MICHAEL A. VENTRELLA: Today I am pleased to be interviewing author and editor Gardner Dozois, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, and probably best known for being the editor of ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE for over 20 years!
Gardner, you’re well known as THE modern editor of science fiction – no one comes close (especially when you consider the number of awards you’ve earned). What do you have that others don’t?
GARDNER DOZOIS: Many editors are sensitive, highly intelligent, high-strung people, and they tend to burn out relatively quickly. Me, I’m a stolid peasant type who actually likes eating meat and potatoes every day. Where others burn out from reading science fiction all day long, get sick of it, I actually like reading science fiction, and am not sensitive or intelligent enough to get tired of reading it.
VENTRELLA: What, in your mind, makes a good editor?
DOZOIS: It’s similar to the answer to the question above. You have to like what you’re doing. You have to have passion for it. When you read a really good story, you have to have the ability to be excited by it AS a reader, to become engrossed in the reading of it rather than just coolly evaluating it professionally. If you lose that, you’re lost. My strategy as an editor has always been simple: I’m a reader with fairly average tastes myself, and so I figure that if I like a story, as a reader, then many other readers will probably like it too. This is the philosophy I had when I was editing ASIMOV’S, and its what’s guided me through all the years of editing THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION, which is now up to its THIRTIETH ANNUAL COLLECTION — so it must work.
It seems to me that editing requires an eye for balance – you don’t want too many stories with the same theme in a collection, but you also don’t want to stray too far and alienate readers by being too eclectic. How do you balance the extremes? What guidelines do you use?
You do have to have balance, and this was as true of an issue of ASIMOV’S as it is for an edition of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. You can’t publish nothing but near-future dystopias, or nothing but grim, depressing stories. I always put a lot of effort into trying to balance the mood of the stories in anything I was working on. You have to try to balance the TYPES of stories, too — some hard science fiction, some soft, some offplanet stuff, some near future, some far future, and with both ASIMOV’S and THE BEST OF THE YEAR volumes I put a lot of effort in to working out the story order so that you don’t get a lot of the same kind of stories in a row. You also have to pay some consideration to sources. You can’t use only stories from one source, and even too many of them, no matter how good a job you think that source is doing. When I edited ASIMOV’S, I used to get a lot of grief from reviewers for using too many ASIMOV’S stories, so I had to be careful not to overdo it.
Sadly, this is largely a waste of time. Most readers ignore the carefully arranged order and either read the stories by the authors they like best first, or start with the shortest stories first, or the longest ones. I know it’s a waste of time, but I can’t help doing it anyway.
VENTRELLA: How do you handle similarly themed stories with the “best of the year” collections? After all, it’s not like you can set one of them aside for the next edition…
DOZOIS: I use the one I like best, although in close cases, determining which one that is often involves reading them again, and again, and again. In the final stages of assembling the Best, I think of it as arranging a steel-cage match between two similar stories; let them fight it out, and the strongest story wins. With a magazine, like ASIMOV’s, you have a little more flexibility –if you have two similar kinds of story and you like both of them, you can always duck one of them into inventory and use it later on, in another issue.
VENTRELLA: How do you find short stories for your “best of” collections?
DOZOIS: You just have to keep your eyes open. I make a good-faith attempt to read every SF story in the English language I can find. Realistically, I know that I must miss a lot, especially these days, with all the proliferating internet markets, but I do the best I can.
VENTRELLA: Do you ever consider self-published works for these collections?
DOZOIS: Yes. Although finding them in order to consider them in the first place is the problem. Many single-author short story collections have unpublished stories in them, and you have to keep an eye out for that as well.
VENTRELLA: You have concentrated your career almost entirely on short fiction. What is it about short stories that attracts you more than novel-length works?
DOZOIS: The brutal efficiency. A short story delivers one hard punch, fulfills one purpose, and then stops. You can’t sprawl in a short story the way you can in a novel. A short story that sprawls doesn’t work at all.
VENTRELLA: Do you regret not writing more fiction and thus being known more for your editing?
DOZOIS: Yes, I regret it. I backed into editing more or less by accident, although my first reaction to reading a story I really liked was always to show it to as many people as possible, which has always suited me for the work. In an ideal world, though, I would be a Big Name SF Writer, which is what I set out to be, and be remembered for my writing rather than for my editing. As it is, my writing is already largely forgotten, and will be forgotten completely fifteen minutes after I’m dead. You play the hand you’re given, though.
VENTRELLA: Do you ever stop and consider how much you have influenced the field – how, thanks to you, certain writers have been discovered and moved on to influence others?
DOZOIS: I think it’s possible to exaggerate the contribution of an editor. It’s the writers who did all the work; if a story is good it’s because of all the blood and sweat they put into it. My function is just being smart enough to recognize the good work when it comes along. (Occasionally, an editor can spot something that needs fixing in a story that the author can’t recognize on his own, and help the author to find a way to fix it — but there all the heavy lifting is being done by the author too.)
VENTRELLA: Who are you most proud of “discovering”?
DOZOIS: There are a fair number of them. George R.R. Martin, Connie Willis, Joe Haldeman, Allen Steele, David Marusek, Mary Rosenblum, Kage Baker.
VENTRELLA: Tell us about your newest anthology with George R.R. Martin!
DOZOIS: I’ve just finished and delivered an anthology with George called OLD VENUS. Next out will be an anthology with him called DANGEROUS WOMEN, which will be published in December. Also out soon will be OLD MARS. Sometime in the future, probably 2014, my anthology with him called ROGUES will come out, and also OLD VENUS.
VENTRELLA: Magazine circulation is dropping everywhere; what do you see for the future?
DOZOIS: Most magazines will probably become electronic online-only magazines, as many already have, although the existing print magazines, like ASIMOV’S, ANALOG, and F&SF are doing a bit better these days by selling subscriptions for electronic formats online. I always said that if anything could save the print magazines, it would be the internet, and this may turn out to be true.
VENTRELLA: There are fewer and fewer anthologies being printed these days as well, and many writers are uploading their short stories rather than going the traditional route. Is this good for fiction overall?
DOZOIS: This is completely untrue. There are a lot more anthologies being published these days, from an proliferating number of small-press publishers, as downloadable files, as Kickstarter projects. There are more of them every year, enough so that it’s become harder to keep up with them all.
VENTRELLA: My worry is this: in the past, with magazines and anthologies, there was a gatekeeper (the editor) who, with a good reputation, guaranteed quality. Now I have no idea most of the time if the work I might download has even been edited, much less subject to any sort of review. What can a reader do to find good fiction?
DOZOIS: This is a bit self-serving, but your best bet is to buy one of the Best of the Year anthologies, which serve as a sampler of the work of many different authors, whose work you can then follow up on if you like it. If you don’t like my book, get Jonathan Strahan’s, or Rich Horton’s, or one of a number of others.
VENTRELLA: There still is a stigma attached to books that are either not available in a hard copy or only available as a POD. Do you see that changing in the future?
DOZOIS: Yes, that will change. Is already changing rapidly, in fact.
MICHAEL A. VENTRELLA: I am pleased to be interviewing Robert Brockway today. Robert Brockway is a Senior Editor and columnist for Cracked.com. He is the author of two books, the cyberpunk novel RX: A TALE OF ELECTRONEGATIVITY, and the comedic non-fiction essay collection EVERYTHING IS GOING TO KILL EVERYBODY: THE TERRIYINGLY REAL WAYS THE WORLD WANTS YOU DEAD. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Meagan and their two dogs, Detectives Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh. He has been known, on occasion, to have a beard.
Tell us about your novel RX: A TALE OF ELECTRONEGATIVITY!
