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RayGarton View Drop Down
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Joined: July/16/2008
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote RayGarton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August/30/2008 at 11:38pm
Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, but I've been immersed in finishing BESTIAL. It absolutely MUST be in my editor's computer when he arrives at work on Tuesday morning. I just wrote the last line late Saturday afternoon. I'm exhausted. I've been working non-stop for a month. Now I've got to spend the next couple of days on a quick edit and then it's out of my hair. I need a break, a change of scenery, and some exercise.

BESTIAL is very different than RAVENOUS (it's the sequel). While RAVENOUS was a fairly traditional werewolf story (except that the werewolf curse is a sexually-transmitted virus), BESTIAL is a pretty wild, out-in-left-field story. In fact, one might even call it a horror comedy.

If I see another werewolf again for the rest of my natural life, it'll be way too soon. Heh-heh.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote FinalExam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August/31/2008 at 2:52am
Glad to hear you've finished and your fans can look forward to a new by you soon.

I was curious: I was recently reading how John Saul's publisher has a clause in his contract that they are only obligated to buy books he writes in the horror/thriller genre, kind of discouraging him from experimenting outside of that. Do you find it difficult to work outside the genre for which you've become known? Do you feel pressure from your publishers to sort of recycle what has already proven successful?

I'm just wondering, I myself prefer the horror/fantasy genre, but the two ideas for novels that are picking at me the most lately, sort of pestering me to write them, are both outside that genre. Specifically in two different genres in which I feel the least comfortable, one a love story, the other a murder mystery. I feel I'm very weak at both those genres, but the ideas won't go away.
We are not strangers to ourselves, we only try to be. --Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote RayGarton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August/31/2008 at 9:26am
Because I've been writing horror for so long, it's very, very hard for me to sell anything else. It's not contractual, that's just the way it is in publishing. Once you're successfully pigeonholed, it's extremely difficult to break free of that. The sad fact about horror is that, while it will always be a popular genre among readers and filmgoers, as a viable way for a full-time writer to make a living, it's as dead as the Lindbergh baby. Leisure is one of the very, very, very few publishers still publishing horror under the word "horror." There's horror out there, but the "H" word has become so undesirable that nobody uses it anymore. That's why I'm going to start writing things outside the genre under a pseudonym. When I say this, people usually respond with, "You're leaving horror?" I doubt I would ever abandon the genre -- even when I write non-horror fiction, it usually ends up having horrific elements. But I need to focus on non-genre work for awhile because horror has become a publishing ghetto.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote FinalExam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August/31/2008 at 9:39am
It is a shame. I think horror has great potential, if people would just not look down on it. Even writers who have become famous for horror balk at having their work described at horror. I miss the days when there was a lot of horror out there, I loved the Dell Abyss line.

I hate that publishers and even some readers see a writer doing one thing and don't want to see them try anything else. We writers want to explore a lot of different types of stories. When I read Grisham's legal thrillers now, I get this sense that he is so tired of these kinds of stories, but that is what his audience demands. I feel he really comes alive as a writer now when he gets to stretch himself.

In any case, if you do publish some non-horror novels under a pseudonym let us know so we can check it out. I'm going to read Live Girls after I'm done with Odd Hours and Devereaux's Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes. One of yours that I'm really interested in is Sex and Violence in Hollywood, but I'm kind of broke so I keep hoping I'll come across a cheap used copy.
We are not strangers to ourselves, we only try to be. --Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote GeneB Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July/02/2009 at 6:19am
I just read Ray's LIVE GIRLS, and I must say it was the best Vampire story I've ever read...like the Anita books but better.
Good job, RAY!! (If you are still around!)
Ask me about DEAN KOONTZ Forum T-shirts. Cool.

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