Cege Smith's Blog, page 9

Why I’m Still Afraid of the Dark

Confession time. I’m 36 years old and I still jog up the staircase at night after turning off the lights on the floor below. I’ve got an inner dialogue going on the whole time that sounds something like this:

“This is so stupid. You are way too old to act like this. Seriously, what (or who) do you think is going to come after you? The boogeyman?”

Followed quickly by:

“Man, I need to get to the gym.”

That second part is a self-deprecating story for another day.

Let’s focus in on the fact that I turn into a ten year kid in my own house by letting fear almost completely overrule every rational thought in my head. When it comes down to it, I’m not a fan of the dark. I don’t find it particularly comforting, and instead it has always represented in my mind a place where things that want to hurt you hide away until you are completely vulnerable. Then those things will lunge out and grab you with no remorse and reduce you into a crying, terrified, now-I-need-therapy mess (that is, if you weren’t completely spirited away into another universe of course).

You may chalk it up to my early discovery of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and the like. Or the fact that I read every Stephen King book I could get my hands on somewhere between fifth and sixth grade. My middle school mind was shaped by these big uglies who had their terrifying agenda of revenge and often stalked their prey at night. You know, when everybody was sleeping. I got older and even though I knew that none of these things were real, I was even more drawn to them (ahem, vampire junkie anyone?). But that fear of the dark remained.

Then as a grown-up, I learned a shocking truth. You don’t need a Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, or Michael Myers to come along and do evil things. Human beings, the ones that exist here and now in the real world, are just as capable of the dastardly awful things that I saw in movies and read about in my fiction books. I learned that there are people out there who don’t know me, but given the proper motivation (in their minds anyway) would hurt me without hesitation or provocation. Usually you can’t see those people coming either. They hide behind normal faces in normal places. They could be anywhere. That fear becomes even more pronounced as you transfer it to those that you love.

You may wonder how a big old scaredy cat like me could write horror or any other kind of spooky story about things that go bump in the night when I feel this way. Part of the reason is because regardless of how I feel about the creatures themselves, I still get a little bit of a thrill out of being scared inside a safely contained fictional environment. I’m the first person in line to see movies like Resident Evil (and all of its sequels) and the remakes of my favorite horror movies from when I was a kid (even though they are almost always spectacularly bad). I think the important words there, in case you missed them, were “safely contained” and “fictional”. When I’m in control of the words going down on the page, those things hold no power over me. In fact, I could erase them without a second thought. No, those fictional baddies don’t scare me.

But movies like Blood Diamond and Tears of the Sun stress me out and put me in a melancholy depression for days – because even though the story may be fiction, the truth behind the story is not. What human beings can do to other human beings is ghastly and deeply disturbing to me. In the end, that’s why, at 36, I’m still afraid of the dark. It’s not because of the monsters inside my head or that I find in other writers’ work; it’s the real monsters out there that I know exist. I hope they never find my doorstep, or yours. But in the meantime, you’ll still find me looking over my shoulder when I climb those stairs at night.

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Paranormal Headliner: Tunku Halim

Today I’m bring some international flair to the Paranormal Book Beat in the form on my latest Paranormal Headliner, Tunku Halim.

Tunku has published two novels and five collections of short stories, the latest being 44 Cemetery Road and Gravedigger’s Kiss. His novel, Dark Demon Rising, was nominated for the 1999 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award while his second novel. Vermillion Eye, was a study text at The National University of Singapore.

Welcome Tunku!

A Little Bit about Tunku

Tunku lives in Australia but is a frequent visitor to his country of birth, Malaysia. He is a lawyer turned writer. He is interested in real estate design and development.

Recently his stories “Biggest Baddest Bomoh” and “Keramat” have respectively appeared in The Apex Book of World SF (Apex Publications) and Exotic Gothic 3 (Ash-Tree Press) whilst his essay on Margot Livesey’s Eva Moves the Furniture was published in Twenty-First-Century Gothic: Great Gothic Novels Since 2000 (The Scarecrow Press). His latest tale “In the Village of Setang” is soon to be published in Exotic Gothic 4 (PS Publishing).

He also writes non-fiction, including A Children’s History of Malaysia and History of Malaysia – A Children’s Encyclopedia.

You are my first international Paranormal Headliner! Can you tell us a bit about the places that you’ve lived and what you liked best about them?

Tunku: I was born in Malaysia but was sent off to a boarding school in England at 13. I’ve been living in Australia for almost 20 years, 10 in Sydney and 10 in Hobart, Tasmania. I love the gothic atmosphere in so many English towns and villages. The natural scenery in Australia, especially Tasmania, is stunning. The social scene in Malaysia is great. Good food and lots of friends and relatives who love discussing about ghosts and ghouls!

What do you do to unwind and relax?

Tunku: I used to be into Karate, but now I do Yoga. I recently have taken up oil painting and drawing.

Tunku on Writing

What is it about writing that brings you back to the page for more?

Tunku: I suppose there’s a yearning to share something, to tell a tale, to explore an idea and to create something.

What were the key influences for your books?

Tunku: Being born in Malaysia, its myths and legends are very important. I also like to think that there’s a hidden world behind our day-to-day one, this is what’s drawn out in my writing. Of course, I love Stephen King too!

Are any of your characters based on people that you’ve known, or situations in your books things you’ve encountered in real life?

Tunku: Yes and yes. But I wouldn’t want to go into any details. Trade secret …

What is your writing process- do you plot/plan or do you write from the seat of your pants?

Tunku: I write organically. I start out with a scene, a character or an idea and I see where that takes me. Staring out with a well-formed plot would be too uninteresting for me and removes the pleasure of the unknown journey before me.

How much research do you do for each of your projects?

Tunku: Very little. Most of the research is in the head!

What is the hardest part of writing for you?

Tunku: Getting started on a story.

What advice would you give to writers just starting out?

