Friday, August 1, 2014
Courtesy of Mr. Sean E. Ali....
Since the management is running this elsewhere, I get to embellish a bit on the image I posted earlier...
Coming soon in print (though it is already available as an ebook) PulpWork Press proudly presents the final entry in the HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD anthology series with, HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD, VOLUME III (naturally)!
Featuring 12 stories, including tales by talented folks like Derrick Ferguson, Joel Jenkins, Thomas Deja, and Dale Glaser among others, it takes the western, mashes it up with genres like horror, science fiction and fantasy, mixes liberally, then conservatively (that way no one's offended), and BOOM! you have some fine reading...
Edited by Russ Anderson, it's bound to make the world a cleaner, brighter place, change your life as you know it, it'll pick up your dry cleaning and bring world peace...
...or whirled peas, I really didn't read the box that closely...
And if it doesn't do a single one of those things that I never really promised it would do in the first place...
...wait for it...
...you STILL have some fine reading ahead...!
BOOM goes the dynamite!
So buy a dozen (they make great gifts for Yom Kippur or Columbus Day), and share the love!
Now get out there and pick up a case and inhale that new book smell...
...unless you're doing the ebook thing, then I guess you have to just sort of wing it...
But I digress, buy it already!
You did? Well buy it again...!
These guys are trying to support a lifestyle they'd like to become accustomed to...
...and I'm out.
(insert mic drop here)
Monday, July 28, 2014
The Trail of Sebastian Red #3
Here’s a
preview of “The Bloodstained Trail” a new Sebastian Red story I’m working on
for the SEBASTIAN RED anthology I’ve
been promising you guys for a couple of years now. Enjoy and let me know what
you think, okay?
The
mutilated, gory man sitting on the back of the saddleless horse wept tears of
blood as he had no eyes that would cry normal tears. Naked he was and all the hideous tortures he
had suffered were plain for all to see.
As he rode into the town of McBain’s Bluff, women stifled screams as
they turned the fascinated faces of their children away from the horror on
horseback. Men dashed over to take the
ruined man away, shouting at the women and children to get off the street.
The tortured man screamed as
well-meaning hands took him off the horse’s back. Their touch seared his raw nerves with fresh
agony. The men took him to Doc Henry’s
where they laid him on a cool white bed that soon became stained crimson. Doc Henry got the men out of his operating
theater with curses and generous blows of his huge fists. Fists that soon worked at the task of healing
they had been trained for.
The cry went up for the sheriff to be
summoned and the town drunk scurried to the task. He was no longer drunk. One look at the tortured man sobered him up
right quick.
Sheriff Morton reluctantly left his
supper and ambled on over to Doc Henry’s.
He pushed his way through the crowd gathered outside Doc’s office.
“Who do you reckon he is, Sheriff?”
“Y’think he coulda run across Madman
McGee, Sheriff?”
“Mebbe he’s an outlaw, Sheriff?”
“Won’t somebody think of the children, Sheriff?”
Sheriff Morton paused at the door and
turned around, glared at the crowd.
“Soon as I know what’s going on, you’ll know what’s going on! But right now, the best thing y’all c’n do is
go on ‘bout your bidness and let me tend to mine!”
Sheriff Morton went on in the cool
interior of Doc Henry’s office. And past
that into his operating theater. Doc
Henry looked up from his grisly work.
His arms were crimson up to the elbows and his white shirt no longer
white. But Doc’s face was white. Deathly white with fear. “I’m glad you’re here, Will. He ain’t gonna last long and you need to hear
what he got to say.”
Sheriff Morton took off his hat and
bent down to look in the man’s face. Doc
had cleaned up the ravaged features as much as he could and Sheriff Morton
reacted with shock on recognizing the man.
“Holy God! Is that Chuck King?”
“It is.
And what been done to him turns my stomach in ways I never thought it
would be. I done seen my share of outrage
out here, Will…but this..”
Sheriff Morton took a quick minute to
further examine the man. “I have,
Doc. God help us all, I have.” And then he bent to listen to Chuck King’s
final words. It took the ruined man
three minutes to tell what had happened to him and then he died.
Doc Henry stepped away, making the sign
of St. Ford’s Cross. “If any soul
deserved God’s blessing, it was him. Who
did that to him, Will?”
Sheriff Morton slowly replaced his hat
on his head. “You’d best get washed up
and come on outside, Doc. Best if I tell
ev’rybody at one time so’s we all know what we’re up against.”
