Wilson 4:55
I know that before the show, I was chatting with. Bob. And he was talking about, you know, we should get, like, Craig and Nick to chat and, you know, can we get them on at the same time? Let's see what happens

Nick Cutter 5:12
if I can hold those two characters and two concepts in my head, it's I try, and I try and keep the camp separated most days. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 5:19
yeah. Well, that's understandable, but to begin with, let's go right back to the beginning. Let's talk about what some of your early life lessons were growing up in Niagara Falls.

Nick Cutter 5:34
Well, that's interesting. That's a great question. Michael, I'm not sure you know, in terms of, you know, actually, my father was a banker, so we moved around a fair bit. That was just the way it was in in Canada at the time, my dad's career was kind of the impetus that kept us bouncing around. So, you know, I was in Toronto and Calgary. There was a point at which we almost went to Australia, and we ended up in Ottawa instead. So we stayed in Canada, and then we ended up down, yeah, in St Catharines and Niagara Falls, which is the southern most part of Ontario. And, you know, I mean, it's funny when I talk about this doesn't apply to the Nick cutter stuff, but definitely the the Craig Davidson stuff is, um, you know, most writers who you read will have a place that they set a lot of their work. And having lived in a whole bunch of placing before we we got on here, I was saying that you and I have lived in Japan, and I've lived in in the States and other countries and into, like, big metropolises and really like exciting places. And I ask myself sometimes, why, you know, why Niagara Falls, of all places? Do I do? I choose to set most of my work under my own name, and I think probably it's because, you know, writing a book is, um, is a strange endeavor, and it's, it's kind of a scary endeavor, especially when you're staring at the page at the beginning. And, you know, I like to have some known commodities, I guess, that I can work with and and one of those things is a sense of place, which obviously is the same for plenty of writers. And I feel like, if I know the place, I know the area, because I've lived there and because I it kind of resonates within me. I know the rhythms of that place, I know the people. It just makes things easier to write, and it makes you, I think, can write from a place of authenticity and of knowing that place and those people, and because so much of, I think so much of writing, writing is kind of a confidence game, and it's about playing little tricks on yourself that get you up the next morning and get you back into a book, especially at that midway point or whatever, wherever you hit it. It's different for different writers, where you just feel like, Ah, this is terrible, and I'm terrible, and what am I even doing this for? You know, it's good to know that you have certain things that you can go back to certain touchstones that are meaningful to you and then get you through those kind of lag spots. And so for me, my upbringing and all that, all that funnels into it, my upbringing, my parents, the place where I lived, my friends, the people that I grew up around, that's all become fodder for my work, which is, you know, puts me with 99% of other writers.

Bob Pastorella 8:35
Yeah, it's like you're using setting as character. It's a character that you know. It's the character that you know infuses itself within all of your work. And I always find that really fascinating, that you know that writers can do that. I mean, it's, you know, a lot of people will say, Well, yeah, Stephen King, you know he's, he's known for that, but there's, there's so many people that have done it, and it's just really cool. Yeah,

Nick Cutter 9:00
yeah. I think, you know, Stephen King with Maine, and, you know is, you're right, as my kind of classic example of that as well. But, yeah, there's so many, you know, there's la writers, there's obviously New York writers, who, you look, every single book they've written has been set there and and there's, you know, there's Midwest writers, there's, I'm speaking mostly North America, but, you know, obviously up here in Canada there's, there's people who write about the prairies almost exclusively, or the West Coast lifestyle. And I'm obviously the UK would be no different. There would be people who write about the UK, but I suppose there'd be like, Birmingham writers or Manchester writers, or London writers. So, yeah, it's, it is the character of a book is, sorry, I would say the setting or the city of a book can be a character of its own, if you're invested deeply enough as a writer about making it a character.

Michael David Wilson 9:57
Yeah, and I completely agree with you that. It does give and lend itself to that authenticity. And I love the way that you described using it as a kind of confidence game. And I think for anyone who's struggling, who's just starting writing, you know, even though it can be a cliche to start with what you know, and to start with places that you know, if you just get writing with that as a starting point, I think more will come from there, and I know that quite a bit of the late Graham Joyce's work started off with adventures that him and his friends had had around the Midlands in England,

