Tag Music

Fiction Fragments: Salvantonio Clemente

Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Last week I chatted with queer horror writer, Andrew Robertson about growing up in the 80s under the shadow of the AIDS epidemic and how writing horror has given him a space to explore aspects of identity.

This week, Girl Meets Monster welcomes writer and musician Salvantonio Clemente.

Ah…here is where I introduce myself (awwwkward).

My name is Salvantonio Clemente, but that’s too many vowels so, call me Sal. Occasionally, my partner calls me “jerk”; I suspect others might do so as well.

I’m a life-long writer, producer, and performer of music. I’m an aspiring writer and voracious consumer of stories, and I write speculative fiction that leans heavily toward the possible. I’ve spent the last year writing a baker’s dozen short stories and banging out two novels, the second of which will be completed in June.

It is my sincere wish to spend the rest of my days creating worlds and playing in them. Of course, it was once my destiny to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so…baby steps.

I am fortunate to have the unswerving support of my partner, Darcie Lynn Clemente. We live just outside Boston and have three grown daughters, Maria, Emma, and Lola, who are all far more talented than I am. Thank you, Michelle, for asking me to participate in Girl Meets Monster…I feel like I’ve arrived!

All about my band, The Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra:
www.urorocks.com
www.facebook.com/UROrocks

My author website is under construction but visit me soon at:
www.writescifi.com

Three Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Sal. And, thank you again for inviting me to be part of your writing group, The Scrawling Commandos. It has been great getting to know you and the other members of our small writing community, sharing stories, asking honest questions about writing, and supporting each other during these strange times. Can you give a little bit of background about the writing group, and why you believe writing communities are important to writers — aspiring or established? What have you discovered about yourself as a writer and what have you learned from others in the group?

SC: The first thing I discovered? I am not as good as I imagined.

This hurt my soul but was super-useful!

Our writing group is the brainchild of our mutual friend and all-around great guy, Mike Burke. After a twenty-year adventure in a rock band, I desperately needed a place to hone my somewhat atrophied fiction writing skills. So, I stuck my foot in the door at Commandos HQ and refused to remove it until Mike allowed me inside.

I recommend a writing group to rookie or veteran, but only if they’re willing to lower their defenses. There’s a place for affirmation, but we all have folks who fill that need, a writing group needs to be more useful.Still, in our group it’s imperative to deliver our criticism with respect for the effort given; it shouldn’t ever feel like blunt-force trauma when a critique comes.

As artists, it’s vital to have a place we can step outside the strictures of what’s expected, to screw up or succeed as the case may be. Within the confines of the group, I can invest myself into any character, any culture, any point of view, and I’m going to get honest, direct, useful, feedback about the work. If the story needs correction, or jettisoning, or to be curbed, then my comrades give me specific ideas on what to do, which is invaluable because my goal is to sell stories.

It’s not easy; we have our ups and downs, but over the course of 3 years I still very much want to do this thing with these people. I feel tremendous pride in their successes; our camaraderie is genuine. It’s working so far, as my friends have yet to hit the eject button on my seat.

GMM: I’m really glad you decided to share an excerpt from “Arcana Major.” I really liked this story when I read it a few months back and I’m hoping that you either expand on the story, or get it ready for submission as is. I think I mentioned how real the characters seemed to me. I felt like I knew them because they reminded me of kids I grew up with, and the band’s performance brought back memories of seeing live music in dives and weird places like the Knights of Columbus. Where did the idea for the story come from, and are your characters based on people you know? Is this a fictionalized account of something that happened to you as a teenager?

SC: I am really glad you liked “Arcana Major.” It’s a good thing since the story wouldn’t have happened without the prompt which you provided for our writing group, which included the Tarot and a gender flip for the main protagonist.

I knew almost nothing about Tarot, other than bits I’ve consumed through films and TV, but once I dug in, I became obsessed with the artwork!

These cards are amazing! If I had seen them when I was a young musician, I would have insisted the band all take on a different card/character as a persona, and this led to the idea of having the story be about a band.

Jenn (with two n’s) is based on who I was as a naïve youngster trying to get my original band off the ground. The other members of Arcana Major are each based on real people. One of the guys was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame this year! He and I were in a few bands back in Pennsylvania, before I moved to Boston and he went on to massive fame.

“Arcana Major” was a hoot to write, a fantasy, but one rooted in rust belt Pennsylvania and how things really were. A lot of the story is the truth; hopefully, enough to make it feel genuine.

GMM: Music is obviously an important part of your life, and I’ve noticed that music finds a way into several of your stories I’ve read so far. Music is really important to me, too, and I believe it has had a major impact on shaping me as a person and even as a writer. When did you really know you wanted to be a musician, and how has music influenced your writing, and/or vice versa? Is music an important part of your writing process? Have specific songs inspired stories? Have stories inspired your music?

SC: I wanted to be an artist and the definition was broad for me; I’m sure this was due to my upbringing. My mom was a singer and dad was a writer who produced and directed theatre: a true renaissance man. I wrote, drew, painted, performed, directed. I did a lot of theater, and then discovered rock bands, and found a calling I couldn’t resist.

