Chisel the Bone by Renee S. DeCamillis

Chisel the Bone,  Renee S. DeCamillis is Crafting the Perfect Horror Novel

We are honoured to welcome Renee S. DeCamillis to Ginger Nuts of Horror with an amazing entry in our 5 Minutes series of author interviews to promote the release of her latest novel, Chisel the Bone, which  be published by Encyclopocalypse Publications on July 23rd. If you enjoyed what you read, please share this article and purchase a copy of Chisel the Bone from the link at the end of the interview.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

My name is Renee S. DeCamillis, and I’m a horror author and editor, and the author of the psychological thriller/supernatural horror novella The Bone Cutters, book 1 in The Bone Cutters series, and Chisel the Bone, book 2 in the series. Release date for Chisel is July 23, 2024. I also have a book forthcoming in 2025, a co-author project called Try Not to Die: By Your Own Hand, which is a choose-your-own-path horror novel. My short fiction appears in various anthologies: Phantoms from the Sky; Dethfest Confessions: The Devil’s Playlist; Horrors of the Deep; After the Burn; Wicked Women; and more. My poetry appears in the Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase Vol. IV. I’m a member of the Horror Writers Association, the New England Horror Writers, and the Horror Writers of Maine. Music also plays a big part in my life. I’m the lead singer and songwriter and rhythm guitarist for the punk-metal band Scars Aligned. I earned her BA in psychology, earned my MFA in Popular Fiction Writing, and attended Berklee College of Music as a music business major with guitar as my principal instrument. I’m a former model, school rock band teacher, creative writing teacher, private guitar instructor, A&R rep for an indie record label, therapeutic mentor, psychological technician, and preschool teacher. I’m also a former gravedigger; I can get rid of a body fast without leaving a trace, and I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. I’m a tree-hugging hippie with a sharp metal edge living in the woods of southern Maine (U.S.) with my husband, our son, and a house full of ghosts.

 Website: reneesdecamillis.com

Which one of your characters would you least like to meet in real life?

That would probably have to be Snake Girl from both The Bone Cutters and Chisel the Bone.  

I don’t want to give too much away about Chisel, which is when her true colors fully reveal themselves, but scenes from that book are what put Snake Girl near the top of my list. I say near the top because there are many other characters I’ve written that I would never want to meet in real life, though I have met parts of them all in real life, unfortunately.   

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?

Music is always a big influence on everything I do, including my writing, but for other genres of literature that influence my work I’d have to say crime fiction and noir are the biggest, but also mystery & suspense, magical realism, science fiction, and even some fantasy and literary fiction.  I greatly admire the worldbuilding skills of sci-fi and fantasy writers, though I don’t see any epic fantasies coming out of me in the near, or maybe ever, future. I also do love satire and dark humor, and that influence certainly bleeds into my work.

The term horror, especially when applied to fiction, always carries such heavy connotations. What’s your feeling on the term “horror,” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?

Horror literature—yes, I said literature—often gets pushed to the bottom of other forms of literature, even among genre literature such as sci-fi and fantasy. Though it does seem like that has been changing over the past few+ years, and a horror resurgence has been taking place on screen and in books with big names like Stephen Graham Jones, Paul Tremblay, Victor LaValle, Grady Hendrix, Cynthia Pelayo, Tananarive Due, Rachel Harrison, Alma Katsu, Gabino Iglesias, S.A. Cosby, Jordan Peele, among others.

Also, many people assume horror writers and horror enthusiasts are evil or mean or harmful to others and to society as a whole. But I’ll tell you what—just like most metal musicians, most horror authors are the sweetest, kindest, most loving and most accepting people you’ll ever meet. If people could read and watch horror with an open mind, look past the bloody parts and dig deeper into the meaning behind it all, they will see that a lot of horror helps people face their fears in a safe environment, it lets people know they are not alone with their fears, it helps reveal the evils hiding in the world, and it shines a light to guide people through their darkest times—letting them know there is a way to fight back and a way to survive it all. To me, horror is the best genre out there! 

As for what to do to break past these assumptions—just stop assuming and start accepting all forms of literature and all forms of creative expression as equal. It’s all about equality, man. 

A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate. Considering the current state of the world, where do you see horror going in the next few years? 

