Today I am 28 years old, which means I failed to maintain membership with the 27 Club. A sick, honest part of me is a little disappointed, as I’ve been promising my family since I was a teenager that I would die at 27. Although, in a way, I guess I sort of did die—if you’re a frequent listener of my podcast, GHOULISH, then you probably already know about the special 100th episode that went live late last night/early this morning titled “The Death of Max Booth III”.
From the episode description:
In the 100th episode of GHOULISH, Max Booth III is murdered with a poisoned egg—potentially by a previous guest of the podcast. Andrew Hilbert takes over hosting duties and investigates the crime by analyzing over 30 eulogies sent in following the news of Max’s death. Did one of these psychotic sons of bitches kill him? Listen and find out.
Featuring Jon Lovitz, Kelby Losack, Cynthia Pelayo, Todd Keisling, Miguel Villa, Zach Chapman, Josh Malerman, Jessica Leonard, Lucas Mangum, Joshua Chaplinsky, Jessica McHugh, Sarah Read, Stephen Graham Jones, Betty Rocksteady, W. P. Johnson, Alan Baxter, B.R. Yeager, John Baltisberger, John Wayne Comunale, Brian Asman, Danger Slater, Frank Edler, Zachary Ashford, Michael Allen Rose, Hailey Piper, David Leo Rice, Armand Rosamilia, Jay Wilburn, Tony McMillen, Jonathan Raab, Briana Morgan, Lisa Quigley, Bob Pastorella, Michael David Wilson, and Lori Michelle.
Also, of recent interest for all you GHOULISH fans, the last couple episodes included interviews with Jeff VanderMeer and Chuck Tingle.
I am not sure what else to add here. I’ve been very busy with many different projects, hence the lack of updates lately. The movie I wrote, We Need to Do Something, recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Fest in New York. Lori and I flew out for the premiere. It was both of our first times visiting the state. I think the reaction to the movie has been mostly okay so far. Some people like it far more than others, but the same thing can be said about the book. IFC Midnight will be releasing the movie in the US on September 3rd, in theaters and VOD. There will also be a physical media release, although I don’t think it’s been officially announced yet, so don’t tell anybody I told you that.
I did finish a new crime novel at the end of December called Casanova Curbstomp, but the longer I sit on it the longer I’m convinced it’s actually not very good, so it might just be a trunk novel for the time being. Maybe in the future I’ll figure out a way to make it not suck, or maybe it’ll never see the light of day. Who knows!
I’m 65,000 words into another novel called Maggots Screaming, and I am far more confident with how that one’s going. I started it in July 2020, so my goal is to finish it before the end of the month. 12 months is already too long to spend on a first draft. It makes me paranoid I’ll never finish anything of worth again, which is a stupid trap to fall into. It’s also an easy trap to fall into.
I’m also incredibly busy with Perpetual Motion Machine projects. Lots of editing to do that I’m behind on thanks to how much traveling we’ve been doing lately (for the movie). I’m not complaining, just explaining what’s been going on in my life. Right now I’m playing a game of catch-up, which is a game I imagine I’ll be playing until I die for real and not just in a podcast.
Happy Fourth of July. I hope you shoot a bottle rocket out of your ass to celebrate. Trust me. It feels awesome.
Two new interviews featuring myself have been published recently.
The first one, over at Cemetery Dance, was conducted by Tyler Jones. It’s a lengthy conversation that took place over several months via Twitter direct messaging. I think it’s probably one of the most in-depth interviews I’ve been given, and I’m stoked it’s finally available. In it we talk about writing advice, my creative process, capital punishment, my ranking of the Mission: Impossible movies, and so much more. You can read that here.
I was also kind of interviewed for my local paper, The San Antonio Current, about We Need to Do Something’s recent acceptance into the Tribeca Film Festival. I say “kind of interviewed” since, yes, the editor and I did talk on the phone, but I only answered like two or three questions clarifying some things about the announcement, so I’m not sure if it officially counts as an interview. I also don’t know who keeps track of what is and what is not an interview, but I’m terrified of them getting mad at me. Anyway. Here’s the write-up.
