tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23541461835447782212024-03-13T12:50:11.089-04:00Enjoying the Apocalypse!The mental musings of Permuted Press authors Lane Adamson, Scott M. Baker, Thom Brannon, Jessica Miegs, Christopher Williams, and Patrick Williams.Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-2951120952708543812013-06-27T07:52:00.000-04:002013-06-27T08:49:31.262-04:00Too Much Horror Business, by C Dulaney<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I (C Dulaney) recently had the awesome opportunity to interview Mr. R. Thomas Riley, co-author of If God Doesn’t Show. Or rather, he was tazered and dragged into the interrogation room. Let’s see what information we could get out of him, shall we?</div>
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<strong>Since we both write for Permuted Press, I’m going to pretend I know nothing about you or your writing. So, if you want to start out by telling us a little about yourself, here’s your chance. </strong></div>
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<br />I wrote my first story when I was 15 and had no clue what I was doing. I was an avid reader growing up and devoured every book I could get my hands on. Trying my hand at writing myself was a natural progression. I found I had stories I wanted to tell, rather than read them. I wrote stories and even a novel for the next five years. They were all completely and utterly dreck and horrible. </div>
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I was raised in a very sheltered environment and my parents were (and very much so) hardcore Independent Baptists. I was only allowed to read the Bible, but at around age 7, I discovered fiction from the likes of Stephen King, Bentley Little, and Dean Koontz and my love of the horror genre was born. I had to hide these types of books from parents and I spent many, many late nights hiding under the covers being scared by these wonderful books. </div>
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Around 2000 I started hanging out in writing chat rooms and the rest, as they say, is history. I still didn’t know what I was doing for the next few years. I had no idea how the publishing business worked, but fortunately, in those chat rooms I began to interact with fellow authors, many of which I read previously. They took me under their wings and taught me the ropes and the ins and outs of the business. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the likes of Ray Garton, Douglas Clegg, Tom Piccirilli, Jack Ketchum, Brian Keene, among many others, taking the time to talk to an aspiring writer. I make it a point to pay that forward as best I can with the writers coming up behind me today. </div>
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<strong>I’ve always been interested in co-authoring something. What was that experience like and how, exactly, does it work? </strong></div>
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Every collaboration project is different. What may work for one collab, doesn’t necessarily work for another. Currently, I write with Roy C. Booth, John Grover, and Jason Brannon. I’ve collaborated with other authors, but those turned out badly. </div>
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Collaborating requires an intense amount of trust to work correctly. With Roy and John, we are so in sync and have such similar tastes in fiction that we work very well together, but even these collabs are conducted much differently. </div>
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With John, when I brought the idea of writing <em>If God Doesn't Show </em>I had 30,000 words done on the project already. He merely jumped in, read what I had, and continued the story. We worked so well together, even I started to have trouble seeing who wrote what, our styles were so similar. At this point, I can start a sentence, and he’ll be able to finish it. </div>
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With Roy, it’s an entirely different process. There is much more discussion before we even begin to write, hours and hours of plotting beforehand, and maneuvering. With his vast experience in comics and movies, he’s more attuned to what has come before and he’s been reading much, much longer than I have (yeah, he’s old, haha) so he knows what’s been done fictionally before. While I grew up cutting my “reading” teeth on 80’s and 90’s horror, he more of a horror classical guy. This really complements our two styles, as well. </div>
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Jason is a new addition. We’ve known of each other for about 10 years now, getting published in many of the same mags, anthologies, and with some of the same small presses. We’re working on our first project together and we’re still feeling each other out, but I think it’ll be a good fit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1o9VO-ngwTE/Ucwb9F0FySI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/BTEDxSU3xLQ/s1600/skull_puzzle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1o9VO-ngwTE/Ucwb9F0FySI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/BTEDxSU3xLQ/s320/skull_puzzle.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...like so.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<strong>Tell us about <em>If God Doesn’t Show</em>. And I don’t want the back-cover summary here. Really spill some beans without angering the Gods of Spoil.</strong></div>
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<em><br /></em><em>If God Doesn't Show </em>is a culmination of writing about a character for a decade now. There’s a lot going on in this novel. There are zombies, demons, angels, and ancient gods. You’ve probably heard write what you want to read if it isn’t out there and that’s basically what John Grover and I did. John and I approached our zombies from a completely different angle and from what the readers have said; we seemed to have nailed it. These aren’t your typical zombies and I hope we’ve brought something fresh to the mythos. </div>
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I drew heavily on my own military experience and the stories I’ve heard from my buddies in the various branches. Most of the events, especially in regards to the nuclear strikes that occur in the storyline, are as accurate as I could make them without revealing too much “real world” tactics. This novel is the second book in my on going series about Gibson Blount, with <em>The Flesh of Fallen Angels </em>being the first book. John and I are hard at work on book 3, and books 4-6 are plotted and just waiting to be written. Of course, this all depends on the first two books in the series being successful, so go out and buy them, read them, and leave reviews. </div>
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<strong><br /></strong><strong>I believe you have other work out there for folks to read. Tell us about that and other plans you might have for future works. </strong></div>
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<br />I currently have two short story collections available. <em>The Monster Within Idea </em>(previously published by Hugo Nominated Apex Publications) and <em>Their Last Dying Acts</em>. I also have a new novel called <em>Husks</em>, a highly experimental novel that is quite different from my usual style and content. As I said in my previous answer, my collaborators and I are deep into writing and planning the Gibson Blount series and I’d like to hope I could concentrate on his stories for at least the next decade!</div>
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<br /></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o7MbatP9GHY/UcwmWQ_eg_I/AAAAAAAAAMg/mGKyPtuIB2Y/s1500/Books-06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o7MbatP9GHY/UcwmWQ_eg_I/AAAAAAAAAMg/mGKyPtuIB2Y/s320/Books-06.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...and this is what it will look like...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<strong>When you read, do you prefer pre-apocalyptic, shit-as-it’s-hitting-the-fan, or post-apocalyptic stories, and why?</strong></div>
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<br />I like both, if they’re done right. To write a good pre-or-post apocalyptic novel research is key, if the author neglects this crucial aspect, then they’ve failed before they’ve even written the first sentence. Readers today are an extremely savvy bunch and if you’re writing about guns, military tactics, or whatnot, you, as the author, better know your subject like the back of your hand. Personally, I’m more curious to read about the post-apocalyptic scenarios, as I like to see how authors deal with the aftermath and how society picks up and carries on.</div>
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<strong>I think we’ve all been asked this one, but I can’t not ask. What are your thoughts on the current zombie craze?</strong></div>
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I absolutely LOVE it! There’s just so much out there to consume, pun intended. It’s a great time for the zombie genre, from comedies, to outright horror, and everything in between.</div>
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<strong>True or False: <em>The Walking Dead </em>is awesome.</strong></div>
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I have a love/hate relationship with the TV show. One minute, I’ll be screaming mad at the screen, the next I’m completely in love with the show. Still, it’s among one of the best shows on TV at the moment.</div>
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<strong>If you could only pick ONE, in which sub-genre would you most prefer to write?</strong>Apocalyptic. What can I say, I like destroying the world and being sadistic to my characters.</div>
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<strong>What’s the very best piece of advice you’ve ever received? This doesn’t have to pertain to writing.</strong></div>
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Never stop learning or be complacent with your writing ability. Always strive to be better. The learning never stops, ever. </div>
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<strong>Writer’s block: real or imagined?</strong></div>
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Imagined. If a project isn’t working for you, there’s plenty of other stuff to write about. </div>
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<strong>What’s your process? Take us through a day in the writing life of Mr. Riley.</strong></div>
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<strong></strong><br />Research is key in my work. I want to be as realistic as I can and I like to write stories that’ll make the reader think, “This could really happen.” It took me a few years to realize that every great idea I have doesn’t necessarily make a good story. At this point in my career, I don’t write a story or novel until I have a contract or a very real interest from a publisher. It’s simply not an adequate use of my time to spend six months on something I’m going to have a hard time selling. </div>
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<br />Depending on the project, I may or may not outline. Each project is different. I write best under a deadline, so when possible, I make it a point to have one.I have a full time job, so my writing time is limited, but I’m never not writing in my head, so by the time I actually have the time to sit down and put words to paper, I know exactly where I’m headed and what I need to accomplish. </div>
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<strong>What’s your favorite ice cream flavor? And don’t lie, everyone has one.</strong></div>
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Rocky Road. </div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hR7Kh7fWfTM/Ucwmxcz_flI/AAAAAAAAAMo/l2ivK6XF63E/s320/cthulhu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hR7Kh7fWfTM/Ucwmxcz_flI/AAAAAAAAAMo/l2ivK6XF63E/s320/cthulhu.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What a missed opportunity to push the new Mythos flavors.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<strong>In your opinion, what’s the best way to handle a bad review? Not just bad, but the kind that makes you want to take a fork to someone.</strong></div>
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First, see if there’s any merit to the review. You have to realize (and be at peace with) that what you write isn’t going to be liked by every reader. If there’s no merit or anything to learn from the bad review, I just off them in a story.</div>
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<strong>If you were only able to write one more story, just ONE, for the rest of your life, what would it be?</strong></div>
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That’s a tough one, but I’d have to go with apocalyptic scenarios. </div>
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<strong>Okay, if you haven’t already talked about it (or even if you have) here’s your one chance to pimp anything and everything you can think of. </strong><br />
<br />
Pick up <em>If God Doesn't Show </em>and <em>The Flesh of Fallen Angels</em>. Read, review, and rate! </div>
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<br /><span style="color: red;">Return... in some time for when R. Thomas Riley interviews Craig DiLouie! As for my part (Thom Brannan) I apologize for the huge break in interviews. Blame it on me, take away my birthday, whatever you have to do. Ayuh. </span></div>
Thom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-7229057155540248082013-03-29T23:36:00.002-04:002013-03-29T23:37:35.471-04:00Dueling Banjos, by William Todd RoseC. Dulaney is an enigma, wrapped in a mystery... and bacon. She lives in the middle of nowhere and spins yarns about the end of things as we know it. William Todd Rose asks her questions here, and by God, she answers!<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I’ll start with a
pretty standard interview question:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>tell
us a little bit about your new book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Where did its inspiration come from and how many more books do you
foresee in the series</b>?<br />
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<em>Murphy’s Law</em> is the second book in the <em>Roads Less Traveled</em>
series. It picks up about six months where the first book, <em>The Plan</em>, left off.
It’s only been out for a couple of months so I don’t want to spoil too much,
but I will say the pacing is faster and the tone is a little darker than the
first book. I’ve been told that it’s even gruesome at some points. We meet new
characters, some of them live and some of them are murdered by yours truly. The
location changes; Kasey and the group do a good bit of traveling in this one. I
think the feel of this book can be summed up by the title. The first book was
all about executing <em>The Plan</em> when it hit the fan. In this second one, however,
we find out pretty quickly that if something can go wrong, it will. But really,
how often does anything go right in a zombie apocalypse?</div>
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I think the inspiration for this one came from the first
book. I didn’t use an outline for either; just wrote from the hip, so to speak.
So each event built on the one before. Most of the time I had no idea what was
going to happen next. By the time I started writing the second book, I just
continued that. There’s only one more book after <em>Murphy’s Law</em>, and at this time
there are no plans for anything more than a trilogy. <em>Roads Less Traveled:
Shades of Gray</em> is tentatively scheduled for release in June, 2013.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Is there one
character in particular whom you really identify with and, if so, why?</b></div>
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If you ask people who know me, they would immediately say
Kasey, the main protagonist. Personally, I can’t see it. In my opinion, I feel
like I can really relate to all of them. Each character in the main group has a
little piece of me inside them. A little bit here, a little bit there. Kasey’s
organization, Jake’s temper, Mia’s loyalty, Nancy’s “mothering,” and Zack’s
reasoning. Over time, after the characters finally fleshed themselves out, they
obviously took on personalities of their own. By the time you get to the third
book, you see less and less of me in them. Which is a good thing. That’s the
way it’s supposed to be.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When I do interviews
on my personal blog, there’s a question I always ask which helps give readers a
glimpse of the interviewee’s creative side, so I’m going to borrow that
question for this interview as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here it goes: there’s a train rocketing through the night with nearly a
hundred people staring out the windows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The only person actually sitting in a seat is a small child who gazes
unwaveringly at the floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is going
on with these people?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The first thing I thought of was Blaine the Mono in Stephen
King’s third Dark Tower book. I’ll add to that by saying I don’t think that kid
is a kid at all. He’s an extension of the train, and the train is insane. Alive
and insane. So this crazy train (ha) is rocketing through the dark, holding all
these people hostage. Maybe the kid/train wants something, and the people
aren’t going to give it. So now they’re staring out, defeated, having accepted
their imminent and most likely firey death. And the kid is just sitting there
in “sleep mode.”</div>
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Or it’s a train full of zombies, and they’re being
transported to a zombie farm where we use them like domesticated animals.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7yY1Cu-ONLo/UVZcnKFrT_I/AAAAAAAAALo/24gRmFH1KP4/s1600/girl-zombie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7yY1Cu-ONLo/UVZcnKFrT_I/AAAAAAAAALo/24gRmFH1KP4/s320/girl-zombie.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">...like so. Heel! Good zombie.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What is the most
satisfying part of being an author for you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And, on the flip side, what are the more challenging aspects</b>?<br />
<br />
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I get paid to lie? No, wait. I think when I meet someone who
enjoyed reading a story I’ve written as much as I enjoyed writing it. That’s
pretty satisfying. The more challenging aspects I think would be promotion,
promotion, and promotion. I don’t think any of us particularly like that part.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In one of your books
was made into a movie, who would you want to direct it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alternately (or additionally, your choice)
who would you like to see star in it?</b></div>
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Joss Whedon. And me, of course! What, it could happen.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Can you remember the
first piece of fiction you ever wrote?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If so, what was it about</b>?</div>
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Yes, and honestly the only thing I can really remember is it
was about a stinky dog. Oh, and we had to stand up in front of the class and
read them out loud. I definitely remember that.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">If you could travel
through time and give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?</b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Oh, wow. Good question. If I could give myself only one
piece, it would have to be the old “don’t sweat the small stuff” line. Unless
you, in fact, sweat over every minute thing that happens on a daily basis,
you’ll never understand how that cheesy cliché could be capable of changing
someone’s life, if they’d only learned it very early on. Learned it, and put it
into practice. So yeah, that’s what I would tell myself. Then I would pound
myself over the head with it until it sank in. And then I would force myself to
get it tattooed somewhere on my body, so I’d have a constant reminder.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PcCN8LE8XK8/UVZc8KJBOUI/AAAAAAAAALw/TG42ulNJZIQ/s1600/bad+tatt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PcCN8LE8XK8/UVZc8KJBOUI/AAAAAAAAALw/TG42ulNJZIQ/s320/bad+tatt.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Slightly better advice than this.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Let’s say you’ve been
asked to not only take part in an author panel, but you also get to hand pick
the authors whom you’d like to share the panel with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who would you pick and why?</b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
First, I’d pick all the other Permuted Ladies, so I wouldn’t
be the only one sitting up there. Second, I’d pick Peter Clines. I’ve heard he
can be quite verbose, so if we could get him talking, we wouldn’t have to.
