Pump Up Your Book Chats with Dan Maurer, author of ‘Snow Day: A Novella’

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ABOUT SNOW DAY: A NOVELLA

It happens each winter, and has for over 35 years. Every time the snow starts to fall late in the evening before a school day, the dreams begin again for Billy Stone. They are always the same – there’s a dark tunnel, and there’s blood, lots of blood, and someone is screaming.

In this chilling childhood tale, Billy, recounts the events of one unforgettable day in 1975. On that day, he and his friends played carefree in the snow, until an adventure gone awry left him far from home, staring death in the face, and running from a killer bent on keeping a horrible secret.

Set in a time before Amber Alerts, when horror stories were told around camp fires instead of on the nightly news, Snow Day is a blend of nostalgia and nightmare that makes us question if the good old days were really as good as we remember.

From a new voice in dark fiction comes a thriller about an idyllic childhood turned horrifying; a cautionary tale about how losing sight of the difference between feeling safe and being safe can lead to deadly consequences.

Free Audiobook Sample — Snow Day: Prologue

The Interview

Q: Can you tell us why you wrote your book?

A: As the father of a teenage daughter, I’m often amazed at the differences between how we raise and supervise children today compared to when I was young. As kids, we always had freedom to roam and play and explore, while today every moment of a young child’s life is scheduled, managed and supervised to keep them safe. It always felt like two different worlds to me, but of course, that wasn’t the case. They had a lot in common, and it was usually the bad stuff. One night, while having dinner with a childhood friend, my buddy said: “We had an idyllic childhood, didn’t we?” I had to agree with him, but only because we were among the lucky ones. In Snow Day, I set out to explore just what kind of childhood we had, and what might have happened if we weren’t so lucky.

Q: Which part of the book was the hardest to write?

A: The hardest part was having faith. I’m not great at plotting things out in advance. Often when I try, the whole story dries up and dies on the vine. I seem to be better at starting with a character and a situation and letting them dictate where the story goes. Then I use my instincts to recognize and foster the narrative as it develops. It can be frightening at times, especially when the pages start to pile up and you don’t have a clear direction. The key for me is to have faith and to remember the old mantra that good stories aren’t written, they are rewritten.

Q: Besides books, what else do you write? Do you write for publications?

A: In addition to writing and publishing fiction for ebooks, print and audiobook, I also write screenplays. I’m co-writing a WWI epic that I hope to finish before the end of the year. I find it helps to have several projects cooking at the same time. In case one hits a snag, I can push another forward.

Q: Do you have a writing tip you’d like to share?

A: For writers just getting started, I would say be honest and real in your work. I don’t care if you’re writing about aliens or vampires or young boys in the trenches during WWI, focus on real characters presented honestly and your work will be elevated. Anything less, like stories about paper-thin characters that don’t ring true, tend to be dead behind the eyes. They can be intellectually stimulating, but fail to hook the reader emotionally. In short, it’s hard to care about (and continue reading about) characters who aren’t real and true.

Q: Would you like to tell us about your home life? Where you live? Family? Pets?

A: My home life is great, if a little dull. No Kardashian drama here. My wife and I live in Robbinsville, NJ with our daughter, who is a young, high school actress and singer. Together, with our dog Daisy (a cocker-cavalier mix), we divide our time between shuttling our daughter to a million school functions and trying to catch up on the latest episodes of Under the Dome and Hell on Wheels. I also work with my brother John and his wife Diana in managing a theater company they started called Maurer Productions OnStage. We produce plays and musicals. I pitch in with producing, marketing, sound design and sometimes directing.

Q: Can you tell us a little about your childhood and how you caught the writing bug?

A: In my younger days, I was a jock. Little League baseball, Pop Warner Football, the Mets and the Yankees all consumed my life. The only reading I ever did outside of school was the sports pages. But during my childhood my brothers and I also had fun together making Super-8 movies. They were mostly super hero adventures, sci-fi flicks and take-offs on the Billy Jack Kung-Fu movies. I was in front of the camera with friends and family most of the time, and my brother John was behind it yelling “action!” I think that’s where my love of storytelling really began. When my family moved to Central New Jersey when I was in the seventh grade, I didn’t have many friends, just lots of brothers who were entering high school. I was too shy to enroll in the local sports leagues where I didn’t know anyone, and the days of movie-making for us were fading away. So I started to read; I discovered books. They filled the hours. I made friends in time, but books were always my closest friends in those days. They were another form of storytelling and I ate it up. The first adult novel I ever read was The Amityville Horror and it blew me away. I know, it’s not a masterpiece. In fact, what was published as a true story of supernatural horror turned out to be a hoax. But it terrified me. It was like a horrific rollercoaster ride, one that I was eager to hop on for a second and third ride. I never knew a book could do that to me. It was around that time that I also came across a copy of Writer’s Digest in the library and discovered Lawrence Block’s fiction writing column. The two things were like rubbing sticks together. They caught fire. I was only about 13, but I knew I wanted to be a writer.

