Chuck Wendig: Terribleminds

Apple-Obsessed Author Fella

Tag: interview (page 6 of 8)

February 2, 2012 / 13 Comments

Myke Cole: The Terribleminds Interview

All I gotta say is, Myke Cole? Bonafide bad-ass. Furthermore, an all-around nice guy. He’s also a guy with a book out this week — the military-meets-magic CONTROL POINT (AKA “Black Hawk Down” meets the “X-Men”). I managed to get a moment of Myke’s time in between, I dunno, punching tanks and playing Frisbee Golf with landmines, and here he sits down and submits to the terribleminds interview. Read it, and then visit his site — MykeCole-dot-com — and follow him on Twitter (@MykeCole).

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

During my first tour in Baghdad, I was sitting in my hooch at around 0200. I couldn’t sleep, so I was playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on my laptop. It was over 100 degrees, so I was sitting in my underwear.

Whoosh. Bang. Whoosh. Bang. Incoming rounds. From the sound and the shivering impact, I guessed they were 107s.

And I panic. Instead of doing what you should do (hit the deck), I grab my go-bag and my pistol and go flying out of the hooch, racing for the bunker, making myself a giant upright target for any low-flying shrapnel.

A round comes in danger-close, just on the other side of a cinder-block wall. It doesn’t detonate, but the bang is loud and the shaking so dramatic that I can swear that it did (if it had, I surely would have died).

The attack is over. I’m lying in the dirt, completely coated in dust. My ears are ringing and there’s a cloud of sulphur/cordite hanging over me. I’m only wearing underwear. I have no idea where my go-bag and weapon are. I think I may have pissed myself.

I’m one of the lucky guys who has a cellphone. When it rings, I find my go-bag.

It’s my mom. She’s calling to let me know how frightened she is that I’m in Iraq.

Why do you tell stories?

To communicate. To get a reaction. To know that other people are hearing what I have to say and that it is impacting them. I am no Emily Dickenson and I absolutely cannot understand people who operate like that.

I also do it to pay back. Stories saved me, reared me, created me. They are the reason I live. I know there are people out there who are the same way. They need them as much as I do. If I can add to the body of work that makes lives wonderful, then I have truly done something worthwhile.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Cowboy up. Novels don’t write themselves. Don’t wait for your muse. Don’t wait until you “have the time.” Don’t wait for inspiration to strike. Don’t worry about whether or not you’re wasting your time, or if you suck. Shut the hell up, and get to work.

What’s great about being a writer, and conversely, what sucks about it?

I’m going to Confusion (a convention in Detroit) this coming weekend. At that con, I will be sitting down with many of my favorite authors: Peter V. Brett, Patrick Rothfuss, Brent Weeks, Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch.

We will be playing a game of 1st edition D&D, with a classic Gygax-written module, probably KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS.

The fact that I get to do crap like that is, frankly, transcendent.

The worst thing is poverty. Even with a major book deal, full-time writing is uncertain at best. If it weren’t for the health insurance and slight income stream I get from serving in the reserve, I would be homeless. I frequently tell people that I love everything about my life except for how poor I am. But I also firmly believe that money is the easy-part and you can figure that out eventually.

I suspect a lot of authors are or were gamers — tabletop in particular. What did gaming teach you about writing and storytelling? Positive or negative lessons.

I was *just* talking about this last night. I really feel that DM’ing D&D campaigns taught me incredibly important lessons about storytelling. I played with Peter V. Brett in college and watched him craft incredible campaigns that were as engaging as any novel, and then I tried to match them. You have to be willing to do a TON of worldbuilding that your “readers” will never see. I would pour hours into drafting incredibly detailed NPCs, only to have my players just come out and kill them without so much as saying hello. You also have to willing to change course on a dime. Your players can just decide that they don’t want to open that door when the campaign DEMANDS that they OPEN THAT F*&KING DOOR! That agility is critical to being a good novelist.

That author game sounds fucking phenomenal. Let’s extend that. If you could play D&D with, say, five different authors (living or dead), who would they be?

Oh wow:

– Gary Gygax (yes, he’s an author, by god).

– George R. R. Martin.

– Richard K. Morgan

– Naomi Novik

– Ernest Cline

And the module? Tomb of Horrors. Because I’m fantasizing, there’ll be this mind-ray that makes us all forget the module, so that none of us know where any of the traps are and how to get around them.

I get to be the Human Paladin. With at least a +3 Holy Avenger. That’s very important. Dude. Seriously. I’m not f$#king around here.

Gaming is big in the military, or so I hear. What other games have you played?

Gaming is HUGE in the military, as is all other SFF-genre loving activities (most importantly, reading). I love any tabletop word game (Scrabble and Boggle) and also the classic board/card games (San Juan, Puerto Rico, Carcassonne and Settlers of Cataan. Though, I should admit that I’m new to some of them). Talisman (with all its expansions) is OUTSTANDING.

I will play Magic if someone brings their decks, but I don’t own any of my own.

Then, there’s wargaming. I am a big fan of historical ancients/medieval games (I prefer 15mm) and my favorite rule set for that is DBA. I don’t really do napoleonic, but I will if I have a good mentor.

And, of course, there’s Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. There are no words for how unspeakably cool that universe is.

But the most important thing in gaming is the players. I really don’t care what I’m playing, so long as I’m at a table with a bunch of really cool people who are fun to hang out with.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

My favorite word, hands down, is “Contact.” There are SO many awesome meanings and implications, both science-fictional, military, and every day.

My favorite curse is “Balls.” I know, it’s not technically a curse, but I like the fact that it can be used in both positive and negative ways.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

Hard cider (best I’ve ever hard is Hornsby’s). I love going to the UK because they take it seriously there. In America, if I have a drink with my sailors and order a hard cider, inevitably one of my chiefs will ask, “Why don’t you just order a Flirtini, sir?”

Okay, so, tell us about CONTROL POINT — what is it, and why did you write it?

CONTROL POINT is a book that asks the basic question “What if the modern, counterinsurgency-focused military had magic? What would a fire-team look like if you had 2 riflemen, a support-weapon and a sorcerer?” Now that’s the fun squee part “how does an Apache helicopter gunship match up against a Roc?” But it also raises bigger issues about the nature of big bureaucracies and how they handle sudden and dramatic social change. A lot of these questions were asked by the X-Men comic book series. I expand on those in SHADOW OPS.

I wrote the book because I was walking around the Pentagon in 1998, wondering how these regulation obsessed bureaucrats would handle magic. What if the monsters from D&D were real? How would the law deal with that? Those questions HOUNDED me. CONTROL POINT was my way of getting them to shut up.

How is CONTROL POINT a book only you could’ve written?

