Today we have with us Craig Wallwork, author if the new release

Labyrinth of the Dolls (Tom Nolan Book 2)

EVIL HAS A NEW FACE

It’s been one year since the horrific murders of Stormer Hill, and the events of that time continue to resonate with Detective Constable Tom Nolan. In an attempt to find the second killer, known only as the Ragman, Nolan joins West Yorkshire’s Murder Investigation Team.

Partnered with Jennifer Morrison, a straight-talking detective with her eye on promotion, the two officers are assigned to track down a new killer whose victims are all found dressed like human dolls. As the investigation progresses, Nolan becomes an intricate piece in the killer’s grand vision that puts his life in danger.

But with the body count rising daily and the pressure to find who the media is labelling the Doll Maker increasing, Nolan discovers more than just a series of grisly murders…

Within the human dolls, the answers he has sought for nearly a year may finally be found.

You have written over 40 short stories, that is impressive. Do you have a favourite one?

CW: One of my best friends told me recently that he hasn’t read any of my novels or short stories because he doesn’t want to not like them. He worries he’d have to feign praise. I get it. This is the same reason I rarely revisit my own work.

I love the process of writing a story, or novel, but sometimes they’re the product of the situation I’m in at the time, or my mental state.

To go back and read stories I once considered my favourites, it runs the risk of discovering they’re not that good, or I could have crafted a line better. That scares me. So I’ll say that I remember fondly the story, Night Holds a Scythe, or maybe Farewell Valencia, which featured in the Tales from the Lake Vol 5 anthology.

Just don’t ask me to go back and make sure.

Which one was your first piece?

CW: Autumn Leaves. It’s a story about my grandmother who I watched go through dementia. In the story I changed it to my grandfather, maybe because writing about her was too close to reality. But everything in that story happened, from the slow forgetful stuff, to the final stages.

My mother at the time worked nights at a call centre for a bank. She and my father would drive to my grandmother’s place after her shift, pick my grandmother up (toward the end, my father had to literally pick her up because her motor skills had reverted back to baby status) and bring her to our house.

My mother would then stay up all day looking after her. This meant feeding, changing her, and putting up with random, and very vicious, physical attacks. My uncle would then pick my grandmother up around five o’clock, allowing my mother to sleep for a few hours before returning to work.

Every day I saw my grandmother get worse and worse. Her emotions would flit from being placid to crazy within a second. Likewise, I watched my mother deteriorate too. She was exhausted, bruised, and deeply upset seeing her mother fade away a little every second.

I hated my grandmother for putting my mother through that. But I was wrong to think that way. My mother just wanted to spend as much time with her own mother before she died, even if that meant wearing a bruise on her forearm for a few days.

Dementia is a cruel bitch, but it was probably the catalyst behind me becoming a writer.

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What was your first inspiration to grab a pen and write? And what is your inspiration now?

CW: I used to write a lot of Magical Realism because I lived in a very toxic environment. My hometown has a large unemployment and crime rate too. Writing about heavy stuff like that doesn’t sit well with me, so I’d deal with it by making my stories more surreal, or funny, to allow me distance.

There’s a story called Men of Blood that is about a friend who I really cared for, but something happened that caused us not to speak for about fifteen years. I wanted to write about him, and how I felt at the time, but I knew I couldn’t talk freely about it.

So I made him into a Minotaur. This is how I used to deal with my demons; I’d embellish them, make them into something else, something magical.

Writing was, for a long time, therapy. Whenever I felt angry, scared, upset, instead of sitting on a therapist’s chair and pouring my heart out, I’d reach for the pen (well, the laptop) and write some weird surreal story about it all.

Now I’m in a better place, I don’t feel the need to express myself in the same way. My inspirations now are my children. I want to leave a legacy behind, something tangible they can pick up once I’m gone.

That said, stories like Anal Twine, or Revenge of the Zombie Pussy Eaters, might not necessarily be the kind of thing I want them to remember me by.

