3Q’s: Red Lagoe is a master Word-Spewer!
Today’s guest is a fantastic author and is diving into the world of small press publisher as well! Red has been a super supportive and encouraging friend since we first connected and I think there will be a lot of folks out there who have a similar sentiment!
Super excited to have Red stop by today!
Welcome Red!
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?
Red: I have this condition where if I stick to the same routine for more than a couple of weeks, my creative soul slowly begins to disintegrate. So I switch it up. Sometimes I do really well from 5-7am, and other times of the year I’m sitting in bed in my PJs, knocking out some words. I try not to focus so much on word count as I do hours. Sometimes 2 hours might yield a thousand words, or if it’s flowing easily, four thousand. Back in 2016, I developed some good writing habits by doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It challenged me to hit about 1600 words a day or more, every day, for the entire month of November. And I did it. At the end, I had a 52,000 word manuscript. It was a hot mess, but it really taught me about dedicating time. If I can dedicate the time, fairly distraction-free, then the words will come.
Steve: You end up at an estate sale and discover an unpublished manuscript from an author you love. Do you keep it just for yourself or do you share it with the world?
Red: I think it would depend on the nature of the contents. Is this something that the author obviously never wanted to share? If so, I’d respect that. Or is this something I could give back to the family, if there is one? I’m probably putting way too much thought into this.
Ultimately, as long as it wasn’t some breech of privacy, I think I’d keep it all for myself for a week so I can read it first. And once my selfish heart feels satisfied, I’d then share it with the world.
Steve: Tell me about your newest release (novel/story/poem/novella) and why someone should read it!
Red: Nightmare Sky: Stories of Astronomical Horror, releases November 4, 2022. I’m a life-long lover of astronomy. A person who, whenever I step out my front door, my eyes are drawn up. I’m the friend who always spots the shooting stars, because I’m always looking up. The sky has always been a tether for me. When the world is spinning out of my control, the sky is my constant. It’s a comfort. But it’s also a great source of fear for so many. I’d been wanting to do an astronomy-horror collection, and I have plenty of my own night-sky themed stories that I could probably put one together. But I also had been wanting to dip my toes into editing an anthology. So, I combined my two desires, and now I have Nightmare Sky. There are 28 stories and poems, ranging from psychological to apocalyptic, from sci-fi to bizarre, from quiet to gruesome, and they all explore our awe-inspiring—and terrifying—human connection to the stars. There are a lot of new talented voices in horror in this anthology—people I think we as a community might want to keep an eye on.
Steve: Bonus Question! You wake up in a comic book. What is your comic book character and what is your super power?
Red: I am Word-Spewer. Any story I imagine doesn’t require sitting at a laptop for months in order to tell it. When the story feels completely imagined in my mind, I retch rhythmically like a cat about to puke and eject the entire story into a document. A polished, well-written hairball of a story, all ready to submit. This superpower is entirely self-serving—I don’t think I can be anyone’s hero with this power, other than my own.
That, or flying would be cool.
Awesome! Thank you so much, Red!
To find more of her work, check the links!
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B072K5XH4B
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RedLagoe
Website: https://redlagoe.com/