I’m probably flattering myself here, but I feel like I have a somewhat unique blend of loving-to-write, nerd-roots and military experience. I have been to war and responded to major domestic disasters. I am raised on comic books, D&D and mass-market/spinner-wire-rack fantasy novels. I have been writing all my life. I am sure there are lots of folks with two of those attributes. But all three? Well, maybe so. Maybe CONTROL POINT *isn’t* a book that only I could’ve written. But I’m the guy who wrote it. Here’s hoping folks are happy with that.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

Book: Peter V. Brett’s Demon Cycle series, which is (so far) The Warded Man and The Desert Spear. He is, hands-down, one of the best writers I’ve ever read. I frequently use those books to woo non-fantasy readers who I am trying to get into genre, and it has never failed me.

Comic Book: Ed Brubaker’s Captain America Omnibus. It’s as thick as a phonebook, and you’ll wish it were twice as long.

Film: Les Pactes des Loupes (The Brotherhood of the Wolf). Watch the extended edition, in French, with sub-titles.

Game: Sword and Sworcery for the iPad. Beautiful, haunting and the Jim Guthrie soundtrack doesn’t hurt either.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable zombie war?

I’ve been to Iraq 3 times. I was a responder to both the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Hurricane Irene. Crisis is what I do. I’m a good shot and was a competitive swordsman in my halcyon days, both in kendo and the SCA. If there’s a guy you want on your six when the chips are down and the undead come calling, I’m him.

You’ve committed crimes against humanity. They caught you. You get one last meal.

A NYC deli style BLT, but only because they’re held together with those little plastic swords you see in cocktails. I’d use that to carve up the place and escape.

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

I’ve just turned in FORTRESS FRONTIER, the sequel to CONTROL POINT. I have recently been commission to write a novella in a media tie-in universe, and hopefully that will lead to novels. I am turning and burning on my efforts to get the comic book and video game industries interested in my work. A Hollywood agency has picked up CONTROL POINT and is trying to get film/TV folks interested in it. The long and short is this: I want to be able to write full-time, in genre, without having to do anything else besides serve in the reserve (which I love), for the rest of my days. A failure scenario sees me having to go back to a full-time day job.

Okay, so, tell us about CONTROL POINT — what is it, and why did you write it?

* CONTROL POINT is a book that asks the basic question “What if the modern, counterinsurgency-focused military had magic? What would a fire-team look like if you had 2 riflemen, a support-weapon and a sorcerer?” Now that’s the fun squee part “how does an Apache helicopter gunship match up against a Roc?” But it also raises bigger issues about the nature of big bureaucracies and how they handle sudden and dramatic social change. A lot of these questions were asked by the X-Men comic book series. I expand on those in SHADOW OPS.
I wrote the book because I was walking around the Pentagon in 1998, wondering how these regulation obsessed bureaucrats would handle magic. What if the monsters from D&D were real? How would the law deal with that? Those questions HOUNDED me. CONTROL POINT was my way of getting them to shut up.
How is CONTROL POINT a book only you could’ve written?
* I’m probably flattering myself here, but I feel like I have a somewhat unique blend of loving-to-write, nerd-roots and military experience. I have been to war and responded to major domestic disasters. I am raised on comic books, D&D and mass-market/spinner-wire-rack fantasy novels. I have been writing all my life. I am sure there are lots of folks with two of those attributes. But all three? Well, maybe so. Maybe CONTROL POINT *isn’t* a book that only I could’ve written. But I’m the guy who wrote it. Here’s hoping folks are happy with that.
Ah, you’re a gamer. I suspect a lot of authors are or were gamers — tabletop in particular. What did gaming teach you about writing and storytelling? Positive or negative lessons.
* I was *just* talking about this last night. I really feel that DM’ing D&D campaigns taught me incredibly important lessons about storytelling. I played with Peter V. Brett  in college and watched him craft incredible campaigns that were as engaging as any novel, and then I tried to match them. You have to be willing to do a TON of worldbuilding that your “readers” will never see. I would pour hours into drafting incredibly detailed NPCs, only to have my players just come out and kill them without so much as saying hello. You also have to willing to change course on a dime. Your players can just decide that they don’t want to open that door when the campaign DEMANDS that they OPEN THAT F*&KING DOOR! That agility is critical to being a good novelist.
That game with the other authors sounds fucking phenomenal. So let’s extend that out — if you could play D&D with, say, five different authors (living or dead), who would they be?
* Oh wow:
– Gary Gygax (yes, he’s an author, by god).
– George R. R. Martin.
– Richard K. Morgan
– Naomi Novik
– Ernest Cline
And the module? Tomb of Horrors. Because I’m fantasizing, there’ll be this mind-ray that makes us all forget the module, so that none of us know where any of the traps are and how to get around them.
I get to be the Human Paladin. With at least a +3 Holy Avenger. That’s very important. Dude. Seriously. I’m not f$#king around here.
Gaming is big in the military, or so I hear. What other games do you or have you played?
* Gaming is HUGE in the military, as is all other SFF-genre loving activities (most importantly, reading). I love any tabletop word game (Scrabble and Boggle) and also the classic board/card games (San Juan, Puerto Rico, Carcassonne and Settlers of Cataan. Though, I should admit that I’m new to some of them). Talisman (with all its expansions) is OUTSTANDING.
I will play Magic if someone brings their decks, but I don’t own any of my own.
Then, there’s wargaming. I am a big fan of historical ancients/medieval games (I prefer 15mm) and my favorite rule set for that is DBA. I don’t really do napoleonic, but I will if I have a good mentor.
And, of course, there’s Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. There are no words for how unspeakably cool that universe is.
But the most important thing in gaming is the players. I really don’t care what I’m playing, so long as I’m at a table with a bunch of really cool people who are fun to hang out with.
December 15, 2011 / 11 Comments

Thea Harrison: The Terribleminds Interview

Thea Harrison is one of those authors who kind of floated in and out of my periphery over social media — I didn’t know her specifically, but I know folks who did and they were very excited by who she was and what she was doing. They were spot on — and I think you’ll get it, too. Thea’s got a new novella out, TRUE COLORS, and you’ll see my image right there on the cover. No really. NO, REALLY. Check out this interview with Thea, and then scout out her website and find her on the Twitters (@theaharrison)!

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

A woman went from unemployment to hitting the USA Today Bestselling List and the New York Times extended bestseller list in two and a half years.

The facts are true, but the story isn’t quite what it seems.  This journey was an amazing group effort, including a huge commitment of support by family members, an intense amount of work from a talented young literary agent, editor championship and publisher support.  Also, the woman had previous publication experience, and she had collected many rejections over the years.

Just yesterday I posted a “25 Things” list about writers and rejection. What’s your take on how a writer best handles rejection?

Whew, tough question.  I have an emotional reaction to rejection.  At best it’s a disappointment.  It can often sting quite badly, and sometimes I get upset.  But I keep that private.

