Interviewing Jeremy C. Shipp

I’m honored to present Jeremy C. Shipp, a writer that had an immediate impact on my own view and perception of writing. I just read his book Sheep and Wolves, and was . . . OK, I don’t know what I was, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can’t give a coherent review of it, but I will say it was bizarre, horrific, weird, thoughtful and extraordinary. It defies explanation, is devoid of all cliché, and shimmers of originality. His following answers are extremely useful to writers and readers of any genre.

I suggest reading his freely available stories yourself:

Bio

Jeremy C. Shipp’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in over 50 publications, the likes of Cemetery Dance, ChiZine, Apex Magazine, Pseudopod, and The Bizarro Starter Kit (blue). While preparing for the forthcoming collapse of civilization, Jeremy enjoys living in Southern California in a moderately haunted Victorian farmhouse with his wife, Lisa, and their legion of yard gnomes. He’s currently working on many stories and novels and is losing his hair, though not because of the ghosts. His books include Vacation, Sheep and Wolves, and Cursed. And thankfully, only one mime was killed during the making of his first short film, Egg. You can subscribe to receive his newest short stories at www.jeremycshipp.com/bizarrobytes.htm

The Interview

1. I read “Sheep and Wolves” and was admittedly as confused as I was perplexed. It’s possibly the most unusual and mind-warping book I’ve read to date. Please explain what writing means to you and why you write.

Writing, to me, is almost like breathing. If I stopped, an important part of me would die. Through writing, I process my experiences, I converse with the world, I connect with myself. I also have a lot of fun. In truth, I would write even if I was the last living being on the planet. But I do enjoy sharing my work with others, and I always hope to affect the people in a positive way (even when I’m writing about the darkest of subjects).

2. Many of my readers have never heard of bizarro fiction and it seems to defy all logic and rules. So to introduce it to them, what is bizarro fiction?

Bizarro fiction is the genre of the bizarre. My favorite Bizarro authors use the absurd and surreal to speak about the real, in the most intriguing and entertaining ways possible. You can read more about Bizarro here: http://www.bizarrocentral.com/about.asp

3. You give hope to writers like me who see so much formulated “packaged” literature topping the charts. What advice would you have for unpublished writers? How do you handle the fear of failure?

Here’s the advice I would have given to myself when I was unpublished: write from your heart, your gut, your mind, your spleen. Experiment with your style and write outside your box. Don’t let fear of the unknown prevent you from developing your own special voice. Make sure that what you write entertains and interests you, because if it doesn’t, it won’t entertain and interest anyone else. Check out ralan.com and duotrope.com for submission guidelines, and follow those guidelines. Don’t worry about rejections or failure. Failure is a big part of success. Just look at babies. They have to fall a lot in order to walk, and so do you.

4. You seem to completely ignore and break all the rules of literature, and in my view, you escape the word “genre” altogether. How do you see yourself in terms of genre? Do you place any limitations on your writing?

Genre, to me, is more of an afterthought. A home for my stories to live in after they’re born. But as far as the writing process goes, I don’t think in terms of genre. I try to work outside even my own expectations, although once I create a “reality” in my mind, it solidifies. In other words, I don’t write about worlds where anything can happen. There are always limitations. Boundaries. My stories/realities are twisted funhouse mirror reflections of our own world.

5. An off the wall question: Music has influenced my own writing. To me, you seem almost like the Frank Zappa of writing. What music do you listen to? Does it influence you as a writer?

As far as music goes, I tend to be more inspired by the melodies than the lyrics. Certain songs can put me in the mood for certain scenes. Lately, I’ve been listening to Akeboshi, Rie Fu, A Fine Frenzy, Pink Floyd, The Flaming Lips.

6. Tell us a little about your upcoming novel “Cursed”. What inspired you to write it? Reveal (if you can) a tasty morsel about it.

Cursed - cover

Cursed - cover

My first novel, Vacation, is a map to my brain. My second book, Sheep and Wolves, is a map to my fears. And Cursed is a map to my heart. When writing this novel, I cut up my heart, and fed a portion to each of the characters. Therefore, I’m strongly attached to these imaginary people.

Myriad ideas, experiences and people helped spawn this novel. However, one aspect of our reality inspired me in particular. In our world, there are many forms of abuse that are unseen or are even socially acceptable. For instance, most people agree that it’s wrong to physically or sexually abuse children. And yet, the emotional abuse of children is widespread and quite normalized. Children are often treated as precious objects that require subjugation for their own good. Another example: someone might feel sorry for a person who’s randomly punched in the face, but then feel nothing for a person who’s being verbally abused due to fat hatred. And so, I wanted to write about characters who suffer experiences that the mainstream consciousness doesn’t recognize or accept. Cursed is the story of how these characters band together, and try to cope with their rather strange problems.

