DEAD ROSES SPECIAL: NIGHT TWO: INTERVIEW WITH EDWARD LORN

Welcome to night two of the Dead Roses Special week.

Tonight sees the first author interview with the fantastic Edward Lorn. He will be answering some general questions about himself and his writing and then some specific questions about Cinder Block, his story in the book.

Of course, at the end, Edward will take on The Ten Confessions!

Grab your drink, settle down with a HUGE pepperoni and salami pizza (that's exactly what I'm having now!).......and enjoy!

COAF - So tell everyone a bit about yourself in general?

EL - I’m a husband and a father. I’ve been with my wife for fifteen years, and my kids are, currently, nine and two, but they both have birthdays coming up in April. My family is the best thing about me.

COAF - Why writing? Why decide on that as a career?

EL - I have a face for radio and a voice for writing. Besides, how else am I to get people to pay me for lying to them? But, on a serious note, who wouldn’t choose writing as a career, you know, given the option? If you could get paid to make shit up all day, wouldn’t you?

COAF - Cruelty is a series of yours with a rather interesting murderer. How did you come up with the idea for this and the continuing ideas to sustain the series?

EL - Baby dolls scare me. Some people are afraid of clowns; I’m afraid of dolls. The problem with that is, dolls are notoriously small. Nothing to be scared of, really. So I decided to create a killer that was literally a life-sized baby doll. Then I named it Cruelty and gave it a fondness for dismemberment. Cute, right?

COAF - Take us through your process for a story. How do you start it and follow through to the final product?

EL - I start writing and don’t stop until I’m finished. I’m not trying to be funny, either. That’s honestly my process. Whatever comes out, comes out. More often than not, what comes out isn’t fit for anything but the bin, but now and again I’ll get lucky and it will be something of which I’m proud. I find that if you question too hard where your inspiration comes from, your muse takes it as a cue that you want to play a game of Hide and Go Fuck Yourself.

COAF - What’s the most difficult part of writing for you?

EL - The actual act of writing. I’ve had four back surgeries since 2005 (one every three years) and sitting in a chair for more than an hour is murder on my moneymaker. I’ve been known to put myself in the emergency room with my writing marathons. I don’t notice the pain while I’m writing, and see no reason to stop. But once I snap out of that trance, brother, I’m toast.

COAF - I know you have a Stephen King novel as your number one in your top twenty but who are some of your favourite authors or authors you would consider to be influential in your writing?

EL - Richard Laymon taught me a great deal about pacing. I don’t think I’ve ever been bored while reading one of his novels. I took a great deal of my character development cues from Robert McCammon and Dean Koontz (back when Koontz didn’t write the same novel every year). Bentley Little and Stephen Laws are two more that helped me along the way. My personal favorite right now is Joe Hill. I’m really looking forward to The Fireman.

COAF - Do you prefer short stories or full length novels? Which do you think you get more out of?

EL - I love writing short stories, but prefer to read novels. I think that might stem from a bit of performance anxiety. I’m always terrified I’ve gone on too long. And then I get comments from readers about how they wished [insert story title here] were longer.

COAF - Do you ever regret telling the story about your “fictional” brother dying when you were in school, aged 7? What did you get out of that?

EL - Nah, I never regret it. It’s part of who I was, who I am. I told that story because I like garnering reactions from people. Even if someone hates my work, at least I inspired that hatred. I did that. I caused that. Maybe that sounds like the ramblings of an unstable mind, but I like knowing I can affect people. And I’m a bit of an attention whore. I’m better nowadays, but when I was a kid, it was all about “Look at me! Look at me!”

COAF - What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

EL - Minecraft and audiobooks. Both. At the same time. That’s probably my favorite thing right now. Has been for the past year. It allows me to decompress.

COAF - What’s coming in the future from Edward Lorn?

EL - The final episode of Cruelty is on the horizon. I have some rewrites I need to wrap up, so people can look forward to that come mid-April… if not sooner. The second novel in my Larry Laughlin series should finally be seeing the light of day this Spring. That one’s titled Pennies for the Damned and will be coming out courtesy of Red Adept Publishing. I also have another short story collection that will drop this year, and I’ve submitted two new novels to publishers.

COAF - Moving on to Dead Roses, give us your take on Cinder Block. What did you want it to convey?

