writing – Page 9 – Tessera Guild

Lemonade on the porch

By J Edward Neill books, life, writing

Lemonade on the porch

Noun

1. A state of contentment.

2. A time in one’s life during which a person reflects upon all they done in life and finds satisfaction.

3. The whole point of it all.

This guy has the right idea. I’ll see ya in a few years, buddy.

Used to be, I thought happiness meant something entirely different. Perhaps I was entranced with the American ideals: money, a big house, a beautiful wife, long vacations on the beach, etc. I wouldn’t say I was obsessed with materialism, but certainly I was clueless about the truth of what happiness really is. Lemonade on the porch isn’t a thing, a place, or a person. It isn’t something you hope for, dream of, or want for tomorrow. It’s something you have to make for yourself. It’s something you have to try to earn today, because tomorrow will be different. Or it might never come at all.

And so, once again, I’ll turn to books. Books will be my lemonade, and the porch my castle in the sky. Hell, I don’t even own a porch right now, but no matter. I’ll pretend I do. I’ll sit somewhere and pretend the stars are wheeling over my head. I’ll wander vagabond-like to every park bench and gazebo in Georgia. I’ll invade your porch when you’re not looking. Because, you know, there’s something special about the written word. A good book can provide instant serenity, while two hours spent writing can satisfy the mind in rare fashion. When life gives you lemons, grab a book and find a porch. You’re welcome.

Here’s the part where I’d normally get all long-winded about life, death, love, and darkness. Nah. I’m done. Instead I think I’ll jot down the top ten books I want to sit and read in a comfy chair with an icy beverage at my side. Think of it as a bucket list, but for books. Because no matter what horrors real life might bring, one can always escape. Simply crack a cover, wet your thumb, (or turn on your Kindle) and start reading. Peace will find you.

Book Bucket List:

Sideways – Rex Pickett – Because it’s about two dudes looking for lemonade on the porch. I mean…c’mon. And because it’s sitting on my bookshelf…on its side.

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte – The Tom Hardy movie turned me on to this one. Enough tragedy to make anyone feel better about their life.

The Chronicles of Narnia series – C.S. Lewis – I read these as a kid. Time for a re-read. Odds are an adult read will make them feel completely different.

Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger – I can’t believe I haven’t done this one yet. Time to see what all the fuss is about.

The Hunger Games trilogy – Suzanne Collins – I’ll pass on Twilight, Harry Potter, and Divergent, but something tells me I’ll find value here. And yes, I know. I’m sorry.

War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy – I fancy myself an epic novel writer, but I’ve got nothing on Leo.

Les Miserables – Victor Hugo – Another one the movie sold me on. If the book is even half as good…

Dracula – Bram Stoker – If only because everyone tells me it’s about as grim a novel as is possible to write.

Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand – I know the premise. I know the controversy. I’ll consume this for the same reason I read the Bible.

The Silmarillion – J.R.R. Tolkien – Already read it several times. Doesn’t matter. Gonna do it again.

So anyway, what’s on your bucket list? Wanna make a million dollars? Climb a mountain? Live to be a thousand? I recommend none of these. Go for lemonade on the porch, whatever it means to you. And go for it today.

Next week, the What if? series returns. I’ll adapt the original animated Sleeping Beauty and Angelina Jolie’s recent Maleficent into a dark fantasy novel. It’ll be fun. I promise.

J Edward Neill

Author of the Tyrants of the Dead dark fantasy trilogy

Author of The Sleepers and Old Man of Tessera

Down the Dark Path

Summer sucks for writing

By J Edward Neill life, writing

North Georgia. Circa the dead of summer 2014.

It’s hot out there. It’s sunny, muggy, steamy. The 4th of July is right around the corner. My skull is melting…

I’m more or less taking a vacation from writing this weekend, but before I dump ice over my head, shut my laptop down, and take my long-awaited rum runner/margarita bath, I have a few things I’d like to say:

Summer is terrible for writing. Especially writing horror and dark fantasy. Especially for me.

During early spring, late autumn, and winter’s dregs, it’s easy. I look out my window and see clouds. I open my door and feel the wind and rain wash over me. I hear the leaves crunching beneath my boots, the sound so very like bones breaking. It’s easy for me to get in a writing mood. The night comes sooner. My phone is quieter. My kid, bless his wee fiery heart, can walk outside and play without turning into hot, crispy bacon. Mmmm…bacon.

But in summer, it’s pure chaos. Everyone wants to party. There’s always a pool needing invading, a cool drink requiring sipping, and a friend whose barbeque needs to find its way into my belly. Summer is a big, loud, hot, sweaty mess. I love everything about it, except that it makes sitting in the dark, alone with my imagination, a little trickier. I could probably wage war against all the distractions and max out on my silent time, but…nah. I’ll just play both sides. I’ll bake all day and write all night. Instead of a haunting Hans Zimmer soundtrack, I’ll crank up Danzig’s Dirty Black Summer. Instead of candles, I’ll open the windows at midnight and let the white hot starlight in. I’ll party and I’ll write. Sleep is for dead men.

Mmmm…bacon.

Since I’m shorting Tessera several hundred words this week, I’ll make it up to you with a few links. These are my favorite Tessera Guild articles of all time. Some are mine; some belong to my guildmates. We’ve been around long enough now that even if you’ve already read these, you might enjoy a recap. I know I did:

Top Ten Villains of All Time

John R McGuire’s Grab Bag

Amanda Makepeace’s Zen Time

Longing For Rain

Chad J Shonk’s Summer is Coming. Baseball is Here.

Now I just need to find a way to get back to the beach, if only for a day or two.

See you on the flip side,

J Edward Neill

Sketchbook for the end of the world

By J Edward Neill art, books, creativity, writing

Let’s face it. I’m likely the worst artist on Tessera. If you want beautiful, colorful, deep art, check here.

Otherwise…let’s dance.

A few months back, I shared a few sketches I drew ages ago during the inception of Down the Dark Path. Each sketch depicted a fragment of the story as I’d originally dreamed it. My pattern was: I dreamed it, I drew it, and years later, I wrote epic fantasy novels about it. It sounds simple. It wasn’t.

Recently, I dug up about forty additional sketches. Most (read…all) I sketched during my early twenties. They’re simple, sometimes juvenile, and somewhat faded by years spent moldering in an ancient paper envelope. Even so, to this day they reflect my early conceptual visions of the Tyrants of the Dead series. If I were a true artist, I’d spend my time painting reimagined masterpieces for each one.

But I’m not.

So you get sketches…

We begin with a tower deep in Grandwood. It’s ten stories high, surrounded by oak trees, and hides a wizard’s laboratory in its walls. I named this tower Gryphon. About ten years after this sketch, I wandered back to it. I decided Gryphon needed to be an entire city, not one lonely tower in the woods. And so Gryphon, home of Rellen, was reborn.

This was my original concept sketch for Rellen Gryphon, one of the heroes of Down the Dark Path and Dark Moon Daughter. Rellen later lost his halberd, became younger and blonder, and sat atop a horse instead of a bizarre, long-snouted mutant mule, but his pose…reining up to watch the Furyon horde draw near…still belongs to him.

The Whisperers

Long ago, I only had the vaguest notion of what the bad guys in the Tyrants series looked like, but this is how they began. I’m not spoiling anything, because the modern-day Ur look very little like this trio. And yet, somehow…I still remember the night I dreamed them. White eyes… Pale as death… Whispering black thoughts into fragile minds…

Hmmm…

Nothing fancy about this dude. Every other sketch I created in the beginning just happened to be of a ghost, a ghoul, or a skeletal horror. I suppose this guy could be the murderous spirit who shows up in the swamps of Furyon. You’ll just have to read it and decide for yourself.

It’s no secret. Women are usually more pleasant to draw and dream of than zombies, ghosts, and stone towers. These two ladies were characters who lost their spots in Down the Dark Path during the great 200k-word ‘let’s make this novel more serious’ culling. Even so, I remember them, though these drawings do them no justice.

Now we’re getting somewhere. This is my first sketch of the Soul Orb. (The final version graces Down the Dark Path’s cover.) Notice the ghoulish faces at the Orb’s base and the demonic eyes gazing out of its center. This is among my favorite sketches.

My original concept for Dark Moon Daughter’s antagonist, the Warlock. He later lost the horns and the jewelry, but kept the hood. Because…you know…every diabolical wizard needs a sinister cloak to hide behind.

And lastly, a bit of adolescent fun. The original Andelusia was sassy, sneaky, and completely willing to use her beauty to snare men’s adoration. Here she seems to be saying, “What are you looking at?” And yes, she’d have used that knife. You probably had it coming.

That’s pretty much all the sketches I have related to the big fantasy trilogy. Maybe someday, after I write my fiftieth novel and the ideas cease to flow, I’ll get some art lessons.

I could definitely use ’em.

Love,

J Edward Neill

Author of the Tyrants of the Dead dark fantasy trilogy

Author of The Sleepers and Old Man of Tessera

Down the Dark Path

A Little Luck

By John McGuire creativity, fiction, writing

I want to try something for the blog. I’m not 100% on how it is going to work, but… I like the idea of demystifying things. So how do you come up with the stories you write? Just like this:

My wife and I play poker at one of the local restaurants nearly every Sunday evening. It works out well because it is something we are decent at and enjoy together. But I had a lot of time to think about Luck when a hand didn’t go my way (“Bad” Luck) and suddenly I was out of this week’s tournament. In my mind the fact that my opponent ended up winning the hand when (once we got all the chips in the middle) he only had about a 25 % chance to win tells me I had some bad luck in that hand.

Sometimes I wonder if I don’t just have bad luck in many other hands. But as many poker players (and more than one mathematician) would tell you, sometimes you are just in a bad stretch, but eventually things will regress back to the mean. Or to put it simply, things will average out.

But let’s face facts, we remember the bad beats in cards and in life more than we remember the times when we got “lucky”. It is very easy to bemoan our fates when those negative thoughts keep coming up. When we know that the other shoe is bound to drop. We’re the types of people who when you say bad things happen in 3s, we are quick to point out items 4,5,& 6.

We compete to figure out who has it worse. We’ve all been in those conversations:

Me – “I blew a tire today so I was late to work.”

You – “Yeah, my car wouldn’t start today, so I ended up having to call in sick. And after repairs and everything I’m out $1000.”

Me – “O.K. You win!”

Though, let’s be honest. I’m going to talk about some other instance of something bad happening to me today while I was at work, because I cannot concede defeat that easily, right?

It’s the same in stories. One of the ideas I’ve heard is when you are writing figure out what your character wants and then put an obstacle in front of them. So maybe they have to get across the state for some meeting of the minds which will solve all their problems… oops! your tire blew, and because you didn’t have a spare you missed the meeting and now the aliens are going to invade (or something). In a lot of ways it seems like Bad Luck is almost the thing that can keep your hero from winning their story.

But I think the other side maybe works too well. Sometimes it is too much good Luck running amuck. It’s gotta be believable. It’s gotta be something where you don’t scratch your head because the solution was not just impossible, but beyond lucky.

Star Wars – If you were a character who didn’t understand the Force, but knew the events that led to the destruction of the first Death Star, wouldn’t you think that Luke was literally the luckiest man alive? I mean he closed his eyes and took the shot. “One in a million, kid!” What a stroke of luck.

Of course, we the viewer, know the truth of the situation.

One Lucky S.O.B.

The Hobbit – Bard ends up hitting Smaug in the one spot where he is vulnerable. Yes, maybe he is just “that good”, but I know when I read the Hobbit, that was my biggest problem with it. So one arrow fired by someone not in the main group was going to be the thing to end the evil of this dragon? How lucky!

So there is a fine line to walk. You must make it so that your character has to struggle a bit, perhaps they bemoan their fate (their Luck), but most of the time they are going to triumph in the end. Overcoming the odds.

Overcoming the odds… sounds like they got lucky to me.

Something else that puzzles me about luck… Is it possible that there is an amount of luck that each person has? Can it be measured? Is it like matter in that it cannot be created or destroy, but merely transformed?

There’s an 80s movie with Richard Dryfuss called Let it Ride (a personal guilty pleasure movie). In the film, he’s a compulsive gambler (horse racing in this instance). There’s a line in that movie that’s always stuck with me:

“You could be walking around lucky and not even know it.”

That’s a profound thought. What if we have some amount of luck which ebbs and flows on a daily basis? What if we could predict when those cycles were so that we only played poker or craps or blackjack on the days when our own personal luck meter (for lack of a better term) was in the positive rather than in the negative? Maybe that’s why there is something to be said for the idea behind “beginner’s luck.” Those are people who have not burned through their luck for a particular luck based game. So that first time they play… well, it’s like they can’t lose because they really can’t.

I have a friend who I have joked with over the years about his luck. I’ve seen it in action before to the point that it is now a matter of fact that it will happen. It’s like he has a super-power where he can manipulate the odds into something a bit more in his favor. And obviously it doesn’t work every time, but it works enough for me to notice. It works enough for me to wonder if there might not be something to it.