I focused all my efforts into learning to be a musician, writer, and performer, but the itch to write fiction never went away, and the advent of the pandemic opened up the time to give it proper attention.

As to what part music plays in my writing? It’s nearly all subconscious. There’s Bowie and Queen and The Beatles, but I grew up on comics, pulp fiction, sixties and seventies paperbacks, Dark Shadows, Dali, Shakespeare, Kubrick, Rod Serling, on and on, like all of us. With all of this bouncing around in my skull, my writing veers off in a lot of trippy directions.

Three of my short stories feature musicians as characters, but only “Arcana Major” directly touches on my own experience.

As for stories inspiring music that I’ve written, I had never thought about it until reading your question, but it is undoubtedly the case that I have written songs based on stories I’ve read.

When I’m writing, I often listen to instrumental music, but I need to tailor the music to the story. For instance, I’m listening to the score to The Knick, and The Queen’s Gambit, on an endless loop while I’m writing the novel I’m working on. This particular music helps to unlock my subconscious and allows me to get in a flow with the words. As dumb as it sounds…that’s how it works for me. Thanks, again, Michelle! This was too much dang fun! Back to the grind!

Excerpt from “Arcana Major” by Salvantonio Clemente

Minor Arcana: Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

Steam blasts from a radiator nozzle and I catch a snootful of patchouli oil. At Joe’s Cabinet of Curios and Curiosities, the only thing curious is that the cops let Joe get away with open displays of paraphernalia and Dead bootlegs. The rest of us can’t cross the street without showing our papers.

I’m Jenn with two n’s, and I’m here for the spinner racks jammed with books on the occult, zen stuff, and philosophy. Don’t ask me who in my rust-belt town this fine array is aimed at, but I am desperate for a band name and last week the town library shut down for good.

I’m wedging out a dusty brick of Kahlil Gibran poetry when I spot the corner of the Tarot deck’s slipcase peeking out from a stack of ratty back issues of Cream.

I snatch the cards from the pile, and the room gets weird.

The embossed case is cold, slippery, heavy.

I tip the deck into my hand, and the cards resonate like the first time I cranked my amp and hit a perfect power chord.

I shuffle through the deck as the afternoon sun slashes through strings of colored beads hanging in the smoke-hazed window. Fireworks go off on my retinas and trigger a memory of when I was six and dad slid his leather headphones over my ears; he held them in place while mom dropped the needle on Switched On Bach and little kid me saw stars being born inside billion year old nebulas.

Like back then, I have to remember to breathe.

Yeah.

It’s that kind of life-altering resonance.

I’m a musician. I feel the same sensation—okay, maybe not this intense—when Father Herron cuts loose on the big pipe organ after Sunday mass. Hell, the National Anthem gives me goosebumps, and I don’t buy a word of anything said by priests or politicians. But I don’t believe in mystical hoodoo, either. Whatever’s happening is physics and biology; some strange combination of factors hitting my system all at once, giving the deck its charge.

Still, when the universe shows you a sign it’s probably best to read it, right? I don’t know jack squat about the Tarot, but in my hand is the key to my band’s future. I know it.

I sweet-talk Joe down to five bucks and, with the deck still vibrating in my hip pocket, kick the door open and head out into the cold.

Do you have a fiction fragment? How about your friends? Would you like to recommend someone to me aside from yourself? Drop me a line at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

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Women in Horror Month Fiction Fragments: Valjeanne Jeffers

Michelle R. Lane 2 Comments

Last week I had some very interesting conversations with Violette Meier and Aziza Sphinx. If you haven’t checked out their posts, or the previous posts in this Women in Horror Month/Black History Month series, please do so.

Today, Girl Meets Monster has the pleasure of welcoming Valjeanne Jeffers.

Valjeanne Jeffers is a speculative fiction writer, a Spelman College graduate, a member of the Horror Writers Association and the Carolina African America Writers’ Collective. She is the author of ten books, including her Immortal and her Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective series. Valjeanne has been published in numerous anthologies including: Steamfunk!; The Ringing Ear; Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler; Fitting In: Historical Accounts of Paranormal Subcultures; Sycorax’s Daughters; Black Magic Women, The Bright Empire, and, most recently, All the Songs We Sing, Bledrotica Volume I, and Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire.

Ten Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster and thank you for being part of my first Women in Horror Month series, Valjeanne. What projects are you currently working on? Is horror your primary genre, or do you write in other genres? If you write in other genres, which do you feel most comfortable writing, and why?

VJ: Hi Michelle, thank you for having me. I’ve just released the 3rd novel of my Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective series: The Case of the Vanishing Child. It’s a horror/steamfunk novel based in an alternate world, and the main character, Mona, is both a sleuth and a sorceress. I’m also working on a screenplay of my novel, The Switch II: Clockwork.