Third, I’d pick Iain McKinnon, the only other Permuted author whose accent is
harder to understand than mine (We love you, Iain). Fourth, I’d pick you,
because you’re interviewing me and it would be rude of me to leave you out of
my pretend panel.</div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What are you
currently working on?</b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
With the RLT trilogy finally out of my hands, I’ve started
on another full-length. It takes place in the RLT universe, but it’s a totally
different take on it. If I had to “classify” it, I guess it would be an urban
fantasy, pre-apocalyptic, thriller, who-done-it type of thing? That’s really
all I’m going to say about it right now. I know it’s going to be a different
type of story than what I’m used to writing, but I also think it’s going to be
a lot of fun too. The working title is <em>From the Ashes</em>.</div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lastly, can you let
us know where we can find more information about you and your work?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I sure can. You can check out my website, cdulaney.com, or
you can find information on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/roadslesstraveledtheplan" target="_blank">Facebook</a>.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Thanks for stopping
by and giving me the opportunity to pick your brain!</b></div>
<br />
Next time, C Dulaney interviews R. Thomas Riley in a duel of first initials!Thom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-23874826374192792692013-03-14T23:53:00.003-04:002013-03-14T23:55:36.089-04:00The Chronic, by Dave Dunwoody<span style="color: #999999;">
There exists a lot of uncertainty about William Todd Rose. Is he man? Is he machine? Is he a ham sammich? Nobody knows for sure, so we had Dave Dunwoody ask him some questions to see where on the food chain Mr. Rose exists. SEE! </span><br />
<em><strong><span style="color: #999999;"></span></strong></em><br />
<em><strong><span style="color: #999999;">DD: So we start with
the question around which most author interviews are built - in this case, I
suspect the answer is pretty interesting. How did the premise for your novel,
The Seven Habits of Highly Infective People, come about?</span></strong></em><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #999999;">WTR: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Seven Habits</i> originally started as an entirely different story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d considered writing a novel that broke the
fourth wall with the written word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
idea was that I myself would be the protagonist and that the things I wrote
about in my novels and stories were things I’d actually experienced while
traveling through space and time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
is where the term “dimensionally unstable” originated from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote a page or so and realized it just
wasn’t working, so I shelved it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About a
month or so later, I started getting these little snippets of dialogue that
popped into my head throughout the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So when I sat down to write, I just let this character start talking and
discovered he was actually the one who was dimensionally unstable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything else just kind of fell into place
after that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong><span style="color: #999999;">DD: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where
do Bosley, </i>The Seven Habits of Highly Infective People's<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> protagonist, and William Todd Rose
intersect?<o:p></o:p></i></span></strong></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #999999;">WTR: That’s a really good question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all honesty, Bosley is this alternate
reality version of how I may have turned out if I hadn’t changed my paths in my
mid-twenties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I totally lived the Bosley
Coughlin lifestyle, man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Bosley, I
worked as a data conversion operator for the Post Office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was sleeping maybe three or four hours a
night and doing just about any drug I could get my hands on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spent so much time high that sobriety was
my altered state and, at the same time, was really delving into explorations of
mysticism and the occult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was running
from and searching for something simultaneously… something that always seemed
maddeningly out of reach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was riddled
with unfounded guilt and thought if I could re-build my consciousness then
maybe I could finally feel complete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
it really doesn’t work that way, does it? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong><span style="color: #999999;">DD: Seven Habits<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> involves time travel, which I imagine is a challenge to write and a
beacon for nitpickers. How did you map out the timeline, and what were the
rules governing your version of time travel?<o:p></o:p></i></span></strong></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #999999;">WTR: I’ll start with the rules first, which
are pretty simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The main rule is lack
of control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bosley has no say over when
or where he travels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Eye of Aeons
opens spontaneously and pulls him through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Since his consciousness, and not his physical body, is what travels
through time he is basically pulled into a host body on his travels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sees through their eyes, hears what they
hear, feels what they feel, and is privy to their innermost thoughts and
secrets… however, he has no control over that host body whatsoever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can be thought of as a metaphysical
hitchhiker of sorts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="color: #999999; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I think the time travel aspect of the story
was a bit easier because of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
didn’t really have to worry too much about crossing timelines… I just had to
make sure that if Bosley knew something about Ocean that the knowledge matched
up with a period of time in which he was sharing her consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the series progresses, however, the time
travel element will become increasingly more complex, and that is where I’ll
really have to mind my Ps and Qs.</span><br />
<span style="color: #999999; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><span style="color: #999999;">
</span>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ul8kE8P_LAM/UUKaG73Z03I/AAAAAAAAAKs/F7V_y3jClDU/s1600/Tokyo_subway_map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #999999;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ul8kE8P_LAM/UUKaG73Z03I/AAAAAAAAAKs/F7V_y3jClDU/s320/Tokyo_subway_map.png" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;">...like so.</span></td></tr>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span></tbody></table>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="color: #999999;"> </span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong>DD:<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> How
important to you is humor in the fiction you write and read?<o:p></o:p></i></strong></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #999999;">WTR: With my own writing, it really depends
on the work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humor can be a great tool
to break tension and what a character finds funny can often tell a lot about
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes, though, I don’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">want</i> to break the tension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want it to keep building, to keep turning
those screws like an Inquisitor drunk on power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I get some sort of sick glee out of writing stuff like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of my work is pretty dark and gritty, so
I really can’t see myself ever writing a comedic book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just don’t think that’s where my strength
lies and I’m okay with that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong><span style="color: #999999;">DD: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I'm
stealing this question from Thom Brannan because it's just so great. What
musical artist would you love to see do a concept album based on your work?<o:p></o:p></i></span></strong></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #999999;">WTR: Wow, that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> an awesome question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe Project Pitchfork or Skinny Puppy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Perhaps Diary of Dreams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Music is
such an integral part of my writing process that the true answer would depend
on which novel was being covered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Seven Habits</i> specifically the answer
is Firewater. I hadn’t heard them when I originally wrote the book, but a lot
of their songs are so Bosley it’s almost scary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“6:45”, “Another Perfect Catastrophe”, “Dropping Like Flies”: these
songs very well could have been penned by Bosley Coughlin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’ve read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Seven Habits</i>, listen to “A Place Not So Unkind” with Bosley and
Ocean in mind as you do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s almost as
if the band had traveled forward in time, read the book, and then traveled back
in time to write and record the song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
really is uncanny.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong><span style="color: #999999;">DD: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maybe
they’re some of those metaphysical hitchers you hear so much about…</i></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></strong></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><span style="color: #999999;">
</span>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-012iHtKQofQ/UUKbIiGBvmI/AAAAAAAAAK8/tG7uUIOmU4I/s1600/season-hubley-the-hitchhiker-title.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #999999;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-012iHtKQofQ/UUKbIiGBvmI/AAAAAAAAAK8/tG7uUIOmU4I/s320/season-hubley-the-hitchhiker-title.png" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;">...like so.</span></td></tr>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span></tbody></table>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong><span style="color: #999999;">What's your preferred writing routine? What does your ideal writing space look
like?<o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></i></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #999999;">WTR: I’ve got to have a cup of strong, black
coffee and, preferably, some music playing that synchs up with the atmosphere
I’m trying to convey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one point, I
would have said a pack of smokes as well but we don’t smoke inside anymore and
it’s a habit I plan on breaking anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Just give me a desk, my computer, a comfy chair, and my coffee and I’m raring
to go.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #999999;"><strong>DD: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Any
weird totems you like to have around when you're working on stories?</i></strong><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="color: #999999; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">WTR: I have a furry little tribble on my desk
that coos when you squeeze it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometimes, I’ll sit there playing with it as I turn things over in my
head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I get frustrated with hardware
issues, I’ll give the computer a blast from my replica sonic screwdriver and
I’ve also got a plush Darth Vader wearing bunny ears that I like to look
at;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but I really try not to have any
“lucky charms” or anything like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Part
of me fears creating a psychological dependence on totems to the point where if
I didn’t have the object, I wouldn’t be able to write.</span><br />
<span style="color: #999999; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><span style="color: #999999;">
</span>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TOad6cRspk4/UUKapISzgVI/AAAAAAAAAK0/nsDoUFUzr18/s1600/darth+cutie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #999999;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TOad6cRspk4/UUKapISzgVI/AAAAAAAAAK0/nsDoUFUzr18/s320/darth+cutie.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;">Artist's representation of what Darth Easter might look like.</span></td></tr>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span></tbody></table>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="color: #999999;"> </span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong>DD: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I've
had the pleasure of meeting your family, and they are nothing if not supportive
of what you do. How do they figure into the writing process?</i></strong><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #999999;">WTR: My son is an awesome beta reader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s not afraid to tell me if something is
utter crap and to give his honest opinion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My wife, though, is more involved in the actual process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve stayed up all night, bouncing ideas
back and forth, exploring characters and universes, hashing things out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other than myself, she’s the only person who
knows the complete story arc which began with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Seven Habits</i> and she is just as emotionally involved with these
characters as I.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once I finish
something, she is the first person who reads it and she does so with a critical
eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She makes notes in the margins,
highlights misspellings, checks for continuity errors, and so on; after she’s
had her time with the manuscript, we sit down and discuss her thoughts and
findings and then it’s on to the second draft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She’s my muse, initial editor, alpha reader, manager, and everything in
between.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong><span style="color: #999999;">DD: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Has
a piece of fiction ever moved you to tears?<o:p></o:p></i></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #999999;">WTR: Good god, yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tend to get emotionally involved with my
characters and it’s not uncommon for me to sit at the keyboard with tears
streaming down my face as I write.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
is especially true with Bosley and Ocean.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="color: grey; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong><span style="color: #999999;">DD: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I know this may be a complicated question (and one I couldn’t answer myself)
but why do you think you’re drawn to dark fiction? Is it that cathartic nature?<o:p></o:p></i></span></strong></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="color: grey; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #999999;">WTR: I’m not really sure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect that it’s as much a part of me as
my eye color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For as long as I can
remember I’ve been infatuated with things of a darker nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before I could even read, my favorite stories
were always ones told around campfires: escaped mental patients with hooks for
hands, phantom hitchhikers, and what have you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As I grew older this interest only deepened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I discovered Poe, Algernon Blackwood, HP Lovecraft,
and Ramsey Campbell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, I started
creating my own tales.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong><span style="color: #999999;">DD: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tell
us about a short story of which you're particularly proud.</i><o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="color: #999999;">WTR: I really like “Losing Control”, which is
in my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Box of Darkness</i>
collection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a blend of sci-fi and
extreme horror which centers around a man whose job is to free passing souls
who become entangled in “crossfades”; a cross fade is basically a bit of dead
space between dimensions which a spirit can become entangled in when trying to
cross over to the other side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He does
this through astral projection and technology, using a terminally ill man who
is in a medically induced coma as an eavesdropping device into the afterlife to
help identify where problems lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
third member of the team is a woman he only knows as Control, whose job is to
help guide and center him when he’s out in the void.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The thing about crossfades, however, is that
extremely willful souls can get their hooks into them and start creating their
own reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that point, the
crossfade becomes a Cut Scene and has the capability of luring passing souls
into it like a trap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is exactly
what happens when the soul of executed serial killer Albert Lewis passes into
the beyond.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He creates a nightmare world
brimming with torture and perversion and it’s our narrator’s job to go into
that world and bring it to an end.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I like this story so much I’ve been toying
with the thought of expanding it into a novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I really like the universe it’s set in and the way technology interacts
with metaphysics.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
<span style="color: grey; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><strong><span style="color: #999999;">DD: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sounds like a world that’s dying to be explored further! Todd thanks
for taking the time to let me probe your lobes.</i></span></strong></span></div>
Thom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-8993330992444232512013-03-08T03:10:00.000-05:002013-03-08T03:10:29.784-05:00Tall Tales from My Formative Years 1: Gettin' Flash-Bang'd<em><strong>Disclaimer: TTFMFY are stories from my time growing up in way, deep south Texas, as well as anecdotes from boot camp and Navy schoolsand service. They may or may not be embellished, with portions that are out and out fiction. Read at your own peril! </strong></em><br />
<br />
While I was in junior high and high school, I lived in Falcon Village, a little place where all the Border Patrol, Customs, IWBC people and their families had housing. It wasn't a very big place, and of the six years I lived there, I don't think more than half of the houses ever had people in them. <br />
<br />
So, this made for a great opportunity for the CBP's version of SWAT, the Weapons, Entry and Tactics (WET) Team. Every once in a great while, they'd all tool down to the village to practice raids on the empty houses. When they were feeling especially garrulous, they would tell the neighborhood kids watching what they were up to. <br />
<br />
One of these times, they recruited some of to be Tony Montana and his crew. The only kids available at the time were Pete and me. Pete was from Colorado, and at one time may or may not have taken some kind of ninjitsu classes. Either way, he was all fired up to be a bad guy. The whole time the WET guys were explaining the rules to us, Pete had a glint in his eye and a smile on his face and Jesus Christ, I knew he was thinking about killing these guys. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...meanwhile, inside Pete's head...</td></tr>
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They explained the rules: the taped-up soda cans in black coming through the windows were flash-bangs, which would blind you and steal your equilibrium for some time. If one of the cans came through the window, I think we had three seconds to vacate the room or we were toast. Taped up soda cans in grey were smoke grenades, and we had the same time or be blinded and choked. <br />
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The weapons were some kind of Air-Soft things, so we didn't have to worry about range safety. Nobody's head would get blown off their shoulders (yay!) and if we heard a pop! coming our direction, we were shot. So lay down. Pete and I were to hide in the house, together or separate, and do our best to evade the WET Team. <br />
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The first order of business was to open all the windows and remove the screens, so nothing would have to be replaced. Then Pete went, giggling, into the house, and I might have been, too. It was so <em>cool</em>. <br />
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There was no furniture in there, but that was alright. We lived in houses that were almost identical in their layout, so all the little hidey-holes we could get into were known to us. All the odd corners and blind spots and how much room beind the room doors, et cetera. I don't know what Pete was thinking, exactly, but I was sure we'd be able to evade these old, slow adults, especially on our own turf. <br />
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The first couple of runs went the same way: we'd get set, and flash-bangs or smoke grendades would come sailing through the windows, and either we'd scramble out of the way in time or they'd come get us. We got better at moving from room to room in time, but they got better at finding us. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3-wfwW0ecJE/UTLXFpUqpFI/AAAAAAAAAKc/hgqIZa76CIg/s1600/pacman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" gsa="true" height="177" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3-wfwW0ecJE/UTLXFpUqpFI/AAAAAAAAAKc/hgqIZa76CIg/s320/pacman.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...it was a LOT like this.</td></tr>
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And then... Pete decided it was time to stop <em>evading</em> so much. <br />
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Okay, so I mentioned possible ninja training, yeah? Pete spidered his way up to the top of a closet, hanging there as if in a web. The WET Team member came into the room I more or less lured him into by batting the flash-bang back out of the window, then showing my face at the door. While he was busy apprehending me, Pete dropped out of the shadows and took this guy <em>out</em>. Kick to the back of the knee, grab the shotgun, smack him in the face with the butt of it, then shoot him. We were both shot dead shortly thereafter, but WOOHOO, the adrenaline was flowing. <br />
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The guy with the bloody nose was entirely cool about it, though. Way cooler than I thought he'd be. He just cleaned up, nodding, and said it was a good idea to make the training more realistic. They would, after all, be facing hostiles in the field. <br />
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(Yes, I know <em>now</em>... this is the point where we should have run screaming.) <br />
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Pete and I went traipsing, la la la, into the house to get ready for our next foray into the world of villainy. They gave us more time to get ready, which might have been them scoping the house more carefully. Which they were, keeping better tabs on us. But we got set up, after we worked out our strategy. <br />
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As before, the flash-bang came sailing into the room, and I missed it. It landed with a very heavy <em>thunk</em>, a much different sound than before. I had all three seconds to consider the depth of our folly before the little cylinder went both flash <em>and</em> bang. <br />
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I can't speak for Pete, but I found myself on the floor, curled up and screaming and blind and unable to stand. The WET Team came in pretty calmly and zip-tied our wrists and ankles. Like hunters carrying their prey to a fire, the tactical team brought Pete and me out onto the front lawn and unceremoniously dumped us there in the grass. <br />
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Sooner or later, we came to our senses. The WET Team commander asked us if we were ready to go again. <br />
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We both said no sir, thank you, sir. <br />
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Next time, we'll talk about Edgar Allan Poe. <br />