Nick Cutter 10:43
yeah, I have no doubt that, that, you know, I think one of the biggest, I don't know, leaps, I would say that. I mean, first of all, he talked about the the confidence, and, you know, whether you're whether you're struggling, or whether you're starting out, you know, it's funny, someone said to me the other day that that I was a mid career writer, and I guess I am. I'm 42 but I've been doing this for a while, so it's kind of shocking. I know I'm middle aged, but I wouldn't have thought I'm already mid career, but I guess I am. And the one thing that is has never changed is that you still have to play those tricks on yourself and however many books in you know of mine, some of them having some measure of success. Others, not so much. There is still that sense that that almost every day, I mean, when it's going really good, you don't really need to use those tricks as well, but, but I think in the way that every you know that there will be sunny days, you know there's good the clouds are going to move in at some point, I know I'm going to have to go back and rely on them and on those tricks, because they simply, they're they're a necessity for me. And I think most writers, you talk to other mid career writers, when we sit down and chat, there's an accumulation of successes, but also failures, and all those influence. The next day when you sit down to, you know, to sort of work on whatever book you're working on, and and I guess the the idea that that most writers, anyways, get to this point of pure confidence, where all those kind of worries fade into irrelevancy. It's a very fortunate writer who is able to approach their career and mindset that way. But yeah, for me, in terms of using my own life in history, that was kind of one of the biggest forward steps I ever made, which I use more in the Craig Davidson work than the Nick cutter work. But it does work. Work work its way into the Nick cutter stuff too, which is, you know, if we all have foundational events in our lives, you know, moments where we have, you know, felt those kind of core fundamental emotions that we all feel, guilt and rage and sadness and and, you know, extreme joy. And I think one of the biggest leaps I took as a writer is when I recognized that my own life, as quotidian as I think it is, has value in that I've had experiences that mesh with those foundational feelings that we all have. And so you take those events and you take those moments, and you put them in a under a fictional lens, and you put them, you give your you give your you gift your characters those experiences. And usually, when someone will come up and say, you know, I really liked seeing X or Y in your book, often it's something that has been taken from my own life, you know, retrofitted, changed a little bit, but the kind of the nugget of it is, is my own life and experience.

Bob Pastorella 13:46
Yeah, that's the epitome of, write what you know. You know. People say, Well, write what you know. Oh, man, I know my job. No, you know a lot more than that. Just got to dig deep.

Nick Cutter 13:55
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Michael David Wilson 13:58
When you said that, someone referred to you as a mid career writer. I mean, what context was that in? And how do you even respond to that?

Nick Cutter 14:09
Yeah, we were just at some book event here in Toronto, and he's a reviewer, actually, really nice guy, and, I mean, he might have said it as a badge of honor. I couldn't. He certainly wasn't said maliciously or anything. But, you know, I guess I don't know. I can't get it crawl inside of his head and figure out why he said it, or where he was coming from, and I didn't pursue him on the point. But you know, in some ways it's a badge of honor in that, as you guys know, it's, I mean, it's a rough gig. In some ways it's a very validating gig, and it's something that I enjoy doing, and I can't really picture myself doing anything else, even though there's every good chance that down the line I will. Be doing something else for either my own sake, or, you know, because the game has passed me by. But you know, to be, to be even make it to, I guess, mid career, you know, which would mean I would be done by the time I'm 50. I guess by that guy's estimation is, you know, is, is something, I guess, you know, because there's so many great writers out there, and there's, there's, the competition is, is fierce, and there's so many, like, really, really good writers who, you know, for whatever reason, don't have, not yet, anyways, had the sort of success that I feel when I read them, that they're due, you know, maybe writers who are in the small press right now, and I mean, many people will make make a leap out, if you want even contextualize it as a leap. There are some people who are perfectly happy and whose talents and skills are beloved by a small group of Cognizant i and, you know, big press would say we even love this, you know, writer x, but we can't really envision him or her, you know, selling enough books basically, to make to crassly state it that that we could give them this contract. And I don't think those writers would change themselves, and even if they wanted to just like me, I there's a certain point as a mid career writer that it's like your fingerprints, you know, I can't change it exactly. I can make little modifications to it. I can change my style to a small degree from book to book. But there's a point at which you are what you are, and I don't want to see you calcify into that, either as a person or as a writer, but there, but there is a point where I'm and you guys are certainly read enough to know not of Me, but of but of everybody. Is that, you know, we have our obsessions, we have the things that we like to write about, and even when you try and distance yourself from those if you try that, you might find that the shackles are a little tighter than you figured they were.

Michael David Wilson 17:05
Yeah, absolutely. And I think even with that Craig Davidson Nick cutter distinction, I mean, particularly going from your stuff under your own name and then to Nick cutter, you can certainly see little flourishes and turns of phrases and just a way in which you'll capture something so succinctly, and I'd say artfully, that it's almost unmistakably Craig Davidson,

