Moths to the Flame; Episode 25: Author A. M. Davis and The Mourning of Leon Manor

Join Marie Lestrange in this thrilling episode of "Moths to the Flame" as she welcomes Amanda Davis, a dark fiction Horror author, for a captivating discussion. Listen as they dive into the world of dark and twisted tales as Amanda shares insights into her upcoming novel, "The Mourning of Leon Manor," a chilling gothic narrative inspired by intriguing stories and podcasts. (And we all know how much we love gothic here on Moths to the Flame!)
Discover the creative process behind Amanda's work, from early inspirations like Bluebeard retellings to the influence of podcasts like Lore and movies such as Crimson Peak. Experience the excitement as Marie and Amanda delve into the intricacies of writing, from penning ideas in a binder to transitioning to digital platforms like Noveler. Uncover the challenges and triumphs of crafting compelling narratives, including the art of editing and refining a story to perfection. Get ready for an episode filled with spooky anecdotes, writing revelations, and a glimpse into the world of dark fiction creation. Tune in to "Moths to the Flame" for a spellbinding journey through the minds of two women authors of Horror!

Find all things Amanda HERE!
https://linktr.ee/a.m_davis

Transcript

Marie-Moths to the Flame (00:01.366)
Welcome back, Mormon Moths. I today am again so excited to have you all with me because we have Amanda, AKA AM Davis, dark fiction horror author from Ohio with us today. Hello, Amanda.

Amanda Davis (00:20.067)
Hi!

Marie-Moths to the Flame (00:21.93)
Super excited to have you on the pod today. We're popping some pod cherries, I hear, right?

Amanda Davis (00:28.28)
Yep.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (00:31.238)
So, A.M. Davis is an artist and an author from Ohio. She co-authored her first novel, The Strike and the Shadows, a dark and twisted retelling of the classic tale Hansel and Gretel. By daylight, she is the marketing manager for an upscale resort. That sounds stressful and awesome at the same time. And then by night, she is seeking out her next story, playing video games or imagining what new piece to draw and anguish over dramatically.

Out in May this year, AM has the morning of Leon Manor coming to us from our beloved Quill and Crow publishing house. So again, welcome to the podcast, Amanda.

Amanda Davis (01:13.211)
Thank you, I'm excited to be here.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (01:15.33)
Yes, so what inspired you to write your upcoming novel, the morning of, am I saying that right, Leon, or is it Leonel? Yeah, okay, so what inspired Leon Manor? Where did it come from?

Amanda Davis (01:23.703)
Yeah! No, you got it, you got it.

Amanda Davis (01:31.227)
Oh, a few things, honestly. So I'll start with like the very early iteration. It was it was like a bluebeard retelling. A lot more, way more morbid actually, than what it ended up being, which I'm totally fine with because I don't know if I would have had like the stomach for it. But I was listening to this, I was listening to another podcast. If you're familiar with lore.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (01:53.367)
Uh-huh.

Amanda Davis (01:58.303)
about Aaron Menke. Oh, I love that one. I love that one. Um, and there was a there was an early podcast about Karl Tanzler. I don't know if you're familiar with his okay. So I'll try to summarize this. This gentleman named Karl worked in this. I don't know if it was like medical or if you work in a hospital if it was a I know it was a hospital.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (01:59.862)
Yes! That's a good one.

Amanda Davis (02:26.007)
And he was working as a janitor. But he tried to sell himself as like a doctor and served this family because he was in love with their daughter. And she didn't reciprocate those feelings. I think she had tuberculosis actually. And she died. Yeah, she died. I don't know why they would trust him because he was from the hospital or something like that. I don't.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (02:38.998)
Oh no.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (02:44.622)
I'm gonna

Marie-Moths to the Flame (02:48.342)
Okay.

Sounds like a shitty doctor. Carl's turning out to be an asshole.

Amanda Davis (02:55.887)
He did, he did. And it was just like, it was so, it was such a fascinating story, especially the ending because the family ended up, they buried her and they left and the house was, you know, left behind empty and he unburied their daughter and reconstructed her as like a living doll. It was, it was such an

Marie-Moths to the Flame (02:59.854)
Okay.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (03:21.142)
Mm-mm-mm. Living, unliving stuff.

Amanda Davis (03:24.339)
Yes, living on living. It was so interesting. And originally, when I started this, I was like, Oh, it'll be like a bluebeard retelling, like, she'll marry this guy. And like, this guy will have like this crazy weird secret. And like all of his wives are and I'm like, Oh, let's tone it down a little bit. Let's bring it back. Because I couldn't like, I couldn't figure out like, how that was going to work as a story. Like what you know what I mean? Um, you know,

Marie-Moths to the Flame (03:43.511)
Thank you.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (03:50.194)
Yeah. Sometimes the ideas are bigger than what our pages can hold. We're like, oh, wait a minute. I got a railer and yeah.

Amanda Davis (03:57.095)
Exactly 100%. That's, that's, that is, I think, exactly what happened. So it was still like in the early planning stages. I hadn't put like pen to paper yet. But then I started, I rewatched, I think it was, I rewatched like Crimson Peak, which, yes, so anytime anybody asks me, well, what's your book about? I'm like, oh, it's like my love letter to Crimson Peak, if you've ever seen that movie, which it essentially is, because I,

Marie-Moths to the Flame (03:59.95)
I'm going to go to bed.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (04:14.795)
Oh, one of my faves.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (04:24.354)
Yes.

Amanda Davis (04:27.223)
I wrote this during COVID, so I spent a lot of time watching Crimson Peak, other films like Hill House or The Haunting of Hill House, which is phenomenal. And I love that. God, I love that. Yes, that whole series. I have to watch the Fallen House Buster yet, but anyway.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (04:39.047)
Oh god amazing, yes.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (04:46.83)
I don't watch that either and everybody keeps telling me like what is wrong? You've got to get on it I'm like, I don't watch TV. I'm writing but like oh I want to so badly. Yeah

Amanda Davis (04:52.161)
I know!

Amanda Davis (04:55.447)
Yeah, it's there. It's like there. It's in the back of my mind. Like, I gotta watch it. I gotta watch it. I gotta watch it. But, um, yep. I spent a lot of time watching Crimson Peak. I started to form an idea. I wrote it out. I kind of like, you know, I've been watching things like Knives Out and Murder on the Orient Express. I've never been like a big into murder mysteries or anything. But I guess that sort of like helped push that along.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (05:18.762)
Mm-hmm.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (05:24.522)
Yes.

Amanda Davis (05:25.695)
The morning of Leon Nanner is... My editing team is fantastic because it was a little... It was kind of chaotic for the most part. Like there was a lot of things I was trying to do. And they did do well, but I feel like I skipped around way too much. So my editors helped me rein that in quite a bit. Yeah, so that was good. That was my first experience cutting like 10k out of 90,000 words and it was...

Marie-Moths to the Flame (05:35.019)
Ha ha

Marie-Moths to the Flame (05:47.257)
Good, good.

Amanda Davis (05:56.888)
But yeah, it was good. Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (05:57.342)
I hear you, I hear you. My husband, my husband wrote, his first novel was 210,000 words. He wrote Epic Fantasy, and we ended up having to cut 75,000 words from it. You talk about painful, like ungodly. I'm like, that is, so, and he wrote that by hand too. I noticed that you said pen to paper. Are you a hand writer or do you type?