ROBERT BROCKWAY: RX is a cyberpunk novel about Red, a bio-hacker, chemical beta tester and specialty drug dealer in a futuristic mega-scraper city called the Four Posts. Pharmaceuticals aren’t just tolerated in the Four Posts, they’re practically a necessity. Everybody medicates constantly, to the point that Rx Feeds – nano-assembling custom drug stations – are piped into every household. The hot new drug of choice is Presence, a powerful hallucinogenic gas that simulates time travel, but with none of the consequences. Want to shoot a T. Rex? Fist fight King Henry II? Bring a battle-mech to the Civil War? Dose up on Presence and go for it. Your timeline won’t change in the slightest. Red’s best paying side-job is beta-testing new strains of Presence – hey, somebody has to go back and make sure the dose is taking customers to the right time and place. But he’s just woken up with a hell of a headache and no memory of the last twelve hours, only to find he’s violated his Non-disclosure Agreement – a crime punishable by death in the Four Posts. Now with a pair of incredibly brutal bounty hunters on his trail, Red has to clear his name and figure out what the strange prototype drug is doing to his mind before it literally tears him apart.
VENTRELLA: What sort of research did you do before writing this?
BROCKWAY: Too much. I’m kind of a link hoarder, and though the general framework of Rx is obviously science fiction, much of what appears in it was inspired by real stuff. The Four Posts were inspired by Ponte City, a huge single-skyscraper project in South Africa that, for a time, was considered the most dangerous place in the world. The drugs in Rx (well, excluding the Gas) are more stable, more potent versions of real pharmaceutical developments – drugs that eliminate fear, inspire trust, add IQ points. All real stuff.
VENTRELLA: Why couldn’t you go with your original title?
BROCKWAY: I’m assuming you’re referring to the original title of “Time Fuckers: Fuckers of Time.” Are the reasons not self-evident? I was never going with that title. It’s awful. I give myself terrible working titles until the book is finished to keep myself from taking it too seriously, and to stop from worrying about things when it’s not time to worry about them yet.
VENTRELLA: You’ve actually done an annotated version of the book, with footnotes and asides and references listed. Why did you decide to do this?
BROCKWAY: Well, it was all that research and link hoarding. I heavily fictionalized the info in Rx, so I wouldn’t blame anybody for not believing a word of it is remotely possible. But I wanted to show people that the real world has always been, is now, and is about to be much, much crazier than they would ever suspect.
VENTRELLA: How did you publish this?
BROCKWAY: I published Rx as a serial eBook in three installments. I did this partly because I liked serial novels, partly because I was curious how it would do, and partly because I didn’t have a reliable network of Beta-readers. The plan was to self-publish these little episodes and incorporate reader feedback along the way. Then I would take a huge editorial pass on the collected version, and release that as a finished book. Toward that end, I ran free giveaways of the first episode, then included review incentives where any (positive or negative, so long as it’s helpful) review would earn you a free copy of the next episode. In that fashion, you could get the whole series for free, just by leaving reviews on each episode.
VENTRELLA: What is your background and why did you decide to write?
BROCKWAY: I’m not sure how to answer that: I decided to write because I’ve always been writing. I don’t know how not to do it. My background is happening right now, I’m pretty sure. I have in no way ‘made it’ or become some sort of name. I’m still practicing, learning from my myriad mistakes, and trying to get better. I hope I’ll always think of myself like that.
VENTRELLA: Amazon is reporting that e-books are now outselling traditional publications. For beginning authors is this a good thing or a bad thing?
BROCKWAY: I think it’s a great thing! I prefer physical books myself, though I’m definitely a hybrid reader these days. It’s most beneficial to beginning (I’d prefer the term ‘Indie’ as many aren’t really starting out, so much as just now getting seen) authors because, for the most part, your self-published books are just as viable as traditionally published works in these new marketplaces. I see indie books all the time, just browsing around on Amazon or Indiebound. I’m not even looking for them. But if your book hooks me with a good cover, killer title or compelling synopsis – you’ve just made a sale to a person who would otherwise never have even heard of your work. As much as we bemoan the death of book stores (and they shouldn’t die, I love them), we tend to overlook the upside: There’s one less middleman to filter out your work.
VENTRELLA: Hard science fiction seems to be taking a back seat to high fantasy, steampunk, urban fantasy, and other genres these days. Why do you think that is?
BROCKWAY: I think it’s just because we’re segmenting our descriptions of the genre. We used to call all of that stuff ‘science fiction.’ Is my book ‘hard science fiction’? Some people have said so – derogatively, I might add – as though that limits its appeal. Others call it ‘cyberpunk’ – also derogatively (man, I’m sensing a pattern here). If we applied that pattern retroactively then 1984 would be ‘technological dystopian’ and FOUNDATION would be ‘dynastical space opera.’ It’s not: We’re all sci-fi. We’re all brothers and sisters in nerdishness here.
VENTRELLA: What is the biggest mistake made by authors who write SF?
BROCKWAY: Ambition. That’s my biggest mistake, anyway, and I don’t really feel comfortable pointing out the mistakes of authors who are likely far better than me right now. I don’t know if I fully pulled off Rx – it was a hell of a lot to try for as a debut novel. I further complicated matters with an experimental release schedule. I needed to write it, of course, to learn those lessons and improve as a writer — and I think a lot of readers still got some enjoyment out of it. But that will always be the sci-fi writer’s simultaneous curse and blessing: Ambition.
VENTRELLA: Is writing a skill that can be learned or are the best writers born, not made?
BROCKWAY: Both. Natural talent happens in every field. Some people are naturally talented cabinet makers or heating repairmen. You can never fake that, but it doesn’t mean you’re excluded. I’ll never be as effortlessly good as, say, Italo Calvino. But if I work at it, I can still be pretty good someday. For example, Stephen King doesn’t think of himself as naturally talented. I’d actually agree with him. But he works at his craft, constantly, and in the end he’s going to be more influential than a hundred thousand other, naturally talented writers who phoned it in, thought they were above improvement, or never even tried.
VENTRELLA: Who do you like to read?
BROCKWAY: Anybody. Terrible answer, I know, but it’s all I’ve got these days: I’m finding so many more books thanks to recommendation algorithms or sites like Goodreads that my favorite authors are constantly shifting and evolving. Over the past few months, I’ve been most impressed with Patrick Rothfuss’ work, and I’ve got a working writer’s crush on Chuck Wendig. I don’t know how he’s so prolific while maintaining that kind of quality, but it’s something I respect and strive for.
VENTRELLA: I’ve always enjoyed the articles you’ve written for Cracked with advice for authors. (Examples: here, here, and here) How have these been received?
BROCKWAY: Mixed. People who don’t write don’t give a damn and feel compelled to tell me so in increasingly obscene ways. People who do write usually thank me. They do decent traffic with high engagement, to borrow some soulless marketing terminology.
VENTRELLA: New authors can make huge mistakes. What big mistake bugs you the most, and how can writers avoid making it?
BROCKWAY: They don’t edit. If you don’t obsessively, freakishly edit your story, then I promise you that you have made huge, gaping unforgivable mistakes, and everybody but you is going to notice and point and laugh. I edit everything. For example, I edited my responses to this interview. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have noticed that I used the word ‘obsessively’ three times in the span of two sentences. You would have laughed at me, and I would have had no choice but to kill myself to preserve my family’s honor.
VENTRELLA: Do you attend science fiction conventions?
BROCKWAY: I have attended one convention in my life. Comickaze, in Los Angeles, and I did so because I was ordered to by my employer. It was interesting and fun, but a bit awkward, and probably not representative of the larger scene. I’m kind of a hermit.
VENTRELLA: What are you working on now?
BROCKWAY: I don’t know how to categorize it, really: It’s a novel with elements of mystery, science fiction, horror and magical realism. It’s about a group of punk rockers in New York in the late ‘70s, and a group of aspiring actresses in Los Angeles in the present day. Both are tied together through a mysterious set of disappearances, usually accompanied by a strange caustic sludge, and the impossible sighting of angels.
As I write this, I am at my local library for the annual local authors reception (here in the beautiful Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania). It’s great to meet everyone and talk to other writers, and obviously I encourage all authors to participate in these things, because just about every locality has something like this.
Last year, after talking to many of the writers, I decided that what we really needed was a Writers Conference where we can learn from published authors, agents and editors. So now I am organizing one for the area.
The First Annual Pocono Writers Conference will be held on the 27th of October at the Eastern Monroe Public Library. The goal is to provide assistance to aspiring fiction writers. A panel of published authors and editors will discuss each topic and take questions from the audience.