Here’s the key thing, he doesn’t waste it. When we play games of chance, he isn’t always winning. In fact, he probably wins at an average rate. What you might expect any person to win who plays Settlers every once in a while. Does he know what he’s doing? Does the Luck?

I think there is something to all of that. Could I steal someone else’s luck? What would that look like? How might you go about taking something like that? Is there such a thing as taking too much? I mean, if you reduce all their Good Luck and only leave the bad… well, they’d probably get hit by a random object from the sky (oh, and if you are going to do that, make sure that you are nowhere near them afterwards).

And this is how ideas begin to form. A bad beat in poker becomes something more… but where to go? This feels like there is something there. Buried underneath, waiting for a story to be told. The only question now is whether I can exhume it anytime soon. Or perhaps it is destined to be filed away for a while.

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and now the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program. He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

The Dark That Follows is now available in print here or on Amazon!

What if…I rewrote The Lord of the Rings

By J Edward Neill books, creativity, writing

This week marks the first entry in my new ‘What if…?’ series. If only to agitate, exhume, and pontificate, I plan to explore popular books and movies with purpose to pretend remake each of them as if I’d been the author, director, producer, etc. I’d like to think most creative types have asked themselves, “What if I’d written that? What if creative control had been mine?” Well…what if…? Let’s do this.

My only disclaimer: this is for fun. I intend no heresy. Well…maybe a little.

And so…

Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien. The first and most powerful of all fantasy series. Take a glance at how many books, movies, tv shows, and friggin’ cosplay conventions are LOTR-derivitave. This is where modern-day fantasy literature began.

What if I had written it? What if…instead of a sometimes high/sometimes dark/sometimes strictly narrative fiction novel, f’n J Edward Neill had sat down and written it entirely as a dark fiction trilogy? What if, what if, what if…?

Let’s start with what feels obvious to me. In LOTR, you’ve got some seriously terrifying bad guys. You’ve got nazgul, orks (rumor is J.R.R. wanted to spell it with a ‘k’) a balrog, evil wizards, fell beasts, etc. But more than any of them, you’ve got Sauron, aka a flaming eyeball in the sky. In J Edward’s version of LOTR, Sauron gets a full third of the narrative. He gets dialogue (perhaps from the Witch King’s perspective). He gets backstory (front and center instead of in the appendices). I don’t have a giant list of scenes I’d cut out to make room for more Sauron, but no matter. I’d add a fourth book if needed. The easiest way to darken up Tolkien’s masterpiece would’ve been to add 700% more Dark Lord, and that’s where I’d start.

Still here?

The second way I’d cast a shadow over LOTR: more good guys need to die. Let’s start with Gimli and Legolas. Their unexpected friendship is a metaphor for all the strange alliances required for the good guys to have any hope of defeating Sauron. And so…one of them must die. My money is on Legolas. And my choice of death is via nazgul, at the Black Gate, right in front of Gimli. Let Legolas’s diminutive friend watch him go down in a blaze of glory, and let Gimli forever cherish their friendship after a nice, long spell of mourning. It’s possible (maybe even likely) that my desire to see Legolas go down has something to do with Orlando Bloom. No matter. It’s a war (the last and greatest of all Middle-Earth wars). The good guys get off too easy.

Who else needs to die? Frodo Baggins. I know. I’m sorry. Slap me silly. Kick me in the shins. I get that Frodo essentially dies when he sails away from Middle-Earth, but I’d have done it in a much more literal sense. Whether by falling into the crack of doom with Gollum, death by sheer sadness after losing the One Ring, or being speared with Sauron’s departing shadow, I’d have snuffed Frodo at the very moment of the Ring’s destruction. With every hobbit making it back to the Shire, the good guys get off too easy again. “You didn’t seriously expect him to survive Mordor?” someone could’ve asked Gandalf. “No. It was only a fool’s hope,” he would’ve answered again. And it was. We should all be punished for our foolishness, not just the poor, misunderstood antagonists.

A few quick-hit ways to continue darkening the series up:

Tom Bombadil: gone

Nazgul: win a fight or two (instead of constantly losing)

Minas Morgul: we get a glimpse inside

Gondor: utterly annihilated

Witch King and Gandalf: fight (with the Witch King fleeing back to the battle)

Moving right along. To really F with the reader, and to maximize the good guys’ suffering, I’d have ramped up the battle at the Black Gate. Tolkien made it well and truly dire. I’d had written it direr. I’d have butchered the good guys almost to the last man standing before the One Ring is destroyed. Legolas: dead. Gimli: wounded. Aragorn: wounded. Gandalf: holding the horde at bay for just…one…moment…longer. Leave the good guys with maybe a few dozen brave souls, and no more. I’d have wanted the reader to wonder, “He won’t really kill them all here? Will he?” Maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I would.

In ending the series, and with an eye toward leaving the reader with a subtle feeling of dread, I’d let Saruman live. Sure, Grima can try to kill him, but I’d give the original White Wizard a pass. He can creep off to the north, broken staff on the mend. His heart will be filled with vengeance, anger, and always the memory of Sauron’s voice in his head. Tolkien’s version works perfectly for a happily ever after ending, but any dark fantasy worth its salt needs a shadow of a threat to remain, therefore reminding the reader that conflict always was and always shall be.

I’ve got a certain Rolling Stones’ song in mind…

There you have it. Don’t get me wrong: LOTR is perfect as-is. I wouldn’t really change a thing. It’s all just speculation. And by speculation I mean; painting rooms black and making hearts jump.

Tune in for next week’s What if…? segment, during which I rewrite 50 Shades of Grey as a horror novel. Just kidding. Maybe.

J Edward Neill

Grab Bag – June Edition

By John McGuire books, marketing, news, writing

This week has been a little scattered. Lots of little things, some bigger things, and a glimpse at possibly really big things. As such, I don’t really know if any one topic feels right for this week’s blog piece. So instead I want to make sure I catch everyone up so that we’re all on the same page.

Hey I have a short story up for FREE!

The short story, Piece by Piece, which I debuted on this very site here (for free), is now not only available on Amazon (for $0.99), but also available on Smashwords – and soon will be on your Kobo, Barnes and Noble’s Nook, iBooks, and and assortment of other ebook reading sites (all for free as well). So for any of you who might have wanted to have the short on your ereader, but didn’t want to deal with a Kindle or Amazon… well, I’m trying.

My plan was always to try and get a sample of my work out into the world for free. The old give you the first taste for free and then maybe you’ll want to read more about Jason Mills (the main character in Piece by Piece) in my novel, The Dark That Follows.

Hey I did an Interview!

In conjunction with getting the short up on Smashwords, I also have an interview up on the site. Technically I announced it on Tessera on Monday, but it never hurts to remind you guys and gals in case you missed it.

Hey I’m up for an award!

For the past 2+ years I’ve been working with Terminus Media on a Motion Comic Project for HIV and STD Awareness. I was one of the three main writers on the project having written 4 of the 10 episodes. It’s been one of those things that I’ve not really been able to talk much about aside from the bare bones (it’s hard to really explain to people what you mean by “Motion Comics”, but I’m hopeful that in the months to come I can talk a little bit about the process, from my end at least.

But the biggest reason to bring it up at all is that the project has been nominated for the HHS Innovates People’s Choice Award. They have a blurb on the project and you can watch a brief sample of what we’ve been working on here. Most importantly you can vote for our project here!

And there is nothing stopping you from sharing this with your friends as well. The voting ends this week.

Hey I thought this was an interesting article!

Elmore Leonard wrote this over a decade ago and was recently linked to on Warren Ellis’s email thingy. While we may not be Leonard, we can at least take a moment and see what is what.

For better or worse I try to strive hard for the last one “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” Some days I do better than others. Though I kinda feel like this one thing could be a whole blog post unto itself (makes mental note that he will promptly forget).

Hopefully next week I can also announce having my book in print. I have the proof copy and everything looks pretty good, so… until next time.

***

John McGuire

New Interview with John McGuire over at Smashwords

By John McGuire books, fiction, writing

I just did an interview over at the Smashwords site that can be found right here.

A New Chapter (sticks and bones)

By J Edward Neill fiction, life, writing

I’ve missed ye, old bones.

I’ve been so busy of late, I’ve neglected you.

Never again. I promise.

Now that my whirlwind of new releases is over, and now that this and this are darkening the internets, life is somewhat back to normal.

Check that. Life is completely not normal at all.

For so many reasons: personal, professional, diabolical, the corners I’ve turned have led me to a new realm of space and time. My old comfort zone of sit back and write is lost…and a new zone being born. I have less than half the amount of time to write as I used to. My hours of peace and quiet have turned to minutes. Life tugs at me from all directions, popping my arms and legs from their sockets, stretching my creativity to its limit. I have marketing to do…endless marketing. I have a kid to raise, a home to inhabit, and little wars everywhere to win.

My response to this challenge? Do better. Write more. Logic be damned, I will become the machine my inner artist wants me to be. I’ll scrape off life’s barnacles and sail faster than ever. I will, I will, I will.

So then, my two weeks of self-imposed writing vacation are over. Books one and two of Tyrants of the Dead are published. It’s time now for my penultimate project, my coup de fantasy gras. I’ve decided that once I’m finished with book three, I’ll never again write an epic fantasy series. I’ll stick to traditional length fantasy, and I’ll continue branching off into sci-fi and horror…and maybe even *gasp* erotica (though I still need a model to shoot the cover art for that whole idea) but my days of writing 400k word-count epics need to end. For sanity’s sake.

Which leads me to book three: Nether Kingdom. With Nether Kingdom, I expect to knock all my previous efforts off of their darkest novel of all time pedestals. I’m aiming high (and not just word-count wise). I don’t want a nice, clean wrap-up to the series. I don’t plan to mail it in. Just because NK is my last planned epic doesn’t mean I’m not gearing up for it to be my best work ever. I’m trying to redefine the genre, punch every expectation in the mouth, and give Tolkien himself a run for his money. I want my villains to make my readers sick to their stomachs, my heroine to scrape rock bottom, and every character in-between to love and hate as hard as any real-life human could ever dream of. I want to plunk fantasy, sci-fi, literary fiction, and horror into a blender and spin out a liquor so frosty and delicious the patrons at chateau d’ J Edward will never want to return to their dreary days of Twilight, 50 Shades, and the 700,000 varieties of sexy gay vampire steampunk currently drowning the market.

Eileen Herron’s Ur sketch. Aka; a glimpse of the world’s end.

Thus it begins. As of tonight, I’m sitting down to carve up NK‘s 300k words into something less…paper weight-ish. I’ll cast some long shadows, sprinkle some grave-ash, and light some violet Ur fires. I’ll do the same every night for the next six months or until all that’s left of me are bones. I’ll still write for Tessera and over here, and maybe I’ll fire off a short story sequel to this, but otherwise I’ll not be side-tracked. No booze, no sex, no fist fights with hobos or long, slow trips to the beach. I’ll be a machine. I’ll date my characters. I’ll get drunk off the words.

Because…in the end…this is what makes me happy.

Love,

J Edward Neill

Update {March 3rd, 2017} – Nether Kingdom, the final book in the Tyrants of the Dead series, is complete. Read it here.

It’s Not November Yet

By John McGuire writing

May was going to be THE MONTH. Nanowrimo, as some of you may know, is National Novel Writing Month. Basically you are challenged to write a whole novel in a month. Don’t worry, only you have to read it at that point. The real point is proving that maybe if you sit down and stop making excuses as to why you CAN’T do something, then maybe you’ll surprise yourself.

50,000 words in a month (about 200 pages). Yes, technically that may only be part of your novel, but I’m thinking no matter how long your manuscript will end up, 50k is going to make a bit of a dent.

But wait, you say, it takes place in November.

That is true. And every year I think that I’d love to do that.November, when the weather begins to turn a bit cooler, and we here in the south get our first nights of what we think is really cold weather. Football season is entering its stretch run. Baseball is over with only dreams of spring to tide us over. And to top it off there is this novel writing month that I want to participate in.

And there is something else… Oh, yeah… there is that pesky Thanksgiving Holiday which means about 1 week of possible writing time is about to go out the window.

I don’t know how people do it. And this is coming from a guy who isn’t afraid to break off a few hours everyday into the wee hours of the night to write out that nights 1500 words or whatever it is.

But it is just not in the cards for me in November.

I hit upon an alternate idea: does it have to be November? What if I chose the beginning of a month to start on a book and see if I could get 50k words written. As it would happen, my schedule for writing is something that is a little in flux, dates slide a little here and there, but for the most part I try and stick to it the best I can. And the next big project on my list was a novel. What will end up being my 4th novel when it is done (behind The Dark That Follows, The White Effect, and Hollow Empire).

On May 1, 2014 I sat down to write my 50k words.

On May 31, 2014, I had about 15k in words… not so good.

I could blame life or work or the Beast (writer’s block) or learning a new software (Scrivener), but really I didn’t sit at the computer for long enough during May. And I was humming along in that first week… ugh.

So I failed.

Failed myself. Failed my goal. 1 day off from writing became 2 and that became 3 out of 4. And before I knew it the month was almost over.

