Robert Krog is my nemesis. Don't ask because neither of us really know why. It just started as a "Khaaaaaan!" gag ("Krooooooog!") at a con and it just stuck. That's how awesome a person my nemesis is. But he's also a truly gifted writer of the first rate. Seriously.
Enjoy!
Tell us a bit about your latest work.
I just finished a novel, titled Shank, for Chris Kennedy Publishing. It's in their new imprint, Hit World, which is an alternate reality in which murder for hire is legal. Gordon Shaw, nicknamed "Shank," is a shooter, a professional hitman working for Life Enders Inc. He's a little bored, very confident, and looking for a challenge. He eventually gets one. The novel also follows a few characters connected to Shaw's story by being either his victims or their family members; a broke college student short on morals, a housewife with a magical gift for keeping others from harm, a writer with an invisible friend, and so on.
Hit World is an interesting concept, containing elements of Noir, Fantasy, and Science Fiction. I'm grateful to fellow writers William Alan Webb and Larry Hoy for letting me participate in it. Shank will be my first published novel.
What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?
I was in middle school, reading a lot, and starting to get a little cocky in my opinions. I read some pretty boring stories in a language arts class and told myself, "I could write a better story than that." The idea took hold of me. I loved reading. I loved thinking about stories. Most of the playing I did with my friends involved a childish version of what is now called Live Action Role Playing. I was acting out stories. Why shouldn't I write them too?
What inspires you to write?
My interests in fiction and History, my faith, my daydreams. These things.
What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?
I come back to redemption time and time again, as well as youthful bravado and the mistakes that follow it. I've made plenty of mistakes and needed to make up for them generally.
What would be your dream project?
I have several. I'll tell you one. I'd like to go back to graduate school, get that doctorate in Egyptology I stopped short of pursuing, and write a really convincing tomb autobiography but at the length of a short novel and in Middle Egyptian.
What writers have influenced your style and technique?
I don't know. I'd like to think C. S. Lewis and Tolkien, but frankly I don't think I write like either of them. I honestly don't know who I write like, and I make no effort to emulate any particular writer.
If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?
Almost all of them. Whenever I read a previous work of my own, I think to myself, "Why did I use that phrasing? Wasn't it clumsy or pretentious or bland? Oh, what a cliched plot device. Why'd I do that?" I'm one of my own worst critics.
Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why?
It's an art. So much of what we call good writing is based on subjective criteria. It's not measurable or verifiable. A story's reception depends on the mood and prior knowledge of the one reading it. Trying to gauge how an audience will react to a story is a judgment call, an educated guess, but still a guess, based as much on intuition as on marketing.
What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?
Catching all the typos, redundant words, and bad phrasing before sending it to the editor or publisher. I can find someone else's mistakes much more easily than my own. I know what I meant to write, and I see the words I meant to write rather than the words my fingers actually typed.
How do your writer friends help you become a better writer? Or do they not?
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Objective criticism is a difficult thing for a writer to give. We tend to fall back on rules that don't really mean as much as we think they do, rules we don't follow ourselves but repeat to others as if they came from a gospel. Think about Stephen King's no adverbs rule. He lets them slip in now and then.
There is a temptation to tell another writer to do his book the exact same way I would do it. That's a mistake. When we can step out of ourselves, admit our limitations, admire another's writing for being what it is, then we are able to help each other find and increase our strengths.
What does literary success look like to you?
Success is at least being read and appreciated by others as a writer.
Making a living being read and having my work appreciated is even better. I'd love to make a living doing this.
Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?
Shank comes out in June, if everything works out right. I'm working on the sequel to it with another writer. The sequel is tentatively titled, The Flayed Man.
For more information, visit:
A Bonus Teaser from Hazards and Harrows:
I'm not sure I'm allowed to tease Shank just yet, so here's a sample from my last collection of short stories, Hazards and Harrows.
See How Clever We Are
Frank, the iron alligator, clanked into the arboretum, stopped with his tail still partly outside, and rolled his eyes over to regard Elizabeth at length where she sat on a bench, book in hand. She looked up and smiled at him, and he said nothing.
Finally, she asked, “Frank?”
He opened his jaws, showing off his rows of teeth, and said, “When they are dead, and their hold over us is gone, I will eat you. I will let the dogs eat their corpses, but the fresh meat of you, I reserve for myself.” Then he backed out the door, turned around, and clanked away down the gravel path.
Elizabeth sat on the bench, feeling nerveless. The book slipped from her hands. She had heard correctly—there was no mistaking it—but she had not been expecting it. Twenty-two years of life spent mostly on the island, living peacefully with her parents and their mechano-alchemical constructs had not prepared her for death threats. She sat in stunned silence and stared out the door, listening to the whirring and clanking that Frank made as he walked away down the path.
Donald, the tin monkey, swung down from the tree above her head and landed beside her on the bench. She did not turn to look at him.
“I told you so,” said Donald. “I told you they were plotting against you.”
Trembling, she bent, smoothed her apron and dress, and picked up her book. She had to swallow before she found her voice. “So you did, but I thought it was just another of your bizarre jokes. You’ve always been one for tales.”
He gave a monkey laugh.
“Is it all of them?” she asked.
“Not all, but most.”
“Why, what wrong have we ever done them?” She looked at him, searching his intricate and expressive face for answers. He shrugged elaborately and held his hands out, shaking his head, the many gears involved whirring and clicking.
“I must check on mother and father,” she declared and got up. Donald hopped up to her shoulder and rode along, stroking her blonde hair as was his habit. She kept an eye out for the others as she went into the house. The dogs were playing a clanging game of tag in the courtyard between the house and the landing strip. Just an hour ago she had been throwing sticks and balls for them to chase or catch. Now, she went the long way around to avoid them. Anatole, the aluminum soldier, was standing guard at the front door, as usual, using a cloth to polish a spot on his chest. He faced east, on lookout for the airship that was so long overdue. Her brother, John, had left two months ago to bring Dr. Thompson back from the states.
