Excitement

#author #upcoming #thomcarnell #tuxedojunction #nofleshshallbespared #writing #december2019 #writerfriends

While visiting Bellingham a few months ago, I ran into a writer friend of mine. If you’re a writer, you know that’s a big deal; we tend to be solitary creatures who rarely seek out our own kind, no matter how beneficial an alliance might be. Imagine my surprise then, as I’m about to exit Barnes & Noble, I hear a familiar voice say, “Hey, man!”

I look up, and it’s Thom Carnell.

Thom and I go back a ways, as we were co-workers in the same hospital sleep lab for several years. He’s had a fascinating life: before he was a sleep tech, he was an embalmer (he would have a panel at certain horror conventions called “Ask an Embalmer”). He spent a significant portion of his writing career in horror, either writing about it in trade publications like Dread Central or Fangoria or running his own magazine (Carpe Noctem, which years after its last issue still enjoys a solid cult following in some circles). He’s a film buff, and you can easily spend a large portion of your day talking old, obscure movies with him. He’s kind of an expert on these subjects.

Almost ten years ago, he put out a novel called No Flesh Shall Be Spared. In the last few years, he’s been quite prolific with his releases, with two short story anthologies out—Moonlight Serenades and A String of Pearls—and several volumes of collected interviews from Carpe Noctem. In 2018, he released a sequel to No Flesh Shall Be Spared called Don’t Look Back. His body of work is impressive as an indie writer. The novellas that form the backbones of his anthologies—Clown Town from Moonlight Serenades and Song of the Dragon from A String of Pearls—are engrossing pieces of work. For real, I’m a fan of this dude.

As we catch up in the foyer of B & N, the conversation inevitably turns to writing, and he tells me about his next anthology and some of the cool stuff found within. It wasn’t the stories that caught my attention—don’t get me wrong, they sounded cool and I’m getting the next collection once it’s available—but it was the excitement with which he talked about it. The enthusiasm he was able to generate for his own work was infectious and would easily have won over anyone he talked to about it.

I struggle with that. I find it hard to talk to most people about completed projects, let alone stuff I’m still working on. Only my writer friends like Thom will ever ask, and even then, I feel a bit self-absorbed when I discuss WIP’s. I don’t want to be that guy, even though the only way people will know about your work is if you tell them about it. The thing is, people will rarely remember the small details of what you say to them. They will forever remember the way you made them feel. I know that somewhere, that’s in Marketing 101, but this is stuff I’m still learning.

Anyway, if you haven’t heard of this dude, check him out here. Thom Carnell’s latest collection, Tuxedo Junction, is coming soon.