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Post by Jim on Jul 3, 2009 13:55:26 GMT
Hi David,many thanks for agreeing to this.
I'll start of with some of the basic questions.
When did you start writing, and do you think you have reached a stage where you are comfortable in calling yourself a writer?
What inspired you to start writing?
Can you tell us about your past work, and any future projects you have lined up?
Has there been one author more than any other that has been a major influence on your writing?
Do you have any rituals you go through when writing?
How much of you goes into your work?
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Post by Jim on Jul 3, 2009 15:12:37 GMT
Will we see the return of# The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs?
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Post by Jim on Jul 4, 2009 6:30:46 GMT
David, how much of an insight into the politics of the horror genre did being the President of the HWA give you
Do you beleive in the things that go bump in the night?
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Post by Jim on Jul 6, 2009 13:38:30 GMT
When did you start writing, and do you think you have reached a stage where you are comfortable in calling yourself a writer?
I started writing seriously in the mid 1980s. Since then, I’ve had seventeen novels, four collections and about a hundred and fifty short stories published. Recently my screenplay KILLER GREEN was optioned, and a director is being attached this week, so I have high hopes of seeing that in theaters soon. Though I’m far from the level of success I’d like to have reached at this point in my career, I feel pretty comfortable calling myself a writer at this stage of the game.
What inspired you to start writing?
I honestly don’t know. I spent my childhood reading everything I could get my hands on. I have always liked to write. When I was young, I wrote more poetry than stories, but when I started high school I already knew I wanted to be a writer. By the time I’d joined the US Navy at age 17, I already told people that I WAS a writer, and eventually I sat down, applied fingers to keys and pens to notebooks and made it happen. I think I’ve just never considered being something else, though my career as an electronics technician and now IT Director might seem to indicate otherwise.
Can you tell us about your past work, and any future projects you have lined up?
Well, it would take a while to list everything, and that’s been done pretty well on my website. My first published novel was the Star Trek Voyager novel CHRYSALIS, but the first I sold was “This is My Blood,” my retelling of the Gospel through the eyes of Mary Magdalene, fallen angel cursed to follow Christ as a vampire. After that I did a number of novels for White Wolf Publishing in their World of Darkness, including the Grails Covenant Trilogy, which is still very popular. In recent years I’ve had the novels Deep Blue, The Mote in Andrea’s Eye, and Ancient Eyes published, as well as the collections DEFINING MOMENTS (which was nominated for the Bram Stoker award, and ENNUI & OTHER STATES OF MADNESS last year from Dark Regions Press. My stories are spread across collections, anthologies, and magazines spanning more than two decades, and aren’t too hard to find. My story “The Gentle Brush of Wings,” first published in the collection DEFINING MOMENTS, won the Bram Stoker for short fiction in 2007. My novella “The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs & The Currently Accepted Habits of Nature” came out in 2008 and has received some positive feedback.
Upcoming I have the novels Vintage Soul, due in December of 2009, Maelstrom, and the Stargate Atlantis novel “Brimstone,” which I wrote with Patricia Lee Macomber, the love of my wife and a talented author in her own right. My screenplay KILLER GREEN will very likely be produced by Ambergris Films this year, and I’m pretty excited about that, as well.
Has there been one author more than any other that has been a major influence on your writing?
I would say that a great number of authors have been strong influences, each for different reasons. I love the works of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Kathe Koja, Poppy Z. Brite, Peter Straub, and Dean Koontz, to name a few. I’m fairly widely read, particularly in these later years since I’ve had a lot of hours of commuting and discovered audio books. I pick things up from those I admire – there’s no way to avoid that, I don’t believe – but I try very hard to keep my work personal at the same time.
Do you have any rituals you go through when writing?
Not really. I started my writing career in the US Navy, and I had to learn to write under pretty much any circumstances. Sometimes there were two televisions and a radio going, as well as a lot of yelling. These days the TV is going, kids are playing, and people are talking, and I write. It’s kept my career alive, this ability to write under duress.
How much of you goes into your work?
It varies with the work, of course, but all of my best work – the most memorable writing – is the work that has the most of me in it. I’ve always said you have to be willing to write what hurts, what puts you out there and really shows what you think, feel, dream – if you can’t do that, the writing will be entertaining, maybe, but no one will remember it after a few years. You have to write yourself in to get the power flowing.
Will we see the return of# The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs?
Absolutely. I love Cletus, and I actually have a couple of ideas plotted and planned to write more stories starring the good reverend. I really enjoyed that story, and as oddly humorous as it was, a lot of my past, my own life, and things I’ve seen and experienced went into it. It’s a strange mix of weird and serious…a good mix, from the reviews, so I’m sure Cletus will be back.
David, how much of an insight politics of the horror genre did being the President of the HWA give you?
Honestly, the HWA has some great members, some great programs, and a lot of flaws that have ebbed and flowed over the years. What I discovered was that there ARE politics in horror – at least in the community – but that they have little or nothing to do with your career. I have been a member off and on since the organization was called HOWL and I’m a lifetime member as a past president, but I believe most of the time spent in the “politics” is more likely to distract you from writing than it is to have a positive effect on your career. I can tell you as a past officer that no good deed goes unpunished.
Do you believe in things that go bump in the night?
I don’t disbelieve. I don’t believe that we’ve even come close to unlocking the secrets our universe has to offer. I believe in ghosts more than any deity worshipped by any organized religion – that much is certain. I find vampires as likely as resurrected prophets, and I would love to find out that all of it is true – magic, evil, good – but suspect that it will remain secret and mysterious and therefore suspect during my lifetime.
Watching the news about the search for the last victim of the Moors Murders I was wondering, how far should horror distance itself from real events? Would you for instance set a story based around the Saddleworth Moor area?
I’ve never been much for taking my stories out of the news, but if a story occurred to me that took place in that area and involved that story, I wouldn’t hesitate. There is where the not copping out and writing honestly things come into play. The stories come, and I write them down. If I ignore one, it usually haunts me until I am forced to reconsider. I don’t believe there are any limits to what one should write…but I also don’t believe one should use that writing JUST to push limits. You go where the story leads, and back again…
Should an author write for himself or the fans? You hear so many Stories of fans outrage when an author refuses to write another story based on one of their characters or set in one of their worlds.
You’re back to my answer from the last story. If I have a character people love, and it keeps coming up, I’ll try to go back to them. If the story suffers because I’m just not feeling it, or I don’t feel like writing it, I’ll let it go and do something else. You have to write what feels good and what you are proud of, or eventually it becomes work, drudgery, and then something you talk about that you used to do. You have to write what moves you.
Some authors LOVE writing recurring characters and that IS what moves them. I’m not that sort of writer, so it’s harder for me. If I have more to say about a character, I’ll write more about them, but if I don’t – I have to say I’ll go on and write for me. It keeps me sane!
-- "It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn." – Robert Southey
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