They say we learn more from failures than from successes. This is definitely a thought, even if I’m not sure it always applies to everything. Sometimes I think succeeding early just saves you a lot of headache and heartache. I mean, if you’ve figured out the answer the first time around, why do you need to go through all the other crap? So you’ll appreciate it? Eh, I’d rather just move on to the next idea, moment, or whatever.

So, yeah, I’d like to kick “They” in the ass.

Writing is literally filled with failure. Your first draft is horrible. Someone doesn’t like a particular section of it. Agents turn you down. Editors want to take the “soul” out of your work.

All of that is true, but…

Here’s the thing, the calendar switched over giving me 30 more days to try and figure this novel out. A clean slate to do whatever I want. And like the blank page in my document, I can fill it with anything I want.

Anything I want.

I gotta go now… I need to continue writing that novel.

***

John McGuire

Dark Moon Daughter – Softcover Release

By J Edward Neill books, events, writing

The Furyon war has ended.

Graehelm is at peace.

and yet…

The enemies of mankind grow stronger.

Andelusia Anderae knows she will be a part of what is to come.

She dreams it.

She feels the darkness pumping in her blood.

She loves two men.

But neither so much as she adores the night.

Come the hour, she must choose.

Use her power to battle the darkness…

…or join them

And watch the world die.

Dark Moon Daughter

Softcover Edition

Now available via Createspace and Amazon

Autographed copies available by request

J Edward Neill

My Writing Process (Blog Tour Entry)

By John McGuire books, comics, creativity, writing

I loathe chain emails. I’m not sure if they existed in paper form, but the thing which always killed me was the warning at the end. Like something out of a Steven King novel: “If you dare break this chain of old, a thousand locusts will descend upon thy host until only misery and bones are left to thee.”

I snub my nose at such dire warnings. And I’m insulted that you feel that the subject manner itself is not good enough to spur me into action. There are many things that are difficult in this digital age, forwarding something on is not one of those things.

(Though I wonder if some of my recent bad luck is a result of not sending along that latest one… hmm, maybe I should rethink my stance.)

But a Chain Blog Tour? Well now, that is a horse of a different color. And when a fellow Guild-mate taps you then you do your best to appease the chain-blog gods. So with that in mind a little something to say about J Edward Neill.

I’ve known Mr. Neill since high school, brought together by a shared love of basketball and roleplaying. For the many years I thought about writing a book, he was sitting in his dark cave (or mountain top or volcano fortress) actually putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard to create his fantasy opus: Down the Dark Path. And much like in sports where they tell you to play against better competition in order to get better at your craft – I use him as one of my gauges. Of course, this week he’s come out with Book 2: Dark Moon Daughter… so my work is cut out for me.

What am I working on?

Sometimes I feel like the question should be “What am I not working on”, but let’s see:

The White Effect – My science fiction story about a man who finds that his world is rebooting, and he is one of the lucky (unlucky) ones who realizes what’s happening. It is currently with BETA readers with my next draft being targeted for late summer.

Hollow Empire – Serialized Dark Fantasy is all I’ll say about this one until it is out. This one is done, I’m just in the process of hiring some proofreading Australia experts to make edit or two on it. This process has slowed due to some recent life developments, but I’m hoping (and I’m sure my co-writer hopes as well) to have this one all wrapped up in the next month or so.

Gilded Age – My Steampunk creator-owned comic series through Terminus Media. Issue 2 is set to have final inks and colors begin any day now, and in the meantime I have final edits on issue 3’s script.

Entropy – A post-apocalyptic comic series set at the Ends of the Universe. Co-written with Robert Jeffrey II (see below for more on him), we merely wait for the artist to be unleashed upon this project.

The Edge of the World – A story in the vein of Journey to the Center of the Earth where our heroine seeks to find her missing uncle. I am 15,000 words into the first draft of this one.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

With my comic writing, and The Gilded Age in particular, I’m trying to write character based stories and create a world from them as opposed to plopping them into a world. With my novel, The Dark That Follows, I’d say that it differs from “standard” urban fantasy in that it isn’t a romantic story where you wonder will they/won’t they. Instead it is about a man in way over his head just trying to do the right thing.

Why do I write what I do?

As you can see above, I’m a little all over the place with regards to genre (for better or for worse). I guess I just follow that old rule of write what you’d like to read, and since I don’t just read fantasy or science fiction or urban fantasy or super-heroes exclusively my brain ensures that almost everything I work on is something different from the thing I wrote before. I take everything I’ve read, everything I’ve watched, everything I’ve ever heard and put them through the grinder of my brain and then something comes out. If it is interesting and moves me, then I write about it, if not, I move onto the next project.

How does my writing process work?

It starts with music. Something to write to. Recently it has been 10 Years, Chevelle, and Deftones. Once I have the right mood set I generally have a decent idea of what needs to happen within the story, so much more plotter than pantser. For a comic script I tend to write out a 1-2 paragraph summary of the major story beats and then start writing dialogue. Only after most of the dialogue is written do I go back and fill in every panel’s description and manipulate the pace of the comic. After a couple of passes I send it on to my editors, do one more pass with their notes, and then end up doing a FINAL-FINAL pass during the lettering stage as I can see the whole picture (literally) and see if something needs to be added or subtracted.

With my novels I have the story beats, but I write out-of-order most of the time, jumping from one scene to another and then piece things together like a puzzle. After that first draft is done I follow Steven King’s advice and put it in the drawer for 6-8 weeks to gain perspective. After that time I do my second pass, and if I’m happy with that version I might reach out to a couple of BETA readers for thoughts. Another draft follows that and then the editor. And then the final draft.

But at some point I do say “pencils down” because while we can tweak and refine our work forever, it doesn’t mean we should. Release it into the world and move onto the next project.

Artist Highlights (or Next on the Tour):

Robert Jeffrey II: Robert is an Atlanta-based freelance writer whose portfolio includes a multitude of work in the arenas of print/web journalism and comics. His work with Atlanta-based Terminus Media includes comics (his creator owned/ 2014 Glyph Comic Award winning “Route 3” and “Daddy’s Little Girl”, “Terminus Team Up”, and B. Robert Bell’s “Radio Free Amerika”) and contracted client work including custom comics and animation scripting/editing duties for clients such as the Center for Disease Control and Nitto Tires.

Robert’s life long dream is to win a pop-locking battle to save a community center.

Sean Taylor: Bad Girls, Good Guys, and Two-Fisted Action is the official writing blog of Sean Taylor. But it’s not just a place to promote his stuff. It’s a resource (he hopes) of information about writing and creating genre fiction, literary prose, comic books, and just about anything else you can create with pens, pencils, paper, or word-processing software and a printer. On this site, you’ll be able to find publishers calling for submissions, tutorials about the craft of writing and editing, interviews with other writers, links to helpful and fascinating articles about the art, craft and business of writing and publishing, etc. — and of course, yes, you’ll also be able to keep up with whatever Sean has his writerly little paws involved in too.

***

John McGuire

New release: Dark Moon Daughter

By J Edward Neill books, events, fiction, writing

Tonight I’m reminded of one of my favorite literary quotes:

“End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.”

“See what?”

“White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.”

I leave it to you to find the source of this gem.

No, I’m not dead. Not just yet.

I’ve been working on this one for so long, it hurts in a very real, physical sense. I was a young man in my twenties when I wrote Dark Moon Daughter‘s first chapter. I was fresh, full of hope, bright-eyed, sun-shiny, and so forth. And now I’m a bitter, black-hearted old man. Ok. That’s probably overkill. But it’s true; seeing both sides of the coin is enlightening. It’s hard to write about darkness, shadows, and bone-crushing defeat until you’ve experienced a bit firsthand…and stood up stronger afterward.

And so, without further ado, I present:

Click me. Buy me. Read me. Love me.

I loved and sometimes hated every moment of writing Dark Moon Daughter. Yes, seriously. An adventure, it was, and not always easy. I climbed mountains tall and snowy…and wandered caverns dark and deep. Writing and editing this one felt like a relationship with an onery, passionate woman, and now I’m happy to let her soar free as a falcon. As of today, the Kindle version is on sale for a mere $6.99. In a few days, the softcover version will be out on Amazon (and for those who live near enough, via me directly). Also, for the first five people willing to post an Amazon review (any amount of stars) I will hand over a signed softcover edition. I’ll even pay shipping if needed. You know where to reach me.

A little background on Dark Moon Daughter:

– At only about half as long as Down the Dark Path, she’s more in the realm of traditional fantasy novels. For those terrified of my first epic’s staggering word-count, fear not. DMD is shorter and focuses primarily on three characters instead of six

– The front cover is a painting hanging on my living room wall. Eileen Herron, a supremely talented sculptor and painter, braved an unedited copy of the book to prepare for the painting. Eileen also drew up the sketches in this post, each a dead ringer for the image of Andelusia…and the Ur

– I began writing Dark Moon Daughter in 2003. I was miserable after the Chicago Cubs blew a 3-1 series lead over the Florida Marlins, and thus decided the only way to recover was to write a supremely dark, gut-wrenching novel. Weird, eh?

– While a spiritual sequel to Down the Dark Path, ‘Daughter does not require the reader to know DDP through and through. But without a doubt, the third and final book in the series, Nether Kingdom, will demand a reading of Dark Moon Daughter. It’s almost like a mini two-part series rather than a trilogy, but ‘trilogy’ sounds better, so that’s what I’m calling the three books combined

– Dark Moon Daughter is definitely the least dark entry in the series. I like to think of her as a gateway drug. Inject a little Andelusia, Grimwain, and Ur into your veins, and you’ll be unable to resist coming back for more

A simple Eileen Herron sketch and an accidental preview of the Ur, who will haunt the pages of Nether Kingdom aplenty…

Supporters of fantasy, lovers of the night, eaters of words, I hope you’ll snag Dark Moon Daughter soon and give her a spin. She’s quite a catch.

Love,

J Edward Neill

Triple Bill: A new release, an upcoming release, AND a blog tour

By J Edward Neill fiction, news, writing

It was a dark and stormy night…

No really. It’s dark and storming outside. I’ve got the extended version of Return of the King thrumming in the background, a three year-old slumbering beside me, and an eerily chilling mid-May gale rattling the windows of my tiny apartment. It’s quite perfect, really.

So let’s get this started. I’ve got a fresh new release simmering on Kindles and e-readers. The Sleepers, my latest quick-hit short story sci-fi horror, is out now. Originally, The Sleepers was meant to be a full-length novel. 160k words, I dreamed, an epic sci-fi saga if ever there was. But in a rare fit of realism, I decided committing another year to an already loaded schedule would’ve been foolish. So I trimmed out about 154k words, carved away all the clouds, and cut to the quick and brutal chase. The result is another tale in the vein of Old Man of Tessera.

A shrine for DMD. Yes, the blades are real. Yes, they’re sharp. Yes, they’re but a tiny fraction of the armory hanging from my walls…

Next up, the imminent release of Dark Moon Daughter – Book II in the Tyrants of the Dead series. I’d hoped to release it about a month ago, but difficulties with the cover art resolution slowed the process a bit. Being hand-painted, photographed at a dozen different angles, and touched up via every graphics program known to man, the cover and I have waged a mini war for several weeks now. But now it’s done with. By May’s end, the sequel to the darkest, epic(est) fantasy novel ever will hit stores in softcover and Kindle formats. Next week’s blog will be fully dedicated to the story behind Dark Moon Daughter…and the upcoming final book in the trilogy, the chilling, world-ending Nether Kingdom.

Last but hardly least, I’m trying my hand at a blog tour. A few weeks back, the talented and sharp-witted Michael Munz gut-shotted me on the web. While I’m still sharpening my teeth on the necks of Twitter, Facebook, Tessera Guild, and Down the Dark Path dot com, it seems other forces lurk in the shadows, plucking a few lucky souls out of the void.

A little bit about Michael:

An award-winning writer of speculative fiction, Michael G. Munz was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Washington State in 1977 at the age of three. He studied writing at the University of Washington, and currently dwells in Seattle where he continues his quest to write the most entertaining novel known to humankind and find a really fantastic clam linguine. Check out his slick website here. Gauging from the titles of his books, Michael appears to be not so different from me, a lover of grim themes.

Now, the essence of the blog tour:

What I’m Working On:

Now that I’m finished with The Sleepers and Dark Moon Daughter, I plan on taking two weeks off to vegetate, after which I’ll crawl to the very bottom of my mind’s dungeon. Nether Kingdom, Book III in the series, awaits me in the darkness. It’s already in final draft phase, but I’ve cover art to commission, trimming to do, and extra shadows to stuff between each page. I’m more excited about this book than anything else I’ve written. It’s a culmination for me, the pinnacle of the blackest mountain.

I…can’t…wait…

How Does My Work Differ From Others of its Genre:

Obviously I choose some pretty dark themes. I like writing about antagonists, about the reasons they turned wicked, and how easy it is for good people to wander into evil behaviors. It happens in real life all the time, only we tend to gloss over the why and how, instead focusing on the cut-and-dried, you’re either good or you’re bad point-of-view. I’m willing to say most fantasy novels drill into the plot more than the characters. I prefer character pieces, little dots of light against dark backgrounds.

