Category Archives: Novice Writer’s Journal

It took him a long moment to realize she was speaking to him. “It’s okay, son, don’t be shy. Step up. We’re all brothers and sisters in addiction here.”

The young man stood out of his folding chair. The gym closed in around him, making his head sway from the sudden pressure of a dozen and a half pairs of eyes on him. He blushed, but it was past the point of no return already. His feet were moving before his mind caught up. One step, then another. Before he knew it he was in the isle and heading for the podium. Anne Rice stepped aside as he climbed the steps and stood in front of the audience.

For a moment he just looked out at the crowd. There weren’t more than twenty, but right then it felt as if the whole world were watching. “You can just tell us your name if you want. Or you don’t have to say anything at all. This is a safe place.”

Safe seemed like a strange word to apply to a grade school gym, but he had to admit, the stares of the crowd did look blessedly free of judgment. He leaned into the microphone to speak. “My name-” The feedback nearly deafened him. He moved his head back a few inches and laughed nervously. When the silence had reasserted itself he spoke again. “My name is Joe.” He swallowed hard. “And I have a writing problem.”

The crowd spoke out in unison, making him jump. “Hi, Joe.” For a second he wanted to run off the stage and out the door behind them. If portals to sanctuary were a real thing, then that’s what he imagined they must look like. But that’s all it was, just the illusion of freedom. He had a problem, and he’d take it with him wherever he went if he didn’t do something. It was now or never. The last chance to hit the emergency stop button before the life train went careening off the tracks.

“It started small. I’d just doodle stories in the margin of my homework when I was a kid. My parents weren’t around. I made friends with Dr. Seuss and R.L. Stine because they were the only other people on the block. They seemed like really nice guys at first.” The sudden burst of honesty made his head spin. He’d never told anyone about Seuss, not even Rachel Aaron before she left him for Pat Rothfuss. “But, you know how it goes. One minute it’s just reading stories under the nightlight, and the next thing you know you’re scribbling sloppy prose behind the English building at school.”

A few murmurs from the crowd grumbled in agreement. Their noise emboldened him. He took another deep breath and continued. “Stine got me started on the harder stuff. My teachers always told me Harry Potter was a gateway read, but I didn’t listen. Next thing I knew five years had passed and I was writing fanfics about Wizards and Jedi fighting Ringwraiths. I… I don’t know when things got so out of control. I was just a reader.”

He stared up into the rafters. He hadn’t realized his knuckles were white from gripping the edge of the podium until Anne put her hand over his. “We all know your pain. You don’t have to go on.”

He shook his head. “No. No, I want to finish.” He looked out over the crowd, trying not to see any of the individual faces. Stephen King nodded his head from the front row, silently urging him to continue. “Before I knew it I was into the heavy stuff. For Whom the Bell Tolls. Pride and Prejudice. The Pit and The Pendulum. At the Mountain of Madness. I kept a copy of the Elements of Style next to me in case I ever got too gorked out. I had to use it a lot. My punctuation is terrible.” The crowd laughed a little. “Now I’m starting to release books, but it’s all so big. I don’t know how I got here. I’m so scared everyone’s going to think I’m a hack.” Joe took in a deep breath, willing his rising panic to stand down.

R.A Salvatore stood up in the back of the room. “It’s alright, man. I was writing Star Trek fic when I was your age.”

Chuck Wendig stood. “I wrote myself and my girlfriend into Middle-Earth at eighteen.” He forced a smile, not meeting any eyes. “I was an Elf and she was a Hobbit.”

In the back of the room Clive Barker got to his feet. “Hellraiser started as erotica… I’m sorry.”

The room burst into laughter, and suddenly everyone was applauding. Anne came put a hand on his shoulder. “We all took that journey. Don’t worry, sweetheart. We can fix you up with a good editor. You’ll always be a writer, but with proper treatment, you won’t end up on the ‘Worst Authors to Ever Walk the Earth’ list on Goodreads.”

Tears fell down his face and his vision blurred. The applause blocked out everything else. This really was a safe place. “Thank you.” He sniffed the emotion out of his voice. “I promise I’ll never publish a story with spelling errors again, even on my blog.”

