Lorne Dixon is the author of dozens of short stories appearing in various magazines and anthologies, such as +The Horror Library+ Volume’s II & III, Bound for Evil, Potter’s Field 3, Lilith Unbound and Dead Science.  This year featured the release of Lorne’s debut novella, Snarl, followed by his novel, The Lifeless, both from Coscom Entertainment.

Aside from crafting some amazingly-written fiction, Lorne has proven what’s possible when good writers follow the basics:  focus, determination, and an unfailing desire to succeed, to constantly hone his ability to tell a tale.  His stories are often memorable, always affecting.  If you’ve yet to read Lorne’s work, you’ve missed out on a real treat.  Pick up a copy today and remember his name.  You’ll undoubtedly hear it again in the future.  Some things are just inevitable.

Visit him online at lornedixon.blogspot.com

Lorne, it's clear from your fiction that you've been doing this for a while.  Take us back to how it all started.  When did the writing bug first sink its teeth in you?

Growing up in rural New Jersey in the days of the Odyssey 2 game system, imagination went a long way for a kid.  A fallen tree limb became a rifle and a roughly square flat rock became first base.  There wasn’t much in our childhood games that wasn’t imaginary out of necessity.  And we lived too far from most of our classmates, so most of the time it was just my sister and I and the kids who lived next door.  One day, my sister came home from school—grades four through eight were in a different schoolhouse from us lowly second graders—and began telling “campfire” horror stories she’d heard at school.  Today we’d call these “urban legends”.  I remember her telling all of the classics—the Man with the Hook, the Swinging Date, the Spider Egg Coat story… all of them.  I was absolutely captivated.  Then we set out to write our own.  And while I didn’t get much accomplished that afternoon, I never really stopped.

Any particular influences—either writers or otherwise—who helped steer you in this direction?

My access to books was limited growing up.  There was the Book Mobile’s annual visit, of course, but outside Bunnicula and Choose Your Own Adventure titles, there wasn’t much that captured my attention.  The local library was even more frustrating.  Then one summer I discovered yard sales.  One of the great staples of the yard sale was the paperback.  I bought horror titles whenever I found them.  The first was The Glow by Brooks Stanwood.  It took an entire summer to read and probably wouldn’t really hold up well if I were to read it today, but back then it was a revelation.  Eventually I found a copy of Carrie by King and the first Shadows anthology by Charles Grant.  The Shadows collections destroyed me.  I can’t begin to describe how much I love those books.  Then in high school, H. P. Lovecraft became a fixation, just as he does to everyone who feels like an outsider at that age.  Flash forward to the mid-90s.  I discovered Kathe Koja, Brian Hodge, and Poppy Z. Brite.  They blew my mind again, changing the game, upping the ante.  Hodge is my absolutely biggest influence, though I wouldn’t dare place myself anywhere near his genius.

Thinking back to the books and authors you loved when you were younger, how do they compare to what moves or influences you today as a writer?  Have your tastes changed over the years?

I don’t think my tastes have changed, not really.  But now I enjoy a lot more than I did before.  I’ve gone beyond all the nonsense—I can’t obsess over “splatterpunk” or get all snickety-pompous about “torture porn” or pine for a return to “quiet horror”.  I love the whole genre—though not everything that is produced inside it—too much to fret over all that.  I’ll leave that for the people just discovering horror fiction.  If the back cover synopsis is compelling, I’ll give it a try, probably.  Except if it’s vampires.  Never had a taste for that, still don’t.

Many writers describe the time before selling their first story as long, arduous, and somewhat discouraging.  How does your experience compare?

That depends on what you consider a “sale”.  I “sold” a couple stories back in high school to punk ‘zines and photocopied fanzines.  I remember holding an illegible copy of Nocturnal Lyric magazine in my hands and thinking that having a short story printed inside it was the greatest thing ever.  The truth is, though, that I always knew that I wouldn’t really sell stories until I put much more time and work into it and treated it seriously.  For too many years I tinkered, talked about writing, and didn’t produce much.  So I was never in a position to be discouraged—I knew damn well I was to blame.  About four years ago I was fired from a retail management gig and suddenly had too much free time on my hands.  I made a promise to myself to make an honest, all-out drive to accomplish some specific goals.  It all started with writing every day.  It paid off almost immediately.

Were family and friends supportive of your decision to pursue this early on, as well as over the years?

Until recently, I’m not sure any friends or family expected anything to come of it at all, but they never went out of their way to discourage me.  I think most assumed it was a harmless hobby.  It wouldn’t have mattered if they tried to steer me away from it anyway.  I’m pretty hard-headed.  Today, I’ve got lots of support and that’s all that’s important.

After many sales and many years spent submitting to short fiction markets, have you noticed any trends or changes in the marketplace over time (either in the proliferation—or contraction—of markets themselves or the kind of fiction they seek)?

