Rob Stennett

Something has been bothering me for a long time. Lots of people I know, judge lots of other people they know, based on what they tweet. It just comes up in conversation. Things like, “He tweets about sports too much.” Or, “Her tweets or totally condescending. Who does she think she is?”

But is it really fair? Can you we really judge the state of another person’s soul based on 140 characters? The answer of course is yes, absolutely we can. And we do. You’ve done it. And so have I. But should we? Should we decide how spiritual, intellectual, emotionally balanced a person is based on @ replies and hashtags?

I know why we do it. What we think about is what we tweet (or Facebook status update) about. It only makes sense to judge a person based on the things they wrote. After all they shouted it from the social networking microphone.

Now, I can’t speak to why somebody else tweets. I can only tell you why I do it. I’m going to take a moment and make a large assumption that understanding my own reasons may shed light on the reasons a billion or so other people with an account tweet. Is this a bad idea? Yes! But I’ve already started this post so I might as well see it through.

I don’t give much though about what I’m going to tweet.

If I see a youtube video, or an article, or some piece of media I really like and I think: This was amazing. For a few seconds my life was a little better for having seen this. Surely someone else needs to watch it. Then I tweet it. Sometimes a thought crosses my mind about bacon or LOST or Mad Men season 3 and I tweet that. But that thought is fleeting and disposable and only meant to be only mildly entertaining. It is not the center of who I am as a human being.

I give WAY too much thought about what I’m going to tweet

On the other hand I wonder what should I be tweeting? Is this what the brand of Rob Stennett is about? After all more than anything Twitter is a marketing engine. We follow people based on a niche. We want pastors to tweet about the Bible, CNN to tweet about News, and Justin Beiber to tweet about how exciting life is and how much he loves his fans.

So, I need to keep within my niche. But I realize people follow me because I write novels, or work at a megachurch, or I’m a cinephile, or they know me. But this is too much for one twitter feed. Twitter is not for a Jack-of-all-trades. So, I go back to wrestling about what to tweet.

I give don’t tweet about the things that are most important to me.

My family is the center of my life. I think about them and love them more than anything. But I rarely tweet about them. I know nobody could ever find the crafts that my daughter makes at Pre K half as fascinating as I think they are. I don’t retweet the cute things they say during dinner. I’m not Bill Cosby and I can’t boil my daughters quotes down to moments of Kids Say The Darndest Things. I also think about writing all the time, but it’s such a crazy and weird and confusing space that I rarely tweet about it. Bottom line the things that are really important to me feel to big to fit into a sentence or two.         

I tweet about what everyone else is tweeting about

One of my favorite quotes is from Men In Black, “A PERSON is smart. PEOPLE are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it.” So when you get lots of people talking about one thing they are usually the types of things dumb, panicky animals talk about.

Let me put it like this: Have you ever been at a party and been having a really meaningful conversation with a friend. Then someone plops on the couch and joins in the conversation. Soon after that a really loud guy arrives. Before long a whole group of people have gathered around and your once meaningful conversation has turned into a shouting match about what’s the better music video: Beastie Boys Sabatoge or Weezer’s Buddy Holly*? These are the types of conversation social networking is made for. The more personal, honest, one on one types of conversations just don’t work as well in the social space. It’s not that the person tweeting doesn’t have these conversations. They may have them all the time. It’s just they never appear on any sort of social network.

Anyway, there are more reasons but I’ve gone on long enough. I guess I’m not saying you shouldn’t judge people based on what they tweet. That’s up to you. But at least know the parameters worth judging someone. So, I give the question to you: Do you judge people by what they tweet? Do you care if you’re judged by what you tweet?

*Answer: Sabotage.

About every 10 years it’s time to predict the end of world. This has happened several times in my thirty something year life span, but my two favorite instances were the Y2K bug and the bestselling 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988. 

I loved the Y2K bug because we all knew the moment it was going to happen. Midnight on January 1^st, 2000. How epic is that? The months before Y2K I tried to imagine what life would actually be like without computers and internet and email—back then a lot of those things felt new, but it still seemed apocalyptic to live with out them. And 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988 is hands down the best book title of all time. I have to admit, if Jesus was going to come back, 1988 seems about as good of a time as any. There’s something apocalyptic about that year. Magnum P.I. and The Facts Of Life both ended their long and powerful TV runs and at the time it felt like it’d be difficult to go on without those shows.

Well, now the world is coming to an end. Again. On May 21, 2011 also known as this Saturday. Some roll their eyes at this, but not me. I think there are four reasons why we continue to predict the end of the world and why others of us listen.

