When Peter asked me if he could write a review on Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, there was no chance of me saying no. I love hearing people’s opinion on not just these books, but these movies.
Twilight is my sister’s favorite series – something she’s read at least ten times, watched the movies so many times she has them memorized – but something that I could not get into, no matter how much I tried for her sake. But that’s the way it is with this one, isn’t it? There’s the people that loved, it, the people that hated it, and the people who didn’t bother because they had no interest at all.
Is it possible for someone to truly like both Twilight and Pride and Prejudice? I ask because I feel as though I’m about to get kicked in the literary nards again. The last time I stepped on a chick-lit favorite, Jane Austen‘s dull, but well written “romance,” I was described as “someone who lacks the will to understand,” and that was one of the more flattering comments! So you can see why I’m a little hesitant reviewing Twilight.
Here’s my problem with Stephenie Meyer’s debut novel: Twilight reads like a novel written by an average pre-teen, only without any evidence of editing or talent. Tenses are mixed, the plot is paper thin, and the characters are so shallow that they are little more than speaking cardboard cutouts.
The book can best be described as choppy and that’s being nice. Half the time the emotional state of Bella is completely incongruent with the scene she is in. It’s as if Meyer kept a hat near her computer and pulled from it scraps of paper with the words: mopey, or angry, or depressed, written on them. It’s rainy, let’s see what the hat says Bella should feel… hmm… hate. “I hate anything that’s wet.” Yes, that a line from the book and what a great line it is. How long did it take her to think up that one?
Sadly, there are more lines that are even worse. Here’s one that I treasure: “The room was familiar; it had been belonged to me since I was born.”
Been belonged? What the hell is that? And familiar? The room you’ve had since you were born you describe as familiar?
Here’s another line that I just had to read over and over wondering how it made it into the book: “Through their noses, all their features, were straight, perfect, angular.” Through their noses???? I’m clueless what that’s supposed to mean. And, what’s, with, all, the, commas,? If you can get past all this, you then have to swallow the endless repetitious ‘perfect’ descriptions of Edward: His perfect golden eyes smoldered heatedly out from his flawless and perfect brow so that the ocher perfectly singed me with their perfection and heat–I exaggerate, but only barely.
It makes me wonder how this became a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Or how on earth it could be described as “The best book of the Year” by Publisher’s Weekly? I can only surmise that there weren’t any other books written that year.
I just don’t get it. It is a complete mystery how someone can become a millionaire writing like this. Maybe I should not start stopping, practicing to write weller than I does.
I could be famous too.
PS Can anyone tell me why girls fall for Edward when it’s obvious he’s gay. Let’s look at the facts as presented by the book: He’s a smart dresser. He’s neat and trim. He sparkles, smells fruity, and has a musical voice…la, la, la, la. Clearly he’s not just gay, but flaming, feather boa wearing, “I’m a dancer” gay. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that–it’s just an observation.)
PPS Even more of a question is how anyone can like Bella? She can’t walk to the bathroom without fear of falling in the toilet–trust me when I say it’s not an endearing trait. She’s annoyingly condescending to everyone. To call her moody is a joke. She’s bi-polar with a side-order of vanilla flavored mania. In the space of a minute she can be laughing, glaring angrily and crying. Yet all the boys want her. I get that Edward is using her as cover—“I swear that’s not my feather boa. It must be Bella’s.” But the rest of them? It stretches the limits of fiction.
Peter has written drama, horror, fantasy, apocalypse, and post apocalypse novel.
He is proud to have served in the U.S. Army for four years, serving in the 82nd airborne division and as a medic during Gulf War 1. Also having tried his hand in real estate, and a CEO of a national lighting company, he has come to find that his true addiction is in writing and been blessed to make it his full-time career.
Peter resides in Colorado with his wife, Stacy, of 27 years. They have two grown children and a a grandchild who also live in Colorado.
May you find an unforgettable adventure among my writings!
Money, terrorism, and simple bad luck conspire to bring mankind to its knees as a viral infection spreads out of control, reducing those infected to undead horrors that feed upon the rest.
It’s a time of misery and death for most, however there are some who are lucky, some who are fast, and some who are just too damned tough to go down without a fight. This is their story.
It’s been twelve years since the undead hordes swept over the earth forcing mankind to the brink of extinction. We now live like rats, scavenging in the ruins of our fallen civilization as the dead hunt us night and day.
There is little left to scavenge, however. Grocery stores were emptied ages ago, gas tanks have long been dry and bullets are so precious that a man is lucky to have two to his name.
Still, we survive.
But for how much longer? Instinct and love have combined to turn Darwin’s theory on its head. The strongest didn’t survive in this world. They were the first to die, leaving behind a generation of orphans.
It’s a generation that’s never had a full belly. It’s a generation that has no idea what an Xbox did, or what algebra is for. It’s a generation of children who never laugh out loud, and who have learned to cry softly because the dead are always near and the dead are always so very, very hungry.
When Commander William Jern and his wife Gayle are given an opportunity to move into one of the spacious Colonial homes on the Village Green, they jump at the chance. But the Jern’s new dream home quickly becomes an icy nightmare, as death stalks them relentlessly. It comes unheralded out of the night, and like all of us, they are dreadfully unprepared. But regardless, William Jern must face terrors beyond imagination in order to save his daughter whose body had become a frozen vessel for The Horror Of The Shade. With the help of his son Will, a boy struggling to find the courage to be a man, and an old woman, who has foreseen the terrifying manner in which she will die, William undergoes the ultimate test to see how far a man will go to save his child.
I’m honored to have Peter Meredith back on this year’s Halloween Extravaganza, his second appearance. If you haven’t read any of his work, you should definitely pick something up. He is a truly talented guy, and one of the nicest authors I’ve met.
