By Keighla Schmidt, Staff Writer

The night’s coming to a close and the kids are waiting for their bedtime story; but unless nightmares are the desired result, leaving Joel Arnold’s new book “Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse” on the shelf is a good idea.

“The book is not for everybody,” Arnold said. “I wouldn’t consider it kid friendly.”

The tongue-in-cheek title, however misleading, is a must-read for sci-fi and horror fans. The book is a compilation of nine short stories all loosely centered on an apocalypse.

“The whole apocalyptic theme is about humanity’s struggle with nature and society and how they cope with it,” the Savage resident said. “It can bring out the best or the worst in people.”

One of the short stories, “Mr. Blue,” follows a concept of punishment in a “Truman Show” fashion where people are monitored by a big brother.

“I thought about writing a story where the concept is controlling people by giving them everything they thought they wanted,” he said.

As the story evolves, the character who has all the pleasures of a grown man and is given mood-altering pills at the literal push of a button, becomes more curious and his identity is changed and he is replaced.

In “Narcissus in Links,” a man obsessed with his identityJoel Arnold: Savage resident Joel
Arnold recently had his first book,
"Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse,"
published. shamelessly does a Web search on his own name.

“I’ve been getting a few things published lately, and I wanted to know; had I become somebody on the wide-open plains of the World Wide Web?” the story says in flash back.

After conducting the search a few times, there become less and less hits and the man observes the end of his own existence.

“Once I Googled my name and saw so many people with the same name as me; it was kinda weird,” Arnold said of himself.

Writing spark

It is instances or visions in his life that spark stories for Arnold, who works as a bookkeeper for a company that sells Web courses online.

“I wish (writing) was a full-time job, but it hasn’t worked out that way, yet,” he said.

Sometimes stories come from personal experiences, like “Narcissus,” and “Working Class Hero Worship,” a story like J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” centered on preventing John Lennon’s 1980 murder.

“I’ve always been a huge John Lennon fan, but I wanted to see if you change something for a sort of selfish reason, but it comes back to bite you, how would that would change you,” Arnold said.

Others, however, come from a simple image.

“I wanted to write a story about a person that signaled something by shooting light up from their mouth,” he said of his story, “Shiners.”

For others, like “Branding Day,” and “Night of the Cold Caller,” the inspiration was a writing challenge to himself.

“In ‘Branding Day’ I wanted to write a story that was very subtle and wanted the horror of it to happen gradually,” the author said. “Also I was doing research for a travel article … and saw some information about branding cattle.”

For “Cold Caller” Arnold presented himself with the challenge to write a story completely in dialog.

Biography

His self-induced writing challenges stem from his school days when he would get positive feedback from teachers.

“I’ve always been a fan of Steven King,” Arnold said of his genre of choice. “I always liked that genre as far as movies and television goes … I watched ‘The Blob’ as a kid and it scared the crap outta me, but I fell in love with it at the same time because of the visceral reaction to them.”

He also spent his high school and college years immersed in classic literature.

When it comes to writing, while “Apocalypse” is his first published book, it is not his first published piece.

He entered the writing scene nearly 20 years ago when he won a writing contest at the University of Minnesota. The piece, “Harvey’s Favorite Color,” won second place and was published in Minnesota Daily – the university’s newspaper.

Following that, he’s won many other writing awards, and his pieces sometimes appear in travel material, as well as magazines. He’s also written seven novels, all waiting to be published.

“Working a full-time job, it’s easier to start and finish (short stories,)” said the husband and father of two children.

The short-story process begins with a pencil and paper transcription. Then the editing process begins when Arnold sits down to type the story, he said as he changes things a little as the stories become electronic.

After clicking the print button a red pen comes out, “when I’m done with that part, the page is a big mess,” he said.

“I actually like the editing process more,” he said. “Once I get the basic story out of my mind and onto paper, I like to go through and make it just how I want it.”

His wife, Melissa, is not a natural fan of sci-fi or horror stories, but “she puts up with it and often has really good suggestions,” Arnold said.

By the time the stories are deemed “done” the author said, most have “significantly” changed.

Assuming dark and scary stories come from a dark and scary mind, are pure fiction in Arnold’s case.

“Despite the horrific underpinnings there’s a lot of compassion in there, at least I hope there is, with the characters. A good author will try to bring out the humanity in people, even the really evil ones,” he said. “I’m actually an introvert and introspective. I try to see the best in people.”

Even the ones responsible for the end of the world.

Keighla Schmidt can be reached at kschmidt@swpub.com.

To get your copy

Publisher of “Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse” sells the book online at their Web site: http://samsdotpublishing.com/. It’s also available at http://www.genremall.com/anthologiesr.htm#bedtimestories. Signed copies of the book are available at Uncle Hugo’s Bookstore, 2864 Chicago Ave., S., Minneapolis.