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-Thom BrannanThom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-37852797929569399752013-02-28T16:32:00.000-05:002013-02-28T16:32:05.914-05:00Jabbertalky, by Thom Brannan<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Welcome back! Here follows the second installment of the round robin/round table of interviews, wherein I interview David Dunwoody, madcap author of <em>Empire</em>, <em>Empire's End</em>, <em>The Harvest Cycle</em>, and about eight zillion short stories. </div>
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It has long been suspected Dave had replaced a portion of his brain with a portal to the multiverse, where the stories come from. But that's just rampant speculaion on my part. Lete's hear about it from the man himself, shall we? </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">This feels like it’s been a long time coming, Dave. (Is it alright if I call you Dave? You can call me Hal, if you like.) You have an impressive body of work, and I was wondering, what was the drive to link so many of your short stories to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Empire</i> universe?<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I’ve really enjoyed the zombified world of </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Empire<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, and there have been a lot of ideas –the Reaper in different time periods, the origin of the plague—that I didn’t use in the novels themselves because I didn’t want to go off on too many tangents. As is, both </i>Empire<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> books have a lot of side stories and spotlight various undead anomalies. I also thought that getting some related shorts into various anthologies might help draw new readers to </i>Empire<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> (and vice versa, hopefully introducing </i>Empire<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> fans to other authors).<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And would you open the pod bay doors already?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b>Speaking for myself, one of the things I liked so much about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Empire</i> and its sequel was that it was set years and years beyond the beginning of the Zombie Apocalypse. So many of the books we see are set at the beginning. Was this something you decided on beforehand, or did it just come about as you started writing? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Setting it 100+ years after the initial outbreak was one of the first decisions I made about </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Empire<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. The collapse of society and the horror of a dawning apocalypse is definitely compelling, but I found myself wanting to see what the world looked like long after—a time when humanity’s remnants are all people born into the last days, into a life that seems doomed from the word go. Of course, we see it as such because we’ve had a taste of this posh zombie-free existence. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<b>How did it feel to return to that universe in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Empire’s End</i>? Do you plan more for that world, or is that it? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There was definitely more to be told after </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Empire<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, and I was excited to do it – at the same time I knew </i>Empire’s End<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> was going to be the conclusion of that arc, so it was a little bittersweet. Knowing it was the finale did offer a certain freedom—I’ll tell you this right now, no one in </i>Empire’s End<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> is safe. No character’s signed for a Book III.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I definitely intend, though, to write more short stories set in this world at some point. I have an idea for a tale that would serve as a fitting epilogue of sorts to the whole saga. Just need to get this </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Empire<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> movie done first. Which is taking forever because no one’s optioned it.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<b>To veer off the writing path for a moment... tell me about ghost hunting. You have an EMF meter and everything? Do you ever record for EVP? (EMF = electromagnetic fields, EVP = electronic voice phenomena, for the uninitiated.)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It’s funny, I don’t believe at all in ghosts but I have spent a few nights in cemeteries with a recorder. Just to creep myself out, I guess, maybe get a story out of it. I do love cemeteries (I set part of </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Harvest Cycle<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> in Utah for that reason – Ogden City Cemetery is gorgeous) and it’s interesting to listen to the anomalous sounds the tape picks up and let your imagination interpret them.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...and that worked out so well for this guy.</td></tr>
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<b>I really can’t stress enough, you have a <em>lot</em> of writing credits to your name. What made you decide to write? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Mental illness<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Actually, that might not be far from the truth. I spend more time in my own head than I do in the external world – that’s always been the case, and I think I used to make up worlds and stories as a kid because my brain always seems to need to be doing five different things at once. As an adult, this need has manifested itself in the form of OCD, and in dealing with that I have noticed that writing seems to put all my mental trains on the same track, so the speak. It centers me in a real way.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b>Does it matter <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what</i> you write, or only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> you write? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“What” is definitely important. The creative engine’s got to be in overdrive, and dark fiction seems to do the trick for me. As for what it is about horror and dark fantasy, your guess is as good as mine. But why worry?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b>If you were able to choose the person making an adaption of your work into a movie, who would it be? And how close would you want it? How may changes would you be alright with? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Dream director, David Cronenberg. The guy’s a genius and I’m not being hyperbolic.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">When we publish our work, we give it to readers and they experience it through their own filter. They come to own their experience of your story. Allowing someone to then put their experience on film with your name attached is a leap beyond. Someone, probably Cronenberg, said there’s no such thing as a pure and faithful adaptation from one medium to another. Clive Barker said that if writing’s masturbation, a film’s an orgy. No matter what, the shag carpet’s gonna need replacing the next morning. (I added that last part.) The idea of other artists taking my story and reinterpreting it is intriguing and doesn’t make me (too) queasy. Of course, there’s a difference between a filmmaker’s artistic vision and a studio’s mucking about. Nonetheless, </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Empire<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, for example, would probably have to go through some major changes to work as a movie. Easier said than done, I’m sure, but I would have to go into it thinking “This isn’t my </i>Empire<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> anymore.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<b>Right. The book is the book, and the movie is the movie, and never the twain should meet. Or something like that. How about music? Who’d you like to make a concept album of your work? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">That is an awesome question. Goblin would be fantastic. Danny Elfman for </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Harvest Cycle<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. I guess I’m thinking more of scores, aren’t I? Concept albums – Foo Fighters and/or the ghost of Warren Zevon for </i>Unbound<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>But you just said you don’t believe in ghosts. Trickster! You mentioned <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Harvest Cycle</i> with the ghosts. What is that, and where did it come from? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Harvest Cycle<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> started with a nightmare about 5 years ago, about being trapped in a hotel with these things that looked like skinned gargoyles running around outside. I started fleshing out the idea for an apocalyptic novel, and during that process was also working on a story for the Permuted anthology </i>Robots Beyond<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> – that’s what made me think of adding robots to this alternate reality and really got the ball rolling. The story concerns an apocalypse in which ghoulish alien beasts are hunting humans – they give us just enough time to catch our breath before launching the next “Harvest,” always at a different point during the year. The Harvesters are engineered by a godlike entity with ties to the Cthulhu Mythos, and this entity, Nightmare, has managed to make contact with the robots who once served us. Manipulating their system of logic, it has convinced them to join the hunt. I put together some videos to break it down in greater detail (and be silly): <a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCF1D51153DD9ACC7" target="_blank">PLAYLIST LINK!!!</a></i></span></div>
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<b>Is that the first time you’ve dangled your dabbley bits into the Mythos? I can’t say this as a rule, but there seems to be a lot of stand-offishness between the zombie people and the Lovecraft people. The world of the Mythos is certainly bleak enough. Do you have any thoughts on that? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I think a lot of zombie fans want as much realism as possible in their fiction – they want to imagine it happening in our world, to experience the survival-horror aspect vicariously, and although zompoc and Lovecraft do intersect there does seem to be some resistance to too much dark fantasy and/or sci-fi in zombie media. For my part, I certainly implied a Mythos connection in the </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Empire<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> books. The source of </i>Empire’s<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> plague is an energy cast off by old gods who fled our universe aeons ago – like unruly tenants who, upon notice of eviction, decide to use the entire apartment as a toilet before they bolt. Their cosmic dookie evolved into our apocalypse, and it was purely by chance. Life is fun.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This zombie niche has some serious legs just following the classic formula, but what’s wrong with fresh ideas, with throwing something weird into the mix? Playing with the zombie archetype? Some of these ideas won’t be for everybody, the same way that there’s a traditional vampire blueprint and then a wealth of modern variants, some of which are pretty cool.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The only problem is the </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">fandamentalist, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a term I wish I’d coined. The guy who doesn’t think anyone<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>should be writing anything other than </i>Dawn of the Dead Part Eleventeen<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. The guy who alone knows what a “true zombie” is. Maybe the fact that it’s such a young monster, the modern zombie, has something to do with it. The upside of that is that you can meet its creator at conventions and ask him what </i>he<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> thinks. I don’t know myself, but I do know G.A.R. wrote the foreword for Skipp & Spector’s </i>Book of the Dead<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, a brilliant collection that didn’t concern itself with whether or not this or that was sacrilege.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Everyone’s entitled to choose their own path, but there are many roads to the promised land. If you don’t agree, then at least let the rest of us go to Hell in peace.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Empire</i> started as a free online serial, which seems to be something a lot of people are doing now. Do you have any advice or cautions for writers interested in trying their hands at it? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I was really flying by the seat of my pants when I serialized </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Empire<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> in 2006 (and </i>Harvest<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> in ‘08) but I suppose the thing to keep in mind is that, while you will enjoy the instant gratification of people seeing your work the second you publish it on your site, you also don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, so having another pair of eyes look your stuff over for errors (have beta readers, even) isn’t a bad idea. Even if you’re not trying to parlay the serial into a book deal, take your writing seriously if you take writing seriously. If you get critical comments that are relevant (i.e. something other than “Die in Hell douche” or “Fr3e C!@L1S click here”), leave them up and take them into account.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And if you </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">are<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> hoping the story will catch a publisher’s eye, remember that a lot of publishers will want the story taken down from the Web– many would prefer it have never been there to begin with. And there’s no guarantee once you’ve deleted it that it’s really-really-really gone from the Internet. Still, it can serve as a great writing exercise, a workshop of sorts and a way to start getting your name out.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<b>At what stage in your writing, generally, do you let betas read the work? Is there a circle of people who you trust to hold the secret, or do you hold a raffle...?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It’s pretty much the same few folks, folks who believe in my ability but will tell me if something is completely batshit. They might see a first draft, and then usually after that I’m alone in revisions for a good while.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b>You’ve made no secret of the situation with your vision. What kind of hurdles does this present for you, and how do you get over them? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The toughest thing is proofreading – using special software and all that has become second nature in the past 4 years, but checking for typos is always a challenge. Just another reason to have extra eyes on hand! I mean in other people’s heads, by the way, not in your desk drawer. Don’t talk about those. The other stuff I just gradually adapted to because I had to. I wasn’t going to stop writing.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b>What’s Dave reading now? </b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Over the last year I’ve been reading a lot in the thriller genre. I always encourage writers to read outside their genre of choice, and I’m trying to practice what I preach. I’ve come to enjoy aspects of the thriller and would like to try my hand at it someday. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b>That’s the ticket. Someone smarter than me (I? Should that be I? Fuck it.) said that a story should be a good story <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">first</i>, a good genre piece second. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There are genres that I live in and will stay rooted to until that artery in my head finally pops. But there are also these perceived genre boundaries, places you’re not supposed to go if you’re staying true to the conventions of said genre. I say nuts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tell your story.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">On that note, in checking out thrillers I also finally read Maberry’s </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Patient Zero<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, which I think most would consider a thriller first. It nonetheless doesn’t seem to be constrained by its sense of realism or its action-thriller core. Now I have to get my butt to Audible so I can catch up with the Ledger series (and while I’m there I will look at the </i>Harvest Cycle<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> audiobook, which is there, doe-eyed, waiting to find a loving home).<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Thanks Thom! <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b>No, no. Thank you. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NO THANK YOU <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b>You said it first. I meant it more. So there.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Tune in two weeks from now, when teh_Dunwoody interviews William Todd Rose, author of <em>The Seven Habits</em>.Thom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-73154635034007527832013-02-21T17:08:00.000-05:002013-02-21T17:08:35.380-05:00Light My FireBack in the mists of antiquity (uh, November, last year) I left off saying I wanted to talk about the Kindle. And I still totally do, but I've forgotten the world-shaking things I was going to blog, so we'll see how this goes. Har! Har!<br />
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I didn't want a Kindle. It wasn't one of those things that really fired me up (snort, giggle) and I had bookshelf space to spare, anyway. To be fair, I wasn't being all technophobic about it. It was just a gadget that held little appeal. <br />
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On the Inter-webz, there is always a vast torrent of opinions, swinging from one extreme to another about any given subject. E-readers were in there, just as polarizing as gay marriage and global warming, somehow, and reading all of that just makes me tired. Rhetoric, propoganda, slippery slope arguments, blah blah. Whatever. The reality of my situation was such that I didn't need one, and that was about it. <br />
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And then my situation changed. <br />
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I travel for work. Typically, I could carry as many books as I needed for the duration of my hitch. My hitch length changed, as did my travel arrangements. Instead of a ten-hour drive where music was my companion, I had a ten-hour <em>flight</em>. And a day at a hotel before heading to work. And hah, a weight limit on my bag. <br />
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So my first hitch in new circumstances was a bookless affair. Oh, I'd brought a book, <em>The Three Musketeers</em>. That seemed like a weighty enough tome to keep me occupied, right? That was old-situation thinking. I finished that book before I even got to work, from reading on the plane and in the hotel. It was that hitch that I began to entertain the idea of getting an e-reader. <br />
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I mentioned this to my most wonderful Better Half, and she said, "Okay," and kept on with what we had been talking about before I interrupted. I thought no more about it, and I thought she did the same. But when I got home, ta-daa! I had a new Kindle. Because my wife is awesome. <br />
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Now that I've had one for going on three years, I can't imagine not having one. A gazillion books at my fingertips, and it fits in my pocket? Yeah, I wear BDU pants a lot, but it fits in my <em>pocket</em>. So awesome. <br />
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Since then, I've found other reasons to like it. I'm a writer, if you didn't know, and when something is done I like to stop looking at it on my laptop. Printing out a novel seems pretty wasteful, but putting it on the Kindle... well, that smacks of fabulous. Reading the work on the Kindle somehow changes the way I see the books. It's as if they're more fixed, less work-in-progress, and it helps me find problems I might have glossed over several times in Word. <br />
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I also participate in a novel critique group, the same applies to these works. In my opinion (Should I even have to say that? Anything that isn't fact here is my goddamn opinion.) it makes my critiques deeper. YMMV. <br />
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And you know, I take it to other places, too. In my thigh pocket. It goes with me to the mechanic's when I need work done. It goes with me to the dentist. It goes with me to anywhere I might have to stand in line for more than five minutes. It definitely goes with me to the bathroom. <br />
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I still buy deadwood editions of stuff. That will never stop. But I can be choosy about it now. Only the mostest especial books go on the shelf. (Shelves.) And the classics (<em>my</em> classics: <em>Grendel</em>, <em><span style="color: blue;">House</span> of Leaves</em>, <em>Dune</em>... you know me) get a place of rarified honor, where only the strong survive. <br />
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So that's it, I think. Man, look at this wall of text. Can you believe I coulnd't find any natural places to just drop a picture somewhere? What a mess. I can fix this. You guys should know how much I love it when things bleed together, right? Here are some images that do just that. Huzzah! <br />
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Next time, I interview Dave Dunwoody!<br />
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<br />Thom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-58354752744557129752013-02-14T15:37:00.000-05:002013-02-22T22:25:14.419-05:00The Lord of Night, by Peter Clines<br />
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<em>By Peter Clines </em></div>
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At the very start, it was clear Thom Brannan was destined for greatness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Born two years after the tragic death of his parents, he entered the world an orphan and was sent to work building knockoff Walkmans in Hong Kong at the age of six weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After rising to middle management at the assembly plant in a record-breaking three years, Thom fled the country and swam to Hawaii, where he was recruited by the U.S. Navy and assigned to their top secret <i>Nautilus</i> project under Captain Nemo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After years of destroying deep-sea monsters, Atlanteans, and underwater alien bases, Thom retired to enjoy a peaceful life drilling massive holes through the crust of the Earth using giant robots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Oh, and he writes books, too.</div>
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Okay, there’s a chance I’m stretching the truth slightly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thom Brannan writes books, yes, he was actually closer to six years old when he made the swim from Hong Kong to Hawaii.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the Navy still denies the Atlantis Wars of 1997-2006.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Past that, this is pretty much all accurate.</div>
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In this little series of interviews, the Permuted Press authors are going to interview each other in a round robin/ pub crawl sort of way (the drinking metaphor is deliberate, believe me).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m kicking off the thing by interviewing Thom, he interviews someone next time, they interview someone else after that, and so on.</div>
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So, here’s Thom Brannan talking about oil rigs, outlines, and the pressure of finishing somebody else’s trilogy.</div>
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<b>You’re a big horror fan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You even have some horror-movie tattoos, yes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What first got you into horror?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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It’s a toss-up between watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doctor Who</i> and being scared out of my wits by the Zygons, or it was the aftermath of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Exorcist</i>. Maybe it was both? </div>
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When I started writing, I just remember the effect they had on me, and that was the kind of visceral reaction I wanted to produce. All of the genres have their own gut-wrench moments, right? When you find out the Maltese Falcon is a phony, or that Sir Percy Blakeney is the Scarlet Pimpernel or that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">she’s</i> the one who wrote the notebook for him to read. Everything touches you in one way or another. None of those moments compare to the time Kirsty Cotton finds Uncle Frank under her dad’s skin. </div>
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I wanted <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>. (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hellraiser</i> is the movie some of my tattoos come from, yes.)<br />
