Oct 1, 2026 · 45 min · 13 segments
If you’re reading this, you already understand the power our favorite stories hold over us. Most of us can think back to a challenging time in our lives and point to at least one book that saved us…
Jonathan Edward DurhamGuestBrian FinnertyHostI mean, especially with like any kind of genre fiction or movies, you know, with whether you're talking about fantasy or sci-fi or horror, you know, we... there's so many tropes in these kinds of stories that it's, it's really easy to kind of take the, take the simple road and just write, you know, if you're doing horror, just, you know, a slasher in the woods with an ax and a bunch of weds in the cabin.
What, what really makes it interesting is just subverting these tropes and finding really unique ways to, to still tell a horror story, but, but to do it in a way that hasn't been done before.
And to that, like, along those same lines, I like to write stories that surprise me too.
Like, you know, writing something as long form as a book is, uh, is, you know, give or take something you spend, I don't know, a year of your life on, you know, um, you spend a lot of time doing it and you've spent a lot of time living that story and you read it a hundred times.
And so for me, like I have to, I have to write something that's going to be interesting enough for me to be able to do that, to spend that much time with it and to read it over and over and over and over again.
And, you know, if I don't, then I just, I'll never be able to get through that process.
So, so like, for me, I need to pick a story that, that is a little different and that's going to surprise even me just to be able to survive, you know, that process.
Especially when you're republishing it, because then I imagine you have to double it.
And like, it's funny, man, you know, four or five or however many years it was later, you know, reading back over it and just being like, oh, I would have done this a little differently.
You know, like every time, I think every time anybody reads their old stuff, you know, you're a different, you're a different writer, you're a different person than you were at the time.
So it's like interesting from like a time capsule perspective to look at that and just kind of remember what you were feeling at the time, what you were going through, but also just be like, oh, this is, this is not quite the same way I would have done it.
So it was an interesting thing going back and kind of re-editing the old book.
It was tough because, you know, this is a very important book to a lot of people.
So we were very careful not to change any, really any of the content at all because I was like, I don't want to, changed it's not my book anymore you know what i mean and i don't really feel right changing that but we did some sort of light linguistic editing um there was some stuff that i you know it's like well i think i need to clean this up a little bit and that was kind of it and then uh oh since well since you read the the og version that has kind of the bits and pieces of the book within the book yeah there it is right there listeners
So the other cool thing that I did was I also wanted to do something for all the people that had already read it.
I mean, especially with like any kind of genre fiction or movies, you know, with whether you're talking about fantasy or sci-fi or horror, you know, we... there's so many tropes in these kinds of stories that it's, it's really easy to kind of take the, take the simple road and just write, you know, if you're doing horror, just, you know, a slasher in the woods with an ax and a bunch of weds in the cabin.
What, what really makes it interesting is just subverting these tropes and finding really unique ways to, to still tell a horror story, but, but to do it in a way that hasn't been done before.
And to that, like, along those same lines, I like to write stories that surprise me too.
Like, you know, writing something as long form as a book is, uh, is, you know, give or take something you spend, I don't know, a year of your life on, you know, um, you spend a lot of time doing it and you've spent a lot of time living that story and you read it a hundred times.
And so for me, like I have to, I have to write something that's going to be interesting enough for me to be able to do that, to spend that much time with it and to read it over and over and over and over again.
And, you know, if I don't, then I just, I'll never be able to get through that process.
So, so like, for me, I need to pick a story that, that is a little different and that's going to surprise even me just to be able to survive, you know, that process.
Especially when you're republishing it, because then I imagine you have to double it.
And like, it's funny, man, you know, four or five or however many years it was later, you know, reading back over it and just being like, oh, I would have done this a little differently.
You know, like every time, I think every time anybody reads their old stuff, you know, you're a different, you're a different writer, you're a different person than you were at the time.
So it's like interesting from like a time capsule perspective to look at that and just kind of remember what you were feeling at the time, what you were going through, but also just be like, oh, this is, this is not quite the same way I would have done it.
So it was an interesting thing going back and kind of re-editing the old book.
It was tough because, you know, this is a very important book to a lot of people.
So we were very careful not to change any, really any of the content at all because I was like, I don't want to, changed it's not my book anymore you know what i mean and i don't really feel right changing that but we did some sort of light linguistic editing um there was some stuff that i you know it's like well i think i need to clean this up a little bit and that was kind of it and then uh oh since well since you read the the og version that has kind of the bits and pieces of the book within the book yeah there it is right there listeners
So the other cool thing that I did was I also wanted to do something for all the people that had already read it.
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