Nick Cutter 17:38
well, by some estimations, artfully by estimations, if if you read deeply enough, on the internet, poorly or inelegantly or derivatively, but, but I appreciate you saying so. Michael, ever you know and ultimately like for me at this point, probably even well before this point, it's, you know, I mean, I was it sounds almost like a defeatist to say you are what you are, and that there's no room for growth or change. And I think all writers, all people, have to think that their best work is ahead of them. And I absolutely do think so for myself, but it may end up when I look back over my career, if at such point I ever do which, which, I will. You know, I will, I will. I'm sure I will be happy about certain things and pleased and I mean, certainly one thing with me is like I've run into many, many incredibly talented writers over the course of my existence at school or, you know, just meeting them randomly. And I mean, talent is one part of it. And then talent, I mean, if someone is really talented, someone who works really hard is never going to probably clear that gap if that other talented person is working hard, but my sense has always been, you know, if I have a cup of talent, if I have a thimble full of talent, whatever amount of talent I have, I'm going to use as much effort as I can and determination to propel whatever slim talent I have into a career and into the books that I want to write. So, you know, and that's basically my Outlook, you know. I mean, we all, if we all have a horse, you know, I'm willing to ride mine further and put up with more, I guess, and and suck up more rejection and scorn or whatever, in order to, you know, to put myself where I'd like to be, for the sake of myself, obviously, but now for the sake of my family. And I mean, that's a big part of writing, too, as you go on. I mean, I started out from an aspect of a young guy just wanting to write the stories that felt meaningful to me. And now I'm a middle aged, mid career writer, and I still. Want to write the stories that are meaningful to me, but I have a I have a son, and I have a wife, and I have an obligations that didn't exist when I was younger. And I don't want to say that my writing has changed too much because of that, but probably even without my reckoning with it, or recognizing it, or wanting to admit it, probably it has. And that's, you know, the same for every job, probably. But there's a certain, certain sense I think society that writers should be above that, and, and some writers are. I'm not necessarily. So those things also influence my my work and and how I write, and probably some of the subjects that I choose to write on,

Bob Pastorella 20:45
yeah, it's like saying I'll, you know, basically all the talent in the world doesn't mean anything if you don't have an ounce of drive to go behind it.

Nick Cutter 20:55
Yeah, and you've seen that, I'm sure. You know there were writers who I loved. I mean not not writers. I mean writers who I say I went to school with, who you would see that they're just like, they've got a vision, and they've got a sense of of who they are stylistically, and they've got something really interesting to say. But criticism just really gets to them, you know? And I think I recognized pretty early that if I didn't get some bark on my tree, I mean, that was almost the most important thing to get, really. That was the first thing to get is that you're going to get rejected. You know. I didn't do anything quite as morbid and dismaying as fill up like a pillow with rejection slips, but I could have, you know, and I could have had a very crinkly, uncomfortable, sad night's sleep on them, because it was they, they were that, you know, this was back in the day where you actually, like, pre internet, where you actually sent your stuff out in little envelopes with your self addressed, stamped envelope to come back and and there were years and years and years, I mean, I swear, Guys, years where I didn't get a single acceptance and yeah, did it hurt? Yeah, were there dark nights of the soul where you're like, What the hell am I doing with my life? Yeah, did you have your parents and your friends being like, I don't know what this Dave Davidson's doing, like we love him, but man, he seems like he's setting himself up for failure, and there was no guarantee that I wasn't setting myself up for failure. So but I guess I just way at the beginning, I assume that that was part of the tariff that you're going to pay to progress and and I do. I think about all those great writers who I, who I came up with, and some, some of whom are doing quite well right now, but most of them were had my same outlook, you know, is that you really got to, like, hoover up a lot of rejection, and that's tough. You know, I talked to young writers now, and they they're in that same lost place that I was in, and I have no advice, sorry, I certainly have no sucker that I can offer them and that, like, well, it's all going to be fine. It's like if, but if you stick the line, and you stick to what you believe in, you got a pretty good chance at least.

Bob Pastorella 23:09
Yeah, I would agree with that wholeheartedly in it there. The other end of the spectrum is you have people like, you know te decline, who his output is extremely small retreat, achieved, you know, a huge amount of success, and has in his own record for saying that he will literally do every single thing he possibly can to make sure he's not writing. And it's like, you know, and you kind of want to just, you know, grab him by the shoulders and go, Dude, you're so talented, and you're just getting older, you know, but at the same time, you kind of got to go, Hey, man, you got to do what you want to do, you know? And it's just, I don't know, it's, it's a weird, it's a weird thing to see. If you know that's the both ends of the spectrum there, for sure.

Nick Cutter 24:00
Yeah, yeah, like Ted Chang would be the same, the kind of science fiction writer who, you know, did arrival and others and, you know, but I mean, you speak to him or, I mean, yeah, I remember it was the ceremonies right by Klein,

Bob Pastorella 24:16
right? Yes, he wrote that. And, yeah, he wrote the ceremonies, and he wrote dark gods, which is the collection of novellas. That's

