Confessions of my Past, Present and Future
by
Dominic Stabile
The Past
As a kid, I read everything from biographies to random instalments
of Hank the Cowdog. I didn’t go
looking for any particular genre. If the cover was enticing, I’d read it. In middle
school I discovered the Goosebumps
books and that was my first literary foray into the world of horror. I specify
“literary” because I had watched tons of horror movies.
My mom has always been a fan of the old horror flicks,
especially Creature from the Black Lagoon.
I was pretty much allowed to watch anything, as long as it was the edited for
cable version: Night of the Living Dead,
Fright Night, The Lost Boys, Silver Bullet.
I was watching these movies while reading anything and everything. Inevitably,
these parallel interests intersected, and I began to select books with covers
that depicted monsters, haunted houses, and graveyards.
I remember standing in line at some bookstore, begging my
mom for roughly ten minutes to buy me Knee
Deep in the Dead by Dafydd ab Hugh, the first of four novelizations based
on the Doom games. The edition I
waved frantically in her face that day depicted the iconic image of a man in
badass combat/space armor, firing a futuristic weapon into a parade of slavering
demons, as they closed in on him. I still love those books shamelessly. And their
combination of action and horror still influences my work today.
High school was a reading drought for me. I read a little; Stephen King’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes and Night Shift stand out, along with some random Poe stories, but I was more interested in drumming for a throwback grunge band and playing video games than reading.
It wasn’t until college that I learned I had a knack for
interpreting poetry and fiction, and for writing it, too. I was an uneasy
college student, constantly worrying about whether I was “on the right path.” I
was always looking for what I was “meant to do.” When my instructors started
leaving notes of encouragement on my English papers, I took it as a sign to
pursue being a writer.
Around that time, my girlfriend had bought a collection
of Lovecraft fiction, and we read The
Rats in the Walls together. That was my “I can do that” moment.
The Present
I miss the days when I would walk into a bookstore, grab
a book that looked good, and read it. These days, my reading is usually more
purposeful. If I’m working on one of my Stone stories, I tend to read a lot of
noir authors like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, as well as random noir/tech-noir
stories I find through Kindle, etc.
If I’m working on a shootout scene, I always go back to
Joe Lansdale’s Deadman’s Road. Stone
is always up against a roomful of monsters or the like, and I find The Gentleman’s Hotel to be particularly
instructional in writing a fight scene with multiple characters/assailants. If
I’m writing straightforward Horror, I like to return to the Stephen Jones Mammoth books for atmosphere, and
authors like Laymon and Keene for the more visceral moments.
I’m also trying to keep up with the books of my fellow
authors at Mirror Matter Press and Sinister Grin Press, as well as other
authors I’ve met through social media (and hope to meet in person). My to-read
pile currently consists of Mayan Blue
by The Sisters of Slaughter (actually just finished), Every Kingdom Divided by Stephen Kozeniewski, Empty by Ty Arthur, Children
of the Dark by Jonathan Janz, and many many others.
The Future
In twenty-nine years I will be sixty. I will have given
up drinking and bad food long before, which will have allowed me to cultivate
the Olympian body I always knew I was meant for. Hey, it’s my imagining, right?
Seriously, I hope to have reached a state of ease and balance in my writing. I
always feel that I’m not doing enough, and it sometimes makes it difficult to
enjoy non-writing times or to accept the necessity of the day job. I have
gotten much better at this since taking Lansdale’s wonderful advice, which he
offers through his Facebook page. He basically says to set a realistic schedule
and writing goal. I set out for three pages a day, writing early in the morning
or after work. If I get that, I can relax. I just need to work on consistently
getting it or accepting that some days it’s not going to happen.
I have plans for the future of my character, Stone. I
have a contract with Mirror Matter Press to do a follow-up novel to Stone Work,
and I hope to do many more after. I would also like to write some longer
straightforward horror works, as right now most of my horror has been published
in short story form. I was recently asked to be on the writing crew for Manor
House Productions, writing scripts for their dark audio dramas. I would love to
write roughly a million of those by 2045. My Weird Western, Full Moon in the West, is soon to come
from Grinning Skull Press, and I am entertaining the idea of turning that
concept into a series, as well. I will always write, so, if I’m still alive in
2045, God-willing, that’s what I’ll be doing.
You can buy Stone Work here:
You can buy any of Dominic’s other books here.
If you would like to help support Confessions of a
Reviewer, then please consider using the links below to buy any of the
books mentioned in this feature. This not only supports me but also lets
me know how many people actually like to buy books after reading my
reviews.
Thanks.
Dominic Stabile's short fiction has appeared in
Fossil Lake III: Unicornado!, Sanitarium Magazine, The Horror Zine, Atticus
Review, Far Horizons, and has been adapted as a radio play by Manor House
Productions. He has held jobs as a warehouse worker, cashier, bookstore associate,
textbook manager, and carpenter. He’s a born southerner, transplanted to
Penobscot, Maine by a desperate desire to escape retail work. When not writing
or reading, he enjoys horror, sci-fi, and noir films, westerns, and bourbon.
And for more about Dominic, visit his site or find him on
social media:
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Goodreads – Amazon Page
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