Horror isn’t my primary genre, but it’s one of my favorites. I write under the broad umbrella of Speculative Fiction, so I also write science fiction/fantasy, which is also described as Afrofuturism. I feel comfortable writing in almost any genre, and I tend to mix them. The Switch II: Clockwork, for example, is a steamfunk novel, but it is also Afrofuturistic.

GMM: When did you first know that you were a horror writer? How did you develop an interest in the genre? What initially attracted you to horror stories? Which writers influenced you then? Which writers influence you now?

VJ: I actually didn’t think of myself as a horror writer until author Sumiko Saulson featured my writing in 100+ Black Women in Horror. Sumiko told me that my readers had approached her and asked that she include my Immortal series. I was both amazed and honored. That’s when I decided to add horror to my writing menu, and I went out of my way in my Mona Livelong series to scare my readers.

I’ve always enjoyed reading and watching horror. I can remember watching horror movies with my parents (for example, The Shining), and as a little girl, I was addicted to Dark Shadows. The first horror writer I fell in love with was Stephen King. Of course, when I first began reading horror there were no writers that looked like me. All of this changed in the 1990s. I discovered Octavia Butler, and later Nalo Hopkinson, Brandon Massey and Tananarive Due. These are writers, along with Richard Wright and James Baldwin, that I credit as my earliest influences. They continue to impact my writing, as well as Keith Gaston and N.K. Jemison.

GMM: The documentary, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019), explores Black horror and the portrayal (and absence) of Black people in horror movies. As a definition of what Black horror means begins to take shape, Tananarive Due says “Black history is Black horror.” What do you think she meant by that? Can you give an example of how this idea shows up in your own work?

VJ: I’m sure she meant that African America history is one of trauma and violence: from our being kidnapped and dragged to American shores, through the Jim Crow and the Civil Rights era, our history is filled with tales of horror. Our stories are often those of pain and trauma.

Richard Wright, in Black Boy, says, “This was the culture from which I sprang, this was the terror from which I fled.” Yet our stories are also those of incredible victories because we refused to submit, to give up. Instead, we pushed on. We blossomed, and we continue to blossom like a garden of black roses.

As a black woman, I am grappling with issues of those that came before me, and those that we face in present times. This may find its way onto my pages. But I write with optimism and hope. And I always strive give my readers an exciting tale they can sink their teeth into.

GMM: As a WOC writing horror/dark speculative fiction, do you feel obligated to have a deeper message in your stories? Can writers of color write stories without broader messages about identity, class, and racism? Is it possible to divorce yourself from that ongoing narrative within our culture when you set out to write a story?

VJ: I don’t feel obligated to include a deeper message in my stories, and some of my favorite authors write without doing so. I’ve certainly never started one with this intent. Sometimes a story is just a story, meant to entertain and nothing more. But I do find myself writing about flawed heroines and heroes, men and women who are fighting to save themselves and their worlds. Often the demons they’re fighting are personal ones; life is always in session. There are no perfect people, and so my characters are imperfect as well. Who you are, and what you’re battling, will always find its way onto the page, and this is where I find myself writing, too, about larger issues of race, gender and class.

GMM: What are your top five favorite horror movies, and why? Top five horror novels? Which book or movie scared you the most?

VJ: My top five horror movies are: The Shining; Tales from the Hood; Get Out; Dr. Sleep, and When a Stranger Calls. I like horror movies with well-developed plots and characters, and layers of suspense that build to a nail biting crescendo. I also prefer horror flicks with a racially diverse cast of characters, which is a lot easier to come by nowadays.

My top favorite horror novels are: Wild Seed (Octavia Butler); Into the Dark (Brandon Massey); The Good House (Tananarive Due); It (Stephen King) and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (N.K. Jemison). I’d have to say Into the Dark scared me the most.

GMM: How do you feel about white-identifying writers who write stories about non-white characters? What problems have you encountered? What potential issues do you see with white-identifying writers telling BIPOC stories? What advice would you give those writers?

VJ: There are some white authors who are very skillful at creating “flesh and blood” non-white characters. One writer in particular, who is also one of my favorites, is Tad Williams; his Otherland series is brilliant. What I mean by “flesh and blood,” are well rounded characters, who black and brown folks can identify with. In contrast, there are other white authors I’ve encountered, whose non-white characters are cardboard cutouts, overlaid with stereotypes.   My advice to these authors is: if you don’t have black and brown friends, real friends mind you, perhaps it’s best if you don’t write about people of color. This might sound harsh, but one of the first pieces of writing advice that I received was: “Write what you know.” Every character I’ve created is a compilation of diverse men and women I’ve met, studied, or both, and myself.

GMM: All writers have experienced some form of impostor syndrome. What has your experience with impostor syndrome been like? Did you ever have a particularly bad case of it? If so, what caused it and how did you manage it?

VJ: I have experienced feelings of self-doubt and feelings that I don’t “measure up” as a writer. But when I’m at my lowest, my readers, and other writers, often help me get through it. I’ve received uplifting emails from folks who love my latest project, and sometimes even a post on my Facebook page. I think I speak for most authors when I say: we write for ourselves and for our readers. I cherish every one of them.