Tunku: Write as much as possible. Don’t worry about the quality of what you’re written. Find out about the writer’s craft from books and courses. Writing is like playing the piano, the more you write the better you get at it.

What are you current working on?

Tunku: A short story for an anthology called “Exotic Gothic 5″ (edited by Danel Olson).

Tunku’s Paranormal Perspectives

Do you identify more with the horror genre or the paranormal (or both)?

Tunku: I started off as a horror writer but gradually the desire to strike fear into the heart of the reader became less and less important. I certainly use elements of horror but without the blood and gore. I wrote what can be called a paranormal romance novella several years back called “Juriah’s Song” but it was well before the Twilight novels

became such a hit. I think I’m more comfortable with the phrase “Gothic fiction” or “dark fantasy”. It allows me to soar anywhere on these old bat wings.

How you feel about the boom of paranormal fiction recently?

Tunku: There’s too much of it and this will lead to its eventual demise. This is what happened to the horror boom in the 1980s. Good fiction will always stay with us though.

What scares you?

Tunku: Horror movies. Humanity’s stupidity.

What do you think draws people to this type of fiction?

Tunku: We all believe that if we find the perfect man/woman then we’ll finally be happy. I don’t believe anyone has found that perfect person. So many romances have been crushed. The paranormal romance novel implicitly recognizes this and so takes it to one extreme. The perfect partner has to “super human”, a vampire, a werewolf … but with a heart of gold.

Connect with Tunku:

http://tunkuhalim.com

http://tunkuhalim.wordpress.com

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Paranormal Headliner: Matt Posner

Today I’m welcoming the author and Dean of the School of the Ages- “America’s Greatest School of Magic”! This delightful YA series is being released in five parts through 2015. Matt also writes poetry, literary and genre fiction, and is gearing up to release a non-fiction book geared toward teens in May. Welcome Matt!

A Little About Matt

Matt Posner is a writer and public school teacher from New York City. Originally from Miami, Florida, he has been happily married to Julie for twelve years.

You currently live in NYC.  What’s your favorite thing about the city?

Matt: New York City is a multicultural place. The mix of nationalities, ethnicities, and cultures makes it more complex and more in the spirit of America than any other place I have lived. I like other places where I’ve been for other reasons – I like small-town life also – but if I’m going to live in a big city, then let it be one where there are many different types of people to meet, all blended together.

Also, NYC is full of museums and restaurants. I like to see great art and to tell my students to see it; and I appreciate the variety of restaurants. You can find me at Museum of Modern Art especially.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Matt: I decided when I was twelve to be a writer. I started writing fiction then. I figured, sort of vaguely, that I would be a teacher also, because I liked to impart knowledge.  Alas, I didn’t have the expectation then, because my generation had a different energy, that teaching would be so substantially about disciplining and controlling kids who would so fiercely resist being taught. Overall my plan from about age twelve was to be a full-time novelist. I haven’t reached that one as yet, and so long as I have a union job, I don’t think I will leave teaching. You just don’t leave union jobs – we trade-unionists are beacons of hope for Americans, demonstrating as we do how working lives in the United States should really be. The American worker is always getting screwed by the employer. Not as easy to mess up union workers through no fault of their own.

What do you do to unwind and relax?

Matt: My wife and I watch movies and TV. A lot of cooking channel, mainly competitions (Chopped, Sweet Genius, Top Chef, Next Iron Chef, etc.) and fix-the-restaurant shows (Kitchen Nightmares, Restaurant: Impossible, Restaurant Stakeout) and sci-fi/fantasy (Star Trek, Doctor Who, Warehouse 13, Eureka) and paranormal shows (currently Paranormal State). We also like foreign movies. I read, of course, but a lot of that is work these days, since I accept for review far more books than I can keep up with.

I used to be an active gamer, involved daily with role-playing and collectible card games, but those days are over, although I still think about my amazing former hobbies.

Share one thing about yourself that not a lot of people know about you.

Matt: I was a high school wrestler. I wasn’t very good, but I spent two years hanging with the team and wrestling JV in order to prove to myself that I could be more than just a bookworm. I never have been athletic, but I took on the toughest challenge imaginable in amateur sports because I was attracted to it and I wanted to be a more complex and capable person.

You’ve mentioned that you are also a musician. What instruments do you play (or have played)?  

Matt: I’m a percussionist, one hundred percent self-taught. My parents are musicians, and I inherited musical talent from them. I’ve never had a percussion lesson, and as a result I don’t have the skills to work a drum kit, but I have good musical impulses and I use them in performing. In my group I am also a voice performer, which means that I offer expressive renditions of poetry I have written. For music, I also now use the iPad with good musical apps such as ThumbJam and Animoog.

Matt on Writing

I’m going to ask you a very obvious question. Reading your reviews, I saw the name “Harry Potter” come up a lot. What makes your books different from that series?

Matt: If I had the last many years to do over, I would not start a series I would then have to defend from the accusation of being like Harry Potter. I was writing about wizards and magicians long before J.K. Rowling did; she just got into print first. The similarities are that I am writing about a magic boarding school, and that there is a British girl in the book. But half that boarding school is Chasidic Jews direct from Brooklyn! My books are American in flavor, multicultural, with real history, beliefs, and religion included. The first book, The Ghost in the Crystal, deals extensively with Jewish themes. Although these don’t go away, I explore other cultures and other aspects of history as the series continues, with strong interest in Asian India.  I use real places in New York, and in later books, real places in other parts of the world.

My magic system is much more like the real-world paranormal. Most of the magic is mental, and the kids get their powers through meditation and through knowledge of the European tradition of Hermeticism/Occultism. Their powers look a lot like powers attributed to historical mystics and magicians, ranging from John Dee to Gurdjieff. Ghosts (I have lots of ghosts) behave a little more like ghosts than Rowling’s, who behave like Disney cartoons.

