ROME – Canadian director David Cronenberg is swapping his camera for a pen.

The moviemaker, who was attending the Rome Film Festival on Thursday, said he has written 60 pages of a novel, but besides ruling out that it would be a horror or science fiction, offered few details on the project.

“Based on the pages I have written we found publishers all over the world, which is very terrifying to me,” Cronenberg told reporters. “It’s at a very delicate phase right now, so I can’t really talk about it. It’s not like Stephen King, I don’t know what it’s like but you wouldn’t call it a horror or science fiction novel at all. But what it is exactly, well, I don’t know yet.”

The director, known for “Videodrome,” ”The Fly,” and “A History of Violence,” said he had wanted to write a book for 50 years.

Cronenberg also attended a public meeting where he answered questions from fans and moviegoers, one of the fixtures of the Rome festival, whose third edition runs through Oct. 31.