Interview on Horroview

(No, I'm not trying my hand at poetry, the title just worked out that way.)

I recently did an interview via email with 'Catwalk' (not his real name) at Horrorview. And if you go to the main horrorview page you'll see my scary mug!

Horrorview Article (click and all will be revealed).

Stoker?

My book Succumbing to Gravity has made the list for best first novel in the Bram Stoker Award Recommendations for 2010. Yay.

The Stoker is like the Emmey of horror fiction. Very cool. The recommendations are winnowed down to the final ballot, the winner gets a cool statue, the losers get a letter saying they are a 'stoker finalist'.

If you're an HWA member remember to vote early and vote often...

W.I.P.

One of the things people often ask me about writing is, what are you working on now? The lingo is, your 'Work in Progress' or W.I.P.

Some author friends of mine that blog will often post their WIPs, detailing story development, progress, weekly word counts. I think it helps to have an external accountability.

Others have even gone on to publish their works as serialized, online novels (covered under creative commons copyrights).

Since I started this blog I really haven't started a new work. I finalized and worked on the marketing of StG, and I edited the novelization of my were-hyena story (Gift of the Bouda) but I really haven't started anything new. Two big reasons were my Army Reserve commitment- I'm doing a Masters degree for the Army through distance learning (a combination of online, group chats and residence phases) with the US Army War College (pretty cool- but also very time consuming) in additon to my weekend army job and my job job. I was bumped up a notch at work and this requires me to travel. I've done 3 round trips to the Republic of Georgia (Tbilisi, not Atalanta) since June.

So I've been pretty much leaving everything on the field and don't have much to devote to writing.
But thanks to poor food prep hygiene, I was gifted with the nastiest case of the shivering-fever-trots that I've ever had. It was great, I lost 10 kilos and was confined to bed. What does a writer do in such a circumstance? He makes lemonade, and begins a new WIP.

Inspired by some of the destruction in Georgia due to the war with Russia, and the scenery in general, I penned out 3 pages of rough outline, and the first three chapters (6k words) of first draft material. It looks pretty good.

As with most of my work, I don't feel strictly constrained by genre conventions but this one would largely fall under 'Military Science Fiction', with a liberal infusion of postapocolyptic science fiction horror (zombies and alien monsters), hand to hand combat, military hardware. Even a hot chick. You'll love it.

I use an alternating first person POV (the Captain of a Transatmospheric assualt craft or -drop ship- which is a cross between a vietnam era huey-of which I have much experience- and a normandy era landing craft) and a close 3rd person POV. Right now the primary 3rdPOV is a fourth generation planetary settler whose world was been blasted from space by aliens and is now in the 'mop up phase' with bioweapons and urban assault forces. The good guys go in light due to civilian oversight. Mayhem ensues. Yes a little bit of an Iraq war influence.

I see it as 90K words based on the story arc I have so far. A lot of Military Science fiction crosses over into what is know as 'space opera' and these books can be monsters (140K words, 300+ pages). I write books about monsters, not monster books. I find with those I tend to skip pages(other people's stuff, I try to pay attention to my own pages), so heeding my friend Elmore's rule number 10...don't write the parts they skip, mine should come in around 250 pages. But that's on this side of the story- there's no telling what the characters will need once they start to have lives of their own...

That's my WIP.

A funy aside, I was editing the second chapter and working on the third on my flight from Munich to Dulles. An early twenty something guy sitting next to me asked, when my laptop battery gave up, and I quit, if I was working on a novel. "Why yes I am," I said. He asked in a manner that made me unsure if it was derisive or impressed, if I'd ever had anything published. "Why yes I have," I replied. Must be hard, he said. "Yes it is," said I.

Reviews, reviews!

The reviewers are finishing my book and the reviews are starting to come in.

My first Review is live on Horrorview (click on horrorview)!

My second Review is live on Paperback Horror.

My third Review is live on Dread Central.

My fourth Review is live at the Antibacterial Pope.

My fifth at the horror fiction review.

So far they're all pretty positive.

Go...check them out..I'll wait.

StG Now in Kindle

Thanks to the staff at Reliquary press, my Debut novel,
Succumbing to Gravity, is now out in a kindle edition!

I encourage those of you have read it to post a reveiw or 'TAG' it on Amazon (either the paperback page or the kindle page- or hey how about both?).

I am a member of the Horror Writers Association and they have a program where they pair up junior members with more senior members for mentorship. More how the biz works than the actual mechanics, but that too if needed. My HWA mentor is Dan Keohane (a Stoker nominated author- Stokers are like the oscars of horror fiction) just left a generous review on Amazon. Blurb-worthy.

More Pirates

I've been a longtime fan of the Richard Bolitho tales of Alexander Kent, but the Last Raider is the first Douglas Reeman book I've read. The irony here being that Kent is the pen-name of Reeman. I wasn't disappointed.

