Signwave by Andrew Vachss

Dell would do anything for Dolly. Dell met Dolly, a nurse serving with Doctors without Borders in war-torn Africa, when Dolly helped save the life of a badly-wounded mercenary soldier who had never before known tenderness or caring. That mercenary, merely one among the many dead and wounded who wound up at the only medical facility in the heart of the jungle, was the man Dolly would eventually marry. Dolly didn’t know that at the time she first saved Dell’s life, but Dell did.

Dell learned about loyalty in the French Foreign Legion. He served five long years in The Legion and was taught many useful things. Like loyalty, weaponry, and ways to kill without being seen and without regret or remorse. Life in the Legion boiled down to kill or be killed. It didn’t matter who you killed. All that mattered was that you killed them first before they killed you.

Now Dell and Dolly have retired from their former lives and live on the Oregon coast where they own some land near the edge of a forest. Dell had wisely invested most of the money he’d earned as a mercenary soldier, so Dolly and Dell can live comfortably without working regular day jobs. If truth be told, Dell is actually quite wealthy. But no one else needs to know that, not even Dolly.

What Dolly does know about Dell and what Dell knows about Dolly is they are both fiercely loyal to each other, to their few human friends, and to the flora and fauna they share their Oregon wilderness home with.

That in a nutshell, is the basic premise behind Andrew Vachss’ enjoyable Aftershock series of laid-back thrillers. Told entirely from Dell’s first-person POV, all three novels (Aftershock, Shockwave, and Signwave) have essentially the same plot: whenever someone or something threatens Dolly or her world, Dell calls on his considerable knowledge, skills, and resources to make the problem simply disappear. But first, Dell must solve the mystery and discover the real source of the problem.

The growing cast of recurring characters—each with his or her own unique abilities and problems—keeps readers reading while Dell investigates and solves the mystery. In Signwave (Pantheon, June 2015, 253 pages, $26.95) Dell calls on MaryLou and Franklin, Johnny and Martin, Mack and Bridgette, and Rascal and Minnie to help Dolly and Dell save their beloved neck of the woods from being exploited by ruthless con men. This time the body count is minimal. Can Dell out-con the con artists? Do bears defecate in the woods?

What Vachss builds in these novels is a growing sense of family that Dell never experienced as a child on the streets of Paris. Luc and Patrice were the closest Dell ever came to family, and they both died. Death was the only constant in Dell’s life until Dell met Dolly. Then everything changed. Now Dell has a real family. And heaven help anyone who tries to mess with any of them because Dell is fiercely loyal to all of them.

I’m now a loyal reader of novels by Andrew Vachss, and I think you will be too once you discover Aftershock, Shockwave, and Signwave.

What I Learned at the 2015 Nebua Awards

What I learned from attending the 2015 Nebula Awards

I just returned from the Nebulas. Wonderful to see so many of my old friends at the Awards ceremonies and receptions. I had to take second looks to recognize some of those old friends because they have literally become old (not just older, but real-world old) and now have grey or white hair and, in some cases, extra pounds around the middle or walk with the help of a cane or walker. It’s the ancient story of Cane and Able made flesh: we seniors need canes in order to be able to walk. Some of my old friends recognized me, and some didn’t. Esther Friesner bumped into me in the SFWA hospitality suite and said, “I know you. Where do I know you from?”

After a voluntary absence from major science fiction and fantasy publications for more than twenty-five years (although I did remain an active SFWA member and attended the 2005 Nebulas), none of the younger puppies (no relation to the sad or rabid puppies) recognized my face, my name, or my writing. I wasn’t really surprised because something similar happened when I attended the Stokers in Atlanta and Odyssey Con and Wiscon in Madison, so I prepared in advance to make new friends by handing out printed business cards and free pens.

