Transcript
Tales of Ticks and Tapes(Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Wed Aug 20, 2025
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Welcome to Nightlight.
Ladies and gentlemen, great to have you with me.
Happy Wednesday, everybody.
We are halfway through the week, a little more than halfway.
If you work a nine to five, I'm getting there.
Great to have you with me.
We have a really fun show tonight.
And it's interesting that you picked, Conrad, that lead-in that I wanted to be in porn, but I didn't have the acting chops because...
I don't know if you've heard the Hollywood Beats all day, but I broke a big story about the celebrity sex tapes.
Yeah.
So that was interesting.
Yeah.
awful.
Are you my first?
It's called, right?
Yeah, it was awful.
How could it not be?
The lines, like...
They have Two narrators a woman and and a guy and they say The woman talks for two lines and then the guy says and like we just broke your two-person virginity of a of narrators on a virgin show Wow is that a bad joke and that's not even a joke that was like two minutes into it I was two minutes into the show
So for lack of a better phrase they shot their wad in two minutes it was
That's terrible.
Do you believe they're virgins?
You think they're faking it?
was
We're talking about a show called are you my first it's something we kind of Elaborated on a bit yesterday.
It's a new Netflix reality show where people lose their virginity on a reality show
And most of them say they were waiting for that special moment, I guess, when a streaming platform came along to broadcast it.
That's what Conrad is talking about.
Doesn't sound like you're endorsing the show.
I
Oh,
worse and worse and worse.
Those kind of shows, if they are bad out of the gate, they aren't going to get better.
It was so bad.
That sounds terrible.
like, no!
What are we supposed to compete with him?
He's got reality show experience.
That's so bad, right?
Can't even like I am laughing though because you said 35 minutes into it like you're still watching and then you're like and then in episode 4 I couldn't believe when they How many minutes screen time are you gonna give them?
You
Oh That's so funny.
I'm guessing the show has no nudity or sex either which I mean not if you're gonna have a show about virginity and
you know, attractive people, which I saw on the ad.
It looked like, you know, people that are attractive, it's not, and there's tons of reasons why people don't lose their virginity.
It has nothing to do or it doesn't always have to do with looks.
It could just be like in the movie, the 40 year old virgin, they missed their chance or whatever.
Or like, let's say you're being, you're waiting for marriage and then it doesn't work out.
And it's like, well, I'm 26 now.
think so.
Oh God.
You gotta find some clips of that.
We gotta play some of those.
What?
Please keep watching that and let's find some clips.
That's awesome.
All right, lots more great conversation to come folks.
We are just talking about a show about virgins and that's our opening act because we're gonna talk about
Celebrity sex tapes tonight?
I swear I'm not turning this into a Dr. Ruth type show, but it's just these two shows are out at around the same time and celebrity sex tapes, they promised to reveal the truth.
Or the hidden, I'm sorry, the hidden secrets behind celebrity sex tapes, which is weird because they're kind of out there.
And I think some of them legitimately got stolen from homes.
Like I think Pamela and Tommy Lee's sex tape was stolen.
by construction workers, if I remember correctly.
But nowadays, it's like everybody's got a sex tape.
I feel like I'm the only person without a sex tape.
I can't act.
I have a terrific body.
I just can't deliver a line.
But there's all kind of, they're everywhere.
I know Colin Farrell, they say has one.
Pamela and Tommy Lee.
There was Jane Kennedy.
who used to host an NFL show in the morning on Sunday mornings.
And there was a, God, she was married to a boxer named Isaac, something or other.
They had one.
That was the first one I was ever aware of.
And I remember thinking, oh my God, that's horrible.
Can you imagine if a tape like this got out?
And then you realize some people might want them out there.
Like I'm so suspicious of the Kardashian one.
Like they're just publicity hounds.
I believe that was on purpose.
What
Ray J Ray J. Yeah,
maybe it was him.
I'm not saying it was Kim Kardashian But I wouldn't put it past the Kardashian family to do something like that, but yeah, he had a lower Q rating.
I'm sure then Kim And that guy was a good actor.
I'm kidding.
He's a rapper.
I think I just mean in relation to the
the worst.
I remember seeing the Pamela and Tommy Lee when a friend of mine had it and they talk.
It's like they're trashy enough because it's like you look you feel weird watching it.
But when they talk, they sound like idiots.
It's like you couldn't even like like porno writing is better than what Pamela and Tommy Lee were saying to each other.