Sheriff Morton went back through the
office and outside to the street. The
faces of the townspeople were a mosaic of fear, outright terror, resolve, hope
and in a few, something that he hoped like hell was courage. He waved the excited questions down, saying,
“give Doc a chance to come on out so’s he can hear this along with the rest
a’you.”
It didn’t take Doc long to join the
assembly. Sheriff Morton raised his
voice slightly and called out, “Tonnio, Clapper, Little Bill and Jason…y’all
come up here to the front where you can hear me good. Once I’m done I’ll want you to ride out to
the ranches and settlements and tell everybody what I’m ‘bout to say and tell
them they best come into town until this thing is settled.”
“And what thing is this, Sheriff?”
Sheriff Morton took in a deep breath
and said, “It’s The Kreota. They’re riding
The Bloodstained Trail.”
The ripple of astonished horror that
went through the crowd was to be expected.
The fainting of a couple of women was also to be expected. They were women who had been blessed enough
to survive the last time The Kreota rose up.
Some men looked at each other uncertainly. They did not know The Kreota. The men who had the resigned look of
prisoners sentenced to hang the next morning did.
“That man just rode in ‘bout an hour
ago. I know he didn’t look nothing like
him…but that was Chuck King.”
Another ripple of astonishment.
“Chuck’s wife and two kids are
dead. He was tortured by The Kreota for
fun and then they sent him here on that horse.
He said they told him that before they sent him off. Laughing, they were. Chuck said that he was told that the Ocnoi
Black Conai himself had done him the honor of torturing him.”
“Ocnoi?” Somebody asked.
“It’s the Kreota word for ‘leader’ or
‘chief’. And Black Conai is the worst of
‘em. It was him what led the Kreota
clans the last time they rode The Bloodstained Trail. More’n a couple hundred folks got killed in
that one.”
“But why?” a woman wailed. “We don’t bother The Kreota! I’ve never even seen a Kreota! Why do they want to kill us?”
Sheriff Morton took off his hat and
wiped his forehead clean of sweat with an already soaked forearm. “Ma’am, I wish I could tell you. I stick to my kind and that’s that. But I was one’a those at Lancaster Canyon
during the last great Kreota uprising and I can tell you that it don’t make a
difference to them if they seen you or not.”
A calm, strong voice said, “So what can
we do, Will?”
“I want every able man to go on home
and secure his house and make sure his family is okay. Then report to me. I’ll assign reg’lar patrols of the town and
we’ll barricade all ways in and out of town. And as of now, all women and
children are under curfew. We’ll set up
lookouts on the rooftops. If we keep
our heads, don’t go off past th’ town limits, we should be okay. Leastways until we can get some help from
Fort Bronson. Okay, y’all go on and do
what I told ya. But I want all you
family men back here in three hours! All
single men report right now to my office.”
As Sheriff Morton headed for his
office, his way was blocked by two earnest young men with anxious looks on
their faces. He tried to get past them,
saying, “Boys, you’re single men. I
expect you to volunteer for patrol duty.”
“Sheriff, we need to talk to you.”
Sheriff Morton stopped and took stock
of the Horn brothers. John was the older
and looked at Morton with wide brown eyes.
On the short side he had a wiry build and from working out in the field
his skin had tanned almost as dark as a Tonatore. Yancy was the younger with a slighter taller,
more graceful build. One could tell they
were brothers by their shared thick lemon yellow hair, hollow cheeks and full
lips.
“Boys, I got a lot to do so if you-“
“Sheriff, you do know there’s a wagon
train out there, right?” John said.
“Coming in from Fort Bronson. Claudia’s
on that wagon train.”
“Oh.
I see.” And Sheriff Morton did
see. “Look, fellas-“
It was Yancy who spoke now; “if we
could just take three or four men with us-“
“I cain’t spare anybody, boys. And you know that full well. Matter of fact, I cain’t spare the two of
you. But I know better than to try and
hold you back. If you wanna go_”
Yancy spoke again; “Sheriff, you can’t
expect us not to go!”
Sheriff Morton sighed. “No, I can’t.
And I can’t stop you from going either.
I wish you would stay but if you got it in your heads to go-“
“We’d just need two men!”
And now Sheriff Morton’s face turned
hard. “Looky, boys…I ain’t gonna ask the
married men to go. I got a wife to look
after myself. And I need all the single
men here to help defend the town. That
means you two as well.”
“Sherriff, Claudia’s out there,” and
Yancy couldn't have been more solid than a Sequoia when he said that. “Now, me an’m’brother are goin’ out there to
get her and bring her back here safe.
You gonna help or not?”