[bctt tweet=”This is how I used to deal with my demons; I’d embellish them, make them into something else, something magical. #authorinterview #horrorauthor #writingcommunity @craigwallwork” username=”theboldmom”]

What is your writing process?

CW: I’ve said this before, but writing to me is a lot like panning for gold. There’s a lot of grit and shit before you find that little shiny nugget. Every day I pan. I have ideas, but I don’t act upon any of them until they’ve been sifted and cleaned off.

Once I’ve played the idea over, and seen it like a movie in my head, only then do I sit down and write. Sometimes this process takes days, sometimes months.

All I need then is a quiet room. Ironically, I came upstairs to write this answer and my son just walked in and is now asking me what my favourite super power is. He’s been trying, for the past few weeks, to move objects with his mind.

Not a day passes where I don’t find him with teeth exposed, scowling at a pen, or cup, head shaking violently and arm stretched out. I should point out he’s six years old.

If he’d only apply just a fraction of the effort he puts into telekinesis to his school work, he’d be a genius. I haven’t the heart to tell him to stop. I used to do the same thing when I was his age. Only with me I was trying to set things on fire using just my eyes.

I was born in the 1970s so Superman was my hero. I also once resuscitated my goldfish after I found it floating in the fishbowl. After that I thought I could bring things back from the dead. I would hold dead flies in my palm and whisper the words “breathe” repeatedly.

They never did, breathe that is. I miss that gullibility, or just having that belief that magic really can happen even though it never does.

Ironman or Hellboy?

CW: I’m not a huge comic book fan. I used to be as a child, but not so much now. I avoid all comic book adaptation too, save for Deadpool and the Umbrella Academy. But out of the two I’d go with Hellboy because, if memory serves, it featured Nick Cave’s Red Right hand in the movie with Ron Perlman. And I’m a huge Nick Cave fan.

Are you a wine or coffee writer?

CW: Coffee. I never write under the influence. I tried it a few times and the results are depressing. Writing while drinking alcohol is akin to people telling you about their dreams; it only makes sense and is interesting to the host, not the recipient.

Can you describe your style in a couple of lines?

CW: Dark with heart.

What kind of horror reader is your book for? What are they going to find in your work?

CW: Gory Hole: A Horror Triple Bill, is definitely for those who like their horror over the top. Maybe it leans more toward Bizzaro or Grindhouse. It’s only a short collection.

There’s a story about lesbian zombies, another about fine dining cannibals, and the last about mutant deer.

The novels Bad People and Labyrinth of the Dolls form part of a detective series that blend thriller and horror. If you like Se7en, then you’ll love Bad People.

Which is the best way of contacting you?

CW: Through my website: www.craigwallwork.com. Or you can find me on Twitter too; @craigwallwork.

Tweets by CraigWallwork

Please don’t try and find my house. I will set the dogs on you. Actually, I don’t have dogs. We have a guinea pig called Waffle and he has pretty sharp teeth so yeah, I’ll set him on you instead.

Do you have some advice for new authors?

CW: Prepare to fail, a lot, but remember; you can’t fall off the floor. The truly great writers of the world got to where they are now because they never gave up. Perseverance is just as important as imagination is this game. And luck; luck pays a huge part too.

What is the best and the worst of being a writer?

CW: Silence is the worst part. Even if people are slating your work, or leaving one star reviews, that’s better than no one speaking about you at all. You can work with that. You can take all those negative comments and do better next time. But when no one is speaking about you, when no one is reading your work, that can break a writer.

The best part, getting opportunities like this, and knowing that somewhere, in a little room on the other side of the world maybe, is a person sat beside a lamp holding your book.

What is your life dream?

CW: I’m not going to be clichéd here and say to write full time. That is every writers’ dream, so it’s a given. If I’m being honest…I’d say to be completely, and 100%, happy with myself.

