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What are your top 10 favorite books/authors?

When it comes to fiction, I love horror and action and adventure. Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Edgar Allen Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Peter Benchley, Michael Crichton, etc. I read a lot of westerns growing up, like Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey, and Larry McMurtry. I love the classics too, Hesse, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Salinger, Orwell, et al. I love Ken Kesey and the whole beat and psychedelic movement. But I also read a lot of nonfiction. I’m somewhat of a history buff, and I’m endlessly fascinated by World War II and Native American history and cultures. I also love reading about classic rock bands like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, etc. and am really interested in religion and the occult or Western esoteric traditions. There are so many similarities when you get down to the bedrock of religious traditions around the world, and that really fascinates me.

 

What book do you think everyone should read?

Man, that’s a really tough one. The Bible? Siddhartha? The Bhagavad Gita? East of Eden? 1984? I guess my grownup self would suggest things that are quite different from my 18-year-old self.

 

How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I guess I really got going on it in first grade. I’d write books about my favorite athletes, and I’d also do these movie adaptations. Then I started writing about cops and robbers. Then I started writing my own Indiana Jones stories. Then later I started writing horror fiction. I wrote fiction from about first grade through early high school. I remember in seventh grade English class I was writing a western novel about a gunslinger based on Doc Holliday. As I’d finish each chapter, the other kids in the class would pass the manuscript around and read it, like a serial or something. That was really cool. Then in college I started writing more nonfiction, things for school, history, anthropology, etc., and I didn’t really come back to writing fiction until quite recently. I am also a songwriter and have been doing that off and on since I was in fourth or fifth grade.

 

Do the characters all come to you at the same time or do some of them come to you as you write?

Both. I usually have some idea of who my characters are, but then they develop as the writing and the story progress and take on a mind of their own. They dictate a lot of the plot, and I’m always learning new things about my characters. They keep me on my toes. I uncover their true selves a little at a time, like an archaeologist excavating an ancient site or something.

 

What kind of research do you do before you begin writing a book?

Usually it’s pretty minimal. I try to write about what I know and am passionate about. I do some research as I go, but usually not a whole lot up front. I start with what-if scenarios and try to let the story grow and unfold as organically as possible.

 

Do you see writing as a career?

Unfortunately, I guess not. I wish it was my career, and that’d be a dream come true, but right now it’s not paying the bills. Ha! So, I guess I see writing as a hobby, a passion, something that I love and need to do. But not a career. I feel like a career has to be a job that produces enough money for you and your family to live on, and so far writing hasn’t done that for me. But I have a deep drive and need to express myself creatively in one form or another, whether it’s music or writing or whatever. It’s very cathartic and therapeutic for me. It’s often how I work things out and feel. It’s also something I really love doing and have always loved doing, so it’s a very deep, essential part of me, very central to who I am.

 

What do you think about the current publishing market?

Well, I don’t know a whole lot about it, but it seems pretty tough. It’s kind of strange, there are so many smaller presses out there now and new ways to get your work in print, and yet it’s still extremely hard to get published (outside of self-publishing) and even harder to find an agent to represent you and help you succeed in the industry. It seems like a needle in a haystack scenario. Those agents must have very specific ideas about exactly who and what they want in their clientele. They have a lot of power as gatekeepers. I think I got really lucky finding Cody and Timber Ghost Press, and they’ve been a dream to work with.

 

Do you read yourself and if so what is your favorite genre?

Of course I read! I’ve always been an avid and voracious reader of many genres, both fiction and nonfiction. I like horror, thriller/suspense, action/adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, you name it. I also love history, anthropology, and religious studies, and I’m a real sucker for rock and roll biographies and memoirs.

 

Do you prefer to write in silence or with noise? Why?

In silence. That way I can hear my train of thought a comin’. I’ve always found it easier to tap into my subconscious in a quiet room with few distractions and the door closed. Everything just seems to flow better for me that way. It evokes (or invokes?) my muse and stimulates my creativity and imagination.

 

Do you write one book at a time or do you have several going at a time?

One at a time. Serious writing projects take over my life, so I can only handle one at a time. It’s kind of like a marriage or having a kid you have to tend to. Hahaha.

