Writers On Writing Volume 1-4 Omnibus

The omnibus of the first four editions of Crystal Lake's Writers On Writing series is out this weekend and available to preorder now, with a host of special offers and competitions.

I've for two essays in the book. The first, Embrace Your Inner Shitness, is about the freedom in letting yourself go and writing a bad first draft, whilst the second, Fictional Emotions; Emotional Fictions,  tackles that hoary old cliche that good writing should evoke an emotional response - but what exactly does that mean in practice?

Plus there's a whole bunch of essays from great authors like Kevin Lucia, Mercedes M. Yardley, Lynda E. Rucker, Jack Ketchum, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Brian Hodge and many many more. It's a book that contains a multitude of clashing, complimenting, and contradicting views on how to write well, and is all the stronger for it. A book that makes you think about how you write, rather than being told how you should. Come join the conversation.

Writers On Writing Omnibus is out in both ebook and paperback editions - you can win a copy of the latter over at the Crystal Lake webpage too.

Exciting Stuff X 2

First off, I'm really pleased to say that I've new piece of non-fiction in Writers On Writing #3 from Crystal Lake Press. I'm alongside such authors as Kealan Patrick Burke, Ben Eads, Jonathan Janz & Nerine Dorman; my piece is called Fictional Emotions; Emotional Fictions. It's about different techniques writers use to generate emotional responses in their writing.

Writers On Writing #3  is available for pre-order now (UK | US). And be sure to check out the other volumes (I'm also in #2).

And if that wasn't enough, this week I've also been interviewed by the wonderful Priya Sharma about The Hyde Hotel and related gubbins. It's the first of seven pieces Priya will be posting this week featuring different authors with stories in the book. Be sure to check them all out, as well as Priya's own work, which is highly recommended. Because it's ace.

Writers On Writing Volume 2...

Crystal Lake's Writers On Writing is a series of ebooks where "authors share their secrets in the ultimate guide to becoming – and being – an author". And I'm proud to say that that the second volume, which is out today, features a piece by me called Embracing Your Inner Shitness. 

It's more positive than it sounds... honest. It features Hemingway, Spiderman, and a paragraph where I imagine readers of it calling me a wanker. More seriously, it's about how I approach my first drafts of a story.

Writers On Writing 2 also features articles by Brian Hodge, Mark Allan Gunnells, Lucy A. Snyder, Daniel I. Russell, Theresa Derwin, Paul Kane & Jonathan Winn and is edited by Joe Mynhardt. Take a look (UK | US)

... becalmed ...

I'm not writing very much at the moment. I'm about halfway through a new draft of an old story, Sick Leave (which is about the plague, and scary kids, and things we don't face up to in the darkness) but I've only managed a few hundred words on it this week.

I don't believe in writer's block as such. If you encounter it, I think the best thing to do is just sit and force yourself to write something, anything. Get something down, and then look at what you've written the next day and if it's shit... well, you can rewrite shit. Or bin it. But this way of writing - of working damnit - takes effort, takes a lot more energy than those times when the words come effortlessly and writing seems so easy; fun even. These things come in cycles, but unfortunately sometimes the periods when you really need to roll up your sleeves and put some elbow grease into your writing sometimes coincide with the times when real life is tough too. Not dramatic, not scary - I'm alright. But tough and tiring and draining. Now is one of those times, and so Sick Leave is progressing in fits and starts.

Logically of course such a time would be a good one to get caught up on some reading, on some blog posts, on some submissions of stories. But they all use the same part of my brain, the same enthusiasm, as the writing itself. I feel the same weariness attempting any of them. TV and Playstation it is then.

I feel somewhat listless, but restless too, like sailors on a becalmed ship.

It will pass, as all such things do; the sails will fill with air and the words will come again, and looking back on this becalmed period it will seem as unrealistic and implausible as the idea that I'll ever write something quickly and with ease does to me now. But for now, I am drifting.

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On another, more positive note, I can announce that my story Snow is to appear in the Pulp Ink 2 anthology which will be published by Snubnose Press. It's edited by Chris Rhatigan and Nigel Bird and you can find the announcement and full line up of authors here.

Regular readers (hello!) may recall I've posted about Snow before, and the curse that seemed to be attached to the story, causing inevitable misfortune to any publication or anthology that I submitted it to. I speculated then that maybe the only way for the curse to be lifted was for the story to be accepted by someone.

So I'm pleased to say it looks like the nightmare is finally over.


Or is it...?

Boring Writing Post

I've just finished a new story called The Time Of Their Lives. I started this one on the 28th June 2010. It's almost exactly nine thousand words long.

Oh no, some of you might be thinking, at that pace I'm going to have to wait years for the sequel to The Other Room! (I hope at least some of you are thinking something along those lines anyway...)

