TIH 618: Brian Asman on Writing Fiction Fearlessly

Michael David Wilson 0:20
Welcome to This Is Horror, a podcast for readers, writers and creators. I'm Michael David Wilson, and every episode, alongside my co host, Bob Pastorella, we chat with the world's best writers about writing, life lessons, creativity and much more. Today on This Is Horror for another special dad is boy tangental episode, we'll be talking to Brian Asman, the man who described daddy's boy as slacker noir really gave me the genre that I desperately been searching to put daddy's boy in. Now Brian is a writer, actor and director from San Diego, California. He's the author of the forthcoming expanded edition of man fuck this house and other disasters, as well as the good dogs, our black hearts beat as one. I'm not even supposed to be here today. Neo Arcana nun chuck city jail broke and Return of the Living elves in this conversation, we're primarily talking about writing fearlessly and not giving a fuck. But there are a number of other topics and things that we get into. It's a great conversation, as it always is, with Brian, but before we get to it a quick advert break. What

Bob Pastorella 2:03
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Michael David Wilson 3:12
Okay. With that said, Here it is. It is Brian Asman on. This Is Horror. Brian. Hey, Brian, welcome to This Is Horror Podcast.

Brian Asman 3:24
Hey, what's up? Guys? Always good to be here. Yes, great

Michael David Wilson 3:29
to have you back. And I mean, this is for the kind of dad is boy tangent podcast that we've got going on. And I have to, firstly, thank you for the amazing blurb that you gave for daddy's boy. And not only that, I found it tremendously difficult to put it in a genre, and you called it slacker Noir. And I was like that, that's it. This is what it is. So thank you so much.

Brian Asman 3:59
Oh, of course, yes, no worries. Yeah, it was a fun book, for sure.

Michael David Wilson 4:03
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know it's not for everyone. It's been divisive already, but it's good to have the endorsement from such an amazing writer as yourself, and someone who you know isn't afraid to push boundaries and to not give a fuck, which is kind of what we're going to be talking about today. Excellent, yeah. And I mean, the last time that we spoke to you, in many ways, it seems like it was yesterday, but it was, in fact, over six months ago now, so Jesus, what has been going on? How is 2025 going for you so far, both personally and professionally? Um,

Brian Asman 4:51
but let's leave aside the personal part of that. I'd rather focus on the positive. I. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, my personal life is a mess, as it always is. That's just Yeah, par for the course there professionally. So I have this. I have the revised, I'm going the revised edition of man fuck this house, parentheses and other disasters coming out in October. So it's a, it's a revised version of the main narrative. We add a few more chapters to it, and then we also bundled it with additional short stories. So there's six short stories in there. So you know, it's a, it's a pretty hefty tome, about 100,000 words. And if you're a fan of the original, you'll have to check this out just to see like all the new stuff that's been added. And of course, there's new short stories, but if you've never picked it up before, I hope this is the version that you'll give a chance.

Michael David Wilson 5:47
Yeah. And in terms of the new short stories, I mean, how many of those kind of originals never been published? And what are we looking at in terms of, I suppose the esthetic and the spread of stories, because I know that you write in very different modes, you know, from almost a dead pan to the wacky all out there fuck me. Kevin Smith is stand up. Yeah,

Brian Asman 6:17
good question. So out of the six short stories, four are brand new, never been seen anywhere else. And of those, I think the tone varies a little bit. There are some stories that are a little more kind of Gonzo, I guess you could say kind of crazy. There are others that a little bit more serious. There's one kind of supernatural police procedural thing I did, which is pretty serious, and then the story of the tire swing, which closes out the volume is it's kind of like, thematically, a mirror of man fuck this house a little bit and but it's like a dark mirror. So it's, it's definitely a lot more brutal and a lot more straight. I'm playing it more straight in that one.

Michael David Wilson 7:01
Yeah, and in terms of your ascetic at the moment, I mean, we're talking about writing fearlessly. And I think you know LinkedIn with that is almost writing things that are difficult to define, however you may anticipate. My question is, if you were to try to define what you're writing, what, what genre would you say you're in, or what, what new genre would you create to describe your own work?

Brian Asman 7:33
I mean, I do consider myself a horror writer, so I think in the beautiful thing about horror is it's such a broad, big tent that there are so many different things that classify as horror that can fit underneath it. So, yeah, I still consider myself a horror writer, as far as sub genre. I mean, I've done, I've done some horror comedy, I've done some slasher stuff, I've done some Creature Feature stuff, I've done some more serious stuff. I don't know, man, I'm just me. It's kinda like Joe Lansdale. Joe Lansdale writes Joe Lansdale books. And I hope that I am on the road to one day people saying, Brian Asman writes Brian Asman books.

Michael David Wilson 8:11
Yeah. You know, the more people we talk about when it comes to genre and writing these almost undefinable things, the more that they will just cite Joe Lansdale or like, I feel maybe we're getting to a point where there's a rejection of genre in general. It's like, what do you write? It's like, I write Brian as man, motherfucker, you know? What does danger Slater, right? He writes danger Slater, what does John base off? Right? He writes John based off, yeah, it get really weird if John base off wrote danger Slater and danger Slater wrote Brian Aspen. But that's fine, sticking to their own identities. Yeah,

Brian Asman 8:53
that could be, I mean, I could see us doing something weird like that someday, yeah, yeah, writing a book under the other person's name and releasing it? Yeah? Danger, if you're listening, give me a holler. Let's talk about doing this. This would be really stupid. I love it.

Michael David Wilson 9:10
Yeah, yeah. See now my next book is gonna be dangerous later, by Michael David Wilson, then I encourage danger to write. Michael David Wilson,

Bob Pastorella 9:23
no, I'll write it. That's the thing. I'm gonna write it. But it's gonna be called danger. Slade. Michael David Wilson, there you go. That's how you do that shit.

Brian Asman 9:34
Colon, the Michael David Wilson story by Bob Pastorella,

Bob Pastorella 9:39
yeah, and it's going to be a James L Roy pasty show, yeah,

Brian Asman 9:47
excited to read that. That sounds awesome.

Bob Pastorella 9:49
Yeah, I'll probably just get Jordan Harper to do it. So, yeah.

Michael David Wilson 9:58
I mean, so. So as you said, there's so many different modes that you're writing in. Have you found having the bigger publisher and having your agent? Are they trying to get you all to kind of like Brian? Can you choose a mode, or are they just embracing this is, this is who you are? Because obviously we've got the creative considerations, but there is usually some commercial considerations as well, particularly when you're with the big publishing houses.

Brian Asman 10:32
Well, when you first come to prominence with a book called Man fuck this house, I think they know what they're getting in for my agent, my editor at Blackstone, everyone has been wonderfully supportive, and they, you know, I start at the very onset of my career. I really, you know, drew a line in the sand and said, I want to write in different sub genres, or different genres. I think I've told the story on here before, but I originally got my agent with a crime novel, so that's how she originally agreed to represent me. Was on the strength of that novel, and then I was doing more horror stuff. And you know, when I when I, like, very early on, I was getting a master's at UCR Palm Desert, and I was working with Todd Goldberg, who primarily writes crime. He just had a book, the low desert come out not too long, long ago. And then I was also working with Stephen Graham Jones, who writes, I would say he writes Stephen Graham Jones books, but also writes a lot of horror. And so I was like, Man, I really want to do both these things. And so I established that pretty early on. And as far as what's been published so far. You know, with Blackstone, we've had good dogs, which is a werewolf book, werewolf slasher. So that's definitely horror, man. Fuck this house is definitely horror. Whatever comes next. There's some I got some irons in the fire I can't talk about right now, but there is some genre bending that's going to happen in my career as it as it progresses? Well,

Michael David Wilson 12:03
there's a little teaser and a reason to get you back on the show. You know when you can talk about it. But yeah,

Brian Asman 12:12
hopefully in the next, I don't know, a couple months, I'll have something new to talk about.

Michael David Wilson 12:16
Yeah, and in terms of the new collection, so when did you say the release date is for that one?

