Mentally Oddcast Transcript: Author Sheldon Higdon
Find an audio version of this podcast here.
Find more from Sheldon Higdon here.
00:00:01.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesday Lee Friday, and we are brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror magazine. Do find us on Ko-Fi, that's K-O-F-I, Sometimes Hilarious Horror.
00:00:15.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
This week, we are speaking with Sheldon Higdon, and he is an award-winning author and screenwriter whose fiction has appeared in Rue Morgue, The Horror Library, Volume 8, Tales from the Lake, Volume 4, and more. He holds an MFA from Seton Hill University and is a member of the Horror Writers Association.
00:00:34.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
His debut novel, Eerie Brothers and the Witches of Autumn, was released in 2023. And his latest, Dark Roots, is coming next month. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA. Welcome, Sheldon.
00:00:50.24
Sheldon Higdon
Hey, how you doing?
00:00:51.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
If I hadn't stumbled your name, that would have been a great intro. um Thank you so much for being here.
00:00:55.10
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, that's all right. Thank you for having me
00:00:59.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
It is our pleasure, and I am pretty excited to get my hands on your new book. We're going to be talking about that in a bit, but we always start by asking guests to tell us the story of the first horror movie that they remember seeing, and I am excited to hear yours.
00:01:15.84
Sheldon Higdon
me. For me, it's, man, it's,
00:01:21.62
Sheldon Higdon
There's so many answers to this for various reasons. um And a few do pop in my mind. And one is um being, ah want to say and five, six, seven years old, probably even probably around six, maybe um watching 1963 science fiction horror film called The Crawling Hand, um black and white film with my mom.
00:01:48.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice, nice.
00:01:51.40
Sheldon Higdon
uh, in the dark on the couch. Um, uh, and then her every now and then, you know, sneaking her in hand around my backside and, you know, running her fingers up my back or something.
00:02:03.47
Sheldon Higdon
Um, you know, so trying to scare me and spook me and stuff like that. But yeah, that one comes to mind quite often. Um, as you know, as a really early film and then,
00:02:15.51
Sheldon Higdon
um You know, i another one that always pops up too when I was 12 or so when Nightmare on Elm Street came out, the original back in, what, 84, think. um You know, that one always pops into mind too because I was by myself seeing an R-rated film.
00:02:34.41
Sheldon Higdon
By myself in the in the theater too.
00:02:34.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh,
00:02:36.44
Sheldon Higdon
There was nobody else there. And so I got to watch it for free because I knew the owner. And he let me in. He's like, hey, you want to come in and watch this movie? I'm like, okay.
00:02:45.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah neat.
00:02:46.17
Sheldon Higdon
so yeah so that was it's the one that always pops up too but yeah the earliest would be the crawling hand
00:02:53.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
It sounds like you were seeking out horror from a young age.
00:02:56.77
Sheldon Higdon
um yeah yeah um i i it's weird um because when i was born and i've told a story other times too but i was pronounced dead three times when i was a baby when i was born um
00:03:11.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:03:12.03
Sheldon Higdon
You know I had a hole in my heart I had collapsed lungs. I i was like I said, I was pronounced dead three times. And to the point where a couple that my mom didn't even know came into her room and said they would adopt me on the spot to save her the heartache of me passing away.
00:03:31.67
Sheldon Higdon
um And so i tend to, you know, over the years, I've tend to come to realization that I think I was just born from horror.
00:03:42.89
Sheldon Higdon
Um, it's just part of my makeup, part of who I am. And it's probably why, um everything I write has a darkness to it. And so if I were to write a children's board book about rainbows, at some point the rainbow would just be gray.
00:04:01.59
Sheldon Higdon
Um, so i it's just, it's just something that's innate. So, um, it doesn't surprise me that that's a part of me what I do. But also, my mom was also loved horror.
00:04:14.77
Sheldon Higdon
She loved King. um She was a prankster, so she would always try to do scary things. um And so she gave me a lot of things as a kid, you know, all her King books and then, you know, Poe.
00:04:30.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Do you remember which one you read first?
00:04:33.60
Sheldon Higdon
sha she gave me a She gave me a lot, but the the one I read first, I think I was 12. twelve I think it was 12, was when Pet Sematary came out. um And I read that one first.
00:04:48.34
Sheldon Higdon
And then I went back and read the paperbacks of Carrie and The Shining and whatnot that she had given me.
00:04:56.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice. Nice. did Did you have a favorite as a kid?
00:05:02.33
Sheldon Higdon
to this... It's funny because all my, you know, like the film question, a lot of it comes to just a moment that stuck with me. And that book, along with misery, needful things tend to be my favorites because I remember reading them so young.
00:05:19.22
Sheldon Higdon
And so they've stayed with me and made an impression on me. um
00:05:23.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sure.
00:05:24.43
Sheldon Higdon
You know what i mean? So, but, you know, so it's,
00:05:26.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, totally.
00:05:30.75
Sheldon Higdon
You know, it's just, that's just how it works with me. So yeah, misery and needful things, pet cemetery, you know, it's what the mid eighties probably stuff, I guess.
00:05:40.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, that's my sweet spot too with Stephen King. I think, well, Night Shift and Skeleton Crew both. I just read them over and over until they fell apart.
00:05:47.40
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:05:50.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I think if you are a horror writer, those books are very much a primer on ah how to choose a point of view, how to parse information to the reader in a way that makes it the most impactful, you know, like that sort of thing.
00:05:50.11
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:05:58.91
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:06:04.24
Sheldon Higdon
especially it, especially when you you read it, you know, it has so many various characters that you're always jumping, you know, from POV to POV.
00:06:06.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then...
00:06:13.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and even Carrie, like the different points of view and like how one is is scholarly and one is sort of, you know, and one is the Sue Snell book and and the perspectives just being so different.
00:06:15.78
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:06:27.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's something I've i've tried hard to ah focus on in my own writing. Is that something like, what do what do you are your king takeaways that you utilize in your own work?
00:06:33.08
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:06:38.89
Sheldon Higdon
Um, what the the thing that I've come away with most, especially as I've gotten, um more into writing over the years was I won't always want to start start with structure.
00:06:50.53
Sheldon Higdon
you know, how am I going to tell the story the best way? and then therefore that helps me choose the point of view too, as well, besides just going with your main character, obviously, but you know, um, with, for instance, with the Erie brothers, i have twin brothers.
00:07:06.41
Sheldon Higdon
Um, and so I'm, you know, before I started, I'm like, well, am I going to just tell it from one point of view the whole way through? And then he's going to let us in on the other brother, or am I going to, you know, go back and forth, which is what I did because I figured, well, let's get both of them involved.
00:07:21.18
Sheldon Higdon
Um, but and when I eventually write this, well, when I start the second book here, um, I'm going to start adding, um,
00:07:21.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
hu Definitely.
00:07:30.44
Sheldon Higdon
points of views from other characters too, I think, you know here and there, just to sort of expand that a little bit.
00:07:38.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool.
00:07:38.89
Sheldon Higdon
But yeah, structure, point of view, you know those are always things that I took from his writing and stuff.
00:07:46.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool. um so So I'm wondering, who is a lesser known horror writer that you find especially inspiring? Because everybody talks about King. We all love King. We all have feelings about it.
00:07:59.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
who Who else has inspired you?
00:08:02.49
Sheldon Higdon
um Today, it's it's weird because today I, you know, when i go to the bookstore, I'm usually, um for the most part, I'm trying to catch up on back catalog, you know, books from authors that I like that I don't have that been meaning to buy.
00:08:16.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
h
00:08:18.22
Sheldon Higdon
So it's rare for me to go in there and just pick up something from somebody I've never heard of.
00:08:24.65
Sheldon Higdon
You know, unless I see a cover that looks really cool or something. But yeah, I mean, one One writer that I think um she's she's getting out there, and she is out there, I'd say, is Angela Sylvain.
00:08:41.06
Sheldon Higdon
She wrote a book called Frostbite, which is like a young adult book. um
00:08:46.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay
00:08:47.21
Sheldon Higdon
she's she's That's a really great book, a really cool book, really cool idea as well. um So, you know, I would say her, you know, and Again, another writer's, it's probably so many people know, but you know, another writer I like a lot is Victor, like Victor Lavelle.
00:09:08.80
Sheldon Higdon
Um, he wrote, um, the changeling and he's, I think they became a series for Apple TV. If I'm correct, I could be wrong, but I think that's, I think that's the one that became an Apple TV series.
00:09:18.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:09:23.90
Sheldon Higdon
Um, the ballad of Tom black hero, which is a really great, uh, A novel, but almost novella, you know, cosmic horror kind of thing. So it's really cool.
00:09:36.47
Sheldon Higdon
um But I also, like I said, you know, Gabino Iglesias, um he's a really awesome writer. um These are probably people people know, but they're the ones I tend to look more for their work a lot.
00:09:49.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I find that like people that I am Facebook friends with, like you know you network with so many writers, and then it just feels like you have no time because there are so many cool people that you feel like you would really connect with, and you want to get in there and read their work.
00:10:01.23
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:10:07.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I mean, I don't have time to read three books a day. i don't think most of us do.
00:10:13.71
Sheldon Higdon
No, I mean, you know, I used to be able to read, you know, two books a week. And now it's, you know, if I can get one book, you know, within a couple weeks, I'm, you know, I clap, I clap for my, you know, I'm like proud of myself.
00:10:23.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right? Yeah.
00:10:27.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, I hear that.
00:10:27.77
Sheldon Higdon
But ah one book um that early on, you know, besides King, because had an aunt who was a librarian in the town I grew up in. And so I would always go to library and ask her what's new, you know, what, what's what, you know, who should I read? What should I read?
00:10:43.91
Sheldon Higdon
And so she'd always help me find horror stuff. And then there was a book called The Crooked Tree by, I think it's, if I remember correctly, Robert, Robert Wilson, Robert C. Wilson.
00:10:56.85
Sheldon Higdon
um It was like Native American history and stuff blended with horror and shape-shifting and stuff. And so that book has always stuck with me as an early one. That came out in 1980. so I was about nine or so when I read that one.
00:11:12.29
Sheldon Higdon
But it's always stuck with me just because even then i was i know I loved Native American history and and stuff like that.
00:11:12.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
and Okay.
00:11:19.91
Sheldon Higdon
So she knew she and knew i would like it. Therefore, it's stuck with me.
00:11:25.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, cool. So listen, I am aware that you live with what you refer to as recurrent major depressive disorder.
00:11:37.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I want to get into that starting with your initial diagnosis. How old were you?
00:11:43.21
Sheldon Higdon
Um, in my late thirties, I don't remember exactly what age, but it was in my late thirties, probably 36, 37, somewhere there.
00:11:46.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:11:51.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
So do you think this is something that affected you in childhood and you just didn't have a diagnosis until later?
00:11:59.32
Sheldon Higdon
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Um, even now I've had people who think that, you know, I could have, um, you know, bipolar, you know, which you know If I do my own WebMD stuff, i don't I'm like, well, it doesn't say I have this, this, this, and this. so you know But you know you know I've never gotten sort of checked out for that. And even my primary care says, I don't think that's what you know you have.
00:12:27.27
Sheldon Higdon
But um yeah, as a as a kid, I didn't have support at all. oh like you know I was a Lashky kid, so it was me and my mom. And so I was home a lot, basically,
00:12:40.84
Sheldon Higdon
you know, making my own, you know, TV dinners, pot pies, things like that, you know, pizza rolls.
00:12:45.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:12:47.04
Sheldon Higdon
um You know, she was, you know, cool because she'd bring, you know, give me all these VHS tapes, these horror films on VHS tapes and, and kung fu movies and stuff and stuff. But then it was just me. I had to get myself up for school.
00:13:01.11
Sheldon Higdon
you know, come home, I had a key, I had to carry around in my, I was stuck in my sock and my shoe. it was at the bottom of my foot. So I had it when I got home, had to take off my shoe, get my key out. You know, and sometimes it'd be broken in half somehow, I guess the heat of my foot or something, which somehow broke.
00:13:17.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
00:13:18.58
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, it was twice that happened.
00:13:19.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, see, I was a girl, so I wore my key on a piece of yarn around my neck.
00:13:19.86
Sheldon Higdon
it was in two pieces.
00:13:24.85
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, well, yeah, no,
00:13:25.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Then every so often the yarn would break and it would be all out panic because there'd be a missing house key.
00:13:29.04
Sheldon Higdon
yeah. Which is why I never kept in my pocket because I was afraid you I would pull out something out of my pocket it pop out and I want a note it or something. um So, yeah. So, you know, so therefore I didn't have, you you know, she wasn't really there for me to go to because she was doing whatever, her own thing.
00:13:51.03
Sheldon Higdon
um And, yeah.
00:13:52.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and when you're depressed, you don't, you're, I mean, depressed people are less likely to reach out for help because it doesn't seem like it's worth it.
00:13:58.85
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:14:02.44
Sheldon Higdon
No, and...
00:14:02.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I would imagine if you have a busy single mom, you kind of feel like you don't want to bother with that sort of, you know, like there's so much else going on in your kid life that talking about feeling sad just doesn't always seem to be of the essence.
00:14:19.39
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, and I just didn't, you know, think even then, you know, I was like, well, what she going to do? you but You know, what can you do?