Colin Farrell too.
I have a friend who has all of them.
on VHS.
And he's been on this show.
Yeah.
And it's like, like Colin Farrell was even talking, sounds like an idiot.
Like people are not at their best verbally when they're having sex.
So I don't hold them to a standard.
You know, I get that it's going to be stupid, but at least, and that makes me also think like they were legitimately stolen because nobody would want people to hear if they consider themselves a master monologist.
They wouldn't want that out there.
But the Kim Kardashian one, I don't know.
That looked kind of staged to me.
I only watched it like 14 times, but I got a grasp of it.
You
count.
I don't know if I've ever, I do remember seeing like on those like entertainment shows.
She's like talking to the camera.
I mean, it's, so anyway, there you go.
You got a new show to watch, folks.
The secrets of celebrity sex tapes.
And that is on the arts and entertainment network.
Great stuff.
Let's get to our speaking while we're on this topic, so we can sort of segue off of it.
Tonight's question of the night is inspired by the secrets of celebrity sex tapes.
Let's get to the nightlight question of the night.
Let's talk about the question.
Okay, question.
Question.
Question.
Pregunta.
Question.
Question.
Okay, I have a question.
Questions.
This question.
Domanda.
Question.
Question.
Questions.
What two celebrities?
Do you never want to see in a sex tape?
Who are two celebrities you hope never make a sex tape that is tonight's question of the night 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 civic I Put this in the beats.
I'm gonna stick with my answer Seth Rogen and Marjorie Taylor green That is that would be an unholy pairing on many levels.
I Don't think they even like each other.
I'm guessing
for political reasons, but I never want to see those two in a sex tape.
Please tell me.
A movie.
Yeah.
A movie sex tape.
The knocked up.
Oh, he's in the movie.
Zack and Mary.
Zack and Mary make a sex tape or make a yeah.
So you said Pete Davidson and Bella Ramsey.
Yeah, that's kind of a that'd be a terrible.
That would be that would be a tough watch.
So let us know folks, you can also let us know on the app or on the stream if you're watching on Facebook, YouTube or X and drop us a like or a follow if you don't mind while you're there.
But chime in, be part of the show.
We'd love to hear what you think.
How gross can we make this really?
Like how horrifying can we make the idea of a sex tape to the point where nobody, it would have negative box office numbers.
Nobody would ever want to see it.
Let us know what you think.
I was kind of in a mood.
I played what I call roadkill pole position on the way down.
There was at least two animals killed, body parts strewn about on the highway.
And it's like, well, do I go over a deer leg with my car or do I swerve?
It's kind of dangerous either way.
But I was able to swerve because I don't need a deer.
like going up into my exhaust system or something.
It was very dangerous though.
Not a fun ride.
That commute's not getting me at all.
So that's what I was dealing with.
And then I got to tell you this, folks, I do, I fast from time to time.
I just finished a 36 hour fast today and it turned into like a 41 hour fast.
Cause I had a guy over who was giving me an estimate on my roof and we got to talking and then my daughter
you know, I went too long and then my daughter had something to do.
We're going to go out to have breakfast.
And I was really excited to have like a breakfast burrito today, craving one.
I always crave like protein when I come off of fast.
Well, 36 hours turned into like 41 hours.
We ended up barely making it to this place for lunch.
Nope, we don't have the breakfast burrito.
We have no breakfast.
And their lunch menu is like, it's kind of one of these boutique places, you know, they don't, it's not somewhere to go if you're hungry.
So I ordered a black and blue burger and it's like a boutique black and blue I'm coming off a fast and I've got a burger that's the size of a quarter on bread and Like seven chips And I said to my daughter we might have to get a pizza This is not cutting it.
I'm depressed But I'm over
It's
That doesn't sound terrible.
The pancakes was amazing.
Yeah, because you put chocolate chips in them, right?
That's not a bad thing.
Would dig that I think because people put peanut butter don't you put peanut butter on your pancakes or you put
Yeah, I uh That's see that's kind of what I needed today.
Maybe a different but I just needed I needed something filling Some good movies opening this weekend folks Honey don't a new effort from Ethan Cohen.
I hope he and Joel
Start making films again Cuz I'm like is something going on there.
You don't like each other anymore sibling rivalry But apparently based on my research they're not Feuding they just are doing their own thing for a while.
That's fine But I did not like his last movie drive away Dallas.