Meghan: Hi, Peter. Welcome back to my Halloween Extravaganza, and at the same time, welcome to the new blog. It’s been awhile since we sat down together. What’s been going on since we last spoke?
Peter Meredith: Mostly just knocking out the books. I’ve been to Vietnam a couple of times, found my wife’s birth family, escaped terrorists bent on changing my autograph to something legible, but mostly a lot of writing.
Meghan: Who are you outside of writing?
Peter Meredith: Husband, father and grandfather… mostly grandfather now that my five-year-old grandson has moved in. Tired grandfather, that is.
Meghan: How do you feel about friends and close relatives reading your work?
Peter Meredith: I’m all for it, but after doing this for eight years, I never expect it. The same friends always say: “I have to read your book!” I just smile now, knowing it probably won’t happen. When one does that’s great, but I don’t nag or follow up with what did you think? If they liked it, they’ll tell you.
Meghan: Is being a writer a gift or a curse?
Peter Meredith: It’s completely, totally a gift, except when I don’t hit my word count for the day, then the curse strikes, which involves night sweats, a racing heart beat and it hurts when I pee. I am sort of addicted. On the plus side I write four books a year and make a good living. I tell people I could go anywhere and write, but I don’t. I stay locked away in my cave.
Meghan: How has your environment and upbringing colored your writing?
Peter Meredith: I was the middle child of seven kids, in a military family that moved around every couple years. Saying it makes it sound torturous but in retrospect, it was a great childhood that allowed me to see a great variety of people and places.
Meghan: What’s the strangest thing you have ever had to research for your books?
Peter Meredith: That’ll be up to the prosecutor to decide. I’ve looked up how to make so many improvised explosives that I’m sure the FBI is reading this as I type. Hi fellas. Maybe lay off the doughnuts.
Meghan: Which do you find the hardest to write: the beginning, the middle, or the end?
Peter Meredith: Always the beginning. Since I don’t plot, I generally don’t know what my book is going to be about at first. I just keep writing until it starts to gel around me, but those first few days I walk around sort of muttering to myself.
Meghan: Do you outline? Do you start with characters or plot? Do you just sit down and start writing? What works best for you?
Peter Meredith: Usually I start with an idea—what would happen if— sometimes the idea comes with an ending that I shoot for and sometimes not.
Meghan: What do you do when characters don’t follow the outline/plan? Usually I can feel when they start to come off the rails and I gently nudge them over. Sometimes I like the evolved state better than the original and so I keep it.
Peter Meredith: What do you do to motivate yourself to sit down and write? I look at my credit card bills. Since I don’t have another job, money has to be a prime consideration. Also I am addicted. I don’t know what stopping would be like.
Meghan: Are you an avid reader? I used to be. Before I started writing I read all the time. Now I write all the time.
Peter Meredith: What kind of books do you absolutely love to read? I love well written fantasy, but if there’s a sparkly vampire I will burn the book.
Meghan: How do you feel about movies based on books?
Peter Meredith: They’re getting better. It used to be I hated them, but now they’re trying hard to stay true to the story. And sometimes they’re straight up better. World War Z is a fine example. Hollywood liked the title and the fact that there were zombies in it but threw out the rest and for that I thank them.
Meghan: Have you ever killed a main character?
Peter Meredith: Why isn’t the question: Have you not a killed a main character? Yes, is the answer. A hero can only hang from the edge of a cliff so many times before readers yawn and think “He’ll escape from those dragons and the machine guns wielding guards, even if he is surrounded by a lake of lava.” A death here and there keeps the readers on their toes.
Meghan: Thanks, Peter. I’ll have to take that question change under advisement. Do you enjoy making your characters suffer?
Peter Meredith: Yes because I want my readers to feel the pain of the characters. I want them emotionally attached. I want them to cry. And that won’t happen if there ain’t no ants at the picnic.
Meghan: What’s the weirdest character concept that you’ve ever come up with?
Peter Meredith: Jillybean—a 6 year old in a 16 book zombie series. Normally a child in a zombie book is there only to do something stupid to drive the plot along. Jillybean is different in that she’s insane. She’s spent the first year of the apocalypse utterly alone. Her mom is a decaying corpse upstairs in the master bedroom and all her neighbors are eaten one by one outside her living room window. She’s cracked and yet she develops into a latent genius as way of a survival mechanism. I describe her genius this way: If you threw a million children into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they’d all drown. All except one. One would figure out how to make a raft out of the corpses of the rest. Perhaps she might even skin a few for sails. Who knows?
Meghan: What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever received? What’s the worst?
Peter Meredith: My mom thinks that I am AWE-some.
My dad is like: Ehh. Why have anyone guarding a lake of lava?
Meghan: What do your fans mean to you?
Peter Meredith: Cha-ching! A-hem… I mean they are my every thing. My sun and stars. Also I like it when they say I rite gud.
Meghan: If you could steal one character from another author and make them yours, who would it be and why?
Peter Meredith: This is the toughest question so far. I’m going with Stephen King’s Barlow from Salem’s Lot. To me, the perfect vampire. I would love to explore that unhappy business.
Meghan: If you could write the next book in a series, which one would it be, and what would you make the book about?
Peter Meredith: I am doing that currently. The story is set 150 years in the future after every nuclear weapon in the world’s arsenal had been lit off in an attempt to stop a zombie apocalypse that exploded out of no where. Half the world is a desert and the other half has to contend with fallout storms, technological regression, famine, and an interesting catch-all disease called slag that eats the flesh from its victims. And BTW, not all the zombies were killed. They’re hiding among the slags and its up to nothing-left-to-lose bounty hunters to root them out. Fun.
