Columns

Return of the Son of Twilight Zone: Dusk as a Theme

August 1st, 2017

Just as I’m happiest in the autumn months, so dusk is my favourite time of day. It’s a time when objects, thought and feelings lose focus: the light gives way, yet darkness has not yet taken control. Because of this ambiguity, dusk can be difficult to describe in words, and it might well be this difficulty which has drawn many poets and novelists towards it as a subject matter. Here is the paradox: if dusk is described too exactly, it loses its essential nature.

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Celebrating Success: How 5 Authors Celebrated Their First Story Sale

July 31st, 2017

I’ve been thinking a lot about celebrating story sales recently, prompted by a Lovecraft eZine Podcast in which Jon Padgett spoke about Thomas Ligotti’s ‘victory walk’ upon finishing a story.

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A Lamp in the Darkness: Finding a Structure

July 31st, 2017

Read part 1 HERE. I’ve found, even after more than twenty years of writing novels, that every book finds its own working method. No two books are the same, and no two books come into being by the same means. Despite being utilised  by a number of authors and editors, the standard three act structure developed for Hollywood screenwriting has not yet made inroads into the novel. So there is no readily available map or blueprint. This, I believe, is a good thing.

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11 Ways Marvel Comics Can Change To Attract Consumers

July 31st, 2017

Marvel Comics sold a boatload of Black Panther #1's in April 2016, but comics sales had already begun flagging across the board.

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Striking Sparks: Where the Ideas Come From

July 28th, 2017

I’m always amazed and grateful when a new idea for a story comes to me, when the gods of chance deliver one of those What if? moments. Something that stirs the imagination. It’s like a spell. The fingers itch to write, to capture the vaguely seen shape ahead, the blurred figure, whatever it might be. My new novel, A Man of Shadows, was born in such a way, from a number of separate ideas that suddenly joined together. Alice in Wonderland style, a tiny door was opened, allowing a glimpse into a curious world. Where would that pathway take me?

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My Own Kind of Beautiful: How Geography Affects the Writing Process

July 27th, 2017

By Oregon's Mt. Hood Territory - Public Domain It’s most noticeable in Texan writers, the way the words are clipped and short, dry like hard dirt. LA breeds its own type of feeling. All the words mean something else, and they’re played for flash, hiding something, almost like double speak. NYC writing is busy and alive.

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How to Take Edits 101

July 27th, 2017

I have seen a lot of writing advice articles throughout the years. Some great, some terrible, but I can’t recall seeing anything on the unsexy topic of how to take edits. A lot of writers complain that editors/publishers want to ‘change’ (fix) their story, so fuck publishing, they’ll just put it out themselves. I’ve seen that a lot from very talented people and it got me thinking—do aspiring writers not know how editing works? 

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Reflecting Early: 7 Memoirs by Young Authors

July 26th, 2017

There's a longtime debate about memoir. Can it only be produced after years of carefully accrued wisdom and self-reflection, or is it like any other genre of writing—dependent on the talents of the individual author? Give some of the titles below a read and decide for yourself.

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Out-of-Print Genre Books Are Expensive But Worth It

July 25th, 2017

Sometimes books go out of print. This can be for a number of reasons. Perhaps sales were low at the time. Perhaps the company that originally published the book has gone out of business. Perhaps the author, for his or her own reasons, pulled the book from the shelves.

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My Unlikely Writing Influences

July 25th, 2017

Like many writers, I was reared on a never-ending veneration for big guns such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf. Authors who’ve passed some ‘immortal’ litmus test for stuffy academic types to get overly excited about. Harsh? Perhaps, because most of the top tier lit club have deservedly earned their marks. But along the path I’ve learned some of the best prose originates from sources other than these writing titans.

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