Amanda Davis (06:07.825)
Oh, OK.

Uh...

Amanda Davis (06:15.099)
That's so hard.

Amanda Davis (06:25.435)
That, I'm both, I would say I'm high. So when I was younger, I wrote in a binder that I carried around with me in school. I should have been writing in class, but I was anyway. Whatever, who cares, you know what I mean? I hand wrote my first book in a binder and then I typed it out. Oh yeah, that was it, that's what I had.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (06:37.442)
I mean, yeah, whatever.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (06:47.082)
A little trapper keeper, 90s style, yeah. I figured.

Amanda Davis (06:53.719)
It was a lot to do. So I, and you know, of course you've got like all of these papers that, you know, they're not the same size like notebook paper. So you've got like varying degrees of like this size paper, this size paper, like I was all over the place, but now I type, now I type. In fact, I type in the notes app on my phone and I'm transferring my whip over into noveler now.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (07:04.127)
Yeah, yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (07:21.818)
I'm stressed out. I'm so stressed out by that. Good for you. That I could not. I could not. Okay, so tell me about Noveler. I don't think I've ever heard of that program. I know the notes app because I have all my idea. Listen, if I ever die, I mean, eventually when I do die, if somebody goes through my notes app and they're like dead babies in like they're gonna see all this crazy shit in the notes because it's just like ideas, like moments of things I want to include.

Amanda Davis (07:39.012)
Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (07:50.898)
No one read that, okay? No one. Like.

Amanda Davis (07:53.571)
Just leave it in your well, like please don't go through my phone. Save all of, I've, yep, yep. I've saved all of my photos in this relevant file. This is where everything you can find that's important. Don't go through anything else, please. But novel, of the first novel? Yeah, probably. I think somewhere around here. It's in one of my bags.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (07:56.646)
Yeah, like, no, or just publish it all.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (08:06.466)
Don't go there, yeah. So do you still have the hand copy?

Marie-Moths to the Flame (08:16.662)
You, okay, you've got to keep that for your eventual archive when you have some university that wants to display your work as a notorious authoress, okay? You've got to keep it so it can go, that would be so cool to have in an author archive, I feel like.

Amanda Davis (08:21.769)
of.

Amanda Davis (08:33.987)
We'll keep it in like a special little glass case. We'll preserve the pages, but yeah. Uh-huh. Uh, but that would be crazy. But Novelr is, yeah, it would be. Yeah. I mean, we'll see, we'll see how it goes. I don't know. It keeps getting, okay, yeah, right. So anyway, Novelr, Novelr is new to me. I, another author introduced it to me and she recommended it.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (08:36.898)
Definitely. Yeah. I love them.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (08:45.046)
Manifest!

Amanda Davis (09:03.707)
She was like, oh, you can have like multiple projects on there and it's super user friendly. Like the mobile interface is nice and it is, it's so nice. It's so easy to use. It keeps track of, you can see all of your word count displayed up top and I've been having issues with like Google lately. So I'm like, all right, well, I'll give it a shot. I did and I didn't use Scrivener, but Scrivener seems intimidating to me. Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (09:21.454)
So it's better than Scrivener.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (09:28.842)
It's horrible. I hate it. A lot of people love it and I'm not the one. I don't like it at all.

Amanda Davis (09:33.431)
Give this one a shot, you might like it. I like that like you can click down on your project that you're working on. And obviously like separates all of your chapters out for you, which I need at times. Cause I'm like, oh, I'm scrolling, scrolling. And I can't find them. And you know what I mean? And then it's got like a section for like planning or like notes or anything that you want to keep track of. So we'll go, okay, that's pretty cool. So it's at its base, it's very simple.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (09:49.982)
Right? Right.

Amanda Davis (10:03.387)
and I appreciate that. That's what I need.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (10:05.574)
Okay, that sounds pretty good. I'm one of these spreadsheets gals. And so I like to I have to plot everything out in a spreadsheet. I'm like psychotic about it. It's just yeah, my process is not it's not for the faint of heart. I won't write. I know yeah, I 100% will not start writing a novel until I have every scene plotted out. Like I'm just weird like that. It is what it is. Yeah.

Amanda Davis (10:09.924)
Oh yeah.

Amanda Davis (10:14.443)
Whoa.

Amanda Davis (10:18.603)
You're a planner, not a panther.

Amanda Davis (10:29.151)
I don't think so. No, when I was writing the Morning of Leon Manor, which was previously Mal's and Bluewood, I keep wanting to call it that. It was just French for Blue Manor, which is where you get the blue beard from. But while I was writing that one, a lot of those chapters were easy for me to write because I knew where I wanted to go with them because I'd been thinking about them and stewing on them like all day. And then others I would go through.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (10:40.476)
Yes.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (10:44.994)
Yeah.

Amanda Davis (10:58.503)
as I was, you know, writing out my, you know, chapter titles or whatever, I would write like a short paragraph with like key points like, okay, here's what this chapter needs to have here, because while I might not have the idea right away about how I want this particular piece to go, I can at least skip to the next chapter where I know I know what I want to write, how I want to write it, and then jump back there. So I jump around and I think that, oh, that's just the chaos that works in my brain because I'm

It's just that ADHD, it's just back and forth. Ha ha!

Marie-Moths to the Flame (11:29.706)
feel you that my spreadsheets are a tool I'm using to combat my ADHD. Because then I'm like, okay, I don't get into the ADHD freeze where I see the blank page in front of me. And I'm like, I can't write shit. I don't know anything about anything. Why would I? I can't write a book. What am I doing? You know? And so if I have my plot, then I can be like, okay, I can write 2000 words about this little thing. I could do one chapter a night. I could do that like

Amanda Davis (11:47.198)
Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (11:54.39)
And then it, writing against writing and yeah. So I had to learn. It's a tool to combat all of my neurodivergency. Yeah. Woo wee, that's a fun little pot for sure. Ha ha ha.

Amanda Davis (12:04.543)
Well, you asked if I still handwrite. I do. I do handwrite my outlines, which is funny.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (12:12.27)
I mean, I think that well, that's good, though. It's like getting the process to your brainstorming and you're like getting it out. So that's cool.

Amanda Davis (12:16.555)
It's so, yeah, and it's almost, yeah, and it's almost easier to just hand write it out because I don't know, like, you know, a bullet point. So I'm like, okay, chapter three is gonna have these key plot points, blah, blah. And then, you know, sometimes it.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (12:30.158)
Mm-hmm. I wonder if that has to do with you being an artist too, like visually, it's kind of like you're visually mapping things out.

Amanda Davis (12:37.035)
Oh, yeah, I could see it that way too. Like, you know, you're building the skeleton of it. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah, sure.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (12:44.49)
Yeah, and you're like making that connection with, right? Cause they say that you learn things too, by writing them down and all of that. So there's something to it. We're picking up out your whole writing process right now. You just didn't know that this was a psychoanalytical podcast, right? So yes, years of therapy, I am also ready. Like.

Amanda Davis (12:49.803)
Yep.

Amanda Davis (12:55.153)
Oh yeah.

Amanda Davis (12:58.811)
I mean, I'm ready, strip me down, like, let's go, we'll deep dive. Ha ha ha!