Nick Cutter 24:24
right, that's right, that, and that's great stuff. Oh, yeah. But you know that that's it. I've run into people too, who are like, you know, I wanted to publish a book. And they did it, and it was like, you know, it's the same as saying, I want to run a marathon. They don't necessarily want to do it again. It was like something to check off the bucket list and and so they their their drive, though, you know, admirable is, is it's a different kind of drive. It's not about doing that same thing again, or there's no timeline that they're on that makes them, makes them feel like they've got. To where they're not. They're not battling some kind of invisible foe, or their contemporaries, or feeling like they have to keep up with the Joneses. And I mean that is, to be honest, for me, that is jealousy inducing. You know, I wish, I wish I didn't feel quite as burdened by this sense of needing to keep working. You know, partially that is because we have a mortgage and because, you know, we want our son to go to swimming lessons. And, you know, the quotidian kind of things that you need money for. But, but there have been points where, now, much more than in my past, I have to, I don't know, I have to make sure it's not a job, you know, and that would be nothing if we'd been having this conversation, you know, eight years ago or something. It just wouldn't even have factored into my headspace. But as you go on, I don't know you don't want to sit back behind the computer feeling like you're just churning stuff out. And ideally, I don't feel that way. But it really is harder to kind of fall into that story sometimes, and to feel that you're not going through the motions. And because if you are doing that, then obviously that's gonna, you know, readers are gonna feel that because you're not. I don't think you're gonna be able to hide that from them necessarily. So yeah, there certainly in my own career, there's, there's this push and pull of of wishing I could take some, some significant amount of time off. But you, you kind of do get yourself if you're trying to make your living as a writer, there's a, there's a hamster wheel you get on, which is, I'm sure, if there's any young writers listening to this, gonna be like this. Sounds awful. What a life, what a life this guy has. But, um, you know, what a, what a dismal carnival of miseries is this man's life, but it's not I really enjoy my life and I enjoy my work, but it certainly has undergone some some changes from the mental perspective to it over the years.

Bob Pastorella 27:15
Yeah, you want to feel, I mean, I guess the easiest way to put it is like you get shackled to your passions, but you don't want to feel like you're shackled to your passions, because then all the that drive is gone because it becomes a chore. So there's that fine line that you have to ride there. You know it's, I've seen writers throughout the years, just, you know, have so much drive and and they burn themselves out because they just feel like that. You know, they always have to be, you know, just push, push, push, push, push. And you gotta, there's

Nick Cutter 27:55
a balance there. Absolutely their life balance. And I certainly run across enough successful people, either you know creative people, whether it's it's writers, whether it's directors, or, you know people in the movie industry. And I mean, burnouts are real thing, creative burnouts are real thing, just overall burnout. I mean, whatever that that's, that's life, that's, if you're an accountant or a lawyer, you're, you're, you're, you could be prey to that. So, yeah, but, but it is. It is. And, you know, I mean, I used to have things that no longer work. Like I used to set my, you know, find another writer, for example, who I felt to be my contemporary and be like, I'm going to be better than him or her. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know why I set them as a stay course, and I'd make them my, kind of like, ask, well, they had to be better than me. And, you know, and then sort of without them knowing it, you know, it's like, you're my nemesis, and I've got a, you know, I've got to be better than you. And you know, you know that was bitter, bitter fuel. But in my 20s and early 30s, I would be lying if I said it didn't. Wasn't effective, but it was bitter, and it's nothing that I can use anymore, like I am, not only my contemporaries, or, you know, other writers who are successful. I mean, I'm legitimately happy for them and and then to see them, them having success and and getting the deals that they're getting, and getting the readership that they're getting. As I said earlier, it's a tough gig. So in a way, seeing people have success in a fundamental way. Now it's, it's ennobling, and it's something that I actually really like to see, whereas before, I would use it as some kind of, I don't know, the impetus to to work harder or or to be up later, you know, or to feel like I'll drive myself harder. And that's, I think, that's all well and good. It. When you're young. And for all I know, people still use it in their 50s and 60s, and if it works for them, fine, but there are just certain things that I've felt to be spurring towards, you know, working harder, which just were false, really, and don't. And because of the falsity, at least for me, they don't work anymore,

Bob Pastorella 30:21
right? You can have all that, that, you know, that anger and everything when you're young, and you can go, hey, yeah, you got Stephanie Meyer. She writes shit, and she gets all these books and everything. I used to think like that, and now, you know, it was like, it dawned on me, no one told me this. I just figured out in my house, like, yeah, she's got a book contract. Though, you got a job. You don't have shit, so you need to. So use that as as you shift the focus of that anger to, you know, write better, and at the same time, in the back of your mind. It's like, you know, well, hey, if they did it, then anybody can do it. It's the right it's the right time, it's the right person, it's the right project. And it's that synchronicity. And at the end of the day, if you'll never publish another story again, I'm still going to write. So there you go. Yeah,