EL - All too often sociopaths and psychopaths are confused with one another. Yeah, they both can commit murder without compunction, but their minds function differently. Psychopaths plan, while sociopaths are spontaneous. It is also believed that psychopaths are born the way they are, while sociopaths are born out of environment. While doing a little background study on sociopaths, I found out two rather interesting facts. Sociopaths do not “love” the same way the rest of society does. Their idea of love is ownership. “This is mine. I love it because it is mine.” I thought that fit the theme of “twisted love” that Evans and the rest of the crew was shooting for. And, finally, most sociopaths see nothing wrong with how they act or what they do, while a psychopath will try not to get caught. That interested me very much.

COAF - Toby certainly had a psychotic anger in him. How do you switch your mind from husband and father to your character’s mind to portray the evil? Does it come easy?

EL - We’ve all been so angry that we’ve wanted to break something we don’t really want to see broken. The moment overcomes us, we just happen to be holding something heavy, that something heavy gets flung across the room, and BAM! Grandma’s glamor shot is nothing but shattered glass and regret. I think Toby is simply a more extreme version of that knee-jerk reaction. He was mad, and nothing in his general vicinity was safe.

COAF - When I read this story I was struck by the way you manage to get the reader to almost know everything about Toby and how he thinks, acts and his psyche and make up in very little words. How do you do this? Do you find it more difficult in a short story?

EL - The most interesting part of all of us is our faults. Beauty and perfection and societal norms are boring. Our flaws make us who we are. I think all character development comes down to finding the right flaw and shining a light on it. It makes the reader think, “Oh, this guy’s not perfect. Hell, he’s a bit like me, or this other someone I know, or this friend or family member.” Perfection is not relatable because it doesn’t exist in society. Show me ugly, show me insanity, show me different, and I’ll show you a story.

COAF - Again when reading this, the effectiveness of the “crime scene” and the manner in which it was carried out was fantastic while being a bit minimalistic. Why take this approach instead of say, an all-out blood fest?

EL - It’s the age-old cheat of letting the reader create the horror. I give you the tools and point you in the right direction, but you have to do the rest. Two of the most horrific scenes I’ve ever written were truly rather sparse. One of them is in Bay’s End and the other is in Hope for the Wicked. I give the reader very little information, but reviews swear up and down that I gave the most graphic descriptions. I didn’t. But it makes me smile that they think I did. I’d like to sit down with those people and pick their brains. I think their caverns are much darker than mine.

COAF - I’m interested to know if any of the characters in this story are based on real people?

EL - Everybody in my stories are based on real people. Everybody. And that’s all I can say on the subject.

THE TEN CONFESSIONS

1 Who would you view as your main competitor in the writing world?

Gregor Xane. Watch out for that guy.

2 What book or author have you read that you think should never have been published?

Hitler.

3 Are any of the things your characters have experienced in your books been based on something that has actually happened to you? What was it?

They are too numerous to list. I would hazard a guess that everything in my work has either happened to me or someone I know. Aside from the supernatural stuff, of course.

4 Have you ever blatantly stolen an idea or scene and adapted it for one of your own books? If so, care to share?

Not consciously. I once tried to copy a Hardy Boy’s book when I was six or seven, but I grew bored after the second line. I’ve been writing my own content ever since.

5 Have you ever anonymously left a bad review for someone else’s book? If so, care to share?

No. I’ve left plenty of negative reviews on the interwebs and they all bear my name.

6 What’s the one thing you are least proud of doing in your life and why?

I had a rather nasty bout with drug addiction before I met my wife. I don’t like to recall those days. I made quite a few enemies of good people, and I wish I hadn’t let them down.

7 What’s the one thing you are MOST proud of doing in your life and why?

Being a father.

8 What’s your biggest fault?

My ego.

9 What is your biggest fear?

That can actually hurt me? Spiders. If we’re going with irrational fears, I’ll take dolls for $1000, Alex.

10 If you had to go to confession now, what would be the one thing you would need to get off your chest?

My bra.

THE END

My huge thanks to Edward for agreeing to take part in this interview and for giving up his valuable time to provide this insight into the man behind the stories.

Check out all of E's other books below. You won't be disappointed. The man can seriously write.........and he's a top dude as well!

You can see more of Edward at his website.

Edward's author page is here.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for night three when I will have another interview for you in this Dead Roses Special, this time with Jason Parent.