Author Shoshana Sumrall Frerking

Shoshana's first book "Weatherbone" is fantastic. I read it quickly in a few days because it was so engaging and It was cool to read a story about a town I live in. She and her husband Todd have always been generous with their time when I have a writing or business question. Shoshana has also had stories published in Breaking Bizarro. We discuss Shoshana’s process and inspiration in this interview. I also listed Weatherbone as one of my favorites books I read in 2019.

The premise of Weatherbone is, there is an evil corporation in another dimension that snatches people from our world and turns them into robot slaves. What it’s really about, however, is the lost connection between Tori, a waitress with secret powers, and her best friend, Marissa, who disappeared years ago and has never been found.

When did you first know that you wanted to write for a living?

Well, I’m a technical writer, so I write manuals and other technical stuff for a living, not novels. This career started in 2002, and once I started, I knew I’d found something I was good at and loved doing. And while fiction is still my first love, I also really love writing things that help people accomplish a specific goal, that remove some stress from their lives, if only in some small way.

How did you learn how to write?

I started drawing monsters before the age of two, always with this feeling that there was all this stuff I wanted to say but not having the words.

As I learned to read and write, talk bubbles started to show up in my drawings, and instead of just growling and snarling, the monsters started eating people.

My mom and I started reading adult novels to each other before bed when I was still very small. We began to collaborate on short story collections, which I would also illustrate.

As a kid, I would walk for miles in the surrounding pastures, with this stirring sense that there were other places, just below the surface of this one, or through some doorway, or just up a canyon. If I couldn’t find them physically, then maybe I could write my way to them.

Then I picked up *’Salem’s Lot* by Stephen King.

I majored in English with a concentration in Creative Writing, and still go to the occasional writers’ conference or retreat. I became active in the local writing community, which is incredible and very supportive.

I guess you could say I was learning in all these experiences, but it was more like discovering a monkey’s paw and then just opening your arms to whatever comes out of the darkness to devour you.

Why was "Salem's Lot" so influential? 

I connected right away with the visceral emotions of the characters. Feelings you can’t put a name to, but which can be shown through how a person connects with their surroundings, by the things they don’t say or clearly don’t know. Once I realized you could convey larger, more complex ideas without ever stating them outright, I was filled with the desire to do this myself.

What does your writing routine look like? How do you keep momentum going?

It’s weird, but I write during my lunch break every day at work. I take my laptop into the break room and type while gobbling leftovers. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, I make coffee and go up to my desk and spend a few hours piecing it all together.

I make it a routine, like getting dressed in the morning. It doesn’t matter if you’re feeling fabulous or ugly that day, you still have to put on your clothes.

Do you plan the whole story out or are you a "Pantser?"

I switch back and forth several times before a story is finished. Usually, the scenes come to me in emotional bursts, and I just write them down without thinking about how they fit together. After a while, the plot starts coming together, and I have to draw up an outline to keep everything straight. Then it usually goes off the rails again for a bit while I spew out some more scenes that feel good. Then I revise the outline, and so on.

How does life influence your work?

Things that happened to me, or that I witnessed, creep into my stories, and I just let it happen. *Weatherbone* contains fictitious versions of things, places, and events that have touched my life in some way.

For example, we had an old Rambler rusting away in the old pond bottom in our pasture. My friends and I spent hours in that thing, speeding through the universe, or exploring the canyons below the ocean floor, or outrunning this tar-covered gorilla man who was trying to eat us.

Anyway, that’s why there is an old Rambler in the novel.

What was the main inspiration for "Weatherbone"

In the early days of my career, in design meetings with all these engineers and scientists, it always felt a bit magical and mysterious to me. Naturally, I started imagining the instruments we were building could do fantastic things—like transmit signals from another dimension, or monitor levels of demonic activity.

This, combined with my obsession with thunderstorms and dragons, compelled me to start putting all these concepts together so I could create a world filled with all my favorite things, and then just hang out there.

Why did you decide to set it in Lincoln, NE?

It’s easier to write in a setting and culture I’m familiar with. Plus, I just love Nebraska, its geography, the people…and especially the storms.

Did you actually have waitress parties like the book described?

Hell, yes!! That part of the book is based on my time as a waitress at a restaurant in Kearney, NE, back around ’89– ’90, a very formative period in my life. After close around 2 a.m., we would go to someone’s house and play quarters, often still wearing our pink flowered dresses, smelling like ketchup and sweat.

Are you trying to tell a larger moral lesson with your stories?

Not consciously, but, as with so many writers, those messages will emerge organically through the progression of drafts. What is the main message from Weatherbone? Perhaps that true friendship can endure profound and devastating changes. Another one could be that as much as we want to see ourselves as “good,” there’s no way of knowing what we’re capable of when trapped in an impossible situation.

Do you have a daily word count you try to hit?

I used to have a daily goal of a thousand words. These days, I just make sure to write every day, be it several pages or just a paragraph.

What advice do you have for new writers?

Read anything and everything, to absorb the good and learn to recognize the bad. Let everything around you influence your stories, but always make time to read. Watching Netflix can be stimulating, but it is not reading.

Also, it’s normal to hate early versions of your stories. That’s part of building them into something better. And they may sneak up and get better when you’re not looking.

Like Stephen King said in *On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft*:

“Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”

How has your process evolved over time?

I used to stay up into the wee hours, or wake up in the wee hours before work, burn through all my vacation hours to spend those days working on stories and novels.

Now that writing fiction is no longer my career goal, I am at once more passionate and less stressed about it. It feels like reaching for that mysterious door again, like when I was little.

Can you discuss the process of getting an editor and how many times you submitted the book and why you self-published?