Anne smiled at him. “Just listen to the little voice in your head telling you not to ignore your beta readers. You’ll be okay, I promise.”

A young friend of mine recently went off to college. Before he left he expressed an interest in being a writer. Being one of the few writers that he knows, he approached me about his work, showing me a lot of stuff he’s made over the last several years. It was fairly competent stuff. Nothing mind blowing, but fantastic for his age. (Probably better than me when I was 18, but who remembers that far back?) I told him as much, and agreed to be a part of his small writer’s group. Then he said something that made me cringe.

“I want a writer’s group, not an editor’s group. It’s about things like character development, not punctuation.”

A few years ago I would have been all aboard for something like that, but not anymore. I’ve grown as a writer, and I see the flaws in that logic. The truth is that the little things matter. A collection of single letters make up words, and a collection of words makes a story. The language and structure we use to convey those words are every bit as important as the story we tell. An editor can fix something as long as they know what you intended to say in the first place. If your writing was a disjointed mess to begin with there isn’t a lot even the best editor can do.

I hesitate to call it a little thing, because it’s as much a part of the story as setting and character development. Language isn’t one of the brushes we use to make the picture, it’s the goddamn paint. It’s like a artist not caring about brush strokes. It’s a musician who doesn’t mind it if their strings are out of tune. It’s the entire reason the Kindle is flooded with really bad books that could have at least been readable otherwise. There is no separation of story from language. It’s nonsense. A writer that doesn’t care about the little things is a writer that doesn’t care at all. If you don’t care, why do it?

A guy like my friend needs to be extra careful, because he’s smart, and smart people have a tendency to outsmart themselves. I call it the B Student Syndrome, and I suffer from it myself. B Student Syndrome is when a person is smart enough to get B’s in school without trying, so they never learn to buckle down and apply themselves properly. If you let something like that bleed into your writing you end up with a book that’s almost good enough to be successful. Yes, there are examples of B, C, and even D grade books that become bestsellers, but they’re the outliers, and most of them at least have proper punctuation. Nothing would break my heart more than to read a review that said, “Man, the characters and plot were spot on, but it needed some better language.” B Student Syndrome let’s you think that you’re good enough without trying, but this isn’t an industry where half assing it works. There are a million people just like you out there that want to get their book read. If you don’t do everything you can to stand out, you won’t. (Above all knowing how to tell a story and knowing how to convey it)

So, yeah, it’s actually not that little. Really, when you break it down, there are no little things in making it as a writer. Writing, editing, networking for, marketing, selling, speaking about, and producing your book are all essential to what you do as a writer. Writing and editing are most important, but without the others it won’t get you far.

If you think it’s little, remind yourself that it’s not. Don’t let bad commas be the reason you don’t succeed.

Well, readers, it’s official. The book I’ve been ranting and raving about over the last year has finally come out. Darker Shadows Lie Below is live, and on day one it hit the best seller list for Occult Horror. (Briefly)  Here is the link to Amazon if you were thinking about picking up a copy.

The last week has been stressful, so I haven’t been my normally chatty self. Expect regularly scheduled broadcasts to resume tomorrow. Hope you folks enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The release of Darker Shadows Lie Below is only four days away. In preparation for that, I’d like to present you with the first two chapters. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

Darker Shadows Lie Below, Chapters 1 & 2

It occurred to me that I still hadn’t given any of you a sample of my writing outside of my blog posts. With the release of Darker Shadows Lie Below coming up, I feel it’s only fair for you to get a little taste before you buy it. Sure, you’ll be able to sample the book on Amazon, but I wanted to provide you with something unique here. Below is a chapter my editor and I decided needed to be cut. I love this chapter, and it gives a lot of background on why the protagonist is the way he is, but it doesn’t push the plot forward. It had to go! (“Murder your darlings.” -Arthur Quiller-Couch)

Rather than waste something I really like, I decided that the dozen or so people who actually read this blog should get to see it. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Stay tuned for more excerpts just before release.