00:14:31.07
Sheldon Higdon
And so i I just never told her anyways, because then I knew would come to you know a long discussion. like god
00:14:39.53
Sheldon Higdon
And so I just sort of did the best I could with and what whatever it was at that time. I knew I was depressed, but obviously I didn't have a name for it or or anything anything like that. But, you know, so I took all that and put it into being a class clown at school, know being a funny guy.
00:15:01.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:15:02.61
Sheldon Higdon
um Plus, I was an only child, so I didn't have brothers or sisters.
00:15:02.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
ye
00:15:06.74
Sheldon Higdon
um And so, you know or then I started writing. And then I would use my imagination to fill in some of the blanks. OK, I don't have a brother or sister, so let's write a story ah and where a character has a big family. you know Let's write a story where the character has a father in the picture too.
00:15:27.84
Sheldon Higdon
um So that was sort of the way I could deal with it. um You know, and then there was times where if I couldn't deal with it, I would just go in my closet and shut the closet and I would sit in the dark in my closet and just sit there until, you know, whenever I felt the need to come out.
00:15:50.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:15:50.40
Sheldon Higdon
And so, um you know, and then even today, like if I'm depressed and I do get depressed quite often, um
00:16:01.80
Sheldon Higdon
I usually will revert to myself. I'll pull away from people. I'll, you know, not be the jovial person I usually am or silly or whatever you want to be.
00:16:13.30
Sheldon Higdon
um ah just sort of find it easier to be on my own, I guess. and and that And that's the other thing. um I'm fine with being alone.
00:16:29.52
Sheldon Higdon
You know, oftentimes I prefer that. Um, there's times where, you know, it's like, man, if I had an an island and i had a cabin, I'd be fine. can be set. Um, you know, but, you know, and then I come out the other side and then I'm back to, you know, being a silly goose and whatnot and, and, uh, you know, making people laugh and stuff, you know, so it's almost a duality, you know, there's one, this version of me and then there's other version of me, but when I do get depressed, I try to, I try the best I can to deal with it.
00:17:01.91
Sheldon Higdon
know I don't always win, but most of the time I do.
00:17:07.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it sounds like you're not ah having any ongoing therapy. Are you taking any meds?
00:17:12.93
Sheldon Higdon
No. yeah um I was on Cymbalta and some balta and it It wasn't, I mean, I didn't feel it working.
00:17:24.45
Sheldon Higdon
I even told my doctor and then they gave me something else. But instead of taking that, I just stopped taking it altogether. Like I, Cymbalta, I stopped taking it.
00:17:33.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yikes.
00:17:36.08
Sheldon Higdon
And I can't remember what led to that. I was taking it and then something happened.
00:17:45.43
Sheldon Higdon
I don't think was sick or anything. I just was taking it, stopped taking it for like a few days or three or four days. And whenever I didn't take it, my head would just, there's this, I can't explain it, but my head would do something. And it's almost like your brain's being squeezed.
00:18:01.52
Sheldon Higdon
um
00:18:01.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah, yeah. yeah
00:18:03.23
Sheldon Higdon
I call them a Zoomie. It's like, it's like youre it's really weird. I can't explain it, but I would deal with it. and and you get it throughout the day, you know, because you're not taking your pills. So you get this sort of reaction in your brain And then I would deal with that for a few days on and off, on and off. you And then I just kept going, okay, just pushing another day and another day. And then next thing you know, they started, those reactions started stopping.
00:18:30.89
Sheldon Higdon
And now I don't get them at all. And I haven't taken the any medication in three months, four months. And then the other stuff, they gave me another medication to take, but yeah, you're not supposed to,
00:18:38.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. I'm going be honest, dude. That's that's kind of scary.
00:18:45.69
Sheldon Higdon
You're not supposed to like stop like that.
00:18:46.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, you're not.
00:18:49.06
Sheldon Higdon
um
00:18:49.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
No.
00:18:50.28
Sheldon Higdon
But yeah. So, and the other one she gave me, I just never started taking. I can't remember what it's called. It's a, it's a brand name. It's, you know, something that people have heard of, but I just don't remember the name of it, but I never, i never took it. I never started taking it.
00:19:07.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, um, why though?
00:19:10.69
Sheldon Higdon
Cause I don't feel they made any difference in,
00:19:15.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, no, you have to take them before they make a difference.
00:19:15.73
Sheldon Higdon
Um, well, but I mean, like when I was taking them, it, I felt no different than I do now. Like not even from a thinking standpoint from, you know, um,
00:19:28.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
you do Are you saying when you were taking them regularly, you didn't feel a difference?
00:19:31.66
Sheldon Higdon
yeah yeah. Um, like,
00:19:34.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
And how long did you take them regularly? I'm going get in your face about this, dude.
00:19:37.24
Sheldon Higdon
oh um, um,
00:19:38.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because that's, I mean, obviously I'm not a doctor and it is not incumbent on me to tell you what to do. it's It's like, you know, unsolicited advice is always criticism.
00:19:45.30
Sheldon Higdon
trying think
00:19:47.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
I know that. So I guess I'm criticizing you. But dude, if the doctor thinks you should try it, it, ah I mean, doctors often know what they're talking about.
00:19:58.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Not always, but, but often.
00:19:59.98
Sheldon Higdon
yeah yeah yeah no she knows and i don't take it no more and she's like okay yeah um um
00:20:06.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, I'd be dead without my medication, straight up. I get depressed, I get suicidal, and I have a whole bevy of tricks that I play on myself to make sure that I don't do the insane thing that comes into my mind once every couple of years.
00:20:23.79
Sheldon Higdon
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:20:25.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
So...
00:20:25.53
Sheldon Higdon
yeah
00:20:26.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
I find it very concerning that you have major depressive disorder. And i mean, i suppose if you want to like not take medication, that's a choice that a lot of people make, but taking it sporadically, man, this is so dangerous.
00:20:42.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cause honestly, the most dangerous time for a depressed person is when they start taking medication. Like if you start taking an antidepressant, because like, that's a thing.
00:20:54.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, If people are suicidal and then they take an antidepressant, you go from being too depressed to do anything to suddenly being motivated.
00:21:04.80
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:21:04.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
And if you're motivated and suicidal at the same time, terrible things can happen. So with the the back and forth like that, that's like so dangerous.
00:21:14.31
Sheldon Higdon
Well, yeah, well, well, I mean, I haven't, i don't take it like as a needed thing. I don't take it at all. I just stopped taking in general. um And I don't take the other one she prescribed and she knows I don't take them. And she's like, okay, if you, you know, if you don't feel like they're working and you're okay, then I'm like,
00:21:33.59
Sheldon Higdon
She's like, you know, but if you want to talk to somebody.
00:21:34.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, but if it's a different medication, it has, you know, i mean, if you take aspirin for chickenpox, it's not going to make your chickenpox go away because that's not what it's for.
00:21:43.53
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:44.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, the I mean, again, I'm not trying to, like, tell you what to do, but I've been through, have bipolar 1. That's my deal. So it's it's a pretty major thing that has wreaked havoc on my life when it was untreated.
00:21:54.28
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:22:00.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
And when it was improperly treated, because, you know, getting the wrong medication can also be extremely damaging. But i would I would encourage you to to try it out and see if a different medication doesn't help.
00:22:14.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
And maybe it won't, you know, maybe it'll be a big waste of time.
00:22:16.53
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:22:18.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
But finding the right medication, man, it can turn your whole life around.
00:22:18.53
Sheldon Higdon
Because I've been on... um
00:22:24.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
if If your life is in need of around turning.
00:22:24.29
Sheldon Higdon
Well, I started on... yeah well, ah they I was prescribed Paxil when I was 30. And that didn't work. And then they put me on Effexor, which...
00:22:43.49
Sheldon Higdon
was horrible and it took me ah good year and a half to even get off of that when an when but they wanted me to get off of it. i had to had to wean myself off of it and I used to have to open the pills and dump some of the little things out in order to get off of it. So it took a year and a half.
00:23:01.31
Sheldon Higdon
And that's what the even the doctors told me. Just open it and take a little. Okay. But yeah, that one was really bad. And then I didn't take anything for years until you know, three years ago when they prescribed Cymbalta.
00:23:18.73
Sheldon Higdon
Um, and then, you know, that's not doing anything. And so I'm like, okay. Um, cause I've taken so many pills at this point. It's like, I, I, you know, I just prefer even not to even take it if that's the case. But, um, but I, you know, my, when I have episodes of depression, it's no different than when I have it, when I'm on the pill.
00:23:42.20
Sheldon Higdon
Um, it's It's... When I was younger, i was um more prone to suicidal thoughts. Now, um um it's rare for me to think that way.
00:23:57.91
Sheldon Higdon
Because I have too much going on. you know I have kids. So the last thing I'm going to do is some something like that. so you know So I'm glad that I don't have those...
00:24:12.93
Sheldon Higdon
those thoughts like I did when i younger. When I was younger, that's, that's what scared me the most was was those kinds of thoughts.
00:24:17.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, sure. Sure. Well, man, I gotta tell ya, raw dogging major depressive disorder, that that's a bold move. I don't think I could do it. In fact, I'm quite sure I could not do it.
00:24:29.18
Sheldon Higdon
No, I wouldn't suggest, i I wouldn't suggest anybody to do it, but that's just, you know, that's just what I did. And it wasn't, like I said, it wasn't by choice.
00:24:37.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
So...
00:24:39.09
Sheldon Higdon
It was something that um I just wasn't taking it for like a good week for some reason. And thought, okay, well this, you know, this, we already talked about this not working anyways. I'm also just keep going. And so I did. And then here I am.
00:24:55.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, ah, what, so what, what is your current support so structure? Like, like, how what, what are the things that you do when you can't do it all yourself? What happens then?
00:25:11.55
Sheldon Higdon
Um,
00:25:19.23
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, I don't, my support structure now is just, you know, it's just, it's really just me being,
00:25:35.57
Sheldon Higdon
you know, sort of, i'm more aware of myself and of my actions and of my, you know,
00:25:47.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:25:48.43
Sheldon Higdon
thinking. you know I just...
00:25:48.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I get that. That's a huge part of it.
00:25:49.67
Sheldon Higdon
i'm um Yeah.
00:25:51.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
Just understanding what's going on.
00:25:53.43
Sheldon Higdon
yeah I try to... ah For the past several years, I've been really working on trying to pay attention to the now and to what's currently in the moment. And I do that with thinking.
00:26:05.75
Sheldon Higdon
And I'm not... you know i Obviously, I'm not great at it because you know I still make mistakes in every other facet of my life. Yeah.
00:26:14.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
There we are.
00:26:16.50
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. But i I am more aware of myself, if that makes sense. And so.
00:26:23.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, no, it totally does.
00:26:24.53
Sheldon Higdon
home
00:26:25.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
It totally does. Just recognizing, like, when it's coming. Like, when the depression is coming.
00:26:32.01
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:26:32.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because I know I have times where I'm like, wow, I better get this shit done. Because I am sure that tomorrow I'm not going to want to do anything. ah
00:26:40.59
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:26:40.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because I'm feeling that cloud.
00:26:40.87
Sheldon Higdon
and And then I and when I know when I know I'm going I'm going there, then I try to. you know figure out what what triggered it.
00:26:52.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:26:53.59
Sheldon Higdon
And you know i try to get a feel for, OK, what do I need to do you in this moment? Or what do I need to do for tomorrow?
00:27:07.20
Sheldon Higdon
And then I usually wo just write. um writing is for me is sort of, it's it's for a lot of writers, it's therapeutic, but it literally it literally is therapeutic for me because then I'm doing something I enjoy, but then i can take whatever I'm feeling and put it into the words and onto the paper.
00:27:19.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:27:35.31
Sheldon Higdon
Even if it comes out to be nothing, i can i can just delete it and throw it away. You know, I feel a lot of times And I've said this to people online, you know, people are upset about something.
00:27:47.41
Sheldon Higdon
I'm like, so write it down, get it out of your your system, write it down on paper, and then then burn the paper.
00:27:51.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:27:54.86
Sheldon Higdon
Throw it away, you know.
00:27:54.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and it's interesting because that process, the process of writing something down, getting everything off your chest, and then destroying the thing, that appears throughout history, okay? That is has been ritualized since, like, ancient Greeks.
00:28:11.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's part of, like, neopaganism. And now psychiatrists have been using it since, I don't know, the 40s or 50s, like when they moved on from the alienist theory. That is such a powerful thing.
00:28:24.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
The symbolism of it, the act of doing it, the fact that it involves, like if you swing that way, elemental magic, you know, it's it's a whole thing.
00:28:32.37
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:28:33.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:28:34.80
Sheldon Higdon
Well, I mean, if you, I mean, the way I look at it is if you could, if you can take a thought, an idea, put it in the paper, on the paper,
00:28:48.24
Sheldon Higdon
and then it's published, you've turned something that went from something that was just in thin air and made it something that people can literally touch, and then they can absorb that same thing.
00:29:00.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep.
00:29:01.09
Sheldon Higdon
A book, you know, and so it's the same thing.
00:29:01.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
00:29:03.53
Sheldon Higdon
If you if you can take that energy and that depression or whatever it is even if it's joy or you know, it could be anything, but you put it in the paper, you're taking it from nothingness almost.
00:29:15.58
Sheldon Higdon
It's, and then you're put it into physical form and then you're destroying it in some way whether you're deleting it whether you're burning it or whatever but you're still you're taking that that thing and you're turning it reality and then you're getting rid of it you know so it's sort of almost the opposite i guess if if you will from creating an idea to turning it into a book you know from nothing to something to something to nothing
00:29:47.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
That is so interesting. And I will tell you that it's, I mean, because when you say that, it's it sounds like the end result is that you have taken your depression and used it to ah enhance and improve your your productivity as a writer.
