Author Interview - Cora Buhlert

Please tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Cora Buhlert. I live in Bremen in North Germany, where I work as a technical translator and English teacher. I have been writing fiction since I was a teenager, had short stories published in various magazines and am now self-publishing my backlist stories as well as new work. I write in English, by the way.

What is your book about?

Which one? I have twelve e-books out now, mostly reissues of out of print backlist stories. I write historical fiction, suspense, fantasy and science fiction. My most recent release is The Spiked Death, the third novelette featuring The Silencer, a masked hero in the style of the pulp fiction of the 1930s. It's the bloodiest adventure of the Silencer yet, for he is hunting a villain who blackmails powerful men by kidnapping and torturing their daughters. At first, it's just another case, but things quickly get personal when the two people closest to the Silencer are kidnapped…

How long did it take you to write?

The Spiked Death took me two or three months to write, because I was already working on my MA thesis at the time. I always have multiple projects going on at the same time and switch between them, so it's difficult to gauge how long a particular project actually took.

What inspired you to write this novel?

The inspiration for The Spiked Death was quite prosaic actually. An editor to whom I'd already sold a few stories mailed me an illustration of a woman about to be lowered onto some very sharp spikes and asked me if I could write a story to fit the image. I studied the picture, thought, "This looks like a case for the Silencer", and began to write.

Meanwhile, the Silencer himself was the result of my interest in the pulp magazines of the 1930s. I have a lot of admiration for the pulp writers of the time, since they pumped out words at a breakneck speed and still managed to write stories that are enjoyable even seventy years later. Besides, many pulp writers also had exciting personal lives and had worked as stage magicians or pilots during WWI. I wondered, "What if a pulp writer suddenly started dressing up as his own character and actually experienced the adventures he was writing about…" and so the Silencer was born.

In general, I find inspiration everywhere, in stories, articles, pictures, films, TV shows, personal experiences, etc… It all goes into a big bubbling cauldron in my brain and eventually combines into a story idea.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

I've always been telling stories and started writing them down in my teens. But I didn't really decide that I wanted to be a writer until I was at university. Before that, I always wanted to be a film director. I'm a very visual writer and often see my stories as movies in my mind, so film making seemed the natural choice to bring them to an audience. I even joined a local film group for a while, but then I realized that film making is very much a team effort and that realizing your own unique vision in a film is very difficult, unless you are a hotshot auteur director. In writing, however, there's just you, the author. Besides, I had started taking creative writing classes by then and found that I really enjoyed writing.

What part of writing do you struggle with? Character, plot, description or dialogue?

Description. My early drafts often read like audio plays with a lot of dialogue and very little in the way of description. I mostly layer in description during subsequent drafts. Besides, I'll never be one of those lyrical writers who can write wonderfully poetic descriptive passages. My voice and my mind just don't work that way. I actually tried writing a short story full of very lyrical and lush descriptive passages once and it started sounding like a parody after half a page.

On the plus side, I'm really good at writing snappy dialogue.

What made you decide on self-publishing?

I regularly read the blogs of Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith and a lot of their points regarding self-publishing made sense. Besides, I had a bunch of out-of-print backlist short stories that were gathering dust on my harddrive, so I figured why not self-publish them and earn a little money? But then, I realized that I enjoy the control and the freedom of self-publishing. Now I also self-publish some never before published works rather than send them out on the submission odyssey.

Did you have a professional editor?

So far, everything I published have been short stories and novelettes. I did not hire an editor for those stories. However, most of the stories were previously published in magazines and already went through the editing process. When I e-publish my first novel (sometime in 2012), I will probably hire a professional editor.

Do you edit as you write or wait until your book is finished?

It depends. Most of the time, I just push ahead with the writing and only edit once the book or story is finished. However, if I have a different idea in the middle of an unfinished piece that will require extensive changes, I make the changes right away. And if I get stuck with a novel or story, I print out what I have already written, read it through, mark it up and make the necessary edits. By the time I'm finished I've usually become unblocked and can forge ahead.

Are you currently working on any projects?

I'm always working on projects. Right now, I'm working on Prisoner of the Inquisition, the sequel to my novelette Hostage to Passion, in which the heroic English pirate Sir Nicholas Harcourt has to save his beloved from the Spanish inquisition.

What is more, I recently came across a historical romance novella that I had abandoned some time ago at about three quarters complete and decided to finish it. The novella is called Under Lock and Key and is a medieval romance. A chastity belt features prominently.

Any advice for new authors?

Read a lot and write a lot. Pay attention to the writing advice out there and give anything that appeals to you a try. But always take writing advice with a grain of salt. Keep only what works for you and discard what doesn't. Write the stories that only you can tell and don't chase whatever the hottest trend is at the moment, unless it's a genre or subgenre you really want to write. And, most important of all, be patient and don't let yourself be discouraged. Overnight successes happen in this business, but they're rare and mostly the result of years of practicing your craft in obscurity.

Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what type of music?

I don't listen to music while I write, because it would distract me too much. However, I often listen to music before I sit down to write to get into the writing mood. As for what type of music I use to prime myself for writing, it depends on the story I'm working on. Different stories and characters require different music. Nor do I have a favourite style or genre of music and will listen to anything from classical to punk rock. Though there are one or two music genres I don't like very much.

Best time of day to write?

Evenings and nights. I'm a nocturnal writer.

Top 3 authors?

I only get three? Well, then I'll go with Isaac Asimov, Jane Austen and Thomas Pynchon.

Top 3 novels of all time?

Again only three? Okay, then I'll pick The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov, V. by Thomas Pynchon and The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers.

Top 3 movies of all time?

The original Star Wars trilogy (I'm counting them as one film for now), Der Frosch mit der Maske a.k.a. Face of the Frog, a German crime thriller from 1959, and another vintage German film, Rosen für den Staatsanwalt a.k.a. Roses for the Prosecutor, a hard-hitting satire from 1960 about former Nazis still in positions of power in democratic postwar West Germany, while their former victims struggle.

What do you read the most? Fiction or non-fiction?

Fiction, though I also read a lot of non-fiction for research purposes, either for my writing or for my PhD thesis.

Is your book in Print, ebook or both?

My work is available only in e-book form at the moment. However, several of the stories and novelettes were originally published in print magazines and you may be able to find back issues of those. And there will be print on demand editions available, as soon as I have something of a length where print is viable.

Where can your readers contact you? Links, etc.

My website and blog: http://corabuhlert.com

My publishing site: http://pegasus-pulp.com