What’s going on in the world today stokes the flames of horror fiction tremendously. I don’t like what’s going on in the world, but I do love that more attention and emphasis is now put on horror fiction and horror films and TV. What I’ve already started seeing and what I think we will see more of is body horror. So many people don’t feel comfortable in their own skin and often see themselves much differently, and often much more horrifically, than others see them, and I think that will show up more and more in horror. Body dysmorphia—looking in the mirror and getting obsessed about perceived flaws in one’s appearance, flaws others don’t see, is extremely distressing and can negatively affect every aspect of a person’s life. I also think we’ll see more tech-themed horror, more eco-horror, more unknown sickness- and disease-themed horror, drug- and addiction-themed horror, and much more—I hate to say it or even think it—war-themed horror. One other thing I think we’ll see more of is—something a lot of publishers don’t want to see—is sex-trafficking horror, including with children.  

Given the dark, violent and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre why do you think so many people enjoy reading it? 

It’s a way for people to safely face their fears, and it can show them that they are not alone in how they think and how they see the world around them and the people in it. It’s also a fun and safe way for people to get scared shitless. 

What, if anything, is currently missing from the horror genre?

More of my work … (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). On a more serious note, we need more horror by women. Yes, there are a ton of women in horror, but they don’t get the spotlight as much as the men in the scene. The work by women in horror doesn’t get promoted as much, it doesn’t get picked up by the big presses as much, it doesn’t get reviewed as much, the authors don’t get as many appearance opportunities, etc. If anyone can write horror, and really great horror, it is certainly women because so many of us, me included, have lived through so much horror that we have a plethora of horrific stories screaming inside our heads to get out onto the page and out into the world. I think there are many reasons for this lack of spotlighting women in horror, but I feel that is s topic for a different question or conversation. 

What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice off? 

Here are some indie horror authors who I feel do not get the recognition they deserve: Morgan Sylvia, Emma J. Gibbon, Katherine Silva, David Simms, Steve Van Samson, Andrew Najberg, Joseph Carro. I’m sure there are more, but I am terrible with names and am sure I forgot some. My apologies to those I did forget.   

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative, that have stayed with you?

Yes, and actually one of them is a review written by one of Ginger Nuts of Horror’s previous reviewers, Joe X. Young. He wrote my first review for The Bone Cutters, and what sticks with me the most is him saying, “It’s a fantastic beginning to what could prove to be a career to watch.” And reviewer David Simms wrote a review for Monster Librarian for The Bone Cutters and said, “A surreal experience that evokes One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, if written by Clive Barker.” Yeah, those stick with me. 

As for Chisel the Bone, I’ve received many great reviews and blurbs already, which blows my mind. Busy authors I admire actually took time out of their hectic schedules to read and blurb my work! Yeah, that alone sticks with me. But more of what sticks with me about that is two of my all-time favorite horror authors—Mary SanGiovanni and Stephen Graham Jones—have said great things about my debut novel. Happy tears flowed from me reading praise for my work by these amazing authors. And on par with that is having my work compared to very talented and successful horror authors such as Clive Barker, Jordan Peele, H.P. Lovecraft, Laird Barron, Poppy Z. Brite. This feedback helps me feel less and less like an imposter, less and less like a wannabe horror author. I AM a fucking horror author. I am here to stay. And I’m excited to write more and more.

One review for Chisel the Bone from an everyday reader that I read on Goodreads—yes, I do sometimes read my reader-reviews—made me step back to look at my work from a different angle. This reader is a fan of extreme horror, and they said that my opening chapter for Chisel the Bone was tough for them to get through without feeling like they might barf. Now, I don’t write scenes to try to gross people out. I don’t write for shock value. I want my readers to feel what my characters are feeling, to put them in the characters’ shoes, and I had not seen that opening chapter the same as that reader. I’ve never seen myself as a writer of extreme horror, but there it is. I love it when reviews help me see my work in a different light. 

What aspects of writing do you find the most difficult?

Balancing taking care of my child (I have no childcare, and my husband works 50 hours/week.) and working and finding time to write and do all that goes along with trying to build and maintain a writing career is by far the most difficult. And on top of that, the workaholic that I am also started an all-original band because I can’t not play music or I’ll get severely depressed. I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess.  

But what I find most difficult with the actual job of writing is the promotional part. I’m a creative. I create. That’s what I do best and that’s where my passion lies. That’s where my drive hits harder and persists longer. And I’m an indie author, which means most of the promotional part of the job falls to me. That includes finding venues to contact to try to get appearances, trying to find other authors to do appearances with, getting my books into bookstores and libraries, finding ways to advertise my work and paying for it out of my own pocket, having the time and money to make and distribute promotional swag to promote & accompany my work, finding the time and money to go to conventions to promote myself and my work and network with others in the publishing industry. If I just write and publish and do no promotional work, not many people will know about my work, and then not many people will read my work, and then publishers won’t want to accept my work in the future because they’ll think it might not sell a lot of copies. At the end of the day, promoting is all about time and money, two things that are in very short supply for me. The more time I spend on promoting, the less time I have to create my next piece of work, and at the end of the day, all I want to do is create. 

