Today's Beautiful Prose (again, not mine)

I've learned more from the prose of F. Paul Wilson, Norman Partridge and the late Charles Grant than anyone I've read recently.  These are the only writers I've ever consciously tried to imitate in terms of style.  Not copy, exactly - but really ingest their styles, let their works mold and shape my style - while still trying to write in a way that's unique to my own self.   

Paul Wilson and Norman Partridge's word economy, specificity, and pacing are marvelous.  Wilson's Repairman Jack novels move so well, cover so much territory with prose that's almost addictive.  And his characterization, even of bit players is superb.  Norman Partridge's words hit like quick, sharp jabs.  Like precise chisel-strikes that carve out rock-solid stories. Anyone who wants to learn something about characterization and POV, start with Paul's The Tomb and read on. For some writing that packs serious punch - I mean, that will literally kick you off your feet - start with Norman's Dark Harvest.

Charles Grant, however.  His prose is beautiful, in that melancholic way that only other folks prone to melancholy (like myself) can appreciate as being beautiful.   I've got a more detailed post about his work later on this week, but for now, the following samplings are today's "beautiful prose of the day", a two-fer-one deal...

The fog had been there from the beginning.

When the Appalachians rose in dark volcanic flame and the sea slid back boiling, when the centuries-old glaciers gouged and ground and crushed their way through to pulverize the land and create the narrow valleys, when the lakes filled with rain and the beasts returned to prowl the forests, the fog was there, barely shifting, seldom rising; when the trees finally grew and the land became fertile, when the birds returned to roost and Man was born, the fog was there, breath of the night and mirror of the moon, scuttling to shadow ahead of the sun, returning to dusk to reclaim its place.


From The Tea Party.

I stand at the window, hands in  the pockets of my robe after cleaning my glasses for the fifth or sixth time and lighting another cigarette that, for some reason or other, I don't bother to finish.  The rain is still falling (sheeting now against the window) , the wind has found a crack under the front door (it's colder than before) and the house has filled with shadows that bring with them distant whisperings.

Meanwhile...I stand at the window, with the book shimmering behind me, and I see each time the wind shifts the indistinct figure of someone standing just outside the reach of the streetlight, of someone darker than shadow in the corner of my porch, of someone waiting on the lawn, oblivious to the storm.



From Nightmare Seasons.

The Whispers of Gaps in My Genre Education, and a night With Tom Monteleone & F. Paul Wilson: P1

Been thinking about a TON of stuff lately.  Most of it regarding my future as a writer.  What I want to accomplish (the crazy, pie in the sky goals), what I'd be happy/content to accomplish (spritzed with a dose of reality), what I want to spend my time doing, where my energies would best be expended.  This is pretty weighty stuff, so I'm splitting it into Part 1 and 2.

I recently stepped down as Shroud's Review Editor.  After over five years of reviewing, I simply came to the end.  Satisfied I'd installed a durable system at Shroud, I realized it was time to leave.  

I'm not done with Shroud, however.  I've pitched at least two more issues to Tim Deal, The Terror at Miskatonic Falls is on its way, and I'll revisit Hiram Grange eventually.   Shroud has become like family, and that'll never change.

Recently, however, I hit a milestone: a phone pitch interview with a senior acquisitions editor at a New York Publishing House. Then, several months later, I met with said editor in person, discussed my pitch, and handed this editor a series synopsis, the synopses for the first two installments plus the first four chapters of each, and a brief overview of the third installment.

I came away changed.   This experience clarified many things.  First of all, since the publication of my first story - for cash - four years ago, I've done okay.  Sold five fiction shorts to decent markets for at least semi-pro pay, six creative non-fiction pieces to very good markets for really good pay.  

Attended Borderlands Press Writers Bootcamp two years consecutively.  Wrote and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote a pretty decent novella that's gotten good reviews, even notched some Stoker Recommendations, though it fell short of the preliminary ballot.  Edited a very unique anthology in The Terror at Miskatonic Falls, as well as Shroud's 2010 Halloween Issue.  

Along the way, I attended a few cons, met some awesome people who have not only been great help, but also great friends.   I started receiving some short story solicitations, so I geared up to write those, another Hiram novella, some Hiram flash, a novel or two, and then...

I stopped.

Looked around.

Realized that I as happy as I was with what I'd accomplished...I wanted to go further.

So, believe it or not, I actually turned down most of those story solicitations.  They just weren't for me.  I also realized that I'd sold myself a lie.  I'll never be a prolific short story writer with hundreds of short stories to my credit.  Just don't have it in me.