Brian Asman 12:23
It's October 7, 2025

Michael David Wilson 12:27
okay, there you go. You can come back in October, we can talk about the collection, and as October is more than a few months after May, hopefully we can talk about all those other things too, yes,

Brian Asman 12:40
yeah, I would love to thank you. And maybe there's always a chance. Knock on wood, there might be some film news also at that time. You know, that's continuing, continuing to progress. Can't say anything about it, but, you know,

Michael David Wilson 12:55
yeah, like we've mentioned this so many times, but Hollywood is such a kind of complicated beast. In the film industry, you kind of never know what's gonna happen. Like you might get Yes, yes, yes, yes, oh no. Or you can get a series of Yes. You can have silences, and then suddenly it's all go. So the only takeaway that I've discerned over years of conversation with people about the film industry is, until you're watching your film on the big screen, just don't assume it's gonna happen.

Brian Asman 13:30
Yeah, exactly. For me, at least, you know, I have a film agent dealing with all this for me, who's great. And so for me, it's kind of like a set it and forget it type thing, you know, where I'm like, whenever there's he gives me an update, I'm like, Yes, that sounds awesome. And then I try not to think about the things that are going on with the various, you know, film projects we're working on while, you know, until I get the next update, you know, because otherwise, you know, it's, you're right. It takes forever. It's a very long, long process. And there, there are setbacks, and there are the silences that you mentioned and things like that. So you just gotta, you know, just focus on writing the next thing. Let

Michael David Wilson 14:07
the film agent and the literary agent connected at all. Or do they have to kind of loop one another in? Because I see these days as well, more and more agencies, whilst they might have been separate in the past, they're kind of like, more connected, and then also, book deals might even have some things to do with film, right? So they're not as distinct as they once were.

Brian Asman 14:31
Yeah, they are. They're very connected. Uh, my literary agent actually introduced me to my film agent. They're, they're long time friends, so,

Michael David Wilson 14:40
yeah, well, that's good, yeah, yeah, if they were fighting each other, then,

Brian Asman 14:50
I mean, you know, now, if there was any kind of conflict amongst by the various people I work with, then obviously, you know, I would deal with that. No, I found it's been great so

Michael David Wilson 15:02
and so onto. The matter of writing fearlessly. Would you say that you do write fearlessly? Are there any things that you are fearful of when writing, or concerns that you have?

Brian Asman 15:21
That's a good question. I think my main fear is that I won't do the concept justice, because I generally am someone who I have a lot of faith in when, when I decide to write something, I have a lot of faith in it that it's a good idea and it will be very cool, and I just hope I can live up to making it as cool as I'm imagining it, to be luckily with the, at least with the stuff I've published, I am super proud of everything, and everything is something that, like, I wouldn't change, even though, with Man fuck this house, I got the opportunity to go back and, like, you know, play around with it after It was published, which you don't usually get, but that That way lies madness. But yeah, I am generally, really, it's something I'm afraid of going into every project, but after it's out there, I'm always like, yeah, that's, that's what I wanted it to be.

Michael David Wilson 16:14
Yeah, I kind of understand what you're saying about not wanting to change things, but then, because you're given an opportunity changing some things in the sense that Bob and I, we wrote, They're Watching together. Great name for a main protagonist, Brian. And you know, I'm so proud of what Bob and I did. But then, when we wrote the screenplay, we obviously fucked around and we changed things. And I've said to Bob before, you know, I wouldn't be against the idea of one day actually writing almost like the novelization of the screenplay. So then it would be a different version. But in in my brain, that doesn't replace the original. This is like, here's an alternate version, here's an alternate narrative. So I'm not changing the original, I'm adding an extra edition, a new version, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Brian Asman 17:13
And I think when you're translating something from the page to film, obviously there's a lot of different considerations, and there things that would work better as a film that won't work on the page for that story, or vice versa? And you know, it's just an interesting way to look at your own story again. And it doesn't. It's not about second guessing yourself. It's about translating it to a new medium. But yeah, one of my favorite examples of this, though, is, have you guys ever read Tim Dorsey? I haven't. No, he's kind of in the same universe as Carl Hiaasen. He's a Florida crime writer. He writes like very, very cartoonish crime he passed away last year, I believe, unfortunately. But in his first, his first Serb storms book, he killed off a bunch of characters, spoiler alert. And in the second book, he decided to retcon them all back in because he, like, regretted killing them off, because it was, like, the third book, or something like that. But eventually he was like, you know, he was like, oh, man, I actually kind of want to write it more about those characters I killed and he brought them back. It was

Michael David Wilson 18:12
amazing. Yeah, I can kind of think about, you know, that a lot, in the sense that, you know, for a number of my books, a lot of characters die, and it's like, if I ever wrote sequels to these, what's going to happen. And maybe because of the exaggerated nature, particularly of stuff like House of bad memories and daddy's boy, I feel it wouldn't be kind of beyond the universe for them to have somehow survived, or to have just some ridiculous way that their body kind of got back together, it might even have to take a more fantastical turn. It's like, you know, these two halves of the decapitated body, and how

Brian Asman 18:58
you could do honestly, you could just start your next book with two simple words, just kidding April

Michael David Wilson 19:04
Fools,

Bob Pastorella 19:10
like they did in Beer Fest. When, when landfill died, and then so in, I don't know if you ever seen the movie Beer Fest, but one of the the guys, one of the competitors, landfill, he, drowned in a vat of beer. And it was really sad. And the guys were already prepared and everything this was going to set them back a notch. And then they met landfills cousin, who was played by the same actor who played who could drink as much beer as landfill, and said, You guys can even call me landfill. So fucking this is the way you do it, of course, broken lizard, yeah, but, you know, that's those guys are insane, like, this is, this is the way you fucking do it.

Brian Asman 19:53
You know, you guys podcast where, like, Bob, you fake your own death, and then, really. Sad, and then two weeks later, Michael's like, and now introducing my new co host, Rob pastor, Bella.

Bob Pastorella 20:08
Be like, Hey, yeah, I look just like Bob. And then y'all, if you want, y'all can actually just call me Bob, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That'd be kind of weird, though, and I'd probably get canceled. But yeah, yeah. What do you

Brian Asman 20:20
get? What are you gonna do? You know, you got, you guys have a Patreon. Any of that garbage, I'll

Bob Pastorella 20:28
keep all the money from the GoFundMe, but yeah, exactly.

Brian Asman 20:36
Then you kill off your doppelganger and you'd go fund me for that, right? Yeah, trying to raise $100,000 for Rob pastor Ellis funeral. There we go.

Michael David Wilson 20:46
Then Rob is replaced by Robert pastor Ella. And, you know, by the time Robert Pastorella dies, well, we can go back to Bob again. People

Brian Asman 20:56
got like, job pastor Ella and like, I'm trying to think of other Yeah,

Bob Pastorella 21:02
me tob, tob past

Brian Asman 21:08
and you're like, Texas

Bob Pastorella 21:10
motherfucker, yes, it is. Yeah, I'll be more each Texas than he was. I'm Tom

Michael David Wilson 21:18
pastor. Yeah, I appreciate the commitment to the bit that you're just gonna vary your Texan accent very, very slightly, depending on what

Bob Pastorella 21:29
I actually varied it quite a bit in the last bit I just said that was actually I don't even do I sound that way.

Michael David Wilson 21:41
Big, veteran,

Bob Pastorella 21:45
like, Man, I thought I really was, you know, kind of slathering it on. You're like, well, you made a subtle change,

Brian Asman 21:56
you know, you should actually do is like you should do, like the Texan guy from The Simpsons, you know, like the Texas oil baron and like, you should drop in a sound effect where anytime Bob says, I think at the end of the sentence, you add in, like, pistol shitting.

Michael David Wilson 22:12
We could definitely do that, but it sounds like a lot of effort editing on my possible

Brian Asman 22:22
things that are worth doing aren't always easy, you know, but I think it could take your podcast to the next level. Well,

Michael David Wilson 22:28
sister, you go, if that's what you think, then I'd be a fool.

Brian Asman 22:37
We can stop with my consulting session on your podcast and all the ways that your lack of gunshot sound effects disappoint me constantly.

Michael David Wilson 22:44
I mean, you've never suggested anything that would be a bad idea. I mean, your main marketing strategy for me is to get, like, a series of tattoos based on the amount of sales that my bookcase.

