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Clownflesh
Group Reads: Guest Author Invite
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December 2019 Group Read with Guest Author, Tim Curran
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Welcome Tim & thank you! This will be my first book from you so I am super excited to receive it and get started!!! YAY:)
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Thanks everyone for your warm welcome! This should be a good time. I’m looking forward to discussing Clownflesh with you and Answering any questions you have and just plain getting to know you. Let’s have fun!
Sounds like an interesting book!
Yesssss! This is gonna rule! ☠️
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I was looking forward to a book with a school of killer clownfish.
Clownfish? Well, let’s not be hasty. I think there might be a book there. “You like clownfish, Georgie? Down here we’re all clownfish.”
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Yes, I can. As I wrote the book, it almost seemed like it was as much about small town bar culture as about monstrous clowns. There's something very unique, I think, about these little hole in the wall places and the people that frequent them. I spent enough of my younger years hanging out in places like the Broken Bottle from the story. If you keep sober, you begin to see a curious strata of people. The characters and situations are pretty fascinating. I suppose it's no wonder that the bar/saloon/pub is such a great background for so many stories. All the characters in the Broken Bottle are loosely based on people I encountered through the years, from the bikers to the regulars to the sad old couple who've been occupying the same bar stools for decades. So, in essence, I just pulled the entire thing from life.
Okay, I need to squeeze this one in.
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You really do, Char! I’ve just started and the characters already have that old familiar feeling about them.
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I agree, Tim. I’m a Troll (a Michigan resident that lives south of the Mackinac Bridge, for all you non-Michiganders), but from a small town with a very similar feel as Craw Falls.
Can you tell us a little about how you became a writer and who your influences were?
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Just started today as well. I love how you hook us right away! I'm one who needs to be hooked immediately. I can't stand reading a long, descriptive narrative at the start of a book, so THANK YOU for that tasty morsel early on! It was just enough to reel me in with wonderful creepiness too.👏😱😁
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Agreed!
The title terrifies me! But I’m intrigued.
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Kimberly wrote: "Vickie wrote: "Just started today as well. I love how you hook us right away! I'm one who needs to be hooked immediately. I can't stand reading a long, descriptive narrative at the start of a book,..."Thanks, Kimberly! I always think that it’s important to give the reader an early taste of what’s to come. Not too much of one, but just a teaser to get them intrigued. I know, as a reader, I love that sort of thing. Gets me stoked,
Tim. I’m a Troll (a Michigan resident that lives south of the Mackinac Bridge, for all you non-Michiganders), but from a small town with a very similar feel as Craw Falls. Can you tell us a little about how you became a writer and who your influences were?
I started writing when I was in high school, just fooling around doing imitations of different writers I admired. Lovecraft, Blackwood, Robert E. Howard. I even wrote Hemingway imitations to amuse my English teacher because he was a big Hemingway guy. But before that, when I was in 8th grade I found a paperback of Robert E. Howard stories and the lead story was “Pigeons from Hell.” Still my favorite horror story. It thrilled me and scared me. I guess I realized the power of the form and the die was cast. I published my first stories back in the 1990s. I did that for quite a few years before I even contemplated a novel.
So I just sat and watched It #2 with my son AND read a few chapters of this, 😳 now I'm lying in bed not able to sleep. Hmm...wonder why...🙄 what in the sam hell was I thinking??🤦♀️
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Tim wrote: " But before that, when I was in 8th grade I found a paperback of Robert E. Howard stories and the lead story was “Pigeons from Hell.”"While "Pigeons from Hell" is an ineffectual title at best, that is a GREAT story!
Kimberly wrote: "I will try to write and feature a review next week!!!"Thanks, Kimberly!
M.E. wrote: "Tim wrote: " But before that, when I was in 8th grade I found a paperback of Robert E. Howard stories and the lead story was “Pigeons from Hell.”"While "Pigeons from Hell" is an ineffectual title..."
Yeah, not REH’s best title—that might be Worms of the Earth—but one hell of a story.
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While "Pigeons from Hell" is an ineffectual title..."
I agree completely!
@ Tim--this one was pure FUN! (In a demented, horror loving way). ;)
Just finished chapter 29 about Margot Cheever, and this momma bear has to say, OH HELL NO!!!!!🤬
Phew, I feel better now.😉😊
You don’t like children made into balloon animals? Ahhh, c’mon.
No, not one bit, but I'll give you kudos for creativity. 😉😏
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Vickie wrote: "No, not one bit, but I'll give you kudos for creativity. 😉😏"I'll take that!
😆 So just curious... do you have children? I'm wondering how you separate that in your writing? How hard is that for authors?🤔 And I get it, it's just fiction, but I know that if I was an author, there's no way I could write about stuff like that, regardless of it being made up.😏
Yes, I have three children. It's actually very easy to separate. When I'm writing, the real world is gone and I'm totally immersed in my fictional world, which in this case is Craw Falls. They don't overlap at all. The balloon animal part was written to shock, to disturb. I'm like a nasty little boy who knows where something dead is and I want to take you there by the hand so you can see the maggots writhing in its hide. I actually get a secret joy when I come up with something like this. Something in my head giggles like the Cryptkeeper. It's a sick little joke and I want to share it with you. Once the idea occurs to me, I have to do it because I would feel like I was cheating my readers if I didn't--the clowns are there and if they only went after adults, it wouldn't make sense. Everyone in town is prey. The clowns are evil and they must do evil things. It makes it that much more satisfying when one of them is destroyed. Even though it's fiction, you have to make it as real and awful as you can within the parameters of the world you created.
Tim wrote: "Yes, I have three children. It's actually very easy to separate. When I'm writing, the real world is gone and I'm totally immersed in my fictional world, which in this case is Craw Falls. They don'..."I love that answer!
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That's amazing! :D
Tim wrote: "Yes, I have three children. It's actually very easy to separate. When I'm writing, the real world is gone and I'm totally immersed in my fictional world, which in this case is Craw Falls. They don'..."Great response, and it just goes to show that I'd suck as a horror author, lol.
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I imagine it's different for everyone... Certain things "trigger" me, that don't bother other readers, and some things considered more "severe" don't bother me in terms of a fictional novel.... I think in regards to CLOWNFLESH, the fact that these are not (view spoiler) had a lot to do with why I wasn't bothered. (And I have kids, one with multiple special needs!). Whereas "true-life" horror--(view spoiler) are things I have a difficult time reading. Supernatural is a much better fit for me, personally. :)
Supernatural is always a bit safer and less disturbing. I understand that. A story about a monster or a demon clown is fun, but it’s ultimately just a tale. It’ll never happen. A story about someone kidnapping and murdering a child, on the other hand, is an all-too real scenario, unfortunately. I can laugh off something like King’s Pet Sematary (as scary as it is in places), but I can’t laugh off Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door...because these things do happen. Throughout history we’ve conceptualized and packaged our deepest fears and anxieties as monsters, because it’s easier to sleep that way. Only sub-human monsters would commit vicious, unspeakable crimes against the innocent. It’s much more reassuring than accepting the fact that the most evil, bloodthirsty predators look just like us.
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Exactly. The "truth" is worse than fiction.
I finished, and it ended up being okay for me. Not my cup of tea, but it had a great creepiness factor.💁♀️😊
You can pick up a copy of Tim’s book here:
https://www.amazon.com/Clownflesh-Tim...