Writing the fifth Nick Lupo thriller (Wolf’s Cut) found me strangely in need of a certain kind of music. Of course, everyone who’s read a Lupo books knows my musical interests because, well, they’re Lupo’s too. Lupo prefers his rock progressive because I do. Sometimes you can assume that traits exhibited by a character are shared by his or her creator. Though you wouldn’t want to make a habit of it – after all, Thomas Harris probably isn’t a serial killer… but I bet he likes a good Chianti.

But for some reason much of my collection just didn’t feel right while I was working on extended portions of the novel. I went back to writing in silence, or whatever was playing on the loop at my Starbucks office. However, I missed music to write by. I started listening to my stand-bys again, the various Genesis-related offerings, the Alan Parsons Project, the Yes, Muse, neo-prog stuff such as Spock’s Beard, Marillion, Transatlantic, and so on. I loved all the music, but it didn’t seem right. I flailed about, looking for music that would inspire me somehow.

Then on a whim, a procrastinatory Amazon shopping trip led me to soundtracks. I have always loved soundtracks. I’ve had favorite soundtrack composers since the early 70s. There are quite a few I admire, and some of those who cross over into cross over into prog I’ve often used as music to write by (Keith Emerson, Goblin, Tangerine Dream, Christopher Franke, etc.), but others are simply film composers in their own right, such as Ennio Morricone, John Barry, John Williams, and so on. And then there’s my earliest favorite: the sadly departed Jerry Goldsmith.

I’ve loved Goldsmith’s work since those early days, when I was forming my musical tastes and listening carefully to the movies I enjoyed. Listen to some of Goldsmith’s stuff and you will realize how much depth a soundtrack can create beyond the life of the movie in which it lives. Goldsmith is responsible for composing a huge list of brilliant scores, but some of my favorites are The Wind and the Lion, Masada, The Omen (Oscar winner), Alien, The Boys from Brazil, Patton, Papillon, Planet of the Apes, Rio Lobo, First Blood, Runaway, Star Trek, The Man from UNCLE, and on and on. I had quite a few of these on vinyl, transferred a few to CD, bought a few, but something I didn’t have is what I ran into on that impromptu Amazon browsing trip…

I found someone had finally transferred two of my all-time favorites to one single soundtrack CD : Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967). The order was reversed, some tracks were shuffled and one or two I remembered were now missing, but there they were! Two favorites from my youth. The movies were James Bond spoofs (starring James Coburn as the incredibly arrogant, suave, and ultra-competent Derek Flint) from a period that was certifiably spy-crazy, and cashing in on Bond-alikes was a cottage industry. But Goldsmith’s music went beyond the necessary peaks and valleys of a movie, even a silly spy movie spoof, and I’d always loved every minute of it. I bought the new disc immediately, spun it and fell in love all over again. And I played the hell out of it. And I’m still doing it.

Always a composer willing to do what was necessary, like recording unusual ethnic instruments or bypassing instruments altogether, using whatever style in his huge repertoire, creating unforgettable music even for the occasional forgettable film, Goldsmith may have used John Barry’s heavily jazz-tinged Bond music as a model, but besides the traditional piano trio-based jazz and big band sound he also introduced infectious sambas, exuberant Latin percussion, some classical and ethnic in the guise of “Russian” ballet music, 60s rock and roll led by some lively soloing on the “Mod”-sounding reedy organs of the day (probably Vox and Farfisa), not to mention RMI electric harpsichord, and much of it layered over cleverly hidden 12-bar blues runs. I can’t listen to this music without wanting to air-play all the instruments! Plus he created a Flint theme every bit as memorable as the Monty Norman/John Barry James Bond theme – a deceptively simple little set of notes made up mostly of accidentals and which can be shaped into innumerable musical styles so it sounds fresh and exciting in all of them. Goldsmith’s Flint music outguns the movies themselves. It has an amazing amount of soul.

Those two movie scores sustained me in a weird way. Often during long writing sessions I played the combined soundtracks literally over and over on Repeat. This is probably why Wolf’s Cut ended up stuffed with action scenes. I just couldn’t keep still, and the characters demanded I let them lock and load, then rock and roll. I gave in. In fact, I’m listening to In Like Flint‘s goofily mellow “Your Zowie Face” (lyrics by Leslie Bricusse) and Goldsmith’s bolero-like instrumental version right now, as I write this. And I still love it. Go figure.

Write what you fear.