I think J.K. Rowling’s message is primarily about sacrifice and is fundamentally a Christian message. Her books constitute a giant Church of England version of C.S. Lewis, it could be argued, with Harry dying and being reborn in the same fashion as Jesus, sacrificing himself out of Love to protect others. I find this a relatively rancid theme. “Good people must sacrifice themselves to fight against evil; courage is the greatest virtue.”  Yeah, yeah. After all that inventiveness and all that world-building she did, and her ultimate inability to sort it out properly so that she just dumps all her characters into the climax because she can’t bear to part with them, and kills some of them off meaninglessly just because it would be unrealistic not to… After all that, we get in the end the same old message of Christian virtue that may have been drilled into her in church hymns when she was an impressionable youth.

Something more sophisticated is needed now. We are living in a global culture, and we must reach for universal themes. What is common to all humanity? What is a view of reality that crosses national, ethnic, religious boundaries? How can we empower young people to solve problems rather than saddle them with another batch of stiff-upper-lip twaddle about responsibilities imposed upon them by an obsolescent social framework? I do believe in social responsibility, of course; I’m a teacher, after all. But I don’t think kids are inspired to it by Rowling’s message. Sacrificing yourself for others is admirable, of course; it’s her heavy-handedness I’m complaining about.

You’ve written in a few different genres over the years. What do you like (or not like) about each of them?

Matt: I will write in any genre that appeals to me and that I think I can handle. My goal is to build myself as a brand and I don’t think I need to limit myself to one category of output in order to do that. Young adult fantasy is my primary genre now because I’m moved by it and I enjoy writing it. I like the ability to combine the world I live in with mythical and paranormal elements. In a sense I’m writing about the world I’d like to live in. I’d like to live in a world full of ghosts and psychic powers and time slips and UFOs and cryptids. I can’t dwell there, since my actual world is full of curriculum mapping and counseling memos and teen pregnancy and traffic jams, but my characters can live in that wonderful world that I long for. Like most writers, I write what I want to read.

My next book, Teen Guide to Sex and Relationships, coming in May and co-authored with Jess C. Scott, is my first published nonfiction, but imparting nonfictional content is what I do daily as a teacher, so it’s far from new territory. Jess and I (she’s a wonderful, cool, nonconformist author who specializes in relationship-based erotica) give advice to teens about sexuality and emotions, speaking like older, caring, experienced friends. Our beta readers like it so far; I think kids will as well.

I did a poetry/photography book, Vampire Poet, because poetry and photography are hobbies and I wanted to share what I had done with them. Poetry is not a commercially viable form, but it appeals to me because of the ability to pack a lot of power into a small and digestible unit.

I have written literary fiction, which you can find in some of my anthologies (With Love; With Love: After Dark; and of course the top-selling Kindle All-Stars:  Resistance Front) but genre fiction is more natural for me. Epic fantasy was my genre of choice as a young man, and I will return to it eventually, perhaps once School of the Ages has run its course. In a recent anthology, The Evil Within, I took on genre horror, and I plan to write some more of it also. I read Stephen King’s book Danse Macabre as a teenager, which describes how to do it, and I essentially will write horror the way King describes there. Blood and mutilation aren’t a natural form of expression for me, but I can do them, I figure.

What is it about writing that brings you back to the page for more?

Matt: The story isn’t finished yet. The characters haven’t been brought to the place where I can leave them alone. They haven’t been explored to their inner reaches, their hearts bared entirely. They haven’t settled their conflicts. That just has to be done if it can be done.

How do you decide on the titles of your books?

Matt: My book titles are full of expressive powerful nouns, and they carry a certain amount of mystery. The Ghost in the Crystal as a title is like Tolkien’s The Two Towers; it can be explained more than one way. There is a crystal, but who is the ghost? It seems to be the villainous dead heretic who gets young apprentice Simon in trouble, but by the end, you will see that title in a new light. Level Three’s Dream, my second novel, has the word ‘dream’, which has been proven mighty by Neil Gaiman and others before, and again there is more than one meaning, since we have dreams both when awake and when asleep. Is the dream of Level Three (who is an autistic teen) the hundred-page Alice in Wonderland fantasy realm that occupies the later part of the story? Or is it something he aches for every day of his life? Book three, coming this summer, is The War Against Love. War? Love? Obviously, that’s a winning combination!

My titles are all written intuitively; usually they just emerge in my mind, with only slight tweaks to follow. However, these are the qualities that I find in my titles after I make them.

Are any of your characters based on people that you’ve known, or situations in your books things you’ve encountered in real life?

Matt: All my characters are aspects of me, even the villains. They are of course inspired, are of course sometimes riffs on people and characters I’ve loved before, but I can only fill out their emotional and intellectual profiles with content from my own personality. I use real-life places a lot, in New York and elsewhere, and as the series progresses, I will increasingly convert a lot of my European vacation spots into sites for the teen wizards to have adventures. Book four has big chunks in India, too, where I have been once and will go again soon.

What is your writing process- do you plot/plan or do you write from the seat of your pants?

Matt: I work from notes. I write outlines but I violate them when I get better ideas. I write scenes in the order I feel like, not in the order they will appear in the book. I always write multiple projects at once, and in the past I have written multiple books in my series at once. In doing this, I recall the strategy of Isaac Asimov, who wrote a novel and a nonfiction book at the same time, switching whenever he felt stuck.  But Asimov was a full-time writer; I’m part-time, so things develop relatively slowly. I have long gaps between sessions of writing on a novel while doing other projects. I sometimes get jealous of my more prolific buddies in the business. My projects percolate a lot, and my job leaches away my writing time.

How much research do you do for each of your projects?

Matt: My research is ongoing. I read nonfiction a lot to keep on top of ideas and events, principally The New Yorker magazine which has a broad range of subjects. I always draw on my background knowledge, which has been enlarged by years of being scholarly by nature, and I look stuff up online, often mid-sentence, as it comes up. When I write in my notebook, I leave gaps or notes to look things up later, and I do that research when I’m typing up my notebook. Sometimes though I may lose track of where I got my information. In The Ghost in the Crystal, Leah Ritz uses an Aramaic magic formula “Havaya tseva-ot” to fight against evil spirits. I couldn’t now tell you where I got that from, or how much, if at all, I changed the wording.