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?

I’ve never thought about that before. I’m literally stumped. I know that anything I might be thinking of today that I would never write about could probably change a few years down the road. But the one thing I can think of is war. I don’t like reading about war, and I don’t like watching movies/shows about war, so I don’t foresee myself wanting to write about war. 

Writing is not a static process. How have you developed as a writer over the years?

How I like to think I’ve changed, which I hope is true, is that I think less about the genre/sub-genre I’m writing as I’m creating. I also worry less about if what I’m writing is something other people will want to read. I write for me, not the audience. I write what I want to read, and if other people want to read it and they like it too—that’s fucking great! 

About the non-static part of the process, I often act out my scenes, especially when trying to figure out how characters move through a space and how they psychically interact with one another. I also always read my work out loud, all of it, but especially the dialogue, and I often record myself reading various scenes to hear how it sounds while I’m not in the act of speaking. I like my work to flow and have a rhythm, and I always like to check the pacing and the tension created by how the lines are written and the words that are chosen. 

Networking with authors is also crucial for any writer, and I do more networking now than I did in the beginning. I now have more people I can turn to for beta readers, for general feedback and assistance with early drafts of my work—such as workshopping pieces with other authors—and for help navigating the publishing industry in general.    

What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?

Write what you’re obsessed about, what you can’t stop thinking about. Write what you fear the most. And it’s easier to regurgitate everything from your head onto the page, and then you can go back and trim the fat or kill your darlings to tighten it all up and make it look like you knew what you were doing all along.  

Which of your characters is your favourite?

I have two favorite-favorites, though I would like to pick a third too (Irie), but I’ll just stick to two: Tommy and Jill. Tommy appears in both of my books, and Jill makes her first in-person appearance in Chisel the Bone. I mean, of course I love Dory, my protagonist from my books, and she is really at the top, but Tommy and Jill are two people who are very special to her, which makes them very special for me as well. Tommy’s character was first inspired from the character Danny Trejo plays in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II (I fucking love Danny Trejo! And I fucking love Rob Zombie and all his movies!),where he played the janitor at the psychiatric facility where Michael Myers was imprisoned. He was the only one who saw Micheal as a person in need of a friend, a person with feelings, and he befriended Micheal when no one else dared to, when no one else would give him a chance. That’s just what Tommy does for Dory at the psychiatric hospital in The Bone Cutters, and they become closer friends in Chisel the Bone when Dory is no longer at the psych hospital. Tommy is also loosely inspired by the first person who befriended me when I first moved away from the woods of a small Maine town where I grew up to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music. My friend’s name is also Tommy, and he, too, is a drummer. Then Tommy’s appearance is inspired by Chris Cornell, who is a huge musical influence for me, and he, coincidentally, was also a drummer. (He played drums when he first joined Soundgarden. And the Native American aspect of Tommy’s character ties into my respect and admiration for the Native American community that the United States has mistreated since day one and has repeatedly tried to kill off and erase. Native Americans are not represented enough in anything in our culture, and when they are it is not always in a good light, and all that needs to change, so I choose to help with that change in any way I can.  As you can see, many things that are important to me make up Tommy’s character. 

Jill is Dory’s roommate and her best friend since their school days, and no matter what bullshit craziness Dory finds herself in, no matter how damaged and flawed Dory is, and no matter how quirky and fucked up Dory may see herself as, Jill always stands strong beside her, always has her back like a good friend should. Jill also has a lot of character; she’s fun-loving, confident, outspoken, and she has no shame. Jill was loosely inspired by two of my close friends from my school days, two friends I am still friends with, though we’re no longer as close as we were back then or as close as I wish to be. And I created Jill because she is the type of friend all of us need. If you find yourself with a friend like Jill, even if that’s your only friend, you are a lucky sonofabitch. Hold on to them and don’t fuck it up. 

Which of your books best represents you?

Since both books are part of a series, I’d have to say that both books equally represent me, but in different ways. The Bone Cutters really showcases my willingness to take chances and experiment with my creative work, even for my first published book. It also shows my sarcastic and outspoken side, even if that outspoken part takes place in Dory’s mind for the most part. It also delves into the anxiety I’ve dealt with most of my life, especially when I was younger and cared more about what other people thought of me. Another big thing about TBC that represents me is that it reveals my thoughts on the flawed mental health system in the United States and the way the mentally ill are often looked down upon and not taken seriously in this country. 