You don’t have to be from the Poconos to attend, although I’d prefer that only local writers join our new “Pocono Writers” Facebook page.
Guest panelists are still being confirmed, but the schedule of panels looks like this:
9:00 – 9:15: Opening remarks and introductions
9:15 – 10:30: YOUR OPENING PAGE: Grabbing a reader right from the start is imperative. As a new writer, that is the first impression they will get from you and you have to make it count. Our panel will discuss what you need to do and what you need to avoid in order to make that sale to the reader. Participants can submit their opening pages in advance for the panel to review and comment upon. Submissions should be double spaced and contain only the first page of the story and emailed in advance to poconowriters@gmail.com.
10:45 – 12:00: IT’S THE CHARACTERS, STUPID: A story isn’t about what it’s about – it’s about the characters. The plot is there to move your characters and change them in some way. A character that is exactly the same by the end of the book is not a well-developed one. The panelists will discuss techniques they use to make their stories about the characters, and not just the plot, and how to turn those characters into real, three-dimensional, believable people.
12:00 – 12:30: Lunch
12:30 – 1:45: JUST KEEP SWIMMING, JUST KEEP SWIMMING: Keeping tension on every page is a way to make sure readers stay glued to your pages. The dreaded middle dump haunts many writers, and in this session, the panel will discuss the most common story stalling mistakes authors make and how you can keep your readers turning the pages.
2:00 – 3:15: THE MOST COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY WRITERS: Editors see the same mistakes over and over again from new writers – shifts in Point of View, telling and not showing, cliches and poor dialogue, and much more. Most of these are just beginner’s mistakes, but you can avoid them if you know what to look out for. Our panel discusses the mistakes that are most commonly made by new authors that will keep your work from being sold (or read!).
3:30 – 4:45: GETTING PUBLISHED: Once your book is done, what’s next? Hiring an editor? Self-publishing? Looking for an agent? The panel will discuss the choices available, whether self-publishing is an option, and the scams to look out for.
MICHAEL A. VENTRELLA: I’m pleased to be interviewing author Philippa Ballantine today! New Zealand born fantasy writer and podcaster Philippa (Pip) Ballantine is the author of the “Books of the Order” and the “Shifted World” series. She is also the co-author with her husband Tee Morris of the “Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences” novels. Her awards include an Airship, a Parsec, the Steampunk Chronicle Reader’s Choice, and a Sir Julius Vogel. She currently resides in Manassas, Virginia with her husband, daughter, and a furry clowder of cats. Her web page is here and her twitter page is here!
Philippa, you have two new books coming out shortly. Let’s talk about HARBINGER first, which is the fourth in the “Book of the Order” series. Tell us about this.
PHILIPPA BALLANTINE: HARBINGER is the culmination of the previous three books, and I am actually rather sad to be leaving the world. Sorcha, Merrick and Raed have all been driven to literally the ends of the world. They discover that the Circle of Stars Order have plans to break the gap between the Otherside and the realm of humanity. Without their runes, Sorcha and her Deacons must take dangerous step to save their world, and all the time the Rossin, the great pard, is planning his own escape.
VENTRELLA: Then, a few weeks later, KINDRED AND WINGS, the second book in the “Shifted World” series is released. What is this series about?
BALLANTINE: The Shifted World series is all about chaos, and how people deal with it. In a world that cannot be trusted, with people warring amongst themselves, the endgame is coming quickly. The dragon Wahirangi and Finn the storyteller search for answers, while Talyn must decide her role in the world; destroyer or savior. Secrets will be revealed, time travelled through, and dragons will battle.
VENTRELLA: With your husband Tee Morris, you’ve also created the successful steampunk series “Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences”. How did that creative process begin?
BALLANTINE: It actually began with a creative idea from Tee that was supposed to be set in current days. Then I wanted to experiment with a podcast for pay, so I suggested with do a prequel novel set in Victorian times. There was early interest from our agent in the series as novels, so the podcast idea morphed in that direction. It was a strange and delightfully circuitous path to publication!
VENTRELLA: How do you two split the writing on this? What’s your process? (Tee gave me his version a while ago when I interviewed him; I want to see how you saw the collaboration.)
BALLANTINE: We do a lot of brain storming of where we want to go, and sketch out a series of scenes. Tee does the Wellington scenes, I do Eliza’s, and we put our hands up for the other characters. Then once it is written, we swap and edit each other. We’ve got a pretty good grasp now, after three books, on how we do these things. It was tricky at first though!
VENTRELLA: The next Peculiar Occurrences book is scheduled to be out in the fall – that’s three in one year. You’ve been busy! How do you do it?
BALLANTINE: Lots and lots of marking calendars, and sharing them with Tee. I’ve also got better at prioritizing which projects come before others.
VENTRELLA: What is it about steampunk that interests you?
BALLANTINE: I love the creativity of the genre, and the heady mix of history. I’ve messed around with history before, but steampunk gives that freedom wings. Also the aesthetics are beautiful, and airships are just plain cool.
VENTRELLA: What makes your steampunk novels stand out among the others?
BALLANTINE: Tee and I have fun with our steampunk, but I think the real difference about our steampunk is the scope of the world view. We’ve not only done novels, but also short stories and podcasts, which have taken our readers and listeners all over the globe. Also, people seem to love our characters.
VENTRELLA: Why did you decide to move from New Zealand? (And given our politics here, do you regret the move?)
BALLANTINE: I moved from New Zealand to marry Tee, and I don’t regret it. One day we’ll probably move back to live, but right now with the writing I have the chance to go to New York to meet publishers, and the convention circuit in America provides a lot more opportunities to meet readers.
VENTRELLA: Speaking of conventions (where we’ve met numerous times), … do you find that is important for authors to do? What are the benefits of doing so?
BALLANTINE: I don’t know what the Return on Investment would be in monetary terms, but in terms of meeting fellow writers, and readers, it really can’t be measured. Writing is a solitary profession in most cases, and those kind of interactions are really needed. Tee and I have met readers who have cos-played our characters, people who have jumped up and down with delight (which I am still stunned about), and made innumerable contacts with other writers. There has to be a balance however, because you also have to write, but I would encourage new writers to try out at least a small local con.
VENTRELLA: What is it about science fiction and fantasy that attracts you?
BALLANTINE: The sheer scope of it. The speculative fiction genre imposes no limits on the imagination, and that is something that no other genre can offer. If you can imagine it, you can write it. From dragons to airships, from cyber-intelligences to minds of clockwork, all are possible.
VENTRELLA: The publishing industry is in tremendous flux right now. Editors and agents are so uncertain they are not taking risks on new authors, and small publishing houses are jumping in to fill the void. Given this, what sort of advice would you give an un-agented author with a manuscript? (Purely hypothetical, mind you …)
BALLANTINE: There are good agents out there. Laurie McLean of Foreword Literary is my agent, but also my partner in this business. I know that I wouldn’t have gotten where I am today without her assistance and guidance.
So I think if you can find an agent like her that wants to be a true partner, then you should go that route. However, if you cannot, then a small publishing house is a great way to start, you can learn so much about editing, marketing, and the process of putting a book together.
If that route doesn’t work, then I don’t think self-publishing is a bad idea at all. The only caveat I would add is make sure you produce the best professional product possible. Hire editors and cover artists. If you take short cuts, don’t expect to get results.
VENTRELLA: Do you think the SFWA and other organizations will eventually have to consider small publishing houses and self-publishing?
BALLANTINE: I was actually on a panel recently where I heard that it is not beyond the realms of possibility that SFWA might go that way. It’s just a matter of working out how they decide on membership levels. Like the publishing industry trade organizations need to be flexible and move with the changing landscape.
VENTRELLA: What book have you read recently that you loved?
BALLANTINE: I was lucky enough to get a chance to blurb A STUDY IN SILKS by Emma Jane Holloway. It’s not coming out until September this year, but is worth the wait!
MICHAEL A. VENTRELLA: Today I am pleased to be interviewing Catherine Stine, writer of suspense and speculation. Her newly released crossover sci-fi thriller is RUBY’S FIRE.
Catherine, tell us about this new series. What makes your series different?