Nick Cutter 31:19
absolutely. I've always said it's, you know, you're looking for that one considerate pair of eyes. You know, wherever that comes from, whoever that editor is who just reads your work and just, and it's, again, as you said, it synchronizes with them. It syncs with them. They see what you're trying to do, and they ideally Foster, you know, you know, foster that and bring that forward and support you and get your work out there. And that's, you know, that's obviously great, and that's necessary. You know, we've all had an editor or somebody, basically a patron, who gets what you're trying to do, especially if it is a little off the beaten path, and it's it's something that you know needs to find its niche, basically. But I guess that again, goes towards the idea of just, you got to keep knocking on doors. You got to keep working. You got to keep accept accepting rejection in order to find that. I mean, if you're lucky, you find it right out of the gate, but if you do, you better not. I probably you better not assume that that's the way it's going to go all the time, because, you know, that's there's danger laying that way. But yeah, yeah, I think some people have it, you know, have it easy at the start of their careers, some people have to work really hard, and then they get the break that they need. And none of it's like, you know, karmically. It just happens the way it happens, is my belief, but it is almost always, for most of us, a constant kind of dog fight, you know. And that's okay. I like to work hard, and I'm sure you guys like to work hard too, and I don't like rejection, but I recognize that that is part of the I mean, it doesn't even if you get the book out there or the story out there, you know, and then you decide, for whatever masochistic reasons, to wait In online and see what people think about it. Likely not everybody is going to share the opinion that it's wonderful,

Bob Pastorella 33:28
right? Being it's like you have to accept rejection at all levels, you know? But I mean, on the other hand, I have bought, I have made purchases based upon bad or what I would consider to be a negative review. Seen a negative review and go, damn, that's actually a story I want to read.

Nick Cutter 33:53
That's true. I'm sure that's true. And it's, you know, it's strange. As a writer, you think, I think most of us think that a bad review is going to cripple us and, you know, our career is going to fly out the window, at least, that's what you feel at the beginning. I know when my first book rest and bone, I got a call from my editor, and he was like, we got, you're going to get a review in the New York Times on on Christmas Day. And I was like, Oh, wow, exciting new york times. So I got up, I was staying at my folks house, and, you know, it's back in the dial up modem days. So I went downstairs, got the computer going, heard the dial up thing, and then checked and it was just an evisceration. It was, it was a terrible, review, my first major review ever of my of my work. And you know, had, had you caught me at that moment on Christmas Day, you know, moments before, I had to go upstairs and pretend I was happy opening gifts and stuff. I want to send my careers over like that's it. It's done. And. Clearly here I am all battle scarred, whatever, 13 years later, and the career is still poking along, but, but that's the way it goes, you know? I mean, that's the roller coaster you ride, sort of of emotions. And you, you do recognize as you, you stay in it long enough that no one review is going to kill you. And in that said, as you said, Bob, sometimes people are actually, so I don't know, strangely interested by a bad review that they actually get the book.

Bob Pastorella 35:30
Yeah, that's, I think it's a, I think I can't remember who actually said it. Have so many friends who say shit, but they said there's no such thing is a bad review. It's just, there's only a pissed off customer, you know, and everybody's gonna be, you know, a shit I've been a pissed off customer, sure, yeah. I mean, it's part of of what happens when you you know, it's like one of the rules of commerce, you know, you're not going to be able to make everyone happy, yes. And in writing, you really, really, really have to embrace that, you know, I've had on some unpublished stuff. I've had really, really good friends who just, you know, and, you know, basically say, why'd you write that? It's like, well, it's, you know, what I thought of you, like, it's, it was pretty dumb. I'm like, okay, that's how you feel about it. That's fine. You know, you've done dumb shit too,

Nick Cutter 36:28
exactly, yeah. Well, too. I think if you try and take, you know, if your work's got teeth, you know, and that can be in any way you want to contextualize it, whether it's got a style that is its own, or whether the subject matter is, you know, bracing in whatever way that it might be, or the characters are off putting, if that's how people might conceive them. I mean, I think it's important too to like, again, I'm not, I'm not in the business of giving advice, because it's different for everybody. But, um, like holding your line esthetically and and saying the things that you want to say again, because it is such a rough gig that if you're not doing what you love to do and you're not saying the things in the way that you want to say them, a why, in some ways, why are you doing it and be the readers? You know, if you, know. If you, if you sit down and you want to say, here, I want to write a book that hits all these demos and doesn't alienate everybody, anybody you know, the Toothless product that you would probably conjure with that outlook would be nothing that anyone would ever want to read anyways, right?

Bob Pastorella 37:37
It's like being safe for for safety's sake, and in fiction, it's, that's, that's probably, you know, not good, right?

