The Fear County Chronicle #41

Thoughts on the sequel to FEAR, a look back at my return to writing in 2006, and why it's okay for your family and friends to not read your books.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a number of fellow authors on social media (mostly newly published writers) bemoaning the fact that their family and friends have little or no interest in their writing career or reading their books. Most of these authors seem frustrated, angry, or hurt that family members or their best friends choose to a) distance themselves from the genre they write in, or b) are just plain apathetic toward the books they are publishing. Some see this as an utter lack of support or even downright betrayal from the people they love and live among from day to day. Upon reading the comments to the posts, you could tell that the response was not very charitable to the offending kin and friends. “Screw them!” they said or “That’s horrible! You deserve better than that!” — mostly from loyal, like-minded readers and fellow writers.

Of course, 99.9% of the posts I read were from folks who write in the horror genre. True, every writer wants those around them to look upon their literary efforts and the work they’ve published with unbridled enthusiasm and pride (and maybe a bit of wide-eyed awe thrown in for good measure). But the fact of the matter is, members of your family, your most intimate friends, or your co-workers are not obligated to shower you with admiration or rush to your listing on Amazon and give you a five-star review. It would be nice, but don’t hold your breath.

First of all, you’re writing Horror. The kind of literature that unnerves people and makes them uneasy. It might even trigger some past trauma or present phobia. Believe it or not, 89% of the world’s total readership wouldn’t touch it with the proverbial ten-foot pole. Some actually believe it’s evil (a recent Christian actress/podcaster even posted a few days ago that she wouldn’t allow horror movies in her home because they were a “portal to something demonic”.) If you’re a member of a number of horror writer or horror book groups on Facebook (Books of Horror, for one) you’ve found a safe haven/support group where everyone loves and accepts horror. If you indulge in the online horror community enough or hang out with them at conventions and signing events, you gradually begin to give in to the delusion that everyone around you cherishes this genre as much as you do. So, when you finally place a story or book and get published, you’re expecting all the cheers, congratulations, and excitement from your star-struck relatives and friends to kick in at any moment. Usually, that doesn’t happen. Some people you know will be polite and gracious; others will be guarded and aloof because you write “that stuff”. Others will simply not understand what the big deal is about. “Everyone can write and publish a book these days,” they’ll say. Or “Why don’t you write something nice and decent, like romance novels or westerns?”

To feel betrayed by their response, or lack of such, is futile. It wasn’t very long after I published my first short story when I came to the realization that not everyone is going to fawn over you and place you on a golden pedestal like you were the next Stephen King or think that all the time and effort you put into your published work is necessarily something to be celebrated. Very few of my family and friends were receptive to my books and stories back in the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, and many still aren’t. My wife, Joyce, is a fan of Amish and Cowboy romance novels, and not a horror fan at all. During our 34 years of marriage, she has only read four of my books: Fear, Hindsight, Restless Shadows, and Burnt Magnolia. That’s mainly because there are more elements of mystery and suspense in those books than pure blood-and-guts horror. As far as I know, none of my three children have ever read my work and don’t think it’s particularly special that Daddy is a horror author. They’ve simply grown up all their lives knowing their father has weird interests and writes stuff a little stronger than R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike. My in-laws — hardworking rural folks who rarely read for pleasure — have never really understood exactly what I do. A few folks at church have read my work, but frankly I’d rather they not, because of some of the language, gore, and strong content. Before I retired, co-workers would buy my books, but it was mainly because they wanted an autographed book on their shelf at home… not particularly because they wanted to actually read it. And the folks of my rural community definitely don’t give a crap that I’m a published author of 40+ years (maybe if I wrote a book about high school football, which is about all anyone seems to think about down here in Tennessee.) Truth be told, I’ve signed and given away dozens of my books to folks over the years that I knew, without a doubt, would never read past the inscription on the title page.

So, do I feel bad about it? Do I feel betrayed and broken hearted? No, and neither should you if you’re a writer. It all comes down to the old adage of “different strokes, for different folks”. Everyone has a right to read and enjoy what they love to read and feel comfortable reading. You wouldn’t expect your saintly old grandmother to read and enjoy a story about a man-eating vagina, would you? (well, maybe yours would, but not mine, God rest their souls.) It might be disappointing if your family, be it parents or siblings, spouse or children, are lukewarm toward your particular genre of choice and the stories you craft. And it might be frustrating if the strength and sincerity of their loyalty and support is lacking or nonexistent. Don’t be so hard on them, or on yourself. Just write for the audience of readers who crave this sort of fiction and don’t worry about the rest. And while you’re at it, grow yourself a thick skin that would make an alligator jealous. You’re going to need it if you’re planning on sticking around and making a go of this profession, no matter what genre you choose to specialize in.

