Recently, I got to chat with a great up and coming author, Eddie Wright, about his debut book, Broken Bulbs. It tells the story of Frank Fisher and his search for "something." When a mysterious young woman named Bonnie offers assistance by injecting seeds of inspiration directly into his brain, Frank finds himself involved in a twisting mystery full of addiction, desperation, hamsters, a vindictive postal worker, and self-discovery. He set me the book in an email and I absolutely loved it, so we talked about it. This time around, Eddie Wright is in the Dollar Bin Horror Spotlight.
Q: First off I would like to thank you for sending me this book. I just finished reading it and I really enjoyed it but I must ask, where in the world did you come up with the concept of "inspiration seeds"?
A: I was thinking about that feeling that you get at that moment of inspiration when you're all fired up and crazy and happy and realized that it's quite literally a high. So I thought it would be cool to make up a drug that created that feeling. I figured injecting it into the head would be the best and most interesting place for the drug to be administered. I figured a muse (Bonnie) should be the one who administers it. It all came together pretty easily actually.
Q: The beginning pages are written like a poem that really could stand by itself. Then it spirals into something like a Sid & Nancy love story with a Sci-Fi twist. What inspired the relationship between Bonnie and Frank?
A: Well the relationship at the base level is Bonnie is Frank's muse and dealer. Bonnie's been a character I've been thinking about for a long time. I think she's cool and a nice counter-balance to Frank's paranoid, pathetic junkie. I think there's actual love there between them but it takes a bit for Frank to realize what his feelings mean. Bonnie cares about him. She may not show it but I think she does. I'm intrigued by unusual and borderline dangerous relationships. I like when people sort of fall apart and come together and fall apart again. I like the idea of doomed relationships that keep on going.
Q: Within the story, Frank's character writes a screenplay about a character named Dusty. I thought it was good and could stand alone as a story. Is there any plans to make a film or write more screenplays in your future? 
A: Broken Bulbs started as a screenplay but I needed to change the format in order to tell the story in the way that it really needed to be told. Screen writing is very limiting in that the story is not finished until it's been made into a movie and if you don't want to go through the whole process of making a movie yourself - which I did not - then you're just stuck with a bunch of pages and a hope that someone will come along and make the movie. And it costs so much money! Books are nice because you can do everything you want and never worry about budgets or cameras or actors or lighting or anything. You just need a pen and an imagination. I would love for Broken Bulbs to be a movie someday but I don't have any plans to do it myself. I'm very very open to the idea though. I love movies and would like to tackle a proper script someday but I would need to know that something would happen with it. I wouldn't want to spend so much creative energy on something and it never get anywhere.
Q: In the bio of the book, it talks about a hamster and after reading the book, I just can't get the 7 hamsters I have owned in the past out of my head...how did you come up with that concept?
A: I owned a hamster when I was a kid. Its name was sometimes Joker and sometimes Jerky, depending on the day. I severely neglected it and it died a sad death. That's one part of the book that's pretty autobiographical. I think we all have those things that haunt us from our childhoods and based on reactions to the hamster stuff in Broken Bulbs, many of us had small pets that we could've treated a little better.
Q: This story isn't just a great read, but has a lot of underlying lessons the reader can take from it about going for things you want. Is there anything else, other that writing, that you hope to achieve?
A: Writing is all I want. I want to write and write forever. I'm happy to find out that the themes of failure and hope and inspiration in Broken Bulbs can register with some readers. I think we've all got some Frank Fisher in us.
Q: Anything else you want to say to this blog's readers?
A: I'm part of a very cool publishing collective called Backword Books featuring Henry Baum, R.J. Keller, Kristen Tsetsi, Bonnie Kozek, Andrew Kent and Christopher Meeks. We've banded together to fight our way through this current, chaotic publishing world. Everybody should check out: backwordbooks.com for info on Broken Bulbs and the other books available. Also, check out bonnieisgood.com for some fun side and in-between stories featuring Bonnie from Broken Bulbs. And follow me at twitter.com/bonnieisgood.
I just want to thank you again for having this interview and the book really is amazing.
Thanks so much. I'm really happy you liked it.
The Book is available in Print or E-book here https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2771
