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3Q’s – Mark Zirbel is on a boat!

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Today’s 3Q’s guest is a Wonderland nominated author and someone who continues to push his readers to allow them to follow along with his steady and imaginative adventures!

Please do welcome Mark!

Mark Zirbel

Steve: What does your process look like once you finish your first draft? Do you immediately dive back into it, or do you take some time away?

Mark: For me, it’s important to step away for a while so I can review my draft with fresh eyes. If other people choose to dive right back in, I think that’s fine. Whatever works. However, when it comes to proofreading your work (versus revising it), it’s essential for everyone to take some time away. The only way you’re going to catch errors in your own work is if enough time has passed for you to see what’s really on the page instead of what your mind wants to be there.

Steve: What’s the one thing you’d change now if you’d have known it when you started writing?

Mark: When I started to get serious about my writing, I joined a writers workshop. The group met once a week, and I always wanted to have new material for feedback, so I’d crank out a story a week. It was great from a creative standpoint, but it got me in the bad habit of making my short stories very short. If I hit 1,500 words, that was an opus for me. Sometimes less is more, but my writing was suffering because of the brevity. I needed to slow down and dig in deeper to everything – the characters, the setting, the plot, you name it. I finally figured that out, but I wish I had figured it out sooner.

Steve: Of the books or stories you’ve released, which is your personal favorite and why?

Mark: I’m really proud of Cyberpunk Zombie Jihad because it was my first book and it was nominated for a Wonderland Award in 2020 for best collection. But I think I’m even happier with my new novel, Shithole USA. It has a lot of the same elements as Cyberpunk Zombie Jihad – including cyberpunk, bizarro, horror, and satire – but it takes things to a much weirder, much more experimental level. Ze Burns, who writes a fantastic bizarro fiction blog, said that Shithole USA may be the weirdest book he’s ever read in the bizarro genre. That makes me feel like I’ve really hit the mark this time.

Steve: Bonus Fun Question – Would you rather be lost at sea or in the mountains?

Mark: Good lord … I’d be dead in either scenario. I don’t fish. I don’t hunt. I’m not a survivalist. Then again, I don’t think most doomsday preppers are all that prepared, either. In Shithole USA, there’s a prepper who can make a gun from nothing but sticks and shit. The guy poops out his own bullets, too. He puts himself on a low-fiber diet so he can make rock-hard ammo – and he ends up dead on the toilet from constipation. There’s survivalism for you. But anyway, I never answered your question. Let’s see – I guess I’ll try my luck in a boat. Maybe it’ll be a luxury yacht with a month’s food supply.

Endless sea and sky to the distant horizon