Meghan: If you could write a collaboration with another author, who would it be and what would you write about?
Peter Meredith: I hear that is a horror. The answer is Stephen King. One book and I’d be set for life. I’d be able to write sheet music for crickets like I’ve always wanted. There’s more than two notes people, er insects.
Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?
Peter Meredith: Dead-eye Hunt should be completed by mid October. I shall rest up for half a day and begin Dead-eye Hunt book 2.
Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview or the last?
Peter Meredith: Just thank you for having me, Meghan, and thank you to my fans for inviting me into your heads. Eventually, you come to realize what a mistake that was, but you’re smiling now and that what counts.
Peter has written drama, horror, fantasy, apocalypse, and post apocalypse novel.
He is proud to have served in the U.S. Army for four years, serving in the 82nd airborne division and as a medic during Gulf War 1. Also having tried his hand in real estate, and a CEO of a national lighting company, he has come to find that his true addiction is in writing and been blessed to make it his full-time career.
Peter resides in Colorado with his wife, Stacy, of 27 years. They have two grown children and a a grandchild who also live in Colorado.
May you find an unforgettable adventure among my writings!
Money, terrorism, and simple bad luck conspire to bring mankind to its knees as a viral infection spreads out of control, reducing those infected to undead horrors that feed upon the rest.
It’s a time of misery and death for most, however there are some who are lucky, some who are fast, and some who are just too damned tough to go down without a fight. This is their story.
It’s been twelve years since the undead hordes swept over the earth forcing mankind to the brink of extinction. We now live like rats, scavenging in the ruins of our fallen civilization as the dead hunt us night and day.
There is little left to scavenge, however. Grocery stores were emptied ages ago, gas tanks have long been dry and bullets are so precious that a man is lucky to have two to his name.
Still, we survive.
But for how much longer? Instinct and love have combined to turn Darwin’s theory on its head. The strongest didn’t survive in this world. They were the first to die, leaving behind a generation of orphans.
It’s a generation that’s never had a full belly. It’s a generation that has no idea what an Xbox did, or what algebra is for. It’s a generation of children who never laugh out loud, and who have learned to cry softly because the dead are always near and the dead are always so very, very hungry.
When Commander William Jern and his wife Gayle are given an opportunity to move into one of the spacious Colonial homes on the Village Green, they jump at the chance. But the Jern’s new dream home quickly becomes an icy nightmare, as death stalks them relentlessly. It comes unheralded out of the night, and like all of us, they are dreadfully unprepared. But regardless, William Jern must face terrors beyond imagination in order to save his daughter whose body had become a frozen vessel for The Horror Of The Shade. With the help of his son Will, a boy struggling to find the courage to be a man, and an old woman, who has foreseen the terrifying manner in which she will die, William undergoes the ultimate test to see how far a man will go to save his child.
As a writer, one thing that really irritates me is when a movie or TV show features a blocked writer having some kind of adventure or an out-of-the-ordinary experience in real-life which provides the inspiration for his or her next magnum opus. I find this trope insulting. It’s like saying writers aren’t creative enough to imagine our stories and we’re only capable of writing thinly disguised nonfiction. But I did have a weird experience on Halloween some years back, and I did eventually use it in a horror story, so for me, the trope became real – at least once.
It began on Halloween in the year 2000. My oldest daughter was five, and my youngest hadn’t had her first birthday yet. The previous fall I’d accepted a full-time job teaching creative writing and composition at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio, and at the time, the neighborhood we’d moved into seemed okay, but as the months went on, we began to realize that it had a kind of . . . I guess negative atmosphere is the best way to put it. Everyone seemed to watch everyone else with suspicion, and there was a sense that something bad might happen at any moment, like the build-up of energy in the air before a huge thunderstorm breaks loose. We were determined to make the best of it, though, and when Halloween rolled around, I volunteered to take our oldest daughter – Devon – trick-or-treating, while my wife Cindy stayed at home with our not-quite-a-toddler Leigh.
Devon dressed as a witch that year. She had a black witch’s robe, and a conical witch’s hat with black fuzz around the edge of the brim. She was very excited to go trick-or-treating, and while I was a little worried about how the night might go, I loved taking Devon out for Halloween, and I hoped we’d both have a good time. Plus, we didn’t know most of our neighbors, and this would be the first time I’d get a sense of what the area was really like. I told myself that once I had the chance to meet the people who lived in the neighborhood, I’d see that this place wasn’t so bad after all.
And at first, that’s exactly what happened. We went from door to door, along with other kids and their parents, ringing doorbells and shouting “Trick or treat!” when someone answered. Because Devon was so young and didn’t have any friends in the neighborhood to trick or treat with, I went up to the houses with her, smiling at the adults who answered the door, and giving them a wave as we departed. Everyone seemed pleasant and quite normal . . . and then we went to what I’ve come to think of as The Street. I can’t remember its name, but it was dark there. There weren’t many streetlights in the neighborhood, and those that were there didn’t seem to put out much illumination. Not many kids were trick or treating there, and while I didn’t feel the street was dangerous, I was reluctant to take Devon to the houses there. I told myself that I shouldn’t prejudge this neighborhood and the people that lived there, and I led Devon to the first house on the street, and we continued our rounds.
We soon came to a house that had a large chain-link enclosure in the side yard. It was a cage, complete with a roof, and inside were three very big, very shaggy creatures who looked like wolves. I was certain they were wolves, and they paced back and forth looking out at us and growling softly. The house itself was dark. The porchlight wasn’t on, and no light shone from inside. I had no idea what the hell someone was doing keeping wolves in a suburban neighborhood, and I didn’t want to know. I decided we could give this house a pass, and we continued on down the sidewalk.