I also research by travelling. All my vacations are working vacations as I gather knowledge of places I can put my characters in. I’m going on vacation in April to Budapest, Vienna, and Prague, and I’m sure I will use all three locations in the future. Prague is already in The War Against Love.

What do you think it is about your writing or your stories that resonates with your readers?

Matt: My readers relate to my teenagers who feel like real teenagers to them. They aren’t digital natives like the kids I see in the classroom – they are more like the teenagers I grew up with – but they have strong feelings, tender hearts, insecurities, mixtures of bravado and anxiety, things you expect in good kids who are trying to find themselves.

What is the hardest part of writing for you?

Matt: I spent seven years blocked, largely because I was going through a bad time in life, but now I’m not blocked anymore, and I can write any time I have time to write. The hardest part of writing for me now is clock time:  carving out enough hours in the day to expand myself mentally and emotionally so that I can be creative. I so often have to shift to being practical that the practical and creative are always in opposition, and I often feel guilty being creative. “How am I supposed to write when I didn’t deal with that call I was supposed to make?” I do a lot of thinking while commuting, and that’s productive, but thinking is only one stage of the process and I need to spend more time on the other stages.

What advice would you give to writers just starting out?

1)    Get a well-paid career to sustain you while you write. Financial services looks good.

2)    Learn these skills:  digital book formatting, social networking, marketing, investing.

3)    Fuck literary agents.

What is your favorite supernatural character to write?

Matt: I like to write about magicians/wizards and I like to write about ghosts/spirits. I love elementals also. I have a vampire in Level Three’s Dream, but he is an energy vampire, not an undead vampire, and primarily he’s a magician.

Separate from School of the Ages, I have some work about zombies I am presently niggling at, inspired by my love for the Resident Evil movies and the work of some great zombie authors I’ve met, such as Mainak Dhar. I am not presently drawn to write about undead vampires, werewolves, shifters, or fairies. When I do, though, I will do my damnedest to make it different than anyone has ever read before.

What are you current working on?

Matt: Teen Guide to Sex and Relationships, with Jess C. Scott, is going into final drafting next month. Jess and I are talking about writing two other books together after this one is done. My next solo book is The War Against Love, the third book of School of the Ages, coming out this summer. I will be publishing some short stories this year. I’m working on a School of the Ages story now which I will publish as a teaser for War Against Love and probably give away through amazon prime. The working title is “Sara Ghost.”

Matt’s Paranormal Perspectives

How would you define the paranormal genre?

Matt: There exist many traditions of storytelling that react to human experience by creating mirrors of it full of events and experiences that aren’t replicated in daily life. You look in the mirror and you see a vampire, a reflection of your emotional life but not your physical life. You read a book about a vampire or a person who deals with vampires, and on a deep level, you feel the echoes of that non-daily experience as ways to clarify, by allegory or analogy, that turmoil and those traumas with which you must actually deal.

How you feel about the boom of paranormal fiction recently?

Matt: I’m going to sound like a teacher and a scholar as I answer this.

Popular culture trends in horror and supernatural fiction are reactions to popular fear. The paranormal genre puts a more comfortable face on darkness. It is partly psychotherapy, but mainly escapism. The darkness we actually face in the world is a darkness of purely human sickness, ranging from religious fanaticism (terrorists and Taliban, the Republican war on women) to economic ruin (epidemic of foreclosure, income gap, the corporate takeover of the American government). I’d much rather think about a vampire or a werewolf, even a really nasty one, then think about Mahmoud Ahmedinejad or Rick Santorum.

Why do young adults in particular like the paranormal? I think most teens feel that they are somehow different from the ordinary, or fear that they are. These feelings can harmlessly be managed by the creation of paranormal alter-egos. For me, when I was growing up, it was wizard characters, like Belgarion in the work of David Eddings, who grew up and grew to power, as my own Simon, Goldberry, and Mermelstein are doing in School of the Ages. For teens today, it’s Edward and Bella or it’s Sookie Stackhouse. I would have been into them if I were the right age. Similarly, dystopian fiction like Hunger Games is an exaggerated version of the dismal disempowered cultural landscape today’s kids find themselves in.

What scares you?

Matt: Poverty scares me. I don’t want to be poor. There is so little humanity in being poor, and so little fairness in it.

What is your favorite paranormal book?

Matt: The Occult by Colin Wilson, along with its sequels, has profoundly shaped my world-view. Mysteries, Poltergeist!, Beyond the Occult – Wilson’s nonfiction books about the paranormal are just incredible.

What is your favorite paranormal movie?

Matt: As soon as I answer this, I will think of another one I should have listed. Let’s go with The Mothman Prophecies for today. As far as TV paranormal, I really like the first and third seasons of True Blood although I find the sex a little overstated. For a lighter touch, how about Beetlejuice?

Connect With Matt/School of the Ages

Website: http://schooloftheages.webs.com/

Twitter: www.twitter.com/schooloftheages

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Friday the 13th Freebies!

Friday the 13th only comes around a few times a year, and to me these days are like ready made holidays just for me. It’s a day when you expect to find black cats crossing your path, shadows lurking, and a ghost around every corner. My kind of day.

So in honor of today, I wanted to tell you about some fabulous freebies that will be available today (including my own!).  Now a part of me wanted to just focus on paranormal books, but the more I thought about it, I was sure that even the diehard paranormal fans out there enjoy a book outside the genre every now and then. So there’s a little something here for everyone (including one big GIANT link at the end).