The novelist Marcy Dermansky edited my novel. Actually, she edited it twice (resulting in Weatherbone becoming a prequel to the original story, which I’m now revising as the sequel). This consisted of her reading through the manuscript and telling me what she liked and what she didn’t like, and suggesting a couple of new directions to consider.

I connected with Marcy through novelists Owen King and his wife, Kelly Braffet. Owen had workshopped a short story of mine, so he was a little bit familiar with my writing, which I guess is why he hooked me up with Marcy.

Anyhow, I’m extremely grateful to them all, because the experience helped me grow as a writer without a doubt. I logged over 100 rejections from agents and publishers for this single book. If I could go back and NOT submit to all those places before the novel was truly ready, I would! But I kept making the mistake of thinking it was as good as it was ever going to get, so I sent those early crappy versions to my most-desired agents and publishers. By the time the novel got to its current state, I’d used up all those opportunities. I have other stories in me and will try again in time, but I will be smarter and more patient about it. Anyway, I knew this story was good, and I still wanted to give it a home, even if self-promotion is my kryptonite. So, I quietly published it and made it as beautiful as I could.

Who made the cover art?

I found the graphic on Canva.com, which is an awesome source of free art. Using their layout templates and design tools, I created the cover for the book. I wish I knew who the original artist was, but I couldn’t find that information on the website. I loved how it turned out, and plan to use Canva for the next book as well.

Here is the email I sent Shoshana after I finished WeatherBone:

Tell me about the next book and when is it out??

Well, as Tori begins her new job in the mysterious factory, she’s still pretty clueless as to her true identity, as well as her connection to the forces of evil beginning to bleed through into our world. All she cares about is the fact that Marissa, her long-lost best friend, has come back. All she wants is to go back to the way things were when they were young and start over where they left off. You might say she has some growing up to do.

After the hell that Marissa has been through, and the knowledge she now carries, when they are finally reunited at long last, it’s nowhere near the fairy tale Tori is imagining. From there things will go from bad to worse, and it doesn’t help that they're both dealing with their own issues of substance abuse.

Oh, and I guess I can tell you the working title, which I am probably going to keep: The Book of Bethenos. Also, there’s too much going on to be contained within the two books, so expect a third one to follow!

What books are you reading now?

*Fake, Liar, Cheat* by Tod Goldberg

*The Institute* by Stephen King

What are your favorite novels?

The entire* Company* series by Kage Baker – My favorite science fiction series. Time travel meets corporate greed.

*The Shining* by Stephen King – One of the best-ever examples of the setting becoming a character. Also, just incredibly sad and scary, how alcohol becomes a character.

*My Absolute Darling* by Gabriel Tallent – A beautifully written horrifying story of a feral girl and her survivalist father.

What other art do you look at for inspiration?

A great many of my scenes are either inspired or later enhanced by particular songs. When a song grabs me, I will listen to it over and over again in the car, playing the scene I’m writing in my head, making it more and more emotional, until it basically becomes a dramatic video for that song. Then I go home and write the scene. Most of my longer pieces have a song list. For instance, the soundtrack for *Weatherbone* includes Taylor Swift, the Moody Blues, Foo Fighters, Avenged Sevenfold, FC Kahuna, and LOTS of Eric Church.

Tell me about working at the hotel in Kearney and the story of playing music while you cleaned.

I told you about that?? Wow, I don’t even remember that conversation! I always brought my ghetto blaster to work and played early Megadeth and Dead Kennedys tapes while I cleaned the rooms. Touring rock bands used to stay there sometimes, and I always hoped maybe if I turned it up loud enough, they’d notice me. This was decades ago, when I was still a young chicky. I worked there mornings, and then had a full-time second shift at the local filter factory. I had all these songs I’d written, a few recorded in studio, and the plan was to save up enough to move to Phoenix, because someone in a band had told me the metal scene was hot down there. But before that could happen, I met my future ex-husband, who played guitar. I ended up moving to Lincoln instead, where we started a metal band called Strongbarn. Little did I know, my future current husband was a drummer in several far more popular bands during that same time. We like to fantasize now about what might’ve happened if we’d known each other way back then.

Do you listen to music while writing and if so what kind?

I often put the earbuds in while my husband is watching TV downstairs and listen to dramatic, emotional instrumental music on YouTube. I never listen to anything with vocals while writing.

Tell me about your bass playing adventures!

In high school, I had this little Japanese bass called a Supro. My head was full of heavy metal dreams back then. With money from my after-school job, I bought a Peavey Fury bass and amp. The bass has an extremely hot single-coil pickup, and it still sounds better than any other bass I’ve played. In the 90s, I played bass and shared vocals in Strongbarn. It was about half covers and half original songs.

I tell ya, the best part was all those big long-haired guys coming up and being so thrilled to see a diminutive black woman playing and singing stuff by Pantera and Judas Priest. That isn’t so unusual these days, but back then I kind of enjoyed being novel. My heavy metal “career” never actually went anywhere, but it was awesome just being part of that community. Like waitressing, the experience became part of my identity and my stories. Nowadays, my oldest stepson has that Fury, which he uses in his death metal band, Verrater. He is also lead guitarist and songwriter for his other band, Garotted. So I am living out my heavy metal dreams vicariously through him.

I still have these recurring dreams where it’s late at night and we’re in a van, traveling to another gig for some ultimate party. But I always seem to wake up before we get there.

What’s your favorite hot sauce?

That’s easy. It’s the red hot sauce they give you at Super Taco on 56th and Holdrege. I don’t know what’s in it, but it is fucking amazing.

To experience more of Shoshana’s stories, art, and nightmares, visit https://shoshanasumrallfrerking.com/.