Interview with FELIX BLACKWELL, author of Stolen Tongues
Interview with the author of Stolen Tongues, Felix Blackwell
Stolen Tongues
In 2022, I stumbled upon the book Stolen Tongues by the independent author Felix Blackwell.
With a love of horror, and a flare for the craft myself, I downloaded the book and set dove head first into this tortured tale. I finished the book within a few short days, unable to put it down and unable to sleep as a result.
The book is phenomenal: drawing on the fear of the unknown, the dark and that someone (something) may be feeding off the unconscious mind of a loved one and you can do nothing but watch them dissolve into insanity. It reminded me of two tales I am fond of -
The Babadook - A movie in which an entity is personified as grief and slowly eats away at the protagonist that is gripped in an unconscious battle with unresolved trauma, like a rotten tooth that is left to fester.
It Follows - A brilliant tale of something unknown is following you. Its origin and motivations are unknown, other than it is unseen other than those afflicted by its curse, and it will stop at nothing until it has devoured you.
The book draws you in from the beginning, and the vice grip of terror doesn’t relent until the final page. Felix creates a terrifying tale laced with love, loathing, mystery and desperation. Not to mention the psychological and mental illness themes that run through the narrative, all to concoct a wicked tale of hellish brilliance.
As I enjoyed this book so much, I decided to reach out to the master of horror himself, and he kindly allowed me to pick his hellish mind.
Felix Blackwell - Facebook
The Interview
Firstly Felix, I would like to begin by saying I am thrilled that you have agreed to do this. I really enjoyed your work, and I reached out on a whim. It shows how much you care for those that take the time to read your work in that you are happy to speak to them and answer a few questions they might have.
JD – So, when did you begin writing?
F.B – I started writing poetry and flash fiction around age seven. My mom has been a writer her entire life, so I used to watch her do it as a kid, and I began imitating her as I got older. A pivotal moment in my early writing life was a two-page fantasy story I was assigned to write in fifth grade; I had so much fun with it that I turned in something like 25 pages. It did not go over well with the teacher.
JD – When did you start taking things seriously?
F.B – An unpublished video game I wrote between 2006-09 was the first thing I put professional-grade effort into. I built the world, developed the characters and history, wrote all the quests, etc. It was the first major project I had ever brought to completion. My intention was to sell the intellectual property to a video game company because I had friends in the industry. In the end, nobody wanted it, and I realized I was just a starry-eyed nobody who wanted to live the dream of writing game lore. Since then, I’ve converted the game into a universe in which I’m writing two fantasy novels. I have yet to publish one of those, but I plan to within the next few years, after a few more urgent horror novels.
JD – Where did the idea of Stolen Tongues come from?
F.B – Stolen Tongues came from my partner’s sleep disorder, and a very talkative parrot I used to know. I thought up the idea of a creepy entity trying to interrogate her as she talked in her sleep, and later I decided it should imitate humans through observation and interaction, much like the parrot. I grew up in Colorado, so that felt like a natural setting for the story.
JD – How did you feel having both yourself and your partner as the characters of the story? Is there any truth to the character’s personalities compared to yourselves in real life?
F.B – The characters are mostly based on our real personalities, with a few details changed. She is tough, fiery, and loves taking naps; I am much more of a reader than a fighter, so I’d be as ineffective as Felix in a confrontation with an interdimensional parrot-monster.
JD – Stolen Tongues has had a lot of success. Tell me how that happened?
F.B – It was dumb luck. I posted a story to NoSleep and it went to the front page of Reddit within a few hours. From there, I converted it into a full novel, and people have been sharing it all over social media ever since. I did zero marketing and frankly did not expect the story to get virtually any attention. It was written stream-of-consciousness style and did not have the proper planning of my other works. I’m still shocked it’s more popular than In the Devil’s Dreams, which I consider to be a superior example of my writing style.
JD – The story reminded me of The Babadook, in which you deal with trauma and grief in a manifestation which follows a person around and breaks them down. Was that intentional? What was the inspiration for that?
