David Niall Wilson is an eclectic writer who has published over a dozen novels, three collections of short stories, and hundreds of novellas, short stories, and works of poetry. He's a past President of the Horror Writers Association, a Bram Stoker Award winner for poetry, and a regular contributor to Storytellers Unplugged. Among his most recent projects are a collection of fiction (Defining Moments) from Sarob Press and his novel Ancient Eyes (Bloodletting Press).

David, thanks for taking time out from a busy schedule to talk to FearZone. Let's start with a little bit of background information. According to your bio, you come from a very small town, and although you've lived in large cities, you eventually settled in another small town. Do you think this kind of rural environment has contributed to the types of stories you write, or your style of writing?

Well, that's a two-pronged question. I've lived for extended periods in San Diego, Long Beach, Rota, Spain, and Norfolk, Virginia - and now in the middle of nowhere NC. I grew up in a small town in Illinois. I'm somewhat of a chameleon in that wherever I go, I find a way to fit in. Currently, I prefer the quiet, more secluded life of small town North Carolina.

As to the effect of leaving a small town, living in larger cities, and then returning on my writing, I'd say I have a broadened horizon. There are very few urban situations I haven't experienced at least on their periphery. I have seen the small town from the big city perspective, and vice versa. I have lived and loved among the visionaries and the street people, the intelligent and the completely zoned out. All of that finds a home in the words ... without the experience, I think a lot of levels would be stripped away from my work, and a lot of my characters would ring less true.

I write, as many other dark fantasists do, in several made-up environments. I have San Valencez and Lavender California, Random Illinois, and Old Mill, NC. All of these settings draw on bits and pieces of the places I've lived. All of them are a little more, and a little less, than the reality of my memories. More and more I find myself with the urge to join them - to link one fictional place to the next. Maybe it's an unconscious effort to sort out my own thoughts.

You've mentioned in the past that your time in the Navy has had a big influence on you as a writer. In what ways?

I blame most of my creativity on my time in the US Navy. I grew up there. I was 17 when I graduated high school, and I was 37 when I 'graduated' from the US Navy. The most important, most formative years of my life, and my career, took place during that time. I traveled the world. I me t people from all walks of life. I bombarded my brain with music, chemicals, alcohol, books, and an incredible influx of experience that would just not have happened without the military and the guys I met there.

My last two books, Ancient Eyes and Defining Moments had cover art by the talented Mr. Don Paresi. Don and I served together in the Navy, and managed somehow to stay in touch. I'm in touch with a few others, as well.

I lived in Spain for a few years, and I rode with a motorcycle "club' by the name of TIBURON MC. I still have the tattoo - and the colors - and again, I could not have found that kind of experience - riding Europe on a Harley Davidson with a very cool group of like-minded rebels - with out the Navy dragging me there. In the novel Ancient Eyes there is a scene where a boy is forced to witness a cock fight. I saw that cock fight in Olongapo City when I visited the Philippines. My work and my life are one and the same in so many ways, that the time in the Navy has to rank among the top influences on both.

You write thrillers, horror, dark fiction, fantasy, and science fiction. Which of these genres did you initially start in, and which is your favorite to work in?

When I decided to write seriously, I studied under J. N. Williamson through Writer's Digest Schools. I sort of naturally migrated to horror. There were a lot of small and semi-pro markets in those days. I have never been as drawn to SF, though at times I have written it - notably the Star Trek novel. But it's funny you should ask this question.

I recently read an interview where Clive Barker suggested that there needs to be more fantasy in horror. I agree. I write a lot of what is best termed Dark Fantasy. I have written my share of visceral, brutal fiction, but I don't see it as an entertainment in and of itself. I've been accused of writing things that are too complex, or even too literary (an insult I still have trouble understanding). I am not a big fan of hopeless horror, or brutal dismemberment. I strive for intensity and emotion, but tend to internalize the imagery and terror through my characters.