Dead-Eye Book 4 is now in progress!

I’m currently working on the fourth installment of my western/horror series The Saga of Dead-Eye. Book 4 is titled Golems, Ghouls, & Grisly Gargantuans, and will take Dead-Eye and Job across the wilderness of eastern Utah, through the area of Mesa Verde in southern Colorado, and into the Rocky Mountains. Not only are otherworldly bounty hunters blocking their way to exacting justice on those they seek, but human ones as well, due to a wanted poster issued by outlaw vampire Jules Holland and his entourage of the damned. As of today, I only have three chapters left to go before I do a thorough polish and edit, and then turn it in to Thunderstorm Books for the limited hardcover and Crossroad Press for the ebook, paperback, and audiobook (once again voiced by the incredible J. Rodney Turner). Artist Alex McVey has already completed the cover art, and I will be revealing that soon.

The Sequel to Fear: Can lightning strike twice?

“Don’t ask me where I got the idea for Fear. I couldn’t, for the life me, tell you for sure. It was one of those rare occurrences in a writer’s life when the literary planets align perfectly and inspiration strikes like a bolt of lightning. I just sat down and began to write, and it started to flow. And it didn't stop or slow down. There was very little effort with the storyline or dialogue… everything seemed genuine and unforced. I kept waiting to hit a snag or fall in a plot hole, but it never happened. Quite simply, it was the most satisfying writing experience I’d had up to that point in my career… and it still claims that distinction. A rare creative occurrence that I doubt I will ever experience again.” — Southern-Fried & Horrified

Several years ago, I decided that I would, one day, tackle a sequel to my coming-of-age novel and magnum opus, Fear. Actually, I’d toyed with the possibility for at least a couple of decades. But I knew to jump into the project blindly, unprepared and without a clear vision for a present-day journey into the evil land known as Fear County, could be disappointing and potentially disastrous. I had certain goals for the sequel, which would be titled Fear Eternal. The characters had to be engaging and as deserving of the reader’s emotional investment as Jeb, Roscoe, Sam, and the Granny Woman in the original story. The book would have to be roughly the same length (477 pages) as the Zebra novel, as well as be divided into four parts and titled chapters. And it had to read naturally, in my customary storytelling style, with plenty of Southern atmosphere and colloquialisms.

Another thing that I wanted, but worried that I wouldn’t be able to achieve, was the nature of the writing process and experience. The above excerpt from Southern-Fried & Horrified pretty much sums up what I hoped would take place once I wrote the prologue to Fear Eternal and moved on to the first few chapters. But was that too tall an order to fill? Could I possibly sit down and expect this sequel to flow naturally with no literary potholes or roadblocks to trip me up and make Fear Eternal a dull and dismal failure compared to the most beloved book in my backlist of horror titles?

Could lightning really strike twice?

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve discovered that, yes, it can. During that period, I’ve penned the prologue and the first six chapters of Fear Eternal, and the prose has flowed fast and effortlessly so far. The cast of characters just feels right; they live and breathe, generate love or loathing in the heart and mind of the potential reader, and can conjure a belly laugh or bring you to tears. The town of Pikesville has grown and advanced during the seventy-nine years since Jeb and his ragtag companions went on that dark journey in search of the means with which to defeat an invading snake-critter, but it still has the quaint charm and air of innocence that it did following the Second World War.

The big challenge will be the dark journey itself… the return to Fear County. There must be new horrors to encounter along the way and new villains, as well a band of new protagonists to face the threat that presents itself. Why they are going there, as well as other twists and surprises, will remain a mystery until they are ready to be revealed. I can’t give you a definite timeline on when Fear Eternal will be finished and released, but rest assured I’m working on it and hope to have it ready by the fall or early winter of 2025.

(Fear cover art by Alex McVey, Fear Eternal cover art by Lynne Hansen)

The Comeback: My return to Horror in 2006.

In The Fear County Chronicle #40, I gave you a close, often painful, look at my ten-year hiatus from horror literature (both reading and writing) following the sudden and unexpected end of the Zebra Horror line in 1996. In this issue, I expound on the strange chain of circumstances that brought me back into the fold and made me want to write horror again.