CATHERINE STINE: It takes place on a future earth (2099), and the world has suffered from extreme weather and border wars, but it is not an oppressively dystopian atmosphere. There are signs of renewal. I’m more interested in what takes place during a perilously delicate recovery, and what kinds of events and people affect it.
VENTRELLA: My fantasy novels are also considered “young adult” books, primarily because of the age of the protagonist. What else makes a story YA?
STINE: The hallmarks of YA are yes, the age of the protagonist (14 to 18), but the pacing must be fast and the plot high stakes. There is always a romance, yet the romance is not graphic. Themes are geared to teen concerns. RUBY’S FIRE addresses drug use, core identity issues, runaways, love triangles, extreme peer competition and genetic mutation. How’s that for suspense?!
VENTRELLA: When you’re approaching a story, how do you begin — characters, plot or themes? What’s your writing style? Do you outline or just jump in?
STINE: I begin with a compelling situation and characters. Then I construct the plot. I always outline, and I do thematic freewrites. The more I think through the novel and outline beforehand, the stronger and more focused the novel becomes. I advise my students to outline, even a few lines per chapter. I encourage them to think of it as a fluid entity they can tweak as they go. This seems to help.
VENTRELLA: Who do you like to read?
STINE: I read adult and YA speculative fiction. That includes horror, sci-fi and techno thrillers. Occasionally I’ll read a literary mystery to study how to craft tension.
VENTRELLA: Tell us about how you got RUBY’S FIRE published.
STINE: I published Ruby’s Fire with my own imprint, Konjur Road Press. That said, I’ve also published with Random House, American Girl and Scholastic. I’m a hybrid author, meaning I’ve done it both ways, and would like to continue publishing both ways. Why not? I do have an agent. He’s okay with that.
VENTRELLA: What do you think we will see in the future of publishing?
STINE: I think more and more authors will publish both ways. Even well published authors are choosing to self-publish certain projects. For instance, one trend is to write a “short” or a novella with one of the characters in a novel, between longer projects, and self-publish the shorts. It satisfies readers while they wait for your longer opus.
VENTRELLA: Even authors with major publishers need to know how to market. What are the smartest things one can do to promote a book?
STINE: For RUBY’S FIRE, I’m doing a big blog tour. Last time I organized it all myself. This go-around I hired a book tour host. But from my first experience, I “met” so many great book reviewers that this time I was able to contact them again, and they were thrilled to read the next book, and also to blurb. People are very generous online and they love getting the word out about books they like. The funny thing is that I have a friend who is published with one of the Big 6, and her publicist is approaching the very same bloggers I have a relationship with. The whole process has become democratized. It’s also good to do giveaways on Goodreads, and to host other authors.
VENTRELLA: You’ve received quite a few good reviews and awards for your work. How did those come about? Do you have to search them out or do they contact you?
STINE: Write the best book you can, and good reviews will follow. I did apply to certain indie award sites; there are good ones, and questionable ones. Do your homework. More and more, these organizations and awards will be helpful to readers to discern the best of the indies.
The “Heroes in Hell” anthology series launched in 1986. The theme features the denizens of Hell and how they continue to live their evil lives in the afterworld. This allows for hugely creative stories featuring the famous and infamous.
The series, edited by Janet Morris, has seen some of the biggest names in the genre, including Robert Silverberg (who won a Hugo award for his “Hell” story), C.J. Cherryh, Gregory Benford, David Drake, Robert Asprin, George Alec Effinger, and now, some guy named Michael A. Ventrella.
I remember reading these books way back when. I never thought I’d ever be in them as an author.
My story “Hell, I Must Be Going” is in the latest version. Here are links to the paperback, kindle and Nook versions. This is a huge book with lots of great stories!
Below is a list of the stories you’ll find in this collection. I asked each author to give me a short description of their stories, and the ones who responded are included.
“Barefoot, on Brimstone” by Sara M. Harvey
“In the Shadow of Paradise” by Jason Cordova: The only way to escape Hell is by redemption. But how can a man who is irredeemable escape? Ponce de Leon must answer this question as he struggles to find another way before he is damned forever.
“Face of the Enemy” by Leo Champion: Che Guevara discovers an appreciation for capitalism with the success of a revolution-branded T-shirt factory – but an old victim is plotting revenge.
“Siegfreid’s Blade” by Petra Jorns: Once in hell, Kriemhild finds out that she herself was guilty for Siegfried´s death, her beloved, and this is her own, private hell.
“More Light! Goeth” by Bettina Meister: To his great dismay Goethe, the poet laureate, finds himself in hell instead of heaven. This can not be accepted. After all, he is The Goethe – poet, scientist, master sorcerer. Brace yourself, Goethe, for hell knows every secret of yours!
“Alms for Oblivion” by Janet Morris: The Devil and the Angel of Death conspire to expose the unrepentant damned.
“Fools in Hell” by Janet Morris and Chris Morris: Shakespeare and Marlowe must write a new play to please Satan.
“The Unholy Hole” by Nancy Asire
“Ophie and the Undertaker” by Shebat Legion: It’s a face off between Ophelia and The Undertaker! Will the rebellious Ophelia still have a face when they are done?
“Hell I Must Be Going” by Michael A. Ventrella: Groucho and Chico Marx cause havoc in the Bureau of Hellish Assignments, but their chaos has a purpose …
“Blood and Ash” by Tom Barczak: Beowulf, Boudica and Joan of Arc find a common bond, and some unexpected help from Lewis Carroll to escape the Gates of Hell.
“Just Dessert” by John Manning: Joseph Mengele and the other Nazis are forced to do scullery work supervised by the Purple Gang’s Jewish mobsters while Matthew Hopkins and John Stearns attempt to assassinate Satan at the grand reopening of the Hellexandria Memorial Library.
“The Wager” by Deborah Koren
“The ITTT” by Michael H. Hanson: The Institute of Terrified and Tortured Technicians is throwing its annual convention: Sergei Korolev, Father of the Soviet Space Program, is crashing the party.
“Zero Sum Game” by Richard Groller: Nikolai Tesla and Thomas Edison re-fight the “War of the Currents” with disastrous results for New Hell City.
“Essence Helliance” by Yelle Hughes: Where you donate to receive a break. Maybe.
“And the Truth Will Set You Free” by Jack William Finley: Some times the greatest wisdom in life or death is in knowing what questions should never be asked, because sometimes the truth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
“Stairway to Heaven” by Ed McKeown: Frank Hopkins and the demon Smoke are drawn into Emile Du Chatelet’s plan to escape hell and demand redress in heaven, or failing that, to depose God.
“Head Games” by Bill Snider: Fionn mac Cumhaill learns what happens when two sentient weapons meet; and, he gets to meet Caliban’s Mom … Freud also asks: Got Wood?
“Knocking on Heaven’s Gates” by Larry Atchley, Jr.: Anton LaVey gets psychotherapy from William James to help him battle with his inner demons, while Guy Fawkes leads the vanguard of an assault on Heaven in an attempt to escape Hell and confront the God who damned him.
“The Knife Edge Bridge” by David L. Burkhead: William Dunlap Simpson, Jim Bridger, and Perseus, Son of Zeus, fall off the Knife Edge Bridge into a terrifying deeper level of Hell.
“Hellexandria the Great” by Sarah Snyder Gray Hulcy: Preparations for the reopening gala of the Hellexandria Memorial Library are racing to a finish… and so are some of the guests.
“Hell Bent” by Janet Morris: Hell’d over, by unpopular demand: the play that proves Christopher Marlowe’s point: ‘Hell is just a frame of mind.’
If you’re reading this blog, you’re either a reader interested in the authors I’ve interviewed or a writer looking for advice.
So here’s to that second group.
The second TALES OF FORTANNIS collection has been released and now it’s time for me to begin work on the third. So I’m looking for stories.
About the collection: The TALES OF FORTANNIS series is published by Double Dragon and is available in paperback, ebook, kindle, and nook. Double Dragon is perhaps the largest science fiction and fantasy e-book publisher out there, and has been around for about a dozen years. They have a good reputation, pay royalties on time, and make sure the book is available everywhere (Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, all e-book distributors).
