Life Resolutions

While everyone else seems to be making those pesky resolutions for the New Year, I'm working on some life resolutions instead. It's just going slightly slower than I expected. I have some good reasons for this but then everyone usually does because they generally fall into the category of life happens.

Mine include an unexpected business trip, my 16 1/2 year-old dog is ill and may not recover, the pace at work seems to continue to increase, and - well, you get the point. Life Happens!

I did write down some goals, or resolutions, such as: write more, travel more, better organization at work and home, yoga everyday, enjoy life wherever possible, and so on, and so on. I've come to the conclusion, however, over the many years of making New Year's resolutions that what I need is Life Resolutions - in other words, add/subtract things from my life that make sense for the rest of my life.

One of those "things" is yoga. I like the philosophy of yoga and the opportunity for growth and awareness. With New Year's resolutions, a very small percentage, including me, are able to keep them. I've always felt like a failure by February because for the most part, the resolutions weren't reasonable and didn't take into account that life happens.

With yoga and it's many forms of practice, the fact that life happens is part of the process. Besides, it's more workable to fit my goals above into the rest of my life instead of a year.

Happy writing everyone.

Sign of the Times

Everyone it seems is having financial difficulties. We can't turn to any form of the news without hearing about how bad the stock market is, how much trouble small businesses are in or how much more heating and medical care will cost. So what's a person to do?

I've often talked about how I grew up without much of anything. I started working at eleven years old to buy my own clothes, food and lots of other things but I don't remember worrying as much about medical care as I do today for my daughter. Don't get me wrong - we often didn't receive medical care because we didn't have the money but it wasn't as disruptive as it seems to be these days and obviously I'm alive to talk about it. I actually remember as a young child when I was ill that the doctor made house calls. I also remember my mother taking me to the doctor and the office visit cost $10.00. That wasn't the co-pay, that was the cost. Even then my mother still had to work out a payment plan because after all there were seven of us - children that is.

Now, I'm only 52 so we're not talking that long ago - not really - but it makes one wonder as to what happened to our medical system and living environments that it costs so much money to receive any kind of medical care and that we need so much of that care. Interestingly, clinics are popping up in pharmacies and other places to offer more convenient and affordable care to the masses. Now there are critics of this system of course, but I'm a fan of my local convenient care medical facility, especially on the weekends. I always followup with my primary doctor but then I have health insurance and a stable job AND I live in a community that has lots of resources.

Whatever the reasons are that we have the medical care system we have, something needs to be done about it. It's gotten to the point that people are afraid to retire, not only because of the economy and the loss in their retirement funds, but because most companies no longer offer medical care into retirement. So, if you retire prior to 65 (when you're first eligible for medicare) you have very limited and very expensive options. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years, but I'm significantly disappointed that we've reached the point we have. I think there's lots of blame and responsibility to go around, including with each of us.

I decided several years ago that I needed to be my own advocate when it comes to health care and many, many other aspects of life. I've been modifying many areas of my lifestyle in terms of nutrition, exercise, mental and emotional awareness, and overall quality of life. I often tell people the best way to stay afloat in retirement is to stay healthy and happy. One of the best ways to do that is with exercise activities such as yoga. I'm declaring myself an unofficial cheerleader of yoga - except no pom poms. (I actually had pom poms in high school when I was a member of the school drill team but these days they seem to have a very different and cruder meaning. Okay, so I have those too!) A sense of humor is also extremely important in living a healthy life.

I attend two different yoga classes right now and have two different instructors and sometimes there are substitutes for my weekend class. But I especially like my one instructor during the week. His yoga class is one of the highlights of my week. He just has that right blend of knowledge and funness (okay, so that's not really a word - is it?) that makes the class a pleasure. Sometimes it's a painful pleasure depending on what he has us do to include attempting to stand on our heads. I strongly believe that with something like yoga one has to make it a part of their lifestyle for the rest of their life and having an instructor one can emotionally and mentally connect to is, well priceless.

So, get out there and take care of yourself. This financial crisis will pass. It may take a few years but hopefully we're all learning something about ourselves and our world as a result, and that we will make the changes we need to make to live a life that can withstand the ups and downs that are always going to be a part of it. My prescription? Take two yoga classes and don't call me in the morning!

Stay healthy and happy.

JONATHAN MABERRY - This Week's Man of Mystery

Acme Authors Link proudly presents Man of Mystery, Jonathan Maberry!



WRITING ON THE RUN

I love switching genres.