Amanda Davis (13:05.643)
Well, I mean, I've just had TikTok to walk me through it all. I'm like, oh, OK. I'm just, you know, that's not a great source, but, you know.

Amanda Davis (13:19.179)
Yeah.

Amanda Davis (13:25.645)
Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (13:26.166)
Yeah. Uh

Amanda Davis (13:32.123)
100%. It is.

Amanda Davis (13:39.64)
Yes.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (13:39.99)
That's not what I watch on there. I'm watching like, you know, witchy stuff, book stuff, mental health stuff. Like there are no dancing to be found. So, you know, that's exactly right. Okay. So I would love to know what type of research you had to do it to go into writing. Your latest novel. Like, did you have specific research as far as settings go or the characters?

Amanda Davis (13:49.355)
Nope, the algorithm just knows you.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (14:09.504)
What kind of research did you have to do?

Amanda Davis (14:12.607)
So I set it in the Victorian time period. I just feel like that's Gothic romance, you know what I mean? It is. So the first novel I wrote was around that time period too, when I was younger. So I had a lot of research from that point that I remembered. So I brought all that knowledge back in with me. I read what you write, right?

Marie-Moths to the Flame (14:18.562)
Gothic. Yeah. Yes.

Amanda Davis (14:39.727)
So I went in, yes, I dove into some Gothic romances just to kind of like get myself in the right mindset for it. And then, yeah, I mean, I did some research. I looked up like the setting for where I wanted it to take place. It's off the coast of France on a little island. It's a made up island. I just needed to like figure out like, okay,

Marie-Moths to the Flame (14:40.475)
Always, always.

Amanda Davis (15:09.527)
as far as, you know, location and, you know, is it like a day's worth trip from like the mainland out to this island or like, could you make it in like a half a day, those kinds of things. And then of course, I had to look up. Yes. Because I had to look up and this is not a spoiler. Very early on, I think even in the summary I have that Remy is my main character, my main female character. She's recently widowed. So she

has to send word to her... I don't wanna fix that son, but like technically that's what he is. They're like the same age. I think they're just a couple of years apart if I remember correctly. She's like 26 and he's like 30. I don't remember off the top of my head. I don't think I wrote out their ages if I'm being honest with you.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (15:57.226)
Okay, and you know what, that's okay. Sometimes it's for we the reader to fill in, that's fine.

Amanda Davis (16:00.695)
You know what? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And when I pictured him, I was like, he's a little bit older than she is. And then she's there probably like two or three years apart. I think that's where I kept it. So nothing like too outrageous, you know what I mean? But she married his father and they were childhood sweetheart. So there's a little bit of scandal in there. Um, yeah, I love it. I live for it. I love the tragedy and I love the drama. So

Marie-Moths to the Flame (16:20.092)
Mmmm

Marie-Moths to the Flame (16:28.35)
Oh, same, same.

Amanda Davis (16:29.956)
Yeah, so I had to look up funeral customs during that time. And yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (16:35.378)
That's my shit. I love all of that. The rings and the gifts and the gloves. And I'm like, why the fuck don't we do that anymore? Like why I would

Amanda Davis (16:42.787)
I know they were so... You got me, but you know what? I know what I'm doing when I die. I'm just saying, like, this is how it better be. All of you need to be dressed up in time period garb from this time. I require gifts. I require this. I want all of the mirrors in the house covered, not a speck of jewelry on a single person, and I would require that my husband, if he does not precede me in death, wear black for months and months.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (16:46.799)
I know.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (16:51.57)
Same.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (16:55.499)
Definitely.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (17:02.654)
Yes.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (17:12.318)
up beyond months, the rest of his life, honestly. Yeah. Like, don't you dare get re, I will haunt your ass. Don't you find another woman. Oh my God. I would make the worst. I always, yeah, no, definitely.

Amanda Davis (17:13.891)
Beyond month, for the rest of the night.

Amanda Davis (17:19.931)
No. Yeah, exactly. Haunting. And of course, yeah, like, you have to complete it. Of course, I have to stay in haunt. I mean, that's, you know, but I had so that was fun looking that up. And then there just seems like snippets that I never would have guessed. Like, like even like the morning period for widows was insane. It could last up to a year. And I'm like, all right, well,

Marie-Moths to the Flame (17:30.23)
Definitely.

Amanda Davis (17:46.179)
This little island kind of exists outside of itself. And when I was writing Remy's character, she's sort of like, you'll, and that's a spoiler, so I can't give that away, but you learn why she's there and why she's sort of like, because being 26, it's a very late time for you to marry and why she ended up marrying. His name is Ben, his father instead of him.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (18:06.744)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Davis (18:15.991)
and it gets crazy and you learn about all these things. And of course I had to look into those customs. Just a lot of like, a lot of rules during the time and how I could work around and interact with these characters and make it so that the story works. Thankfully Remy is kind of a recluse so she stays inside anyway. Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (18:36.116)
So that you got the isolation down in Gothic. Yes, true. Love that. Yeah. Well, and

Amanda Davis (18:39.063)
100% the isolation. She's been isolated all her life.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (18:42.626)
do you find too that when you when you read about customs or you read about stuff like with the gifts in Victorian funeral customs, I would find that it would it gives me inspiration in writing stories because I write Gothic two and I'm obsessed with it. It's like the same you know you have these and you're like, Oh my god, they used to keep locks of hair and jewelry. Let me learn about that poison rings. Let me learn about that. And then it's like, that's going to the story that's going to the street. You know, it's just I mean, history was so

There's no way that we can't include it in our books, you know, it's just love it.

Amanda Davis (19:16.547)
Yeah, I mean, those are like little tidbits that are, I think those are the details that I think are so much fun. But yeah, that's kind of the research I did. And of course I looked a little bit more into like the Gothic genre. Like I hadn't like touched it yet. Like the Shrike was a fairy tale retelling and that was more, that one was, I don't know. It was...

It was fun to write, it was a lot of fun to write. It was very dark, but it wasn't specific to this, I think. It didn't play by these particular rules. So that was a world that we kind of built and threw our characters into it, as opposed to me writing these characters into this world, if that makes sense. Exactly, yeah, so.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (20:05.01)
and flushing out the world. Yes, definitely. Yeah. So are you intending to continue writing in the gothic genre? Is that kind of where your niche is going to be? Are you feeling like you have other places you want to explore?

Amanda Davis (20:21.175)
I think this speaks, I think, to my character and also, again, the ADHD. I genre hop a lot. Oh yeah, I'm a genre hopper. So I think I'd like to come back to the Gothic genre. One of the, I think, novels I'm planning, I probably won't write it yet until after when I'm currently working on, which I think is going to be more of like a dark romanticie.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (20:32.099)
Oh boy. Okay.

Amanda Davis (20:50.291)
Um, yes. Well, I don't know. Let's hope I, I don't think I'll have it done this year. I might be able to start it by the end of the year, but I'm working on a, I don't even really know how to maybe like a vampire fantasy, but it's modern. It's kind of, I, I describe it as Scott Pilgrim versus the world meets, uh, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (20:50.563)
Ooh, which is big right now, so that's good. Yes.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (21:17.47)
Oh, that sounds fun. I like that. And vampires are totally having a moment right now too. I mean, people are, it's kind of like starting to come back and I'm seeing that we've got like, Stephen Graham Jones just announced the other day that he's writing a vampire novel and we have, yeah, which I'm like, sign me up for that shit. I'm ready. And what is, oh, oh my God, Nosferatu. Robert Eggers later in the year and he's my favorite director in the whole world and I'm, oh.