00:30:07.06
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:30:07.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
And
00:30:08.82
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. I mean, it's I mean, it's part of who I am. So I could either fight it constantly and probably lose half the time um or stand next to it and then use it to my ability turning into, and don't want to say a weapon, but a weapon, if you will, a tool that,
00:30:32.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
A tool, yeah.
00:30:34.16
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, turning it into a tool where it helps me in something that I'm doing. So in that in this case, writing.
00:30:44.65
Sheldon Higdon
You know, it's the same. You know, when I write, I listen to music. So I'm either listening to like Slayer, you know. and and and And it's weird because if i if I go to a coffee shop and write, I can write, but I can't super focus because i don't.
00:31:01.25
Sheldon Higdon
because there's too many people around and then the tinkling and then just the murmuring.
00:31:03.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't know how people do that. That seems insane to me, to go to a place where there's more noise and more people to to write something.
00:31:09.59
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:31:10.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't get it.
00:31:11.83
Sheldon Higdon
But I can't write in that environment, but I can come home, at my desk, throw in my earbuds and turn up music really loud in my ears. And then, and then not hear the music, but it's, but it's there.
00:31:19.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Uh-huh.
00:31:23.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep.
00:31:25.78
Sheldon Higdon
But if I'm not listening to Slayer, then I'm listening to,
00:31:27.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, sometimes you catch yourself singing along and you didn't even realize you were listening to it. Like, oh, I guess I am.
00:31:32.81
Sheldon Higdon
Well, and but I'll do that with, you know, soundtracks to films or I'll put on, you know, orchestrated music or something like that, you know, but.
00:31:40.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ooh, I love film soundtracks for writing. What are you listening to right now? What films?
00:31:45.67
Sheldon Higdon
um I was just listening to Weapons the other day.
00:31:49.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, nice. I haven't seen that yet, so don't spoil me.
00:31:52.03
Sheldon Higdon
yeah no no, no, no, I won't. But um so in sometimes times when I. I need to get to a certain place mentally or emotionally, then I will throw on something that will get me there, you know, whether it the type of music, you know,
00:32:10.70
Sheldon Higdon
or song or something that will help me get me there.
00:32:12.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nope.
00:32:12.86
Sheldon Higdon
But then depression does the same thing, you know, if I'm if I'm in that kind of mode, that then I use that as a tool to get me to that place in the story two You know, um if the if a character is having a sad or a really bad moment, then i can put that into them. And hopefully will come off the page that much more honest to the reader because it's coming from a real place.
00:32:38.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
See, that is so interesting and impressive... Particularly because like depression has... I mean, it's the reputation of depression is that it keeps people from getting shit done.
00:32:52.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know? That it it slows everything down.
00:32:53.07
Sheldon Higdon
Mm-hmm.
00:32:55.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
So to hear someone who is able to take that and use it to their advantage to get things done, that is just mind-blowing. And it's crazy because last a couple weeks ago, we had Scott Sigler on. and And he has attention deficit disorder.
00:33:12.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he was talking about how he uses that to increase focus and how he's able to kind of turn around the stereotypes exactly how what you were saying, you know, to just take it and use it to your advantage and just finding ways to to do that.
00:33:26.82
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:33:28.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I love that. I just love it.
00:33:30.70
Sheldon Higdon
Well, and if you and if you can do that, and I'm not saying I'm a professional at it, that's for sure, but If you can do that, then to some degree, I'm not going to say you are, but to some degree, you're youre in control of it to some degree.
00:33:50.35
Sheldon Higdon
You're not 100% control of it, obviously, because you never will be. But at least, in yeah.
00:33:54.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, no, I mean, there's there's facets to it, and there are facets that are within your control.
00:33:59.40
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, but in that moment, you are in control of it because you're using to you're using it to your advantage. it's not It's not owning you at that moment. You're owning it.
00:34:09.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right on.
00:34:11.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right on. So, you know, I want to talk about your first book, because I was checking out the reviews for your first book, and they are excellent. And you did something that I do not know that I have done,
00:34:23.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah you impress librarians and it and librarians are inspired to recommend your book. That must have felt awesome.
00:34:33.26
Sheldon Higdon
Well, there's, when it comes to writing specifically, if you're going to write middle grade or even young adult in, in general, anything you write, whether it's those are an adult novel or that, but I think specifically towards middle grade, the, the two best people, um, kind of people you can have in your corner are librarians and teachers.
00:34:54.78
Sheldon Higdon
Um, and so those were, um, obviously besides just readers in general, those, um,
00:34:55.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:35:03.80
Sheldon Higdon
groups of people were the ones that I wanted to, you know, make sure I could be a part of from the get go because, you know, I'm writing a book that they deal with those age groups daily.
00:35:19.67
Sheldon Higdon
And so therefore, whenever I went to, and went around and did speaking engagements, I went to, I've done more than a dozen middle grade schools in Ohio.
00:35:32.72
Sheldon Higdon
here in Pennsylvania.
00:35:33.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh
00:35:33.48
Sheldon Higdon
they know I've done them online for virtual visits. um And so, but whenever I do them in person, I bring copies of my book. i Obviously, I can't bring and enough for everybody, but I'll bring you know a dozen, and then I just give them to the kids.
00:35:50.28
Sheldon Higdon
The first ones raise their hand. Here you here go, here you go. And then I give one to the library. um and know And so that way,
00:35:58.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Awesome.
00:36:00.81
Sheldon Higdon
kids can have books that when that book came out when the the the original publisher of it um you know the price was 10.99 and and i didn't want the price to be any more because i wanted i wanted kids to be able to afford to buy it and i wanted parents to be able to afford to buy it and i didn't want to sell it for you know 20 25 bucks you know i wanted it and so 11 i thought okay that works you know that's what they came back with me for so
00:36:25.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, I'm trying to remember the cover art because I saw a version of your first book that had just spectacular cover art and I wanted to ask you about the artist, but now I don't have it in front of me.
00:36:38.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
What can you tell me about it?
00:36:40.39
Sheldon Higdon
ah Yeah, it has to sort of two boys being chased by scarecrows.
00:36:45.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:36:45.82
Sheldon Higdon
um um Yeah, the artist is a ah paris Parisian artist um named Florian Garbe. um And he did that cover work, which everybody loves and I find amazing.
00:36:59.94
Sheldon Higdon
um And so now the book's going to
00:37:01.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, is that edition still available? Can I get that?
00:37:05.02
Sheldon Higdon
No, no, no. since Since the book is now with a new publisher, Crystal Lake Publishing,
00:37:07.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
da
00:37:10.67
Sheldon Higdon
um they have everything. you know It's all been given to them, switched over, if you will. So the original publisher took down that book from Amazon wherever else.
00:37:25.31
Sheldon Higdon
So you can't order it. um And so I'm not... We haven't gotten to the point yet about the covers and that for the ah reprint of that book, but um I don't know if they're going to reuse the original cover again or what, but we'll find out, I guess, when the time comes.
00:37:44.83
Sheldon Higdon
Um,
00:37:44.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, all my new editions of books i ended up getting new covers. i think I think that's typical because the publisher contracts with the artist like separately, then they then they contract with the writer.
00:37:58.42
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, so, but, no that's the great cover though you know, you have shoes to fill, you know, the to put it gently, I guess.
00:38:10.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right?
00:38:11.36
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, because, I mean, when that book came out, everybody, you know, loved the cover to the to the point where I was like, God, I hope the inside as good as the outside.
00:38:19.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Right.
00:38:21.22
Sheldon Higdon
You know, I was getting nervous. I was like, oh, man, people are...
00:38:23.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, no they judged my book by the cover.
00:38:26.28
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, exactly.
00:38:26.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
How would I live up to it?
00:38:27.04
Sheldon Higdon
But... But thankfully, the inside did lived up to the outside and and had'd got a whole bunch of good reviews on Amazon and stuff. so
00:38:37.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that book is a period piece, right? When is it set?
00:38:41.31
Sheldon Higdon
um it's not It's a contemporary fantasy novel. It takes place today, you know current times, but they do...
00:38:47.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
is Is it the new one that's a period piece?
00:38:50.88
Sheldon Higdon
No, but no, no, no.
00:38:53.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, I would swear.
00:38:53.34
Sheldon Higdon
In Erie Brothers, they they do travel back to Salem of 1692, though.
00:38:58.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:38:59.15
Sheldon Higdon
So that's probably where you're getting that from.
00:38:59.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright. I think that yeah that's that's what I was thinking of. Because like I don't write anything that is not like happening now. you know Because i'm not I'm not super researchy.
00:39:11.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I guess what I'm wondering is how much... How much does it add to the the production time of a book when you have to research another time period? Or are you writing about time periods that you already know pretty well?
00:39:24.27
Sheldon Higdon
Well, yeah, I know a lot about Salem and the witch trials and things of that nature and the witch trials and stuff in Europe and other countries. But, so I didn't really do a whole lot of research and looking things up, but um I mean, every now and then, you know, as you're writing, you go, Oh, you know what?
00:39:44.11
Sheldon Higdon
You know, you stop and and go check something. Okay. You know, you come back and you,
00:39:46.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
and Not like a quick reread of the Malleus Maleficarum.
00:39:50.73
Sheldon Higdon
yeah.
00:39:50.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:39:51.09
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. And so you make a, you know, you make a quick note in your, in your, in your novel to, you know, And so, ah you know, just keep going. But um but that doesn't mean i won't have to do further research for the next three books.
00:40:04.25
Sheldon Higdon
So, you know, we'll see, I guess. But, yeah, and I didn't have to do anything super extensive or anything.
00:40:08.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
and okay
00:40:13.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, so, are and you write, is it all, like, YA, or is that, like, this is an area where, like, this is not my area of expertise, like, the different levels of of age groups.
00:40:18.56
Sheldon Higdon
No.
00:40:24.65
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, I, I ah wrote this one. the idea came to me, the Eerie brothers, that specific title, if you will, came to me.
00:40:38.41
Sheldon Higdon
um I have an, I have a daughter who's 16 and I think she was not even, wait, no, she was about three, three years old.
00:40:50.16
Sheldon Higdon
Um, maybe two. and then I have twins. Hence the Eerie brothers are twins. Um, And when they were babies, I talked to a friend and I, we were talking about, I know i don't know what we were talking about, came up, I mentioned the Erie Brothers. I said, that you know, I said, it'd be my version of the Hardy Boys.
00:41:12.42
Sheldon Higdon
um And then I just sort of held on to that.
00:41:13.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool.
00:41:14.89
Sheldon Higdon
And then I said, oh, well, then that's, that's right. My version of the Hardy Boys. And so the Erie Brothers, I kept it and just ran off with it and and wanting to write something um about twins who had to figure themselves out along with their best friend and whatnot.
00:41:34.49
Sheldon Higdon
And so you know their best friend.
00:41:36.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Did
00:41:37.83
Sheldon Higdon
It's funny because the twins are my twins and know in my head. Their best friend is my oldest daughter in my head. um And so, yeah.
00:41:48.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:41:48.68
Sheldon Higdon
So i didn't itch i didn't i didn't choose to write Middle Grade. I wrote it because it presented itself to me via my kids.
00:41:57.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
I see. That's pretty cool. Oh wait, so that's like Eyes of the Dragon.
00:42:03.64
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:42:04.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Eyes of the Dragon is the the book that Stephen King wrote specifically for his kids.
00:42:08.21
Sheldon Higdon
For his daughter. Yeah, for he dedicated it to his daughter.
00:42:12.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, that's so cute. So wait, so did you read the Hardy Boys books as a kid?
00:42:15.83
Sheldon Higdon
And so, yeah.
00:42:18.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Were you a fan of those?
00:42:20.05
Sheldon Higdon
Um, as a kid, no, but, um, I have like five or six different books that I've already had. And so then when I knew that was sort of what I wanted aim for, which I don't think I really did justice, but, um, um, I, I reread those.
00:42:39.12
Sheldon Higdon
I mean, they're not long and they're really short. I reread those and then, you know, um, I didn't really take much from them because of the writing back then.
00:42:41.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
Great.
00:42:48.23
Sheldon Higdon
Um, just wasn't, you know, super great, I guess you could say. Yeah.
00:42:53.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it was very, I think, I mean, I didn't read Hardy Boys books, but I read all the Nancy Drew and also Trixie Belden.
00:42:59.51
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah,
00:43:00.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
I was very into, you know, the the girls that with the gumption. um And yeah, I think the writing is very simple.
00:43:10.03
Sheldon Higdon
yeah, yeah.
00:43:10.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's, um and it tends to lack emotion, you know, it's, it's very story driven.
00:43:10.51
Sheldon Higdon
yeah
00:43:16.16
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, it's it's very...
00:43:18.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah,
00:43:18.94
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, it's it's kind of sterile in a way.
00:43:22.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah I agree.
00:43:23.09
Sheldon Higdon
You know what I mean? So i read them and then i was like, okay, well, these aren't really going to sort of help me. But I will say ah the series that um if you were to read this series and then come back and read the Erie Brothers and then probably the next the next three books when i when those come out um would be Percy Jackson series.
