Interview With Author Torgeir Blok
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
When I was 6 years old, I went to a birthday party where the kid had tricked his parents into letting us watch the movie Ghostbusters. I didn’t really understand anything of the humor in the movie and found the ghosts to be terrifying. But I loved the feeling of seeing something “forbidden”.
This fascination for the forbidden soon blossomed into a fanatical love for horror. And as soon as I learnt how to write, my stories were always filled with monsters.
My love for literature also made follow a career in writing, which included work for magazines, movies and TV-shows. But these jobs never let me unleash my love for horror to the extent that I wanted. So I saw no other option than to write a full blown novel.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The book is called ‘Worn Skin’, and it initially started out as a short and quirky horror story featuring voodoo and shape-shifting shamans, inspired by movies such as Hellraiser (1987), The Believers (1987), Angel Heart (1987) and the computer game Gabriel Knight (1993).
I also took a lot of inspiration from tattoos, specifically from the time around the mid 2000nds, when they suddenly became wildly popular. At the time, more and more musicians, movies stars and athletes began decorating their bodies with all sorts of inscriptions and suddenly everybody seemed to be getting ink. This was in stark contrast to how it used to be. When I was growing up in the 80s, tattoos had been a sub-cultural oddity mostly found on the wrinkled arms old sailors, bikers and inmates. A person with tattoos used to be someone you would cross the street to avoid, but if you ever bumped into one and dared ask them what their markings meant, they could talk for hours about each one and point out mysterious design traits from an underworld of secret symbols. However, as offbeat tattoo culture gradually slipped into the mainstream, body modification quickly lost its badboy appeal along with all of its secrets. People just wanted to look like the celebrities they idolized, and if you asked someone in 2006 what their tattoos meant, they would usually refer to a character in their favorite movie.
And the idea of a whole generation of people covered in symbols that they had no idea what meant, made for a really fun backdrop to my story. So I bought up all the books about tattoo history I could find and discovered a secret language that was far more elaborate than I had ever imagined. And there wasn’t just one language either, but a multitude of different styles and placements, all of which had different meanings. I soon had innumerable symbols to play around with in my writing, and if anyone should ever bother to fact check my story, they should be able to find that all the secret symbolism mentioned in this book is grounded in real life.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
When I do rewriting, I need to read everything out loud. This makes any hiccups stand out much clearer and enables me to easily hear all my mistakes.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
As a kid I spent most my days reading Stephen King and when I also discovered the wondrous violence of Clive Barker, I was hooked. Barker’s ways of portraying extreme brutalities as poetic beauty is truly unique, and I still consider his Books of Blood to be among the greatest words ever written.
What are you working on now?
I recently finished the first draft of my second novel and hope to be able to release it as soon as I am done with editing and rewrites.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m still trying to learn.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
I guess the best thing I could tell you would be to learn to LOVE rewriting. This means that when you spot a typo, you correct it. When a word is repeated, you look for synonyms. When something is convoluted, you simplify. When you’re telling instead of showing, you elaborate. When your pacing is off, you make adjustments. When you stumble into a plot hole, you fill it. When a character is one-dimensional, you add depth. When motives are unclear, you try to inject meaning. When the structure is off, you swap around whole paragraphs. And all along the way you also delete as many unnecessary words, sentences, and even chapters as possible.
Never leave mistakes for being fixed “when you get around to it.” Look at your typos as walking out the door with your fly undone… which is a problem I’m sure anyone would hurry to remedy soon as possible.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
You will not get better at anything just because you get older. You won’t become faster, smarter, stronger, or more skilled, and your handwriting will never be nicer than it is today. Unless you actively work on improving yourself.
Because, if you want to become good at something, you have to practice. A lot! Whether it’s singing, cooking, programming, storytelling, speaking different languages, or writing, the only way to get good is to practice, practice, practice. Challenge yourself and constantly strive to improve every day.
What are you reading now?
Currently I’m reading the Manga Gantz, which is filled with monsters, sex, and violence. What’s not to love?
What’s next for you as a writer?
Write and publish more.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I wouldn’t want to bring books that I had already read, so it’s difficult to say. But I’d probably try to find a couple of horror novels and a couple of short story collections.
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