Removed Chapter

I was recently invited to speak at a grade school about what it’s like to be a writer. I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to say to them. Obviously most of what I write is going to be off limits. My stories are meant to terrify adults. Some of the horror would go right over their little heads, and some of it would put them in therapy. Talking with kids that young is important though. Grade school is when I knew I wanted to be a writer.

Call bullshit if you will, but that’s when it started. I won classroom contests for telling stories in the first grade. In fourth grade I was getting kicked out of the classroom for blowing off the work we were doing to write fiction. By the time I dropped out of high school I had hundreds of hours poured into half started novels and fantasy worlds of my own devising. I paused for a few years because I let other people convince me it was a pipe dream, but I’m back to doing it full time. Most of what I did when I was that young was blatantly rip of other writers. One short story I made involved re-writing the plot of Jaws in two pages after I discovered paragraphs. Another one was about half-eagle, half-elf archers defending the walls of their home, Lothlorien, from invading orcs. When I was a teenager the stories were a little less ripped off, but no less contrived.

Regardless, it started really young, and that’s got me thinking a lot about passions. I’m incredibly lucky to have discovered mine. While I don’t believe that every person only has one, I do believe that they are few. I also think a lot of people fool themselves into thinking that their passion is something other than what it is. If you spend four years going to nursing school because you’re certain that’s what you want to do, then discover that you hate it but keep doing it anyway, that isn’t a passion. Oh, sure, it might be a talent. It might be something you like, but if you don’t love it, if you don’t think about it even when you aren’t doing it, it isn’t a passion.

My friend Rox once said to me, “Talent is interest applied over time.” I enjoy bike riding. Over time I’ve developed the coordination, strength, knowledge, and experience necessary to do it well. You’d say I’m talented at riding a bike, even if I’m not doing backflips off of park benches. The same is true of passions, but it goes beyond that. I have a burning need to write. I’m not wearing a beret while sipping a twenty dollar IPA and talking about how tortured I am, it’s just something I do. If I don’t write I feel like crap. The one thing I’ll accomplish every day, even if I don’t drag myself out of bed, is writing. I can’t imagine doing anything else for the rest of my life. I get bent out of shape when I can’t figure it out, and I crave the validation of my peers in the field. Needy? Maybe, but it’s the truth. I have a passion for this. I care about it. I keep up on industry news, and I make it a point to check in on some of the professional rags. (Although I’m probably not as well informed as I should be. Sue me, I’m passionate but lazy.)

If you feel the same way about something then it might damn well be your passion. Yours doesn’t have to be artistic. I know lots of artists, but I know a lot more people who aren’t. Music and painting are all well and good, but some people just care about their families. If raising children is all you care about then you might be a passionate mother or father. Maybe auto work is your thing? If you can take an engine apart and put it back together blindfolded you’ve probably found your bliss. Hell, I knew a guy who loved working for Mc Donald’s. Not just, “Hey, It’s a job,” I’m talking this dude loved the fast food industry. Laugh all you want, but the head manager of a busy fast food restaurant is making a lot more money than most writers. And hey, some people are happy just finding themselves. Self exploration might be your passion. It doesn’t have to be out in the physical world, sometimes it’s inside. (I think you could argue that all of it is on some level.)

Anyways, bringing it all back around, I hope one of the kids I talk to loves writing. I didn’t meet another writer until I was in my twenties. Maybe one of the kids in this classroom I’m going to speak to is the next Hemingway.  Maybe me repeating a little bit of what I just said and telling him/her about the hard work they’ll have to put it will get them to write up a storm that night. Maybe twenty years after that he/she will find that story and make a book that changes the world out of it, or at least changes theirs. Maybe one day he/she will tell the story of the writer who came and talked in grade school, who’s name he/she can’t quite remember.

Or maybe it’ll just be a good way to kill an hour. Either way, what’s your passion?

Yesterday I got the green light from my editor. Once this last round of edits is done, I’ll be able to start selling my book. Yes, folks, you’ll finally be able to read the book I’ve been talking about for a year. I can’t wait for you to see it. (Yes, you.) But that got me pondering about marketing, or as I like to think of it, the most painful step in the book making process.

