Merry meet all,
Welcome, everyone, to a very special blog post. Today we are discussing horror with successful author Brian Smith. Brian has agreed to chat in my dark cobweb ridden corner of the web, so let’s get started.
Why horror? Do you have a favorite subgenre in horror?
As a kid who grew up in the 80’s, as a part of Generation X, horror was everywhere. Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and slasher films in general but I was mostly interested in bug movies like Kingdom Of The Spiders, Island Claws, Frogs and such.
It’d have to be a supernatural horror because there’s so many things ghosts can do some really fucked up shit like change your Wi-Fi password or chase you up the stairs after turn off all the lights in the house.
Which other horror authors influenced you the most and why?
Edgar Allan Poe got to me first, then Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, Richard Laymon, Jack Ketchum, Brian Keene, Edward Lee, Bentley Little and H.P. Lovecraft.
What inspires you to write horror?
On top of growing up with slasher and bug movies, I also grew up with Stephen King movies. I checked out Stephen King’s Night Shift from the local library when I was twelve and then I fed myself every Dean Koontz book I could get my hands on. I’ve always enjoyed the fact that authors can turn the everyday lives of an everyday person by throwing them into a panicked and harried situation.
Tell me about your writing/ editing process
My writing process is as fucked up as my editing process because I’ll sit down and get the bare bones of the story out of my head and then I’ll print it out and go through it as best as I can and edit the entire book by adding new paragraphs and scenes into the book and as the meme says, “I do all of my best editing after I hit SEND”.
Which is your favorite horror movie or book? Which movie or book impressed and inspired you the most?
Everyone goes through a horror at some point in their lives whether its an abusive spouse or family member or some life-altering shift in their young and impressionable life at one time or another.
I write horror because it’s real. I write horror because we welcome unknown horrors every time we change our lives for the better and yet we don’t realize that until it’s too late. It’s how we overcome them that matters. We have more free range when it comes to indie publishing. We can put whatever we want in our books, publish them whenever we want and make them as long as we want them to be.
The original Night Of The Living Dead and Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. They inspired me to write horror and although I haven’t done a vampire novel yet but the former inspired me to write my novel “Dead River”. It depends upon what I’m writing.
Is there any music that helps you to write?
If I’m writing horror, I listen to a dark lo-fi hip-hop playlist. If I’m writing a crime noir, then its’s something like jazz noir or dark noir music.
Do you have any special projects you want readers to know about?
I’m writing the second book of a trilogy featuring two “supernaturalists” who investigate supernatural locations. I’ve written the outline of a body horror novella and I’m always writing short stories.
Where can readers find you on social media?
Facebook under Brian J. Smith
Threads and Instagram under horrorauthor9
About the author