The motto of the book: there’s more than enough love in the world. But there’s not nearly enough respect.

7. Do you map things out before you write a novel? A short story? Do you improvise a lot of your writing? Any particular process?

Most of my writing is improvisational, although I do write down ideas and snippets of future dialogue in a notebook from time to time. Sometimes I use these notes, sometimes I don’t.

Usually, when writing a story or novel, I know where I’m headed. I just have no idea how my characters are going to get there. And that’s the way I like it. I find my process interesting and fun. When my characters are confused, I’m confused. When they’re frustrated, I’m frustrated. I put them in situations I don’t know how to get them out of, and we find the solution together.

And then, by the end of the novel, sometimes my characters don’t end up where I expected them to. Sometimes they change in ways I didn’t foresee. And that’s always nice.

8. Who are some of your favorite writers?

Arundhati Roy, Louis Lowry, Kurt Vonnegut, Franny Billingsley, Brett Easton Ellis, Amy Hempel, Aimee Bender, George Orwell, Haruki Murakami, Chuck Palahniuk, Anthony Burgess, Douglas Adams, Francesca Lia Block, Roald Dahl.

9. Do you have a favorite novel? Why is it your favorite?

I have a few favorites, but my very favorite might be The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. I love the rhythm of this novel, and the creative use of language is genius.

10. How does a creative writer like Jeremy C. Shipp handle writer’s block? Does it exist in your world?

I’ve never experienced a true form of writer’s block. I used to suffer from a sort of mental block, borne from fear, but these days I force myself to write no matter how I’m feeling. And now I write every day.

11. Finally, thanks so much for doing this Jeremy! Not all writers are as friendly and open as you and that means a lot to me. Any final words?

Thanks so much for the opportunity and the kind words! My final words: vaudevillian snapping turtle, spork-wielding ninja monkey, yard gnome belly button lint festival.

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Busting Bizarro Cherry

This is my first experimentation with the bizarro genre. I had to bust my bizarro cherry. After writing it, I stared at it for an hour wondering.

The icy flock of frigid writers congregated in that digital sardine can named Twitter with its poisonous lead sealant and its cereal box logo, all bright and shiny making stomachs growl in orifice frothing pangs. It has coconut flanges and rainbow brims, people, deceivers, cats, ducks and mad-lib falsifiers of spam-meat mystique and perverted desires.

And thirteen had horror blogs, and they were frightening. They were scary. Their blogs were black, embroiled in wreathed lattices of terrifying skulls, beasts, mucous varnished intestinal cobras and a wicked writer’s portrait complete with satanic goatee and vicious scowl. They want to stab you death and have necromantic sex with your twitching blood scabbed body as you cry for a mother whom they’ve already put to work on a street corner selling herself for crack and five dollar bills.

Father Tom stood there with his heavenly twilled white collar, wearing fecal streaked diapers and slapped the connective fascia off my bones, spalling my jowls of much needed humidity. He held tightly his crucifix and said, “I have serious doubts about your ability to discern good from bad.”

The albino man-tree erupted from vitamin B infused urine-yellow linoleum, smiled and said, “I’m doing the best I can for you son, and for your mother.”

I vomited my laser-vision stare on the priest, chocolate-cone-dipping his skull like the Dairy Queen does and said, “Wait, I thought you were the father.”

“I am the father, but this is your father.”

“I don’t have a father. I’m a test tube baby raised by lesbians named Oprah and Britney.”

The priest’s dung-plastered diapers twirled from his butt and wrapped my cranium: an Indonesian turban with shimmering sapphire nailed in my forehead. I felt uneasy and vomited falling-off-the-bone tender camel-toe meat—putrid and stringy. The priest squatted and shat Oprah from his blood-red rectal lips. She danced naked violently shaking her deflated football-breasts as butter-milk drizzled in thickened streams from nipples into two awaiting glasses held by Father Tom.

My father said, “Give this nourishment to my son Father, he needs it more than I. I’ll eat cold pork & beans right out of the can with an unwashed spoon as I do every night. But son, this is it, you candy-ass punk, get a fucking job and be a man. Writing all this meaningless drivel will get you nowhere.”

