Preach On, Brother Kermit!

I think I know why this last story was like pulling teeth (not counting all the crazy stuff that happened from broken laptop to trying to break my back in the garage right around deadline time).

I think I've been writing pulp so much lately that I'm beginning to lose myself in what others say pulp is supposed to be. I started writing with a more lit focus, but with a love for genre fiction, and my earlier writing (around Show Me A Hero and my IDW work) reflects that struggle between lit and genre in a way that made me, well, me.

I think what I need to do is embrace that again and stop trying so hard to write for a style.

I need to tell the stories and let the style simply be what flows. I know I have at least two now that I'm locked into a certain style (third-person only, straight-ahead narrative, etc.) but after those, I'm going to just tell the stories the way I tell them and if my publishers don't like it, then I'll publish elsewhere.

I still want to tell pulp stories, but I don't want to get locked into what was considered pulp only in the past. I want to embrace all kinds of work and style and create something new in pulps, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, superheroes, whatever.

As Kermit sang:

When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why
But why wonder why wonder
I am green, and it'll do fine
It's beautiful, and I think it's what I want to be

So, I'm gonna be green because, well that's what I am.

Genre Purity

Do you prefer to keep a genre pure when you write? What about blending genres in pulp stories? 

Oh no. I like to put all my genres and ideas in a story blender and hit the pulp button.

Romantic awakenings of snake women on Mars? Did that in Blackthorn: Thunder on Mars.

Zombie horror stories that examine the marriage commitment? Did that twice already, once in Zombiesque and once in Pro Se Presents #1.

Fairy tales with inter-dimensional war and demons from the vast beyond? Check. Already done that too, in the pages of Classics Mutilated.

Super hero adventures mixed with fable and mythology? Not a problem. Check out Fishnet Angel in Show Me a Hero.

About the only time I stay pure is when I'm writing a straight up hard-boiled detective story.