Drops of Crimson - Mark Henry interview

Tell us a little bit about RTotLD...

A little bit, huh? Well, Amanda and her gang are forced to flee Seattle after Gil screws up his new luxury vamping service. The client is none to happy and sends his werewolf goons after the trio, who take the opportunity to force Amanda to deal with her dying mother three states over. Along the way, they deal with ghostly hood ornaments, tentacle monsters with unusually slurred speech, a skinhead zombie outbreak, a trail of mutilated bodies and a super-hot shapeshifter with eyes (and other body parts) for Amanda.

What inspired you to write Amanda's story?

I wanted to make fun of "chick lit" and Sex and the City specifically. I know, I know, it's already a comedy. But, in my head, no other genre was as ready for a parody with zombies. C'mon, Samantha as a flesh-eating ghoul. Do you see it? I loved these two stories written by Douglas Winter back in the 80s. He took zombies and made these intricately designed parodies of Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney's big "me decade" books, Less than Zombie and Bright Lights Big Zombie. I was mesmerized. He nailed the voice. So when I got down to work, I read Candace Bushnell and some other "chick lit" and tried to recreate the breezy, anecdotal, self-referential style only in a dark and disturbing way. I think it worked.

Have you discovered an obsession with Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Choo or do you just channel Amanda when researching?

I have a very specific image of Amanda in my head, I know what she wears from head to toe, at all times, I even know what her make-up looks like. It's part of my anal-retentiveness. It made the first cover of the book a little difficult for me, because Amanda would have killed and eaten the photographer that took that shot. I see her comfortable stance, like a broken doll. She's pretty couture in her own mind, so when she's not in motion, I see her sunken and posing. Some godawfully uncomfortable position. That's just me, though.

Was it fun writing Zombie sex? Or is writing sex scenes just as tortuous for you as it for every one else?

I love writing sex. Particularly really bad horrible uncomfortable embarrassing sex. Zombie sex is tricky. If I had the mistakes chomping away on an arm while in flagrante delicto, that would have been too much. But since Amanda's different, her body is preserved through other measures (not all of which have been explored), I can explore the less squicky issues of her sex life. It helps that she rarely gets off and the scenes are mostly played for laughs. Mostly.

You mentioned that male zombies have an issue with the lack of blood flow...Why is that? I'd always thought it would be the exact opposite problem - permanently happy (a` la Clerks), especially with the mistakes.... ::grins::

Funny. It's different for every zombie, depending on how long they've been dead. People imagine corpses to be these chronically stiff empty vessels, but rigor mortis is not a constant condition. Eventually the body will soften again, bloat up with gasses, start sounding like a bowl of Rice Krispies (though I won't go into that). So when I said that, I'm suggesting that no beating heart, equals no throbbing cock. I've built the same problem into the vamps, but they have the benefit of bypassing the issue by using someone else's heart, if you know what I mean.

There seems to be less bathroom humor in RTotLD...did you direct the story in other directions on purpose?

I opted for shorter bursts of irreverent humor and squeezed in enough disturbing imagery and bizarrely connected similes to please myself and hopefully the readers. The toilet humor is implied at this point. The reader knows what is going to happen to Wendy as she loads up on her purseful of Twix bars. I don't even have to show it. Though, I certainly have Amanda smell it, later in the book. My goal was to find a "happy medium," for the book to be more accessable to the paranormal romance audience that the first book drew. At the same time, the sex in this book is more disturbing and funnier, for certain, and it wouldn't be a zombie book without buckets of viscera. Muhahaha!

Without being completely spoilery, can I tell you that I love how you resolve Ethel's storyline?!

I didn't even know I was going to do that until I got Amanda in that hallway (I won't say more than that). In fact, that part is the only thing that veers from the outline that Kensington okayed on this book. It just felt necessary. And it's soooooo awful. Of course, I'm referring to the repercussions in the next book, Battle of the Network Zombies. Poor Amanda.

How old were you when you first knew you wanted to be a writer? (Did you write crazy things as a kid?)

I remember writing a little book for my mother, but honestly never though much about being a writer. I believed I was born to be a counselor. People have always confided in me and come to me for help and advice, so when I had to choose in college, it seemed I had no choice but Psychology. I was a psychotherapist for 12 years and mostly it was good times and really productive. But 12 years is too long in the field and so about 3 years ago, I decided to give writing a shot. I know. Only 3 years. It's crazy.

Did you have the same wicked sense of humor when you were little?

Oh yeah. Drove my parents up the wall. Of course, they never look at themselves and see that I'm totally a product of how they interact. My father is a great storyteller and I really do get that part from him. The irreverent shocking stuff comes from my mother and also my bizarre and varied interests.

What is the first novel you wrote? If it wasn't HHotD, can you tell me a little bit about it?