To shorten my answer a bit, I started writing almost nothing but horror, and have branched into a more dark fantasy, almost mainstream approach to horror in much of what I do. Lately I've separated the two and have written some things I consider straight horror, and a lot of others that are more deeply personal - still very dark, and still horror, by my own definitions, but hopefully stretching beyond limitations of genre.

Let's talk a little bit about your writing process. Are you more of a story researcher, building ideas from the research, or do your stories kind of come to you in an 'Aha!' fashion, where you have an idea for the whole story and just use research to flesh it out?

Sort of an aha kind of writer, I guess, given those choices. I write a more character oriented style of fiction, and often find myself having to go back to flesh out some of the research parts of novels (in particular) because it was the story that interested me and not so much the background. Now I have shifted from an off-the-cuff writer to an outliner - which has worked well for me - and I have found that the outline tells me up front what I need to be researching, so I tend to read up on things from the beginning and be more prepared. I also have a tendency to FIND stories - something occurs to me during a movie, for instance - a direction they didn't take something, or something left unanswered, and my mind takes off with it. This will lead me to the Internet, which will lead me to a hundred pages about things I had no clue about, and before I know it I'm writing about something absolutely unrelated to the initial epiphany.

I have such a huge backlog of ideas, also, that I sometimes despair of ever getting them down before they slip away. This tends to make me go out and do more research, just to keep things "fresh" in my mind.

What's your writing schedule like? Do you have certain times you prefer to write? Do you have a word goal you try to hit each day?

Sometimes I work with a word goal. I actually write better with a deadline - or at least more reliably. I try to do more than 2000 words a day, but I have a lot of different projects going at any given time, and they can lead me off in odd directions. I'm working currently on a novel revision, putting together a new collection, a collaborative novella, at least two short stories - and a ghost-writing project. I try to do e-mail and correspondence in the early morning. I will do some writing - and a lot of non-fiction work - during my lunch hour. Right after work, I continue where the lunch work ended. After my daughter goes to sleep at night, I write pretty steadily on one project or another from 8:00 to 11:00 nightly. On weekends I'll spend more time at it...and if I have a deadline, I go at it every waking moment not spent at work, or with the family. I'm trying to be much better at drawing myself out of my shell and into the real world for family time, and personal time, but even then I'm writing in my head - often talking about it and in danger of being whacked. It's an addiction, I know, but I would be frightened for my career if it ever changed.

I want to switch gears here for a moment. You're very involved in a program called Storytellers Unplugged (www.storytellersunplugged.com), and you're also one of the writers who contributes a monthly column to the site. How did you get involved in that, and what do you feel you, as a writer, have gained from being a part of it?

I got involved, pretty simply, because when Joe Nassise decided to put the site together, he contacted a short list of writers he thought would see the benefit in it, and would contribute consistently. He and I were in pretty close contact then because he was President of the HWA and I was the ex-President, and current trustee.

It quickly became obvious there needed to be two admins to keep Storytellers Unplugged running, and so I stepped in and became the second. It's been a joint project since then.

The benefits are many - some obscure, and some obvious. We have a varied group of writers involved with the project. Each of them has a following in their own right, and they are not made up of all the same people. When Thomas Sullivan's readers come to Storytellers, they find all of us. When one of my readers goes there, they can discover Rick Steinberg, or Janet Berliner. The cross-pollination is useful to all of us.

Beyond that, I've had the opportunity to interact with best-selling authors, award-winning audio-book narrators, professors, mystery writers, you name it. We've all contributed, and so many of those contributions have been memorable, or useful. I have new friends, and have been able to speak to a larger audience than my own blog can command on its own. The success of the site is evident in the number of hits and links it inspires. We intend to expand with interviews of the "cast members" and more links to take people to our work - which is always the point. It's been a wonderful growing experience.

You give a lot of credit to your wife, Trish, for your current success and your professional career in general. What kind of role does she play in your professional life, and how has she helped you as a writer?

Well, this answer requires some background. When I met Trish, I was just coming out of a very, very bad marriage. I very literally was on the verge of ending my writing career. All I was doing at the time was cranking out White Wolf licensed stuff if they asked me and fussing with projects that never went anywhere. I caught it just in time and got out with my mind intact. It was Trish who brushed me off and helped me find the creative spark again. It's been a very serious, very difficult uphill battle since then. She and I first met while collaborating on a screenplay - a children's animated piece called Pickadilly that we'd still like to sell one day.

As I started working my way back into serious writing, she edited my work. She collaborated for me. In all the ways that my previous relationship let me down, Trish supported me. We do everything together - computers side-by-side, projects tossed back and forth. She writes less now, but still writes...and she is the first and most important reader of every word I write. Even before I write, she's involved in my thought process...I would probably just be one of those guys people on message boards say "What ever happened to old..." about. I'm glad I'm not.

I've slowly built thing up, gotten some solo novels out and now a pile of independent press works due over the next year or so - translations overseas - short stories, novellas, and soon the second of two volumes of collected work. I would not be telling you about any of that right now if she hadn't helped tug me out of the muck and point me back in the right direction. She's also a hell of a writer.

You're bio mentions that you're an ordained minister, and more than one of your works has had religious overtones. Has the one influenced the other, or is it just that you've had ideas for religion-based stories?

I've attacked this question in different forms several times, and I'm not sure I've ever gotten it quite right. I am an ordained minister, but only in the Universal Light Church. HOWEVER ... I studied for years with the intent of being a minister of one sort or another in The Church of Christ. I spent several years in a fundamentalist environment, and it was all it took to convince me organized religion is hooey - and dangerous man-made hooey at that.

This Is My Blood was written as a statement to organized Christianity. I took Mary Magdalene and made her a character who had walked the roads of Heaven and Hell...who knew without the faulty support of faith alone that it was all true. From her perspective, I was able to point out that even in biblical times, the followers of Jesus were hypocritical, self-centered, and unsure of what they believed. Even in the face of miracles, they were more worried who would be in charge when he was gone than they were over their own immortality.

I come back again and again to spirituality and religion in my fiction because it's something that touches people powerfully, and it can help me to create messages that matter. I don't know the answers, of course, it's my belief that no one does, or ever really will. I do know some of the pitfalls we fall into when we try to claim knowledge of the divine, and I run my characters through those, often embellishing the experience with the supernatural for effect. It's a powerful, important subject, and a hard one to avoid when you want your characters to have depth and substance. Besides, they say our characters are made up in large part of parts of ourselves, and since I spend a lot of time thinking about life, and what might exist beyond it, it's natural that this would surface in my fiction. I haven't preached any sermons yet since becoming ordained, but I'm open for weddings (and legal). To put it in final perspective, in the church where I was ordained, there is at least one legally ordained cat...

You've stated before that your personal writing philosophy is 'Write what hurts you.' What do you mean by that?

I feel that a great deal of what is written is pointless. I know that, as a writer, the times I feel the most personal fulfillment, and the times that I've gotten the strongest reaction to my work, have been those when I was willing to make introspection and honesty the filters for the words. Anyone who writes will know what I mean. There are times when you come to a place where you can write something as intensely and as brutally honest as it is or was - or you can write it a different way, gloss it over, fluff it up and neuter it. There is a time and a place for such writing.

You will never be remembered for it, though. Not in the way that words come back to people years after they've read them, or people study them and debate them. It's like playing a game of truth or dare with the world. If you dare to let people know hoe deeply you feel or understand a thing, and are willing to take the consequences that reliving painful memories, or attacking subjects that make you cringe might bring, you can reach the level where your writing begins to sing in four part harmony.