Speaking of the We Need to Do Something movie, Tribeca recently made a page dedicated to it on their festival guide, and the description they’ve written for the listing filled me with an immense amount of joy. I am not sure if we’re allowed to consider it our first “review” but it feels like that, at least to me. So damn cool. The page also reveals the movie’s runtime, which hasn’t been announced until now: 97 minutes. Read the listing here.
Pretty much what the title of this post said, honestly. My movie, We Need to Do Something, which I wrote and served as an executive producer on, will make its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Fest in June. Sean King O’Grady directed it. Shane Patrick Ford edited it. The cast includes Vinessa Shaw, Sierra McCormick, Pat Healy, Lisette Alexis, and John James Cronin. Many other very talented people also worked on the film, but you can just go check out the IMDB page for the rest of the credits.
I will be traveling to NYC for the showing, which will be my first time ever visiting the state. Tribeca is a dream fest and I am truly honored for our little bathroom movie to premiere there. Here’s an official still from the movie with the fancy Tribeca selection stamp:
Last month I posted about current works in progress and where they stood, word count wise. Instead of copy/pasting every project I talked about in the previous installment, I am only going to spotlight the projects I actually worked on since last month.
First up is Casanova Curbstomp. In the last update, this project sat at 56,000 words. As of right now, the first draft is completed at 77,000 words. I actually finished it on New Year’s Eve. It’s currently being read by my manager and several beta readers, then I will go back through it and adjust as I deem necessary. After that…I am not sure. There’s a specific small press I’d like to send it to. But also maybe this is the book I should start sending to agents. It’s a comedy crime novel about Internet porn addiction. If you’re an agent and that sounds cool to you, hit me up.
With Casanova Curbstomp out of the way, I’ve been focusing most of my novel attention on Maggots Screaming!(The exclamation mark is part of the title.) Last month the word count sat at 25,000. Earlier tonight I hit 30,000. Last month I also anticipated the total word count would clock in at around 65,000, but after figuring a couple upcoming plot issues out, I now realize I’ve greatly underestimated the word count. It will probably be closer to 80,000 by the time it’s finished. My goal is to finish the first draft by the end of March. I’m really happy with how this one is coming. I wrote the first 15,000 words while in Detroit filming the adaptation for We Need to Do Something, and I think the immense happiness I was experiencing during that month has definitely continued into the rest of the manuscript. I’m just having a goddamn blast writing something that’s pure, unapologetic body horror.
Other things I’m working on right now, which I can’t get into very much detail on due to reasons: rewrites on a script for another one of my previously published novels; a proposal package for a book I recently pitched to an extremely cool audio company; a secret non-fiction book for Cemetery Dance; and several novelettes for Cemetery Dance for their “Be a Star” program.
Plus, ya know, a ton of freelance non-fiction. Speaking of which, here are my two most recent online publications…
On LitReactor I published an article about my recent plunge into being a full-time writer. I provided some context for why I made the decision to leave my terrible hotel job and also offered some (hopefully) handy advice for anybody considering doing the same thing. Read the article here.
Related to the previous article, I also wrote a lengthy essay for Film-14 about how I managed to get a film adaptation made for my novella, We Need to Do Something. If you were puzzled how some jerk like myself currently has a movie in post-production, then this article should help clear most of your confusion. Read the article here.
I think that pretty much covers everything. Unless you want to get into what I’ve been editing–in which case, the latest issue of my horror magazine, Dark Moon Digest, just dropped. Go treat yourself to some spooky horror fiction.
As the title of this post suggests, I was recently interviewed by the San Antonio Current about the movie I wrote, which is currently in post-production. I haven’t mentioned the movie news on this blog, and I’ll probably write a bigger post in the near future, but until then, here’s a fun little q&a about the project.