Previously unpublished authors are encouraged to submit, but should be aware that we ask for at least two years of exclusivity which can limit your ability to resell or republish the story later. (You can negotiate the exact terms of exclusivity with Double Dragon.) Once your story appears in TALES OF FORTANNIS, it will severely limit its future possibilities, including a future pay rate. Note as well that while the book will be promoted in a number of ways, sales will not be huge. Don’t give up your day job. You should be submitting mostly for the exposure. As a standard warning that applies in all similar cases, you need to decide if publishing your work in e-formats and/or on the web, giving up your First Publishing Right for a token payment, is really what you want to do.
About Fortannis: Fortannis is the fantasy land where my novels ARCH ENEMIES and THE AXES OF EVIL take place. Your story does not have to take place in the same kingdom as my stories, and you can create your own kingdom and characters. It’s a high fantasy world with elves, dwarves, the mysterious biata, gryphons, goblins, and more.
Magic comes from the orderly progression of nature, and mages can learn to tap into that power to do basic spells that manipulate the earth, air, fire or water. Healing magics exist, as they speed up the body’s own healing process and tap into that power. Death magic also exists, because death is part of the orderly path of nature.
There is another source of power, and that is chaos magic, sometimes known as necromancy. This magic runs counter to the orderly progression and is used to harm and to do unnatural things like raise zombies and undead. This kind of magic is much easier to use and thus very tempting to those trying to learn the magical arts. Every spell has its chaotic counterpart which is stronger — you can either heal someone a little or hurt someone a lot. Chaos magic eventually corrupts the land and the mind of the user, and is illegal and frowned upon in decent society.
There are no gods, churches, or religions.
Keep in mind that although these are fantasy stories, you are not limited to telling tales of adventure, with knights fighting dragons and wizards casting powerful spells. The world is merely the setting for the stories. I am looking for a variety of tales, as you can see from the previous books. There is one story about someone trying to steal the recipe for his favorite pie. Another concerns three goblin children spying on the curious humans. A third involves a con artist trying to mislead a nobleman. The theme of the Tales of Fortannis series is the fantasy world, not the type of story. (To get a synopsis of the stories that have run in the previous books, check out the blog posts for A Bard’s Eye View and A Bard in the Hand.)
If you want to submit a story, I first suggest that you read one of my novels or one of the collections. It will help.
Submissions: Submissions are open for short stories of under 10,000 words with no minimum. (A good story should take exactly as many words as needed.) This is an ongoing submission — when I have enough good stories, the next edition will be published. Unpublished authors are encouraged to submit, but will still face the same standards for submissions as the published authors. .
All stories should be double-spaced in rtf format with 12 point Times Roman font. There should be no spacing after the paragraphs. The first page must contain the name of the story, the word count, and your name, address, email, and phone number. Your cover letter should list any previous publications.
I’m very excited to be going to Balticon this year, because not only am I on some great panels, but we’re doing a major book release party for A BARD IN THE HAND (along with a few other books from my publisher Double Dragon).
Balticon will be held on the weekend of May 24 – 27. Below is my schedule (although, as usual, there may be some additions and changes by the convention):
…
FRIDAY
Project Tracking for Editors (6:00 pm) with Lesley Conner, Elektra Hammond, Brian Koscienski, Neal Levin and Trish J. Wooldridge: How to make sure all the ducks line up in a row when working on a project. Editors share war stories and recommendations on how to get organized, stay organized, and how to deal with the unexpected.
Opening Ceremonies (8:00 pm): Where the Guests of Honor and other participants rub elbows with Balticon attendees (usually with wine and cheese).
World or Plot (10:00 pm) with Charles E. Gannon, Paula S. Jordan, Richard Allen Leider, and T. C. McCarthy: Do you start with a world and build the rest around it? Or do you start with a plot outline and allow the worldbuilding to grow out of that? What do you do when you start with a plot in mind and the world that develops seems to send the plot in another direction?
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SATURDAY
Editor’s Pet Peeves (9:00 am) with Danielle Ackerly-McPhail, Walt Boyes, Alex Shvartsman, and Leona Wisoker. A head’s up for writers on what editors don’t like to see or deal with from their authors. Headaches they’ve encountered in publishing.
Worldbuilding in Role-playing Games (3:00 pm) with L. Jagi Lamplighter, Neal Levin, Mike McPhail, and Robert Waters. How do you build a believable world for your game?
Reading (6:00 pm) with Mur Lafferty and KT Pinto: Authors read from their latest works
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SUNDAY
Double Dragon Book Release Party (10:00 am) with Gail Z. Martin, Bernie Mozjes and Peter Prellwitz: Come celebrate the latest Double Dragon releases (including my own A BARD IN THE HAND and TWISTED TAILS IV which features one of my stories). Coffee, donuts, hard-boiled eggs, and books! Donwload flyer
You Have Gaming in my Fiction (2:30 pm) with L. Jagi Lamplighter, Neal Levin, Mike McPhail, and Alex Shvartsman: All about how to write media tie-in fiction for games.
Editor’s Q&A (4:00 pm) with Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Scott H. Andrews, Richard Allen Leider, Patrick Thomas, and Trisha J. Wooldridge: Audience asks the panel of editors questions about submissions, acceptances, and the publishing process.
Promoting Your Book (10:00 pm) with Jean Marie Ward: What works in promoting a book? Do book-signings really help a small author? Are bookmarks and/or postcards effective at garnering attention? Does a blog help or hurt an author? Does an author have to have a website? How do you find good reviewers? What tactics do not work? What methods might work for an established author that wouldn’t work for a beginner?
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MONDAY
Plotters verse Pantsers (10:00 am) with Jack Campbell, Doc Coleman, Kat Otis, Jennifer Povey, Alex Shvartsman, and Leona Wisoker: Do you plan your story or write by the seat of your pants? Panelists share the quirks and foibles of their working method with readers. A Round Table discussion.
Making Better NPCs (Noon) with Victor Hutcherson, L. Jagi Lamplighter, Neal Levin, and Mike McPhail. How to create believable and real characters for your gaming players to interact with.
I was thrilled to be given the opportunity do a phone interview with Howard Kaylan concerning his new book SHELL SHOCKED, about his life in the world of music. We spoke for about 45 minutes, had some great laughs, and talked about his interesting life. If you haven’t read the book or don’t know a lot about him, some of these questions may seem quite obscure, but for fans like me, this was a great opportunity to ask more than the traditional basic questions. If something in this grabs your attention and you want to know more, get the book! I highly recommend it.
MICHAEL A. VENTRELLA: I have been a fan for so long and it’s an honor to be talking to you. What made you decide to write a book now?
HOWARD KAYLAN: I had always planned on writing a book when it was later in my life but then I looked around and realized that it was later in my life, and if I didn’t tell stories now, I’d probably never get to tell the stories at all. I’d get too old or feeble or alzheimer’s would set in or lord knows — so I decided to get it all off my chest. What are they going to do to me now?
VENTRELLA: You kept a diary all your life which helped a lot.
KAYLAN: I really didn’t need it until I got up until the ’80s and then it just all became a blur, as most of the ’80s did for those of us who lived through it.
VENTRELLA: I definitely enjoyed SHELL SHOCKED and one of the things I liked about it was that it answered a lot of the questions I was going to ask you–
KAYLAN: OK then, it’s been great talking to you, Michael!
VENTRELLA: (laughs) Which brings me to a point, about the sense of humor. The book is full of humor, of course, but so were the Turtles and your entire career. Was that unusual, especially when you were first starting with the Turtles?
KAYLAN: It’s unusual now. In any era to have a band with a sense of humor. Mr. Zappa used to say that America wasn’t ready for music with a sense of humor. In his case, he was mostly right. He proved it by lack of commercial success, in his early works especially. After us, he later made it his mission to get on the charts as many times as he could, he did really well at that.
But yes, sense of humor is very important in music. It drives me crazy to hear bands that are supposedly carrying on a sense of humor and they don’t really have one, or it’s a fake one. I don’t think it’s something you can learn.