I thought it was kind of lame But it's good cast market quality Aubrey Plaza Chris Evans.
I still haven't seen it.
That's all right There's like
Now we'll talk about it when we come back.
All right, we'll talk about that when we come back.
I'm going to tell you what else is opening and getting great reviews.
And then Conrad is going to tell us about a fight that broke out on a movie set.
And we'll read your texts.
We're doing it all on Night Light tonight, folks.
Great to have you with me.
It's Pete Schwabba and Night Light on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
We have two great guests.
We got so caught up in sex tape talk.
Immoral sex tape talk that I did not tease my guests.
And I have two outstanding guests tonight.
Author Chris Miklos is here.
He wrote a book called Tick Town.
It's like a pulpy fiction type novel about mutant ticks in a Wisconsin tourist town.
It looks fantastic.
Chris has also made a couple of movies and he's Madison based.
We will talk to Chris at 635.
And then one of our newest on-air hosts here at this specific station, WGBW, is in the building.
She will be here at 720, Ms.
Laura McKenna.
Very excited to get to know Laura, as many of you probably heard.
They switched the format here at WGBW.
It is now local news and timeless hits.
And Laura is all part of that.
So we'll get to know Laura a little bit as well in hour number two.
I'm off tomorrow night folks.
What are we doing tomorrow Conrad?
We got a best of show because you have to be off too.
great
the basketball.
We should
a great story.
Okay.
That interview and then
Outstanding.
So that's the best of show.
We won't be here live tomorrow, folks.
I'm taking a few days off to take care of some family stuff and a little staycation.
But we will have you well covered here at Nightlight with the best of tomorrow night, David Zucker, Mike Schmidt, and Horace Green.
And then Friday night is a big night, too.
Aaron Coronel is guest hosting.
Yeah, guest host.
Still
We still have Conrad Neera.
Outstanding.
And
a surprise guest.
Yeah.
Wow.
seems like you guys might have told me about that.
But nightlight with peach.
Well, hey, whatever, that's fine.
No, it'll be fine.
Aaron does a great job.
He is no stranger to being on the air behind the mic.
So he is thrilled.
Aaron's doing it.
And it's so much better, I think, than just, I mean, the best stuff can be fun, too, because it's highlights, but
I think a live show is better.
And then I'll be off Monday and Tuesday as well, back on Wednesday.
So we'll figure out Monday and Tuesday as well.
John and Gordy, right?
John
All right, you guys ready for a treat?
Because John and Gordy host the WMDX morning show in Madison here on Civic Media.
But they're only on Madison in the mornings.
I love being on their show.
They're so much fun.
They're radio pros.
And they're going to have a blast, I think, hosting Nightlight next week.
So we've got you covered.
Don't go anywhere.
Still tune in.
It's still going to be the same Nightlight with different people.
So
That's the plan.
I've got the ad out on Craigslist.
Just waiting to hear your back.
Would it be weird if you put an ad out to make a sex tape and then the person shows up and sees you and goes, ooh.
Yeah, never mind.
I'm gonna take a powder.
Thank you very much anyway.
I was actually here to buy the extra computer cord, not for the sex tape.
All right, so great guests tonight.
Chris McLoose will be here at 635 talking about his book, Ticktown.
And one of the newest members, our WGBW team here in Green Bay, Laura McKenna at 720.
So let's get some, we should probably do some texts, huh?
Definitely.
I love this one.
Dave on the stream.
Our question is, what two celebrities you hope never make a sex tape?
And Dave Kunish on the stream says Conrad and Kate McKinnon.
don't think she lets men.
You don't think she wants to?
Oh, that's right.
I thought you were going to say she doesn't want to do anything with fanboy Conrad.
You might have two things working.
Thanks for
celeb though Dave also says I like both of them, but not naked.
Well, you don't listen.
You don't have to be naked on a sex tape.
That's true Dave says Sly and Arnold I don't think you have to worry about that either.
Although you never know who knows what goes on behind closed doors We have some great social media responses to Daniel Daniel Wheeler Danny wheels says Trump and Putin.
I think we can we can all agree
And then Alan Martin Alan Martin on social media in response to Daniel to Danny wheels response Trump and Putin Alan Martin says Daniel Wheeler too late Alan obviously has the inside scoop on a Trump Putin sex tape something we never need to see Nick Wallander Our pal says Kermit and miss Piggy.