In my opinion the very best thing a writer can do with rejection is maintain a professional demeanor in public (that means YOU, internet), keep the emotional stuff private, analyze why the rejection happened and learn from it.

Maybe the lesson is, well, you should keep your emotional reaction private.  Maybe it is something else.  If you send out three hundred and fifty queries (I made that number up) and you receive universal rejection, then it’s probably a really good idea to look at the quality and content of both your query and your project.  Maybe your query needs to be torn down and rewritten.  Maybe your project does.  Maybe your project needs to go in a drawer somewhere until you can calm down and actually come up with some useful strategies for moving forward.  Maybe, oh the horrors, you need to pitch the idea entirely, and yes, I’ve had my share of those.

Why do you tell stories?

I have a “rich inner life,” or so an acquaintance who has a PhD in psychology has told me.  Or perhaps I’m just neurotic.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Be too stupid to quit but too smart to keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Or in other words, study the craft, stop doing something if it doesn’t work, implement good advice, keep writing and stay professional.

Man, that’s some of the best condensed writing advice — a short sharp shock of good sense. Okay, so, let’s talk mistakes. Every writer has them. What mistakes have you made as a writer that you can share?

I’ve made many, many mistakes.  I’ve held onto project ideas when I should have let them go, and I’m pretty sure I’ve thrown away things that had promise.  I have worked too much in solitude, and probably every piece of advice I have offered in this blog is because I did something wrong.

What’s great about being a writer, and conversely, what sucks about it?

The great thing about being a writer, for me, is that I have an agent who loves the weird stuff in my head and editors who have, thus far, pretty much given me free rein in the creativity department.  That’s immensely satisfying, and I’m running with it as far and as fast as I can go.  Also, writers can work wherever they have a laptop, PC, tablet, typewriter or even a pen and notepad, so there’s a certain amount of flexibility that other jobs don’t have.

Conversely the sucky parts of writing are things that lots of people have written about before (including you in your blogs).  Every writer is going to suffer some kind of rejection.  It’s the nature of the beast, and you just gotta suck it up, baby, and learn from it (re: back to the too stupid/too smart thing).  And like any self-employment venture a writer needs to be prepared to work odd, long hours to meet a deadline, and the payment schedule can be irregular.  Also, while many people might have a hand in a project—from writer, to agent, to editor, copyeditor, cover artiest, line editor, typesetter, publishing sales team, and booksellers—the writing itself is a solitary job and it’s important to figure out how to balance that with social needs.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Payday.  Frequently.

To find out my favorite curse word, I just conducted some word searches in my WIP.  “Damn” is apparently my number one favorite.

Damn = 27

Fuck = 24

Hell = 15

Bitch = 8

Goddamn = 7

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

My current favorite is 667 Pinot Noir, a California wine.  It’s been on sale locally for around $12.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

I’m not particularly into westerns, but despite that I’ve been watching and enjoying AMC’s new series Hell On Wheels.  For me, the show has an interesting mix of action and historical detail, such as one character who survived Andersonville, one of the most horrendous prison camps from the American Civil War.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable zombie war?

None whatsoever, unless you count telling fun stories to other humans for stress relief.  If that doesn’t count I’m dead meat.

You’ve committed crimes against humanity. They caught you. You get one last meal.

I figure indigestion and a possible hangover won’t be an issue, and for the execution I’ll wear the diamond and gold bracelet that comes with the dessert.

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

The future holds lots of good stuff!  TRUE COLORS is a novella in my Elder Races series out on Tuesday December 13th, released by Samhain Publishing.

Then book four in the series, ORACLE’S MOON, will be released March 6, 2012.  I’m writing book five (untitled), which should have an autumn release in 2012, and I’m currently contracted through book six.

I also have been contracted for two dark romantic fantasies, as of yet unnamed, that are outside of the Elder Races series.  The first one is slated for release in 2013.

So, you just released a novella — do you prefer writing novels over novellas? Why the choice here to go with the shorter form?

In general I prefer writing novels, but I really like what I’m learning from working in a novella form.  I’ve currently got a second novella in submission with an editor.

One of the reasons why I’m exploring novella-writing is to develop a second revenue stream.  Another reason is to take the opportunity to tell stories about the alternative Earth I’m developing that don’t really warrant a full length novel.  It’s a bit experimental, so we’ll see what happens!

How do you approach writing fantasy? What would be your advice to anybody trying to write fantasy?

My first advice is to read read read.  Read every book on fantasy you can, then read science fiction, and then read horror, thrillers, mystery, literature, and throw in a lot of nonfiction too about religion, sociology, geography, history, politics, science and probably popular culture, and anything else you can get your hands on.  Maybe take some classes too.

The reason why I write this?  All of that will make you a better writer, no matter what you write.

Author Patricia C. Wrede has developed an excellent set of questions that can help writers consider the many different elements to creating a fantasy world.  You can find the list here.

Now that I’ve written that I’ll confess, for the first book in my Elder Races series, DRAGON BOUND, I was a “pantser,” or I wrote by the seat of my pants.  I sketched in details of an alternative Earth as I wrote the book then got very lucky and was offered a three-book contract for a series.  Since the series is open-ended, the world-building for me feels a lot like one very long jazz session, and I’m building the world as I go.  It’s both fun and challenging, as I’m working to stay consistent with previous stories.

Thanks so much for inviting me to be on your blog, Chuck, and thank you especially for posting during the release week for TRUE COLORS.  It’s been a pleasure!

November 17, 2011 / 15 Comments

Matt Forbeck: The Terribleminds Interview

Matt Forbeck is one crazy dude. Crazy like a fox. Crazy like a dude with a powerful brain parasite that serves him and provides him awesome creative powers in its symbiotic grip. What hasn’t Matt written? He’s written novels, games, comics, designed toys, penned whole encyclopedias. I don’t think he’s missing much on his resume except maybe “HVAC instructions” and “Communist manifesto.” Matt’s approach is not dissimilar from my own: write everything, and feed the family doing it. He’s a writer to whom you should be listening. You can find him at Forbeck.com, or @MForbeck on the Twitters. And, should you be so inclined to support his 12-for-12 endeavor, the Kickstarter is live and looking for funds.

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

Hemingway famously wrote a complete short story in six words to win a bet. It goes, “For sale: baby shoes, never used.”

I came up with a version of my own that features zombies. It goes:

“Brains!”

“Brains!”

“Brains!”

BLAM!

BLAM!

Click.

Why do you tell stories?

I’m a full-time professional writer, so the easy answer is “Money.” That’s not the real reason, of course. If I only cared about money, I’d take up investment banking.