Brian Asman 23:02
I still maintain that's a good idea.

Michael David Wilson 23:07
But, you know, back back to the worry about not doing a concept justice. I mean, are there any concepts or ideas that you've had that you've put on the back burner because you feel that at this point, you know, you can't quite see the vision in terms of executing that fully.

Brian Asman 23:28
Yes, honestly, dozens of things that I've, you know, kind of touched on, been like, okay, as I'm trying to figure out my next book, it's like, you know, I have this long list of ideas and going like, Okay, what's, what's the right book for my audience, what's the right book for me? What's, you know, what's gonna work right now? And I have so many different ideas. And the thing is, like, trying to figure out, like, what you know, is this a premise, or is this a story? And what do I have to do to turn this premise into a story? Like, you know, it's, it's like, oh, like, there's a world where everyone's hot dog yells at them before they eat it. Right? That's like a premise. It's a very terrible promise, but so feel free to steal it. You know, I don't know, man, you know, there's a world where ghosts are all very slimy or something like that. And that's, that's Ghostbusters Shit, I don't know, but you guys know what I mean, right? It's like, what's the story within that premise? Yeah,

Bob Pastorella 24:26
usually you got to have a character. For me. I got to have a character kind of latch on to an idea. Yeah, exactly. In other words, like they want to talk about it in so that that's like, because, I mean, ideas are a dime a dozen. I get a ton of them, yeah, but they're not stories. And so, you know, to me, the only way I can even get any type of, you know, impedit this is I gotta have somebody who I can hear them thinking of the story like, for example, working on writing one right now. That I'm trying to decide if I want to make it dystopian or not, where I got to transport somebody across Texas. Okay? And this person is for for one of a better word is a mage. And so this is obviously going to be from the driver's point of view. And so for the most part, and I'd like to keep it that way, because I want to kind of keep some things secret. So I got to have this driver. So who's going to drive somebody? Why? Why would? Why would this be a problem? In other words, why? So you got to look at all those things. It's like, okay, so all I have is an idea, but obviously this is going to be dangerous. So why? Why is it dangerous? Right? Where your character is going to come into play? Maybe, maybe the character's done something to where he can't travel, you know, maybe the people he's going to see that they're going to pay him a lot of money to actually want to kill him, and he can't say anything about it. So there's, there's, like, a ton of other ideas that start to gel with this kind of thing, until I got somebody says, I'll drive that car. Then I don't, you know, all I have are ideas I just keep writing down and tweaking them and watching stuff that's gonna that kind of makes me think about that, or read stuff that makes me think about that, and then someday I'll be like, cutting the grass or taking a shower, and that voice will just pop in my head, and I'll be like, Oh, okay, there you go. And that's what's going to get me off to the races. That's usually what happens every time. Yeah,

Brian Asman 26:35
yeah, totally. I think you can start like that, where you just have, like, an image, right? Like, in your case, like a mage being driven across Texas, or, you know, whatever you start with that image in your head. You're like, Okay, let me, let me what's going on in the scene, right? How do I fill this out? What happened before? What's going to happen after? You know, and I, I've had several books that kind of started like that. My My unpublished crime novel, I mentioned that my agent, that how I got my agent. That started with a single scene of, like a kid passed out on a front lawn with like a sprinkler going over him and like someone standing over him with a gun, you know. And so then that kind of, that was just the first scene in my head, and that just kind of like went in both directions from there, and, you know, hopefully, hopefully that one we'll be able to sell that one someday, because I really love that thing.

Michael David Wilson 27:22
Yeah, is that a book that you're kind of reworking at the moment, or are you trying to sell it as

Brian Asman 27:30
is, more and more as is, but it's kind of, you know, just kind of like it's one of several things we have going on right now. So given that my career has been more horror so far, that's kind of more what I'm leaning into right now. But again, I look at Joe Lansdale, I look at like Laird Barron, who did, like, a decade and a half of horror and then crossed over and do crime with blood standard, and a number of other authors that kind of bounce back and forth. And so I'm hoping I can be one of those, one of those someday.

Michael David Wilson 28:03
Yeah, so in terms of the logistical considerations as to what is shocked when is that more something? You leave to your agent, you write the books, you present them, and he's like, right? Well, it's up to you to to decide the career path and the route and what avenue we go down. Yeah, I mean,

Brian Asman 28:24
I think, if you think of this as like a factory, like, I'm in production, you know, and I'm running all the machines, and I'm turning all the turbines by hand and doing all that stuff, and I've got a quota, I have deadlines, and, you know, I'm trying to crank these things out, and that my agent is more like the sales and marketing department, you know. And so once things are out the door, you know, I wouldn't I, you know, I hope they're on the world, because I'm not making these things for nothing. But also, like, you know, it's just my job to be down here in the bowels of the factory cranking out things, you know, like, you know, it's the loading dock. Is not my concern at that, as much you know. And so

Michael David Wilson 29:03
how many novels do you have that are kind of ready to go? I'm wondering how ahead you are if we're to continue to production line analogy any one time.

Brian Asman 29:16
I'm not. I mean, there's a couple things, but honestly, like, I wish I was, you know, I wish I had a bigger backlog than I do. But a lot of people, you know, and it's, yeah, it's is what it is right now. So

Michael David Wilson 29:32
we're not talking some Josh Malerman kind of secret when he put out one novel, and he's like, Well, we got another 20, if you want to look at them.

Brian Asman 29:40
I mean, I've probably got, you know, I've got a good number of things that are unreleased, but there's reasons why they're unreleased, right? And I, you know, I'd say, other than the crime novel I mentioned, which I think is honestly pretty good to go, and I've gotten that feedback from several people who've read it, I feel like this has turned into me trying to sell my crime. Novel to someone, some mysterious listener right now. But other than that, you know, I have a bunch of books I've written that I think are all they have potential. They have good things about them, but they would all require, like, a significant rewrite in order to be like my next book, for example. And right now, you know that meme of the guy walking with his girlfriend, he's looking at the other woman walking past, you know, I'm kind of like, you know, I'm doing that with, like, all the new stuff I have in my in the pipeline, and then just trying to figure out, like, what's the best, what's the what's the best follow up, what's my audience really going to want to see? Is, are they going to going to see a reworked trunk novel? Well, maybe someday, yeah, because, like I said, there are some good, solid ideas there, but are they going to want something that's more new and contemporary? As far as like what I'm pulling together right now, I think probably that's

Michael David Wilson 30:47
what I'll get with and for those who are working on projects and they kind of find that there's something holding them back that's not meaning that they're writing fearlessly. They're not writing quite authentically. Maybe it's market concerns. Maybe they have fear of perception from readers, from family members. I sometimes hear as a kind of objection, what would you say to those people? Or how would you kind of encourage people to, I suppose, be bolder and to be more themselves with their writing.

Brian Asman 31:28
I think the thing is, if you think back on what you've written and go, You know what I really want to be proud of what I've written, personally, getting accolades from others is very nice, but if you're cranking out stuff that you don't think is the best thing you could have written, and people are complimenting you on like, How satisfying is that compliments? So I'll give you one example. Excuse me, so with Man, fuck this house. Not gonna spoil it. But there's for anyone who's read it, there's a moment in the book where things shift dramatically. And, you know, anyone who's read the book will know what I mean. Anyone who doesn't, there's this point in the book, like I said, things shift dramatically. And I had originally had a different idea. There a more I don't know traditional ending, I would say. And I, as I'm sitting there, I get this idea of what I really want to do, and I went back and forth on it a lot. I thought to myself, Is this too much? Is this going to put people off? And well, according to the according to Goodreads, it put off about, you know, 40% of people who pick up the book. But that's okay. I love you guys anyway. But you know, I at the end of the day, I was like, You know what? If I don't do this, if I don't write this idea, I have it, if I don't take this big swing, I don't think I'm gonna look back as fondly on this book as I could, you know? And maybe it does well, maybe people like it. But am I ever gonna, like be really proud of it? I don't know. So I went for it. I went for that swing, and I'm glad I did. So

Michael David Wilson 32:59
it kind of comes down to this idea of, you know, we often hear the cliche that people reject the shots that they didn't take. They not reject regret the shots they didn't take. And so you got to take it. You got to take that hard left turn with your fiction. And you know, you say maybe 40% of people didn't like it, but then perhaps the other 60% they were so glad that you went that way, and, you know,

Brian Asman 33:34
still felt moved to leave a review, right, right? I win those people too, for for taking the time to leave a review. That's awesome, yeah, you know? And I think the other thing to think about is too that I I work with editors that I trust, right? And so when I have one of these big ideas, I have someone to bounce it off with. And sometimes they'll tell me, you know, we might want to dial this down, or, you know, dial it up even further. And so I think it's important. It also depends on where you are in your writing journey, right? So if you're just writing for yourself right now, then take those swings. Who cares, you know? If you're thinking about self publishing, find an editor, a good a good developmental editor that you trust and that you have a similar taste and you're on the same wavelength, you know, and that person will really help you decide, you know, am I? Am I going too far here? Am I not going far enough?