Q: Where’s your favorite place to write at home?

A: There is only one place where I’m comfortable writing – at home in my office. My home office doubles as a study and is stocked with books I’ve read, plan to read, and once helped publish during my long-ago career in trade book publishing. There is also a shelf of trophies and mementos from theater productions that I’ve produced or directed, a reminder that (as they like to say on Wall Street) past performance is not an indicator of future success. There are two windows in my office. One is real and is only good for checking the weather. The other is my web browser, an open window onto the internet and a great resource for finding unique story details. Otherwise, I’ve set up my workspace according to Stephen King’s advice in his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. He said if you want to write, turn your desk to face the wall. I’ve done that.

Q: What do you do to get away from it all?

A: My first preference is to vacation with my wife and daughter – the beach, a national park, it doesn’t matter. Anywhere is fine, as long as I’m with them. When we get away together we leave everything behind. It’s just the three of us and that’s all that matters. However, my wife has a successful career with a Fortune 500 company, so those types of vacations only come a few times each year. When I want to get away by myself, it’s usually the golf course I turn to. My favorite moments come when I can get out on the course late in the day and there is no one else around. When that happens I get to walk alone; just me and the course and the ball. For nine holes, the rest of the world just fades away.

Q: What was the first thing you did as far as promoting your book?

A: I did a lot of things to promote Snow Day and most of them happened at the same time. While still writing the work, I was spending my evenings developing my website at www.danmaurer.com. A well designed and maintained website is the foundation of a writer’s platform. There was the book cover design, of course, but also press releases, finding a partner to help book the virtual tour, and let’s not forget the audiobook. While in the middle of the ebook development process, we were recording the audiobook version of Snow Day with actor Allwyn Baskin. Samples from the audiobook were posted on SoundCloud and have proven to be a great tool in promoting the tile. Add to this the purchase of advertising and sponsorships, as well as running Amazon promotions, and I had most of the components of a my marketing plan in place by the time the book published.

Q: Are you familiar with the social networks and do you actively participate?

A: Yes, In addition to my website and blog I have a Facebook Author’s page (http://www.facebook.com/danmaurerauthor), a twitter feed (http://www.twitter.com/danmaurer), and a GoodReads profile (http://www.goodreads.com/danmaurer). I try to stay active in between my writing, editing and marketing activities.

Q: What are you currently working on?

A: I’m working on several projects at the moment. I’m writing a novel called How Does Your Garden Grow. It’s a horror thriller that weaves three storylines together, that of a fragile teenage girl, left adrift since the sudden death of her closest friend; a disgraced police detective, shattered by the loss of his daughter and the disintegration of his marriage; and a retired school teacher whose walled garden hides not only a bitter heart, but the dark secret that makes her garden grow. I’m having a lot of fun working with this one. It is set in the same world as Snow Day and is kind of a cross between Wes Craven, Agatha Christie and Stephen King. How Does Your Garden Grow should be finished by early next year. An early peek at the work in progress is available on Wattpad (http://www.wattpad.com/story/5181008-how-does-your-garden-grow). I’m also co-writing a screenplay for a WWI epic, and I’m co-producing two musicals for the upcoming theater season.

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ABOUT DAN MAURER

Dan Maurer is an independent author, publisher, theater producer, director, and digital marketer. He is also a proud member of International Thriller Writers, Inc. and the Horror Writers Association. Throughout his career in publishing and marketing, he has been involved in the publication of bestselling titles such as John Grisham’s The Firm, Richard Price’s Clockers, and Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger’s Lost Moon, which became the film Apollo 13. As a digital marker, he has supported popular publishing brands including Curious George, Peterson Field Guides, and The Polar Express. He has also developed marketing strategies for many corporations, including Citizen, Dun & Bradstreet, RCN and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Dan is a member of an acclaimed New Jersey-based theater company and has won awards for his producing, directing and sound design. He lives with his wife and their daughter in Robbinsville, New Jersey.

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