Presenting some
of the best Short Stories by M.A. Walters. A Combination of Science
Fiction and Horror delights in the following sections:
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M.
A. Walters is a science fiction, horror novelist and short story writer.
He is at times a happy genre jumper into other quirky realms. M.A. has
been away from fiction writing for awhile due to a past marriage, graduate
studies, work, and other dangerous pursuits. Ill health landed him on
his computer chair a few years back and the long commutes and coffee
drenched 14-16 hour days in the California silicone valley came to a
screeching halt. Now adays the walk to the mailbox is wrought with enough
peril and adventure, ( Maine ice).
- What can you tell us about your new book The Rocks Beneath?
I can tell you what I think of it but I'm more interested in what others think it is. On one level it's a hard driving fast paced adventure Sci Fi. However it's character driven and there are deep collisions of personalities and ideas in this action. These are personalities defining and creating the direction and course of their own history. The story is about cross roads that define a race. It's about the dark roads civilization can too often take and the damage that it inflicts on it's own self.
- Where did the idea for this story come?
I wish I knew how to answer that. The manner in which a story comes is a kind of mysterious thing. I think writers, particularly poets are modernity's answer to shamanism, it's something old you see, the storyteller functions as such. We may have technology but in fact it's the same as sitting around the campfire and spinning myth to explain the world. I think most writers are at least a bit mystified by the process of writing if they are honest. I find that character and story have an odd life of their own.
That said observation of life has a lot to do with it. Looking at the world in an objective way and realizing that most of the values we claim to embrace are decidedly not how the world functions. Remember the things we hopefully learned as children like sharing? How often do we see this practiced in daily life? When we see this a tension arises, a very creative kind of tension.
A writer needs to dive below the propaganda and this is something that all cultures practice knowingly or not our ethnocentrisms are our propagandas. We all want to believe them. I don't think this is necessarily bad, it's natural and we all try and twist the world into fitting our pre-conceived notions, especially if there is something we want and think we some how disserve. This happens naturally and serves a protective function but its also very dangerous and deceptive when it becomes the tool of power and privilege, then it can truly become something, well, evil.
This is my view at least. People do it and nations do it. We are at such a cross roads, and have been for some time now. It's a good time to be a writer and a scary time to be human being I think if you are even remotely awake; it's getting scary out there. Some of us would like to push our culture to live up to its' highest and most noble ideas like true justice and equality, etc, however old bigotries, and hatreds and intolerances have truly bubbled into the open. I've seen this story before and it can and often does end very badly. Seeing the patterns repeat themselves gives me pause. Sorry that's the anthropologist in me speaking. I can't avoid that perspective; it's in the work also. As a writer and a person I look for patterns. In many ways humans are very predictable. I think we play with this as writers. We stretch and prod it, but there is a framework to work within.
- How long did it take you to write this book? (And how long is the book?)
It took a year to write, although I was working on multiple projects at the time including a book of short stories, a novella and a screenplay. For example I finished a Flourish of Damage & other Tales, a mixed genre collection of short stories. It is divided into 3-parts, there is humor, horror, and science fiction. It is available now at Sonar 4. Please see the link bellow and go and check it out.
Regarding the novel, I sat on it for another year because I was not entirely happy with the potential home I had found for it. There was a larger publishing house that had some interest in the project but for some reason I could not engage myself in a re-write to re-submit to them. They were not bad in any way, I just did not think them the right home for Rocks. In the end I went with a smaller company that I really believed in and felt that we had each other's interest at heart. Rocks will be out early next year in trade paper, in the mean time please pick up a copy of Flourish of Damage and keep me writing. My work is eclectic, you will find something there that you will enjoy, at least I strive to be inclusive.
- Tell us something about your first writings, before this book came about.
Hmm. . . journal entries formed themselves into poems eventually, poems became short stories, and short stores became novels. The journals began as a way to order a world that still makes little sense to me. It was natural, that's all I can say. I put pen to notebook and something happened, and I liked it. It fit, it made sense, and it was and is, one of the few things that seem natural to me.
- You are a science fiction, and horror novelist and short story writer – which is your favorite genre? Would you rather write short stories or novels?
That's a good question; I love the feeling of writing a novel. It's like running a marathon. It's rewarding. It's a damned exhausting venture for me also. I mean it takes a lot out of me. My health, already poor suffers. For me a novel is a scary awful adventure I both like and hate. It takes effort to hold it together, for me it's like trying to contain an explosion. Sounds dramatic, but it's also true. I would rather write short stories. A short story has a beginning, middle and an end and they can come together quickly for me. There is so much less editing for me as a writer working on a short story. It's more a like a poem, they seem to arrive complete. I'm not chasing after threads here and there. Both are important to me, equally important, the novel probably more so in fact, it's just that one is easier than the other for me.
- Tell us something about your 3 book dark science fiction series called the Minder series.