Oh, come on.
I've been kind of sweet.
Don't you think?
have parts.
I think we're fine.
It could be in the Muppets movie.
It could be wholesome.
Stacey Sue says Trump and Betty White.
I can see half of that, but Betty
White, I
gotta tell ya.
In the 80s, Betty White was not, well, she's a beautiful woman, and she's hilarious.
I'm half with you Stacy Sue.
Matt Cassane on social media says JoJo Siwa and Clay Aiken.
I got to Google.
I think JoJo Siwa is
her mom made
that.
Oh yeah yeah yeah.
And her
And now
I was thinking, all right, here's, I apologize, Matt, I got this wrong.
I was thinking Curtis Sliwa, who is the founder of the Guardian Angels.
They used to ride the subway trains and protect people.
An awesome group.
When I first heard about the Guardian Angels, I absolutely loved the guard.
And I would see them.
Sometimes they had a Chicago chapter on the subway in Chicago too.
And I was always like, oh, that's cool.
Mike Dessotel on the social media says, Steve Bishimi and Shirley McClain.
Okay.
Interesting.
Yeah, that is interesting.
I can't say I want to see that, but I can't say I'd be completely repulsed by that pairing.
Two talented actors.
All right, when we come back, folks, we are going to talk about, oh my God.
This is the second question this week I've set up that just like invited people to talk about Trump.
Monica Hale says Donald and Melania.
Oh.
Oh, I gotta think of something better.
All right, we're coming back, folks.
We're gonna talk about giant mutant ticks invading your Wisconsin town.
Chris McClose joins us next.
He is an author.
Lord McKenna coming up an hour or two.
Great to have you with me.
Answer our question, be part of the show.
We'll read your text on the radio.
It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
Welcome back.
What was that song?
Star.
Mike Star.
You know, it's so funny.
You read my mind.
I was going to have you do the Mike Star tag.
He's got a really identifiable voice.
Don't you think?
Oh, yeah.
Like I just think dumb and dumber when I hear Mike's voice.
Laura McKenna will be here at 720 folks in the building.
That'll be fun to have her in studio.
Our question of the night is what two celebrities do you hope never make a sex tape?
There is a new show called Secrets of Celebrity Sex Tapes Out that has to be.
Probably binge-watched.
I don't think it's you think they're ever gonna have a cliffhanger Will Tommy Lee and Pamela have sex again So bad they got they should do yes, they should dub They should do some ADR and dub voices in because the talking is so god-awful All right without further ado, let's get to our first guest of the night very excited to have this gentleman on the show.
He is he was referred to me By our pal Rob Thomas and he has a new book out called tick town.
He's also a filmmaker
And a Madison based artist and he joins us now over the stream.
Mr. Christopher Miklos.
Hey, Christopher.
Hey, Pete.
How are you?
Do you prefer Christopher or Chris?
Chris is fine.
Thanks.
Okay.
And I'm saying Miklos correctly.
Yeah.
Okay.
You kind of gave a close enough.
Yeah, that's fine.
I say it different.
I say it like three different ways.
Well, however, I'm here to serve.
So in my last day, I've been hearing Schwabba differently all my life.
So I totally feel your pain a little bit there.
Well,
I appreciate you having me.
Thanks for inviting me in tonight.
Well, it's such a great book.
The first thing I have to ask you, you're a horror writer.
Are there two people you never want to see make a sex tape?
There
are several, to be
honest with you.
I'm going to go with Kristi Noem and Steven Miller.
You know what's so funny is I don't, I typically shy away from politics on the show because it's politics a lot during the day in current events.
But this question was not at all meant.
Sometimes it just goes there.
And it's not political to say those are two unattractive people or Donald Trump is an unattractive person.
That's not political.
It's facts.
So anyway, that's a great answer.
Well, Ernest Borgnein is dead, so I couldn't use Ernest Borgnein, you know, who's a good standby for such a question.
It's so funny you say that.
A friend of mine, Rick Corso, a stand-up comic, a guy who I worked with back in the day, said the best editing, they have a best editing Oscar, and how do you decide best editing?
Oh, he cut that Ernest Borgnein love scene.
This guy gets the trophy.
So it's funny you went with Borgnein.
All right, let's get into it, Chris.
Tell us about Ticktown.
I love
This just sounds great
Well, so tick town is my debut novel and It's got a very simple log line.
