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.

You can listen to it by clicking HERE.

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:

Here’s Deadline’s write-up about the complete 2021 lineup, and here’s Rue Morgue’s focus on Tribeca’s Midnight genre slot (which is the slot WNTDS is in).

More news when I’m allowed to talk about it. Until then, you can buy a signed copy of the novella directly through my webstore.

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 got you now.