F.B – I personally don’t think of the Impostor as a metaphorical manifestation of negative emotions (but if you like those types of monsters, In the Devil’s Dreams is chock-full of them). But I do see the similarities. The Impostor, to me, is a very real entity whose origins are unknown, and who is especially drawn to people with hidden trauma – for reasons that will be explored to a deeper level in the upcoming prequel novel. The inspiration for the metaphorical creatures I do write, however, probably comes from my boundless love of the Silent Hill franchise.
JD – Have you had any formal training of writing?
F.B – I sometimes argue that the great lesson of college and graduate school, for me, was not the body of knowledge associated with the degrees I earned, but rather the study of writing itself. I didn’t teach for many years before switching careers, but I certainly gained most of what I know about writing – fiction and academic – from my years at study. And I still use that training every day.
JD – You have released further books. Tell me about those?
F.B – In the Devil’s Dreams is a densely metaphorical, unreliably narrated psychological thriller told out of chronological order. It will be an ordeal for some readers, but for me, it was an act of self-help after exiting an unhealthy relationship. It is about pain, loss, and the wounds we all conceal from each other. The Cold People is an anthology comprised of short horror stories written by me and my close friend, Colin J. Northwood. It contains early sketches of the ideas that later became Stolen Tongues.
JD – Plotter, panzer, or something in between?
F.B – I’m the most devout plotter I know. I worldbuild and plot so much that by the time I start writing the manuscript, 90% of the work is already done. Structure and scaffolding hold up a good story, and I think it’s the most important skill a writer can develop. I’m still working on it…
JD – Whose writing are you influenced by?
F.B – Mary Shelley and Dan Simmons were my favorite horror authors when I was younger, and a few years ago I finally sat down and actually read much of Lovecraft’s bibliography. I would say his work, and the other titans of weird fiction after him, have had a greater influence on my recent writing than anyone else I’ve ever read. Lovecraft truly disturbs me to my core.
JD – What got you into writing?
F.B – I always had a lot of big feelings when I was younger. I realized in my teens that the only way I could accurately express them was through an instrument, or through a pen. So I do both now. I wanted to make other people feel the way my favorite music and books made me feel.
JD – Stolen Tongues has opted for a film. Can you share anything about that?
F.B – It’s been optioned several times and passed around Hollywood a bit. A few scripts have been written for it. So far, the next major step, which is securing a partnership between the screenplay writers and the production company, has not yet come to pass. I wish I could say more but I’ve signed a lot of contracts. When there is real news to share, I’ll be screaming it from the top of Pale Peak.
JD – Do you write in other genres or just horror?
F.B – I’ve got a fantasy and a psychological thriller in development, but they’re sort of on hold while I work on the Stolen Tongues prequel.
JD – Any marketing tips? How do you promote yourself?
F.B – I have never really marketed myself. I just got lucky and had people review my work a lot on social media. I do sometimes interact with readers in the online book clubs, but I have never paid a service to increase my SEO or stick my book on the front page of an ebook newsletter or anything like that. I feel a lot of those services are scammy and should probably be avoided. Success is fickle in this industry, and I have to say, I read more talented and more creative writers than me every single day… fate could have chosen any one of them instead. It’s all so random.
JD – What challenges did you face when writing Stolen Tongues?
F.B – Stolen Tongues was originally a one-off short story that I submitted to NoSleep, just to see if maybe ten people liked my writing style enough to upvote it. When I saw that it had gone viral, I hurriedly wrote a second entry, and then a third… I think I ended up at like nineteen entries, and all of these were written without much of a plan. I remember standing at a bus stop at the base of campus, wondering alongside all the other readers just how the hell I was going to end the story – on the night before the final entry was set to come out. NEVER AGAIN.
JD – You dip into Native American lore and culture in the book. How did you find doing this?