GMM: Tell me about Mona Livelong. What or who inspired this character? Without too many spoilers, can you give some insight into her backstory, and why she became a detective? Why a paranormal detective as opposed to a detective who solves basic human problems?

VJ: Mona Livelong sprang from the same inspiration as Karla, the main character of my Immortal series. Both characters are based upon Carla, a young woman who babysat me when I was living in Los Angeles. Carla’s mother, as well as her youngest brother, died and she was raising her two surviving siblings while attending college. I remember her as an intelligent, compassionate young woman, who was determined to achieve her goals.

Mona is cut from this same cloth. She’s strong, but also vulnerable, and she’s known tragedy. She was born a sorceress and decided to use her gifts to help her community, solving cases regular detectives can’t solve. As to why she’s a paranormal detective, when I create a character, he or she will almost always be supernatural. I love Speculative Fiction just that much.

GMM: Some writers work best in silence, and others prefer to listen to music when they write. How has music influenced your work? What kinds of music do like to listen to when you’re writing? How does it help with your process?

VJ: I can write in silence, but I prefer listening to music when I write, especially if I’m working on character or plot development. If I’m doing either one, I usually listen to jazz or R&B (for example, WAR and Barry White). If I’m writing an action scene, I’m definitely listening to Hip Hop or Classic Rock. I’ve actually acted out action scenes while listening to music; it helps me visualize what’s happening to my characters, and if the scene will “work.”

GMM: If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your younger self? How would you have approached becoming a writer? Would you have done anything differently, or would you have followed the same path?

VJ: If I could give young Valjeanne any advice I would tell her, “Keep writing Speculative Fiction, sweetheart, and don’t stop. No matter what anyone says.” I began writing poetry and stories as a young girl. My only regret is that I took a hiatus and didn’t dive back in until years later. This is the only thing I would change.

Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective III: The Case of the Vanishing Child. (synopsis) The threads of a blood chilling mystery … A world torn in half. A young black man desperate to avenge his murdered brethren. A white supremacist with the terrifying power to alter reality. And a little girl trapped in the eye of the storm. Detective Mona Livelong takes on her most dangerous case yet, as she races to save the life of an innocent child, and countless others hanging in the balance. Cover art by Quinton Veal.

Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective III: The Case of The Vanishing Child (excerpt)

Breath brings word
Nappy Dusky Longing Song
Song like my own
—Maya’s Kwansaba

A solitary cafe au lait-colored man with freckles, his thick hair tied back with cords, walked to the lot behind the Constabulary Station. Keeping his head down, Richard Starks moved silently through the rows of steam-autos parked there. He walked past them, looking carefully at the numbers painted on the auto doors. When he found the one he sought, he crouched on the other side of the steam-auto and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. Minutes later, a burly white Constable exited the station and walked through the lot. He hunkered down before the auto and started turning the crank.

Richard drew a dagger from the folds of his shirt. Moving swiftly, he crept from the side of the car. As the Constable rose from his haunches, the black man sprang— stabbing him over and over. The Constable fell to his knees and then toppled over, twitching and bleeding at Richard’s feet. Moments later, he was dead.

Shaking and crying, Richard stood over him. At length, he calmed himself and slipped the dagger back

inside his shirt. He wiped his face with his arm and stepped over the dead Constable to the side of the auto. He drew a symbol on the steam-auto door with his bloody fingers and spoke the mantra, “Kuja kwangu mpendwa wangu kwa maana ni kisasi mimi kutafuta … Come to me my beloved, for it is vengeance I seek.”

Diaphanous shades smudged into view. In the next instant three figures towered over him, their faces shifting in the darkness … from black to red … green to blue … female to male … It made him dizzy trying to hone in on their features. He realized that perhaps he was not meant to see their faces. Perhaps it would drive him insane. He fixed his vision on a point beyond their huge shoulders.

The one on his left spoke, “You summoned us, little one?”

“Yes,” Richard whispered.

“You know what it is you seek?” said the second one asked.

“We cannot harm the innocent,” the third entity intoned.

For the first time anger crept into the young man’s voice. “They ain’t innocent. They’re murderers.

”The spirits spoke in one basso profundo voice, “So be it.”

Rivulets of blood ran down the Constabulary building. The dead officer sat up. His wounds healed, and

his eyes glazed over with a white film. Then they turned blue once more. The blood vanished. The Constable got to his knees, crouching before the auto, and finished turning the crank. The motor sputtered to life. He stood and walked to the driver’s side, got into the auto and drove from the lot.

Constable Burt Phillips, a thick-set white officer, pulled his steam-auto up to the curb beside his flat. Burt put his auto in park, got out and turned the crank on his steam-auto, shutting the engine off. He was feeling good this evening—better than he’d felt in weeks. For awhile, he’d thought that Eddie Plumb, the unarmed black man he’d killed months ago, was haunting him.

He’d been drinking the night he killed Plumb and in a foul mood. I just wanted respect. That darkie needed to be put in his place.

