Notes from Forty - A Playlist

I've been forty for about three hours now.

Just typing that last sentence me feel a little swirl of vertigo in my guts. So I've sought normalcy in the most instinctive way I know how. By constructing a playlist.

Here's a choice selection of old-guy rock from the playlist entitled "Forty":

I'm Afraid of Americans - David Bowie
I Was in the House When The House Burned Down - Warren Zevon
I'll Be You - Replacements
Revival - Soulsavers
No Expectations - The Rolling Stones
Devil's Haircut - Beck
Number with No Name - Ben Harper
Sara Smile - Hall and Oates
Cadillac Ranch - Bruce Springsteen
Your Little Hoodrat Friend - The Hold Steady
Hip Hop Thighs #17 - Ike Reilly
Out Here in the Middle - James McMurtry
What I Learned Out on the Road - Kid Rock
Corduroy - Pearl Jam
Synchronicity - Police
Magick - Ryan Adams
Limelight - Rush
Top of the World - Van Halen
World Spins Madly On - The Weepies
Waterslide - Bonedaddies
Keep Me in Your Heart - Warren Zevon

Is Writing Sexy?

Not usually.

My wife and I just finished watching Season Two of Californication on DVD. And what I've noticed around my house is that whenever we watch Californication , my stock goes up a tick or two. Not much, and not for long, but when you're married it's like Amazon numbers...the slightest bump can make you feel, in the words of Charlie Runkle, like the king of fuck mountain.

Why? Because David Duchovny makes writing look sexy. Or not writing, more appropriately. He can hammer out a few words, type THE END, pour himself some Jamesons, light up a spliff and crank Warren Zevon, and make it look good. Californication is, of course, a very romantic show, as evidenced by the fact that its producers are able to take an innately unsexy act -- sitting in front of a word processor, staring at a screen, with occasional breaks to scratch one's ass -- and make it not only attractive but downright erotic.

Hollywood does a great job with this. Take, for example, God Hates Us All, the "legendary cult novel" that Duchovny's character, Hank Moody, ostensibly wrote on the show. It now exists, an actual full-length novel that you can buy on Amazon. Why? Because it was written by a sexy writer in between cigarettes and deep fits of self-loathing.

So here's my plan.

Before I start my next novel, I'm going to write a screenplay about myself writing it. This should be easy, because instead of an actual story with characters and sentences, all I'll need is a dummied-up book cover with a made up title, something catchy like The Wolves of Martha's Vineyard. I'll include a couple scenes of myself sitting at the laptop with an open bottle of Scotch, gazing into the distance (on Martha's Vineyard, natch) and typing a few words.

Then, once the movie (or TV show) gets produced, I'll actually write The Wolves of Martha's Vineyard and publish it. And no matter the book itself turns out to be about, America will devour it, having already been hopelessly seduced by the ultra arousing literary foreplay of watching me write it.

I can't believe it's taken me this long to figure this out.

I once dated a girl who told me she found me most attractive while I was writing. As flattered as I was by the comment, I couldn't help but think that meant she liked me best when my back was turned to her and I was silent and completely absorbed in something that had nothing to do with our relationship.

We broke up not longer afterward.

But if I ever do publish The Wolves of Martha's Vineyard, I think I'll dedicate it to her.

Death Troopers on eBay

Here's an exciting opportunity to own a customized Death Trooper. Icky!

The Death Troopers Journals

I just came across these last night in a notebook -- the original first pages of Death Troopers, back when it was still called Untitled Star Wars Horror Novel. (I think I prefer Death Troopers. It's catchier somehow.)

These chicken-scratches were made by the side of a pool in LA, in the summer of 2008, at a birthday party for a friend. I didn't have my laptop with me, so I wrote by hand. That splash on the first page is either pool water or tequila...I'm still waiting to hear back from the lab.



When I got back home, I switched over to the computer, but these first couple pages still look fairly close to the first chapter as it appears now. Those of you unable to read heiroglyphics will just have to take my word for it...

I Want a Drive-In

Last week over on Suvudu I wrote a post about how I'd like to start my own spookshow, possibly based on one of my books. Well, I'm over that now.

This week I want my own drive-in theater.

When I was a kid, growing up in Michigan, I had a speaker from a drive-in hanging in my room. I bought it when one of our local drive-in went out of business. I'd only been there a few times, and always to see kids' movies, naturally. But I remember distinctly going to visit relatives in Colorado, and going out to a multiple screen drive in. Again, a kids' movie...but the screen behind us was showing Psycho 2. It's no contender for horror movie of the year, but I'll never forget how awesome it was to turn around from Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (or whatever) and see a butcher knife plunge into some startlet's chest. Talk about your formative experiences.

I remember long car trips at night, looking out the window and occasionally catching sight of a glowing screen off in the distance. It was like finding a four-leaf clover out there somewhere in the dark. You had just a few seconds to try to figure out what was playing...the equivalent now, I guess, of trying to figure out what's being shown in the minivan passing you. Drive-ins are occasionally used to great effect in movies themselves...consider one of my favorite scenes from Jan de Bont's Twister, when the tornado hits a drive-in showing The Shining. It takes balls to extensively reference a film as good as Kubrick's in a flick as flimsy as de Bont's, but it's an excellent bit of showmanship just the same.