When things started "happening" for me, I got really excited.  Couldn't wait until I published enough stories for my first short story collection.   My credits were decent enough.  Had enough good reviews and blurbs, and here's the quirk that POD publishing has brought the small press horror market, for good or ill:  the acceptance of a novel or short story collection through a small or micro horror press no longer hinges on an author's marketability or selling power.  This sounds like a good thing.  More freedom.  More open doors to new voices and fresh writers.  It MUST be a good thing.

I'm becoming ever more uncertain of this.

Especially in the case of short story collections.  What's the logic behind publishing a collection of a writer's short stories?  The motive?  The more I chewed over this, the less appealing the thought became.

You don't publish a collection of your short stories simply because you've racked up enough "readable", "good" stories published in "good" markets.  In fact, it could be argued (let's leave self-publishing ebooks out of this,  for now), that a writer shouldn't publish his own short stories at ALL.

A publisher - of any kind, specialty, small, or micro - should approach  the writer, say to them: "We love your work.  People love your work.  You've done great things.  Won awards.  Have a name and a following.  We'd LOVE to put together a collection of your shorts."

This past week Tom Monteleone and Paul Wilson visited my Creative Writing students, conducted a workshop with them.  I'll just say this now: I love Tom and Paul.  I love Tom's short work, I love Repairman Jack, and both of these guys have left indelible stamps on my writing, thanks to two years at Borderlands' Bootcamp.  So when they asked me to hang out with them and a friend of theirs who lived in Binghamton, I jumped at the chance.

I can't detail that evening here.  That will be Part Two.  Suffice to say...it was better than any Con I've attended yet, (except Borderlands), I kid you not.  It blew my mind.   Overwhelmed me with how little I knew of genre fiction's past.  Most of all?

It humbled me.  Left me in awe. And from my viewpoint, that has crystallized the undeniable negative that POD publishing has brought to the horror genre.

A lack of humility.  Of patience.  Why commit yourself to a dream that will require hard work, patience, and a thick skin?  Why work to be better?  Why suffer rejection from those big, bad, uncaring New York Houses, when we can just self-publish ebooks or publish collections through small presses?

Understand, I'm not slamming small presses.  Cemetery Dance, Apex, Shroud, Thunderstorm and Maelstrom, Belfire, Deadite...all quality publishers.   And places that I'd be happy sending my work, but....

I've been aiming at the bottom of the ladder (and not in quality, just in size and distribution and marketing and name).    Ignoring the top and even the middle.  Convinced myself I wasn't good enough, maybe.  Maybe impatient, also.  Because to hit the top, I need to do two simple things: WRITE.  AND WAIT (and try and try and try....woops.  That's like five things.)  

Maurice Broaddus once wrote a blog entitled "A Fate Worse Than Being Unpublished".  In it, he shared that if he couldn't be published WELL, he'd rather not be published at all until such a time came that he did publish well.

Of course, there's no guarantee of hitting the top or the middle.  Ever.  Maybe - MORE THAN LIKELY - no specialty house will EVER approach me for a collection of my short fiction.  Very possibly, I'll NEVER land a deal with a New York House.

BUT I WANT TO TRY.  

And I'm willing to wait.  For however long it takes to happen.  I'm willing to weather as many rejections as it takes.  As Norman Partridge asked recently in some BRILLIANT blog posts about publishing for the newbie writer: "Have you tried New York? I mean, really tried?"  

No.

No, I haven't.

So I've slowed things down.  I'm still working on my novel, but have no immediate plans to publish it, simply because of THIS awesome piece of advice, also by Norman Partridge: the only magic bullet in publishing success is the writing itself.

I stepped down from Review Editor, and I've accepted a position as a slush reader.  

Slush reader?  

Isn't this a step backward?

No.  It's a HUMBLING step.  One that will teach me SO MUCH about what makes an excellent short story.  I'm also going back to "bone up" on my horror:  Charles Grant. TM Wright.  Ramsey Campbell.  The Whispers anthologies.  So many others I missed because my focus was too narrow.  

And of course, all my current favorites: Gary Braunbeck.  Rio Youers.  Tim Lebbon.  Neil Gaiman.  Norm Partridge.  Norman Prentiss.  Nate Kenyon.  Ronald Malfi and Mary Sangiovanni.  T. L. Hines and Travis Thrasher.  Of course, Tom Monteleone and Paul Wilson. And I need to check out other folks, like Laird Barron and Tom Piccirrilli.