VENTRELLA: I agree, and one of the things I enjoyed about my Turtles albums was that you sound like you’re having so much fun. And then you do songs like “Eleanor” which is almost a satire of your earlier work …
KAYLAN: Well, if you don’t have an attitude about your work and your life, then people know. It’s not like they have to look at the whole body of your work to understand that some things are a little tongue-in-cheek, they just have to understand from the get-go that not everything they see is quite as it seems. I mean, the Turtles have never held back a sense of humor. From “The Battle of the Bands” to our B sides: “Can You Hear the Cows” all the way back to “Umbassa and the Dragon” — we’re talking 1966 — we were trying to do humorous, Stan Freberg kind of B sides on Turtles records and wondering if there was an audience for it. And years later, people discovered these things. Yes, there’s an audience and all of those things are on i-tunes and as I go through my BMI statement at the end of the year I cannot believe how many people have downloaded “Can You Hear the Cows” or “Umbassa and the Dragon” or these bizarre “throw-away” B sides that we did. Trying to generate a little sense of humor out there!
If you go to a Turtles concert now as part of the “Happy Together” concert you’ll see –and I hope somebody out there does this summer — it’s our 7th year. We’ve picked up more and more shows every year and this summer is just going to be ridiculous as far as the amount of cities that we’re going to and the shows themselves … But you’ll notice at least in our portion of the show (I don’t care about anybody else), there is a huge sense of humor. We don’t get that much time to show it off in between hits because we have to get on with the show, but we show people that we still had a sense of humor, that we still look at this career of ours as just something that fell from outer space and not something we earned like a bunch of arrogant pricks.
There are people out there that are doing music in their 70s and 80s that charge you $350 a ticket (I won’t name names) and they come out, they do their hits, they do their happy little show, they won’t talk to the other members at all, they all come in separate limos and when the show is over they all go back to their little Canyon homes maybe $10 million richer — but let me tell you something. If you got to spend that kind of money to watch a bunch of guys in flannel shirts pretend they had a good time once in the Canyon someplace and you’re being forced to absorb that now … well, if you think that’s fun, then your idea of music in a live sense is severely lacking. And I recommend that you go out and see a show where you can smile through it — where you’re not going “Jesus, I can’t believe I paid for this.”
Ultimately you’re a lot better off just buying the CD and putting your headphones on. If you want the concert experience, do that. Don’t spend the $350.
VENTRELLA: Absolutely.
KAYLAN: We’ve always contended that if you see us having fun on stage, you’ll have fun in your seats. That’s one of the largest reasons that we don’t do sound checks, that we don’t do rehearsals. Everybody’s flying in to our first show which is the Hard Rock Casino in Biloxi on June 8th and I’m coming in the day of the show. I don’t want to rehearse. I don’t want to see the room first. I don’t want to meet anybody that I’m working with. That keeps it new for me.
I’ve been doing this for fifty years. When people ask “Why do you even bother?” “Is there anything new for you?” “Is there anything left for you?” “Are you bored silly doing the same show for forty-seven years?” I tell them, “No, because quite frankly, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I really don’t, and that’s the way I want it. It’s the only edge I’ve got left. It’s the only thing that keeps me on my toes. I don’t want to be bored. I want to have as much fun every night as I hope the people in the audience have, because for most of them, that’s the only chance in their lifetimes to see us.
VENTRELLA: You’re doing a huge tour this summer. Are you meeting people afterwards and signing the book?
KAYLAN: I will pre-sign the book. Meeting people is difficult to deal with because we’ve got hundreds of miles to go to the next show and we’re leaving right after the show ends. It’s not because I’m anti-social. But I’ll pre-sign all that stuff; records too, and CDs.
We’re also selling a box set of 45s this summer which should be a very interesting experience to those vinyl lovers out there. For those who aren’t quite sure if their turntables still work, we’re including a special Turtles/Flo and Eddie spindle so you can play the 45s on your existing record player. But that’s the kind of guys we are.
VENTRELLA: Let’s go back to talk about “The Battle of the Bands” which is one of my favorite albums. I remember getting that and at first being confused because I thought it really was a bunch of different bands — but I was twelve. That was your first album that really was dedicated to being an album as opposed to a collection of singles and songs. And you had quite a few hits on there and a remake of “Chicken Little Was Right” which was one of those B sides you talked about… I think that album has stood up over the years.
KAYLAN: That was our only concept album. I don’t know that it did us any good but you’re right — we did have a couple of big hits off it. It was a lot of fun and if you paid attention to it and got the fact that there we were on the inside of the record dressing up like twelve different groups and sounding like twelve different groups … I’m not sure that the public understood it but I’ll tell you, Zappa did.
VENTRELLA: I also want to talk about a couple other of your old songs before we discuss Zappa. “Sound Asleep” — you talked about that a bit in the book about how much work went into it. That’s kind of like your “Good Vibrations.” I’ve got to tell you how happy I was when I finally found a stereo version back in the late 70s because it just sounds so much better. Are you disappointed that didn’t do better? To me, that should have been another of your huge hits.
KAYLAN: I don’t think so. I think any time you put a bunch of clucking chickens and saws and trees falling from speaker to speaker — which in stereo you’ve got to admit makes a big difference as opposed to the mono version of “Sound Asleep” which is “What’s that? What is that noise? Is that a frog? Is that a ratchet? I can’t tell…” — so there are a lot of sounds. We weren’t consciously trying to do anything like “Good Vibrations.” If anything, we wanted to create a sort of a little mini rock opera but we didn’t know what the hell we were doing.
It was the first time we didn’t have any studio supervision. We had no one telling us what we could do or couldn’t do. So we made a record as if we were doing it for ourselves. We didn’t care if it worked. All we were trying to say to White Whale records was “We’re sick and tired of your corporate producers. We’re going to do it ourselves and if you don’t like it, you can bring in somebody else and we’ll try him out.” They didn’t take us seriously so we gave them “Sound Asleep” and it had a logo on it at the time saying we were the producers and all of a sudden, after so many years, they were forced to buy in to whatever we gave them.
It turned out well eventually but it took a minute for us to get our sea legs. We wanted to be The Beatles so we became Blimp. We were just a bunch of kids and we didn’t know what we were doing. By the time we figured it out, we got it to work in our favor. We had three separate periods of hit records during the years that were separated by periods of anxiety. Every group goes through it. That’s when you need a sense of humor.
VENTRELLA: What do you think is your most under-appreciated Turtles song that you wish had gotten more attention?
KAYLAN: “She’s My Girl.”
VENTRELLA: That’s a great song. Another one that changes tempo and does a lot of interesting things in stereo.
KAYLAN: “Interesting” was the idea. We were interesting, but the label would give us things like “Who Would Ever Think That I Would Marry Margaret.” And I’d say “Wait a minute; I’ve got as much sense of humor as the next guy but I will not throw my work out into the street like that.” That’s just crap. Even listening to it all these years later. That was the most bullshit record I have ever been a part of. I wasn’t wrong.
VENTRELLA: And it wasn’t a hit, either.
KAYLAN: That’s why we left the company. That’s what it meant to us. They had us by the short and curlies but they were never the bosses of us. And we walked. And we gave them “Lady-O” — one final song — and we knew it wasn’t going to chart. I just wanted it to be the last thing we said. It had a luscious arrangement. And that was our last record. It was posthumous, but we didn’t care.
VENTRELLA: One of the things I liked about the book is that you name names. You’re not afraid to name groupies, ex-wives, friends, enemies — Anyone objected to that yet?
KAYLAN: Oh yeah, everybody! What are they going to do? I mean, what is their recourse here? Are you going to take me to court? Are you really going to call attention to yourself by taking me to court after all this time?
Ex-wives will come to me and say “What are you thinking?” First of all, they’re surprised to hear that they’re in the book. I would say to them, “What do you mean you’re surprised? I married you. What, I’m not going to talk about it?” That would be dumb. Obviously, you’re in the book. “But I was a naughty person back then!” Oh, were you? Well, own it. “But my kids are grown up and they’re going to read that!” Well, Honey, they’ll realize that their mom had a sex life and it’s better than they thought. And she was cool way back when. So I think that’s a credit to you. And besides, you had my name and according to my lawyer, anybody who had my name? Fair game, baby.