F.B – I was in graduate school working on my Master’s thesis in American History at the time I started writing Stolen Tongues. I was doing a few major projects on Indigenous histories, and was particularly moved by an ethnography I’d read about the Western Apache. Then I read a book about the Comanche empire, and then I got into Ned Blackhawk’s Violence over the Land. All of that material, and the seminars it was assigned in, caused a huge shift in consciousness for me. I wanted to include Indigenous characters and their personal histories and complicated encounters with Western conceptions of them into my writing. I think ultimately I just wanted to start a conversation about Indigenous people in the horror genre.
JD – What does your writing process look like?
F.B – I write a book in three stages: the first is catching all of the associated characters, plots, settings, and ideas into a physical journal. That’s my favorite part, and I do that for several months. Then I start organizing and refining all of that raw material into a more honed project. That’s the hardest part. And when that’s done, the easiest part is just taking that project apart, piece by piece, and converting each piece into a chapter. None of this happened with Stolen Tongues by the way. I completely winged that shit due to time constraints, and it shows. I only had seven months to convert that story series into a novel because of a poorly selected Kickstarter due date.
JD – You rose to infamy with the story on Reddit. Tell me how that happened? Describe to me the process and any issues/highs/lows you felt?
F.B – I talked a bit about this earlier, but the whole thing felt totally surreal. Never before had anyone appreciated my writing, and suddenly I had tens of thousands of people reading my story all over the world. Every single email and personal message I got blew my mind. The thing that I still can’t believe, even to this day, is stumbling upon conversations online where people are debating the symbolism and characters. Totally unreal.
JD – I have a tonne of other questions to ask, but I think this might be the biggest one. What advice would you give to someone that is thinking of starting their own writing career?
F.B – Write because you feel compelled to do so at the level of your soul. If you write with the intention of “making it” financially, you will very likely be disappointed. Let any financial success be an unexpected bonus. Write a few times a week, and make sure all of your content is high-quality – it represents you.
JD – Closing thoughts. Is there anything you would like to say about yourself, or your work? Leave the readers with something to think about?
F.B – Many of your lingering questions about Stolen Tongues will be addressed in the prequel novel. And that novel will be a surprise, for a lot of reasons.
Felix Blackwell was summoned from the bowels of reddit after a botched summoning ritual. He writes in the horror, thriller, and fantasy genres.
Why you should choose independent publishing.
If you’re thinking of Indie Publishing, click this article.
My name is Jay Darkmoore, and as an indie published author of seven novels (at the time of writing), spanning horror, grimdark fantasy, short stories and dark romance, I have dipped more than my toe into the world of self-publishing.
Here, I have listed fifteen reasons that self-publishing has an advantage over traditional publishing, to help you make that informed choice before you commit.
1 – Freedom to write what you like.
You may have heard this one, but the main pull for a lot of aspiring writers to self-publishing is not being constrained to what genre you can and can’t write. You might have a fiction that blurs the line between dark fantasy and action. Maybe you have a historical romance with aliens? Hell, a deep-sea diving book with goblins and werewolves. Whatever your genre, or a mix of genres, you can publish it because there is no specific shelf space that the story must fit into.
2 – Pick your own time frame for publication.
With traditional publishing, you will work to deadlines. This means drafts, editor slots, cover design slots and of course – the book release itself. These can be constraining and can be months, if not years in the future.
With indie publishing, you can decide your own schedule. You can produce work as frequently or infrequently as you like. Want to release three books in three months? Two books a year? Four books in six months then make your readers salivate for the fifth installation? It’s all yours.
And that is a hell of a bonus.
3 – Be your own boss.
If you’re anything like me, then you don’t like being told what to do. With indie writing, you can have your cake and eat it, so to speak. There is only yourself to answer to. You decide how productive you are, how you market and how you go about this crazy thing called storytelling.
You own all your successes and all your own failures.
4 – Market however you like.
Trad publishing will do some of the marketing for you, but not all. Those days are gone when you could get signed, sit back and collect royalty cheques. These days, publishing houses require you to do most of the heavy lifting yourself, and there may be constraints on how you are able to do this.
