Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar

this super special book club episode is brought to you by ashley now is the time to write the newest chapter in your home story as the largest furniture store brand in north america ashley can help you create a comfortable functional and might i add very stylish home that you can feel proud of and all in a price range that works for you with lifestyle driven designs you don't have to choose between being practical and being stylish visit your local ashley store or head to ashley.com to find your style hey weirdos i'm ash i'm elena i'm rich and this is a very special episode of morbid it is we have a special guest richard chismar welcome to the show welcome thanks for having me thank you for coming yeah we've just been hanging and chatting for a little while already great vibes to start off the vibes are immaculate here like i've known you guys for a long time already right yeah and i feel like we've been trading arcs back and forth for a little while i feel like so we're getting to know each other here and you have a new book in the series the boogeyman series killing the boogeyman it's coming out october 6th i've got to read this ahead of time and i feel very lucky i'm jealous i love this series so much i'm gonna steal your arc i love stealing your arcs you can steal the arc yeah it's awesome and it's such a good conclusion to the series it's kind of crazy i know seeing them all right here it must be to see them all lined up right yeah yeah yeah especially because there was never supposed to be a second book oh really no never oh really nope this was just supposed to stop at the first one yeah i would have been writing about myself for one book was enough yeah i actually remember telling my my editor and my agent i'm like that's it that's all i got again and and i'll be honest even though the first one was like a surprise hit no one was like banging down my door saying we need a second one we need a second one and then i was mowing the lawn one day as crazy as that sounds and and like in a five minute span i had the idea for the entire first chapter of becoming the boogeyman which ends with a with a and i never say this about my work because i envy those writers who are like i can't wait till you read my next book it's great oh yeah i'm always like well i'm like i hope you like it if you decide you hate it i hope you don't figure that out until you spent the twenty nine dollars on it you guys so i get my royalty yeah i just for the for the first time i just knew that chapter was good and it ended on that twist that connected so strongly to the first book so i remember thinking if anyone can read that first chapter and not you know if they're standing in the store reading it and they read it and they can't they don't take it up to the register i'll be shocked yeah um so you know it just fit that neatly so i was like okay i have to write it and then just through discussions with my my editor he you know he's like yeah there's got to be a chapter that's good i'm gonna read it trilogy yeah these always have to be a trilogy you got to you know you got to yeah i loved it that first chapter immediately hooked me and just the idea of chasing the boogeyman got me right away because i picked it up in the fiction section but as i'm reading it like looking through it i was like is this real like this feels real and the more i read it the more i was like you made that feel so real that several times i knew again i got it in the fiction section i knew it was not real i was like is this real like i was like are you sure real because you nailed the true crime book vibes i love true crime yeah so that was the thing it's like you know i've always thought you know if there was a local case and it was the right thing and i felt like i could add something to the stories and and and you know in a dignified way and honor the victims and and the and the survivors um you know maybe i do it because i actually kind of enjoy research yeah um even though i write books where i just you know i don't have to do research i just make it up there's always something to research but uh yeah i always thought if that came and then when i sat down to write this story i thought you know what i'm gonna write this is the photos i think that did a lot of people the photos that's what kept making me go back and googling whether this was real because they came out so real and it felt like a true crime book oh i bet and you know how most photos in a true crime books they're all in one spot yeah they're always which i don't like it was like in the middle they make sense i know it's cheaper to print and they put it on the glossy paper sometimes so it's nice so you know but i always find myself flipping back and forth because i want to see what this person looks like yep um whether it's the good guy the bad guy the detective you know the senator who gave the press commerce whoever it is i want to see what they look like right when when i want to see what that crime scene looks like it you know and and in the good true crime books they're you know the crime scenes aren't bloody or gory they're just like trampled down grass behind a shed yeah but it adds so much to that moment when you're reading about it yeah exactly so i knew i wanted photos and i knew i wanted to put them at the end of each chapter yeah i loved that yeah because that that's exactly how i am i end up like flipping through and being like what does this person look like okay i'm going to vote back yeah you gotta like remind yourself throughout the book that you had them all condensed into each thing and i think it gave that immediate reinforcement that hey what i just read was that because who's dumb enough to take a bunch of fake photos i am you know and they look real it's hard to like stage those kind of photos right and not have them look like you know what i mean like really like fake and they i was like these look too real to be fake that must have been so fun to do there was so much fun and that's the thing most again most photos and true crime books they're not exciting no you know they and so that's that was the goal is to have them be like very mundane right right yeah um you know which is hard when it's lifelong friends you know dressed up in thrift clothes trying to be serious to be the detective and you're like stop it stop flexing your jaw you know stop sucking in your stomach yeah so you know the photos were the most fun part there's times when i mean my son and i took most of them but we had you know some of the actors from the short films we've done together you know some of them came back they have wardrobes so they were cheap thank god and i love it and willing to to do it and but the photos are almost the most fun they are because i feel like any like i i'm like i'm jealous like i want to take photos for my books now even though like i'm like that's so fun yes you can because just to be able to visualize it too along with it i feel like that's such an added bonus to it definitely well the original idea for chasing the boogeyman was to blair witch the audience completely yes we heard about that and i'm so sad that you couldn't yeah i mean it really quickly i was i was thrilled this time you know the s less than juric gallery bought it so don't get me wrong but then i was really bummed once i had those phone conferences with the legal department and they were telling me it wasn't even like a close call it wasn't like well we're gonna think about it it was just like rich now absolutely you'll get sued we'll get sued everybody it's it's a no-win great talk thanks i'm just like but i have plans and they're like no i'm like but i have a fake website to post online that looks like it got updated to like the mid-90s and then it just stopped that'd be so sick i fake newspaper articles yeah um i had all this stuff planned and what's funny is is ultimately i wanted to script like a three-part podcast oh and have someone would have gone along perfect oh my gosh yes and and you know i would be again one of the you know the detective would be a guest and some of my friends and and i'm just like that would be fun that'd be great promo too it really would yeah i still might do that one day i was gonna say i feel like you could yeah it is ways to get just put some money aside for when you get sued you know yeah it's fine like that's all just be prepared because as someone who was around for that blair witch original marketing like i try to tell i've told ash i'm so jealous that was the best marketing and we'll never get that kind of marketing back because it was like right in the beginning of like when the internet was exploding damn internet that's what it is it's like too fast there was nothing but pluses back then yeah and that was in that i remember looking at that blair witch website and being like this is real like i'm looking at real footage oh my god documentary yeah that sealed it for you know i mean i'm gullible as it is i was so i would have been too i'm a believer like you know my friends will tell you you know it's like rich hasn't changed he's still you know he thinks he's seen bigfoot you know he believes in the loch ness monster even though he's never been anywhere near there no same same you're in your place he's seen him he sensed him he believes in him yes you're in a safe place here yeah yeah i figured yeah i love it um and i yeah even if i'm not i'm like i can't pretend i'm anything other remember the childlike enthusiasm we talked about that's just me that's just there um hell yeah so yeah so for me it was natural and i wanted to you know the documentary for blair witch it kind of reinforced it and i just thought if i have all this supplemental material yeah that goes beyond the photos in the book i'm like i feel like i could and even my son who's not the most my oldest son who's a writer who's not the most logical of of guys even he really early on was like dad you know you can't do that you're like gonna drive down property values in edgewood and stuff you know mr mature i'm like i don't care i feel like it's fine i'm like but i'm gonna scare everyone i'm like yeah we're gonna hear it'll be we're scared to walk their dogs and stuff at night that's actually really fun okay stop trying to put a damper on my thing we're gonna ruin people's peace that's exactly i'm like they're gonna start a neighborhood watch because i'm like have you heard of a prank okay yes i'm like we can put on masks and scare people yeah everybody's getting too serious we'll get shot i'm like really see that's why things are no fun anymore it's true you know i'm like come on i can i feel like book i think readers too would appreciate that kind of thing because i feel like readers love that kind of stuff like any kind of like interactive like really immersing themselves in the book so i feel like it would work i think so most of them most of them had nothing but you know good memories from the book were those who got pissed off at me because they thought it was real because i tricked them you tricked them i thought that's what i'm supposed to do and they saw some fun in the fiction section like it's not in the true crime well it says a novel that showed me you know my editor that was the first thing that i looked and i was like oh a novel yeah that tells me it's not my editor who was who was amazing at his job and it's just a really good guy this guy named ed schlesinger he told me really early on he's like we got to put this disclaimer in the front yeah and i was like you know i'm like low maintenance but this was like the only time i was like no i'm dying on the cell i'm like you if you want it in there you have to write it so he did you're like here everybody goes ruining my fun again i did i i pouted you know it's like i get this wonderful book sale for this weird book that i wrote about myself in and and somehow i'm still pouting but that was it yeah um but yeah i'm like so what i want to say when they get mad at me is hey it says a novel right on it and there is a disclaimer but what i what i knew from my own personal experiences no one reads those no that's true they get right to the yeah it's like a note to the reader and as soon as you start this is a work and you're like they're like whatever so i love the fact that that you know you thought it and yeah lots of people said that they're like i knew it was a novel going in but by chapter three i was googling that was the thing because you again you get it in like the fiction section you're not getting it in the true crime section so you know where you got it right i knew where i got it from right and then you're like was that a mistake are there parts of this that's real and like i'm missing something like that's how real it felt well i love that yeah i'm hearing that and i tried to write like a true crime book you know i tried to write it very you know a matter of fact in places because you're not trying to you know glamorize anything yeah right you're you're trying to again you know lend dignity to uh to what happened and the people who who remain and all that and um yeah i so i tried to there were times where you know i find myself getting a little too dramatic or fictiony and i'm like dial it back you gotta pull the prose back so yeah i mean it you know who knows three books is enough but you never know i'm not giving away anything all right i love that you never know i just i always hear people who are like well it was meant to be you know six and now there's 14 i'm like i know it's probably somewhere right now rolling outside it's going no more it's true as someone who is also on book three in a series everybody's like there has to be another one i'm like i don't know and i'm there has to be another one i know i don't i'm not like i can't be done another i know i can't leave it no one said it's a trilogy like they did with mine which is you know them giving me a real strong hint rich be done you gotta be done here so i also loved the little things especially in becoming the boogeyman where it was like a text from stephen king and i was like this is fun i was like this is fun to read again i tried to make it as real life as possible so it's like it's my idiot friends who i love dearly who are texting me it's my sisters it's you know i make reference to my one sister nancy who is you know um who is not subtle you know there's never a single text there's always four yep or six or 14 that's how i text you yeah it's just block yep and then there's my friends who are yelling at me because i don't return phone calls so i tried to that was the most fun becoming the boogeyman is i could drag myself yeah through the ringer right yeah i was like the press was ripping me you know half of my hometown loved me the other half was like what a pain in the ass he's probably in on this you know look you bought a big house because of the the blood money and i was just like you're like yeah let's bring it on you know let's go you know the internet hated me so that was fun that is fun it's kind of like it feels like it would be cathartic almost like exposure therapy yeah yeah yeah it was i'm like i know half these people are thinking it anyway and you're like you can't be as mean to me as i can be mean to me let me write it first so i'll make it sit back and watch yeah brilliant so well and going back to like the boogeyman thing like the boogeyman is one of those monsters that i think like everybody has a different idea of what the boogeyman is but they all know what the boogeyman is where did your personal personal relationship with the boogeyman begin wow uh probably like as soon as i was old enough to you know have dreams and and just i've always been you know i've always been the storyteller in the group um i've always been the one who really enjoyed scaring everyone like i walking up the gravel driveway of the myers field i really did tell everyone scary stories and then i would wait for that strategic moment look over my shoulder scream and take off running but the thing is is the reason i told those stories because i was scared to death yep so i'm like you know what i'm not gonna be alone yeah you know bringing everybody else it was a distraction and um so yeah the boogeyman was like you know my wife will tell you you know i i still believe in the boogeyman i you know the scene in in in i guess it's chasing where i take out the garbage and i always talk about it where and and i just just describe knowing i'm being watched someone's here it is a vile alien feeling and um i i felt it at some point probably a lot taking out the garbage when i was young so that's where that came from and now we have this very long driveway and i still hate taking the garbage out after dark oh yeah i hate it won't catch me doing that so many hiding places yeah yeah that's the thing i think everybody has that one chore one thing they have to do where you're like i don't want to do something creepy gonna happen when i do that yeah yeah like i don't like going in our cellar it's i was just gonna say that and it has so for the ceiling beams it has complete trees oh complete 250 my house growing up had those too yeah and most of them are stripped of the bark but there's still bark on some and it's just like again you talk about an alien thing yeah modern you know in a modern world so and it's dark and it's stone walls and i'm just like it's like the blair witch basement yeah it's the perfect setting for something to happen i always expect to see someone standing in the corner there are handprints and names written on this on the on this one cubbyhole this like to the outside yeah it's yeah yeah that's a lot oh that's that's freaky yeah it's freaky but it's fun that's what we love you know that's why you live there yeah and that's why you write good scary books well i think that's part of it is that that i still i'm a believer yeah i'm still scared and and it's to their great humor yeah you know and my older son billy the writer and the filmmaker he's like me okay you know we i always tell the story of the first time we watched paranormal activity which some people think is dumb no i hate when people say that we love it's so good we we started watching it at night opposite sides of the sofa and this is a pretty typical experience and as that movie went on we got closer and closer and we're halfway through and i mean we are snug and at some point we kind of looked at each other and we said let's finish this tomorrow in the daylight and we're like good night good night and we both just