Chisel the Bone also represents me pretty well because it displays my tendency to take on tough challenges and different ways to create—like writing it in present tense and switching between third-person and first-person point of view. It also shows the side of me that knows how important it is to stand up for and speak out about the wrongs we see and experience in the world. Just like Dory, I don’t ever let anyone disrespect or mistreat people around me. I’ll fight tooth and nail for people I see who are wronged, especially for the people I love, and I will take on any monster that comes after them. 

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us? 

One of my favorite passages first appears in The Bone Cutters, but it gets repeated in Dory’s memory in Chisel the Bone. It’s something Tommy says to Dory early on when he first befriends her at the psychiatric hospital. He’s referring to his tattoo, but it also references to life. 

“‘This here. This is my work. Not the tat. The veil. There’s a very thin line between life and death. The land of the living and the land of the dead. I’ve crossed that line and live to tell about it.’ He rolls his arm over and makes a fist, displaying the L-I-V-E tattoo on his knuckles. ‘Don’t let those crazy junkie-cutters push you over that edge. Not everyone makes it back across.’”

Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?

Chisel the Bone is the last book I wrote, and it is coming out on July 23, 2024. It’s my debut full-length novel and is the sequel to my debut novella, The Bone Cutters. It’s about Dory, a mental patient out on safety release, who finds herself as the single witness who can bring down a horrifying cult of drug addicts from her past as well as their supernatural puppeteer. Dory’s unwavering need for justice against the Bone Cutters who tormented her and assaulted her in the psych hospital (from Book 1) leaves her blind to the dangers lurking outside her door. After realizing someone is stalking her, Dory’s vision for justice turns red and morphs into an intense desire for revenge, sending her down a path of uncanny supernatural discoveries. Now, Dory finds herself, again, on the run from the cult who wants to chisel her bones into dust to satiate their addictions and keep her from bringing their secrets to light. 

My next book is due out in 2025, and it’s called Try Not to Die: By Your Own Hand. This is a co-authored project in the Try Not to Die line of books from Mark Tullius of Vincere Press, and my co-authors are Mark Tullius and Wes Levine. The books in the TNTD line of horror novels are traditionally choose-your-own-adventure stories, but this novel is taking a slightly different path, and I prefer to call it a choose-your-own-path story since it deals with the difficult subject of suicide. With this book, we hope to let others know that they are not alone in their fears, they are not alone in this world, and there is always a better path to choose than choosing to take your own life, even if that decision might be very difficult to see and very difficult to make. There is always hope. 

I’m also fully immersed in the creation of another novel called The i In Every Hand, which is, if you can’t tell, a tech-horror story. It’s about The Dude, a punk musician and music engineer who is determined to prove that his father did not commit suicide but rather was suicided in order to end his research into the destructive and mind-controlling plans behind the creation, monitoring, and tracking of cell phones. The Dude—along with his free-thinking cohort, The Old Hippie, The Shaman, and The Amazon—vows to stop at nothing to finish his father’s work and reveal the evil masterminds behind the world’s biggest cell phone conspiracy. 

And, of course, there is also Book 3 in the Bone Cutters Series that is in the works at this time. I do not yet have a title for that project. 

Aside from full books, I have a short story called “Rex and Roxy’s Roadside Café and Glass Emporium” coming out soon in the anthology Phantoms from the Sky, a collection of first contact stories from Rogue Owl Press. 

If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

Sexy vampires. I’m so sick of people always writing about flawless looking characters. 

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?

The last great book I read was The Angel of Indian Lake by Stehen Graham Jones. I absolutely love Jones’s Indian Lake Trilogy, and his protagonist, Jade Daniels, is one of my favorite horror story characters ever written. As fragile as her psyche is and as flawed as she sees herself, Jade’s a tough chick who slices through the horror around her and wades out into the thick of the nightmares happening in her home town in order to try to save as many people as she can no matter how much danger she gets herself into in the process. And her wealth of slasher horror movie knowledge is quite amazing. Jones has a way of depicting outsider characters in powerful and endearing ways, never shying away from their perceived flaws and always shining a light on the positives they might not even see themselves. I will read anything SGJ writes.  

As for the last book that disappointed me, well, I don’t like to give bad reviews, so I will not name the book or the author. What I will say is that it is not a book I chose to read for pleasure; I was contracted as a freelance copyeditor to work on the book, and it was not an enjoyable read or an enjoyable job, nor was it an enjoyable client to work with. That is all I will say about it. 

What’s the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?

Many different ideas come to mind for this since I am quite new on the horror scene and largely unknown, but I will stick to questions about my books. 

