The Black Bat and Me (And the Golden Amazon too)

Hey, everybody! When you are looking through Previews this month, don't miss page 374 (Moonstone Books). My newest work will appear in The Black Bat Returns anthology listed there. Be sure to pre-order your copy!

Features my story, "The Blood of Gordon Pruett," which features the first and only (I believe) team-up between the Black Bat and the Golden Amazon.

But don't wait too long. Orders must be placed by September 25!

David Boop: Blinding Us with Brilliance

David Boop is not only a fantastic writer, but he also has one of the most fun names you can ever say aloud. Try it. It's fun.

And so is David.

Maybe that's what I like and respect so much about him and his work -- that fun that he interjects and injects into it.

And I think once you get to know him, you'll agree.

Tell us a bit about your latest work.

I’ve been cranking out short stories of late. Last year was a good year with both my first non-genre mystery (“Kelly” in Bête Noire Issue #2) and my first media tie-in (“The Wet and the Wicked” in The Green Hornet Casefiles.) I also had my first reprint in How the West was Weird Vol 2. Good year for firsts. This year I’m seeing both my first children’s book, The Three Inventors Sneebury, come out from Fairypunk Press, and my first zombie story, “Like a Bee in the Heart” appear in Undead Tales Vol 2. Finally, I have several weird western stories coming this spring, both original and reprint. There’s a piece in Low Noon and one in Penny Dread Tales Vol 2. I seem to be big in second volumes. LOL!

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

I loved flawed heroes. Not just your normal hubris, but crippling issues. Noel R. Glass, the protagonist from my novel She Murdered Me with Science, is gutted by guilt from an experiment that had tragic results. The reader meets him just as he’s just starting to put this behind him and move on, only to have someone walk through the door and tell him his culpability was a lie and that he’d been framed. Other protagonists have issues like Oedipus complexes, borderline pedophilia, grief, arrogance, apathy and greed. Of course, these become redemption tales, ultimately. I love a story where the hero has to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and find that last reserve of strength to succeed. I like twists, taking the reader somewhere they don’t expect. I want them to discover the reward for success is not what the protagonist, or reader, had in mind.

What would be your dream project?

Working with George R. R. Martin on Wildcards, or Lucasbooks on an Indiana Jones project. I’ve had a Dr. Jones story for years; outlined and everything. I got it in front of an editor once, but it was an off time for Indy. Maybe if they do another movie...

If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?

The great thing about reprints is I’ve fixed several glaring errors in my earlier writing. The first two stories I ever sold were reprinted within the last year, and now both are tighter. I wonder about my novel sometimes, but honestly, other than a few missed typos, I think it still holds true. If I ever sell the other two books in the series, maybe an editor will want me to go back over it, but I’m not sure I would change anything (That being said, I want to put in some new lines to foreshadow the second book.)

What inspires you to write?

I’m an insomniac. Ideas come into my head and won’t let me sleep until I get something down on paper. I have more ideas than I’ll ever be able to write in a lifetime. Comics, children’s books, screenplays, novels, shorts, novellas, YAs. If someone would pay me to, I could write all day, every day, and be a happy man. My ideas come from dreams, from conversations, even from blog posts. I get invites with topics/themes. Music. TV. My son. Researching another topic and hitting upon a thread. Everything inspires me.

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

Rex Stout has been a huge influence. Alan Dean Foster. Jack L. Chalker. Mike Stackpole. Kevin J. Anderson. Robert Lynn Asprin. Janet Evanovich. The last two really taught me how to do humor effectively in prose.

Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why?

My wordsmithing is horrible. I need so much editing it’s insane. I’m definitely a storyteller first and a writer second. That being said, my craft has improved greatly over the last couple of years. I’m also back in school, again, to finish my creative writing degree. I’m hoping to see a big improvement over the next couple of years.

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?