“You heard what I said and I meant
it. I got a whole town to look after,
boys. If the Kreota decide to attack
McBain’s Bluff I’m going to need every gun right here. An’ not to put the bad mouth on them but you
got to know that the Kreota might have attacked that wagon train and wiped it
out.”
Yancy’s voice wasn't pleasant as he said, “I oughta knock
your teeth down your throat for even thinking that, Sheriff.”
“Never mind, Yance,” John said. “We’ll go ourselves.”
“Now, just wait a minnit, boys. Mayhap I can help, sorta. There’s a fella been in town a couple of days
passing through on his way to Kelly Gap.
You heard a’ Sebastian Red?”
John nodded. “Gunfighter, isn’t he?”
“Done his share. He hunts bounty, done some scoutin’ for the
Army. He’s even supposed to be something of a spellslinger if the stories can
be believed. If you got enough money I
daresay he’ll hire on to keep the two of you alive out there long enough to get
to that wagon train.”
“He know anything about the Kreota?”
“I dunno. You can ask him, though. He’s most likely over to the saloon.”
John swapped looks with his brother,
who nodded. “We’ll go on over right now
and talk to him, Sheriff. And thanks.”
The brothers headed toward the
saloon. All around them, the town of
McBain’s Bluff seemed to have galvanized into a sort of ordered chaos as men
and women dashed to and fro. Many were
lined up outside of the town’s three general stores, buying supplies.
“Now that I put my mind to it, seems to
me I heard tell some stories of this Sebastian Red,” Yancy said. “Wasn’t he the one put down that range war
over to Bickford County? Killed himself
a mess a’folks over there.”
John nodded in agreement. “I heard a’ him some. Heard he don’t come cheap. They paid him a thousand gold sovereigns for
that job. There was some talk of him
huntin’ down and killing all a’ Bloody Neil Singer’s bunch. Don’t know if I’m comfortable with going out
there with a killer.”
“Where the Kreota is concerned, a
killer is ‘zactly what we need, John. In
any case, it won’t hurt to talk to the man.”
“Agreed.”
They reached the saloon and pushed
their way through the batwing doors. Most
of the saloon had emptied out once word had passed. The bartender busied himself with washing
glasses, nodded in greeting at the Horn brothers.
“Lookin’ for a man name’a Red, Harry,”
John said. “He here?”
Harry gestured at a table near a window. A lean bullwhip of a man sat there, dressed
all in buckskin and leather. A
broad-brimmed sombrero hung from its cord on the back of his chair. Sunlight twinkled on the charms woven into
his dreadlocks. He played Liar’s
Solitaire with a deck of oversized hand-painted cards.
The brothers walked over. “Sebastian Red?”
The man looked up, expertly sizing up
the brothers with just a glance.
“Howdy.”
“I’m John Horn and this here’s
m’brother Yancy. Can we sit and talk
with you a minute?”
Sebastian
Red gestured at the nearly empty bottle of tequila. “Talkin’ is thirsty business.”
John raised his voice. “Harry, bring us a bottle of tequila and a
couple of glasses, wouldja?”
“Be right over.”
Sebastian Red indicated that they
should sit down. “What can I do for you
gentlemen?”
Yancy said, “I ‘spect by now you heard
about the Kreota risin’ up again.”
Sebastian nodded. “Some fool idjit come runnin’ in here yelling
that everybody in town best to get ready to get slaughtered by the Kreota so
most that were here went pilin’ out to run home and hide under their beds.”
“You don’t think they got reason?”
“Best thing to do is barricade every
street in an’ outta town, arm every man and put them either on the rooftops or
at the barricades. An’ don’t leave
town.”
“Sheriff Morton is doin’ just that
thing.”
Sebastian nodded in approval. “Smart man.
Sounds like he’s had some experience with the Kreota.”
“He was at Lancaster Pass.”
“Yeah.
He’s got experience then.”
“But how about you, Mr. Red? You know anythin’ ‘bout the Kreota?”
Harry brought over the fresh bottle and
shot glasses for the Horns. Sebastian
poured himself a drink and tossed it back before answering the question. “I’ve dealt some with the Kreota. Got into some scraps with them. They ain’t a people to be taken lightly. They know how to kill and once they got their
blood hot, the best thing to do is stay right where you are until they cool
off.
"The
last time they rode The Bloodstained Trail was four years ago. They rode it for about five days. Time before that they rode it for five
weeks.” Sebastian poured himself another
drink. “Nobody knows why the Kreota take
to The Bloodstained Trail or why they stop or how long it’s gonna last. All anybody knows is that they’re gonna kill
everything in their path until they’re satisfied and then go on back to their
cliffs and mountains.”