If a subject doesn’t scare you, it’ going to be hard to give that little jolt of terror to your readers. Lucky for us, everyone fears something. Us horror folks have to dig down deep into our depraved psyches and root around for things we’d feel were best left to the recesses. Those fears don’t have to necessarily be of ghosts or monsters or spiders or apocalyptic events, though they are all great starting points.

I’m talking about the things that can put you in a panic attack spiral just by thinking about them. This is the real stuff, the emotional ooze from which all great stories arise. If you’re a parent, you naturally fear something bad happening to your child. Or maybe you have social anxiety. Does your stomach bunch into a knot when you cross a bridge, feeling that almost imperceptible bounce when you’re caught in traffic in the center of the span and the structure begins to sway? We’re talking dry mouth, heart palpitations, sweaty palms, the whole horrid deal.

So, what do I personally fear?

My wife dying. She’s had more medical issues than American Idol has had judges. I know that sounds flippant, but after 20+ years, you develop a keen sense of gallows humor. Death is always leering at us from around the corner. Waking to face another day makes you stronger, but it also chips away at you, creating a path for the fear to creep in.

I find that fear insinuating itself into my work, most times without my knowing it. My current novel, Sinister Entity, and story, The Graveyard Speaks, both star Jessica Backman, a girl who lost her mother when she was young. What happens to a family who has lost the glue that holds them together? In my first Samhain novel, Forest of Shadows, Jessica’s father was crippled with anxiety after the loss of his wife and her mother. Jessica, now older, overcompensates and likes to think she’s afraid of nothing. If only it was that easy.

In my book Evil Eternal, the mortal made immortal, Father Michael, sold his soul to God after the horrific murder of his wife. I just completed a novel that will be out next summer, and in it, a character is scarred for 30 years after his fiancé commited suicide.

My fear informs my writing. It’s a mirror that dares me not to flinch. When I do, and write it down, I hope my readers will as well. That is where true horror lives.
What do you fear?

In Savage Species my heroine Charly Florence is married to a man far worse than Chris Crane. Eric Florence, a millionaire basketball coach and father of three, seems to be a bad person. In truth, he’s far worse than Charly could ever imagine. How he changes—or perhaps more to the point, how his true nature is revealed—is one of the focal points of Savage Species (By the way, have you pre-ordered the free first installment Night Terrors yet? If not, you can get Night Terrors right here—over a hundred pages of free horror!). But the main point is that this man is despicable. He’s bestial. He’s, well…savage.

So why have I written these characters the way I have? The snarky answer is that I didn’t have a choice; it’s who they were. A better answer, however, would be that I’m very much interested in being a husband and being a father. Part of that’s because I am a husband and father, part of it is what I see going on in society, and part of it, I suppose, is that I grew up without a father in the house. This tends to have an effect on a kid.

So we have these two fictional husbands, and they do a lot of terrible things. In fact, Eric Florence might well be the most monstrous character I’ve ever written. And what makes him even more terrible is the fact that he appears normal. Healthy even. He’s one of the most prominent and successful women’s basketball coaches in America, he has three beautiful children, and his wife Charly is what my grandpa would call a real humdinger.

But Eric spends his time playing fantasy football online and checking his iPhone every fifteen seconds.

Sound familiar?

Charly is to cook, clean, do laundry, buy groceries, a hundred other duties. Oh yeah, and take care of the kids. Did I mention that part? To Eric, the kids are hardly worth mentioning. They’re Charly’s job, not his.

And this is where some of my male readers will say, “Why do you write such terrible husbands? Do you believe all men are bad?”

To which I answer, “I absolutely don’t believe all men are bad. There are as many good men as good women. And there are as many bad women as bad men.”

“Then why Eric Florence?” comes the answer. “Why Chris Crane?”

Because men like that give the rest of us a bad name. That’s why.

Charly

I write good men too. Ben Shadeland in The Sorrows is a great dad and was a good husband until his harpy of a wife thrust him aside for a newer model. Sheriff Sam Barlow from House of Skin is another good man. And in Savage Species, you’ll meet one of my favorite male characters, a guy named Sam Bledsoe (Okay, so I like the name Sam!). And Sam sees in Charly what Eric Florence should.

But you’ll read about that when you read Savage Species.

Nothing that I do as a writer is done consciously. I record what my subconscious tells me. But when I analyze what I’ve written, I see a pattern, and the pattern seems to be this: Society has low expectations for men, particularly in the realm of fatherhood. Many men embrace these reduced expectations because it exonerates them from effort and investment. Some women embrace these pitiful expectations either because it’s the accepted way of things or maybe because they don’t think men are capable of more.