Do you have one favourite book?

CW: Probably The Exorcist. Close second would be Michael McDowell’s Blackwater, which technically is a series of novellas but it was compiled into one book a few years back.

The Exorcist though is one of those books that any writer of horror would love to have done. And it’s layered with deep philosophical questions skewering the religious elements. I’ve watched lots of interviews with William Peter Blatty, about why he wrote the book and what it meant to him. It’s a very personal book about his own battle with faith, but it’s also a great story about physical and emotional demons.

I believe he rushed the first draft and wasn’t completely happy with the version that was released in the early 1970s. This is why he revisited it shortly before his death and did some amends.

Can you imagine writing one of the most famous horror books of all time and then going back to revise it? Proves that regardless of its reputation, that book was still his and he was going to make it something he was truly proud of. I admire that.

Do you prefer horror books or movies?

CW: I’d be lying if I say I prefer books. Sure, a lot of the story ends up on the editing room floor in movies, so books are great for understanding the bigger picture, but they never truly, in my opinion, scare me the way movies do. Some resonate.

Like the opening chapter to Robert McGammon’s Mine, but movies have scores that heighten the mood at the right time. They offer bloody scenes and leave nothing to the imagination. Authors can paint a scene well.

They can use words that penetrate the brain and the heart. They can create tension, and even goose the skin with a good reveal. But they can’t make you jump out of your skin. Take Robert Bloch’s Psycho; the book is great and gives us the chilling portrayal of a serial killer with mother issues.

*Spoiler alert!!!*

But the ending to the movie is far more gut-churning than the book. It’s everything; the swinging light bulb in the fruit cellar, the high-pitched scream of Norman dressed in his mother’s frock and wig, his manic expression and the dawning realisation he was the killer all along.

Bloch’s words articulated the same scene very well, but Hitchcock’s vision resonated in me more. Maybe I should have added a spoiler alert there. Oh well.

Trad or modern horror?

CW: Traditional. I’m old-school. I grew up in the 1970s/80s loving Hammer House and movies like Jaws, Evil Dead, Dead and Buried, Dawn of the Dead, Poltergeist, Return of the Living Dead, The Thing, The Changeling, The Amityville Horror, The Omen, and Halloween.

I’m also getting into Giallo recently too, Deep Red, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Tenebrae, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, those kind of movies.

There’s something more chilling about old horror movies too. I find them more difficult to watch because they’re closer to what happens in my nightmares. Mordern horror is either too cerebral or remakes.

Don’t get me wrong. I quite like some of the remakes: Red Dragon; Night of the Living Dead; It; I even liked The Thing, but give me a choice, and I’ll always default to the originals.

Which book would you recommend to our audience?

CW: I’d have to say Gory Hole if you want straight up horror. But if you want something that’s a little deeper, and more haunting, then go for Bad People.

People have said there are sections in that book that have given them have a visceral reaction, either by screaming out, or having to keep the lights on.

All I’ll say about it, without giving away too much of the plot, is that you’ll never be able to predict what seriously fucked up things happen in that book.

Which kind of music do you listen to? And do you listen to it while you write?

CW: I don’t listen to music while writing. Actually, I lied there. I mentioned Nick Cave earlier. I listened to the scores he made with Warren Ellis of the Bad Seeds while writing one book called, Dog Mile. But as a rule, I don’t listen to music while writing. In my car I’ll listen to audio books, too. It’s only in the gym when I listen to music.

My current playlist consists of bands like The Nude Party, Van Morrison, Lana Del Ray, Sam Cooke, The Raconteurs, and various rap artists. It’s very eclectic.

A guy I’m digging at the moment is Ekspan. I picked up his album Bloodwork recently and I’d highly recommend it to anyone that likes old school hip hop and lots of horror references to people like Stephen King, Clive Barker and Paul Tremblay.

What is the feeling when you write the last word of your book?

CW: Thank fuck for that.

