Storytellersunplugged

When it rains, it pours. We've all heard that a million times, and though it's a generalization with no real basis in fact – it's also true that when things get overwhelming, they only seem to get crazier. This year has been that way for me, so I figured I'd take a day here, write a post and see if I could put it in perspective. For several years I had very little published…those were recent years. It happened ... Read More

I had a lot of ideas this month that I thought would make fabulous essays, but in the end, I settled on one that came to me while reading someone else's writing. It's important to be able to shift through the many hats of our craft, I think, author, editor and reader, and to grasp what is important to each. As a reader, I've come to classify genre fiction most judgmentally on one particular criterion. How real is it? I've mentioned ... Read More

I'm a little overwhelmed, as usual, with things clutching and dragging at me, but I wanted to take a little bit of time to talk about how schedules and best-laid plans can go to Hell in a handbasket, as my step-dad was fond of saying. I've spent a very chaotic few years bouncing form personal disaster to personal disaster, writing in mad sporadic bursts and not writing in molasses-thick periods of lethargy. I have written novels that are better than ... Read More

Here at Storytellers Unplugged we started a semi-traditional practice last year of posting fiction during October to celebrate Halloween. When we started out, there was a predominance of horror writers in the group - we are much more diverse now. Some of us will still be posting fiction this month, and for my own entry I've chosen a very old story of mine. It was written for and published in a fanzine titled "Norfolk by Night," and it's a ... Read More

By Richard Steinberg “The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture,” Raymond Chandler It’s an interesting moment. Dark and light seem completely balanced in my life right now. Not as if I have finally got a handle on life – far from it – but rather, as if ... Read More

By David Niall Wilson I'm currently reading one of the most recent novels by Stephen King, Lisey's Story, which is a twist on the old writer writing a story about a writer plot. The story is about the widow of a writer, and is full of insights from an odd perspective. The perspective, in this case, is that of an author, Stephen King, writing through the mind and eyes of a woman who was married to a horror writer. In other ... Read More

By David Niall Wilson There is a venerable ritual in the halls of wordsmiths everywhere that I thought, considering my current odd and pretty pleasant situation, would be worthy of a bit of thought. What better place to record those thoughts, and who better to share them with? One of the images we all have of successful authors is the tabletop full of books piled up next to a drink glass sporting an umbrella or a well shaken (never stirred) martini, and a ... Read More

(This is a post from our past, a golden oldie to fill a gap. Starting next month we have three new Storyteller Members to introduce, and we're excited about it. I hope you enjoy this, and accept our apology for the weekend...Wayne and I had some technical back-and-forth glitches and the holiday ate his post. Tomorrow you'll get the marvelous Dick Hill...today you have to settle for me...) David Niall Wilson My current project, which started out as a biography, has ... Read More

By David Niall Wilson I wanted to take some time, now that the long cold winter of my disconnection has passed, to revisit one of our favorite topics. Regardless of how many times it is asked and answered, the question of where stories are found, bought, traded or raised through arcane ritual is most prevalent (even beating out 'Do you know Stephen King," and "Have you written anything I've read?"). I've been in a unique (and very frustrating) position over the ... Read More

By George Guthridge No, this isn’t a Ludlum pastiche, despite the title. It’s the story of Sponge Bob. Well, sort of. Backstory: Three years ago my wife and I went to visit my grandkids in San Diego. Before returning to Alaska we went across the border, into Tijuana, for a day of frenzied shopping. Among our other items, we brought back two large piggy banks. One, for our son – who was ten and was in Thailand – ... Read More