I tell stories because I love seeing patterns in the world and figuring out how to make them as entertaining as I can. Stories are all about winnowing down the information life throws at you, finding the elements that mean something, and then weaving them together into a narrative. Sometimes you get to use those to make up things from whole cloth, but the process is much the same, and I get such a kick out of doing it.

I don’t know if I’d write if I had to do it for free. It’s a lot of work, and it takes me away from other things, like my wife and kids, but there’s no way you could stop me from telling stories.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Have fun with it. If you can’t enjoy writing the story, how can you expect your reader to enjoy reading it? That doesn’t mean every story has to be a rollercoaster ride of laughs, but you have to find a reason to love it. If you do, then others can too.

Got any advice for those wanting to become professional writers?

Stick to it. The worst thing anyone can say to you is “No,” and that’s not all that bad in the end. You’ll get a lot of that at first, and it’ll slack off as you improve your craft and your understanding of what the market (i.e. readers) wants.

Lots of people will tell you not to quit your day job, and I understand that. I never started the day job in the first place, which meant the transition from starving student to struggling writer had not even a speed bump for me. If you’re going to take risks like that, I say do them when you’re young, too ignorant to know better, and have far less to lose. It gets harder later, I’m told.

What’s great about being a writer, and conversely, what sucks about it?

Besides the fact I get to do what I love for a living — which is hard to beat — I adore the flexibility it gives me. I have a lot of kids at home (five, including a 9-year-old set of quadruplets), and being able to work out of my home gives me the kind of flexibility I need to be the best father I can to them. I can’t imagine how I’d hold down a regular job and manage it.

I could tell you all sorts of things that suck about it, but that would be whining about a job I love. I don’t think I could stomach it any more than your readers. It’s a challenge in many ways, sure, but I enjoy the challenges. That’s part of what makes it worth doing.

I have to ask, then: you’ve got quads, for Crom’s sake, so if anybody’s going to have some interesting parenting advice, it’s you. So, cough it up. Don’t keep the secrets to yourself.

I could write a book on this (and maybe someday will), but I’ll hit a few highlights.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. We had 30–35 people signing up on a schedule and coming in every week to lend a hand with feeding, diapering, cleaning. People are often thrilled to help out, especially when infants are involved. Most of our helpers were either grandmothers or women who wished they were, and we were happy to have our kids be surrogate grandkids for them all.

Don’t poke the bear. Or in this case, the kids. If they’re sleeping, let them lie if you can help it. Take advantage of it and grab a few winks for yourself. You’ll need every one of them.

Don’t forget to take care of your own basic needs first. You know how when the air masks drop down in an airplane, they tell you to take care of yourself before helping out your kids? Just like that. You’re no good to your kids if you’re passed out and they can’t wake you.

Don’t be afraid to use whatever tools you have at hand. When the quads started ripping their diapers off — something all kids learn to do — we turned to that most trusted fastener: duck tape. For the ones who were just fooling around, we just reinforced the diaper tabs with a couple strips of tape. For our more determined messers, we wrapped the roll right around their waistbands. Then we put them in a sleeper and fastened the zipper with a safety pin.

Whatever works.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

I could go on about “defenestrate” all day, but it’s not a word that comes up often in daily use. I like “brilliant” for its many meanings, and I probably say “cool” far too often.

For cursing, I usually stick with the classic “fuck.” Sometimes it’s “fucking hell” or “holy fuck” for emphasis. Shane Hensley once told me I use “fuck” like it’s a comma.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

I mostly stick with beer — I am from Wisconsin, after all — and I love trying new microbrews. My fallback is always Guinness. When I stray from beer, I enjoy tequila and scotch in many varieties.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

Try John Layman’s Chew from Image Comics. It’s about an investigator for the FDA in a world in which the bird flu has made eating any fowl illegal, and he had to root out illegal chicken operations. To top it off, he has this odd psychic power that gives him visions of the history of anything he eats. It gets weirder and more wonderful from there.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable zombie war?

Handling a large family has given me a strong command of supply and logistics. If we can hook a shotgunning robot up to an Xbox controller, too, I’d be happy to apply my hard-earned hours of video game skills to the slaughter.

You’ve committed crimes against humanity. They caught you. You get one last meal.

Something laced with a drug that induces a deathlike paralysis. Assuming they obey my last wishes and bury me without embalming, I’ll crawl from the grave days later to exact my revenge on the bastards who framed me.

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

I just launched a Kickstarter drive for a mad scheme I call 12 for ’12, in which I plan to write a 50,000-word novel every month in 2012. The first trilogy of these is set in the same world as the Brave New World RPG I wrote back in 1999, featuring a dystopian world filled with superheroes who have been outlawed due to the collateral damage their powers create. It’s a blast, and we’ve already hit our first goal, so I get to start writing in January. There’s still time for other folks to jump in on the fun though.

In addition to that, my next original novel from Angry Robot comes out in March. It’s called Carpathia, after the ship that picked up the survivors of the Titanic. Carpathia also happens to be the name of the mountains in which Castle Dracula sits, and this is not — in my novel, at least — any sort of coincidence.

I’m also writing the Magic: The Gathering comic book for IDW, based on the bestselling collectible card game from Wizards of the Coast. I’m a game designer too, so this is a dream project for me, and I’m having a tremendous amount of fun with it. The first issue ships in December, which is coming up fast.

Add in a few other novels and world-building and game-design gigs, and 2012 may be my busiest year yet.

Okay, you opened the can of worms, now: 12 novels in 12 months? First question is, do you have a brain parasite? Second question is, where can I get that parasite for myself? Third and final question: what’s the motive behind this kamikaze attack on your own bibliography?

I don’t think so (although perhaps my kids qualify). If I do, I’ll have to figure out a way to weaponize it. But not the kids. They’re already dangerous enough.

As for why, I have a number of reasons. First, I like the idea of the challenge. It’s bound to keep me focused on task, much in the same way as a revolver to my temple.

Second, I’ve been wanting to get back to publishing for a while. I co-founded a game publisher called Pinnacle Entertainment Group in the ’90s, and we had a string of hits, including Deadlands (a horror western RPG). I have all these publishing skills I’ve left unused for years, and it feels good to stretch them again. I plan to publish each of the 12 for ’12 novels as an ebook, although my Kickstarter backers have the option of grabbing the books early and even getting them in exclusive paperback and hardcover editions.

I want to pause and say how much I love my current publisher, Angry Robot. Marco and Lee have set up something wonderful there, and I truly enjoy working with them. When I have the right projects for them, they are the first people I turn to. As you’ve mentioned several times yourself, you don’t have to stand up and jam a flag in one camp or the other. It’s not a war. It’s an evolution.

Third, I didn’t want to just dip my toe into the ebook self-publishing waters. Just tossing up a single novel and hoping it sells seems like a recipe for failure. If people love your book, what else do you have to sell them? Some of the most successful ebook self-publishers are authors who bring a stable of out-of-print books back out.