Prodigal Son

In the mid-nineties, I made friends with a guy named Mark Hickerson. This was around 1994, or a little afterward, because I remember receiving a long, eight-page fan letter from him praising Fear and all my other novels up to that point. We were living in Nashville at the time and Mark and his wife lived in Manchester, only forty miles away, so we invited them down for a visit. It wasn’t long before we became close friends.

Mark was there during the final years of my stint with Zebra and provided much-needed support when everything crashed and burned. Even during the long stretch of ten years afterward, Mark always had faith in me, He never lost hope of me returning to writing, even when I felt no hope at all.

Every now and then, Mark would give me a pep talk and try to get me motivated. Around 2003 and 2004, he was particularly adamant. “Horror is booming again, man!” he told me. “This new guy, Brian Keene… he’s written a zombie book, and it’s revitalized the genre. You really need to consider getting back into it.”

But unfortunately, I was turning deaf ears to his advice. “That’s all a done deal for me, Mark,” I would reply with a sigh (yes, I actually sighed). “I don’t have any interest in writing again.”

But, of course, that was a lie. I was considering it… very seriously. But I reckon I was too gun-shy to do anything about it. The disaster with Zebra had been devastating on an emotional level. To achieve your dream of becoming a published mass market author and then have it literally ripped away from you in a relatively short period of time was traumatic… and I’d be damned if I was going to go through it all over again. So, I continued to take the safe route and avoid writing and reading horror fiction entirely. Besides, I had been away from the genre for a decade. In my mind, it would be like starting all over again and I wasn’t sure I still had the desire to do that, considering it took me ten or twelve years to accomplish that feat the first time around. It was less hurtful to simply refrain from taking that chance and, basically, act like my first writing career had been a fluke, or even worse, never happened at all.

But Mark simply wouldn’t leave it be. Maybe he saw something that I didn’t; that the chance for a comeback was there and that maybe it wouldn’t be as difficult as I imagined. To tell the truth, it grew annoying at times, his constant suggestions and insistence, but, on reflection, I know it was only because I was being too damned stubborn to listen. I had grown too comfortable and complacent in the mediocrity of a decade’s worth of working in the factories and feeling sorry for myself.

In the summer of 2005, Mark came back from Hypericon in Nashville with a stack of books. Leisure horror paperbacks that were signed to me… all from authors who actually seemed to know who I was. A couple were from writers I weren’t familiar with – Bryan Smith and James Newman – but there were several from the guy Mark had mentioned before… Brian Keene. I opened a novel titled The Rising and read the inscription on the title page. Thanks for the years of inspiration! it said in blood-red ink. So, all those books I had written years ago hadn’t been for nothing after all. People had read them and somehow been inspired by them to try their hand at writing as well.

Now, you’d think something like that would light a fire under my ass. It should have, but it didn’t. I was still the hermit, hiding in the cave of self-pity, afraid to come out. I set those books on my shelf – books written by authors who held me and my work in such high regard – and didn’t read them. Just let them gather dust and forgot all about them. In other words, I was a complete and utter dumb ass.

Another year passed. Mark was uncharacteristically silent. No pep talks… no rallying me toward a fresh, new career in the horror genre. I figured maybe he had finally gotten the message; that Ron Kelly was stuck flat in neutral. He wasn’t going forward into the vast unknown of a genre that had crumbled and slowly rebuilt itself, and he certainly wasn’t looking over his shoulder at a past that had been bright and golden for a brief while, then imploded with one afternoon phone call from NYC.

The Dead Resurrected!

Then in May of 2006, Mark called me up again. “Dude, they’re talking about you over on Robert McCammon’s message board!”

Now, I had been a huge fan of Robert R. McCammon when I was reading and writing in the 80s and 90s. Boy’s Life was my all-time favorite coming-of-age novel and as an author from the South, he had been a major inspiration, along with down-home scribes like Joe Lansdale and Manly Wade Wellman. I couldn’t deny, my interest was piqued. “So,” I asked, “what are they saying?”

“You know, they’re talking about how great your books were and wondering what happened to you. Asking if you were dead or not.”

Dead? That sort of sucker punched me in the gut a little. In their eyes, maybe I was. Maybe the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of that Zebra author who had written dark Southern tales like Fear, Blood Kin, Hindsight, and Moon of the Werewolf had sounded like a death knell… like the hammering of ten-penny nails in the lid of a casket. Undoubtedly, that’s what I had been thinking for the last ten years, and I was the poor bastard that had been lowered six feet under and covered over with the sod of bitterness and bad breaks. While folks were out there, still finding my battered paperbacks in used bookstores and wondering what had become of me, I was gasping for air in the darkness, prematurely buried by my own foolish hand.

