I’d like to welcome Anton Strout to WLP today, which happens to be the release day of Dead Matter the third in Simon Canderous series.

WLP: Where did the idea for Simon come from?

AS: Oddly enough, the idea of him came to me after reading John Irving’s The World According to Garp.  Or maybe it was watching it.  Either way, Garp writes a short story about a guy who wears these magic gloves that give him powers, but cut him off from any real emotional attachment to others.  It was a bittersweet trade-off. All this sparked the idea of a guy who wore gloves to dampen his own powers, ones that he couldn’t really control.  That power was psychometry-the ability to touch an object and read its history.  Thing is, Simon couldn’t control it all that well.  If he touched something belonging to a potential girlfriend, he unveiled far too much of her secret history and it destroyed any chance of every forming a real relationship.  He wants control of his life, and through his work with the Department of Extraordinary Affairs in New York City, we get to join him on his journey to regain it.  I also had wondered for a long time how an average guy would cope with/survive in a world of Lovecraftian horror.  You’d kind of have to quip your way through it to maintain your sanity.  It’s why I enjoy Peter Parker so much when he puts on his red and blue tights to fight crime as Spider-Man.

WLP: Since there aren’t many male leads in UF, why did you choose to write a male character?

AS: I’m fairly new to the being a published writer game, even though I am currently working on book four in the series.  Starting out, writing a story from the male seemed more familiar to me.  I felt more connected to Simon as I wrote in his voice.  The main series was bought three years ago,   and since then I’ve become more confident in how I write.  That confidence has allowed me to do a lot of short stories written from the female perspective.  I think writing believable people of the opposite sex gets easier as you progress as a writer, but in the beginning it was just easier to write from that male mindset.  When I write from Simon’s perspective, I worry less about if I’m getting it right.   

WLP: How do you research for your books?

AS: Does watching Ghostbusters and Buffy count? 

I write books set in or around Manhattan. I live just outside of it now, but it’s still where I work.  A lot of the meat of my books takes place in a lot of the quirky places I’ve been around the five boroughs.  It’s a great city and there are a million naked, undead stories to be told.  Also, I try to limit my research on the things I’m folding into the story.  If I had my way, I’d easily get caught up and sidetracked in the intricacies of hardcore researching, but I have deadlines to make.  Wikipedia goes a long way towards keeping my research in check.  People far more articulate than I have synopsized much of what I want to use as flavor in my books.  I’m not writing a travel guide to paranormal New York. I don’t need to go crazy about putting down every detail, but I want enough flavor for my characters to function in the flow of a narrative.  I tend to write more cinematically because of that… heavy on dialogue with a touch of paranormal Manhattan flavoring throughout.

WLP: Can you define the differences between UF and PR for us? What is UF to you?

AS: Since my day job is in publishing, I’d say it’s really a matter of semantics.  On a base level as a very GENERAL rule, I’d say that the amount of focus on relationships and sexuality draws a fair line between the two categories.  UF can have all that too, but it tends to focus a tiny bit more on mystery elements and plot movement.  Again, these are gross generalizations as they all bleed into each others territory, but they will have to suffice.  I’ve been on countless panels talking about the differences, but there’s a lot of wiggle room there.

Also, I think a lot of what category a book winds up in has to do with where an editor thinks the salesperson can get a bigger buy with a category buyer.  If they know that the romance buyer at a major chain loves unicorns wearing kilts, then maybe a UF called The Highland Unicorn gets pushed to PR to get a greater number of copies into the store.  Some of the category choices happen rather arbitrarily.

DON’T GO STEALING THAT AWESOME IDEA!  IT’S MINE, ALL MINE!  *scribbles notes down madly*

WLP: Why did you choose to go with humor?

AS: Humor is evident in everything that I love out there. I’m a huge fan of Ghostbusters, Douglas Adams, and anything that Joss Whedon does.  I also love dark works such as Hamlet which, while a tragedy, is riddled with humor.  I think that humor helps us get past the dark stuff, makes us able to bear the day to day horrors, and for that reason, its value is limitless.  I think Joss Whedon absolutely gets that and it’s why the Whedon-verse has such a following.  He serves up a perfect blend of dark and funny.  He sets the bar for the rest of us.