Since most of my novels have been work-for-hire tie-ins, I don’t have a backlist like that to call on, but I didn’t want to wait the years it might take to build up a viable inventory of titles for people to enjoy. Writing 12 novels in a year gives me that wider selection in as close to instant as I can manage.

Will you put aside other work for all twelve novels?

I’m sure that I will, although I can’t say what it might be. As a freelancer, I often only book my time a few months out, and I have no idea what opportunities might come my way while I’m in the middle of the 12 for ’12 project. Honestly, it was one of the worries that gave me the most pause, but I’ll solve that problem if and when it comes up.

At the moment, I’m planning to write the Magic: The Gathering comic and help out on a massive world-building gig next year. We’ll have to see what else might come my way.

Care to give us a hint as to what the other novels will be? Will they all be Kickstarted?

At the moment, I’m planning to Kickstarter them all, but it depends on how this first drive goes. The second trilogy is set in a fantasy noir world I call Shotguns & Sorcery. I’ve already written two stories set in it, the first of which came out in Carnage & Consequences, an anthology the Gen Con Writers Symposium put together for last summer. The second story (which I wrote first) is slated for The New Hero 2, a Robin Laws-edited anthology due out in 2012.

I have many ideas for the third trilogy, but I’m going to wait a bit before I nail down what it will be. One of those ideas might become the fourth trilogy instead, but I’m also considering writing a three-pack of singletons for that, including perhaps some sequels to my earlier work.

That also begs the question: any advice for anybody looking to crowdfund on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo?

Pay attention to what other people are doing and how they go about it. Have a video that connects you personally with your audience. Concoct a reward ladder that people can understand easily. And have a plan for stretch goals if you manage to beat your initial goal right away.

Carpathia is, for the record, bonkers in the best way. I’m going to ask that most sinful of questions but I am compelled as if by vampiric hypnosis: where’d the idea come from?

Carpathia is the name of the ship that rescued the survivors of the Titanic. It’s also the name of the Transylvanian mountain range in which Castle Dracula sits. Once you make that connection, it’s not a long leap to mixing vampires and the greatest maritime disaster in history.

The novel winds up being much bigger than that simple description of course, but that’s why you sit down and write the book. If a high concept like “30 Days of Night meets Titanic” was only worth a chuckle, I’d stop there.

Did writing games help inform how you write your fiction? Or are they entirely separate disciplines?

They are separate but related disciplines, like half-brothers who live in the same house over summers and holidays. Games — especially roleplaying games — require you to create settings and characters rife with possibilities for all sorts of action and intrigue. You need to come up with every sort of element to allow and even encourage the players to concoct brilliant stories of their own, but when you’re done showing how to set up the dominoes, you walk away.

With fiction, you get to make your own set of dominoes, line them all up, and then tip them into motion and hope they all fall the way you think they will. Instead of coming up with a world of possible stories, though, you have to winnow all of those away until you come up with the one best story that resonates with you in the strongest way. It’s a whole different kind of challenge, but just as rewarding, maybe more so.

Finally: what’s the toughest thing about writing for the comic book page?

Writing a comic is the most technically challenging kind of writing around because you have to consider the page and format as a rigid framework. For most monthly comics, you have a set 22 pages in which to tell your story, which leaves you with zero wiggle room. In stories, novels, games — even film and TV — you can fudge things around a bit, but comics don’t have the same give.

On top of that, you have to think not only visually but in terms of two-page spreads. You build tension starting at the top left of the spread and work your way up to a climax in the bottom right. Then the reader turns the page for the reveal, and you start it all over again. Compressing everything you want to say and show into those pages can be a real challenge, but watching it all come to life in the hands of a talented art team is a true thrill.

October 13, 2011 / 8 Comments

J.C. Hutchins: The Terribleminds Interview

This week the temporal streams have crossed. Bodies have perhaps been swapped, as if in a comedy starring Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron, or starring Lindsay Lohan and an incontinent horse. At the fore of this week, Mister J.C. “Hutch Snugglepants McGee” Hutchins interviewed me at his podcast (come and bathe in the soothing dulcet sounds of my weird voice), and in the same fell swoop turned in his answers for an interview here at Jolly Ol’ Terribleminds. If you don’t know Hutch, well, shame on you — podcaster, novelist, and above all else, consummate storyteller. I read a script of his and it knocked me on my ass. Here, then, is his interview. You can find his website here at jchutchins.net and you should, of course, follow his ass on the Twittertubes (@jchutchins). Remember: Momma gets a what-what.

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

Back in the 1990s, I used to freelance for Wizard, a now-defunct print magazine that covered the comic book industry. I had the great fortune to interview some of my favorite comic writers — undisputed greats such as Will Eisner, Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis.

My favorite, and most memorable, interview was with writer Alan Moore. We talked about his new endeavor at the time, America’s Best Comics … and about his incredible legacy as a creator: Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, Watchmen. I probably gushed a bit about my favorite Superman comic story, which he wrote: “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”

And then I asked him about his life as a practicing magician.

Now when I say “magician,” I don’t mean card tricks, smoke bombs and top hat rabbits. That’s being an illusionist. What I was discussing with Moore was the real deal, the ancient shit — magic magic, the kind you conjure with sorcery and summonings. Moore was an earnest believer, and because I’m a wildly open-minded dude when it comes to this sort of thing because of some peculiar life experiences of my own, I didn’t bat an eye at his belief.

My favorite part of the interview was when he recalled a conversation he once had with the an ancient and powerful entity — I think it was the god Mercury. Moore was fully aware of how mad it all sounded, but again, could only share his belief and the authenticity of his personal experience.

It was at this point when I asked him: “How do you know you were talking to the god Mercury?”

“Well, when it looks like a god, and it barks like a god, it’s probably a god,” he replied.

It was an awesome conversation. I still have the tape somewhere. I remember him having a great voice. Deep and raspy, like he gargled gravel.

So yes. Magic. Spells, communing with gods, awesome. What magic would you possess if you could?

All of the ultra-cool abilities of a Jedi master, but without the midi-chlorians.

What’s great about being a writer, and conversely, what sucks about it?

There’s plenty to love about being a writer. I reckon my favorite part of it is that a goodly chunk of my heart gets to stay young for, like, forever. I get to play make believe every day. It’s nuts: People pay me to pretend for a living. That’s a cool, blessed job to have.

It can get lonesome — it’s just you and your puny words, desperately trying to do justice to the vision in your head. And it can get scary — as a freelance creator, I sometimes don’t know where the next paycheck’s coming from. It’s intimidating too, as the kind of work I do can be experimental … which means I’m learning on-the-fly, under the gun. And it can be heartbreaking. There’s a lot of rejection in this business.