James Todd Cochrane- Max and the Gatekeeper – Young Adult Fantasy/Science Fiction

Dayla Moon – Swarm -Paranormal Murder Mystery

Angela Muse- Lil Glimmer- Children’s

Lisa Grace – Angel in the Shadows (Book I) – Fantasy

M.D James- As the Snow Falls – Gothic Horror

Margaret Lake – A Slice of Life – Contemporary Romance

And lest I forget: Cege Smith - Heiress of Lies – Dark Fantasy/Horror

And if your finger is still twitching for a “Download” button to click to get more free goodies, then I invite you to check out the Kindle Book Bananza going on all day today- over 70 books, all genres, FREE.

Spread the word, and stay safe out there. You know, you’re better off staying inside and reading anyway.

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Guilty Pleasures: Streaming Media

Writers write, and so when we are supposed to be writing we should be…writing? Nah. I don't think I'm alone when I say that when I KNOW my butt is supposed to be in the chair I am finding something- anything- else to do. The name of the game is procrastination.  I do it well.

So I bring you a new feature for the blog: Guilty Pleasures. It's not quite as naughty as it sounds. These are just the things that I am openly going to share with you that I've found throughly distract me from doing what I know I'm supposed to be doing: which is , of course, writing.

Today's installment is my #1 offender. For something that entered my life so recently (just the last 2 years or so) it has become completely embedded in my life. I have to make deals with myself to stop the madness.

I love me some Netflix. Or Hulu Plus. Or Amazon Unlimited Instant Videos (in a real pinch when I can't find it on Netflix or Hulu Plus.) Suddenly, I can relive the grand old sitcoms of yesteryear while catching up on all of my current primetime favorites. I am no longer required to be at home at a certain time every week to enjoy some tasty goodness of my favorite show. In fact, there is talk in my house of canceling cable TV altogether and going completely online. (Oh the horrors!)

I get to watch what I want to watch whenever I want to watch it. I can watch it on my iPhone during my commute. I can watch it on my TV. I can watch it on my laptop in bed. I can watch it on my iPad on a plane. It's like I'm a god.

Until the wifi connection goes from warp speed to a snail's pace anyway. You may wonder what I'm watching that causes me to lose these precious hours of writing time. Well, that's another post for another day.

Until then, I have banished all streaming media from my life until Shadows Deep is finished. If I didn't, I would be sitting here watching… something and my manuscript would never get done.

Streaming media: can you live without it?

(photo credit: Tony Crider)

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Paranormal Headliner: G.R. Yeates

Do I have a treat for you all today! G.R. Yeates is joining us for a little sit-down, and he writes….Horror.  With a capital H. Sure you'll find some flavors of the paranormal in his books, but G.R. is going after the dark with gusto- which I think is awesome. (You are all familiar with my weakness for B-rated horror flicks, right?)  So without further ado, let's hear from the man himself.

A Little About G.R.

G.R. Yeates has been published in the Dark Continents anthology, Phobophobia and has been accepted into the Horror for Good anthology coming soon from Cutting Block Press. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed Vetala Cycle, a trilogy of vampiric horror novels set in World War I. The first two volumes, The Eyes of the Dead and Shapes in the Mist, are available now and the third and final installment, Hell's Teeth, was just released in March. Expect more, much more, from this writer in 2012.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

G.R.: As a child, I wanted to be a painter but I never developed a talent for it so I decided, and I remember this very clearly, that I wanted to learn how to paint with words – and that's how my path to becoming a writer began.

What do you do to unwind and relax?

G.R.: I'm not good at either to be honest – recently I would actually say writing short stories. After six years of writing and revising novel-length manuscripts, writing self-contained pieces of a few thousand words feels like a break.

G.R. on Writing

What is it about writing that brings you back to the page for more?

G.R.: It started out being something I enjoyed and then became a means of catharsis when I was a teenager and in a number of situations where there was no real way for me to express and feel better about certain things. In that respect, my writing has become like a diary, journal and even a form of confession for me.

How did you come up with the title for your books?

G.R.: The titles always come first, otherwise I don't know what I'll be writing about. As to where the titles come from, I don't know, they occur at the right time, they come to me when I need them.

Are any of your characters based on people that you've known, or situations in your book things you've encountered in real life?

G.R.: I think they are all amalgamations. A writer can only capture so much of reality when they set a story down and even then it is filtered through their own perception of people and events so what you get a reflection and a distorted one at that.

Your vampire trilogy set in WWI looks amazing!  What drew you to wanting to write a series of stories in that time period?

G.R.: I developed an interest in the First World War as a teenager after reading Wilfred Owen's poem, Dulce et Decorum est. It just presented itself as something else that would make my first books stand out when I decided I wanted to write horror and place vampires in a more unique setting. To date, I'm only aware of a couple of horror films set during this era, The Awakening and Deathwatch, as well as a few stories, Minos or Rhadamanthus by Reggie Oliver and A Question of Obeying Orders by Mark Samuels. All of which I recommend, by the way.

How much research do you find yourself doing for each of your novels?

G.R.: I overdid it with the research for The Eyes of the Dead, six months of reading I did for that one, but it paid off as I was then able to just do quick skims for the next two books. I've been complimented on the thorough detail of my books, which has pleased me a great deal because as much hard work as writing is, spending all those months researching would feel like a waste if people didn't pick up on it.

You have a lengthy list of upcoming titles- how do you keep all of those stories straight as you plan your next novel?

G.R.: Fairly easily because most of them have been written and planned out to one extent or another. I started researching The Eyes of the Dead in 2006 and in 2008, I signed with an agent and up until we parted ways in early 2011, I just kept on writing. The three novellas that I will be releasing in the next few months are all derived from novel-length manuscripts that I drafted whilst I was waiting for that traditional publishing break that never came.

Are you a "pantser" or a "plotter"?

G.R.: A pantser – I use minimal notes and guidelines and just follow my muse. I probably hit more blind corners and dirty curves than those who plan extensively but I still get there in the end.

What is the hardest part of writing for you?

