Writer of The Dark with Chris Kazularich | Episode 139 #supernatural #horror #thriller

[Music] Hi bookaholics. This is Dearra Pippens. It's spooky season. Check out my pinned video on YouTube and Tik Tok of my interview with JD Barker. He has a really spooky story to tell you about. Now, if author interviews, book news, and book reviews resonate with you, please like my video and subscribe to my channels. I'm known across YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook as true bookaholic. Thank you so much for your support. Now, on with the show. Chris Coslerich, welcome to the Bookaholic podcast. >> Hi, dear. >> Yes, I'm so glad you're here. We're going to introduce your segment into spooky season. >> Perfect timing. >> Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, looking at the two books that you have published, it seems like you're on a particular genre. Um, let's start with Lazarus. I think that was your first, correct? >> Yes. Yeah. Nolla. >> Yes. Your Nolla. Uh, Lazarus. So, it says here, "It's ingeniously unsettling. Lazarus provokes thought and dread in equal unflinching measure." Okay. >> Okay. Um, that one I would call supernatural, a supernatural thriller, but people definitely felt that there were parts of it where it was uncom like kind of gave you that unsettling horror like vibe. For sure. >> Gotcha. Gotcha. So, tell us a little bit about Lazarus. What is that? >> Yeah. So in in a nutshell, um say there's a a serum in this story, there's a serum that's created and say it's an elderly person with Alzheimer's by going into it's now sold that, you know, you can go to your med spa and have this treatment done, specialty med spas, and they give this to you >> and you're young again. The Alzheimer's is gone. It cures you of these ailments. Have you ever seen the movie Death Becomes Her >> with Yeah, I have. So kind of how they take it and they're like, "Oh, I'm young again. I'm a girl." kind of thing. You know, I love that movie. So that's my reference point. Um, so imagine that except >> it causes >> not everything is as it seems. So supernatural things begin to happen to people. Memory lapses. They start going into rages that they don't remember. And this is what's happening to people that are taking the serum. >> But the company who makes it stands by their product. No, you know, there's nothing going on like that. and we do everything ethic ethically, >> right? >> But >> they're saying they make this, you know, synthetically. The kicker is that, and you find this early on, so I'm not ruining anything, is they don't they don't they're actually abducting children and using their plasma. They're draining them of their plasma to make this product. >> Oh my god. >> So, you know, dystopian horror, I guess, for sure. >> Oh my gosh. Totally unethical. My goodness. Okay. Yes, I got it. I got it. Wow. That Well, that that sounds really intriguing. I really like I mean really I like that you saw my mouth dropped. >> I did. >> What >> you're And there was a look of like what is wrong with you? >> Like abducting little children. But I mean, hey, I mean it makes you want to read it. I will tell. >> Yeah. And my and my inspiration for it was it was right before the pandemic. I read an article that there was a real company in the US that was trying to get FDA approval. I don't remember the name of the company but they were younger people so like probably their 20s were giving blood transfusions or they were taking their plasma and then very rich older people were having these injections of this because they thought it would make them feel younger because oh you get the young plasma and then the FDA was like nah like this isn't something we're going to do. But for me, I was like, interesting. That's what sparked the idea. And then for the children part, it was kind of like >> there's all the >> QAnon abduction things. And it's like >> I don't follow that line of conspiracy theory. However, >> it is something out there. >> What if like in this world children were disappearing for something nefarious? So that's kind of how the two like merged and became an idea. >> Gotcha. Gotcha. Totally understandable. I I like the twist. I really do. >> Now, let's talk about uh Managerie in the dark. These are the 14 stories that you were speaking. Yeah. 14 stories that you were speaking about earlier. And it says will stretch the limits of your emotions from heartbreak to horror, leaving you yearning for more. So, how would you describe the genre of these 14 stories? >> So, I from especially from feedback I'm getting from people, it is horror, but I almost blend it with speculative fiction. It can kind of be categorized either way. And I would say that more so because there are stories in the book's second part um because this does follow a thematic arc. So, it goes dusk, night, and then dawn. So, it's kind of that whole idea that the stories get darker and then at the end >> they get >> brighter, more hopeful because it's no matter how dark it gets, there's always a brighter tomorrow is the whole overall arching theme of the collection. So, in the middle, night, dark, well, those are probably straight horror stories. But toward the beginning, it is more whatifs and you feel maybe a scared sense, but it's more of things that you're losing. Like a child