I’m here to tell you they are. Men can and should aspire to be incredible fathers and husbands. Men should hold themselves to the highest standards. Men should embrace and celebrate the opportunities they’re given. Men should love. Because love is strength. The greatest strength.

I simply enjoy examining how men do or don’t embrace those opportunities. And how women react to those failures and successes. Sure, I explore a million other things, but this is one I just happened to notice in my work.

I hope you check out The Darkest Lullaby. I hope you take the plunge and spend a long, hot summer with me and Savage Species. Night Terrors (the free first installment) releases on June 4th, but you can pre-order it now. June 18th will see the release of Part Two: The Children. On July 2nd, Part Three: Dark Zone continues the story. Part Four: The Arena drops on July 16th. And it all comes to an insane climax on July 30th in Part Five: The Old One.

That’s all for now. I hope you enjoy my books. I hope you men who are already doing amazing things as fathers and husbands are as appreciated as you should be. And I hope you women expect more of the men who are dropping the ball and giving the rest of us a bad name.

I held my breath as I watched. There were cars lined up at on every side of him, waiting for their turn to get through the intersection. The car began to spin to the left, and for a second I thought he’d slam over the median and into a line of stopped cars. How many lives would his recklessness maim in the next heartbeat? But then he pulled out of that slide and instead spun the other way skidding off the road and up the grass of the embankment on the other side.

Wow. I can still see it replay in my head 14 hours later.  It was like those moments you wait to see in a car race. You hope the driver’s OK, but you look for the excitement of the crash.

This driver got out of the car a moment later — he was fine. He quickly inspected the side of his car, and then got back in and started it up. He pulled forward and the car moved, but then he had to back up because traffic was filling the road. He had to sit there in his driver’s seat of shame as all those people who’d watched his asinine stunt passed by. I turned to put away the gas nozzle and when I looked back, he was gone. I’m sure he was dying to get away before a cop happened by.

Those are the kinds of unexpected moments that change lives.

Those are the kinds of moments that stories are made from.

People ask about where story ideas come from… there are a dozen different stories you could derive from that event. You just start to ask yourself what might have made that happen (aside from the most likely – and mundane – reason that he was probably just half asleep or staring at his cellphone).

If it’s a thriller, was he running from someone? Who? Had he just robbed a convenience store? Been caught with someone’s wife and now was trying to save his own? Was he on the phone with someone threatening to blackmail him and that’s why he didn’t see the light change?

If it’s a horror tale, did he have a woman tied up in the back seat who made him lose control of the car? Or maybe some weird, twisted monster that he’d been hiding in a backroom of his house? Was he a dying man, infected with some strange skin-dissolving plague that is making it almost impossible for him to function, and that’s why he lost control? Maybe he’ll finally crash at the next stoplight, and unleash the virus… or his prisoner… on the world…

You can go all sorts of directions with it. But no matter what story comes of it, the important part is that it was an unexpected moment.

An example of how from just one mistake, everything can change in a heartbeat.  These kinds of unexpected moments happen all around us, every day. They change people’s lives.

And it doesn’t have to be a bad change. But the point is… life — and a good story — should be unpredictable.

I’m not going to write a story about this event (at least, I don’t plan to!) but now I’m wondering what happened to that guy after he sped away from the ruts he made on the side of the road.

I wonder how the rest of his day went.

And, being the practical sort, I kinda wonder if he needed to change his pants before he got to work!

In 2005, I got my hurricane. Actually, I got three. This triumvirate of terror ruined the entire summer for the state. All three hit my house. Hard.

A hurricane is an exercise in fear. Weather hits all the extremes; high wind, blinding rain, hail, tornadoes, waterspouts, floods. You always think your home is your literal castle, a concrete block fortress against animals, insects and the elements, the place to go to be safe. A hurricane tests those assumptions. At some point the awful realization hits: all that stands between you and the howling hell outside is a thin pane of glass. One flying branch shatters it, and inside becomes outside in seconds.

Just like you know the character in the hockey mask always kills again, you know the power to house is going to go out. You ride out the storm, watching the hurricane track on the TV news, just waiting for the inevitable blip of the screen and the plunging of the house into darkness. The arrival of that inevitable darkness is almost a relief.

Then the next clock starts running. How long will food in the refrigerator last? How much canned food have we got? Did we buy enough bottled water? You worry that the candles will burn down the house.

While the backyard fills with water, you realize that you are utterly powerless. You can’t muscle the storm away, you can’t reason with it. For the hours or days while it thrashes your home, you are at its mercy.

