Break You, стр. 18
Joe: What do you dislike most about writing?
Blake: The difficult days when it’s like pulling teeth to get words on the page, and your sentences aren’t flowing like you want and your characters don’t want to talk to you (or anybody).
Joe: Do Blake Crouch stories have a unifying, underlying theme?
Blake: I think so, and it’s the idea of pushing regular people to their breaking point and beyond and watching how they respond. I’ve realized in the past year that I’m just not interested in writing about characters who aren’t at the end of their rope. And the rope is on fire.
Joe: You got hosed by your publisher, and their many mistakes have hampered your career. Besides bad covers, poor distribution, lack of support, and the failure to release your last two books in paperback, there was also a long gap between your second and third books. What happened?
Blake: Yeah, and sadly my experience is not unique. The gap between my 2nd and 3rd books was partly my fault. I was originally going to write Snowbound after Locked Doors. I started it but stopped when Abandon came calling. I submitted Abandon instead, and man were they pissed. So I wrote Snowbound, and they were still pissed. I changed editors, but stayed at the same publishing company, and my new editor loved both Abandon and Snowbound, but decided to publish Abandon first. All the interim bullshit took about two years and delayed the publication of my third novel.
Joe: Where do you feel the publishing industry is headed?
Blake: I don’t know. Adaptation is my hope. There are a lot of very smart people in publishing who I’m sure are making efforts to stay afloat. The problem is, when a royalty rate like Amazon’s comes along (70%) and a writer can make the same royalty on a $2.99 ebook as a $26 hardcover, it becomes a little less enticing to sign your rights away forever to a publisher who isn’t offering a large sum of money.
Joe: What book has disturbed you the most? What movie?
Blake: Book: Red Dragon. Movie: It’s not a movie, but the last 60 seconds of Episode 8 of Twin Peaks. I saw it when I saw 12, and it left me physically quaking. I’ve never recovered.
Joe: Your books have some pretty intense scenes in them, and you don't shy away from putting violence on the page. Have you ever censored yourself?
Blake: Not really, because usually, when I’m writing, I tend to know what lines I’m crossing, and I’m okay with it.
Joe: The magazine cover photo was taken at BeerKon 2010. Best conference ever?
Blake: Oh, no doubt. 2011 will be even better.
Joe: We've collaborated on a bunch of stories, and are now doing a novel, Stirred, which will be the last Jack Daniels ebook, and also conclude your Andrew Z. Thomas/Luther Kite series. How do all of these books connect and intertwine with one another?
Blake: One of our brilliant cover artists, Jeroen ten Berge, is currently working up a graphic on this. Essentially, Serial Uncut, soon to be expanded as Serial Killers Uncut, is the centerpiece of our universe—all our villains (from your Jack Daniels and Jack Kilborn series, from my Desert Places series, Snowbound, Abandon, and others) in one novel-length work. The way these villains’ paths cross tangentially connects almost every one of our novels. For instance, Luther Kite is one of the bad guys from my Desert Places series. He shows up in my novella Bad Girl, which is a part of Serial Uncut, which sets him up to pursue Jack Daniels in Shaken, a battle which will be fully resolved in our collaboration novel Stirred. We’re essentially doing the same thing comics have been doing for years: creating a shared universe for our characters. It facilitates our collaborations, but more importantly, encourages readers who like one of our books, to try the other 20 which are connected in some way or another.
Joe: How does your collaborative writing differ from your solo writing?
Blake: My solo writing tends to be slower, more methodical. Not that this is a good thing or makes my writing any better, I just don’t have you breathing down my neck since you write about ten books a year.
Joe: You're exaggerating. Last year I only wrote 7. How did the Draculas project come about?
Blake: You had the basic premise and title and called me up and pitched it. I thought it sounded like a blast. We developed a cast of characters, a setting, and then contacted F. Paul Wilson and Jeff Strand to see if they wanted to be involved. Luckily, they did. We then gave Jeff and Paul first pick of which characters they wanted to write (they took all the cool ones that had weapons), and we were off.
Joe: You busted ass marketing Draculas. What are some of the things you did to ensure it had a big launch?
Blake: We started thinking about marketing very early on, like in August, when we had only written about 10,000 words. We all had fan bases to pull from, and started wondering what the effect on sales would be if we could launch a book with over 100 reviews on day 1, just blow up the blogosphere. So we made a call for reviews on your blog, and also contacted all of your Goodreads friends to see if they would review the book prior to publication. I also reached out to all of my contacts. We got 260 people to request the book, and at that point, knew if only half of those folks came through for us, we’d be golden. Luckily, most came through.
Joe: You're ruler of the world. What laws do you pass?
Blake: Just one. Express lane in coffee shops for people who drink actual coffee and not shit with whipcream and nutmeg on it that takes five hours to make.
Joe: Happy endings or tragic endings? (I'm talking stories, not massages.)
Blake: Mostly tragic, but I’m trying to change.
Joe: Are there any writers you'd love to collaborate with?
Blake: Many, but I’ll only call out one of them. Top of the list…David Morrell. You?
Joe: David would be fun, but I gotta go with Stephen King.
Blake: Careful…he actually writes faster than you do.
DESERT PLACES
Published in January 2004 by Thomas Dunne Books
DESCRIPTION: Andrew Z. Thomas is a successful writer of suspense thrillers, living the dream at his lake house in the piedmont of North Carolina. One afternoon in late spring, he receives a bizarre letter that eventually threatens his career, his sanity, and the lives of everyone he loves. A murderer is designing his future, and for the life of him, Andrew can’t get away.
Harrowing...terrific...a whacked out combination of Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy.
PAT CONROY
[C]arried by rich, image-filled prose. Crouch will handcuff you, blindfold you, throw you in the trunk of a car, and drag you kicking and screaming through a story so intense, so emotionally packed, that you will walk away stunned.
WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL
Excerpt from Desert Places…
On a lovely May evening, I sat on my deck, watching the sun descend upon Lake Norman. So far, it had been a perfect day. I’d risen at 5:00 a.m. as I always do, put on a pot of French roast, and prepared my usual breakfast of scrambled eggs and a bowl of fresh pineapple. By six o’clock, I was writing, and I didn’t stop until noon. I fried two white crappies I’d caught the night before, and the moment I sat down for lunch, my agent called. Cynthia fields my messages when I’m close to finishing a book, and she had several for me, the only one of real importance being that the movie deal for my latest novel, Blue Murder, had closed. It was good news of course, but two other movies had been made from my books, so I was used to it by now.