00:43:47.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:43:48.49
Sheldon Higdon
um Because when I, before I started writing in this book, I, you know, I already had those books and I reread the first one, The Lightning Thief. And the whole book is, I filled it with notes, you know, circling this and and here's what he did here and and you know, and this and that.
00:44:04.95
Sheldon Higdon
And so um that definitely was an inspiration or almost an homage to that too, um to that series.
00:44:15.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. ok
00:44:16.67
Sheldon Higdon
you know I used it as a sort of you know reference. you know Like, OK, he did this and he did that. So I'll do that, but I'm going to do it this way instead. Or or I'm going to turn this this thing he did, I'm going to turn it inside out. you know um
00:44:34.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:44:35.54
Sheldon Higdon
So yeah, that was a big an influence on me for when I was writing this one.
00:44:41.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
So let me ask you this. um Especially given the the younger age of of your readership, um how cognizant of you are the of the messaging when you write a ah long-form story like that?
00:44:56.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Are you trying to put morals and ethics and stuff in it?
00:45:01.08
Sheldon Higdon
no um No, because all that kind of stuff I feel is best left to coming out subconsciously.
00:45:11.80
Sheldon Higdon
Themes, um things like that. um to For me, if if I'm going to try to put a message in there, specifically for, you know, the kids, I want them to, here's what I want them to learn from this. Then it's going to become overbearing, I think, because it's going to be on my mind in the back of my head constantly.
00:45:32.27
Sheldon Higdon
Oh, I better make sure I, you know, I get this point across here. Um, so no, I don't. and And I just think that robs the story too, but your themes or a message or anything like that, it's going to come out subconsciously anyways.
00:45:49.98
Sheldon Higdon
Um, And so for this book, I mean, the message is really are just about family, about, you know, like whenever I would sign the book for kids or in general, I would write the greatest, there's no greater spell than family.
00:46:06.10
Sheldon Higdon
Um, and that's, and that's what the book really is.
00:46:06.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:46:09.75
Sheldon Higdon
It's about discovering themselves, who they are, you know, how they can handle, um what's coming at them, how they handle each other. Cause they are twin brothers who argue, um, and how the deal was death, how to deal with loss and grief, um, depression to some degree, I guess.
00:46:28.56
Sheldon Higdon
Um, and so it's about, you know, all of that, you know, and then going through, turmoil and coming out the other side, even stronger than what you started off as.
00:46:40.49
Sheldon Higdon
So, and it's weird too, because one thing that does, i discovered this, don't know many years ago, 10 years ago, maybe, um, maybe less, but um I don't know.
00:46:51.18
Sheldon Higdon
I was just reading through some of my stories and stuff because i was putting them together for a collection. And ah started noticing, like, huh, yeah, okay. ah But in um quite a bit of my stories and stuff is that there's a missing father figure in a lot of the stories, even in this one.
00:47:11.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:47:13.04
Sheldon Higdon
The Arye brothers, their dad is quote unquote dead. You know, they don't know him. They died when they had their babies. you know I have um another story where a dad, a memory that he keeps reliving over and over is that his dad walked out on him.
00:47:33.62
Sheldon Higdon
And then I have other stories. And in real life, i last time I was physically around my dad, I was three years old. you know And my mom picked up and left him. And so he was never in my life. So I didn't really know him.
00:47:46.28
Sheldon Higdon
So, and then that's something that came out subconsciously in my writing. And I didn't realize that until like quite a few years ago. And I said, oh, see, okay. Yeah.
00:47:57.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Interesting. I'm actually, I'm reminded of Anne Rice because Anne Rice had a child who died. And, uh, you know, when they were, were young, I don't know exactly how old, but they were young.
00:48:12.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then she wrote a vampire book with a little vampire girl who, you know, ostensibly could not die, but then also she died. Uh, spoiler alert.
00:48:21.57
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:48:22.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, and,
00:48:22.94
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:48:23.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I saw an interview once where she was asked about that, about the connection between making a little vampire girl and her own child dying. And she was very offended.
00:48:33.91
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:48:33.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
And she straight up denied that there was a connection. And she seemed pretty shaken for the rest of the interview that someone would say that to her.
00:48:41.15
Sheldon Higdon
She, she's priding it, you know, either. Either that's something that she knew and just didn't want to about it or she just never realized it until then.
00:48:52.02
Sheldon Higdon
You know, so she's like...
00:48:52.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Yeah. And that's,
00:48:53.03
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:48:53.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
that's a tough one. Like for an interviewer just to, cause it, it seems very obvious from the outside looking in that of course those things are connected, but yeah, there's a, a, always that possibility that people didn't realize it.
00:48:56.50
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:49:02.26
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:49:09.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cause people have asked me things. My first book was a total Mary Sue about a girl who kills her mother. Like my mother's alive, and but, uh,
00:49:17.07
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:49:18.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, everything else is is a fictionalized account that if you knew me growing up, you'd you'd recognize things from it, right?
00:49:26.37
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:49:26.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So it's not necessarily subconscious, but yet there are other things that people say, oh, do you realize that when you put this here that this meant this?
00:49:38.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, yeah, that's my life.
00:49:38.76
Sheldon Higdon
Mm-hmm.
00:49:40.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
I realize that things happened in it. great because Because I think that's a thing that whether you write you know, depending on the level of, of personal, uh, life experience you put into your fiction, and people will always guess about your writing.
00:49:57.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like that must mean that you think this thing is okay, or that thing must've happened to you or, you know, and and it it's never that simple.
00:49:58.36
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:50:06.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
It, uh,
00:50:06.39
Sheldon Higdon
Well, have you ever seen the, I haven't seen in long time, but there was like a a meme going around at one point where, you know, i said, you know, something like the current, you know, like a writing,
00:50:19.57
Sheldon Higdon
Sample and it said the curtains were blue, you know, uh, the author, and then it would say, you know, then, uh, a teacher will go, well, what's those blue curtains mean? And then the author would say that they're blue, you know, like you don't have to read into everything just cause they're, you know,
00:50:31.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right. It's not a reflection of the depression within my soul, because the eyes are the window of the soul!
00:50:37.31
Sheldon Higdon
yeah, yeah.
00:50:38.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
It must mean that!
00:50:39.74
Sheldon Higdon
Or closed. Yeah. The curtains are closed. So therefore, so is my heart, you know, whatever. but um, the only thing that I, like within writing I'll do on purpose is I'll,
00:50:50.89
Sheldon Higdon
um you know, I'll write a sentence in a certain way or use certain words, you know, especially I like to foreshadow. I mean, in this book, in the Erie Brothers, um i mean, right in the first chapter, i'm already given a a clue about
00:51:01.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:51:10.01
Sheldon Higdon
um, that shows up like in chapter 47 out of 50 chapters that show, you know, then the answer is in 47, you know? So it's like, so I like doing stuff like that. Um, just a subtle thing, you know, might be ah a word or two, or it might be a sentence that I say, um, you know, or I like to use, um, you know, one of the spells that they, they use for, it's called a dragon's breath and they, they understand it's a fire,
00:51:37.65
Sheldon Higdon
um spell but they don't realize that it it literally shoots out of your mouth when you use it um but in order to use it they have to say Klaatu Barada Nikto you know and that and so that you know so I like doing stuff like that because you know for me although that came from the film The Day of the Earth to Still to me I think of Ash from Army of Darkness because he messes that up um and so do they so do they in the beginning when they're they're trying to they can't remember what it was and they keep on saying you know
00:51:43.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice. Mm-hmm.
00:51:53.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
nice
00:52:02.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
00:52:09.22
Sheldon Higdon
Klaatu Brada and Nickelback, you know, or Nickelodeon or whatever, you know, they keep, you know, and so things like that I'll do on purpose, you know, but yeah, theme and in and messages, I think are best just to come out subconsciously.
00:52:16.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's hilarious.
00:52:22.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, foreshadowing, though. i mean, that's one of those... it's It's interesting that you'd bring up foreshadowing because you had mentioned Pet Sematary as being one of the books that you read pretty early.
00:52:32.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
And Pet Sematary has that dope, like, super freaky instance of foreshadowing because he just outright says...
00:52:33.34
Sheldon Higdon
Mm-hmm.
00:52:41.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then Gage, who at that time had two months to live, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:52:45.04
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:52:45.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
blah And as the reader, you're just like, wait, what?
00:52:46.01
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. Yeah.
00:52:48.89
Sheldon Higdon
What? Yeah.
00:52:49.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Like, hey, Uncle Steve-O, what what's all this then?
00:52:55.00
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:52:55.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah. So...
00:52:57.18
Sheldon Higdon
You know, and then it's I like to play with, I will play with symbolism too a little bit here and there.
00:52:57.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
00:53:02.76
Sheldon Higdon
But it it just depends on and what i what I'm trying to do.
00:53:08.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
so Let's talk about Dark Roots. So it's it's dropping next month. Is that right? November?
00:53:13.59
Sheldon Higdon
no but November 14th.
00:53:16.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. so So what's it about?
00:53:17.82
Sheldon Higdon
And the
00:53:18.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
What do we need to know?
00:53:20.26
Sheldon Higdon
um without giving a whole lot away, it's basically, again, um this comes down to family, comes down to not knowing the people you think you know. You know, it's like the old news story.
00:53:37.81
Sheldon Higdon
news um excuse me, channel where, you know, the neighbors being interviewed and going, you know, I knew Bob for 40 years. I didn't know he, you know, he killed people, you know, he used to mow my grass. um You know, so it's, it's that kind of thing, not knowing the people you think, you know, not knowing in this case, your own father again, which comes back to me.
00:54:02.45
Sheldon Higdon
And so it's just, it's basically about um ah a teacher, journalism teacher in Pittsburgh, who's going who's at a teaching in a university. um One of my alma maters oh and his 83 year old dad commits suicide.
00:54:18.81
Sheldon Higdon
Now, first of all, the the question people should ask is why is there an 83 year old guy committing suicide? Because God forbid he's 83. What's he have to commit suicide for?
00:54:29.99
Sheldon Higdon
At that, you know, I mean, you know what i mean? So at that age, and you're like, okay, it's um but
00:54:32.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:54:36.35
Sheldon Higdon
And so therefore he's left the old farmhouse, which is like a three hour north up in the mountains of Pennsylvania. And he's left to fix it up and whatnot and sell it and and all that stuff. And he hasn't been back home and since he was, like, as soon as he graduated, he's gone.
00:54:56.83
Sheldon Higdon
So he even, to this day, he doesn't have a whole lot of memories of it. And so then he goes back to deal with the death, the burial is dead. And, you know, a lot of old memories are starting to creep up, repressed memories are creeping in.
00:55:14.81
Sheldon Higdon
And then the longer he stares stays there, the more he starts to feel uneasy and he starts to think that maybe the place is haunted. and then he starts coming across things in the house that, you know,
00:55:32.62
Sheldon Higdon
bring back more memories and then he you know and then there's a a kidnapping of uh of his girlfriend's son you know and then it you know it all it all ties together and stuff and then he has to not only has to figure out what's happening but he has to figure out who he is as a person and who his family was and stuff like that in the process and try to understand everything and get the and get the boy back too in the process
00:55:57.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:56:01.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Man, that's wild.
00:56:03.87
Sheldon Higdon
All in, all in what, 53,000 words? So it's fairly, it's not super long.
00:56:08.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:56:12.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, that's like a NaNoWriMo. Except it was written by a human.
00:56:14.13
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:56:16.56
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:16.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Get it? Because NaNoWriMo doesn't make you have to write anything anymore? Ha ha ha ha ha.
00:56:24.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool. and so So that's called Dark Roots, and it drops next month.
00:56:27.05
Sheldon Higdon
yeah
00:56:28.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
We'll have links in the description.
00:56:28.53
Sheldon Higdon
yeah
00:56:30.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So here is a question, and this is actually not something that was on the list that I gave you, because we do like to prep guests with their questions. But um now your name is Sheldon.
00:56:41.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
So you and I have first names that are commonly associated with popular fictional character. And I'm just wondering how that's going for you.
00:56:53.20
Sheldon Higdon
Um, are you talking about Sheldon Cooper?
00:56:56.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah. I mean, there's a that show, because, like, there was that show, which, like, it was not totally in their face in your face or whatever, but then there was a show called Young Sheldon.
00:57:04.19
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
00:57:06.65
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, she I've got, I've got, when Big Bang came out, people will say, oh, you know, I go to the store, and show ah like the Big Bang Theory. I'm like, no, no, no, no.
00:57:17.65
Sheldon Higdon
See, the show just came out, came out five years ago.
00:57:19.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like myself.
00:57:20.95
Sheldon Higdon
i came out in the seventies. So I'm, I'm first. So the show came after me. It's not, I wasn't named after that. Um, so yeah, no, but I don't get that anymore. Um, it's funny cause when I was a, when I was a kid, I went by Scott, my middle name. And so my family to this day, aunts and uncles call me Scott or Scotty or whatever.
00:57:42.44
Sheldon Higdon
Um, and so when I was in school, I didn't like Sheldon and I want people to know it cause I knew if they found out they'd call me Shelly and stuff like that.
00:57:42.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:57:53.31
Sheldon Higdon
And then eventually they did find out and one person did call me that, but they didn't, they didn't, they didn't like badger me about it. It was just plain thing. But so I never used it until,
00:58:05.14
Sheldon Higdon
um until I wanted to, you know, start writing more, you know, like when I knew I wanted to start putting myself out there.
