Photo Content from Eddie Generous
Eddie Generous has fallen off three different roofs and been lit on fire on multiple occasions. He grew up on a farm and later slept with his shoes under his pillows in homeless shelters. He dropped out of high school to afford rent on a room at a crummy boarding house, but eventually graduated from a mediocre college. He is the author of several small press books, has 2.8 rescue cats (one needed a leg amputation), is a podcast host, and lives on the Pacific Coast of Canada.
What inspired you to pen your first novel?
First novel I wrote (unpublished) came about at a time when I was between jobs and taking a trip to visit a friend. Along the way, I got an idea. Once home, I started writing the worst novel manuscript ever penned. It took forever (by the standards I’ve come to expect of myself now), to get it up to get up to 60,00 words, even working at it every day for long stints.
Tell us your latest news.
I had two short stories come out in anthologies in October. The first is titled The Swim Instructor. It’s included in the anthology Place We Fear to Tread. The second is titled Whisper Woods, and that’s included in Stories We Tell After Midnight Vol. 2.
Who or what has influenced your writing, and in what way?
Reading is the biggest influence on my writing. Stephen King, Richard Matheson, John Irving, Annie Proulx, Joyce Carol Oates, Donald Westlake, Megan Abbott, Stephen Graham Jones, and so on. I make sure to read more than 100 books a year, it keeps my brain working in a creative way. Also, horror anthology comic books, I love the gruesome ones from way, way back, always some nuggets to mine and repurpose.
Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.
I handle compliments very poorly, so I don’t think much about them later (I always get paranoid that I should act more thankful, but I’m simply not good at that stuff), so I guess it would have to be the first time one of my books found a readership into the thousands.
What do you hope for readers to be thinking when they read your novel?
Depends on the story, but mostly, I hope they get it. Like I make a good connection, have people saying, hey, me too.
What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book?
I don’t really get distracted. This one’s a novella and the first draft took nine days, which is pretty average for the monster books I write. The adventure really keeps my fingers humming.
What part of Anna and Max did you enjoy writing the most?
Too often characters are comfortable financially, they get over their problems without grave consequences, and everybody gets along. I write what I know and it gives me pleasure to offer up a cast like the people I’ve known my whole life. They’re starting below zero. They’re uneducated. They’re under-employed. They’re mother and son and snipe at each other constantly. They pay in very big ways for their shortcomings. I like to think this reality makes the monsters easier to swallow once they come around.
If you could introduce one of your characters to any character from another book, who would it be and why?
I don’t know. I don’t hang around too long with a cast. There’s a good number that would probably get along, become friends and plan something stupid while they were in a jail cell together somewhere.
What is the weirdest thing you have seen in someone else’s home?
I knew these people who made a bed under a staircase and let a homeless kid sleep there. I’m pretty grateful they kept me hang around as long as they did.
Best date you've ever had?
Most dates I ever went on involved mini-golf. Never had a great date. Before marriage, it was mostly partying and hooking up, not so concerned about wining and dining. I met my wife in a gravel pit, big fire somewhere in the background.
What are 4 things you never leave home without?
My phone, my wallet…clothes, and keys. Totally dictated by function.
Which incident in your life that totally changed the way you think today?
I ran away from home when I was a teenager. It led to a lot of obstacles and a number of difficult years. Laughing at my life and how things have gone is pretty much how I can function at all.
At a movie theater which arm rest is yours?
I go to the movies maybe once a year. I live in a little town and I’d have to ride a ferry to get somewhere bigger. We only have one theater—it’s closed now, we’re taking social distancing pretty seriously up here, mostly—and it’s more than half the time kids’ movies.
Where can readers find you?
Twitter: @GenerousEd,Website: jiffypopandhorror.com
Twitter: @UnnervingBooks, Website: unnervingbooks.com
Twitter: @BooksNorthPod, Website: booksnorthpodcast.com
TEN REASONS TO READ WHAT LURKS BENEATH
(Give us the background on your journey to publish! Tell us where and when you started. What trials you may have gone through, what the best parts were. How did your family and friends react to the news of your publication; how did they help you or inspire you?)