want our separate ways um it's the same whereas my youngest son is more like my wife cara very practical so they get to the end of a movie like that and they're like that was kind of dumb and we're just like what did what were you watching so it's a good thing that i do write what i write because i do think it helps oh yeah um and especially when i'm writing with a sense of nostalgia as a kid because i'm still you know i am still that big kid yeah in so many ways and especially the imagination and and and um yeah i hope i never get that educated out of me well at this point i think it's too late i think i think i'm a lost cause i see my wife nodding honestly i feel that way too yeah i'm like i am what i am at this point yeah kindred spirits no you know it's like we're gonna circle the wagons because we're all weirdos yeah as soon as you guys stepped in you started talking about your haunted house i was like oh you're in good company yeah these are our people yeah yeah well you yeah and you sense it you know yeah you said yeah you're talking to someone who's like super practical and all that and they're just like looking at you and they're like but rich you know there's no such thing and i just stop them i'm like no i don't like i don't know neither do you exactly yeah none of us know i'm like well tell me about the afterlife mr no at all yeah right you know that's the thing because i have like i have like both sides of the brain where i like i really want to disprove certain things like my brain wants to do that scully all in one she really is that's really awesome way to describe you are that and that's it so i always want to prove it wrong but i never can and so i'm like so i'm not going to sit here and say that i know because i don't it's because you have that sciencey side to you yeah i want to figure out why things happen yeah yes i get that nine times out of ten i can't me i just accept it for what it is i love that's what i love yeah ash is just like yep that's haunted and i don't know why okay and i don't want to hear anything else yeah i try to disprove and if i can't then i'll say okay i don't know that's that's a ghost i guess yeah like that's it and nine out of ten times it's a ghost that's true yeah yeah i can't prove it most of the time right i'm with you and i'm still i'm still again because i'm a guy i think i'm dumb enough to to still poke the hornet's nest i mean we did we did like a gettysburg ghost tour and i'm the i want to do that i do too took one of my son's friends and he was just terrified so at some point i decided to be a wise ass and i'm like i started like calling down the spirits to take over his body no see you're the one in the group that i'd be like you gotta go don't worry i'll be dead soon enough um but yeah i had him praying in a corner he was so scared i'm like i had to apologize to his father and the whole thing i'm like he probably broke out in a rash and the whole thing sorry i traumatized you because i was like using you know i'm like come down i summon you take over gavin and and the next thing i know he's praying and i'm just like you're like shit sorry my work here is done all right yeah oh that's great oh no growing up did you have a local legend or a local boogeyman that you remember a lot of small towns a little bit i mean i wrote about the guy called the rubber band man and chasing the boogeyman yep um people asked me if that was real that when i hid inside the playground tunnel and the smell and i'm like you know what i think it was real because that was the thing chasing the boogeyman everything i wrote about everything as i remember it except for the murders which i mean and everyone's names are all my true friends names my parents names it was just it was a memoir in a lot of ways which was for me was so much fun to write because you know my parents had been gone for quite a while but you know for the months that I spent on the book they were yeah you bring them back and I was in my old childhood bedroom after graduating waiting to to get married and and all my friends you know when I was writing about younger days that we were still you know the Hanson Road Boys we were all just still scattered around the neighborhood I loved that instead of the country and and I'm doing an event soon and all the Hanson Road Boys are coming oh hell yeah and I told him I was like I actually advertise it I'm like the Hanson Road Boys will be there and people are going to recognize them as half of the photos yeah um but the neat thing is is I told him I said you're going to be signing probably more books than I am because people for years have said I want to meet him it's so and so real so the most disappointment from the first book was that Carly Albright wasn't real yeah my my sidekick okay um and she's you know she's this very strong-willed woman very wise and kind of keeps me straight doesn't put up with my shit so it's Cara essentially Cara and I grew up with three older sisters there you go so I'm like that'll do you go that yeah that's that's how you know like an amalgamation of everybody yeah I knew like fashion stuff and I you know I listened to like the Bay City Rollers and the Bee Gees way before everybody else because I had sisters yeah you know um yep and I also knew you know Cara will say bullshit but I also knew the proper way to treat the female yeah yeah um older sisters will teach you yeah so but but yeah I that was the fun of the book is I is I got to write about everybody and and they all really people always say did were they okay with it I'm like yeah of course I okay oh they were probably psyched oh yeah well they're still mad about the pictures they I still I want to I want more of a close-up in the next one you can't see my face no kidding I'm like I love it the whole thing everyone loved it except the the lovely woman to my left Cara my wife who loathed it she's very behind the scenes and uh just like I'm like I'm like very behind the scenes and uh just you know she doesn't even like like if I post pictures on Facebook I have to get her written approval pretty much I love it she just doesn't you know she's not into that which is fine but she hated being written about I'm just like it's the only way I know how to tell the story I got away with it for the first book yeah she was young and it was so far in the past but then I had to break it to her that the second book was set in modern day hey you're like you're in this a lot and you're in this like you're a big part let me read it yes I'm not going to read it you know that way when people at signings and stuff ask me about I can just say I haven't read it you say I don't actually don't know I bleed the fifth and I'm like but I just live this life I don't know and I'm like but you know I don't want to say a spoiler I'm like but you're integral to the plot in many ways and I'm like you know the first book I always say is like a love story to to my hometown and youth yeah and and my family and it feels that way yeah I'm like the second book is is in many ways is a love story to care and yeah you know you can feel that way and and just my place in the world and how she's helped me you know move through it and then I'm like you know the third book is kind of all of it you know it brings the friends back into it it carries a huge part my sons are more of a part of it I loved that it like built upon itself I loved that yeah and it was it again it was very natural I mean that's the plus of writing these books is they are a lot of fun to write even though I'm writing about myself because I don't I you know I would always tease them I'm like yeah I just wrote a scene in which I you know ran 10 minutes then I washed the car and I and I power washed the siding and they're looking at me they're like who's that yeah yeah and I'm like I'm pretty much you know a navy seal in this book and they're like people are gonna know that you actually look at your steps on your phone and you're happy when it's like you know I walked 600 steps today it's very relatable it really is and I would threaten Kara she'd be like you know her usual sassy self and I'd be like you know what I think I'm gonna go upstairs and write a love scene real quick like it'll be a work of fiction but again you know to to look back at particularly the first book and be like all those things happened except for the murders yeah um and some people are still disappointed that the murders didn't happen I'm like I'm like I know you don't mean that I'm like I know you don't mean that yeah you're like I did it but sorry young girls weren't murdered people do crazy things you never know yes yeah that was a really long-winded way of answering that yeah the boogeyman has always been a part of my life and you know we had we had our haunted house we had the Myers house we had our our Legends there was definitely a good side of the tracks and the bad side of the tracks and the whole thing and uh and we just you know I was always aware of the fact that and even before I read Stephen King but especially after I read Salem's lot at an early age and some of those others that was one of my first and I was surrounded by books you know the youngest of five kids my parents both read so I was reading like Sidney Sheldon because of my sister yeah and like reading the sex scenes out loud to my friends and being like but reading sounds a lot and a lot of those small town novels it really made it easy to imagine you know the innocence of walking home from sledding at night but the lights are on in the houses and it was first for a warped mind like me it was really easy to take that next step and be like you know there's stuff going on behind oh yeah yeah that we know nothing about oh yeah and it can be anything yes yes and then you get introduced to serial killers yeah and and you know uh that kind of thing and you're just like you don't even have to have suspend the belief of vampires no there's no not at all I was fine with because I believe that all right yeah but people yeah the idea that you could be standing in line at 7-Eleven to get a slurping and the guy behind you could have killed six people rocked my world yeah oh yeah yeah I'm constantly still thinking of that me too at all times oh I think of that yeah yeah grocery shopping I'm like who's a murderer yeah like somebody could be somebody's done some weird yeah and odds are you know odds are someone's done that many people in a building yeah you go to a concert and two people there are killed oh absolutely yeah which is horrifying yeah it is because we're just like living among them just whatever and I think that's why like small like you did because obviously you grew up in that town so it's like you did like the small town vibe so well and I feel like it lends itself really well to adding something so nefarious like murder into it and why do you think like it works so well to add like murder into a small town I just think it's the it's you know the first book for me was about that loss of innocence not only in myself but in my you know I described that's the reason I opened the book with so much history about the place yeah is because I think for a lot of people particularly when you're younger it's your safe place yeah it's like it's it's the expansion of your home that's why they say home invasions are so traumatic yeah yeah because if you're not safe here where the hell is exactly it's your so you can expand that and you know to the you know the wagon wheel of your town and when you're young it's like that's your world yeah that's the boundaries you know I you know when I was that age you know hell I didn't know anything about Dover Delaware it was an hour and a half away yeah if my world ended at the train tracks yeah there's nothing until you get your license and even then after that but so I I think it's just that contrast of this is supposed to be where you're safe and I think that applies to you know you're a young couple you move into this suburb you you you know you bring your newborn yeah um the thing you're supposed to be most nervous about is strapping your baby in a car seat and driving to the drugstore that's terrifying yeah yes Kara would come home from you know work some days and I you know the baby where Billy would have like three onesies on because I forgot to take the other ones off after I changed the diaper and I put a new one she's just like what are you doing and I'm like I was nervous I don't know I think he's cold how can I be trusted have a baby you know I you know I'm still shoving chocolate in my face at night when I should be going to sleep and I'm like well you can't sleep because you have so much sugar and you dummy you're like uh why am I an adult I'm like but I'm a dad I'm cosplaying as an adult okay that was oh we did that a lot how did this happen literally me and my husband had twins first like right out the gate okay and so the second they were born both of us were like what have we done oh my God we have to keep them alive this is scary yeah oh my God and one of them was very very tiny oh she's the tiniest she was like she was like five pounds when she was born so she was like a little a little bird and putting her in the car seat we were like and I remember the nurses come in and they like do the thing where they're like you have to put them in the car seat and you have to know how and they can't tell you how to do it you're just and I was like but I didn't study for this test like I don't know and we were like so scared this tiny little thing in there oh they're so fragile I won't touch friends and you know their babies until they get to a certain age I get it I'm terrified yeah I did it with my own eye okay I see strangers like in the grocery store Park and I'm like support the neck support the neck and it informed everything it informed my work back then all of a sudden everything I was writing about was about the fragility of the world yes um so I think that that's my my answer for the small town thing yeah it's just supposed to be all you're supposed to be worried about is your baby in the car seat and getting home in time to watch uh you know I'm gonna date myself but you know Beverly Hills 90210 or whatever it was back in the day there we go and uh instead you know they're a neighborhood watch groups and they're talking about doing a curfew and there's cops everywhere and you're just like this shouldn't be happening yeah like i should be able to walk down the street yeah and not worry yeah which you know in my youth i could you know we spent the night with each other at each other's houses and we snuck out windows at midnight and we went down to 7-eleven and we got slurpees and and the whole thing i mean my friends love telling stories about about that and including the one where we all played poker and then my buddy won all of our money when he was sleeping we took a flashlight and tweezers and we opened his pocket we flashed the flashlight and stole all his money that he had won from us went to 7-eleven he got to the counter had all this stuff on the counter and no money to pay for it that's friendship yeah he still tells that story but yeah we did those things and and it was safe yeah yeah you know we were scared i mean my again my dumb ass was probably talking about the boogeyman yeah or what you know i heard that you know the rubber band man which i think the legend was that he only came out in the daytime which which was weird but i you know i'm sure i was like my sister told him told me that they've started seeing him at night now oh of course so you know we're scared to death of course we can't have a safe time but again it was like it was you know it was more like riding a roller coaster it's like you were scared but somewhere in the back of your mind you knew you were going to be okay you're going to put your head down on your own pillow yeah and it's fun to be scared it's like a horror movie or going to a haunted house you're like you're gonna get the feeling but like i know i'm okay here yes even though i as soon as i get in the haunted house i'm like i'm going to die yeah because that's what i'm going to do what happened in fun house and so no we say that every time we enter any kind of haunted house we're like what if this is the one where the person actually wants to kill us yeah it's the chainsaw the chainsaws anytime they chase you out of those places with a chainsaw i'm like what if this is that one time but they keep the chain on and this is just like and john always thinks we're crazy but we're like what if yeah you know i'm like i don't know that's it i mean people that's why i love stephen king you know he's still you know he's still he's almost 80 and he's still i know he still believes in the hand that's going to creep out from under your bed yeah oh i don't you don't hang that you don't hang your bare leg over no yeah you can put the blankets on yeah exactly you jump in that bed yeah yeah you got magic it's true it's true yeah now with killing the boogeyman coming out so soon do you suggest that readers read your first two books beforehand and if the answer is yes is there anything in particular they should pay close attention to um you know i think they should i mean i've had people ask me that and and again my editor was very careful in that you know rich you need to write these books that they can be standalone and that's why there's like in becoming the boogeyman the the it's not labeled an introduction but it opens with a series of newspaper and magazine and online articles which give you the whole synopsis of the first book yeah so you know who joshua gallagher is going in you know who i am you know that i've had a movie made from this a book published the whole thing um so yeah absolutely possible to read it and and we tried to do the same thing with the book and we tried to do the same thing with the book and we tried to do the same thing with the heavy dump of town history in the first book which i worried about and some readers did say they're like man the first book i loved it but it wasn't until i got to page like 60 it picked up and i'm like i get that but i really wanted you to know that town as well as you knew me you have to set it up because that's what it's all about um and yeah so i i feel like learning you know i feel like there is a progression to the story okay it's not it's not necessary you know you know critical but i feel like the layers are there yeah that makes sense and i think that's a good i think i i enjoyed reading each one like as we went because i think it does really