00:58:16.38
Sheldon Higdon
um Cause I've always written from when I was 12 to, you know, to currently obviously, but, um, It's just I always wrote for me. um And then, you know, and everything I did write, I just kept in a box, print it out, you know, put it in the box, type it out, put it in the box, whatever.
00:58:35.76
Sheldon Higdon
Even when I had a computer, I'd save it. um But then I said, well, Sheldon is a name that you don't hear too often. So people would remember it more.
00:58:45.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right. Mm-hmm.
00:58:46.35
Sheldon Higdon
and it And it does have, it does rhyme with my last name, at you know, the D-O-N part. so And then also, when I was born, since I was born so so crazy, I weighed just under three pounds.
00:59:03.62
Sheldon Higdon
you know I had to be in an incubator for several months and stuff. um I was small. So my dad, my mom didn't like the name Sheldon. She had a different name. you know She named me Scott, but she didn't like Sheldon. But a dad liked Sheldon, so he wanted a big name for me because I was so small. So he named me Sheldon after...
00:59:22.39
Sheldon Higdon
a character in his favorite Western novel.
00:59:26.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh.
00:59:26.66
Sheldon Higdon
So, and so that's how i got that name was because of that.
00:59:26.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh wow.
00:59:32.18
Sheldon Higdon
What, what novel that is, i do not know.
00:59:35.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh.
00:59:36.02
Sheldon Higdon
And I'm surprised that name was even around whatever, whatever book, whatever book it was and whatever year it came out. I'm like, oh, Sheldon. Okay. All right.
00:59:45.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sheldon was the name of the alpha male orangutan at the Detroit Zoo when I was a kid. That's the first time I heard the name Sheldon as a first name as opposed to a surname because I had heard it as a surname.
00:59:59.46
Sheldon Higdon
Only orangutan I know is Clyde. so from So that's the only...
01:00:05.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, i'm I'm familiar with that dude as well.
01:00:09.15
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, so so that's the only...
01:00:11.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
So you ah you live in Pittsburgh.
01:00:11.51
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:00:14.16
Sheldon Higdon
yeah
01:00:14.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
which means that you are in proximity to Evans City Cemetery. Have you been?
01:00:20.71
Sheldon Higdon
Oh, yeah, several times. um Matter of fact, in... and I think it's a January of February issue of Rue Morgue magazine. I think the year is 2012.
01:00:32.31
Sheldon Higdon
two thousand and twelve It has Daniel Radcliffe on the cover when he did what was that movie he did?
01:00:39.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
hors
01:00:40.66
Sheldon Higdon
No, the ghost one.
01:00:43.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, the woman in black?
01:00:45.14
Sheldon Higdon
Yes, yes, yes. um I wrote an article because they're in the cemetery there's a teeny little chapel and it's in the movie.
01:00:53.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep.
01:00:54.44
Sheldon Higdon
um And it was
01:00:54.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, they did the, um they they had the Save the Chapel fundraiser.
01:00:58.36
Sheldon Higdon
Yes, I wrote an article.
01:00:59.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
thats That's how I got to talk to Gary Stryner.
01:00:59.82
Sheldon Higdon
Okay, yeah, yeah. yeah, so yeah. yeah um So I wrote an article for Rube Mark about saving it. And I talked to Gary and I talked to some other people about it And I wrote an article.
01:01:11.70
Sheldon Higdon
And yeah, that article's in that issue.
01:01:14.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, that's awesome.
01:01:14.25
Sheldon Higdon
So
01:01:14.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
I actually, i did that for when I was writing for Zombies Zone News is when that was going on.
01:01:20.43
Sheldon Higdon
yeah, okay.
01:01:22.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, well, and I guess for for listeners that don't know, Evan City Cemetery is where the cemetery scenes from Night of the Living Dead were shot. It's kind of a horror mecca.
01:01:31.09
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. The opening.
01:01:32.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Zombie fans go there and it's a big freaking deal.
01:01:32.76
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. The opening of the movie. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah. So I, yeah, I haven't been there in a long time now, but I, I used to go there quite often and then I'd go into Evan city and I went to, the have a theater and I went and watched night and living dead there one time with, um, you know, uh, John Russo and Russell Streiner and stuff like that. And so, um,
01:02:00.30
Sheldon Higdon
you know, was kind of cool to watch it in the town. It was made in as well as the craziest was made there too. Um, which is, which is the original 28 days later, really, um, 28 weeks later or whatever.
01:02:07.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
I love that movie.
01:02:11.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, exactly.
01:02:12.88
Sheldon Higdon
So, I mean, that's what that is.
01:02:13.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Exactly.
01:02:14.68
Sheldon Higdon
So, um, yeah. And so, um, it's weird cause, you know, I've over the years, like in 2003, I became an assistant for John Russo.
01:02:26.49
Sheldon Higdon
Um, and then worked with him at his film school he had that was run by him, Romero and Russ Greiner. And so, you know, I've known those guys for well over 20 years now.
01:02:37.78
Sheldon Higdon
um
01:02:37.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
01:02:39.42
Sheldon Higdon
So yeah, it's, um it's, you know When I was younger, especially in the earlier times, I'd tell people, really? I'm like, yeah, that's so cool. you know But now, it's just well they're just friends. you know know It's weird. but So i you know I did get to know George to an extent.
01:02:57.86
Sheldon Higdon
um you know um Not as well as I did with John and and Russ, but um yeah we were acquaintances.
01:03:04.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, i'm I'm like Facebook friends with those dudes, so I do get to talk to them every now and And they're just so great.
01:03:12.33
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, yeah.
01:03:13.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
mean...
01:03:13.24
Sheldon Higdon
We would we would we would meet um at a local restaurant and we would just, and you know, they would buy me lunch and we would just sit and talk about, you know, Night the Living Dead and, you know, them working on it George or Return of the Living Dead or whatever else they had going on.
01:03:13.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:03:32.30
Sheldon Higdon
So, you know I've got to hear a lot of cool stories and stuff over the years that nobody else probably has heard. So, yeah. Yeah. So I'm lucky to have gotten to know them guys.
01:03:46.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, definitely. Wow.
01:03:51.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so I'm looking over my question list. I want to make sure we get to everything. You actually indicated a willingness to talk about a time when you were in legitimate fear for your life. And there's a reason that we asked this question.
01:04:06.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
um because our show, you know, it's really about perspectives and and introducing people to perspectives that they wouldn't normally encounter in their everyday life.
01:04:18.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
um And just getting into, like, the uniqueness of everybody and their life experience. And being in real genuine fear that you're going to die either from an illness or an accident, an attack, or or even, you know, self-unaliving,
01:04:35.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
is a much more universal experience than people realize. And the reason they don't realize it is because we don't talk about it. So this is the this is a question that we get permission to ask before the interview because we don't want to just spring it on someone.
01:04:44.58
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:04:51.97
Sheldon Higdon
um
01:04:52.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
But you did indicate that you were cool answering this question. So I'd i'd love to hear what you have to say about this.
01:04:55.67
Sheldon Higdon
Well, it it will I want an answer because it goes goes back to having depression in the kid, like I mentioned earlier. that's For me, that's where the fear came from. It wasn't, you know, I mean, I have moments where, you know, i remember being in a car, leaning against, you know, like,
01:05:14.88
Sheldon Higdon
10 years old and leaning against the door and it wasn't locked. And back then you didn't have to wear seatbelts. And um somebody, my aunt turned a corner and it popped open and I fell out, but I caught myself on the little sort of handle of the door of the door, you know, so I'm my head, you know, I can see the road going by going underneath me and as I'm holding on.
01:05:28.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
01:05:35.32
Sheldon Higdon
And my cousin's in the backseat going, Oh my God, she grabs me. You know um I've had a lot of,
01:05:39.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Jesus, that is terrifying.
01:05:42.04
Sheldon Higdon
I've had a lot of little things like that happen to me. Whereas just like, you know, sort of the grim reapers like, Hey, just letting know I'm not too far away. um But for me, it, it was that fear um of, of unaliving thoughts as a kid, because i was alone.
01:06:03.61
Sheldon Higdon
I didn't have somebody to go to. i didn't even teachers. I didn't go to, you know, I, I remember being in middle school and given, a teacher, English teacher, a paper, a story I wrote and thinking in that, you know, a I want to ah wanted somebody to proud of me because I didn't really have a lot of that, you know, at home.
01:06:22.47
Sheldon Higdon
um Not that my mom was um not that that my mom wasn't proud of me or anything, but but I just didn't have that kind of support.
01:06:28.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well no, but you need to hear it it's It's the attention and the time I totally get that Oh, I was just saying that like, yeah I totally get what you're saying Like where that comes from That even if you you I mean, just just needing to hear it you know that's That's what I was getting at
01:06:32.89
Sheldon Higdon
Whoops. Huh? Say that again?
01:06:41.97
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, and but
01:06:45.80
Sheldon Higdon
but
01:06:49.92
Sheldon Higdon
yeah and and to this day, i can you know there are moments where it's like, man, I wish I had somebody, because I didn't hear. I don't know if I ever heard that from my own mom.
01:07:01.27
Sheldon Higdon
um So there's times where if I'm watching a movie, And, you know, and I know there's that's happening in a movie and somebody, my mom finally tells the kid, I'm so proud of you at the end of that I'm just bawling because I'm craving that to this day.
01:07:15.99
Sheldon Higdon
um But since I didn't have that support in place, you know, those thoughts, that's, like I said, it's not a, it's not a physical action of dying, but it's the fact that I could have.
01:07:30.90
Sheldon Higdon
went that way because I didn't have that support system in place. And then, so when I think about it, it, you know, it's scary still, but even then not knowing how to deal with it that well, um, was scary because, you know, where do I go? Who do I go to?
01:07:53.18
Sheldon Higdon
Um, I'm thinking this, I'm thinking that I'm thinking the house of doing this and doing that. And then, you know, I was somehow lucky enough to, to just not do it, not go further with it.
01:08:10.84
Sheldon Higdon
And i wrote a lot of poetry back then when i was a kid. Matter of fact, um, a publisher has a collection of short stories that, um, um, that they were, they might put out. I haven't heard anything yet, but they have the, they have the collection book, the short story collection.
01:08:28.49
Sheldon Higdon
um And at the end of it, um, I have like eight or nine poems I wrote when I was like 13, 14 years old. And so, and a lot of them are, they deal with that kind of thoughts, you know, me trying to figure myself out, me talking about feeling this way.
01:08:45.20
Sheldon Higdon
Um, so if they do publish it, those will be at the end of it. And then people are going to see, you know, what I was dealing with. And, you know, like I said, I, you know, but somehow I came out on the other side,
01:08:58.99
Sheldon Higdon
not going away that I could have easily went.
01:09:07.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow man.
01:09:12.17
Sheldon Higdon
You know, so here I am.
01:09:12.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's intense.
01:09:13.13
Sheldon Higdon
So, you know, with my kids, I try to, you know, I make sure that they understand that, you know, I'm proud of them. And that's, you know, and if I've told them, if you ever have, you know, thoughts like this, if you ever this, you know, come to me, you know, whatever.
01:09:29.19
Sheldon Higdon
you know, anything, you know, so they understand, you know, but as a, as myself, you know, I know kids, the last thing they want to go to is a parent.
01:09:40.80
Sheldon Higdon
They don't want to be around you. anyway They want to be in the room. They shut their door. You I mean, I was the same way. I came home, shut my door. was in the room all day. Um, so I get it, you know, but i I, do let them know, you know, so that they, uh, they know they can come to me and all those kinds of situations. But so far, as you know, um,
01:09:59.46
Sheldon Higdon
were good. So.
01:10:01.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and that's huge, man. I mean, that's such a ah it's a solid, like, step forward in... I mean, I don't want to say breaking cycles, because it sounds like your your mom was definitely trying her best.
01:10:14.91
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:10:15.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
but but that But opening up the lines of communication is is just so, like, valuable and important. And I find that... Like, I don't have any kids, but I have tons and tons of opinions about parenting, because I didn't have...
01:10:31.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, my mom was kind of ah crazy, abusive gaslighter. So i have all these, like, grr, bad parent feelings.
01:10:35.55
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. Yeah,
01:10:38.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
But it sounds like what you are doing is so, like, valuable and and helpful.
01:10:39.07
Sheldon Higdon
yeah, yeah.
01:10:44.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And, like, what's the word I'm looking for? it's so It's so valuable because it takes your understanding and applies it to this situation.
01:10:57.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
And there's a word for that. And I can't think of it because that's the kind of writer I am.
01:11:00.89
Sheldon Higdon
what
01:11:02.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:11:02.88
Sheldon Higdon
Well, yeah, ah well, for.
01:11:04.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
But yeah, I mean, that's, I just, I just think that that's, that's so great. And I'm not sure that I agree with the assessment that a kid would hate to come to their parents with something like that.
01:11:16.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because if they honestly know that they can, you know, that's,
01:11:16.76
Sheldon Higdon
Well, yeah you know.
01:11:20.59
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, you know, but it's it's it's weird because there's, you know, um you know. My kids have been bullied and there's times where I didn't find out till later, you know, because they didn't want to tell me, you know, so, and it and it has nothing to do with them not trusting the parents.
01:11:32.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Aw, dang.
01:11:38.11
Sheldon Higdon
It's just, there's, there's, yeah, exactly.
01:11:38.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh no, man, getting bullying is getting bullied is humiliating.
01:11:42.60
Sheldon Higdon
And, and so, or they just think that, well, dad might go off and kick somebody's ass. It's one or the other, you know, but, you know, like with my mom, like you said, I mean, then I didn't know
01:11:48.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Heh, yeah, that too.
