Ask the Author: Mark Sumner
Answered Questions (3)
Mark Sumner
Honestly, my publisher pushed for a horror series set in a high school, and the first thing that popped to mind was a basketball coach
I had in 10th grade. He was just awful. He made students carry him around in a desk like it was a sedan chair, and he kept a supply of baseballs handy to throw at students he thought were being lazy. He was worse than the monster in the book!
I had in 10th grade. He was just awful. He made students carry him around in a desk like it was a sedan chair, and he kept a supply of baseballs handy to throw at students he thought were being lazy. He was worse than the monster in the book!
Mark Sumner
Hey, wow. Sorry I left this unanswered for so long.
Yes, there was always a third novel planned. Originally the three books were called Range, Rail, and Rifle. But after Del Rey's marketing department changed things, that turned into Devil's Tower, Devil's Engine, and Devil's Crusade. Crusade exists only as a half dozen chapters and an outline, as Del Rey cancelled my contract... in the same week Devil's Tower was named as a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. I'd love to get back to it, but it would first require some way to get the initial volumes back in print.
Yes, there was always a third novel planned. Originally the three books were called Range, Rail, and Rifle. But after Del Rey's marketing department changed things, that turned into Devil's Tower, Devil's Engine, and Devil's Crusade. Crusade exists only as a half dozen chapters and an outline, as Del Rey cancelled my contract... in the same week Devil's Tower was named as a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. I'd love to get back to it, but it would first require some way to get the initial volumes back in print.
Mark Sumner
The horrible truth is that those days when you're feeling great and the text is just flowing, and those days when you have to drag out every word with a boat hook... actually end up resulting in about the same quality of text when you look at it six weeks later. So the answer to writer's block is to just keep putting down something, no matter how wrong it feels, and see if it's not just fine once you've moved on long enough to forget which words came easy and which were carved from granite with wet noodles.
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