With indie publishing, this isn’t the case. Want a YouTube channel? Go right ahead. Want a TikTok? Knock yourself out. Want to scream n your neighbour’s roof at the top of your lungs? (Where this isn’t recommended, you certainly can…) Then go for it.
The world is your oyster, and how you reach that world is completely up to you.
5 – Better royalty rate.
A lot of people are drawn to trad publishing because of the advance in royalties you can receive when you get signed, which can be anything up to £10,000. Sounds great right? You can quit your day job and go sipping Pina Coladas in the Maldives.
Wrong. You may get the advance, but you won’t earn a penny until your book sales make that back. And that is with your 10% royalty rate for the face value of the book.
Now, take indie publishing (I only publish via Amazon, so I can’t speak for the rest), but you can earn up to 70% of the face price of the book in royalties.
So, if you sell a book at £10.00 –
Trad - £1.00 - £1.50 royalty
Indie - £3.50 - £7.00 royalty.
There is absolutely money to be made in the indie game. More money, for fewer sales, and if that doesn’t torque your jaw…
6 – Experiment with genres.
If you published your teen YA vampire series with a trad publisher and then decide you want to write post-apocalyptic sci-fi, your publisher might freak out. They might not agree to publish the new book and demand you stick to your current genre. You can be writing yourself into a box that you can’t get out of.
But with indie, that choice is completely up to you. It allows you to be as free and as creative as you wish to be.
7 – It’s faster.
If you submit the final draft to a trad publishing house in January, your book may not be on the shelf until October or even the following year, meaning that after you have been paid your advance and have spent so long writing the story, it won’t be in your reader’s hands for months, if not years! So, you won’t earn that royalty payment back anytime soon.
With indie writing, you decide when you publish, and you can start gaining royalties in just a few days.
8 – You’re in control over just about everything.
You have control over the book cover design, the blurb, the sales copy, the online description, the royalty rate, the scheduling, and the release date. You oversee the project from the first press of the keys to when you hit submit on your outlet.
9 – Financial clarity.
Trad publishers will sort the money side out for you, meaning that you won’t know if you’re making a dime until you get that royalty cheque through. Not only that, you might not even know in what format these books have come from or from where. Is it from your YA vampire series or your paranormal romance series? Is it from audiobooks or from your paperback or eBooks? You won’t know what to expect to come through the mail until it lands on your doorstep.
With indie publishing you can clearly see how much you are making, when it will be paid and through what sales and what format, which will give you a great indication of how to write, what to write and what to invest your time and money in.
10 – You retain the rights to your books.
With traditional publishing, you enter into a contract which you are obligated to, or they will drop you. If you do not honour that contract, and they drop you from their publishing house, then you no longer earn money from the books you have written and are being sold if you do not own the rights to them.
With self-publishing, you have complete control over the rights to your work in whatever format you have them in. This means you are free to write whatever and however you like.
11 – Work as much (or as little) as you like.
This is paired with number 3 of Being Your Own Boss. If you don’t like working mornings and you are more of a night owl, then go right ahead. If you can only write in the mornings and want to dedicate the afternoon to marketing and advertising, then the world is yours to play with. If you don’t like working weekends or on Tuesdays or past 4 pm, then you pick your own hours.
With no publishing house looming a deadline above your head, you can write as much, or as little as you like. This is a three-headed beast though, as you have to worry about burnout and procrastination.
12 – No Gatekeeper.
Who has the final call on a story idea or an ad campaign? You do. Who has to be consulted if you want to translate your stories to different languages and submit them to marketplaces abroad? Only you. Have a new idea? It’s your decision to make.
No relying on the current market or ongoing trends. It’s all up to you.
13 – Traditional publishing is still an option.
If you go traditional first and sign them to five books and then exit the contract, then as I mentioned before, you are going to lose the rights on those books. But if you indie publish first, and then decide to go trad, then you keep everything.
14 – Experimentation with advertising.
A traditional publishing house may require you to advertise or market to a specific audience or niche, be it the over 60’s or women under 30. They may have specific platforms and methods by which you have to do this. But with indie, you are free to experiment in whatever way you like, however you like.