I already mentioned info about this in a previous answer when I talked about the character of Tommy in my two books, The Bone Cutters and Chisel the Bone, though I did not mention the actual question I wish people would ask. That question is: who or what inspired the character of Tommy. 

Many readers have assumed my Tommy is inspired by Tommy Lee of Motley Crue because of his appearance and because he plays drums. And it’s funny because though I never saw Tommy Lee when I created my Tommy, I can completely understand why people might make that association. But my Tommy was originally inspired by Danny Trejo’s character in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II movie, the janitor who befriended Michael Myers when he was incarcerated at the psychiatric facility/prison. I chose the name Tommy because that is the name of the first person who befriended me when I first moved away from home—I moved from the woods of a small Maine town to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music. I was hugely out of my element, and Tommy easily sidled up and befriended me without any ulterior motives—just a good person in search of a new friend. And the Tommy at Berklee is also a drummer, though he mainly plays a whole kit rather than only hand drums like Tommy in my books. I wanted my Tommy to be a drummer in order to give him another characteristic in common with Dory, the protagonist, and my friend Tommy at Berklee. But my Tommy only plays hands drums rather than a whole kit, and I chose that because I absolutely love playing hand drums myself and I love that sound. Plus, I didn’t want him to have an exact thing in common with Dorry, just another similar characteristic they share, which, who knows, could lead to them playing together in the future Book 3. It would be much more difficult for them to play in a project together if they both belong behind the kit. Tommy’s appearance is loosely based on Chris Cornell, who, ironically, was also a drummer—drums were his main instrument when he first joined Soundgarden. I decided to make Tommy Native American rather than Hispanic like Dany Trejo mainly because I didn’t want to completely mimic Rob Zombie’s character. I wanted my Tommy to be an original character, my character. And I also wanted his daughter, Irie, to be a mix of Native American and African American. (Her mother, Tommy’s wife Kaya, who only appears in conversations in the books, was African American.) My reason for that is because I am a huge Jimi Hendrix fan, and Jimi was part African American and part Cherokee. It is a sort of weird way for me to honor Jimi and his heritage through my character of Irie, even though she does not play guitar and Tommy is most likely not Cherokee since he lives in Maine. And, as I already stated above: the Native American aspect of Tommy’s character also ties into my respect and admiration for the Native American community that the United States has mistreated since day one and has repeatedly tried to kill off and erase, even though—and I’m sure because—they were here first and this land belonged to them. Native Americans are not represented enough in anything in our culture, and when they are it is not always in a good light, and all that needs to change, so I choose to help with that change in any way I can. So, yeah, that’s the multifaceted way my Tommy came to be. He is far from a reflection of Tommy Lee of Motley Crue.    

Chisel the Bone by Renee S. DeCamillis

This Special Edition of Chisel the Bone includes the novella The Bone Cutters.

The Bone Cutters: They wear their scars with pride, while Dory tries desperately to hide her own. No matter what she does to cover her wounds, they can still smell her bleed, and they want in-down to the bones.

Dory wakes up in the padded room of a psychiatric hospital with no recollection of how she wound up there. She soon finds out she’s been Blue-Papered-involuntarily committed. She gets sent to the wrong counseling group and discovers a whole new world of psychiatric patients she’d never known existed. At first, she just thinks they’re cutters, all marked by similar scars, but then she finds out those scars are from carving into their own bodies to satisfy their bone-crazy addiction. When they find out Dory’s never tapped into her bones, she becomes their target.

Frightened for her life, she desperately tries to prove to the psych. hospital staff she’s not delusional about these patients wanting to cut her open and get to her bones. The staff doesn’t believe her. They all think she’s crazy. She ends up on the run and fighting for her life, trying to avoid getting “dusted” by The Bone Cutters.

Chisel the Bone: Dory, a mental patient out on safety release, finds herself as the single witness who can bring down a horrifying cult of drug addicts from her past as well as their supernatural puppeteer.

Dory’s unwavering need for justice against the Bone Cutters who tormented her and assaulted her in the psych hospital leaves her blind to the dangers lurking outside her door. After realizing someone is stalking her, Dory’s vision for justice turns red and morphs into an intense desire for revenge, sending her down a path of uncanny supernatural discoveries.

Now, Dory finds herself, again, on the run from the cult who wants to chisel her bones into dust to satiate their addictions and keep her from bringing their secrets to light.

Will Dory’s relentless drive for justice and revenge bring her the satisfaction she craves, or will she end up bled out by the Bone Cutter cult? Or maybe, just maybe, she’ll make that irrevocable slice that sends her to the realm of no return.

Renee S. DeCamillis expands the world of her critically acclaimed novella, The Bone Cutters, into a fully realized nightmare of survival.

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