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<b>You’ve got a pretty unique and interesting job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot of people put in their forty hours a week and try to write where they can, but your schedule’s very different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Care to explain it to folks?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I work on an offshore drilling rig. Four weeks of seven twelve-hour nights, and then I get four weeks off... even though the travel time comes out of my end, of course. On the rig, I work on electronics and automated systems, as well as cameras, gas detectors, satellite communications, et-freakin’-cetera. I like to say I maintain the drilling robots, and the rig’s eyes, ears, and voice. </div>
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<b>How much has this job affected your writing habits?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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When I had a desk job, I didn’t have much of a method or schedule. Like you said, I wrote whenever there was time that didn’t take away from the other eight dozen things I wanted to do. </div>
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Now I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">only</i> write when I’m offshore. After I knock off at six a.m., I get some food and soda and sit down to write for two hours, every day without fail, Monday through Friday. I take the weekends for cinema time, so the grey matter can decompress. In this, I was inspired by the late Robert B. Parker, who said he wrote five pages a day no matter what. </div>
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The output from that is enough that I don’t have to touch the stuff when I’m home to make deadlines. When I’m at the house, it’s time to put the long sessions at the keyboard away and wear the Daddy Hat. I love the Daddy Hat.</div>
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<b>Do you write pretty fast with nothing else there to distract you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How long does it generally take you to get a first draft done on a book?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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It takes a couple of days to get warmed up, but once I'm there, I usually write ten SMF pages a day my first and second week, then up to 15 per day my third and fourth. Then there's all that time off, and it keeps me from burning out, I think. </div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pavlov's Dogs</i> had its hitches, because of all the back and forth between us. I wrote from March 26<sup>th </sup>to May 22<sup>nd</sup>. We didn't call the first draft complete, with all the changes for the both of us, until maybe early July? </div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lords of Night</i> was written the year before from March 3<sup>rd </sup>to May 6<sup>th</sup>, and it's about a quarter longer than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pavlov's Dogs</i>. So I guess there's your answer, yeah? Ten to twelve weeks for a first draft, with an inevitable four-week break in the middle. </div>
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<b>You’ve worked as an editor on several books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did this help you when you sat down to work on your own material?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Hah. I’ve heard people say that such and such a novel was a how-to manual for that genre or whatever, but one of the books I edited was the opposite. I won’t say which, but there was so much <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wrong</i> with that book and the reviews baffle me. </div>
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Being in on the editing of the first two volumes of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cthulhu Unbound</i> allowed some interaction with other authors, and it opened up avenues of conversation about how they do things. I learned a lot doing that. </div>
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<b>Jump back a bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was it about the “cautionary tale” book that sat so wrong with you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The characters?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dialogue?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Structure?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know you don’t want to name names or anything, but can you give a better sense of what didn’t work?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The grammar was put together in odd ways sometimes, and the dialog was pretty stiff, but that's what I was there for, right? The narrative followed a very natural course, introducing characters and the incredibly messed-up situation they were in. And there was a lot of action. It was just... derivative. And it was diluted. </div>
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If <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dawn of the Dead</i> was a packet of Kool-Aid, imagine taking a pitcher of it, copying the flavor using ingredients you bought on the cheap because they've been on the shelf too long, and then fill it to overflowing from your outside water tap. It would be familiar, tasting of the original, but mostly tasting of yuck. </div>
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That's probably as clear as I can get. <br />
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<b>What’s your usual process as a writer?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you a big outliner or do you use notecards?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or do you just start writing and see where it leads you?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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My main output had been short stories, and for those, the main characters take some time to coalesce. After that, I put them in the situation and watch what they do, and most of the time, that’s the story I end up with. Most of the time, the only things I know about the story are where it started and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">maybe</i> where it ends. I usually have no earthly idea what’s going to happen next until I pick up my pen (or keyboard, lately) and have a go. </div>
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This presents hazards. I have, more than once, found myself written into a corner which requires extraordinary gymnastics to get out of, or I have to go back and rewrite things, which I really hate to do. I've let a story lay fallow for months and months because of this. </div>
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<b>Now, how did this change when you wrote <i>Pavlov’s Dogs</i> with D.L. Snell?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was it really different for you, working with a writing partner?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Everything changed. Snell and I are just about polar opposites in our methodology. When we were talking about how it would go, with us tag-teaming the novel, he was talking about pacing and getting the beats just write to keep the poor reader saying, “Alright, just one more chapter.” Plot lines, character development, themes... I was lost, I’m afraid. I'm not as cerebral about it as he is. </div>
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The outline for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pavlov’s Dogs</i> was magnificent. It was thorough, in that it told the entire story from beginning to end, but there was enough room in there for me to be inventive and write how I normally do. As a result of that, D.L. was always asking when things would pay off, or who was that and could we kill him? I never had good answers, but the way he kept reminding me kept it in mind for when I needed the threads later. </div>
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There’s also the fact that both our names are on the cover. My normal method is to write until I can’t write about it no more. Then I edit. With Snell, it was write, email, email, email, edit edit edit. Then we trade and do it again until the whole manuscript was homogenized. Not Brannan, not Snell, but Brannan & Snell. </div>
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Now I make outlines. Very loose, very general outlines, but... there they are. I blame Snell.</div>
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<b>How did <i>Pavlov’s Dogs</i> come about, anyway?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was it an idea one of you brought to the other or something you came up with together?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I was recruited. D.L. had developed the basic idea with Jacob [Kier of Permuted Press] and John Sunseri for a free online serial novel. I don’t know what happened after that, but it went away. And then at a convention, D.L. and Jacob got to talking about it, and I had just finished Z.A. Recht’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Survivors</i>. </div>
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Synchronicity struck: D.L. needed somebody who could write quickly, and with a military background so the titular Dogs would be believable. That was me. I was asked, and the idea sounded so goddamn juicy that I couldn’t say no. </div>
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The rest of it was D.L. and I going back and forth, swapping ideas, and as the chapters began to pile up, he would read them and make alterations to the back half of the outline to better suit how I’d mangled the first bits. </div>
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<b>I meant to ask you about <i>Survivors</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was it like, picking up Z.A.’s threads and continuing that story?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was there any pressure or second-guessing?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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All of that. The first few days of "writing" were more like me sitting there, my hands hovering over the keyboard, asking myself if I was really going to do this. Then I would go over the notes again, looking for a place to really start. And then I would hover. </div>
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There were two things working against me. The first is, I had already tried to write a novel, and I had failed. It was too short, the ending wasn't an ending, and the main plot lines weren't actually tied up where I was finished. It was, in short, a disaster. </div>
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The second thing was, I'm a huge fan of the Morningstar Strain. It was my first foray into the more mainstream zombie novel, and it was brilliant. I loved the cinematic quality of it, and globe-spanning size of the story, and the large cast. The books had their warts, but still. They were great. It came as no surprise to find they were among Permuted best-selling novels for years running until the reissue. </div>
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So. With all that success peering over my shoulder at all the failure it was sharing hard drive space with, I set out to finish up the trilogy and put a cap on Z.A. Recht's legacy. </div>
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No pressure. </div>
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I had a lot of material to work from, as well as the vocal support of the fans at the MSS forums. But it was nerve-wracking. Especially after Jacob announced it on his FB page. There were a lot of comments about how it should have been left alone, how the only author that could do it justice was... well, not me. </div>
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(Looking at my résumé, I doubt anyone would have pegged me for the guy to get tapped to finish <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Survivors</i>. It was all short stories in the crime and sci-fi genres, with one werewolf story.) </div>
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Once I got started, and the words just came, I stopped second-guessing myself and wrote. By the reviews, there are people who were unhappy with the outcome, but I'm satisfied with it, and so are a lot of other people. I was especially happy with the <a href="http://theguildedearlobe.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/audiobook-review-survivors-by-z-a-recht-with-thom-brannan/" target="_blank">review from The Guilded Earlobe</a>. He got what I was doing. </div>
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<b>Let’s talk about <i>Lords of Night</i>, which came out in October, yes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s it about?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Lords of Night</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> is, at heart, a story about growing up and accepting yourself. It so happens that it's a story about growing up and accepting yourself during the End of Days, where the world has been turned into a dark and desolate place by an ancient evil from the dawn of man's history, and every corpse ever is up and walking around and interested in what you taste like. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The main guy, Jack, is the one doing the growing up, and he's got a quest before him because he's different. He's got something that lets him fight back, and to really use it, he's got to retrieve an artifact that's as old as the Enemy. He's not alone, either. He's backed by what might be the last team of Special Forces operatives on the planet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Was there a particular idea or event that triggered this story in your mind?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Honestly, I can’t remember. The offer came to write something, and it was a whirlwind after that. I came up with three or four ideas, and my friends helped by mercilessly shooting down all but one of them. </div>
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After that, it was so much homage, so little time. Har! </div>
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I’m only kind of joking. As the storylines formed in my head, I was well aware of all the outside influences at play, and rather than shy away from that, I embraced the best and made them a part of the novel. I find that's always a concern: Source Amnesia. I guess that's one of the many reasons why it's important to have readers. </div>
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<b>You became a dad two years ago, yes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Has it altered your views on horror to any degree?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are there all-new awful things mulling in your mind? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There are always awful things in my mind, Pete. It’s why I’m so much fun at parties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I don’t know how much having my little bundle of terror has changed the way I see horror so much, but I do find myself reacting differently to things, especially stories where children are hurt by their parents or have lost them. I can’t understand child abuse. It’s a despicable thing, and in a world full of real horrors, that stands out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Everybody asks what are you working on next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let me ask you this, instead—where do you want to be ten years from now?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you see yourself possibly trying other genres?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Styles?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is there anything big you feel you might need more clout to tackle?<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></b>As for clout, I have another novel that may or may not see the light of day before then, and I would really like to see that adapted into a series of comic books. (Graphic novels, whatever.) The book is my love song to the greats, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i> or Matt Wagner's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grendel</i>, and to have it in the same medium would be something that would keep me warm for a very long time. </div>
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Hmm. A decade hence... I've started a series of novels that is my poor-man's answer to both <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Dresden Files</i> and the 007 series. (And I've since seen Simon R. Green's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Secret Histories</i> series, but I'm going to continue anyway.) In ten years, I hope to have written fifteen of them, and at least the first three adapted to a cartoon series, which will allow me time to work on my great literary dream: </div>
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I don't quite have the chops for this yet, but I really want to write a story about Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in the years directly after the American Civil War. I haven't decided what it's going to be about, or even the tone of the thing, but I know that's what I want to do. </div>
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Some days I see them as troubleshooters, working for the U.S. government and investigating crimes and whatnot out in the Wild West, other times as turn-of-the-century Ghostbusters. I can tell you now, it'll be closer to the first one, but the other makes me smile. Either way, it would be something that I would feel comfortable letting my daughter read when she's twelve.</div>
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Please tune in next time when Thom gets to wear the funny hat and interviews David Dunwoody, author of <i>Empire</i>, <i>Empire’s End</i>, and <i>The Harvest Cycle</i>.Thom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-59889720560763500662012-11-21T00:31:00.000-05:002012-11-21T00:31:09.061-05:00The Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacree MovementI'm not going to say Arlo Guthrie's 18+ minute song off his debut album changed my life. I was kind of kidding. That would be a gross exaggeration. But it did change the way I looked at things. But all that is navel-gazing gobbeldygook, and you don't want to read it, so instead, I'll tell you about the one time I was a plagiarist. <br />
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The year was 1989, and I was a wee lad of 12 or 13 (depending on which part of the year this happened, and I can't remember) and my English teacher assigned a story-writing exercise to the class. He had broken us up into groups, and there were two other people in mine—whose names shall remain hidden. Part of the assignment was to write good definitions for a set of words, and the rest of the assignment was to place these words into a story in such a way as that they were used correctly. <br />
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Yeah? Yeah. <br />
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I went to junior high/high school in a place called Roma, Texas, along the border of Mexico on the Rio Grande. I don't want to say the place was backwards, but it certainly seemed divorced from the rest of civilization. The closest shopping mall was 50 miles away, and to a brand-new teenager, that was the goddamn <em>moon</em>. <br />
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So, with this backwoodsian idea in my head, I thought for <em>sure</em> no one there would have heard "Alice's Restaurant." How could they have?! I only heard it while we were living in San Antonio the year before, a place that might also have been the moon. Armed with that surety, I wrote out the first half of the song's narrative—the bit with the garbage and the cops and the jail and the trial—and found spots where I could substitute vocabulary words, or found other places to further embellish the story so that I might add the required words. <br />
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Oh, my God. I was so <em>slick</em>. <br />
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I think I wore a self-satisfied smirk all that day. My partners were relieved that I had taken it upon myself to do the writing bit of the assignment, but they had no idea what I was up to. Nobody did. It was the crime of the century! When the teacher began to read the assignments, I sat back in my chair, arms crossed, ankles crossed, smirking. I was coated in Teflon and K-Y. Authorial ninja. Before Sam Fisher, I was Sam Fisher with a pencil. <br />
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And then he took his glasses off and looked up at me. <br />
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You can all guess what came next. I exonerated my partners and took all the blame for my wrongdoing, but it opened my eyes to how much wider the world was, to how much further widespread things were than I'd thought. Pop culture was more than I knew, and everything was much less... insular. <br />
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That's all for this post, really. Have a happy Thanksgiving, and next time, I'd like to talk about the Kindle.Thom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-10229088801673310092012-11-08T05:25:00.000-05:002012-11-14T17:12:06.858-05:00The Gospel According to Lucas (And Other Blasphemies)Howdy, howdy. <br />
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For as long as I can remember, I've been a Star Wars fan. In fact, the only story which took hold in my brain before George Lucas' space opera ripped it open was <em>The Hobbit</em>. Oh, I read all about Encyclopedia Brown and Bunnicula, but I knew and loved the adventures of Luke Skywalker and his merry band of Rebels better than anything else. <br />
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As a matter of fact, I can only remember six of the VHS tapes we had in the house during my formative years. There were others, many others, but the six constant tapes were <em>Conan the Barbarian</em>, <em>Ghostbusters</em>, <em>The Blues Brothers</em>, and the original Star Wars trilogy. Those movies were imprinted indelibly onto my growing mind. Even today, I could sit and watch any of those with the sound all the way off, and no one in the room with me will miss anything anybody has to say. It's annoying as hell, too. <em>So I've been told</em>. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v8z3gp-NQu8/UJxZVLyHIXI/AAAAAAAAAHA/2zsqX_vMl8w/s1600/mst3k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" rea="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v8z3gp-NQu8/UJxZVLyHIXI/AAAAAAAAAHA/2zsqX_vMl8w/s320/mst3k.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...like watching a movie with these guys.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Fast-forward to early 1997, and the movie theater on base in Pearl Harbor had just finished being remodeled extensively. One of the things they had done was to put in a THX sound system, which meant (ah-HA!) they could show the theatrical re-release of the Star Wars trilogy, which they did. For <em>free</em>. <br />
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As a yound sailor, this had staggering implications for me. I was broke all the time, and I had just gotten someone to agree to go to the movies with me. And she was alright with the base theater. <em>And</em>, she was excited to see <em>Star Wars</em>. Be still my beating heart. I was really enjoying myself, until something happened that ruined our date. (Well, it ruined it for <em>me</em>; I can't speak for the unfortunate girl who was stuck with my company for the rest of the evening.) <br />
<br />
Greedo. Shot. First. <br />
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I was apalled. I was aghast. I was... some other word, also appropriately alliterate. <br />
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There were other things in the movie that were, you know, effing awesomesauce. The revamped special effects were spectacular, and the additional scenes were icing on the cake, but come <em>on</em>. Han shoots first. Everybody knows that. That was firmly planted in my psyche. Rooted there. <br />
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I can't really put it into words how much it bothered me. (Yes, I know, I'm a writer and occasional poet. The irony does not escape me.) When I was a pre-teen, just a wee baby, I wanted to be Luke Skywalker and run around the galaxy with my laser sword and fight bad guys. When I got a little older and started to notice girls, I wanted to be Han Solo. A <em>scoundrel</em>. <br />
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And Han? Hell. Han is the guy that shoots first. <br />
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Except now he didn't, and I know I'm beating this <em>with</em> a dead horse, but I'm trying to make a point here. And I'm about to jump a gap to the other part of this here blog. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5cTCkhBi80c/UJxZ7SgQpHI/AAAAAAAAAHI/ZcfJSaZ0F_A/s1600/bridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" rea="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5cTCkhBi80c/UJxZ7SgQpHI/AAAAAAAAAHI/ZcfJSaZ0F_A/s1600/bridge.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*insert pun here*</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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My parents are very Catholic people. One of them is Irish and the other Mexican, the perfect storm of Catholicism. I'd learned from a very young age that, where the Bible was concerned, it was best to sit down and shut up. <br />
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Not from my parents, by the way. Whenever I had questions about that big-ass book, my dad did his best to answer them, and my mom referred me to the mysterious ways God has. No, the repression came from the nuns. As a young proto-person, I went to a Catholic school in Chicago, and I guess it was a pretty good one. (I know this because one year, I went to public school, and the teacher consistenly mispronounced chameleon as "CHA-ma-lonn." Yes, I got into trouble there, too.) <br />