We’re in the golden age of the small press, but no one ever mentions it.  Small press publishers, indie magazines, online sites—they have a longer shadow than ever before.  I personally think there are more opportunities out there today than ever before, but it’s also much more competitive.  Maybe not so much at the “for the love” end of the genre pool, but there are tons of writers chasing paying gigs.  That all leads to a world where versatility and diligence are deadly important.  Editors love to work with writers who can compose a story around a theme.  Writing to guidelines is a skill every writer who wants an advantage in the marketplace should pursue.  Repackaging the same story over and over to submit and resubmit is completely at odds with how the market works at the moment.  Editors want clean, oven-fresh stories every time, not something that’s clearly made the rounds.  Never send out trunk stories.  Keep them buried unless you particularly enjoy collecting form rejection letters.

A recurring aspect in much of your work—whether dealing with werewolves, the undead, or the creepier, emotionally drenched subjects in your shorter fiction—is a lineup of well-developed, multi-layered characters that pull readers more deeply into the tale.  How do you typically approach a story at the outset?  Do you initially build off of one particular component (character, plot, etc.)?

Compelling characters are the lynchpin of good fiction.  There’s no doubt about it.  When we talk about readers “following the plot”, we’re really talking about the reader following the protagonist.  Some experimental fiction has gotten away from this, and there’s a market for that, I suppose, but in general, from a working point of view, there’s no substantial difference between plot and character.  They can’t exist without each other.  So I guess that’s always the starting point.  But I never begin writing before I know the whole story and the themes underneath.  I don’t outline, this is all an internal process.  Sometimes incidental details tug a story away from its original design—and that’s healthy, I think—but mostly, a story’s finished before I start typing.  I just have to match words up to the ideas.

Your debut novella, Snarl, was released by Coscom Entertainment in early 2009.  Tell us about the experience of selling your first book.  Was it something you had been attempting to do for a while?

Actually, no.  I’d been working on a novel for about a decade and it was a mess.  Some good ideas, maybe, but a mess.  Unpublishable, that’s for sure.  But my short stories were getting stronger—and selling.  That’s where I focused, on short stories.  So, anyway, Coscom puts out a call for classic monster novella and novel queries.  I ignore the listing for almost a month.  I don’t write monsters, I thought, and anyway, I have nothing to send.  Very close to the deadline, I decide to toss a query out there and see what happened.  Worst case scenario, I figure, they’ll ask for sample chapters and a synopsis and I’ll slam those out.  A.P. Fuchs, maestro of Coscom Entertainment, came back with a different answer than I expected, something along the lines of “Sounds good, send the entire manuscript up”.  So, I wrote SNARL in nine days and sent it up north.  After some adjustments, including a more intense ending, the novella was sold.  It all felt very surreal.

Coscom didn't waste any time snagging your second book—The Lifeless, also out in 2009 (August).  Tell us a bit about this book, as well as how it ended up seeing the light of day so quickly.
  
Around the release date of SNARL, A.P. and I were exchanging emails almost daily.  At the bottom of one email, he included a line that read “You know, something zombie from you could be huge”, or something similar.  So, I called him on it and asked if he was serious about a zombie novel submission.  He was, so I brainstormed.  There were things I didn’t want to do.  THE LIFELESS isn’t a shoot-‘em-up survivalist thing.  I have nothing to add to that sort of thing, though I do read and enjoy them, so I had to think: what would I want to do with the living dead.  And that sent me back to Night of the Living Dead and the siege story.  I’ve also always wanted to express my high school experience and it seemed a good fit.  In some ways, Lifeless is my attempt to correct the fantasy aspects of The Breakfast Club.  Those kids wouldn’t wind up friends, no way.  Finally, I decided to use many of our national tragedies as a reference point: 9/11, Columbine, Katrina.  The writing itself came easily and I found myself holding a finished draft in early Spring.  By the last days of Summer, Coscom had it out in the market.  One of the benefits of having done SNARL together was an understanding of Coscom’s preferences while I was writing.  We didn’t need to do as much tinkering later on.

Now that you've had some success in longer fiction, do you still have the same desire to explore short stories?  How do you see yourself devoting most of your writing time in the future?

Honestly, this is impossible to answer.  I like short stories but they don’t provide very good return on investment.  So, mostly, the shorts would have to be written for projects close to my heart.  I don’t see myself writing too many this year—maybe six, at most.  But I’ll be busy.

Are there any particular goals that you've set for yourself at this stage in your career?  If I said you could start writing full-time tomorrow, how quickly would you take me up on the offer?

Make that offer and see; I wouldn’t mind having a benefactor.  I have a pet project I’d like to write.  It’s a very fresh idea in the genre.  But it’s not a monster novel, so it falls outside the scope of what Coscom publishes.  So, my big goal is to get that novel written and find it a good home.  This won’t happen soon, though, as I’m working on other projects at the moment.

So what's in the works?  Any books-in-progress you could tease us with?

I’m working my way through a new novel but I can’t say too much about it at this point.  It’s a monster book but it’s probably not what you’d think.  In the meanwhile, I have a story in PS Press’ Darkness on the Edge: Tales Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen, edited by Harrison Howe.  I share a table of contents with many of my heroes: Elizabeth Massie, Gary Braunbeck, Tom Piccirilli, and Sarah Langan.  There are some other projects I’m attached to, but sadly, I cannot announce them yet.

Lorne, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us.  It's been a pleasure.
  
Any time.