Meet An Author Friday: Nicholas Paschall

Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, Nicholas Paschall earned his bachelors degree in History from the University of Texas at San Antonio. He started writing when he was young, but he first started his horror career in 2011 with a short story published in Dark Moon Digest. He's been in many anthologies, including Shadows and Teeth Volume Three, What Dwells Beneath, and the upcoming Nickel Nightmares. His first published novel was the Father of Flesh, but in 2018 he has whole set of novels coming out for his readers to enjoy. In early Spring, he has Bleak Dawn: Hunters of the Dead-Witches War and Travels to Teyuna. He can be found at random conventions, willing to discuss anything you have on your mind. In his personal time, he whittles away the hours of the day writing, editing, and tinkering on his website.

What works/authors have had an impact on you professionally or personally? How?
I'd be lying if I said Stephen King didn't influence me as a writer, as for my generation he was the one to breathe life back into the horror genre. He paved the way with rabid dogs and killer clowns so that we could all enjoy a good zombie story, while others like Anne Rice brought attention to vampires in a way that made the creative minds in the blackest literary circle declare a war against the romantic bloodsucker. I have a fondness for Vonnegut that extends into the surreal, as his work often does, and I like Michael Crichton for his birth of the modern day sci-fi involving dinosaurs and theme parks. As a member of the 90's kids, I'd say that R.L. Stine stirred the pot for us, while Silent Hill and Resident Evil left us afraid to go to sleep at night. There are so many influences and great names to drop that just the few I've mentioned barely manage to scratch the surface.

If you could be a famous person (living or dead) for a day, who would you be and why?
If I were to just be carry-on metal luggage that could observe? I think I'd choose Vlad the Impaler, just to see what was going through his mind when he planned his battles or ordered thousands to their grisly deaths. If I got to take over the person, then I'd say William Shakespeare during the height of his career, just to see what the life of a playwright during the day was like. Maybe see what he was working on and if it was something I recognized.

What is the oldest thing in your fridge and how old is it?
A box of baking soda that I cannot remember buying.

Dessert or no dessert? Why? If dessert, what is your fave?
I remember when I was a kid Olive Garden had a dessert called the Brownie Decadenza. It was a warm brownie (no nuts!) in a margarita glass with vanilla ice cream and hot sauce. They had it for years, and it was my sole reason to eat there whenever we would go out. My parents could order whatever nasty vegetable or exotic food for me and I would happily indulge them, if only to get that treat.

What is your favorite motivational quote?
"This may not serve for long, but long enough is all I need." Something my father used to say when he would repair machines for his business instead of replacing them right off the bat. I use that idea in a lot of ways, as I can move figurative mountains with the shoe-string budget that saying promotes. I'm in the process of fixing up my house just for my own habitation, and have used cheap replacements for doors, doorknobs, and ceiling fans in areas where the only people who see them are my wife and I. Yes, I will have to replace them someday when we plan on moving, but when we do replace them for the showcasing of the house, they'll be brand new and we can promote the house as having recent work done without lying.

Meet An Author Friday: Peter Molnar

Peter Molnar has been writing genre fiction for over twenty years and he is a member of the Horror Writer’s Association. He is a VIP Author for Stitched Smile Publications as well as a member of its editorial staff. His work has sold to such genre markets as City Slab: Urban Tales of the Grotesque, Necrology Shorts, and most recently Hydrophobia: A Charity Anthology to Benefit Victims of Hurricane Harvey, among others. He works in the Philadelphia secondary school system as an English teacher and Creative Writing Coach.

What works/authors have had an impact on you professionally or personally? How?
-I read "Pet Sematary" by Stephen King for the first time when I was twelve-years old and it scared the hell out of me, to put it mildly. I had been writing since I was eight, little shorts here and there, but it was that book that set me on a path to write horror and suspense. I wanted to scare other readers like that book scared me, and I have been working towards that ever since with everything I write. Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" saved me from severe writer's block which set in just after my child was born eighteen years ago. I was trying to balance my artistic life with being a father and could not effectively achieve it. I learned the power of practices like "Morning Journals", "Artist dates" (dates with your inner artist), and "Narrative Timelines", which involves writing about yourlife from earliest memories to the present time. As far as I'm concerned, Julia Cameron saved my life back when I was twenty-four. When an artist can't create, nothing makes sense and the world tilts too far over. Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club" taught me how to embrace minimalism as well as dark humor in writing. Philip K. Dick's "A Scanner Darkly" influenced me in terms of embracing the weird and wild in literature, so much so I ended up writing my thesis paper on the novel at Temple University. And Dennis Lehane's "Mystic River" taught me how to construct characters so vivid that you hurt when they hurt and you anguish when they die. Oh, and "Mickey Mouse and the Spooky House", first book I ever read.

If you could be a famous person (living or dead) for a day, who would you be and why?
-I would want to be Jonathan Nolan, brother of Christopher Nolan, and co-creator of HBO's "Westworld". He also co-wrote my favorite movie "The Dark Knight" with his brother. But I would want to be Jonathan back when he was writing the first draft of what I consider to be one of the most ingenious short stories ever written, 'Memento Mori". The story later went on to be made into a movie titled "Memento", directed by (you guessed it!) his brother, also. "Memento Mori" is the type of short story I hold up as the ultimate shining example of a writer at the top of his or her form, and firing on all cylinders. I would want to live out the day Jonathan actually sat down and started to write that short story, so I could sit in and get a feel for where his mind was at when he started crafting this amazing short work of fiction.