Why Do I Write What I Do:

Most of my characaters and plots are dreamed. As in literally. I dream them. The concept for the Tyrants of the Dead series: dreamed up in one night. (The character names and personalities came later). The Sleepers and Old Man of Tessera: also dreamed up in single nights. What typically happens after I have an involved dream (or nightmare,) is that it sticks with me until I write it out. Everything I put to paper, I do it to expel it from my overcrowded head. I love my dreams, but I fear what might happen should I stop writing them away. ‘Stay ahead of the train,‘ I tell myself. ‘Or it’ll run me over.’

How Does My Writing Process Work:

I’ve read a lot about other writers’ processes. Some of it is fascinating stuff. Others not so much. Truth be told, my process is boring. I dream it. I write it. I edit the crap out of it. I release it. It’s slow, but satisfying. I prefer to write at night, surrounded by candles, wine, and eerie soundtrack music, but none of these things are required. I don’t ever suffer from writer’s block. I don’t typically agonize over outlines or character sketches. I just let the words fall out. I love the intricacies of language, conversation, and conflict, and so, like the ocean, the waves of ideas never really stop crashing against me, the shore.

Artist Highlights:

John R McGuire

A fellow guildmember and North GA dweller, John is a novelist and a heavy hitter in the local comic book scene. His latest release, The Dark That Follows, is all over Amazon. I like to compare John to Atlas. He bears the weight of many worlds on his shoulders, but still keeps holding it up.

River Fairchild

River’s book, Diamonds and Dust, sits in the on-deck circle of my books to read. River is quite a character, zinging pretty much everyone and everything (deservingly so) via Facebook and Twitter. Check out her website here, and show her some love.

Amanda Makepeace

Another fellow guildmember, Amanda is an artistic machine. Aside from the great marketing and cover work she’s done for yours truly, she paints and sketches her way across the natural world with an eye toward the fantastical. Check out Amanda’s ever-growing portfolio here.

It’s late. I mean late, late. Time to fire up a small glass of Scotch, turn RotK off, and head off to bed. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll dream up a new book…or three.

Until next time,

J Edward Neill

Behind the Comic – The Comic Script

By John McGuire comics, writing

The company I do a lot of my comic related work with is Terminus Media. Early on, before the money and the fame (ok, maybe I’m still waiting on that), we met in the back of a comic book shop in Stone Mountain, Georgia. These were open meetings where any number of creatives were welcomed to listen in, discuss their own ideas, and even contribute to the anthology comics if they had the desire.

Each time new writers or artists came in they had the same questions I had when I walked through those doors. When I sat down to write my very first comic script I had no idea of how to go about setting it up. It’s a weird thing, this product we read on a weekly basis, but how in the world does it get from the writer’s brain to the artist’s fingertips? How does the script work?

In the comics industry there are basically two main forms that comics take: Full Script and Marvel Method.

Full Script – This is the one most people might be familiar with. In a full script the writer typically is going to break the comic down into pages and then those pages are broken down further into panels. Then within each panel would be a description of what you want the artist to draw (perhaps painting a general idea of the scene all the way to “camera placement”). Finally there will be any dialogue or narration needed. And so on and so forth until all 20-24 pages have been scripted out.

Yet, even among the Full Scripts there are those who give a small amount of description and those who give tons. Do yourself a favor and try to find a copy of an Alan Moore script… that man writes tons of description and analysis for each panel (some might say too much, but he is one of the greatest comic writers of all time so what do they know, huh?).

Marvel Method was something that developed from Stan Lee’s early days at Marvel Comics. Since he was the main writer (only writer) he didn’t have enough time for a full script. And he happened to work with the likes of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. They were artists who he knew could “do the job” as it were. So he provided them with plots of the comic, but left it up to them to actually layout the pages, determine what would go in each panel, and so on. Then, once it was done, Stan would go back in and add the narration and dialogue.

I had no sample script to work from, so my first one was probably closer related to the Marvel Method than a full script. But that was due to me not knowing than any conscious decision about how this scripting thing was supposed to work.

Over the years I’ve mostly done the Full Script version for my comics. And the reason for that is because many times I don’t know who is going to be the artist on the book. And without that key knowledge, I’d rather give them my vision for the comic and then go from there, than leave them with just a plot.

But, as I work with an artist, and grow more comfortable with them, I try to leave more things in their hands. Fight scenes are probably the biggest one. I feel like no matter how I think the fight could go, the artist is going to have a better feel for the flow of the characters. So why not let them stretch their skills a little bit. I give them general ideas of what needs to happen: “Bill and Jack rumble on this page. Maybe Bill gains the upper hand early in the fight, only to have Jack turn the tables.” OR “Jack and Bill are going to fight on this page. The only key thing is that by the end of the page Jack needs to hold Bill out a window… otherwise go nuts!”

All that is a long-winded way of saying, lots of those people coming into those early Terminus meetings didn’t have a clue about scripting or, if they were artists, didn’t know how to draw from a script. They just didn’t have access to one. So a few years ago, at the behest of some, I wrote out a short called 3 Brothers for the express idea of helping newer artists have something to draw.

I divided the story into 3 parts:

Part 1 was a love story (Romance). Two people in love with each other, some talking head shots, playful interaction.

Part 2 was about hate (Rage). Two brothers, in love with the same woman, have a major fist-fight that doesn’t go well for one of them.

Part 3 was about loss (Death). Two people, dealing with the loss of a loved one, standing in the rain (so they have a little bit of the environment to deal with).

Anyway, I think a couple of people tried it out here or there. I think it was a helpful tool, and as such I’ve added a copy of the PDF here [ddownload id=”3238″].

Perhaps an aspiring artist will get inspired by this, or want to draw something that isn’t just superheroes for their portfolio.

Hope it helps.

***

John McGuire

Writing about SEX without being creepy

By J Edward Neill fiction, writing

So here we are. Tessera Guild is more than six months old, and yet there’s not a droplet of pornographic material on our site. Borderline impossible, that feat. I’m not saying this week’s post is gonna snap the streak. I’m just sayin’. Seems every other site is drowning in sexual imagery and conversation. Hell, even CNN posts the occasional nipple, don’t they?

I guess what I’m saying is; sex sells. Well duh. Why shouldn’t it? Even if plenty of folks are more than a little stuck-in-the-50’s about gettin’ busy, deep down everyone wants it, needs it, craves it. It’s like the prize behind every curtain. Mention any topic, seriously any, and I bet we can tie it (no pun intended) back to sex. It’s in the movies, in every Dos Equis commercial, in Halloween stores, Wal-Mart lingerie departments, and off every other exit on Hwy 75 from Atlanta to Miami. Lion’s Den, I’m looking at you.

And of course, it’s in books.

“Hmmmm… Missionary or surprise flaming dragon? I’m just not sure.”

Disclaimer: I’m not really here to talk about romance or erotica genres. I like to think everyone knows what to expect when they search the aisles for Fifty Shades of whatever. I’m here to talk about every other piece of literature, every fantasy, mystery, horror, sci-fi, etc written with a central story revolving around something besides sex. Because, you know, people do actually f**k outside of Penthouse forums and Christian Grey’s bedroom. Who knew?

Writing sex scenes in fiction is hard. Yeah. Pun intended. Unless you’re gifted with the ability to spill your hottest fantasies out and come across as less than creepy, you’ve got a challenge on your hands. You’ve got to appeal to guys and gals. You’ve got to set the right mood (just like in real life) work the reader up a bit, rub ’em down where it counts, and then get the F outta there before you distract everyone from the main story. There’re so many things you can do wrong. You can creep the reader out. You can ruin an otherwise realistic flow with a ridiculous, out-of-place, fairy-tale romp. You can be too dry, too clinical, or you can risk being too graphic (I had no idea our heroine was that flexible!) Unless you’re rocking an amazing knowledge of sex and realism, and maybe you are, you risk boredom or creepiness with every groan, sign, and lip-bite.

Now, I’m not gonna sit in my couch, wine in hand, candles blazing on my table, laptop scalding the tops of my thighs, and tell the world how to write about sex. I’ve written my fair share of scenes, but that hardly qualifies me. Rather than preach, I’ll offer up what I like when I’m reading about the deed, and you can decide whether you agree or not.

My top 6 got-to-have-it conditions for a lovely, mid-book bump:

1. Keep it short. (No, not that.) I mean keep the scene short. A huge chapter about crumpled sheets, six-packs, ripped panties, and sweat-beaded boobs belongs in a different kind of book. Give us just a taste. Our imagination will do the rest. Trust me.

2. Unless it’s part of the story, keep the kink to a minimum. If Boffer the Elf has a spanking obsession, no one really cares. Well…maybe a little. (Announcing Boffer and other Spanktastic Tales – Due to hit Kindles in Fall 2015). Just kidding. Probably.

3. Make it count. Make it relevant. We don’t want sex between a bored housewife and her distracted-by-football husband. Give us a moment worth remembering. Make us tingle. Make us say, “Whew!” If you’re only gonna have one or two sex scenes in the book, you might as well give us something to think about.

4. Realism. If you’re not sure about how to pull a scene off, read up on it. Find some decent erotica and shave the fluff down by 88%. Or even better, go shag someone. Your wife, your husband, your neighbor. Tell ’em you’re doing research. Seriously. Most writing homework tends to be tedious. Not this kind.

5. Have a woman (preferably several) read through it. Odds are, if they’re not creeped out, the guys won’t be either. But if the ladies are all like, “Ick!” maybe it’s time to rethink the robot gang-bang scene. Actually, I just had an idea…

6. Have a cigarette afterwards. What I mean is; don’t forget about what just happened. If two characters got it on for the first time, things will change. It’s just like in real life. Nothing is the same after the moment. If it’s meaningless to the characters, odds are it’ll be meaningless to the reader.

You can probably tell. I’ve leapt back into reading lately. A lot. Most of the novels I’m shredding through contain their share of oh baby, and most of them do it well. I won’t name names (GOT) but a few otherwise excellent works have contained creep-tastic rape fantasy sex or dry-as-bones got-nothing-better-to-write-about sex. Meh. We can do better. As readers, I think we all reserve the right to demand a little more out of our sex scenes. Give us a little more bang for our buck. And yes, I meant that exactly how you wanted me to mean it.

There’s my two cents. What’re you still doing here? Go get some!

Lovingly,

J Edward Neill

So…now that you’re in the mood for sex, go here.

Free Short Story Time: Piece by Piece

By John McGuire books, fiction, giveaway, marketing, tessera, writing

I’m trying to figure out this publishing thing. I’ve got the book, got a comic, got a little novella, but I know I need to do more. The chances of anyone having just one thing out there in the void and suddenly hitting it big are pretty low. And that’s fine with me. I know it is a marathon and not a sprint (to borrow that old cliche’). Still, the projects I’m working on don’t really feed the beast of The Dark That Follows. And while I have ideas for the sequel, I’m not ready to really dive in (too many other projects that must get done).

So how do I fix that? How do I get potentially more eyes on this book I wrote without writing another book in the same world?

An aside… when the four of us teamed-up to form this little spot in the corner of the internet we talked about doing a short story for the site. Something that might even be able to use the name Tessera in its title or as its inspiration.

Jeremy jumped in, both feet first, because that man is a machine. Maybe in an effort to make everyone else look bad (jerk!) or maybe to light a fire under our collective asses, he wrote Old Man of Tessera (free on this here website!).

I’d been thinking about a story, but I really wanted it to tie into The Dark That Follows somehow. Have a place where they could get the short for free and if they liked what they read, maybe they’d check out the book. Something extra. And a story began to shape itself in my mind.

A short story.

This is the old two birds one story idea. And while I didn’t name it Tessera or Tesserization or Tesselation or… (well, you get the idea), it does take a little bit of inspiration from trying to see a bigger picture from little bits of information.

So without further ado, I present to you Piece by Piece. You can find it here on the site, and shortly you should be able to find it for free download on the various other platforms… but you can get it first!

***

John McGuire

My Top Six Darkest Movie Moments Ever…

By J Edward Neill film, Horror, writing

Recently I watched and reviewed The Revenant. Which got me to thinking; what are the gravest moments in cinema? During what scenes does it appear all hope is lost and the bad guys about to win? What’re the deepest, darkest places movies have dragged me? Hmmmm…

Yeah. You guessed it. Here comes a list. I’m gonna wander some pretty random places with this. If you hate spoilers, you may want to move along. If not, let’s roll:

#6. Gluttony – Se7en

Honestly I could’ve mentioned almost any of the rainy, dark, grisly scenes in Se7en. The Sloth scene especially comes to mind, but I didn’t want to post the ick-tastic image of the dude dying in his bed, lest I gross everyone out. The Gluttony scene does just fine. It sets the tone for the entire movie. It’s scary and disgusting. It’s everything most of us never want to be: alone, corpulent, filthy, and dead. Yikes. If this scene doesn’t put you in a grim mood, nothing will.