Father Tom horded the milk, refusing to give it to me.

A nineteen year old Britney still in her heyday of hotness came screaming down a slab of solar beams which lapped over the shifting sands of my window sill. She stripped bare and swallowed my beef-stick, her purple tongue lapping in dexterous manipulations.

I shattered a glower of condescension at my fathers, “Oh yeah? Well I object to your assertion—this is what it’ll get you: oh Britney-Mother, do your thang sugar-muffin.”

Just before my eruption of man-jelly, she sheared my rod off with razored incisors, swallowed, digested and defecated a three inch noodle of leftovers, but I didn’t die, but I was neutered. Oprah jiggled her cellulite crusted fat rolls with a g-string burrowed up her canyon-wide crack, continuing her hypnotic voodoo dance. Tears squirted from my father’s lachrymal ducts as the father held rosary beads in his knotted yellow fingers.

Twitter stood there with 5000 plasma screen TV monitors on its vastly naked chest, the giggling faces tuning into my private embarrassments and affairs, laughing at sexless me—the human paramecium—but I still had testicles.

Busting Bizarro Cherry

Busting Bizarro Cherry

Oprah, Britney and the father torqued my father’s ears: Twinkies, cupcakes, cheese puffs, Funjuns and soda-pop straws fingered outward from his dandruff chaffed scalp. And they greedily engorged all the poor hard-working man could provide. And he only wanted me to get a job.

Oprah bent over and spread her cheeks. “Well Bobby, you don’t know what this is do you?”

“No I don’t, but it is repugnant and sickening. Please cover that thing up.”

“Haven’t you heard? Ugly is the new pretty. But I’m talking about this.”

I covered my eyes. Twitter stared, masturbating and feverishly writing tweets. “Please, it’s horrifying, I can’t take it.”

“I’m talking about all of us, it’s a gathering. You don’t know about the gathering. We’re here for you my son.” Oprah kissed my father’s cheek while stabbing a samurai into his spinal cord. “Thanks for blindly serving us, you poor stupid man. I slept with your best friend today and pawned your soul to get a mountain-sized bowl of chocolate ice-cream.”

“You’re killing me Oprah-Wife. I already work 24-7-365.”

“It’s not enough. Britney and I need more, that’s why we brought father Tom.”

“We’re here for you Bobby, this is an intervention,” said Father Tom.

I convulsed in twisted conniption and bawled uncontrollably. “No, fuck all of you. I’m going to kill myself.”

“You said those other horror blogs were dressed black and evil, yet yours is spiffy and dressed like a preppy 1980s reject with a pink Polo golf shirt. You’re wearing a mask, cloaking the sinister you beneath cheap fabrics bought with green paper your father gave you. You are a sham. A quack. The perverted man next door hiding behind himself, and now you’re sexless.”

“What the fuck is going on? Who are you freaks?”

Oprah and Britney sucked my father dry, leaving him nothing more than a tiny lymph-injected flesh fritter. A human ravioli with no sauce. I ate him and truth pounded my soul into hyper-actualization.

Father Tom said, “After serving billions, a different drummer has died. Now you’ll have to find the beat of someone else to march to.”

“What’s the drummer’s name?”

“You imperceptive idiot. Haven’t you been listening? The drummer has no name yet all the people claiming to march to his beat are all marching to the beat of the same-different drummer—and now he is dead. Do you know truth? The difference between good and bad?”

“What is good and bad?”

“Killing unborn babies is bad. Splattering the bodies of innocent women and children with machine guns in other countries while they’re sleeping in tents is good. Do you understand the pristine logic? Think about it, it makes perfect sense if your wings are right.”

And all I wanted was a glass of Oprah-Mommy milk to wash down my ravioli, but Father Tom guzzled both down with a Britney-Burrito. My wings aren’t right and besides, I thought they were part of a feminine menstrual product. And now I don’t understand anything.

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Political Positivity

Here’s a little political positivity for today. With all the vitriolic hatred between the right and left in American politics, I’m so thankful I am not affiliated with either the republican or democratic party. It’s really asinine to call yourself liberal, conservative, libertarian, progressive or whatever. I’m basically an anarchist who believes in rugged individualism and opposes government, but having said that, I have something positive to say.
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Writing Fiction: Using Literary Theory

The use of literary theory in writing fiction is an often overlooked or completely disregarded aspect of writing in today’s world of “packaged artist” writers—often wrapped up and sold like McDonald’s cheeseburgers to kids inundated with commercialization and pop-culture. Is this good or bad? Does it really even matter?
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My Upcoming Transgressional Fiction Novel

I can’t really divulge too much detail about my upcoming transgressional fiction novel, but since I barely have time to actually blog right now and I’m spending nearly all my free time writing it, I thought it a good time to at least tell you a little about it—the thing keeping me strapped to my office chair, my bloodshot eyes transfixed to my Open Office word processor on my Linux desktop (nothing Microsoft here).