The other day I wrote an article about why giving everyone the hard sell with your book is obnoxious. I stand by everything I said. Social media should be social first, and a platform for selling things second. Above all else, quality of your product is number one.

Pictured: A terrible way to sell anything besides hearing aids..

That being said, you still have to sell your books.

Trust me, nobody hates this more than I do. In a perfect world my entire day would be spent writing books and talking to people about them. (And talking about other stuff, like why we park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.) Unfortunately, selling well is this weird catch 22. When you aren’t selling well, you have to spend time selling things, and when you are selling well, you can sit back and watch it happen.

I’m going to be up front with you, I haven’t sold a damn thing yet. I have been doing my homework though, and I want to share some of what I know about it. Before I begin, you should know that I’m old fashioned in my thinking. I don’t believe that sticking everyone’s nose in your work is the best way to make them like it. Making a quality product is the most important thing, and raising awareness is second. Notice I said, ‘raising awareness,’ not selling. I will not shove anything down someones throat, and I believe that’s exactly what you’re doing when you blow up Twitter with clips from your book. There will be no cajoling, no harassing, and certainly no screaming on social networks from me.

Building A Web Presence:
This step is essential. You have to have a place people can find you. A personal website with all of your information is necessary. This website should also include information on your writing, even if it’s nothing more than a cover photo and a brief summary of the book. Your contact information should be displayed prominently. Ideally you’d have some way to engage with fans too. For me this blog is exactly that. I share what I know about writing and bullshit with people at the same time. It’s a great way to both air out my thoughts and talk to my readers.

Few though they may be right now.

Social Media:
Tied up in online presence is social media. Having a Twitter/Facebook/Google+ where you can talk to people is great. Even if it only starts with friends and family, sooner or later other people will want to keep up with you. Social media makes it easier than checking your website every few days. Remember though, be tactful. Nobody wants to like a Facebook page that is just going to blow up their wall with book names and price tags. Show some respect for the people supporting a) the arts and b) your ass.

Driving Traffic:
Getting people to your website and social platforms is a whole different can of worms. I’m not sure what the best way to go about it is, but I’m a fan of answering questions. I use both Yahoo Answers and Quora to chime in on a ton of different topics, and it actually works for getting people to come back here. Becoming a regular at places like Goodreads and Reddit are also fantastic options. Remember, if you’re going to be social, don’t just do it to sell your book. If you’re bringing up your writing every time you post something, you’re probably being an asshole. It’ll come up. Be patient. Put a link to your website in your profile and post on related topics.

Networking:
So you only have three friends on Facebook? How many friends do your three friends have? If the answer is 3,000 between them then don’t be shy about asking them to read your book. That’s how word of mouth starts, and word of mouth is the best way to sell anything. If you made a good book, and your three popular friends tell all their friends about it, then 3,000 people just got the word. Be tactful. If your friends don’t want to read your book, let it go.

The Real World:

Are you a regular barfly? Do you hang out at a bookstore all day? Do you work in a place where you interact with a lot of people? All of those are prime opportunities to mention your writing. When I tell people I’m a writer they always ask where they can pick up my book. If I’d had anything to sell over the the last year I would have sold dozens of copies through that alone. It isn’t a ton, but a book sold is a book sold. If they really like it they might tell all their friends. Again, be tactful. Just screaming at every person you meet that your selling something is one step above the guys selling porn on the curb in Vegas.

Be Aware of How Books Sell:
Amazon has an algorithm to determine who will see your work. Everyone is after the much coveted number one spot. While Amazon guards its secrets pretty closely, certain things are known. Total number of sales and frequency of sales are tied together. The way I understand it, 50 sales over two days is better than 50 sales in one. Keywords are also essential. If you label your book poorly it won’t show up for the right people. Horror readers won’t be looking in the self-help section.

