Tag Archives: fiction writers

BACK FROM THE DEAD

Posted on by under authors, dailies, e-books, fiction, inspiration, Uncategorized, writing

I am not dead, not anymore anyway. My previous blog was October 18th. Around that time I had a medical issue that put me down for over a month. It affected my brain and my legs. Recovery was slow and in truth, still am recovering, but have progressed well thanks to meds, exercise, and diet.

Though I took time off from blogging I used the time to finish my latest e-book for Amazon, though I have yet to push the publish button. Will do so soon.

When your body betrays you many things start weighing on your mind. Like making out a will in which you are making uncomfortable decisions. I want to take everything with me; I still have a ton of unread books and cool collectibles. Why do I have to designate who gets what? Without a radio, TV, or Internet how do I keep abreast of baseball and hockey? Making out a will is like giving up, not only your stuff, but signing away your life. It’s an admission you can’t live forever.

Then other things creep into your mind to weigh in on, like checking on burial vs. cremation by talking with mortuaries and cemeteries. Like how soon will the end come and if it doesn’t come, can I get my money back. Dying is expensive. Maybe I should go into the mountains, lie down, and wait for bears or cougars so I can provide a meal for creatures of the woods and be recycled into nature.

I can joke about it now, but that first month was filled with depression. I hated my body and its betrayal. I only went to the doctors office and the grocery store. I saw no friends. Only took phone calls and communicated by email and texts.

Today I check the obituaries in the newspaper to see if I have passed on yet. For all I know, I could be a ghost. It doesn’t hurt to check the paper to double check.

Besides finishing my book, I started to research my next project. It will require a lot more research. But I have finished the first chapter. So feel good about that.

We all know the end will come, our life will end. But when young we ignore it and rightly so. In order to function, in order to truly live we must believe we are immortal. Death is for others, not me. If we didn’t believe that we’d go nuts.

I’m older now, there are more years behind me than ahead of me. But I still think I will continue to live even with my recent issues. It keeps me going. reader

Spillane’s Assault and Insult On Why We Read

Posted on by under books, dailies, fiction, Uncategorized, writing

Mickey Spillane, famous for creating Mike Hammer, wrote hard boiled, tough, sexy  crime novels. The stories were short, packed a violent punch, and were big sellers, popular with men, but not with the critics or the literary world. Spillane didn’t care. Like Hammer, Spillane was a tough guy too.

What he wrote on the first page of his novel My Gun is Quick caught my attention. It is something we readers and movie goers know, but ignore, pushing it to the back of our minds. But Spillane confronts us with the following:

“You pick up a book and read about things and stuff, getting a vicarious kick from people and events that never happened. You’re doing it now, getting ready to fill in a normal life with the details of someone else’s experiences. Fun isn’t it? You read about life on the outside thinking of how maybe you’d like it to happen to you, or at least how you’d like to watch it. Even the old Romans did it, spiced their life with action when they sat in the coliseum and watched wild animals rip a bunch of humans apart, reveling in the night of blood and terror. They screamed for joy and slapped each other on the back when murderous claws tore into the live flesh of slaves and cheered when the kill was made. Oh, it’s great to watch, all right. Life through a keyhole. But day after day goes by and nothing like that ever happens to you so you think that it’s all in books and not in reality at all and that’s that. Still good reading though. Tomorrow night you’ll find another book, forgetting what was in the last one and live some more in your imagination.”

Spillane is right of course, but what struck me, and it may not have been his intent, is that it seems an answer to his critics, a defiant explanation of why people read and that he is writing for what his readers want, that being action, plenty of it, and a dame of course, nothing serious, just another vicarious experience. Mike Hammer will get involved with some tough guys, get in brawling fights, but we never will. Hammer will help out some blonde, the type we will never meet. But we will live through it in our imagination.