Sometimes I read something so intense I have to turn away, or think about something else for a while. Sometimes I feel gears turning deep inside, like the words were keys. Not often, but I think that's what authors should strive for. Leave them with images and stories and characters they can't let go of even if they want to. Make it so real they can feel the pain along with you - and your characters.

If there are subjects that make you uncomfortable, you can use that. If you write about those things, then you can bring your own emotions - your own insecurity and pain - to the story or novel or screenplay and present it to the world. That is a hard thing to do - because just like in real life, you don't know how people will react to the words, the feelings, or the emotions, and since they are real - you feel the backlash. It also gives you a way to work through those pains and pleasures, fears and deep loves while in control of the characters that will react to them. This means that if you have a particular reaction from a person in your own little world that scarred you, you can write it as it happened, and scar your character, and if you do it just right, the emotion will transfer through the words to your reader...that's what I mean.

If you aren't willing to be honest in your writing, you can't expect an honest reaction from the world, and it will never be fully satisfying.

In addition to your original works, you've also written a Star Trek novelization. How was that experience different for you?

All of my licensed work, the Star Trek novel, and the White Wolf novels, have had a different feel to me. I invest myself in whatever I write, and I have a vision of how I want each story and novel to come out, but in a licensed work, you have boundaries. You have guidelines, and required elements, and if you want to try and do something that is somehow remarkable, you have to do it within the rules.

I always tried to write a good book first, and a licensed product second. The Trek book was one that people either loved, or hated. Most of the complaints were along the lines that I didn't provide enough slap-dash action. Most of the compliments stated that I had told a moving story. I loved Voyager, and I think I managed to nail the characters...another thing that is different. You have to write about characters you didn't invent, and you have to make them ring true. It's a good learning experience, but as a career, it's not for me. I'm trying to concentrate MOSTLY on my own work now, though there is the possibility of a series novel in the future. I can't reveal any details, but the point is, I still enjoy seeing what I can do in someone else's universe.

Your novel Deep Blue was inspired by a love of the blues. Who are your favorite performers in that genre?

I have so many favorite blues musicians, I'm certain I'd run you out of space if I tried to get into it. Those that I consider absolutely inspiring...of course Robert Johnson. There is Son House, whose song "John the Revelator" sticks with me despite the fact there are no guitars present when he performs it. There are Big Bill Broonzy, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Muddy Waters - more modern artists include Poppa Chubby and The Black Keys. Vocally you can't do better than Billie Holiday, though now and again newcomers like Tracy Chapman get lucky.

But that's not what your question makes me want to talk about...so I'm hijacking it. Deep Blue was not inspired by blues music. It was inspired by pain. When I wrote the original novelette that was published in the anthology Strange Attraction, I began with the idea of a drunken guitarist who thought he was as far down in the dumps as the dumps get. It was inspired by a visit to The Holocaust Museum that pretty much scarred me for life. It was inspired by a lone sax player in a Washington DC subway. It was inspired by the movie PI. All of those things came together in the 24 hour period prior to my beginning the novelette. That became chapter one.

That book has a lot of me in it - a lot of music - a lot of the world's pain...it is about music, but it's also not about music at all. I hope someday it reaches a wider audience.

What kind of horror do you prefer to read, and why?

I'm a fan of supernatural horror - probably no surprise. I'm also a fan of psychological horror. Blood and guts do very little for me, and stories just for the sake of stories don't stick with me very well. I like horror that is character driven, and writing that is literate and thoughtful. The more layers and complexity, the better. I love the works of King, Straub, Barker, and Neil Gaiman, in particular. Caitlin Kiernan, Poppy Z. Brite, Brian Hodge, China Mieville and Kathe Koja always hit a nerve with me, while the move visceral, splatter-driven work isn't really my thing. I think Barker was right when he said recently that we need more fantasy back in our horror. When we start taking our enjoyment from real horrors depicted graphically, it starts to become dangerous territory, and a lot more difficult to explain an affinity for.

