An Interview With Ross P. Psuty

Author: Tales of The Axe

Book Drawer: Tell us about your self-published book, “Tales of the Axe.”

Ross Psuty: Well it is something, which I always wanted to do. I am a big fan of short stories, especially in horror. I started this project a year and a half ago, and my first concept of the book was having a story in each state. I figured every state had a crazy, lunatic person there somewhere. Take horror movies for example, Haddonfield, Illinois, had Halloween. Crystal Lake had Friday the 13th, and Texas had the Chain-saw Massacre. My idea was to have an axe murderer in each state, which I called “50 Axes in 50 States.”



BD: Why did you decide to do “Tales of the Axe” which contains 13 stories?

RP: I was on my third story, when I realized that this project was I little to big for me. I didn’t know if I had it in me to write fifty stories of axe murderers, and each story had to be different from the next. So I came up with 12 unique stories. A year later when I was finished writing, editing, and completed my book, I added one more story. I believe it is an unwritten rule, if you are writing short stories of horror, for some reason, you need to have 13.



BD: Why horror?

RP: I love to get scared. Even when I was little I loved scary movies and reading horror stories. But having a short attention span, I would only read short stories. But there was always one main problem about the stories that I read, they seemed to be more silly, than scary. They were about, creatures, ghost and goblins, giant moths coming out of the sky.



BD: What was the main focus for your book?

RP: Keeping the story as smooth as possible was important to me. Giving details without the fluff in between, I didn’t want to bore the reader. Plus, I didn’t want to be silly. I wanted to write something that seemed realistic. Human beings, against human beings, just one of those beings is a little mental and carries around a big axe. My readers have asked me, why there are no heroes in my stories. My response is because the killer is still out there waiting for their next victim.



BD: Would you like to describe some of your stories?

RP: I sure would. The book opens up with a story called “The Darkened Road.” The story is about a man name Nick, who takes his family on a vacation drive to Maine. On their way, they decide to take a shortcut down a long, and darkened road. During the drive Nick is involved in an accident, when he comes to, he notices his family is missing, and the long darkened road leads to an insane asylum.



BD: What inspired you to write this story?
RP: I think almost everyone has driven down a narrow road with dense woods on each side of them. It’s the middle of the night, there are no streetlights, and there are no other cars in sight. It looks pretty creepy. Especially if your windows are down, and you are only going 25 miles an hour. You just think something is going to jump out at you. Well at least I do…

The next story is entitled, “Sleep Tight, My Angel.” It is in the mind of a stalker, who is in a woman’s house every night. He comes into her bedroom just to watch her sleep. There he thinks about her, and when he first saw her in the park, that he watches her daily and knows all of her routines. When she leaves the house, when she comes home. But if she ever wakes up to see him watching over her, he feels that he would have no choice but to end her life.

BD: Sounds creepy.

RP: That’s what my readers have told me.

BD: Have your readers told you which stories they like the most?

RP: I have been getting a lot of feedback on my story, “How to write a Horror novel.” This story was fun for me to write, I have a very sarcastic way about me. So I brought some of that humor into this story. It starts out with a sports editor, who has written a horror novel and brings the manuscript to the publisher. This is what she reads-this is directly from the book: It was the night before Christmas, and all was silent in the deepest part of the North Pole. The unpolluted white snow melted beneath the warm red blood. All eight of his reindeer have been slashed open and gutted. Santa could only look in horror at his devoted animals. They worked so hard for him on this special night. Never again will he be able to say the words: Come on, Blitzen, Prancer, away. He felt the freezing hail rake at his rosy nose. The clock in his head rang 11:58. He was late. Santa Claus feared for his life. The elves were out tonight and angered with vengeance.

After she read this, she’s telling this sports editor anything to get him out of her office. She tells him, horror doesn’t sell that well, that the world might not be ready for killer elves. Then finally helps him, by telling him to visit an author she’s knows, maybe it will help him on how to write a good horror story.

BD: What inspired you with this story?

RP: Big fan of horror films, but there are some really bad, awful ones out there. Bad acting, bad scripts, bad everything. I ask myself, who makes this stuff, and who gives these people money to make them? So I came up with this bad writer, with a bad horror story and it worked. But readers do tell me that they wanted to read more of the killer elf story.

BD: What are the other titles in your book, “Tales of the Axe”?

RP: Besides those three, there is a story called, “Woman In White,” “Cyber Axe,” “The Old School,” “He Needs Body Parts,” “I Will Never Let You Go,” “Cabin With A View,” “Shame On The Night,” “The Neighbor,” “A Warm Place To Stay,” and “I am Not A Mad Man.”

BD: What do you feel is the biggest advantage of self-publishing?

RP: The rights, you own all your rights to your book. No one can change what your creative mind has thought, and the hard work that you have put into it.

BD: What would you say is the hardest part?

RP: Editing, you can edit your stuff for days, reread it for months, and never see all of the mistakes. It is very wise to have someone else or even more than one person to read your finished manuscript. Have them take a fresh look at your work.

BD: What would you say to a new writer, who was just starting out?

RP: Keep on writing, the more you write, the smoother and better it will become.

For more Information about “Tales of the Axe” or if you like to purchase a copy. Visit: www.geocities.com/talesoftheaxe