'Goosebumps' author R.L. Stine talks his career, upbringing and successes

"Goosebumps," the acclaimed young-adult horror book series and one of the best-selling children's book series of all time, celebrated its 30-year anniversary this past summer.

Three days before the spookiest day of the year, Halloween, creator of the series R.L. Stine spoke with ABC News' Phil Lipof about his career, some of the greatest joys he's experienced along the way, and how, after all these years, he'd rather be funny than scary.

PRIME: The legend himself! We were just talking a little bit and I said just, you know, off the cuff, that you're really funny… But you said you'd rather be funny than scary always.

STINE: That's all I ever wanted to be was funny… someone else asked me to be scary. That's the embarrassing part of it. How could that happen? Wasn't even my idea.

PRIME: Whose idea was it?

STINE: I was doing joke books and funny books. I wrote Bazooka Joe Comics. I was doing funny stuff. And this editor at Scholastic, we had lunch with her and she arrived at lunch angry.

She said she just had a fight with a guy who wrote young adult horror novels, and she said, 'Well, you could write a good teen horror novel. Go home and write a book called Blind Date.' She gave me the title. I didn't know what she was talking about. 'What's a teen horror novel?' I said.

But I said, 'Oh, sure, no problem. No problem.' I went running to the bookstore to see what people were doing, what it was about. I wrote this book. Blind Date is the number one bestseller. Wait a minute. Forget the funny stuff.

PRIME: That's right. Maybe there's something here.

STINE: Maybe I'm going to be scary from now on.

PRIME: Did you anticipate that? Because I checked this with you. And Goosebumps is the second most popular series to Harry Potter. I mean, that's a huge thing. Did you ever anticipate when you began? I know you say it wasn't what you meant to do.

STINE: Right, you know, and how could you deal in this? I didn't want to do Goosebumps. That's the kind of businessman I am. My editor said, 'we've got to try a scary series for 7 to 11 year-olds.'

I said, 'No, I really don't want to' because I was doing a teen series called Fear Street and it was doing really well and I didn't want to mess up the Fear Street audience.

But they kept after me and kept after me. And finally I said, All right, if we can think of a good name for the series, we can try two or three. Wow. Now it's 30 years later, 30.

PRIME: Years later and generations. I think we should change your introduction now to reluctant legend. How about that? It seems like you were [an] accidental legend. I like that. Talk to me a little bit about, because as a writer, I'm fascinated with the way people write and you specifically with what you have been able to do over the years. What's your writing process like?

STINE: Well, people always ask, where do you get your ideas? And I don't really try to think of ideas anymore because I've done every story a human can write. There aren't any ideas left. So what I do is I just think of titles. I just come up with a good title.

PRIME: Like that first one. You were given the title and you wrote the book.

STINE: Yeah, that. But now I just try, you know, I spend all my time trying to think of titles. I'm working on a book for next year called Scariest Book Ever.

PRIME: Right. You came up with that.

STINE: So, yeah. So I mean, I think, well, what would it be? What would be in it or what if some kids discovered it? [Then] what? And the title leads me to the story. So I work backwards from every other author. They get the idea first and think of the title later. But all my books start with the title.

PRIME: Do you do you get more ideas and better as you go on?

STINE: No, no. Much worse. Well, no. It's so much harder.

PRIME: Because you've already done this and [that].

STINE: Everything. Right. You know, I have to write about this dummy that comes to life, Slappy. The evil dummy. Right. He's my favorite character [and] my least favorite character. Why my favorite? Because everyone loves him. And this Halloween, thousands of kids will go out with Slappy. And that's a real thrill. My least favorite, because who wants to write over and over again about a dummy that comes? I've written 15 books about a dummy that comes to life and it gets harder every time.

PRIME: If you could choose to do anything you want at this point, but whatever you could… Has there ever been the thought of, 'Hey, I'm going to just be done with that and do this, or you doing this because…'

STINE: I don't know. See I can't think, I'm not that original. What else would I do?

PRIME: I think a lot of people would disagree with you.

STINE: I hate this too. I go to schools and kids never used to ask this. 'Are you gonna retire?' No one ever asked that five years ago. I hate that authors don't retire. You just drop dead on your keyboard.

PRIME: Oh, God, no, no, no. We should never think about that. I'm curious, because you talk about kids at schools. As I said, we have adults in this building who grew up on your books. What is it like? I asked you how heady is it and you said it was awesome. But what is it like to have, you know, people as old as your son or as young as some of these kids in school…

STINE: Now your age? Yeah, yeah. No, it took me a while to get used to it because they know what I am to you. I'm nostalgia. How would you like to be nostalgia? That's not so great. And, you know, it takes a while to get used to being nostalgia. I do a book signing now, I'm going to do one Saturday, I'll get seven year olds and ten year olds and 20 year olds and 30 year olds. I used to say, 'What are you doing here?' You always said 'we loved you when we were kids.' All right. That took a little while, but now I'm very proud of it. You know, I get to scare a lot of generations.

PRIME: And scare you do. What's the most fulfilling part of, say, the last 30 years of doing what you do?

STINE: You want a serious answer?

PRIME: Give me both because I like [that] you're not serious.

STINE: The fan mail is the best part. The mail is the best. Here's a letter I got a couple of weeks ago. 'Dear R.L. Stine I don't know if you remember me or not, but when you visited my school, I'm the one who stepped on your foot.'

PRIME: That was it?

STINE: Yeah, I do remember that kid. Now, I'll give you two more. These are real, I'm not making it up. 'Dear. R.L. Stine. You're my second favorite author.'

PRIME: Not first?

STINE: No.

PRIME: Now, you still don't know the first?

STINE: No. Total suspense. Here's my favorite letter. Maybe you've heard me tell this one from all the years, from a boy. 'Dear R.L. Stine. I've read 40 of your books, and I think they're really boring.'

PRIME: Really?

STINE: It's a perfect letter. Yeah, it's perfect. You're not laughing.

PRIME: That's funny. No, it's funny. It was. I just, I'm sitting here talking to you, and. And I met you in the lobby, and we brought you up, and I said to you, 'you're unassuming and mild-mannered and humble as anybody else that someone would meet.' With all of your success, how do you do that? How do you not let all of this success go to…

STINE: Because what a wonderful thing, how lucky I am. I just think all the time how lucky I am. I came from a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. I grew up in Columbus. My family was incredibly poor and we [lived] three doors from the railroad tracks. And I was just, you know, desperate. I got to New York. I wanted to be a writer. I didn't know anyone in New York. I didn't know another person. And now to have this success is beyond my wildest myth. I'm just lucky.

PRIME: Yeah, well, so are all the people, all the generations of kids who learn to read because of your books. Who read under the covers with the flashlight. My son says he loved the "Goosebumps" series as well. Right. And the movie where Jack Black [played Slappy].

STINE: But you know, Jack. Jack and I are like twins, right? People mistake us. It was a good movie.

PRIME: I want to see a comedy book. I really do. Okay. R.L. Stine, thank you so much. That was great. I really appreciate it. R.L. Stine, the mind behind the highly successful "Goosebumps" series. We can't thank you enough.

STINE: Thanks.