More Than Nuts and Bolts

 I'm a nuts-and-bolts type of writer, meaning I adopt a blue-collar approach to putting words on paper as opposed to getting all woo-woo about the process. Some writers consider where they write as an enchanted space and often light candles, set up talismans, recite prayers to attract the Muse. Whatever works for you. I, on the other hand, imagine my writing space as the sausage machine. Sit my ass in the chair, flip the switch, and get busy.

 

Scout judging my life choices as he sits in my writing space.

Since I write fiction, my guiding ethos is to make entertainment. No one wants to read a boring book. When writing fiction, we're asking the reader to suspend disbelief and then step into a narrative which is nothing but a lie. As I build the story I ask myself, are the characters making logical decisions given the rules of their world? Are they asking the right questions about their situations? Which extends the story beyond it developing simply as a chain of action->reaction because characters act on motivations, which are in turn based on their values and principles. Otherwise, why not follow the path of least resistance and bail when confronting any difficulty? A compelling motive keeps readers invested emotionally in the characters and elevates the story above an artless this happened, then that happened.

Over the years I've contributed to numerous horror anthologies and since this year marks the twentieth anniversary of my debut novel, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, I decided to commemorate that milestone with a book, my previously published short fiction in a new collection, Tales From a Broken Cosmos. 

 

Available from Amazon. 

Cover by Colin Graham at Mark Graham Communications.

Being horror, lots of bad things happen, most often from making the wrong decisions, which derive from the protagonist's motives. At times these motives are noble--an astronaut surgeon on a mission to repatriate fellow astronauts who are prisoners-of-war, learns too late that she's been duped. However in most of the stories, the characters are thoroughly rotten and get the cosmic justice they deserve. But behind these choices are motives that draw us into the protagonist's minds: a desire for validation, the need for security, a yearning for love, the search for justice (however twisted). For your reading pleasure I give you hoodlums, police detectives, delusional lovers, vampires, cryptids, extraterrestrials, Mayan gods, all neck-deep in stories that careen off the rails.