This was almost twenty years ago, so I don’t remember if it was the very next house we visited after the Wolf House or not, but we soon came to house where, when Devon rang the doorbell, a man inside called out, “Come in!” After the Wolf House, I was hesitant to enter, but it wasn’t uncommon for people in the area to invite kids inside to give them candy, and besides, I was with Devon. If figured it would be all right.
We went inside and saw a living room that was empty – no furniture, only blinds over the windows. In the center of a room a heavy-set middle-aged man sat on a wooden stool, talking on a cell phone. He wore a white tank top undershirt, the kind some people call a wife-beater, and boxer shorts. No shoes or socks. Scattered on the floor all round him were newspaper pages, almost as if he’d hurled a newspaper up in the air and let the pages remain wherever they landed. Or as if he were putting down paper for a pet to do its business on. Except there was no pet visible.
A bowl of candy sat on the floor next to the stool, and he gestured toward it, not really looking at us. Not knowing what else to do, I led Devon to the bowl, told her to take a piece of candy, and then we got the hell out of there. The man never spoke, either to us or to whoever he was on the phone with. I don’t remember if I let Devon keep the candy she got from the Man on the Stool, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I confiscated it and threw it away once we got home.
That was the night I decided we needed to move to a different neighborhood.
A few years later, I was sitting at the dining table in our new house – this one situated directly next to a lovely small park – laptop in front of me, thinking about what I should write next. I decided to write a short story, and I remembered that night trick-or-treating with Devon in our old neighborhood. The story I wrote was called “Portrait of a Horror Writer,” a metafictional story about where horror writers get their ideas, and among other things, I included the Man on the Stool. I submitted the story to Cemetery Dance magazine, and it was published in their 48th issue in 2004. If you’d like to read the story, you can find it on my website here.
So I guess I shouldn’t complain about the “writer gets an idea for a story from a real-life adventure” trope since I lived it, at least in a small way, and not only did I get a story out of it that was published in a great magazine – and for which I got paid – but I’ve kept the story on my website for years. That’s a lot of mileage to get out of one strange experience, but I’m thankful for that little big of dark magic that occurred that Halloween night.
I’m even more thankful that we moved, though.
Tim Waggoner’s first novel came out in 2001, and since then he’s published over forty novels and five collections of short stories. He writes original dark fantasy and horror, as well as media tie-ins. His novels include Like Death, considered a modern classic in the genre, and the popular Nekropolis series of urban fantasy novels. He’s written tie-in fiction based on Supernatural, Grimm, The X-Files, Alien, Doctor Who, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Transformers, among others, and he’s written novelizations for films such as Kingsman: the Golden Circle and Resident Evil: the Final Chapter. His articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Journal, Writer’s Workshop of Horror, Horror 101, and Where Nightmares Come From. In 2017 he received the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction, and he’s been a finalist multiple times for both the Shirley Jackson Award and the Scribe Award. His fiction has received numerous Honorable Mentions in volumes of Best Horror of the Year, and he’s had several stories selected for inclusion in volumes of Year’s Best Hardcore Horror. In addition to writing, he’s also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio.
When an industrial spy steals a Xenomorph egg, former Colonial Marine Zula Hendricks must prevent an alien from killing everyone on an isolated colony planet.
Venture, a direct rival to the Weyland-Yutani corporation, will accept any risk to crush the competition. Thus, when a corporate spy “acquires” a bizarre, leathery egg from a hijacked vessel, she takes it directly to the Venture testing facility on Jericho 3.
Though unaware of the danger it poses, the scientists there recognize their prize’s immeasurable value. Early tests reveal little, however, and they come to an inevitable conclusion. They need a human test subject…
Enter Zula Hendricks.
A member of the Jericho 3 security staff, Colonial Marines veteran Zula Hendricks has been tasked with training personnel to deal with anything the treacherous planet can throw their way. Yet nothing can prepare them for the horror that appears–a creature more hideous than any Zula has encountered before.
Unless stopped, it will kill every human being on the planet.
A brand new Supernatural novel inspired by the record-breaking show starring Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles.
A brand-new Supernatural novel that reveals a previously unseen adventure for the Winchester brothers, from the hit TV series!
Sam and Dean travel to Indiana, to investigate a murder that could be the work of a werewolf. But they soon discover that werewolves aren’t the only things going bump in the night. The town is also home to a pack of jakkals who worship the god Anubis: carrion-eating scavengers who hate werewolves. With the help of Garth, the Winchester brothers must stop the werewolf-jakkal turf war before it engulfs the town – and before the god Anubis is awakened…
Jayce’s twenty-year-old daughter Emory is missing, lost in a dark, dangerous realm called Shadow that exists alongside our own reality. An enigmatic woman named Nicola guides Jayce through this bizarre world, and together they search for Emory, facing deadly dog-eaters, crazed killers, homicidal sex toys, and – worst of all – a monstrous being known as the Harvest Man. But no matter what Shadow throws at him, Jayce won’t stop. He’ll do whatever it takes to find his daughter, even if it means becoming a worse monster than the things that are trying to stop him.
What are you willing to do, what are you willing to become, to save someone you love?
Sierra Sowell’s dead brother Jeffrey is resurrected by a mysterious man known only as Corliss. Corliss also transforms four people in Sierra’s life into inhuman monsters determined to kill her. Sierra and Jeffrey’s boyfriend Marc work to discover the reason for her brother’s return to life while struggling to survive attacks by this monstrous quartet.
Corliss gives Sierra a chance to make Jeffrey’s resurrection permanent – if she makes a dreadful bargain. Can she do what it will take to save her brother, no matter how much blood is shed along the way?