The dreamer side of me — the part that concocts stories and writes them — is an ever-optimist. It’s gotta be. I can’t create when my heart is stony. I need my heart. I need to fall in love with whatever I’m writing about.

The entrepreneur side of me — the one that worries about hunting, and bills and day rates — it learned long ago the value of managed expectations. I ship, I rewrite if needed, I birddog the check. This side of me insists I’ll never be more than what I presently am: a grease-grimed mechanic who’s here to fucking work.

This actually delights my inner optimist, because being a grease-grimed wordherder is all I’ve ever wanted to be.

Let’s talk about transmedia — you’re both fan and practitioner. Care to define what it is in your own words?

Sure. “Transmedia” is an emerging, and usually technology-fueled, way to tell stories. Transmedia narratives are designed to unfold in multiple storytelling media, often simultaneously.

Think of a physical newspaper. You read a front page story and experience its nonfiction narrative in many ways: Through the high concept headline, the body text, the photos and cutlines, a colorful infographic or two. Even the “Continued on Page A3” jump prompt states there’s more to consume if you expend the effort to find it … as does the boldfaced call to action to visit the newspaper’s website for “breaking news updates” on this story, including audio recordings and more in-depth reporting.

Each medium here tells its part of the story in ways that best plays to its strengths. Complex expositions are best-left to text … but text can never capture a moment as exquisitely as a photograph. But photographs can’t deliver the arresting immediacy of video or audio. And none of these media can rival experiencing the story first-hand, in the field.

That kind of packaged newspaper story is an ultra-simplistic example of what I consider transmedia: A cohesive narrative deliberately designed to be experienced through multiple media and multiple channels.

Now imagine building fictional narratives with this paradigm in mind: multiple media delivered through multiple channels — including live events that support the fictional conceit (in which your audience become participants) — all serving a common story. When you bake this compelling opportunity into the DNA of the stories you’re telling, things get very interesting and cool very quickly.

I’ve got a whole chunk of my brain presently dedicated to developing ways to apply this ecumenical approach to expanding not just the storytelling methods within a narrative … but the kinds of transmedia narratives one can create within a larger storyworld.

I believe that a fictional universe need not cater to a single genre or demographic. I’m working on developing transmedia intellectual properties that can accommodate all genres and demographics — from hard SF for teenagers to rom-coms for Baby Boomers. It’s very ambitious, but absolutely possible.

What’s the power of transmedia? And what are its perils?

To be clear: There will always be stories best-told through a single medium. Folks need not worry about their novels or movies going away. But I believe transmedia narratives will crack open storytelling in new ways that we’ll be exploring and experiencing for decades.

We’re already at a point where storytellers can economically craft narratives in which their characters can receive and send emails and phone messages from real people (aka consumers), post video blog “confessionals” or handheld location shots, and leave behind “evidence” in real life locations that can be documented and shared online by audience members. What I just mentioned is kindergarten, low-cost stuff … but is widely considered revolutionary by average consumers who are accustomed to passively consuming broadcast-style entertainment.

The true and disruptive potential of transmedia storytelling is that nearly everything around us — your phone, a billboard, a mailed letter, a t-shirt, a tweet — can be used to contribute to a cohesive narrative. Your narrative. That’ll blow your mind if you let it. And you should let it, because storytellers need to be thinking about this stuff.

The perils are as numerous as its promises. When you start adding additional media or channels to tell your story, you start adding time, effort and risk to the project. You also add expense, which can sharply decrease your number of achievable cross-media / cross-channel storytelling opportunities. I reckon this is why the most famous transmedia stories — such as the brilliant Alternate Reality Game Why So Serious? — are funded by mainstream entertainment entities as promotional vehicles for films, video games and TV shows. These stories have many moving parts. You gotta cough up cash for those parts, and for mechanics like me to make them go.

I also fear that transmedia storytelling will be forever linked to these event-like promotions, and won’t be find wider creator and audience acceptance. We’re getting there. There’ve been several downright genius indie transmedia experiences … and mainstream entertainment and video game studios are savvily exploring transmedia’s potential. But I reckon that until we’re on the cover of Newsweek, we’ll still be underground Morlocks in the eyes of mainstream consumers.

Don’t get me wrong, I kinda like being a Morlock. But I also want these stories to break out in wildly successful ways.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Cheerful. Cocksucker.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

I’m not much of a boozer, but I consume astounding quantities of Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi. Oh Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi, I’d do anything for you.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

I won’t be recommending anything you or your brilliant peeps haven’t already consumed, but sometimes it’s nice to revisit a story to study the thing, and marvel at its execution. When I think about great taletelling, my mind zips immediately to:

Books: Scalzi’s Old Man’s War … King’s The Stand, Pet Sematary and Bag of Bones … Deaver’s The Coffin Dancer … Vinge’s A Deepness In the Sky … Melzer’s The First Daughter. All masterpieces, on their own terms.

Comics: Thompson’s Blankets … much of Morrison’s run on JLA … Waid’s run on The Flash … Johns’ early-to-mid Flash stuff … Gaiman’s Sandman … Ennis’ Preacher … Woods’ DMZ … and nearly everything Ellis writes.

Movies: Back to the Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Robocop, Aliens, Star Wars. Everything I learned about writing airtight plots, high-stakes conflicts and memorable characters came from studying these flicks.

Games: I loved the nontraditional, but very moving, storytelling in Ico and Portal, and how game company Valve brilliantly incorporated a more traditional narrative into Portal 2.

I’ve enjoyed the Mass Effect series’ branching narrative and superbly realized storyworld. L.A. Noire’s nuanced gameplay, and how that affects the unfolding story, is awfully cool.

Whenever I want inspiration for a great piss-and-vinegar, kill-em-all-deader-than-dead revenge story, I play some God of War III. I get to be a god slayer. How badass is that?

I’ve watched you recently get into video games (Uncharted, God of War, Portal 2). What’s the trick to good storytelling in games?

Earlier this year, I bought a PlayStation 3 to replace an unreliable shitheap Samsung Blu-Ray player. On a lark, I fired up the complimentary game that came with the console — Killzone 3 — and within minutes, was literally getting weepy. I was absolutely humbled by the spectacle, and the quality of writing, music, sound effects and visuals.

I sucked at the game — it had been 10 years since I’d gamed — but I immediately saw video games as the legitimate storytelling frontier it in fact is. I made a decision right there, within 10 minutes of firing up that PS3, to do whatever I needed to do so’s I could write video games someday.

That means gaming my ass off, which is what I’ve been doing ever since.

Games are a unique breed of storytelling. But they’re still stories, so many of the “must-haves” in other media must be represented in games: interesting characters and conflicts, larger machinations that are revealed over the course of the narrative, a theme and emotional anchor driving the story, foreshadowing and payoff … that stuff.