#5. Killing Lucy – Bram Stoker’s Dracula

When I say killing Lucy, I more or less refer to the entire 45 minutes during which Lucy descends from being Mina’s pretty BFF into a depraved, child-eating, blood-barfing vampire. Cary Elwes lopping off her head is only gravy on the grimness. Lucy begins the movie as a cheerful soul swimming in an ocean of dour, unhappy Brits. And by the end, she’s ruined. Every part of this movie is enough to put me in the mood to write horror, but Lucy’s fall from grace is just plain…delicious.

#4. Hugh Jackman killing his clone (repeatedly) – The Prestige

It’s no secret. The Prestige’s atmosphere always puts me in the mood. It’s my personal fluffer girl. It’s the ‘uh’ to my ‘huh’. The slow sense of despair that builds throughout the movie sets a tone like no other. That said, the darkness really starts when the Great Danton starts murdering all his doubles. He shoots himself. He drowns himself. He leaves his clones in huge vats of grey water. And then, at the end, as he breaths his last few breaths in an alley of clone-corpses, we wonder which Danton really died during all his magic tricks. The clones? Or the real Danton? Are you watching closely?

#3. Anton Chigurh ‘visits’ Llewelyn’s wife – No Country for Old Men

The first time I watched this movie, I never saw this scene coming. I figured we’d already broke every rule, every expectation. What was left to do, right? Chigurh had already killed the good guy (and pretty much everyone else). So what else can I say about this scene? It’s chilling on so many levels.

After Llewelyn’s wife (Carla Jean) says, “You don’t have to do this.” Chigurh smiles and says, “People always say the same thing.”

Does he kill her? Does he let her live? I mean…damn…

#2. The Counselor gets a DVD in the mail – The Counselor

Most people I know haven’t seen this movie, so I won’t spoil it here. Let’s just say that there are no good guys, only grey, fuzzy shades of morality all too prevalent in the real world. As the Counselor sits in a grungy hotel room, praying for good news, we get a payoff that’s much darker than we expect. The theater I watched this movie in emptied in stunned silence at the end. Meanwhile my brain buzzed with all sorts of new ideas for messing with readers’ minds.

#1. Grenouille accidentally kills the apple girl – Perfume, Story of a Murderer

I’m convinced I’m the only person ever to watch this movie. If you haven’t seen it, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. I had no idea what I was in for when I sat down to swallow this little gem. When Grenouille, the creepiest, crawliest, skinniest villain ever, snuffs the apple girl early on, I only just began to grasp where Perfume was taking me. The scene wasn’t particularly graphic or gut-twisting, but sometimes a glimpse of darkness is all a mind needs before the gears start turning. I think perhaps after my kid falls asleep tonight, I’ll pop this one in, watch a little bit, and then get to work.

It’s probably worth mentioning I write some pretty dark scenes of my own.

Until next week

J Edward Neill

How it all began…

By J Edward Neill art, books, creativity, illustration, writing

Quite by accident, this week’s blog…

If not for a cup of chance, I’d have drowned Tessera in an entirely different ocean of bones. But an old friend stumbled upon a twenty year-old folder I thought I’d lost ages ago, and I found myself unable to resist writing about it. Not that twenty years is all that long, but to me, still a wee lad, two decades feels like an eon.

I haven’t always been a writer. Well…maybe a little, but not in the way I am today. Long ago, in the primeval soup of early creative-dom, I fancied myself an artist of a different kind. Not with quill, ink, and keyboard, but with markers, pencils, sketch books, and posterboards. I airbrushed T-shirts, made huge Slayer banners (signed by the band!) and silkscreened dark, crazy images onto every bit of cloth I could find. Those were different days. My stories lived on the tips of my fingers, not in the cavernous void inside my skull.

And then one day I started sketching.

I can’t remember the exact moment. It must’ve been cold outside, or rainy, or both. My mind wandered realms both dark and mysterious during those days. I’d already dreamed up the stories and characters which would later become haunt the pages of Down the Dark Path, but I’d gone no further. Lacking the skill or the means to write an epic fantasy, I likely locked myself in my room, climbed on my captain’s bed, and started drawing the images that’d been locked away in my mind’s dungeon. I wasn’t particularly good at it. I hadn’t attended but a few art classes, and while the teachers had taught class I’d never done anything but daydream. I was a novice, an oaf, a blunderbuss of smudgy pencil rubs and cheap not-meant-for-real-art pens. Even so…

So without further ado, I humbly offer my earliest fantasy scribblings. These are the images I first dreamt of when mortaring the bricks of my first epic novel in my mind. I beg only that you forgive their simplicity, and perhaps appreciate the strange glory of passion without talent:

– My first try at a Graehelm knight. In retrospect, he needs a saddle, but what did I know? Ignore the tree and tower in the background. They were part of a different sketch crowded on the same page.

– Look at this ghoulish guy. He’s one of my favorites. He never actually appears in any of my novels, but I like to think he could. He’s reaching out for you. He doesn’t want you dead. He wants you to join him.

– Another dead dude. A precursor to the Furyon warlords. I always liked the head of his spiked flail. Imagine getting whacked by that thing…

– Ok, so maybe one spiked flail head wasn’t enough. Here I sketched two. And if you couldn’t already tell, I really liked (ok, still like) imagery of undead warriors. This hasty little sketch is cartoony and anatomically goofy, but I still thought it belonged. Maybe he’s an undead guardian of the Furyon fortress of Malog. Or maybe he’s a Sarcophage, whom we don’t meet until Book II…

– I drew this guy with but one villain in mind. Here lies Grimwain, the Sleeper, the mover of all the world’s pieces on the chessboard of doom. His hood should be deeper, but I feel I nailed his beard, his collar, and his white, starry, and soulless gaze. He doesn’t appear until Book II.

– In the beginning, the heroine Andelusia Anderae inhabited a role far less ‘benevolent’ than who she eventually became. She was harder, grittier, more roguish and fantasy trope-like . This was my first conceptual sketch of her. Clumsy? Yes. Are her boobs too big? Probably. But something in my teenage mind saw a rare emotion in her eyes, and thus was born the Dark Moon Daughter.

Thank you for indulging me. I’ve a ton more sketches, some of which I might hurl up on Tessera should even a mild clamor arise. It’s strange to think that once, so many years ago, I wanted to be a painter, a sculpter, and a fantasy artist god. Thank goodness I kept my day job, right?

Until next time,

J Edward Neill

Making Monsters

By J Edward Neill books, fiction, Horror, writing

He was three-thousand winters dead, as deaf to Andelusia’s bleating as a coffin full of bones. His very presence was evil, his breaths curling like smoke from beneath his iron mask. As he dragged her through Midnon, his passing withered moths and turned bowlfuls of red apples to ash… – Reference to Mogru, Servant of the Warlock – Dark Moon Daughter

Few things in a writer’s life are as satisfying as creating a villain everyone can root against. Trust me. I know. While there’s plenty to be loved about the nuanced, tragic villain, (see here) sometimes a story calls for a simpler brand of evil. I’m looking at you, Zombies, Terminators, Orcs, and Godzillas. I’m inviting you to the dance, Nazgul, Octoroks, Balrogs, and all the skeletal guys from Evil Dead. Strip away elegance, reason, and humanity, and you’re left with bad guys worth despising. Authors need these kinds of monsters sometimes. Readers crave them. After all, the main antagonists require cannon fodder. They need spawn. They need an evil army with which to take over the world.

The picture above is an Eileen Herron sketch of Mogru, one of many soulless villains in my latest fantasy novel. I can’t say I’ve ever had as much fun as I did when writing about this particular monster. For as much enjoyment as I gleaned from penning other villains, Mogru took the cake. He’s soulless. He’s indestructible. He’s a skeletal Terminator, only he prefers six foot-tall swords rather than machine guns. How can he be stopped? Well…he can’t be. Writing about every crackle of his bones and every hapless good guy he carves to tatters was pure pleasure. Every writer needs a Mogru. Every reader will find him easy to hate.

So how does one carve away just the right amount of personality to craft a wickedly good monster? It’s delicate work, to be sure. Take away too much, and you’re left with a cardboard, video-game cutout of a bad guy. Add too much flavor, and you’ll be stuck with a Jar Jar Binks or a BeBop and Rocksteady. What you’ll need, and what readers appreciate, is the just enough/not too much approach. If the minion must talk, keep it brief and sharp. He’s a minion, after all; his master should do most of the talking. If it’s a monster you’re making (and it is; that’s why we’re here) describe it, but not too in-depth. Our imagination should make the horror in our minds, not two pages of extrapolation about whence he came. More than anything, focus on action. Use words as the monster’s weapons. The skeletal knight shouldn’t walk, he should shamble along, dragging his rusted sword through the muck. The dragon shouldn’t simply fly, but soar through halos of smoke belched from his foul gut. The maggoty goblins should slither and skulk, wandering the glooms in search of children to devour. See what I mean? Hell, just writing those three little sentences made me want to make a new monster.

Some of my favorite baddies in literature/film:

White Walkers (The Others) – Game of Thrones (The book and the show) – We don’t get much of them, but the tastes we do get leave us salivating for more. Raising the dead, living in the frozen wastes…you’ve got to love their deathy style.

The Xenomorph – Alien & Aliens – They’ve no personality, which makes them perfect. They’ve nothing to love, nothing to live for save to spread across the galaxy. Loathsome. Horrifying. Killing one is nothing, since there’re thousands more coming.

Nazgul – Lord of the Rings – Scaring the shit out of Middle-Earthlings everywhere. We know just enough about them to terrify us, but not so much as to burn away their mysteriousness. Definitely easy to root against, though I admit getting teary-eyed when Eowyn butchered the Witch King.

There you have it, my shout out to all the lesser evils of the world. What’s a master without a minion? What’s a wicked wizard to do without an undead host to serve him? If nothing else, monsters give the good guys something to do. And thank the stars for that, else their heroic lives would feel woefully boring.

It’s dark now. I’ve a rare moment alone to work. I think I’ll sculpt a new villain. You’ll see her soon enough.

J Edward Neill

A Long Time Ago… We Used to be Friends…

By John McGuire books, fiction, film, television, writing

My wife is obsessed.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

If you were a writer and you happened to know a Chemist, the best thing for you when you need to insert a generic scientist into your story MIGHT be to make that character a Chemist. I mean you have the access to that knowledge (so your story can be a little more authentic). It just makes sense.

With the TV show Veronica Mars, I have access to an expert as well.

Now I’m not 100% on this, but I’d be willing to bet that she’s watched the show (3 seasons and 60+ episodes) more than anyone else on the planet (at the very least she has to be in the top 1% of Veronica Mars fans when it comes to watching episodes) (which probably means I’ve watched every episode 6 or 7 times). We own the DVDS and she’s manged to wear 2 of the seasons out from the repeated play (yeah, I didn’t know that could happen either with DVDs). When the SOAP Network (RIP) began showing the series in order during a 2 hour block every day (and then on the weekends as well) there was many a day I would come home from work to find V-Mars playing on the TV. Think about it, she’d watch episodes with commercials in them because she loved it so much (well, maybe there was a bit of laziness in there as well, not wanting to hunt down that particular episode).

A little obsessed…

So when Veronica Mars had a chance of returning to the world through a movie with their Kickstarter Campaign about a year ago, it was never a question of IF we’d be supporting the project. The only question was “how much would we pledge”. And when they passed 2 million dollars she squealed like a teenage girl. Then the countdown was on, and on March 14, 2014 at 7:15 we sat in a theater, about 1/2 full, and watched Veronica appear on the screen for the first time in about 8 years.

We also have a digital copy of the movie. Don’t ask how many times she’s watched it (I ran out of toes and fingers counting).

Then when Veronica Mars was announced as being a part of the Amazon Kindle Worlds program, whether we were going to do a project was secondary to who the story would focus on, when to place it…

For those that may not know, Kindle Worlds is a way for you to write Fan Fiction in a world in a more legit manner. They license the properties and open them up to anyone to contribute. Whatever your opinion of fan fiction might be, it still strikes me as a kinda cool way to be more apart of the world(s) we all know and love.

With this opportunity and this particular World, my wife and I had to do something.

And that led us to Mac.

Mac is Veronica’s friend. She’s sorta the Q to Veronica’s James Bond. And since we weren’t going to write about Veronica directly she jumped out at us.

Collaboration is always tricky when writing comics or prose or whatever, but collaboration with your spouse… well, it was actually fairly easy. We spent a couple of weeks after the initial announcement in early February just talking about plot lines, possible angles to take. Which characters would appear? Which season would we set things? And so on. Then once we had the rough beats for things I started writing and over the course of about 2 weeks pounded out the first draft. She read it in 2 parts, the first 3 chapters and then the last 3 chapters. I then took her edits and did another pass on the story with her sitting beside me to really go over any places I had questions about.

The final step, after multiple drafts, was to read it aloud. I’ve read about other writers who do this in order to make sure that the sentences aren’t too awkward. The idea being that if you stumble over it as you read it aloud, then it probably needs to be rephrased. I gotta say, that after doing it I not only noticed more than a couple of odd sentences, but also caught a couple of simple errors, double words, that sort of thing.