My writing career got into gear thirty years ago and back then I was writing magazine feature articles and college textbooks on martial arts. It was a ‘write what you know’ thing and I’ve been jujutsu since I was an embryo, give or take a few years. That worked pretty well and it gave me the practical experience to develop a skill set as a writer.

Then I did a couple books on women’s self-defense and safety awareness. That may sound like a similar type of book to the martial arts, but it’s not. Different audience, different info, different style. The shift made me stretch as a writer, made me find new ways to explain things and helped me cultivate the concept of ‘different readership with different needs and expectations’. That’s not a small thing.

Then in 2001 I started writing about the things that go bump in the night and have since written four books on the folklore/legends of vampires, werewolves and other critters that get all bitey when the sun goes down. First it was THE VAMPIRE SLAYERS FIELD GUIDE TO THE UNDEAD (released under my one-time-only pen name of Shane MacDougall); then VAMPIRE UNIVERSE (Citadel Press, 2006); THE CRYPTOPEDIA (co-authored with David Kramer; released in 2007); and ZOMBIE CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead (due from Citadel on August 26). Right now I’m putting the finishing touches on THEY BITE!, the fourth of the five books in this series.

The shift from martial arts to self-defense writing was relatively easy; the shift to folklore and pop-culture was tougher. The editor of my martial arts books wanted me to write the folklore under a pen name. I’d just been inducted into the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame and he was afraid that my readers would think I’m going wacko if I suddenly started writing about vampires and ghouls. Turns out that the first (and only) folklore book by Shane MacDougall was a much better seller than all of my martial arts books put together.

Here’s the problem. With that first folklore book I’d established a new ‘brand’. I was Shane MacDougall, folklorist. Shane got invited to speak at places Jonathan didn’t. Jonathan began to resent that.

So, Jonathan killed Shane off (just as Stephen King killed off Richard Bachman). I moved to a bigger publisher and went back to my real name. VAMPIRE UNIVERSE was the first folklore book by Jonathan Maberry. And, yes, I had to deal with folks saying that I was copying the style of the late Mr. MacDougall. Life is weird.

In 2005 I decided I’d try another shift. I took a swing at writing a novel. I’d never done fiction before and I had no fricking idea if I’d be any good at it. On the other hand I had no fricking idea that I wouldn’t be good at it, so I tried. In 2006 my first novel, GHOST ROAD BLUES, was published by Pinnacle Books. It was the lead-off to a trilogy of supernatural thrillers set in a fictional small Pennsylvania town of Pine Deep. It won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. The sequel, DEAD MAN’S SONG came a year later, and the final book, BAD MOON RISING, landed in bookstores this past May.

Suddenly I was a novelist. I’d written three 140 thousand word monster books in under three years and I was getting pretty well known as a horror writer.

And, though I love horror, I have this atavistic dream of being pigeon-holed.

So, my next book, PATIENT ZERO, is a mainstream thriller. It’s intended to launch a new series of novels featuring Joe Ledger, a Baltimore detective (Joe Ledger) is recruited by a government agency (the DMS: Department of Military Sciences) to combat a terrorist group bent on releasing a plague. It’s not horror. Of course…the plague does turn people into zombies, but it’s really grounded in science (to a fairly alarming level!). It was pitched as a thriller, bought as a thriller, and will be released by St. Martins Press as a thriller on March 3, 2009.

One of the most common things I’m asked in interviews is: Isn’t switching genre supposed to be a risky move for an author?

Maybe ten years ago that was true. Nowadays it’s all a matter of how you manage your career. I’m a believer in the philosophy that a writer writes. End of definition. A writer should be able –and certainly willing—to write anything. Fiction or non; light or heavy; pop culture or literature; self-help or technical.

A writer who says that they’re a specific kind of write shoots themselves in the foot. Markets and trends change. Readers are fickle. Genres come and go. A writer should be able to move with these changes, swimming with the current rather than against it. And no matter what they’re writing it should also be their very best work. The most recent thing a writer turns in should be their best stuff. Every single time.

For me, the shift to thrillers is a comfortable and necessary step. It’s where my muse is pointing me (or, perhaps, pushing me). At the same time I’m experimenting with a novel in a proposed dark fantasy series, a gritty crime drama, a young adult novel, as well as a pitch for comics and an entertainment news show I co-created for ABC Disney.

I love the freedom of movement, and I really dig the challenge of finding new voices for each of these projects..

Who knows what I’ll be writing in ten years. Maybe books on cooking or novels about fuzzy bunnies.

Hell...anything’s possible. But I’m a writer. I write.

Jonathan Maberry
www.jonathanmaberry.com
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