Plumb had walked pass Burt that night, his eyes insolent, his back straight and proud. Something had snapped inside Burt. He’d shouted at Plumb over and over to stop walking, but the young man ignored him. So Burt shot him in the back. When questioned by Internal Affairs, he’d told a different story: Eddie was a robbery suspect, who’d fled when he ordered him to stop.

The DA cleared me. That’s that.

The week of his death, Eddie Plumb had appeared in Burt’s steam-auto and, for weeks afterwards, he’d rode beside Burt—mocking him, insulting him, calling him a murderer. Then just as suddenly he was gone. Burt had dismissed Eddie as a hallucination brought on by the stress of the hearing.

Certainly. he bore no guilt over killing Plumb. Darkies getting out of control. In my daddy’s time they knew their place. That’s one that won’t make trouble no more.

His daddy had been a hard man, and even harder to love. But love him Burt did, through all the beatings, through all the times he’d found his mother bloodied from his old man’s fists.

His father’s most essential rule, THE RULE, was that he should hate anyone who wasn’t white. “Keep ‘em under your boot son,” this was said with the utmost emphasis during the few times he’d shown Burt affection. “For a white man, ain’t nothing more important.” His daddy had hated black and brown folks, and Burt loved his daddy. So, he hated them too. He opened the door to his flat and stepped inside.

——

Richard sat in the darkness. The only illumination came from the moon and the streetlight outside his window. He shut his eyes.

When he opened them, his room had been transformed. Thick grass grew under his feet. He stared into a gold, orange and blue sunset, a half-smile of wonderment on his face. To his right, the walls and door of his flat remained. Straight ahead, camel thorn trees spouted in the brush. In the distance, he could hear the steady rhythm of drums and a faint whisper. Richard cocked his head to the right. Listening.

He nodded and shut his eyes once more. His spirit rose from the chair. He looked back at his body then walked out into the night. Those he passed on the street could not see him … But they felt him as a breeze.

Do you have a fiction fragment? How about your friends? Would you like to recommend someone to me aside from yourself? Drop me a line at chellane@gmail.com. See you Friday!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

Fiction Fragments: Jessica Guess

Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Last week, I spoke with Mexican American expat V. Castro about her erotic vampire fiction and I’m still thinking about that scene in the Irish pub, wondering what filthy delights await her vampire protagonist.

This week, I’m excited to welcome Jessica Guess to Girl Meets Monster. I recently picked up a copy of Jessica’s horror novella, Cirque Berserk (2020) and couldn’t put it down.

Jessica Guess is a writer and English teacher who hails from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She earned her Creative Writing MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2018 and is the founder of the website Black Girl’s Guide to Horror where she examines horror movies in terms of quality and intersectionality.

Her creative work has been featured in Luna Station Quarterly and Mused BellaOnline Literary Review. Her debut novella, Cirque Berserk, is available for purchase on Amazon. You can get weekly content from Jessica by joining her Patreon at www.patreon.com/JessicaGuess

Three Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Jessica. I loved Cirque Berserk, because it captured so many of the things I loved about watching slasher movies while I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. The major difference being that one of your main characters is a young Black girl, and her love interest is Latino…or possibly Native American. Most of the slasher movies I watched didn’t have Black people in them. The ones that did have Black characters usually killed them off right away, to the point that this is now considered a trope in horror films. How did this absence of Black characters affect you as a viewer and reader?

JG: I think that being a huge fan of horror while being constantly reminded of how much the genre disregards Black people created a resentment in me. Don’t get me wrong, I really do love horror. I love the mythologies, and the blood, and the monsters, but for a very long time it has felt like we’re a punchline in the genre. I think it’s like that for anyone who isn’t a white, cis-gendered, heterosexual person in horror. That makes me want to kind of right that wrong in my own writing. I want to see all the things I didn’t see growing up.

NOTE: Jessica told me Rocehelle’s love interest is Native American, but asked me not to reveal his name to avoid spoilers. So, go pick up a copy of Cirque Berserk and find out for yourself.

GMM: I recently watched American Horror Story: 1984, and during each episode I was calling out the names of the movies or characters they were referencing based on the way someone was murdered. What are some of the horror movies or scenes from movies that inspired your work? Are there murders in your book that mimic the tropes of slasher movies?

JG: Definitely Urban Legend. I think that movie has some of my favorite slasher kills ever. I wanted the kills in Cirque Berserk to be as memorable as those and have a type of irony that they did in Urban Legend. An example of that is the opening of when the girl in Urban Legend is driving with an ax murderer in her back seat and “Turn Around Bright Eyes” starts playing. That’s definitely an inspiration for a scene in Cirque Berserk. That scene in particular also takes some inspiration from The Strangers: Prey at Night. I just like the idea of upbeat music playing when something horrific is happening.

GMM: AHS: 1984 uses music not only to trigger nostalgia, but to put us in the setting and create a sense of atmosphere to remind us which time period we’re witnessing on screen. How did you use music in your novella to create nostalgia for the characters and your readers? What other details did you use to give us a sense of the time and setting? Did you rely on any specific horror tropes, or did you try to create something new?