 

If you could have been the author of any book ever written, which book would you choose?

The Bible. It’s been a bestseller for quite some time now.

 

Pen or type writer or computer?

Computer. Sometimes I’ll take notes or do some outlining on a pad of paper, but when it comes time to get down to business, it’s computer all the way.

 

Tell us about a favorite character from a book.

I really like Gandalf. That guy is the shit. I wish I could do all that magical stuff like he does. Aragorn is pretty cool too. Hermann Hesse’s characters in Demian and Narcissus and Goldmund are great. I also love every character in The Losers’ Club from IT. It’s hard not to love them. They all seem very familiar, too, like they’re all based on people you know or even yourself. Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls is also a great character. Harry Potter and Hermione Granger are also wonderful.

 

What made you want to become an author and do you feel it was the right decision?

I always liked expressing myself with the written or spoken (or sung) word. So, I guess there was no decision there. It’s just a part of who I am. It’s something that I naturally do. I have no choice! I’m a prisoner to the word!

 

Advice they would give new authors?

Writing is good for the soul.

 

Describe your writing style.

It’s like how Led Zeppelin played live: tight but loose. When I’m working on a novel, I’m very disciplined about getting a set number of words down each day. But at the same time, I’m very loose or freeform, almost like stream of consciousness. I hardly ever plot things out in much detail, I unleash my subconscious mind and let it roam freely, and I let my characters dictate a lot of the story.

 

What makes a good story?

Tension, emotion, good and evil, some likeable characters and others you love to hate or are terrified of, some lofty principles or values maybe. A good story has to be able to transport you out of your mundane life or headspace and into another dimension, into the world of the story, where things are fresh and exciting and the stakes are really high.

 

What are they currently reading?

Bob Spitz’s new Led Zeppelin biography.

 

What is your writing process? For instance do you do an outline first? Do you do the chapters first? 

I usually start with a what-if scenario. I have a Google doc full of basic what-if scenarios that are the little seeds of my writing projects, like little story larvae. They’re just the weird good ideas that come to all of us randomly that we usually neglect to write down and forget. Then once I have the what-if scenario, I’ll think through a rough plot outline sometimes, and there have to be characters involved to do that, but then I just like to get going and see where the characters and story take me. I find that the best and most original plot twists come out of the blue when you least expect them when you’re fully immersed in the process and living in the world of the story. They just hit you in the shower or when you’re walking the dog, and you’re like, “YESSSSSSS! That’s perfect!” It’s really quite magical in every sense of the term.

 

What are common traps for aspiring writers?

Worrying too much about plot. Being afraid to start. Losing steam and not being able to follow through and finish. General insecurity about writing or being able to tell a good story. Second-guessing yourself.

 

What is your writing Kryptonite?

Distractions of any kind.

 

Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

I guess I try to be more original, because I let the story flow and mutate on its own as much as possible. But at the same time, I think I’m still able to deliver the goods in terms of what readers want, and there are some good innovative twists on some classic horror tropes.

 

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Try to make a career out of writing right away, in your teens or twenties. Don’t wait.

 

How long on average does it take you to write a book?

It depends on how dedicated I am to it. Sometimes two or three months to write a good first draft. Other times I start and stop and take weeks or months or even years off. Then it could take a good long while. But when I’m really in the zone and being really good and disciplined about it, it usually takes two to three months. And those tend to be the best projects.

 

Do you believe in writer’s block?

No. I have no reason to so far. *Knocks on wood*

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David C. Posthumus began his writing career at age six, when his grandfather read one of his first-grade publications and labeled him “Ernie (Hemingway) Jr.” Posthumus is a voracious reader of many genres, fiction and nonfiction, and an avid horror fan and fiction writer. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology and Native American studies, including one published book (All My Relatives: Exploring Lakota Ontology, Belief, and Ritual, University of Nebraska Press, 2018), one book forthcoming (Lakota: Culture, History, and Modernities, University of Oklahoma Press, 2022), as well as several journal articles, book chapters, and reviews. Aside from having the perfect surname for horror, Posthumus loves dogs, the great outdoors, and is also a musician and lifelong music lover.

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