Looks like I'm going back to school.

I've got lots of work to do.

My Booklist #10

Just Finished: Romeo & Juliet & Vampires, by Claudia Gabel. Okay, I'll admit it - this one was campy fun. Shakespeare borrowed plenty from the myths and histories of his time and rewrote them, so this actually makes some sense. Wasn't so happy with the epilogue-ending but the rest I liked fine, plus Benvolio's got more guts in this version.

Currently Reading: Don't Take Away The Light by J. N. Williamson. Picked this and few others of his up after reading Gary Braunbeck's writing memoir, To Each Their Darkness. Took a few tries, (mostly because I'm still obsessed with Repairman Jack), but I'm into it, now. Williamson is another one of those horror writers who wrote stories of substance rather than falling on the same old cliches and tropes, so I'm sure this'll be a good read.

On Hold For Now: Ghost, by J. N. Williamson. See above about Williamson. This one, however, didn't take for some reason. Mostly because I think I've decided I don't like the mix of first person and third person, plus it took too long to get INTO the story, seemed to waffle too much in tongue-in-cheek satire of the agents of Hell and Heaven. Anyway, I'll come back to this later.

Recently Finished: Reality Check, by Peter Abrahams. Really liked this. Tight narrative, clipped tone - very noir, and nary an emo vampire sparkling anywhere. Some teen adventure that WASN'T paranormal romance, you dig? My only quibble with this is its ending: seemed to wrap up too neat and nice and convenient. Other than that, I loved it.

Reprisal, by F. Paul Wilson. If I'm gonna dive into a new mythos, then I gotta cover all the bases. Reprisal follows up The Tomb and Reborn, tracking the rebirth of Rasalom, Repairman Jack's future enemy. Not only was this some satisfying, good old fashioned horror - once again, with a vampyric monster that's ACTUALLY frightening - I love how Paul Wilson can switch voices. The master of POV and characterization, he is. To quote Abe Isher of Isher Sports Goods: "I should be so good as him."

JUST Finished RIGHT THIS MINUTE: Infernal, by F. Paul Wilson. He continues to do it. Drag me from novel to novel. Of course, I'm playing catch-up so it's more addicting knowing I've got all the sequels on my shelf, waiting to be read - but STILL. Anyway, I've already said it, but it bears repeating: if I can give my characters as strong and as varied voices half as well as Paul does, that will be a very, very good thing.

My Booklist #7

1. Currently Reading:

Swan Song, by Robert McCammon.  I picked this up off Nate Southard's recommendation on his recent blog tour, and so far it hasn't disappointed.  It's a bit of a shift from the only other book I've read by McCammon - Boy's Life -  so it's taking a little time getting used to the different voice, but then again I've just started and it's one of those huge, multi-character epics with a ton of voices, so I'm sure I'll be enthralled before long.








 2. Recently Finished:

Mystery, by Peter Straub. Again, what more can I say about Peter Straub that won't leave me sounding like a squealing little fan boy?  Anyway - it's hard to put into words.  I saw on a board somewhere someone complaining about how they got bored reading Peter's work because he "puts too much real life stuff in there."

Blink.  Blink. 

Really?

Couldn't be that said "real life stuff" is actually what gives Peter's work its amazing substance and resonance? Its elegance?  It's deft and essence? 

Jack: Secret Histories, by F. Paul Wilson.  Uh, oh.  Another fan-boy moment.  Anyway, Jack's incarnation in a Teen novel was just as good and enthralling as his adult incarnation, and better yet -it looks intimately tied into the the Secret Histories mythos.  Also, an interesting thing:  over the past ten years of my English teaching career, I've read LOTS of teen novels.  One constant: when authors of adult contemporaries turn their hand to Young Adult/Teen novels...those works for teens are SO much better written, more intelligent than usual teen fare...but still palpable for teens.  The same is true here.

My Booklist #6

Got caught up this morning with some things, so here's today's blog, a little late:

1. Currently reading:

Slippin' Into Darkness,  (Kennsington), by Norman Patridge. This is a new big thing with me; when I discover an author that really HITS me, I go back and start collecting their early works. I loved Dark Harvest, Johnny Halloween and Lesser Demons, so I hit up Norman's first novel on Amazon....and so far, it hasn't disappointed.  It's got that great, terse noir tone, and I like how he's centered the novel so far around a dead girl - how all the characters remember her, how they met her, interacted with her, etc.  This is why every writer should READ as much as possible, should read a wide variety of stories and voices, because of how much you learn.  Any young/newbie writer who says they haven't got enough time to read isn't serious about writing, and that's a fact.