JG: So, the song titles set up the sections of the novella, but they also give a hint to what the theme of that section is. For instance, in the “Rhythm of the Night” section, we finally figure out exactly what is happening, which is to say we’re figuring out the rhythm of this night. It helped me to frame the story while also relying on the nostalgia and atmosphere those songs create. As for tropes, I hoped to take some old tropes and re-invent them. I think that’s what we’re supposed to do as writers, take tropes that could be stale or overused, and find a way to make them new and fresh. I like to think I did that with Rochelle and Brian. I wanted the reader to start out thinking they knew exactly where the story was going and then realize they didn’t know at all.

Karlie, Karlie, Where Did You Go? (Excerpt)

Lisa

I watched Erica’s blue impala through my rearview mirror. I was parked with the back of my car to the back of her car. Why had she pulled in to an orange orchard? Did she spot me? Why wasn’t she getting out of her car? A cold sweat formed on my forehead. What if she told Aaron?

Just then, Erica got out of her car and walked up to the storefront that was shaped like a cottage. Maybe she wanted to pick oranges. Or maybe she was calling Aaron to warn him. My palms were suddenly slipping off the steering wheel from sweat. Should I follow her or just go home? I gripped the keys ready to start the ignition but stopped. I had to find out what happened to my cousin.

“Hello darlin’,” an old gray-haired white woman said from the cash register. “Care to try some orange and peach jam? I make it here myself.”

“No, thank you. I’m uh, just looking around,” I said.

“If you want to pick from our grove, you just come on up here and grab a basket and go on out back. You can take a guide with you. Sometimes people get lost back there you know.”

I smiled at her. “Did a girl just come in here? One with deep brown skin and frizzy brown hair and a red hoody? We’re supposed to meet up.”

The woman nodded. “Said she was pickin’ some orange for her mom.”

“I guess I’ll take a basket.”

“That’ll be a dollar fifty for the basket.”

I gave the woman the money and she offered me a wide wicker basket and pointed me towards the back of the cottage where the wide grove started.

Was Erica really doing something kind for her parent? Did I follow her for nothing? Maybe this was a distraction so that Aaron could hide evidence while I was off chasing Erica. Damn it! Did I fall for some trick?

I walked down a row of oranges and looked for a glimpse of Erica’s hoody. The sun was beating down hard but there was a breeze so the sweat forming on my forehead wasn’t as much as it had been for the past few days. The citrusy smell of oranges invaded my nostrils as I turned and looked for any glimpse of Erica. 

I moved further and further into the grove trying to keep the entrance in sight.

Sometimes people get lost back there, you know.

I moved passed orange tree after orange tree but still, there was so sign of Erica.

“Erica?” I called finally. It was a long shot but maybe she’d answer. “Erica, I just wanted to talk to you for a second. My name is Lisa Yen, I’m Karlie Yen’s cousin. The girl who died? I saw you with Aaron earlier. I just need to ask you some questions.”

Just then I saw a flash of the red to the right of me. I turned. Nothing there. Instead just more orange trees. I moved to where I saw the flash.

 “Erica?” I called, running further into the grove.

 A feeling of dreadful realization rose inside of me. No one knew where I was. I didn’t tell Travis where I was going. That woman in the cottage thought I was here with a friend. This grove went on for acres. I looked back to try to see the entrance but all I saw was more orange trees.

“Shit,” I whispered. I tried retracing my steps to find a way out. My heart was beating loud and fast in my chest and sweat poured down my neck.

 My bra was noticeably wet now and uncomfortable. I had only been in the grove for a few minutes, but I was lost and drenched and starting to get scared. I tried to take a deep breath but couldn’t.

 “Fuck,” I whispered as I frantically checked my pockets for my inhaler.

I must have left it in the car. I forgot how bad my asthma got in Everpeirce. Orlando was a little better even though the air was dryer there. The problem with Everpierce was that there were more swamplands, dust mites, and pollen from all the different citrus orchards in the air here. And here I was in the middle of a field of oranges, with no inhaler. Smart girl.

“Shit,” I whispered trying not to panic. I stopped walking and managed to slow my breathing a bit though knew I still needed my medicine. I walked in the direction that I thought I came from, but nothing. No entrance, just oranges.

Just then there was another flash of red just to the left of me.

“Erica? I just want to talk!”

“Is that why you were following me?”

I turned around and there she was. Her hoody was pulled over her head and her sleeves pulled all the way down to her wrists despite the overwhelming heat.

“Erica?” I said stupidly. I was out of breath again now. The heat, orange blossom pollen, and fear not doing my asthma any favors. Erica on the other hand looked fine, cool, and not scared in the least.

“Why are you following me?” She stared at me, her hands in her hoody pocket.

“I-I just wanted to ask you some questions,” I said, hands on my knees.  “Hey—do you—know the way—out?” I said between gasps. “I’m—lost”.