Paid Advertising:

I’m leery of this. There is a fine line between getting the word out there and spam. Goodreads has paid adds that only cost you when people click on them. Facebook offers a boost service that guarantees X number of people will see your post when you pay X dollars. If you’re going to go this route I suggest you be very careful. Show a cover and give a blurb. Make it clear that you’re speaking as an author, and not as a spam bot. Clickbait works, or Buzzfeed wouldn’t be a thing, but you still don’t want to come off like a porn ad.

Pricing:
This is the area I know the least about. Some people swear that selling a book at 99 cents is the key to getting a million sales. Others say it’s poison. There are a wealth of sites that examine the data, and I’m not going to get into it here. As an indie writer you’re going to have to think about this. I’m firmly in the 2.99-4.99 camp, but my novels are also 100k+ words, and take a long time to write.

This is just a small sample of advice. Honestly, you could write a book on selling books. (And many people do.) Remember: Above all else, people who enjoy books enjoy good books. If you don’t have that to start with, your don’t have anything. Take the time to make your material enjoyable. Hire a great team to make your book shine. Don’t have your friend who grades papers edit for you, and don’t use paint shop pro to make your cover. (Unless you’re really damn good.) I’m not saying it won’t work if you cut corners, but your odds are lottery bad that it will.

Only slightly below that golden rule is the one stating that your customers are your fans, and fans deserve your respect and time. Don’t treat anyone like a walking wallet. Nobody likes that.

I’m not aiming this at anyone in particular, so if it applies to you, and you’re offended, get off of it. I’m seeing this advice roll around the internet, and I recently got into a big blowout about it with a friend. What advice is that?

Advertising matters more than quality.

Let me make my views on this point as clear as possible. That advice is crap. End of story. Advertisers have been saying for years that their end of the product is the most important one, but it’s just not true. I’m not saying raising awareness of your book/movie/song isn’t really important, I’m just telling you that the quality of your work matters more, and that there are right and wrong ways to advertise. While quality is subjective, there are some standards. If you spend more energy selling books than making them, and you can’t figure out why you aren’t breaking into the book world like a hurricane, look no further. (And your expectations might be too high, but I can’t fault you for that. Shoot for the stars and all that.)

What does this have to do with social media? Well, it’s the writers. Lots of us indie writers are getting on Facebook or Twitter and doing nothing but screaming about our books. Not even, “Hey guys, X is selling really well, come check it out!” It’s, “BEST BOOK YOU’LL EVER READ! YOU’RE MISSING OUT!” Every hour on the hour. Stop. You don’t need to do that. People were selling books in numbers both large and small long before the internet was a thing. Have a little dignity.

Let me be clear. I despise the hard sell. I hate it. Few things get under my skin like a person waving their shit in my face telling me how much I NEED it. No, I don’t. If I needed your damn book/movies/burgers/cars/etc that bad I would have bought it already. What you do when you go on blast like that is alienate everyone who sees it. It lacks all tact. It’s the guy on the corner selling you a real honest to god Rolex by opening his coat and showing you forty of them.

I think a lot of this comes from people in the book industry saying that visibility is the most important thing in the world. I have a strong counter argument. Minecraft. For those that don’t know, Minecraft is a game in which you have colored blocks of varying strength that you can build into anything you want. (After you mine them from the ground. Hence ‘Minecraft’) It’s a lot more complex than that, but that’s the gist. That game has become a cultural hit over the last seven years. ZERO advertising dollars were spent on it. The whole thing was the brainchild of a game developer who goes by the handle Notch. So what you say? Who cares? Well Microsoft just bought it for 2.5 billion dollars.

Let me type that again so you get it. The video game with no advertising dollars spent went for 2.5 billion dollars.

I have no doubt that Notch, and later the team he assembled, advertised on their own, but I really doubt he spent more time screaming at players to pick up his game than he did making it. And they didn’t spend a penny doing it. Why would they need to? Word of mouth is the single best advertising you can get. Word of mouth doesn’t come from telling everyone how good it is, or posting pictures everywhere. It comes from making a quality product, getting that small snowball rolling, and letting it launch down the hill. If anything, sticking your audiences noses in something will make them less likely to buy your future products if it doesn’t live up to the hype you threw out.