I love long paragraphs. I love getting lost in them. I love the investment. I love the payoff. I love the rhythm. I love that I remembered how to spell “rhythm” without having to look it up. That almost never happens. A lot of words don’t make a lot of sense in my brain and “rhythm” is usually at the top of the list. When I was a kid they taught you every paragraph was exactly four sentences long. No more. No less. If you broke this bizarre rule they’d mark points off your grade. Maybe not every teacher knows what the hell they’re talking about. Once, while attending English class in a drop-out adult high school, the teacher insisted on using the word “irregardless”, and I informed her it wasn’t a word. You looked at me like I was a piece of shit and told me that I was wrong. I corrected her again. It wasn’t a goddamn word. She said, “What do you know? You don’t know anything.” She told me she was the one with an English degree and she would know whether or not something was a word, and “irregardless” was definitely a word. “But it’s not!” I shouted, unable to shut up when it came to petty arguments. The rest of the class was ruined as we continued yelling at each other. I just googled “is irregardless a word” a second ago and apparently now it’s considered a word. Maybe it was always considered a word. Maybe I’m just a jackass. But still. I stick by my opinion that she was a terrible teacher who would have probably also told me every paragraph should be exactly four sentences long and I would have screamed until blood spilled from my mouth. Some authors never use long paragraphs. These authors are cowards. They think the key to writing suspense is short, one-sentence paragraphs, where every action deserves its own line. They confuse prose with screenwriting, which is something entirely different. A lot of writers are very bad at their jobs. You can tell by the size of their paragraphs. I want my paragraphs to last forever. I want them to blossom like lunatic flowers. I want readers to open one of my books and see the lack of paragraph breaks and think, “What the fuck am I looking at? I’m not reading this,” and then, maybe, they decide to try out a couple sentences, and suddenly they’re three pages in and the paragraph still hasn’t come to an end, and they sure as fuck can’t pause now, how would they ever remember where they stopped? Now they’re trapped. Now I have them. A long paragraph is magic. It is hypnotism. I love long paragraphs so much I would absolutely marry one if I could, but I don’t know how that would work. I love them so much that I’m afraid to end this blog post. This paragraph could be longer. It could always be longer. The trick is knowing the perfect place to stop. The trick is knowing the exact spot that will make the reader think, “Okay, I’ve about had enough of your bullshit.” That’s when you add in some quotation marks to fool them into thinking something exciting might be expressed through dialogue. I got you now, you son of a bitch.
I’m going to start providing brief updates for the books I’m currently writing. Why? Because it’s a nice distraction from actually working on the books. Another reason why, you ask? I don’t know. I want to keep this blog updated more frequently and this seems like an easy way to do that. A third reason why? Holy shit. What are you, a cop? Okay, I guess maybe if I put this stuff out in the wild, it’ll work as more incentive to actually finish them, otherwise it’s going to start feeling awfully depressing when each project doesn’t significantly jump ahead after so long.
Okay, so with that said, here are the books I’m currently working on, and their current word counts:
Casanova Curbstomp – 56,000 words
Maggots Screaming! – 25,000 words
Expect Radioactivity – 21,000 words
Hushpuppy – 14,000 words
Secret Cemetery Dance Coffee Table Book – still in the research phase
To provide further insight on these projects (which I don’t intend on doing with every update), Casanova Curbstomp is my attempt at a sleazy crime novel. Something that maybe Hard Case Crime might publish (guess where I intend on submitting it). I anticipate maybe another 20,000 to go on this one. I’m been working on it for a couple years now, off and on. Sometimes I think it’s the worst book I’ve ever written, but then I remember I feel that way about everything I write at a certain point.
Maggots Screaming! is my ode to body horror. It’s gross and delightful and just…completely repulsive. And before you ask, the exclamation mark on the title is not a typo. I think maybe I’m at the halfway mark on this book, or almost to the halfway mark.
Expect Radioactivity is my Big Novel. I fear it might exceed 200,000 words by the time it’s finished. I don’t want to say anything about it other than it takes place in the 1950s.
Hushpuppy is kind of a bildungsroman about my early teenage years growing up in a hotel next to a casino. Every time I work on it I get very sad. I think it’s probably end up being one of my best books. I have no idea how long it’ll be or when I’ll finish.