Erica stared at me silently, not moving. Her face was expressionless and unreadable, but it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. Her dark brown eyes moved around, seeming to look if anyone else was in the orchard with us.

“It’s r-really hot out here,” I said gasping a little. She turned back to face me but remained silent. “Aren’t you hot?”

Her eyes narrowed in on me, her face still unreadable.

“E-Erica,” I said, starting to get dizzy. “Can’t breathe—please—help.”

Do you have a fiction fragment? How about your friends? Would you like to recommend someone to me aside from yourself? Drop me a line at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

Fiction Fragments: J. Edwin Buja

Michelle R. Lane 4 Comments

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Ed Kurtz. This week, Girl Meets Monster welcomes J. Edwin Buja. I met J. Edwin Buja at Necon 39, where we both released our debut novels for Haverhill House Publishing. If you haven’t read The King of the Wood, I highly recommend that you do.

IMG_5942J. Edwin Buja has spent his life surrounded by books and has written everything from children’s novels to software technical manuals. With an MA in history he discovered early on that researching and writing hold the key to happiness. Who else would think scanning through years of microfilm to index an old newspaper would be a dream job?
The King of the Wood is his first novel in the genre of magical realism, but it will not be his last. For more than thirty years, he has been married to the most wonderful woman on the planet. He lives in a small village somewhere in Ontario.

Three Questions

GMM: Since music is a major theme in your fragment, I thought about the fact that a lot of writers listen to certain styles of music or create playlists to match the mood of a piece they’re working on. Music has always been an important part of my life. Music is more than just background noise. Certain music has been more like a soundtrack for the phases of my life. Your story feels like it has a soundtrack and even without the inclusion of dates, most readers would recognize the time period based on the bands. How important is music to your other writing projects? What do you usually listen to while you’re writing? When you develop a story, do you have a specific soundtrack in mind like a film or TV show?

JEB: I don’t listen to music while I write for two reasons.

First, I prefer to immerse myself in the music so I listen wearing headphones, with my eyes closed, and the lights off. This started after my sister introduced me to Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Mott the Hoople, and Uriah Heep all in the same week. She was the music nut, I only read. I was hooked instantly. However, it was difficult to listen to records because the loudness disturbed my parents. As soon as I could afford it, I got a stereo system and headphones. From then on, whenever I listened to records, I would pretend I was one of the musicians at a concert. That has stayed with me for over forty years. I still rarely listen to a complete album. That’s the joy of an iPod: I can create playlists of “concerts” that I would like to hear.

Second, I tend to bang on the keyboard in time with the music which is noisy and causes the people around me to complain. This happened at my first tech writing job, and I never listened to music at work again.

Music does inspire a lot of my writing and sometimes I have a soundtrack in mind. This is usually to help with the mood and inner thoughts of a character. If a tune makes me happy, then it makes my character happy. I do have a group of what I call Suicide Songs. These invoke such strong memories (times, places, events) that I get the feeling that I should give up and not bother doing anything else. It’s not so much physical death as the death of new ideas, aspirations, inspiration, and of doing anything but reading or watching TV. These tunes have been very useful in setting the mood for several characters.

Sometimes, tunes give me the kick I need to start writing. There’s nothing specific, simply the urge to get back to the keyboard.

In my first novel, I have the main character listening to tunes while he walks. I removed the exact references (Free’s Highway, the remastered version) because my tastes are sometimes obscure and readers might get confused. Several of the streets in town are named after bands or musicians.

GMM: I’ve only ever seen one concert in Detroit. I had the pleasure of seeing Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at a Masonic temple with my friend Tracy. That was a memorable evening that might eventually end up in a story. How much of your fragment is based on real events? And, how often do you pull from your own experiences in your writing?

JEB: In the fragment, all the concerts listed are ones I attended. This is important because I am a fanatic for correct geography in a story. If a character is heading for some location, then his journey must be logical. For example, if a building is seen from someone’s back window, but they leave through the front and arrive there from the wrong direction, I am taken out of the story. I draw maps of towns and house plans to keep everyone in their right place. For the fragment, knowing the layout of the concert venues, what could be seen from a particular seat, how to get in and out, and what kind of movement was possible during a concert, is vital to the story.

As far as anything else from my experiences, I use them all the time. There may be specific events. The feelings and thoughts from those events are blended, mixed up, turned around, and used in whatever way helps the narrative. For example, seeing a girl repeatedly and not knowing anything about her. What to do? How do I find out who she is? What happens once I know about her? I was a history major at university, so I know how to do research, following several paths to reach a conclusion. There’s also the frustration from lack of sources or contradictions in facts.

Experiencing depression is an absolute gold mine. It’s not a pleasant gold mine, but one that is hard to ignore. Writing about this is also therapeutic.

By the way, I saw Rush, Nazareth, and Uriah Heep at the Masonic Auditorium.

