Interview with debut horror novelist David Blair

David Blair’s debut novel Firebug is out now from Wicked House Publishing. Set in the small town of Ferdinand, Idaho, the narrative follows college dropout Daniel Patrick (who has a perchance for pyromania and underachieving) as he uses his skills to track down a mysterious and deadly creature that’s wreaking havoc on the town. 

 

Blair lives in the mountain town of Whitefish, Montana with his partner Jake and their feisty cat Monica. He has been working in the film industry for nearly two decades as a screenwriter, horror being his favorite genre to explore. The novel Firebug marks the beginning of an exciting new avenue for his creativity. His films include The Sighting, The Triangle, The Free Fall, the comedy Your Musical is Cancelled: The Musical! and the upcoming Trim Season. 

 

He has worked as a script doctor and writer for the China-based production company ProAm Studios and had the pleasure of being on set for two of their film productions. David is also a writer and performer for a Whitefish-based sketch comedy group. When not busy writing, David enjoys going to the movies, kayaking the local rivers and lakes, dining in restaurants, walking in the woods, violent thunderstorms, Robert McCammon novels, and haunted houses.

 

In our interview Blair discusses the differences between writing horror scripts for film and television and writing a novel, how Ferdinand was loosely based on his own childhood experience growing up in small town Idaho, and how as an LGBT writer, he’s found a welcoming home in the horror community. 

 

 

 Follow David Blair on Social Media: 

 

https://www.facebook.com/david.blair.1023611/

 

https://www.instagram.com/davidstevenblair/

 

Regina Beach   

How are you doing? Can you introduce yourself and talking about how you got into horror?

 

David Blair  

I’m doing really well, things are exciting. And summer’s here in Montana, finally. My name is David Blair, and I got into horror at a very young age. I was always kind of interested in monsters and ghosts and paranormal supernatural things. I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t that nerdy little boy who loved to read monster books.

 

Regina Beach  

What were some of your favorites growing up?

 

David Blair  

There was this series called Jeffrey and the Third Grade Ghost that I loved. I loved the Bunnicula series like The Celery Stalks at Midnight. And then, there were these monster books that I would check out from the library, all the classic monsters like Dracula and the Wolfman. I don’t remember who the author was, but they were mostly just pictures of examples of these monsters used in cinema. I remember I would check them out all the time from the library. 

 

Regina Beach  

How did you go from being a horror reader to being a horror writer?

 

David Blair  

As soon as I could write or pick up a pencil I was sketching monsters, essentially telling myself stories. I would wake up in the morning on a Saturday morning and before I would watch cartoons, I would sit at the kitchen table and make up stories and put them in frames. I was essentially storyboarding or making a comic. That translated over to me actually writing stories about creatures or ghosts or whatever. The older I got, the more it just kind of evolved.

 

Regina Beach  

Do you remember the first time you published a horror story? 

 

David Blair  

It was an a collection of short stories. I don’t remember what the story was, to be honest. It was in the Young Authors magazine. And I had two short stories published in this magazine when I was 10 or 11. That was the first time I was published. 

 

Regina Beach

A book is such a big undertaking, what made you want to jump into the world of novels? 

 

David Blair  

Firebug is my second novel, I wrote a very large dark fantasy novel before it that isn’t published, and isn’t edited or anything. But I was mostly in the world of film and screenplays before I decided to write a book, and then my life kind of took a took a little turn. I left LA. And I moved to Arizona. I had to live with my mom again as a 28-year-old man. It was during the recession, it was 2008. And we lost our place in L.A. and I didn’t have anywhere else to go. So I had to move back home. And while I was living in Arizona I got a job. I was devouring books at a pace at which I had never before. So I was entrenched in dark literature and even self help, all sorts of books and I was really inspired. And I was like, “I’ve got a novel in me for sure.” I didn’t know that I had two at that point. And now I feel like I’ve got more, but I was like, “you know what, I’ve been living in the world of screenplay writing for a while. I want to switch gears and do what these people are doing. I want to write a book. I can do this.” And I started writing The Mountain. And that took me about two years to write and I got some really good feedback on it. But I never pursued getting that one published. I started writing Firebug in 2012. I wanted it to be a shorter book, I wanted it to be more focused than my fantasy novel. And I was like, this is the book that I will attempt to Self Publish. I never thought that I would actually have a traditionally published version of Firebug. I mean, it’s the dream, but I just wasn’t I just wasn’t expecting it. 

 

Regina Beach

Can you talk about process? What was it like coming from a screenplay background to novel writing?