It's a pulp horror novel and the log line is simply that a Wisconsin tourist town Becomes the feeding ground for a band of giant mutant ticks and I always say that if
If you hear that log line and you see the cover of the book, you're going to know exactly what you're getting from Tick Town.
It's just it's just a pulpy, fun, fast paced love letter to the to the big bug creature feature movies of the fifties and sixties, which I used to love.
And this is just my it's my kind of a loving homage to those movies.
I love that.
It's funny too that you use a tick because even like small ticks I find horrifying When one of them like latches on but you have a giant like mutant tick you've made it ten times worse Why is it first of all?
Why haven't we really seen to the best of my knowledge anyway a tick monster in a movie and Why are they so creepy?
That's funny isn't it because I
When I sat down to write the book, I wanted to do a big bug kind of creature feature sort of thing and I was very much inspired by a book called Excuse me night of the crabs by yeah guy and Smith, which is exactly what you think it is.
It's what Jack Graves Excuse me, um
And so I started thinking, okay, I can't do crabs obviously, spiders have been done to death and I started going through and I thought, well, we're in Wisconsin and ticks are a major problem in Wisconsin.
And so I kind of did it just a real quick survey to see if I could find anything that was, you know, tick in literature, something written, and I couldn't really find anything.
So I thought, okay, that would be really great.
And then later,
After I finished the book, I found that there was a movie in the early 1990s about giant ticks, not quite giant like mine, but it was like a kind of a B movie and it was, you know, it was, you know, a typical 80s, 90s movie.
But they're, they're horrifying, you know, they're, they're obviously they spread disease and they're, you know, they freak you out.
But if you ever see a close up of a tick, they're just gruesome test creatures, their mouth parts, you know, they, they tear and they rip and they suck.
And they're just, I mean, they're really horrible things.
And so I really thought that they'd be perfect for this kind of book.
And I think people have responded to
it.
That's excellent.
If there's a tick that big, Lyme disease would be the worst of your problems.
Yeah, exactly.
So you said you got the idea from the crab book.
How long did it take to write this?
Like, even though you were kind of inspired, you settled on the tick, I've never written a book.
To me, it sounds so overwhelming, but how long does it take to write a novel?
So, yeah, I mean, it's not a long book.
I'll just let me say that to start.
It's about, it's roughly 54,000 words, a little over 200 pages in print.
So it's a pretty fast-paced read.
So it was a pretty fast-paced write as well.
I started it around,
let's say February of 2023.
And by the end of the year, so maybe, you know, 10 months later, I was, you know, deep into my fourth or fifth draft.
And the actual first draft was probably six months.
And then from there, it was just
you know, rearranging things and cleaning things up and sharpening the characters.
And then by February of 2024, so about a year after I started it, it was ready to start sharing with potential literary agents and publishers.
And so that's that's what I did.
That's exciting.
My guest is Christopher Miklos.
He is the author of Tick Town.
Where can people find the book, Chris?
Well, it's actually, I'm very proud to say it's in a lot of bookstores around the state.
It's been picked up by a couple dozen bookstores around Wisconsin, several here in Madison, but kind of in the far reaches of the state, it's in some great bookstores in Chicago and the Twin Cities and around the country.
But for the easiest way to generally get it is gonna be on Amazon.
You can get a paperback copy, you can get a...
a digital copy for your Kindle.
It's also an audio book.
There was an audio version that came out concurrently with the print version.
And so it's widely available.
It's always great to get it in the bookstore or come.
I'm doing a Wisconsin book tour that I'm currently in the middle of.
And so it's always great when someone comes out and buys a book at one of the stops on the tour and I can sign it and meet people.
It's been a really cool experience.
So
for people who might not
No.
Describe, because I was like 30 when I knew what pulp meant when it comes to fiction or books or whatever.
Explain what that genre is, because in your bio it says you became a fan of the pulp horror genre.
How did that happen?
And explain a little bit to people what pulp is.
Sure.