How long do you take to finish a novel?

CW: Labyrinth of the Dolls took only three months. But I’ve had some novels that have taken years to complete, and, if I’m being honest, are probably still not ready yet.

But I like the quick ones. Writing is a lot like a relationship; its glorious to begin with, but you soon want to kill each other.

What do you think about self-publishing?

CW: There used to be a real stigma attached to self-publishing, which was inherited from the days of vanity publishing, but having done it twice now, I’m a huge advocate. Amazon, for all its faults, has allowed many writers a platform to express themselves and get their work out to anyone willing to shell out a few dollars. But here’s the thing – if you’re thinking of self-publishing, don’t be lazy.

Self-publishing is frowned upon only because of the effort, or lack thereof, of some writers. Providing it doesn’t violate any of their policies, anyone can put a book out on Amazon. This means that even your weird uncle who lives alone and keeps his toenails in a jar can now publish his intergalactic space opera that runs to a thousand pages. However, that doesn’t mean it’s any good.

What lets a lot of author’s down is not the story, though many do fail at this; it’s having no editorial advice, no copy-editor, no artist to design the cover, and no real knowledge on how to market the book. Self-publishing is hard because you’re the writer, editor, proof reader and publishing house.

I made so many mistakes with Bad People because I rushed things, and I’ve spent a lot of time, and energy, righting those mistakes. However, if done right, self-publishing is a great platform to pageant your work and show the world how good a writer you are.

One book I read recently that was self-published was Briana Morgan’s Unboxed. She did a great job in all aspects of production. Also, if you get it right, it can lead to book deals and a good income. It works for me because I dislike the whole publishing phase.

By that I mean trying to find a publisher, waiting six to twelve months to hear back, then the worry that you’re signing your life away. And yes, Amazon is crippling the indie publishers, and yes, it’s a fertile environment for weak and poorly written novels, but it’s a happy halfway house for many, including myself.

In short, it takes a lot of anxiety out of the process and leaves you in full control. Providing you know what you’re doing.

Pineapple in a pizza?

CW: God no! I’d rather cut out my own tongue and nail it to my forehead.

Which one of your books is the best one to start off?

CW: I guess if you want a quick taste of my style then the short story collection, Quintessence of Dust, is a good start.

It’s got a blend of genres in there, from horror stories like, Morning Birdsong and the Hell Demons, and the creepy tale, The Hole, to more absurdist tales like, The Whore That Broke the Camel’s Back.

I’m giving it away free if you sign up to my newsletter. And no, I’m not the type to bombard people with hourly updates to what I’m wearing that day, or what’s on my sandwich, so it’s an easy way to get a free book. Here’s the link: https://landing-page.craigwallwork.com/

Do you have a favourite quote?

CW: As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost like to try to say it all in a single word. G.C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg, German physicist, philosopher.

Give us a message for the readers.

CW: 2020 is definitely the year of true horror: deadly wildfires ripped through both Australia and California; Trump was acquitted; we lost Kobe; Europe lost Britain, and the whole world came to a grinding halt following the COVID19 pandemic. If this was fiction, readers would call it far-fetched, ludicrous and absurd. But in the midst of this mayhem I always think of that Stephen King line from Shawshank: Hope is a good thing, maybe the best things, and no good ever dies.

Thank you!!!

Labyrinth of the Dolls (Tom Nolan Book 2)

EVIL HAS A NEW FACE

But with the body count rising daily and the pressure to find who the media is labelling the Doll Maker increasing, Nolan discovers more than just a series of grisly murders…

Within the human dolls, the answers he has sought for nearly a year may finally be found.

About the author

Craig Wallwork is the author of the novels, Bad People, and The Sound of Loneliness, as well as the short story collections, Quintessence of Dust, and Gory Hole. His stories have been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, many of which feature in various anthologies and magazines both in the U.K. and U.S. He currently lives in England.