Bob Pastorella 34:28
I think it makes good to mention also is that I've said this a lot. It helps to be polarizing. You kind of want to be polarizing. To me is, if you're not polarizing, in other words, you got 40% of the people took the time to leave a review that they didn't like your big swing on the book, right? So if you look at it like, well, that sounds like a negative number. No, it's actually not, yeah, because that means that someone who you. Didn't like something, took the time to it made a reaction. It caused a reaction. And what you don't want is your book to be out there and he gets no reaction at all. Yeah, and so because, trust me, no reaction is way worse than a negative reaction.

Brian Asman 35:18
Like Oscar Wilde said, The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about exactly. I completely agree. Like getting that reaction, positive or negative, I still made an impression on that person. So I love anyone who takes the time to leave any feedback from my books. That helps me, regardless, tremendously. Doesn't

Bob Pastorella 35:41
necessarily mean you're going to go back and not do big swings on your next story or anything like that. I don't read,

Brian Asman 35:46
yeah, I don't read the reviews because I don't want to, like, incorporate like that into my you know, I don't, I don't want to try and write to an audience that didn't like my last book. You know, that's a trap,

Bob Pastorella 35:57
right? But it's like, when, to me, it's like you don't want somebody to read your book, and then they don't even take the time to write anything about it or anything like that, and within 24 hours, they have forgotten that they have read your book. And that's that's got to be that's probably the worst feeling that anyone could ever have. If your book had a feeling, it would be depressed if your book had the ability feeling to be like nobody, nobody even said anything. You know, wow, that's sad. You want to be polarizing. You know? It's It's because when you are, people will talk about it, and then that's what you want. I have bought plenty of books based upon people's negative conception of a book, made me go 100% I'm buying this fucking book. Yeah,

Brian Asman 36:48
exactly I see. So I belong to this self publishing group on Facebook, and a lot of the time like, this is a regular post. A regular kind of post is I just got my first negative review. What do I do? And like, everyone's like, generally, most people give good advice. And like, well, just be glad someone left you a review. And I think what a lot of people don't realize is that your negative reviews, they validate your positive reviews. Think about that for a second. So if you have, if you have a book that has 1000 ratings and they're all five stars, I don't believe that for a second. Like, you know, you hired a bunch of bots to start your book for you. Is what I see there. Now, if I see a book that's, you know, it's got, like, you know, 40% five stars and 40 you know, 20% one stars and 30% three stars, or whatever, like, then I'm like, okay, that makes, makes more sense. You know, that's, that seems like a book, those seem like legitimate reviews.

Bob Pastorella 37:41
Yeah. And it's like, you know, also it's, you have to repeat this so often, especially on social media, three stars means it's good. That means they liked it, yes. So it was like, you know, it's like, well, it's only got three star rating. Fucking great. That's awesome if I, if I used a four star rating, if I wrote reviews and used a rating scheme, do you many books would get a four star rating? Not many, because most of them are threes, which means they're pretty fucking good. Yeah, four is like, exceptionally good. You know, I can think of one book right off the top of my head that it got a four star rating if I rated books, and that would have been incidents around the house, but three shit, you're lucky if I give you a three. That means I fucking remembered the book the next day. And that's, yeah, you know, I don't want to be like, well, I read that. I don't remember anything about it. That's pretty shitty.

Brian Asman 38:37
Yeah, yeah. I'm kind of the same way, although I'm more I think for me, I find something to enjoy in everything I read. So most of the books I read are about three stars. I would say, if I were to be rating them, which, you know, rate review books everyone. But, you know, I tried to do that as much as I can. But I also want to be honest. And so whenever I read a book that I that I don't think is at least three stars. I don't leave a review just because I don't want to. I see these people at conventions, they're like, oh, man, you trashed my book online. And that's like, super awkward at the hotel bar or something, you know? Yeah, you know. And I also don't want to, don't want to give the impression that I'm like, just trashing other people's books for any like, any reason. So I just talk about the stuff I like. Mainly,

Michael David Wilson 39:28
yeah, the moment that I started writing fiction more professionally and seriously, I completely gravitated away from writing reviews. Because, I mean, there was kind of a conflict of interest in the sense that, like I found that there were so many writers that were very sensitive and took it very personally if I, you know, even had some minor criticisms of the book, and then, you know, they might think. I don't like them. And it's like, look, this was just an area that didn't quite work for me. Jesus Christ. It was still a good book. And even if it wasn't, it doesn't fucking matter, because we're supposed to be friends, we're supposed to be above this. But yeah, a lot of people very, very sensitive about it. And also, I kind of wish the whole star system was removed, because different people, like, like a five star from me or from either of you, they're gonna be different, because we have different levels. So, so it's kind of meaningless. I just would prefer, let's have a paragraph as to what we thought of the story without the star. If you can't attribute your own star from your own arbitrary system, then my words weren't good enough to convey how I felt about the book. But, yeah, I don't know is, is difficult. I mean, you know, Bob mentions incidents around the house. I thought it was one of the best books of last year, and I think it's kind of groundbreaking. Is brought together like it's created this new sub genre. I think it's going to be talked about for a very long time. I think saying that is enough is like, Yeah, but Michael, you're gonna give it four stars or five or four and a half. What does it fucking matter? Yeah, yeah.

Brian Asman 41:35
I mean, reviews tell you things about the book. Stars don't tell you anything because you don't know, like you said, you don't know that person's personal taste. You don't even know what they consider to be a three, four or five star, you know? You know, there's some people that consider three stars, a C. Bob considers that a good read, you know, like,

Michael David Wilson 41:52
yeah. And then some people consider a C to be a good grade. So,

Brian Asman 41:59
exactly, yeah, sounds like me with my report I'm trying to explain to my parents, like, but C is average. That's okay, that's the benefit.

Bob Pastorella 42:06
Yeah. I mean, for me, it was the same reasons Michael, other than that, the only other thing was time is because it takes time away from doing the things that I need to do to further along my career. So it was like, I don't have, I really don't have the time to come up with with only wrote reviews about books that I really, really enjoyed, and I didn't have the time sit there and come up with different ways to say, buy this book. And so, because that's pretty what, what I was pretty much what I was doing, I could have, I could have probably got a review published on this tutorial. And buy this book, buy this book, buy this book, buy this book, buy this book. And Michael would have said, hey, I'll do this one time, and one time only, I'm let you do this, but you're never doing it again. We're just like, do that and do a link to the book. Buy this book.

Michael David Wilson 42:58
You're not gonna get away with that even one time put that on the record.

Bob Pastorella 43:03
See, I do take the time to find a book that I really, really like, and I preview the book, because then I can hype all I want. I can get excited about something, and I can spread my excitement about a book that's going to be coming out. Yeah, I love doing that. That's like, Oh man, it's something that really, really fires me up. Because if I'm excited about it, then I can probably make you excited about it too.

Brian Asman 43:29
Yep, exactly.

Michael David Wilson 43:30
Hell, yeah, yeah. I kind of like the preview sanction that we have of This Is Horror more than I did the reviews anyway, because, yeah, yeah. And like, you say you're getting fired up, and it, it doesn't matter what? Yeah, reviews almost don't matter. Who cares whether I did or didn't like the book, because if I didn't, then it just wasn't for me. That's the takeaway, not that it necessarily wasn't a good book.

