Archive for June, 2005
Don’t Drown Out The Voices in Your Head, Stupid
I thought I’d use my first space here to mention a part of the process that my mixed up mind uses in creating fiction. Specifically, I should add, in writing novels. Novels have the curse / benefit of requiring depth of character. It’s not enough to mention Sylvia the bag lady over on fourth, if [...]
Parallel Life
When Joe asked me to contribute a monthly column to Storytellers Unpluggled, I was honored. Surrounding me are some of my favorite authors. To read about their lives as working writers has been a fascinating experience thus far. I think Joe asked me to join because I would bring a different perspective to the table. [...]
Where Does It Hurt?
“Write what you know” rings like a mantra in the ears of every aspiring writer to the point of becoming tedious and trite — don’t you think? As professional writers, if we’re any good at all, we write what we know as a matter of course; sometimes we go out and learn something new so [...]
You know you’re a writer when…
You wake up one morning with the awful realisation that you just have to be mentally unbalanced, because, fundamentally people, this is a mug’s game. Any sane person would realise the odds and tiptoe away very carefully from the beast in the corner. I grew up thinking I might be a writer, but I can’t [...]
Ma, Rasputin’s Making Eyes at Me
Personal history stares down at me from the wall over my computer. It hasn’t blinked in six years, which means that I’m the one who occasionally has to look away. Never for too long, though – the challenge is always there, and there’s only one way to answer it.
In this case, personal history consists of [...]
Is it horror?
Recently, New York’s response to questions about genre and marketing is that it’s all about positioning, but asked to define positioning with any degree of clarity, our “bosses” in the industry are confounded.
The latest issue of SF Crow’s Nest contains an interview with Eric Flint (Rivers of War; Del Rey Books). Like so many of [...]
I didn’t know I was a horror writer until somebody told me
I didn’t know I was a horror writer until somebody told me. When my publishing company informed my agent they wouldn’t accept my book, THE UNWELCOME CHILD, unless it could be marketed as horror, I was (excuse the play on words) horrified. You see, I wanted my book to be taken seriously, as in reviewed [...]
Writing of What You Know
My short story collection PUNKTOWN has recently been re-released by Prime Books, and in its new incarnation it features twice as many stories as the original. One of the stories that did appear in the original, “Face”, was a last-minute addition to the book. It was inspired by my son, Colin. Another story from that [...]
The Hanging Tree & The New American Dream / Maybe Someday I’ll Write A Nice Western
Greetings from Idaho, which despite popular belief is not the Potato State, but the Gem State. Have you ever seen a Star Garnet? Most likely not, because the only two places on Earth this rare semi-precious gem are found is an undisclosed location in India, and in northern Idaho.
Fascinating, no?
The few of you who know [...]
TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG
Blogs.
Everyone does them these days, it seems. Damn, where do they find the time? And why do they do them? I for one don’t have the time to consistently keep an online diary of my thoughts, my ‘whatevers’, my exploits. Sure, it’d be fun. And it might feel good to vent every now and then [...]