On a sort of side note, I think authors need to have the skills and literary talent associated with the craft. I don't care how good a story is - if it's told poorly, or the grammar needs work, or it's written down to a fourth grade level, I'm not interested. Writing is an art, and it takes serious work and personal investment to become proficient. Of course, there are those who are naturals - as in any other endeavor, but for the most part it's a difficult, complex art form, and if a person can't offer up the time and effort to perfect their craft, they won't make it onto my reading pile more than once.

Do you feel that there is too much blood and guts in today's horror (books and film)?

It's not a matter of quantity. There is no problem with blood or guts or sex or whatever in fiction or film. There is a lack of purpose. If the entire point of a movie is to witness brutality - as in something like HOSTEL - then it's a dangerous trend. Graphic content should never be the only point of art. It's difficult for me to see a valid reason a person would be entertained by it, without the additional content necessary to make it a story - or to give it meaning. I equate splatter films with minimal plot to porno movies. They deaden the senses toward something that can be so much more important under the right circumstances.

There is also the fact that people are complaining over how horror seems to be viewed by the rest of the world. I wonder how people expect it to be viewed when such a graphic, disgusting front is presented? The tendency to go OH COOL when something is all beaten and chopped with an axe does not lend itself to making the world more tolerant. I think there is a very juvenile side to a lot of dark fiction and film, and that sadly this small section is one of the loudest and most visible segments of the genre. People tend to make snap judgments. I don't think we should give them such easy targets.

You wrote The Mote in Andrea's Eye in less than two months, originally starting it as part of the Nanowrimo annual contest to write 50,000 words in one month. Did this very different type of writing process have an effect on how the book turned out?

Well, first off, I wrote the entire novel in 31 days. It was revised and sold within 60. As impressive as that might sound, output wise, it's not really a big deal. Most professional writers I know claim to write about 2000 words a day. If that is true, they all write more than 50,000 words a month every month.

I wrote The Mote in Andrea's Eye using a detailed chapter outline. Prior to that novel, my use of outlines was sketchy at best. I think having the daily deadline in place (only 1,667 words a day to meet the Nanowrimo goal, but I did much more than that) helped a lot. It also helped that for the most part it is a fast-paced action novel. The pace of the prose often leaks over into the pace of the writing itself.

I've recently sold a second Nanowrimo novel, and I've participate din the process every year since I wrote The Mote... but it's really just a continuation of the pace I keep pretty regularly. I think for a professional writer, that type of output is fairly common, while for new novelists it seems overwhelming.

Short answer, the big difference was the outline, and I have since then incorporated that into all my projects, which has increased my productivity and probably improved my overall process.

What projects do you have coming up in 2008?

I have a great number of things coming up...not sure how many of them will actually see print in 2008, but all should be ready by early 2009.

First up will be my novel, Vintage Soul, the first in a series of novels about a magician / private investigator named Donovan DeChance. It's a mystery about a kidnapped vampire, involving ritual magic, murder, antique manuscripts and books, and even a dragon or two. This book will come out from Five Star in early 2009 and there will be a limited, signed edition published concurrently by Bad Moon Books.

I have a novella out that I should hear about soon titled "The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs & the Currently Accepted Habits of Nature." This is an Old Mill, NC novella involving genetic tampering, ancient fertility rites, alien abduction and rednecks. More info will be available on this when the publisher green-lights it.

Brian Hopkins and I have written several stories about an old west character named "Chance," which will be reprinted in 2008 along with a brand new story in that same series. Again, I can't announce the publisher yet because they have asked to be the ones to break the news, but it shouldn't be too long before they announce it.

The final installment of my novel The Orffyreus Wheel will be up soon on Amazon.com - and that means the entire novel will be available for download in 8 parts.