So maybe there is something to this technique.

Anyway, we hit submit on the novella Sunday evening and last night I got the email from Amazon that it was now live! Right Here!

That’s right, you can now read a Veronica Mars story by me and the wife, if you happen to be into that sort of thing. And you should be, especially if you were ever a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Joss Whedon appeared in the show and at one point said it was his favorite show on tv (at least while it was on the air). So that’s gotta count for something, right?

This guy likes Veronica Mars, you should too.

And now a little excerpt from the novella (just a taste)…

Get away from Beaver. Now. He’s a killer. I’m in the lobby.

The words scream at me from my phone. Veronica’s attempt to help me. To save me.

It’s been two weeks, and I’m not sure exactly what those words mean.

Oh, I understand the big things. The newspapers had part of it, and Veronica filled me in on the rest. Beaver was the one who killed all those people on the bus. Beaver tried to set Veronica up. And that night, he tried not only to kill her, but almost killed her dad with the bomb, which blew up Woody Goodman’s plane.

Get away from Beaver. Now. He’s a killer.

The words are in English, and yet they make no sense. Nothing about that night makes any damn sense. Try as I might I can’t wrap my head around it. What was supposed to be a special night became a nightmare. Since then, the days have been the better part of a blur. So I sit here at Java the Hut and stare at my cell phone, hoping through sheer force of will the phrase will make a little sense at some point.

I’m not holding my breath though.

He’s a killer.

What does that even mean?

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

am.

Cover Reveal – Dark Moon Daughter

By J Edward Neill art, books, illustration, writing

We will bend the Father and bury his children. We will curl the roots of every tree and strip the clouds from heaven. This is what we adore: the midnight, the bottom, the end. – Excerpt from the Pages Black, lost text of the Ur

If I’m extra happy this week, don’t blame me. Blame my cover artist, Eileen Herron, for rocking out the new cover art for Dark Moon Daughter. I’m thrilled with her vision of the next installment in the Tyrants of the Dead series. My dark little heart beats a little faster every time I see it. My underwear definitely needs changing.

So let’s break this down a bit. The first sliver of the cover (above) gives us a glimpse of Andelusia doing battle. The pale, multi-eyed, razors-for-fingers beast in the upper right is the Mortician, one of many wicked creeps our heroine (or villainess, depending) must contend with. In the upper left, we’ve an image of the moon, only not the moon you’re used to seeing. In Ande’s right hand, she wields the fabled Ur flame, an errant drop of which can melt a city…or the world. Look closely and you’ll see the Ur language on her forearm. This is why I love Eileen’s style. With so little room in which to work, she includes elements I’d have never thought of. Hell, in Down the Dark Path I even changed a chapter based on what she painted.

Our next slice of the painting gives us Rellen Gryphon doing battle with a Sarcophage. (What’s a Sarcophage, you ask? – You’ll have to read DMD when it comes out!) I like the classic, almost Dungeons and Dragons appeal to Rellen’s handsomeness, as well as the horror of the masked and armored monster he’s fighting. Not to be missed is Andelusia’s leg. What’s an all-powerful witch to do without showing a little skin, right?

At the painting’s bottom we have one of the antagonists. It’s a great smirk he’s wearing, isn’t it? I happen to know the guy Eileen used as a model, and she really captured a part of his inner evil here. The shadows swirl around him, hiding the rest of his body. It’s appropriately mysterious. What’s this guy doing down here? Why’s he smiling so deviously? The reasons are many…

And now, the final product in all its glory. There’s tons going on here, from small story elements to hidden visuals only the keen reader will spot:

For any writer, cover art is key. For me, it’s doubly so. I wanted movie poster appeal. I wanted many story elements colliding. I wanted a sexy girl, a terrifying monster, and shadows galore. Eileen delivered. I hope you like it as much as I do.

If you like the cover, just wait ’til you read the book. Dark Moon Daughter – Due out any day now… Forget about elves, dwarves, dragons, and vampires. Let’s go deeper. Let’s get darker. Let’s go all the way to the bottom.

Until next time,

J Edward Neill

How to write Dark Fantasy Novels (and shave decades off your lifespan)

By J Edward Neill art, creativity, humor, writing

Look at these guys. They’re dead, but still having a grand time of it. Makes me want to start hosting poker nights at my place. There’ll be just one rule: everyone has to dress up as their favorite dead person. For one night a week I can pretend I’m having a drink with Poe, Shakespeare, Attila, and Stalin. Who’d want to dress up as Stalin’s bones? I’m not sure, but I know some pretty strange people.

Ok. Look. This isn’t really a how-to article. I’m in no position to tell anyone how to do anything short of throwing footballs, kicking things, and losing at video games. I’m writing this week to take myself down a notch, put a lid on the can, and cork up my fountain of sunshine.

I write better when I’m in a terrible mood.

There. I said it. I’m sure I’m not the only one. What is it about creative people that allows them to make masterpieces out of misery? I’m not saying I’m capable of creating a masterpiece, but I think you get my point. Why are the best novels full to the brim with tragedy, suffering, and death? Why are history’s finest artists at best obsessive, at worst sociopathic? Why is human misery so appealing? Go click on a news site. Go google murder, kidnapping, terrorism, war, or Bieber. It’s a never-ending worldwide horror story. Why, why, why?

I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.

A few years ago, while riding a half-year span of dumb-stupid-happy, my writing crashed and burned. I couldn’t even spit out a page a week, to say nothing of my current pace of five pages per night. I was just too damn pleased with life to concentrate on dragging my readers through the abyss. It was awesome, but it sucked. I mean; if darkness renders us blind, intense sunshine does the same, right? Try seeing through your car window while driving directly at the rising sun. Can’t see a damn thing no matter how you adjust the visor, can you? You’ll think you’re on the road, and meanwhile you’re about to run over a line of kids on their way to the school bus. All the sun’s fault. Maybe vampires are on to something.

So tonight I’m sitting beside a dark-shaded lamp, surrounded by silence, floating on a cloud of gloom and doom. I’m pissed off. I’m bored. I’m willing to fight anyone who dares come through my door. My morbid sensibilities smolder inside me. It’s perfect. It really is. After I finish this blog, I’m betting on 2,500 words and a satisfying night’s sleep. Here’s the proof: right beside my ugly old recliner, my Buddha statue is smiling at me. ‘How much did you write tonight?’ I ask him. ‘Nuthin’,’ he says. ‘I’m more of an eater these days.’ And over there on the wall, the knights on their murals look peaceful in their repose. ‘You guys ever paint anything?’ I ask. They’re so damn happy they don’t even bother to answer. See what I mean? What artist does his best work while feeling bubbly? None, I tell you. You need passion, fury, wrath, and darkness. To cast a shadow, you need light, and something big to block most of it out.

They say all good things must come to an end. Whew. Thank goodness for that. If I’d have stayed on my bus to happyland, I might’ve given up writing altogether, and that would’ve been a different type of low. Maybe I’m wrong about this whole sad-makes-awesome thing. Maybe Fred Rogers and Barney the F’ing Dinosaur really are on to something, but I doubt it. How does one make beautiful, tormented art without knowing how it feels to walk alone in the night? The answer: they don’t. Sometimes, to create you must first destroy.

What’s it all mean? Well…maybe tomorrow I’ll be even gloomier than tonight. Why not? If it helps me finish my latest book and write deathier, bloodier, and grimmer stories than ever before, I’m game. I’m ok with that. What about you?

Until next week,

J Edward Neill

As ever in Shivershore

By J Edward Neill books, fiction, writing

Year 12, date unknown

It is cold outside, as ever it is in Shivershore. The sea’s salted foam crashes outside my window. The sun sets beneath a dreary, unhappy sky. Save for my lonely candle, my little friend who likes to dance with each draft of air seeping between the shutters, I have little light to write by. I sit here, inking words no one will ever read, squinting to see the page before me. I am too anxious. This will be my final entry. I wonder if I am ready.

Today will be my last day in the tower. This crowded pillar of tired, sea-bleached stones has been a good, if humble home. The corner hearth keeps it warm enough, while the tower’s perch amid the tangled rocks and battered shoreline cliffs affords me the sort of privacy and solitude I have found nowhere else. Though my comforts are few, my years here have been useful. I have unraveled the secrets I sought and brought many intangible truths to light. I have sacrificed much in living here, but soon all of it will be worthwhile. Today marks winter’s last gasp. Tomorrow a new season begins. And so I bid you a fond farewell, good tower. I hope to never see you again.

I packed my things yestereve. I slid a few important sheaves of paper, a loaf of bread, some wine, and an extra set of boots into my weathered satchel. I suppose I might even find room for this journal, though it seems rather meaningless, considering I will not tend to it again. Looking at my bag, small and crumpled as a peasant’s hat, one would never know the places I am bound for.

I dreamed again last night. I have dreamed often of late, too often, suffering many doubts while I sleep. My nightly imaginings have been particularly dark, twisting my life’s hopes and ambitions into nightmares, poisoning my mind with images of death and failure. Even so, every time I wake I feel no weakness or perturbation. This strikes me as comforting. Perhaps my dreams are trying to send me a message, whispering horrors into my ear and reminding me of my simple beginnings, while at the same time fortifying me. Though I tremble as I slumber, the very moment I wake I feel strong again.

Last night while cleaning out my cupboards, a number of unexpected questions tumbled into my mind. I suppose I had been concerned with the execution of my plan for so long that certain possibilities escaped me. I sat at my lonely table, chewing on a brick of hard, stale bread, and the questions struck me just as the sun began to set. I wondered; how will my coming be perceived? How will my subjects view me? When I stand on my pulpit at the world’s twilight, what will they think? Will I be adored and praised or feared and reviled? Will they see me as a savior from their daily futilities or will they look upon who I am and what I have become and turn their cheeks with wordless scorn? Kneeling upon the earth, stretching fearfully from meadow to sea, what will they whisper? Tyrant, I wager they will name me, destructor of the earth. But it is not certain, not knowable for now.

These questions and more pummeled my mind for too much of the night. As I swallowed my bread and dwelled upon them, I came to no meaningful conclusion. I decided I did not know the answers. I cared not. I cannot fathom the emotions of others, nor do I wish to. What the people will think at the end does not concern me, nor will it when I become king.

King. It has a pleasant taste to it. I say it often to myself, and it snaps so easily off my tongue. No wonder the term is so often misused. The local lord risen to power, the snot-sniffling heir, the winner of some inconsequential military affair, they all think they are kings, and that they above all others know what it means to possess power over mankind. If only they knew what I know, they would not think themselves so wise. They would wet their gilded chairs by day and shiver in their beds by night. They would beg for a taste, a single lash of their tongues just to lavish their minds with a fragment of what I know. What horror would befall their minds were the truth to strike them? But now I am rambling again. I do it too often. I am nothing if not someone who talks too much.

Each time I reflect upon my long, slow years of study, I realize my greatest sacrifice has been living here in this tower. Because of my choice, I have had no one to talk to, no one to share a cup of tea with or sit beneath the night with and discuss the meaning of the stars. During the endless days, this journal was all that kept me from madness. I have been drawn to it every night, dithering for a moment before penning to paper the least significant parts of my day. How quaint it seems, a child’s diary. How ordinary. How weak.

My things are packed. My cleaning is complete. I am ready for a last night’s sleep. As I stretch upon my sagging bed, I feel a moment of longing. It is a strange sensation. I almost wish someone else were here, a woman perhaps, a pretty thing with a sympathetic ear. I wonder how pleasant it must be to lie with a beautiful girl or to be a man with many friends. But what do I know? These things are forgotten to me. Rather than sit and pine for the world to comfort me, I must remember my chosen path. My own thoughts are the only ones I shall ever know. I will be alone from now until the end.

The winter fails. The sea rages outside. I am weary of writing. I have come to it at last, the end of my preparation. My candle, my only companion, is dying, the victim of too many nights spent watching over these sad little pages. When I lift my pen, my hermit’s life shall end. Not long from now, perhaps on an evening not so different than tonight, the skies will fall, and I will be the last living soul in all the world.

* * *

Prologue to Dark Moon Daughter – Book II in the Tyrants of the Dead trilogy

J Edward Neill

Illyoc painting by Eileen Herron

Behind the Comic – The Gilded Age

By John McGuire comics, creativity, writing

This week over on the Terminus Media LLC’s Facebook page this week is The Gilded Age week (available at Amazon and Comics Plus). So I thought I’d provide the blog with a little bit of how this little project came to be.

It all started with a convention in Orlando a few years ago. My buddy Egg either had a table or was sharing a table or something (it doesn’t much matter). The important thing was that while he was down their he met an artist by the name of Larry Watts who was looking for a project to work on. For some reason Egg thought Larry and I could match up on a project. Larry has since gone on to work on a Zenescope Comic called Robyn Hood (found here).

The only problem was that I didn’t really have any ideas that were artist ready.

Now I certainly had a handful of ideas, but I had no finished scripts that were just begging for an artist. So when faced with the prospect of working with an artist and you have no solid ideas I cheated and went onto his Deviant Art page to check out his stuff and see if anything “inspired me”.