But I haven't actually been working on a solitary 9k story for nearly 18 months. I tend to have multiple stories on the go simultaneously, all at different stages of completion. Most I write in three drafts:

1. Handwritten draft where everything is a frantic, illegible scribble, with lots of crossings out, notes to myself, and misspellings. Character's names may often change mid-story at this point, and I'll get really basic things wrong in the rush like there/their/they're. My first drafts look something like this:

2. Second handwritten draft. Here I'll try and sort any basic structural plot problems, and rearrange, add or delete whole scenes or characters. I think there's something to be said for handwriting stories, even in this electronic age. There's an old adage for writers which says "kill your darlings". Don't let your oh so pretty sentences survive just because they are pretty. And for me that's a lot easier to do when early drafts are handwritten because it guarantees I'll have to physical write/type each and every sentence (and every word in every sentence) multiple times. Which helps me spot opportunities to quash something pretty.

3. Word processor draft. This can be quite quick, or another painful flailing around if the language of the story is still all wrong. I like to have fixed anything structural before I get to this stage though.

So at any given point I'll have multiple stories at various different stages in the above sequence, and I like to take a break from a story between drafts, and work on a different one. So now The Time Of Their Lives is finished, I might go back to a story called The Man In Blue Boots (at draft 2.) or one with the working title(s) Flies, Eggs, or No Insects At Sea (at draft 1. - titles are definitely things I don't have sorted until 2. at the earliest. I hate titles).

God knows if any other writers do anything remotely similar. 

This year though I want to get some stories written from start to finish in a lot quicker manner, to mess with my approach a bit. Maybe I've become too comfortable in my routine, like a man who always has sausages on a Tuesday. I want to write some stories for markets with a set theme, with a set word count, to a set deadline. I think this will be good for my sense of writing discipline. Penny Dreadnought will help with this some, as will some other projects I have my eye on. I may fail, but even those failures will help me learn about the contours of my talent, such as it is. 

That's the plan today, anyway. Wish me luck.

(By the way if you think 18 months was a long time for The Time Of Their Lives that's nothing - the final draft of The Shelter was completed 16 years after I first set pen to paper! I told you I might need some writing discipline...) 

Horror Stories: What's In The Box?

Iain Rowan has posted a good review of The Shelter over at his blog - when I say a 'good review' I don't mean he liked it (although he did, thank goodness) but that it was an informative and perceptive piece, saying many interesting things about horror fiction. I was particularly struck by this:

Horror fiction often disappoints me, as the suspense and dread rises, but then you see the monster, and...is that it? 


This immediately made me think of Stephen King's wonderful non-fiction book Dance Macabre where he makes a similar point about horror - you throw open the door to reveal the monster and the reader thinks 'A ten foot ant! Yikes quite scary! But I can cope with that... Now a 100ft ant, that would be scary...' But of course, if what was behind the door was a 100ft ant, the reader would be thinking: Scary! But I can cope with that...


The image I have in my own head is of a jack-in-the-box - as a horror author, you better have something good springing out of that box. (And that thought always makes me hum this song, but anyway). 

All of which has got me thinking, what are the different ways horror authors solve this problem? Seems to me it's these:

1. Pretend There Isn't A Problem
Maybe, if you're a really skilled author, and having a really good day, you can still get away with writing a story where the big reveal is basically "Boo! It's a vampire!" Maybe.

2. Monster With A Twist
This one is quite common - vampires that turn into a snake not a bat, zombies that run etc. It can be done well   - vampires have been reinvented scores of times, the most recent high-profile case being Let The Right One In. When it's done well it works - the twist creates a frisson of shock, and allows creatures grown dusty with familiarity to be scary once more. But it's damn hard to do, and one suspects there's more failures than successes. Do it badly, and it's apt to seem to the reader like a cheap gimmick rather than anything they should react to, let alone be scared by.

3. Invent A New Monster
If ghosts, werewolves, vampires, aliens and zombies (and alien zombies) are all seeming too stale, then the best thing to do is invent a new monster, no? The reader can't have a jaded reaction to something they've never encountered before can they?

Well no. But there's little new under the sun. Dance Macabre time again (and if you read or write horror and haven't a well-thumbed copy of this on your bookshelf then you really need to examine your life choices up to this point) - King talks about the books Psycho and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as werewolf novels. Werewolf novels? 

Yes, because the really scary thing about werewolves isn't the teeth or fur, but the fact that those guys walk around most of the time looking just like you and me. As does Norman Bates when he's not in his dead mother's dress; as does the respectable looking Mister Hyde. The scary thing is they look normal but can change.

So if you want to create a new monster for your story, be careful. In reality, this method is likely to be identical to Number 2.