Amanda Davis (21:22.915)
They are!

Amanda Davis (21:36.743)
I love those eyes.

Amanda Davis (21:42.02)
Yeah!

Marie-Moths to the Flame (21:46.594)
I'm gonna die, I'm so excited about it. So like, vampires are having a moment, they're coming back. We've all healed from our sparkly trauma and we're jumping back into vampires, right? We're jumping back into vampires, right?

Amanda Davis (21:51.012)
What are?

Amanda Davis (21:57.621)
Oh yeah, I was a Twilight Girlie for sure! Yep.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (21:59.974)
So was I what was I mean I read it watch the movies I will say though I sat there in the theater You know at like 17 18 whenever the last one came out and when the baby is ripping out of her belly I was like what the fuck is happening right now like why am I entertained? What is going on?

Amanda Davis (22:07.323)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Davis (22:18.42)
I just remember reading that for the first time and being like, oh, that's crazy. Like, this is so graphic. And it was. I mean, it is still. I think, yes, shocking. Truly shocking. I was like, oh.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (22:24.216)
Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (22:27.402)
Yeah. Shocking.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (22:34.518)
I don't know why I was more shocked in the theater than I was reading it though. Like I'd read it, like I knew it was coming. And then in the theater, I was like, I don't, what is happening? But I wish that every movie, every book could give me the shock of my life. Like that Carlisle scene. You know, the one I like that feel. I want every piece of media to give me that feeling. I love that. I was like, what the fuck? What is happening? Yeah.

Amanda Davis (22:52.668)
Yep.

Amanda Davis (22:59.834)
I remember seeing that too.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (23:03.71)
In the whole theater, everybody's like, what is going on? This is not right. I remember people standing up and like popcorn flying and I want that feeling all the time. I loved it. It was so good. So.

Amanda Davis (23:03.735)
I remember seeing that.

Amanda Davis (23:14.571)
even though it was like tragic how horrible that whole film series was. I feel like after I saw the first one, I was so I never know so hyped for this movie. I was so excited. Like, this was this was like 13 I'm pretty sure when this when the first Twilight novel came out and I devoured it like I remember going right I've actually bought it at the book fair. I remember this

Marie-Moths to the Flame (23:26.935)
Oh.

Amanda Davis (23:43.235)
So yeah, my friend was sitting next to me in history class and she had it and she started reading it. I was like, oh, what's that about? She starts telling me a little bit. And I'm like, oh, that sounds pretty cool. Cause I had been reading, I think, I think I picked up, no, that was before or after. But I picked it up and I read the first couple of chapters and I was hooked. I was like, oh my God, I need to get this. So I remember going home that night and I was like, mom, I need to get this book. I got to get this book. Can I please have some money for the book fair? And she was like, yeah, okay, here's this. So I went in and I, oh my God. I like my,

I remember that experience so vividly. I remember walking up there, my heart pounding. I'm like, where's this book? Where's this book? I gotta get it, grabbed it. And I was done reading it in days.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (24:17.42)
Oh.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (24:23.806)
Yeah, isn't that the best feeling? I wonder if kids nowadays have that experience. Like I don't, I just don't know. Yeah, I'm like, I have a six year old and he loves to read, but like, he's not at that point yet where we're in love with chapter books or anything. But I just, I remember the midnight.

Amanda Davis (24:29.367)
Mine don't.

Amanda Davis (24:37.017)
Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (24:41.342)
you know, like I was one of those candidate books a million at midnight to get the HP books like I was ready, you know, it's an I feel like we don't have that anymore. And that's, that's a sad that's actually on my bucket list. I would love to have a midnight release of one of my novels at my homeland bookstore. I would love that. That'd be cool.

Amanda Davis (24:42.223)
DEHA-

Amanda Davis (25:01.507)
Oh my God, yeah, no, that would be so cool. Well, now you got me thinking like maybe I wanna do that, but, oh my God, that would be so, well, we have a cool little book bar over here and I have to reach out to them and they carry local authors and I'm like, oh, that's so awesome. I might have to do it now. It would be so, but I'm not very well known, so I feel like, I don't know, I don't know. It would be fun. It would be a lot of fun. Appropriate.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (25:08.672)
We'll take over the world. We're going to do it this way.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (25:18.834)
Midnight, do a midnight release. How badass would that be?

Marie-Moths to the Flame (25:29.223)
Yeah, get your local WAA and yeah for like dark spooky shit actually now. I'm like what yes. I'm like I have a book coming out in June What am I doing like I need to be planning a midnight release like what am I doing? Yeah? Yep, see god. We talked about that bring it bring it bringing back the good old times for sure so

Amanda Davis (25:32.139)
Yeah, we're black. We're going to a funeral.

Amanda Davis (25:44.119)
Let's bring them back.

Amanda Davis (25:48.827)
We'll just, we'll call it a midnight math. That's what we'll do. Yeah. That was so good.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (25:52.042)
Yes, oh, Midnight Mass, Midnight Mass. Speaking of a prayer.

Amanda Davis (25:57.927)
Yes, but where's your-

Marie-Moths to the Flame (26:01.33)
Oh, and Jay, I got to meet him, one of the writers, you know, Mike Flanagan and Jamie Flanagan, and they both worked on Midnight Mass and they're so sweet, so sweet and so nice and so freaking talented. Amazing. Okay, so I want to know when you are thinking about background and personal experiences, do you ever thread any of that into your...

Amanda Davis (26:12.283)
Oh my god, that's so lucky.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (26:27.134)
writing specifically into Leon Manor or is most of it just like totally fantastical?

Amanda Davis (26:35.855)
Honestly, I think subconsciously I do it. Cause I, when I go in and I feel like I struggle with this as a writer too, a lot of authors have, you know, like if you go in, especially like with YA and they're like, these are the things that you're gonna find in these books. You know, like this is the message that I'm trying to get across with my novel. And I'm like, I just want to write a book that you can read and enjoy. But then I'll sit there and I'll dissect it afterwards. And I'm like, oh, okay, so maybe.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (26:57.918)
Yeah, enjoy it.

Amanda Davis (27:04.967)
maybe there is a small thing in here that I may or may not have added without thinking about it. So like Remy's background, and I'll admit this to anybody, I don't feel like I write great female characters, but I feel like that's also because I don't necessarily relate to the females that I'm writing. And that's not a bad thing because they're very opposite of who I am. And Remy,

Marie-Moths to the Flame (27:12.876)
Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (27:32.598)
So interesting.

Amanda Davis (27:34.071)
Remy's character is very soft, but she's still strong-willed. And she's just very, she's feminine. She's very feminine without being, you know, that damsel. Like she has a mind of her own, but I'm not like that at all. So she was interesting to write and I kind of had a hard time connecting with her, but on the flip side, I had a much easier time connecting with Ben, the male character I have.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (27:41.442)
Mm-hmm.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (27:49.441)
Yeah.

