The
Writer’s Blog welcomes the inimitable William Cook! Please tell us a little about
yourself.
William Cook:
Hi and thanks for having me here
Donald. I like to think of myself as primarily a writer first and an artist
second. I live in New Zealand at the foot of the world, happily married with
four daughters, in charge of the house and looking after the two youngest girls.
I have been writing weird stories ever since I was a kid. My first published
works were poems in various literary journals in NZ and a few in the States.
Back in 1996 I published a collection of verse titled 'Journey: The Search for
Something' and had the occasional poem and short story published online, but
nothing really of note until 2010 when Lee Pletzers from Triskaideka Books accepted
my story 'The Devil Inside' for the 2010 Masters of Horror Anthology. I have
always loved the Horror genre and dark literature, so this really inspired me
to write what I loved rather than what I thought other people wanted to read
and it has finally started to pay off. The thing I love about the
Horror/Thriller genres is that a good story will get your pulse racing and your
heart thumping. I feel it is the best medium to create a world where the reader
feels alive because they are experiencing fear of some sort. Sounds sadistic I
know, but I personally find that no other genre gives me the thrills I seek
when I immerse myself in a fictional world. I have since had quite a few Horror
shorts published in various anthologies.
My novel 'Blood Related,' was
re-released by Black Bed Sheet Books Halloween 2012. Writing it was a labor of
love and took me roughly six years to write and it wasn't until I changed
day-jobs that I had the time to bring it all together as my debut novel. The
novel is about a disturbed young man called Caleb Cunningham, whose violent
father is a suspected serial killer and mother, an insane alcoholic. After his
father's suicide, Cunningham's disturbing fantasy-life becomes reality, as he
begins his killing spree in earnest. His identical twin brother Charlie is
released from an asylum and all hell is about to break loose, when the brothers
combine their deviant talents. Blood Related is a serial-killer/crime novel
told in a first-person narrative style from the killer's (Caleb's) point-of-view.
I have been privileged to have
authors I look up to, give me feedback on Blood Related. People like Jonathan
Nasaw, Guy N Smith, Laird Barron, Mark Edward Hall, John Paul Allen, and
Nicholas Grabowsky, have all been kind enough to read and review my work -
something I would never have believed possible until now.
Not
only a talented author, but you are also an excellent artist. Tell us what it
is like to create such gruesome works of art.
William Cook:
Well it all depends on the work of course but generally
speaking, for some reason I can’t explain, my preference has always been
depicting darkly ghoulish things. I have recently moved away from using traditional
painting/drawing methods and now do 90% of all my work with Photoshop and
digital mediums. I get my inspiration from my dreams and the various
pop-cultural works I peruse, i.e. film, comics, fiction and music. I will
usually start with a small sketch in a notebook or write down an idea of an
art-piece that comes to mind (descriptively) before taking digital photographs
of textures, trees, people and other subjects that interest me. I’ll then bring
everything together via Photoshop and use it to add darkness, depth and
dimension to my original vision. It is hardly ever reproduced physically apart
from the occasional print or book cover so I like to call it my ‘virtual dark
art.’ With each passing year I am less interested in the visceral gore-infused
stuff that I used to produce, instead, I am leaning towards ‘quiet’ horror
these days and subtlety is something I strive for in both my visual and written
work.
Blood
Related was your first novel and, arguably, most controversial work to date.
Explain how you were able to get into the minds of the two main characters.
William Cook:
Blood Related combined a lifelong interest in the macabre
with a lot of research into true crime and serial killers. I can trace my
interest in this morbid subject to an event in my life when I was younger,
whereby my best friend shot another friend of mine (his ex-girlfriend) and then
killed himself. Obviously, this would leave a lasting impression on most people
as it did to me. Subsequently I began to wonder why a large percentage of
humans treat each other so badly and have a tendency towards self-destruction
and nihilistic behavior. This aspect of my inquiring mind is constantly
reinforced (the questions) by the media who use such occurrences to perpetually
sensationalize ‘news’ and by our so-called leaders who use fear to drive
political agendas. The politics of fear are very much a staple diet of
news-hungry consumers who seem to relish lurid accounts of human cruelty and abuse,
and (so it seems) probably the same reasons fiction is full of the horrors of
human behavior.
There are plenty of fictional books that deal
with the subject of serial murder and during the research I conducted for BR, a
perceptible ‘canon’ of such literature dating all the way back to Gutenberg and
beyond (The Bible/Quran etc) became apparent to me. Apart from being of
interest for research purposes, serial killer fiction has always intrigued me
and some of the first ‘adult’ books I ever read as a young teenager dealt with
the subject. Probably the two biggest influences on my writing of BR were Colin
Wilson’s ‘The Killer’ and James Ellroy’s brutal ‘Killer on the Road.’ I have
always wanted to write a first-person novel and the six years I spent writing
BR were the result of this desire. I never thought the book would see the light
of day but it all seemed to come together quickly when I bought a new lap-top
and within three months of shopping it around to various indie presses it was
published. I’m not sure that I would write another first-person serial killer
novel as it (the subject matter and the book) consumed my thoughts for a long
time. I found it a lot more disturbing to write about psychopathic humans than
I do writing tales of horror that deal with more supernatural and fantastical
elements. The most frightening aspect, to writing BR and creating believable
characterizations of serial killers, is how easy it was to contemplate and
describe such characters and their sordid crimes. BR lends itself to a sequel and
I have made sure that the next book will be told in the third person, for the
sake of my own sanity.
