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3Q’s – James Sabata doesn’t like jerks!

3Q's green

Truly an honor to have James Sabata here today as my 3Q’s guest. Talented author, super supportive friend and one of the hosts of The Necronomi podcast, James is such a phenomenal member of the dark fiction community.

Please, do welcome James!

jamessabata

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?
James: From the outside, my writing time probably just looks like I get high and play video games a lot. I am an extensive outliner, but I also just run scenarios in my head over and over again, and I do it while playing Mario Kart or Animal Crossing, while swimming (I live in Arizona, so swimming is important), or while doom-scrolling on Twitter. I don’t have a specific time to write or word count goals. I try to write something every day. Sometimes it’s a few sentences. Sometimes it’s me word vomiting a half-novella. Everything adds up and I get there eventually.

Steve: You decide to host a writer’s retreat. One weekend in a luxury house on an island. What
three other authors do you invite to come along?
James: Danger Slater, Laurel Hightower, and Vincent V. Cava. These are some of my best friends, so I know we’ll have a great time together, but they’re also very in tune with the way I write. We each do a lot of workshopping for one another, and they each drive me, not only as writers, but in daily life.

Steve: Tell me about your newest release (novel/story/poem/novella) and why someone should
read it!
James: I don’t have a new release coming out right now, but the most recent thing I finished is a novella currently entitled CADUCEUS: A Cosmetic Horror. It’s a story about a man who is forced to grow a uterus to (hopefully) give birth to the next generation of sea-creature-gods. Hopefully the book will find a home soon.

Steve: Bonus Question! You receive an invitation in the mail from one of these two people. The invitation invites you to have dinner and spend the night in their home. Do you accept the invitation from Victor Frankenstein or Dracula and why?
James: First, I want people to remember you’re talking about the doctor because the Monster would win this in a landslide and I’d hang out with him all the time.
Now then, we do this panel at different conventions called, “Kill, Marry, Shag – Universal Monsters.” We let the audience members make cases for whether they would murder, marry, or hook up with whatever monster we give them, and then, as a panel, we decide the final fate of each monster. Having done this panel several times now, I have heard a lot of thoughts on each of these doctors and it makes this answer incredibly easy for me. Victor is a jerk. He wanted to play god but then wants to accept no responsibility for his creation or the consequences of creating life. I just don’t feel like we’d get along. Meanwhile, Dracula is an excellent host with a cool castle and you can stay for an eternity. I’m going with Dracula on this one.

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