What is the oldest thing in your fridge and how old is it?
-Frozen string beans. I feel really bad for frozen vegetables. All too often, they go into the freezer and their buyer had the best intentions for buying them ("I'm going to start eating healthy!!!"), but then those intentions go to pot and the frozen veggies pay the price with freezer burn and abandonment. The age of my frozen string beans? Sometime around the Renaissance Period.

Dessert or no dessert? Why? If dessert, what is your fave?
-I don't know if a frothy espresso counts, but that's what I like after a good meal. I try to stay away from the sweets. I like bold, sour, and highly-caffeinated.

What is your favorite motivational quote?
-In terms of writing: "God, You take care of the quantity, and I will take care of the quality." -Julia Cameron

Where Do Ideas for a Story Come From?

I think every author in the world through the course of time has been asked this question. I believe that there is a general curiosity among readers to know how the author came up with the amazing story that is on the page. I also think that readers believe there is some sort of magic well authors are able to dip into to draw out their ideas.

The honest—and not incredibly magical truth—is that story ideas come from everywhere. A lot of my stories (Life After the Undead, Finding Eden, and Humanity’s Hope) came from dreams. I had to flesh out the ideas and make them more plausible (so many weird things happen in my dreams that are hard to put on paper!), but the main idea came to me while I was asleep.

Other times, ideas are influenced by other stories and how the world (or I) react to them. Sometimes, something happens in the news that spurs an idea for a story. It’s possible to overhear a conversation in public that will plant the seed for a story.

The point is that there isn’t a magical well that authors go to for ideas. We don’t have special or exclusive access to ideas. However, it’s what an author does with those ideas that makes all the difference.

A good author can take a mundane idea that they get from the news or an overheard conversation and turn it into something magical. The author’s world building and character creation can make the reader believe that this idea was handed to them from above by a creature bathed in an ethereal glow—and that is the real magic.

Ask any author and they’ll tell you that they have dozens of stories that failed because they couldn’t make the idea work. It may have seemed great at the time, but as they put it on the page, it wasn’t as wonderful as they imagined.

Ideas can be found all around us at any given time. As authors, we have to be aware and open to receiving them and knowing what to do with them. We have to know which ideas are going to create a great story and which ones are going to fall flat—and that often comes with trial and error.

Writing and Depression

Writing and depression go hand in hand. There’s a long history of writers being plagued by mental health issues, which contributes to them being brilliant creatives but tragic figures. There’s this notion that if you suffer from some kind of mental health issue, you’re destined to be a great writer.

On the other hand, there’s also this idea that writing can help alleviate some of the symptoms of depression. In this case, you’re encouraged to keep a journal so that you can keep track of things that trigger your depression and find a creative outlet to deal with it. Writing can be a way to cope with negative emotions and improve overall health.

I’m a writer. I also have depression. I also deal with anxiety. Writing has helped me deal with my inner issues, and it absolutely gives me a creative outlet for the worst-case scenarios that course through my mind when my anxiety runs rampant. However, as much as depression helps me write, it can also hinder my writing.

Anyone who has suffered from depression knows that it’s not only an overwhelming sadness that overtakes you, there are physical issues that accompany depression. Depression can cause issues such as extreme exhaustion to pain to lack of interest in daily activities—including writing. When these symptoms take hold, it’s incredibly difficult to find the energy or desire to do anything.

Writing can be an incredible outlet for depression and allow the writer to release and deal with a lot of things that goes on in their mind, but it can also drain away any desire to put words on the page. This, in turn, can start a vicious cycle.

If you’re a writer like me, you are compelled to write. It’s more than a desire, it’s a necessity. You feel bad when you can’t create worlds and characters—like part of your soul is withering. But when depression has you in it’s control, even if the desire is there, you don’t have the energy, which then leads you to feeling guilty. This, of course, can make you feel worse.

Being able to write means you have to be in the right frame of mind. You have to be able to let your mind block out all distractions and delve wholly and completely into the world you’re creating. It’s incredibly hard to do that when the distractions come from inside your own mind.

When you’re depressed, it sometimes feels like your thoughts aren’t your own, that you have no control over what runs through your mind. If you have no control over them, you can’t stop them to write. Sometimes you regain control, but sometimes you don’t.

At times, writing can cause depression. The publishing world is becoming more and more competitive and is being flooded with millions of books every year, so it’s hard to get noticed. Rejections and bad reviews are par for the course in publishing, but they can weigh you down and make you question whether or not you should be writing—which leads back to the issue of needing to write. It can be difficult to deal with these emotions.

Every so often, we all need a break. We need to take some time to step back and look at what we’ve done and what we’re doing and decide if it’s right for us. When depression sets in and knocks you down for the count, it’s okay to take a moment to recuperate. If that moment means you need to sleep in and binge watch shows, then do it. If that moment means you need to write furiously about what is going on in your mind, then do it.

Writing and depression go hand in hand, and some of the best stories have been created by authors who have been plunged into dark places. Writing can be great therapy, but depression can overtake any desire to be creative. When it comes down to it, you need to do what is best for you and take the road that is going to make you feel better. The most important thing is how you feel and making sure you’re doing what’s best for you.