The last, and possibly most important announcement, is my upcoming collection from Dark Regions Press. This is due out in the summer of 2008, unless the artwork holds it up. The collection is titled Ennui & Other States of Madness, and will be a huge, author's choice, and the definitive collection of my short fiction. It will have 20 or more stories chosen by myself as most representative of what I feel is best about my work. There will be 150 signed and numbered copies, as well as a deluxe edition - and then later on a signed trade paperback edition so it can be made available at an affordable cost. I'm excited about that one.

There are a lot of upcoming stories, as well, and if the final piece comes in, it's possible that the collection I'm doing with artist Lisa Snelling, and author Neil Gaiman will come out from Cemetery Dance Publications. It's an art book, based around Lisa's "kinetic" art featuring vignettes and a story by Neil Gaiman, and five new stories of my own.

Ten Quick Questions:

1.Who are your favorite authors writing today?
Straub, King, Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Caitlin Kiernan, Brian Hodge, Elizabeth Massie, Richard Steinberg, Thomas Sullivan, Stephen Mark Rainey, Wayne Allen Sallee, and Tom Piccirilli. Newly acquired taste for Steve Savile's prose, as well as that of author Greg Gifune. More traditionally, I like the work of Dickens quite a lot, loved the Harry Potter series, and The Lord of the Rings, and am a big fan of the short fiction of Philip K. Dick.1.

2. What book or movie scared you the most?
For the most part, movies startle me, but don't really scare me. There have been exceptions, but I'm convinced it had as much to do with timing as anything. I watched the movie SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW very late at night on board the USS GUADALCANAL. I was on watch...it was very quiet and deserted, being the middle of the night. Something in the realism of that film scared the crap out of me. I found the HELLRAISER movies (the first couple, anyway) to be deeply disturbing. For the most part, though, I can get a quick jolt of adrenalin or a huge YECH! from a scene, but not really frightened by movies.

3. If you had to be something other than a writer, what would you choose?
Easy choice for me. I have played guitar and sung in several bands over the years, and I could very easily see myself as a musician. I might have been an actor, as well, but I'm no Brad Pitt, so it would have to have been character acting. I believe I would be involved in a creative field no matter which way the fates poked me. I can't imagine not creating.

4. What is your favorite drink?
Whiskey over ice with water.

5. Which of your own books/stories is your favorite?
The truth is that the story I'm currently working on (or novel) is always my favorite. I tend to have trouble going back and reading my own work. If I had to choose, it would be either This is My Blood, the novel, or Deep Blue, the novelette - because there is so much of myself in both those works.

6. What do you see as the next big trend in horror?
I think horror will tend toward more "tech" based horror. People want to push boundaries, and pushing the boundaries of things that infest people's lives is the best way to hit a broad audience. I don't think the old favorites are going anywhere...people love them, and there is always something new you can do with an old story if you try.

7. If you could have one superpower, what would it be, and why?
I think I'd have to say that the number one coolest power is flying. Super strength would be cool, but flying is the sort of freedom we rarely witness in our lives, so if I had to choose, that would be it. (Unless the Green Lantern Corps were looking for a few good men - of course, THEY can fly too)

8. Name three things you would change if you were the President.
I would return the focus of the military to protecting our own country. I would work to drive the lobbyists out of politics and make politicians do the job because they wanted to serve, which was the original point. I would work to find a means of socializing medical treatment so people could afford to be seen, and doctors could afford to practice without huge insurance costs.

9. Vampires - have they jumped the shark?
Nope. Vampires are cool. They have gone from monsters to characters...the trick now is being able to write them as characters that don't irritate people.

10. E-books: will they ever become popular?
I hope not...and I doubt it. Reading isn't that popular, but part of what makes reading cool is books. If all that existed were the words, I think it would just be another stake in the heart of the written word...

JGF
Thanks again for speaking to FearZone, and good luck in the coming year!

For more information on David Niall Wilson, visit his website: www.macabreink.com, and stop by his LiveJournal page, http://deep-bluze.livejournal.com