Tag: mailbag

New Year, New Mailbag

January 14, 2024 / Kyle A. Massa

A brown sack on a yellow field. Exciting, I know.

As has become an annual tradition, I recently ran a survey with my newsletter subscribers. Were their questions awesome? Absolutely—and you can have that answer for free.

…Oh yeah, and the rest are free, too. Here they are!

1. What is the genre of your writing?

It’s funny you should ask that, because I myself am not quite sure. So far, I’ve written sci-fi, mystery, epic fantasy, and creative nonfiction in the forms of novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, and essays. Is hodgepodge a genre?

No matter what I’m writing, I strive to unify my work with humor. I’ll continue to do so with my future endeavors (one of which may or may not be a poetry collection).

2. Is Nairn Lockwood going to get her own book?

Whoever submitted this question is a real one.

For context, Nairn Lockwood is the co-hero of my novella “The Megrim,” appearing in the short fiction collection Monsters at Dusk. She’s brave, brash, and greedy, though she’s got more heart than she lets on. Plus, she’s as big a fan of leftovers as I am, which is really saying something.

So, as this intelligent and thoughtful person wondered, will Lockwood get her own book? The short answer is this: It’s already in the works.

Ever since completing “The Megrim” in 2019, I’ve been brainstorming Lockwood’s next adventure (accompanied by her sidekick Pureman Wendyll—can’t forget him). I even wrote an outline for a potential sequel, one I’m quite proud of. Its setting is a cross between Ancient Rome and modern-day Las Vegas.

I expect that story and any subsequent ones will be standalone novellas, where each tale follows a new challenge for Lockwood and Wendyll. When I’ve got enough material for a book, I’ll collect them all and publish them for your reading pleasure.

I don’t have a release date for you, but it might come sooner rather than later now that I know someone’s anticipating it!

3. Could you please write a zombie comedy? I think you would do it well!

Why thank you!

I’ve never considered writing about zombies because, honestly, I’m afraid of them. I remember seeing Shaun of the Dead as a 12-year-old and being scared shitless (excuse my French). Later I tried The Walking Dead, and though I enjoyed the first few episodes, I never kept up.

Keeping up is part of the challenge with zombies—and I don’t mean keeping up with your fellow humans while the horde is hot on your heels. I mean zombies have become as well-trodden a sub-genre as vampires, rife with tropes and clichés and reader expectations up the whazoo. If one elects to write in this space, they’d better do their research.

I haven’t, but maybe someday I will. I tend to follow my passions, so who knows? Maybe one day I’ll get over my fear and start writing.

4. Why isn’t comedy included [in your genre list]? I love your comedic sci-fi / fantasy stuff.

To explain, I asked respondents what genres they read, though I didn’t include comedy among my multiple choices. That’s because I don’t always view comedy as a literary genre unto itself—I view it as a tone, at least in my work. After all, I try to inject humor into everything I write, even places it doesn’t belong (e.g. a haiku about cutting my cats’ nails).

Still, it’s an interesting question: Is comedy its own genre? In film, that’s an obvious “yes,” with countless movies created for the sole purpose of generating laughs (see, for example, the works of Nicolas Cage).

I find the answer is murkier in books. Though comedy exists in literature, it’s often blended with better-defined genres. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, for instance, has a darkly humorous tone, but it’s hard to classify it as anything other than science-fiction.

Genre debates like these have raged for centuries, though they’re about as useful as sports topics on First Take, which is to say, not very. But like Stephen A., that won’t stop me from debating them!

5. [Your survey question] could be replaced by “how many of my books have you downloaded and not gotten around to reading yet?”

To explain this answer, I asked people which of my books they’ve read, if any. The above was one person’s response.

Owning more books than can be read is a common phenomenon. You could build mountain ranges out of peoples TBR piles. From personal experience, I can attest that I’ve got a laundry basket full of unread books by my bedside, one which my wife, Sara, is not especially happy about. (I’m sorry, Sara.)

So, PSA to the readers out there: We need to borrow from libraries more often. I utilize my local library’s digital collection, where they offer thousands of ebooks and audiobooks, all for free. I even learned New York State residents can earn membership to the New York Public Library, which offers a dwarven treasure-trove of knowledge.

Also, if you’ll allow me a brief and shameful plug, you might find my epic fantasy-comedy novel Eggs for the Ageless among your local library’s digital collection. Okay, plug over.

6. I am new to your books and would like to know more about you.

Well hi! I write pretty much whatever I feel like writing, which ranges from the genres and styles I mentioned in question one to future stuff I’m too afraid to reveal.

A few other random facts about me:

I root for the New York Giants. It’s often painful.
I’m not unconvinced there aren’t alien tourists visiting our planet for funzies.
I like cats because I see a lot of myself in them.
I once wrote a short story about a commune of geriatric cannibals living in a New York City neighborhood.
“Anyhoo” might be my favorite word.

Thanks for your questions!

They’re always a delight to answer. If you’ve got any more, please send them to kyle@kyleamassa.com and I’ll be happy to reply. I just can’t promise I won’t use the word “anyhoo.”

Kyle A. Massa is an author of some sort living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include five books and several short stories. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking coffee.

Some Answers to Those Questions

March 7, 2023 / Kyle A. Massa

About a month ago, I surveyed my newsletter subscribers. I left a space at the bottom for questions…and I got some good ones!

Thing was, the survey was anonymous, so I couldn’t reply directly to the questions. Therefore, I’m going to answer them here. I hope you find them as interesting as I did.

1. Which is your favorite book you’ve written? Which is your favorite book you’ve read?

My favorite book I’ve written is Eggs for the Ageless, though that might be recency bias. Four years ago I would’ve said Monsters at Dusk, and a year before that I would’ve said Gerald Barkley Rocks (though at that point, GBR would’ve been my only book). I suspect the answer will be The Contents of This Book Are Flammable when it drops later this year. But we’ll go with Eggs for now.

My favorite book I’ve read is Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. His use of ancient belief to explain modern America (and it still feels modern) is masterful. Plus it’s just good fun.

2. What makes you like dystopian stories?

I actually find them oddly comforting. I’ve only written a couple (The Post-Apocalyptic Independent Author and a planned novel called Remembering the End), yet they always make me feel better about the present. People have problems, I think, but people with problems are better than no people at all.

3. What project are you most excited about at the moment?

Probably the aforementioned The Contents of This Book Are Flammable. I’m currently sprucing it up for my developmental editor, who’s going to ensure it’s readable.

Other than that, I’m jazzed about a short story I just finished. Its working title is “Leyton Family Group Chat,” and it’s told almost exclusively through text messages and phone screens. Oh, and also, I wrote a poem about taking my cats to the vet. I found it much funnier than they did.

4. When is your next book coming out?

Flammable arrives in late 2023, probably the fall. I don’t have an exact date just yet, but when I do, I’ll be sure to share it with you.

5. Could you share with me how to get my just-published fiction book (yes, by a “vanity press”) reviewed?

Congratulations on the new book! Everybody wants to write one, but few people put forth the effort to do it. Well done!

Depends on what sort of reviews you’re looking for. If you’d like reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and the like, I’d recommend Voracious Readers Only. It’s a service that connects writers and readers; the former sends review copies and the latter leaves honest reviews.

If you’re looking for reviews in big publications, that’s a tougher challenge. They’re usually reviewing stuff from major publishers, so unless you’re represented by an agent, you’re unlikely to be featured. Some notable places, such as Kirkus, offer an option for indies (I can personally attest to this since I did it for Eggs). Though it lends name-brand recognition to your book, the review is expensive, and of course, paying for the review doesn’t guarantee you’ll get a good one. If you want to know what they look like, here’s their review of Eggs.

Hope that helps!

6. What was your inspiration when you began writing?

Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

When I was a kid, I think these were the only movies I ever watched. When I woke up in the morning before school, I’d pop the extended editions into the DVD player and skip to the battle scenes. (I enjoyed the rest, too, but the battles were my favorite.) I was fascinated by the multiplicity of narrative, the detail of the worldbuilding, and the constant sense that I was not on Earth anymore. I strove to do the same.

Thing was, being a child in upstate New York, I didn’t have a cast, crew, production company, or visual effects team at my disposal. I figured writing was the next best thing.

7. Do you have any pets?

Oh yeah. Three of ’em. One’s a nice orange cat named Soley, one’s a sassy gray cat named Loon, and one’s a crazy Springer Spaniel named Osi. Fun fact: Osi celebrated her third birthday two days ago. Here’s a pic of the power trio:

Note the personalities.

8. Do you put the blurb in the metadata of your ePubs?

This is a pretty inside-baseball question, and one I have trouble answering. Metadata is digital book information visible to online searches. To my understanding, this task has become more or less fully automated by sites like Amazon. As long as you have a blurb, that blurb should appear in the book’s metadata.

To be honest, though, I get a little worried when writers ask questions like this, because metadata and optimized blurbs don’t sell books. Quality does. As a community, I think us indie authors spend too much time talking marketing and too little time talking craft. That’s not to say the former is unimportant—I’d be naive to suggest that. Yet still, the best form of marketing remains word-of-mouth, and you can only get that by writing a great book.

9. What is your writing/plotting schedule for ideas turned into novels?

To borrow a term from middle school math class, my approach to writing is guess and check. I guess about what would work, then I check to see if it does.

Usually it doesn’t, so I keep guessing until a get the right answer. Some might call this discovery writing, or pantsing (as in flying by the seat of one’s pants). Basically, I go in with a handful of ideas and see where they take me.

It’s a precarious process, because sometimes my guesses take me nowhere interesting. Or sometimes I realize I should shelve a project for later. Whatever the case may be, I’d rather not work from an outline—I’ve tried that before, and it always seems to squelch my enthusiasm.

That’s All for Now

Thanks for reading! If you have any other questions, I’m always available by email at kyle@kyleamassa.com. Until next time…

Kyle A. Massa is a comic fantasy author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include three books and several short stories. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking coffee.