Once or twice I even actively engaged in lively conversations with new writers. I’m the shy guy who prefers to sit in the shadows and listen to conversations and observe human (and inhuman) interactions. Lively conversations are not my forte, except when penning written dialogue. I was born with a physical speech defect and I get tongue-tied easily. Few people know that about me. I had corrective surgery as an infant, and I endured remedial speech classes at Rolling Green Elementary School from second through sixth grades. My speech handicap is one of the reasons for my extraordinary shyness.

I learned, at a very early age, to write rather than speak. My comfort zone is sitting behind a typewriter keyboard (now a computer keyboard) to communicate. When I get tongue-tied or stutter, I can easily edit it out of written words.

I can, of course, edit real-world spoken conversations. I acquired the necessary skill sets while completing research for my master’s thesis and doctoral dissertations in Ed Psych. I usually refrain from toying with people’s memories because I don’t think it’s ethical without informed consent. That’s the type of thing villains in my novels do.

Some of you know I am an accomplished hypnotist and NLP practitioner. I was Board Certified by the National Guild of Hypnotists and I taught hypnotism to students in my own school at the enTrance Center and in college-level classes. I helped people recall past-life memories and reframe memories from their current lives. It is ethical to use my skills for therapeutic purposes. I have mixed feelings about using them in sales and marketing, although I am aware they can be highly effective.

Some of the writers I encountered at the Nebulas do use, whether consciously or subconsciously, the same skills for marketing themselves and their fiction. Blake Hausladen is an expert at marketing his books. Richard Thomas, besides being a fine writer, is personable and friendly and promotes other writers, thereby promoting himself in the process. Many of the up-and-coming writers are primarily auditory, and they have excellent story-telling skills because they can translate everything they hear directly into words. Since I am primarily auditory-digital, I translate into symbols before I can translate into spoken words or words on paper. I often get locked into left-brain activity for ninety to one-hundred and thirty minutes where I am lost in thought and can’t respond automatically. I know how to overcome that limitation, but I must consciously choose to do so. It takes extra effort on my part. I’m not always willing to expend the extra effort.

            But I did learn a lot from meeting and interacting with people at the Nebulas this year. I made new friends and renewed old acquaintances. I learned that name recognition and awards are even more important than most people believe.

            I also learned that writers are readers and they buy books. But writers, like fans, buy books only from names they know. There are far too many books available to waste time and money on books that aren’t guaranteed good reads.

            The value of awards—whether Nebulas, Stokers, Edgars, or Hugos—is they have been previously vetted by a large number of readers. Award winners are considered worth reading and knowing. I’m grateful I was able to rekindle (no pun intended, Amazon) relationships with former Nebula winners and get to know future award-winners. Thank you SFWA for the wonderful memories. It was worth every minute spent away from my keyboard.

 

 

A great read for suspense lovers

It’s the writing that makes Abducted by Brian Pinkerton special. Good writing is hard to do. Believe me, I know. But Pinkerton has the eye for detail that makes good writing, and his narrative and dialog are so realistic you can’t help but be drawn into the story.

Pinkerton begins by patiently and painstakingly introducing the characters and the situation. Anita Sherwood is a workaholic mother who has just quit her job to stay at home with Tim, her infant son. Anita and husband Dennis leave Tim with nanny Pam Beckert one final time to go out to dinner to celebrate Anita’s new-found freedom from the daily grind. When they arrive home, Tim and Pam have disappeared along with five hundred dollars in cash Dennis had stashed in a drawer.

An hour after looking everywhere for Pam and Tim, Dennis calls the police. Anita is overwhelmed by police procedures as investigators search the house and surrounding neighborhood, waking neighbors, putting out an Amber alert, reporting the kidnapping to the FBI. News reporters hound Anita for interviews. Then things go from bad to worse as Pam’s Toyota is found abandoned near the ocean.

Pinkerton expertly builds suspense. This is the kind of novel you won’t be able to put down. I highly recommend Abducted by Brian Pinkerton to anyone who wants a good read.

Why I write and go to conventions

I write novels because writing novels makes me happy. When I’m not writing or reading, I’m not happy. Anything that takes me away from reading and writing for more than an hour or two throws me into a blue funk.