Nick Cutter 37:51
Not that there haven't been people, you know, object lessons, where you could say, oh, that person seems like they took the safe route and, you know, and created something along the lines of like verbal pablum, but people like it, you know? And who's to say? You know that that's, that's. The danger is, you can look out there and you can see people having success, pursuing a line that you would probably think is ludicrous. But I think the danger is, is trying to adopt whatever the strategies that that person is using, which to them might be really like, not strategies at all. That's just like, that's the way they write, that's that's how they the purest expression of their own stories and worldview. I think it's, I think it's it. You just got to find your own line, and you got to hold it as well as you can, and you'll suffer the slings and arrows along the way. But then you can look at some of the writers who you love and admire, and if you look close enough at their career, you'll see up those guys, you know, those men and women are, you know, suffering the same slings, or certainly suffered them at some point in their career. And that gives you a measured outlook, hopefully an ability to kind of press on?

Bob Pastorella 39:01
Yeah, there's certainly, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 39:03
I absolutely agree with all of that. But I wanted to take the conversation back to what you were saying about times where you just find yourself going through the motions, or indeed, if you find yourself close to creative burnout. So I'm wondering, what do you do in those situations? I mean, to ensure that you've got that rest and that you're coming back to the project re energized.

Nick Cutter 39:33
You know, that's a great question, and I wish I had an answer that that didn't have a bunch of caveats attached to it, but, um, I mean, probably the deepest truth is that I don't know that I'm I don't know that every time I sit down behind the computer, that I am, I'm mentally on task the way that I need to be, and that could be, you know, based on. You know, our son had a bad night last night, and you know, we were up all night with him for whatever reason, or, you know, some other aspect of of life that that kind of intrudes, which, again, is no that happens to everybody. It doesn't matter what your job is. So, you know, to me, I guess it really does go back to the idea that it keep, you know, a determined, sort of measured, continual application of willpower and force. And if that means sitting down every day and recognizing that, I mean one of the biggest things I recognized is that when I was first writing, sending out short stories. And I don't think this is a unique outlook, but I would, you know, finish writing it, and literally, the ink had not draw it on the inkjet before. I'd be stuffing it into envelopes and be like, This is it? This is the best story that I have ever written, perhaps the best story in the history of mankind, and I will send it out, and fortune awaits me. And of course, I would send it out, and then the rejections would roll in, and I would immediately think, Oh, this is the worst story ever, and I'm the worst writer ever, and I don't know why I ever allowed myself to believe otherwise. So now what I do you recognize that editing is as big a part of writing as the actual initial writing. So, you know, yes, you want to have that kind of forceful sense of what you're writing about when you sit down and get that initial draft out, because that is kind of the, the linchpin of everything. But, you know, any, any of my books have gone through, you know, before they hit the stands, I would say between 10 and 15 edits, some of the major getting more and more, like fine tooth comb, you know, towards the the copy editing and proofreading and sort of stages. But I mean, there will always be some massive, like structural edits that will happen. And as long as it those stages, you know you are, you're tuned in. So if you get to a point in your initial draft, you're like, you know what? I wasn't on the ball at this point, be on the ball now. And you've got some planks to work with. So you know you can kind of refine them or make them rougher, depending on, on, on how you want to approach it, and working closely with an editor. I mean, another thing that I recognized as early in my career, I was kind of, I wasn't resistant to editing. I never was, but I kind of thought, oh, you know, I know my voice, I know my vision, for lack of a better word, I know my esthetic. Just just put the book out, and I'm sure it'll do well. And after books that did not meet with any kind of favor at all, I recognized that, you know, an editor is obviously there to bet you to get your strongest work out, because it's a in the best scenario, it's, it's a partnership, and I'm fortunate to have some long term editors who I've worked with for years, and they know me and I know them, and so they can, they can actually reinvest my enthusiasm, and they can point to the places where it seems like maybe I was a little not on my game that day or that week, And, you know, in that kind of back and forth, we can ideally get the strongest book out as possible. So, yeah, in terms of, like, you know, taking time off, I wish I could, I wish I had the financial wherewithal, financial wherewithal slash mindset that would, you know, a TED client mindset, they would allow me to actually take my foot off the gas for a while. I don't at this point, I will, you know, we, everyone has dreams. My dream would be like the Eminem mic drop moment. You know, where I write the book or I do the thing that says to me, all right, dude, this is why you have been working so hard. This is, must have been what your overall ambition was right from the beginning, even if you couldn't even contextualize it at the time. But this is it. You feel really good. You're happy just to like, stop writing. And that sounds maybe a little ridiculous, but there is a point where you feel a little bit, I feel anyways, where, where my life is, is on rails, and is kind of feeding towards a point of even more narrow focus. And you think there's so many other things you can do in life. I know we're on a writing podcast, and that's the primary point of it, and I love writing. But, you know, I always say to my wife, there'd be a point in my life where I'd like to do something different, and it's a matter of if I can feel like I've accomplished what I need to accomplish before I can allow myself to step away. So yeah, you're hearing the the model and monitorings on of. Of a mid career writer,