To be clear, I’m not saying you should just release an amazing book on Kindle, or through the press you keep in the basement, and hope people buy it. You need to build a launch platform. (Like, say, a website.) You need to get on Twitter and Facebook and let people know you can be found there. Ideally you would have a presence somewhere else in your life to launch from. Maybe you’re a regular poster on Reddit? Perhaps you run a book club? Your best friend’s brother is a writer in the local section of a newspaper? All of that stuff is a way for you to get the word out there and let it go from there. People will spread the word for you if you make a quality product and put it on a shelf that’s at least somewhat visible. If you don’t have anyplace like that, then getting onto something like Goodreads is a fantastic idea, as long as you don’t just go there and only sell your book.

Connect. Get to know people. People want to know more than just what you write, they want to know why you are who you are. They want to know the story of what got you into writing, and how you learned to do it. When you only use social media to sell things you’re cutting the social aspect out of it entirely. Few fans are as loyal as fans that are treated like people. Above all, people want a quality product. Nobody ever said, “Oh man! This burger sucks but the commercials were sure great!”

Don’t just use social media as a soap box to yell from. Get out and connect with people. Talk to them. Make actual friends and give a hot damn what they have to say. If all you ever say is, ‘thanks for the comment,’ you aren’t a person, you’re a billboard.

I’m a firm believer that you shouldn’t. I know there are several schools of thought on this subject, but all of the others are incomprehensible to me. Trying to read up on how people plot out every action a character takes is somewhat akin to a martian speaking to me in armpit farts; I giggle a lot, but I catch none of it. So, fair warning here, if plotting out everything works for you then keep doing it. Below I make my plea for non-plotting.

Let’s play a quick mind game. You have a very best friend in the world. (If you don’t just pretend you do for this. When you’re done reading go get one.) For simplicity let’s call this friend Billy and assume it’s a guy. Your very best friend in the world has known you a long time, and vice versa. Seeing that you two have spent countless hours together, it’s a safe bet to assume that you know that person pretty well. Now imagine that Billy, your best friend, just came to you and said, “I robbed a bank, and I need help.” How would the situation proceed from there?

You don’t know? Billy wouldn’t do that? When you write a book you are ideally writing about the most interesting thing that ever happens to your character.  So assuming that your protagonist is as predictable as Billy, how would being thrust into a new situation affect him? Until you see Billy in that situation, you can’t say for sure. You can guess and make a plan based on that, but when they time comes something different might happen. As a writer, you need to be open to that. If you say Billy would turn himself in it would make for a short and boring story. If you then find out Billy robbed a bank to pay the ransom for his sick mother’s cancer treatments, we have a better story. Or you might find out that mild mannered Billy is the grandson of the world’s greatest bank robber. (‘Bank Bustin’ Billy the First) Old grandpa taught him everything he knows, and he finally got the guts to test it out. If you plot out every detail ahead of time you aren’t telling a story, you’re making a chart.

My characters have surprised me on several occasions throughout the two books I’ve written. I always started with a vague beginning, and a vague end. I flesh out my characters and the world, I make a rough outline, and then I dig in. Things always change once the ink starts flying. Ben, the protagonist of Darker Shadows, did something that changed the whole second half of my first book, but the ending remained the same. Something happened to a character in my second book that totally altered the second half. On both occasions my mind was blown. It was one of those times when I had to get up and step away from the keyboard for a moment to let the gravity of the situation sink in. When I write a story it’s like reading it for the first time. A lot of the things that are going to surprise my readers surprised me as well. When I started writing I didn’t think that would be the case. It’s made the work more fun than I thought it would be, and that’s saying a lot.

Hell, maybe I’m totally off base with this one. If you can plot out every detail ahead of time and still write a great novel, go nuts. I can’t. I’ve tried and it comes across as too stiff. I need to shed that grid map and have some room to breathe, otherwise it stops being fun and interesting. But even if you’re a plotter, consider this: It’s impossible to really know another person, and the same is true for your characters. Even when you’ve written out a novel’s worth of back story on them they should still be able to surprise you. I’m not saying your entire book should be a crap shoot, but if Billy finds a way to get away without getting caught you should let him, even if you had planned to throw him in jail at the end. He is your best friend after all.