G.R.: The midway slog – being halfway through a novel and knowing you have another half to go. At those times, it's just a case of exercising discipline and keeping on with the writing until you reach that point where you feel all the threads of the story drawing together and tying up for the climax and coda.

What advice would you give to writers just starting out?

G.R.: Work as hard at what you do as much as you love it. Make sure you get a great editor and proofreaders if you can. Get a great cover artist who can realise the concepts you have in your head. And never be over-awed by anyone – respect is something earned and that goes for those you meet and work with as much as it does for you.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

G.R.: To be honest, I'm not sure. I tend to just sit down and write and write until I'm done. I don't have any quirky rituals – unless you count ensuring I have something caffeine-rich to drink near at hand.

What is your favorite supernatural creature to write and why?

G.R.: Well, I would say it's creatures that are truly alien to us. Writers like Lovecraft are a big influence on me because they were able to come up with creatures that were beyond our world and what we understand. That sense of the alien, the cosmic and the illimitable has always fascinated me far more than more conventional 'evil' monsters and I hope I've managed to tap some of that into the Vetala.

G.R.'s Paranormal Perspectives

Do you identify more with the horror genre or the paranormal (or both)?

G.R.: I would say horror, without a doubt. One of the reasons I decided to self-publish was so that I could call my work horror rather than labelling it as paranormal thriller or dark urban fantasy, for example. None of these definitions sum up what I write, for me, as effectively as the H-word.

How do you feel about the boom of paranormal fiction recently?

G.R.: One of the writers who I really admire is Alexandra Sokoloff – her stories walk the dividing line between paranormal and horror very adeptly and she has a knack for unsettling nightmarish imagery, particularly certain scenes in her novel, The Price. I would also recommend any writer who is struggling with structure and planning to read Alex's blog, the Dark Salon. It's a great source of information.

What scares you?

G.R.: An abstract sense of abandonment – that's just based on the last panic attack I had where I thought I was trapped in a waking nightmare and about to die.

What is your favorite paranormal book?

G.R.: I would say, at the moment, it is Thomas Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco. A collection of short stories that radically rewrote what I considered horror to be and what I could and should look to achieve in the genre as a writer. It was the most revolutionary thing I had read since H.P. Lovecraft's The Outsider when I was a teenager.

What is your favorite paranormal movie?

G.R.: This one changes but it is usually only a change between a handful of films – these being Ridley Scott's Alien, F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu and John Carpenter's The Thing. Actually, I will include Werner Herzog's remake of Nosferatu in there as well – a beautiful homage to my favourite era of cinema, German Expressionism.

What do you think draws people to this type of fiction?

G.R.: I think on the most basic level, people enjoy a good scare and to be entertained by something that is of the darkness rather than the light. On more complex levels, you get into the different aspects the genre has and how it unsettles us through gore, ghosts, psychological aberrance and cosmic horror, where we see our true insignificance in comparison to the stars that will burn and the black holes that will continue to yawn millennia after we are gone.

Connect with G.R.:

Website: http://www.gryeates.co.uk

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gryeates666

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/_gryeates_

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4874291.G_R_Yeates

Librarything: http://www.librarything.com/profile/gryeates

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/gryeates666/

Thanks for visiting G.R.! 

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CG News: Shadows Deep (the Edge of Shadows sequel) is Coming!

I can't tell you how happy I am when I have the chance to chat with Edge of Shadows fans.  While their questions sometimes surprise me, I am always delighted that I was able to create a story that intrigued them and got them excited.  And then the inevitable question always gets asked (cue dramatic music):

When will the sequel be ready?

Now if you've been hanging out with me for awhile, you may remember my very first post of 2012 where I said I was tentatively planning the Edge of Shadows sequel for June 2012. I stuck to my guns on that one for quite awhile, but in early March I found that as I started trying to write Purgatory, I got stuck.  And stuck I stayed, which for a writer isn't good.

I finally admitted defeat: Ellie and crew were banging around in my head telling me that it was their turn again- to hell with those Purgatory upstarts!  So this new journey for them, Shadows Deep, began…and stalled after 10,000 words. (Just so you know, it isn't that crazy to start a project and then have to rip it to shreds and start over. Sometimes you have to do that a few times to find the true story.)

I finalized the outline for Shadows Deep last night, and things are falling into place. I am totally jazzed to get this story written and share it with you, because it's GOOD.  Lots of new plot twists, and some new faces too. (Honestly, I've got shivers- lol.)

In the meantime though, just for you, you can check out the teaser blurb on my Novels page. And to keep me honest, I've added a little progress bar for you! I figure the more you know about what's going on "behind the curtain" the more excited you'll get too.

Right now, I'm planning a launch date of May 15, 2012 for Shadows Deep. (I can't believe I said it out loud.)  But please know that sometimes things happen, and that date may change. But I'll let you know as soon as I do.  Thanks for all your support, and feel free to ping me in the comments with any questions.  If I know the answer, I'll share.

Happy Easter!

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Easter Freebies and a Makeover!

I am off work today and I bet many of you are as well. So to help ease us into the holiday weekend, I thought I'd share with you some books that are free now and throughout the weekend from my friends over in the Indie Author Group.  (Although I am including the free days here, be sure to check that before you click to the "buy" button.) Happy Reading!

Valerie Douglas -Dirty Politics , Song of the Fairy Queen , and Nike's Wings  Thurs 5th – Sat 7th

Stephen H. King – Cataclysm: Return of the Gods- Friday and Saturday, April 6 and 7. Blog: http://theotherstephenkingonwriting.blogspot.com

Kelly Rimmer – Suspending Reality - - Thursday 5th – Sunday 8th

Sarah Barnard – Earthlink: Impact –  (UK) (US) Free from Friday 6th April through Monday 9th April. Blog: http://sarahbarnard.co.uk

Elena DeRosa – The Valentine's Day Curse Saturday, April 7th – http://MsElenaeousRants.blogspot.com

Candy Ann Little - The Unwilling Bride  - Saturday April 7th

And a special treat: Edge of Shadows is free TODAY ONLY as well in celebration of its makeover!  I am in love with this new cover and I think it really showcases better what Edge of Shadows is all about.  Pick up your copy here.