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One of the things that bothered me was that the many policies of the Church didn't actually come from the Bible, and I think I was too young to understand that. But I was old enough and had enough reading comprehension skills for the other thing that bothered me, that the Gospels didn't quite agree with each other all the time, and the other contradictions between the Old and New Testaments. <br />
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I sat and thought about it for a long while. To be honest, I can't remember where I'd heard this, but the idea was floating around in my head that the Bible was the inerrant word of God. So, how could it be wrong? Or, how could it even contradict itself? Or, how could this happen in the first place? <br />
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As I got older, I became less and less worried about who I upset and began to ask these questions out loud to people who I thought should know. Some of them were helpful, some were condescending, and others outright furious I could even entertain the notion. <em>Mistakes, please. You must be defective</em>. <br />
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One of the arguments I got quite often was, "If God took the time and effort to give us the Word, don't you think He would take steps to prevent its corruption by the hand of man?" <br />
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My immediate response was that time and effort wasn't anything to an omnipotent God, but I learned sooner or later that didn't really move the conversation forward, so I swallowed that one. My follow-up question was usually something along the lines of, "Maybe that's what God is doing, what with the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls and all." <br />
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I was referred back to the mysterious ways, which frustrated me to no end. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sTK8iYCcEHc/UJxaexzY-vI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/ZSxU-n8bSa0/s1600/Ouroboros.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="199" rea="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sTK8iYCcEHc/UJxaexzY-vI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/ZSxU-n8bSa0/s200/Ouroboros.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conversations that do this make Baby Jesus cry.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Well, that's not true. The end was when I stopped chasing the truth of the Bible and gave up the whole mess for other people to worry about. I had other problems to worry about besides that, most of them from all the different views of God that were being jammed down my throat by well-meaning friends and pastors and youth ministers. <br />
<br />
I think it was about this time I found my dad's copy of <em>Chariots of the Gods</em>... but that's a blog for a different day. <br />
<br />
For a long while, I went through the motions to keep my mother happy. I played guitar in church, I did all the... the... I even forget what they're called now. Sacraments? I went to catechism and got Confirmed, and then after graduation from high school and joining the Navy, never stopped to think about God or any of that unless someone else brought it up. <br />
<br />
Still, I'm always curious as to what happened. Not just what happened back then, in 33 A.D., but what happened to the gospels and letters and books, and who changed what and why. All that. Every time there was a show on TV about it, I'd watch it. Not only am I intensely curious about all this, but I had to keep loaded up on things that make people mad. Am I right? Of course I am. With that in mind, I read a book by Bart D. Ehrman. <br />
<br />
<em>Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why</em>. <br />
<br />
This book was excellent. It set up scenarios, and explained not only how the Gospels were being copied, but by whom, and how that led to the first changes, intentional or not. It's a whole big thing, too big for this blog, and if you really want to get into it, the name of the book is right above this paragraph. <br />
<br />
What it really did, though, was make things okay with the changing Star Wars universe. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AW21OdZZN2E/UJxbrGLspdI/AAAAAAAAAHY/iHoGc6Det-g/s1600/balm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="233" rea="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AW21OdZZN2E/UJxbrGLspdI/AAAAAAAAAHY/iHoGc6Det-g/s320/balm.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*insert second pun here*</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Going back to that. Since 1997, Lucas has changed other things in his grandest of works, and I don't think any of them have been received like he planned. Greedo shooting first, the original thorn in my side, was altered yet again to have the shots coming almost simultaneously, and that helped a wee bit. Other changes included dubbing Temuera Morrison's voice over the original actor's who had played Boba Fett (Jeremy... something? See, I'm slipping.) which I could live with, and putting Ian McDiarmid's face in the hologram for <em>Empire</em>, and <em>that </em>I could live with. <br />
<br />
The changes became more loathsome to me when we got to <em>Return of the Jedi</em>. You know the one I'm talking about. Ghostly Hayden Christensen. I know all the rationale behind it, that Obi-Wan said Darth Vader "betrayed and murdered" Anakin, and the ghostly version is of the young self because that was the last time he was Anakin, <em>I get it</em>. But I don't like it. By changing that, Lucas was saying, "Hey, yeah, he redeemed himself at the end, but he still wasn't my Anakin." <br />
<br />
I used to get mad about this kind of thing, and about how after approving storylines and official history for the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Lucasfilm trampled all over it, but now? I'm okay. Seeing the changing face of the Bible and the gospels over the course of their early lives made me see how things we take for granted as fixed and immobile aren't really either, as goofy as that might seem. <br />
<br />
For now, I'm looking forward to what the next Gospel of Lucas (According to Walt) will bring. <br />
<br />
Next time, I'd like to talk about twenty-seven eight by ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was, and how they might have changed my life. <br />
<br />
-Thom Brannan Thom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-4399737946371870942012-11-05T17:53:00.002-05:002012-11-05T17:53:51.973-05:00Doctor Who?Three things spring to most people's minds when you say "Doctor Who," depending on their age, I think. The first is the TARDIS, the blue box what travels in time and space and is bigger on the inside. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3--d_qskhJM/UJgxKyGhfSI/AAAAAAAAAE0/ZCL0wvoHAZ4/s1600/tardis-luchbox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" rea="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3--d_qskhJM/UJgxKyGhfSI/AAAAAAAAAE0/ZCL0wvoHAZ4/s320/tardis-luchbox.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...if that holds true for this, too, I should be able to get an extra large pepperoni and 2 liter of Pepsi in it, no probs.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The other two are just about equally split between the most popular actors to play the character. <br />
<br />
Tom Baker was the Fourth Doctor, and he had the longest run of all so far. John Pertwee regenerated into Tom Baker in the cold winter of '78 and the Fourth Doctor ran his floppy hatted, long scarved, widely smiling, Jelly Baby handing out Time Lord ass all over the entirety of Time and Space (and E-Space) until the spring of '81, when he handed the reins over to Peter Davison. He was a madcap, and it showed in almost everything he did. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AFC9WpqR8nE/UJgywkwauYI/AAAAAAAAAE8/1MatHgYOMgg/s1600/surprise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" rea="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AFC9WpqR8nE/UJgywkwauYI/AAAAAAAAAE8/1MatHgYOMgg/s320/surprise.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"A sonic PROBE, you said?" asked Davros.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
David Tennant roared into the role as the Tenth Doctor in 2005, taking over from the very able Chrisotpher Eccleston, and making it entirely his own. He had some very memorable adventures as the Doctor, and ran into all manner of beastie, even some from the Classic Series which had changed, like the Macra and Cybermen, or which had stayed largely the same, such as the Daleks or even the Master. (No goatee, though. For shaaame!) He stayed until 2010, when he passed the role on and Matt Smith took over. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iTpKbyC8pAE/UJg2jkq8inI/AAAAAAAAAFM/pOumZf8ftww/s1600/dt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" rea="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iTpKbyC8pAE/UJg2jkq8inI/AAAAAAAAAFM/pOumZf8ftww/s320/dt.jpg" width="205" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ugh. You know where that's been? Look up.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
One of the things I like about the 2005 version of the show is its reverence for the Classic Series. Every once in a while, you'll see a "roll call" of the previous incarnations of the Doctor, and in particular when the Eleventh Doctor shows his library card, and ooh! Guess who's there? <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v0f4bJo_jlk/UJg4cNTVTjI/AAAAAAAAAFU/Atz3hNMmUPg/s1600/lcard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="227" rea="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v0f4bJo_jlk/UJg4cNTVTjI/AAAAAAAAAFU/Atz3hNMmUPg/s320/lcard.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Take the picture, will you, my boy, HMM? I haven't got all of time and space to wait for you to find the button."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That Doctor, the definitive article, as you might say, was played by William Hartnell from '63 to '66, briefly reprised for a one-off appearance with his two successors in "The Three Doctors." He was an irascible old man, and he made a lot of mistakes in his early adventures. The First Doctor was a scientist and a grandfather, and an exile from his people. <br />
<br />
Now... hold on a minute. I'm going to put something here that should describe him nicely. <br />
<br />
"He was a tall, elderly man, all dressed in black, with slick white hair pulled back, except for a rebellious lock on his forehead. He was smiling an all-knowing, mephistophelean smile, such as Milton could have given to his Lucifer. His eyes were of a penetrating blue; they never wavered..." <br />
<br />
And another... <br />
<br />
"An old man, dressed all in black. He was tallish, wrapped in a cloak and wore a fur hat and a long, striped scarf. His silver hair was slick and long in the back, with a rebellious lock tilting upward on his forehead. His eyes blazed with intelligence, and a prominent, beaky nose gave his face an arrogant and somewhat aristocratic look." <br />
<br />
That's pretty accurate, yeah? Except... it isn't. That's not a description of the First Doctor, but of another character, someone out of French pulp fiction. The person being described is Doctor Omega, from a novel written and published in 1906 by Arnould Galopin about this person who is cut off from his own people and, with his three companions, travels through time and space in his ship, which is like nothing else on Earth. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OuFShrX28sE/UJg-XuyaBLI/AAAAAAAAAFo/Tnakfw1BxZI/s1600/omega.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" rea="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OuFShrX28sE/UJg-XuyaBLI/AAAAAAAAAFo/Tnakfw1BxZI/s320/omega.jpg" width="211" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Oh, dear me."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The best part about all this is it's all a coincidence. Sydney Newman, the creator of Doctor Who, had never heard of Doctor Omega and Galopin's book, which isn't all that far-fetched. <br />
<br />
After hearing all this the first time, I was skeptical. Now, having read the translated-from-the-French and slightly-revised <em>Doctor Omega</em> from Black Coat Press, I'm more convinced the similarities are mere coincidence. That's not to say some of the revisions made to the novel by the brains behind Black Coat Press weren't made with the mind of making the story closer to a First Doctor adventure. If anything, the ties between the two have been strengthened by this, and by the frequent use of Doctor Omega as the First Doctor in several volumes of <em>Tales of the Shadowmen</em>, a series of anthologies featuring a cross-pollination of French pulp fiction characters and others from around the world. <br />
<br />
I'm proud to say one of my own Doctor Omega stories, "What Doesn't Die," is in the collected volume <em>Doctor Omega and the Shadowmen</em>, where Doctor Omega and Nikola Tesla do what they can to deal with a terrifying version of the Bride of Frankenstein. <br />
<br />
The reason for this whole thing is, I've been watching <em>Doctor Who</em> from the beginning. It's easy to see where the writers were starting to hit their stride, where they realized, "Hey. We can do... anything!" I thought it would be nice to take a little time and string some bits of the Whoniverse onto the blog for all those interested, and maybe spark some interest in those who haven't any. <em>Doctor Who</em> is a brilliant show, and it's one of the few that has gotten all the air time it deserves, and will hopefully continue to do so for a good long while. <br />
<br />
Also, buy my books. All of them. HAHAHA!!!! <br />
<br />
Next time, I'd like to talk a little about Star Wars and the Bible and how I've found peace. <br />
<br />
-Thom BrannanThom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-44645923016209505412012-10-24T16:41:00.003-04:002012-10-29T03:44:46.036-04:00That Writing Entry I Said I Didn't Want to Do... I joined a writing group. <br />
<br />
To be fair, I joined this writing group <em>two years</em> ago, when I lived within walking distance of the place they were meeting, but then I had little bundle of joy, moved, worked a lot, and moved some more. But recently, I was motivated to check up on this group again, and found they met not too far from where I live now. So, I went. <br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gwp7ynWDjts/UIhRtEbLK3I/AAAAAAAAAEc/YNTzvoQsncI/s1600/vlcsnap-2012-10-11-21h21m15s112.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="210" oea="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gwp7ynWDjts/UIhRtEbLK3I/AAAAAAAAAEc/YNTzvoQsncI/s400/vlcsnap-2012-10-11-21h21m15s112.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Why, oh WHY didn't I go dressed like this?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Now, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I've been a part of Permuted Press' online writer's critique group (the Pit) since 2007, and I've learned quite a bit there. People have come and gone from the group, but there remains a core of participants, some of whom can boast quite extensive publishing histories. And it's been wonderful. A while back, one of us had joined another writer's group, and came back with horror stories about how useless it was. <br />
<br />
Needless to say (ah-HAH, but I'm saying it anyway) I went to the meeting with a slight bit of trepidation. When I got there, the group's coordinator was explaining the weekly meeting schedule to another person who had also joined some time ago and not visited, and he handed me a business card while he did so, with this same information on the back. <br />
<br />
<em>Shiny</em>, I thought. <em>This guy has his shit together. A realy hoopy frood.</em> <br />
<br />
The Saturday meeting I ended up at was a "Shop Talk," I learned, where the group would discuss the mechanics of writing, the process, what works for them... all the stuff I said I didn't want to blog about. (Still don't.) Gathered around the group of tables was a range of people, ages from the mid-twenties to the mid-fifties, I would guess. (I didn't ask.) And all with varying degrees of experience in writing; one of the people there was an ex-military journalist, who had a completed manuscript and was in talks with an agent, while another wanted desperately to write but didn't know where to start, and everyone else fell somewhere in-between. <br />
<br />
After the initial "getting to meet you" bullshit, there was some discussion about membership and participation, and then it meandered just a bit before the other new person asked about the methods of writing, which opened up things. We talked about paper and pen vs computer, and voice recognition software to cut down on transcription time, which then drifted into a conversation about other methods, outlining and 3x5 cards and Story Bibles. <br />
<br />
There were other techniques brought up, and one guy had a deck of Story Forge cards, which I thought were neat, but I don't think I have a use for. And that went to illustrate a point, that my method may work for me, but you have to find the thing that will work for you. <br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XJ49M0xmOrk/UIhSWSViQ9I/AAAAAAAAAEk/296ykAXcyVw/s1600/gaming_dice.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" oea="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XJ49M0xmOrk/UIhSWSViQ9I/AAAAAAAAAEk/296ykAXcyVw/s200/gaming_dice.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My weapon of choice when I have to make a decision.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The discussion ranged all through the before, during and after stages of novel-writing, which was kind of nice. And all of a sudden, just as we really got to talking, the two hours was up. We put the tables back where they belonged, said our goodbyes, and I walked back to where I had parked, unsure how I felt about the group. When I got home, I talked to my Bestest Friend and Confidant, Kitty, and told her what I said here, still unsure how I felt about it all. <br />
<br />
She encouraged me to do whatever I felt best, as she normally does, unless she knows when I'm fucking something up, which is <em>often</em>. I'm still not sure what that is, but I will be participating in this group remotely. <br />
<br />
I said all that to say this: If you have the option, join a writing circle of some kind, if you haven't already. The kind of feedback you'll get from a dedicated group of writers/editors is invaluable, and the increased number of high-powered eyes on your work will definitely highlight the areas that need work. <br />
<br />
And one more word on that: If you join a group, be in the group. Recently, there was a new member to the novel group I'm a part of, who got his novel reviewed, kicked back all our feedback (more or less) and then went on to self-publish the work with little revision. This author wasted all our time, and he "ate and ran," not returning to critique the next work in the queue, or the work after that. Don't be that guy. <br />
<br />
Next time, I want to talk about the Doctor. Oh, you know who I mean. <br />
<br />
-Thom BrannanThom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-92196646797801278032012-10-22T06:30:00.002-04:002012-10-22T06:30:52.345-04:00That Mad Serbian Lightning Man
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Last time I posted, I said, "Next week, I'd like to
talk about Tesla." I am, apparently, a goddamn liar. Or I don't own a
calendar. Make what you will out of that. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To many minds, Nikola Tesla was the father of the twentieth
century. The Industrial Age would not have been the same without the fruit of
the fertile mind of the Serbian-born genius, and it's a damn shame that kids
don't learn anything about him, getting instead the propaganda from the Edison
camp. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">(That's what Thomas Alva Edison was good at. Two things:
swooping in on patents when inventors were down on their luck, and PR.
Everybody "knows" Edison invented the light bulb, right? Gah.) </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But there are other articles on the War of the Currents,
articles that are both better researched and better written than what I might have for you. What I wanted to
talk about mainly was how Tesla acted. He was a strict man, and when he gave
his word, he kept it to the best of his ability. He expected the same of you,
and it was quite often he didn't get what he was expecting. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">(But no, I'm not ranting about Edison. I promise.) </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Instead, this short blog will be about Tesla's ethics. I
know my last blog was mostly the same thing, but I seem to be stuck on this,
still. Why now? I couldn't tell you. But it seems appropriate, so here we are. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Had Tesla wanted, he could have cashed in on all the patent
money he was owed by the Westinghouse corporation and driven them into
bankruptcy. That is amazing, that one man had so much hold on the technology of
the day, he could have broken the company he was working for, just by getting
his due. Instead, he took just enough to keep his experiments going, and even
at the end, when his financers backed out on the free energy project (sad,
though Tesla might should have seen that coming) and everything collapsed like
a house of cards, he didn't take what he could have from Westinghouse. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Eventually, his patent money dried up (the stuff he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> collection on) and he was left more
or less high and dry. Oh, not right away. He had several rather wealthy and
generous investors, one of whom he did kind of... well, lie to. John Astor gave
Tesla a lot of money to develop one thing, and Tesla used it to develop
something else. This strikes me as odd, having read what I have of Tesla's
life, and it makes me wonder what the hell else was going on in his life at the
time. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I guess that just goes to show, the guy was human, for all
his genius. He had his faults. Besides the OCD, he was also a proponent of
imposed selective breeding. Yeah, I know. You don't have to tell <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">me</i> that's fucked up. But anyway. As a
scientist, he was occasionally close-minded, which seems odd to hear about such
a maverick. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tesla ended up living poor, giving the occasional (and
unusual) statement to the press and trying to find investors for whatever he
was working on at the time. Because of the mostly unfettered vision Tesla had,
it was hard for him to find money. He's the original Mad Scientist, you know?
When he said things like, "I can make your motors more efficient,"
investors threw cash at him. When he said things like, "I can talk to
Mars," mmm, not so much. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He died penniless and in debt, his largest project, that of
wireless energy transmission, a failure. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Unfortunately (for both of us, me writing and the one guy
reading) I don't have a life lesson tucked away somewhere that will help make
sense of all this. Nor do I have an upside. For the most part, Nikola Tesla did
what he said, or did his damnedest to, and in the end, he was a broken old man,
whose best friend was a pigeon. (No shit, look it up.) And the first person to
royally fuck him over lived a good life, active in the community and with
awards named after him until he died of diabetes. Rich as sin. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maybe there is a life lesson there, a kind of truncated
Golden Rule: Do unto others. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">How does <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> make
you feel? It makes me feel old and cranky, so I guess I'll stop here. Next time
(not next week, I know better than that now) I'll have something slightly
happier, I hope. Maybe something about writing. I know, I said I wouldn't, but
recent developments have decided otherwise for me. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ciao. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">-Thom Brannan</span></div>
Thom Brannanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01448372948030121434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-82992578938064049702012-09-18T08:00:00.000-04:002012-09-18T08:00:08.871-04:00Why Would Anyone in Their Right Mind Want To Write for a Living? by Scott M. Baker“Why would anyone in their right mind want to write for a living?”<br />
<br />
Nobody <i>wants</i> to write for a living. We do it because we <i>have</i>
to. Once we’ve put pen to paper that first time, we’re addicted. The
only fix for that addiction is to type out a few pages of a short story
or novel.<br />
<br />
Those of you who have a passion for writing
know exactly what I’m talking about. You carry a pocket-size notebook
everywhere you go to write down your thoughts. You carefully observe
people for unique mannerisms that then make their way into your
characters. You listen in on conversations not because you’re nosy, but
because you study how people talk so your dialogue sounds realistic. You
can’t watch the news or read a newspaper without getting an idea for a
short story or novel. To you, a personal crisis is when you find out
that the really awesome scene you thought of last week was already used
in another book or movie. To you, writing is not so much a profession as
it is a calling. <br />
<br />
The reward is not the paycheck. Most
writers will be damn lucky if they make enough from writing to pay the
bills. No. the reward is seeing your name on the book cover. It’s the
thrill of having people read the story you have to tell. It’s hearing
from your fans how much they enjoyed reading your story or novel. It’s
going to conventions and book signings. It’s watching that one story or
novel slowly become a long bibliography. <br />
<br />
If you’re nodding your head while reading this, then you’re one of the lucky ones.<br />
<br />
“Lucky ones?”<br />
<br />
Yes.