Amanda Davis (28:02.519)
And I think that just has a lot to do with the fact that he has so much anger as a troubled kid with a difficult relationship with a father figure. Because he's been away for 16 years. And, you know, he hears about his father remarrying and like that kind of burns him up.

and he's upset about it, especially with who he married. You know, that just adds more fuel to the fire. And, you know, he hasn't heard from his father in years, and he was never called back home, never asked to come back, never, you know, he's just been kind of like left out there with no word, nothing. So he's angry. And I really, I really related to that anger a lot because I'm familiar with that feeling.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (28:36.595)
Yeah, like.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (28:52.567)
Yeah?

Amanda Davis (29:01.039)
and holding onto it and kind of using that as an excuse to kind of be one way or another. Because he doesn't start out great. He's kind of, he's kind of mean. He's a prick. Yeah, yeah, he's a prick. Yes. So and I think he realizes too, like, well, I know he does, he does realize, you know, I'm doing this and I really shouldn't be directing all of this anger at her. It's all misplaced. But he kind of can't help himself. You know, because he...

Marie-Moths to the Flame (29:11.382)
We have a nice little character arc, right? Some development through the story. Good.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (29:28.749)
Right.

Amanda Davis (29:30.283)
You see the subject and you're like, she was part of it and I want to be angry. And he just, you know, learning, I think both individually learning from the things that hurt them and healing together, but not like, you know, trauma bonding, I guess, I don't know, using that trauma to bring them together. Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (29:50.066)
No, yeah, no, it is kind of like trauma bonding. Absolutely. And he needed some TikTok therapy is what it sounds like. He needed some of that. Yeah, he needed a little bit of that. Hey, I needed some introspective situation for sure. So it does, and that's interesting. I love and I'm obsessed with people and books that we've.

Amanda Davis (29:56.507)
It does, it does.

a little bit of TikTok there.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (30:12.886)
mental health awareness into their writing. And like my books are total trauma dumps, like beyond trauma dumps. Like all my shit is laid out in the pages for everybody to see, it is what it is. But not in the way that people would think, you know.

Amanda Davis (30:27.287)
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (30:27.442)
Obviously, I like, you know, I'd like I write about serial killers and shit like, no, I'm not a serial killer. But like, there's definitely ties like anxiety and the neural divergency, all of that kind of comes into play in writing. And it's very therapeutic for us as writers, but then also for readers too, and how they, you know, experience grief and that sort of thing. And I want to ask you, speaking of novels, the

Amanda Davis (30:42.97)
100%

Marie-Moths to the Flame (30:52.586)
Center around grief. Have you read your publishing sisters book? Quiet stillness of empty houses by LV Russell

Amanda Davis (31:02.907)
Oh no, I have... It's in my phone. I have it on my Kindle. Where?

Marie-Moths to the Flame (31:06.862)
And that's a good she was on the pod you gotta you gotta go watch that episode of the when she was on here and then read her book Talk about gothic so good It's a really good one and a really interesting story about dealing with grief in horror And I think you would really like it so you need to go check that one out. Yeah

Amanda Davis (31:23.967)
Oh, I love that. Yeah, I will. It's on my Kindle. I have it on my TV. Might have it in my TBR pile, but yes, I need to read it. Yeah, that sounds good. I love it. Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (31:31.682)
Oh geez. Yes, in that story of our lives for sure, all the TBR files. So what is some of the most interesting feedback that you've gotten from readers, beta readers, editors, on your novel?

Amanda Davis (31:49.955)
I've heard, I don't know, honestly. I think I, this is, this is, I ask for critique. That's what I want, I want criticism. So when anybody like reads my book, I'm like, okay, but like rip it apart. Tell me what's bad, what do I need to fix? So a lot of the positivity goes over my head.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (32:04.202)
Right, like, tell me the awful stuff, yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (32:12.714)
You gotta learn how to take a compliment. Listen, come to my podcast therapy. You gotta learn to take the praise too, okay? Yep.

Amanda Davis (32:14.331)
as well. No, I don't. And my Yep. Make the praise. Take the praise. But I asked him, well, I think the best feedback I got was from my husband. He's not he doesn't read those kinds of books, at least particularly like what I wrote, because it is a Gothic romance. And it

Amanda Davis (32:41.071)
He picked it up and he didn't even finish reading The Shrike and the Shadows. He was, he, he think he, I think he had like the first chapter and after that he just kind of like wrote it off, which I don't blame him because I'm like, if it's not your thing, it's not your thing. Um, but he picked it up before I actually queried, uh, Quill and Crow. I had him read through it. I was like, Hey, do you want to just, do you want to like check it out? And he goes, yeah, I'll read it. So he, he would be at work and, um, he was like, I can't put it down. It's so good. I hate this character.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (32:49.928)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Amanda Davis (33:10.939)
Character is terrible. She's but you're supposed to hate this character. So he's like he's texting me He's giving me all this feedback and I'm like, okay All right, I see how it is like this is all right, he goes and I don't really like those kind of books those kinds of books So trust me when I say it's good. I'm like, okay All right Yes

Marie-Moths to the Flame (33:14.911)
Yeah!

Marie-Moths to the Flame (33:29.206)
That is a huge compliment to get somebody that does is not in the genre. That's like, I love that shit. That's amazing. It's like when somebody that you don't know reads your work and says something about it, because then you're like, what? What? You're not like, you don't have to say anything about it. And that, yeah, that's like the best feeling in the whole world. I feel like that's it's that takes some getting used to for sure, for sure.

Amanda Davis (33:35.96)
What?

Amanda Davis (33:49.187)
It is.

It does. And I've gotten, you know, I had a couple other folks read it too. Like my co-author, Chantal, she read it. She was actually in the early stages when I first started writing it and was reading it and giving feedback. And I can always rely on her to be honest with me. So, and then I gave it to a couple beta readers outside of my circle, which is what you're supposed to do. And they gave me some great feedback too. She said, the one had said, you know, I don't really read mystery novels.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (34:14.35)
always.

Amanda Davis (34:22.287)
This was amazing and I couldn't put it down. I gave them all like the first five chapters. I was like, just read it. If you don't like the first five, that's totally okay. But then both of them came back and they were like, hey, just send me the full, because I want to finish. And I'm like, okay, that's a positive sign. Yeah, yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (34:35.661)
That's awesome! That's a good feeling. That's a good, good feeling. And you're with a publishing house that's so steeped in that gothic, like, wait, that's such a good environment for it to harness and like bring out that book, you know? I really love that. You're among a good community. That's really, really good. Cassandra's great. Like, that's just super, super great. So then I would like to know about upcoming projects. You mentioned you were in the middle of writing a book.

Amanda Davis (34:44.664)
WAAAHHHHH

Amanda Davis (34:50.127)
Yeah.

Amanda Davis (34:55.212)
Oh yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (35:05.258)
right now the Scott Pilgrim situation, right? That's the next one. Okay, how far are we into that process?

Amanda Davis (35:08.875)
Oh yeah, yep, yep.

Amanda Davis (35:15.271)
I'm on chapter 13 in the vampire one. And that one is, I've got a couple other chapters that happen later on. Like I've got the ending written. I've got a couple other chapters that precede that are like later on in the novel. So probably like chapter 21 through 23 are done. I think I'm at like 25,000 words if I'm not mistaken. So I'm doing good.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (35:19.97)
Okay.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (35:42.987)
Yeah.