Brian Asman 43:59
Yeah. And I mean, I like, I like professional reviews, because it's more, it's more than just I liked it or I didn't like it, right? It's, you know, deconstructing the book and what it's I think, I think a good review of a book understands what the book is trying to do, and then reviews how well the book did that, versus, like, whether the reviewer liked it, right? So I think a professional reviewer can separate their own personal taste from judging a book based on how well it's doing the thing it needs to review do. So for example, if I am, let's say that I'm just not like a big thriller person, right? But I'm a professional book reviewer. And the new Clive Cussler book, I don't know if he's still alive, but that comes across my desk, right? And I really like, I love reading, I love reading romances and historical fiction, but it's my job to review this book, right? Even though it's not my genre, I'm refresh. I'm a professional, and so I will review that book based on how well this he wrote this as a thriller, right? Because I have an understanding of the can. Conventions of genre and the conventions of fiction, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 45:03
and to be honest, that was the way that I was approaching reviewing. But then I found writers took that even more personally. Because if I'm saying you didn't, you know, approach like this in quite the way that one would, then it's like, holy shit. Now they're pissed off with me like i There's

Brian Asman 45:25
regardless, don't read your own reviews unless you can handle it people,

Michael David Wilson 45:29
right, right? That's a good takeaway. And I mean, you said that you don't read your own reviews. Did that take some discipline? Did it used to be that starting out, you would read the reviews. Or is that being a principle from the off,

Brian Asman 45:44
I learned very quickly. So I think when I first started out, I would, and when I say, don't read reviews, it's that's not entirely true. So if someone tags me in something on Instagram, for example, I tend to read that, but those tend to be positive. Right early on, I would read with my first publication or so, I would read negative reviews and start getting mad and like, just want to, like, just wish I could go give that person an earful. Be like, you didn't fucking understand the book, okay. Like, but, you know, I heard very quickly, and actually listening to this podcast, I think listening to writers talk about this very subject, and like, click through me. Like, Oh yeah, I should just not read negative reviews. And like, you know, I will read like, so if I, if I ever review in like a trade publication, for example, I will read that right? And mostly because I like scouring for, like, what's the blurb gonna be, and then, like I said, if someone tags me into something on Instagram, I totally read that, usually, unless I start reading and it's negative, and then I'll just be like, Okay, well, thank you. Anyway, you know, I'll give them a like, but, and then I'll just back away slowly,

Bob Pastorella 46:49
yeah? You can't really take a lot of Yeah, I guess I don't know, a lot of trying to think of the right word, a lot of stock in reviews. It's just, it's a lot good a lot of times it's a Rando, you know, who just like to they they read your book. And I've read some negative reviews. I've read reviews from people that I know that didn't understand the review, not saying any names. But, you know, yeah, in Mojo rising. Yeah, in Mojo rising in the paperback, there is a last story. It is not even a chapter, because all the other chapters are numbered and everything like that. And in Mojo rising, they thought that this was the final story. I mean, final chapter, and it's like in the final chapter wasn't even related, and I found out later that it was actually a short story. I'm like, why are you even critiquing it? Then why? Why did you even critique it? And at that point right there, at that point right there, I said, You know what, I'm not taking any stock in this at all. The only stock that I'm ever going to take in any type of review is if my name gets mentioned by

Ellen datlo, yep,

which it has, so in a good way, not in a bad way, but yes. So yeah, because here's the thing, yes, it is an honor to be, you know, chosen to be in the best horror, but it's also an honor to be mentioned with the with, with all, pretty much all of your peers, if you publish something, if she liked it, she's gonna mention she's gonna call your name out. And it's like, if you're gonna impress anybody, impress Ellen. You know exactly when it comes, when it comes to editors, I mean, of, really, of any genre, but especially horror fiction, there are, there is none higher. You know, that's Jen, that's, that's, that's the top, right there, if you're gonna, if you want to impress anybody, if you can impress Alan, then, hey, then the rest of it doesn't fucking matter,

Brian Asman 48:55
right? Exactly? I yeah, I completely agree. You know, it's funny that story that just reminded me so in my novellas, I would typically include either a story by myself or someone else as a bonus item in the novella, just to flesh it out a little bit, give the readers a little more for their money. And one review knocked the star off of one of my books because and I and I am paraphrasing here, but they basically said the book includes a bonus short story. I really like the bonus short story, but it should have been published separately, and then I'm taking the star off for that. So literally, there it takes all kinds. Y'all. It takes all kinds. That was one of the funniest like, I saw that, and I was just like, started laughing. Like I was, I was just like, like,

Michael David Wilson 49:42
I so bizarre. It's like, you know, if with the Resident Evil games, I got upset and knocked a star off because they included mercenaries as an amazing additional mini game. It's like, this was too good

Brian Asman 49:58
game, minus one. Really should be separate. It shouldn't be a game within a game. Guys, I'm not going to start

Michael David Wilson 50:05
with them. It's like you should be adding a star on it. You become a six star. Read,

Bob Pastorella 50:12
because Allen Hill two remaster was five stars, until I noticed that they actually remastered the entire first game for PS, five taken off a star should have been separate. Yeah, exactly, yeah. It'd be like, are you stupid? Yes, no, wait, don't answer the question. We already know the answer,

Brian Asman 50:30
yeah. You know. The thing is, a couple years ago, I looked up the the Goodreads rating for Moby Dick, which is widely considered to be the greatest American novel ever written, and I think it has like a 3.4 or a 3.5 on Goodreads, like average, that's when I looked at least and so yeah, like, you have to remember that there is no pleasing everyone, and you don't want to please everyone. You want to develop and cultivate an audience. The people that like your book a lot will read more of your books. The people that thought your book was okay might still read more of your books. The people that hate it, they might also still read more of your books. Who knows

Michael David Wilson 51:02
you're looking up the reviews for Moby Dick kind of reminds me of so sometimes, if I see a good reads review, and I Yeah, a negative review, and I feel a bit bad about it, I then go to that person's page and look at what else they've reviewed badly. And then, like, you know, I remember seeing stuff that they'd reviewed badly by Ryu Murakami and Paul Tremblay, and I thought, well, you know, you're saying I'm on that level. So now I feel better again.

Brian Asman 51:38
You're in good company, right? If you

Michael David Wilson 51:40
give me two stars and Ryu Murakami. One, what I'm translating that as is M D, w, s book was so fucking good, it was better than Ryu Murakami. That's the takeaway that I've got from that

Brian Asman 51:53
exactly. And then you go look at their five star reviews, and you see that they're all five star reviews only for coloring books. And you realize they're fucking stupid.

Michael David Wilson 52:03
Yeah, just in daddy's boy had some illustrative sausages that they got to color in.

Bob Pastorella 52:14
It's like if you saw someone on Goodreads and they reviewed all the horror books that that anyone would read whether you liked them, whether you liked them or not, and you looked and they gave everyone of a negative review, if I was one of their friends, and they were showing me that I'd be like, maybe horror is not your thing, man, yeah, yeah. Have you tried? Have you tried something different? Yeah, yeah, history, yeah, you didn't even like Rosemary's Baby. I mean, you know, and that's okay. There's something wrong with that, just maybe hard not for you Western maybe Louis l Moore wrote a lot of books, buddy, yeah, and they're all good, yeah, exactly. They'll keep

Brian Asman 52:53
you busy for a long time.

