Talk about yourself—Who are you? Where are you located? Anything you feel mentionable here. Drop your links as well!
I’m Ed Grabianowski, a writer in Buffalo, NY. Most people know me for my behind-the-scenes work researching and writing articles for the Stuff You Should Know podcast. I’m also the singer for the band Spacelord — we’re achingly close to completing and releasing our third record this year. I play other instruments and am involved in some other music projects as well.
I’m @robotviking on Twitter, and my website is www.robotviking.com. You can preview and purchase my music at spacelordband.bandcamp.com.
What are you currently writing?
Mostly marketing copy and some non-fiction articles, to keep the wolf from the door. I do have a pair of partly finished novels I keep chipping away at. To be quite honest, lately I feel some despair that it’s all a waste of time and I’m no good at it. I should go get a sturdy job loading trucks or something.
What genre do you write?
Fantasy and horror (rarely mixed together, they’re both very different mental places for me to visit). Sometimes crime, which blends more readily with the horror part.
Have you been published/are you working towards being published?
I’ve had a few short stories published, most recently a sword & sorcery tale in the anthology Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) from the truly wonderful Queen of Swords Press. My other fiction publications are a bit too far in the past and talking about them feels like uncle dusting off his medals from the war.
What author inspires you the most?
This is a boring and predictable answer, but Tolkien. I love Tolkien more with every passing year. There are many things about his work that I love, but the part that influences me most directly is something he’s not really known for: his plotting. His way of crafting entwining plot threads, none of which seem like b-plots, and bringing them together (then apart, then together again) fascinates me — especially that he did it very organically, making changes on the fly and shifting things into place over time as he worked, rather than laying it all out ahead of time.
What books are your favorite and what would you recommend for others?
Well, I think everyone ought to read some Miéville, and probably Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards series, if they like fantasy. I also think everyone needs to read Kurt Busiek’s Astro City comic book series, a sprawling, decades-long work of true wonder, joy, and tragedy, but that’s a tougher sell.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Only advice I’d give to myself: just write more. Stop playing Sims and write. Stop talking about writing and write. Stop looking at Twitter and write. Because you suck at it and the only way you get better is practice.
What is your perfect setting for writing?
The dark side of the moon.
Are you a pantser or a plotter?
I’ve always thought this was kind of a false dichotomy. Any writer who rigidly insists they’re one or the other can’t be all that great, right? You have to plot at least a little, or it all falls to mush. And you have to give your characters their head once in a while and let them do unexpected and emotional things or it’s just math problems with chapter headings. Anyway, I plot a scaffold and drape some pants over it later.
What is your favorite written work and if it’s published, where can one find it?
My favorite story I’ve ever written remains unpublished and frequently rejected. Which is just how it is sometimes.
Echoes of Oddities 