Fairypunk is going to be huge! There are top names signed up to do this project. I’m one of the earlier releases, so it won’t seem big at first, but then neither did Harry Potter when it first came out. The idea is to take old fairytales and re-envision them in a Steampunk setting. My story is a retelling of “The Three Billygoats Gruff” called The Three Inventors Sneebury. It’s about a family of inventors facing a land pirate who controls the drawbridge into town. If seen some preliminary art for it, and it’s amazing! I’m also taking to summer to finish some novels I started. I have the follow-up to my first novel called Murdered in a Mechanical World (and I’m a Mechanical Girl!), a paranormal police procedural called The Blood Vineyard, and a yet unannounced YA I’m coauthoring with a well-respected fantasy author. Until then, I’m just finishing up obligations to anthologies, including three more weird westerns, and waiting to hear from those I’ve already sent out.

==================================================================

To learn more about David and his work, visit his website at www.davidboop.com.

Looking Out for Number One... or Is That Number Two? Writing for Yourself or For the Fans?

So, you've got a hankering to write a hard sci-fi or a classic whodunit, but your fans are clamoring for more super-heroes or demon-witches turned romantic spies. Hence this week's questions for the roundtable.

Providing we're not otherwise contractually obligated for a certain book or series, as creators, how much do we try and placate our fans, even when we would rather be writing something else?

To whom do we owe our primarily devotion, our drives as writers or our fans? Do we do what we want to do, put our own preferences as creators first?

Matt Adams: Writers owe it to themselves to write what makes them happy. Otherwise, what's the point? Why slog through a story you have no passion for? My first book is a superhero novel, setting me up as the "superhero guy" whether I like it or not. I love the genre and will embrace that. Every book I write, though, does not involve superheroes. My novels span several different genres (really, science fictional subgenres): space opera, high-concept sci-fi, sports sci-fi, fantasy.

Right now, I can afford to do that because I'm a newbie author. If I make any money at this point in my writing career, it's a bonus. I'm not doing it for a living. My answer would likely be different if I had to sell books for my livelihood. Then, I'd have to gauge what my fans wanted. If they overwhelmingly cried out for another superhero book, I'd write it, but I'd also work on that paranormal romance idea I was jazzed about writing. In related news, if I have an idea for a paranormal romance book, please discourage me from writing it. I don't think I have a knack for the genre.

Patrick Tomlinson: My primary devotion is to my rent, car payment, and disposable income to dispose of upon young women.

David Boop: I write what I'm inspired to write, never to the fans of a specific genre. The fact that I write what some people want to read is a blessing.

John Morgan Neal: One of the reasons I created Aym Geronimo the way I did was so that I could tell all kinds of stories. Sci-fi, adventure, action, mystery, horror etc etc. My other properties were horror/adventure (Rex Solomon), western (Gone to Texas/Death and Texas), and Sci Fi heroes (THEM: Atomic Age Heroes). So I tend to do what I want. Now if someone were to give me gobs of money...

Ed Crandell: I write for me. The fans are just along for the ride. ;]

John Hartness: I tend to write multiple projects at once. So one thing I'm working on is for a deadline or the fans, and another thing is something new that I want to play around with. Like this week I've done half my time on the new Black Knight novel, because it's on deadline, and half the time on a redneck steampunk short that I wanted to write.

Mark Bousquet: I went through this a couple years back. More people seemed to like my first novel, Dreamer's Syndrome (a contemporary fantasy) than my second, Adventures of the Five (a kid's book), though I liked the second novel much more. I got a more enthusiastic response about Five, but a larger overall respnse about Dreamer's. So I did the only logical thing - I wrote something completely different for novel #3.  So I guess the answer is that I don't write specifically for the fans but I'm certainly not blind to their likes and wants, either. Knowing that there are people out there who want more adventures with my characters can help me through the slow times.

=======================================================================

For more information: Patrick Tomlinson, David Boop, John Neal, Ed Crandell, John Hartness, Mark Bousquet