Asher Dee

Fashion these days is beginning to enter a renaissance. We are far enough from the millennium to luxuriate in a new, heady, post-ironic haze of double denim.

Superstition may not have gotten us into this mess, but when father science came knocking, our blackthorn (known for its ability to ward off evil) door fell right off its hinges. There is only one way to defeat science. More science.

I hate to disagree with the late (eventually) great (currently) Garth Marenghi, but Carl Sagan's ideas of science leading Mankind forward is tragically true.

I'm a fan of all the jazz greats. Desmond, Getz, Baker, Pepper, Brubeck, Goodwin, Evans, Sinatra, Buble, G.

You grasp the gist.

Self-editing is censorship and I shall have none of it.

I have too visual an imagination to use images as inspiration. I draw deeply from the tortured depths of my own mind. Reality holds no horrors equal to a swarm of bees with teeth, or a sludge of melted teeth, or a disgruntled fairy who has plucked her last tooth.

Never make your morally grey characters mentally ill; that's an absolving feature.

To be clear, the metaphor continued through that second sentence, but I elected to remove my gentle guidance out of a sense of respect for the reader.

Some may be afraid to take up their pike and do their part, but I never falter in the quest to slay the story-beast and finally take my place on that rotting throne within.

Writing is a battleground. A warfield where valiant warriors spill their blood (metaphorically) on the ground (also a metaphor) for the rich and powerful (only half a metaphor, heh heh).

The first betrayal we all face is that perpetrated by our parents; id est: santa claus. It is for this reason I tap into that most fundamental of traumas in my literature, such as in Bone Gift V: Claus Out and Holiday Bash(ed heads).

There is no greater sin than the irritable bowel.

One of my favourite genres of music is Terra Firma, what the uninitiated refer to as "hard rock"

I buy every single one of my books from myself before I sell them. This eliminates any "profit" I may make, thus washing my hands clean of the capitalist rat race, while also ensuring the money I make stays with me rather than going to some politician's overflowing pocket.

I engage in capitalism only when I must (groceries, book sales, stock portfolio [solar power, bp, lockheed martin])

Only when the typewriter is begging for mercy, struggling to rub its last drops of ink off, is the idea complete. It is my blessing, and my curse.

Many readers will tell you size doesn't matter, and many editors will tell you it does. They're both wrong. Size is an inevitability when exploring ideas of the magnitude I put to the page.

Manic pixie dream girls are very real. And Very Dangerous. Mania is a serious condition that can affect even the most voluptuous of women. One moment you think you're revealing the wonders of an internal combustion engine, the next your ear is getting gnawed off. Stay frosty, friends.

Advice for fantasy writers: if you've committed to your races being mammalian, ensure you worldbuild the full spectrum of milks. Make some pink. Others chewy. The world is your lactating oyster.

The trick to finding a diamond in the rough is embracing all the coal. Because the thing about coal is it becomes diamonds. If you're willing to apply enough pressure.

Type firmly, horronauts.

Some say horror should be unerotic. But I aim to pull things out of a reader they never even knew were there. Sex, and by extension smut, is the greatest channel to achieve that by. It is imperative to my art that such scenes remain unmolested (heh heh heh)

But the metaphorical air pressure is literally changing. And each and every one of them has sensitive nasal blood vessels.

These same writers will tell me a page is too much time to dedicate to a nosebleed. That I should crack a thesaurus rather than write the word “nosebleed” thirty five times on a single page. That nosebleed-based horror won't fly off the shelves.

Writers these days lament having to promote their own work, to cut down their precious manuscripts to a single post (or remarkably humerous skit, given the subject matter)

Hypocrisy.

Cancer Wars: a Skirmish of Tumors and Men out in stores now

There is a chaos in all our souls. One society tries to suppress, that the world claims is wrong. There are a chosen few who can harness it, not simply go against the grain but carve a new one in their image. Let the chaos be part of your essence. Find YOUR Cancer Wars.

Writing of my calibre cannot simply be willed into being. I must submerge myself in the weighty chest of inspiration, and when she strikes me for it, flee joyously to my typewriter.

Ah, a promise made by a wily lotophage. Take care not to be lost too long in the depths past the "flappy thing" (gate)

There is no pain greater than writer's block; its cure is almost as painful, though. Submitting oneself, body and sole, to any muse who makes herself available. Thus is the trial of the artist.

Everyone is their own harshest critic, which is how I know that review was made by a tasteless, lying shite. Who's probably balding. All over.