The popular theory seems to be that video game players are there to play, not watch a movie. Savvy developers are catering to this. Games like Gears of War 3 have nailed a successful formula — brief cutscenes, with exposition delivered through gameplay dialogue. (As opposed to all exposition being delivered via cutscenes.) I read somewhere that the longest cutscene in Gears of War 3 was 40-odd seconds. The rest of the narrative was smartly delivered as the player explored the world.

Personally, I love cutscenes. I don’t mind relinquishing control of the experience so long as my recent hard-fought victory (against a level boss, for instance) is rewarded with an appropriately cool plot twist or an emotionally resonant character arc.

To me, that’s what games are: fun problem-solving experiences. The best game narratives understand that effort / reward dynamic, and effectively amp up your investment of effort as the game progresses … and rewards that effort with an equally amped-up story and stakes. I like my video game narratives to be jaw-dropping epics — but it’s the emotional growth of the character (and needing to know what happens next) that keeps me coming back.

That’s just like any other well-told story.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable zombie war?

My horrified screams of mercy — and then my howls of suffering as the undead shred open my stomach and feast on my intestines (and I’ll still be conscious through the whole thing, watching them feast, silently marveling, “How did all of that fit inside my body, oh my god, sausage, it looks like long ropes of sausage”) — will undoubtedly inspire others to learn how to properly load a firearm.

You’ve committed crimes against humanity. They caught you. You get one last meal.

Angelina Jolie.

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

I’m collaborating with marketing agency Campfire on a few groundbreaking marketing campaigns. One is for a TV miniseries based on a bestselling horror novel; the other is for a multi-console video game. These are a lot of fun because I get to help expand the storyworlds of those universes and use my writing and research skills in many different ways. One of those campaigns will go live later this year.

I’m also the lead writer on a new tabletop miniatures game currently in development. That’s a ton of fun because I get to do some serious worldbuilding. I’ve also got an ownership stake in that game, so I’m personally invested in its success — which always helps bring focus and one’s best work to a project. That’ll be out next year.

I’m also on the prowl for video game writing opportunities. I’ll continue to pursue that in earnest in 2012.

As for my personal work, I’ll release two novels, a short story anthology and probably a novella into several ebook marketplaces by year’s end. There’s also a mile-long list of stories and screenplays to write. It’s never a dull moment around here. Inside my noggin, I mean.

Got any writing or storytelling advice for folks?

Humans are capable of making all kinds of cool stuff, but we can’t make more time. Tick-tock, we can’t get it back. Past tense, man. Gone baby, gone — forever.

How much of that gone-baby-gone time have you spent talking about writing, and not actually writing? How many hours, days, weeks, months, years — sweet Jesus, decades — have you spent telling others about all the stories you’ll someday write? That novel. That comic book. That screenplay. Memoir. Whatever.

You’ll never get that time back. Ever. That’s time you could have spent living your dreams by writing your stories. Your lip-flapping is actively sabotaging your chances of achieving your dreams. Shame on you. You’ve talked enough.

That’s my advice. You’re either a writer or you aren’t. Writers write. So write.

October 6, 2011 / 10 Comments

Joelle Charbonneau: The Terribleminds Interview

Joelle Charbonneau is one of the nicest and hardest working authors I know. She kicks ten kinds of ass. We share an agent — the uber-super-ultra-agent, Stacia Decker — but the sad thing is, without that connection I might not have read Joelle’s delightful debut, SKATING AROUND THE LAW. Which would be an epic mistake on my part because it was a blast — and, for a bit of meaningless trivia, the first e-book I ever read (tied with Hilary Davidson’s also-excellent THE DAMAGE DONE, both of which I read at the same time). Anyway — you can find Joelle’s website here, and follow her on Twitter @jcharbonneau.

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

Why do you tell stories?  Because I always wanted to be a superhero and couldn’t fly.  Okay – maybe that is taking it a little too far, but I have always wanted to do and be more than can be crammed into one lifetime.  Telling stories is a great way to walk in a really cool pair of shoes for a while.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Cut the boring stuff.

Of course, to do that you have to be willing to admit that some of what you have written is boring.  Everyone has their longwinded, boring, pacing stopping moments.  A writer has to take a step back and be willing to say that something they’ve written is crap.  That’s the only way you can make a story shine.

What’s great about being a writer, and conversely, what sucks about it?

The whole superhero thing is the great part about being a writer.  There are endless possibilities and as a writer I am able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and create sex-driven grandfathers and camels who wear hats without ever leaving the confines of my living room.  Of course, that being said there are things that totally suck.  The whole mentality of ‘if you build it they will come’ is total crap.  Just because you write something doesn’t mean anyone will ever read it.  It doesn’t matter how great your writing is, just because it is sitting on the shelf in a bookstore doesn’t guarantee that a person will plunk down cold hard cash for the opportunity to visit your imagination.  Promotion is part of the writing business.  It takes away from the time you would rather spend writing and the worst part is that a writer never really knows what PR actually leads to sales.  You just have to keep throwing things against a wall and hoping something will stick.  And even then….  Yeah – it sucks.

You did it, you triggered the alarm by mentioning the word “superhero.” That means it’s time for that tried-and-true question: if you were a superhero, what would your powers be?

My first instinct is to say that I would fly, but that is a totally lame super power unless it comes package with super strength or something equally useful.  I mean, flying is great for a personal hobby, but what good are you to someone who falls off of a building or to a plane that loses an engine.  If you try to catch the person or help the plane you end up dead.  Dead is bad.  So, I’m scratching flying off the list.  Since the wave of the future is computers, I plan on being Data-girl – someone whose mind can meld with and manipulate computers without a single touch of a key.  I’m taking over the Matrix baby!

Follow-up: if you had the chance to write the stories of one superhero, which superhero would that be?

Firestar – I grew up an X-Men fan.  Firestar was always willing to torch some guy’s ass for justice, but no one ever bothered to really deep dive into her character.  Maybe they just thought it was enough that she was a redhead and hot, but I think she got the short end of the stick.

Skating Around The Law and Skating Over The Line are your two mysteries featuring Rebecca Robbins, rink-owner and amateur detective. Can you talk about constructing those books. In particular: how do you engineer a great mystery for an audience?

I think a great mystery needs to have fast pacing, a fun puzzle and most of all it needs to play fair with the reader.  If the main detective (amateur or otherwise) knows something about the case then the reader needs to know it, too.  Which in my mind means that the reader has to have the puzzle pieces in front of them to solve the crime – especially if you are writing in first person.  Pointing the finger at a bad guy the reader has barely met or never had any real information on is cheating.  As a reader, there is nothing I hate more than investing my time in a book where the ending feels forced or comes out of left field.  Surprise is good, but the reader needs to be able to go back through the book and find the sprinkling of clues that in hindsight points them in the right direction.  If those clues aren’t there, the mystery often falls flat.