15 – You learn to be a master of the craft.
With indie publishing, there are going to be setbacks (the same with any business venture). This means that you will learn how to market better, write better, edit better and produce better content. Without having other people doing some of the heavy lifting for you, you have to get good and get better with time. Meaning that with enough practise, you will become a hell of a self-publishing badass.
Writing as a Single Parent
There you are, folks! My 15 reasons why you should self-publish. If you liked this article, then share it with someone that is thinking of going trad and wants to know about self-publishing, or save it to your favourites bar on your desktop and have it to refer to in the future.
While you’re here, why not sign up for my newsletter for a free book?
Thanks for stopping by. Until next time.
- Jay Darkmoore
10 Ways to Market as a Self-Published Author
10 Tips to market your self-published books
Hello everyone! Jay Darkmoore here - Self-published author of the dark fantasy series ‘Everlife Chronicles,’ and horror series’ such as The Space Between Heaven and Hell, and Tales from the Inferno.
Being an indie writer is tough, yet very rewarding. The progress is stagnant and slow, to begin with, and it can often be overwhelming when you have to think of all the work you have to put in be it from writing, building an audience, or content marketing to Vlogging, marketing, keywords, etc.
Your mind can easily become overwhelmed to the point where you sit there in a dark corner rocking away, wondering why you ever thought trying to do this task yourself would be a good thing. Luckily, I have compiled a list of tools and tips that can help you in your writing journey, putting them in a nice list that is easy to follow.
I have done a lot of research on this topic so that you don’t have to. If you wish to find more tips and tricks from me, then I ask you to sign up for my mailing list on this website. You can find it by clicking here.
1 – Write more books.
Have you ever wondered the reason why people follow you and read your books? It’s for that exact reason – You have written something that the reader had devoured and loved so much that they want more from you. Like after a great first date, you want to see them again. This is why writing more books and more material is so important.
10 Horror Tropes That Have Been Done to Death
At the time of writing, I have five books out of over three different series in two genres. My readers love that I write in a series, and through doing this I am able to give first-time readers a back catalogue to purchase and devour, as well as pointing existing readers to my mailing list and websites for the exclusive content I offer, while I am busy creating my next installment for them.
Writing more books allows you to expand on your skills as a writer and delve into different genres too. It allows you to hone your craft more easily, and listen to what your readers want next whilst still being true to yourself.
2 – Write in a series and bundle your books together.
When you have someone that has enjoyed your work and they are hungry for the next book in the series, it is great if you have a few more books for them to enjoy. Plus, if they liked the first one (maybe they got it at a reduced price or a free promotion), then they have already said YES to one of your products. If they then see another book in the series at a slighter higher price, then they are much more likely to say YES to that too. If they buy the next one and see the whole six or seven book collection for a much-reduced price than buying them individually, then you have a new and true fan that will read anything you put out because you have given them so much enjoyment. Write more books, write a series, and put them together.
3 – Paid advertising.
Advertising is going to be the backbone of your marketing. You can spend as little or as much as you like, with Amazon offering pay-per-click advertising, which varies depending on the niche and keywords. Genres like ‘Horror,’ would cost more per click, whereas niches like ‘Big Foot Monster Porn’ (Trust me, it’s a thing), would be much less. There are also Google and social media ads like Facebook and Instagram, as well as traditional media like newspapers and radio. However, the traditional media is more of the shotgun method of advertising and less about the targeted ads that will put your book in front of your target audience which social media and Amazon can offer.
Myths of Traditional and Indie Publishing
Also, market yourself through your content whenever you produce a Vlog or an email campaign. Do this sparingly, however. People don’t want to see you screaming at them ‘BUY MY BOOK!’. Instead, target the right audience and engage with them with your content, and maybe when they have learned about you a little, throw a book or a pitch in there. It’s a tightrope, and not always guaranteed to succeed just because you throw money at it, but it can yield great results if you play around with it a little.
Also, a bonus tip – Do keyword research and try to find your niche. It is better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.
