The Horror Tree Presents… An Interview with Christy Mann

Stacey – Hi Christy, it’s great to have you here! Tell us a little about yourself and where you’re from?

 

Christy – Hi there. Thank you. It’s great to be here.  I’m Christy. I’m old enough to know better about most things, have 3 adult children, and I’m from Phoenix, Arizona originally.

 

Stacey – When did you start writing?

 

Christy – I was young. I’ve always loved writing and have literally done it since I was old enough to hold a pencil.  It was mostly journaling and little scribbles here and there, but I can remember getting journals for birthdays and Christmas and they would be full within a week or two and school notebooks were always filled with writing, instead of homework.

 

Stacey – You write Horror. It’s an interesting genre. What drew you to it?

 

Christy – A need to focus on things more horrific than my own life is the best answer. Writing it is how I process emotions. I can do things in writing that I can’t in real life and writing allows me to feel the emotions out in horrific ways without actually doing horrific things.

 

Stacey – What do you enjoy most about writing?

 

Christy – The release. Getting the story out and the emotions processed so I can go about being a happy individual on the outside.

 

Stacey – What scares you?

 

Christy – The usual things like dying alone, slipping and falling in the bathtub, and spiders, but what terrifies me the most is how awful people are to each other.

 

Stacey – Where do you get your inspiration?

 

Christy – Fears, phobias, my own and other people’s, what most people would consider negative emotional states.

 

Stacey – Which authors have influenced your writing along the way?

 

Christy – That is really a multiple answer question.  Style wise? Stephen King, Dean Koontz, R.L. Stine, Ted Dekker, John Grisham, Clive Barker, Kresley Cole, Laurel K. Hamilton, George R. R. Martin, and the list goes on.

 

Christy – I gained the most influence from some amazing indie authors though. R.R.Virdi, K.M Vanderbilt, D.R Perry. Daryl J. Ball, Rachael A. Brune, Kelly Blanchard, and the list goes on to include some authors that aren’t even published yet.

 

Stacey – What’s your writing process like?

 

Christy – Coffee, butt in chair, procrastinate, more coffee, butt in chair, clackity-clack, more coffee, more procrastination, clackity-clack, research, clackity procrastinate clack, more coffee. Repeat daily.

 

Stacey – What was the first story you had published?

 

Christy – Fogoyle: A Short Story. It was supposed to be Death of a Secret, but it got railroaded for about a year. I know me and if I didn’t publish something, I never would, so I pulled out a flash-fiction piece, fluffed it up, polished it up (paid for edits) and hit publish on it to keep my motivation up after a huge disappointment. It’s a series of 5 out now and 10 more planned for 2019.

 

Stacey – Do you have a favourite character from your own works?

 

Christy – Not that is published currently. I don’t dislike the characters in what I have out now (except for Latham), but none of them are actual favorites.  The MC’s in my upcoming novel Terrible Friend, Albert and Jax, are the one’s I would call my favorites.

 

Stacey – Has there ever been a book you couldn’t finish? Why or why not?

 

Christy – The Books of Blood series by Clive Barker. He’s a favorite of mine, but that particular series made me weirdly uncomfortable. I normally go in for that kind of thing, but that series was too much for me.

 

Stacey – What’s the last Horror movie/tv show you watched?

 

Christy – 5 Headed Shark Attack. I’m a sucker for terrible shark movies. I have to space them out a bit though. Trailer Park Sharks is next on the list.

 

Stacey – If you could go back in time who would you go back in time to see?

 

Christy – My dad, Albert Einstein, and Edgar Allen Poe.

 

Stacey – What’s the best piece of advice you could give someone who is just getting started on their author journey?

 

Christy – One piece? Learn to be patient. It’s a slow process to greatness and if you aren’t patient, you are going to feel a lot of disappointment.

 

Stacey – Do you have an excerpt you’d like to share?

 

Christy – Do I?

 

From my upcoming release January 25^th, 2019, Terrible Friend…

<Why are we awake so early Al> The loudest voice rang through his head.

Albert ignored it. It was more of a rhetorical question anyway. No answer would suffice, and Albert just wasn’t ready to deal with the barrage of questions that Jax would inundate him with this early in the day.

He took a deep breath, crossed his fingers behind his head, laid back in the sand, and exhaled slowly as the chorus of voices sang out inside his headspace.

This was the chaos, the resonance of what seemed like a thousand voices, all speaking at the same time, but never saying anything he could make out.

Whispers with lingering esses, moans and groans, bickering and cackling laughter would ring in the back of his head. He could force himself to ignore that part.

Jax, however, would not, be ignored. <Al! Why are we up so early?>

Albert, plagued by the question himself, sat up and took another look around. There were no people about, no sea birds cackling above him, so he really didn’t have an answer. He shifted his weight and laid back. He found the culprit.

A sharp point was jabbing him in the side. He reached under himself and pulled out a chunk of metal. He held his hand out in front of him as he sat up and examined the object in his hand.

A heavy silver chain spilled from his hand and dangled. Sparkling gently as it swung side to side. In the palm of his hand was a large claw-like hand that clung with all its might to a large dark green stone. He examined it gently. The chain looked old and like it had been both pounded with a hammer and chiseled out of a block of silver. The hand that held the stone looked like it had been poured and then scraped with a pick to create the intricate details of 3 sharp talons. “It might have been this?” He listened for a response from Jax.

There wasn’t one. He noticed a strange buzzing sensation in his head. Like clippers were being run up the back of his scalp, but on the inside. The racket that had been blaring just a moment ago was hushed. He turned his hand over and let the necklace slip back onto the sand.

The moment the necklace left Albert’s hand, the buzzing stopped, a symphony of voices rose up again and Jax bellowed. <What the hell was that!?> Albert didn’t respond. <Al!!! What was that?> The voice boomed.

Jax commanded an answer that shook Albert out of his confused state. He had never heard Jax speak like that before. He was always a pompous ass, pushy and demanding, but this was different. It was base like he had never heard before and it shook him violently for just a moment.

Albert finally answered. “It’s a necklace. An old, ugly one.”

<A necklace?> Jax voice was normal again.

“Yes, a necklace. What’s your problem?”

 

Thank you so much for your time Christy! If you would like to find out more about Christy and her writing endeavours, check out the links below.

 

Website: www.christymannauthor.com

Life On Your Terms Project: www.patreon.com/christymannauthor

Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/christymannauthor

Twitter: @cmannauthor