WLP: How do you get into your character’s mind frames?

AS: I used to act and you always get the question, “What’s my motivation?”, so I’ve spent a lot of my life contemplating what makes a character tick.  I tend to write characters based on people or their traits that I find interesting.  For instance, Simon wants to be a good person, but he has to fight at it.  I know a lot of people like that.  Most of them fail, but I wanted a hero who still tried to maintain it in a world of paranormal craziness.  For the other characters, I try to figure out what each of them truly wants, what would make them happy, even if that happiness is caused by evil.

WLP: Do you write with music? If so what?

AS: Most of the time I write with music or some kind of background noise.  Only when I’m concentrating on reading and editing at the same time do I forgo it.  Sometimes I’m on shuffle when I listen.  Other times I like to get a nice loop in my head so I can free up other parts of my brain.  For this, I usually go with Philip Glass or some for of electronica or techno.  Current faves on my playlists are the Dust Brothers or the Crystal Method.

WLP: If you could have one part of Simon as your own, what would it be? Why?

AS: My favorite thing about Simon is his capacity for wanting to be a good person.  He comes from a bit of a miscreant past, changed his ways and nowadays strives to do the right thing.  He’s not always successful, but he has a sense of honor and wanting to do good that I wish I had.

That and he can take a hell of a lot of damage over four books and bounces back (relatively) unharmed.  I’d like to be able to do that.  It’s true that I take a perverse pleasure in torturing poor Simon.  I think if your characters are even too happy, you’re definitely doing something wrong as a writer.

WLP: Is Simon a boxers or brief kinda guy? Conor?

AS: I think they’re both boxer guys.  Agents at the Department of Extraordinary Affairs like a little freedom when running around New York. 

WLP: Who would play Simon in a movie?

AS: After seeing his appearance on Saturday Night Live, I could totally see Zach Efron in the role.  I wouldn’t have thought it before then, but he’s grown on me.

WLP: Tell us about Dead Matter

AS: Well, it’s the third book in the dark and humorous adventures of Simon Canderous, Manhattan’s favorite relationship challenged psychometrist.   When the paranormal raises its otherworldly head in New York City, the Department of Extraordinary Affairs executes a flawless, stick-the-landing smackdown. That’s the idea anyway, and Agent Simon Canderous can usually count on help from his mentor, Connor Christos. But Connor’s left Simon to handle a double case load as he cashes in on five years worth of saved vacation time. Simon suspects that Connor isn’t Club Medding so much as Club Deading it up—investigating the disappearance of his long lost brother.

Simon especially needs Connor when the spirit populace of Manhattan is shaken and stirred by someone intruding on their well-deserved R.I.P. But Connor’s relentless ghost whispering has sent him off the deep end; he’s haunted every night by visions of his brother’s ghost at his window. Simon’s partner may be going crazy—or worse, maybe he’s not…

WLP: Finally, because it’s been driving me nuts: Why is there a movie always playing at the Lovecraft?

AS: The Lovecraft Cafe is bases on a real, but now sadly closed, place in NYC called Cinema Classics.  The front is indeed a coffee shop with a theater built in right behind it that shows movies all day. I used to go there, get myself some coffee and pastries and head on back to catch old films….

In the book world, most of the agents don’t spend time in the theater, unless it’s to blow off steam or clear their mind while working on a case.  A lot of the norms can be found watching the films in there.  However, the movies SOMETIMES give clues as to what will be happening further along in the books.

Anton has offered up a SIGNED COPY of any of his three books: Dead To Me, Deader Still or Dead Matter to ONE lucky commenter. Since Simon always seems to get himself in weird situations, tell me What Is The Weirdest Situtation You’ve Gotten Yourself Into! End Friday February 26, with the winner being announced on Saturday February 27th.