Amanda Davis (35:43.999)
It's going. It's going. I mean, I finally found I think, a good rhythm with it. So I can give you I can give you a little bit on it. So it's about my female, the main character. Her name is Millie. I might change her name. I don't know. She's a she's a she's an erotic dancer. She works at a place called string theory. Really proud of that one. Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (35:46.814)
It's going.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (36:00.344)
Okay, we love OG names, yes.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (36:06.318)
Ooh.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (36:10.53)
I like that. I like that. Yes, that's funny. I just got it. That's funny. It took me. It took me a second but I got there like oh my god that's the best. I just someone out there that's listening to this podcast please open up an exotic dance club and call it string theory. Oh my god. That's amazing.

Amanda Davis (36:15.937)
I thought about that so much I was like this is the best title

Yeah! I'm gonna-

Amanda Davis (36:33.307)
I even thought about what the logo would look like. I'm like, there's a thong at the end of theory. So instead of a Y, it's a thong and it just, it's so perfect. I'm like, I don't know if I'm ever gonna get.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (36:46.266)
No, no, you have to make merch shirts for it that have that are like a club like a Yeah

Amanda Davis (36:55.339)
I dance it string theory. All right. Okay. All right. I'll do it.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (36:56.546)
I'm an yes, I'm an idea woman. I got you with the ideas that what you need to do. Mm-hmm. There you go Midnight release string theory exotic club, but we got all the ideas here Definitely thank you

Amanda Davis (37:05.955)
I'll give you all the full credit. I'll give you full credit too. But she, she's coming home from Halloween at the club and she's being followed and she sort of tries to seek sanctuary, find somewhere to hide, run away from this guy. She's nowhere near close to home. She makes the comment that she shouldn't have walked home and she should have called an Uber, but her phone's dead. So she's like, I'm already like going. I'll just keep going. And

You know, she realizes that she's being followed. So she runs into this abandoned church off the side of the street and thinking, okay, I'm gonna go hide here. He follows her, shenanigans ensue. She accidentally wakes up a vampire. There's been, there's a dead guy up in a church tower. And she thinks it's just a corpse. And it turns out that it's a vampire. And he got a little splash of blood and he was like, it's time to wake up.

uh saves her from her uh her attacker um it's spicy it's very it's very spicy um like the first consensual spice happens in the second chapter literally yeah it happened um

Marie-Moths to the Flame (38:11.982)
That sounds fun!

Marie-Moths to the Flame (38:24.011)
Yeah!

Marie-Moths to the Flame (38:27.742)
Hey, you know what? That's okay. I want after this podcast I want you to go look on my social media at the book I have coming out in March called smutton and the first 30 pages are Complete smut and then it turns into horror

Amanda Davis (38:35.171)
OOF

Amanda Davis (38:43.127)
Wait, is that, did you write that one with your husband? I think I saw it on your, I think I saw it pinned. Yeah, yeah I saw it. I was looking at your, yeah I was looking at your Twitter. Yeah, yeah, cause he has like a ram head and I was like, man that was fun. What?

Marie-Moths to the Flame (38:47.298)
Shut up. Yes!

Marie-Moths to the Flame (38:58.466)
Something it's something so the thou shalt not judge on this mutt writing. Okay, cuz oh my god Yeah, no, it's it. Yeah the Rams head. It's whoo, baby. That's a psycho toxin press is putting that out I'm like y'all are brave

Amanda Davis (39:04.484)
No, of course not.

Amanda Davis (39:09.249)
Oh yeah.

Amanda Davis (39:14.96)
Well, I mean things are taboo things are out, you know, I wouldn't even say taboo like I mean The monster the sexy monster genre is a thing. It's a thing

Marie-Moths to the Flame (39:25.81)
Listen, listen, so that smuthead group on Facebook, there's a group of like, oh, I'm there and they, they are fucked up in there. Okay. You talked about no trigger warnings. They're like, gimme, I'm like, these are my people. What is happening here? Yes. Oh my God. I'm like, they are more hardcore than some of the horror community. I'm like, they are what's up. Yeah. It's, I love them.

Amanda Davis (39:30.011)
Are you there too? The Snot Hood?

Amanda Davis (39:37.)
Yeah!

Amanda Davis (39:43.439)
They're like, I have no triggers, just throw it at me. This is what I'm looking for. I'm like, damn.

Amanda Davis (39:51.295)
I know! Yeah! I'm there for it. One of my best friends, she's in there and she invited me into this group and I was like, what did you do? Where am I?

Marie-Moths to the Flame (39:54.782)
love them. They are fascinating. Yeah, for sure. So

Marie-Moths to the Flame (40:02.082)
Oh, oh yeah. My husband invited me into it. He was like, you're gonna love this group. It was so funny. Oh, oh yeah, no, he's such a little hen though. Like he will go up in those comments and he'll be like, girl, he listens to all those books. Like he is such a man. Of course he's a writer. And so he really, like he listened to Haunting Adeline before I did. Like he's always the one giving me the dish on Dark Romance. It's like, it's so funny, yeah.

Amanda Davis (40:07.107)
Oh my god! I love that your husband was in it before you were!

Amanda Davis (40:29.063)
Dang, he was like, I love it.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (40:31.69)
Yeah, it's really great and that and I'm lucky to have a husband that writes too because we will back and forth and so So smutton was like that where we just wrote like I would write a chapter And I we didn't talk about the plot We didn't talk about anything and we would just like write in response to each other Like trying to one up each other the whole story And so that's why it devolves and becomes more fucked up as it goes because it's like oh, yeah, you turned it into a ram well, i'm gonna bring jesus into the story like

Amanda Davis (40:49.911)
Oh my god.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (41:00.878)
It is crazy, so no judgment from us. Yeah, it's.

Amanda Davis (41:03.643)
I think that's so funny though. Well, and like with the vampire, it's called Your Fang to See. That's what it's called. That's the whip right now. Yeah, that's the title, Your Fang to See. I was like, I'm so clever. I'm really not, but you know. Oh.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (41:11.144)
STAAA-

Marie-Moths to the Flame (41:17.254)
Okay, no, I love it. So, so, the old husband, Bert, he has fangs for the memories coming out in the fall of vampire novel. Fangs for the memories. Yeah. I feel like you guys should get along. Like, he, like, vampire lore. Too much. Too much. Yeah. Vampires. Having a moment. So, fangs for the memories. Yeah. Oh, I totally agree.

Amanda Davis (41:27.307)
Oh my God. I love it so much. That's amazing. They are! And you can have so much fun with it too. Like I read that, My Roommate is a Vampire. Did you read that one?

Marie-Moths to the Flame (41:48.164)
No, is it good?

Amanda Davis (41:50.399)
It's so good. Like it was like, um, it was it was definitely not your typical vampire novel. He was, it was just so silly and like goofy and like, it was a comfort read for sure. Like, I love it. Yeah, it was like

Marie-Moths to the Flame (42:04.99)
Yeah, I like weird fiction like that. Yeah, like just where it's like, what is happening right now? Yes, yeah. That makes it fun.