Beneath the Rocks is part of the Minder series. The first concluded novel of that series. Two other novels have already been started and they were started while I worked on the first of the series. The general story line for the trilogy all came at once, talk about harassing an explosion! But I've needed a little break from the dark Minders, my next novel is no less intense, in fact it is more so, yet subtle, darker in a kind of Lovecraftain way. As far as the Minder series, the next two novels of that series occur both previous to the Rocks novel and then much latter in time.
The next novel of that series is when the Minders came to Crootu and discovered the indigenous peoples of that planet. The Minders are use to taking what they want and deny themes selves nothing. The band level society sees the Minders as gods at first, but gods are often demi-gods that don't realize they are demi-gods and saviors are often not what they seem.
Even when the good savior arrives, men wait until the moment they are gone to tell us what they really meant. For example Christianity today has little to do with the teachings of Christ, right, for example both he and the Buddha said that men and women were equal, right. That alone was enough to get you murdered in those days. However the generation that was responsible to organize and carry their teaching forward quickly corrected them and told us what they really meant to say. (laughing) Another example is all that stuff Christ said about the poor is getting explained away today. The only time I recall Christ becoming intolerant was with the ‘banksters' of his day. The moneychangers exploiting the folks outside the temple. Anyways the point is, what follows is seldom even recognizable from the original source. That relates to the creative tension I spoke of earlier.
So back to the novel, this is the early conflict of two races. The conflict changes both of them forever as they move forward. No one will abide an occupation. This is true of the Phyne people, the indigenous race of Crootu. History teaches us this simple truth again and again and we forget again and again it seems. An occupation may last a century even in seemly stability, but the moment it ends it will bubble and then ignite in new ways and old ways. Values can never be taught at end of a gun. That's a fool's enterprise I fear.
Also in the early novel the Minder race has suffered a genetic split and one branch of that split becomes the Gorrum of the Rocks novel. We learn more about the Minders and their history and where the conflicts originate in the Rocks novel and why there is such hatred between Minder and the Phyne race. When I talk about it I admit, I'm kind of ready to jump back into the Minder world again. (laughing)
- How much time do you spend writing, and what is your writing plan (do you use an outline? Take notes? Or just write?)
I sit down and I write. If the creative battery is dead I edit. (sigh) I'm attempting to be more methodical in the next novel to save me time and worry. I'm attempting to use more visual aids just to keep the threads coherent. We shall see how that works, ask me in a year. I'm curious myself.
- What would you like for your readers to know about your writing, your life?
Well it's a difficult path. I hear a lot about how smooth the flow of the writing is. This always breaks me up for I'm at the other end of the process. The visual comes to mind of a man at the end of a fire hose turned up on high and I'm bouncing off the sidewalk getting beat half to death so they can feel the smooth rhythm of the thing, the flow, the smoothness at the other end. Sometimes it's not that way but for me a lot of days I'm bouncing off the sidewalk. That's not a complaint. This is a profoundly rewarding road. I love it, I truly love it, it's also very solitary and I'm solitary by nature and by choice lately, so it's a perfect fit for me. I just think most folks don't understand this process, but then I don't either so that's okay.
-Who are your favorite authors? Have you any lesser-known favorite writers?
People I have not read for years but their influence hangs on me like an old worn out soft jacket. People like Paul Bowels, who was really a kind of stream of consciousness writer that did some wonderful things. There is a story that he wrote called, if I remember correctly; Up Above the World, it's so strange the feel to it. It takes place in Central America , which is one of my favorite places. There is a tone to the book that I got a small glimpse of in Belize. Kind of like you have stepped over some un-seen line and find yourself in a very strange place. It's not comfortable and in fact it may be a little dangerous, but you feel both very awake and slightly drunk at the same time. Exhaustion was part of it, but also the place and the people and the dangerous under currents of that time in that part of the world. I can't explain it. But the influence in there some place in the work. Maybe with Jhem in the Rocks, he is a prisoner in his own home and body so to speak. He is locked inside for much of the novel and he is at that taunt tight wonderful scary place when it's all about to break open and some part of you, some very deep part is awake and knows this. The rational mind is resisting trying to hold it all together and then comes the surrender and interesting things start to happen. Perhaps you live through it, but life is forever changed from that point on. We can all I think relate to this feeling in lesser ways. It's part of our personal story, right, perhaps less dramatic, perhaps not, time and place dictate a lot of this.
- I love the book cover and would love to know who is the cover artist?
Oh me too! Dan McPharlin has no bigger fan than myself. Dan is an extraordinary Australian artist. He does shows through out Europe, the US and has worked with everyone from the New York Times to Nike. He is amazing and I am lucky to call him a friend. He is a big fan of my science fiction and our work fits eerily together I think. He is creating images now for me for a novella I wrote that he is producing titled; Night Reach and I simply can't wait to see them. Dan is an amazing fellow with incredible talent. I can't say enough good things about him.
- Have you a website or blog where people can find out more about you and your work? A Flourish of Damage & other Tales
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