“You speak any Kreota, Mr. Red?”
“Depends on the clan. I know Bighand and Wormbone good. I can get by with Eyefire and Shadowyell. What’s all this ‘bout?”
John toyed with his glass. He’d poured himself a drink but he hadn’t
taken it yet. “My brother and I want to
hire you to help us get to a wagon train.
It’s coming here from Fort Bronson.
That’s five days ride west of here.”
“I know where Fort Bronson is. I worked for the Army some a few years back.”
“So you know this region, then?”
Sebastian Red shrugged. “Well, enough, I reckon. But why you gentlemen want to throw away your
lives riding out to catch a wagon train that’s on its way here anyway?”
“Because there’s no way they can know
the Kreota rose up again and they need to be warned.”
Sebastian Red shook his head. “Chances are the Kreota done killed them
already. You’d be wasting your
lives. You’d best hunker down right here
in town.”
“You don’t understand!” Yancy snarled. “Claudia’s with that wagon!”
“You gonna get yourself killed over a
girl, boy?”
John placed a calming hand on his
brother’s shoulder. “Claudia’s not just
a girl, Mr. Red. She’s a woman I’m hoping
will consent to be my wife.”
“Or mine!” Yancy shrugged his brother’s hand off. “Claudia’s coming out here with her pap to
settle. John an’ me, we both courted
Claudia back in Jenning Falls before coming out here to ranch. We got us a pretty good spread outside of
town. Couple hundred acres, some good
cattle, horses. We ain’t big and we
ain’t fancy but we’re doing all right.”
“So what are we talkin’ about
here? You boys are gonna have this young
lady decide between the two of you?”
John nodded. “We’ve agreed to abide by Claudia’s
decision.”
“What if it’s you?” Sebastian gestured at Yancy. “You gonna be able to live with your brother
marryin’ a woman you love?”
“If that happens, I ‘spect I’ll be
leaving for a while to get over it. But
I’ll be just as happy for my brother as I would be for myself.”
Privately, Sebastian wasn’t so sure
about that. He’d know brothers to cut
each other’s throats over a woman but that wasn’t his lookout. He shook his head. “I appreciate what you wanna do, boys. An’ you’re right. Somebody should ride out and warn the wagon
train and push ‘em until they get here safely.
But just the three of us…” again he shook his head. “And you boys are city born and bred. I can tell.
I need men I can count on when we run into trouble.”
“We may not be big shot gunfighters or
bounty hunters but we can carry our own water when we have to,” Yancy said.
Sebastian looked at him with
approval. “I believe you can. But still…”
“If it’s money we can put two thousand
in your hand in an hour.” John
said. “If you want more than that you’ll
have to wait until we can wire Hayes City and our bank there.”
“That’s not it. Not everything is ‘bout money. I just don’t believe in throwing away my life
or that of other folks if’n there ain’t no need.”
“But we’ve just got to go help them,
Mr. Red. There’s a small force of Army
soldiers with the wagon train but-“
That caught Sebastian’s attention. “You know any of the soldiers with that
wagon? Any mention made of a Lt. Finney
with them?”
Yancy shrugged. “Claudia’s last letter only made mention of a
Captain McAllister in charge. That
all. Why?”
“When I worked for the Army I got to be
pards with this Lt. Jim Finney. He saved
my life when we were out on patrol. We
got surprised by a wild minotaur.
Critter would have tore me to pieces if Finney hadn’t got him with the
first shot.” Sebastian Red looked out
the window. “I’d sure hate to think of
Finney out there with no idea the Kreota done rose up. I owe him.”
Sebastian took another drink and sat in silence, still looking out the
window.
“So does this mean you’ll take us?”
“Yeah.
Yeah, I’ll take you. I can pretty
much guess which route the wagon train will take. We’ll ride out to meet them and push ‘em back
here. Hopefully we can do it without
runnin’ into the Kreota but that ain’t much chance at all.” Sebastian looked hard at John. “And looky here…we find ‘em dead, I still
expect to be paid.”
“Two thousand is yours just for
going. That’s agreed.”
Sebastian grunted in satisfaction. “You boys got horses?”
Yancy looked offended by the
question. “Of course we got horses.”
“I mean real animals with strength and
endurance you can depend on, not them nags you use on your ranch to pull
plows. Out there, a good horse may make
the difference between you keeping your liver or not.”
“What do you mean, ‘keeping your liver’” Yancy asked.