Michael David Wilson 52:58
Well, I don't know if you said it kind of tongue in cheek Bob. But, I mean, I have noticed before that there are people that you know primarily the genre that they like to review is not horror. So let's say it's kind of paranormal romance or fantasy or SF, and then like, obviously that they're trying to get in to horror, or they keep accidentally picking up horror books, because then every review of a horror book is one or two stars, and then I wonder, do you just have an agenda against horror? Are you deliberately like, well, this wasn't paranormal romance, and it's like, well,

Bob Pastorella 53:40
people that like even, even professional reviewers. It's, it's funny, because I think we kind of touched on this a little bit. Is like they, that's how the term elevated horror came about. Is basically a reviewer who did not like horror, yeah, encountered, encountered something he liked, and it was like, Well, I'm on the record. I can't, I can't, I can't let my peers down. So I'm going to say this is, this is, it's more than horror. It's elevated. It's higher up than horror, than horror. And it's like, Dude, you don't even understand the genre that you're critiquing. So damage, so negatively. Oh yeah, horror has been able to do this beyond his cautionary tales beginning, you know, it's subtext. Hello. It's been there the whole time, and so even today, we still see people that, you know they they can't wait to poke that stick. It's like, well, I can say elevated horror like

Brian Asman 54:39
you every review of an A 24 neon movie, basically, and like a major newspaper begins with, I don't usually like horror, but

Bob Pastorella 54:48
you should not have reviewed this movie. But yeah, yeah,

Brian Asman 54:51
if someone doesn't usually like horror, and a movie from a 24 and neon gets them in the door, good for them. And hopefully that. Will open their mind a little bit and go, Okay, maybe there are things about the genre that I do like. I think that people who don't like horror I get like not wanting certain kinds of horror. I get, not wanting to bathe in Slatter, splatter punk constantly, or something like that. I think most people that say they don't like horror actually lying and not lying necessarily, but they just don't. They do like horror, but they don't know enough about the genre to know that they're they do like it, you know? Because I think everyone celebrates Halloween, right? People get, everyone gets into the Halloween spirit, at least in the states here, for the most part, you know. And so people do like that stuff, you know?

Bob Pastorella 55:41
Well, it's like, I don't like slashers, but I understand that it is a major genre, and I'm not gonna do, you know, just because my personal taste does it I don't particularly like them, doesn't mean that I'm gonna demean that, that sub genre, or anything like that. You know? I think that these reviewers, if they wanted, like, hey, you know, I've every, every horror film I've seen up until this one has been bad. It's like, well, I don't think Have you ever seen darkness falls? Because I don't think you've seen a bad horror movie, yeah. You know, darkness falls would really fool you, because the first 20 minutes of it before the actual movie starts is one of the scariest fucking things I've ever seen in my entire life. And then the movie starts like, you know, 20 years later is basically what happens, and it goes downhill severely from there. They could have just had the short film, the, you know, the first the cold open, you know, that could have been a short film, and it would have probably won awards, but you know, it's just, you haven't seen a bad movie yet even. And then there's movies that are so bad that they're good, yeah, it's like, so you got to be really, really careful. You don't want to go, Hey, let's check out life force. That movie is actually so bad it's good, and it's just, it's just a fucking classic now, so, yeah, like,

Brian Asman 57:03
naked space vampires. Come on. Like, what's Yeah, I defy anyone not to enjoy that. You know, I'm like, yeah, oh, you think you've seen bad movies. Come back, come back and talk to me when you've seen Robo Vampire, yeah? Which is a, which is a Hong Kong Robocop rip off where a drug dealer hires a wizard to summon hopping vampires to protect his drugs, and then they murder a DEA agent who is turned into like a tin foil robot, like and definitely it looks exactly like Robocop. And then also, like some other stuff happens in the movie I totally didn't understand.

Michael David Wilson 57:40
I don't care how good or bad, but the writer was writing fearlessly.

Brian Asman 57:49
Yeah, fear did not exist. Motherfuckers dojo, that's for sure. No shit here does not exist. Man,

Bob Pastorella 57:59
see, and that's what I'm talking about right there. I want to see some of that crazy ass shit, man. That's, that's where, where it stands out. You know, it's like, Have you ever seen that movie called Sushi Girl, is any of y'all ever seen this movie? Okay? Sushi Girl, okay. Sushi Girl, you need to look it up. It's, it's got Tony Todd's in it. Okay? Mark Hamill is in this movie chewing up scenery like you ain't never seen Mark Hamill. He's fat. He's got long hair. It's just, it's great, okay? And it's about these guys who they screwed each other around on the deal, and they're getting back together, and they're eating sushi on a naked girl. That's all I'm gonna tell you. That sounds great. Day swung for defenses is what. It's one of my favorite movies. I I love this movie. It's my I wish I owned it. I had it on DVD, and I don't have it no more. I don't know what happened to it, so I'm gonna probably try to find it on Blu ray somewhere. But it's, I mean, dude, Tony Todd, Mark Hamill, you can't, you cannot go wrong.

Brian Asman 59:06
Oh, my God. So it is available on Blu ray for 990 probably gonna grab a copy of that. Heard of this movie then Mark. Mark Hamill has been in some weird shit. You guys have seen either, right? Yes, yeah. So I got to see that in the theater, like, about a month or two ago, which was amazing watching that movie on the big screen. Man, it's just like, this fucked up Power Rangers. Like, it's so great when Mark Hamill gets so weird too, because they don't really understand what the CIA does. And the movie, like, I love movies like that where they don't really understand jobs.

Bob Pastorella 59:45
So, yeah, I just check it out. The last movie I saw the theaters were sinners, which was really good, so nice. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 59:53
sinners hasn't come to Japan yet, but I'm gonna get on this, uh, sushi. You get election. My phrasing sounds like I'm gonna do something completely different.

Brian Asman 1:00:09
Another one. Talk about a bananas movie, Michael, you may have heard of this one. It's a Japanese movie, meatball machine.

Michael David Wilson 1:00:15
I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it. It's so

Brian Asman 1:00:18
good, you guys have to watch it. Is, if you like, HR, Geiger type, biomech type stuff like, it is just ma amazing, and it's you're watching. You're like, wow, they're really doing this. And they have all these cool little touches of things that, like, you know, I won't spoil anything, but you're just like, holy shit. Again, they're swinging for the fences right there.

Michael David Wilson 1:00:38
Oh, my God, would it this is, like linking into what I wanted to ask, which obviously we've been talking about your own writing, but what are some of the books and movies where you think this is fearless writing, and what are perhaps some of the takeaways that you got from them, which you could apply to your own writing, or others could apply to their creative works?

Brian Asman 1:01:05
Ooh, that's a good question. So when I think about fearless storytelling, I do think that the movie street trash, the original 1987 version, directed by James Murrow, that to me, is kind of my, my North Star for for fearless filmmaking, because it's a movie that is unapologetically gross and sleazy and in your face. But they have such like, they take such care with the way that they've made it. I think I've actually talked about this on this podcast before, but you can tell that, like, despite the fact that it's a movie about hobos like melting down after drinking adulterated hooch, they really put a lot of effort into every level of the movie. For example, they recorded a song with one of the character with a minor character from the movie, singing a song about himself, and that plays over the closing credits, like, they just took all this, like, weird, like, we give such a shit about a about this. We really want to make this as amazing as we can, even though it's this ridiculous thing. So that would be, that'd be one I love experimental fiction, like House of leads, for example. I think is a great, just a great example of, like, having a vision and creating something that, like, you know, for me, at least, I didn't, I didn't make it through on my first read. I had to go back to it when I was ready, essentially, and when I did, I was like, man, holy shit, this is so cool. Like, I love the idea of going, you know what? No, I Jonathan strange, and Mr. Normal does the same thing where it's like, no, I'm gonna put a bunch of footnotes in the book, and I'm gonna realize my my personal vision here, and generally like, that stuff doesn't usually fly, but you can make anything fly if you Believe in it and do it well enough.

Michael David Wilson 1:02:54
Yeah, I think that is the key takeaway. If you believe in it, it's like, kind of, if you play it straight, if you do it seriously, if you're just like, oh, whoa, this is a wacky concept, and then you treat it like that, then you're probably not going to be successful. But if you take the wacky concept and you're like, but I need to believe in this. I need to do this so authentically. I need to do it as if it is a real thing. I think that's kind of the takeaway, and the recipe for good writing and fearless writing.

Brian Asman 1:03:29
Yeah, I completely agree. I also think the TV series Cobra Kai is a great example of this. This is a world where the most important thing on the planet is children's karate and the they completely believe in it. In every scene, they're never ashamed of their premise. It's just completely earnest and ridiculous at the same time, and it works so

Michael David Wilson 1:03:50
well. Yeah, I know there were a number of people who got really excited about Cobra Kai when it came out, but it's eluded me. But I don't know, just something about what you just said makes me now want to watch it. I think, think it's on Netflix.