No, this title isn’t a subtle hint that you should go out and murder pets, turning them into some hideous protein shake of creativity. (Although that sounds like a neat idea for a book) This post came from me pondering the nature of ideas in writing. Where do we get the emotion from? How does the imagination decide what someone would do or feel in a particular situation? A lot of writers say, “It just comes to me,” and I think that’s true. But if you follow the little string back far enough, I think you can find a source to most of our stories and the emotions contained therein.

Two weeks ago my cat died.

Winter Is Coming

I was a bit sad. By a bit sad  I mean I cried for two days and accused my girlfriend of killing him. (We had to put him down because the vet bill for his broken leg was obscene. We both made the decision, but in my dickish grief I decided to be mad at her.) At some point after, I wrote a scene in which someone died that was very well done. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realized I had superimposed my own emotion about my dead cat onto the characters. Some of you might be thinking, “So what? I’ve lost my wife/husband/mom/dad/etc, and all of is way sadder.” That’s true. I’ve lost people that mattered way more to me than that cat, but not in the last two weeks. Mister Kitty became writing fuel after he died. I’m still unhappy, but I got a lot of that sadness out onto the page. When you read that scene you won’t say, “Oh man, this guy’s cat died,” you’ll say, “Oh man, he painted this scene really well. I’m sad now.” I knew how the characters felt, because when you create them you know a lot about them. (Though not everything) But that got me thinking, where did the ideas for the characters come from to begin with? How did I come up with the story for them to act in?

Some of my friends and readers on this site find my job endlessly fascinating. It’s not. I sit with my laptop on my crotch all day, lowering my sperm count and ticking away at a keyboard. When I’m done I just close Word and start playing video games. If you had a camera feed into my life you’d change the channel 10/10 times. But somewhere in that boring feed you’d see the spark of creativity. The truth is it comes from everywhere. Humans are dehumidifiers. We suck up all the emotion around us and dump it somewhere. For some people it’s drinking a beer with friends. For others it’s watching sports and talking with fellow fans about it after. Some of us go see movies. Others crank Goodbye Horses and tuck it back. Artists are weird as shit. We internalize all of that and crush it down. A lump of coal being turned into a diamond. When it crashes around inside long enough we get it out, putting it in books/songs/paintings/movies/dance/etc and sharing it with the world. In doing so not only do we get it out of us, but we help others understand it as well.

Don’t believe me? Think I’m just being a high brow art snob? Let me go over a few of the stories I’ve been ticking away at. All of these books came up apropos of nothing. I didn’t think about what order I’d write them in, what they’d be about, or what their themes were– the ideas just came to me.

1) Darker Shadows
–Story of a man coming to grips with the fact that he might be insane.
–Something I struggle with.

2) Darkest Days (Working Title. Two titles with dark in them sounds too cheese.)
–Survivors after the world ends try to find safety. It deals with how people chose their families.
–Something I’ve done my whole life.

3) Endless Desert (Again, working title)
–A group of soldiers travels across a desert, flashing forward and backwards in their lives that may or may not already be over.
–I’m a veteran, and that comes with a bunch of baggage sometimes that I won’t get into here. (Just read the book when it comes out, it’ll be obvious enough)

Those are just examples. Those three stories came up while I was sitting and staring into space. It was only afterwards when I was jotting down brief notes on them that I became aware of what each story was about. Afterwards, when thinking about them, I realized how much of these mirror problems I deal with in my own life.

So, yeah, writing fuel. Dead cats, battle wounds, death, laughing, agony, and happy. All of these things go into the world’s most awful soup and come out as stories. We get the big picture from the questions we have about ourselves and the world, and we get the minutia from the emotions we’ve learned to deal with. Sometimes these are just fun distractions, and sometimes they’re a way to try and get people to see things from a different point of view.

What about you readers and writers? Do you agree? Do you find you get your inspiration from somewhere else? Do you think I’m choked full of crap? Let me know!