And there it was… a shot of a old western gunfighter… with a metallic arm. In that instant, something flipped in my brain and I had the barest bones of an idea. What followed over the course of the next few days would end up becoming a pitch called Machine Heart.

Now Machine Heart was ready, but I believe that Larry was no longer available to work on it (I probably missed my window by not being prepared with something). So I filed it away on the computer, just waiting for the moment to spring it from it’s prison.

A year or so later Terminus Media was beginning to look towards doing something more than just anthology stories. They wanted to have something that could be 5 or 6 issues to start. Something different than what was on the shelves. And that little voice popped up in my brain and I mentioned my “Steampunk” story. A couple of meetings later things began to crystallize and suddenly it looked like things were a go… there was just one problem.

With an indy comic there is always the risk that there will be a delay between issues. You might have production problems, money problems, printing problems, and who-knows-what-else problems. But here we are wanting to tell a story over the course of 5 issues… what happens if people don’t want to wait that long? What happens if someone stumbles onto issue 2 and can’t find issue 1?

So what was the answer? In a perfect world you would find a way to have a regular schedule. We, however, live in the real world (one populated with superheroes and the like, but real enough) where delays are going to happen…

xiron-man-alarm-clock.jpeg.pagespeed.ic.pNs3wejHrQ

Iron Man doesn’t like Daylight Savings Time either.

And then it hit me – I could build this world from the ground up by telling single issue stories about a variety of characters. And what better way to ensure that there are plenty of characters to choose from? Have the stories take place in a vaudevillian carnival where you could have all sorts of weirdos running around and no one would bat an eye. Plus, the other bonus was that I could tell a variety of stories (adventure, horror, heists, etc.) and they could all work because of the characters involved.

There was only one more problem… a title. Machine Heart didn’t really apply to this particular story, so I needed to come up with something better than “Untitled Steampunk Comic”.

Enter Mark Twain and his coining of the phrase “The Gilded Age”. Now his applied to the late 1800s corruption occurring within the US government, but I saw something that could apply to this new world. There would be corruption (there always is), but it also rang true somehow for the comic… I can’t explain it completely, but it “fit”.

While Machine Heart’s plot-line no longer applied, the characters of Hannah and Elias still worked for me. An actress who is new to the carnival, bright eyed and innocent, and the stage magician of the crew who would need her help acquiring an item for his next performance. So I made the first issue about the two of them, giving the reader a complete story in 1 issue, but hinting at a much bigger world that I’m hoping to explore more and more of.

Issue 2 is still in the process of being finished, but that gunfighter with the metal arm that inspired it all… well, he’s getting to tell a story of his own…

***

John McGuire

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Top Five Most Memorable Book Chapters Ever

By J Edward Neill books, fiction, writing

Perhaps it was the way the leaves went utterly still, or perhaps the sudden silence of the birds, but she felt watched, as though a creature from the pages of her book had leapt from the parchment to stalk her. – Excerpt from Dark Moon Daughter

Enjoy this week’s expressionist skull. It’s a painting by Vladimir Tatlin. If anyone wants to sell it to me, here I am.

As I prepare to do some damage to Tessera Guild tonight, my fingertips are crackling. The hour is late. I’m parked in my comfy recliner, honey mead in hand, laptop humming away. About a week ago, I launched my new personal website here. My deep, dark wish is that you’ll visit the site, clickity click the subscribe button, and follow me into the abyss. I’m excited about it. Forgive me.

Now then…

For as much as writing is an art form, it’s my belief the art of reading is no less a beautiful thing. Learning to read is our own personal One Ring. It’s sacred. It’s precious. It’s powerful. We conquer the words as children, but it’s not until much later we grasp their true meaning. It’s with this reverence in mind I hunker down to write this piece. Some lists will give you the best books. I mean to dig deeper and give you the most memorable chapters. These are the five chapters whose pages own the tallest bookshelf in my overcrowded head, who sit front and center in the card catalog floating inside my skull. (See, I always bring it back to bones.)

#5 – I am Legend – Final Chapter

We begin with a chapter not known for its quality, but perhaps more for its brevity. After our journey with Robert Neville takes us to the lowest cavern of loneliness, despair, and even depravity, we are treated with an abrupt end to it all. I’ll not confess to love the way Matheson ended an otherwise engrossing novel, but the way he terminates his protagonist will forever haunt me. No, the good guys don’t always win. Yes, sometimes the point of our existence is that there is no point. In a way, we should’ve expected Neville’s death in the exact way it arrived. Who among us could live alone in the world surrounded by death? Well, perhaps I could, but anyone else?

#4 – Hyperion – Remembering Siri

‘But Siri knew the slow pace of books and the cadences of theater under the stars. I knew only the stars.’ – The Consul

For those not familiar with Dan Simmons’ epic Hyperion series, here’s your crash course: Hyperion is a futuristic semi-retelling of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, with loving homages to the poet Keats sprinkled liberally throughout. Remembering Siri is not a single chapter, rather an entire sixth of the novel from the perspective of the Consul. Let’s be clear; Hyperion is not really about the sci-fi-ness of it all, the weapons, or the technology. These elements are everpresent, but the stories of the novel’s inhabitants, their lives and feelings, are what makes the novel gripping. Nowhere is the emotion more powerful than in Remember Siri. The Consul has lost the love of his life (Siri) and all his movements through space and time are shadowed by her memory. I’m not really a love-story kind of dude, but even my inky soul warmed up to the Consul’s tale.

#3 – The Count of Monte Cristo – Final Chapter

Perhaps no more powerful tale of vengeance exists than The Count. It’s a challenging novel, not only for its length and depth of exposition, but for its themes. I’ll say only this; the payoff is worth the struggle. At the bittersweet end, having doled out more than enough vengence for those who’ve wronged him (and a few who haven’t) the Count reflects upon all he has done. Is he God’s justice or is he no different than the people he’s destroyed? In my mind, the true mark of excellence in writing arrives when the author confronts the reader with a moral dilemna. Would you have gone as far as the Count? Do the ends always justify the means?

# 2 – A Storm of Swords – Red Wedding

It is nothing, she tried to tell herself, you are seeing grumkins in the woodpile, you are become an old silly woman sick with grief and fear. – Catelyn Stark

There are rocks some people live under…and there are mountains. Most folks, either via the book or the cable series, have already read or seen the Red Wedding. If you haven’t, get on it. I’ve seen both, and I’m here to tell you the book version is better. From Martin’s buildup in previous chapters to Catlyn’s gathering dread to the crossbowmen dressed as minstrels (who can’t carry a tune), the reader isn’t quite sure what will happen. And then, once it begins, we think, “When will someone rush out and save Robb? When…when…when?” But it never happens. In a few quick pages, Martin delivers the best kind of death. Quick. Bloody. Permanent.

# 1 – Return of the King – The Siege of Gondor

“Old fool!” he said. “Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!” – The Witch King of Angmar

When Grond comes to your door, you’d best pay attention. In the Siege of Gonder, I get a lot of everything I want in a chapter: A sense of dread. A battle raging. A lord setting himself on fire. A confrontation between a wizard and a monster. Forget the movie. In the book, you can actually believe the bad guys will win. When the Witch King stalks alone through Gondor’s shattered front door (an entrance antagonists everywhere should emulate) you feel the horror, the blood running cold, and the city of men breathing its last. Chapters like this only turn up every once in a while. Any author planning to write a battle scene, take heed. The Siege of Gondor is where it’s at.

So then, what’s your favorite chapter ever? Inquiring minds want to know.

J Edward Neill

Strategies for the Obsessive Mind

By J Edward Neill creativity, writing

Let’s get back on topic.

Let’s work our fingers to the bone.

Ever been obsessed? Ever not been? Not with a person or an object, but with a concept, an idea, a ‘We’re taking the One Ring to Mordor’ type of life journey? Search your heart. You know you’ve been consumed at least once in your life. It’s part of the human experience. To want. To need. To live and die with your obsession until it’s done, devoured, destroyed.

For the most part, I don’t have an obsessive personality. I’ll close a book after an hour to recharge. I can’t remember the last time a movie came out I needed to see. I’ll flip off the tv always. I try to make big deals out of saving money, being a better man, living life to its fullest, but when these ideals escape me, I generally shrug it off. Perhaps my absence of I need to do this is a weakness. Perhaps it’s a strength. Sometimes it’s a struggle just to find something worthy of caring about. Sometimes I want to lose myself in obsession, and it eludes me.

But then there’s writing…

You may have seen the title Strategies for the Obsessive Mind and thought, ‘Oh great, another writer telling us about his writing process. Joy of joys.’ Never fear. Not gonna happen. I’m neither interested in processes nor compelled to criticize people who are. Discussing the anatomy of ink and quill just isn’t for me. What I am interested in is finding balance. We all need balance, right? If we indulge our obsessions too often and tip the scales into a shadow too deep, we risk losing ourselves. But…if we never dip our toes into dark waters, we’ll never know what lies beneath.

The truth is; it’s already too late. I’ve gone and lost myself.

I can’t remember when it happened. A year ago? A decade ago? Last week? At some point in time, after teetering on the edge of the abyss, I let myself fall. Gravity claimed me. All the things that used to be important crumbled into dust. And here I am at the bottom, well and truly haunted. I still go to work, play with my kid, eat, sleep (a little), and force myself to exercise, but at all other times, whenever my mind strays from my daily routine, I fall, and fall, and fall. In the deep dark of my man-cave, I gloom over the end of one book, pen handwritten notes for the beginning of another, plan a total rewrite of another, and pepper light edits into still another. Whenever I’m not hammering out words, I’m contemplating my surroundings: Would new art in the man-cave provide even more inspiration? Should I paint the walls black, a la Rolling Stones? If I shaved my cat and dressed it in plate mail, would the other cats respect their new overlord?

And if that’s not enough, whenever I’m not distracted by the mundane, I’m dreaming up new stories. I’ve got more tales in liquid form than I know what to do with. Protagonist sent alone to alien world with purpose to destroy it, aware that if and when he returns hundreds of years will have passed and everyone he ever knew will be dead. – Protagonist unearths a relic that makes him godlike, and then becomes the antagonist. – Prehistoric civilizations discover the secret of fire, and then start the world’s first war. Go ahead. Steal them. I’ve got hundreds more. I’ll be dreaming in my grave long before I can write them all.

I ask myself if I’d like control of my mind back. The answer is, ‘Not really.’

The way I see it, if you can’t beat obsession, bargain with it. Cut a deal with the devil in your mind. Obsession isn’t quite like addiction. We who are magnetized to the object(s) of our desire have a fighting chance…sometimes. I’m not talking about love, by the way. People in love are pretty much screwed. I’m talking about you, the I need to do this in order to be happy person, the writer, the reader, the movie maker, comic-book artist, painter, fighter, soldier, backyard car rebuilder. Embrace your obsession, but let it go sometimes. Fall into your work, but come back up for air. Don’t burn every bridge to reach the promised land, just most of them. Don’t let your passion kill you, but don’t stop until you’re dead.

Or ignore everything I just said and let yourself plummet into the lowest cavern of your desire. Either way is awesome.

Just don’t forget to shower.

J Edward Neill

My Top Six Video Games of All Time

By J Edward Neill games, television, writing

This week’s skull…the most abused creeper of all time.

I’m in my man-cave at 11-something PM. It’s raining outside. Save for the streetlamp’s flicker beyond my window and the low-key illumination of my laptop, the world is dark. I’m happy to be alone. Ecstatic, actually. If I can squeeze in about 700% more of this kind of time, I’ll die a happy man.

So then. Like video games? Me too. They’re a passion of mine, and although I seldom play them anymore, I’ll always reserve a special place in my chest cavity for them. Anyone who’s ever been in love with video games knows there are two types available for consumption. Foremost, you’ve got games that are just that: games. You blast or hack your way through this or that horde, sort colored baubles to win imaginary prizes, collect coins and 1-ups, or just generally bust the laws of physics for fun. While these kinds of games provide an excellent way of murdering several days/weeks/months of your life, they’re not the type of game I’m talking about today.

What am I talking about? The second type. The games that aren’t just games, but mood-setters, sensory-devourers, mind-benders, and experiences. A long, long time ago, I blogged a related piece – http://tesseraguild.com/was-only-a-matter-of-time/ but this time, I’m goin’ balls deep. I’m throwing my top six games out there. These are the pixels most palatable to my grim, grey state of mind. Subconciously, I’ve no doubt that playing these six remapped entire swaths of my brain.

So let’s get started:

#6 – Diablo (The original)

Playing Diablo for me isn’t the same as it is for other folks. Sure, I get a mild kick out of the treasure hoarding, demon slaying, and level upping, but for me Diablo is all about the mood and the music. Before I ever knew I liked to write, I’d sit in the dark at my paleolithic IBM 486 and play it until my eyes hurt. I’d wander ancient ruins with the game’s masterful 12-string guitar soundtrack thrumming in the background, the pixellated rain clattering atop dead men’s roofs. Hell, in recent weeks I’ve hunted down some of the music from the original game. If I ever move into a video game city, I’ll probably pick Tristram. It’s always cloudy there, and the mood suitable for my state of mind.

