My thanks this morning to fellow Mancunian speculative fiction writer and novelist Graeme Shimmin who nominated me to be the next person on the Monday Blog Tour. A pass-the-baton exercise bringing you blogs from different writers to start your week off on the right track!
What are you working on?
Between writing screenplays, I like to keep myself occupied by writing lengthy horror novels and short stories.
At the moment, I’m just waiting for my sci-fi/horror novel “Project Nine” to be published by myinkbooks.com. The good folks over there picked up my novel last year, and have been busily trying to convert my rather “eccentric” punctuation and spelling into something the public can actually make sense of.
What is it about?
Ah. The magic question.
“Project Nine” is about a young man who longs for immortality. He finds it in a beautiful woman who has escaped from a secret government research program that has created vampires through gene therapy. He joins her and her friends who have also escaped in their endless trek across America’s backwoods, only to find himself hunted by a relentless detective and losing his own humanity in the process.
How does it differ from others in the genre?
If the Naughties have been so far filled with horror movies populated by twenty-something kids with six-packs and hair extensions, “Project Nine” is about as far from that kind of thing as you can possibly get.
It’s gritty, realistic, and psychologically believable. But it also has the large scale and operatic quality of classic horror stories. I aimed to balance the grim realism of modern fiction with the more emotionally-resonant horror of the 1970s and 1980s.
The vampires in this story are not cape-wearing cliches, nor are they gorgeously, seductive creatures. They are real people put in an extraordinary situation. They make good and bad choices. And they are capable of acts of kindness or unspeakable wickedness.
Why do you write what you write?
Why indeed. Who knows what evil lurks in the mind of Man? Not me, certainly. In my defence, I blame watching a steady diet of old Universal and Hammer horror movies when I was a kid. Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone” stands out for me as being the best SF/Horror TV series ever made.
However, the first movie that really made my hair stand up on end was actually not a movie at all, but the truly frightening Made-For-TV, 2-part adaptation of Stephen King’s “‘Salems Lot” — the one with David Soul and James Mason. Man, that was scary.
Essential, late-night, family-friendly viewing!
I’ve also been an avid fan and collector of comics since I was knee high to an Inhuman. Marvel and 2000AD to be precise. People like Alan Moore have been a huge inspiration, especially “Watchmen” and his run on DC’s “Swamp Thing”.
As far as “real” literature goes, HP Lovecraft remains for me the greatest master of the craft. I also devoured novels by Stephen King (although I especially like the short stories in his “Night Shift” collection) and the criminally underestimated British king of horror, James Herbert. Other influences include: Peter Straub, Frank Herbert, Terry Brooks, Anne Rice, Phillip K Dick, Harry Harrison and, of course, Ray Bradbury.
There. You asked for it.
Swamp Thing – the thinking man’s horror comic.
What is your writing process?
You mean I have a process?
Seriously, it all depends on whether I’m writing screenplays, novels, or short stories.
Screenplays tend to be very structured. I outline to a varying degree of depth before writing a first draft. Then I use a structured rewrite process. I recommend reading as many books as you can on the subject and then employing the rewrite proceess used by Paul Chitlik in his excellent book. Then repeat. Over and over again. And again. And again.
My novels are a different animal. My first novel started life as a comic script (now lost, sadly) and then grew into a full-length book. My second, unpublished work began life purely as a novel. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to say and what the theme would be, then I started writing. Now I’m in the process of getting peer feedback before rewriting and editing.
Short stories usually come out of the blue. I get a first line or an idea as I’m in the shower or walking down the street and then I run with it. The ones that pop into my head seem to be the most successful. The ones I agonize about and outline never see the light of day. Weird, eh?
How much do you write in a day?
Depends. I just wrote an entire screenplay in five days. When I was in what I like to call my James Joyce phase I could write ten pages of single-spaced prose on my typewriter (yes, I had one of those). That comes to about 350 words a page. So 3,500 words a day. You nosey parker, you.
Previous Writer
I was asked to contribute to this project by Graeme Shimmin as part of a chain of connections from writer to writer. Each writer answers the questions and then links to the next writer in the chain. Graeme writes mainly alternate history and some excellent short stories. I suggest you check out his intriguing, fact-filled blog.
Next on the Tour
Graeme Cole is a filmmaker extraordinaire and bon vivant who also writes absurdist fiction. He currently resides in Bosnia and runs L’Institute Zoom, which maintains a blog here.
Andrew Bellware is a sci-fi/fantasy/theatre director/writer/actor and all-round swell guy who works out of NYC. He and his producing partner run Pandora Machine Films, which maintains its eponymous blog (Rated “R” for some racy content — you have been warned). I recommend their marvellous movie Clone Hunter, written by some guy from England 😉
Clone Hunter – the greatest science-fiction ever made, apparently!
ERIC IAN STEELE 