Marketing my writing takes away from what precious little writing time I have each day. I try to do marketing tasks while taking a break from writing or revising, and I usually break for an hour or two in the afternoon and then again between nine and eleven PM to read e-mails, return phone calls, and attend to social media.  During this afternoon’s break, I put my current novel aside and ventured to the local Barnes and Noble store in the mall to see if they had displayed copies of Abandoned (my new novel released by Eldritch Press on March 1^st) in the front of the store or on the shelves. The local B&N did have copies on order, but no copies prominently displayed as one might expect them to do for a local author. They assured me they would have plenty of copies available for the autographing I have scheduled in their B&N store on April 18^th.  I want to believe them.

With multiple new novels appearing this year, I’ve already committed to appearing on panels or do autographings at Odyssey Con, World Horror Convention, Wisccon, Nebula Awards, Sasquon, World Fantasy Con, Windycon, and Bouchercon. I’ve had to turn down other invitations to be on panels or to autograph books. I must be getting older and much more curmudgeonly because I used to enjoy going to sf, fantasy, horror, and mystery conventions more than anything. I still love to talk with friends and fans at cons and bookstores, and I love talking shop with other authors and agents and editors and publishers. What taxes me to no end (beside the IRS and the State of Illinois Department of Revenue) is the hassle of traveling these days. It often takes ten times longer to get checked in at airports than the flight itself takes, and it seems I usually get booked on flights that leave from the gates most distant from the main terminal. Several of my recent flights have been cancelled or delayed because of severe weather or mechanical problems. By the time I get to a convention and settled into a hotel room which always seems to be the room at the end of the hall most distant from an elevator, I feel too exhausted to enjoy the con. The arthritis in my knees becomes painful from all that walking and standing. And I suffer from nicotine withdrawal because not only can one not smoke on airplanes anymore, one cannot smoke in hotel rooms or bars either. No big deal. I don’t need to smoke, but I do like to smoke because I enjoy it. That’s probably a lie. But now, when I want a smoke at a convention, I do have to trudge all the way outdoors and away from the doorways themselves to stand in the cold and rain or snow. That takes extra time and effort I no longer have.

I used to write at least one new short story at each con, and I still squeeze in some writing time whenever I can. But novels require concentration to achieve continuity, and I can’t concentrate on my writing at conventions. Maybe other writers can, but I can’t. Besides, it seems silly to spend a small fortune to travel half-way across country to attend a convention and then spend most of the time inside my room writing. When I’m at a con, I want to meet people. I want to talk and listen and catch up on what’s happening in other people’s lives and careers. And I am constantly torn between my need to write and my need to communicate face to face.

You can sense my conflict in these paragraphs. I want to meet people and talk about writing. But I also want to write. Are they mutually exclusive endeavors?

I have known so many people who spend more time talking about writing than actually writing. I have done that myself from time to time, and my writing suffers for it. It’s better to let the writing speak for itself. Whenever someone asks me what my latest novel is about, I really want to reply, “Read the book and see for yourself.” Instead, I have memorized short elevator speeches to describe each of my novels. I can usually tell by the look in a person’s eyes if I’ve hooked them. It’s like watching readers browse in libraries and bookstores. People read the blurbs on the back cover and end-papers first. Then they open the book and read the first and sometimes last pages. They may even flip through the pages to scan some of the dialogue. Then they either put the book back on the shelf or add it to the pile they intend to check out or buy. You know when you see the eager glint in their eyes that they’ll buy the book because your words hooked them. That’s what I’m still learning to do with my elevator speeches. I need to give readers enough information to keep them interested, but not so much that they don’t need to read the novel to get the whole story. I want them to have that same wonderful look in their eyes after they’ve finished reading the entire novel and they simply can’t wait to rush out to find other books with my by-line.