Tim Waggoner is a rather interesting guy, but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) he has never been part of the Halloween Extravaganza until this year. It was a lot of fun getting to know him better, and I have to say that this was, by far, one of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever done.
Meghan: Hi, Tim. Welcome to Meghan’s House of Books. It’s great having you here today. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Tim Waggoner: I’m fifty-five, I’ve lived in Ohio most of my life, I’m a lifelong fan of all things weird and wonderful, I’ve been writing seriously since the age of eighteen, I’ve traditionally published close to fifty novels and seven collections of short stories, and I’ve taught college composition and creative writing courses for the last thirty years. I write both original fiction and media tie-ins, and the majority of my fiction falls into the genres of horror and dark fantasy.
Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?
Tim Waggoner:
My wife thinks I’m addicted to buying Funko Pops, but she’s wrong. I can quit any time I want.
I hate raisins and watermelon. They’re the devil’s fruits.
I refuse to ruin a good cup of coffee by putting anything in it.
I can juggle (a little).
I’m a big fan of musicals.
Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?
Tim Waggoner: The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree by Louis Siobodkin. It’s about a boy who makes friends with a young explorer from another planet. I wanted a friend who had a spaceship and could take me on trips to other worlds!
Meghan: What are you reading now?
Tim Waggoner: I’m a moody reader, and often I’ll read a little of one book, then a little of another, and so on. I also read one thing on my Kindle and listen to something else on audio when I drive. Right now I’m reading Starship: Mutiny by Mike Resnick and listening to The Consultant by Bentley Little.
Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?
Tim Waggoner: Maybe Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. It’s a literary novel about relationships in which nothing of any real importance seems to happen, but I found it riveting. It’s one of the few books I’ve read in a single sitting. I love stories that are written with a close identification with a character’s viewpoint, regardless of genre.
Meghan: What made you decide you want to write? When did you begin writing?
Tim Waggoner: I’ve been telling stories one way or another my entire life. I was the one who’d come up with scenarios for my friends and me to act out on the playground, and I used to create epic sagas with my army men and action figures. But in terms of consciously deciding to write, it began when I was in high school and read an interview with Stephen King in an issue of the B&W comic magazine Dracula Lives. The Shining had just come out, and King wasn’t super-famous yet. It might have been the first interview with a writer I ever read, and before this, it had never really occurred to me that being a writer was something a person could choose. Something I could choose. I later told my mom that I thought I might like to be a writer, and she said, “I think you’d be a good one.” Her simple encouragement meant the world to me, and it still does.
Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?
Tim Waggoner: I usually go out to a Starbucks. I grew up in a noisy household, and I don’t like working in silence. I like to have a certain amount of noise and activity around me, and at Starbucks there’s no one who needs me – no wife, no kids, no students, no pets. I can get my coffee, sit down, and write. I usually spend about three to four hours working, which translates into roughly four or five pages of manuscript, sometimes more, especially when I’m nearing the end of a story or novel and the words are really flowing.
Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?
Tim Waggoner: I like to write my first drafts by hand. The words seem to flow better that way. Personal computers didn’t appear until I was nineteen or twenty, so I spent most of my formative years writing by hand. I’m more focused when I write by hand, and I produce more pages faster. Typing it up is a real pain in the ass sometimes, but it allows me to edit and clean up the text as I input it into the computer, and I usually don’t need to do any more drafts after that.
Meghan: Is there anything about writing you find most challenging?
Tim Waggoner: I’ve been writing for thirty years, and at this point, I have to be careful not to repeat ideas and concepts I’ve used for other stories in the past. It’s one thing for an author to work with recurring themes throughout his or her career, but it’s another to keep writing the same basic story over and over without realizing it. Hopefully, I’ve managed to avoid accidental self-plagiarism, but if I haven’t, would I even know it?
Something else – it seems to take me a couple weeks to fully make the mental shift from one project to another – especially when I have a bunch of novel proposals out at various publishers, any one of which I might (if I’m lucky) have to start on at any time. But one of the downsides to being prolific is figuring out which projects to work on when and shifting my mindset from one type of fiction to another. That shift seems to be getting more difficult as I get older. My wife says I always start slow on a project and pick up speed as I go until I’m rocketing along at a fast pace, but I hate the slow start!
Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?
Tim Waggoner: My short story “Mr. Punch,” which appeared in the anthology Young Blood twenty-five years ago was my first professional sale. It was also when I found my voice as a horror author. “Mr. Punch” is the first time I learned to trust my instincts as an artist and write the story I wanted to write, no matter how weird and bizarre it turned out. And I’ve been writing weird and bizarre stories ever since!
Meghan: What books have most inspired you? Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?
Tim Waggoner: Stephen King’s novels influenced me in terms of developing character and a sense of place. Piers Anthony’s novels – especially the Xanth series – made me fall in love with wild, manic invention in fiction. Charles de Lint’s novels showed me the power of placing dark fantasy in the contemporary world, and Clive Barker showed me how to create my own strange mythology. Ramsey Campbell and Charles L. Grant’s fiction helped teach me how to draw unique dark imagery from my subconscious to create my monsters. Tom Piccirilli and Douglas Clegg’s novels showed me how to develop my weird horror at novel length. Mystery writer Lawrence Block’s how-to-write columns and books taught me more about writing fiction than any creative writing class ever did. There are so many more – Shirley Jackson, Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson . . . It’s sounds like a cliché when writers say everything they’ve ever read, watched, or experienced influences their work, but it’s true.
Meghan: What do you think makes a good story?
Tim Waggoner: For me, it’s something that stimulates my imagination. It could be an intriguing concept, an interesting character, an original plot, or a captivating style. The best is when a story has all of these elements going for it. I like to read stories that let me get into the characters’ heads, and I like stories that, even if they’re set in the contemporary world create a reality all their own. While I enjoy stories that have a leisurely pace, my favorites tend to be more fast-paced, possessing a strong forward-moving momentum.
Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character? How do you utilize that when creating your characters?
Tim Waggoner: I have to feel a connection to a character in order to love him or her. This connection can be small. Hannibal Lector doesn’t have many admirable qualities, but he likes and respects Clarice Starling, and I can connect to that bit of humanity that still exists inside him. In Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, I connect to the insane narrator’s very human need to tell his tale in order to be understood. I try to create such a human connection between my characters and readers, and hopefully I succeed more often than not.
Meghan: Which, of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?
Tim Waggoner: They’re all part of me on way or another. Writers can never not write about ourselves. No matter how hard we try to disguise our characters, they’re all reflections of us in one way or another, even if they’re funhouse mirror distortions. My zombie PI Matt Richter from the Nekropolis series reflects my humorous side. Jayce in The Mouth of the Dark is the father side of me, while Neal in The Forever House is the part of me that can be insecure in relationships. My characters are all pieces of a puzzle that, if they were assembled, would make a portrait of me.
Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover? To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?
Tim Waggoner: When I first started writing, I heard a lot of professional writers say that editors always change the titles of your books and you never get any input into the cover. That’s not been my experience, though. Most editors keep my original titles, and they usually ask for my input on the covers. Most of the time, one of my suggestions forms the basis for the cover, and usually I think they turn out pretty good. Sometimes I think the covers are just okay, and other times – only a few – I dislike them. But there’s nothing that can be done at that point. The only thing I really hate is if a cover image has nothing to do with the book’s contents. When I was a kid, I hated it when the main character on a book cover looked different than the way the author described him or her, or if the cover seemed to promise a very different kind of story. The original cover for Jack Ketchum’s masterpiece The Girl Next Door is a perfect example. It depicts a skeleton in a cheerleader’s outfit, implying the story is a generic spooky tale when in fact it’s a brutal, bleak, uncompromising examination of violence toward the Other, of the dangers of going along with the group, and how ultimately violence affects both victims and perpetrators alike. I bet a lot of people who bought that paperback edition were shocked as hell when they started to read the book –which, now that I think about it, is pretty cool. Good horror should never be safe. So maybe, in a sense, that cover worked after all, just no in the way the publisher intended it to.
Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?
Tim Waggoner: What haven’t I learned? Writing novels uses more of me than anything else I’ve ever done. I’ve learned patience, perseverance, mental and emotional resilience . . . I’ve learned to prioritize my time, to take risks, to deal with setbacks, disappointments, self-doubts, and failures. I’ve learned so much about story – what makes one work, what makes one not work. . . I’ve learned how to write for readers without my awareness of those readers making me so self-conscious I freeze up. I’ve learned how to deal with praise, criticism, and outright hatred of my work. I’ve learned how to win awards and how to lose them. I’ve learned how to be a member of a writing community and how to – I hope – be a good citizen of that community. Most of all, I’ve learned more about who Tim Waggoner is, who he was, and who he might one day become.
Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?
Tim Waggoner: In my story “Voices Like Barbed Wire” I based a scene on when my ex-wife and I told our daughters that we were going to get divorced. It’s one of my most painful memories – one which I would happily cut out of my brain if I knew how – but since the story is about a woman who wants to get rid of a bad memory, I decided to give her my worst one so that the story might have more emotional truth and, at least to me, have more meaning. And by putting the memory in the story, maybe I managed to exorcise it from my mind, at least a little.
Meghan: What makes your books different from others out there in this genre?
Tim Waggoner: That’s hard for me to say. I just think of my horror novels as Tim Waggoner stories. Reviewers have remarked on my original ideas and nightmarish imagery, my strong characters and fast-paced narratives, and my blend of different styles of horror – from quiet to erotic to extreme to surreal – in the same novel. That’s probably as good a description as any of the kind of thing I write.
Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours (of course, with no spoilers)?
Tim Waggoner: I put a lot of work into titles. I keep a file with possible titles in it – phrases I’ve overheard or read somewhere, snatches of song lyrics or poetry that spark my imagination . . . I also keep story ideas in the same file, weird things I’ve seen, heard, or thought, bizarre news stories I’ve read, etc. When it’s time to start a new project, I go through the file, looking for ideas. Sometimes I start with an idea, but a lot of times I start with the title. Sometimes an idea and a title seem perfect for each other. For example, a while ago, I had an idea about a house that was infinite on the inside. One of the phrases I’d collected was The Forever House. The idea and the phrase matched so well, that I decided to write a novel using that title. I did a search on Google and Amazon to see if anyone else had ever used that title for a novel – especially a horror novel – and when I was confident no one had, I committed to The Forever House as the title for the book.
Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?
Tim Waggoner: I feel most fulfilled when I write novels. I like the complexity of them and the chance to develop characters in greater detail than I can with a short story. In novels, you can work with a larger scope and with bigger ideas. I enjoy seeing all the ways that I can take plot points and spin out different threads from them, and I love weaving all those threads together and making connections between them to create a richer, tighter narrative.
Short stories are in some ways harder for me to write. They require a laser-like focus on a narrower concept, and you have to make every word, every image count. My brain always feels like it gets a workout when I write a short story, but I get a lot of satisfaction when I finish one because they don’t come so easily to me.
Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your books, your target audience, and what you would like readers to take away from your stories.