But there is something else going on in the quoted passage. “Life through a keyhole,” is  a punch in our face, like a blow from Hammer, telling us we have a dull life. Therefore we get ready to “fill in a normal life. . .someone else’s experiences. . .you’d like it to happen to you. . . nothing like that happens to you. . .”

Spillane manages to tell us why we read and insult us at the same time. I like that in a tough guy. We need not take it personally. Howard Cosell said, “I tell it like it is.” So does Spillane. I read a book or two of his years ago, so long ago I remember nothing of what I read. But I picked up a used book that contained three of his memorable novels, I the Jury, My Gun is Quick, and Vengeance is mine. So the stories are there for when I need a vicarious thrill. And I will read someone else’s adventure and be happy.

reader

 

 

 

Why Writers Lie and Why It’s Good

Posted on by under authors, dailies, fiction, Uncategorized, writers

There is a reason why a novel or short story is called fiction. According to my American Heritage Dictionary fiction is defined as 1. an imaginative creation or pretense 2. a lie 

Putting the definitions  together we find a novel or short story is a pretentious lie created in one’s imagination. Shame on writers. And I do think you have to be a little pretentious to be a writer. And you certainly have to lie.

So why do writers create lies and why do readers believe the lies. We believe the lie you know. Readers talk  about characters as if they are real. When we read we get involved in what is going on with imagined characters who do not exist. If this happened without a book, that being getting involved with people who are imagined, said people get therapy and drugs for their hallucinations. I had an aunt who stood in front of a mirror in the hallway and talked Finnish to her reflection believing it was a friend of hers. She was ill. My aunt, not the reflection.(though that would make an intriguing story if the reflection was ill, and not my aunt). Anyway, you see the point. We have the book as an excuse for believing in non-existent people.

Writers create stories because they can not help themselves; they are warped.

Readers read for many reasons. One of which is that they like warped writers who create characters that interest them.

But here is the truth of the matter. If the characters seem real, if their actions are believable, if the readers can identify with situations, the reader sees the truth of the matter.

When you read the lies created by great writers human truths are revealed, for if they were not, we readers could not identify with the story. We sympathize, we feel empathy, we get mad, we laugh, we get scared, we sense tension. In short all our human emotions come into play, and in doing so we see the bigger picture, we understand something that can enlighten us, move us, learn more about how we feel, how we think, and it is all done through a lie.

I do not advocate lying in real life. Lots of trouble when you do. Let the writer do the lying, he will tell you the truth.

 

How to Write when You are SICK!

Posted on by under creative writing, dailies, humor, Uncategorized, writers

You know the feeling. First you clear your throat, then a cough, but you feel fine. But the cough becomes more frequent, you feel tired you lose your appetite as the cough gets worse. Forgive me for using the V word, as in vomit, but we must. So you cough, you blech, cough and blech, and you can’t write because you no longer care.

I am sure you know the feeling when your body is about to blech, up chuck, throw up, puke, vomit, toss your Oreo cookies. Anyway that is the feeling I would get, but instead of the aforementioned I had a rasping, hacking cough coming from the pit of my soul.

I stayed in bed waiting for death. It never came.

Naturally in this condition I could not write. I had little to no energy. I lost five pounds in four days. Sadly I gained it back through vanilla ice cream, Hershey’s chocolate syrup, potato chips, and other healthy foods.

Once the body shuddering cough subsided a bit, downgraded to merely coughing without gut wrenching pain I could write. But not much.

I was able one day to finish a short story. I had only to write less than 700 words to finish. And I started another a couple days later, only about 500 words. A couple days later I start a novel, but only a couple hundred words.

That was all I could do. I still wasn’t eating and I was still tired, languishing in laziness, sickness, a foggy head, and a lack of ice cream with Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

The problem as a writer with sickness that goes on for three weeks, an illness that saps your energy, your thought processes, and your creativity, is that you get out of the habit of writing and when you get out of your habit, stray from your discipline, it takes some time for you to get back into the swing.