After Mark’s phone call, I admit, I was rattled. Out of curiosity, I wanted to rush right over and read what those readers – maybe even fans – had been saying about me. The problem was… I had no computer. The internet had been in its infancy when I had stopped writing, so I hadn’t exactly advanced with the rest of the world. I’d moved to the country, put everything but work and family out of my mind, was completely ignorant of the wonders of cyberspace and the Information Highway.

My wife, Joyce, agreed to pull McCammon’s website up at work and print me off the thread concerning me and my writing career. The following day, she came home with a big grin on her face and twenty-seven printed pages of posts and comments. When I sat down to read them, I felt something stir inside me. It was like someone had journeyed into the depths of a deep, dark cave, jabbed a sleeping grizzly with a pointy stick, and said “Wake up, you lazy son of a bitch! You’ve been hibernating way too long!”

For an hour, I read and reread those posts, praising my work and lamenting my absence from the horror scene. One comment in particular hit a nerve. It was from a fellow named James Newman (now where had I heard that name before?). He said: “I heard that he’s working in a factory now. That he stopped writing completely. That’s really sad.”

I sat there for a long moment and thought about it. Damn, I told myself, that is sad. Sure, what had happened to me back in ’96 had been terrible, but what I had done to myself in the ten years afterward had been infinitely worse. I’d become disillusioned with the publishing industry and turned my back on my love for writing, as well as my love for the genre that had pretty much nurtured and carried me through childhood and into young adulthood.

That weekend, I went to my bookshelf and took down Brian Keene’s The Rising. I found it unorthodox, relevant of the times, and refreshing; similar in impact to the work of Jack Ketchum or early Stephen King, but with a down-to-earth, blue collar feel. And that ending! Talk about a cliffhanger! What the shit did he do that for? I wondered. Or, more importantly, How the hell did he get away with it? Needless to say, I sat down and read City of the Dead the same weekend… and have considered myself a die-hard Keene aficionado ever since.

The next one I decided to sample was Midnight Rain. Again, the name on the spine haunted me. Then that comment on the McCammon site slapped me in the face. “I heard that he’s working in a factory now. That he stopped writing completely. That’s really sad.” I settled into a chair on the front porch, cracked that sucker open, and began reading. Okay, Mr. Newman, I thought, let’s see what you have to show me. And, boy, did he show me plenty. After I finished, I honestly felt as though I had come to a long-awaited revelation. I think I can do this again! Maybe I should seriously consider giving this gig a second chance.

A Leap of Faith

The following day, Joyce and I drove to Best Buy and bought an HP desktop. Soon, I was logging onto the McCammon message board and interacting with those who had commented on my books – and my whereabouts – several days before. To say that my appearance online was surprising and the response was positive is a bit of an understatement. Soon, strangers became friends, and I was being urged to return to the horror genre and continue what I had started years before.

I talked it over with Joyce and, excitedly, she encouraged me to give it another try. So, the next morning I started a new thread on the McCammon board and officially announced that I was returning to the horror genre.

And, almost immediately afterward, realized what I’d done and was scared shitless. You idiot! I told myself, here you’ve done gone and made this grand entrance, and you haven’t written a damn word in ten years!

But, as it turned out, my fears were unfounded. I sat down and wrote the first short story I had written since 1996, and it was like I had never left. It simply flowed…maybe even better than it had before.

Folks started getting wind of my return and the first phone call I received was from an old friend. Richard Chizmar, my buddy from the small press days, had gone from magazine editor to respected independent publisher during my hiatus. Just hearing his voice again put me at ease and enforced my suspicions that maybe I had done the right thing after all. “Hey, buddy!” he said. “It’s great to have you back. So… what would you like to do?”

I told him that I would like to release a novel and my first short story collection. Before that phone call was over, the deal had been made. Cemetery Dance Publications would publish Hell Hollow, my previously scheduled (by Zebra), but yet unpublished coming-of-age novel, and Midnight Grinding: Tales of Twilight Terror, a whopping thirty-two story collection, focusing on my small press and anthology short fiction between 1986 and 1996. They would end up being my first works to be published in hardcover.

Also at that time, I struck up a friendship with Hunter Goatley, an aficionado of Superman, Kiss, Alice Cooper, and Planet of the Apes who had designed Robert McCammon’s website and served as its administrator. He offered to design a site for me and soon, RonaldKelly.com was born. Hunter was the first one to coin the phrase “Southern-Fried Horror”. He included it on the banner of my website from day one and, upon seeing it, I thought “Yeah, let’s stick with that.” And that’s how I’ve classified my style of down-home, rural fiction from then on.