01:11:55.72
Sheldon Higdon
Because i I wasn't, you know, as a kid, for the most part, I would say that most kids are in their own bubbles. They have their own little world. Their world is happening around them with their friends. And that's what's important. That's what's going on.
01:12:08.41
Sheldon Higdon
So you don't pay attention to your parents and what's going on with them, whether it's financial problems, emotional problems, whether it's marriage problems, whatever.
01:12:20.30
Sheldon Higdon
And know so since it was me and my mom, you know I didn't understand her world. you know But as I got older, ah knew I didn't blame her.
01:12:32.09
Sheldon Higdon
you know She was a great mom. she was i mean I write because of her. She was a writer. She um she she was offered a job to write greetings cards for Carleton Company in Cleveland.
01:12:42.39
Sheldon Higdon
She used to write poems.
01:12:43.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow. Mm-hmm.
01:12:44.23
Sheldon Higdon
She was a singer in band country bands, and she wrote a lot of songs. run One song she wrote, which I can't recall the name, Or even the I have I have it in my computer so somewhere i have the song and in the guy who originally sang it and whatnot.
01:12:57.50
Sheldon Higdon
But she wrote a song like when she was 17 entered it into a contest to win like, you know, 100 bucks back. And, you know, this is 1950 something. um And hers won. She never got paid, but the it was then the song became a number one hit later, a couple of years later, by some famous singer, country singer.
01:13:19.28
Sheldon Higdon
became a number one song. And then it was re-recorded in the eighties by Ronnie Millsap became a number one song then. And then it was recorded again later on. So she never saw a penny for that thing and never given credit.
01:13:28.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Whoa.
01:13:31.59
Sheldon Higdon
Um, but so, you know, so my writing, offhand, I don't, but I have it in my computer um somewhere.
01:13:31.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's crazy.
01:13:34.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Do you remember the name of the song?
01:13:40.27
Sheldon Higdon
Cause I have it with like all this other information, um, that I've gotten from, you know, ants and stuff like that. Um, um, But, you know, so, you know, she wasn't a perfect mom, but like I said, you know, she was as a single mom, just trying her best. And I understood that as I got older, you know, and I, you know, and I got my, my dark humor from her. I got my writing from her, you know, my creativity from her, all that stuff. So, um you know, I can't, I don't, I don't blame her for anything that she couldn't give me.
01:14:15.51
Sheldon Higdon
So, so You know, it's just, you know, you, you accept it and you move on and, and, you know, why hold on to why begrudge anything when, when you're not, you weren't that person, you know, and kids are like that now. I mean, my kids will never, you know, probably really understand me as a person until they're much older.
01:14:36.87
Sheldon Higdon
Um,
01:14:37.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sure, sure.
01:14:40.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:14:44.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright. You know what? Actually, we have um i have a couple more horror questions here. So I do want to get back into some horror talk, if that works for you.
01:14:54.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:14:55.21
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. Yeah.
01:14:56.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Actually, we kind of got away from the subject of ah of movie scores as as ah writing music. And ah that's something that like I am also a great fan of, like I was saying.
01:15:07.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Annihilation is a fantastic soundtrack for horror writing, I think. Because that movie was amazing. And my husband just could not stop talking about the soundtrack. He loved it.
01:15:20.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I went ahead and bought it for us. um And I think Joker, actually, is another one that I've been playing a lot lately.
01:15:24.75
Sheldon Higdon
yeah
01:15:25.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because I know people have love-hate relationships with the the Joker movie, but I really, really liked it and watched it way too much when I was depressed one summer.
01:15:26.02
Sheldon Higdon
yeah um it well yeah i mean it does cover a lot of uh of you know that territory you know throughout the film um i mean i listen to like there's it's weird too like i'll like lately
01:15:45.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Perry Kivolowitz-
01:15:54.01
Sheldon Higdon
I have the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, you know narration by a guy that I listen to. So I'll put that on sort of in the background. You know, I listened to just bringing up my Spotify now You know, like ah I have What Lies Beneath soundtrack here.
01:16:11.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Kivolowitz- Oh, nice nice.
01:16:13.15
Sheldon Higdon
You know, even Goosebumps, the motion picture soundtrack of that. Poltergeist, The Beautiful Mind. know, I'm you know And then, ah of course, I listened to the old 1980s film soundtrack, Trick or Treat by Fastway.
01:16:30.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice, nice. Do you have that goblin collection?
01:16:31.75
Sheldon Higdon
No,
01:16:34.80
Sheldon Higdon
na no, no, I wish.
01:16:35.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
With all the...
01:16:38.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. I didn't, like, buy it because it was so crazy expensive, but a buddy of mine did rip a copy for me, so I have it on my computer.
01:16:43.54
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:16:47.30
Sheldon Higdon
Oh, that's nice.
01:16:48.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's so good. Oh my god. um
01:16:51.57
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. Yeah. they Yeah. I mean, they did so much, um, you know, and then I'll, I'll throw on to like, um, the soundtrack for a stranger things.
01:17:02.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, I didn't pick that up.
01:17:02.60
Sheldon Higdon
Um, yeah.
01:17:03.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
I bet it's good.
01:17:04.91
Sheldon Higdon
I mean, it's all of that's on Spotify as well. So you can, you know, you can bring up each chapter, you know, season one, season two, whatnot. Um, you know, and then I listened to like, you know, like said, Slayer or, um, you know, listened to ghost, um,
01:17:21.02
Sheldon Higdon
So you know i try to I try to mix it up. But I know if I want to get to a certain place mentally or emotionally, then I'll ah'll find something that sort of matches that and put that up.
01:17:24.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:17:31.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, yeah, that's a good plan of attack.
01:17:36.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because ah yeah I was trying to write a battle at one point, and I ended up, I couldn't decide whether I wanted to do Bear McCreary and some ah some Battlestar Galactica, or if I wanted to do the Ramanjwadi, which ah would, for me, be either Westworld or Game of Thrones.
01:17:47.37
Sheldon Higdon
Mm-hmm.
01:17:54.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:17:54.20
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, yeah.
01:17:55.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, yeah, that because it's such good stuff, but the thing about... Raman Jowadi, though, is that you could hear any little snippet of it and know exactly what it is and where it's from.
01:18:06.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's, like, so recognizable.
01:18:07.53
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:18:09.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, like, I think Bear McCreary, I love that guy. But he he has, like, so many different styles. You know, he's he's, I think, a lot more versatile.
01:18:20.08
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:18:21.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
I interviewed him once for Zombie Zone News, Bear McCreary, and I was so out of my element.
01:18:24.01
Sheldon Higdon
Oh.
01:18:27.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like... Because he is such a genius and a master and music is not like, I don't make music.
01:18:28.16
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:18:33.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's too mathy to me. So I sort of made it a point to not get too into music so that there can be one of the major arts that I can still experience viscerally without being like, wow, you know, that's an interesting shot in that movie.
01:18:48.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
I wonder why they decided to light it that way and just totally yank myself out of the medium.
01:18:49.15
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
01:18:53.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. I have a habit of doing that. I think because of like autism and I just like think weird about everything.
01:19:01.38
Sheldon Higdon
Well, if yeah if you if you want to get in the kitchen, then you're going to know how food is made and that kind of can ruin it sometimes.
01:19:08.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Very much so. So here's a question that I have for you. People argue that horror is particularly good for young readers. Now some people want to keep horror away from kids and some people say that because horror stories, particularly for for younger audiences, they involve things like problem solving and like you were saying, loss and grief, you know, deep emotional issues or extreme scenarios.
01:19:36.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I mean, obviously you you come on the side of horror being good for kids because you write it and you write it for younger people.
01:19:43.95
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:19:44.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I'm wondering what you would say to people that say that horror should be kept away from kids.
01:19:51.97
Sheldon Higdon
Well, it's like, you know, it's you know that's it's like with schools nowadays. They don't teach cursive anymore. And I think they should because it helps cognitively. It helps you.
01:20:07.34
Sheldon Higdon
um It's not just all about, oh, look, I get to write really fancy looking. you know there' There's some thinking to it. um, some, if you will, problem solving in a way. Um, but it is good for you mentally.
01:20:20.01
Sheldon Higdon
Um, and so I, I think horror and I'm talking, you know, um, I'm not talking about, you know, nineteen eighty s you know, gore fest, things like that.
01:20:33.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, know certainly age-appropriate horror.
01:20:33.94
Sheldon Higdon
Um, yeah. Um, you know, Poltergeist, you know, my kids, you know, even though they won't watch it, but you know, Hey, you want to watch Poltergeist in 1980? You know, I'm like, no. So I brought home that clown I got from Halloween spirit and they all freaked out.
01:20:47.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ha ha ha ha ha.
01:20:47.93
Sheldon Higdon
Um, but, um, no, I think to me, because i mean, obviously it, each child's different, you know, some are more mature than others. Some can, can handle what they read better than others.
01:21:05.76
Sheldon Higdon
Um, And so as a parent, you need to understand your kid first. um um You know, I definitely, my mom, you know, when she'd bring home, you know, old horror films, you know, stack of them, you know, for me to watch all night or the weekend, because she was going to be wherever.
01:21:26.45
Sheldon Higdon
um She never said, well, can he handle these? She just, oh, here, hey this this one's this, and here's this one. I thought you'd like this one because I a cool cover, and this one's, you know. And so I was like, yeah, you know, I just jumped in head first and I didn't, you know, i was like, all right, this is great.
01:21:35.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep.
01:21:40.29
Sheldon Higdon
Um, but I also understood too, as I get older, I knew that, you know, Hey, it's a movie, you know, here's how they do it. Cause would look at, you know, Fangoria back then and see behind the scenes stuff.
01:21:51.11
Sheldon Higdon
And, um, but it, it does equip kids, um, sort of a tool belt to, to deal with, um,
01:22:04.21
Sheldon Higdon
problems that they will either see or read in horror novel. um You know, how to maybe even how to handle certain situations to some degree.
01:22:16.10
Sheldon Higdon
um it preps you um for the bad to some degree, which is why a lot of people, um you know, um Gen X,
01:22:27.81
Sheldon Higdon
um we can kind of handle certain things that have been handling and that been going on in the world because we've sort of been through the ringer because we did grow up as Lashky kids. We did grow up until the streetlights came on. We did, you know, wreck on metal bikes and get cuts and scrapes and, and, you know, and whatnot.
01:22:47.44
Sheldon Higdon
Um, we did watch ourselves a lot of times. Um, we did have to deal with, you know, people trying to kidnap people and serial killers and satanic panic. And, and um AIDS bursting you on the scene and the shuttles blowing up on live TV and, you know, all that stuff.
01:23:05.46
Sheldon Higdon
um
01:23:05.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:23:06.96
Sheldon Higdon
So we were equipped over the years to handle things now, specifically now because we're older. it It led us to be able to handle things now.
01:23:18.99
Sheldon Higdon
And that's why, you know, a lot of people, you know, and they make make jokes online. Oh, just, you know, leave it to the Gen X and they can, you know,
01:23:27.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:23:27.44
Sheldon Higdon
And it shows us, you know, shows a picture of a Gen X person like drinking wine while but buildings are burning down, you know, because it's like, you know, okay, don't, don't worry. You know, this is, it's, we've seen this before, you know, like, you know, so to some degree, you know, reading horror as a young kid um and and then going, progressing forward through various books and authors and stuff, you're you're prepping yourself emotionally, um mentally.
01:23:36.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:23:55.99
Sheldon Higdon
Now, that doesn't mean that you're solid, you know, by the time you reach 15 or 16 and you just got everything figured out and you can handle anything. No, of course not. But you do have a tool belt with certain tools that you can go to that can help you get through it maybe a little bit better and easier and understand it more so than other people because they haven't read that kind of stuff because all they did was read Dr. Seuss.
01:24:21.84
Sheldon Higdon
You know, they didn't read, you know, anything else because it was not safe enough.
01:24:27.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Did you ever meet any of those kids in school that didn't have TVs or they were only allowed to watch PBS?
01:24:36.07
Sheldon Higdon
Now, I knew a couple of people who weren't allowed to go trick or treating, you know, because, you know, God, it's evil and it's blah, blah, blah and all that kind of stuff.
01:24:40.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:24:47.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, there was there was a family of Baptists on our street.
01:24:47.64
Sheldon Higdon
And
01:24:50.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
And they I think that they were allowed to go trick-or-treating because everybody else did. but they weren't allowed to play games with dice. They weren't, for the longest time, they weren't allowed to play cards, but I think at one point, their parents would let them play Uno, but they couldn't play anything with, like, regular cards.
01:24:59.75
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, D&D kind of, yeah.
01:25:09.25
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, well, I also had a, she wasn't, I mean, were acquaintances, schoolmates, but we weren't like, we never super talked a lot. You know, its just one of those girls or guys that I, we knew each other and mouths about it. But on the bus, she would get on the bus and she always had to wear long skirts and they're usually like jean material um they come down her ankles and if she wasn't allowed to wear pants um just you know anywhere that was for whatever reason i don't remember why religion whatever but she couldn't wear them but as soon as she got on the bus and the bus would pull away she would yank up her skirt and then pull down her pant legs and then take off her skirt and then wear jeans to school and then reverse it when she went home you know and so she did that like almost every day know it's like
01:25:32.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:25:49.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
01:25:52.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
nice
01:25:57.76
Sheldon Higdon
Man, it's crazy that you know you can't, like, what's pants going do to you? You know, I mean, I don't, you know, but.
