This week I am delighted to have a slice of cake with Christopher Long.
He lives in the UK with his wife, Sam, and things are going well. Which makes you wonder where all the horror is coming from, really.
Chris has previously released two novels, six novellas and three collections with KGHH Publishing. His stories have also featured in Sanitarium Magazine and The Ghastling and appeared on The Lift and The Wicked Library podcasts, one of which was nominated for a Parsec award.
Along with these, he's also had a story on the first series of the Shadows at the Door podcast, based on one of the ghost stories for Christmas he wrote for their website. He’s also had the honour of appearing in both The Wicked Library and Shadows at the Doors anthologies and the Infernal Clock’s Deadcades anthology.
What kind of stories do you write?
I suppose one way to put it is that I write stories which never quite finish exactly how I expect. For a long time, I loved to write stories that thrived on escapism. I grew up obsessed with Roald Dahl and I was reading a lot Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett back when I was first finding my voice. Watching a lot of Terry Gilliam and Jean Jeunet movies. I was forever tinkering with the idea of worlds that exist parallel to ours, some of which had a habit of bleeding through. Over time, though, those pulp fantasy stories changed into something darker and uneasy. I started to grow a real interest in psychological horror. Nightmare stories where the lead characters are challenged to confront something that’s threatening their stability without ever offering an easy explanation or a solution. I definitely grew to love a story that didn’t tell the reader exactly what’d been happening behind the scenes. There is something so fun in crafting that sort of seemingly abstract and alien logic.
Although, these days, I am leaning a bit more towards escapism again. An escapism that likes to quietly close the door behind the reader after they’ve stepped through with the characters. I want to take them to a place which seems familiar on the surface and then tell them a story which will keep them off guard and keep them turning pages while, hopefully, slipping that world under their skin ready for when they reach the end. I always love finding out when my stories stays with someone after they’ve read it.
Can you describe your writing why?
If I’m being honest, it’s taken me a good few years to admit to myself that I started out writing to get people’s attention. I copied a lot from the writers I loved growing up and spent a lot of time telling stories which I hoped would attract a similar audience for me. Those stories, which could be pretty good at times, were never really fulfilling for me. It was more about trying to think what might jump off the page or, as childish as it sounds, let me show off for a bit. That changed for me after I wrote a story called The Gallow Glass for the Shadows at the Door anthology.
That story really came from a different place. It didn’t arrive fully formed or with an aim to attract a certain audience. Instead, it was a story I thoroughly enjoyed telling myself. The first draft kept me guessing and pushed me way out of my comfort zone in order to keep it on track.
These days, everything I write comes from that same intention. It’s not about trying to fit myself into a genre or onto a particular shelf. It’s not about asking people to give a story five stars or aiming for something that might win an award. The way I look at it now, once a story’s out in the world, it’s really its own thing. I’m more interested in the process of finding the best version of it for me. I want to write the stories that allow me to answer a question I’ve had lurking in the back of my head or fulfil a need for something I wish I could’ve already found when browsing through a bookshop.
Share with us your favourite passage from the book you enjoyed writing the most
London is a city trapped mid-stretch. The yawn half finished. It’s mouth wide open. It’s eyes tight shut. It’s clenched fists straining to reach further. Those long, London arms are a sprawl of thorny traditions, zealous clustering cliques and cleverly constructed tourist trap streets.
Nestled close to its more famous places are the untidy piles of history. The estates that paint themselves grey as they blur through your train window. They’re pushed aside, swept beneath the rug. These are not the grand parades of royalty, politics or great thinkers. These are the streets of people marginalised down to sheer statistics due to the presence of the victorious and the mighty. These are streets worn smooth by the trudge of feet unable to escape the gravity of this scar tissue Capital.
It was through an area such as this, with its own undeniable, backstreet character, that I found myself scurrying one Friday afternoon.
Tell us about your latest project
Well, I’d been solely writing horror and ghost stories for about a decade, with varying degrees of success. 2019, in particular, saw my work appearing on a few podcasts, as well as in a few magazines and anthologies. During that time, though, I’d found the tropes of the genre were really starting to trip me up. It was like they were adding an extra drag factor to any new idea I was trying to start. It meant I spent a lot of mornings just staring at some very angry notes or a very blank screen. It really made me feel like a tourist in the horror world.
This came to a head at around the time the contract with my previous publisher ended. That change, along with a couple of rejections and the lockdown, really spurred me into trying something completely new. I wanted to write something which built a new world around it and which didn’t need to follow any set patterns or rules. After a lot of head-scratching and some false starts, I began to work on the first draft of something called Figaro Farewell.
The plot combines elements of an apocalyptic Spaghetti Western with a neo-noir detective story, all relayed through the lens of addiction. It’s taken a while find my feet, but it’s really coming together now. Plus, it’s been an incredibly interesting journey for me as a writer. Some of the characters it in might be my favourites out of everything I’ve ever written.
I won’t deny there have been times when I’ve worried that it might all sound like cosplay outside of my head, but I’ve had some friends and fellow writers take a look at the rough edits and they’ve really helped me out. Plus, the freedom of trying something so different is taking my writing to new places. I’m loving the feeling that there’s no exact goal here. There’s a real sense of freedom that comes with not knowing where a book might end up. Which is something I did not expect.
What is your favourite cake?
Okay, I see, save the hard questions for last, hey? Well, I’ve gotten involved in far more arguments about the best flavour of cakes than seems appropriate for a man in his 40s. Not unlike the similar arguments I’ve had about ice cream. It’s rum and raisin, by the way, obviously. Hands down. Rum and raisin wins ice cream. Cake, though, is a different matter.
Right now, I’d say my favourite cake is carrot cake. Boy, I can just hear the 12-year-old me screaming and flipping the table for that one. It’s been a long old journey to get to carrot cake. There was no doubting the grand champion when I was younger. Chocolate cake had a hold on me back then. And I won’t lie. I took a trip down the rabbit hole that is red velvet, but carrot cake has my heart these days. It sounds healthy for a start, which is never a bad thing. It’s rich, whilst light. It goes well with a decent cup of tea or coffee and I rarely turn down a second slice these days. Also, as a lifelong Bugs Bunny fan, I guess I was always working my way around to finding the one carrot flavoured food I could enjoy.
You can connect with Christopher on Twitter - @cjlongchris
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/PlotMonkey/
Website – https://www.cjlongwords.com/
Join me next week when I have a slice of cake with Pierre C Arseneault.
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Claire Buss is a multi-genre author and poet, completely addicted to cake. Find out more about her books on her website clairebuss.co.uk. Join the discussion in her Facebook group Buss's Book Stop.
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