has an incident happen and loses someone that's loved. There's another one where um which this one is actually based on like here we go with me writing something that I experienced. So, there's one called Phantom in the Void toward the beginning. that would be in the first part of this book and it's a woman who's watching her husband pass away and then it kind of shifts and it's a memory and that was her husband dying and she has Alzheimer's and it's the love of her life but because of the Alzheimer's that memory slips away by the end of the story and that the whole scene in the beginning pretty much to the tea was all of us standing around my grandpa when he took his last breaths and my grandma's reaction to it and she had Alzheimer's. So in the beginning when it says the dedication to the book where it says to Buck and Leverne that was my grandpa's nickname was Buck and Leverne was my grandma. So this collection was really dedicated to them and that story was for them. But it's kind of that's where like some of these stories have are very personal to me. But it also it is that kind of that scary that idea of losing that person. So, you could say it's horror, but more of like a scariness of loss toward the beginning. In the middle, you definitely have straight horror stories. I mean, they're they're for sure going to be like, "Okay, that's horror." And then toward the end, you almost get a little comedy, a little satire. Things get more hopeful. Um, and so, and then at the end, I have a nice pallet, what I call my pallet cleanser. It's just a nice piece of flash fiction that you're like, "Okay, I'm good after all that." >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, I believe when people go to your website and if they subscribe to your Substack, maybe they do get a copy of one of the stories called Totality. >> Yes. >> Okay. Yeah. So, that would be a great way to if you want to check out Chris's writing, >> go ahead and subscribe to his Substack and uh you'll get one of his stories out of Managerie in the Dark called Totality. And is it totality a beginning, a dark horror, or a hopeful? >> That one I would say, I mean, it's in the third part, so it's getting more hopeful because nothing terrible happens to people at the end, but you still get the that creepy eerie throughout the story because it's a some weird happenings start occurring during the viewing of the Great American Eclipse in 2017. That's the setting. Um, so when that moment of totality happens, you know how they say animals start to act strange and things like that happen because it's messing with their rhythm. Something eerie happens during that, but I would say everything turns out more okay. Or does it? I don't know. Get to the end and I guess you'll see. >> Got you. Got you. What inspired you to put down the written word? Well, I don't want to sound cliche with everybody going, "Oh, I've written since I was a kid." But I did write since I was a kid. But that wasn't what really led me into pursuing it further. So, of course, now reflecting on it, my mom, you know, goes through all the stuff she saved as me as a kid from a kid. And she's like, "Oh, look at these stories you wrote when you were five. I always knew you do something with it." And it's like because in college and stuff, I didn't do that. But then after college, you know, I I've always loved books. I've I consumed the written word. I'm an avid reader. But there was a long period of time where it wasn't necessarily something that I wanted that I thought I wanted to do. But in times of stress or something, you know, traumatic or I just felt like I needed to work something >> out. I always saw myself doing it not in the form of journaling which a lot of people do but I would start writing fiction stories and it took me a while to realize like very much probably into my 30s to realize a lot of stories I'm writing there's something in there that's a seed of something that bothered me and then my imagination just went wild and that's a yeah and so and then as I kind of went through >> all of myies that's where I was very much it's like I would love to pursue this as a career because thinking as far back as I can remember I've always loved books. I've always have loved to write but growing up you know in the '9s going through school go to college you could do whatever you know your dream is >> right >> there was always the thing of arts have always been something that it wasn't oh you could just go to college and come out and you could just have a salary and you know you've made it. It's it's something it's something that you have to to really chase and have the passion for and pursue. And as I got older, >> I realized that that is for me. But, you know, kind of growing up with the the whole idea of >> do this, get a great job, do that, >> right? It kind of got pushed to the wayside until I started living more in my life experience said I I want to be be happy and feel fulfilled and telling stories to people and allowing people to to suspend disbelief and be able to go into these worlds like I do. That's what makes me feel complete and whole. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm a little older than you are, but I definitely understand about how during the 90s, you know, it was like the corporate job, you know, college, get a corporate job. And I'm just pleased to say pleased to realize that now I think younger people are a little bit freer to pursue things that make them happy as opposed to just simply a money-making job. And I know you need a money-making job to pay your bills, but I think they're all a little bit more freed up to express themselves than definitely than when I was um they had just got out of college and and it sounds like you to you as well in the 90s. Yes, definitely. >> So now you become a writer, you are fulfilled, but what's your writing technique like? because even though you know you do have to have a systematic process in order to get a book done. So what's your writing process like? >> Yeah. So it can be inconsistent but um you know it's finding time with day job, family and all of those um commitments. Sometimes it's just easier to be procrastinate and go I can't tonight. I don't want to do it. But for the most part, it's very much setting aside that guarded time. Whether it's in the morning, which I do feel like I do best in the morning if I wake up before everybody else does, have a coffee, >> I have one spot I like to sit in our front room, the window, I can see everything, and I just type. So like this morning, I had um 45 minutes before I was like, "Okay, I got to get ready for work and everything." And um >> I 45 minutes I wrote 450 words. I felt great. It was just like a quick like banged it out and then I'm like, "Okay, I felt really good about that." So, if things get busy today and I can't get back to it, I can feel good that I sat down and showed up because that's the most important thing is consistency and showing up. Even if you are sitting in front of the computer for an hour and you write two words, the fact is is that you overcame that resistance of distractions that want you to do everything else but write. So, so that's my main thing is consistency is just guarding a time for myself to sit down and force myself to try. And usually once I do, >> I write something whether it's a little bit or a lot. >> And that took me a long time to get that consistency for myself. There was a lot of a long period of time where it's like, oh, I'm going to do it. It felt very defeist in my head because you read you know like other authors who are like you have to write every day write a thousand words a day and they set these goals that are very big and lofty and for me in my head my mental trick for myself is I couldn't set that goal for myself because I tried for a long time and if I already knew that I didn't have the time to do a thousand words or I was just so me like you know after a long day's work you're mentally fatigued you're like I just want to check out >> if if I already knew I felt that way and I couldn't get the thousand words rather than face the failure of sitting in front of the computer and not writing that much. I just want to do it. >> And so it's like >> yeah it's so so like why do that? So for me I'm just like all right I'll give myself a goal because then it's something but it's like 200 words a day and I almost always do double that but 200 words a day that's like a par that's like a couple paragraphs and I'm like all right I mean if I can't do that like I could do that. I mean, even if it's garbage, I could do that. >> So, >> Right. Right. Exactly. Well, I mean, you know, and and like you said, that that doesn't put too much pressure on you, but that could actually mean you're structuring a character, maybe kind of like thinking out a character and what their next move is or just describing them or whatever. So, yeah, that that's a successful way of looking at things, I think. Now, you chose you are indie, you do indie publishing, is that correct? >> Correct. Yes. >> Okay. And so that can be a difficult journey to do all of this on your own. So tell me tell us about that process. Why did you choose it or did you choose to go down the other road publishing by by big publisher or what made you go down the indie road? >> Yeah. So the indie so I ended up going down this road for now. I do think in the like in the future I would like to do maybe something a bit more hybrid. So I of course want to with my next book that I'm writing is a fulllength novel and I very much would like to query agents and try to get an agent and go with the big publisher route. I also see myself in the future as a lot of authors do then I'll also have my own stories where I just do on my own and more of it had to do with me doing a lot of research on the industry and seeing what was marketable because I when you're inspired to write something write it like if there's the story that you feel you know what I want to get this down and I want to share it with people chasing what is the popular fad by the time you get your book published the fad's over And you know, so you know, I feel like everybody did vampires and then a bunch of vampire books came out and a lot of people tried and then they were already moved on from vampire. So it's kind of for me it's and you know, and a lot of times maybe people try to write something that they aren't as interested in but they want to make it and I don't blame them because I certainly want to make it. I want I want to go into bookstores and see my book everywhere. But I I also, you know, want to stay