1) We’re Afraid of Death

Earlier this week Stephen Hawking said belief in heaven is a fairytale for those afraid of death. I think we predict the end of the world because we’re afraid of death. And we’re not afraid of what happens to us, but we’re afraid about what happens to everyone else. We’re afraid that life will go on and robot maids, flying cars, and hand-held laser guns will finally become a reality. How can the world go on with out me? It can’t. So, it must be coming to end, we tell ourselves and then everyone else.

2. Our lives are boring

There is something in us that loves epics. We love heroes rising up to do the unthinkable. But our lives aren’t like this. In real life we sit in freeway traffic or caged in an office cubicle. Why can’t my life be about more? It will be, we think. Once the world comes to the end and tidal waves crash over skyscrapers my friends and family will see what a hero I really am.

3. Because we feel guilty

We pump exhaust into the atmosphere during rush hour. We throw away Styrofoam containers. We let our kids watch movies that are just a little too scary and we’re sure this will make them act out it unsettling ways once junior high arrives. We all have sins and guilty parts of ourselves that make us feel like we didn’t do a good job taking care of our planet. And if enough of us don’t steward the planet we live on pretty soon there won’t be any planet left.

4. Because The World Has Got To End Sometime

Doesn’t it? It can’t go on forever like this can it? We have news channels piping 24 hours of bad news into our living rooms and with every news story we can’t help but think, What if this is the end?

It’s interesting that this fear is springing up again. I spent a couple of years researching and writing about this fear—a fear which seems to have been around as long as recorded human history. My research and thoughts turned into The End Is Now a book about the test market for the rapture. It’s a book that’s funny and sad and scary because we see a cast of characters wading around in their own fear to find hope that somewhere out there is truth and hope and redemption.

I haven’t really given the end of the world a lot of thought in the last few years, but I’m sure, despite my better judgment there will be a moment on Saturday when I look up to the sky and think, It might really be happening this time. Then I will come to my senses, I will turn my attention towards my wife and my daughters; the end of the world will melt away and things that matter in this life will come back into focus.  

The following is an excerpt from a Q & A I did with an editor at Z after writing Homemade Haunting. Here are some of the common questions I get about the novel:

Z: So no one in your family is demon possessed?

ROB: I thought my sister might have been when I was a teenager, but I later learned that a lot of teenage girls act demon possessed.

Z: Okay, well if this idea didn’t come from personal experience where did it come from?

ROB: Originally this book came from meeting someone who told me all about how he used to be heavily involved in the occult but when he had a family he didn’t want to expose them to any of that. I started writing that story, it was actually called Fallen World, but I ran into a lot of problems with it. So I thought what if I flipped it on its head. What if someone with an established family life tried to bring the occult into his home?

Z: I’d think flipping it around like that would really change the whole story. Not just the plot but what the story was about.

ROB: Absolutely. Originally the character had more innocence because he was trying to get free from something. It was like this guy told me: It’s hard to be a Satanist and a good father. I thought that sounded like a fascinating character. But Charlie was guilty of inviting something into his home for the sake of his own career. So for me this story was personal in that way, not really because he was a writer, but because my biggest fear has always been doing some sort of wrong doing that would affect my wife and my kids. It’s the last thing I’d ever want to do. To me hurting your family in that way is what real life horror is.

Z: Wow. I didn’t expect that answer.

ROB: I don’t think that was the answer I expected to give either. Funny the stuff you come up with when you have questions coming your way.

Z: Well, let’s keep the questions coming and see what else you come up with. This book is funny in moments you wouldn’t necessarily expect comedy. Why do you use humor in story like this?

ROB: I wanted this story to be in a sort of hyper reality. I think most of my stories are like that. Those are the stories I love to read. I love authors like Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain who are really funny in one moment and chilling in the next. I think if I was trying to use a Ouija board to get story ideas it’d be both funny because I wouldn’t know what I was doing and just as scary because I wouldn’t know the consequences of what I was doing.

Z: How much of Rob Stennett is in Charlie Walker?

ROB: Obviously the story comes from me, but my life is not nearly as interesting as Charlie’s. I would never just quit my job, nor would I keep pushing on something when it seemed so wrong. I’m not nearly as judgmental as he is either. But I do think I rationalize things, so when Charlie made the 5 Rules About Ghost Hunting I could see myself doing something like that to ease my guilt.

Z: How about any characters or scenes you wanted to write that didn’t make the cut?

ROB: I had this scene where I wanted Charlie and Rachel to end up at a progressive dinner in a creepy home like the one Charlie is talking about, but it didn’t make sense for the story. I just thought it’d be fun to write.

Z: What’s next for Rob Stennett?

ROB: Right now I’m working on potentially developing one of my books into a feature film. It’s still in the early phases but I’d love to see it happen.

As a Christian it’s in my DNA to feel guilty for writing liking horror stories. But I like them anyway. The good ones at least. The bad ones are gratuitous with violence and cheap scares just like bad actions movies have gratuitous gunfights and bad romantic comedies have gratuitous cutesy dialogue in cafes.