Book marketing is as much an art as book writing. Finding the right words at the right time takes skill and practice. I’m still learning, and I learn best by doing. I know I need to get out there and talk to people about my books. Each time I go to a convention or attend an autographing, I learn more. Now I need to find the right balance between talking away my stories and writing what people want to read.

I’d rather be writing. Writing makes me happy.

But there’s something magical that happens when I witness that gleam in a reader’s eye, and seeing that gleam—that hunger for more—in a reader’s eye makes me ecstatically happy, too. It doesn’t matter if that gleam appeared because of something I’ve written or something another author has written. I love to share in the reader’s joy. Joy is contagious.

That’s why I write. And that’s why I go to conventions and do signings. I just wish there were more time to do both.

 

Two of the Nice Things about Social Media, Especially Blogs

 

I’ve quoted Shakespeare often before, and I’ll quote the Bard now again. In the first scene of the fifth act of The Tempest, Miranda exclaims, “O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in it!” Prospero replies: “Tis new to thee.”

Social media is relatively new to me. I began writing in the late 1940s, pounding out stories on an old Remington upright. I migrated to a manual Royal in the early 1950s, acquired an electric Smith-Corona in the 1960s, and got my first dedicated word processor in the 1970s. By the 1980s, I was writing on computers: Commodore 64 (with a voice tape recorder to save files), Apple IIe (with dual 5.1 inch floppy disk drives), Mac SE with a 120K hard drive. I paid $7,000 for a Macintosh portable in 1990. It had one megabite of RAM and a small hard drive and used 3.5 inch floppy disks to store stories. But—miracle of miracles--I could connect it to a modem, connect the modem to a telephone line, and access Genie. SFWA had an online discussion board on Genie where I could post messages and read messages from other writers. HWA followed SFWA onto Genie not long after, and my novel and short story writing suffered as I learned the new technologies and spent way too much time online. I followed SFWA onto Compuserv and then AOL and, finally, to the worldwide web. I was a lurker as much as a contributor, and I felt a part of the writing community even if I were no longer writing fiction.

When Gretta developed heart problems and I was diagnosed with cancer, I stopped writing fiction entirely and became a researcher. I used hypnosis and visualization to shrink my tumors until they disappeared, and Gretta used hypnosis to generate new arteries in her heart. Gretta lost her battle with heart disease and diabetes in 2012, and I returned to fiction writing shortly thereafter.

I discovered modern social media while earning a masters in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin and working on my doctorate in Educational Psychology. So computers, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, e-books, and website creation weren’t exactly new to me by the time I returned to full-time fiction writing. But I still have Miranda’s sense of wonder at how many goodly creatures there are here online.

I now keep in touch daily with hundreds of friends on Facebook and thousands of readers through Blogger, Twitter, Tumblr, and Google +. I can download e-books instantly from Amazon or Barnesandnoble.com. And I can literally see the faces and workspaces of other writers and read about their daily struggles to commit words to memory.

That seems like a godsend to me. I am no longer alone at my keyboard facing a blank screen.

Writers are lonely people who want desperately to connect their minds with other minds. They attempt to do that with words and images while wishing direct mind-to-mind communication were possible. Sometimes, when a writer recognizes her own thoughts in the writings of others, mind-to-mind communication does indeed seem possible.

I maintain blogs on Blogger, Tumblr, and Wordpress, and so do many other writers. Some writers post about their daily struggles, and some talk openly about the process they follow to create works of fiction. I used to think it was a waste of time and creative energy to devote hours and thousands of words daily to blogs, but I was wrong.

Blog postings, like short stories, can be collected into books. I can go back to blogs I have written, extract the most salient points, and edit them into a book on the process I follow to create fiction. Such a book can be valuable not only to me but to other writers, especially new writers just learning the craft.