And, obviously, I can’t say anything about the secret Cemetery Dance coffee table book, other than it’s a coffee table book, and it’ll be released through Cemetery Dance. Oh, and also, I’m collaborating on it with Matthew Revert.
I’m also working on various scripts, short stories, and articles, but those aren’t as fun to tease.
I’ll do a bigger post later, but I recently quit my day job to write full-time. It is my goal to have all of these novels (except for maybe Expect Radioactivity) finished by December 2021. Without the hotel job in my life, I feel like this is more than possible. I’m doing things to limit other distractions, which I’ll save for another blog post. I have probably talked enough here. If you’ve read everything I’ve written and find yourself hungry for more Booth books, these are what you can look forward to someday in the future. If you’ve never read anything I’ve written and only found this website by googling something porn-related, I apologize but there is nothing sexy on this website, and you’ve come to the wrong place. Unless your fetish is WIP updates, then holy shit, prepare to ejaculate, buddy.
Adam Driver, Jimmi Simpson, CCH Pounder, Michael Shannon, Maya Rudolph, Pam Grier, John Goodman, Samm Levine, Alison Brie (as “Zoya the Destroya” from GLOW), Michael K. Williams, Ruth Negga, Christina Hendricks, Benicio del Toro, Pat Healy, Michael Cera (trust me on this), Harvey Keitel (as “The Wolf” from Pulp Fiction), Ray Romano, Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, other people named Jesse/Jessie, Tom Waits, Margo Martindale (I know she’s already in it, but she’s not in every episode, and that’s a big problem for me), Jeremy Davies, Rosario Dawson, Danny McBride, Elliot Page, Michael Rapaport, Jada Pinkett Smith, Donal Logue, Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson (in the same episode), Paul F. Tompkins (as a soviet spy who loves improv comedy), Paul Dano, River Phoenix (would have probably been difficult to do), Daniel “Danny” DeVito, Danny “Daniel Day” Lewis, Julia Garner, Alfred Molina, John Turturro, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Elisabeth Moss, Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher, David Cross, and Nicolas Cage (as “Charlie Kaufman” from Adaptation).
Last year, toward the end of 2019, I spent two glorious nights making a short film with some of my best pals: Andrew Hilbert, Miguel Villa, and Trey Hudson. We filmed on location at Radio Coffee and Beer after normal business hours. To make the movie, we used an Audio-Technica AT875R Line/Gradient Shotgun Condenser Microphone ($183), a DJI Osmo Mobile 2 Gimbal ($138), and the FilmicPro app ($15) on my iPhone Xs. Minus the cost of my phone, which I already had, our budget totaled out to $336. The Gimbal was defective, actually, and kept giving me trouble, so I ended up returning it for a full refund after we wrapped shooting, so the budget was even lower than that.
Here’s a photo of me Andrew took while he was sprawled across a duct tape pentagram, mostly naked:
After Andrew and I finished editing the short film several months later (life got in the way), we submitted it to several fests, and then…the world ended. Some fests continued virtually, some cancelled altogether. Either way, none of the places we submitted to decided to use the film, which is why we decided to say fuck it and release it ourselves via YouTube. Here’s the very fun poster Lori Michelle made for the festival submissions:
At this point, there’s really no reason to keep it a secret or anything. I desperately miss hanging out with the people who helped me make this short film, and rewatching it again lately was a nice way to spend 15 minutes. We had been in the process of mapping out a new short film to make just before COVID hit, so hopefully sometime next year when things start to calm down, we can get back on the short film train, because goddammit this was a total blast.
So here ya go. Here’s “Satan His Own Self” for your enjoyment. If you like it, please give it a thumbs-up thing on YouTube, maybe subscribe to my channel, and–hell–why not give it a share on your own social media accounts? Tag me on Twitter @GiveMeYourTeeth.
“Satan His Own Self” Written & Directed by Max Booth III
Edited by Andrew Hilbert & Max Booth III
Boom Operator – Miguel Villa
“The Bartender” – Andrew Hilbert
“Satan’s BFF” – Trey Hudson
“War on the Colorado” performed by Jack and the Hacks
