Most kids are scared of the dark, I wasn't. I remember staying up late, sitting in the dark watching scary movies. I wasn't afraid..that is until my nephew would jump in front of me in a Halloween mask and scare the hell out of me! This happened numerous times and was probably about the time when my night terrors began.
That kid was me, and my nephew is James Cheetham. That was then, this is now...
James Cheetham
is a dark fiction writer who also has a unique talent to transform ordinary people into zombies. James was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba and now lives near Bird's Hill Park with his wife Tanya, daughter Stephanie as well as their two golden retrievers and three cats.
About His Books & Accomplishments
Fade to Pale was published in 2007 by Wild Child Publishing out of Culver City, California and was voted Best Horror novel of that year at Preditors & Editors.
The Beekeeper was published by the same company, in the same year, and won Best Short Horror Story at Preditors & Editors.
The zombie series was scheduled to be published in 2008 but James left the publisher for agent representation. The series is called Seasons of The Brittle Harvest (the first in the series called Prairie Frost) It remains unpublished though it launched the Cheetham's Zombies franchise that takes photos of customers, turns the images into zombies, and places them on everything from
T-shirts to edible Halloween photo-cookies.
James has been published in every volume of the SNM (Steven N Marshall) Horror magazine anthologies Bonded by Blood, and was voted SNM's author of the year in 2008.
James was also featured in Careers magazine in 2009 as Canada's own Stephen King.
He was interviewed for the 200th Birthday of Edgar Allan Poe
alongside Michael Connelly and Alan Parsons
and is the host of Unconventional Interviews.
The Interview
As kids, what surrounds us growing up molds the person we become.
What inspirational people, places, or things such as movies, music, or life experiences
stand out in your mind that you feel molded you to become a fiction writer?
For me personally, I think that transformation from child to adult when one realizes the innocent fun is over was the biggest inspiration for me to write. I’ll always be a kid at heart and it just seemed the older I got the more I saw the people around me at work, or in simple day to day life, seem unhappy. This only confirmed for me that childhood is the greatest part of being alive. It’s all downhill after that don’t you know…and as my own childhood drifted further and further away, I felt that writing was a way for me to revisit the things I so often wondered about as a kid. Reading & writing is an escape from the doldrums of life and a chance at least for me, to relive those childhood moments when I could still be truly astounded by something. All my stories have dabs of my own true life in them. I call on old friends from my memories to name streets or places. I use tidbits from my childhood in the plots of all my stories. It’s a therapeutic way to hold on a little bit longer…
Describe your writing process. Is it always the same or does it differ with each story?
My process is simple (yeah right I says to myself), scratch out a hundred grand worth of words—
which can take a few months or a few years depending on other aspects of your life. Then leave it for a week or two (or three). I hate writing first drafts. When I say I love being a writer I’m really talking about editing the story. For me, editing is the truest creative process in which my voice starts to get along with my ideas. The more times you edit a book, the more ‘well-polished’ it becomes. I love that part of writing. I love having the entire manuscript in front of me in all its ugly grandeur before ironing out all the details, plot-holes, and errors.
Writing the manuscript is making a baby, editing is birth.
Do your ideas for stories come to you via dreams, being channeled through, long sessions on the throne, or other…please explain...
Actually, Fade to Pale was born from a reoccurring dream—at least a subplot of the book was anyway. The dream had me finding a living quarters existing in a newly purchased house.
I always sensed somebody had just abandoned the quarters once I entered.
A TV would be on or I’d smell food cooking on the stove but nobody would ever be physically there once I opened the door. It was a very creepy experience and I incorporated that into Rita’s situation in the book. Another example came from a relative who spoke about an abandoned church near Grandview, Manitoba that became the home to a swarm of bees. I couldn’t resist, and wrote The Beekeeper. It’s the little quirky things in day to day life that stay with me that I find worthy enough to end up in a story. At one time, I wrote down my ideas so as not to forget them but don’t do that any longer. If an idea is that good, you’ll remember. If you can forget it that easily, chances are, the reader will forget your story once they’ve read it too, so why bother?
Good ideas are like mosquitoes while you try to sleep at night, they won’t leave you alone no matter how hard you swat your own head.
Good ideas are like mosquitoes while you try to sleep at night, they won’t leave you alone no matter how hard you swat your own head.
Do you have any personal rituals that aid you in your writing?
Nope. For a while I tried making soundtracks that might inspire a particular plot, but soon found the best atmosphere for writing is complete silence. I am a terrible pessimist when it comes to writing and will find any excuse these days to avoid it. It’s the editing that gets me back in a good mood again. Writing in itself is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
What kind of advice would you offer to someone wanting to become a fiction writer?
Don’t for a single moment expect it’s an easy ride. Don’t think you’re the only one out there fighting for the opportunity to have your book published. And if you want to survive, find a way to stay sane while waiting months at a time for an email from a publisher or agent that might very well never come at all. It’s an ugly world out there in book writing land. Be prepared to bleed and be prepared to stab. I’m not going to tell anybody any clichés about writing for the love of it.
The real writers out there will know it’s not about love, it’s about sanity.
Getting five books published to some is a career; getting one book published
is a curse I can only compare to a heroin addiction.
Are your books available online, offline, or both & where?
Fade to Pale is now out of print and last I heard, Weirdly will be out of print this year but there are used copies at all the familiar places online, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. The Bonded by Blood series is available at these sites as well. I am hoping to have the first volume of the Prairie Frost series out this year and available at McNally Robinson in Canada just as Fade to Pale and Weirdly were. I believe Bonded by Blood lV will feature my story ‘Fragments of Mavis’ as well.
I know you fear no zombies, but what would you do if aliens came for you?
What kind of Aliens? Are they pretty?
Don't worry about it, those things don't matter. You'll probably sleep right through it..I did.
Thanks so much James for being my guinea pig and letting me conduct my first interview on you.
I look forward to reading more of your books and stories. Even your answers to interview questions are metaphorical and thought provoking. You are a true writer in every sense of the word. I wish you the best of luck in all of your endeavors.
Links for websites, books & merchandise, and additional info:
