Guest Post - Wayne Simmons

Back to the Future: Why I wrote a Slasher Horror Book

When I was a lad, growing up in Portadown, there wasn’t much to do on a Friday night that didn’t involve getting into bother. Usually, we’d just hit the local video shop. We’d make straight for the horror section, scan the shelves for the goriest looking, most outrageous cover we could find and take it to the counter. Now, this was the late 80s. A different time, if you like. A twelve year old kid looking to rent a Certificate 18 film meant nothing back then. As long as you had your da’s card, you were good to go.

We watched a lot of horror. All the Fridays and Nightmares and Halloweens. A fair bit of really bad, low-budget stuff that we probably didn’t make it all the way through (although, we’d try our damndest: there was a charge if you left a video back without rewinding it first. Chances were, if you ejected that bad boy in a fit of rage halfway through, you weren’t going to remember to rewind it later).

Thing is, watching those movies shaped me into the man I am today. It got me into horror which got me into writing which is now something of a career. Later in life, I would revisit some of those titles, and many more like them that I missed along the way, and it would become something of an obsession. Video shops were on their way out by then so I’d be hitting HMV and Amazon and whatever second hand shops I ran into, and I’d lap up whatever 70s and 80s horror I could find. Somewhere along the way, I heard about Giallo, the work of guys like Dario Argento, and the net was cast even wider.

I became just as obsessed with slasher horror as I had been with zombies ten years or so prior.

Soon, the cogs within the ol’ creative brain began turning. An idea started to form and I grabbed a pen, jotted some stuff down. Meanwhile, I was chatting with old friend and fellow horror hack, Andre Duza, and shared some of my ideas with him. Before long, we were working on the project together. Maybe I asked him to weigh in on it or maybe it just happened: we’re talking slasher horror, here, so the urban myth may have replaced the actual truth in my brain. One thing’s for sure, once Andre became involved, we really started to motor. The characters, the setting, the story: it all came alive to us and much of it echoed those old movies that I would watch back in the 80s in Portadown and Andre was watching at the same time over in Philadelphia.

Voodoo Child was born on Halloween 2015. It’s been described as 'the literary equivalent of the classic horror films of the 80s' by Harry Manfredini, who scored some of those films that inspired me so much back in the day. And hell, Steve Johnson who did the special effects in those movies; the kind of stuff that had us fist pumping the air or recoiling in disgust as kids; had equally nice things to say on the book, too.

Which, in a really cool way, brings us full circle.

So, why did I write a slasher horror book? Because I had to. I’ve always described myself as being in this somewhat sordid business of writing because I’m a fan. I’m a fan of zombie horror so I wrote four zombie horror books. I’m a fan of crime and noir so I wrote The Girl in the Basement. I love Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner so I wrote my own tech noir, Plastic Jesus. Voodoo Child is my love letter to the slasher horror genre. To John Carpenter and Dario Argento and all the rest of those guys that rocked my world back in the 80s, and still rock it today.

I hope you like it.  

VOODOO CHILD PRESS RELEASE

Title: VOODOO PRESS

Author: Andre Duza & Wayne Simmons

Publisher: Infected Books

Release Date: 31^st October 2015

Cover Art: Alex McVey

 'The literary equivalent of the classic horror films of the 80s. ' (Harry Manfredini, Film Composer: FRIDAY THE 13TH, THE HILLS HAVE EYES II, WISHMASTER)

You've been warned!

Stay away from Blackwater, Louisiana. Behind the smiles and the southern hospitality lies a dark secret.

You've been warned! 

Don't go in the woods. They're haunted.

You've been warned! 

Don't go in the lake. There's a dead witch beneath those waters.

Lori Sawyer was raised in these parts. The biracial descendant of a Voodoo Priestess, she's known as "witchy girl" to her friends, Abby and Roxy. But to Lori, Blackwater is a sacred place, a crossroads of old southern, African, and French spirituality to be celebrated, not feared. In fact, it's just the sort of environment to help free Abby from the memory of witnessing her boyfriend's murder.

And from the guilt of having killed him.

In 1985 three friends will embark on a weekend getaway that will change their lives forever.

"Duza and Simmons have succeeded WILDLY in re-creating a classic horror flick from the '80s - on the page! And if anyone knows about '80s horror... it's me." Steve Johnson (Special FX Legend: THE HOWLING, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, GHOSTBUSTERS)  Buy it Now from only £1.99:

Amazon UK/ Amazon US

Signed paperback available from Infected Books store from only £7.99 (incl UK postage):

Go to Infected Books Store

Future Posts

I'm up to my neck in a manuscript right now, but I plan to take a breather from it next week (I'm at the point where the questions raised need to be answered -- the mysteries need to be revealed) and then I can maybe do a little blogging.

So, before I forget all the topics I want to blog about (and before I make my lunch), I thought I'd turn this blog post into a list of posts-to-be-written. Some will be made available for guest posts. I receive lots of lovely invitations from people who run better blogs than mine, and I really have to follow up on them.

Topics/titles:

Writing and Happiness
Academia
Teaching Creative Writing (should/would/could?)
The Rory Cullen 'Auto'biography
POV in the movie Go (1999)
More on Behaviourist POV
I'm Going to Bouchercon! (Long Beach, 2014)
Wordcounts, Record-Keeping and Taking it Easy on Yourself (may be a two or three-parter)
Belfast Noir
A Review or Two of NI Crime Fiction
Please Don't Send Me Books Without Asking (unless you know me and it's a gift)!
Deus ex Machina

I'll add to this as the topics re-occur to me. Feel free to request one for your blog, and I'll see what I can do. And as always, if you're a Northern Irish writer and you want to be featured on the blog (most likely in the form of a Q&A, though I host guest posts too), then drop me a line. I'll get back to you eventually.

Peace.

Soldier, Soldier - A Dana King Guest Post

Detective Nick Forte, the hero of ASmall Sacrifice, has military experience in his background. Not a lot is made of it, but there are elements that help to shape his character between the lines, especially in later books. It stems from my at least partial adherence to the hoary adage, to “write what you know.”

I don’t say much about my time in the United States Army, mainly because I was in a band stationed at Fort McPherson, Georgia. Basically, Atlanta. We performed post ceremonies, did gigs in and around Atlanta, and traveled a few times a year for up to three weeks. Our most hazardous “mission” was to fly in the cargo hold of a C-130 to the Virgin Islands for a Veterans Day concert.

I was a “soldier” in only the broadest definition of the term. Real soldiers have jobs that place them at risk as a matter of course. I did get to spend some time around real soldiers—my drill sergeants were all Vietnam veterans, most of them from the same Air Cavalry outfit depicted in Apocalypse Now, which came out right before I left for basic—and I had the presence of mind to appreciate a chance like this would not pass my way again. I paid attention, asked questions when opportunity presented.

When I first came up with the idea of Nick Forte, I wanted to leverage as much of my experience as I could. We’re both “recovering” musicians with minor military backgrounds. His takeaway from the service—as was mine—is not of the flag-waving, “making the world safe for the American Way of Life ™, American Exceptionalism means we can do what we want” attitude so often portrayed in books, movies, and politics today, but the attitudes of the common soldier. He fights for the men on either side of him, trusting them to fight for him. He keeps his weapon clean and his mind clear under incredible stress, for his mates as much as himself. He may not have a lot of friends, but those he has he trusts with his life, and will exchange his for theirs if called upon. He also will place the task at hand—his mission—above his personal safety. He doesn’t advertise this—beware the man who wears any conviction too much on his sleeve—shows it through his actions. It’s far more deeply embedded in Forte’s psyche than in mine, if only because I routinely place him into at least one life-or-death situation per book.

My small experience with actual boots-in-the-mud soldiers piqued my interest and led me to books and movies that looked at things more from that perspective. Band of Brothers, Generation Kill (both the books and the TV series), Saving Private Ryan, and many non-fiction choices. A downside is, I can’t watch The Longest Day anymore without cringing; soldiers don’t make speeches like that.

The upside is, I hope this has given me an appreciation, if not an understanding, for the mind-set of a combat soldier. (Though I hate the idea of “You have no idea what’s it like unless you’ve done it” in general, I feel safe in saying no one who has not been in combat can truly “understand” what it’s like.) I know it’s helped to make Nick Forte a richer character in my imagination; only readers can decide if I have been able to transfer that to the page.

  

Short additional note from Gerard - A Small Sacrifice and 3 other Dana King books can be nabbed for free for the next few days. Be quick. Get yours now!