In BLACK MAGIC, my May release from Samhain, a sorcerer calls forth a hurricane to level South Florida. The citizens of Citrus Glade go through hell to survive the storm. I’ve been told that the storm sections are harrowing. For this novel, I used that basic bit of writer’s advice: “Write what you know.” Buy yourself a copy and experience a hurricane the best way possible, vicariously.

So I’ve been going through a little bit of “writer’s block,” though I hate calling it that.

Maybe the whole situation is just an endurance battle. Get it down, don’t worry about it, and pick up the pieces later.  It seems like every project I do complete is always a balancing act between accepting the story won’t be completely right the first time around, being okay with fixing it later, or being worried this novel is terrible and can’t be fixed period.  Ah, the challenge of writing.

I would love to have that power to know a story will work before the actual writing of it.  Man, wouldn’t that be awesome?  But maybe not knowing the outcome is what makes writing so special.  That’s why writing classes, books about writing, and book doctors can only get you so far.   There’s so much up in the air from idea inception to final draft.   I guess I’m going to keep beating my head against the wall until something entertaining comes out.

Good talk, everybody.  I feel better already about my work in progress.

Writer’s Block, or as I call it, The Funk or Writer’s Funk.

I’ve had a lot of conversations with other authors recently, and something every single one of them has said is: “The last novel was really hard for me to write.” Meaning—they struggled to get it done. Seems like either the second half of 2012, or the early months of 2013 was hard on a lot of us, creatively. I know exactly how they feel, and I’ve been trying to figure out why we all have struggled so much. Maybe we have been affected by the true horrors of the world, and it’s carried over into our fiction. Why should we write about evil trying to hurt the good when so much of it is all around us today? I’ll be honest, it’s been hard for me, but I believe what keeps me going is the love of writing, and the safety in knowing that when I’m spending time in a world that stems from my imagination, I can leave whenever it gets to be too scary or sad. I can escape reality for make believe, and vice versa. It’s a nice balance. I’d like to think that’s what gets both writers and readers through life, especially in recent months.

So far, the authors—including myself—have managed to trudge through the goopy waters of our individual writer’s funk. I don’t believe in writer’s block as being something that prevents someone from being able to write, I think it makes the act of writing difficult. Yes, that seems like the same thing, but it’s really not, at least I don’t think so. In my experience, it doesn’t siphon away my ability to create words—it takes away my love for the words themselves. I can still write, and the words will flow, or not, like normal, but I’ll find myself second-guessing each one, every paragraph and plot element. I’ll go around with the book constantly on my mind, trying to convince myself that what I’m writing just won’t work. If I take a break to read, I’ll dissect the book I’m reading and find an endless list of reasons why its author is better than me, and why I should stop trying to be anywhere as good, and just focus on the day job. Still…it doesn’t steal my love for writing, just my love for what I’m writing.

Like a bad odor, the funk lingers. Like a bad cold, it’s annoying, and you just want it to go away. And, eventually you shower, scrub real hard, and the funk rinses down the drain with the soap. The cold medicine starts to work, and you can breathe a little clearer each day, until soon, you can breathe without anything blocking your nasal passages! That is a glorious feeling. We might even go back and reread our work-in-progress and be pleased with what we’ve written. Not every time, but more often than not.

I don’t know exactly what shoos the funk along, either, and I wish I did. I could become a writer’s counselor and assist other writers on how not to let it destroy their creative moods. I’d be on the bestseller lists for sure with my self-help book on Writer’s Funk.

I imagine each author has their own ways of dealing with the funk. For me, I just brace myself for the self-inflicted negativity. Later I apologize to myself and the book I’m writing. We make up and move on.

The funk doesn’t come on with every book or story, but when it does, it can be rough. I think when it does strike it reminds authors how much we love to write. How much we need to write. Once the funk has passed, we’re stronger, and ready to work.

On a side note, one thing I like to do a couple times a year is go back and watch John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness. I believe any author writing horror fiction should see it. It’s a very entertaining movie made by a brilliant director. When I was younger, I wanted to have those cool paperback covers like Sutter Cane.

In my novel Shadows in the Mist, my main character, Colonel Jack Chambers, was modeled after my grandfather, Captain Henry “Dawson” Moreland. My grandfather was a war hero who never talked about the war. When I was a kid visiting my grandparents, I went down to the cellar and found an old Army trunk that was locked and gathering dust. I asked my grandfather what was inside. He said photos and mementos he had brought back from the war, but he wouldn’t open it. When I asked why, his eyes clouded over and he said the memories of what he experienced over in Europe were just too painful. He kept that war locked up inside him and that made me curious. What had my grandfather experienced during WWII? What secrets was he keeping?

