Q&A with Eric Hendrixson discussion

As I am a huge fan, without giving anything away, are you working on a novel now?

How has promoting BofF helped or hindered the creative process? Thanks, h.

You'd be amazed how much time it takes to get the word out about a book like this. This has cut into my writing time, but I expect to start up again in November.

However, it has definitely helped with the "why bother" question about writing. Getting to know the people who read the book, what has worked for them, and things like that will probably help me with my next book.

I definitely have a few ideas I'm working on using a plotting method John Skipp showed me.

John Skipp? I am behind the times!

He's known for his work in the Splatterpunk, horror, and Bizarro genres. He also does screenplays. He wrote Nightmare on Elm Street 5. Nice guy. Good beard. I donated July's royalties to getting his zombie musical made.

Eric wrote: "He's known for his work in the Splatterpunk, horror, and Bizarro genres. He also does screenplays. He wrote Nightmare on Elm Street 5. Nice guy. Good beard. I donated July's royalties to getting hi..."

Oh, yes I checked out the Zombie movie video you posted on your blog. Sounds cool. I hope I remember to look for it!

Are you planning on revisiting the world of Bucket of Face in the future?

I might. I have or had a book that takes place in DC about ten years after BoF. At least I had it before the crash that took my first draft of BoF. One prominant character is Merry, who is a doughnut shop worker. This was the girl hired at the end of the book. I'm still not sure if it will be in the same universe.

I also had thoughts of a prequel of sorts: Roma Rising, but that might just be a short story. Since I visualize Roma as first generation, this would get into the root of some of his anger issues and show why he knows so much about Michael Jackson.

Eric wrote: "I might. I have or had a book that takes place in DC about ten years after BoF. At least I had it before the crash that took my first draft of BoF. One prominant character is Merry, who is a doughn..."

Both ideas sound really good. I'd buy them.

A long time ago, I know, you had a draft of a novel with a bitter poet and a freaky downstairs neighbor. Hope you don't mind me mentioning it.

It was a really good novel. Might you ever dust it off? I would so buy that novel!

I laughed with the opening fruit cocktail scene in BofF b/c it was a rewrite of sorts for a fruit cocktail scene in the other novel. What is it with fruit cocktail?

Actually, it was a separate inspiration. In this case, the idea was just to watch fruit eat fruit. It's the same kind of uneasiness people have when they see pigeons eating from chicken bones discarded in the street. For some reason, people are uneasy when they see birds eating birds, but mammals eat mammals. Primates eat primates. We are all made out of food. I'm made mostly out of meat. It was a joke about squeamishness, and since many of the characters in the book are usually considered food, I wanted to address the issue in the first chapter.