In war one expects to see enemy troops meet on the battlefield. Victory generally consists of one force defeating the other. But what if one of the forces can't take to the field because they lack equipment, supplies, transportation, food; logistics. Then the one combatant would win by default, right? Targeting an enemies ability to get supplies to the fight is a strategic consideration. In WWII US strategic bombers destroyed factories, infrastructure, fuel depots, all with the aim of keeping assets out of the hands of German soldiers. A sea-going version of this approach was to sink supply ships. When done by easily identifiable warships it seems like an 'in-bounds' move. But another approach was to mount guns on a civilian ship, in Navy service, with minimal disguise and have it sink civilian cargo ships...this is the 'commerce raider'.

The last raider is a fictionalized account of the last German commerce raider of WWI. A satisfying read from before I was born, both the content and the book itself ( it published in 1963!) I saw many similarities with the Bolitho novels. Reeman (a WWII British Navy veteran) writes with authority on how men in war behave with one another. I saw echoes from my own combat experiences (though I was a US Army officer- some things seem universal).

This was an older novel than other Reeman/Kent stories I have read. So I presume he was newer at the craft, though I couldn't tell. The books are written in third person, but he has this disconcerting habit of switching around through dozens of people's POV. It was also an ensemble cast, and when you POV wobble like he does it can be hard to follow. I think it worked well, given that this is only the second WWI novel I have read from the German side (All Quiet being the other one..as with most graduates of the American public school system).

Pirates, arghhhh

I recently finished the penultimate Crichton novel, Pirate Latitudes. His last novel is still in editing and is rumored to be a techno-thriller, for which he is best known. But Dr. Crichton could write a mean historical tale of adventure as well (Eaters of the Dead being the other one I'm thinking of).

As I understand it, an assistant found a copy of this manuscript buried in one of his computers, finished but forgotten. The publishing industry being what it is, they grabbed it up and printed a million copies! I'm not sure why this would have been locked away, but I suspect he wasn't done with it. It was a rougher read. Crichton tells a good story, Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain. Science gone awry with a small group of people trying to survive. In PL, Crichton tells of a 17th century pirate. Affected voice, more exposition than usual, jumpy narrative. That sort of thing. It was Fine. No Treasure Island or anything, but I enjoyed it alright.

Immediately after, I started in on my next read, the Last Raider by Douglas Reeman, also a tale of Naval Hijinks. Not to take anything from an obviously great man and writer, but there is sure a notable difference between someone writing about something they have experienced (Reeman was a sailor in WW2) and someone writing about something who hasn't.

ISFDb

The Internet Speculative Fiction Database now has a Rick Farnsworth page...who'd'a thunk?

Ch,Ch,Ch. Changes...

I read my first Jim Butcher book recently. 'Changes' is the most recent installment of the Harry Dresden Files series. You may have heard of this from the show on the scifi channel a few years ago. Dresden is one of the leading Urban Fantasy series out there written with a male voice. (a large preponderance of Urban Fantasy slips easily into the 'paranormal romance' or 'chicklit')

For the unenlightened among you, Urban Fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy where mythic elements are found in an urban setting. It could be any time period, just set in an urban environment. You usually find elves, dwarves, fairies, magic mixed with the modern world. The second hellboy slipped into an urban fantasy.

I think I should have started at the beginning with Harry though. As with most series the author needs to up the ante as the character goes along, right? Changes is #12, so the events, rather than being the story of a wizard in a modern setting (which sounds clever), turn pretty quickly into epic battles between a vampire army, along with every mythic figure, from norse, to celtic to aztec, that I have ever heard of. Butcher is a competent writer, his first person narrative is believable and he has an interesting premise. I can see why he has a following. I wasn't a fan of the all-in and kitchen sink approach to fantasy though. It felt like a long mixed metaphor, but understandable if all of the characters had been introduced over the past few years.

My friend Elmore

I recently finished the novel Glitz by Elmore Leonard. I think this is over number 12 for me (of his crime books, I haven't read many of his early westerns, 3:10 to Yuma for instance). It was an early eighties vintage tale of bad guys, doing bad things and the women who watch them do it. Atlantic City, Puerto Rico, and the human psyche. One thing I enjoyed was the seeming randomness of events and the banality of the bad guys. No evil geniuses masterminding the end of the world, just bad people doing bad things for stupid reasons.

Like all 'EL' books, it was a satisfying read. If you read 'how to write better' books, you'll find that he is often singled out as an example for pacing, and snappy dialogue. And it's true. The thing to keep in mind is, there's only one Elmore and trying to ape his style is a bad idea. So go for the flow, be cool, don't plagiarize the actual verbage.

EL was also the person who I think gave the most sublime writing advise.

His ten rules of writing go something like this:

1. Never open with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than said to carry a dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said'.
5. Keep your exclamation marks under control.
6. Never use the word 'suddenly'.
7. Use regional dialects and patois sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Ditto, places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

Clearly number 10 is my favorite, and the one I try hardest to follow.