1. What do you wish that people would ask you about your writing?
- How does it make you feel? I get "Why do you write that stuff?" and "Where do you get your ideas?" (naturally - everyone gets that), but nobody ever asks me how writing makes me feel. Most of the time, I love the process of creation. Most especially, of course, when it's flowing freely from my mind and onto the page. But, even when it's more challenging; I still enjoy the process. Writing horror, especially, is cathartic. I get all of my aggression, frustration, annoyance out on the page. I'm a much more laid-back guy because of it, I think.
2. Which of your characters would you most like to meet and why?
-I've been asked this before, and my answer hasn't changed. Gavin the werewolf, who appears in two short stories and a novel (that last is pending publication), would definitely be my first choice. I've created some others I thought were amazing, and I'd like to sit down and shoot the breeze with them, too. Of course, some of my characters are the kind of folks who are just as likely to stab you in the head with a garden tool as buy the next round. Those folks, I'd just as soon not spend time with. But, Gavin is super cool. He's my boy.
3. I've heard about your editing chops and anti-exclamation point campaign. Why do you feel so strongly about that particular punctuation?
-Ha! It's funny to me that I have this reputation. Really, that I have a reputation as an editor at all is funny. I've only been doing it for a little over a year now. Okay. I'll try to explain. Exclamation points make a sentence jump off the page like a shout. They should be used in cases of dire need only, to really get an urgent point across, to hammer it home. If you're dropping them all over the manuscript, it creates a heightened state of anxiety in the reader. At some point (quickly, too), they become acclimated to it, and no longer feel the impact. So, my rule is: one exclamation point per short story. I will bend on this rarely, when I think there is more than one instance of insanely heightened tension, and there's no better way of illustrating it. But, really? There's almost always a better way. One is plenty. A single, well-placed exclamation point draws the eye. It gets the reader's attention. It lets them know, Hey! This is important. Notice it. A glut of them is like watching a movie where everyone screams the dialog all the way through. It's exhausting.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
A Good Day Writing is a Day Writing.
It Puts the Words on the Page or it Gets the Hose Again.