give you like by the time you get to the third book you feel like you know like the reader knows you and knows like your family and your friends and the town you're so immersed in the story you're so invested in the third one at like seeing where this goes and you start in joshua gallagher you start yeah you get that like he evolves and yeah i mean you're either gonna be sick of me by the end of the third book you're gonna be like i hope there's a fourth yeah and it might be both you might be like sick of me like uh but i hope there's a fourth and i hope they kill right now you know um so yeah who knows but yeah but yeah i i would like them to read them all but yeah i'm i'm appreciative of anyone who picks up any of my books of course i'm still that guy at the signing that like i always say it i'm like i still feel like i'm that little kid on hansen road selling cups of lemonade oh you're like oh my god people are coming yeah it's like people are buying my books oh i'm constantly you say the same thing like constantly when people are like i've read all three i'm like you've read all three yeah and then you walk out and you're like how lucky am i yeah because you probably grew up like me with the books in your pocket oh yeah purse or your bag and it's just like constantly like what yeah like it's like what are you talking about it's the same thing like you people say well what it was like to collaborate with with stephen king and i'm just like my word's never going to change it was ridiculous yeah i can imagine it was it was you take a normal everyday constant reader of his and you say hey come over and sit next to me at the typewriter and let's have some fun and oh my god it's like what do you mean by that i'm just like i'm just like i'm just like i'm just like i'm going to write about castle rock and i'm going to write about dairy and i i think i would fall apart like i think i would just fall just because he was like my introduction into horror and when he's so many people so many people's introduction and it's like i've read every single like every time he releases a new book i'm like yoink like i don't even need to look it's just i'm reading that yep well at some point i started getting him ahead of time because of our friendship you know i would get an arc or sometimes even cooler i would get you know he emailed me the manuscript oh my god came out or whatever which is was the case with other worlds the new one um which is amazing and comes out the same day as killing the boogeyman um but yeah i i just you know to this day i'm just like anytime a new book comes out it doesn't matter if i've read it i still want to go to target or barnes and noble or wherever it is or my indie and buy the new book yeah because i've done it my whole life oh yeah so fun you gotta have it it's like yeah it's it doesn't matter if we're like you know we'll sell his new book so we usually sell a 1500 2000 copies or something so they're all in the warehouse yeah but i still want to buy my copy yeah you need that you need it it's a rite of passage for me yeah and uh and honestly that's how i felt even with your books that you like widow's point i scream about that book to everybody because i genuinely scared the shit out of me i was like this is a scary ass book especially coming up on halloween i was like everybody read that book it's so good yeah that book got actually got got highlighted by so many readers as like you know one of the scariest books and i was like i'm gonna read that book so scary which made me so happy because billy and i knew going in we're like when we wrote the novella version of that i remember telling billy at some at some point i said this is our everything but the kitchen sink yeah and he tried to throw in the kitchen sink he loves to tell that story he's like dad had to rein me in i love because at the end you know i did something and then he's like okay remember how we talked about it's everything but the kitchen sink you just threw it in right we can't so so then with the novel we were able to expand on it and it's just you know it's just all the during our signing tour we were able to expand on it and it's just you know it's just all the during our signing tour i kept referring to it as as scooby-doo for grown-ups oh it literally is it's so fun and at some point i said my publisher might not like hearing that you know my publisher might be like does it mean to them what it means to me i think so many people it would though yeah we had a van we had the one guy was like shaggy he had long hair and he was a stoner and i haven't read that yet but i'm absolutely going to i was like you have i'm sold on scooby-doo for adults yeah yeah and it's found footage and yeah i love found footage in that regard but it that even was a happy accident people are like you guys are brilliant and i'm like oh so good we really aren't it's just that was the only way we knew how to tell the story and we started playing with camera angles and different that was the coolest part i'm like we had no idea what we were doing until the reviewers pointed it out honestly and there's so much subtlety in that book that's scary that we tried to do that like there was a lot of like how blair witch is so scary because it's so and even paranormal activity like you're not even seeing everything it's just the vibes yeah like oh like that's good and there were so many people that and then sometimes you're seeing something you don't know whether you believe it or not because the way we described it shouldn't be possible but then again it's just supernatural which is there are no rules yeah and it felt real because it wasn't always over the top right like there were moments in that book that you're just like oh that thing moved and that's weird what inspired you guys to work together like did you just say one day like we have to write a book together yeah well you know what we always wanted i mean he you know he was a little weirdo god bless me he would sit on my lap and we would get we would have one of those like 1499 giant coffee table glossy books from the bargain bin at uh barnes and noble like on the unexplained and we would sit there for three hours flipping through it and and he was the one begging to he still hasn't forgiven me for letting him watch uh signs um and not warning him ahead of time about that birthday party and the corns the birthday party those two he he had i remember he crawled he was young enough he's probably 10 i don't know i'm bad dad i guess he he crawled up on the top of the sofa and was watching it laying down over my shoulder you're like i don't know i didn't know you were there he's like i'm safe here yes but he still doesn't forgive me his his first r-rated was uh silver bullet oh my god that was new year's eve once we're like all right we're just gonna do it it's time of course his younger brother who was four years younger got to you know always get it early but he wasn't even scared so yeah yeah that's that my kids got because my kids are my twins are 10 and my youngest just turned seven and my twins really wanted to watch uh return to oz and i was like that was like one of my first horror movies it is a horror movie scary movie yeah and i was like this is gonna scare the crap out of you it didn't scare them at all and even like my i think she was maybe five or six when she watched it because she just got to tag along unfazed unfazed oh i love it and now i'm like what else can i show either i want to like use them welcome to my world challenge except for you yeah i'm like i'm not gonna accept it yeah i'm like all right you know you shouldn't be but i thought coralline might get them i thought coralline was gonna fuck them up and they were like this is Yeah, they loved it. Show them like a really old one, like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Because when the kid comes out with that net, those are the things I grew up on. Like the original Wizard of Oz, which back then was, you know, must-see TV. It came on once a year. Yes. Like the Christmas special. Yep, always. You couldn't miss. You like, you know, you like put it on the calendar. I got to be in the West Rudolph. So same thing with Wizard of Oz. You know, I just remember, you know, the flying monkeys in the Haunted Forest. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's so scary. They were saying, you know, next year we're not going to let you watch it because you had nightmares for a month. By then they would forget, you know, the youngest of five kids, they were worn down. Oh, yeah. But Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Yep. And that child napper with the pointy nose and the net. Oh, my God. If that doesn't scare you, come watch it. Yeah, that'll mess you up. Yeah. It's true. They really want to see Jurassic Park and even that. I'm like. Oh, Jurassic Park. But then again, they're so, they might work out. And they're logical and they're like, well, dinosaurs aren't around anymore. Like, I'm not worried about a T-Rex coming. See, that one messed me up. That messes you up, though, because somebody could bring them back. I know. It's like science. That's the whole thing. I'm convinced somebody already has. They're on some island. Yeah, they're somewhere. We're just waiting. What's funny is Jurassic Park for me, because I was so wide-eyed with wonder, I was, you know, I'm sure it was more suspenseful for me than flat-out scary. Than actually scary. Because I was too busy going, you know, probably with drool coming. Dinosaurs. That is so cool. You know, eating ice cream. It's all over my shirt. Dinosaurs are real. I knew it. You know? We all go through that phase, right? It's true. I'm still in it, unfortunately. I get it. My husband's still in that phase, too. I get it. I know we'll get there. I would love to go back to your trilogy for a second. Sure. Specifically, I'd love to talk about the titles, Chasing, Becoming, and Killing. When did you know that those verbs were going to be kind of like the arc for your stories? When Ed told me. Okay. All right. Again, by the end of this interview, you'll figure out that, you know, I would readily admit I'm not as smart as some of the reviewers think I am. The titles are hard. This was called The Boogeyman. Okay. And I always knew I wanted to write a story or a book, preferably a book. The two titles I always had in my back pocket that I wanted to one day have novels, The Boogeyman and The Altar. Ooh. Yeah. And I always pictured an altar in the woods. Ooh, I like The Altar. Oh, I like that a lot. Yeah. So one day. Yeah. So one day. I'm waiting for that. But yeah, he thought we definitely need, you know, more. And Chasing was the first thing he came up with, and I was like that right on. Yeah. And then the second one, I just had working. Okay. And we discussed it. I mean, maybe give myself a little credit. Maybe I was like, maybe I spit that title out when we were kind of blue-skying it. I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure it was Ed. You know? And then I will give, I did say Killing the Boogeyman. There you go. So. Perfect. Which is perfect, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Titles are hard. Oh. I'm not great at titles. Titles are hard. And I didn't realize like not every author comes up with their title necessarily. No, a lot of times you have a title and you're like, this is the title. And they're like, it's not. They're like, it's actually not. Yeah. And they're like, it's a title, all right, just not a good one. Yeah. They're like, that's a word. For sure. That's a phrase. Well, it comes down to like marketing and that kind of thing too, I'm sure. So there's a lot that goes into it. Yeah. And sometimes you get ideas for titles that you're like, what? Like there was several ideas that I got at one point that I was like, are you punking me? Yeah. I remember going through some of them and I was like, not that one. Not that one. I read them out loud. I was like, this is real? Did I mean this? Picking this at all? I can't scribble that in my handwriting. Yeah, like what's going on right now? Yeah. It's true. I'm pleased with the titles. Yeah. They're great. It's going to be neat to see all three next to each other in the book. Yeah. Yeah. It is cool. It's been a journey. And I love the fact that when I'm gone, my kids and their kids can kind of read these stories and be like, yeah, that was the old guy. Yeah. My kids, when they read Chasing the Boogeyman, I'll never forget it because they've heard all my stories, including some of the gross ones that are in there, which my sister like immediately texted me and said, did this really happen? And I'm like, yes. And they're like, oh, my God, I never thought Brian and Craig would do that. And I'm like, all the time. You're like, you have no idea. Everyone knew about me throwing stuff at cars that, you know, that I talk about in there because it's like, yeah, I'm genuinely surprised I didn't get sent to reform school for whatever reason. And it was like, if there was an object on the ground and there was a moving vehicle, I wanted to plug it. It was happening. So many boys go through that phase, I think. Yeah. My kids never got to because nowadays you get shot. Well, now you can't. Yeah. But I've told Kara, I'm like, one day I just want to take them out. Just let them go for it. There's a property and there's so many trees and there's fences. And I'm like, there's hiding places. Yeah. And they're like, but bullets. She's like, but bullets go through fences. And I'm like, you're right. You're like, that's really valid. That's super valid. Because we can get arrested. I don't care about that. Yeah. I'll just be honest. I'm like, we just, I had to give them that experience. Yeah. But as particularly Billy came back and he's like, you and your friends were like a group of street urchins. We just roamed the town. We're just menaces. I'm like, that's what it was like. It was awesome. It was lawless. No, no cell phones. It was at the dawning age of computers. We only had one guy, Jimmy Cavanaugh, my buddy who, who had an early Commodore 64. The big chunky computers. Wow. And it was like green screens. Yes. We would look through his bedroom window and he'd be playing Zelda. Yes. And then like, I think it was like the Oregon Trail or something. Oh, yeah. He would describe it to us how cool it was. And we'd be like, shut up, man. We're playing Wiffle Ball or, you know, we're going to go bomb cars. You're like, come outside. Come outside, nerd. Yes. Yes. Which is so much better. Yeah. No, it's true. Because I had a neighbor whose dad would, the way that he would get her home and she was like down the street, he would do this crazy whistle that went all the way down the street. I love that. And if he needed her, he would do that whistle and she would just go get him and then come back. See, and that's so of that time. Yeah. Because there was no phone to call or anything else to call. Now your parent just texts you. Yeah. I think I wrote about it. I might not have written about it. It might have been just in my head, but the guys I just mentioned, Brian and Craig, they're Anderson. Their dad, Mr. Fred, would whistle. Yeah. He did that crazy like. And he was super strict. And it didn't matter if we were like, if we were in the middle of a wiffle ball game, he could be in the middle of his pitching motion. If he heard that whistle, he dropped the ball and took off running. You got to go. He couldn't be convinced because, you know, he's more scared of his dad than he was of us being mad at him because he left in the middle of the game or the middle of Monopoly or whatever it was we were doing. But as soon as he heard that whistle and that, it's just neat that you said that because, because that was the other thing I learned is at some point I was a little nervous before chasing came out because I thought, who's going to care about me? And this is, I said, it's just this campfire story essentially about the boogeyman and my friends. And it had all this buzz ahead of time. And I'm like, I got nervous, which I never do. I'm just like, they're either going to like it or they're not. Yeah. But I thought it's such a small, intimate story, you know, maybe, oh boy, maybe they're all in for a disappointment. And, but what I found and. A really valuable lesson I learned right away was that it was never about me in the first place. It was about how they related to it. Yeah. Yeah. So they, all the people who had that whistler or all the people who, who had friends who they jumped ramps with from plywood that they got at the dump or they stole from a construction site, you know, just all those little, I got more emails and posts about what it was like to pop tar bubbles on the road. Oh my God. On a summer day. Wow. From people. And some of them were like, so heartfelt. They're just like, it was one of my favorite memories of being a child and somehow I forgot it. And it wasn't a unique experience. Somehow it left. Yeah. So it was, it was neat as a writer to realize, hey dummy, it was never about you in the first place, even though the character is named after you. It was just about finding those people who, who, who share those experiences and could relate instantly. Yeah. Well, everybody's so nostalgic for that time right now, I think. Especially now. So it's great. It's great timing. I want simpler times so badly. I didn't even have it and I'm nostalgic for it. Like you talk about your childhood and like, just like not having phones and not having computers. I wish I had grown up like that. It was such a simpler time. You know? It really was. Yeah. I mean, you found your friends by knocking on their doors or sitting on the corner waiting for them to find you. I love that. I love that. And I feel like you had to like, you had to grow that like extra, like there was this developmental thing of calling someone's house and having to talk to their parents. See, I did go through that. It's like, that was like such a developmental thing. It's such a developmental thing that kids now are not going through. Like they don't have to have that like social awareness to like talk to parents and be like, hi, Mr. Turner. It's always so embarrassing. Like, are they home? And that person being like, oh yeah, how's school? But like asking you questions and having to answer it or like, it's just, I'm like, I want that back. I'm at that weird age where like I remember some of that and like had some of that, but then I also kind of grew up as the internet was like becoming more of a