Just as important, however, is the name exposure. When people go into a bookstore—either a brick-and-mortar bookstore or an online emporium—they might recognize my name and take a look inside a book with my name on it. I do that, and I suspect others do that, too. I don’t buy a book simply because of author name recognition, but I do take a look inside every book by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Patricia Cornwell, Joe R Lansdale, Billie Sue Mosiman, Mark Rainey, Lee Child, David Morrell, Brian Garfield, and everyone I befriend on Facebook. If their stories or styles interest me, I buy their books. I would hope people do that with my books.

One of the nice things about blogs is seeing a writer’s style before buying his or her books. It costs nothing but a few moments of time to scan a blog. I have bought books recently solely because I liked what I read on the author’s blog.

 

Coming Next: Author Interviews and Elevator Pitches

Writing is a Process

Most writers have a life-long fascination with the process of writing.

We spend endless hours studying and practicing our craft. We attend writer’s workshops and conferences, pay big bucks to take writing classes, and some of us even earn a lot more money teaching workshops and classes than we earn from the actual writing itself. This fascination with writing is a life-long addiction we couldn’t break even if we wanted to try.

I spoke recently at Rock Valley College about the joy of writing that occurs when we are in flow. Flow is a kind of ecstasy not unlike orgasm or religious rapture. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered through extensive research (and demonstrated by his own books and articles) that flow occurs when the challenges we face are equally matched by the skills we possess. Mythologist Joseph Campbell called being in flow “bliss.” Campbell said, “If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are -- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.”

Stephen King talked about the same thing in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. “Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching), every outing is a bravura performance, because you as the creator are happy. Perhaps even ecstatic. That goes for reading and writing as well as for playing a musical instrument, hitting a baseball, or running the four-forty. The sort of strenuous reading and writing program I advocate—four to six hours a day, every day—will not seem strenuous if you really enjoy doing these things and have an aptitude for them; in fact, you may be following such a program already.”

            I began writing another new novel this week after submitting a new 6,000 word short story to a magazine and sending the completed manuscript of Spilled Milk to a book editor. I’m in that in-between refractory period when I’ve temporarily removed both my writing hat and my editor’s hat so my naked head can breathe. I inhale new ideas by reading books written by other writers. I am able to see both the forest and the trees in perspective.

            I am, for the moment, consciously aware of all I need to put into my writing to make it flow for the reader. When I’m actually writing fiction, my subconscious takes over and automatically does what long hours of reading and writing have trained it to do. When I am in flow myself, I’m so focused on a fictional world that I’m not conscious of my actual environment or my body or any and all of the disparate elements that go into creating a work of fiction. It is only when I take off my writer’s hat that other worlds—including the real world--come into focus.

            Perhaps it’s because I wore my editor’s hat so long while revising and submitting my completed manuscripts that I’m still focused on analyzing the process of writing rather than doing the writing. Perhaps it’s the shock of emerging from ecstasy and rediscovering my own body and mind. Whatever the reasons, I’m now focused on the process itself. My analytical left brain is in charge.

            This is the point where I’m capable of writing a synopsis or a proposal for a new work.

            There may be some truth to the saying that “Those who can, do; those who can’t do, teach.” I can’t teach writing when I’m in the process of writing. Were anyone to observe me when I’m wearing my writer’s hat, they would see a madman maniacally pounding on keys or staring off into space. If they were to ask me what I was doing, I couldn’t tell them. I don’t consciously know what I’m doing when I’m writing. I’m carried away; I’m floating on clouds of ecstasy; I’m flying; I’m orgasmic. No one can teach that. It must be experienced.

            So, now that I’m not completely caught up in the experience, my mind wants to know what happened so I can duplicate the experience again and again. I can only assume other writers go through this, too. Even beginning writers—those that are also readers—have an inkling that the experience is much to be desired.

            These are the twelve steps of the process that work for me: (1) totally immerse yourself in the written word; (2) alternate between reading and writing; (3) find what you like and duplicate it yourself, but do it in a new way that is uniquely your own; (4) do it again and again until it becomes automatic for you, second-nature to do it that way; (5) try something new that has never been tried before; (6) learn from both your failures and your successes; (7) if something doesn’t work—doesn’t feel right and doesn’t create ecstasy--try something else; (8) settle for nothing less than perfection; (9) enjoy what you’re doing while you’re doing it; (10) don’t stop to analyze until the ecstasy is over; (11) know that all good things must come  to an end; (12) begin again.

