Persistence Pays Off

Rusty Fischer is the author of several novels including Vamplayers, Vampires Rule! Zombies Drool! And Zombies Don’t Cry. Today he speaks to us about how he became a writer and his thoughts on the rebirth of one of horror’s oldest tropes – the zombie. 
Darrell - What made you want to become a writer and how did it happen?

Rusty - I have wanted to be a writer for as long as I could remember. I can remember writing books in spiral bound notebooks as a little kid, 8 or 9 years old in my bedroom. I made construction paper covers and just wrote from start to finish, no room for errors. Later my parents got me a Smith-Corona typewriter and I began submitting my books. I got rejected a lot, but never gave up. Eventually I became a teacher and started submitting stories, anecdotes, lesson plans, etc., to teaching magazines. A few of them got published, then one of them hired me! When I left teaching, I promised that when I wrote, it would be for teenagers, the age group I taught the most. So a few years ago when I finally sat down and got serious about my own writing, going for YA only seemed natural. 
Darrell - Can you describe a typical day of writing for you?

Rusty - I’m a full-time freelance writer-slash-ghostwriter for a variety of professional clients, so most of my day is spent writing for others. I enjoy helping businesspeople, athletes, actors, coaches, nutritionists and lots of other experts turn their dream of writing a book into a reality. So from morning until early evening, that’s pretty much my day job. Later, after dinner and some down time with my wife, in the evening I’ll write for another hour or two on my own stuff. 
Darrell - Horror seems to generally take two forms: scary horror and laugh out loud horror. What are you thoughts in general about horror as a type of
literature?

Rusty - I think you’re right. I’ve tried both, and I’m really no good at the scary horror. I don’t think I’ve ever had a reader accuse any of my “horror” books as flat-out scary, although with zombies there is usually an “ick” or gross effect, which is the fun of it. Why write about zombies if you can’t get gross? I think it comes down to your personal writing style and what “feels” write when you sit down to start a story. Every time I’ve ever tried to write scary horror, it’s a real effort and I forget about halfway through and just start laying on the snark. I can’t help it!
Darrell - Zombies seem to be really popular at the moment. Do you think zombie's are the new vampire? Will they become as popular?

Rusty - I don’t think zombies will ever become the new vampire because, in my experience, folks don’t think of them as “sexy.” Every day I hear from readers, “This is the first zombie book I ever read.” You never hear anyone say that about a vampire book. There’s just a lot of “ick” factor for readers to get over, and I haven’t quite figured out how to do that. One way I’ve tried is by making my zombies kind of petrify versus rot; they lose their body fat, muscles get harder, more rigid, they have to stretch a lot but things just don’t generally fall off or putrify. So, I’m trying to do my part!!!
Darrell - What sort of methods do you use to promote yourself?

Rusty - I’ve written a lot of free content – zombie poems and stories and story collections and poem collections – and do a lot of giveaways/contests on other blogs. It’s pretty much all social media, all the time, Facebook and Twitter mostly, and my own blog. I just don’t have the time to do a ton of “live” events and, frankly, I’m not very good at it. 
Darrell - You've been published through Medallion Press. What are the advantages to that as opposed to being a indie writer/publisher?

Rusty - I very much need the support of talented editors, cover designers, marketers and overall professionals to help me craft, shape and fine tune my message. I believe in myself as a writer, but I’m not a great self-editor. My characters are always leaving the house in sweatpants and getting to school in jeans! I just, I’m so focused on the big picture issues and I “see” them in my head, so I forget little details like that. It’s just one of examples of how important that kind of support is. Plus there are so many different things a traditional publisher provides for you, like review copies, distribution, returns, amazon.com listings, promotion, libraries, foreign rights, I’m just not there and don’t have the time and it’s nice to “hand off” those duties and focus on the writing. 
Darrell - What do you think is the secret of succeeding as a successful writer?
Rusty - This one’s easy: persistence. Yes, you need to hone your craft and be creative and confident and have a vivid imagination and storytelling skills, etc., but if you give up the first time you get a rejection letter, that’s it; game over. Even getting published isn’t the end of the game; you have to promote, think of you next book, keep the readers in mind, deal with bad reviews, more rejection, the paperback versus ebook deal, there’s just SO many obstacles to becoming a successful writer and above all the craft and publishing stuff, there is just the general habit of getting up every day, overcoming those objections and moving forward. That’s where persistence comes in. You. Just. Can’t. Give. Up. Ever. Period. 
And a big thanks to Rusty! The link to Rusty on Amazon can be found here and his blog site is here!
And that’s all for today!
Keep writing!