You’re lucky because you’ve answered the call. Like any calling, the
road ahead will not always be easy. You’ll have frustrations. You’ll
have doubts. And you might even abandon writing for awhile, only to go
back to it soon. Writing is that addictive. But the rewards are worth
it. <br />
<br />
So if you answered the calling, I wish you the best in your endeavor. You’re going to need it. <br />
<br />
If
just one of you finds enough inspiration in these blogs to write a
novel or short story, or picks up some advice that helps you get
published, then my efforts were not wasted.<br />
<br />
Just remember me when writing the acknowledgment page of your book. <br />
<br />Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-5296374840864386782012-09-11T08:00:00.000-04:002012-09-11T08:00:01.597-04:00Marketing Your Book and Yourself Part II by Scott M. Baker“So that’s it? I set up a blog and a webpage and I’m done marketing my book?”<br />
<br />
Hell, no. <br />
<br />
In
addition to a web and blog page, you will also need to establish an
author’s account on some of the various social networking sites (SNS)
available on the Internet. Facebook and Twitter are the most
common ones, although there are dozens of SNSs available. Set up
profiles on as many of these networking sites as you want or on the ones
where you feel you can have a greater presence. A great website for the
serial social networker is <a href="http://ping.fm/">Ping.fm</a>, which
allows you to post to numerous networking sites simultaneously. Just
bear in mind that Ping should not be used as an excuse to establish a
presence on every SNS available, because the more time you spend
maintaining these sites and networking means the less time you spend
writing. <br />
<br />
You will also want to join a few forums and
chat groups to make your name known throughout the community. I suggest a
mix between those directed primarily to writers and those frequented by
fans of your genre. A good place to begin is <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/">Goodreads</a>.
This site is dedicated to writers and readers and maintains numerous
chat groups that span all genres. Beyond that, do your research and
check out various forums/chat groups until you find a few where you feel
comfortable and enjoy the discussions. As with the social networking
sites, moderation is the key. <br />
<br />
“Cool. I love Facebook. I have a couple of dozen zombie pets that I’m taking care of.”<br />
<br />
You’re
missing the point. Your goal is to market your book, not to steal your
friend’s zombie rabbits or create photo albums of your last trip to
Europe. Always remember that you need to market yourself as much as your
book. The best way you can accomplish that is to establish a reputation
as a reliable expert in your genre. Although it’s important, don’t use
these sites just to talk about yourself and update people on your latest
writing project. Discuss the latest books and movies in your genre,
provide links to other sites that are of interest to you and may be of
interest to your readers, offer the latest news in your genre or the
publishing industry, or maybe write a series of blogs on how to get
published. And don’t get discouraged if you don’t have a thousand
followers at the end of the first week. This is a slow process, so be
patient. If you market yourself correctly and give it time, slowly but
surely you’ll build up a following of fans who will want to read your
book, who will tell their friends to read it, and who will eagerly await
your next novel. (NOTE: Gary Vaynerchuk's <i>Crush It!</i>, available from
Amazon, provides an excellent step-by-step approach on how to achieve
this.)<br />
<br />
There are two important things to keep in mind
when blogging and networking. First, always use your writing name when
posting. While it might be fun to call yourself zombiebunnies on
Facebook, it makes it almost impossible for your fans to find and follow
you. Second, avoid controversial subjects and flame wars with fans and
colleagues. This is one of those instances when bad publicity is worse
than no publicity. If you take sides on political issues, militantly
support certain causes, or publicly and consistently lambast a colleague
as a hack who can’t write for <i>merde</i>, you run the risk of losing major portions of your fan base. <br />
<br />
Finally, there are other things you should do to market yourself and your book:<br />
<br />
Book
signings. These are your most important venue for building your fan
base. And don’t limit yourself just to book stores. General book and
genre conventions are also a big draw for fans. Of all the horror
conventions I’ve attended, authors are among the most popular celebrity
guests. John Lamb, author of the Teddy Bear Mystery series, once told me
that he sells almost as many books at teddy bear conventions as he does
at book signings. <br />
<br />
Guest blogging: These are vital for
new authors to get their names out in the public domain. There are many
established blogs that allow aspiring or first-time authors to guest
blog on their sites.<br />
<br />
Look
for every opportunity you can find to get your name out there. See if
you can convince your local radio and television stations or newspapers
to interview you as a hometown celebrity. Try and arrange virtual book
tours (which is especially important if you’re an e-book author) where
you have chat room discussions on various forums. Spend the time and
effort to create a video trailer for your book that you can post to
YouTube. Donate autographed copies of your book to charity events, or do
book signings at such events with all the proceeds going to that
charity. These are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. There are
dozens of things you can do to publicize your book, all of which
inevitably increase sales. <br />
<br />
Well, that wraps up my blog series on how to get published. Any questions?<br />
<br />
“Yeah.
You just described a hell of a lot of work to go through to be a
mid-list author. Why would anyone in their right mind want to write for a
living?”<br />
<br />
Good question. Let me answer that… next week.<br />
<br />
FINAL BLOG: Why Would Anyone in Their Right Mind Want To Write for a Living?Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-23685569132299786562012-09-04T08:00:00.000-04:002012-09-04T08:00:07.400-04:00Marketing Your Book and Yourself Part I by Scott M. Baker“What? You mean I spent a year writing my book, six months revising
it, and three years getting it published, and you tell me that was the
easy part?”<br />
<br />
Yup. [NOTE: Of all the authors I’ve talked
to over the years, most have stated that the average time to find a
publisher is six years. And that’s the average. One mid-list SciFi
writer who is now well established told me it took him ten years to
place his first novel. So don’t get discouraged after your first dozen
rejection slips. This is a long and ego-bruising process.]<br />
<br />
It’s
time for the harsh reality. Your novel is a product. In the publishing
industry, it’s one product competing with thousands of others just like
it. If you’re really lucky beyond your wildest dreams, you’ll hit a
homerun your first time at bat J.K. Rowling did with <i>Harry Potter</i> or, to a lesser extent, Brian Keene did with <i>The Rising</i>.
For the vast majority of us, we have to work at building our
reputation. You have to make the readers aware that your book is out on
the market, convince them to purchase a copy, and hope that they like it
enough to come back for more. Up until now you’ve spent all your time
writing that first book. Now you have to spend just as much time
marketing it if you ever hope to see your second book published. Trust
me on this one – I’m speaking from experience. <br />
<br />
[DISCLAIMER:
What I’m about to say next is a generalization about the industry and
does not hold true for each and every publisher. My publisher,
Shadowfire Press, understands that it takes several years and several
books for an author to come into his/her own, and is very nurturing in
that process. However, I know of other publishers that I will not name
that see their authors as resources to be exploited for their own gain.
That is why, as I stressed in a previous blog, an author must be careful
about who he/she contracts with and not feel as though they must take
the first offer that comes along.]<br />
<br />
All the authors,
publishers, and literary agents I’ve talked to stress that publishing is
an industry. As in any industry, if you can’t turn a profit for the
company, the company will let you go and find someone who can make them
money. Publishers spend a certain amount to get your book into print in
the anticipation that it will be popular and turn a profit. The industry
closely tracks book sales, and that information is readily available.
So if the book doesn’t sell well, for whatever reason, and if it the
publisher is not able to at least break even, then good luck getting
them or anyone else to take a chance on your second book. (The good news
is the rise of e-publishing. Since the initial outlay to publish an
e-book is so much less since the company does not have to worry about
printing and shipping costs, the chances of your book turning a profit
are much greater. Conversely, your royalty on an e-book should be
greater than with a hardcover or paperback.)<br />
<br />
Compounding
the problem is the vast number of books on the market today. Gone are
the days when a publishing house had a small but reliable cache of
authors and would devote its time and resources to making them
successful. Today, most publishers dedicate their limited public
relations budget to those books or authors they deem most marketable,
letting the rest of us fend for ourselves. Even those publishing houses
that look after their authors include clauses in their contracts that
require the author to take upon themselves much of the responsibility
for marketing the book. It’s a fact of life of the publishing industry
today.<br />
<br />
Years ago the author’s mantra used to be “Write or Die.” Today it’s “Market or Die.”<br />
<br />
The good news is, marketing yourself and your book is neither costly nor difficult, only time consuming.<br />
<br />
Since
you have a product to sell, you need a place to sell it. So let’s begin
by setting up a website and a blog. Keep it simple. The goal is to
provide a forum to discuss your writing and what you’ve written, so
everything that goes on it should be geared to that end. My blog layout
contains the basics: a photo and brief bio of myself, links to my web
presence and where to purchase my books, links to other websites I
frequent, and banners to vampire-related websites that have also
provided links to my blog. Check out several blogs and websites for
authors you like to see what they have done, then create your own. If
the idea of creating one intimidates you, don’t let it. There are
several sites out there that allow the technologically-impaired to
easily set up and manage a blog or homepage. Once you spend the time to
create your blog and homepage, keep up with them. Try to post at least
three days a week. If a potential fan clicks on your site and sees that
it hasn’t been updated since the Red Sox won the last World Series, they
won’t bother following you. It takes half a day at most to set one up
and only a few hours a week to maintain it. (And before anyone who has
visited my website comments, I admit I’m horrible when it comes to
updating my webpage, but I hope to do better, especially now that I
chastised you for not doing so.)<br />
<br />
Keep the content
interesting. Post updates about your writing, when you sign a contract
or get published, any conventions or book signings you’re attending,
etc. And be sure to vary the content. If your blog is only about you and
your writing, you’ll bore readers. Include postings that are fun or
informative. I post the weekly Sunday Bunnies and news about upcoming
genre-related books, movies, or TV shows. Just try to avoid content that
will be controversial or divisive (like politics and religion). If you
give your honest opinion of a President or other leading political
figure, don’t be surprised if you alienate half your readers. <br />
<br />
NEXT BLOG: Marketing Your Book and Yourself, Part II<br />
<br />Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-72858899005957841342012-08-28T08:00:00.000-04:002012-08-28T08:00:13.050-04:00Finding a Publisher or Literary Agent Part III by Scott M. Baker“Great. I have my query drafted and ready to send out. Where do I find publishers and literary agents to submit it to?”<br />
<br />
Here is where I date myself. When I first became interested in writing years ago, the Bible of the publishing industry was <i>The Writer’s Market</i>. Without the latest edition on your desk, your chances of getting published were slim. However, relying on <i>The Writer’s Market</i>
today is about as antiquated as drafting your manuscript on an electric
typewriter. The publishing industry now has an increasing number of
small presses and a rapidly expanding market for presses who deal solely
or primarily in electronic media, and these publishers open (and
sometimes close) at a mind-boggling rate. The good news is that keeping
track of who’s who in the market has never been easier.<br />
<br />
I
use five methods to keep track of the market. More are available, but
these are the ones I primarily rely on. Use whichever ones work for you
or your genre.<br />
<br />
-- Internet-based publishers digests.
There are several out there that encompass all markets and genres, but
my favorite is Duotrope (<a href="http://www.duotrope.com/">http://www.duotrope.com/</a>).
Duotrope allows you to narrowly define your search parameters to
provide listings based on genre, type of publication (book or magazine,
print or electronic), length of work, submission guidelines, and other
criteria. Each listing also contains a link to that publisher’s
homepage. One feature about this service I particularly like is that you
can sign up for Duotrope’s weekly e-mail update which lists markets
that are open to submission, updates those markets that are dead or
recently closed to submissions, and provides a list of upcoming
anthologies by theme. In my opinion, this is one of the best tools for
writers currently out there. Several of my works were eventually placed
with publishers I discovered on Duotrope. <br />
<br />
-- Trade
journals and genre magazines. These are invaluable, especially the
former. I don’t know what’s available for other genres, but for horror I
rely on <i>Realms of Fantasy</i> as my trade journal and <i>Fangoria </i>and <i>Rue Morgue</i>
as my primary genre magazines. Their value is in that they provide
information on what is being published in your genre and who is
publishing it. I use <i>Realms of Fantasy</i> to keep track of trends in
the industry and use the book review sections of the genre magazines to
obtain leads on publishers who work in my genre. <br />
<br />
--
Conventions. Though less readily available then the first two, writers
and genre conventions are among your most valuable resource. Publishers
use these conventions to seek out new talent, so they are most receptive
to hear what you have to offer. Practice your verbal pitch. You want to
have a pitch that hooks a publisher in the first few sentences, but
doesn’t sound over rehearsed. And be prepared in case the publisher
starts asking detailed questions about your work or you. I have seen a
lot of authors nail that opening pitch and get all tongue-tied during
the follow-up talks. Remember, nobody knows you and your book better
than you do. And if you find a publisher who wants to see more of your
work, contact him/her the moment you get home, reminding him/her in your
cover letter that you just met at the convention and you are sending
along the material he/she asked you to.<br />
<br />
-- Your local
bookstore. You can find a wealth of information here by perusing your
genre section. Check out new arrivals to see which houses have published
books similar to yours, and use that as a starting point for your
research. Also remember to check out the acknowledgement page, for you
often get the names of editors to contact as well as literary agents.<br />
<br />
--
Forums and Yahoo groups. These can be extremely helpful if you join the
correct ones. You want to find ones populated by aspiring and/or new
authors who are serious about their craft. Publishers and editors often
cruise these sites searching for new talent, and if they are impressed
with you they may contact you offline and ask you to submit. I have also
seen some forums/groups where publishers are actively seeking out
authors. You should be able to find these forums/groups by researching
in your genre. (These forums/groups are also invaluable in helping you
market your book, which I will discuss in the next blog posting.)<br />
<br />
All
right, ladies and gentlemen. For those of you who have been reading
this blog series from the beginning, you have enough tools available to
write your novel. You’ve abandoned family and friends to make the time
to write and have spent the last year drafting and editing and revising
and re-editing and re-revising your book. You’ve sent out an endless
stream of query letters, suffered through the flood of rejections
letters (or worse, the annoying lack of responses from publishers you’ve
queried) but have prevailed and finally found someone to publish your
work. Congratulations! Now the hard part begins. <br />
<br />
NEXT BLOG: Marketing your book and yourself.Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-74164087022309444612012-08-21T08:00:00.000-04:002012-08-21T08:00:19.417-04:00Finding a Publisher or Literary Agent Part II by Scott M. BakerLet me add a few observations to last week's blog about query
letters. These are my opinions, and should not be taken as gospel for
getting published (or as legal advice). <br />
<br />
--
Publishers/agents are specific in what they want you submit along with
your query, usually asking for sample chapters and a synopsis, and
occasionally for a bio or a marketing strategy. Sometimes they ask for
sample chapters to be submitted in a certain font or style. If you
submit a query, be sure to provide what they ask for in the style they
ask for. Although the main reason a publisher/agent asks for sample
chapters and a synopsis is to get a feel for your writing style, your
query submission also gives them a feel for how well you follow
guidelines. If a publisher/agent asks for a three-page synopsis, one
sample chapter in Courier 10 font, and a marketing strategy, and instead
you send a one-page synopsis, three sample chapters in Times New Roman
12 font, and a bio, you immediately send the impression that you
cannot/will not follow simple guidelines. Publishers/agents will be
cautious about contracting with you, fearing that you may also be
unwilling/unable to follow their editorial guidance and meet deadlines.
[NOTE: While I’m willing to make certain changes to the text of sample
chapters per the request of a publisher/agent – such as fonts, line
spacing, or margins, all of which can easily be done on a computer – I
refuse to entirely reformat my manuscript for a query. I did that once. A
publisher's webpage said they were accepting manuscripts for
consideration, so I spent two days preparing the submission to their
meet their formatting guidelines, e-mailed the query, and got a response
less than an hour later saying the publisher was no longer accepting
submissions. Needless to say, I never made that mistake again.]<br />
<br />
--
Every publisher and agent I have talked to has decried simultaneous
submissions (sending query submissions to more than one publisher/agnet
at a time), each of them relating how they spent several hours reading a
submission, got excited about the work, and called back the author only
to find that he/she had contracted with someone else. While I
understand their rationale for refusing simultaneous submissions, I find
it unreasonable. It can take months for a publisher/agent to respond to
you, if they respond at all, and more often than not they are not
interested in seeing the entire manuscript. That restriction against
simultaneous places an unfair burden on aspiring authors. I see no
problem with sending queries to more than one publisher at a time.
However, and this is vital, show professional courtesy. If you have a
manuscript with one publisher/agent and a second asks to see it, let the
second publisher/agent know that someone else is currently looking at
it. Publishers/agents will understand if they contact you based on a
query, but someone else has contracted the manuscript before them.
However, if they read the entire manuscript and then find out you were
shopping that same manuscript to their competitors, you’ll earn a
reputation you do not want to have in the industry.<br />
<br />
--
Finally, do not feel compelled to accept any contract offered to you.
I’ve been very fortunate that my publisher treats its authors fairly and
with respect. Not all of them are like that. Last year I was contacted
by a publisher who said how much he loved my manuscript and wanted to
send me a contract. When I received it I laughed. The publisher wanted
all rights (print, electronic, audio, radio, TV, movie, and character)
to my first four books in perpetuity (i.e. forever) for a measly 10
percent royalty on any profits. The contract should have been emblazoned
with a skull and crossbones in the corner. If the contract doesn’t
settle right with you, trust your instincts and question it. Do not sign
on the dotted line out of fear that no one will ever offer you another
contract again. You worked too hard on that book to give away all the
rights to someone else. Think of how badly George Lucas would have been
screwed if he had given away to 20th Century Fox all the rights to <i>Star Wars</i>.<br />
<br />
When
it comes to discussing query submissions, this blog just touches the
tip of the iceberg. But at least it gives you a framework to start from.
