Justin Bienvenue is our next guest. My last question to him was how he was able to mix horror and poetry. Yeah, these are his two favorite genres. Are you intrigued how he was able to translate between them? Don’t go to the last question directly, check out previous ones, because you may find some other very cool things.

– What is your book Like A Box Of Chocolates about
– The book is a collection of 40 poems all within a different genre. Poems within genres such as horror, science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, among many others. Some poems are serious, some are funny and some are just in between both to really give the reader a great assortment of unique poetry.

– How you decide to write the story?
– I decided to make the book after having friends vote for titles on Facebook. Each week I would post four titles and the one with the most votes became a poem. After a while I thought gee since I have enough I should make a book out of them all, and that’s what I did. Almost all the poems except for a selective few were picked by people.
– What was the biggest challenge during the write up process?
– I would say the biggest challenge was getting the poems just right. After I wrote them I had to decide whether or not they were good to go or needed work before they went into the final for the book. Most of them were touched up editing wise but as for content only a few were re-done to add a bit of flavor and spunk to the mix. Also the formatting process was straining at times, just to get each poem on it’s own page without another poem running into it.
– How much time did you need to finish the story and to publish it?
– After I assembled all the poems together I started working on it in for 5 months. Before the poems were all added to the book, that process took about a month and then the whole publishing aspect took almost a month so altogether it took about 7 months to finish and get published. I will also say that some may think that’s not much but each and every day I worked by doing something with the book and it wasn’t easy.
– What about yours other works?
– My first book is a book of horror poetry called, The Macabre Masterpiece: Poems of Horror and Gore. It was first published back in 2010 by a poor company that shall remain nameless but has since been republished back in 2014. The book contains 50 poems within 5 chapters, all of a certain type and presence of horror.
My second book is a Western Horror entitled, A Bloody Bloody Mess In The Wild Wild West. It is a story about a desolate small town that must battle against a Mexican outlaw who along with his undead Civil War Soldiers tries to take over the town and make it his own. A young man by the name of Emerson Shaw along with the rest of the town folk take on Javier “Bones” Jones and his slick corruption and destruction.
– Who are you?
– I am Justin Bienvenue. A young, writer, author and poet just trying to make a living and write works that I hope people will come to love and enjoy. I am a friendly and easy going person though just like anyone else have my moments and consider writing to be a great passion of mine. I am an optimist and always like to think positive and I try to at times when it calls for it, incorporate that into my writing. Aside from being a friendly down to earth kinda guy and a writer I’m also a big sports fan, particularly football. I like who I am and I believe in myself and my work and overall I just try to be the best person I can be.
– What are your writing habits?
– A lot of procrastinating lol. No, in all seriousness I have a habit or being organized and making a list of what I want to write before I get started. So basically I try to have a listed plan before getting to work. I also have a habit of just writing or typing away as much as I can, as much as I can think of and then after I go over what I wrote. This way I can focus more on the story and not have to worry about correcting myself over and over in having to stop. I wouldn’t say I have any weird quirks or bad habits, I really just try to stick with what works for me and get into not only a good habit but a good rhythm.
– Are you satisfied by the sales of the book and do you plan another one?
– If I’m going to be honest, No. I’m not happy with the sales of my current book but I am also not upset, I’m neutral about it. But I’m not blaming anyone but myself. I know that only I can really get myself out there and promote my work but overall within all my books I would say I’m where I want to be, I have a realistic goal in mind and I reached it and there’s always room for improvement.
I do have plans for a new book but it’s not going to be worked on until 2015. It’s quite hush hush right now but I can tell you, it’s going to be quite an interesting tale that takes place in the 20’s.
– What are you doing to promote by the best possible way your book?
– I would say word of mouth and taking advantage of social media and Goodreads. I like to stick to what I know and what I’m comfortable doing. I don’t try to spam but just try to mention my book every once in a while to peek readers interests. I have a giveaway currently going on which I hope will get a lot of people interested. A little goes a long way and I just hope that what I’m doing will work and if another opportunity comes along I shall try it.
– What was the love story that inspired you to start write poetry?
– It wasn’t love at first site lol. I didn’t take an immediate interest in poetry when I first read it, just sort of thought of it as another way to write, a unique way to which people right but just another dumb thing I’m going to learn in English Class. Ironically it was in English class that I really started to come to like it. Reading greats like Robert Frost and Shakespeare really gave me an appreciation and opened my eyes to the world of poetry. I started writing my own but it wasn’t until I wrote a poem in another class that wasn’t English that I realized I was truly interested and enjoyed poetry.
– What is your experience in creative writing?
– I’ve always been told I have quite a creative mind and imagination since I was a kid. Telling weird stories to people, rambling on and on. In high school I took a class in Creative Writing mu junior year and I gotta say it was definitely one of my favorite classes. The teacher let us write what we wanted, we would use certain sets of writing skills when asked and I really just had fun and learned a lot from the class. Since then I just use what I know and my strange innovative mind to create and write stories I think people will love.
– It’s a strange mix, poetry and horror. How you manage to transform from one to the other?
– Poetry was what I intended on writing first and when thinking of what I wanted my first book of poetry to be about I thought, people are really into horror and Horror sells so I decided to write a book of horror poetry. When it comes to combining them I really had to dig deep down and channel my inner Poe which at times can be seen in the book. For my second book I was watching spaghetti westerns and thought hmm I like westerns and could write one. However given the popularity of zombies I decided to make it a Western with a bit of a twist, sort of a not your grandad or dad’s type of western, though hopefully they will enjoy it too.
I don’t wanna be tied to one genre. I mean yes I am a poet so if I’m going to be tied to one genre then let it be that but that’s where I mix it up. My poetry is unique and about different things and it just so happens that I’ve gone back and forth between poetry and horror. Some days I just really wanna write poetry and other days I really wanna write horror. Also other days I don’t want to write either. I wanna try to write a poetry book, a regular genre book, poetry book, regular genre book and not necessarily horror either, I want to expand into other genres. So not only transform from poetry to horror but poetry to other genres as well.

To find out more about Justin check out his web page

Look out for Mr. Bienvenue’s books
A Bloody Bloody Mess In The Wild Wild West
Like A Box Of Chocolates
The Macabre Masterpiece: Poems of Horror and Gore