So the best you can do when this befalls you is wait until you feel something resembling your previous humanness and then  write a blog about your sickness. Like I have just done. Now I know I am back into writing. And just as soon I down a huge bowl of vanilla ice cream with Hershey’s chocolate syrup, I will get back to my unfinished short story.

Thanks for reading and good health to you.

 

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Why a Writer Should Work Like an Actor

Posted on by under authors, books, dailies, Uncategorized, writers

Before I answer the question posed I want to set the scene before two characters talk.
In a short story I am working on, a man is walking down a hallway, stops in front of a door with a security window, punches a code into a keypad, and enters into another hallway.

I do not tell what the facility is, but through describing what the man sees in the hallway, like the color of the walls and what type of pictures or posters are hanging on the wall and using phrases like ‘institutional carpet’ and what he observes by watching people, some of whom are looking at a TV, though few seem to be comprehending, the reader should get the idea that the man is in a nursing home.
The man walks into a room where a woman is sitting and looking out the window. He pulls up a chair and begins to talk. So now we have a setting. And now they must talk.
When faced with a conversation, especially an emotional one and one with a twist, and a conversation that must reveal character, a lot of thought must go into the dialogue.
You must know your character, know how he talks, and know his personality. What you need not know is how the conversation will end. If you choose to think of how it will end and write towards that end that works too. For me, I like to make it up as I go along. Like an improve actor.
If I know my character, then I can imagine the conversation. As I write I know the man is going to reminisce about two things. One is about how happy he was when he got married and the other is the worst day of his life when his two children, home from college, are killed in an auto accident.
So, like an actor, I go with the scene. A writer must get into the character’s head and pretend to be the character. Writing fiction requires you, not to think, but to feel. A good actor feels the words, understands the emotion. Once you feel the emotion of the words, the dialogue flows. It did for me, usually does. And in this moment where the man says more than the woman he is conversing with I come up with something that makes it all work, including the twist.
You see, the man thought he was talking to his wife. The woman said that she was not his wife, that her children were not dead. She made short interjections, then asked him to call a nurse; three of four times she would break in and ask for the nurse.
When the nurse does come she sees the man and an empty chair.
The man was not in the right room, his wife is dead, the woman who lives in the room was watching TV in the activity area, and the man had dementia.
But you never say what the facility is. You never give the background like a reporter giving news. You reveal through descriptive imagery and through dialogue, imagining you are an actor, not on the stage, but on the page.
Finished imaginings of mine are found at the top of my web page and the e-books are available on Amazon.
Thanks for reading.

I raise the curtain behind a writers madness in writing a sentence

Posted on by under creative writing, dailies, language, Uncategorized, writers, writing

Writing is rewriting. The following is based on a short story I am starting. I thought it might be fun and instructional to show what goes through a writers mind as he/she tries to get a sentence and paragraph.  So let’s peek into my madness.

 

THEY COULDN’T GET OUT, THOUGH SOME COULD GET IN.

I know who ‘they’ are, the reader doesn’t. ‘They’ could be humans, or ‘they’ could be animals. The sentence needs clarity.

THE PEOPLE INSIDE COULDN’T GET OUT, THOUGH PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE DOOR COULD GET IN.

More specific, yet dull.

A CODE ON THE DOOR WAS NEEDED TO GET IN. THREE NUMBERS TO PUSH, THEN A CLICK WAS HEARD, THEN ONE PUSHED THE DOOR OPEN, LOOKING THROUGH THE WINDOW TO MAKE SURE SOMEONE INSIDE COULDN’T GET OUT, OR RATHER SHOULDN’T GET OUT.

Better, but awkward, does not say how the code is used. Does someone say “Alexa, please open door” or say three numbers, or are buttons pushed on a security pad. Also grammar is bad.

A MAN WALKED DOWN THE CARPETED HALLWAY, THE WALLS HUNG WITH INOFFENSIVE CHEERFUL POSTERS LEADING TO THE DOOR.

Problem is the walls are not hung, the posters (framed-should have used framed posters) are hung, and that is not what leads to the door.

