When asked what he’s working on now, Jason tells me about his upcoming book, The Brotherhood of Secret Darkness: Cults, Cabals, and Conspiracy Theories. It’s a collection of pulp stories with a common thread where he works through the past few years’ events, be it aliens or pagan gods.

As the conversation carries on, we talk about H.P. Lovecraft and what drew Jason into his world. Jason was a late bloomer, discovering Lovecraft after years of playing The Call Of Cthulhu RPG by Chaosium. Lamenting how few modern horror writers seem to understand what Lovecraft did, we spend some time nerding out about the movie The Ritual, one of the few modern horror flicks to capture that Lovecraftian feel.

Next, Jason and I have a brief discussion about story craft. I bring up my struggles writing anything longer than a short story presenting a cool concept or setting. Jason reiterates his position on the importance of craft and gives us a couple of resources for improving.

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks is Jason’s manual of choice for novels, but he recommends the Lester Dent formula for building a short story. This gives us a moment to talk about rules in creativity and how established rules are necessary to subvert and break in creative ways. You must know the rules and expectations so you can know how and when to break them.