“Kreota cut out the livers of their
kills. That’s where they think the soul
is. They take livers, cook ‘em up in a tasty stew and eat ‘em. Believes it gives them
the power and smarts of whoever it belonged to.
We may have to run. An’ more than
once. You want a horse what ain’t gonna
drop dead on you after a mile or two.”
“We’ll get good horses. Ben Rollins raises some fine horses on his
spread. We’ll get a couple from him.”
John said.
“Make sure your guns and rifles are
clean. Bring dried meat, airtights,
bread. We won’t be making a fire out there. We leave at first light.”
“Why can’t we leave today? There’s still five hours of daylight!”
“One, because I been drinkin’ all day
and I ain’t fool enough to go out there without a good night’s sleep to get
sober. Two; you boys need a solid night
of sleep yourselves because once we get on the road, you ain’t gonna get
another one until you get back here to town.
That’s if you get back.”
John frowned. “I’m not sure I like your attitude, Mr.
Red. You’re supposed to be keeping us
alive but you act like you’re expecting us to get killed.”
“What you don’t understand is that once
we leave this town there’s a mighty good chance that we will get killed.”
“Then why are you going?”
“I told you why. There’s a man out there I owe my life to and
he don’t have no idea of what’s going on.
He deserves an even chance.” Sebastian
Red poured himself another drink. “Now
the both of you best be about your business.
Meet me back here at sunup. And
if either one of you are particularly religious, y’might wanna get your prayin’
done now.”
Monday, July 21, 2014
Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: KARA OWL
Derrick Ferguson: Where do you live
and what do you tell the IRS you do for a living?
Kara Owl: I
live in Tallahassee, Florida, and I tell the IRS I am disabled, because I
am. I write because I can make my own
schedule, and if I’m exhausted or flaring, I can skip a day without having a
boss yell at me for it. I also write
because I need to. The stories must go
somewhere!
DF: Tell us something about your
background.
KO: I
attended Hollins University, where I had several professors tell me I should be
majoring in English (I was a psych major) and encourage my creative
writing. I took multiple creative
writing classes despite my major, and also attended a seminar led by Jeanne
Larsen. I don’t remember what the
seminar was about, but Ms. Larsen made a huge impression. She was larger than life, confident, and
everything I wanted to be. I’m still
grateful for those encouraging teachers.
DF: How long have you been writing?
KO: I wrote
my first “book” in first grade. It was
an alternate ending to a story, because I hated the ending. So, I fixed it! I did that a lot, actually. I don’t remember that first book, but I
remember reading “Jacob Have I Loved” in third or fourth grade and rewriting
the ending to it. I would also write
stories around episodes of my favorite TV shows. Fanfic, basically, though it wasn’t called
that back then.
I am going
to date myself horribly, but I recently found one of those stories. It was a very silly story based around the
Thundercats episode “Safari Joe.” It’s
terrible and yet I still love it because of what it says about chibi-me. I was always a romantic at heart!
I never
thought about writing for other people, though.
Even when I was writing a lot, it was mostly for me. Then, I had a novel idea hit me, and I wrote
it. It wasn’t very good, but it led to a
lot of conversations with my best friend and other novel ideas. After he helped me see what needed to be
changed to make my favorite novel idea work, I settled down and wrote (and
rewrote) the story that became BLOOD OF
THE CHOSEN.
DF: What are your influences?
KO: Author
influences are definitely those I read when I was younger: Anne McCaffrey,
Mercedes Lackey, Melanie Rawn, etc. But
I also draw inspiration from comic books, movies, and TV as well. I feel overwhelmed with all the awesome
inspiration I see everywhere, recently.
It is wonderful.
DF: What's your philosophy of
writing?
KO: My
philosophy is “if it works for you, do it!”
I write
almost every day, though I don’t follow the ‘rule’ that you should treat
writing as a job and write from 8am to 5pm or at a set time every day. I have chronic pain, and so I try to use my
“best” time for writing, when I am feeling sharpest mentally. There’s no set time for that: it varies, and
so does my scheduled writing time.
I also
write very lean, so the “cut 10% rule” doesn’t work very well for me. Nearly all my editing notes include “add more
here” in at least one spot, so I have gotten to the point where my first
editing pass adds description and “meat” in the hopes of avoiding that
note.
I do follow
these truisms: write interesting characters,
“people” that you would want to spend time with. Know the places you write, so you could find
your way around inside them, so you can feel the air of your world on your
face, and so you could describe it from the sky all the way to the earth
beneath the grass. Use all five senses
when describing your setting, though not all at once. Most of all, if you don’t love writing enough
to deal with a LOT of criticism and rejection, don’t walk away, run.