Michael David Wilson 45:01
but I think this is all really important, and this does go back to what you said earlier about constantly improving and constantly growing. And I think that does really apply to all facets of life. And if you did get to that point where you think you're happy to stop writing, or you think this is the peak, this is the tough in terms of my abilities, then I think the sensible thing to do would be to pursue something else. Because, like, I mean, I, I guess there may be, there probably are some people who are happy to say, right, this is the top level. I'm just gonna meander along. But I mean for me and for the way in which I view the world, I couldn't do that. So if I, if I wrote a story, and I thought, right, that is peak Michael David Wilson, that'd be the final story. And similarly, if I do that with the podcast, if I do that with anything I'm doing really, because I just don't like the idea of stagnating, of just kind of going along. Yeah,

Nick Cutter 46:17
I'm there with you. Michael, like, I feel like, you know, there's so many other obsessions. And writing for me has always been, probably from from from Ground Zero, an obsession and and it's, it's one of those, I don't know, pursuits in life that that open itself to to mild or life altering obsession. And I fall I'm not, it's not the life altering obsession it used to be, I think, in the way that when it becomes a job, to a degree, it's it's not that the mystique is out of it, because I still feel there's an enormous amount of mystique with with writing and with with being able to do it. But, you know, there are other obsessions in this world. And I mean, another thing I know, you know you said something really prescient and important is that, like, if it can be the best story that you can do, you know what I mean? And for me, it's the same. I mean, if you contextualize writing or any creative pursuit as a mountain, you need to find the peak that you can rise up to and and be there. You know what I mean, like, you know. But you're gonna find, if you think you've hit the peak, you know, the clouds are gonna park and you're gonna say, Oh, the mountain goes up and up, and there's so and so up there, and there's so and so above him or her. And that's partly to do with talent, obviously, and it's partially to do with with some other things. But like, I mean to you, Stephen King is as an example. You know, when I was a kid, I got into Stephen King really early. And you know, if you'd asked me in high school, what will you want to be Craig, I'd be like, I mean, yeah, be the next Stephen King. And And back then, it felt like, oh, okay, why is that not possible? You know, I read his stuff. I'd actually seen the man, you know, back then, I also want to be a basketball player, but, um, you know, it was, it was easier for me to contextualize the idea, the sense that, like Craig, you're, you know, six foot nothing, and you can't jump over a piece of full SCAP. You're not going to be a basketball player. You know, you can just watch the NBA and realize that you don't have the physical gifts that would allow you to compete at that level. But Stephen King, you just, he's just, well, he's Stephen King. We've all seen what he looks like. And you're like, wow, there's no physical Dynamo. But if you took, you know, Stephen King's unique skill set, or Clyde Barker's, or many others, well, no, a few others, and you kind of put them in into an MBA context. I mean, Stephen King would be seven foot, five and 350 pounds, and he would just dunk all over everybody. So it was long ago that, once I started trying, once I really recognized how freakishly amazing Stephen King was, that you you do set it out of your head, that that that becomes your he can still be a pole star. He can still be something that you can say, I'm amazed and grateful that he exists in this world. But, I mean, I could have 1/100 of the success that Stephen King has, and still do all the things that I basically want to do as a writer, which is, you know, write for a living, get books out, have a readership, you know, maybe get some movies made out of my work, you know, and just like, be in the game, and these are, I don't know, I suppose, when I actually had that reckoning, whenever it was, it was, it was painful. But, you know, as as you go on, you realize, okay, that's fine. It still goes back to like, here are your talents. Here are your skills. To get as much out of them as you can. And you're, you're going to, you know, you're going to give yourself a shot, and you're going to have, I think, in my case, like a really enjoyable life and career, despite all the things I might have said. You know, these are just things that I kind of work out on a day to day basis. But you know, if you really ask me at the most honest level, I realize how lucky I am grateful to have the people, the kind of apparatus, publishing apparatus, career apparatus, around me, but I've worked pretty hard for it as well. So in those small moments when I'll give myself a little pat on the back, I will, but it's basically due to determination and just probably stubborn stubbornness, rather than it is a dearth of talent or a surfeit of talent, right?

Michael David Wilson 50:50
I feel kind of similarly whenever I'm reading Haruki Murakami, and sure i i have this, this weird feeling where it's like, this is some of the best writing I've ever experienced. But then there's another part of me that's like, fuck that guy. He's so talented, why am I even fucking buffering? Like, if this is where you can get what's the point of me writing? But then of course, it's like, well, I'm not trying to be better than Haruki Murakami and and this sounds cliched, but it's true. I'm literally trying to be the best version of me. And I mean that that's what I said earlier. I'm looking to write the best Michael David Wilson story. I'm under no illusion that I'm going to write the best story, and given the taste is subjective, I don't even think you know this notion of the best story exists. It's not real. It's a fantasy.