Shadows in the Mist opens with a few scenes in present day, when Colonel Jack Chambers is visited by his grandson, Sean. Like me, Sean is curious to know his grandfather’s secrets. We discover that Colonel Chambers wrote everything he experienced in the war in a diary and Sean reads it, which flashes the story back to Jack Chambers’s war days when he was a platoon leader and battled a supernatural horror created by the Nazis. The Occult Nazi element is something I added based on true historical events, rather than my grandfather’s real experiences.

It was because of Nandaddy’s inspiration that I dedicated Shadows in the Mist to him. When the book first came out, I traveled to his home town and we did a book signing together. It was then that he finally opened up and shared stories with the family.

 Captain Dawson Moreland had been a pilot who flew C-47s that carried paratroopers of the 101st Airborne, 82nd Airborne, the famous EZ Company featured in Band of Brothers, as well as the infamous Dirty Dozen. He was part of the Market Garden mission and even delivered gasoline to General Patton’s 2nd Armored Division.

Here are a couple photos my grandfather brought back:

Above Captain Moreland is standing far right.

Below he is standing in the center.

In 2008, reality began to mimic fiction. Like my character Colonel Jack Chambers, a relic from my grandfather’s past came to surface. From D-Day through the Battle of the Bulge, Captain Dawson Moreland flew a famous C-47 called “the Snafu Special”. After the war, the plane somehow got lost and disappeared for several decades. The Snafu Special was found a few years ago in Bosnia, rotting away in an airfield. Some French historians had the plane shipped to the Merville battery museum in Normandy, France, where it has been refurbished and is now on display.

Back in 2008, my grandfather, along with me and my family, were invited to Normandy for the grand ceremony where they pulled the cover off the plane.

The local people treated my grandfather as a hero, thanking him for helping liberate Normandy from the Germans who occupied France at the time. For anyone interested, you can watch a video clip of the ceremony on YouTube. Anyone going over to Normandy can visit the plane at the Merville battery museum.

I write this post to honor my grandfather and all the WWII veterans still alive today.

All the best,

Brian Moreland

Author of Dead of Winter and Shadows in the Mist

Coming soon: The Girl from the Blood Coven, The Witching House and The Devil’s Woods

This year marks Dead By Dawn festival’s 20th anniversary and is an extra special event for me personally, as Samhain Horror will be out in force! We’ll have live readings (before the feature presentations) from myself, Peter Mark May and Mick Sims (of Maynard/Sims). There will be book giveaways and opportunities to purchase our tomes at the festival bookstore. Looking forward to catching up with fellow horror fans old and new, so if you find yourself at the Edinburgh Filmhouse next weekend, drop by and say hi! Check out Dead By Dawn’s official website for the full freaky and frightful line-up.

I find writing a joy, not a chore and revel in the time I have pulling things from my imagination and getting them down on paper.

What I find hard to love is editing. Editing isn’t as fun. It’s like turning from being a school kid to a teacher in one Jekyll/Hyde switch. What makes it harder for me is the above named syndrome I am claiming as my own, maybe I should called it Peter Mark May Eye Syndrome and get some sort of fame at last.

What is this syndrome you’ve made up and keep bothering us with – you ask?

Well I’ll try to explain. When I write a book my fingers are usually trying to keep up with what gushes from my mind quicker than Niagara Falls during a thunderstorm. That can lead to all sorts of typing and silly errors and most of my THEs coming out as TEHs. But you learn these recurring errors and I’ve made myself a little writing bible to check for my most common cock-ups.

Now When I edit in word on my PC it all goes wrong, I can read a page on screen and be fully satisfied I’ve spotted any errors or if the page is error free (a rarity). Now what I didn’t do before is print it out, which I do now and suddenly, reading printed black ink on white paper 10 errors leap off the page.

Maybe it’s an age thing, there were no computers in school in my day and when I started work we had blue screens and white lettering. I’ve only really been typing straight onto a pc since 2010, before I wrote all my books in longhand first then typed them up, which gives you another editing level.

I have no idea why my old tired myopic eyes can pick up errors on my monitor, but can easily do so once printed out.
These are the trials that make life interesting, so it’s harder for me, doesn’t mean it stops me. My eyes for some reason just skip over the errors and part of my brains thinks it’s very clever for filling in the gaps.

So if you have 19th Century Editing Eye Peter Mark May Syndrome, don’t give up. Just snarl at the monitor, find a way of beating it and maybe buy lots of printer paper.

Thank you and goodnight

PMM