Good Saturday all today we have another victim in our NOVEMBER TO DISMEMBER take over with reading zombie . Today's victim is David Simpson the author of ZOMBIE ROAD series
Hi David thanks for stopping by today
Thanks for having me
1 Tell us a little about
yourself
I’m just a guy. To put food on the table, I drive a truck
all over the Southeastern states. I got lucky and married up, got a passel of
kids, the youngest is 20, and all of them are doing well. (and FINALLY out of
the house, thank goodness!)
2 Tell us about your
books
I write Zombie books that have fast zombies that
deteriorate over time so you get the best of both worlds… Fast and vicious then
eventually shambling and unrelenting. One of the best reviews I got called it a
thinking man’s zombie book. A lot of research went into the story as well as
the little background things. For instance, I now know, and so does the reader,
what happens to nuclear power plants and missiles in their silo’s when the hand
of man is removed from the constant maintenance they require. The basic premise
of the tale is a man, an Army vet turned truck driver, who is on the other side
of the country when the zombie uprising happens. His main goal is to get back
to his family, to save them if he can, but he is saddled with the responsibility
of saving much more than just his wife and son. An entire nation is balancing
on the knife edge of plummeting into complete chaos or starting to rebuild as
he does what is right, even if it isn’t what is easy.
3 In your books what is
the hardest scenes to write
I had to establish a bad guy. Most of my main characters
are basically good people but there had to be some bad guys, it’s an apocalypse
novel so unless it’s a natural disaster, I needed some antagonists. Some on a
global scale and some on a local scale. There is a scene in the second book
where I introduce the local bad guy and to illustrate just how bad he is, there
are a few scenes of him doing bad guy things. Those were hard to write because
I have no idea what bad guys think. I had to get in his head.
4 What is the one thing
about the writing and or publishing you like and the one thing you don't like
about said writing and publishing
I like the writing, of course. I can sit down with a cup
of coffee in the morning and the next thing I know, dinner is being served. I
lose myself in the fictional world completely. There’s not much about the
publishing aspects I hate. Yet. I’ve only been doing this for less than a year,
I’m sure the minor annoyances will grow until they are major aggravations.
5 What type of research
do you do and how long do you research
They say write about what you know and I know a lot about
trucks, cars, guns and zombies. I’m a vet so all of the military aspects, the
language and in-jokes, come easy. Everything else, I google. Like how long will
a satellite stay in orbit without computers from earth giving them nudges every
once in a while. Or how to transport nuclear fuel rods. Or how far is it from
the Route 49 bridge crossing the Mississippi to the nearest house up river. I
don’t do info dumps or have a bunch or lists or detailed instructions on how to
sew up a wound like some books do. If the information is relevant, it gets
dropped into the conversation naturally, not like an instruction manual.
6 Who is your favourite
author
Poe or King.
7 If you weren't writing
what would you be doing
Working on cars. Muscle, Rods or tuners, I love them all.
8 Is there a little
piece of yourself written into your characters
I suppose it’s inevitable, so yes. The main people in my
books have a similar belief system as I do, although not exactly. God, family,
country attitudes. Someone called it Americana Zompoc.
9 If you had to do one
thing differently as a child to make you a better writer what would it be?
Stay in school, have more than a basic high school
education. That would make me a better writer but would it make me a better
storyteller? Hard to say. If I hadn’t left home at 16, if I would have gone to
college, I would never be able to draw on the experiences I have now. I
probably never would have joined the Army or become a repo man or bounty hunter
or chased a raincloud on a Harley for a week or climbed down three stories of
blue velvet to wipe the vomit from her hair or met a man whose most valuable
possession was a
cobblestone that he had to fight for every day or any number
of other things I’ve done.
10 Do you believe in writers’
block
Not really. If I’m stuck on a particular aspect of how I
want to tell the story, I’ll just skip those chapters and move on the next part
of the story as if the difficult part was already written. It kind of writes
itself then.
NOW FOR SOME RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS
coffee or tea or other
Coffee
Do you google yourself
No but I google my books to see how many pirates sites
they are on.
If you had a superpower
what would it be
Time Travel
Favourite junk food
Ben and Jerry’s Everything but the… Flavor
last but not least I ask
every author this question
What would you say to
any aspiring writer out there?
Write. Join groups. Not writing groups, join zombie
groups. Or Vampire. Or Scottish Romance or whatever it is you are into. If you
can’t write a novel just yet, write a short story and publish it on Amazon.
Sell it for .99. There is a huge learning curve if you want be a successful
writer. Anyone can write and any garbage can be published on Amazon. You have
to be decent enough to rise above the rest. If you don’t know whether you are
any good or not, publish and push it out there and wait for the reviews from strangers.
They usually tell the truth.
Where can we stalk you
at?
Easiest is the David
Simpson Fan Club on Facebook
The books are available
on Amazon
I have a website and
author page and all that but they are woefully neglected. The fan club is where
I hang out and post the latest news. The
admin is always having contests and I’m always giving away some pretty good
swag. Anyone that leaves reviews gets wristbands. (make sure you let me know!!)
We usually have stuffed Zombies or sugar skulls or shot glasses or something
cool for winners.
No comments:
Post a Comment