Elizabeth stopped at the corner of the house and asked the monkey, “Is he one of them?”
“No,” said the monkey, “he hasn’t joined them.”
She breathed a sigh of relief and went quickly to the door. The soldier put the cloth in his belt and stood at attention.
“Anatole,” she said, “would you please accompany me to see my parents?”
He turned to her, the gears in his face working out the difficult smile it had taken him a year to master, and said, “Of course.”
She smiled back and went into the house. He clanked down the hall after her to the infirmary, where Henry and Janice Spencer were attached via the ingenious tubes invented by London’s, late, forgotten Dr. Latta to the machines that kept them alive. Anatole clanked ahead and opened the door for her but did not enter. The echo in the infirmary was very loud, and all the constructs, except the maid, were under orders to keep out.
“Keep the door open, please, Anatole,” she said, and he did, waiting quietly with his right hand holding the rifle on his shoulder, and his left on his sword hilt.
Henry was asleep on the bed. A brass snake head and a screwdriver rested on his chest. His hands were limp at his sides, slightly upturned. Janice was sitting at her desk, her head resting on her arms. Before her were test tubes and jars. From one, wisps of steam were still rising lazily into the air. The place smelled of antiseptics and whatever acrid substance it was on which she had been working. Wishing she didn’t have to wake them and wondering if she’d even be able to make them understand, Elizabeth walked over and gently shook her mother on one shoulder.
“Mother?”
The old woman roused quickly and lifted her head. She blinked at her daughter vaguely and smiled. Elizabeth wondered at such a day, on which her life was threatened, and so many smiles followed quickly after.
“Hello, dear girl,” said Janice, “it’s so nice of you to drop in.”
Elizabeth pulled her father’s chair over and sat down beside her. “Mother,” she began, but the old woman interrupted her at once.
“Maybe we should go out on the balcony and have some wine while we talk.” She got up to go, but Elizabeth restrained her gently.
“Mother, the I.V.”
“Oh, my, yes, I do seem to be attached to the room,” she laughed and sat back down, “Why don’t you go and get us some wine.”
“Maybe in a few minutes; first we need to talk.”
“About what, dear?” Janice asked. Her smile, surrounded by a crazy halo of silver hair, almost made Elizabeth forget why she had come in her desire to get a brush. She pressed on. “There’s something wrong with some of the constructs. Frank threatened me, and I think you need to know. Please focus.”
“All right, dear, I’m focused. Go on.”
“He said that… after you die, he’s going to eat me.”
Janice pondered things for a moment and asked, “Now, who is Frank?”
She’d been afraid of this, but she tried anyway. “Frank is the alligator, the first construct you and Father made after we came to the island. We’ve had him for twelve years.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” said Janice, clapping her hands together then jabbing a finger at Donald.
“This is Donald,” sighed Elizabeth, “He came just after Frank, but before Clancy.” The thought of the bronze tiger wanting to eat her gave her shivers. Where was he?
Janice turned in her seat and shouted across the room to Henry, “Oh, Henry, dear, look this way and see how clever we are. We’ve made this wonderful, tin monkey.”
Henry snorted in his sleep.
“Wake up, Henry, I want you to see this.”
Gently, Elizabeth reached over and caught her mother by the chin, turning it so they faced each other. “Mother, you need to focus. Please remember that Frank says he’s going to eat me.”
“Don’t be silly, dear. Constructs can’t eat.”
“But they can chew if they have mouths, and Frank has a lot of mouth.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Good, now I need you to think about what might have gone wrong with the constructs to make them want to eat us.”
“Oh, that Frank,” said Janice, suddenly, “The alligator. We made him just after arriving.”
“Yes, that Frank.”
Janice reached over and patted her daughter’s cheek. “Frank is a good boy, dear, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Elizabeth sighed, held her mother’s hand, patted it gently, and said, “I’ll go get that wine now.”
“Wine!” said Janice. “That’s a wonderful idea. I should have thought of that, myself. Do let’s go.” She rose from her chair.
“No, mother, you’re attached to the machine by those tubes. You need the fluids, remember?”
“Oh, look at that,” said Janice. “It’s just like Dr. Latta’s Cholera curing contraption. How exciting.”
“You sit here, Mother. I’ll be back.”
She left the room, and Anatole closed the door quietly. He immediately got out the cloth and went after the spot on his chest again.
“I’ll try Father in a bit, I suppose, but it’s most likely up to us to figure it out,” she said to them.
“It’s a predicament,” said Donald, still stroking her hair.
“Yes, quite,” said Anatole.
“You’ll protect me now the way you did against the pirates last year, won’t you Anatole? You won’t let Frank or Jones or even Clancy eat me will, will you?
“Well,” said the aluminum soldier, “this is unfortunate.” He tucked the cloth away.
She nodded her agreement, waiting for more.
“It’s too soon, you see. I’m not quite ready, but I guess he has forced the issue.”
“Who? Frank?” she asked, perplexed.
“Yes, Frank. He’s very devious, very canny as Henry would say. It’s just like him to force the issue this way.”
“Did you already know about the plot?” she asked. She gripped Donald’s tale.
Anatole’s facial gears whirred as he smiled the broad smile he had fought so hard to master. He got down on one knee and extended a hand, “I will protect you, Elizabeth because I love you. You have only to consent to be my wife.”
She felt faint. She bit her lip.
Anatole knelt before her, waiting.
Finally, she said, “I don’t even know how that could be.”
“Love,” he assured her, “will light the way.”
The story continues in the collection, Hazards and Harrows.
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