You are
also quite the poet, having released two collections: Moment of Freedom and
Temper of the Tide. How does one achieve true feeling in verse?
William Cook:
Before I began writing stories I wrote poems. The first
‘real’ poem I remember was Blake’s ‘Tyger’ and I have enjoyed reading and
writing verse ever since. My first published work was in verse-form and my
first published book was a collection of my poems back in 1996, titled
‘Journey: the Search for Something.’ The verse has nearly always ‘written
itself’ and generally comes after periods of introspection or strong emotional
experience. Most of my early work was terrible heart-wrought angst spewed onto
the page as fast as I could write it and thankfully, with a bit of experience
and a more temperate lifestyle, I have stopped referring to my emotions when I
write poetry. ‘True feeling’ is a completely subjective experience, both on and
off the page; the only thing I can suggest in response to your question is that
honesty needs to be employed when writing poetry that deals with emotion or the
translation thereof. Cadence is also important and I have always tried to use
onomatopoeia in my verse in order to convey the ‘sense’ of whatever it is I’m
trying to impart. Simplicity is also important; there is no point writing
convoluted expressionistic verse, if no one is ever going to understand what it
is you are trying to say! After writing poetry for over twenty years I think I
have finally began to find my voice and I think it is important to have your
own voice as a poet, in a medium so canonically reliant on style and form. In
other words, write from the heart with the mind as your guiding light, in a
voice of your own making. Easier said than done, right?
Tell us
about your work with JWK Fiction. What advice would you give writers looking to
submit stories?
William Cook:
JWK Fiction [http://jwkfiction.com/] has published quite a
few poems and short stories of mine and I’m happy to recommend James and the
team to any aspiring writer of Horror and Speculative fiction. I think that a
large part of having stories accepted for publication in the indie presses, is
to write well (obviously) and to read the submission guidelines carefully. A
lot of writers out there have a hard-drive full of stories that they want to
see published, make sure the story you submit is what the publisher is looking
for. It sounds basic but if you’re going to spend time tailoring a previously
written story to fit a submission call you may as well start fresh and write
something new with the guidelines in mind. I made this mistake (reanimating old
work) when I was first starting out and the rejections came in thick and fast,
as soon as I started writing fresh stories for specific guidelines I started
having success with my submissions. If you submit a lot of stories I would also
suggest keeping a record of your subs including story titles, word counts and
dates etc. It saves embarrassment and time wasting if you’re simultaneously
submitting stories and then having to remember if they’ve been accepted
elsewhere etc.
Who are
your three favorite authors and how have they influenced your work?
William Cook:
Robert Bloch, Flannery O’Connor, Sherwood Anderson (I have
more than three). I love the way they convey human emotion, particularly fear,
through the short story medium. They are the writers of psychological drama who
I enjoy reading the most. Without reading these writers I probably would have
never written short stories – very inspirational and efficient writers, who
better to emulate.
What are you working on right now?
William Cook:
I am midway through the sequel to Blood Related titled
‘Blood Trail’, finishing edits on an anthology that JWK Fiction is publishing
called ‘Fresh Fear’ [http://www.williamcookwriter.com/p/blog-page_26.html] with
stories from the likes of Ramsey Campbell, Billie Sue Mosiman, JF Gonzalez,
Jack Dann, Robert Dunbar, amongst others, and working on two separate
collections of my short fiction and poetry.
Thank you for joining us on The Writer's Blog, William. We look forward to more horrific masterpieces to come...
You can find William Cook's literary works here:
Website:
Online Portfolio:
Bio:
William Cook is a writer of the macabre from New
Zealand, a small antipodean island group in the South Pacific. When not
writing, he looks after two small daughters and designs book covers that are
designed to scare the hell out of people. Having held down a multitude of jobs
before becoming a "Domestic Manager", he brings to his writing a vast
array of experience that translates to the page in the form of strange
characters and situations that bleed horror. From slinging timber in lumber
yards, cutting plastic film in a meat packaging company, making rat-poison and
acid cleaning products, working on a prawn trawler in the Gulf of Carpenteria,
selling ads, and teaching English in Korea, to name a few of the roles he has
performed - being a starving writer of Horror fiction seemed like a completely
viable occupation.
Currently working on a sequel to his debut novel
'Blood related', titled 'Blood Trail', it is due for completion mid-year and
for publication by his amazing publisher Black Bed Sheet Books sometime in the
hereafter.
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