However, frightening stories written thoughtfully can shed a light on what happens when we certain kinds of darkness enters our lives. And I think these stories can let us process destruction and darkness close enough so we can understand it but far enough so it doesn’t reach actual havoc in our lives.

More on this later. For now my top 5 Scary Stories:

5) The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson’s story is a masterpiece of culture, tradition, and what happens when we unquestioningly follow a belief. It’s got a twist worthy of M Night’s early work and it’s been controversial and debated ever since publication. A masterpiece.

4) A Simple Plan by Scott Smith

This is the one book on my list that would be classified as a Thriller more than a horror. It maybe more of a morality tale than thriller or horror, but whatever, we’re getting to caught up in labels. The point is this is the simple story of a few men who find 4 million dollars and think they have plan to keep it without getting caught. Before long this story pits brother against brother and shows just how dark humanity can come when greed and the love of mammon takes over.

3) Pet Semetary by Stephen King

This is famously the one book that Stephen King thought he’d crossed the line with. It was too scary. He couldn’t publish it. The story goes it took some heavy prodding by his wife and his publisher for him to turn it in. After reading it I can see why he felt it was too disturbing to turn in. It’s got some dark moments, but mostly it is a story about the greatest fear any of us have…losing a small child. This is the story of a family who lose their little boy named Gage and the consequences that come when a father tires to cheat and side step grief. There are no short cuts to grief and King’s novel illustrates this in the most chilling way.

2) The Lord Of The Flies by William Golding

Are human beings inherently good or evil? Of course this is much too complicated a question for a simple answer, but still it’s worth asking. If you strip away all society what will we become?

Golding has an answer to this question and it’s not pretty. Sure, the characters in this novel are only children, but I don’t think Golding would say that excuses their behavior. These are boys from boarding school. They know better. But give them a conch, some pigs, an island, and a few spears and what you get is one of the most terrifying looks into humanity ever written.

1) It by Stephen King

Yes, this book has a killer clown—easily the most fearsome killer clown in all of literature—and this by itself would make this book frightening. But set this 1,000 page tour de force apart is the way is centered around childhood and what it means to grow up. The novel is about the fears we face as a child and the way we forget them as we grow older.

But even though we forget there are still things to be afraid of. Darkness is still out there and we can try to ignore it if we like but that doesn’t make it any less real. And for the characters in this book to ultimately save their hometown and themselves they must look at the world as they did as children one last time and face the evil that they’ve long since forgotten.

This is King’s masterpiece, in my opinion, and it paints another world in the same way Tolkien would. But the scary thing is King’s Derry doesn’t seem to far from the types of places we grew up.

My third novel is about to release. The question that I get asked all of the time goes something like this: Is this your best novel? Is this the best thing you’ve ever done or did you peak a couple of books back?

This is such a very difficult question to answer. Usually, the newest novel is the closest  to me. I’ve just written it and the thoughts and the feelings in it are fresh. The cover is the most interesting to look at. With Homemade Haunting I think it’s funny and scary and thought provoking in ways that my other novels couldn’t be. But ultimately time is the judge of all art and how this novel will stand up against the other two (or something I haven’t even written yet) is not up to me.

But I wonder if other people look at their lives like this. Do you look at where you are and what you’re doing right now as the most important work of your life or are you like Barton Fink thinking that distinction lies in the past or future?

Or do you even think like that?

Is this just something that afflicts those who create novels and films and music and other art that we look at like bugs frozen in amber? Or is this something that we all deal with?

We all know the adage  “the book was better than the movie”. If you’ve ever read a novel and then seen the movie you’ve probably said the same thing yourself.

I think there’s a couple of reasons we say this:

Reason #1 Narcissism: In reading a book we play a large role. In our mind’s eye we cast the characters and we paint the settings, so it only makes sense we’d like our version best.

Reason #2 Time: We watch a movie in 120 minutes. I don’t know what the average amount of time we spend reading a novel is but if I had to guess of the top of my head I’d say 6.3 weeks. After all the time we have invested in the book of course we’d say it’s better than the movie.

Reason #3 The book is usually better than the movie.

Still, I believe sometimes the movie can be just as good. Sometimes even better in it’s own way.

And I say all of this because the news is Ryan Fisher the feature film is in development as I type. The novel was optioned by producer who’s worked with some great A list actors and directors. And while I can’t give all the details here just yet, I can say it looks like Ryan Fisher the film could be coming to a theater near you

So read the book and then you can decide for yourself if it’s better than the movie. If you have read the book who would you like to see cast as Ryan, Katherine, Clovis, and Cowboy Jack? Who should direct the movie?