Nick Cutter 51:54
I Sorry, I'm down. I'm down with that too. I can I complete? It's you know the best by your own estimation and and sometimes you know the stuff that I've written that I don't know gets feated Or that people seem to enjoy is not always the stuff that I personally, at least that exited my own writing chamber feeling like it was the best stuff that I'd ever written. So I mean, there's a great degree where the audience, you know makes those you know, makes those estimations, rather than than what you think personally about about your work. I guess if I had a ranking of my own work, it would probably be a little different than you know, what would be indicated by sales or that sort of a thing. But, you know, when you talk about Haruki, Murakami or king or whoever, I mean, I think we, I think we all need to read writing that's like, Oh, my God, this is so good, and it's the product of, you know, of a genius level ability. But then we also need to write, read books that, like, you're like, this is this is not great, but it's done really well. Like, I think we need both, but it's done really well. And you kind of need both in a weird or at least I do. I need to read that really wonderful, exceptional writing. And I also need to read stuff, or, I guess I've come across stuff where I'm like, Wow, this book is getting a lot of play. And I'm not, you know, I'm not all that blown away with it. And I'm sure my own books have been on that side of the pole, the spectrum for some, for some readers and writers, anyways. And you know, if that's what, if that's what they are, then that's perfectly all right, too. So, like, yeah, it's again, it's another little sense of that we do as writers. I think we're thinkers, and we obsess over things, and we look at things from so many different angles, all with all with the sense of trying to keep ourselves on track and and get ourselves back in front of the work. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 53:59
definitely. And I think there are different books and different stories for different moods. So on one hand, you might be in the mood for something along the lines of Murakami or king or George Saunders, but then other days, you might just think, you know what, I just want to read a pulp fest. That is what I'm in the mood for. And both, you know, have value, both entertaining or are lighting you up in some way.

Nick Cutter 54:33
Yeah, absolutely, I feel that way, too. And a lot, a lot of you know, I went to school, I did, did some, you know, EDUC, you know, programs, university programs. And, you know, of course, in those days, you had just time to sit around and read. And you could read really high level stuff, and not just read it, but you could dissect it. And you get with your friends from the program, and you dissect it, you know, together. And that was great. I was an EDUC. Education and but there was also, like, a lot of, I think, dismissiveness towards books that people, you know, people who've worked a full day just want to sit down in bed and read something that is propulsive and doesn't require a huge amount of introspection or kind of critical thinking, because they've used up most of that brain power during the course of their day. And so they just want to sit with something that is ideally fun and, yeah, propulsive, and it's, yeah, we need books like that too, you know, because readers are, as you said, readers are all different. So yeah, have all the Salman Rushdie you want, and that's great. And those books absolutely should exist. But also, yeah, some fun like crime or horror. You know that those type of genres of books that you can just read and enjoy and follow and and then, you know, read a couple chapters and put it down and go back to it and yeah and don't, don't have to apply your higher thinking skills all the time to them.

Michael David Wilson 56:12
Thank you so much for listening to part one of our conversation with Craig Davidson. Join us again next time for the second and final part of the conversation. But if you want to get that ahead of the crowd, you know what to do, and you know what I'm gonna say, you become our patron over on www.patreon.com forward slash. This is horror. You can become a patron from as little as $1 and that dollar goes a long way, and that dollar gets you early bird access to every single episode. It gets you patrons only Q and A sessions for myself and Bob pastorella, and it gets you the ability to submit a question for each and every guest that we have on the this is our podcast. If you want to level up to $3 then you also get story unbox, the horror podcast on the craft of writing. So a lot of things over on Patreon, a lot of things that I think you all like as a fan of the this is horror podcast, so check it out, see if it's for you. Www.patreon.com, forward slash. This is horror. And now for a quick word from our sponsor, perpetual motion machine publishing. Do

Speaker 1 57:29
you like Stephen King? Do you like podcasts of Stephen King? Do you like spooky magazines? Good news now you can have a Stephen King podcast, Castle Rock radio, and you can have a spooky magazine, Dark Moon digest. All you have to do go to www patreon.com/emm, publishing. Have a scary day.

Michael David Wilson 57:59
As always. I would like to end the episode with a quote, and this week's quote is from Gary Vaynerchuk, and I think that Gary is probably a little bit of a divisive personality because of the way in which he delivers his message, but I think Much like Tim Ferriss. He is a man who talks an awful lot of sense, and you cannot question his success as an entrepreneur. And so there are many quotes that I could start with, and I would say if you're unfamiliar with Gary's work, you want to check out something like crush it or crushing it, or indeed, check out his YouTube channel or his podcast. Like I say, the style might be a little bit direct, but go with it. Listen to him, and I think you'll get a lot out of what he's saying. And here is one of many quotes that I could have chosen, but I think this is something to ponder. This is a good way to end the episode. Your legacy is being written by yourself. Make the right decisions. I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, take care of yourself. Be good to one another. Read horror and have a great, great day.