I started a novel, the month after I quit work, it was called Dandelions and followed a group of teenage suicide bombers in a small suburban town. It was, as you can imagine, totally dark and full of weird sexual situations, graphic violence and humor. It was a comedy. Go figure.

What was your first Urban Fantasy read?

I'm going to say Interview with a Vampire, though it doesn't follow the same sort of structure. It was a revelation when it came out, typically villainous characters rewritten as heroic. Anne Rice was genius. Of the more recent generation of urban fantasy writers, and the first that I read when making the decision to go in this direction, I read Laurell K. Hamilton's Guilty Pleasures, which was a decent read. I did really dig the wererats. I've not read another book of hers. A series really has to keep my attention and there are only a few that I follow, besides my friend's.

What's your favorite horror movie?

That's a really tough one. I've got a list here somewhere. It depends on the day. The first one that popped into my head was Suspiria. Must be a technicolor, Italian giallo kind of day. A lot of people don't like Argento's stuff, but there's something about his overly elaborate death scenes that ensnare me. Oh Dario, how I love you! A more obvious answer would have been Peter Jackson's Brain Dead, or Dead Alive for us stateside folks. Lawnmower to a crowd of zombies for the win!

Knowing your penchant for the genre, do you ever picture yourself writing horror?

Totally. I've got a few shorts that are strictly horror and two outlines for horror novels that I never started. I'm expecting that at some point horror will be the "big thing" again. I'm hoping. I love it. Love reading it and watching.

Out of all your favorite Urban Fantasy authors, who's world could you see yourself living in? What sort of supernatural being or what type of supernatural power would you be/have?

That's the thing about urban fantasy, we're already living in that world. Are you trying to tell me you don't see vamps, werewolves, ghosts and zombies wherever you look? I kind of like the werewolves. Maybe it was The Howling. They had a swank seaside colony and hot weresex by the roaring fire. Now that's living.

What's your favorite curse word?

You had to go there. Fuck. No doubt about it. Fuck is the most flexible and useful word in the human language. It's a verb (They totally fucked; look at their stinkfaces), an adjective (That shit is fucking awesome), a noun (It's cold as fuck out here! or...I'm gonna kill a motherfucker) and most frequently an exclamation that can be negative (Oh fuck! bitch just rear-ended me!) or positive (Fuck yeah! I got me some Benjamins). I love all it's derivatives, too. Fuckface (when asshole isn't enough, and it rarely is). Shitfuck (a personal favorite, often screamed when I drop crap all over the kitchen, or step in a steaming pile). Fucktard (thanks Christopher Moore, where would we be without you). Then there's the often controversial Jesusfuck (sorry Mom) which if you're around me long enough, sounds the alarm for my most memorable rants. So yeah. Fuck! Use it in a sentence.

Current favorite drink?

That's tough. Last year it was a pomegranate mojito. But now that I'm dieting (excuse me: changing my lifestyle) and exercising I can't stand the empty calories. Coke Zero.

Chocolate or Vanilla?

Chocolate, definitely. I'm on this dark chocolate kick right now, partially because we're eating healthier and after you get upwards of 72% cacao, there's very little fat and the calories are surprisingly low. Plus you start to taste different dimensions of flavor. It's really like wine in that way.

What inspires you?

Lots of things. Movies (particularly independent film, John Waters in his heyday was a genius of bad taste), music (I listen to just about everything but country, which makes me want to open a vein), eavesdropping is a big one. I love to listen in on people's conversations, it's a holdover from being a psychotherapist.

Tell us five random goofy things we didn't previously know about about you:

1. I shower in the dark.
2. When I'm alone, I sing so loud it shakes the windows (not well, just loud)
3. I refer to my dogs as my "co-workers."
4. I dip my potato chips into spaghettios.
5. I can't sleep without a loud fan.

If you could only pass on one nugget of information to aspiring writers , in your experience what is one of the most valuable things you've learned about writing?

Tricky. Show don't tell. I guess everyone says that, but it's true. When I read people's manuscripts, it's the number one thing I see wrong. Of course, it's nebulous to talk about, even the concept is easier shown rather than told. So...I'll say something different. Learn to accept and examine criticism. Dismissing the negative stuff leads you straight to PublishAmerica.

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Everybody's favorite zombie socialite, Amanda Feral and her trendy gang of ghouls are back in ROAD TRIP OF THE LIVING DEAD. On shelves March 2009 from Kensington Books. Pick up HAPPY HOUR OF THE DAMNED; it's on sale now wherever pretty people buy books.

You can find Mark Henry on the web at his website.
Join the Glamazombies.. or... Swing by the League of Reluctant Adults.

Inside Drops of Crimson

In This Issue

Mark Henry - Author Interview by Megan MacGregor