4 – Utilize different platforms.
I touched on this one above – Build an audience on different platforms. I currently use Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, YouTube, and TikTok. I use some more than others, but I post regularly on each one, utilizing hashtags and keywords that keep the algorithm happy.
Each comes with its benefits. Facebook for articles, links and videos, as well as to speak to your fans through the direct message and comment action. Instagram is brilliant for those that are visually-minded. YouTube and Spotify are great for people on the go, as they can let the audio play whilst doing other things like cooking or relaxing.
Media is there to be taken advantage of, and if people like what you’re putting out, then the platform will show more of it to more people. Throw in some advertising in there too, and whoa, you just went global.
5 – Build a brand email list –
This one is a tried and tested way to make some guaranteed sales, and fans and to shine a light on your reader’s day. You can build anticipation for an up-and-coming new book, and you can entice those on the platforms above to sign up to your email marketing list by promising them a free giveaway opportunity, or exclusive sneak peeks at new releases. This is your way of collecting your own group of fans and followers.
Be consistent with your email campaigns. I have tried sending daily emails and weekly emails. I found that every day was too spammy for my followers, and it made me become a little too much. But then when I dropped to weekly, I found the open rate massively increased. But the key is to be consistent. That way, your readers will look forward to getting that new email from you every week and hearing about your new video, new blog post, and new content. Throw an email address in there and connect, or maybe a social media page too. Your email list is your own private flock of readers that will follow you wherever you go.
6 – Free promotions.
Free promotions are a great way to attract new readers into your world and by putting links to your mailing list and website at the back of your free books, you’re likely to attract a lot of new people to your material.
I find that with Amazon KDP enrolment, I am able to cycle my books through a 3-month period of free download and every month my social media and mailing list grow. It’s good to have a ‘dead book,’ in which I mean this is the book you sacrifice in the series and make it free whenever you can, in order to draw those readers to your content in exchange for them signing up to your channels and offering them the next book in the series at a reduced rate to really get them hooked.
7 – Upsell new titles.
As mentioned above, when you have someone download and love the free instalment in the series, offer the next title in the series for a reduced rate. They have already invested their time in reading your story and have signed up to your emails, so the next book for a smaller price is much more tantalising. Follow that up with a bundle, and boom – You have a reader for life.
8 – Free copies and ARC copies.
To capitalize on your mailing list, offer your readers and followers free copies of your book for an honest review in an Advance Review Copy. Set your new book for pre-sale and order some books to send out to those on your mailing list for a review and a promotional post online, or send them an eBook copy for free through email. It will get your ratings right up there and will make it more likely new readers will download the story when it gets put for free (thus repeating the cycle above) or they are more likely to buy when they see it already has a tonne of good reviews.
9 – Collab with other writers and readers.
I really enjoy doing this because not only do I get to speak to other people that are crazy like me, but it also allows us to share audiences. We are not in competition with each other, dear writer. We should work together. This is because we cannot possibly fulfill the appetite of those voracious readers all by ourselves, so therefore we collab together and make the reading world a better place.
I enjoy doing this through Instagram Live each week. It’s great fun and a great way to hear what other people are doing and pass on your wisdom and knowledge and talk to each other about your projects that are coming up.
10 – Be consistent
This is the biggest one of all my friends. Be consistent with your work. Produce books regularly and engage with fans. Be consistent, as people love patterns and predictability. Make them look forward to Sunday, Wednesday, the first of the month when they know that you will be releasing something to them or posting something else online or sending out that email.
This is a long slog of a career, and they say it takes ten years to become an overnight success. We compare ourselves to those that we see have made it straight away, but we don’t see the hours and hours of content creation they did before making their first sale or book signing. Be consistent. Dreams don’t happen overnight.
If you would like some further reading, then please check out my other blogs, and look at my own books, and YouTube channel and podcast. The links are all here.
Books I have found useful on this topic –
Write, publish, repeat – Johnny B Truant
Self-Publishing – Joanna Penn
On Writing – Stephen King
Thanks for your time.
- J