Tim Waggoner: In the horror community, I’m known for writing a certain kind of surreal, existential horror, but I’ve written a lot of different kinds of fiction: epic fantasy, action-adventure, spy thriller, creature-feature fiction, erotica, science fiction, urban fantasy, young adult, middle-grade reader . . . Most of those were tie-in books where the genre was given to me. I like that because it stretches me as a writer, makes me try my hand at genres that I might not otherwise attempt. Whatever the genre, I always try to give the reader developed characters, interesting ideas, and a fast-paced, smooth read. I want to stimulate readers’ imaginations – which is, as I said earlier, I seek as a reader myself – and I hope to make readers think. I want to surprise them with my stories, take them places where they don’t expect. I hope they’ll view the genre a little differently when they’ve finished one of my books.
I write my horror novels for fans that are well-versed in the genre and are looking for something different. My tie-in novels have different audiences. For example, I write Supernatural novels for fans of the TV series, although I hope that anyone can enjoy them.
I like to write my books on two levels: on one level, I hope they’re fun, enjoyable reads, but on another, deeper level, I play with genre conventions and write an almost metafictional critique of the genre itself. I try to do the latter as subtly as possible, so I don’t spoil the story for anyone, but there’s a deeper layer to the story for those who want a little more from a reading experience. A colleague once told me I write “deep parody,” and I suppose that’s as good a description as any of what I do. I’m not trying to mock a genre or its readers, but I hope that I can get them to engage with the genre in a different way and perhaps even show them something about the genre they’ve never considered before. I do this in my tie-in books too (but don’t tell my editors!).
Meghan: Can you tell us about some of the deleted scenes/stuff that got left out of your work?
Tim Waggoner: I don’t usually have to cut anything from my original work. Editors do sometimes make me cut some stuff from tie-in novels. Years ago, I was working on A Nightmare on Elm Street novel. New Line Cinema was taking a long time to approve my outline, so the editor told me to just go ahead and start writing. I was sixty pages into the book when the editor told me the studio refused to approve the idea. My concept was that Freddie was returned to life as a human and was trying to find a way to return to the dream realm. The studio didn’t want Freddie to be human again because it brought up the specter of him being a child molester in life, something the studio didn’t want to remind people of. I had to come up with an entirely new outline for a novel, and New Line approved it, and that became my novel A Nightmare on Elm Street: Protégé. That experience taught me never to begin drafting a tie-in novel before the rights holder gives their approval.
Meghan: What is in your “trunk”?
Tim Waggoner: I have a number of novel proposals that my agent sends around to publishers, and of course not all of them are picked up. I’d love to work on some of those projects, but I’ve been selling novels on the basis of proposals for twenty years now. I prefer to have a contract in hand before I fully commit to writing a novel. But even if all my proposals were picked up by editors, I doubt I’d have time to write them all before I die. It’s the lot of artists to know that we’ll never be able to make all the things we want to make in a single lifetime. The trick is to make as many as possible in the time we have.
Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?
Tim Waggoner: My tie-in novel Alien: Protocol will be out in late October. I’ll have two other books out in 2020, a horror novel called The Forever House from Flame Tree Press, and a how-to-write horror book called Writing in the Dark from Guide Dog Books. I’m especially proud of Writing in the Dark since it’s a culmination of thirty years of writing and teaching.
Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?
Tim Waggoner: Aardvark, zither, chrysanthemum.
Tim Waggoner’s first novel came out in 2001, and since then he’s published over forty novels and five collections of short stories. He writes original dark fantasy and horror, as well as media tie-ins. His novels include Like Death, considered a modern classic in the genre, and the popular Nekropolis series of urban fantasy novels. He’s written tie-in fiction based on Supernatural, Grimm, The X-Files, Alien, Doctor Who, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Transformers, among others, and he’s written novelizations for films such as Kingsman: the Golden Circle and Resident Evil: the Final Chapter. His articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Journal, Writer’s Workshop of Horror, Horror 101, and Where Nightmares Come From. In 2017 he received the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction, and he’s been a finalist multiple times for both the Shirley Jackson Award and the Scribe Award. His fiction has received numerous Honorable Mentions in volumes of Best Horror of the Year, and he’s had several stories selected for inclusion in volumes of Year’s Best Hardcore Horror. In addition to writing, he’s also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio.
When an industrial spy steals a Xenomorph egg, former Colonial Marine Zula Hendricks must prevent an alien from killing everyone on an isolated colony planet.
Venture, a direct rival to the Weyland-Yutani corporation, will accept any risk to crush the competition. Thus, when a corporate spy “acquires” a bizarre, leathery egg from a hijacked vessel, she takes it directly to the Venture testing facility on Jericho 3.
Though unaware of the danger it poses, the scientists there recognize their prize’s immeasurable value. Early tests reveal little, however, and they come to an inevitable conclusion. They need a human test subject…
Enter Zula Hendricks.
A member of the Jericho 3 security staff, Colonial Marines veteran Zula Hendricks has been tasked with training personnel to deal with anything the treacherous planet can throw their way. Yet nothing can prepare them for the horror that appears–a creature more hideous than any Zula has encountered before.
Unless stopped, it will kill every human being on the planet.
A brand new Supernatural novel inspired by the record-breaking show starring Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles.
A brand-new Supernatural novel that reveals a previously unseen adventure for the Winchester brothers, from the hit TV series!
Sam and Dean travel to Indiana, to investigate a murder that could be the work of a werewolf. But they soon discover that werewolves aren’t the only things going bump in the night. The town is also home to a pack of jakkals who worship the god Anubis: carrion-eating scavengers who hate werewolves. With the help of Garth, the Winchester brothers must stop the werewolf-jakkal turf war before it engulfs the town – and before the god Anubis is awakened…
Jayce’s twenty-year-old daughter Emory is missing, lost in a dark, dangerous realm called Shadow that exists alongside our own reality. An enigmatic woman named Nicola guides Jayce through this bizarre world, and together they search for Emory, facing deadly dog-eaters, crazed killers, homicidal sex toys, and – worst of all – a monstrous being known as the Harvest Man. But no matter what Shadow throws at him, Jayce won’t stop. He’ll do whatever it takes to find his daughter, even if it means becoming a worse monster than the things that are trying to stop him.
