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An Artist Is Someone Who Finishes with JOSH MALERMAN

An Artist Is Someone Who Finishes with JOSH MALERMAN

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 What if the most important thing you ever do as a writer is something nobody else ever sees? Josh Malerman has 33 rough drafts sitting in a crate behind his desk. Nine are out in the world. The rest — finished novels, written and set aside — are what he considers the real work. Not the Netflix deal. Not the New York Times list. The crate.Josh Malerman is the author of Bird Box, Mallory, Goblin, Unburied Carol, and dozens more. His breakthrough novel was adapted into a Netflix feature starring Sandra Bullock, and he's racked up Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award nominations along the way. He's also one half of the songwriting duo behind Detroit rock band The High Strung, whose song The Luck You Got serves as the theme for Showtime's Shameless.In this conversation — originally recorded for Dan's earlier show and still one of the most resonant interviews in his nine years of podcasting — Josh talks about what it actually means to be an artist, why finishing is everything, how he wrote Bird Box in 26 days and Unburied Carol in 15, and why your body of work represents you far better than any single book ever could.💀 What we get into:Why an artist is simply someone who finishes — and what it took Josh a decade to understand thatThe two-novel trick that finally broke Josh's finishing problem and produced his first completed manuscriptWriting 91,000 words by hand in 28 days, in an all-night coffee shop outside Detroit in DecemberWhy Bird Box felt like his "flattest" novel — and what that tells us about the relationship between breakthrough work and personalityThe case for 500 words a day — and the maths that makes it genuinely staggering over 10 monthsHow Josh wrote his 1,100-page novel Ghoul in the Cape at 1,000 words a day and why slowing down was the only way through"No V's in art" — why Josh refuses to let external success validate his work, and what that looks like in practiceWhy he gave away 60 free hardcovers of Bird Box at StokerCon — and why he thinks that was one of the best decisions he ever madeThe canon over the single work — why your body of work represents you in ways no individual book canWhat it was like to meet Sandra Bullock on set, under the lights, in full costumeLinks & Resources:Josh Malerman's website: joshmalerman.comCarpenter's Farm (free novel): joshmalerman.comBird Box (novel): available wherever books are soldMallory (sequel to Bird Box): available wherever books are soldGoblin: available wherever books are soldUnburied Carol: available wherever books are soldBlack Mad Wheel: available wherever books are soldThe High Strung (band): @thehighstrungThe Luck You Got — theme from Showtime's ShamelessThis Is Horror Podcast (Bird Box/Mallory deep-dive with Michael David Wilson): thisishorror.co.ukThe Creative Pen Podcast with Joanna Penn (Dan's guest appearance): thecreativepenn.comSubscribe to The Writer's ChairIf you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow horror fan or writer.📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@devilsrockbooks 🎧 Listen on your favourite app: https://pod.link/1829723468 💬 Join the community: https://www.devilsrockbooks.com/podcast📚 About Josh MalermanJosh Malerman is a New York Times bestselling horror author best known for Bird Box, which was adapted into a Netflix feature film starring Sandra Bullock and John Malkovich. He's written over 30 novels — nine of which are out in the world — spanning cosmic dread, psychological horror, and deeply strange fiction that resists easy genre classification. His work has been nominated for the Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and James Herbert Awards. He's also a working musician: one half of the songwriting duo behind Detroit rock band The High Strung, whose music appears in Shameless. He writes prolifically, finishes everything, and keeps the rest in a crate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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