What Lurks Beneath was written for Severed Press specifically. They have a narrow scope and feed a voracious niche readership. It’s my fifth book with them, but my relationship with Severed started in a kind of funny spot.
So, I’d written more than a dozen novel-length manuscripts and just couldn’t get anyone to publish them (in hindsight I should’ve focused on one and worked a little harder on the sales aspect, but…). I’d sold more than sixty short stories, so I knew I wasn’t total crap at writing, and, in fact, I’d honed a pretty useful skill: speed.
I decided to challenge myself to write a novel in ten days, if I could. I began with a vague idea to use the mold from The Running Man, you know, deadly gameshow, but that’s about it, no other notes. I blogged my progress. I put in better than eight hours of actual writing in per day. On the ninth day, I reached 61,000 words and found my ending, pretty well cackling with evil delight all the way. I did one rewrite of Radio Run and sent it off to the Severed Press slush pile. 3o days later, I got an acceptance.
After years of failing to publish a novel, I wrote one in nine days and sold it almost immediately. Have to laugh at all the preceding failure when success eventually came fairly easily. Of course, the feeling doesn’t really linger, always looking for the next achievement.
Anna Narraway has made some bad decisions and has known some bad luck, but she sees a chance at getting her life back on course and, alongside her son, Max, decides to rob the strange old doctor’s mansion while he’s on vacation. The old man is a hermit and has stacks of cash hiding in his home, but it’s what’s beneath his home that is more incredible.
Through a soggy floor, Anna and Max fall deep into the massive laboratory of the maniac scientist and his giant, incredible creatures. Anna and Max must use their wits and their will to survive the ordeal and make it out of the underground lab before they become another meal for the monstrous beasts lurking under the estate.
Can they escape with their lives after discovering what lurks beneath? The odds aren't very good.
First novel I wrote (unpublished) came about at a time when I was between jobs and taking a trip to visit a friend. Along the way, I got an idea. Once home, I started writing the worst novel manuscript ever penned. It took forever (by the standards I’ve come to expect of myself now), to get it up to get up to 60,00 words, even working at it every day for long stints.
Tell us your latest news.
I had two short stories come out in anthologies in October. The first is titled The Swim Instructor. It’s included in the anthology Place We Fear to Tread. The second is titled Whisper Woods, and that’s included in Stories We Tell After Midnight Vol. 2.
Who or what has influenced your writing, and in what way?
Reading is the biggest influence on my writing. Stephen King, Richard Matheson, John Irving, Annie Proulx, Joyce Carol Oates, Donald Westlake, Megan Abbott, Stephen Graham Jones, and so on. I make sure to read more than 100 books a year, it keeps my brain working in a creative way. Also, horror anthology comic books, I love the gruesome ones from way, way back, always some nuggets to mine and repurpose.
Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.
I handle compliments very poorly, so I don’t think much about them later (I always get paranoid that I should act more thankful, but I’m simply not good at that stuff), so I guess it would have to be the first time one of my books found a readership into the thousands.
What do you hope for readers to be thinking when they read your novel?
Depends on the story, but mostly, I hope they get it. Like I make a good connection, have people saying, hey, me too.
What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book?
I don’t really get distracted. This one’s a novella and the first draft took nine days, which is pretty average for the monster books I write. The adventure really keeps my fingers humming.
What part of Anna and Max did you enjoy writing the most?
Too often characters are comfortable financially, they get over their problems without grave consequences, and everybody gets along. I write what I know and it gives me pleasure to offer up a cast like the people I’ve known my whole life. They’re starting below zero. They’re uneducated. They’re under-employed. They’re mother and son and snipe at each other constantly. They pay in very big ways for their shortcomings. I like to think this reality makes the monsters easier to swallow once they come around.
If you could introduce one of your characters to any character from another book, who would it be and why?
I don’t know. I don’t hang around too long with a cast. There’s a good number that would probably get along, become friends and plan something stupid while they were in a jail cell together somewhere.
What is the weirdest thing you have seen in someone else’s home?