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Paranormal Headliner: Scarlett Rugers

I'm welcoming a special guest today: Scarlett Rugers!  Scarlett is not on an author, but a talented graphic designer. (She designed all of my book covers.) What I love about what she shares below is that she is able to give us a fiction vs. non-fiction writing perspective. (Plus, she shares her name with my favorite literary character.)  Let's jump in!

A Little About Scarlett

You hail from Melbourne, Australia. For someone who has never visited there, what are some interesting and fun facts that you can share?

Scarlett: Melbourne is the most liveable city in the world! And when they say you get four seasons in one day here, that's true. You could pack for summer but end up with a week of rain. We have amazing coffee, and a huge NaNoWriMo gathering! Five years ago NaNo meet ups were only about 10 people. Now days It's massive, and they meet throughout the year. Sydney is the capital of Australia, but it should be Melbourne- as all Melbournian's know!

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Scarlett: When I realised where books came from- that people just like me wrote them- that's when I knew I wanted to be a writer. I used to draw and illustrate all the time but I quickly switched to words and that became my passion since I was 8!

What do you do to unwind and relax?

Scarlett: I do what I love- writing and design. I do design professionally, but on the weekends and at night will end up working on my own projects. I prop myself in front of the TV, set up my laptop and put on a good flick!

Scarlett on Writing

What is it about writing that brings you back to the page for more?

Scarlett: The itch. That compulsive addiction. There's not much else to it. I'd say my love of words, my passion for story telling but when you get right down to it, it's down and dirty addiction. I'm compelled to return to the page and write. Ideas nag at me, plot lines pull at me. I'm struck down by visions I have to extract.

Do you have a preference for writing fiction or non-fiction?

Scarlett: Fiction is my main stream but I get the feeling I'll be moving in to non-fiction in the future. The more writing I do the more my stories develop ties to ongoing current events in the world.

What is the hardest part of writing for you?

Scarlett: Finding time for it. Doing it isn't the issue for me, but I'm a workaholic. My new years resolution is to have weekends and I've been following that, which is great. But I still find myself working 16-18 hours a day.

What advice would you give to writers just starting out?

Scarlett: Write. Read and write and write and write. Write what you love. Do not give a shit what anyone else thinks- just write. I started out writing just scenes. I was obsessed with romance books so I used to write those scenes where the main character and the love interest confesses their love to each other, or kisses for the first time. Those rush of emotion scenes. Then after I wrote about a thousand of those I wrote stories, start to finish. Then when I had a few years of that I began writing chapters. And I didn't follow anyone else's advice, I just wrote.

People who want to be writers, talk about writing and whinge about never having time and think about plots and work out characters. Writers write.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk? 

Scarlett: I write quickly. I finished NaNoWriMo (50,000 words) in two and a half days. When I write I go bulk. I sit myself down and write for hours, as opposed to a little a day. I'd say that's my only real interesting quirk, if I have one at all.

Scarlett's Paranormal Perspectives

Given the topic of your current book, what do you think sets first lines of paranormal novels apart from other genres?

Scarlett: The most used format for paranormal novels is starting in amidst tension. Not so much action but inner or outer tension. Often it immediately explains to the reader that there's vampires, or werewolves, or magic involved. It exposes the genre of the book a lot faster than the majority of other genres, besides I'd say science fiction or romance.

You've mentioned on your website that you are working on a fiction work that "dark retelling of the Wizard of Oz". What more can you tell us about that?

Scarlett: A few years ago I redesigned the Wizard of Oz poster. The poster was the beginning and I realized I had something good to work on. This is the poster design for it: http://scarlettarcher.deviantart.com/art/Project-Brief-2-movie-poster-Wizard-of-Oz-166161605. Here is the synopsis: "The Great and Power Oz is a myth, a legend, in the city of Emerald. Everyone knows someone who has been hunted by him, everyone knows someone that could be him.

Dorothy Gale arrives in Emerald after her plane is forced to make an emergency landing at a city in the middle of novel, and after a while realises that there is something very unusual and unsafe about the city. The only way she can get a ticket home is to buy one off Oz, the man who runs the black market, alone and in secret. On the way she meets Mr Scarecrow, Mr Tin Man and Mr Lion who all need something from the wizard."

A vast amount of research is required. I'm doing my best to rewrite it in my own voice while respecting and honouring the lessons, the structure, the format of the Hero's Journey and reflecting the current state of politics around the world.

As a reader, do you have a favorite paranormal creature that you enjoy reading about?

Scarlett: I love ghost stories. I'm not big on werewolves and vampires but when it comes to paranormal activity and spooks and poltergeist and that sort of fiction I dig it!

What scares you?

Scarlett: Bugs! I'm not scared of them in general but things like sleeping outside where they could crawl on me and in to my mouth and all those sorts of things. And creaks and groans in the middle of the night. I'm effective at convincing myself there's someone in the house and then I lie there frozen until I'm so tired I finally fall asleep!

Connect with Scarlett

Scarlett Rugers (writing as Scarlett Archer) has just released a book 1001 First Lines which is now available at Amazon. You can purchase a paperback, .lit, .epub, .mobi and PDF versions here: http://www.1001firstlines.wordpress.com.

She has been writing for over fifteen years, completed over eleven novels, and her main drive is in speculative fiction or its contrasting opposite romantic comedic novels. She has a passion for studying the art of story telling and is a grand lover of movies. Her focus in work is book cover designs which enables her to put all her energy in to the area she loves most- literature.

You can get in touch with Scarlett about getting a book cover designed for you for the super affordable price of $50! But there's only 30 places for $50 and they're running out fast! Check it out at http://www.booksat.scarlettrugers.com

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Paranormal Headliner: Marcus Twyman (and a Giveaway!)