true to what I'm writing in the sense that if it's something that I really want to write, it'll be more authentic. I don't want to force it because then I'll probably put out a bad book and that doesn't help me for the future. So, with a short story collection, you just from what I've researched and found, it isn't something that sells really well unless you're a well-known author or they're buying a fulllength book and it's like a package deal where it's like, "Okay, we'll do this. We'll do this novel. Oh, and then you have this collection, too, and we could put it out later." That's what I was kind of told from people that I was asking and looking up online and trying to like research. So with me already knowing that I'm like you know I my collection that I just released this is my my 14 favorite stories that I had written over the course of 12 years. So I took so I just went through it because I have lots of stories that I you know I would just be like oh this little idea write it. >> I have no idea if I can make it a full length like novel. So I'm like oh I'll just make this little this little scene turn it into a story. I felt really satisfied when it was done and I have lots of those. So, I picked out my favorites and I made this collection, but I also knew, okay, I probably can't get an agent. And I did actually try I queried agents with it to test to test to see if like, okay, let's see if there is an appetite for it. And I had >> several responses where it's, you know, this is just not something that we think we could sell, but good luck to you kind of things. And I'm like, yeah, that's kind of what I heard through the grapevine and through research. So, it's like, but that's but that's okay. I mean, indie publishing is is difficult because you're not just the writer, you're the project manager, the marketer, all these things that I had to learn how to do. And I'm like, I don't know how to do that. Yeah. But it's been a rewarding experience. And it's really cool to control all the aspects of designing the book. >> And if anything, if I do get an agent and get with a big publisher, I'll understand all the facets of the process. And I can be >> I know there's parts that you can't be involved in when when you're dealing with a big company. That's like that's not that's not your lane, >> right? >> But I know I still have to market myself. So having to try to learn how to do that, it was important to force myself to learn. >> Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, what's next on your plate? You mentioned that you have a full novel that you're working on. >> Yes. So, I am writing a um suspense. Uh it's a thriller and it is called the working title right now is In This Town. Of course, I'm going to try to get an agent and you know hopefully try to actually have this pitch to publishers. So, I know titles can change. That's the working title. My first draft is completely done. I've already worked with my editor on it. So, I have um I'm going through um revisions and doing some structural changes to it now. So, I hope in the next couple of months to have that next draft done so that I can send it back to my editor, maybe beta readers, get more feedback, and continue on. Normally, you know, several drafts before it's done, but I have the bones of my story together. And with this one, there's this couple after some incidences that they have in the city relationshipwise. Um, they almost split up, but instead we're going to give it another go and they move to this very affluent um, town in the suburbs of Chicago. Um, it is a fictional town that I made up, even though when people read it, they might be like, I kind of feel like I know where this is supposed to be. Um and uh they um run into a person who is a neighbor, someone that lives in the town, and she's very peculiar and begins uncomfortable behavior watching them almost stalking like behavior. And it's and a lot of people look at her as being that outcast in the town. And so, but this woman, you know, she's saying she's very much there's nothing wrong with me. It's the town. And as you go through the story, it's >> what's the real threat here? Her or is it >> the town? >> Wow. >> So, in this town. So, that's going to be my next my next book. Right now, we're at about 95,000 words. So, it'll probably be about a 300 page at this point, but we'll see after some editing. And then, for those who subscribe to my Substack since you mentioned it, right now I'm doing a serialized novel on there where I'm just releasing a chapter at a time. So, it's a new idea. I've never done that before. This one, I'm only a couple chapters in and the story's kind of developing as I go. So, we'll see how it all turns out. But that's that's another thriller that's on there. >> Again, I love it. I love it all. And I'm proclaiming you are one of our next big stars in writing because all your ideas sound so intriguing. So, uh we'll put that out in the universe and hope it sticks. >> Awesome. Thank you. And so once again, you can subscribe to Chris's Substack and we'll make sure we have his information in the podcast show notes and in the video description box below on YouTube. Chris, thank you so much for joining me today. >> Thank you, Dearra. Have a wonderful rest of your day and thank you everybody. >> Thank you.