Brian Asman 1:04:08
It is, yeah, all, all six seasons are available on Netflix, right?

Michael David Wilson 1:04:13
The six of them. How that being six already?

Brian Asman 1:04:17
I keep telling you, man, it's, it's amazing you're watching this. Like, every time I'm watching this, I'm like, this movie shouldn't be this good, or this show should not be this good. It's ridiculous at how good this is. But I'm like, I'm getting teared up. I'm laughing when I'm in the room by myself. I'm sitting on the edge of my couch, like, watching a karate match between two teenagers. Like, it's like, literally more important than anything that's ever happened in my life, that's for sure. So, yeah, I It's so good, I just can't even begin to tell you

Michael David Wilson 1:04:48
absolutely sold Nice. Well, what are you excited about at the moment? And that could be as broad as you want. That can be about like. Movies and books coming out that can be about your own writing, that can be about your personal life. Maybe the personal life is just getting better, seeing, as you said, the equivalent of a highway pile up. That was the analogy that you used, but that was what I inferred from the open

Brian Asman 1:05:20
this way. Sometimes you hit rock bottom and God, hands you a jackhammer. So, no, just kidding. It's not that I liked, I like to be very self deprecating about my personal life, because it is a bit of a shit show, usually. And maybe one day, one day, I'll grow up and it won't be Yeah. So what am I? What am I excited about right now, well, San Diego Comic Cons in a couple months, and so right now I'm trying to figure out my costume for that. So that's good. That's going to be really cool. Like I said, my book comes out October 7. Super excited for that. I have a number of short stories that are coming out at I'm not sure when, but I'm super excited for them to come out when they do, and then obviously, have all this kind of, like, I have a bunch of film stuff going on, and so I'm, like I mentioned earlier, I try not to think about it too much, but I'm very excited for any updates on all that stuff, because you never know. Like, something could always hit and boom, off to the races. And

Michael David Wilson 1:06:21
I wanted to ask too. I mean, all the success that you've had, particularly over the last couple of years, has that empowered you to write more fearlessly and to be more true to yourself? I mean, it's not as if, before you know, we've with things like Nancy city, you weren't being fearless and you weren't being true. But I feel that like maybe with success, you could become emboldened, but I could see the other way. If you've got publishers saying, rein it in, it's a tricky thing to balance. I'm just wondering how it's affected your creative state?

Brian Asman 1:07:01
That's a good question. Yeah, so I just, I'll preface this by saying no one's told me to reign it in at all. So my publisher has been wonderfully supportive, and I will, I will say, though it it, I have experienced the opposite, right? I'm, I am less fearless as a writer now than I was a couple years ago. And I myself editor is really it's become a louder voice in my head. And so as I approach new projects now, I'm, I think, with short stories, I'm still, I can still be completely fearless, but like, you know, I kind of came out of the bizarro scene, right, where anything goes in the bizarro scene, and now, having tasted a little bit of like mainstream success, I am less fearless now, and that sucks, but I my imposter syndrome is kind of is here in full force right now, whispering in my ear constantly, then I'm a fraud and that I'm not gonna be able To follow up the Man, fuck this house, re release with anything that's worth reading, and that's, that's just the truth of the situation. And so I try to, I try to just go back to the one thing that's most important to me, which is, as long as I love what I'm writing, the other shit is gravy.

Michael David Wilson 1:08:19
And how much do you find that you can believe that and have that to see you through? You know, there's one thing to say. You know, as long as I enjoy it and believe in it, then fuck everything else. But how when you've got all these kind of demons, this self talk, how do you make yourself believe it or live it, or go on in spite of

Brian Asman 1:08:44
it, I just think about, you know, there's a chance I've already peaked. That's a very real possibility, right? I could have had all the success I'm going to have, and I can't do anything about that, other than write the best books possible, right? That's the only, that's the only thing I can do Alternatively, if this is just the beginning, and I am destined for much more success, not that I really believe in destiny, but we'll get we'll avoid the philosophical conversation there. But if there is more success in my future, right? I'm gonna get there the same way, by writing the best books I can. So I can either, you know, I can either fight against, you know, like, the futility of what I'm doing by writing the best books I can, or I can enable my future by writing the best books I can. But I don't think that there's any other option, right?

Michael David Wilson 1:09:30
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think as well, like, it's always a dangerous game to worry that, you know, you've peaked too early. And I mean, even with my own short career so far, like The Girl in the Video, my first book that is the one that has been, you know, the most successful in terms of sales, yeah, but I can't, like, it wouldn't be healthy for me to think, Oh, well, that's it. That's as good. It is, it's gonna get because I think too. I just say like, you know, but, but what if? Because we don't know. So I write because of the what if it isn't, what if this is the beginning, and to be honest, I don't believe The Girl in the Video is going to be the peak of my career. I think I'm just getting started. I think I'm being, I'm being more fearless in my writing and more true to myself. I mean, we've had some bad memories, and with daddy's boy is like, really upping the ante. And there are some people who were into The Girl in the Video, and they've bowed out with daddy's boy, but there are others who were like, Oh, this is the real shit. So we just have to kind of write in spite of it. And I mean, if you look at Chuck Palahniuk, obviously his first book Fight Club, in terms of sales, in terms of notoriety, you would say, okay, that's the most successful. But then I don't think he peaked with it, because he's just been doing more and more interesting things, and he's someone who doesn't give a fuck and writes fearlessly. He's just writing these his own kind of experiments and his own challenges. He wanted to jump more into horror, so he's done that with the last two or three releases. And it's it's so one thing I think about a lot is it's so funny how we can put the success of our book based on sales or based on who publishes it. And I think it's a very dangerous game. So if daddy's boy absolutely tanks and doesn't sell a lot, there's a temptation to say, Okay, well, it wasn't successful. But then if somehow Zach Galifianakis picks it up and he posts about it, and then it sells like 1000s or hundreds of 1000s or millions of copies, then it's a success. But either way, it's the same fucking book. So I think that I don't know success is is bizarre, and I think we need to almost put less stock in popularity, even though we're in a society that puts that on a pedestal. Yeah.

Brian Asman 1:12:19
Well, I mean, the thing is, everyone gets to define what success looks like for them, and you can have different levels of success, right? You don't have to feel like you're a failure. You can feel like you're a success, and you can feel like you're more of a success, right? And I think honestly, just publishing a book is that's a success in and of itself. Because, you know, honestly, you know, most statistics are made up. I think, you know, 98% of statistics are made up on the spot. But you know, I've heard numbers like, something like 90% of writers will never finish their book, and then you know, of the 10% that finished their book, only 1% will get it published or get an agent, or whatever, and yada yada, right? We've all seen those numbers here and there. So just, you know, honestly, finishing a book is a huge success. That's just a win in and of itself. You're already in like, the 90th percentile if you just finish a freaking book, you know. And then from there, anything else is, you know, it's cool, like, you know, I always talked about how, when we did the short story challenge in 2017 with This Is Horror. You know, I think everyone that I met through that challenge, pretty much as long as they didn't drop off the radar, has gone on to publish something over the years. You know, whether that's just a short story or a couple short stories or a novella or a novel like I think just about everyone involved with it published something somewhere, you know. And so if you don't quit, and if you decide that I'm gonna define my own success, you know, it's not every book needs to sell a million copies. You know, not every writer needs to do that to feel like they're a success.