 

David Blair  

My short stories, and my two novels, I’ve been told, they read like a movie. And my screenplays, I’ve been told, are oftentimes too descriptive and too specific. So my screenplays read like novels. I feel like I’ve always kind of straddled this world of in between books and films. There’s a lot of crossover in the way that I write.

 

Regina Beach  

Do you have daily rituals? Are you someone who holes up for a few days and gets a ton done? Are you someone who dribbles it out and writes for a few hours every day? 

 

David Blair  

When I’m actively engaged in a project, I try to write every day or at least every other day for a few hours. I’ll sit down, I’ll have a little drink. I like to have a totem of some sort, which sounds kind of weird and witchy. But I like to have some sort of an object that to me represents what it is that I’m working on.

 

Regina Beach  

Did you have a totem for Firebug? 

 

David Blair  

My totem for Firebug actually was also my drink. A lot of the themes in Firebug are about addiction, and there’s some substance abuse. And my drink was my totem. For The Mountain, my previous novel, my totem was a little compass that I would have beside me, because it’s an adventure novel about finding your way. Usually I’m in my bedroom sitting on my bed with a lap desk. It’s very unprofessional. I don’t have an office or a proper desk. I’m probably gonna pay for it ergonomically. I just sit down for a couple hours. I let the vibe take me where it wants to go. Normally, I try to have an idea of where I want to go and how I want to spend those two hours. And then sometimes it takes me by surprise. And I have no idea that this is where I was going to be going. I like those little surprises.

 

Regina Beach  

You mentioned you never imagined having a traditionally published book, yet here you are. What is it like to work with a publisher in the horror genre?

 

David Blair  

My friend Jess Owen who’s a very good writer of young adult books and got two of her novels traditionally published; she is in that world. She heard through a friend that Wicked House is legit and to look out for this publishing house. I went onto the website just out of curiosity, and they were accepting unsolicited submissions. So I was like, “I have nothing to lose. I’m kind of in a go for broke, Hail Mary, kind of a mood these days,” and I submitted. And a couple months went by. I’m so used to disappointment and rejection, just being in this in the world of film and in the entertainment industry at all. You have to develop a callus, and then they requested the full manuscript. I was like, “oh, cool. Well, I made the second round at least.” And then my partner Jake, and I were sitting in a diner in late September, early October 2022. And I got this email saying that that I had been accepted. They wanted to publish the book. I was so excited. I about shit my pants, it was like it was such an unexpected joy.

 

Regina Beach  

What happened from there? What was that publishing process like?

 

David Blair

Even before meeting the editor, I met with the cover designer. He lives in the Philippines. His name is Christian Bentulan, and he is the official cover designer for all Wicked House books. And he was like, if you have any ideas, I really like to collaborate, it makes my job easier. I sketched out some very bad drawings. And then the Christian and the head of the publishing company, Patrick, weighed in on my designs, and we kind of honed it into the final design. And then my editor, Heather Miller was great. She worked with me going back and forth, but she was really kind. I’ve been living with this book for years. And I’ve been going over it and editing it myself and this and that. She she did an amazing job though. And she really did make it readable. There’s a flow when you read a book and certain words aren’t right. Certain punctuation isn’t right. Certain structure of a paragraph isn’t right. And she really helped with that. She was amazing.

 

Regina Beach  

Did you have a launch party? 

 

David Blair

The truth of the matter is I have been so busy with other things. I’m part of a cabaret troupe here in Whitefish, Montana and we’re writing and rehearsing a brand new show. I’ve had to completely revamp a screenplay for some producers in LA, that are going to start to pitch it once the strike is over. My head has been so buried and in so many things, that I haven’t really had the chance to come up for air and be like, “Oh, I should celebrate myself.”

 

Regina Beach  

I think so many creatives are like that. It’s always run to the next thing. 

 

David Blair  

Jake took me out for a really nice dinner. We had a sweet, intimate celebration. There’s a local bookstore in Kalispell, which is like a town 20 minutes away. They’re very cool, progressive, liberal, very LGBTQIA inclusive, and they have offered to do a book signing event. So once we get the cabaret open and I have some time to breathe, then I’m definitely going to pursue having a book signing event and get my book in as many local bookstores as I can and get it into the library if I can.

 

Regina Beach  

Who is this book for? What’s the synopsis? Why should we read it?