The Rebecca Robbins mysteries are both mystery and character driven.  I want readers to be equally invested in both.  Each book has a stand alone mystery that should engage and entertain the reader, which means you don’t have to start at the beginning of the series.  A reader can jump right into any book without feeling like they are playing catch up.  However, it is my hope that I’ve constructed the storylines to allow the characters to grow from book to book and that the readers will come back for those characters as much as they come back for the mysteries.

A lot of your characters are quirky and endearing. You write them well and so it forces me to ask, what’s the secret in writing great characters?

Wow.  Thanks.  Now I feel the need to say something profound and earthshaking about characters.  One moment while I get a paper bag to stop my hyperventilation.

Ok – the bag worked so here goes.  I think the best characters are at the core people we can identify with.  If you start out with the intention to write a wacky, eccentric character, you come out with a caricature instead.  Characters aren’t one dimensional.  They need to be well-rounded.  You have to start at the bottom, find the pieces of the character that everyone can identify with and build from there.  In my case, I didn’t start out writing Skating Around The Law saying “I want Rebecca to have a lothario grandfather with a penchant for impersonating Elvis.”  My intent was to create a touchstone for Rebecca in her old home town that she fought so hard to get out of.  I wanted her to have a caring presence in her life who supported her and at the same time wanted her to think twice before selling her deceased mother’s roller rink.  At the core, he is the grandfather we all can identify with.  He loves his granddaughter, but he also is selfish enough to try and keep her close by.  It just turns out that he juggles multiple girlfriends and loves mimicking The King.

We need to talk about the camel. Elwood the camel is such a great character. Yet because he’s a camel, he’s built in very simple, straightforward strokes. Where’d you get the idea for Elwood?

Good question and I even have an answer to it!  When I’m not writing or chasing around after my toddler I’m a voice teacher.  A few days after I started noodling the idea for Skating Around The Law, I had a lesson with a student who owns horses.  While we were chatting, she let me know she wouldn’t be able to make her next lesson because her horse had to go to the U of I.  Being the sarcastic sort I said, “Wow, smart horse.”  She laughed and explained that she was taking her horse to the large animal veterinary clinic at the university.  She then went onto say that the last time she went to the clinic there was a guy there with a camel.  Stranger still, the guy wasn’t the camel’s owner.  Turns out the camel didn’t like the farmer he lived with and caused problems whenever the farmer brought him to the clinic.  In fact, the last time the farmer brought him, the camel broke out of his carrier and went running down I57 in an eventually aborted jail break.  The image of the camel racing down the road flanked by cornstalks and soybean plants stayed with me long after the lesson and I couldn’t quite figure out why anyone in the middle of Illinois would own a camel.  A few days later I wrote the opening to Skating Around The Law and at the end of chapter three there was a camel wearing a fedora – my explanation as to why a camel would be living in rural Illinois.

Both those books are “cozies.” You ever want to write something totally opposite to that? Grim and gory and noir-soaked and blood-caked?

I would like to point out that my agent has labeled my books “Itchies”  – not quite cozy…kind of like a wool sweater that keeps you warm but makes you twitch a bit while wearing it.  I’m not sure if that is flattering, but it sounds about right since my sense of humor is a little edgier than the typical cozy.

And YES!  I have written and will hopefully continue to write stuff that is grimmer, gorier and more disturbing that what appears in Indian Falls.  I have no idea if those books will ever sell, but I think it is important for me to explore the darker ideas to keep my writing sharp and my imagination fresh.  Anyone will tell you that writing comedy is tough.  When you push too hard to get a laugh everything falls apart.  It’s important to take a step away every now and then and remind yourself that you don’t need to be funny.  You just need to write the characters and let them tell the story.  Writing something different always helps me take that step back.  Conversely, writing the lighter stuff makes me look forward to spending time in the shadows.

As for the stuff I’ve written that explores those shadows, well, I hope they will make an appearance on bookshelves.  In this business, it is tough to say what will sell and what won’t.  As writers we just have to keep telling stories and hope that at some point someone will get a chance to read them.

Favorite word?

Outstanding.

And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Craptastic –Does that count?

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

Sauvignon Blanc.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.  It always reminds me of peeling an onion.  Layer by layer you learn that everyone on the train has a secret.  How cool is that?

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable zombie war?

Just line the zombies up like an alley full of bowling pins and I’ll mow them down.  Me and my pretty blue bowling ball can do some damage.  (I can also sauté up a mean Zombie soufflé, but that’s for after the war is won.)

You’ve committed crimes against humanity. They caught you. You get one last meal.

I knew those crimes would catch up to me.  Okay, if I’m going out I’m going out with a bang.  I’m thinking Crawfish etouffee over dirty rice and as much freshly baked cornbread as I can eat.

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

I’m about ready to start the second book in the Paige Marshall mystery series.  The heroine is a classical singer turned amateur sleuth.  One of my other professions is stage performing, so I’m looking forward to once again merging those two facets of my life.  As far as the future?  The hell if I know.  I’ll just keep sitting my butt in the chair and getting words on the page.  Hopefully, people will continue to read them.  If not, you might find me racing around town in tights and a cape.  You just never know.

September 29, 2011 / 9 Comments

In Which I Am Interviewed By SFX Magazine

I’m waiting on a few kick-ass interviews (Joelle Charbonneau! JC Hutchins! Pat Kelleher!), but in the meantime I figured I’d flip it and switch it and post a short interview I did with SFX Magazine regarding DOUBLE DEAD, which comes out in November. A small version of the image is below, but if you click it, you’ll embiggenate that sonofabitch. You’ll embiggen it reaaaal goood.

This is also the second time I’ve been mentioned in SFX in just a few short months. The first thanks to Aaron Dembski-Bowden, who was kind enough to pimp my writing books.

This interview is truncated, unfortunately — not that I blame them for doing so, but I wrote a whole lot more than what’s in there. If I find out I can post the whole thing, I shall.

Also: yesterday I received a first look at the BLACKBIRDS cover, which is — well, I can’t share it with you. I can’t even share who’s doing it. All I can say is, it is a fucking whopper of a cover. Embodies the book so elegantly, it’s insane. It’s a real stunner and were it sitting on a shelf near to my face, I’d instantly look at it. And then I’d probably masturbate. I mean, I might do that anyway? I should stop talking.

So, here goes:

Interview.

Boom.

Oh, you should feel free to go buy a copy of SFX (#214) if you want. And then rub it on yourself.

IT RUBS THE INTERVIEW ON THE PRIVATES OR IT GETS THE HOSE AGAIN

 

(Thanks to Adam Christopher for making me aware of the interview!)

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