  Today I am welcoming author Marcus Twyman to the blog, and as a special treat, he is offering up TWO copies of his novel, Khet Chronicles: Blood Ties, to a couple of lucky commenters on this post.  (Thanks Marcus!)

A Little About Marcus

Marcus Twyman has lived most of his life in Montgomery County, Maryland. Since he was a child he's enjoyed writing stories, songs, and poetry – using the power of words as a therapeutic release for his feelings and emotions.

Now living in New York City, Marcus has been slowly adapting to the bustling concrete jungle and is incorporating his new experiences into his writing.

You state in your author profile that you lived in Maryland the majority of your life and moved to NYC. How have you adapted?  Which place do you prefer?

Marcus: It's been an interesting adjustment to say the least. I am by no means a city guy. I love trees…and grass…and a variety of animals (not just rats and pigeons which is what you tend to see in the Big Apple). New York is okay, but Montgomery County, Maryland will always be where my heart is.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Marcus: This is a funny question because as a child I wanted to be a scientist. I could have sworn that I'd be the one to bring dinosaurs back to life…Stephen Spielberg beat me to it.

What do you do to unwind and relax?

Marcus: Believe it or not, I read. I will literally pick up a book, read for hours, and then feel like I have no troubles in the world.

Marcus on Writing

You mentioned that the idea for your novel developed as early back as your childhood. Can you share more about that?

Marcus: When I was a child in the third grade, I moved to Florida to live with my mother. During those years I started to develop characters in my head that could do these amazing things. As I grew older, the characters seemed to grow with me, taking on more mature characteristics and personalities. The world of the Khet kept developing and changing, becoming a rich, complex, place. It got to the point that I would start telling everyone about "this story I have in my head".

Are your characters based on people that you've known, or situations in your book things you've encountered in real life?

Marcus: The characters aren't based on people I've known or know, but some of the situations have taken cues from my own life. I wanted my story to grab the reader emotionally, and to do that I tried to think about situations in my own life that caused me to feel happy, sad, depressed, angry, etc. When I read a story, I want to "feel" it. That's why I chose to incorporate some of myself into the tale, so that I could be sure that the reader would get what the characters were going through.

What is it about writing that brings you back to the page for more?

Marcus: Writing to me is therapeutic. If I'm angry, sad, stressed, or even happy, writing allows me to release everything thats bottled up inside of me.

How did you come up with the title of your novel?

Marcus: I actually knew that I wanted to incorporate an Egyptian theme into parts of the story so I researched Egyptian words and their meanings. Nebu Khet literally means "Gold Fire". Here's an Egyptian description that I found intriguing: "Nebti; Khasekhemwy Nebu Khetsen (The Two Powerful Ones Have Risen, Their Bodies Being Of Gold)". I thought, "Oh, wait. My characters are powerful, long-lived, beings. What would they have done throughout their long existence on this planet? How would they have influenced past civilizations?" That's where the Nebu Khet come from, and since I plan on writing many books about them, I decided to make the story part of the Khet Chronicles.

What are your current projects?

Marcus: I am currently working on the sequel to Khet Chronicles: Blood Ties and I've started writing 3 other spinoffs from the series.  I'm also putting together an anthology of short stories that I'll release as an ebook sometime in the next month or so.

What is the hardest part of writing for you?

Marcus: The hardest part is getting how I feel to be reflected in the story. What I feel during each scene is what makes the story worth writing, so I try very hard not to lose that so that my readers can experience the story the way that I do.

What advice would you give to writers just starting out?

Marcus: Don't worry about other people's opinions. Too many people will criticize you and tell you that you can't do something, but usually these people haven't done anything themselves! There will always be people who want to see you fall, and if you allow them to influence your writing then you may never accomplish what you were meant to.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk? 

Marcus: Umm…I talk to myself. And I make facial expressions as I type…seriously.  I wind up looking borderline insane.

Marcus's Paranormal Perspectives

What's your definition of the paranormal genre?

Marcus: Paranormal to me has to have a touch of reality and a large dose of weird. Oh…and a sparkly vampire or two can add some kick to the recipe, although I prefer my vampires a little less sparkly and a lot more Lestat-ish.  If you're out of vampires, you can always throw in whatever mythical being you have laying around in your pantry.

How do you feel about the boom of paranormal fiction lately?

Marcus: I honestly don't mind it. I love the genre so I'm perfectly fine with it, although some of the stories are being churned out at crazy-fast speeds. I like the genre as long as it keeps bringing something to the literary table. Too much "fluff" can really deter the genre's reader base though. If you're going to write a story about a vampire or a werewolf, then make sure that you're writing the story because you enjoy it and because you like werewolves and vampires. Don't write a story just to release it as a book and hope to earn money. When this happens the story is generally poorly written and people lose faith in the genre. If you're going to write, then write a story that you would want to read.

What scares you?

Marcus: What scares me? Roaches. Can't stand those nasty little critters. Yuck!

What is your favorite paranormal book?

Marcus: The Queen of the Damned.

What is your favorite paranormal movie?

Marcus: Underworld.

What do you think draws people to paranormal novels?

Marcus: I think that paranormal novels give people a release from reality. It's like a mental break.

Do you ever research real events, legends, or myths to get ideas?

Marcus: I do research real places and events to try and tie my stories into reality. Having some details that are loosely tied to the real world helps people connect to the characters and what they're going through.

Don't Forget There's a Giveaway!!

For your chance to win your very own paperback copy of Marcus's novel, Khet Chronicles: Blood Ties, simply leave a comment or question for Marcus below.  (It's THAT easy!)  Two commenters will be randomly drawn on Friday, March 30th and notified by email (so don't forget to leave it when you comment).

Connect with Marcus

Twitter: www.twitter.com/khetchronicles

Facebook: www.facebook.com/nebukhetscry

Blog: www.khetchronicles.com

Thank you for hanging out with us, Marcus!!

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