DF: Tell us all about BLOOD OF THE
CHOSEN.
KO: BLOOD OF THE CHOSEN is a novel about an elven family
trying to stand against a darkness that is taking over their world. They must decide if keeping their land is
worth a civil war, and if they don’t decide fast enough, they could lose
everything…
DF: How did you develop your
characters?
KO: The
characters in this novel were developed over almost 20 years. We started off with a throw-away sentence
about a character named after a famous warhorse thanks to a mix-up in the
history books, and ended up with a fully-realized world. I used a lot of things to get these
characters right, including role-playing, character questionnaires, and short
stories. I wanted to know how they’d
react in almost any situation, and I feel like I do now.
DF: You a plotter or a pantser?
KO: Definitely
a plotter. Having an outline helps me to
keep the story fresh in my head. My
outlines aren’t horribly detailed; some of the chapters are one sentence
guidelines. But I know when I need to
start getting towards the ending, or when I need to drop in information that I
need another character for, etc.
DF: Tell us about your future
writing plans. Is there anything else you're working on that we should know
about?
KO: I am
working on the sequel to BLOOD at
the moment, and it will be finished soon, I think. Once it’s done I’ll be sending it to the
publisher, and then I’ll get to work on book 3!
DF: What audience are you trying to
reach with your work? Is there an audience out there for Kara Owl?
KO: I hope
so. I am trying to reach the epic
fantasy audience. My book is perfect for
someone who wants elements of high or epic fantasy without the huge time
commitment most of those books represent.
DF: What's a typical Day In The Life
of Kara Owl like?
KO: I
suppose a typical day is me getting up, feeding cats and the dog, and then
evaluating the pain levels and brain to figure out what’s going to happen
next. Depending on how I feel I might
write for an hour in the morning if I am able.
If not, I’ll do chores and then eat lunch and see how I feel after
lunch. Keeping my writing time flexible
enables me to do it when I am mentally sharpest, and that’s very good for
me. Sometimes, I don’t write until after
dinner! It all depends on my pain
levels. After lunch, I usually take a
little time to rest and figure out what we’re doing for dinner, then cook
it. The husbeast and I go to the gym
most days, because if I don’t work out my pain levels are even higher. (Odd but true.) We spend some time in the evening watching TV
together, and then go to bed.
Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we
should know about Kara Owl?
Kara Owl: I’m
a passably good euchre player, I love board games and role playing games, and I
dream of someday going to an NFL game at Soldier Field.
You can order yourself a copy of BLOOD OF THE CHOSEN from Jupiter Gardens Press or Amazon.com
Thursday, July 10, 2014
The Return Of PULPED!
PULPED! THE OFFICIAL NEW PULP PODCAST returns next week in its new spot as a JACKALOPE RADIO show! Starting Sunday, July 13 at 7 PM CST, PULPED!, an ESO Network Podcast, will run an hour every week on Jackalope Radio bringing the best in New Pulp Fiction to a brand new audience!
Want to be a guest on future episodes? Pulped! Will record on Tuesday nights at 7 PM each week. If you're interested in being a guest on PULPED!, email Tommy Hancock at braedenalex@centurytel.net and he'll schedule you!
Want to be a guest on future episodes? Pulped! Will record on Tuesday nights at 7 PM each week. If you're interested in being a guest on PULPED!, email Tommy Hancock at braedenalex@centurytel.net and he'll schedule you!
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: KEITH GASTON
Derrick Ferguson: Who is Keith
Gaston?
Keith
Gaston: I am the author of more than a dozen books ranging from Speculative
Fiction to Crime novels. My first book was published in 2007. After serving
five years in the military, I began college, earning a degree in Computer
Science. Since earning my degree I've gone on to earn two Masters degrees in
Technology Management and Business Administration. My experience in the
military and computer sciences has shaped many of my stories and characters
over the years. I also write under the name D K Gaston.
DF: Where do you live and what do
you tell the IRS you do for a living?
KG: I currently live in
Michigan and still file my taxes under the title of computer tech guy.
DF: Tell us something about your
background
KG: I am
married to a wonderful woman and have two beautiful children. They're twins,
one boy, the other a girl. I have worked in pretty much every IT field at one
time or another from programming to systems administrator.
DF: How long have you been writing?