4. Only Partially Reveal Your Monster
Now we're talking. I do this one quite a lot - letting the reader glimpse the thing out of the corner of their eye, throwing in some choice description but leaving most to the imagination. The idea being, if the unknown is what's scary, keep it a bit unknown. Lovecraft was a master at this - how many of us could really say exactly what Cthulhu looks like?

Be wary though - if done clumsily this approach can seem to the reader to be a cheap trick.

5. Ambiguity #1: Call Into Question Just What The Real Monster Is
Just because you've revealed what everyone thinks the monster is, it doesn't mean they're right. Maybe it's just an aspect of the real Big Bad. Think Ghost Story by Peter Straub which gets all sorts of ghosts and monsters and scary kids roaming around, but they're all just reflections of the real monster... and of ourselves. You can keep the tension tight if the reader is never sure which reveal is the big one.

6. Ambiguity #2: Call Into Question If The Monster Is Even Real 
Another one I really like. What if it's all in the protagonist's head? Isn't that more scary than a monster, in some ways - especially if you're not sure? The obvious example here is The Turn Of The Screw (ghosts are the perfect monster for this type of horror) but it doesn't have to be as overt as that; a lot of horror can be read in this way.

7. Make The Monster Relevant To The Characters
There's tons of good examples of this one, but to pick a familiar one: in The Exorcist the priest has to determine whether the girl is really possessed by a demon, or just faking or suffering some psychological trauma. But here's the turn of this screw: the priest is losing his faith in God. But if the demon is real, if Evil with a capital E is real, then surely Good with a capital G is too? The priest almost wants the demon to be real... (which dovetails nicely with technique 6. above).

8. Don't Have A Monster
Guess what? Horror doesn't need a monster. Horror needs dread, unease, fear; horror needs... well horror. And a good author can generate this without a bogeyman. To end with an example of my own, A Writer's Words in my collection The Other Room has no psycho-killers, no mutants or mummies. What it does have, hopefully, is a creepy sense of unease as an almost existential situation overtakes the main character. And somehow, with this kind of horror story, where there's no monster as such, the reveal can be seamless.

So, fellow horror authors, what do you think? Have I missed any out? In reality of course authors mix and match these approaches to the issue of opening the box, or the door, to reveal what's been lurking.

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In other news, I'm taking part in a 'blog hop' running from 24th to 31st October, where I'll be giving away some books and maybe other stuff if I can work something out. (If you aren't sure quite what a 'blog hop' is, like I wasn't, check out this post from Belinda Frisch, which explains it better than I could.)

If you're a fellow horror author (and let's face it, if you've read all of blog post so far there's a good chance you probably are) and want to take part, check out the Coffin Hop webpage.

The Psychology of Self Publishing

The inspiration for today's post comes, in an indirect manner, from writer David Gaughran. David has just published a great new book called Let's Get Digital. Confession: I've not read the whole thing, but I have read a lot of David blog posts which form part of this new book. So it definitely gets the Everington stamp of approval.

What's more, the PDF version is available for free from David's blog. If you're at all interested in self-publishing, or have done it already, then this book will give you lots of sensible, practical advice on what to do and lots of rational, coherent reasons why to do it.


This blog post is nothing like that however.

Because I believe that a lot of the time when we decide to do something, even thought we might have the best, most rational and well-thought out reasons for doing so on the surface, we often have other reasons for doing what we do underneath. Ones which might not be completely illogical, but would definitely leave Mr Spock scratching his head... (except he wouldn't do that, as scratching your head when faced with a tricky problem is in itself illogical).

I think there are two psychological reasons why beginning authors have taken to self-publishing so readily. Firstly, I'm sure many writers will relate when I say I go through a mental cycle regarding what they think of my writing - from loopy self-confidence to extreme self-doubt, then back again. Creatively I'm sure this is of benefit; you can't improve your book without finding it's faults, and being blinded by your talents doesn't help with that. But when you have to send your book or stories out into the big bad world, it's easy to get stuck in the self-doubt stage. Or at least that's been the case with me - I know objectively that even great writers have all endured having story after story rejected; that great books have been rejected by publishers after publisher. And so I shouldn't let any individual rejection dent my self-belief in my writing. But it's hard not to get dejected about it sometimes. Hard not to think that the outside world is right, and that each word I write is more pointless than the last.

But hey - with self-publishing, there's a constant and opposing feeling of approval from the outside world. It might be small-scale, it might be false, it might even be MBS - but it's there: the little upward jump in your sales-figures, a good review, someone Tweeting about your book, an email from a honest-to-goodness reader who likes your book. These are things that, let's face it, make you feel good.