So, just like that, I was back in the fold again. I have several people I owe a debt of gratitude for dragging me from the edge of the abyss and back in front of the keyboard. Brian Keene and James Newman for inspiring me with their work and putting my creative wheels into motion, and Rich Chizmar for opening the door and giving me the opportunity to publish again. But truth be told, it really all comes down to one person. The one who was most instrumental in bringing me back to the horror genre was Mark Hickerson.

Indie Horror

Shortly after I had made the two-book deal with Cemetery Dance, Steven Lloyd (Barnes), an editor at Nocturne Press, expressed interest in publishing a hardcover edition of Moon of the Werewolf, my novel of Irish werewolves on the rampage in a small Southern town. However, this time, I would be calling the shots, and it would be released under the original title, Undertaker’s Moon. Steven even got an artist friend of his from Texas to do the cover art. That artist was none other than Alex McVey and the cover painting turned out to be his iconic “Blue Werewolf”, one of the best and most savage works of lycanthropic horror art brought to visual fruition, in my humble – albeit biased – opinion.

As it turned out, it didn't get published right off the bat. A couple of months afterward, Nocturne folded. After that, Steven started his own press, Croatoan Publishing, and fully intended to make UM his first full-length book. He started with a chapbook of my novella, Flesh Welder, which had been published by Noctulpa: Journal of Horror back in 1990. The cover artist for the book was Zach McCain, another unique and talented artist working out of Texas. Croatoan released one more book after Flesh Welder; James Newman’s short fiction collection, People are Strange. After that, the financial burden of keeping a small press afloat became too much for Steven and Croatoan ceased to be.

It was around 2008 that I decided it would be best for me to try my luck at continuing a writing career in mass market publishing, like I had with Zebra; maybe shoot for another chance at writing full-time for a living. My best bet was Leisure Books, who was publishing horror authors like Brian Keene, Bryan Smith, Edward Lee, Jack Ketchum, Douglas Clegg, and others at that time. I contacted editor Don D’Auria and submitted manuscripts of Hell Hollow and Restless Shadows to him for consideration for mass market paperback. Both were kindly rejected, which was a blow, since Leisure was the most active and dependable market for paperback horror at the time. Little did I know that Dorchester Publishing would shut down their Leisure Horror line in 2010, leaving dozens of leading authors abruptly without a publisher. It felt like déjà vu. Here we go again, I thought, it’s 1996 all over again.

So, for the time being, I stuck with the independent publishers with really no favorable option to return to the mass market again. As it turned out, the indie presses seemed much more receptive and respectful of my work, possessed a great love of the genre the New York houses seemed to lack, and was interested in the author’s creative input concerning cover design, marketing, etc. The indie community felt more like a family or fraternity, than a faceless conglomerate more interested exploiting the author and their talent for the almighty dollar. Back in the 80s and 90s, there had only been a handful of independent presses, namely Dark Harvest and Mark V. Ziesing, while in the latter half of the 2000’s there were dozens in operation.

As it turned out, the more I began to submit my work to the indie publishers and immerse myself in that scene, the more it began to feel like home. And now, today, nearly twenty years after I decided to come back, I’m still writing and publishing in the indie horror market and enjoying every minute of it.

(This excerpt was originally published in my memoir and writing guide, Southern-Fried & Horrified).

Big Summer Sale at RKHORROR! Get 20% off through the month of June!

Well, finally… it’s summertime! The kids are out of school, family vacations are planned, and the neighborhood air is filled with the smell of freshly cut grass and the fumes of gasoline-powered mowing machines. Include ballgames and cookouts and kayaking down at the lake and you have a heckuva lot on your plate. It’s a hustle-bustle world out there. Good thing we have books to help us cool down, relax, and retain some semblance of sanity during those sweltering dawg days of June, July, and August. Look! Mister Glow-Bones has found himself a vacation read already!

Through the month of June, get 20% off all signed books, art prints, and Southern-Fried Horror and Zebra Alumni t-shirts at the RKHORROR online store! Just enter promo code JUNESAVE20 to get your discount. And, remember, all books come with a personalized inscription and some hand drawn RK artwork on the title page!

Well, folks, that’s it for this issue of The Fear County Chronicle. Keep your eyeballs peeled for Issue #42 to arrive in your inbox in a week or two (or click on that bright green Subscribe button, if you haven’t already.) Until then, keep cool, be kind (on social media and in the REAL world), and Many Happy Nightmares, y’all!