I knew these people who made a bed under a staircase and let a homeless kid sleep there. I’m pretty grateful they kept me hang around as long as they did.
Best date you've ever had?
Most dates I ever went on involved mini-golf. Never had a great date. Before marriage, it was mostly partying and hooking up, not so concerned about wining and dining. I met my wife in a gravel pit, big fire somewhere in the background.
What are 4 things you never leave home without?
My phone, my wallet…clothes, and keys. Totally dictated by function.
Which incident in your life that totally changed the way you think today?
I ran away from home when I was a teenager. It led to a lot of obstacles and a number of difficult years. Laughing at my life and how things have gone is pretty much how I can function at all.
At a movie theater which arm rest is yours?
I go to the movies maybe once a year. I live in a little town and I’d have to ride a ferry to get somewhere bigger. We only have one theater—it’s closed now, we’re taking social distancing pretty seriously up here, mostly—and it’s more than half the time kids’ movies.
Where can readers find you?
Twitter: @GenerousEd,Website: jiffypopandhorror.com
Twitter: @UnnervingBooks, Website: unnervingbooks.com
Twitter: @BooksNorthPod, Website: booksnorthpodcast.com
TEN REASONS TO READ WHAT LURKS BENEATH
- 10. Atypical cast of characters for adventure fiction
- 9. Absurd MacGyvering after dismemberment
- 8. Treasure hunting!
- 7. Mother and son bonding
- 6. It’s short, which is a real boost if you’re falling behind on your Goodreads challenge
- 5. Who doesn’t love a comedy of (t)errors?
- 4. Bloody fight scenes
- 3. Lots of animals, like visiting a zoo with no walls
- 2. There’s a dog, everybody loves a dog
- 1. Chompy monsters!
(Give us the background on your journey to publish! Tell us where and when you started. What trials you may have gone through, what the best parts were. How did your family and friends react to the news of your publication; how did they help you or inspire you?)
What Lurks Beneath was written for Severed Press specifically. They have a narrow scope and feed a voracious niche readership. It’s my fifth book with them, but my relationship with Severed started in a kind of funny spot.
So, I’d written more than a dozen novel-length manuscripts and just couldn’t get anyone to publish them (in hindsight I should’ve focused on one and worked a little harder on the sales aspect, but…). I’d sold more than sixty short stories, so I knew I wasn’t total crap at writing, and, in fact, I’d honed a pretty useful skill: speed.
I decided to challenge myself to write a novel in ten days, if I could. I began with a vague idea to use the mold from The Running Man, you know, deadly gameshow, but that’s about it, no other notes. I blogged my progress. I put in better than eight hours of actual writing in per day. On the ninth day, I reached 61,000 words and found my ending, pretty well cackling with evil delight all the way. I did one rewrite of Radio Run and sent it off to the Severed Press slush pile. 3o days later, I got an acceptance.
After years of failing to publish a novel, I wrote one in nine days and sold it almost immediately. Have to laugh at all the preceding failure when success eventually came fairly easily. Of course, the feeling doesn’t really linger, always looking for the next achievement.
Anna Narraway has made some bad decisions and has known some bad luck, but she sees a chance at getting her life back on course and, alongside her son, Max, decides to rob the strange old doctor’s mansion while he’s on vacation. The old man is a hermit and has stacks of cash hiding in his home, but it’s what’s beneath his home that is more incredible.
Through a soggy floor, Anna and Max fall deep into the massive laboratory of the maniac scientist and his giant, incredible creatures. Anna and Max must use their wits and their will to survive the ordeal and make it out of the underground lab before they become another meal for the monstrous beasts lurking under the estate.
Can they escape with their lives after discovering what lurks beneath? The odds aren't very good.
You can purchase What Lurks Beneath at the following Retailer
And now, The Giveaways.
Thank you EDDIE GENEROUS for making this giveaway possible.
1 Winner will receive a Copy of What Lurks Beneath by Eddie Generous.
jbnpastinterviews
My favorite event of my childhood was Christmas at my Grandpa's
ReplyDeleteWeekends at the cabin. Awesome.
ReplyDelete