What are you willing to do, what are you willing to become, to save someone you love?
Sierra Sowell’s dead brother Jeffrey is resurrected by a mysterious man known only as Corliss. Corliss also transforms four people in Sierra’s life into inhuman monsters determined to kill her. Sierra and Jeffrey’s boyfriend Marc work to discover the reason for her brother’s return to life while struggling to survive attacks by this monstrous quartet.
Corliss gives Sierra a chance to make Jeffrey’s resurrection permanent – if she makes a dreadful bargain. Can she do what it will take to save her brother, no matter how much blood is shed along the way?
Today, I give you Catherine Cavendish, with a very interesting history of Samhain, the Feast of the Dead.
Halloween, All Hallows Eve – whichever title you give it, there is no escaping its ancient origins. In Celtic tradition, the feast of Samhain was the night on which the worlds of the dead and the living came together.
The ancient Celts believed that this was the time of the year when the veil between the two worlds was at its thinnest – the one night on which the spirits of those who had gone before could cross over and impart their knowledge and wisdom to the living priests. As all had been revealed to the dead, they were able to help those in the living world to predict the future. Our ancestors did not fear death, they looked on it as a natural transition and one to be welcomed, since so much knowledge would be revealed once a soul had crossed over into the world of the dead. The celebration of Samhain involved the building of massive bonfires and much revelry. Celebrants would don animal skins and heads, they would dance, feast and worship the ancestors. They would attempt to tell each other’s fortunes and even try and peer into their own future, through scrying and other methods of sorcery.
A communal feast was prepared, with each celebrant bringing offerings of meat or vegetables for general consumption – a pre-cursor of today’s Christian Harvest Festivals perhaps?
But the origins go much further back than that. Deep onto the mists of prehistory.
In Ireland, two hills – Tlachtga and Tara – are both associated with the celebration of Samhain. Tlachtga is the main location as it was here that the Great Fire Festival was held annually on that date. Nearby, on the hill of Tara, the entrance passage to the Mound of the Hostages is aligned to the rising sun on October 31st. As this monument is believed to be 4500-5000 years old, it predates the arrival of the Celts in Ireland by some 2000-2500 years.
So why light a fire at all? The end of October marks a change in seasons. The ancients would have seen the sun’s strength waning and the massive fires could have been their way of ‘assisting’ the giver of life and sustenance on its passage through the sky, as well as providing much needed warmth.
With the sun now consigned to the underworld, those creatures that dwelt in that dark place were free to roam the earth, Ghosts, fairies, sprites, and all those who served the Lord of the Dead emerged from the shadows. In Ireland, the Celts called their Dark Lord Donn and, according to tradition, he had been a real person. When alive he captained a ship – one of many which sought to invade Ireland. He and his compatriots – known as the Milisians – made their way to Tara but were ordered to leave by the ruling Druids. They duly set sail but a fierce storm wrecked Donn’s ship and he perished, along with twenty-four others. He was buried on the Skellig Islands near Kerry and close to Valentia Island where Mog Ruith – the sun god (who ruled during the summer months) was said to be interred. Accoridng to legend, Donn was duly elevated to the status of Lord of the Dead. The two gods both became closely associated with Samhain, as Mog Ruith inhabited Donn’s Underworld during the winter months. The dead were often seen moving backwards and forwards from Donn’s ‘house’
As October 31st was recognised as the marker signifying the passing of the sun (and its god Mog Ruith) into darkness and the rising of the Lord of the Dead, Donn, the festival of Samhain also marked both events. The fires symbolised the passing of the sun god, and the other rites and magic represented a homage to Donn. His reign heralded a night where the normal order was overthrown. Samhain itself came to symbolize a time of chaos when the unwary could find themselves encountering all manner of strange creatures, magical beasts and frightening spirits. Particular places to avoid were any boundaries between two properties or tracts of land. Bad spirits loved to haunt there and create havoc. Bridges and crossroads were similarly scary places to be. Burial places were to be avoided at all costs – all manner of otherworldly entity could be found wandering there. Sensible people stayed at home, waiting for the signal that all was well and that order had been restored.
This came when the Great Fire at Tlachtga was lit. People could once again welcome their own dead into their homes without fear that they would bring something unsavoury with them. They could relight their own fires – from the massive fire itself. They could celebrate. But, there was always the possibility that a stray malevolent spirit might be still at large and, if so, would have to be placated by a small offering. Here, we have the possible origins of ‘Trick or Treat’. Households were invited to contribute or suffer the consequences of a rogue ghost who would bring bad fortune upon their home for an entire year.
The power of Samhain still resonates today, although many of its rituals have been absorbed, diluted and transformed into today’s Halloween festivities. For our ancestors though, its importance cannot be overestimated. The crossing over of the seasons came to represent the crossing over of everything – both corporeal and spiritual. Given that we know the ancients had a much closer affinity with the natural elements than we possess today, perhaps we would be wise to heed their beliefs and take great care when venturing out on a cold Samhain night…
Cat first started writing when someone thrust a pencil into her hand. Unfortunately as she could neither read nor write properly at the time, none of her stories actually made much sense. However as she grew up, they gradually began to take form and, at the tender age of nine or ten, she sold her dolls’ house, and various other toys to buy her first typewriter. She hasn’t stopped bashing away at the keys ever since, although her keyboard of choice now belongs to her laptop.
Meghan's House of Books 