<br />
<br />
Below I included a sample query letter to use as a guideline.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Dear Publisher/Agent:</i><br />
<br />
<i>While
researching potential publishers for my manuscript, I discovered your
homepage and decided to contact you to gauge your interest in my book. </i><br />
<br />
<i>The
Vampire Hunters are Drake Matthews and Alison Monroe, two former cops
who turned in their badges for stakes, and Jim Delmarco, an engineering
student with a knack for developing lethal weapons against the undead.
Their target is a nest of more than a dozen vampires located in
Washington D.C. and led by two masters, one of whom prefers to indulge
his decadence rather than ensure the nest's survival, and his mistress
who will go to any lengths to gain control over the nest. Driven by a
determination to rid the city of this ultimate evil, and armed with
nothing more sophisticated than low-tech conventional weapons, the
hunters wage a relentless and violent war against the undead in the
streets and back alleys of the nation's capital. </i><br />
<br />
<i>In
The Vampire Hunters I flesh out the vampires so they are an integral
part of the story but, unlike many contemporary novels, I depict my
vampires as vicious and inhuman. With the recent success of such books
as David Wellington's Bullet series and del Toro's/Hogan's Strain
trilogy, The Vampire Hunters is perfectly poised to take advantage of
the growing interest in vampires as evil, non-romantic characters. </i><br />
<br />
<i>The manuscript is 78,000 words in length and is ready for immediate submission. </i><br />
<br />
<i>As
I noted above, the manuscript is the first in a trilogy. I have
completed The Vampire Hunters: Vampyrnomicon (the introduction of the
Master vampire, Chiang Shih, and her plan to establish a vampire
kingdom), which is 100,000 words in length. The final book in the
trilogy, The Vampire Hunters: Dominion (the final battle between good
and evil), will be completed in the spring of 2010 and should be 100,000
words in length. </i><br />
<br />
<i>As for previous writing
credits, I have authored several short stories, including “Rednecks
Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things,” which appeared in the autumn 2008
edition of the e-zine Necrotic Tissue; “Cruise of the Living Dead,”
which appeared in Living Dead Press’ Dead Worlds: Volume 3 anthology
(August 2009); “Deck the Malls with Bowels of Holly,” which appeared in
Living Dead Press‘ Christmas Is Dead anthology (October 2009); and
“Denizens,” which appeared in Living Dead Press’ The Book of Horror
anthology (March 2010). </i><br />
<br />
<i>Per your guidelines, I
have included the first thirty pages and a synopsis so you can get a
feel for my writing. I can forward the entire manuscript upon request. </i><br />
<br />
<i>Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Sincerely yours,</i><br />
<i>Scott M. Baker</i><br />
<br />
<i>phone number</i><br />
<i>website URL</i><br />
<i>blog URL </i><br />
<i>Facebook URL</i><br />
<i>Twitter URL</i><br />
<br />
NEXT WEEK: Finding a Publisher or Literary Agent, Part III (where to find them).<br />
<br />Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-18441829266702260742012-08-14T08:00:00.000-04:002012-08-14T08:00:16.082-04:00Finding a Publisher or Literary Agent Part I by Scott M. Baker“How difficult is it to draft a query letter? And how do I find a publisher or agent to send it to?”<br />
<br />
First
hings first. It’s not that difficult to write a query letter. Which is
fortunate, because drafting a good query letter is the most important
aspect (next to actually writing the book) of getting published. You may
have written the next bestseller, but if you can’t garner enough
interest from publishers or literary agents to look at it, your
novel/story is just taking up space on your hard drive. <br />
<br />
Let
me preface this section by stating that there are numerous ways to
write a query. Use the format that best works for your work, or that you
feel most comfortable with. What I’m offering are tips on how I draft a
query, and so far they seem to have been successful for me. Also, this
format should be used only for works of fiction. Non-fiction query
guidelines are much different.<br />
<br />
Start out with a brief
introduction on how you discovered the publisher/agent. If a published
author has referred you to them, or if you met this person at a
convention and he/she asked you to forward a submission, state that up
front. It gives you a foot up to climb out of the slush pile. Otherwise,
just say that you discovered them while researching potential
publishers/agents for your work, and you wanted to give them the
opportunity to review your manuscript.<br />
<br />
Next comes a
brief description of your novel/story. Keep it to one small paragraph,
two at most. Make it just long enough to provide a general idea what the
work is about and entice the publisher/agent to want to read more. How
do you do this? Read a few examples from jacket covers or the back of a
paperback to get an idea. Remember, this is the make or break paragraph
of the entire query. If you do not immediately snag the interest of a
publisher/ agent, they’ll throw the query aside and move on to the next
one. You need to get a hook into them so they’ll continue reading.<br />
<br />
Your
next paragraph has to sell the concept. The publisher/agent will
receive hundreds of submission for romances, murder mysteries, vampire
thrillers, animal books, or whatever genre you write in. Your
novel/story must stand out. Saying your mother or spouse thought it was
terrific will not get you published. Nor will telling them that you’re
the next Stephen King or Dan Brown get you out of the slush pile.
Publishing is a business, and your work will never make it into print
unless you can convince the publisher/agent that it’s perfectly poised
to take advantage of a new trend in the market, or brings specific
insight to the genre that has not been seen before. <br />
<br />
Follow
with a brief paragraph noting what is attached to your e-mail, the word
count, and whether the novel/story is available for immediate
submission. [NOTE: Don’t waste your time querying publishers/agents with
unfinished work. Rarely do they show interest in them.] If your novel
is part of a series, now is the time to state that and, if known, offer
an idea when the next book(s) in the series will be available. <br />
<br />
Your
penultimate paragraph should be about you. What makes you qualified to
write this novel/story? Are you a police detective writing about a
homicide unit in New York? Were you the victim of an abusive
relationship, or a recovering addict, who has fictionalized your life?
If you have no specific experiences you can relate to (I’ve never hunted
vampires for a living, though I would like to), find a way to make
yourself interesting. You’re selling yourself as well as your book.<br />
<br />
This
is also the paragraph to list your previous writing credits. Don’t list
more than three otherwise you’ll look like you’re being pompous. List
the most recent works, or those that are most relevant to your query.
[NOTE: If you’re writing in a genre in which you don’t have relevant
experience, I recommend trying to get several short stories published
before you attempt to query on a book. Being able to say that you’ve
been previously published bolsters your credentials. I noticed that
publishers/agents showed more interest in looking at my novel after I
had a few short stories in my bibliography.]<br />
<br />
Finally,
end with a closing sentence thanking them for their consideration and
noting that you look forward to hearing from them.<br />
<br />
NEXT: Finding a Publisher or Literary Agent, Part II (some useful tips on writing queries and a sample query letter)Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-87750565500473624252012-08-07T08:00:00.000-04:002012-08-07T08:00:04.636-04:00The Mechanics of Writing by Scott M. Baker“I have a story idea in mind and am psyched to begin writing. What’s
the best way to get started? Should I outline the plot first, or just
jump in and write?”<br />
<br />
There’s no right or wrong method to
use in plotting out your novel. The mechanics of writing is one of
personal choice, so go with whatever method works best for you. <br />
<br />
For
example, Jeffery Deaver creates meticulous outlines for his novels,
detailing each scene and key segments of dialogue on sheets of paper and
sticky notes that fill the walls of his study. He admits that it takes
him months to come up with such a detailed framework. However, when he
sits down to actually write the novel, since most of the work is already
completed, it doesn’t take him long to finish the manuscript.<br />
<br />
I
prefer a less structured method. When I’m plotting out my novels, I
keep a stack of lined 3x5 cards handy and write scenes down as I think
of them. On each card I include anything that I want to put into the
scene, such as descriptions, plot points, or snippets of dialogue I
don’t want to forget. Before I start writing, I arrange the cards in the
order I want the book to flow. This allows me to outline the major
themes in the plot, but allows enough flexibility that I can add or
re-order scenes easily.<br />
<br />
These methods represent two
different concepts of organization, and most of you will use a method of
plot outlining that falls somewhere in between. What is important is,
no matter which method you use, be sure you have a firm grasp of the
opening, conflict, and resolution of your story before you begin
outlining/writing your story. You can always change those elements
later. But if you don’t have a basic idea where your story starts and
ends, no amount of outlining will turn it into a viable manuscript.
Trust me on this one. I have several short stories taking up space on my
hard drive because I wrote them based on a single scene, but have yet
to find an effective way to start or end them. <br />
<br />
“Thanks. This has been a big help. While you’re here, can you give me any tips on writing?”<br />
<br />
Yes,
I can. But this is not the blog series for that. There are thousands of
books out there dedicated to instructing someone on how to write a
book. They cover all the aspects of writing – plot, setting, character
development, voice, etc. There are even books that tell you how to write
in specific genres. Feel free to use them if you want. No one has ever
become a bad writer by reading these works. <br />
<br />
In my
opinion, the best way for someone to become a good writer is to read in
order to see how other authors write, and then start writing yourself.
When I say read a lot, I mean it. Go through at least one book a week.
Start with the classics. We’re still reading Twain, Hemingway, Austen,
and the like not just because our English professors are sadists, but
because those authors knew how to write compelling stories that have
stood the test of time. Then read a wide variety of books and authors in
whatever genre you’re writing in, as well as at least a few books
outside your genre. <br />
<br />
And don’t forget to read trashy
books, whether they’re pulp novels meant solely to entertain and entice,
or novels that are just horribly written. Figure out what those authors
did to make their works so laughable or painful to read, and learn from
their mistakes. Remember, it takes a long time and many published works
to build up a fan base, but only one poorly-written story or novel to
turn off readers forever.<br />
<br />
So while I won’t offer
writing tips in this blog series, I do want to point out that there are
certain aspects of writing you need to pay close attention to if you
ever hope to get out of the slush pile and get published. These points
have been reiterated to me time and again by publishers and literary
agents, all of whom said that when they see these types of mistakes in
query submissions, they immediately take the work out of contention for
publication.<br />
<br />
The first is grammar, punctuation, and
spelling. Over time you’ll find your own writing style and voice. But if
you don’t have the basics down, you’ll find it that much more difficult
to break away from the thousands of other authors bombarding publishers
and agents with their works. As part of this advice, make sure you
proof read your final work carefully. You may have written the next
bestseller, but if your sample chapters are chocked full of spelling
mistakes, grammatical errors, and incorrect punctuation, good luck
getting a publisher or agent to read beyond the first few pages. Even if
they see the potential in your book, they’ll view you a sloppy author
and will think carefully before taking you on. And if comes down between
you and an author whose writing is solid, who do you think will get the
contract?<br />
<br />
Realistic dialogue is also very important to
sealing that book deal. So of course, it’s one of the hardest parts to
get right. If you write dialogue so that it’s grammatically correct, it
sounds stilted and turns off the reader. If you write it to sound like
every day conversations, you run the risk of making your characters
sound like idiots. I trained myself to write decent dialogue by
listening to others talk. This has the added benefit of letting people
think you’re the silent, mysterious type (or they’ll just think you’re
an introvert, which most writers are).<br />
<br />
Finally, make
sure you maintain the continuity of your story and characters. If your
main character’s name is Ken Smith, always refer to him as either Ken or
Smith throughout the story, and do not interchange the names. Keep your
secondary characters straight as well; if you call someone Bob when he
first appears in chapter three, make sure you don’t call him Bill when
he reappears in chapter ten. If you describe your main character as
being bald in chapter one, don’t have him run his fingers through his
hair in chapter five. If your character is a devout Mormon, don’t show
him/her drinking a cup of coffee without explaining why. If your story
is set in Maine in the middle of December, don’t have the characters
sunbathing three scenes later. If your story is set in Victorian-era New
York, don’t have electric street lamps lining the streets. These are
the minutiae that are easy to overlook. When publishers or agents catch
them, they immediately get the impression that you’re a sloppy writer
(see above). And if your readers catch them, you lose them quickly. I
have had several authors who write historical dramas tell me that the
worst criticism they receive from readers is when they get some
historical fact wrong.<br />
<br />
So consider yourself forewarned. Now get out there and start writing. Your public is waiting.<br />
<br />
NEXT BLOG: Finding a publisher or literary agent.Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-8675452217031269942012-07-31T12:00:00.000-04:002012-08-05T10:25:44.290-04:00What To Write About by Scott M. Baker“Okay, I get it. If I write one page a day, in a year I’ll have a novel. My problem is I have no idea what to write about.”<br />
<br />
You’re sitting on a mother lode of ideas. You just haven’t mined them yet.<br />
<br />
A
good story, no matter what the genre, is about conflict. It’s about
developing your main character(s) so that the reader likes (and
hopefully can relate) to them, and then placing obstacles in the way of
them obtaining their goals. The story is not about the challenges. It’s
about how the main character(s) confront these challenges by overcoming
their weaknesses and expanding on their strengths. The story is not
about the conclusion. It’s about the journey to that concluding page,
and what the main character(s) learn about themselves on the way. <br />
<br />
Think of how boring <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>
would have been if Bilbo had decided to keep the ring for himself
rather than give it to Frodo to return to Mount Doom. Or if Ralphie’s
mother had acquiesced in the opening scene of <i>A Christmas Story</i> and agreed to buy him an official Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot air model range rifle. Or if Shelby from <i>Steel Magnolias</i>
did not have a medical condition that endangered her life during
pregnancy. Or if Harry and Sally had hit it off on their car ride from
college and lived happily ever after. <br />
<br />
Such stories
come from within us. There’s no one reading this blog who hasn’t
experienced some type of conflict, whether it’s as simple as a troubled
romance, as life altering as death or illness or surviving combat, as
traumatic as disloyalty or loss of honor, or as frustrating (or comical,
depending on the situation) as a dysfunctional family. Tap into those
emotions and build your story around them. Will it be painful or
uncomfortable to bear your soul like this? More than likely. But if you
can be honest to your emotions and successfully weave them into your
novel, you’ll relate to your readers. <br />
<br />
That’s what writing is all about.<br />
<br />
So if I may use an old clichéd phrase, write what you know.<br />
<br />
“Write what you know? You write about zombies and vampires. What do you know about them?”<br />
<br />
Good question. I asked the same thing years ago of Brian Keene, author of <i>The Rising</i>, the novel that launched a new wave of zombie apocalypse stories. <i>The Rising</i>
is about Jim Thurmond who lives on the West Coast. As civilization
crashes around him, Jim gets a phone call from his young son on the East
Coast asking his father to come rescue him; he sets out on foot across a
zombie-infested country in a desperate journey to save his son. Prior
to writing the novel, Brian had received a phone call from his
ten-year-old son whom he had not seen since infancy and who wanted to
meet. He made the trip, all the while wondering what their meeting would
be like. Brian later wrote about that emotional turmoil in <i>The Rising</i>, and then added some zombies.<br />
<br />
Brian’s advice helped me to find my focus for <i>The Vampire Hunters</i>.
At its essence, the story is about the war on terror and how those
fighting it deal with the reality that for every terrorist brought down,
ten others take his place. My main characters embody the three primary
outlooks of any long-term struggle: Drake Matthews, the gung-ho
commander who’s in the fight for the long haul no matter how long it
takes; Alison Monroe, who follows Drake willingly but who, at some
point, wants to put down her weapons lead a normal life; and Jim
DelMarco, the young kid drafted into the conflict who does not want to
be there, but who fights anyway. The trilogy deals with how each of
these characters handles the stresses of combat, and how their
experiences prepare them for the final battle. And then I substituted
vampires for terrorists.<br />
<br />
So write what you know, but don’t be afraid to embellish a bit.<br />
<br />
A
final note: One thing that every publisher and agent has told me is not
to write your own iteration of the latest blockbuster. <i>The DaVinci Code</i> and <i>Twilight</i>
were overnight phenomenon because they were new and distinctly unique,
which is why they sparked the public’s imagination. After each of these
novels went to the best seller list, publishing houses and literary
agencies were inundated with knock-offs, most of which were not very
good, and many pushed the bounds of copyright infringement. Sure, some
of them got published. But rarely did any of these enjoy the success of
the original works. Your goal should not be to write the next <i>Harry Potter</i>. Your goal should be to write a novel so unique that five years from now other writers will want to imitate you.<br />
<br />
NEXT BLOG: The Mechanics of Writing.<br />
<br />Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-42610271582610706922012-07-24T12:00:00.000-04:002012-08-05T10:25:30.139-04:00How To Write Well by Scott M. Baker“So all I have to do is write a page a day and in a year I’ll have a novel good enough to be published?”<br />
<br />
Not necessarily. You’ll have a novel. Whether it’s good enough to be published is another matter.<br />
<br />
Remember,
writing is an art, much like figure skating, singing, acting, or
painting. You have to practice at your craft to be become good at it.<br />
<br />
I
used to write espionage/techno thrillers. I don’t even admit to the
first book because, in retrospect, it was crap. The second book was
better, but still not quite publishable. By the third book I had found
my style. It dealt with North Korea acquiring nuclear weapons and
blackmailing four U.S. cities. I quickly picked up an agent who
presented it to several publishers, all of whom liked the book.