KG: I
started drawing and writing comic books with friends in the fourth grade,
creating such characters and teams as the Hooded Phantom and The Legion
Unknown. It wasn't until I was working on my Masters degree that it hit me that
I should start writing again. I enjoyed in a creative writing class, helped
form a writers group and then I was well on my way to working on my first book
titled, XIII.
DF: What do you love most about
writing?
KG: Tough
question. I think I love coming up creative stories the best. I enjoy
brainstorming these ideas off the members of my writers group.
DF: What’s your philosophy of
writing?
KG: Don't
ever write for the money, do it for love. Once it becomes about money, it turns
into a business using a formula style of repeating the same story and then you
produce nothing original.
DF: What’s the best advice you can
give for someone wanting to become a professional writer?
KG: Once
you start writing, don't stop until you finish that first draft. This means do
not edit yourself, because it'll only slow you down during the process. Once
you're finished, but the first draft away for a week and then blow off the dust
and start working on that second draft.
DF: Who’s Taurus Moon and why should
we be reading his adventures?
KG: Taurus
Moon is a relic hunter who will work for pretty much anyone if they can afford
him. He's financially strap most of the time, lives in a run-down apartment in
Detroit, and always seems to be in trouble. He searches for lost supernatural
artifacts that may or may not be located on Earth.
He doesn't
see himself as a hero, yet always finds himself helping those in needs, whether
he wants to or not.
The Taurus
Moon novels blends action, fantasy, science fiction and humor. Fairy tales,
mythologies, and legends are not stories, but his reality.
Readers
will enjoy Taurus Moon because his stories are a fun thrill ride.
DF: What further Taurus Moon adventures
do you have planned?
KG: I'm
working on an anthology featuring many of the secondary characters from Taurus
Moon. I haven't come up with a title just yet, but I expect the book to be published
sometime around August 2014.
DF: You really seem to have hit your
stride in the suspense/thriller genre. So much so that you’ve been described as
“the black James Patterson.” How do you feel about that and what is it about
the suspense thriller that attracts you as both a reader and a writer?
KG: I think
I'm referred to as the black James Patterson because I tend to write my novels
in a movie-style much like Mr. Patterson. If there's a car chase scene, I like
readers to feel as if they are sitting in the passenger seat. I take the
reference as a compliment.
I am a big
movie buff and a huge fan of the action movies of the seventies. It is the
great movies of that yesteryear like, “Three Days Of The Condor”, “Telefon” “Shaft”,
and many others, that have influenced my writing. This of course led me to
finding books with the same type of story-telling, and I discovered writers
like David Baldacci, James Patterson, James Rollins. And of course I was a huge
fan of comic books and used to read Doc Savage and Conan the Barbarian.
When I
first ventured into writing, what I discovered was lacking were action and
speculative fiction novels written by Black authors. When I stumbled on a book
written by Brandon Massey, I was thrilled, and he became part of my inspiration
to write in genres other than thrillers.
DF: The TEASE Trilogy blends the
spy/espionage genre with blaxploitation and urban/street lit. Was that
deliberate on your part or did it just turn out that way?
KG: The TEASE novel was an experiment for me to
see if I could attract readers who typically read Street Lit. I used a
character I introduced in Darkest Hours
(a Joe Hooks thriller) a spy called Shaw as my protagonist. To my surprise, TEASE became my best seller.
Tease is an
assassin working for a local crime lord named D-Shroud. She has never failed on
any of her missions... Well, not until she assigned to kill Shaw.
The book
wasn't going to be called TEASE, nor
was her character supposed to live beyond the first novel, but my beta readers
insisted she continue on. Strange how things work in the writing world. LOL.
DF: You’ve just recently co-wrote a
novel with Teresa D. Patterson: A BITTER PILL TO SWALLOW. How did you two come
together on this project?
KG: She
approached me with the idea, wanting to reach an audience outside of her normal
fan-base. I thought it was an opportunity for me to connect with readers who
don't typically read my works.
She told me
her idea and we hashed out the details of the basic plot and began writing
together. She's located in Florida, while I'm in Michigan, so we did all this
via the Internet.
DF: What did you learn from
collaborating with another writer? And are there any future collaborations we
can look forward to?
KG: I was
pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed collaborating with another author.
It took a lot of pressure off my shoulders creatively and I believe our writing
styles blended well.
I've also
been co-writing a novel with Keith Kareem Williams called Blood & Vengeance. This book will be published mid-June 2015.
Yes, I am
looking forward to working with other authors in the near future.
DF: Out of all your work, pick the
three books that a new reader should start with that you feel represents you at
your creative best.