thing, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everything that the old people told us when we were really young. Yeah. Was true. Unfortunately. It's like the whole thing about how it's going to, it's going to pass in a blink. Yep. And I mean, it's like now I tell people with that with kids, cause I'm just like, you know, our youngest went to UVA back in 2021 and he, you know, he played lacrosse. So it was just, it was a really cool experience and it was over in a blink. Yeah. We still talk about, you know, how we felt the first time he came out and we're just like, this was his dream come true. So as his parents, you know, you're fighting back tears. Yeah. And then how, wow, we've got four years of this and then how we blinked and it's been done for a year and a half. Oh my God. So it's like, I tell everyone with kids that, and the, and the ones who said, you know, you're going to long for the simplicity of this one day and all that. And you're going to, you know, cause you know, you're bitching about having to mow the lawn and whatever. It's like, oh, what I would give to be out there mowing the lawn while my dad was in the garage working on the car and have my mom come out and give me a glass of lemon juice. Oh my God. Yeah. It's like, and that's, you know, I write about that stuff all the time now because that's, how I can remember. Right. It's that, like that whole, like saying of the days are long, but the years are short with kids is the truest thing I have ever heard. And I remember. hearing it and being like okay and now i'm like now they're gonna be 11 and they just in the youngest just turned seven and i'm like but you were a squishy little baby it does go fast i feel that way even as their aunt i'm like stop it like it's freeze and it's like some days with kids you're just like okay like this day is never ending this day is 48 hours long and that's crazy but then it's like all of a sudden they're 10 and you're just like oh and now all of a sudden and then all of a sudden they're gonna be in high school and they're gonna be in college and i'm like i went like a baby when i dropped off billy at college actually i cried for like two weeks ahead of time yeah just anticipating well i'd see him like sitting at the kitchen aisle and doing his homework and i'd just be like how's he gonna do his homework next year he's a freshman in college and we're not here and i give him a brownie and to say billy it's really late you should go to bed and finish it in the morning i'm just like you just call him at that time you're like do you need anything do you have a snack well no because then they get there and they're like you know they only tell i billy only texted me when when he was in the library he's supposed to be doing like a paper yeah he would i would get a bunch of texts i'm like are you in the library are you supposed to write your papers that's that's how we actually started writing is one of those really from the library he's like we should write something together oh i love that i was like let's just do something old-fashioned that's the point we're like let's do a ghost story and oh that must be so cool yeah that's rad oh it's the best thing in the world that's like the dream people always say what's your favorite and for a while it was well i wrote with stephen king who is like my literary father and yeah right you know how's you how are you going to surpass that and then i'm like i'm going to do something old-fashioned and i'm going to do something new and i wrote with my knucklehead son yeah and we you know people are like well the father-son dynamic did you fight no i'm like you know we really didn't i love that he the only time he got grumpy when he was hungry so i would know he was hungry billy go eat yeah and he got grumpy at me sometimes because of my technical ignorance like the scroll bar which i just found to happen you know yeah and i was like the file master i had to control the final file oh yeah at all times i'm like well you've been through this yes yeah and if something goes wrong you're like at least i know it was me and i don't have to get mad at you yeah and then editing you know how it's you got the comments in the border and also you got to click buttons into all this stuff and i'm just like can we just print it out use a pen yeah that's literally just red line this yeah i think i did actually do that with this really god bless them for for the whole crew for working with me because yeah i'm i'm a dinosaur and you gotta find what works honestly i'm the same way like the amount of times like my husband's like oh here we go because he'll walk in the room and i've printed out all the chapters yeah and i have like post-it notes on all of them and i just am physically moving things around because i can't do it on a screen it doesn't make sense to me like my brain doesn't work that way yeah and i see writers who have like the big computer set yeah i can't like multiple screens and they're shifting scenes back and forth and i'm like are you physically move that over here yeah it won't make sense i'm happy with this thing don't touch it yeah don't move it i'm not moving that over i've heard you say that so many times like don't touch it yeah don't touch that yeah that's it it's it's i i still feel like you know we're building this house of cards yeah i had to learn that for the rewriting process that that is actually where a lot of the fun happens yeah and where you kind of make yourself look smart yeah and a lot of times for me because i'm like i'm like wait a minute in the beginning i was terrified yeah i'm like if i move one card it's all gone yeah that's how i still feel that way sometimes because i'm like well i think this should shift later and i'm like but then none of this makes sense right i'm like yes it does do you when you get notes from your you know when you get the revisions back from your editor do you still like have to go through stages like i go through the first stages oh hell no it's pissed yes see she cares had to put up with this through all the books and then by the next day i'm like and and usually in addition to that there's an email to my agent yep okay that's all right by the next day i'm like you know what like probably a fourth of these are really good that's this is literally me yeah yep next day it's up to 50 familiar next day's 50 and by the by the end of the first week i'm like damn he did a good job that's literally by the end of the first week i'm like my editor is brilliant yes the bomb but in the beginning i'm like i hate them and i'm gonna fuck that guy no i have no i'm you know fortunately ed knows like if there's a hill that i'm willing to die on he'll leave it alone yeah you know even if he really believes because he just wants me to have the best book that i yeah i can possibly have that i'm happy with yeah and they're like this is your story like i'm just here to help you i can imagine editors being other otherwise but i've heard stories oh yeah and i'm just like you know i know how lucky i am he just sent me a picture of the first finished killing the boogeyman and that's what i said i said well as always thank you yeah everything because you know and but yeah it's i had to ask you that it's a learning curve yeah now i'm like rewriting i you know i embrace it and i'm like i'm gonna make myself look good and they're gonna make me look good and then the copy editor is gonna come make me look even better that's the best part thing yeah we got a copy editor comes in i'm like how did i not feel english why did i have three extra commas in this paragraph yeah my favorite thing is they'll be like i looked into this and this wasn't here in this year and i'm like yeah sure it wasn't you're right get rid of it yes damn thank you for fixing that and the once in a blue moon where you're actually right yeah it's like oh i like i like my own parade around the neighborhood i'm actually like gotcha and here's the source for that but i love that you get mad because i'm the same way i'm just like it's not how dare they um i'm such a great writer it's just like it's like what are they thinking yeah no yeah i i know how to tell this story yeah it's my story it's your story yeah it's vulnerable i'm like of course i want to describe this thing for four to four pages in a row and everyone should get that you don't have to like that's not something you need to do yeah i love it i'm gonna go home feeling much better yeah i texted telling her the whole way yeah told you my agent knows she's going to get a text message she's like all right so they're in and i'm like oh good and i'll open it and she knows within an hour that's gonna be a night she's gonna get a full page text message of me being like and this and that and this and then by the next day i'll be like you know what that wasn't that bad she they might be right about this and she's like yeah i know she's like we do this every time babe let's go my agent told me that i'm always gonna feel this way because i told her i said every time it's time to start a new book i'm gonna i have no idea how yeah and i and i will tell my wife long-suffering wife i was like i don't know how to write a book i'm like i don't remember i've never done this it just happens and i'm like and and i told my agent that and she said i hate to tell you but you're gonna be saying that after book 20 and after book 30 and it's just you know it's just your process it's very daunting at first yeah and and i mean and i don't need to get down much until i'm rolling yeah i don't know if it's just last week was talking about the shitty first draft and again it made me feel so good he's just like you know you never show your first draft to anyone no you know and i'm just like oh i felt like i had permission yeah i was like well am i hallucinating that cat just i was gonna say did my cat just that's why i saw one downstairs oh i have three i'm like he warned me he's like you're not allergic i'm like we have four dogs i don't think i'm allergic to anything i was gonna say i have three cats a dog we got a lot going on here oh well my oldest son yeah is well he's moving out we've convinced him to i'm like if you want to be a writer you better hang out in the attic you know in law suite for a while because you're gonna need to save your money yeah yeah right so but he's at the end of that rope um you know so it's gonna be like him going away to college again i'm gonna weep for a week oh yeah i would be the same way yeah anyway well in speaking like just back to the boogeyman series they we talked about it you use your real name you as a character your hometown pieces of your actual life your family friends is there anything that you put in the books that unexpectedly felt like a little vulnerable afterwards yeah quite a bit um and even some of the make-believe like with chasing the boogeyman the rule was well the merge didn't happen so when i'm talking about my reactive you know um scenes to these i wanted to be as honest as i could so knowing that yes i would be you know absolutely aghast at what was happening and and and terrified um but i would also be intrigued because it was my world here um so i tried to be honest in the scene where i like went to one of the memorials and you know down the street further there was a picture of one of the victims that someone had posted that had blown away and i'm like yeah i probably would take it and put it in my pocket instead of and that's creepy but i was obsessed with what was going on and i tried to justify it in my head i'm like well look if it was at the base of the memorial i would have put it back up yeah yeah but but it was half a block down the street and i'm like no i took it yeah so there was those things but yeah i just uh i tried to be as honest as i could with with all of it and um yeah i i just uh and now i forgot the the original question i do that i do that at least once a panel i'm like i honestly do the same thing every single time and i've learned conversation i've learned just say it just say it out loud yeah you might as well right don't try to remember it and don't try to sound smart at that point so so what did you say again if something's felt unexpectedly vulnerable yeah there were a couple things where i uh the and i've been questioned about them whether they're honest or not the uh the scene in chasing the boogeyman where i'm sledding yeah and all my friends have gone home early and you all know what it feels like the hush of the falling snow and the glow of the house lights and the just that that feeling um and i had the kind of revelation there that that i was growing up my friends were growing up and that not only because of what was happening now but because of what was about to happen naturally as we got older things were never going to be the same again and once we graduated we were going to go our separate ways and we might not see each other again and the world just felt so much bigger in that moment and i did have that moment coming home from sledding standing on the hill when everyone left early and the whole way home and i just remember it i just remember it felt like the world cracked wide open yeah um so that scene and then the scene where shortly after we moved to town and my father and i walked up to the top of bayberry and saw all the christmas lights out in front of us and i just felt that childlike wonder i felt safe i could smell my father's aftershave i feel my hand in his and i just felt like again the innocence and the safety of a small town yeah and your parents and yeah i did a i did a book club with like 35 40 older women who you know they'll call you on your shit yeah no matter what um and yeah i had a very sweet old lady lift raise her hand and just say kind of give me the look you know and like you were 15 you were 14 you weren't thinking those things and i'm like actually i was not with the hand in my dad's hand you know i was like six or seven then yeah and she wasn't questioning that so much as she was kind of realizing that the life was not for her and i was like yeah i'm not with the hand in my dad's hand you know i was like never going to be the same yeah we were going to be torn apart because it does hit you i think at that age too i feel like that's such a real experience yeah and i'm like you know i had those feelings like a lot i think that's how i knew early on because i was writing stories from the time i was like eight or nine yeah um and i i really was you know i wasn't submitting or anything but i was you know i was writing a lot at that age and i said i had those feelings a lot i i you know i was in the moment but i was always there was always a part of me that was outside of the moment and my friends will tell you they're like they we always knew it was your job you were the one who was going to remember yeah because you're the storyteller you're the one that's going to hold all the my billy feels the same way and we've talked about how it's this weird responsibility yeah you know and in one of the boogeyman books my my my buddy jimmy cavanaugh comes home lives in south carolina and we're sitting in our car across the street from the myers field and there's a very real moment and this didn't happen with jimmy but it's happened with others where i feel like i'm a part of the story and i'm a part of the story and i'm a part of the story i feel such crushing disappointment because he doesn't remember oh yeah and it it feels like this weird sort of betrayal because we were buddies we this was such an integral part of our life right and you have this like unspoken promise that you'll never forget it yep yeah and i'm looking at the growing up and he forgot it and i never forgot it for a minute yeah it was actually part of who i am yeah that's happened to everyone i feel like so definitely so i wrote about that in there yeah and and i just uh yeah i remember the day i wrote it it was like such a downer it affected the rest of my day oh i'm sure yeah um because you can feel the feeling again yeah it like resurrects it because you're walking around feeling like something so special and you're thinking it's this trivial little thing makes you feel silly yeah yeah yeah so yeah so yeah i put a lot of that stuff in there and i know with the uh the snow scene um it is something it had been something that i had told maybe two or three people about in my life cara and you know maybe my son or my daughter and you know i had told my sister or someone and it was it very felt it very much felt like the uh the deer by the train track scene in stand by me oh yes where gordy's sitting on there and the more he woke up early and he says you know he saw this deer and it's this moment of beauty yep and he says i've never told anyone or written about it until now and i felt like every writer has those yeah and i felt like i gave one up but i felt like i had to it was a good one to give up yeah like yeah because i said they're like man i've never read a serial killer book with so much heart and i'm just like again it was the only way i knew how to write yeah yeah so um but yeah you feel a little weird because you are giving up a part of yourself and you're feeling vulnerable and then you have some sweet old lady call you on it you're like i swear like thanks for that lady yeah because you feel weirdly vulnerable just writing a book anyways like even like my books have nothing to do with me and i'm still like like i just feel as soon as it gets put out into the world you're like i feel like you're weirdly reading my diary yeah i'm sure well it's something that you felt so you felt so strongly about it yeah to dedicate all this time to and now you're gonna show it to everybody and someone might think you know why'd you waste nine months writing that yeah right i always say writing a novel is like the ultimate um symbol of faith yeah yeah in yourself and what you're working on the whole thing because you know people ask me about collaborating and i'm like oh it's really about trust oh it has to be faith and i'm like so is writing the book by yourself because you are i mean you're talking i always say that to like students whenever i talk to students i'm like you're giving a part of yourself to the world even if it's all make-believe yeah and it feels that way yeah each time definitely i'm sure let's take a break to thank the sponsor of today's episode ashley your home is the setting for your life's most cherished moments or book clubs multi-generational connections are at the core of the home and it's not about having every detail perfectly