3Q’s Special – Clay McLeod Chapman Whispers to Ghosts!
It’s not very often (ok, it’s not happened once and probably won’t happen again) that I have a 3Q’s guest on here just days after they have a Netflix movie arrive! But such is the case with today’s guest, the phenomenal Clay McLeod Chapman! On October 28th, 2022, the movie ‘Wendell and Wild’ arrived on Netflix. Directed by the legendary Henry Selick and based on the unpublished book Chapman and Selick wrote together, this one had me excited once I saw the trailer! As well, the one and only Jordan Peele co-wrote the script, provides the voice of Wild and is one of the producers! How amazing.
But, let’s not forget that Chapman himself is currently destroying readers with his recent release ‘Ghost Eaters.’ So, I was over the moon when he agreed to do this 3Q’s!
Please, do welcome Clay!
Steve: What does your writing time look like? Do you try and write at the same time each day? Do you have a word count you attempt to hit?
Clay: Right now, it looks like I’m dragging my ass out of bed around four or five in the morning… just to get in front of my computer before anyone else in the house wakes up. I’m worried I’m going to sound like a fuddy-duddy, but I’m a dad now and there’s not enough time to get writing unless I do it in the cover of darkness while everyone else sleeps. Just me and the serial killers out there. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a mass murderer healthy, wealthy, and hard to revise…
And as far as word count goes, I guess it depends on the project… I used to aim for a particular target: Just 1000 words a day. They don’t have to be the right thousand words. I just need to get them on the page and see what settles the following morning. I tend to write in these circular cycles, always beginning at the beginning and revise my way through, cutting the crap from the previous day before pushing forward with new words. I’m less precious about hitting a mark these days, though.
Steve: You’re riding an elevator and BAM! It gets stuck. What two authors (one living and one dead) would you happen to find yourself stuck with?
Clay: S.A. Cosby? He’s just so damn cool. I don’t think I’d ever be in a situation where we could sit and chat uninterrupted, you know? I’d need him to get stuck in an elevator to gab with the man. It’d be pretty funny, though, if we were trapped in an elevator with the corpse of Dashiell Hammett. Not to have a conversation with him, but for me and Shawn to just talk about the fact that we’re stuck in an elevator with his dead body.
Steve: Tell me about your newest release (novel/story/poem/novella) and why someone should read it!
Clay: Sooooo… my most recent book is a spooky ooooky thriller called GHOST EATERS. It’s all about a haunted drug. Pop a pill, see the dead. But… guess what? Once you open that door to the other side, there’s no closing it. I think folks should read it because I think it’s a pretty good book and if you’re looking for something scary, you could probably do a lot worse. It’s got ghosts! Lots of ghosts! Too many ghosts!
Steve: Bonus Question! If you were transported back in time, which Pop Band/Hit Band would you hope to find yourself a member of?
Clay: The Beach Boys! Do they count? I could be a really, really distant cousin to the Wilson clan. I wouldn’t need to do much. I could just play the most innocuous little instrument in the far back of the band, away from the spotlight, and harmonize with the rest on a couple songs. You wouldn’t even notice me.
Ha! Amazing! Oddly the song Kokomo has been stuck in my head recently!
Thank you again, Clay!
To find more of his work, check the links and as well – I’ve added the trailer to Wendell and Wild!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/claymcleod
Website: https://claymcleodchapman.com/
