Dear Dennis, it's been a long time since you've released an episode of this podcast. I mean, fuck. What's it been? Like, seven months? Fuck. That's fucking ridiculous. What's the deal? Are you just lazy and useless?
—Orshtra in Choqueville, West Carolina
Yes, actually. But that's not the whole story. I mean, like that's a lot of it, but there are contributing factors. For one thing, I want to point out that the original three episodes, I kind of viewed them as, proofs of concept. Like, I wanted to see what kind of a podcast I could make with this format. And play with the equipment, play with the lighting, the microphone, just begin to figure out the process. And I achieved that. And I'm still continuing the learning process. We're just going to keep putting them out until I feel like I've got a good system going. And when I do that, they'll probably come out a lot faster and they'll probably come out on a steady schedule.
So, that's one thing I just want to point out. I don't really feel like I ever abandoned the project. I never intended to put it down forever. And, if you notice, I didn't make a big push behind the first couple episodes. Since the last one was released in November, I did record another episode, but I didn't like it. It kind of took the podcast in a different direction than I was happy with. So, I did some course correction in my head. And I also got started on a bunch of other projects. But I'm wondering how much I want to get into any of those projects on this podcast. I'm kind of hovering between the feeling like—is this just self-indulgence if I talk about the things that I'm doing before they're ready to be released? Is that self-indulgence? Or is that allowing people into the creative process? I don't know. So, this will maybe take some push and pull. Maybe I'll overshare, and then I'll maybe feel like I've got to pull back. Or vice versa. I don't know. But there's a part of me that thinks that I could use this podcast as a sort of creative diary. That could possibly be interesting and useful to other people.
For one thing, I don't feel comfortable releasing projects that aren't finished and clean. Which is why people almost never see anything from me. Because I'm almost never happy with the stuff that I'm doing. But I'm always making stuff. I'm always in the process of writing one or two or seven things. Or working on a music project. Or doing a little film or something. I'm always doing something that is almost certainly not going to make me any money. But I hardly ever get to a point where I feel like I can share it with anybody. Because I feel like have one chance with your attention. If I'm writing a story that's sort of a strange idea, and I release a half-assed version of it, and you look at it, and you're like, "Oh, well, that's a bad idea," And then you won't look at it again, later on when I've fixed it. I appreciate anybody's attention. Anybody who wants to give me their attention and take a look at a thing that I made—I don't want to waste that. I don't want to disrespect your time. There are so many things out there to be paying attention to. If you're paying attention to my thing, out of all the other things, I think you deserve to have the best version of it. That's always been kind of my feeling. That's why I just don't really put that much out.
While I have not been working specifically on this podcast in particular, I have been doing a lot of work in podcasting, the field. I'm a co-producer of a podcast called The Novelizers, and I'm working on that all the time. But it's not my vision. I'm a member of a team and that takes up a lot of time. It's been a really fun experience, and it's been wonderfully educational. It's helping me get to where I am now, where I feel like I can maybe put out my own podcast. I mean, this is a very basic level podcast. This is just me talking at a camera. And it's not scripted. It's barely planned out. By intention. I want this to kind of have a kind of a raggedy feel. This isn't intended to be a polished anything. It's definitely an aspect of me, put it that way.
And I have this other podcast I've been working on for several months now, just in the planning and writing phases. See, this is something I'm actually writing. This is something closer to... Well, I mean, podcasts are everything nowadays. Anything can be a podcast. And that's kind of what I've been rolling over in my head. The possibilities. The things that we can do. Me can do, but also you can do. What we can do with this form that hasn't been done yet. Not for the sake of just doing something new, but to push boundaries and try to imagine avenues that are specific for our own purposes. The podcast is called This Haunted World. And it is kind of a spinoff from Thought Magnet. This podcast is through my Thought Magnet Substack. I have a spinoff Substack, which I haven't advertised to anybody called This Haunted World. I'm hoping to do this new podcast through that Substack. It will be focused on my interest in horror as a genre—movies, books, music, any aspect of horror that I think is worth talking about. That's worth examining. It will be about that.