Well, you know, technically what pulp is is it refers to
these in the early part of the last century, they would print
They would print cheap books, you know that just got kind of churned out on on Pulped paper so it was like very cheaply made paper They would churn out these paperbacks that they had writers that would just kind of churn out these you know things like the Tarzan series was like an early form of pulp in horror the you know the The fiendish dr. Fu Manchu was like early pulp horror But I I discovered
actually only about I mean I of course was familiar with these things but I started reading it about five years ago I stumbled across a book called paperbacks from hell which was written by Will Erickson and and Grady Hendricks and it's basically a survey of the kind of classic pulp horror paperbacks of the of the 70s and 80s and they were
it was a it was a genre that was marked by you know kind of ridiculous plot lines like giant mutant crabs and larger than life heroes and the writing is very you know crisp and to the point and it's very yeah that it moves very fast and
this book by by Hendrickson and Erickson was just so entertaining because it kind of surveyed all these, you know, crazy books that I was largely unfamiliar with.
And so I decided to start reading some of them.
And I picked up a couple of books by Graham Masterton, who's a great pulp writer, and and Sean Hudson, who wrote this seminal book called slugs about, you know, killer slugs that like mouth and you dig into.
And then, of course, the Guy in Smith books and his his
his seminal work was Night of the Crabs.
And as I was reading these books, I completely fell in love with them.
I loved the writing style.
I loved the kind of the fast paced, you know, get right to the point, you know, very, very propulsive sort of storytelling.
And, and I was
at that time, I was finishing my second movie with my filmmaking partners.
And I thought, you know, I want to try my hand at a novel, and this is the kind of novel I want to write.
And so I decided that that was going to be for me.
And so I jumped into it.
That's really impressive.
What are your writing tendencies, Chris?
Like, I remember Woody Allen saying he writes every day from 9 AM to noon, religiously.
Like, he does not miss it.
And, you know, as a writer myself, I've
They always say work through.
If you have writer's block, sit down anyway.
Come up with two words, because you never know what it could lead to.
And I've tried to do that, but there's times I just don't do anything.
How do you handle writer's block?
And what are your writing tendencies in terms of practice?
So I tend to write in the mornings.
I would like to compare myself to Woody Allen, but he's much more disciplined than I am as far as that goes.
And I'm a huge fan, actually, of Woody Allen.
Yeah, he's one of the great human writers of the last century.
I don't want to see a sex tape involving Woody Allen.
I will say that.
That's a
good one.
That's a good one.
But I have an 11 year old daughter.
And so during the school year, particularly, I'll try and get up at five or five 30 and write for a couple hours before I kind of got to school.
And then when she goes off to school, I'll tend to write for a couple hours.
more.
But I find, you know, maybe like, like Alan, that once you get towards noonish, I start to kind of lose my steam and my creative juice.
And so I'll try to write as much as I can in the morning.
And then if I have to do like PR stuff, or if I have to, you know, obviously do stuff around the house or whatever it might be,
I'll
go do that in the afternoons.
But I just find I'm very
I think more creative Joe Landsdale always says that, you know, he's most creative in those hours after he gets up because he thinks that it's something to do with your mind working and, you know, sleep and the dreams and you can still in that state when you're tired.
And maybe it's good for fiction and for especially horror fiction.
I don't know if that's the case, but
it's the period that's best for me.
Definitely that first chunk of time, those first two hours, you know, two and a half hours for me is always, you know, the most fruitful.
And in terms of writer's block, I don't know, I actually, when I sat down to write Tick Town, I was in the middle of writer's block, I'd been writing a script, a movie script about
It was like a horror comedy script about zombies that are, they're turned into zombies because of the perpetual Christmas music at Christmas time and they descended this radio station to try and
stop us.
Let's, we have to do a very quick break.
Let's pick up right there where we were, we're coming right back.
It's Nightlight with Peach Waba talking to Chris
Miklos.
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statewide, and my current guest is joining us over the stream from Madison.
His name is Chris Miklos, and he is the author of the book Tick Town, which you can purchase in various places.
Give it a Google and give it a read.
It sounds great.
We're talking to Chris about how he got the book not only written but published.
And before the break, Chris, we were talking about how you deal with writer's block, which can be very crippling at
times.
I was in the middle of saying that I was writing this script, and I was loving the script, and it was a horror comedy, and I was literally laughing out loud.
I knew exactly where it was going.
I had it all plotted out, and I was just having such a good time with it.
And I got to a scene, and I just stopped.
And I couldn't go any further.
And it's like, God, this is terrible.
And I wanted nothing to do with it anymore.
I just got hit with a block.
And so I thought, you know,
I'm just going to put it aside.
And so I put it aside.
I said it's time to start on TicTown.
wrote TicTown, ignored, didn't even think about that other script until I was done with it.