designed it's about creating a space where you can comfortably connect with friends family all of the above and now is the time to write the newest chapter in your home story ashley is dependable with a modern feel as you can see offering well-crafted affordable pieces built to stand up to real life with great looks that are made to last i am the biggest fan of ashley if you're looking at this with your eyes right now my gorgeous green revion lakes sofa and love seat is just a chef's kiss the gorgeous olive color and the fabric itself the velvet feels so nice on your hand and whenever i bring people up to the pod lab they're like honey where is this furniture from it's it's giving up scale it's giving class a and i say honey it's from ashley they help me refresh this whole space plus ashley provides fast reliable white glove delivery right to your room of choice visit your local ashley store or head to ashley.com to find your style was there anything in any of these three that fictional richard did that real richard would never do that's a great that's a great question and and i didn't say i washed the dishes or anything like that i joked about oh you know what my son would be like yeah walk the dog and that's bs i walked a dog just not as much as they do all right like i was walking the dog when i found the garbage bag containing certain things yeah becoming the boogeyman yeah okay people still drive by my house by the way oh really take pictures of the fire hydrant oh my god are you serious yes oh that's so fun i'll be mowing the lawn someone will slow down and they're they're rubbernecking and i'm just like oh god okay which is why which is why cara hates that i um she's like you had to buy in as much as the reader right what you know right yeah i mean i could make up a house i've done it in every other book yeah i'm like but for this book it had to be me i had to be going through this um you know so yeah it had to be our house it had to be our four dogs it has to be the kids it's just the only way i i could do it um whether it's it's just that whole belief thing that i talked about or whether i'm not a good enough writer to to fake it this time i don't know but i just i knew it when i was writing the introduction to chasing so yeah it's our house it's our fire hydrant um the fence that in the picture where they said the you know the boogeyman's back that someone spray painted on there yes that's our real fence when billy and i spray painted it with water you know washable paint we actually had two people stop one said do you want me to call the police oh my god oh my god somebody else said did you get vandalized and we had to stop you're like no you're like no but buy my book cool if we did you know karen's like watching in the background like no it would not be cool she's like i knew this was gonna be a spectacle yeah exactly she'll come home and she'll be like yeah i saw so and so in the grocery store i haven't seen them forever but she knows where we live she knows what her house looks like she's driven by she talks about oh i drive by two three times a week and oh my god that's my worst nightmare that's so scary wow well and the thing is is i'm very private that's yeah i mean even my agent was shocked when i turned the book into her and i said and by the end of the day she was like you know i'm gonna go to this convention i'm gonna go to this convention now but in the beginning she was constantly saying you should go to this this convention you should go to this i'm a home guy yeah oh we relate to that so heavily yeah yeah yeah i love staying home like yeah you know i i would give anything for covid not to have happened but it really didn't affect my life that much because agreed yeah you know and carol be the first to tell you you know we were so lucky because you know we've got some property we got a pretty little pond and yeah you have your own little like yes what you need there yes and and and i uh i mean i felt guilty thinking that because i'm just like i'm good yeah you know i and then you think about the people who weren't good because they were crammed into a tenement house or apartments right but um yeah i just uh again it was the only way i knew how to do it and and the fact that people drive by and do that i'm gonna put a little free library in front of our house oh that's a great idea i'm like you know what i'm just i'm just embracing make it worth it yeah i'm like i'm gonna embrace it i uh it's a cool way to honor somebody who was really important in my life i'm gonna put a little plaque on the side and yeah that's awesome honor this person and i'm gonna have a lot of you know weird fiction in there yeah you should make it like horror themed yeah and i'll have the horror library yeah the whole thing so they can stop their car and safely take a picture of the uh fire hydrant and also get a book while they're at it you know get a book yeah perfect and feel like it's worth it there you go just wave from the window that's what cares like just start looking in the windows oh god that's when it's over need those blackout chains yeah i do write about it in great detail about our awesome security system with all the cameras yeah and i'm like so hopefully that's enough to i thought like that's real yeah yeah and i'm like do i have to put like should i put like all these signs out saying and i'm like no because when i was a kid if i saw those i'm like you know no trespassing i'm like challenge except yeah exactly you know that's smart i'll just keep it low-key you just know i have cameras i'll see you yeah that's all now the premise of the third book and killing the boogeyman it kind of like blows the doors off of some of the reality that we get to know in the first two books because i feel like there's a little bit of a suggestion that the killer has become a little bit more of a killer than the killer has become a little bit more than human almost and how much did you want to push the reader into asking or considering whether the boogeyman was like literally supernatural i wanted to push them just to the right to the edge of that blurry line i feel like you did and i tried to put enough subtleties in there and you know some readers are probably going to laugh because i use subtlety in in regards to the boogeyman books but uh yeah i i wanted to take them right there and but leave some hints that maybe you know maybe what they're seeing isn't so reliable in a lot of ways and but again it was coming from a place of you know the boogeyman really can be ted bundy yeah you know or the boogeyman could be you know michael myers and in a lot of ways he's both yeah you know and and there's some direct kind of nods to the halloween series in the third book and that was on purpose yeah you know and i was prepared to fight for those in case my you know like with widow's point i know my editor said a couple times in the margin you know this is a little blair witchish and billy and i are like thank you great that's yeah yeah we're like and you know if the reader thinks that more power to him yeah it's fine you know i'm not trying to invent the wheel here and and i felt the same way but uh yeah i just i i to me like i wouldn't be surprised if somehow you know they went back after all these years and examined ted bundy's dna and he wasn't quite human yeah honestly like i'm waiting for the podcast about the green river killer yeah and you guys were fired up which i loved yeah all about you know the guy because he's this wormy looking oh he's just like how did he do everything he did now part of it's because he did look the way he did yeah but that's like like i i like talking about joshua gallagher and the fact that you know some of the small things like how how big his hands are and things like that because and i like playing with things like you know his you know he looks like he looks like he looks like he looks taller and is you know his his his measurements changed or or was it just a bored you know physician that day at the prison who copied it down wrong right those kind of things and i just i liked playing with it yeah you know i mean some people think you know michael myers is stupid because he gets up and he he never runs and he just chases you like that but to me scarier the believer i'm terrified yeah you know so it's it's the boogeyman books i always just said you know there that it is again it's another campfire story um it's a throwback to really traditional storytelling and the fact that in the last one i kind of got to blur the lines a little bit was i loved it because it's true that like you think of like richard ramirez like the night stalker or something like he was like a literal boogeyman oh he really was like teeth and all and for how long they couldn't catch him and then it's like in the way he got caught was awesome i love that neighborhood just chased him down that's my favorite yeah they just chased him down and beat the shit out of him but oh yeah the best ending yep and that's a neighborhood i and who was this the the the big one the uh sacramento ed kemper no oh the golden state killer yes the fact that he would sneak into some of the houses and leave things and take time in there and eat dinner eat food yep yes oh and leave things like to make things easier oh yeah the length of rope yeah in the couch and like that is supernatural or that he would stack the dishes yeah that's no it's like there's there's sometimes and you can't imagine somebody that evil being all human right like it's so non-high tech right yeah like i love the x files when it's you know yeah when it got techie sometimes and because again you know for me it's like all magic yeah the simplest technology but and and there are those you know books that do that really well um for me this is more about it you know if you're scared of the sound of a screen being removed from a window when you're laying in bed oh that to me that's the things that scare me so more traditional so it's it's i think those are the people who you know are going to relate to the books in a really strong way for sure now as you're kind of like creating the plots and the mysteries within each plot how do you decide what is you know like what mystery deserves an answer or which mystery is almost scarier because it's left unresolved yeah that that's a really good question thanks usually i just get the hey hey you dork you didn't answer the you know the questions of the what the numbers meant and those kind of things no sometimes it's scarier it's From reading so many true crime books, especially about, you know, people, you know, that phrase hunting humans has always been terrified to me. Yeah. But people who do that and the fact that no matter if they're caught, they're prosecuted, they're, you know, removed from society, there's usually – it's never usually super neat with a bow tie on the end. No matter how good the detectives are or the police. So I always want some things to go unexplained. Yeah. And I think it's scarier that way. I think so too. It's like the Blair Witch, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I know some readers hate it. I know some writers don't like it and they always want to provide that explanation. Yeah. And I swear it's like actually one case where I'm not being lazy because there are other cases where I'm like, you know, I could research this, but I'm just going to make it up. But yeah. So, you know, it's usually not a set thing. Like I knew I wasn't going to explain anything at the end of Chasing the Boogie Band. Even though I never knew there was going to be a sequel. Okay. When I started writing the sequel, I thought, okay, well, I'm going to answer everything. There you go. And I even remember telling Billy, I'm like, you need to start brainstorming because dad's old and tired. So then I remember, you know, I did – I think I did a chapter that was like the something of numerology. And I thought, oh, I'm going to answer it here. But as I started writing it, I realized, no, I'm not. Yeah. I don't want to answer it. It's too fun. I'm not a big outliner. So I always just say, I'm not a big outliner. I honestly, you know, I let the story gain momentum and then I kind of just grab onto the story's – the tale of its shirt. So you're like a pantser? And let it pull me. All right. For the most part. Now with Chasing, when I got like 7,500 pages in, the ideas and the memories started coming back so fast. Yeah. That I was like, I need to write that down. I need to write that down. And then what I found out was I'm like, no wonder people like to outline because it gave me like this roadmap that I could follow. Right. And I'm not super neurotic about sticking to it. No. Which I know is a negative for people who do outline sometimes. So I was like, I wrote it so fast because I knew where I was going. Yeah. But I've never really done that again since. That was the only one. It's a miracle I can finish anything. See, I lightly outline. Like I give a bones of what I want to happen. But I never stick fully to it. You're like a combo of pantser and planner. It changes as I go. Yeah. So I end up with like the bones of one and then by the end of it, it's like – Do you know the ending or no? Because I don't know the ending. I don't always know the ending. Yeah, good. That makes me happy too. Yeah. In fact, there's – in fact, right now, I'm in the middle of writing one. You don't know the ending? I don't exactly know the ending. She always wants to tell me the ending. I'm like, I want to read it. I know. Because I'm like, you and like John are the only two people – like my husband and Ash are the only people that I'm like, read this. Tell me if it's okay. And I usually like to. But now that you're like so much more established, I'm like, no, no, no. I want to get these points. I want to read it with everyone else. Yeah. I want to feel the excitement. So now it's just John that I can give it to. Philly is mine. You know, again, the people who have like entire reading groups and things, I'm like, that's alien to me. Yeah, I couldn't – And I don't want it. That's got to be tough. Because it would just be like six different instances of me getting mad all over again. Yeah, exactly. That might be too much. I'm like, that's – it's an emotional rollercoaster once. Yeah. Right? That's why John is like my Tabby from like Stephen King and Tabby. Because it's like I will give him a chapter and he'll be like, hey, so this actually doesn't make sense what you wrote. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. That actually didn't make sense. And it's like he'll be like, or you said this, but then you said this after this. Yeah. So it's good to be able to have that before I can pass it to an editor. Because it's just a couple of things I don't have to worry about them being like, hey, that doesn't make sense. Yeah, you need that trusted person. Yeah, well, it's always nice when the editor actually thinks you're kind of smart. Exactly. I'm like, this makes me look a lot more confident than I actually am. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Now, was there a scene in any three of the books that you finished writing it and you were like, all right, that was fucked up even for me? Yeah. The mannequin scene that I describe in Chasing the Boogeyman that the detective tells him when I ask him what's the creepiest thing. Love that. And that row home full of mannequins, including one on the toilet, one in the shower. Yep. I think two of them were making love on the bed. It just felt so perverse and just. And people have asked me, they're like, all right, you have a thing about mannequins because they pop up in two books. Yep. And there's mannequins in Widow's Point. Widow's Point. That actually is one of the scariest parts. Mannequins are so scary. That was scary to write. That part scared the shit out of me in Widow's Point. It bugged me. It bugged me. That's why I thought Widow's Point might be. scary you know you never know but i just felt like i'm like there were enough scenes where i gave it to billy or he gave it to me and we said to each other that freaked me out that's yeah you know some of the scenes on the catwalk where he turned around and they had all moved and different things like that i was like oh man that happens to me i might just be diving off the side honestly on it yeah i would do the same yeah i mean the that mannequin scene bothered me yeah um there's a scene again involving a mannequin and in the second book where in my own home where it's just boom it's just uh and again i don't want to give anything anything away but it's just it's it's somewhere where it absolutely shouldn't be and i realize it and then a split second later so you know there's an action scene um as a result of it but it's just you know and then just writing about the victims i mean like i said i've read a lot of true crime uh You know, there's not a lot of active blood. I don't describe it happening. But describing some of the wounds and the bruises and the fact that they were young women. And, again, I grew up with three sisters. And, yeah, it bothered me. And it made me feel like, okay, you know, maybe think twice about ever wanting to be a true crime. I mean, we actually had someone, I think it was two years ago. We live in this little town called Bel Air. And it's got a main street. It's, you know, it's a nice little town. And there's a walking trail that I used to run on. And we walked the dogs and we used to walk our kids there. And a woman was, a young woman was murdered there, I think, two years ago. And there was talk of, like, a serial killer. And, you know, I was like, oh, man, I can't put anything that signs out for, like, the boogeyman signings and all that stuff. And it was extra weird because she had sent me a Facebook invite. Like, a few months before she was murdered. Oh, wow. I never accepted it because I had too many. I didn't know who she was and all that. But that really struck home. So, again, you know, it just, I was writing about people that were make-believe, but in ways that people had been written about before. Yeah. Right. It's weird when it becomes too close. Too close to home. That's happened to us. It makes me think of the Gabby Petito case. Yeah. Yes. That happened. One of her posts on her Instagram was, it was her listening to Morbid. And then when it happened, I was like, and we, everybody was asking us to cover her case. And we were like, ugh. It just feels too strange. Because I was like, I don't, like, I don't feel right doing that right now. Yeah. Like, we will eventually just to make sure that her story is told. Of course. But at the time, it was like, oh, that's really close to, like, that's too close. That felt weird. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Oh, definitely. Well, speaking about that, what do you think that horror fiction can say about murder that true crime? That true crime can't necessarily? Man, you guys are good. We've done this a few times. I'm used to just being like, you know, I just push the button and give my answer. But, you know, I don't even know if I can answer that specifically, what it can give you that true crime can. I mean, because think about it, as wild as our imaginations are. Real people. There's stuff that has been, that has been, again, listening to your podcast, you know, you were talking about the Green River and some of the stuff that was left on one of the bodies. Yes, that particular one. And the stones. Yep. Which I won't go into detail about right now. Yeah, horrific. But. You couldn't conjure that. You would never make that up. Yeah. Or if I did, it would be one of those things that haunted me. Yeah. Yeah. And I'd be like, well, you know, I don't, you know, because I do come from a place of, you know, innocence with this. You know, none of my friends, my friends know. I'm a big kid that they were shocked when they read my stuff for the first time, even though I was always the scary guy. They're like, you know, you're the pain in the ass. You're the big kid who's joking and pranking us. And you're writing about, where is this dark stuff coming from? You know, um, I, uh, I come from a place where, you know, if I, if I did think of that stone, something like that, it, it, it would bother me for a while. And then, uh, but there's just, there's no real connection to my world there. It's just make believe it's like the boogeyman. But again, I believe in the boogeyman. Yeah. It just takes, he just assumes many different identities and faces. So yeah, I, that's the thing. I feel like there's so much stuff and if we had a pair of homicide detectives, uh, a guy I fish with, um, he's a fishing guide, his name's Kenny Penrod and he's a retired homicide detective. Oh, wow. So the cool thing is, is when we fish, we get to talk about so many different things. And sometimes if, if he was sitting here, he would, and I had him answer that question, he'd be like, well, that's, you know, true crime, real life. Well, there's anything you guys can make up a way because some of the most vile, disgusting, not remotely entertaining, even in a fascination, fascination, um, you know, just, you know, seasoned horror reader or viewer way would, you know, the, the movies that they talk about that go too far. Yeah. We always talk about that. Yeah. They've happened. Yeah. And worse. Yeah. And, and yeah, and I don't know how they do this jobs. You know, detective like that, but I would be, unfortunately I'd probably be the guy who was drinking as a result of it and everything else because I couldn't get rid of it. Yeah. It's tough. Even just not even, obviously we're not detectives, but even talking about the story sometimes it's like hard to come down from that. Yes. Yeah. There's been a couple, like the Moore's murders. Yeah. Yeah. Um, they, that, that was really heavy for a while. I was like, we need to do some like spooky stuff for a few weeks cause I need to get this out of my head. Yeah. We like to go paranormal if we, if we cover a really intense case. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I mean, I worked in the morgue for like years, so I did autopsies and sometimes there would be certain, like, especially if we did kids or like babies where it would like, I would come home to my kids and be like, like, I know that somebody lost there. Yeah. Like it would ruin me a little bit. So that's the only part that like people will be like, do you miss the Morgan? I'm like, I do. Cause I love to that job, but not that side of it. That was the part that I don't know if I could have kept doing. Well, that's cause look, you know, someone like me who has a huge imagination, I can't imagine what a child looks like. I've never seen a deceased child. So I can't imagine what up close that looks like, especially if it was, you know, by violent means or anything like that or an accident or something. So, so I, yeah. So when I see a, you know, a healthy. A healthy child, which I've seen, you know, thousands of, I don't have that. Yeah. Ability to, to see the other side of it, which, so I can't imagine that. It's awful. Yeah. And that's, that's how I feel like I would be because the way my brain works, I would see it all the time. That's the thing. Yeah. I would have trouble getting rid of that. Yeah. That's even like crime scene photos that we've like accidentally stumbled across or, you know, like when you Google something, those are hard to get out of your head. There's still crime scene pictures that will flash in my head. Yeah. And ones that I wasn't looking for. Right. Exactly. I'm like searching for like research. The kinds they don't put in the books. And sometimes it just pops up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's such, I mean, like I've said, you know, that, and that's what, something I learned really early on is there's the true crime books, which are done, you know, that, that should never have been published. Yeah. Yeah. They're like self-published. Exploitative. Yeah. Yes. They very much. Way too. And then there's the ones that are done with dignity. Yeah. And my answer to the scariest book I've ever read for a long time was Anne Rule's, The Stranger Beside Me. Oh my God. Yeah. The pieces of wood in the, in the sorority house. Those are the kind of details that made me want to be a writer because I realized you, you can implant that in a reader's head and they'll never forget. That'll stick with them. That's the thing. Or, or in that moment, it'll transport them to that place. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what Stephen King's work did for me. Yeah. Those little details. Oh yeah. So when I read that book and this really happened, I was just, I still don't see, you know, a stack of firewood to this day and not think of it. No, you think of that. Yeah. I'm like, damn it. Mm-hmm. You know, so yeah. That's the thing. Like with the Moore's murders, one of the things was like during one horrific situation, Little Drummer Boy was playing. Oh, like the Christmas song. Yeah. And now I can't hear it. Like I can't hear it. No. I, I think there's an episode of The Office and we always watch The Office to like chill out. Mm-hmm. And Little Drummer Boy plays. You're like, not this one. And I can't watch that episode. No. Can't do it. No. I'm like, you gotta turn it off. I can't do it. Those things will stick with you. Mm-hmm. Those tiny little details. Oh, they do. I hate that. Like I, you know, there's, I, I have, you know, examples of that also. But as a writer, I don't know if you feel the same way, but. When it's fiction. Yes. It's like. Then I want that. I love the fact that I've ruined things for people. Yes. That's fun. That's fun. Yeah. I love the fact that I have people who say they're scared to take their garbage out. Yes. I have people who say I, my spouse, because of you, my spouse hates you because they have had to accompany me or take the garbage out. Yes. For the last two years. Yeah. Or my dog loves you because now I take my, I leash up my dog and I take him out. Yup. Yup. You know, nighttime walk. Right. I love that. Yeah. I love, I'm like right on. That's the thing. Yeah. That's a win. That's a win. When people tell me I've ruined certain songs for them, I'm like, cool. Thank you. Yup. Like I love that. Yup. Yup. So different. But speaking actually, you mentioned Stephen King again, and I have to ask, how did, how did that begin? Co-writing with Stephen King? Yeah. Show me your ways. Your guess is as good as mine. Show me your ways. Yeah. I mean, you know, I started, you know, my magazine, Semi-Trained Dance Battle. Back in 1988 when I was in college and from day one, I sent up the first issue, the second issue, the horrible looking first, second, third issue, all of that up to his office in Bangor. Got to know his assistant really well, a woman named Shirley first and then Marsha and they were the sweetest ladies in the world. You know, they knew I was young and naive and, you know, doing my best. And they were like, sure, we'll pass these on. Yeah, but they really did. Yeah. And, like, that was 88. In 91, Stephen King sent me an original story, Chattery Teeth. I'll never forget it. Carol will remember. We lived, you know, newly married. We were living in an apartment. And I get a postcard from a guy named Chuck Varel, who was Steve's editor slash agent. And it said, I think it said to the effect, a month ago, I sent you a manuscript, Chattery Teeth by Stephen King. He's a big fan of Cemetery Dance and would love to see it appear. And we wondered if you had a look at it yet. Wow. What? What? No. In my closet, I had a stack of unsolicited submissions about three or four foot high. I sprinted down the hallway, flinging them everywhere, found it. No wonder I didn't know it came from Stephen King, because the label on it was Chuck Varel, New York. Oh, my God. Yeah. Rip it open. It's this 30-page original story. I read it sitting on the floor. I go hug her. We're like tears. Honestly, I'd be bawling. Oh, I write him back right away. Tell him, you know, and I'll never forget it, because we then went to an Oriole game. We're probably celebrating. You know, no money. We're probably like, we're spending 20 bucks tonight. Oh, hell yeah. Living large, you know. Came home, and there's a message on my answering machine from Stephen King saying. Alina's going to have heart palpitations. Yeah, I can't tell you how happy I am, how pleased I am that you liked it, and that I'm going to be in Cemetery Dance. You do a great job. That's awesome. I'm a big fan. I just popped out. I'm a big fan. I just put in a little micro cassette, put in a new one. I still have it. Yeah, you're like, this is fun forever. I haven't played it in years, but I still have it. Oh, that's great. It has S and a K on it. So that's what started it. That's so cool. And then just the progression over the years, more stories, and then eventually books. At some point, he was, you talk about his assistant. We were invited to his 25th anniversary, no, 20th anniversary of Carrie. Oh, my God. It was at Tavern on the Green in New York City. Yes. Very Stephen King-ish in that the invite said, yes, jeans and t-shirts are fine. Nice. I wasn't bold enough to do jeans and t-shirts, but it meant I didn't have to wear a tie, which made me happy. A plus. Went up there. That's the first time I met him. And then it was just like a natural progression. At some point, he texted me about, I think, an Oreo or Red Sox or something. And I remember looking at Carrie and going, does that mean I'm allowed to text him back? You're like, feels like it's okay now. It's like, is this really Steve? Come on, Brian. But it's 207. It's a main area. Yeah, you're like, this is him. So at some point, the business relationship turned into this genuine long-distance friendship. And then eventually, we saw some baseball games together. I was down in Sarasota for a film festival. He wanted me to come to his house and show him the short film I was showing. Oh, my God. Different things like that. And then he invited us to the main premieres of his movies up there. That's so cool. So my kids got to meet him. And then at some point, I mean, never in a million years did I ever. The fact that I published. Him and was friends with him was mind-blowing. Of course. Yeah. And at some point, and we emailed about everything, but rarely business and text a lot. I mean, it's more about the dogs, sports, books, movies, again, some things that would probably not be socially acceptable. Yeah, you're like homies at this point. Yeah. And at some point, I asked him about round robin projects, like the kind where you have like six or ten. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to do that. And he was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to do that. And he wrote back. This was via email. He wrote back, said, you know, those never really interest him because he doesn't feel like they're very successful. But, you know, collaborations are a different thing. And in that email thread, he mentioned that he had a story called Gwendy's Button Box that he'd never been able to finish. And I said, oh, I'd love to read it, meaning I would just love to read it. And because we're friends, sometimes I get the cool, you know, thing of getting to read manuscripts. And I was just like, I'd like to read the story that Stephen King can't finish. Oh, yeah. Hell, yeah. That was the end of it. I still remember we were driving to Noah, my youngest son's basketball game. Went in the basketball game, forgot all about it. Next morning, I wake up to an email that says, that has Gwendy's Button Box attached. And it says, just the whole email, do with it as you wish. Wow. So I remember thinking. What does that mean? I said, well, I can't publish it. Sometimes they'll send me a story unsolicited and say. Well, you have something you can use this for. Yeah. Right. And I'm like, well, I can't publish this. So what does he mean? So I just wrote him back again, you know, the greenhorn. I'm like, what do you mean? You want me to finish it? I'm not thinking anything about that. Thinking probably in my brain that, you know, of course, that's not what he means. Yeah. But what else? You know, that's a natural response. So he came back and he says, if you think you can. So that was a Friday. And I remember. Seriously, I'd be like, okay. I didn't. Yeah. I'm like, okay, I'm doing it. But I also knew what it meant. So I didn't tell. I didn't tell anybody until that Sunday. And then I remember I told Kara. And I remember I went in. The boys were watching TV. And, you know, they knew who Stephen King was. Yeah. Billy had read a lot of his work. And I'm just like, so. I'm going to write a story with Stephen King. What do you guys think of that? Yeah. I sat down to write some notes about it on Monday. And, of course, it mentions Castle Rock in the very first sentence. Yeah. So I'm like, not only am I writing about Stephen King, but I'm in flipping Castle Rock. Yeah, you're like, oh, this could not be better. So. But that's how it started. It's like this happy accident. Yeah, that's so organic. Yes. It's like, yeah, I never would have asked a million years. Yeah. Never. Like, at that point, I wasn't even asking, like, hey, can I publish a limited of your new book? Because I felt like he knows what I do. If he wants me to do it. Yeah, he'll say it. He'll say it. Every once in a while, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea. And I'm like, hey, Steve, what about if we do this? And, you know, most of them were just like, nah. We're like, all right. Not like an official, you know, it was never an official proposal. And it was never an official response. It was more like, nah. Yeah, just throw it out there. Not this time. Yeah. Maybe later, you know. Yeah. So, yeah, I sat down to write notes on a yellow pad. And I just, I'll never forget, my hand was shaking. And I was just like, this is ridiculous. I'm terrified. Yeah. I opened it. I opened his file. And I just started writing. And like two days later, I had like 10,000 more words. Wow. Which is a lot for me. Yeah, I'm sure, yeah. And I just remember thinking, okay, now I'm going to go back and I'm going to clean it up. And I'm going to make this the best thing in the world. And I just thought, and if I do that, I'm never going to send it. Yeah. So, I gave it one read-through and I could send. And I probably did one of these. My mom, you know, was very happy. Wherever she is. And he liked it. And he wrote a little bit more and sent it back. And I wrote the original ending. He actually wrote back and said, Rich, this is too dark. Which I thought. What a compliment. And I'm dying to find it. I would tattoo that on me. I'm dying to find that in my files, in my computer. You've got to find that. You have to. Because I'm like, one day I want to ask him, can I print it as a chapbook? Yeah. The ending that was too dark for Stephen King. Yeah. You have to. But he was right because none of the sequels would have been possible with my ending. Oh, okay. And he told me later, he goes, I just knew Gwendy deserved better. And I'm like, you were so right. Yeah. So, that's how it came about. That's so cool. And I had the cover really quickly. We told no one. We put it in production and stuff. And I just remember walking around with it. And I would call up the cover on my cell phone like three times a day. And I mean, I got a lump in my throat talking about it right now. And I would just look at it. And I'd be like. And I'd be like, how is this my life? You're like pinching yourself. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. I'm like. I would be the same way. Like, the same way. It's like the ultimate honor for authors like you guys. Yeah. Or just any author, I think. Because I think we sent Stephen King's, like, off at, like, his people. The first book, we sent him The Butcher and the Wren, which I was like, oh, God. We sent him that one. Like, that's my first book. It's a great book. I was like, why did we do that? Why didn't we wait? And I think we got, like, a nice note back that was like, he didn't have time at the time. Right, right. To read it. Which, like, he's Stephen King. But I was like, maybe he, like, knows I exist, though. He might. Because then he was number one on the New York Times list when I was number two. And I was like, he might have seen my name next to his. Yeah. You're climbing the ladder. He absolutely did. Like, I hope he knows who I am. He probably cursed your name in that moment. I hope so. I hope so. Yes, exactly. That's what I want. Again, an honor. Yeah. That happened to me once where I wasn't nowhere near number one or two, but we were both on it at the same time. And again, it was one of those moments where it was just like. You're sharing the list. How is that even possible? Right? Just the whole thing. But yeah, people ask me about that. And I'm just like, look, it's ridiculous. I have no idea how it. If there's any proof that magic really does. Yeah. You know, exist in this world, that's it. Because I am just, I'm the constant reader. I still have Stephen King books inscribed to me by my sisters because they were Christmas or birthday presents. Oh, yeah. And I know how much you love this writer. I love that. And I have them up on my shelf right next to the book. The ones inscribed to me by Steve. And I'm just like, so, I mean, you know, I'm going to get cheesy here for a second, but I'm a two time cancer survivor. Oh, wow. And when I was 29 and when I was 30, and I always just felt like, you know, there was reasons, there were reasons there why I made it. And for a while you have that survivor's guilt because you're just like, you know, why me and not all these other amazing people that you've met or you've read about and all that. But I've always felt like first and foremost, okay, I would, I survived. To be a father, because that I always wanted to have children. And even when Karen and I were high school sweethearts where I was like, Oh, one day we're going to get married and have kids. And I think back then I was like five kids. And, and, and I just, it's been the best thing in the world for both of us. I mean, we say it all the time. We're like, you know, that's, that's it. If, if at the end, if there's nothing else said, then other than we were a good mom and dad, then that's right on. Yes. That's it. And, and I just felt like, you know, maybe. Maybe this was one other thing that was, that was a gift waiting for me. I'd say that was on the back end because I, I've no other way to explain it that I should have. I have asked his assistant, Marsha. I'm like, why the hell were you always so nice to me? You know, I tell her she's like my guardian angel. And she's just like, well, you never had. She's just like you kind of stood apart from a lot of people who always asked him things because you never had a sense of entitlement. Like, how dare he say no? You're always just like you said ahead of time. She's got no reason to say yes to this, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Right. Like genuine, just like. And again, and then hand in hand with Steve, he's told me at some point, he's just like, I always knew you were doing this for the right reasons. Yeah. I made no money in my 20s. Kara will verify that. It wasn't until the middle of my 30s where I was publishing a lot of books that it started becoming a real business. Yeah. So I really was always doing it because I loved it. Yeah. And because I couldn't, I don't know what else I would have done. Yeah. But yeah. So, so yeah, when I, when I look at it like that, I'm just, I'm just grateful. Yeah. I tried to, you know, I tell my boys that all the time. I'm like, live a life of gratitude because, because we're very lucky. We're very fortunate. And there are people who work just as hard. I always get that. You know, the people who kind of, they don't want to hear that. They don't want to hear the, you know, privilege and some of those things. And they're just like, well, you've worked really hard. I'm like, yeah, but you know what? There's a lot of people who've worked just as hard as I have. Yeah. And they haven't had that level of success. So. Yeah. Yeah. You're not going to sell me on that idea. No. I constantly tell the girls that. I fully believe in luck. You have to be grateful for everything that you have right now. Yeah. Yeah. And be willing to just do the work. And people can sense that. Like, obviously, Stephen King sensed that you were grateful and appreciative. I think he sensed that I was this weirdo who was just like, you know, just happy as hell to be doing what I'm doing. Yeah, just like psyched to be leaving. Even though every income tax season, I was like, you know, looking at Kara going, I made 47 cents an hour. Yeah. But you know what? God bless her. Because again, there's a lot of partners who would have been like, it's time to go get a real job. Yeah. And there was never that. I mean, even my dad. It's the real ones that stick. I always say. Yeah. Yeah. I always say to my dad, what a gift. He was ex-military, and he was a very by-the-numbers guy. Go to college, get your degree, have a career. He never blinked when I said, well, this is going to be my career, this ugly black-and-white magazine. And he helped me stuff flyers and envelopes and all that stuff. Oh, I love that. He never for a moment said, Rich, go get a real job. Yeah. And that's why I tell people, I'm like, you can't discount what having that kind of faith and support in your corner will do for you. Oh, yeah. It's so true. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I would have given up if I didn't have people like Kara and my mom and my dad and my sisters and my friends. I mean, that's the cool thing about my friends, too. Yeah. They remember all those stories. They remember when I was in my 20s, and I used to say, no, vacations are for lazy people. And God bless Kara. She didn't divorce me. You know, we didn't go on vacation for I don't know how many years because I was working. Yeah. And I was like, I'm not going to go spend, you know, a ridiculously low amount now as an adult in the family. I'm not going to go spend $400 to go skiing. You know, I can't. And, you know, God bless her. You know, she's. She's just like, well, you know, you know, I had something, you know, I had a vision of something. I love that. And so, yeah, again, you talk about having a reason for gratitude. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that. And it's rare, I feel like, to have people like that. Especially in today's world. To be able to find people like that. Exactly. Where everybody has a complaint. It really is. And especially online. Yeah. And it's just like, you know, that's and I think that's why I'm able to kind of digest the stuff online a little easier because I'm just like, you're not going to you're not going to affect me. Yeah. Like, I've got all these people around me. I can I can see, you know, Noah doing this or Billy or I can take four dogs for a walk with Kara and come home to my 250 year old house and just feel like, how lucky are we? Yeah. Exactly. Whatever it is that's bad will pass. I feel that exact same way. We're always saying that. Yep. Which is awesome. When you find people like that, you kind of. Well, you don't always find people like that. No, that's what I'm saying. When you do, you bring them close. Yeah. Because there's not a lot of people. And I mean, again, I'm the luckiest guy in the world with my friends. But yeah, some of them right now would be going, oh, here goes Kumbaya Rich. You know? But you're like, that's why you love me. And that's why it works. That's why you're still around. It is what it is. I can't pretend to be anything else. No. You have to. Life would be really rough if you don't think that way. Yeah. So all that babbling came out of you saying, how did the Stephen King thing come along? But it's just it's one more thing in that puzzle where I just feel like. It all fit together. For whatever reason, you know. So, yeah, just very fortunate. It felt it feels very organic the way it happened. It was. And that's the best thing about it. Yeah. And in fact, and then I'll show up about it. What we did. Interview for the audio version. The woman from Simon Schuster who asked us the questions. She asked Steve. She said, why Rich? And I remember I kind of perked up at my desk. Yeah. Why me? Why me? Because I never I never wanted to ask it. Yeah. And at some point, I'm sure I stopped thinking about it. Yeah. But I'm sure before that I was terrified. Yeah. Right. And his answer was real matter of fact. He just said, well, I just finished reading a long December, a collection of stories from Rich. He said, and he does everyday people so well. Mm hmm. And everyday settings. And I thought if anyone could finish Gwendy, it would be him. He writes about the kind of people who, you know, who go shopping and then on their way home, stop and have dinner at Cracker Barrel. Yeah. Which is where I had breakfast this morning, by the way. And he just said, so I thought if anyone could finish Gwendy, it was him. And I just thought, oh, that's such a nice answer, because I'm sure there's, you know, all these millions of people who are going. It's because they're friends, dummy, because you're not that good of a writer, which is fine. Think that all you want. I mean, it. It's probably true, but it was cool to hear that answer. That is just like it just naturally came to his mind that, hey, he writes about people who are in this story. Yeah. So let's see if he can. Then he could match this. Yeah. That's actually a big compliment. I was just going to say, what a compliment. A huge compliment. Well, that's what I was like. I was like, I owe that lady like flowers and candy. Yeah. You're like, thank you for asking that. I think to this day, I never would have asked him. Yeah. And it would have been in your head, but it never would have come out. Yeah. So it was cool that that I'm sure I hung up, you know, I hung up when it was all done and I went in the house. I'm like, he gave it to me because he thought if anyone could, it would be me. I probably told everyone I know that. I would. It could be people like, you know, in line at 7-Eleven. Oh, yeah. Probably said, he's a serial killer. I'd be like, calm down. I'd put it in my bio. I'd do the same thing. I would do the absolute same thing. I'd do that with Patricia Cornwell is one of my favorite authors. She's awesome. I read her since I was like 13 years old. And when we got to have her on the show and then she gave me a blurb for the book, I tell everybody. I'm like, okay. You should. I will never get sick of telling everybody that. And I love her because she's such a strong woman. Oh, she's such a bad bitch. She pisses some people off because she's so strong and the whole thing. She's such a bad bitch. She's the best. She's in a lot of ways, she's like Steve where she doesn't give a shit. Yeah, she really does. What she says. And I like that. And they're kind of from the same class. She literally is like Agent Starling. Yeah. Like she talks like her. She sounds like her. Like she's awesome. Yep. Yeah. Oh, that's neat. Yeah. So I would be the exact same way. Oh, yeah. I would never forget that. Now, our last question before we go into a quick would you rather to end is, are you actually killing the boogeyman? Yes, no, maybe. I like that. I love it. I like that. Yes, no, maybe. That's a good answer. That's my answer. It's a mystery. And it's an honest answer. Yeah. So that's the thing. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I like that. That leaves us with a lot. I mean, that's what's the thing in the beginning. I can never remember what you call it. A little. I don't remember the quotes that you put in the beginning, that front matter stuff. But I said, you can't kill the boogeyman, Tommy, from Halloween. Yes. And it's just like, you know, in some ways, like I said, it's just like, it's still that small campfire story. And it's still, Halloween's my favorite horror movie. I love Halloween. I think it always will be because of the nostalgia and just because. So good. It really does, in a lot of ways, defines me as a storyteller. Yeah. Which is just, you know, I'm going to try to show you as little as possible to scare you. But every once in a while. I'm going to jump you. Oh, yeah. I'm going to give you a hit. Yeah. And to me, the scariest scene from that movie is still Tommy looking out the window from the curtains and seeing him carry that body into that house. Yes. Because what he should have seen, there's jack-o'-lanterns and stuff, because, you know, what you should be seeing are the falling leaves and maybe a passing car. Yep. Instead, you see what should be the impossible and it's not. Yeah. And you're the only one who saw it. That's it. You're the only one who saw it. So you're like, no, the boogeyman is real and everyone's telling you it's not. And I'll always be Tommy, you know? Yeah. So I might as well write it and make a living from it. Yeah. Hell yeah. You do it well. I would say so. Yeah. And now we have Would You Rather to end it up. We always finish on Would You Rather. This is where I get canceled somehow. Because I'll try to be honest. The only card I'm focusing. You know, we can edit out whatever we need to. Yeah, it's true. Not live. All right. Would you rather know exactly when you're going to die or exactly how you're going to die? We're starting off strong. Yeah. Holy shit. Right out the gate. Right out the gate. That's what you're going to be like. Would you rather have peanut M&M's? Nah. Now we go hard here. We go hard. I guess I would rather know how. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to know when I'm going to die. I think so. Honestly, I agree. I am thinking about death a lot. My wife's thinking about death a lot. She's like, you know, as a cancer survivor, I don't have the greatest insurance because they don't give it to you. Oh, God. That's bullshit. Yeah. America. Yeah. Just like, I got lots of books now. Come on. It's passive income. She's like, I don't care about that. I agree, though. Yeah. I don't want to know. When? No. I would never want to know that. No. I mean, first, again, for someone with a wide open mind, the whole thing of thinking about what comes next is pretty freaky. And I've always been, you know, I've always had faith that there's got to be more. There's got to be more. We can't just be here to do this dumb shit. No, there's too much weird shit. Yeah. And again, I remember telling Kara when we were like really young, having those heavy discussions. And I just remember saying, there's been too many moments in my life that shouldn't have happened and where I've had, whether the feeling or the thought or whatever. Whatever it is that there's no way that I should have been capable of it. Yeah. So there has to be other things going on. I agree. That's my thought. And whether it's, you know, to the pessimist who says, well, that's just. your comfort thought i don't have a lot of comfort thoughts so if it is it's a it's a surprise i just think it's generally how i feel yeah i agree with that no i agree for sure yeah all right this one's less uh heavy but it's actually pretty uh relevant to what we were talking about earlier would you rather discover someone has been living secretly in your attic or discover someone has been coming into your house every night and leaving before you wake up well considering i've imagined both scenarios extensively same same um i would rather yeah i would definitely rather know that they've been coming in going out same because i feel like you can put a stop to that yeah yeah yeah you can definitely put a stop to it and um yeah i just the idea that someone's been there when i've been there all the time and stuff is just too out there for me yeah but i have imagined both i i have to often actually yeah same i think about that frequently yeah but i'm going same answer i don't need to know that you've been there the whole time yeah i do weird shit you can even eat my food and stuff i mean you know yeah my chocolate ice cream stock can be somehow lower and i can accuse kara and it's fine yeah that's cool yeah whatever but you can't live up there no no you gotta pay rent because the attic is really close to my bedroom that's the other thing yeah you're not living up there no and sometimes she actually leaves the latch the locking latch unlocked and i'm like well i checked the basement one in the attic one every night oh yeah and i can't tell you i can tell you this twice in the last like two weeks the basement latch has been open and i'm like oh my god i can't believe it's open and i'm like oh my god what the hell are you thinking oh no yeah kara kara come on yes how dare you i'm so glad i made her sit in on this oh i'm like fort knox at night john's always like are you good we're fine i'm like nope that's yeah everything i double check everything i double check every window oh yeah yeah got the sensors on all the windows yeah we have a great security system too but for father's day they're always like you know we hate buying you presents because you're a kid you go out and get whatever you want i'm like well you know i'm not buying you presents because you're a kid you know a better security system yeah you can add one more cameras more yeah that's a great i'm with you actually another camera oh i love adding cameras i have cameras all over this i'm like the least like elitism person and i'm like but i would like gates at the driveway oh hell yeah yeah i'm like the whole thing and i'm like and you know that always leads rich you would like to have a castle and a moat and i'm like oh hell yeah yeah let's let's do it i want to be like yeah live with my cats in ireland and a castle let's go all right i feel like i might know the answer to this based off how we started would you rather spend one night in a genuinely haunted house like your own or one hour alone in the woods knowing a murderer is somewhere out there oh the haunted house night because you're doing it yeah yeah i'm doing it and i just feel like there's you know at least with the ghosts you can roll your dice that they're not gonna mess with you right they might protect you they do and they're supposed to be friendly ghosts it's true my first halloween costume was casper so i was just gonna say everyone remembers the reveal can i keep you can i keep you oh yeah kill me i showed my girls that recently oh that's an awakening because i was like this is a moment that you should have to see devin's how uh at 10 years old yeah like you should do that he's a big uh chasing the boogeyman fan oh my god he tweeted about it one day out of the blue and i was like dude that how cool is that i'm like i'm like i don't i don't have starry eyes because of some of the movie stuff i've done and all and i'm plus you know one of my best buddies is jonathan sheck so an actor you realize really you have the smelliest feet and you fart you fart more than anyone i know so you're real so it's like yeah i don't care that you were married to christina the apple you're just like me dude um incredible yeah yeah absolutely and through him i got to meet a bunch of the others and they're the same way they're all real and some of the women are worse than the guys yeah so it's like you know none of that but when he posted that i was like how cool is that yeah there's some that hit different same thing i'm like casper uh final destination yes oh hell yeah hands yes yes yes i think he followed me on instagram and i talked about it for like i was jealous of that one i was like he's a really nice guy and