 

David Blair  

The book is a cozy horror novel. It is Steven Spielberg meets Stephen King. And it’s about a young man who is going through some substance abuse issues and his parents pull him out of college because of these issues. You later find out that when he was a younger kid, he was a pyromaniac. And he set things on fire. He’s got a problem with obsessions. And he burned a whole house down at one point and there’s a lot of family drama. Then one day, he’s putting up the Christmas lights with his father, and a very mysterious event happens in this little town of Ferdinand, this little Idaho town. And all of a sudden, all of the dogs in the neighborhood are barking at the sky. And it’s a very eerie, strange event. And what you come to find out is that some entity has blown into our world on this mysterious wind and we come to find out that this entity, this creature, has a has a connection with Daniel, our protagonist. It becomes a horror adventure story. With this creature and trying to figure out what it is how to get rid of it. What does it want? It’s definitely for people who are into cryptid material and supernatural paranormal. It is the book that that that 18-year-old David would have loved.

 

Regina Beach  

I like that it’s set in the very recent past. It was surprising to hear the Trump reference for example. You’ve put us in this very niche setting.

 

David Blair  

I wanted to put a time stamp on the book. These are the times in which we’re living. I think that a lot of my stuff does reflect the time in which I write it. I grew up in a tiny little prairie town in Idaho called Grangeville, which, Ferdinand is based on. I just changed the name. And there’s actually a town that’s maybe 45 minutes outside of Grangeville called Ferdinand. I just took the name and put that name on my little town. A lot of the last names that I use for characters are actual last names of friends that I went to school with. It very much captures that period in my life living in Grangeville.

 

Regina Beach  

Who are some of your favorite writers and favorite works that you’ve been reading?

 

David Blair  

I read a lot of Stephen King. I love Robert McCammon. Boy’s Life I feel like is one of the best novels I’ve ever read in my entire life. Swan Song is a great, epic horror, apocalyptic novel. It’s wonderful. But actually what I’m reading today, is Nick Cutter. I just read The Troop. Which is a nauseating horror novel. I loved it. I use that word lovingly. And respectfully. It is a stomach-turning horror book. Visceral and incredibly descriptive. And now I’m reading his other book called The Deep and he is an incredible writer. 

 

Regina Beach  

What’s next for you? 

 

David Blair  

I’ve actually started my next novel. But I’ve only written like three sentences. I think that I need to take a little bit of a break. At this juncture, because the past two years have been a lot of output and a lot of editing. I’ve also recently written two new screenplays in the past year.

 

Regina Beach  

Do you also write horror for your screenplays? 

 

David Blair  

One of the screenplays that I wrote, I started when we were visiting Cleveland, Ohio last summer. It’s called Appearance and it’s a ghost story, but it’s this quiet, lovely, sad love story. It is paranormal but it’s not a horror screenplay at all. It’s just sweet and sad. It’s a supernatural drama for sure. So I guess I don’t always write horror. But I’m always drawn to supernatural elements. I started this new novel. And I think I need to give my brain a little bit of space. Because I’m also creating a cabaret show. And that’s raunchy comedy, so my brain is now writing a comedy show.  

 

Regina Beach  

Did you study writing formally? 

 

David Blair

Yes, I have an English minor. I studied performance in college. Theater and performance was my collegiate focus. And then as far as writing, it’s just kind of something that I’ve always done my entire life and I read a ton of books and I’ve always been honing the craft. It took me a while in life to realize, “oh, yeah, I don’t really want to be an actor. I want to be what I was when I was a little boy, I want to be a writer.” That is who I am and what I really want to do. I still love acting. I still love theater. But yeah, my number one passion is writing and telling stories.  

 

Regina Beach  

Is there space for you as an LGBT+ writer in the horor sphere?  

 

David Blair

There is a connection between the LGBTQIA community and horror. It’s a very popular genre within the LGBTQ community. And I think it’s because it is this subversive, outsider of a genre that is wildly popular, but it doesn’t have the prestige or respect. And I feel like there’s a lot that LGBTQ folks have in common with protagonists or antagonists in horror movies like the Monster, the Killer. There’s a strange kinship I feel that we have with the genre. And there’s some great documentaries and material on Shudder that really kind of deep dives into the connection between the LGBTQ community and horror  called Queer for Fear: A History of Queer Horror. I think that there is this passion for horror within our community. I think that the horror community is extremely loving and accepting. And there’s something very inclusive with the horror community that makes it a safe a safe place for LGBTQIA. 

 

Regina Beach  

Any tips for budding writers?

 

David Blair  

This book, Firebug, has been alive for years and now it’s finally coming out. People should know that you can take your time on stuff and that things have to cook before they’re ready to eat, as it were.