            It’s all about new beginnings and new endings and the feelings of ecstasy that come between the beginnings and ends.

            I go through this process of reading and writing and analyzing as if I’m caught in an endless loop of beginnings and endings with brief periods of ecstasy to sustain me. Sometimes writing is painful, and that’s when I know I’m growing beyond my previous comfort zone. When reading or writing becomes painful for too long, however, I need to realize I’m reading or writing the wrong thing. I’m a hedonist who seeks pleasure and avoids pain. But pain, in small doses, can prove invigorating.

            Like my characters, I must sometimes suffer pain in order to grow. Rather than avoid pain, I must learn to incorporate it into my being. Muscles are built on scar tissue.

            And then, when I’m in ecstasy again, I can appreciate it so much more because I survived the pain.

            Writing, like life, is a process. Sometimes, it’s a step by step process and sometimes it’s a quantum leap from here to there. Sometimes, it’s painful. More often, it’s joyous. If it’s not that way for you, you may be in the wrong business.

            There’s a story that famous artists, musicians, and writers love to tell--each in their own way--which is, essentially, the same story. It goes something like this:

            Once upon a time there was a young artist (or musician or writer) who thought he had talent and dreamed of pursuing a career as an artist (or musician or writer).

            One day, this young artist (or musician or writer) met Michelangelo (or Beethoven or Shakespeare) and asked the Great Master if his painting (score or poem) showed talent.  Michelangelo (or Beethoven or Shakespeare) looked at the painting (listened to the score, read the sonnet or story) and shook his head in despair. “Do you really want my advice?” asked the Great Master. “Of course,” said the young man. “Then you should give up this silly notion of wanting to become a great artist (or musician or writer) and instead take up a valuable trade or become a merchant.”

            The young man was heartbroken.  He thanked the Master for the good advice. Then he went off to pursue a career as a merchant.

            Years later, the same man met Michelangelo (or Beethoven or Shakespeare) quite by accident at a civic function. “Maestro,” said the no-longer-young man, “I want to thank you again for the excellent advice you once gave me. Thanks to you, I am now a successful merchant, and the richest man in Rome (Munich, London).”

            “What advice did I give you?” asked the Master.

            “Why, don’t you remember? You told me to give up my thoughts of ever becoming a great artist (musician or writer). Obviously, you must have known I had no artistic talent. I took your advice and became a merchant. And now I am wealthy and very happy.”

            “I never said you had no talent,” said the Master. “In fact, I seem to remember you had great talent.”

            “But, then, why on earth did you tell me to give up thoughts of becoming an artist (musician or writer) and become instead a merchant?”

            “I say that to everyone who asks if they have talent. You see, my friend, many men have talent. But only those who know in their innermost hearts that they were meant to become artists (or musicians or writers) and therefore disregard my advice--only those--will ever become great. You see, it makes no difference what I tell them (or what I told you). If they (you) have what it takes to become great, then they (you) will do it despite (or in spite of) whatever I tell them. You, my friend, were not meant to be an artist (or musician or writer). If you had been, what I said would never have mattered at all.”

            Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to put my writer’s hat back on and return to work.

 

The Devil Made Me Do It

Introduction to The Devil Made Me Do It

As I reread the twenty early tales that comprise The Devil Made Me Do It for the digital edition soon to be republished by Macabre Ink Digital and Crossroad Press, I was amazed how well some the stories still worked while others seemed time-worn and too sloppy to be called stories. Few have real beginnings, middles, and satisfying endings. I was still learning my craft when those tales were written, having recently emerged from a literary tradition heavily influenced by Hemingway, Faulkner, and the beat writers of the 1950s and 1960s. Several of the tales were experiments in subtlety where less was always more. The writer’s job was only to set the stage, establish the mood, so that horrors were implied rather than described. The reader was left to fill in from his or her own imagination what would happen next or what might already have happened.