And then when I finished TicTown and I was in the process of pitching it to agents and whatnot, I was like, oh, I'm going to go back to that other project.
And I just picked it up and it flowed.
And I knocked it off in about a month, finished it up.
So I think sometimes you just got to walk away.
You want to try to keep writing, but sometimes you just
your mind just doesn't want to deal with whatever problems you've got on the page.
And so sometimes it's just helpful to pick up another project or work on editing something else and then come back to it.
At least it worked for me.
Yeah, that's great advice.
You used in the...
the uh what do you call it the press kit you sent me uh you have that one of the inspirations for tick town is Jaws uh I just gave Jaws a rewatch about six weeks ago can you explain that how the two are similar?
Well Jaws is one of my favorite movies uh I enjoyed the book as well but the but the movie I think is just one of the one of the perfect movies that's out there um and so
There's definitely parallels, of course, with the giant creature, with the small town celebration in Jaws.
It's the 4th of July beach opening in Ticktown.
It's the Harvest Moon Jubilee.
There's some of the Jaws in its DNA.
corrupt mayor in my book that is somewhat patterned on Mayor Vaughn from JAWS, but it's also, I think, there's a mix between Mayor Vaughn and Boss Hog from the old Dukes of Hazard show.
And so it's just, it was always kind of out there in my head that this movie that really embraced a lot of the
tropes of pulp horror.
You know, Jaws itself, the book by Peter Benchley is very pulpy.
And I thought, you know, so that's a good inspiration to draw from.
Yeah.
I actually like the movie Jaws better than the book, to be honest.
I know that's kind of rare.
I like my chances against a shark better than a tick just because don't swim.
That's an easy one.
I don't like doing that anyway, but like the tick freaks me out.
What was the biggest challenge getting this seen by publishers or getting it looked at?
You're a first-time writer.
Talk about that process a little bit.
Well, for years, I've produced a couple of movie scripts myself, again, with partners when
we made
a couple feature films.
But I've also written lots of spec scripts.
you know, I've spent years trying to get them noticed by literary managers and producers and I've sent countless queries out and all that.
So I'm very used to this idea that, you know, you have to like send, you know.
hundreds of tentacles out into the void and hopefully it nails something.
And so when I started looking at how you do it with a novel, it was very much the same thing.
People say, oh, it could take you years to find an agent.
It could take publishers six months or a year before you look at your thing, if they even will.
And so I started the process when I finished Tick Town.
I had read somewhere that some good advice would be don't just send to a bunch of people at once, send to like maybe six agents or six publishers.
And then if someone gets back to you and says, well, here's a problem with your pitch or here's why we're not going to respond, you can you can adjust.
So I sent this was like on a Tuesday, literally, I sent six six emails to agents with my with my pitch.
And I sent six emails to publishers with my pitch.
And within about an hour, one of the agents had gotten back to me and said, hey, this sounds interesting.
I'd like to read it.
So I sent him the full manuscript.
And a week later, he emailed me and said, I love this.
I want to represent it.
Let's go.
Oh, nice.
Which is remarkable.
It turns out and one of the reasons I had reached out to him was it turns out speaking of Jaws that he was he was in the midst last year of Representing the re-release of Bench these jobs.
Oh,
great.
And so I thought maybe he'd be interested, you know in something similar So I think it took some luck, but what I found out actually
several months later, he didn't tell me this at the time, was that that morning, he'd been reading an article in the New York Times about Pulp Horror, and then I send him this email and the subject line was Tick Town, a Pulp Horror novel.
And so
it caught his eye and he was interested.
And so obviously the moral of the story is that sometimes you just got to get lucky.
Yeah,
hit the right person at the right time.
And so I was very lucky.
I signed with him a few weeks later and then he kind of took it from there reaching out to publishers and we found someone we liked and often running.
That's outstanding and it's typically the hardest people.
that are the luck, the hardest working people that are the luckiest because it's all about timing and the more you, I mean, that's just a great story.
I did get a text here from Mark and Prairie to Sack, he's in the 608.
It says, didn't Will Ferrell confront a big tick in the version of the land of the lost?
Oh, mosquito.
Equally is horrifying.
All right, Chris, can we keep you for a few minutes after the news?
Certainly.
All right, fantastic.
Chris Miklos is here.
He's an author.
We're going to talk to him a little bit about his filmmaking, too, after the break, and we'll read some of your texts.
We're coming right back.
It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba, act two is coming up next on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
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