Unfortunately, this was right after 11 September, and the market for
those books had dried up. So I switched genres.<br />
<br />
So go
out and write, and submit you work. Don’t get depressed if it gets
rejected – that’s the nature of the game. And if an editor sends you
feedback, consider yourself fortunate. Most publishers reject
stories/manuscripts with a simple form letter. That an editor took the
time to offer you feedback means he/she sees potential in you work. <br />
<br />
The
best way to hone your skills is to get readers who will provide
critical feedback. Your mother and significant other do not count –
chances are they’ll say it’s good, even if it isn’t. My suggestion is to
find a good writer’s group with published authors or aspiring authors
who are also interested in improving their craft. I’m a member of The
Washington Fiction Writer’s League, and the feedback they provide on my
stuff has proven invaluable to improving what I’ve published.<br />
<br />
If you do go this route, remember two very important things.<br />
<br />
First,
find critique groups that will provide honest feedback. I’ve seen too
many groups where the members will tear someone else’s work to shreds,
but become indignant if you provide any critical feedback on their
material. Avoid those groups like you would a horde of ravenous zombies.
Those groups are filled with people who think ripping apart your work
will somehow make them better writers. Trust me, it doesn’t work that
way.<br />
<br />
Second, and this is the hardest thing to do, is
lock away your ego in a dark room during feedback sessions. As long as
the feedback isn’t personal, listen to it and adopt it where
appropriate. Every author is wedded to his/her work and hates to here
that it is not quite as good as he/she thought it was. Get over
yourself. I did. <br />
<br />
No matter how well you write, there
is always room for improvement. We all have our favorite writers who,
over time, sacrificed quality for the sake of pumping out another book.
There are several authors who I once loved but stopped buying their
books because they started to disappoint me.<br />
<br />
Your goal
is not to write the best book ever written. Your goal is to write the
best book that you possibly can. Every book or story has flaws. But if a
reader can overlook the occasional grammatical error or plot flaw
because the rest of the story is so entertaining it keeps them glued to
the edge of their seat, then you’ve succeeded as a writer.<br />
<br />
NEXT BLOG: What To Write About.<br />
<br />Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-301662703681746722012-07-19T22:42:00.001-04:002012-08-05T10:25:18.744-04:00How To Write That First Novel by Scott M. Baker<b>To all the Permuted Press fans who have been following this blog, my apologies for the dearth of postings the past few weeks. I'm sure I can speak for the others when I say July has been one hectic month. For myself, I've spent the last two weekends in Boston and Florida, respectively, and have had no time to blog. But I don't want to disappoint the readers, so I plan on re-posting over the next few weeks a series I had written earlier for my own <a href="http://scottmbakerauthor.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">blog</a> on how to write your first novel. And in the interim, if I come up with anything substantial (or witty) to say, I'll post that, too. Enjoy. </b><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>NOTE: I’ve been fortunate over the past five years to be
intimately involved with a writer’s group that has allowed me to become
acquainted with numerous authors, publishers, screen writers, and
literary agents. They have talked openly about the publishing industry
in general and their specific genres, and have offered considerable
advice. Over time, I’ve grown to realize how valuable that guidance was.
So over the next few weeks, I hope to share some of that wisdom with
you.]</i><br />
<br />
“What do I have to do to be a writer?”<br />
<br />
Write.<br />
<br />
Believe
it or not, it’s as simple as that. Writers write. It’s what we do. But
you’d be surprised how many potential authors forget that. <br />
<br />
I’ve
met several potential authors who have bragged about all the work
they’ve done on their project. One had a detailed outline of their
proposed novel. Another had 3x5 cards filled with biographical notes for
each character. A third had a notebook in which he kept hours worth of
research. When I asked them how far they had gotten in their book, they
admitted they had not written anything yet. These people completely miss
the point. Research, plot, and character are necessary, but not
anywhere near as important as actually writing the book.<br />
<br />
So get out there and start writing.<br />
<br />
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re a published author and have plenty of time to write. I don’t.”<br />
<br />
No one has time to write. You have to <i>make</i> time.<br />
<br />
The
sad truth about publishing today is that, unless you are a
well-established name like Stephen King, K.J. Rawlings, or Dan Brown,
most writers maintain a day job (or have a very understanding
significant other with a well-paying job and a lot of patience). I get
up at 5:30 AM, rush around to feed the rabbits and get dressed, and am off
to work by 7:30 AM. If I’m lucky, I get home around 4 PM. Then I have to
feed, clean, and spend time with the rabbits; do chores and errands; and
try to have some meager semblance of a social life. I’m lucky if I get
five hours of sleep a night.<br />
<br />
I fit writing into that
hectic schedule because I love to write. I need to write. It’s my
passion. To do that, though, I have to make sacrifices. When I’m in
full-fledged writing mode, my Xbox sits idle and my stack of books to
read grows taller and taller. And I don’t want to admit to the number of
times I’ve spent several hours cranking out a chapter, only to be
greeted afterwards by sets of mopey brown eyes and furry dejected faces
giving me that why-didn’t-you-play-with-me look.<br />
<br />
Anyone
who truly and passionately wants to write can find time during the day
to do so. Get up an hour early or stay up an hour late (as long as you
devote that entire time solely to writing). If you commute by public
transportation, use that time to write. Devote some of your “down time”
to writing. Sure, you might have to forego watching <i>American Idol</i>
or curtail your time surfing cute pet sights on the Internet, but are
these really more important than getting your book written?<br />
<br />
“Oh, come on. How much writing do you really expect me to get done in an hour a day?”<br />
<br />
Let
me put it this way. In that hour, anyone can write a single page. If
you type in double space, the way manuscripts should be drafted, that’s
approximately 300 words a day. If you do that every day for a year, when
you’re done you will have 365 pages totaling over 100,000 words. That,
my friends is a novel.<br />
<br />
So what are you waiting for? Close down the Internet, call up your word processor, and start writing.<br />
<br />
NEXT BLOG: How to write well.Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-10890243225964278112012-06-30T12:27:00.000-04:002012-06-30T12:27:47.686-04:00We're All Going To Die During a Zombie Apocalypse... and We Deserve To by Scott M. BakerThat is not a proven fact verifiable by solid evidence. This is merely my own opinion based on firsthand observations. Let me explain why I developed that hypothesis. But first, some background information.<br />
<br />
Last night around 11:00 a freak thunderstorm blew through the Washington D.C. area. One minute I was watching television, the next the trees around my house were blowing violently, the loose items on my back deck were being thrown about, and I could hear the wind slamming into the aluminum siding. The lights flickered, went out, and came back on several times. The rain was heavy but brief, and within twenty minutes the storm had passed on and everything had returned to normal.<br />
<br />
This morning, after breakfast, I went out to do some errands. I was surprised to find that half my city was without power, including about seventy-five percent of the traffic lights. But I was dumbstruck at how people were reacting.<br />
<br />
Now mind you, this was just a freak thunderstorm. There were no tornadoes, or sustained hurricane-level winds, or massive flooding. And except for one poor woman in Maryland who died in her bed when a tree toppled over onto her house, there were no fatalities. But the way people acted out there, you would have thought it was the end of the world.<br />
<br />
Intersections with non-working traffic signals were insane. It seemed as if everyone forgot that broken traffic signals are to be treated as four-way Stop signs. I don't know who was worse -- the drivers who blew through these intersections without even slowing down, or the timid ones who just sat there, too afraid to move. I came upon one intersection on a back road where five cars blocked five lanes because the traffic signal was out and no one knew how to handle it. On the main road, all common sense seemed to have left people along with the electricity. I saw one driver cruising along in the far-left breakdown lane, and another one stopped in the middle of four lanes reading a map.<br />
<br />
The police were out in force, but they seemed to be uncoordinated. At none of the intersections were they directing traffic; they were merely blocking off lanes and forcing drivers to go into directions they didn't want to go. Actually, I must correct myself since that statement is inaccurate. I did find a cop at one intersection with working signals who was directing traffic against the light cycle and causing more confusion than anything else. He would have been much off going west several blocks to the major intersection without signals where no one knew how to respond. <br />
<br />
On my way home I turned to the news channel on the radio (I had plenty of time to listen since the police kept redirecting me farther and farther away from my home) and shook my head. According to WTOP, those gas stations with power had lines panicky people desperate to fill up on gas, and some grocery stores were reporting increased traffic as people stocked up on essentials.<br />
<br />
By the time I got to within a mile of my house me and several others like me (read either "tough, confident individuals who go into battle mode during a crisis and don't panic under pressure" or "arrogant, self-centered buttheads") were ignoring the craziness around us and just trying to get to where we were going.<br />
<br />
What really bothered me was the inability of people to cope, both the civilian and the law enforcement. Did the academy train the police how to direct traffic (stop all traffic, let one lane proceed at a time, repeat until the intersection is clear) or did they just not want to be bothered? Would the driver who stopped in the middle of a four-lane highway to consult a map have done the same thing if the situation was "normal"? (Sadly, being northern Virgina, the answer to that could be yes.) This was a bright, sunny (and hot) day following a thunderstorm that did
minimal damage. I shudder to think what would have happened if the dead came back to life (or some other, but not as much fun, natural disaster had occurred).<br />
<br />
With regards to the incident above where five cars blocked five lanes because no one knew what to do, the Bostonian in me let out a string of invectives (I'm at my most creative when I'm combining blasphemies and insults into single descriptive phrases) and long, loud blares on the horn. The writer in me realized that if this was the zombie apocalypse, me and everyone in my vehicle would be overrun and devoured or forced to set out on foot into the hordes of the living dead because of the actions of others.<br />
<br />
So now I'm sitting home, venting my frustrations (and pretending it's a blog posting) surrounded by my pets who are staring at me with that "I thought you were going out?" look. After doing some writing, I'll probably spend the night in front of the television. But you can be sure I'll be watching <i>Doomsday Preppers</i> and taking notes. Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-18282700347923536832012-06-24T01:23:00.000-04:002012-06-24T15:02:40.632-04:00PAIN IS PERSONAL by Lane AdamsonI'd intended to write a brief but enlightening discourse on werewolves, and why they still rock, this week. Then I got a kidney stone and got distracted.<br />
<br />
This was my second go-round with kidney stones. The first time, the doctor at the emergency room told me that, although I was presenting with the requisite symptoms, I didn't seem to be evincing enough <em>pain</em> to have a kidney stone: specifically, I wasn't crying or curled up in the fetal position (or even begging for painkillers). I politely told him that I had a high tolerance for pain--and when the tests showed I did indeed have the stones, he apologized and paid respect to my stoicism.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OrRUC2BHtbE/T-abFUPSsHI/AAAAAAAAADs/J4RdbsVuFf8/s1600/Ventura-Predator.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Jesse Ventura, PREDATOR" border="0" height="106" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OrRUC2BHtbE/T-abFUPSsHI/AAAAAAAAADs/J4RdbsVuFf8/s200/Ventura-Predator.jpg" title="" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and Jesse ain't got time for pain</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Anyway, after this flare-up, I got to thinking about what one might call the Three Pillars of Fear: the <em>Unknown</em>, <em>Pain</em>, and <em>Death</em>. I don't know if this concept is original to me or not (I thought of it on my own, but that means very little); but I think you'll find that you can shoehorn pretty much all horror storytelling into one or more of those three categories.<br />
<br />
I'll probably deal with a broader overview of the subject at another date, but I haven't had time to percolate on it yet. For now, let's look at <em>Pain</em>.<br />
<br />
Pain is the most personal of fears--even more than Death, if you think about it. Death, at least, has finality; they can only kill you once (generally speaking). Pain, on the other hand, can go on and on almost indefinitely, and (unless clumsily administered) is almost guaranteed <em>not</em> to kill you... but you might wish it would.<br />
<br />
That's a powerful thing.<br />
<br />
I tend to avoid the more outre movies of the horror genre--they used to be called slasher films (the <em>Friday the 13th</em> series, for example), now they've morphed into what's being called "torture porn" (the <em>Hostel</em> films and others). I'm a sensitive sort; I don't enjoy watching people get hurt for the sake of watching people get hurt--even if they're promiscuous, drug-using co-eds who somehow "deserve" it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--Tc3t-m_Rxs/T-agQpdrdbI/AAAAAAAAAD4/Rk8wTkIPpkI/s1600/eli-roth-hostel-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Eli Roth, HOSTEL 3" border="0" height="168" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--Tc3t-m_Rxs/T-agQpdrdbI/AAAAAAAAAD4/Rk8wTkIPpkI/s200/eli-roth-hostel-3.jpg" title="" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I don't like to watch.</td></tr>
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Still, just as films like <em>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</em> or <em>Them!</em> helped audiences cathartically deal with their fears of the Unknown, while <em>Dracula</em> and <em>Frankenstein </em>bring us face-to with Death (with a subtext of the Unknown), I suppose I can see a certain value in films like those referenced earlier for subliminally subrogating one's pain.<br />
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Or, maybe you're all just a bunch of sick bastards.Lane Adamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17373869229469428377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2354146183544778221.post-74629748725193262062012-06-18T21:51:00.000-04:002012-06-18T21:51:31.446-04:00A Belated Father's Day Blog by Scott M. BakerThe reason I'm posting this two days late is because I didn't actually come up with the posting until late Sunday and didn't get a chance to draft it until just now.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-710aLs7mIhk/T9_L86rBtRI/AAAAAAAAAsg/CYtEnmbvTWE/s1600/anniversary+%2814%29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-710aLs7mIhk/T9_L86rBtRI/AAAAAAAAAsg/CYtEnmbvTWE/s320/anniversary+%2814%29.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My mother and father on their 50th wedding anniversary. </td></tr>
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Any one who follows my blog knows that I'm an old Monster Kid going back to the 1970s, and that my mother was the one who enabled my passion for the dark side. But the person I've never talked about is my father, the one who kept my horror habit fed for all those years. <br />
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As far back as I remember, my father and my maternal grandfather had a ritual that they never strayed from: every Saturday morning they would get up early and go out for breakfast. As I got older, they began taking me with them. I loved it, and not just because I got to spend time with my dad and grand dad, which was great. But after breakfast, my father would drive me around in a quest for monster memorabilia. <br />
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I can still remember impatiently sitting at the table in the greasy little diner in downtown Lynn (the habitual breakfast spot), already having wolfed down my English muffin and endlessly fidgeting in the booth waiting for the real fun to begin. Such was the curse of having a tiny child's stomach. Only after the men had finished off their eggs, bacon, home fries, toast, and bottomless cups of coffee would the excitement (for me, at least) really begin. <br />
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The first stop was always <a href="http://www.lynnmausa.com/cals/" target="_blank">Cal's News</a> in downtown Lynn, not far from the diner. Once in Cal's, I would make a beeline straight for the entertainment section and thumb through the stacks looking for the latest treasure: <i><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Monster+Times&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=edHfT-TXGaLb0QHhvdXRCg&ved=0CHAQsAQ&biw=1876&bih=889" target="_blank">The Monster Times</a></i>, <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eerie" target="_blank">Eerie</a></i> or <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creepy" target="_blank">Creepy</a></i> magazine, the dozens of other pulp monster mags that thrived back in the good old days, or the mother lode of all finds -- the latest issue of <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=famous+monsters+of+filmland&hl=en&prmd=imvnsb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=lNLfT92zMcrG0QGVw_DICg&sqi=2&ved=0CJIBELAE&biw=1876&bih=889" target="_blank"><i>Famous Monsters of Filmland</i></a>. I could barely wait to get back to the car to start thumbing through them and marvel at the images inside. <br />
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Then it was off to the Don Elder's in Chelsea, a small business run by a kindly, elderly gentleman out of an old garage. Mr. Elder sold mostly 35mm cameras and 8mm camcorders and movie projectors, but for me the attraction was his vast collection of <a href="http://8mm16mmfilmscollectibles.com/8mm4.htm" target="_blank">Castle Films</a>. These were 12-minute, black-and-white, silent versions of horror and Sci-Fi movies. Each one came in a box about six inches square, usually with a reproduction of the movie poster emblazoned across the front. They only offered a tantalizing taste of the original movie, but in the days before video tapes, they were the only way to be able to see your favorite movies without having to wait for them to be played by the local cable access television station at one in the morning. (I still have my entire collection of them safely tucked away in a closet.) After that, it was a quick run to the hobby shop in Malden where I would pick up the latest <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=aurora+models&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ktPfT6urMuPL0QHNp6XUCg&ved=0CLUBELAE&biw=1876&bih=889" target="_blank">Aurora</a> monster model, and then back home. On a good day, I would make it back in time to catch <a href="http://www.creaturedoublefeature.org/?attachment_id=131" target="_blank">Creature Double Feature</a> on WLVI Channel 56.<br />
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And never once did my father complain about schlepping me around the North Shore every Saturday. I'm sure he always pictured me as a Marine like himself and his brother Bob (who fought on Okinawa). But he never complained that instead he got stuck with a geek little kid who liked monsters. (Although I did enjoy watching war movies with him, so that surely softened the blow.) Like my mother, he has always been very supportive of me in everything I've done, and to this day he still gets on the phone when I'm chatting with the family to tell me he's proud of me.<br />
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But those days are drawing to a close. Over the past few years, my father has been fighting a losing battle with a series of mini-strokes that have caused Alzheimer-like symptoms. He's slowly slipping into the real-life horror that accompanies the deterioration of one's mind, and every time I go home to visit I recognize him a little less. Soon all that will be left of my father is the memory of who he once was. <br />
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So before it gets too late to say it, thanks for feeding the addiction, Dad. You helped make me the man I am today. <br />
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<br />Scott M. Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06969817714467678175noreply@blogger.com2