            Two of my favorite tales are included in this early collection: “Change of Mind” and “The Last Ding Dong of Doom.”

            Some of the tales display my debt to Howard Phillips Lovecraft, especially “The Outsider” and “The Rats in the Walls”. “Soon” and “Till the End of Time” had been previously published in Randy Everts’ The Arkham Sampler, and show my cross-over from science fiction writer to horror writer. When The Devil Made Me Do It first appeared in 1985 under the Miskatonic University imprint of The Strange Company, I was definitely a Lovecraftian imitator. Devil was released in a limited edition at Madcon, a semi-annual Lovecraft convention in Madison, Wisconsin. I was heavily into Lovecraft during the early eighties, and it shows in at least half of the twenty stories contained in The Devil Made Me Do It.

            My previously published novels had ranged from westerns, thrillers, contemporary romances, and erotica written under pseudonyms. The Devil Made Me Do It was the first book with my real name on the cover. I had also written half-a-hundred science fiction stories, most of which never saw print. The few that did were more horror than hard sf, and they didn’t fit into Asimov’s or Analog.

            Even “The Last Ding Dong of Doom” had appeared in The Horror Show under a Dale Anderson byline. It was only after Devil that I decided to submit to horror markets and to use my real name on stories and novels. Claw Hammer came out in 1989 under the Paul Dale Anderson name, followed by Daddy’s Home. I began to use my own name on book reviews, too, although I did use Irwin Chapman on most of the reviews I wrote for 2AM. Paul Dale Anderson fiction appeared in The Horror Show, Arkham Sampler, Deathrealm, New Blood, Dark Regions, SPWAO Showcase, Etchings and Odysseys, and in anthologies like Hotter Blood, Masques III, Seeds of Fear, and Shock Rock.

            Then--when death and life-threatening illnesses claimed so many of my loved ones and associates, including my agent Barbara Puechner--Paul Dale Anderson disappeared as a fiction writer and Paul Dale Anderson, the board-certified hypnotist and scholar, appeared. I earned several masters degrees and worked diligently on a doctorate, completing all but the dissertation. I wrote primarily non-fiction for twenty years. And, for twenty years, I fought a valiant battle against death and disease.

            Like all wars, you win a few battles and you lose a few. Without a doubt, I helped some people live longer and more productive lives.

            That war ended in 2012 when my wife Gretta died suddenly of a massive heart attack. Paul D. Anderson, the hypnotist, died that same day.

            A few months later, Paul Dale Anderson, the horror writer, was literally reincarnated. Like Phoenix rising from the ashes, I was reborn with new tales to tell.

            I’m happy that The Devil Made Me Do It is now reborn as well. Soon Claw Hammer and Daddy’s Home will be, too.

            Yes, Virginia, there is life after death. Abandoned is a completely new novel unlike anything I have done before, and Deviants is mind-bending. Spilled Milk is just plain nasty. I love Pickaxe, Icepick, and Meat Cleaver. There are twenty new Paul Dale Anderson novels completed, and more on the way. I have a new few short stories ready to go, too.

            But The Devil Made Me Do It started it all.

           

A digression

A lot of writers have been commenting lately that they don’t use outlines when they write. Joe R. Lansdale mentioned that today on his Facebook page, and Stephen King admitted the same in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. They also said they know how to use outlines and can write to outline if they absolutely have to. I think it’s great they no longer have to.

                In the bad old days when three-book contracts were negotiated based solely on synopsis and outline, I felt obligated to stick close to the original inception. But my writing has become so much better now that I’m writing the story first and then doing the synopsis only after the entire tale has been told from beginning to end. I love the surprises that my subconscious supplies as the characters develop on their own and the plot unfolds naturally. I want to learn what happens as much as readers will. I love experiencing the unexpected twists and turns and all those dangerous and exiting rapid-fire ups and downs that shove your stomach up into your raw-from-screaming throat as the roller coaster picks up speed near the end of a wild ride. I’m completely breathless when the car abruptly slows, stops, and I have to get off. I want to buy another ticket and ride again. And I always do.