A MAN WALKED DOWN THE INSTITUTIONAL CARPETED HALLWAY TOWARDS A THICK METAL DOOR WHICH HAD A REINFORCED WINDOW. FEW USED THIS HALLWAY, ONLY VISITORS AND STAFF AND THERE WAS ALWAYS MORE STAFF INSIDE THAN VISTORS. NEXT TO THE DOOR WAS A SECURITY PAD. THE MAN PUSHED THREE BUTTONS ON THE PAD, HEARD THE CLICK OF THE DOOR, BUT BEFORE PUSHING THE DOOR OPEN, THE MAN BRIEFLY PAUSED TO LOOK THROUGH THE WINDOW IN THE DOOR TO MAKE SURE IT WAS SAFE TO OPEN. THERE WERE PEOPLE WAITING TO GET OUT AND THEY MUST REMAIN. IT WAS CLEAR.

I like this. I used institutional carpeted to give the reader a hint of the type of building. I used ‘few used this hallway’ to make the reader wonder why (part of the hook if you will). And for the same reason wrote ‘more staff than visitors’ so that the reader will wonder what kind of place has more staff than visitors along with ‘few used this hallway.” The hallway and the building I hope arouse the reader’s curiosity. Then we have some action the man ‘pushed,’ ‘heard,’ and ‘paused.’ And finish with people inside must remain. And why.

If your first reaction is this is a jail, it is not. My intent is to describe what is inside the door through the actions or inactions of the people inside, doing so without telling you what the building is, but by describing what is going on it will become clear to the reader. Always better to show, not tell. I am not sure I am done with the opening paragraph. But it is time to move on to the second, to move forward, then go through it all over again.

 
The point for writers is to just write a simple sentence no matter how bad it looks, and then expand. Just starting gets the creative juices going. It may be slow for a bit, but then it picks up and you get on a roll. And as every writer knows, that is when magic happens.

My e-books are found on Amazon.

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10 research sites for fiction writers-or anyone

Posted on by under creative writing, fiction writers

Whether you write current fiction, science fiction, romance, westerns, horror, or like me, write mysteries set in the 1920’s or short stories with a paranormal theme, you want to get things right. You don’t want Abraham Lincoln turning on a radio to get news about the war in the Western theatre. Then again you might if you are writing alternate history or science fiction, but I will stand by my statement.

One obvious place to start is the Library of Congress. Something more European, try the European library, or if you need something specific about England, try their National Archives.  Don’t want to slight Australia , so there you are.

Another site with many topics is encyclopedia.com.

Writerswrite.com is a clearing house to take you to more specific sites and is fun to browse anyway.

This is a fun site I found on Pinterest called Fiction Writing research site.

Of course I will mention Wikipedia and though I am aware one must be careful what you find here, I have primarily used when researching 1927. What happened in each month of the year, anything newsworthy I could use in my story. I also double checked the information I found to make sure.

Want to get geographical names correct try U.S. Board on geographic names. A word here on street names. When dealing with the past, some cities have changed street names. In my e-novel set in 1911, “Loonies in the Dugout,” I used a map of New York from 1911. I also used a 1927 map of Los Angeles for two e-novels. I don’t know if any of the names I used had changed, but it is wise never to assume; always use source material.

And if you want to see how wrong politicians are in their statements try Factcheck.org. Good for a laugh, or tears, or anger.

Or you can go retro like I do. I go to book sales where I find books like “The Oxford World Mythology,” “The Oxford History of the Classical World,” or “Gray’s Anatomy,” (helpful if you want a coroner to explain cause of death or any medical issues if you write murder mysteries). You can also explore your local library if you feel the need to get away from clicking, tapping, and out of your chair because your butt is getting flat, and be able to touch real books with lots of info, take notes with tools like pen and paper. Then cross check with Internet sources. Research is important and fun. You never know where your search will lead you.

If you have a site you want to share leave a comment.

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