Amanda Davis (42:10.891)
If you take Colin Firth's, is it Colin Firth? Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice and threw him, made him a vampire and threw him into the modern world, that's what you get. That's it.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (42:20.086)
Yes.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (42:24.598)
feel like there is an argument there that Darcy could have been a vampire though, Colin Firth's version, because he was kind of acting like a vampire in the film, I felt like. And I'm a Pride and Prejudice, like, like I live, breathe and die for all of those movies. Okay, so like, since it's disability, Little Women is my favorite novel, like I love shit like that. So I feel like he was given off some vampire and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, like I love all that shit. So good.

Amanda Davis (42:52.155)
Oh my god, yeah, yep, Pride and Prejudice for Zombies. Well, pick that one up if you haven't read it, it's good. Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (42:54.242)
So, so good. Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter. Yeah, I will, I will, I definitely will. Okay, so are you ready for the infamous lightning round? It's time. Okay, here we go. Would you rather be chased, now just prepare yourself. Would you rather be chased by a monster on Mount Everest or be buried alive in an avalanche?

Amanda Davis (43:03.308)
I'm ready. Okay.

Amanda Davis (43:19.343)
Chased by a monster. Proser.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (43:21.115)
Okay, these yeah, the lightning round is no good options by the way, I should have mentioned that there's no good

Amanda Davis (43:26.817)
Okay, we're gonna go with the best, worst option. Okay, yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (43:29.814)
Best worst, yeah. Would you rather be trapped in a horror movie with a supernatural villain or a human villain?

Amanda Davis (43:41.507)
Ooh, supernatural villain.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (43:43.986)
Really? Like Cthulhu shit? Like some monster? Really? I would go for the human because I feel like I could get them. I'll be like, you're done.

Amanda Davis (43:47.019)
Yeah, yeah Yeah

Amanda Davis (43:53.595)
I think humans, you think so? I feel like humans are so much more cruel and like.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (43:58.314)
Oh, they're the worst, but like, I feel like I'm scarier than they are. It'll be okay. Like a paranormal, I don't know what I'm working with. Can they go through walls and shit? Like I'm not prepared for all that, you know? A human, another way of-

Amanda Davis (44:09.011)
If they wanna, you know, if like, Kasulu wanted me to be like a... You know, wanted to take over my brain for a century or two, okay. That's fine. Do that.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (44:20.846)
I saw a meme yesterday that was like, yeah, well, I'm not I wouldn't be the type to be afraid of jigsaw because I just die. I'm not gonna play your little games. I don't give a shit. And I'm like that Yeah, it would be like oh yeah, you're like that you found the secret to not giving a shit about the saw games I guess which is hilarious and brings me to my next Lightning. Yeah, I'm really like, whoa, what are we doing next guys?

Amanda Davis (44:31.523)
Well then you would never get captured. There you go.

Amanda Davis (44:41.379)
Jerome doesn't want you.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (44:49.99)
saw victim ever. Oh my god. No. Oh, so actually, next question out of the two, which saw trap would you voluntarily complete the needle? The needle pit or the eye sucking machine from the beginning of saw X if you've seen science it was in the preview to

Amanda Davis (45:01.925)
Uhhh

Amanda Davis (45:17.375)
Uhhh

Marie-Moths to the Flame (45:22.39)
I know, stop. Really?

Amanda Davis (45:25.563)
I don't know, now I need to go look at it. I feel like, I thought I'd seen all the stars. I'm pretty sure I thought I had, but I got like, at some point, like in seventh grade, I got queasy with body horror. So I even have a hard time watching The Collector. Yeah. Whoa.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (45:30.843)
Oh.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (45:39.586)
Oh, yeah, no, I we pretend like saw like five through nine. Oh, they don't exist to me. I like the first four and then that but I'm telling you saw ten granite saw X or whatever the fuck it is the one that just came out in the past like year or so literally brought me to tears. So good.

Amanda Davis (45:52.558)
Yeah.

Amanda Davis (45:58.019)
I'm pretty sure we saw that. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we saw that. I know we watched Spiral 2 and I was not a fan.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (46:04.912)
Mm. No, no. Saw X. That's where it's at. Okay, I told you it's the slowest lightning rounder in the whole world. Yeah.

Amanda Davis (46:06.527)
It wasn't good.

Amanda Davis (46:11.951)
There's a lot, but you're like, you're like, you're getting a lot of like, you know, this is discussion. Like these are things worth talking about. Okay, go ahead. Go. I'm ready.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (46:19.467)
Yeah, I feel like you get to know a lot about your authors. You know, it's interesting. Okay, let's see, slow burns or jump scares.

Amanda Davis (46:22.519)
Yeah! 100%.

Amanda Davis (46:30.287)
flow burn.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (46:32.078)
Oh yeah, slow burns. Okay. Would you rather be a character in a Stephen King novel or a Clive Barker novel?

Amanda Davis (46:47.155)
Knowing what I know about Stephen King's characters, nobody gets a happy ending. Nobody. Especially if you're a main character. I'm gonna go with Clyde Barker.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (46:51.23)
No, yeah. Yeah. His don't really end up happy either. But for Stephen King, the caveat would be, am I an adult or am I a child? Because if I'm a child and a Stephen King, like, get fucked. It's already over. Like, I'm already, something traumatic has happened. So you know, if I'm going to, yeah. Yeah, yeah, terrible. So OK, killer clowns or killer dolls?

Amanda Davis (47:06.623)
Yeah, yeah, you might, I mean the trauma over dying, I mean, yeah.

Amanda Davis (47:20.207)
Oh, uh, okay. Hmm.

Killer Doll?

Marie-Moths to the Flame (47:31.49)
Killer dolls, okay, okay. I feel like there's another caveat with that. If it's the killer clowns from outer space, I'll take that over at all. But if it's like the crusty, icky, what was that clown from American Horror Story? I don't wanna deal with that. You know?

Amanda Davis (47:43.775)
Yeah.

Amanda Davis (47:50.183)
Oh my god! Twisty had the saddest backstory. Broke my heart. Literally broke my heart.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (47:52.614)
Yes! Oh! So sad. I know. I know. So sad. Horrible. And it- right! Like, epithin the man. See, there were some seasons of American Horror Story that were so good. And then there were some where they just shit the bed. And I'm like yeah. I haven't even watched the last few seasons because I was like, I just kind of got out of it for a while. And yeah. Yeah. They ruined it. The beginning again. The beginning was-

Amanda Davis (48:00.391)
I understood. Yes. Yeah. I got it.

Yeah.

Amanda Davis (48:14.371)
No, neither have I.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (48:20.278)
where it was at, Asylum and Murder House and Freak Show. So good, all those are so good. Okay, would you rather be buried alive or trapped in a room with no doors and no windows?

Amanda Davis (48:24.835)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Davis (48:35.451)
Shit, buried alive. I don't, yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (48:37.319)
Oh!

Amanda Davis (48:39.706)
Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (48:40.312)
Even in a smaller location, that would be fine.

Amanda Davis (48:44.34)
Yeah, yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (48:46.69)
than just the nothingness cube, that would be stressful, especially if it was dark.

Amanda Davis (48:49.371)
I think the nothingness cube would, both are stressful. However, I feel like if I had too much space, I would feel, I think I'd go crazier, faster.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (48:54.763)
Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (49:03.87)
Yeah, because it'd be like you almost have freedom, but not really. Like it's like freedom within your confinement, which is fucked. So.