Bob Pastorella 1:13:53
Yeah, the thing that I got, I have a book coming out in June. This book was written over two years ago. And so it takes a long time for a book to come out. And people think, well, you write a book and it comes out. No, it doesn't. This book was written two years ago, probably over two years ago. And what made me finish that book is the same thing that's going to make me finish my next book. And so even though I just got done with the edits on this book, and hopefully we'll have, you know, some some advanced reader copies going out here soon, and a cover reveal, because it's coming out in June. So I know this stuff is coming up, you still can't help the field. Whenever you stare at a blank screen imposter syndrome, it just fucking creeps up on you, you know, and but here's the thing I might be having. I might have some struggles right now with with with ideas and what I want to work on, because nothing seems to be gelling with me. But since then, I have also ridding a fucking novella. So, you know, I've got a home invasion. Cosmic horror novella. Those two things don't go together at fucking all. And so talk about writing fearlessly. I've got a chapter in this thing that made me nauseated. And so, oh yeah, yeah, if it can fuck me up, you know, fuck yourself up. And Hell yeah, yeah. And so I and I wrote this novella. Now, could I take this thing and turn it into a novel sure I can pad the fuck out of anything? It would probably lose its strength, so I'm putting it on my Patreon. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet. It's given me an opportunity to edit. So I'm hopefully I'm either going to self publish this, or I'm going to find someone who's published in novellas and send it to them and hope to God that they don't have nightmares and never we know, and decide that they don't want to deal with me anymore

Brian Asman 1:15:52
or have nightmares and go, Oh, we got to sign him immediately.

Bob Pastorella 1:15:55
Yeah, that's what I'd like to hear. But I have got so many ideas that are swirling around in my head, yet I still, I feel like you it's like, Fuck, man, is this new book? Is this? Is this going to be it for me? My original novella that I had out, unfortunately, is out of print right now. So, you know, Mojo rising is is not, is not available. You know, will it come back? I'm sure it will one day. But, you know, sales, sales dipped it. We extended the contract multiple times. Very, very proud of the book, very grateful for it to come out, but it's gone. The only thing that I have out right now are some short stories and a book that I wrote with my good friend Michael David Wilson, called They're Watching, well, dude, This Is Horror. It's a great book, so, but I have my solo novel debut coming out, and yet, and so I've got a book coming out. I'm gonna have a cover reveal probably within the next couple of weeks. And I am still like, going, fuck, is this it? Is it? I mean, you know, and no, I don't want it to be it. I'm, I'm in June. I'm going to be 58 years old, and I don't feel that. And as long as I don't feel it that, I'm just getting fucking warmed up. And so continue to write fearlessly. I'm going to continue to do what I need to do, and I'm going to fight these demons with everything that I have. The thing is, is that these demons, they fight back. You just got to realize that it's you're never going to get rid of them. You just got to find a way to push them back down. Yeah,

Brian Asman 1:17:40
that well, said, Bob, I like that, yeah.

Michael David Wilson 1:17:44
And I mean, for whatever it's worth, I would say that all three of us, we have absolutely not peaked. I don't believe that for a second. You know, I know ideas that we have, and the passion, the enthusiasm, the quality of writing, we haven't peaked. There's a lot of good things coming, that is for sure. Like, if you do doubt that, then I have enough confidence in all three of us, but a lot of us, so don't you worry. Yep, exactly.

Brian Asman 1:18:14
And you know, if you think about, if you think about artists who never really got to saw their vision, like someone like Robert E Howard, for example. Like, how much would that fucking blow his mind to see Conan the Barbarian on the big screen, for example, you know, and just to see the the extraordinary resonance all his stories have had, like, for the last 100 freaking years, with no signs of slowing down, really. Or, you know, John Kennedy O'Toole, who wrote A Confederacy of Dunces, which Michael, I'd imagine that's probably, you know, on your shelf of books that you've read several times, as it is on mine, just from the way you write. But, I mean, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 1:18:55
yeah. And that one keeps coming up when we discuss that, this boy, people keep mentioning it, yes,

Brian Asman 1:19:01
I can see that, yeah. But I mean, he never, his mother published his book after he died, you know. And so he never, he will never know that he wrote what some considered to be the best comic novel of the 20th century, you know, yeah, you think about stuff like that, and then you go, what you know, what you're there's a there's always hope. You know, it's never too late. You don't even have to be alive anymore to have success.

Michael David Wilson 1:19:29
I know I think about that a lot, and I think about Edgar, Allen Poe and, oh, my god, yeah, God. I I, I hope, though you know, and because we're starting relatively young, I hope that we will get to see some of the success. But if we don't, we don't. But you know, I ideally buy my books now. Don't wait for me to die. When he's dead, they might collect them all together. So we'll save a bit of money then. Yeah,

Brian Asman 1:19:59
exactly. Exactly, exactly

Michael David Wilson 1:20:01
I don't know worried about. I'll give you a couple of dollars off anyway. Now, so you know, write to me, Michael. This is horror.co.uk subject line, coupon code, after you're dead, and then I'll introduce you a discount if you buy all four now, if

Bob Pastorella 1:20:22
you pass before me, I'm gonna have to do the add on there to MDW omnibus, The Girl in the Video watching your daddy all in one bug dome.

Michael David Wilson 1:20:35
Daddy, that is something you can find on a different site.

Brian Asman 1:20:42
Don't forget, if he does pass before you Bob, you do have to introduce a new co host called like Marcus Daniel Wilson, or something like that. Yeah.

Bob Pastorella 1:20:53
Michael Daniel Wilson, here's Mark David Wilson,

Michael David Wilson 1:21:01
well, on that note, on

Brian Asman 1:21:03
that note, yeah, this is getting kind of morbid. I love it, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 1:21:07
where can our listeners and viewers connect with you as the best place to reach you these days? Sure, so

Brian Asman 1:21:15
I'm on my website is Brian asmanbooks.com you can always message me there or sign up for my mailing list so you can find out updates. And sometimes I send out little previews of stuff I'm working on, coupon code stuff like that. Also, I'm on Facebook and Instagram at this point, at the Brian Asman, I am no longer. I still have a an account on Twitter, but I don't regularly use it anymore, just because my tweets kept getting kind of buried by the algorithm, it just wasn't worth being on there anymore. So the main place I interact with people is Facebook and Instagram these days. So go check me there. All

Michael David Wilson 1:21:55
right. Do you have any final thoughts to leave everyone with? Yes, absolutely

Brian Asman 1:22:02
so as you go forth, just just think about, you know, when you write, write fearlessly, because what's the alternative? Right? Right? Scared, right? Afraid? Well, we're all scared. We're all afraid. That's why we're writing horror in the first place, right? And so I think you owe it to yourself as a writer to write the best goddamn thing that you can and not let that voice holding you back stop you from doing that.

Michael David Wilson 1:22:29
All right. Thank you very much for joining us.

Brian Asman 1:22:32
Thank you guys. It's always great being here.

Michael David Wilson 1:22:38
Thank you for listening to This Is Horror Podcast. If you enjoy the show and want to support us, then please consider becoming a patron a patreon.com, forward slash, This Is Horror. You'll get early bird access to each and every episode, and you can submit questions to the interviewee. You'll also automatically become a member of the This Is Horror discord, and every year there are bonus episodes for patrons only, such as story unboxed, the horror podcast on the craft of writing, in which Bob and I and sometimes a special guest, will dissect a short story or film and let you know writing lessons and takeaways to improve your own writing. Another great way to support us is to leave us a review on the Apple podcast app or website. And if you want to watch the video version of the This Is Horror Podcast, join us on YouTube. Youtube.com, forward slash at This Is Horror Podcast. You can subscribe there and get notified every time there is a new video. And however you support us, I thank you in advance. Okay, before I wrap up, a quick advert break,

Bob Pastorella 1:23:56
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Michael David Wilson 1:25:05
that is almost all we've got time for on This Is Horror. But before I go another thank you for all the support you're giving to daddy's boy. And I got an amazing review on good reads from my good friend John Crinan. I don't even know where to start with this one. I mean, I'll just read you a few key sentences. Daddy's boy is a delightfully pure royal caper with a heart of gold, and although he has put the laughs front and center here, rather than his trademark scares. This has all the signature elements we've come to expect from the host of This Is Horror, unforgettable, dialog, sublime. What the fuckery on almost every page and a cast of characters all deserving of their own spin off novels, and then I'll give you the conclusion. Genuinely laugh out loud, funny. This book deserves to be at the very top of your to be red pile, you simply must experience the forefront or glory of that finale. Five stars, God damn. JC. John Crinan, thank you very much. And on that note, I'll see you in the next episode for another of the kind of months long, almost daddy's boy flavored episodes. But until then, take care of yourselves. Be good to one another. Read horror, keep on writing and have a Great, great day.