01:26:05.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, well, the thinking is, in in the religions that have that, is that the movement of a woman's legs is considered obscene, and it makes men want to look at them.
01:26:16.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's why.
01:26:16.98
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:26:17.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's a modesty issue. So it's real, real gross and offensive.
01:26:23.02
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:26:23.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:26:23.18
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:26:23.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
And again, i know that because ah the Baptists that I knew didn't have to do that, but they were aware of it. So that's like how I found out about it. The thing I always thought was so crazy about it They weren't supposed to watch horror movies. They hadn't ever seen rated R movie, which, like, my parents didn't really care what we watch. We watched whatever they were watching.
01:26:44.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, but, so they weren't, they were, like, kept from all this stuff. And yet, they were, like, constantly terrified because of, like, hell.
01:26:56.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
And
01:26:57.01
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:26:57.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
talking snakes telling them to do stuff and tricking them to eating poison weird apples or something. And like as a kid, I didn't understand it because we didn't go to church.
01:27:08.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I didn't, wasn't really exposed to any of that, but just it just seems so crazy.
01:27:09.78
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, me either. Yeah.
01:27:13.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's like, okay, so you're not allowed to watch Jaws because there's like people dying in it or whatever, but then you go to church and they're telling you about like, All this, well, I mean, you know, all the crazy Bible stuff.
01:27:24.59
Sheldon Higdon
A lot of violence.
01:27:27.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, how is that not giving you nightmares?
01:27:28.10
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, yeah.
01:27:30.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
How is that not worse?
01:27:32.99
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, I don't.
01:27:33.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um...
01:27:33.91
Sheldon Higdon
um i Yeah, I wasn't. um I never went to a church
01:27:41.72
Sheldon Higdon
until one of my cousins got married. The first time I ever went inside of a church. And then couple times after for other marriages. But other that, I never never I mean, I was only baptized. i was baptized in Lutheran just because i was dead.
01:27:57.66
Sheldon Higdon
And so my mom was like, well, what's this hospital? And they're like, Lutheran. She goes, okay, baptize them. um What they originally wanted me, you know yeah.
01:28:05.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Just in case, man.
01:28:07.67
Sheldon Higdon
And so what they originally wanted to baptize me, I have no clue. um I think my my dad was like, from what i understand, my mom said, you know one of those where they throw you in a river and do it that way.
01:28:20.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:28:21.01
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, that's what he was because he was from... um I can't remember. You remember when from Mississippi, Arkansas, somewhere down there. But, um you know, i'm like, oh, OK, I'm glad that that's not how that went.
01:28:32.91
Sheldon Higdon
But OK, I don't know if I want to be thrown in a river.
01:28:33.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah I think, like, My experience, my family like wanted us to go to Catholic school when I was in junior high. And it was cheaper to go to the Catholic school if you were a member of the church. So just suddenly, when I was about to go into seventh grade, my parents decided, well, my mom decided that we were all going to be Catholic.
01:28:54.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
So we were going to get baptized Catholic and go to catechism. And they would you know teach me everything so that I would understand about Catholics when I went to school. Here's the thing.
01:29:06.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
You got to tell kids that stuff from the time that you got to start before they're able to think.
01:29:13.40
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:29:13.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because if you take a smart 12 year old and just start explaining to them that like it's it's ritualized cannibalism.
01:29:13.98
Sheldon Higdon
yeah
01:29:21.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
You can't just bring that on a kid that they're going to eat the body and blood of the savior. And oh, yeah, you get wine. And by the way, gay people are bad. Don't talk to them like, wait, what?
01:29:32.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't know what any of this means. It's all very confusing. I'm a people pleaser and I will do anything to make teachers think I'm smart, but this shit does not make sense.
01:29:44.74
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, yeah. um I, am yeah, I wasn't, even to that today, I'm not i'm not a fan of organized religion.
01:30:01.08
Sheldon Higdon
And I especially was never a fan of going to a place where somebody I didn't know was going to tell me what a book that was written thousands of years ago by lots of people at lots of different times was going to tell me what it means to, know according to him.
01:30:17.15
Sheldon Higdon
And it's like, no, I'm not going to, I mean, you know, I'm not going to listen to someone I don't know and tell me something that, you know, you can't even prove. So, um, so yeah, I've never, been a fan of being told when supposed to believe in, in,
01:30:35.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it seems like if there's a guy who controls everything and knows everything and wants everything to be a certain way, why didn't he just make it that way?
01:30:48.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, what?
01:30:48.57
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah,
01:30:49.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't like the whole colossal thing. But see, that's the thing. And then you get into like later high school and college and you understand, you study like comparative religions and the histories and everything.
01:31:01.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then it all makes sense. Like, oh. This is manipulative. Ha ha.
01:31:09.30
Sheldon Higdon
controlling. And yeah then you want to say that, you know,
01:31:10.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it starts out good. It starts out like, hey, where does the sun go at night? Oh, there's probably a dude who hides it. Yeah, that makes sense.
01:31:18.17
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:31:18.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that, but then, you know, you get science and whatnot and you start to answer these questions.
01:31:19.63
Sheldon Higdon
He's a magician.
01:31:24.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then, yeah, but I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to harp on this subject because I don't know that that's what people are necessarily tuning in for.
01:31:32.62
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:31:32.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah tuning in. Don't I sound old? Adjust your rabbit ears, kids. You don't want to lose reception.
01:31:39.02
Sheldon Higdon
Same bat channel.
01:31:40.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
you
01:31:41.13
Sheldon Higdon
Same bat time.
01:31:43.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
So let me ask you this. Is there a book in this world by anyone at all that you think everyone should read? Like a book that would be a great unifying book that would bring people together and improve the world? If everyone had the knowledge in this book, what book is that?
01:32:03.97
Sheldon Higdon
I don't know about bringing people together. um
01:32:07.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and I think increasing our understanding of each other in a way that increases empathy.
01:32:10.66
Sheldon Higdon
Well.
01:32:14.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
I think that's that's what I'm going for with the question.
01:32:19.56
Sheldon Higdon
Huh. Man. I don't know.
01:32:24.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's a tough one, right?
01:32:26.46
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, I mean, you know, we could all say, know, Horton hears a who, you know. I mean, that would probably be the.
01:32:32.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, well, I mean, that's
01:32:34.08
Sheldon Higdon
it'd probably be the best answer. You know, we all, know, it could be a little dust mites and a flower. Yeah,
01:32:44.96
Sheldon Higdon
I don't know. I mean,
01:32:49.16
Sheldon Higdon
bring people together.
01:32:53.43
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, I mean, for me, I think in the simplest terms, I mean, you know, but like one book that I tell people to read because I think it really brings out your empathy in people.
01:33:07.98
Sheldon Higdon
And even sympathy is The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
01:33:12.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:33:14.44
Sheldon Higdon
don't know if you've ever read that.
01:33:15.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
I have not, but I am familiar with it.
01:33:18.49
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, they it turned it, it was made into a movie and stuff.
01:33:21.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep.
01:33:22.68
Sheldon Higdon
But, um you know, but yeah, because it's dealing with a person who's dealing with cancer and, you know, it's a young adult novel.
01:33:29.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm, yep.
01:33:30.34
Sheldon Higdon
But ah the book is, I like the book better as usual than the movie. I like, the movie's not bad.
01:33:34.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:33:35.83
Sheldon Higdon
I like the movie, but the book, don't know. It just, I mean, i remember reading it and I was crying while I was reading it, you know, and when a a book can do that, then I think that everybody should read that because it's bringing out, it's bringing out something in you, you know, it's connecting to you in a way that you definitely weren't going to expect.
01:33:58.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Yeah.
01:33:59.35
Sheldon Higdon
And so,
01:33:59.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
01:34:00.27
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, I would definitely say that because I think it it does sort of, you know, put you in a certain mindset, you know, you're, it puts you face to face with this character and then you are literally, you know, going through this with her.
01:34:20.58
Sheldon Higdon
And then you come out, find yourself covered in tears and you realize that, you know, it's just pulling, you know, all your, you know, it's, bringing your empathy and sympathy and all that to the forefront, which is good.
01:34:34.23
Sheldon Higdon
So, and that's what books do. i mean, and the more you read, the more you're building your empathy in that because you're, you know, going on these journeys with characters and you're going through things with them.
01:34:46.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
ye Yep, yep.
01:34:47.38
Sheldon Higdon
You know, when I wrote the Erie brothers, there's, there's a few scenes in there when i I remember writing it and crying while I was writing it. Because I'd lived with these characters for so long and I knew them so well.
01:34:59.11
Sheldon Higdon
And then when I, did something, or I was talking about something that I knew was hurtful to them, then I was would end up having tears in my eyes.
01:35:02.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:35:13.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and I mean, that's the crux of it, to... to make readers feel something that they would not have felt otherwise, right?
01:35:21.21
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:35:24.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
So let's say you are advising young aspiring authors who struggle with depression. What is the best advice you can give them?
01:35:36.32
Sheldon Higdon
um
01:35:39.59
Sheldon Higdon
I would say...
01:35:46.89
Sheldon Higdon
You know, as a kid myself, when I was dealing with it, I just... I mean, now, looking back on it, I kept... The reason I probably made it through the other side is I kept moving forward.
01:35:58.63
Sheldon Higdon
And i know that comes off as, like, a really simple answer. But... but you know, even, even then, know, you know, loved, mean, I went to school because and didn't like school. I wasn't good at school.
01:36:15.88
Sheldon Higdon
Um, but I went to school because if I stayed home, um, well, my friends were at school. So if I want to hang out with my friends, I need to go to school.
01:36:22.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
01:36:26.27
Sheldon Higdon
So I was going to school to hang out with my friends, which we did because we'd be in a lot of classes together. We'd be in the halls together, lunch together, whatever. And so that and, you know, in writing poetry and all that stuff and short stories and stuff, and whatever I was writing, unfinished things and stuff that kept me moving forward. You know, those were the reasons I kept moving forward.
01:36:54.03
Sheldon Higdon
And so, you know, for kids today, you know, they just they need to find, you know, a parent's aside, obviously, you know, you need to go to your parents, but um or a teacher. or someone who can help you or put you in the right, on the right path to someone else or something that can help you. But, um you know, remember what you love and whatever that may be, know, it could be drawing, could be gaming, it could be just, you know, chatting online with your friends, whatever it may be to you take that and use it to your advantage and just move forward with that.
01:37:32.40
Sheldon Higdon
um You know, And it's so the other thing too, you know, I tell a lot of writers now, especially younger writers, because everybody feels like um younger writers feel like they have to hit a certain word count every day. They have to write so many pages a day. They have to this. they have I have to write. and I can't.
01:37:52.16
Sheldon Higdon
And it's true. You want to you want to write every day and all that stuff, but it's okay to take time for yourself. Even if you're dealing with depression, it's okay to go, you know,
01:37:59.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:38:03.15
Sheldon Higdon
I'm getting sidetracked, keep getting sidetracked. But as a kid, I grew up and I hung out in a lot of cemeteries. I was at cemeteries a lot. And i there was one 600, 700 feet from me up a little hill outside of my apartment complex.
01:38:19.26
Sheldon Higdon
And so I was hanging out in cemeteries a lot. I mean, at one point, me and my friends would play at midnight. We'd be out there playing hide and seek when we were like teenagers, 15 years old or something.
01:38:29.89
Sheldon Higdon
But I'm
01:38:32.22
Sheldon Higdon
But I would hang out there a lot and that's where I would take time for myself and just sit there, just think, talk to myself, you know be curious about the graves around me.
01:38:43.83
Sheldon Higdon
What year is this one? Who's this? well you know And then I would start thinking, okay, where did like then I would start creating stories.
01:38:46.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:38:50.50
Sheldon Higdon
How did this person die? There were only 14. And so I would let my imagination nation take place and then you know and I would sort of just okay, and then write and go to school and hang out my friends and did the things that made me happy, you know, just little things.
01:39:08.04
Sheldon Higdon
um And that's what I think probably got me through those times, you know, which was a long time because I from 12, 13, 14, whatever. But as I got older, i was able to start to understand things more when it regards to depression or whatever, you know, either grab ahold of it and try to figure it out or ignore it and push it away as best I could or whatever. But in time, I just, I got to handle a little bit better, but that's what I would tell them.
01:39:42.34
Sheldon Higdon
You know, if you love to read, then read, you know, get into a new book, you know? But I think being creative is a solid way of getting through tough times, getting whatever it is that's in you out.
01:39:58.79
Sheldon Higdon
is good for you, whether it's, whether you're drawing.
01:39:59.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Yep. Well, it it hits all the buttons, you know, because it's it's productive.
01:40:03.32
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:40:05.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it it gives you a sense of accomplishment when you make something.
01:40:07.10
Sheldon Higdon
Get your mind off of, yeah.
01:40:09.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
And yeah, it definitely, like, it occupies your mind. It helps you get things off your chest. And once you've created something, it can help other people.
01:40:20.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, nothing helps me feel better about myself when I'm feeling bad than making an improvement in someone else's life.
01:40:20.66
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, yeah.
01:40:27.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Whether it's just a phone call, or or nice note, like any small thing that it makes somebody else feel better, i feel like I've done something good and I can feel better about myself.