GMM: Based solely on the fragment, I get the sense that a romance is blooming. However, since the narrator has mentioned his terrible luck in meeting women, I assume that getting to know the curly haired woman in the red jacket won’t be easy. I anticipate some heartache. Beyond the developing romance, what else is happening in the story? Can you give us a synopsis of what you think is going to happen without too many spoilers?

JEB: What is the story all about? A teen sees a girl at almost every concert he attends. Despite attempts to get closer to her, she disappears every time. None of his friends know her. He falls instantly in love with her. After several years, he stops going to concerts. Nothing is done about the girl because he is unable to act on his desires due to shyness, lack of knowledge, and a sense of ‘what’s the point, anyway?’ Fifteen years later, he goes to a concert and sees her. She hasn’t changed in the slightest. She’s even wearing the same clothes from that last concert. They finally connect, but not in the way he had hoped. She disappears before his eyes. And so, his quest begins. Who is she? What happened to her after his last sighting? Why is she back? The gatefold of the Kiss Alive album (not the CD) plays a vital role in his quest. (I have never seen Kiss in concert.)

A fragment from J. Edwin Buja’s novel, Rock ‘n’ Roll Never Forgets

Part One – Music and sightings

The last time I saw her was December 27, 1977. The J. Geils band was doing an encore and she was in her usual spot down by the right of the stage.

It took fifteen years for me to find her, and when I did it broke my heart beyond repair.

Uriah Heep/Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, 25th of July, 1974 Cobo Arena Tier A Section A2 Row G Seat 9

Things started when I was attending a Uriah Heep concert at Cobo Hall in Detroit. This was back in the day when you could just send your money to the venue, ask for specific seats, and you’d get your tickets about a week later. But that doesn’t matter right now.

This happened to be my very first concert. I was twenty and a late starter when it came to music.

Like I said, I was in Tier A at Cobo getting in to Mick Box as he went nuts doing one of his solos. The audience had slowly crept closer to the stage but the security guys were keeping everyone well away from the stage. My buddies and I had tried to get down to the main floor but security had been much more alert than usual, according to Terry, the guy who got the tickets and convinced me to go in the first place. Apparently, Terry was able to get down to the main floor at most concerts because he knew one of the security guys and always slipped him a doob when passing.

His friendly guard wasn’t on duty this night. It was probably because I was there.

I had a pair of binoculars because I had never been to Cobo and had no clue how big it was inside or how close we’d be to the band. As it turned out our seats weren’t too bad and I didn’t need any help seeing though they came in handy when I wanted a close-up of Mick Box wailing on his guitar.

It was during a bit of talk from Ken Hensley the keyboard player when I happened to look into the crowd in front of the stage.

Most of the time, my eyes were glued to the stage but once in a while I’d scan the audience looking for cute girls. I may have been twenty but my hormones were in high gear so I was always on the lookout for a girl. Not that I would ever have had the nerve to talk to a girl. I was deadly shy at the time and my luck with girls had been poor to say the least. I was pretty much reconciled to never meeting the girl of my dreams.

Still am for the most part.

Something flashed and caught my attention. One of the spotlights from the rig above the band had moved and lit up the section of the crowd below Hensley. Standing about three people back from the barrier between the stage and the audience was a girl who brushed her long curly blonde hair out of her eyes. She was listening intently as Hensley spoke. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like she was taking notes though why anyone would do that during a concert remained a mystery to me at the time.

There was something magical about her. I couldn’t really see any details, like the colour or her eyes, but I saw enough to make me pay more attention to her than the band. And she was wearing a bright red jacket.

My eyes kept flitting back to her as Heep finished their set then came back out for an encore.

The band finished their last tune, left the stage, and the house lights came up. I immediately focused my attention on the spot where the girl was standing but she was already gone. Feeling a little disappointed, I scanned the crowd to try and spot her. That jacket would be hard to miss. As always, I had no luck.

For me, it had been business as usual. Attend some thing, be it movie, concert, party, see a girl that catches my eye, then do nothing about it because I had no balls and never see her again.

I didn’t give the girl at the concert any more thought.

J. Geils Band/Mountain/Golden Earring, 3rd of November 1974 Cobo Arena Tier A Section A17 Row B Seat 3

She was there again. I couldn’t miss that bright red jacket and the curly blonde hair. This time I was on the other side of the arena so I didn’t see her right away. When Corky Laing set his drums on fire, she was there in the glow of the flames.

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band/Rex, 5th of September, 1977 Cobo Arena Tier A Section A6 Row E Seat 6

So, I’m at the Seger concert, getting in to the sax, and I spot something in the corner of my eye. Something yellow. I turned and it was hair. Long curly blond hair. The girl who owned the hair was perhaps three feet from the barrier where the security guts were patrolling. There was something about her that got me interested. Maybe it was the hair. I have a weakness for long curly hair. Maybe it was the tune.

I decided to get a better look at her. I inched my way through the crowd and got to within ten feet of her when for some reason, she turned around. My heart almost stopped. She had to be the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. It may have been my imagination but I could have sworn she saw me and smiled. Wishful thinking, maybe?

Do you have a fragment you’d like to share? Send it my way at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!