VENTRELLA: And then you went on to work with Frank Zappa of all people. That was very successful at least in my mind. You called him a “father figure” in the book, which kind of surprised me but I can understand. I mean, he wasn’t that much older than you but he had that sort of authoritarian but yet gentle nature about him. Am I reading too much into that?
KAYLAN: Well no, you’re absolutely right. He was a very gentle man and he did not threaten. He was not that kind of a guy. He was very soft-spoken. Any criticism he gave you was well-intentioned. He was never mean for the sake of it. He was not at all that sort of authoritarian. He was just a perfectionist. This was his music and this was his band, and we had to understand when we joined Zappa that you rented yourself out, body and soul.
We knew it. The earlier Mothers should have known it. They were still bitching and moaning that they hadn’t gotten paid for their recordings. Well, get used to it, boy. You’re signing off.
And part of Frank’s genius was to take the folklore of the band, take whatever he heard and take whatever he saw around him — in the dressing room, backstage, on stage — and turn it into script. He’d turn it into stuff that he would recycle. Just like the words from “200 Motels” that came back to haunt Jeff Simmons. All of his words eventually were recycled into script that became a very good part of the show half of the time. It was a 50/50 proposition. Once Frank heard it, it never went away. And you stood a real good chance of having your words shoved back into your face. We were in no position to regret it — we said it! And so you had to own it and it was fun! It created a great bond between all of us. We were a band! We could share that kind of thing. It was fun.
VENTRELLA: Was “200 Motels” mostly scripted or was there any improvisation? Because it feels like it’s improvised in various parts.
KAYLAN: It truly wasn’t improvised. It was tight little script.
We never shot the ending, though, as I pointed out. There weren’t very many chances at that stage to improvise. The improvisation had all been done on stage or in the buses or the dressing rooms. The entire story of “200 Motels” and indeed the ending that never got filmed (which turned out to be the end of the “Fillmore” album) cohesively made that one total groupie story. “Do You Like My New Car” all the way to the end. There was the “Penis Dimension” stuff and taking it into the penismobile which was designed and totally functional and ready for scripting and we never got around to doing it because we ran out of time. Frank then composed that finale very very quickly. We learned it in a day and we shot it the same day. That was the end of the movie. We had no choice.
They threw us out of Pinewood Studios and we crossed our fingers and hoped they could edit it into something. You tell me if it worked.
VENTRELLA: I’ve seen it probably about three times, although admittedly not in the past twenty years or so. When you do “Strictly Genteel” at the end, was that scripted as well? Because it certainly doesn’t sound like it.
KAYLAN: What particular part are you talking about?
VENTRELLA: When you say “See that man over there? He’s making me do all this. Frank’s making me do all this!”
KAYLAN: No, that was not scripted. (laughs) I thought my mike was off! I thought the only guy that could hear me was in the recording room. I didn’t think Frank would ever listen to it. In fact, I’m positive he didn’t listen to it for a very long time. I don’t know how long it took him to get to that bit but I know that he was pondering what he was going to do for the ending and he really didn’t have it. I don’t think he had even opened up that mike yet; I don’t think he had found that track.
But that sort of pulled it all together at the end and turned it into a Mothers of Invention thing again. Why are we out here? When do we get paid? You know, it was just repeating what Jimmy Carl Black had been saying. And that’s what Frank wanted. That was the theme of the movie. Touring can make you crazy.
Look at me! Here it is, all those many years later — Frank is no longer with us, but I’m still on the road.
VENTRELLA: One of the charms about Zappa is that his music is so tremendously tight and yet at the same time it almost feels as if they’re making it up as they go along. You take something like “Billy the Mountain” which seems to be just telling a story and then all of a sudden without a cue, things change and it’s obviously very well practiced. Right?
KAYLAN: Well, you know, we worked twelve hours a day every day. We did not take holidays off. We didn’t do that. We would work as long as it took to get it absolutely perfect.
Now, “absolutely perfect” to Frank meant on any given night, particularly on “Billy the Mountain”, we had to figure out where we were because we had to throw in an awful lot of local references. So we had to learn the cities where we were, what the local hot spots were, where the kids went to make out, what the supermarket chain was, so we could throw names in that were familiar to a crowd in San Antonio or Minneapolis or Shreveport or whatever and personalize the show a little bit. It made for a lot better audience experience and it made Frank laugh! If you read the book, you know that’s the key — making Frank laugh was always the best thing we could do.
VENTRELLA: Absolutely. Then you had that terrible European tour where Frank got hurt and there was the whole “smoke on the water” situation. After that was over and he recovered, he redid his band and he did not ask you back. Was that because he was trying to go in a different direction or do you think there was something else there?
KAYLAN: By the time Frank reformed anything, we had gone on and signed our deal with Warner Brothers and taken the old band with us. There was no hope of reforming Frank’s band because Flo and Eddie’s drummer was Aynsley. Flo and Eddie’s keyboard player was Donnie. Flo and Eddie’s bass player was Pons. That was the band!
We were the guys. And they were tired of waiting around to hear from the Zappa office just like Mark and I were. We didn’t hear from anybody there, Frank included, for eight months. I don’t know about you, but I can’t live without knowing where my next meal is coming from for eight months, just waiting by the telephone and hoping somebody would tell me we’re a group again.
I knew it wasn’t going to happen and the main reason it didn’t happen was that we had been a tight-knit little bunch and it cost Frank dearly. In his time of his recuperation, the only person who had his ear was the lovely Miss Gail Zappa. She put it into his ear that it wasn’t a really good idea to get close to a group anyway because that would only be a heartache situation somewhere down the line and it was better off not having the Mothers at all. It would be better if he was just Zappa for a while.
I know that later we were certainly approached three separate times through members of Zappa but I can’t do that. I have been my own guy for a lot of years. Nobody wants to be in a band named Kaylan. And I certainly wouldn’t! I pity the fool who would do that, because I know what the situation was at that point, when you’re somebody else’s vocalist. It’s different. It will never be a group any more. I had been spoiled as far as working with Zappa was concerned. If I couldn’t have it that way, I didn’t want it any other way. Gail had ways of making sure that there would be a distance between us instead of the closeness we had.
VENTRELLA: Speaking of band names, you ended up with Flo and Eddie, which you were not very happy with as far as identification, but it was too late to change it at that point, right?
KAYLAN: What would you do?
VENTRELLA: I don’t know!
KAYLAN: Well, Warner Brothers thought it was a brand name worth keeping. By the time we got to Columbia, they felt the same way. It was years and years later. We had a lot of FM radio cred. We were huge on college. When you look at today’s market, for instance, and see a band with a huge college following and it still works — like Yo Lo Tengo — they can stick around for fifteen or twenty years and only appeal to college audiences, then you’ve got something. That is gold. I see those guys work it and it’s amazing to me.
VENTRELLA: “Moving Targets” came out when I was in college. I was the program director of my college radio station, and I must have played “Keep it Warm” every time I was on the air.
KAYLAN: Thank you! And you played the “Keep it Warm” from the album with all the real verses in it, not the truncated bullshit 45 that Columbia released where they took out all the good verses, made the most uncomfortable edits I have ever heard, did it on their own, didn’t call me, just did it, and it was really really bad. They didn’t give us a fighting chance.
VENTRELLA: Well, I’m glad I’ve never heard that version.
KAYLAN: Well, I’m glad it made it to FM radio. It still gets played on FM radio. I see who plays it; I see who downloads it. We do much better now than we have in the last decade or two.
VENTRELLA: “Guns” was another of my favorites off that album that I’d play a lot.
KAYLAN: Great song! Credit where credit is due — Jim Pons had a lot to do with that song. And Graeme “Shirley” Strachan from Skyhooks was wonderful. Australian dude, really helped on that.
VENTRELLA: In the meantime, you did a film called “Dirty Duck.” I remember seeing that when I was in college, too, and I must say I was not impressed. That one looked improvised.