Amanda Davis (49:08.196)
Yeah.

It's just like, there's too much space between me and the walls. Whereas like if I'm buried alive, I'm confined. I'm not like, you know, I don't. Yeah, I'd choose buried alive.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (49:26.331)
See, I don't know. I'm claustrophobic as fuck, so I would tell Andrea to be none of that for me. I'm on the thing.

Amanda Davis (49:30.961)
But I feel like I could scratch my way out if I really wanted to. You know, like if I really wanted to unbury myself, I could do it.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (49:40.022)
The weight of six feet of dirt on top of you, you really think so?

Amanda Davis (49:45.903)
Yeah. Ah!

No, I mean...

Marie-Moths to the Flame (49:50.41)
You know, that's why that saved by the bell. That's a Victorian thing. You've heard that saved by the bell. Yeah. So we'll just say this. If you had a bell on your finger, then there you go. That's another thing. If I was I don't want to be buried in like a typical grave. I want my body to be preserved with my hair on top of it. It's a whole fucked up thing. But I would love if I was in a grave to have one of those vampire ones with the.

Amanda Davis (49:56.119)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amanda Davis (50:02.841)
Yeah.

Amanda Davis (50:18.104)
Eugh.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (50:18.518)
with the like, wrought iron shit over the top of it? Wouldn't that be awesome? Yeah. No. I feel like that would be cool.

Amanda Davis (50:20.931)
Yeah, or like one of those really cool marble statues, like the weeping angels. Oh my God, so I did like a whole, that was a whole thing. I was obsessed with like the way those graves looked. Like it looked like somebody was sleeping under a sheet or like somebody was laying on like a couch or something. You know what I mean? Like they were laying on top of the grave. I loved those, loved them.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (50:27.535)
Oh, yes. Yeah, that was...

Marie-Moths to the Flame (50:38.848)
Ugh.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (50:46.249)
Oh yeah.

Those are gorgeous. Did you watch Doctor Who and the angels? The, oh, you know what, yeah, creepy. So I always think of that when I see them and oh, and there's some church in somewhere that has like statues in the church that are like that. They're like sheeded ghost type characters. I'll have to find it and send it to you. It's really cool. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like it's, oh, it's gorgeous.

Amanda Davis (50:54.163)
No, but I know what the angels are. Yeah, they are.

Amanda Davis (51:11.168)
I know.

I love stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. I love stuff like that.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (51:18.026)
Yeah, same, same. Okay, we have four more. You ready? Would you rather be possessed by a demon or haunted by a ghost?

Amanda Davis (51:22.093)
Okay, I'm ready. Let's go.

Amanda Davis (51:32.571)
shit.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (51:33.93)
Cheers.

Amanda Davis (51:37.179)
We are going to choose the worst one, possessed by Hedena.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (51:40.558)
That's the one I would pick. I just feel like it would be fascinating. I would be like, oh, are we sharing now? What's going on?

Amanda Davis (51:43.919)
Bye!

Amanda Davis (51:48.115)
I feel like I'd have more control, like I feel like I'd be able to like, you're in there, but you're in there with me, remember that. I'm not here with you.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (51:54.33)
Yeah, yeah, like, bitch, you are not the only personality here, okay? I got this. Like, it's fine. Right. Exactly, exactly. Oh my god. Because haunted by a ghost, I would be like, go into the bathroom or at- that would stress me out. Like, if they were legit haunting me all the time, I don't want that. Like, at least the demon, you know they're there. Yeah, yeah, I don't need any of that. No, you don't. Okay, Freddy.

Amanda Davis (52:00.375)
Like you could not torture my mind worse than I have already done myself. So, but yeah.

Amanda Davis (52:13.891)
Yes! Like, they just pop up behind you in the mirror or something? Yeah! Yes. Yup. Nope.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (52:24.673)
or Jason.

Amanda Davis (52:27.419)
Can I pick Michael Myers? No! I lied. I want Billy Loomis.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (52:31.14)
No!

Marie-Moths to the Flame (52:38.05)
Billy Loomis. Okay, wait a minute, help me with context. My brain is completely broken right now. Scream, yes, does dog, ghost face, yeah, dog, yeah. So, well, that also was not the option, but okay.

Amanda Davis (52:39.639)
Give me Billy Loomis.

Amanda Davis (52:44.187)
Scream! Scream. Ghost face. Ghost face. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amanda Davis (52:52.935)
If I have to pick Jason, if I have to pick Jason, yeah. Yeah.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (52:56.218)
Yeah, I picked Jason too, because he was innocent and pitiful, and then Freddy was just kind of an asshole. Okay, would you rather go up against a ghost or a serial killer?

Amanda Davis (53:09.987)
I'm gonna take a ghost out quicker. Just light some candles, you know what I mean? Get a police? Yeah. Yeah, I don't wanna fuck with a serial killer. Hell no! Nooooo! Mm-mm.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (53:13.862)
Yeah, yeah, just yeah, just get that shit out of there do a cleanse and then Exorcism Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's the huge the same thing the humans you would go up against the paranormal and the ghost and not the human Or the serial killer that is so interesting. I would totally go up against the human every time because I feel like I of course, I'm also the type that like

Amanda Davis (53:28.756)
I would!

Amanda Davis (53:33.027)
Yes. No.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (53:38.278)
Screams if a door slams too loud like I'm not prepared to go up against anything Let's be real, but like I like to act like big shit like I could you know, but there's not happening okay Last question I think I might know the answer already werewolves or vampire There is no other answer

Amanda Davis (53:45.163)
Yeah, I get it.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Davis (53:57.147)
vampires. Vampires. No, there's not. Well, so it's funny you say that because I wrote with the Shrike in the Shadows we wrote like, uh, his name is Baron and he was kind of like a werewolf. He was a hunk. He was a hunk. Oh yeah. I got a copy. I have a copy. I've got 20 copies. I'll send you one.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (54:14.56)
You gotta have one of those in every gothic story.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (54:22.454)
Thank you. Yes. Awesome. Okay. Well, I have had such a blast with you on the pod today. This was so fun. Yes. Good. You'll have to come back as all of your books continue to grace us in the world. We'll have to talk when Scott versus Pilgrim vampire. That excitingness comes out. That sounds fun. So again, thank you for coming on the pod. I'm excited to see what more you have to do. And I'm totally going to

Amanda Davis (54:23.351)
Yeah.

Amanda Davis (54:28.067)
Me too! It was fun! Yes!

Amanda Davis (54:43.835)
It is. Yeah, thank you!

Marie-Moths to the Flame (54:50.85)
pre-order get my copy of Mony what that oh my god It's our the more. Yes the morning of Lenore Manor. I don't know why I'm saying the moaning of Florida It's probably cuz we were talking about fucking but yeah Right, I guess and it's all it's all together. It's all good. So thank you for coming on the pod

Amanda Davis (54:56.675)
morning. You're good. You're good. You got it. Mone morning.

Amanda Davis (55:05.835)
They're moaning, right?

This is almost... It's in there. Yeah, thank you for having me.

Marie-Moths to the Flame (55:14.646)
All right, we'll talk to you later, bye.

Amanda Davis (55:16.247)
All right. Bye-bye.