Now most of the drive-ins are gone. There's still one near where I live, and we still load up the Playmate cooler with beer and try to head out there at least once in the summer. But what I really want is just to own my own. I'm sure there's plenty of old equipment out there, and all you need is land and a big screen. I'd do kids movies on Friday night, and a Saturday night horror show...maybe even a triple-feature. Popcorn, Coke, beer and enough room for the kids to play Frisbee till it got dark. A big marquee out front.

You'd love it.

Paging Senor Spielbergo!

Tomorrow is the last day to enter the Death Troopers book trailer contest and win a bunch of cool Star Wars swag, including a copy of Death Troopers autographed by some crazy horror writer.

I've seen some of the trailers that people are making, and they're just amazing. It speaks to the ten-year-old in me who got out his parents' Super 8 camera and shot three-minute movies on the roof of his house. (I'm dating myself badly here...even M. Night had a video camera back then).

In any case, if you've been working on one of these puppies, call in sick at work and finish it up. I'm psyched to see your work!

Plus! You can now read Chapter One of the book itself here!

If I ran the zoo...

If I could build the perfect spook show, what would I do? Find out at my latest post over on Suvudu...

Hooray for Booklist!

It's been a good week for No Doors, No Windows. First the Romantic Times review, and now this sweet piece of ink from Booklist.

No Doors, No Windows.


Oct 2009. 288 p. Del Rey, paperback, $14.00. (9780345510136).


When greeting-card wordsmith Scott Mast returns to his New Hampshire hometown for his father’s funeral, more than a few unnerving surprises await him. In a toolshed adjacent to the family home, now occupied by his alcoholic brother Owen, he discovers an unfinished manuscript, apparently penned by his father, featuring an odd, curved mansion dubbed Round House, which Scott quickly learns is based on a real, abandoned home on the town’s outskirts. Inspired to complete his father’s novel, Scott takes a hiatus from his job and moves in with his laptop. No surprise to the reader, of course, Round House’s labyrinthine hallways and sealed rooms are haunted. But how Schreiber reveals the ghost’s presence in a cunningly executed plot involving a burned theater, a rekindled relationship with an old high-school girlfriend, and Scott’s slow descent into madness is a chain of disclosures worth savoring. Schreiber’s crisp, well-paced narrative, which includes tantalizing snippets from the murder-laced manuscript, results in a riveting ghost story equal to the best of King and Straub.

Wow. Talk about a great way to end the week. Booklist, buy yourself a beer. You rock!

Romantic Times review of No Doors

This month's Romantic Times has a blazin' hot 4.5 star review of No Doors, No Windows, along with a nice shot of the cover art:

"This haunting story is scarier than any gorefest. A delicious page turner, it deserves a spot on the shelf next to Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Schreiber has a gift for getting inside his characters that allows readers to feel their mounting dread. The slow pace feeds an unrelenting sense of doom and carries readers to a powerful conclusion."

Zesty! Thanks, RT!

Death Troopers/No Doors, No Windows soundtracks!

It's Labor Day weekend and the radio is playing all kinds of various countdowns and song marathons, so it seems appropriate that I (re)post the playlists for the Death Troopers and No Doors, No Windows soundtracks. Ideally this would be a two-record (or CD) set you could listen to when you read the books on October 13th. I wish I could burn a bunch of the CDs to hand out on tour, but if you go to iTunes, it's definitely all downloadable.

Let me be clear on this, because I've been asked about it before: I'm not promoting anybody's work here. Creating playlists is something I do when I'm writing a book, and in my mind, these particular songs will always be associated with these two books.

Here goes:

DEATH TROOPERS

20th Century Fox Fanfare - John Williams
30 Days in the Hole - Gov't Mule
Call Me Number 5 - Paul Weller
The Shining Opening Theme (Boarding the Destroyer) - Wendy Carlos
Gouge Away - The Pixies
Death and All His Friends - Coldplay
Superbeast - Rob Zombie
The Outsider - Perfect Circle
Made of Scars - Stone Sour
Fall to Pieces - Velvet Revolver
Emergency Exit - Beck
Hurt - Johnny Cash
This is the Sea - The Waterboys
Please Read the Letter - Alison Krauss/Robert Plant

NO DOORS, NO WINDOWS

Ghost Story (Main Theme) - Philippe Sarde
Scott Discovers the Mansion - Thomas Newman
Mansion on the Hill (Live) - Bruce Springsteen
Crawl - Kings of Leon
Family Tree - TV on the Radio
Crawling - Linkin Park
Rumored Nights - The Academy Is
Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You - Billie Holiday
Crows - The Gothic Archies
Moonlight Mile - The Rolling Stones
I'm Bad - The Last Vegas
Drive Away (End Titles - Thomas Newman

We've got five weeks till the books come out. Go forth and download.

The Music of John Carpenter

Like John Carpenter? Check out my Suvudu blog about his musical genius here, and read about the hidden Peanuts/Halloween connection!

Big Star Wars News for 2010

On a recent Star Wars blog post, Sue Rostoni revealed the news I've been sitting on for a while, that I'll be writing another Star Wars novel due out in October of 2010. Wookieepedia has a little write-up of it here too, where apparently "it is confirmed to be another horror novel."

Guess I'd better get busy writing it...