01:40:33.06
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:40:41.19
Sheldon Higdon
Well, whenever I do do speaking engagements in middle schools, is the one thing that we talk about a lot, or at least I talk about is the importance of creativity and imagination.
01:40:57.17
Sheldon Higdon
And that's what I talk about a lot. And then I'll talk about, you know, and then we'll, we'll on the board, I'll, we'll create a short story together, you know, and then it becomes this big, giant interactive thing and kids are yelling out things and it's loud and they're having fun and stuff.
01:41:12.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's awesome!
01:41:12.43
Sheldon Higdon
But i but I go there because I want to, want them to know that being creative, creative is important. It's just not about drawing. There's more to it than that. And using your imagination, i think it's important.
01:41:27.55
Sheldon Higdon
I mean, if ah my imagination created a lot of stuff for me as a kid, you know.
01:41:33.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, I hear that, man. if i If I had, like, money, my dream, actually, is to have, like, you know, a youth center?
01:41:34.76
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:41:42.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
but not so much a sporty one, but for creative kids.
01:41:42.24
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:41:45.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
So you could come in and there would be instruments and there would be easels and, you know, and computers that just, yes, like, like find the thing that interests you and then let's see what you can do.
01:41:46.43
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:41:50.75
Sheldon Higdon
yeah Paint and clay and, yeah, all sorts of stuff.
01:41:58.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
And even if you want to try a different thing every week, that's like, whatever, man, try all of it. Try every last thing, see what you're good at.
01:42:04.40
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. Yeah.
01:42:06.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cause honestly, i think people would be so much happier and more, content even if they had, if if we were all better at expressing ourselves and the arts are like the best way to do that or the best way to to just get in the habit of saying what's on your mind.
01:42:26.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, how many people do you know that have like either a bad marriage or they hate their job or they have something that they've always wanted to do, but they've never done it.
01:42:27.17
Sheldon Higdon
yeah
01:42:36.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
And if we were in the habit of expressing these things, That's like the first step to actionable changes, you know, or actionable steps.
01:42:44.90
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:42:46.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, yeah, I'm with you on that, man. And I think it's so awesome that you make it a point to go out and and talk to the kids from your experience because it's such a valuable experience.
01:42:58.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's something that, if I may say so, men in particular seem to have a more difficult time talking about having depression and and what to do with it. And so it's it's so awesome that you do that.
01:43:12.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
um We're actually nearing the end of our time, so I want to make sure that we have discussed everything that you wanted to get to. Was there anything you wanted to hit that we did not talk about?
01:43:23.74
Sheldon Higdon
off just off the top of my head. No, because I think we've covered so much, which is a good thing, which it's a good thing.
01:43:29.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I think so, too.
01:43:31.81
Sheldon Higdon
So, uh, no, um, yeah, I'm going to pat myself on the back on night.
01:43:32.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
We did great. Go us.
01:43:37.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right? um Now, I always give guests an opportunity to ask me a question, and you and I did discuss something, um and I didn't know if you still wanted to go with that question.
01:43:50.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:43:51.11
Sheldon Higdon
Well, um, Probably not because it probably would extend the end of this into maybe a darker territory.
01:44:02.72
Sheldon Higdon
But
01:44:05.57
Sheldon Higdon
ah I do want to, you know, being creative, you know, talking about creativity and stuff like that, doing this podcast, how long have you been doing this now?
01:44:13.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ooh, we just had our 50th episode.
01:44:16.87
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, okay, i did see that. Okay, so in so how many years?
01:44:18.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, yeah, I mean, I've been doing the show for about two years, but we take really long breaks.
01:44:22.26
Sheldon Higdon
Okay. Okay, um and then you do you do other things too, right? beside I know you write, but besides other podcasts or other...
01:44:29.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
i I do write. I do write. But we have the magazine as well, which is, like, a big deal.
01:44:33.87
Sheldon Higdon
Okay.
01:44:35.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Because that's sometimes hilarious horror. And it's...
01:44:38.76
Sheldon Higdon
Okay, because...
01:44:39.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
01:44:41.54
Sheldon Higdon
i guess because the podcast is another creative outlet from your perspective.
01:44:46.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:44:48.65
Sheldon Higdon
I mean, i mean obviously on both sides, um but... the reason why you're doing it, you know, in your chosen of this format. I mean, you could have did a YouTube channel, you know, you can do TikToks, you can, you know there are so many different things nowadays that you can you can easily do, but you just, and they're all an outlet of creativity and especially podcasts because and it's not, it's not so much a question.
01:45:03.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
h
01:45:14.44
Sheldon Higdon
It's just so much me for as me telling you, I think it's great because peter you're, you're, you're doing a podcast for writing and about writing, but you're also bringing in things of importance about issues regarding, you know, mental issues.
01:45:35.33
Sheldon Higdon
um
01:45:35.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, because honestly, the focus isn't even on writing specifically, because we do talk to a lot of different kinds of creatives here.
01:45:40.51
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah.
01:45:43.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
We've had musicians, um visual artists, you know, and a lot of people, as we were saying, they kind of dabble in a lot of different things. But it is about the connection between neurodivergence, mental health.
01:45:51.69
Sheldon Higdon
Mm-hmm.
01:45:57.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Addiction in some cases, addiction and recovery, we talk about, um you know, and and those things and how creativity and neurodivergence and mental illness sort of play off each other.
01:46:10.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
And also we talk like trauma, the impact of trauma and how people use the creative arts to get through that.
01:46:14.22
Sheldon Higdon
yeah Well,
01:46:17.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, I mean, I hope it is a message that resonates with people. I hear sometimes from people that, uh, they they get a lot out of the episodes.
01:46:27.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
They learn things that they they didn't realize as pertains not just to the individuals, but to conditions that people have. Like I, you know, people, we we talk about, for example, EMDR theory for trauma and a lot of people had never heard of it.
01:46:40.76
Sheldon Higdon
mm-hmm.
01:46:42.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, you know.
01:46:45.60
Sheldon Higdon
I mean, again, creativity is definitely, a for me, a very important way of dealing with trauma that I have, dealing with depression. And then going on a podcast such as this, talking with somebody who's also dealing with what they have, but you're talking about it and talking about it out loud.
01:47:15.92
Sheldon Higdon
is important. Talking about it out loud so others who are dealing with the same things, whether worse, whether not worse, they understand that, okay, I'm not the only one who deals with this.
01:47:30.18
Sheldon Higdon
I'm not the only one who feels this way. I'm not the only one thinking like this.
01:47:32.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep, exactly.
01:47:33.79
Sheldon Higdon
So it gives them it gives them a candle to get close to and feel the warmth because they know that there's others doing, dealing with the same stuff.
01:47:44.18
Sheldon Higdon
And now they get to hear others talk about it. And hopefully um ah podcast like this will get them to talk about it to others. And then maybe, you hopefully that will help them in the long run.
01:48:00.18
Sheldon Higdon
You know, so no.
01:48:00.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
I love that metaphor metaphor with the candle in the warmth.
01:48:01.26
Sheldon Higdon
So again, it's, it,
01:48:03.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's so beautiful.
01:48:05.62
Sheldon Higdon
So again, it's not me asking questions, it's just me telling you that I think this is great. I think what you're doing is great. I think it's a great thing to do.
01:48:15.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, thanks, man.
01:48:15.94
Sheldon Higdon
You know, because the the arts and this kind of thing, they go hand in hand. How many times have you heard about a a person throughout history, you know, Mozart or somebody who you find out they dealt with whatever issue they had, but they're a genius at the same time because of the stuff they created, especially
01:48:33.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:48:34.64
Sheldon Higdon
painters, you know, if you talk about certain painters painters, you know, and they, you know, but look at the work they put out, you know, it's amazing work, but they dealt with issues. And this is that those issues came out.
01:48:50.47
Sheldon Higdon
the The ugly issues, if you want to put it that way, came out beautiful on the other side through art.
01:48:56.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:48:57.26
Sheldon Higdon
You know what i mean? So um darkness became light, you know, etc, etc.
01:48:57.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah. Oh, totally.
01:49:01.84
Sheldon Higdon
But so you know, i think you're doing, i think this is a great thing.
01:49:07.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I forget who said it, that the difference between insanity and genius is success. But that's like from an outside lens. From the inside, it's all the same.
01:49:18.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because when you're nuts, you don't necessarily feel like a genius. You just feel like a nut.
01:49:25.41
Sheldon Higdon
Or sometimes you don't even know.
01:49:26.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Unless that's your illness.
01:49:28.13
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah. i say Sometimes you don't even realize you're being, you know, you're nuts, you know, um it's, you know,
01:49:33.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, there's that.
01:49:34.60
Sheldon Higdon
all All the bad guys think they're the good guys. So, you know, so, but um i i'm definitely not a
01:49:40.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah well I don't know but that that's a whole other show
01:49:45.90
Sheldon Higdon
I'm definitely not not a genius.
01:49:45.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
you
01:49:47.54
Sheldon Higdon
and That's for sure.
01:49:51.48
Sheldon Higdon
You know, so I guess we can just leave it with that.
01:49:52.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah well they have Mensa meetings but I've never been invited to one so well good news though we can both ah prove how smart you are when we do this Mad Lib are you ready for this
01:49:57.05
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, me either.
01:50:05.32
Sheldon Higdon
Yeah, I haven't done this since i don't know when.
01:50:06.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
because it is time for the Madlib. Alright, let me see here. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. I need 7 adjectives. My goodness. Let's have them. 7.
01:50:17.81
Sheldon Higdon
Oh, geez. um Okay. Let's remember these things now. Merve, noun, adjective. Let's see. We'll just do simple ones that come to my mind. Tall.
01:50:30.59
Sheldon Higdon
You need how many?
01:50:32.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
seven
01:50:33.08
Sheldon Higdon
So... One. i Okay. It's tall.
01:50:38.50
Sheldon Higdon
Hairy.
01:50:41.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:50:43.69
Sheldon Higdon
um Bumpy.
01:50:47.99
Sheldon Higdon
um
01:50:48.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:50:50.08
Sheldon Higdon
um Smelly.
01:50:54.22
Sheldon Higdon
What that for?
01:50:54.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right.
01:50:54.77
Sheldon Higdon
Rotund. Rotund. Is that a good one? I don't even know.
01:51:03.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
01:51:06.59
Sheldon Higdon
You know, by the way, and when I was in high school, I literally like got a D in English like all the way through four years. um
01:51:12.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
01:51:14.53
Sheldon Higdon
I hated English. um So where are at? I think it's five.
01:51:18.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
I need two more.
01:51:19.61
Sheldon Higdon
Okay, two more. um
01:51:24.20
Sheldon Higdon
Shorts and thin. Boring ones, but nonetheless.
01:51:30.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right. I need a, let's see, one, two, three, four plural nouns. Wait, five.
01:51:39.04
Sheldon Higdon
hmm oh trees
01:51:39.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Good heavens. One, two, three, four. Yep, five plural nouns.
01:51:49.09
Sheldon Higdon
hmm houses penguins
01:51:56.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Two more.
01:52:08.43
Sheldon Higdon
Band-Aids.
01:52:11.81
Sheldon Higdon
don't know why that
01:52:15.85
Sheldon Higdon
came
01:52:19.17
Sheldon Higdon
And let's see.
01:52:24.63
Sheldon Higdon
Cats. Let's just do something simple.
01:52:26.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, and I miscounted, so I need one more.
01:52:29.03
Sheldon Higdon
OK.
01:52:32.20
Sheldon Higdon
Gerbils.
01:52:35.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I need three singular nouns.
01:52:41.26
Sheldon Higdon
ah Skull.
01:52:53.82
Sheldon Higdon
Pumpkin.
01:52:56.50
Sheldon Higdon
And phone. There's one in front of me, so phone.
01:53:03.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
found And I need a type of liquid.
01:53:08.54
Sheldon Higdon
Hypo
01:53:12.51
Sheldon Higdon
blood.
01:53:15.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right, and a verb.
01:53:21.81
Sheldon Higdon
Jump.
01:53:25.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right right, so this is called ballpark cuisine. um Because this is from the sports section of the Mad Lib book. So here we go. Ah, there's nothing better than sitting in the tall bleachers with a cold cup of blood and a hot ballpark skull topped with mustard, sauerkraut, and lots of trees.
01:53:50.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Today, the food houses at many ballparks are like five-star penguins, serving everything from soup to Band-Aids. But to the true baseball pumpkin, the best stuff is sold by the hairy vendors who jump around the aisles shouting, Get your ice-cold phone!
01:54:11.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Get your roasted cats here! But bumpy dogs and cold, smelly soda remain the favorite rotund food of baseball gerbils.
01:54:24.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Some might argue the best part of going to a short game is the delicious thin cuisine.
01:54:33.30
Sheldon Higdon
Okay.
01:54:33.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
And there you have it, the Mad Lib.
01:54:35.63
Sheldon Higdon
There we have it.
01:54:36.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
and Well, Sheldon, man, I am so glad that we could do this. Thank you so much for being here.
01:54:43.22
Sheldon Higdon
Oh, thank you.
01:54:44.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
i am pretty stoked for the new book, and we wish you every success with that next month when it comes out. um We want to remind listeners to find us on Ko-Fi.
01:54:56.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's K-O-F-I. ah Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine does sponsor the Mentally Oddcast. But you can sponsor us too because we'd love to have you. And we're going to see everybody next week. Bye.
01:55:10.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
bye
01:55:11.96
Sheldon Higdon
Bye. bye
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