And for my initial project for that podcast—I'm working on a series of episodes that will chart the cultural history of horror, from its inception in antiquity, and then follow it as it evolved. As fear shaped society through the years. I'm mostly interested in horror as a genre. So, very early on, we'll focus on Mary Shelley and the writing of Frankenstein, which I see as the beginning of the horror genre (horror and science fiction genre, really). Before that, it was mostly tied up with gothic romance or mythology. Fear and horror has always been an aspect of life, like a shade or like a color that you could use in the creation process. But it wasn't until Frankenstein, the novel, I believe, that people started to view horror as its own thing. As something you could just focus on. The podcast is going to follow the creation of Frankenstein and then Dracula. The first season is going to be pre-Hollywood, pre-film. Everything leading up to that. And then, in the next season, I'm planning to go into how movie cameras changed everything. How they acted as a prism that created characters that we that we still think of today as a sort of a pantheon of monsters—Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolfman, The Invisible Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. There are other ones who we think of as pantheonic, I guess, like The Bride of Frankenstein, Quasimodo (Igor), and The Phantom of the Opera. But I don't know that any of those were as influential. I'm focusing more on the ones that we keep going back to again and again and telling these same stories over and over and over again. Because I think it says something about the world that they moved through. I think that they helped shape the world. And I think they were shaped by the world. Paying attention to how they moved through different aspects of society, where they seeped into, and what that did to us. What they did to me.
The first episode, the one I'm working on at the moment, is, an introduction, and it's mostly going to be about my introduction to horror as a genre as a very small child. And the effect it had on me. The effect it had on my life.
So that's a project that I'm working on. That podcast is This Haunted World, but the series within it is called On the Origin of Monsters. Which is maybe too complicated. But I'd like to do other things with This Haunted World, besides that that narrow objective. So I'm hoping to get my cake and eat it, too, is what i'm saying.
Anyway, that sort of spun off from a different project, which I've been talking about on my Thought Magnet Substack, The Life of Memes. Because here's, here's the thing—I'm also getting ready to release my first novel, which I wrote pre-COVID. I've edited it, and I've been polishing it for publication. It's called The Creeping Horror of Kirkwood High. I kind of describe it as "Heathers by way of Lovecraft."
I'm publishing that book, but I'm also trying to sell a different book (The Life of Memes, mentioned before) that's not horror at all. It's about my obsession with memes. Not internet memes. But like Richard Dawkins kind of memes replicators of culture. About ideas and the ways that they are viral. I've been working on this book for many years, and I've been trying to sell it to no avail yet. I had these two different things that are both very important to me, but don't seem to connect. They didn't seem like they came out of the same person's head to anyone on the outside. I write horror stories, and I write horror novels, and that's... I pretty much only watch horror movies nowadays. I mean, it's like a big, important part of my life. But then also, I am really interested in information, the way that it spreads, the way that ideas bubble up and change and evolve into different things. And they don't seem like they're the same thing. My wife commented on that. I think I said something like, "Well, maybe if I sell this book, The Creeping Horror, that'll help me sell The Life of Memes." And she looked at me and said, "Why would that happen?" And I didn't have an answer to that, because good question, right? They're not at all the same thing. So I don't know. I took a step back and thought, "Well, what's in the crossroads? What's the middle ground between monsters and memes?" And I just eventually settled on this idea. Which I was originally planning as another unsellable book, but then slowly that gave way to the idea that "What if instead of working on another book to not sell, you made another podcast? At least that just goes into the world, right? You know people will have access to it. Whether they see it or not, at least it'll be out there."
Because I have too many things that are in the background, waiting to be released. I need more things that let people know I'm here. That I exist as a writer. There's also there's a certain logic to it as a podcast. Pretty much the only successful thing I've got going on at the moment is my association with The Novelizers podcast. So, maybe that's a good direction to keep going. Maybe I should be focusing more on podcasting. Maybe that's a small hole in the wall that I can make bigger with some effort. Honestly, I'm not that concerned that I'll never have a breakthrough back into professional work. I think something's going to come about eventually. I have a lot of irons in a lot of fires. The question, though, is always "Well, which one is it? Where am I going to put my energy?" And maybe right now the place to put my energy is into podcasting. Which is why I'm working on On the Origin of Monsters. And I suppose why I'm making this episode. I'm hopeful that I can use this podcast, How to Have Written, as a sort of a a creative diary. Someplace I can share my experiences, now. In addition to my experiences in the past. And if not help other creative people outright, at least have a conversation. Be part of the creative community that commiserates on our attempts. That sounds reasonable enough, right?
Anyway, did that answer your question, Orshtra? "What's the deal? Am I just lazy and useless?" Yes, but no. Asterisk. Now the question, "Am I going to keep on with this? Is this episode signaling the beginning of a bunch of new episodes?" Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. We'll find out. I don't know. I've stopped trying to pretend that I'm going to become a different person. Someone who puts out stuff on regular schedules with ease. Now, if I ever get to a point where I'm making money from these podcasts, rest assured I'll be putting them out with some pretty serious regularity. But so long as I'm doing it for the sake of making something, as opposed to the sake of putting food on the table, I'm not gonna make it an extra stressor in my life.
So, I guess that's the answer to your question, Orshtra. Maybe.
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