Secondly, self-publishing gives you a sense of control. Twelve-months ago I had no idea what I was doing with my writing apart from chucking it around all over the place and hoping it wasn't all chucked back. I could set myself goals, but had no idea if and how I could hit them. But for the next twelve months, I feel like I've got it all mapped out:

1. Self-publish 'The Shelter', a novella I want to put out as a standalone piece
2. Keep sending out short stories to small magazines, but regardless of acceptance or rejection, collect some of these together in a second volume as a sequel to 'The Other Room'
3. Work out what to do with a story called 'Xenophobia', a story which because of its excessive use of footnotes (and footnotes within footnotes) doesn't seem like it would ever work self-published on the current generation of e-readers

See, a plan. And one that seems achievable and totally in my control. It isn't - Amazon could change their business-model tomorrow and the whole shebang comes crashing down - but it feels like it.

A sense of approval and ratification from the outside world, and a strong (if illusionary) feeling of control over your writing career. No wonder self-publishing is so popular.

On Silence

When I started posting on websites and forums relating to writing, on a whim I set my avatar on most sites to this image:

For the last couple of years I've been waiting for someone to ask me what it is, or why I've used it, but none of you bastards have. But sod you, I'm going to explain anyway.

Some of you may know it's a close up of a 1615 painting by Salvator Rosa called Self Portrait. I've made sporadic and lacklustre attempts throughout my life to learn more about art, and this is one of the few paintings that's ever really struck me in the same way books or poems or songs do. Typically for me, it's not just the visual side that made an impact, but the words. 'AVT TACE AVT LOQVERE MELIORA SILENTIO.'

'Be silent, unless what you have to say is better than silence'

To me, silence is a blank page.

I think we can all admit there's too much noise in the world. And we all contribute to it: the emails, the Tweets, these godamn blog posts. Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, someone is talking, someone has written something down, usually in an attempt to sell you something. And I'm as guilty of it as the next person; more so, probably. "Buy my book, buy my book" a thousand times a week, each time in some cunning and eloquent new disguise.

But when you sit down in front of a blank piece of paper to write, that blankness is silence, that whiteness is silence. And I always think a writer should make sure that what they are about to write is better than that whiteness. That it's not just noise, that it's not just another cynical attempt to, ultimately, get money from people. That it stands with those other words that have broken the silence and have been better than it. That you're breaking the silence for love, not money.

Some Silence, yesterday.

This is a hypocritical blog posting, no doubt about it, and I deserve to be pilloried for attempting to make myself out to be all high-faluting and concerned with better things than everyone else, when really, really, all I'm saying here is "buy my book, buy my book" and wondering why the new words I'm typing feel so weary and familiar for all their newness. 

But hypocrisy doesn't stop us knowing what's right and wrong, and failing to stick to our own values doesn't remove the obligation from trying again the next time. We're all trying to scrape together money; we're all selling something. And that's the world we live in and that's the world we've created, and who are we to judge?

But when you sit down to write - not sell, not promote, not market, but write - take a long look at that blank white space; take a long listen to that silence. And write something better than it. If it helps, imagine this stern gaze upon you as you do so:

Self Portrait

Oh, and if anyone's still reading and wonders what I really look like, then here I am. Hello.

Books for Authors...

I've just reviewed a book called The Craft of Fiction - full disclosure, I got hold of a copy of this for free. You can read my review by following the link, but it got me thinking - why do we read books about writing books? Do they work? Do best-selling or artistically successful authors read them?

My own view is this - a writer should be thinking about writing all the time, even when they're not writing, even when they've not written anything for months (it happens). Moreover, they should be thinking new things about writing, or at least thinking the old things in a new way. There's various triggers for these thoughts - a good novel you're jealous of; a bad novel you're incredulous ever got published; a writing group... and maybe these books of writing tips.

See, I didn't agree with all or even most of The Craft of Fiction - but despite the fact I disagreed the book was well-argued and clear, and so I had to marshal my arguments to understand why I disagreed... And I can't help but think that kind of mental argument is useful, for any writer. So that's why, occasionally, I read these kind of books (and it is only occasionally; I don't want too much distraction from the real reading to be done to improve me as a writer, which is other novels and short stories).

A couple of others which I've enjoyed arguing with are:

The Elements of Style (Strunk and White) - a cliche almost to list this one, but a cliche because it's true - despite it being slightly old fashioned, this little gem of a book is the best guide to writing clear, concise prose. Used not just by novelists but journalists and academic writers. Best tip: remove unnecessary words.

On Writing (Stephen King) - if the above is for the nuts and bolts, this book is more inspirational (although it still comes across how much King cares about the nuts and bolts). Part autobiographical work, part writing guide, if you think this isn't for you because King is 'just' a horror writer, think again. This is full of great stuff. Best tip: the toolbox analogy (you'll have to read it to see what this means...)

Ideas, Ideas...

Following on from my initial post, obviously with one short story published I can now show off and write columns giving other writers advice...

Somewhat surprisingly, the Seattle Examiner agree with me, and have published some thoughts of mine on that old cliche "So, where do you get your ideas?"

Click here for 'On Ideas'