KG: I
always recommend The Friday House
(government conspiracy thriller), The
Promise (a mystery thriller), and Taurus
Moon: Relic Hunter (action/speculative fiction.)
DF: What’s A Day In The Life Of
Keith Gaston like?
KG: I work
from 8 to 5 on weekdays, squeezing in a hour of writing during lunch. On
weekends, I spend most of the time working around the house and spending time
with the family. When I get a break, I do some writing and surf the web... Oh
and I play Call of Duty.
Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we
should know?
Keith
Gaston: I have two audiobooks, TEASE
and Taurus Moon: Relic Hunter. Both
bring the characters to life and should be checked out.
Thanks for
interviewing me, Derrick, I've had a blast answering your questions.
For more
information on Keith’s books, please check out both his Amazon pages: Keith Gaston and D.K. Gaston
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Progress Report #16
Y’know, I
really have to stop promising that I’m going to do these Progress Reports on a
more timely basis because everytime I do, up jumps The Devil and puts more work
in my way. Then I feel guilty about goofing off here at BLOOD & INK instead
of doing the writing I’m supposed to be doing. But then, when I don’t update
the daggone thing I feel I’m slighting those of you who do read it. The Eternal
Dilemma.
But it
hasn’t been as if I’ve totally neglected it. I hope you’ve been enjoying the
book reviews and “Kickin’ The Willy Bobo” interviews. And I have been busy with
a few things that I’m sure you know about but just in case you don’t, allow me
to catch you up as well as inform you about a few things coming your way in the
months ahead:
We haven’t
even hit the halfway point of the year yet and you’ve got three Dillon
adventures to keep you busy. “Dillon and The Last Rail To Khusra” “Young DillonIn The Halls of Shamballah” and “The Vril Agenda.” There’s three more new
Dillon adventures planned for the rest of the year but for more information on
those you’ll have to go over to the DILLON blog. Ain’t I a stinker?
The major
project that is taking up most of my time is one that I can’t say much about
yet as it’s a special project I’m working on for Pro Se. If I say too much
about it, Tommy Hancock will cut out my tongue. You know how he is about his
announcements and teases. But I think I’m safe enough in telling you this much:
Tommy came to me with an idea for me to novelize a movie. Not just any movie
mind you. But one of the worst movies ever made. I’ve seen the thing more than
once in the course of taking notes for the novel and trust me on this. This
movie makes “Plan 9 From Outer Space” look like “Citizen Kane.” Yes, it’s that bad.
But I had a
challenge from not only Tommy but the star/director of the movie himself; write
the novel and make it better than the
movie. If it’s one thing I can’t resist, it’s a challenge. And after writing
two Dillon adventures back-to-back I thought it would be a nice change of pace.
And so far it has been. I should be done with it by the end of this month and
no doubt Tommy will be telling you all the grisly details about it then.
What else?
There’s a new Sebastian Red story; “Sorrowful Are The Souls That Sleep With
Gold” that will be appearing in HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD Vol. III sooner than you
think. Last I heard the plan was to drop the ebook first with the paperback to
follow soon after. So keep your eyes open for that. I get a lot of inquiries
about a Sebastian Red anthology and I’m not ignoring you, I promise. There’s
one story I have to finish; “The Bloodstained Trail” and then I can see about
putting the thing together with the existing stories. The next time you see
Sebastian Red after that will be in a novel that for now I’m calling THE SEVEN GUNS
OF SEBASTIAN RED.
I’ve also
got to finish the third episode of A MAN CALLED MONGREL before Ron Fortier disowns
me completely. The man has the patience of a Kansas City accountant, I tell ya.
But in the last month or so I’ve actually been contemplating going ahead and
writing a 30K story to bring the series to a satisfying conclusion. It’s a
decision I’ve been wrestling with for quite a while and didn’t want to make but
the hard truth is that Mongrel Henderson, much as I love him is a character
that nobody seems much interested in reading about. And it’s mostly my fault
because I don’t publicize Mongrel as much as I do Dillon or Fortune McCall or
Sebastian Red. I suppose he’s that little brother who simply can’t get out of
the shadows of his bigger, more successful brothers. And I’d rather devote my
time and energy to writing stories about characters people do want to read.
Maybe it’s just not Mongrel’s time or maybe I should go back to my original
plan I had for him: find a helluva good artist and do a Mongrel graphic novel.
We’ll see. In any case, I’ll keep you posted.
What else?
I guess that’s it. Thank you for stopping by to chat and let’s get together
real soon to do this again. In the meantime, read some good books, watch some good movies and say hello to everyone you meet.
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