What Is Transgressional Fiction and Why Do I Love It?

In a nutshell, transgressional fiction has no moral boundaries of any kind. It usually involves a protagonist involved in crime, drugs, sex, incest and all things socially unacceptable—who wants to escape and often feels boxed in by society, job, bosses, rules and the suffocating nature of being spiritually unfulfilled. The protagonists of transgressional fiction often look to find spiritual solace or self-actualization through some form of explosive violence, crime or drugs. Often times, but not always, the protagonist is actually on some form of transcendental or existential journey to find themselves. Transgressional fiction is often termed low fiction à la Marqis de Sade in modern times. It’s twisted affliction with philosophical meaning.

I personally love it because it allows the absolute freedom to express any idea, no matter how repugnant or pornographic (let’s face it, sex is a natural part of life and by omitting it from my work because of some religious prudence kills the natural fire of a story). It’s based—at least my own transgressional fiction is—on realism and reality. Another reason I prefer to write in this genre as opposed to horror is because monsters, ghosts, ghouls, demons and people with magical powers not only don’t scare me, it can come off as unrealistic. This is not to say I don’t like or appreciate horror or speculative fiction, but I prefer to create horror within reality. I actually like love stories and am a big fan of Jane Austen, eroticism, and film noir. The most frightening stories to me are always about real people doing conceivable and horrific things—not a vampire or werewolf (in many cases but not all). However, it’s something readers of horror will like because of the twisted themes, gore and extreme violence.

I like the idea that dystopian society is in your back yard, next door, or you’re living in it right now in your real life—not some strange new world after the fourth world war

Unlike other transgressional writers like Bret Easton Ellis or Chuck Palahniuk—or even meta-fiction writers like John Barth or William H. Gass (and I’m not trying to compare myself to these greats)—who tend to use literary minimalism; my novel is a mixture of both minimalist prose and extreme imagism (literary minimalism can often lack color and I so love description heavy prose even if bloated and unnecessary). Actually, the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was instrumental and serves partly as a root for the entire transgressional genre. It’s amazing how new genres are coined and born from multiple predecessors and I see myself definitely writing in other genres besides this one.

The Protagonist

My novel (and I can’t even share the title at this point) is about a confused twenty-six year old man named Edward Zamiel Lang who is spiritually crushed and lost beyond redemption or so he believes . He has no confidence in himself, is sexually inadequate and is basically frightened of women. He lives twenty-six years without a girlfriend and falls into a vicious love triangle as his first experience in love—really a horrific way to start his foray into sex and girlfriends. He is the antithesis to many of Hemingway’s strong silent type protagonists and is the overly sensitive type with an almost classic female view of love, integrity and relationships. He’s very much in touch with his feelings and expresses them well. He’s trapped in a dead end town under the misapprehension that a big city will save his asphyxiating life (a common theme that never goes out of style).

The Girls

His best friend is a cocktail waitress named Jennifer Summer, a drug addicted whore who sleeps with multiple partners. Edward unfortunately falls in love with her. She tames his languid naiveté and convinces him to let her move in even though she is having affairs with several other men. He stupidly accepts it out of loneliness. They fall into a twisted labyrinth of methamphetamine addiction and manufacture (nothing like the popular show Breaking Bad but more personal and I started this novel years before ever seeing that show which is by the way my favorite—the best written show on TV in my opinion).

He meets a lovely Christian girl named Taryn Patterson, also a casino cocktail waitress, but has tremendous moral fiber and integrity. He falls in love with her and finds himself torn between the two—one promiscuous slut and one ethical Christian woman. A concussion of violence occurs which fractures Edward’s psyche and destroys his life. He loses both women. He finds himself in the clutches of harrowing depression and wants to commit suicide. He becomes so addicted to meth he cannot discern between reality and hallucination.