KAYLAN: That one kind of was improvised. We had a very loose script, and the guy who directed it knew what he wanted to do and knew what the characters were going to look like. We told him from the get-go, “You’re out of your mind. There’s no way you’re going to make money with this!” He said, “I’m cool; I don’t care.”
This is the same guy who, within the production of “200 Motels” made everyone say “This guy is crazy” and then he came back with Strawberry Shortcake, thank you very much. So they weren’t that nuts.
This was a flying shot in hell. It was a personal flavor of love for Chuck Swenson, the guy who did it. Now, a fine artist. You can see his stuff online now. He is the artiste, man. He doesn’t know from cartoons any more. But at the time, that’s what he wanted to do. He knew what those voices were going to sound like and knew Mark and me from the movie so he knew exactly what kind of characters he could create for us. Me, once again the straight man, the Louie Prima of the group, being Williard Isenbaum the insurance salesman and Mark being The Duck, as he is in life. He’s sort of my real life nemesis! It was closer to his personality than he wanted to hear …
A lot of those throw-away lines whether they were to your liking at the time or not — well, I dare you to go back and look at that movie now and not get a few really good laughs because there is some pretty cool shit in there. So I’m pretty proud of the movie that would up as “Down and Dirty Duck” or whatever it was called in your X-rated theater.
But I do know that the executive producer of the movie was Roger Corman, who I was thrilled to meet and work with over the course of this thing. He’s a wonderful man and I love and admire him dearly. But he had no idea what to do with this picture. He had it opening up in XXX theaters and downtowns all over America next to XXX porno movies because he didn’t know how to sell it.
VENTRELLA: We saw it as a midnight showing at our college.
KAYLAN: Instant cult. If it has the name “Corman” on it or it says “New World Pictures” in it, you know you’re in for a night of thrills. I’m always thrilled to work with new directors, new producers, people I haven’t worked with, just to see how they work. And I didn’t even mention Roger Corman in the book at all, but I’ve got to put him right up there with one of the big influences on my life. Getting to work with him was stellar! There’s an extra bonus story that isn’t in SHELL SHOCKED that I’m just now recalling for my own self.
VENTRELLA: I’ve got an exclusive!
KAYLAN: That’s a blogosphere extra.
VENTRELLA: Thank you. Now, Strawberry Shortcake is the biggest surprise in your book. Well, maybe the White House story. But the fact that you were writing the songs for Strawberry Shortcake. That must have been a nice little paycheck.
KAYLAN: It was glorious! Truly. It wasn’t just the records. It was a TV show and they ran that thing into the ground, and then the album got very, very popular. If you grew up in the ’80s, you know those songs. You were forced, especially if you were a little girl, to listen to that shit. I know an entire generation of girls that grew up on that who still kind of melt when you sing those words. I guess I can be a “father complex guy” for a night; what’s your pleasure?
VENTRELLA: The idea that the man who sang “Penis Dimension” was doing “Strawberry Shortcake” was kind of interesting …
KAYLAN: You got to wear a lot of hats in this business, Michael!
VENTRELLA: Of course! Of all the people you’ve met — you have some great stories in the book about Lennon and Hendrix — and a lot of sad losses, too, with Nilsson and Bolan and Zappa … Is there anyone you wish you could have worked with that you didn’t?
KAYLAN: George Harrison. I never even met George Harrison. It’s just bizarre. It would have happened had I not been carted off from that party on Blue Jay Way that night in 1966. I could see him —
VENTRELLA: Through the window, yes —
KAYLAN: I could have waved had I not been handcuffed. But that was as close as I ever got to George. So I never was given the pleasure of meeting the man. I would have flown myself anywhere in the world to put my voice on his records.
VENTRELLA: The Hendrix story is one of my favorites but you’ve regaled that a couple of times in other interviews. Any other stories you’ve thought of since the book got out that you want to share?
KAYLAN: No, I’ve decided I’m done! I’m not going to do any more stories even if I think about them even if encouraged to do like you just did moments ago. I’m done, I did it. I’ve had a million nights and a million days like that, with short little brushes with danger. I never told my little happy Phil Spector story about him and his posse coming to see us at the Hard Rock Hotel — wasn’t really a hotel, it’s just this dump on Sunset Boulevard. Whatever they call it. Cafe! And he brought his bodyguards and he had this upstairs private room and there were guns on the table. It was outrageous! And we’re only talking maybe seven, eight years ago. Some of these things you don’t even want to talk about. I’m more worried about what Phil Spector can still do to me than I am what names I’ve actually called out in the book.
VENTRELLA: Got it. Understood. Now, the best news is that you eventually got the rights to the Turtles name and catalog, which has to be one of the best investments ever. You’re doing the “Happy Together” tour which also is very successful. Do you have any other plans? Are you ever going to record a new album?
KAYLAN: No, I don’t have any other plans and that’s the best part of my life. If I had plans, I’d feel like I was back on an itinerary. Except for the three months in summer, I have no plans.
We’ll see what happens ultimately but my plan is to finish this summer. I’m writing another book during the course of the summer.
We’re taking a bunch of interns with us like we did last year to handle the equipment, to do the lights, tour bus, all that crap with us. They’re from Belmont University. They pay the tuition, they come out for the summer and they get to go on the road with the Happy Together tour. It’s a very bizarre thing we do that I’m not sure anyone has ever done before. It’s a book unto itself, actually. Nonetheless, that’s what makes touring fun for me in that I get to involve myself in the creation of something else and then I do a show! Then I get back into my fantasy world …
I don’t know yet if I’m going to be working on an autobiography or rather a biography for somebody else that I’m close to, or was close to, and was mentioned in the book, or whether it will be a work of fiction. I don’t know if it’s going to work. But I’m doing it just to keep myself busy. I think that’s the most important thing. If you can just keep yourself busy then you can hang out for the rest of your life doing what you like.
VENTRELLA: Well, you’re a good writer. You were obviously the smart kid in your school so I don’t think you’ll have any problem. I’m looking forward to reading it. I’m also looking forward to seeing you when you play at Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, which is near me. I plan on being there this summer, so I’ll wave to you.
KAYLAN: Where is that? Where the hell is Jim Thorpe? I didn’t know there was a town named that.
VENTRELLA: Isn’t that amazing? It’s a place called Penn’s Peak.
KAYLAN: How big is this town?
VENTRELLA: It’s very small but it’s a big tourist area — I don’t live in that particular town, but it’s pretty central to other areas and lots of colleges and you might have a good crowd!
KAYLAN: That sounds great! It’s a really good tour this summer. We’re often judged by the people we bring in with us, for some reason that’s OK with me. I’ll take credit or blame for the lineup this year, because I think it’s really strong. There are acts that people haven’t seen in a long long time, myself included. I’m thrilled to be touring with a bunch of people that I have respect for. These are the guys that did the singing. This isn’t some rip-off thing. I’m pleased to always be associated with this particular tour. It has the “Happy Together” Stamp of Approval as far as I’m concerned because if it says “Happy Together” without my Stamp of Approval, I’ll fucking sue ya.
VENTRELLA: And with that, I’ll thank you very much for the interview unless you have any final comments you want to make.
KAYLAN: Done, sir. Done, done done.
VENTRELLA: I really appreciate it. I’ve been a fan of yours for so long and so glad that you were willing to talk to me. Thank you very much.
Donna Galanti interviews me on her blog this week. We discuss the new Fortannis book, the best writing advice I’ve ever received, and the Monkees. I think it’s an interesting read and I hope you will, too!
“A wild and thoroughly entertaining steampunk adventure featuring an improbable cast of historical figures, plenty of action, and lots of fun!” – Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Deep Silence and V-Wars
How do you balance the extremes? What guidelines do you use?
With a magazine, like ASIMOV’s, you have a little more flexibility –if you have two similar kinds of story and you like both of them, you can always duck one of them into inventory and use it later on, in another issue.
In an ideal world, though, I would be a Big Name SF Writer, which is what I set out to be, and be remembered for my writing rather than for my editing. As it is, my writing is already largely forgotten, and will be forgotten completely fifteen minutes after I’m dead. You play the hand you’re given, though.
I always said that if anything could save the print magazines, it would be the internet, and this may turn out to be true.
Michael A. Ventrella 