Category Archives: guest blogger

endless and forever and constant

Ah, stumbled upon this the other day.  A chat with the titular Martuk . One of my favorite interviews. It ran a few years ago when I was releasing Martuk the Holy: Proseuche, the sequel to Martuk the Holy.

Always loved this one.

***

He glanced around the cafe. Noticed the group of German tourists scanning their maps, a jumble of shopping bags at their feet. The mother chatting on her cell phone, her eyes fixed on the baby sleeping in the stroller. He watched the waitress, an older woman with thick hips and thin arms, as she leaned on the counter. And the young couple tucked away in the corner, their fingers clutching stout porcelain. “I’ve watched the world change,” he said. “Civilations rise and fall. Whole worlds end. Yet it still remains the same. Always the same.”

For a moment, I’d forgotten who he was, this Martuk. Had forgotten about his birth in the sun-blasted Zagros mountains one thousand years before Christ. Had forgotten the centuries he’d seen. The bloody chaos he’d caused and the agony he’d endured. Reminded myself that this was a man who’d had a long life, a long immortality, even before something as unremarkable as a cup of coffee even existed.

I gave him a moment. “If I may, why the second book?” I said. “Why Proseuche? Was it something as simple as the story continuing?”

“Nothing’s that simple.” He finished his espresso in one final swallow, his finger raised to order a second. A small nod from me, and a second finger lifted to indicate two. “Writing doesn’t excorcise the ghosts. It emboldens them.”

“So why write?”

A moment of silence followed by a brief shrug. “Who am I without my ghosts? In this world that changes yet remains the same, they are one of my few constants. Their anger, their rage. Their fear and regret and sorrow. These things, I know them. They are familiar. Even here, even now, they walk with me.

“They are amaranthine. A word I now love, by the way,” he said with a grin. “Endless and forever and constant.”

***

Not only will this push the envelope, it will guild that envelope in gold, hone it to a razors edge and use it in a beautiful & brutal ceremony. It so heavy and beautiful and I loved every moment of it, Martuk is going to strike nerves.”

– Zakk @ The Eyes of Madness

 

Proseuche_Cover-FINAL

One Hundred Words

Want to know a secret? Something that was kind of a big deal for me over the last month or so as Proseuche launched? A something that made me squee!!!! like a teenage girl front and center at a One Direction concert basking in a shower of boy band sweat? (now THAT’S a squee, I tell ya)

This. Right here. A story told in one hundred words over on the awesomeness that is Hellnotes.

For me, that’s a big f’ing deal and better than any boy band could ever be 🙂

facing the sinister unexpected

From here on out, whenever I’m asked why I insist on combing horror with history, I’m pointing people to this guest post I wrote for the release of Proseuche.

But the humanity of who we are is the same. That’s a constant. The petty thievery of politicians. The lies husbands tell wives, and wives tell husbands. The dreams children dare to dream about their future. The frustration we have with Them, whether that Them is the wealthy or politicians or annoying neighbors.

And the monsters. We can’t forget about the monsters. Even those that look and talk and act like us. Those are the same, too. The fear of the unknown. The pit in the stomach one feels at the sight of a deep, dark shadow. Though separated by millennia, the quiet terror that makes our hearts thump when faced with a sinister unexpected never changes.

This is why horror works so well in a historical context. This is why I’m driven to take my dark fiction out of the comfort of this contemporary Here and Now and toss it to the wolves of 3rd century Antioch or 1st century Jerusalem.

You can read the rest over here. Enjoy! 🙂

Who am I without my ghosts?

Blog tours can be tough.

On the one hand, you’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity to introduce your work to (hopefully) thousands of new eyes. On the other hand, you find yourself navigating the same questions in the same interviews time and time again. Or struggling to convince your tired brain — which is probably still in shock from writing eighty thousand words and then turning right around to edit and rewrite those same eighty thousand words — to come up with an awesome, amazing, incredible Guest Blog Post.

Well, I don’t always hit a homer, but this is one of the few times I swung for the bleachers and won. Here’s an excerpt:

For a moment, I’d forgotten who he was, this Martuk. Had forgotten about his birth in the sun-blasted Zagros mountains one thousand years before Christ. Had forgotten the centuries he’d seen. The bloody chaos he’d caused and the agony he’d endured. Reminded myself that this was a man who’d had a long life, a long immortality, even before something as unremarkable as a cup of coffee even existed.

I gave him a moment. “If I may, why the second book?” I said. “Why Proseuche? Was it something as simple as the story continuing?”

“Nothing’s that simple.” He finished his espresso in one final swallow, his finger raised to order a second. A small nod from me, and a second finger lifted to indicate two. “Writing doesn’t excorcise the ghosts. It emboldens them.”

“So why write?”

A moment of silence followed by a brief shrug. “Who am I without my ghosts? In this world that changes yet remains the same, they are one of my few constants. Their anger, their rage. Their fear and regret and sorrow. These things, I know them. They are familiar. Even here, even now, they walk with me.

“They are amaranthine. A word I now love, by the way,” he said with a grin. “Endless and forever and constant.”

Lesson? When in doubt, take Martuk out for coffee where he’ll most surely talk about Proseuche.

The World I Live In

You know that thing where I talk with SF Signal about the launch of Proseuche and what it’s like to write about an immortal in a genre full of sparkly vampires and stumbling zombies?

Yeah, that. Here’s an excerpt.

I don’t live in a world where sparkly vampires sigh like lovelorn teenagers, their emotional angst all but defanging them.

I don’t live in a world where zombies with endless appetites lurch and stumble, their ends often coming with a surprising thwack of a shovel.

No, where I live is truly monstrous. It’s dark and forbidding. A place where innocent lives have grisly ends and ghosts still sob. The world I live in is one of betrayal and mistrust. Where the line separating enemy from friend is cloudy and constantly shifting. A land where those who walk and talk like you and me share nothing of our humanity. The world of my immortal Martuk (as in “two” with a hard “k” at the end … Martuk) is one where monsters hide in plain sight, and the blood on their hands is steeped in consequence and regret.

Hangin’ with Hugh

In case you missed it, here’s an excerpt from a Guest Post I had the pleasure of publishing over on Hugh Howey’s site recently while celebrating Proseuche’s release.

 

Amazon opened the doors. Instead of hoops, Amazon offered opportunity. Seeing an industry denying undiscovered talent their chance to be heard, Amazon stepped to the plate.

Single mothers in the Midwest found their romance novels becoming bestsellers. Goth kids dressed in black discovered they’re not alone, their zombie books collecting earnest raves from their peers. Retirees who’d put their dreams of Writing on hold so they could pay the bills and raise a family reinvented themselves as novelists with a lifetime of stories to tell.

Head on over. It’s worth the read. 🙂

Surviving the War of the Page

An excerpt from an interview over on Horror Novel Reviews where I talk about staggering creativity, an enviable imagination, and Venti Caramel Half-Caf N0-Whip Mocha Frappucinos.

Oh, and Proseuche. Of course.

So, really, that’s why I’m here. Because you do what I do and you know how difficult and frustrating it can be. Especially if you’re that falling tree in the forest that no one hears. So I’m standing before you for a nod, a small smile. Maybe even a handshake. One survivor of the War of the Page welcoming another comrade to its ranks, if you will.

 

 

Obsession and Oblivion

From a recent guest post I wrote:

Why do I do what every indie writer does every single day?

Because I’m curious. No, scratch that. Because I’m obsessed.

This obsession can’t be stopped by the absence of a Big Publisher brandishing a goody bag of guidance and media connections. This obsession won’t be quieted by the lack of a sizeable advance propping up my bank account or the implicit promise of three martini lunches in suit-and-tie restaurants. With tablecloths. And flowers. Or not.

In fact, my obsession — perhaps I should be calling it a sickness by now? — isn’t even disheartened by this apparently endless wandering among the parched, wind-blasted dunes of NoSales Desert.

My characters, my stories, my books steamroll everything else into oblivion.