                I’m a thrill-seeker as much as the next guy.

                Three rides is usually enough. By then, I know what’s coming next before it happens. After the third ride, I’m ready to find another roller coaster, one with even more surprises.

                Lately, I’ve been writing three slasher novels in a row, then switching to supernatural thrillers for a three-book run, then a stand-alone police-procedural or military/spy/action-adventure novel. Those are the kinds of books I love to read. Those are the kinds of books I write.

                I’m prolific, but not fast. I used to be fast, but my fiction suffered for it. Now I write at varying speeds as the action demands.

                But once I begin a story, I get caught up in it and pursue the story to the very end. I write six to ten hours a day, every day. Some days I write all in one sitting with time outs only for bathroom breaks and coffee refills. Most days, I write in the morning, do e-mails, social media, marketing, interviews, and write non-fiction in the afternoons, then return to fiction-writing before bed. There are days when I edit as I go along, polishing each paragraph until the words shine like diamonds. I have days when I do no editing at all. I just write. Those are the glory days when I’m living the story. When I finally do take off my writer’s hat and don my editor’s hat, I cut and polish my many-faceted diamonds in the rough.

                Bedtime is for reading. That’s when I discover how my colleagues think and write. I prefer hardbounds and paperbacks to read in bed. I read books on my Kindle and computer during the afternoons and early evening when I find time. I usually read a dozen books at the same time. Plus, I have a dozen more waiting to be read. Life is good.

                Sometimes family and social obligations require a change to my normal schedule, but I still find time to write six-to-ten hours a day. What suffers most often is my reading, and I absolutely refuse to edit my own work when I’m preoccupied with other things. I can switch realities and re-enter my fictional worlds anytime. What I cannot do is concentrate on editing when I’m in the middle of a family crisis or attending a con. Maybe other writers can. I can’t.

                These days I shortchange my family and friends in order to write. Not all of my family or friends want to accept that, but I can only say to them what Martin Luther said to his Bishop when he resigned as a Catholic priest: Ich kann nicht ander. Please understand, this is something I must do. I can do nothing else.

                True family and friends unconditionally accept the writer as he or she is.

                I have been fortunate to have the support of most of my family and friends. Not everyone appreciates that I prefer to write horror, and that’s okay. If I had to depend on my family and friends to buy my books, I would already have starved to death.

To be continued….

 

 

Paul Dale Anderson lecture on Writing, Hypnosis, and FLow at Rock Valley College 10-22-14

Free Lecture on Writing

Learn about Self Hypnosis and Writing

 

 

Self-hypnosis is practiced by writers familiar with their craft who use it to separate in their writing the creative process and the editing process. One of the challenges for writers is to take the elements of a story and imaginatively create a finished work for readers. One aspect of Paul Dale Anderson’s talk will be a discussion of “flow” as a state of mind. As explained by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychology professor at University of Chicago, “Flow” is sought out by people in their desire for happiness and challenge related to their skills. To achieve flow humans must have challenges and achieve mastery in the skills necessary to meet those challenges. Skill sets develop when each challenge is only slightly greater than the previous ones. If the challenge is too much greater, or insufficient to be interesting, the person becomes anxious or bored and develops no new skills.

 Anderson has an MS in educational psychology from Northern Illinois University and an MA in library and information studies from the University of Wisconsin. He is the author of numerous books and short stories and has taught writing in courses for the Writer's Digest Schools and in workshops at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Learn more at www.pauldaleanderson.com

Date:  Wednesday, October 22

Time: 2:30 – 3:30  pm
Location: Woodward Technology Center Room 141/142

 

The lecture is sponsored by Friends of the Estelle M. Black Library.