At his lowest point, on the verge of suicide or drug induced heart attack, when he needs to be loved by someone, cared about by someone—he meets Jennifer’s younger sister: Jessica Lenora Summer, the wicked whore-bitch sex-bomb from hell who takes him on a journey of invidious bloodshed—a nuclear inferno of psychological despair and sickness. His life converges into an eruption of the most terrifying horror I could dig out of my twisted mind. In my story, karma is a cruel lie. Men take on almost female roles and women gain the upper hand of control and pseudo-masculinity.

And that’s not the half of it

Though I have shared a partial synopsis of the story (which I am happy to share), I certainly didn’t give anything away. It’s a love story drenched in revulsion and menace. It’s a morbid satire. I stand resolute in delivering a tale defining the very essence of transgressive fiction. I pull no punches and if by miracle Oprah Winfrey ever reads it, she will drop to her knees and vomit. But hey, to truly show the underworld of methamphetamine addicted psychopaths and what their lives become, it cannot be a freaking fairy tale. Definitely not for children. Definitely not for everyone. But I guarantee it is riveting and realistic. It’s something that actually could happen in real life—and may actually have . . . somewhere.

Is it too violent? Yes.
Is there too much gore? Yes.
It goes places most horror writers won’t go.
The subject matter is beyond extreme, but very human.

As I said before, I will give as many copies away for free to my readers as I can afford, of course write my second novel (which I’m fleshing out ideas for right now) and find an agent. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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The Monet Defiled

Alessandra Francesca D’Olivera plugs her left nostril with outstretched pinky embellished with sharply honed viridian nail and blows a fluttering whip of blood-yolk which twirls like injured dragonfly sticking to a gold-brimmed replica of Claude Monet’s gorgeous 1915 painting Nympheas as the maddened crush of spectators stand in disgusted awe of her dead-eye-dick incisiveness; the tavern interior splattered in gambooge-yellow while the jagged-toothed Antonio Jacopo Terranova sits quietly in a darkened nook, his face shaded wicked by the twisted flicker of curled candle flame, shadows trickling along deeply engraved facial fissures and wax-crimped mustache edging thinly pleated upper lip.
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Writing Perspectives: Third Person Versus First Person

While assiduously writing my novel, actually rewriting it, I’ve come across many dilemmas worth sharing to anyone going through what I’m going through—whether novice or advanced—mostly dealing with writing perspectives. You know . . . first person, third person, multi-person omniscient or whatever. I read an article while back by David Niall Wilson—a horror writer with much experience and a growing body of work—about first person point of view, a very simple straightforward post that had a lasting impact on me. The post actually pissed me off at first, but after a few weeks, I realized he was correct in his assertion. I wish him great success and learned a few things from him (listening to others is very beneficial). He is also the site admin and contributor to Storytellersunplugged, one of the sleeper blogs often frequented by serious writers and is relatively unknown, but isn’t that how it is when a blog really has something to say? I highly recommend it as it has 30 contributors and offers a wealth of information on writing, from publishing to craft, a definite unsung gem in the blogosphere. I’d personally be honored to write a post for them if I get the chance.
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The Ugly Bitch

Vanilla smoked lies sweetly burn behind Mia’s gaze as she air-brushes her flawless face with her Dinair Media Spa kit purchased from Nieman Marcus, which she bought on sale for only $1450.00. She mists perfume across her neckline and says, “Mildred, will you clasp my necklace? And don’t worry, I’m almost finished getting ready.”

“Yeah sure,” she says while gazing at Mia’s perfection in the mirror, “but I don’t know why you have to get all fixed up, we’re not going out.”

“Well, I may go out. I know this is our night, but I may have a date with Bradford Merrick, the financial titan Bradford Merrick. I know you don’t understand, but I have an image to uphold. I’ve been studying the Anthony Robbins  Ultimate Edge CD series and success should be reflected in one’s appearance. Everything I do, say, every action I take has purpose, and without purpose we are losers. I’ve changed my life for the better: the guys I date are successful, my friends are successful, and I loathe to associate with anyone not on my frequency: the frequency of abundance.”

Mildred feels ugly. Ugly inside and out. Her neck-less skull sits imploded betwixt thick shoulders, a lead anvil hammered into spine, splattering a slight hump across her upper back. A miscreant goth she is, though smart and philosophical. She clasps the necklace and says, “Don’t you think you’re taking this image thing too far? For god’s sake, everyone knows you’re beautiful. You have doctors, lawyers, professors crawling at your feet. I mean Bradford Merrick bought you a corvette and barely knows you, how does that happen? You know the rest of the world doesn’t experience that stuff. And I doubt your interpretation of Anthony Robbins is right.”
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