i'm still like why did you follow me i mean he's a horror lover maybe he's into the books he is he's a good dude he's like he's a family guy yeah dad and and hell yeah and the stuff he posts i feel like is really honest yeah i'm like some so yeah that's cool i had to repost it and write can i keep you valid i was like i'm married that's the only appropriate response like i have to write my sister still remember my casper oh yeah thing you know one of those plastic masks with the elastic yeah and the whole thing and i remember biting onto the elastic so much and they're so it didn't matter they're like you were so happy it was your first trick-or-treating and for me being who i am i'm like growing up trick-or-treating there was nothing better oh no there was nothing i would still love to go trick-or-treating with your kids i'm like i'm not missing it oh it's an event and i dress up yeah yeah carol just told the story last week about how you know where we used to live was a regular neighborhood and when speeders we had big packs of us parents and kids and when we go through and anyone who's i always had a huge pocket full of candy corn and i don't like candy corn but any car that didn't slow down sufficiently when they were passing us got some candy candy corn so you would hear like this machine gun nice then my friends started doing it and you would like it was just i love it yeah so that was my lesson that was my thing i'm like speed near my kids but no yeah halloween's still the greatest night yes oh it's my favorite holiday christmas is secondary and you should be driving at like one mile an hour no matter where you are on halloween i won't drive i hate driving on halloween because i'm too scared i'm like respect the hall yeah i'm going like two miles no trick-or-treaters come oh really yeah because you know it's kind of spread out and yeah across this road and no trick-or-treaters come and every year i say you know what we were going to make the greatest haunted house with everything out front it's going to attract trick-or-treaters yeah and then i was thinking the back of my head but then they're gonna have to cross this road and i'm just like yeah i'm just like you know what so she just we were always the house that everyone came to just like i wrote about in chasing everyone came to we had spaghetti meatballs we had salad we had you know a big spread and everyone came and then you know the kids got older stopped trick-or-treating stopped doing that and then it was just like her family came over and she's just like you know this year we're gonna do it we're gonna have everybody here for halloween i'm like yes yeah it's the best love that i love it all right our next round of would you rathers is going to be writer hell edition so this is would you rather lose the first 50 pages of your current manuscript or the last 50 pages first that's what you said yeah yeah only because by then i've gone over this 50 pages so to get to those left 50 pages that i can probably regurgitate it with some level of accuracy that makes sense that's the thing because it just becomes like because i've lost a lot of like one page things like interviews that are done q a's that are done via email oh yeah i've lost a lot of those and i've like verge of tears because i hate doing them yeah yeah and then you realize that wait a minute i can remember this yeah that's quick i know the i know me i can answer that i can do this so yeah first page first yeah for sure yeah you don't want to lose it's still on here all right how about never be allowed to write horror again or only be allowed to write horror for the rest of your life i think i think never be allowed to because i think that my definition my boundaries of horror are pretty broad okay you know like i i can write like i i feel like a lot of like i wrote a novella called the girl on the porch which is just very much um harlan coven john sanford territory it's suburban suspense but everyone still calls it horror yeah i still think chasing the boogeyman in a lot of ways is more of a thriller than it is a traditional horror novel like kind of sit on both yeah i think it straddles so i yeah i would continue to be this stubborn guy who was like well it's still hard i mean it's still hard because of blank there you go it's like a cheat code yeah i like it yeah yeah that is how about you saying only be allowed to write horror for the rest of my life yeah because i got scared with the never being able to again yeah but you found a cheat code now so that's a good cheat code i like it you're basically just saying the other answer that's the cool thing about horrors the rules are really yeah you can extend it and especially supernatural i again widow's point is the only supernatural thing i've really written in at length and again i you know not the brightest i just kind of hit myself in the head when i was done and i'm like dude why'd you wait this long that's the cool thing about supernatural there really are no rules no yeah you can do this and you can do that and i'm like and with books like these as you know there are some pretty strict oh yeah if you if you want the reader to really be carried you got to be logical yes in a lot of places um with widow's point we had none of that i just remember we had such freedom from that and so that's why i want to go back to that world again at some point but yeah i uh you know the only yeah i mean i westerns you know i love westerns but i'm not going to write went too much research i've got a romance in me at somewhere really i've got a love story in there somewhere hey i love that all right read about you and cara's love story i want to know all about it you are you when you read when you read the next one you'll read it you'll get a little perfect you'll you'll people somebody said that in a instagram comment recently they're like and especially they're talking about the characters and especially cara i feel like i had such an insight to your relationship yep and and how she you know reacts to you and i was just like because i wrote i definitely wrote about it you know half the time she's putting up with me and trying to rein me in and being like no that's really not a good idea rich and those kind of things so um yeah even in the third book i'm you know there's a lot of like if i do this she's gonna kill me yep um but ultimately i have to do it yeah so a lot of the stuff with cara and i is just spot on where it's just like you know when you've known someone for how many years um you're like counting in your life like 45 years oh my god yeah wow that's beautiful i love love right maybe not quite 45 but And yeah, so yeah, I mean, just, you know. Put a medal in her chest right now, God bless her. Because, yeah, I'm a pain in the ass. But you admit it. See, that's the good thing. Yeah. You're her pain in the ass. Yeah, I am like the ultimate work in progress. Not everybody knows they're a pain in the ass, so that's a good quality. Yeah. And everybody should be working. I think I was new down deep. But, yeah, it took me a while. And she will describe me. She will say he is the most mature person I know and the most immature person I know. That's my husband to a T. At least she got off. That dynamic. You know? Yeah, that dynamic, I feel like that's got to be a good thing, right? Oh, yeah. You don't want too much of me there. You know, we should get both. I will say that. I'm like, imagine being married to a guy with patches on his elbows of his jacket. And he loves going to dinner parties and talking politics and this and this and this. And I'm like, you would kill him. You would strangle him in his sleep. 100%. We're the fun of that. Yeah. And she's like, well, but I'd still like to. But if he didn't wear a hat everywhere and he didn't. Yes. You know? You know, he didn't come out with like the worst off-color jokes at the worst times sometimes. That would be good too, Rich. You're like, yeah. Keeps you on your toes, right? Would you rather write the greatest book of your career but nobody reads it or write a book that you secretly think is the worst of your career and have it become your most successful? You know, I'd rather write the greatest book. Yeah. Because, yeah, I mean, if. When I turn a book in. You know, I never. Like I said, I'm not one of those writers who's like, everyone's going to love it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I am just like, again, hopefully if they hate it, hopefully they don't hate it until they bought it. Yeah. They don't figure that out before they've actually. I get the sale. Cashed in. It really is like, I always say that. I'm like, all right, this is the best I could do right now. So I'm happy with it. Yeah. And that same thing when I do that final edit, I tried to teach Billy. You know, I'm like, look, you're going to edit right until the very end. You need to copy edit and then you're going to, you know, get the design pages and da, da, da. i said and then you're gonna freak out because you're gonna realize i just sent back you know 350 pages with marks on 110 of them yeah and they're going to print next week and i'm like that's why i don't read them when they come out you know so and i'm like because i don't want to know what i would change and i'm just like yeah so i'm when i'm the happiest i can be with it at that point then i'm done and i just say hey if the readers you know respond to it that's wonderful if they don't that's okay there's gonna be another one and and some writers like don't believe that they're like i don't believe it i you know and i'm like i genuinely feel that way yeah yeah which is which is a again a gift yeah it's how you have to go into it i feel like but i feel like so many writers tell me otherwise and i'm just like well then i'd hate to be in your shoes because i would never be happy with anything and i would always be kind of looking over my shoulder at what i should have done differently and i'm just like i you know i billy when billy does appearances with me he literally is like dad you need to pick up the book so you remember the character names and stuff because i'm like who cares me that you'd have do you have to refresh yourself on any of the boogeyman stuff i'm like it's me no and finally in this case i don't yeah i know that was the genius of it i remember the detective's name and everything else and carly you know and all that i'm like yeah thank god so but with other books yes yeah i'm like oh my god i'm like and readers are like how can you do it i'm like they're gone man yeah i'm like i'm on to the next world well you read them like a hundred thousand times during the editing process but by that time you're like i don't want to read it again i'm all done if i genuinely felt like i wrote the best book i would be so happy yeah and if no one read it i'd be like that's all right that's how i feel because i'm like i would just be like well that's my favorite book is what it is it's fine yeah i wrote it and it's here and it exists yes whatever yeah i get it i would feel that exactly and kara goes through that phase with me too where it's just like you know how is it going it's fine it's fine it's fine it's all right you know i don't know if anyone's gonna like it and then when i am finally ready to turn it in she's always overjoyed at the you know what i like it yeah i like that i'm okay with it yeah so you know hopefully they like it if they don't i like it yeah yeah john always loves when i get to that point yeah yeah because there's moments where i'll wake up and like reread what i wrote and there's some days that i'll look at it and i'm like are you okay like did you stroke out while writing this this is horrible like who wrote this yes and then the next day i'll wake up and read and read something and be like oh my god did i write this like it's just like who wrote that and isn't it even worse when it's about the language as opposed to the plot or the story oh yeah it's like because you know i try to write so it's very readable so you don't see the work and it's just like you know hey i didn't have to stop and look up any words and then i read 10 pages before i knew it so then when i read it and it's the language yeah and it's stilted here or it's just like i'm like i'm like there's no flow there's no melody here like who did that who is this like someone got on my computer and did this this is awful and it's the same when i like it sometimes i'm like somebody got in here and wrote an amazing paragraph like that that sentence really sings wow i wonder how many times they did it because i don't remember it dang who was that damn uh so now we're gonna go to the boogeyman portion of it okay all right so john so would you rather it be that joshua gallagher is real and he wants to kill you or that joshua joshua gallagher is real and wants to be your bestie well in an act of self-preservation i'd rather he wants to be my best i think that's very well yeah i would go for that yeah you don't want to be his bestie but like might get weird but probably better than being killed yeah because i have the genuine thoughts of you know if these books attracted the wrong person and all that i'm sure yeah especially when i'm taking the trash out honestly i'm sure yeah i'm just like because that would be it's got to be in your head that would be the cinematic oh absolutely you know the all those serial killers that want to be remembered and want to be news items and the whole thing that would be the way to do it is to copy off the book and yeah all the public proclamations of my dumb ass saying taking the trash out is terrifying for me yet i still do it so why not you know it's the perfect lying weight but yeah just so you know he has a taser with him when he does it so oh i'm ready to run i'm alert i'm he's heavily armed i am like 12 years old when i'm taking the trash out yeah so don't so yeah i would rather he wants to be my buddy and i'm just like oh god i got a pest yeah who wants to eat my you know kidney but yeah you know but like i won't let him yeah we'll figure it out protect me yeah he won't your besties exactly all right this one's a little more intense you receive a letter from joshua gallagher that just says i know or would you rather wake up and find a polaroid of yourself sleeping just tucked on your nightstand the letter yeah i take the letter yeah the letter and i don't even care what he does and there's plenty of stuff he could be talking about probably yeah in my brain including some messed up stuff i've probably forgotten about yeah i know i haven't killed anybody so it's not that yeah um but yeah the polaroid yeah those again those again that's the kind of storytelling stuff that is just that rocks my world yeah same yeah the fact that someone was there when i didn't know it and left this memento the fact that that's the scariest thing i've ever heard all of us yeah that was that was drawn partially from one of my books actually yeah yeah all of that stuff yeah i was gonna say you guys must have fun making up these questions yeah yeah it is fun because they're really good but they're also messed up exactly yeah that's like us they're fun i'm gonna be asking my friends this all week would you rather would you rather do this can i get a copy of this list you get to know people i won't forget the list trust me yeah and i think that's our last question that is it yeah yeah good thank you so much i know you're like don't stare you're like i mean i was waiting for the what if you know the swedes love candy so what if if you had to have this bag of candy or that oh that's tough swedish is the best i take it all yeah yeah truly we're all about food and all that oh hell yeah we have a whole spread waiting wherever we travel it's all about finding the good food spot and uh you know when my son was playing lacrosse i was texting like the commentators who i knew from you know other things and being like you travel everywhere where's the best food i can get at notre dame and where's you know where's the best pizza here we found a great pizza spot in uh westminster yeah in maryland western maryland in western maryland the other day and it's just you would have thought we won the lottery we're like eating in the car like teenagers because we wanted to get home to the dogs and we're like this isn't just good this is really good oh yeah you find a good food spot yeah i love it she bought a piece of she bought a slice of cheesecake from that restaurant so that was in the middle part of the car you got plastic that's big and i opened it and it's half eaten i'm like what the hell she goes i told you i ate it beforehand i had to make sure it wasn't poison you know that's pretty much yeah we bonded over food right away i love that as teenagers to be honest well thank you so much for joining us yeah thank you this has been so fun you are welcome back anytime thank you i was gonna say this is like this this this felt like i just got to hang out with friends thank you yeah i'll come back any time you guys want somewhere to come on here and everybody check out killing the boogeyman it's coming out october 6th yes so pre-order it go get it it's awesome get the other two books too i'm telling you they're awesome yeah i read them like so long ago so i was already an og like ready for this yeah you can actually write me and i'll send you signed book plates and all the whole thing i do that all the time yeah oh wow yeah yeah we'll figure it out but but but yeah thank you for having me no thank you for coming anytime to do this this has been awesome and this like i said this just felt like we were hanging out they really did that's like bonus hell yeah well thank you guys so much for listening we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird i did it too quick no you're i didn't know you meant literally thank you again to Ashley for sponsoring today's super special book club episode guys your home is the setting for your life's most cherished memories or your most cherished book club and now is the time to write the newest chapter in your home's history Ashley is focused on helping people create a comfortable functional and stylish home that they can feel proud of I feel super proud of mine and that's thanks to Ashley and it was all at a price that feels accessible and reassuring with eye catching designs Ashley can bring a balance of timeless appeal and modern trends to your home plus Ashley provides fast reliable white glove delivery right to your room of choice visit your local Ashley store or head to ashley.com to find your style