All the Rage, (Tor Books), F. Paul Wilson.  Okay, can I say it again without sounding too gushy? I really, REALLY want my stuff to read like Paul's Repairman Jack novels.  I started this Saturday and I'm already halfway through it.  The pacing is perfect, his sentence structure lean without being terse...and I love the fact that while so many writers are out there trying to create a "mythos" of their own, Paul was busy doing it over ten years ago.  Can't wait to finish and move to the next Repairman Jack gig...









2. Just Finished:

Solitary, (David C. Cook), by Travis Thrasher. Okay, so I'm going to indulge myself here for a moment - you can keep Ted Dekker.  Keep Frank Peretti.  Forget a whole bunch of others.  Travis is the real deal.  This guy can WRITE, and he knows how to create solid, real characters.  I now have TWO favorite CBA (Christian Bookseller Association) authors I'll read at the drop of a hat: T.L. Hines and Travis Thrasher. This is funny, dark, amusing, sarcastic, sad, moving, suspenseful....and like F. Paul Wilson, Travis's prose just keeps you moving.  The "Solitary" series is one I'm going to follow.







3. Just Arrived in the mail:

End Times, (PS Publishing), by Rio Youers.  It's a ghost story.  Of loss, betrayal, pain, hardship...all the things that make us painfully and wonderfully human...oh, and did I mention ghost story....? I can't wait to start reading this...

My Booklist #3

1. Currently Reading:

- Mystery, (Signet), by Peter Straub.  Peter Straub is one of my all-time favorites.  From Shadowland, his classic Ghost Story, his collaborations with King and my favorite two, lost boy, lost girl and in the night room, his books basically rock my world.  His prose is a thing of beauty, his handle of storytelling masterful, and it was reading Straub and also Gary Braunbeck that really led me to see what writing horror would look like for me.  Mystery tells the story behind Tom Pasmore, the reclusive sleuth Straub's reoccuring character, author Timothy Underhill, so often seeks out for information.  Rich and substantial, like all of Straub's works this is one I'll force myself to read slowly.



 
- Johnny Halloween, (Cemetery Dance), by Norman Partridge.   Norm Partridge is one of the finest and most versatile wordsmiths I've come across recently.  Lesser Demons  and Dark Harvest were splendid, the former one of the best short story collections I've read since Tim Lebbon's Last Exit for the Lost, the latter being a VERY tricky take on Halloween, and here comes this tasty treat:  more stories about the October Boy.  You want noir and the supernatural together with precise wordsmithery, this is the stuff for you.








2. Just finished:

 - The Keep, (Berkley Books), by F. Paul Wilson.  This was great, as I fully expected.   No sparkly vampires here, and also a peek into the roots of Wilson's over-arching mythos that ties many of his works together.  I'm a total sucker for those things:  maybe it's a marketing ploy, who knows, but reading different installments and perspectives of a mythos is like piecing together this huge, unbelievable puzzle.  Wilson's usual lean prose was a little more substantial in this one - more elegant, really - but it fit the time period well.  Another win for Wilson.








3. "Recently" discovered:

- Ghostwriter, (Hatchette Books,) by Travis Thrasher. I put recent in quotations because this one I discovered just last summer and the following months ago, but they still deserve a mention.  Ghostwriter, by Travis Thrasher, is honestly the closest thing I've seen in the CBA (Christian Bookseller Association) to actual horror.  The bloodshed - though well done - is there.  The suspense is there.  The tension. AND...a key element of horror that CBA books usually miss: the dread and despair.  All there.  Also: people die.  Sounds heartless that I list this as a plus, but if you're going to scare people, dangle them over the edge...there MUST be stakes.  Thrasher does this one right, and I'm looking forward to reading more of his work.

- Creatures of the Pool, (Leisure Fiction), by Ramsey Campbell.  Okay, horror fans - I know.  How long did it take me to discover Ramsey Campbell?  Before this I'd read his short work and liked it, but I never realized his POWER until I read this.  Highly literary, built on images darting from the corner of your eye, full of atmosphere and dread, Campbell proves why everyone considers him a master with this one.  It's so Lovecraftian but not, it's mostly "Campbellian" because he channels all that classic dread, propels the reader headlong in a present tense narrative, but does it HIS way.  Definitely will be hunting up more of Ramsey Campbell.