I met Robert through a horror writer's group, yes it was Masters of Horror, how did you guess? When he asked me to review Shining in Crimson, I was thrilled. I had recently won a contest on his blog (I'm a serial contest enterer), and as the winner I had gotten a signed print copy of his novella, The Quiet. I enjoyed the novella very much, especially since I drive through Indy frequently and recognized all the highways. I think horror is that much more effective when there's something of the familiar thrown in.
You can read my review of his novel, Shining in Crimson, the first in the Empire of Blood series, over at See Spot Read. Go on, check it out.
And here's a little more about Robert:
1.) How long have you been writing?
9 years. But I’ve only been writing seriously for about 4.
2.) Do you write full time? If not, what is your day job?
I’m working toward a goal of writing full time. Right now, me and my wife are in the process of starting a book preparation company that would provide editing, proofreading, and book/ebook formatting individually or all in one.
3.) Is this your fist published novel?
It is my first published full novel, however The Quiet: A Novella was my first published book.
4.) What made you decide to go the Indie route?
Honestly, I’ve been watching the publishing industry pretty closely for a couple of years now and learning all I can. When I started writing Shining in Crimson, my plan was to make it the best novel submission I could and by the time I was nearing the completion of it, the industry had changed so much that it seemed it would be in my best interest to self publish for many reasons. First and foremost the drop in quality that the industry has sustained as well as the continuous bad choices the larger publishing companies are making. There’s so much greed in the industry and so little is dropping down the ladder to the ones who made the industry possible in the first place: the writers.
5.) What scares you personally? Do you have any silly phobias?
I used to have a major phobia of storms, tornadoes particularly. Now a days, my biggest fear is for something to happen to one of my children.
6.) What is your writing routine?
Ha! Sporadic at best. At least, right now. I’ve gone and involved myself in so many projects that it’s really hard to make consistent time. But I’m working on that. I plan on finding time to get 50k of the sequel to Shining in Crimson done as my Nanowrimo this November even with all I have going on.
7.) Have you always been a fan of horror?
I have in one form or another, definitely. I find it interesting that it took writing a horror book to realize just how much of a fan I really am. I had tried to write pure fantasy and pure sci-fi before and none of those ideas stuck enough for me to really finish them. But then came the idea for Empire of Blood and I fell madly in love with it. I relish each new idea that goes into the story and fits like a puzzle piece that was meant to be. That’s hard for me to say, being a rigid skeptic. I don’t really believe in fate of any kind but I do believe in this story.
8.) What other authors inspire you?
Goodness, I could write a short novel worth of names. I’ll go with the short short list though: Stephen King’s work was my first love, so there’s no doubt there. Richard Matheson, Peter Watts, Philip K. Dick, Joe Hill--okay, it’s not going to keep being a short list if I keep going.
9.) What advice would you give to newbie writers out there?
Don’t quit. Unless you want to. In which case you would no longer be a writer.
10.) Tell us a little bit about your charity anthology, Horror for Good.
I’m co-editor alongside Mark Scioneaux, so I wouldn’t call it mine so much as ours. The whole thing really just started from an FB post that he put up wanting to start an anthology and snowballed into this huge project for charity. We let the followers of our FB page vote on what charity we will be giving to and they chose amfAR an international AIDS research organization. It really is a great cause.
But I think another awesome aspect of this anthology is that we wanted to show that horror writers aren’t just a bunch of crazies who only think about blood and gore and darkness. We have big hearts too, and not just in jars on our writing desks. And I think the amount of response from established and unknown horror authors, as well as readers of the genre, really shows that.
To top all this off, RJ Cavender of Cutting Block Press has just signed on as our publishing consultant! Everyday a new and exciting development comes our way and makes me that much more proud to be a part of the horror community.
I hope that you will all take the time to check out the FaceBook page about the Horror for Good
Bio:
Robert S. Wilson was born in Bloomington, Indiana during the blizzard of '78. His first taste for horror came from watching episodes of The Twilight Zone and the stories his mother told him of a supposedly haunted house his family once lived in. He is the author of Shining in Crimson, book one of his dystopian vampire series: Empire of Blood. His novella, The Quiet, appeared in the anthology Not in the Brochure: Stories of a Disappointing Apocalypse. He is currently working on book two of the Empire of Blood series and is co-editing the anthology, Horror for Good: A Charitable Anthology.
His free audio serial of Shining in Crimson includes music by himself and many other up and coming dark underground artists. His monthly free audio short story showcase titled Dead Audio: Dark Tales of Fiction begins October 2011 and features a story from a different author each month. The first story, Flies, is a unique and gruesome tale written by J.T. Warren.
Robert lives in Middle Tennessee with his wife and two kids and spends most of his time wondering where all the time went. Samples of his work as well as the free audio serial for Shining in Crimson can be found on his blog at http://shiningincrimson.
Hope you enjoyed meeting Robert Wilson as much as I did,
Stacey
3 comments:
By the drop in quality, do you mean that the majority of novels, or Horror novels in particular, are worse year-on-year than they have been?
John- I can't say for sure what Robert meant. Hopefully he'll come back and answer. I would think though, that he meant the drop in quality of all publishing, not one genre in particular. Although, many horror writers have noticed that "horror" has come to be known more by slash-n-hack, then by actual horror.
And I don't know that he necessarily meant the quality of individual writers, just the industry's tendency to publish only what they think will make money, (Snooki's book), then truly good writing.
Did I make any sense with that answer to anyone but me? I hope so.
Stacey
You made sense with your answer to me, Stacey! I agree that the "big boys" are not putting out quality like they once did. It's up to Indies and small houses to change this.
Great interview!
Blaze
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