#5 – Metroid Prime

To be fair, I feel any of the Metroid games (sans the one that really sucked) fit this niche. I’ll go with Prime because if I go too far back I’ll confound the ‘what the hell is a NES?‘ crowd. Metroid for me was always more than a simple space opera. I never cared that the protagonist was a girl, nor that the villains were bland and underdeveloped. What I liked (and love) about the game is its atmosphere. One hero. Alone. Creepy music. Creepier monsters. There’s something elegant about the game’s fusion of far-out science with primeval alien mythology. I’ve always thought the game might’ve made a great movie, maybe even a killer novel. Hmmmm…

#4 – Deus Ex – Human Revolution

When I first picked up Deus Ex, I figured it’d fall in line with most other games. There’d be some cool moments, some blah, blah shooting, and a few dramatic cut scenes. I was wrong. In many instances, Deus Ex walks the line between game and art. Forget how tense and fun the action is. It’s like Blade-Runner blended with Seven. It’s the not-too-distant future, rain-riddled and fraught with ‘What would I do if this happened to me?‘ moments. It’s fun + gorgeous to look at + elegantly dark. I. Love. It.

#3 – The Witcher – Assassins of Kings

As far as games in the genre I prefer to muddle in, Witcher might be the best of them. The story (pariah accused of regicide) is pulled off better than in most movies. The love affairs, the rivalries, and the this-could-actually-happen feel as powerful as any fantasy novel. Heroes should be likeable and hateable. Love interests should be worthy of our affection and able to beat our asses. Villains should have believable reasons for hating the world. The Witcher has it all. If I didn’t have a three-year old kid, I’d buy the new Xbox and play the sequel.

#2 – Shadow of the Colossus

Never played it? Unacceptable. Set aside three rainy days and get ‘er done. If you’re not interested in video games, buy it for your girl/guyfriend and watch them play it. Yes, really. Shadow of the Colossus is not the game you think it is. On the surface, it looks like a dude fighting huge monsters to save the world, his woman, his dog…whatever. It’s not that game. In playing Shadow of the Colossus, you’ll find out what it means to be misguided. You’re the bad guy, and you don’t even know it. You’re a murderer, a destroyer of beautiful art, a sociopath, a monster. What’s the matter with you anyway?

#1 – Zelda – Twilight Princess

As if you didn’t see this coming. Those who know me will roll their eyes and say, ‘Well that was obvious.’ Now, as far as atmosphere, I’ll admit most of the Zelda series doesn’t measure up to the Witchers and Metroids of the world. The music is good, but not soul-stunning. The graphics are neat, but not particularly immersive. Why then have I put Twilight Princess at #1? It’s easy. You’ve got a beautiful world worthy of saving (Hyrule), a familiar, likeable, and best of all silent hero to save it, and a dread-inspiring evil to overcome. Twilight Princess beats the other Zelda games by virtue of its edge, its willingness to embrace adult themes, and most of all, the presence of a villain you knew was coming, but likely spent the whole game asking, ‘Where is my arch-rival? I need that guy, else life is incomplete.’

Honorable mentions:

Doom – Grim atmosphere. Pinky demons. What else do you need?

Portal – Was pissed about not getting cake…

Skyrim – Too epic not to be included, but damn so many of its characters for being cardboard.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll indulge my inner geek. I found my old Gamecube in a closet last weekend. Time to visit an old, old friend.

* * *

And if you think you know video games, take this 114 question quiz. If you score 60 or higher, you’ve got skills.

J Edward Neill

A little something happened on the way to the Convention

By John McGuire events, life, writing

This week’s blog was going to be a convention report on Anachrocon, the steampunk con I went to over the weekend. The same con where I was to sit in as a speaker on my first panels ever. I could talk about how the panels went (really well, I actually got invited to sit in on another one, but had to decline due to day job commitments). Or talk about the people I met and talked to. Or even about the other guys and gals on the panels I sat in on.

Yes, it was all planned out and would be the easiest blog post of all time. The words would flow like… well like wine or water or soda or whatever you might drink.

Then this happened…

Apparently a book bag sitting in the back seat is too much of an inviting target for some people… though they left the comic box also sitting back there. I was annoyed, mostly because I felt put out because my day at the con was now over. Suddenly I get to deal with some real world problems as opposed to trying to have conversations with people. However, what they got was a couple of comics, a Square card reader, some pens for signing comics, and some laptop power cords (though the laptop was not inside the book bag). As I thought about it more it seemed that the bag probably was worth more than anything within it.

Today it occurred to me that there was one other item in the bag which I had forgotten about. There would be no reason to contact the officer to add this thing to the police report, but it is priceless to me.

I had placed my notebook in the bag before I left the house.

My notebook that I use to jot down any number of wild and crazy ideas. The notebook that houses many a random line of dialogue that I might overhear as I got about my life. When inspiration strikes, it gets written down in that notebook.

And it is gone.

On Sunday, while I was talking on one of the panels, a question arose from the crowd asking about ideas and what you do with them, how do you ensure that you don’t forget that random idea at either 3 in the morning or 1 in the afternoon. I talked about writing it on scratch paper and then compiling all of them at the end of the week.

This is a what my wife has to deal with taking over the desk every week.

But I also mentioned the notebook. I never know when a moment of inspiration might strike me. Half the time I hear some scenario on the radio and I take it one step further and suddenly an idea appears. And I have to write them down. Far too many of those moments get lost in the Ether way too much during the course of a day. And while I didn’t have the notebook with me at all times, it traveled with me just enough to get some decent stuff.

Luckily I tend to be one of those people who constantly hits the save button, and the best way to do this with those scraps of paper is to put it into the notebook or type it into the computer. So probably about 1/2 of the notebook exists on my computer in half-finished ideas.

But there are still some of them that are now lost forever.

Now I’m saying that any of them are Steven King/ JK Rowling ideas which will cause me to start a book empire, but there are things in there that my brain came up with… no one else could have invented those words in just that way. And you/me/whomever never knows exactly what might or might not work. Maybe some of them need a little more seasoning.

But they are mine, and now…

Gone. Lost.

Not this type of Lost.

I wish I had some kind of nice ribbon to put on top of this story, and maybe one day someone will return it to me (I believe it has my address/email/phone number inside it). I’m not holding my breath exactly, but I will hope a little bit for that day where I’ll hold it in my hands like I’m Indiana Jones just before the Rock Trap is triggered. My fingers will tingle and I’ll be able to, for a moment at least, travel backwards in time to see what a younger version of me wrote down.

And say “This guy can’t even write!” 🙂

Hey, a guy can dream.

No Ethanol Required

By Egg Embry writing

Look. I’m going to be square with you. I’m nobody. I talk and write like I am, but I’m not. And that’s okay. I wrote about that a couple weeks ago. And there’s really no reason to listen to any writing advice I have to give. Some of it may be right, some may be wrong. But there are far more accomplished writers out there worth heeding. Read Stephen King’s On Writing. Follow Brian Michael Bendis’s Tumblr. Men whose high levels of success give weight to their advice, methods, and opinions.

That said, I have been asked in my life for advice by young writers. Occasionally online, sometimes during the brief moments (film festivals, panel discussions) where I am draped in the illusion of being someone worth listening to.

On this blog I have, between telling Hollywood stories and bashing America’s Game, occasionally doled out a thought or two that I have on the writing process. No, not process. I don’t like to talk or read about process. I’m not sure replicating anyone’s process will get you anywhere; it’s something you need to find on your own. But I have talked about some of my theories when it comes to writing like my 10% rule and the principal of Aiming to Fall Short. But those are just theories, talking points that I’ve cooked up when I should be actually writing instead of thinking about it.

With this post, though, I’m going to share the one piece of writing advice that I believe to be an absolute truth. A nugget that I wish someone had told me when I was 23 or 17 or 12. Something that you must learn and embrace in order to have any chance of writing for a living. Advice that anyone who reads this should take to heart, even if it’s coming from a nobody like me.

But I am still me, which means I’ll take a little bit of a roundabout way to get there.

It starts with booze.

I used to write at night. I used to write at night with a bottle of Captain Morgan. I used to write at night with a bottle of Captain Morgan and a pack of Camel Lights. I used to write at night with a bottle of Captain Morgan and a pack of Camel Lights and a young man’s myopic passion. I used to write at night with a bottle of Captain Morgan and a pack of Camel Lights and a young man’s myopic passion and not stop until I collapsed.

Used to.

Over time alcohol became something I no longer enjoyed. In fact, it began to really make me feel sick. Over time I realized how dumb it was to smoke cigarettes and even if it made me look “cool”, no one could see me being cool at 3:00 in the morning in my apartment. Over time I realized that my mind was sharper when I wasn’t exhausted, that writing is both mentally and physically draining and requires more energy than someone looking at it from the outside may think.

Over time I became a sober day-writer.

I have been lucky enough for a great number of years to be able to focus on writing as my primary profession and activity, even during the times when I wasn’t making any money (which is most of the time). I know not everyone has that leisure. When you’re working a day job, when you have a family, a social life, other obligations, I understand that sometimes the only chance you get to write is after everyone else has gone to bed.

But to me that’s a hobby, not a job. Now, I appreciate the fact that most people, including friends of mine, who do this are hoping to turn that hobby into a job. I again restate that I know how fortunate I have been to be able to concentrate on writing full-time for a long time.

One of the most famous quotes about writing comes from the great (and I know I mention him a lot) Ernest Hemmingway:

“Write drunk; edit sober.”

And I used to agree with that. Part of me still does. It makes perfect sense.

A writer is always their own worst critic. If they’re not, they will never get any better. A writer wants every sentence to shine, ever paragraph to flow like water, every line of dialogue to feel genuine and sharp and clever but not too clever. Ideally, every word you put down on the page or screen should be the best it can be.

That quest, that search for the perfect turn of phrase, that expertly constructed paragraph, that never-before-seen action sequence, is the #1 enemy of a writer’s productivity. It is so easy to get caught in its trap. How often have you (if you have ever tried to write something) stared at the sentence you just wrote for five, ten, sixty minutes trying to figure out how to make it better? Can I find a better synonym for that word? Can I make that sharper, leaner?

The problem is, this isn’t perfectionism. It’s procrastination.

My inner critic is so strong, the part of me that wants what I’m writing to be great is so powerful, that I could literally write once sentence and ponder it for hours. I used to do that. I wasted a lot of time doing that. My brain, my critical brain, the brain that picks apart poorly scripted films and will put down a novel (even an acclaimed one) after 30 pages if I think the prose is boring or sloppy, will easily get caught up on what I just wrote and not understand that the most important thing to do in that moment is to write the next thing and leave the suspect sentence in the dust.

That’s where booze comes in.

Alcohol melts away your inhibitions. That’s what we like about it, right? How many people would do karaoke, dance in clubs, make moves on a potential mate, jump off a roof into a swimming pool (do NOT do that one), without being drunk? It loosens you up, makes you less aware of your surroundings, and lets you give into parts of yourself, both good and bad, that your conscious, critical, responsible self rightly inhibits when not under the influence.

Alcohol does two things for artists. The first is the quelling of inner demons, but that’s a conversation for another day. The second is that it shuts up your inner critic. When you write with a buzz (if you get all the way drunk, I think it’s a disaster. I always tried to keep myself on a consistent level of tipsy) you immediately forget about the sentence you just wrote and move onto the next. You just write and write and write and write. You don’t care about grammar; you don’t care about structure. You just let the ideas pour out of your head. They may not all be good ideas; in the cold light of morning you may be embarrassed by some of the things that you thought were brilliant the night before. But you’ve got stuff down on paper. Things you can work with.

And, as any writer knows, a large majority of the fight (and it is a fight) is just getting stuff down, taking a square piece of granite and chipping away enough so that it starts to look like something, slaying the demon that is the empty page.

Booze is a valuable weapon in that epic battle. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but what happens when the pen itself is your enemy?

You drown it.

“Write drunk.”

Once you have chipped away at that stone and made it look somewhat like something, then, with all of our faculties intact, you bring out your chisel and do the fine tuning. Start molding what your unchecked mind spilled onto the page into something worth reading. Bring those critical skills, the ones Mr. Daniels or Mr. Smirnoff helped you suppress, to bear to create a polished, readable work you can be proud of.

“Edit sober.”

This process absolutely works. It is a tried and true method that has been handed down through the generations. Mr. Hemmingway didn’t come up with it. He just, as he was apt to do, found the best and simplest way to express it.

Does that mean people who don’t drink can’t be good writers? Some probably think so. What about other substances? I’m sure if you’re going for sheer volume, cocaine could be a big help, although anyone I know who has written anything on cocaine has written unreadable unredeemable garbage… but they did write a lot of it. Marijuana will just make you frustrated when all the writing gets in the way of your Taco Bell runs.

Oh? What’s that? Superbad is on? Maybe I’ll watch it for a—I could go for some toast right now. Do I have any bread– I’ll take a quick nap, I think. A nap, and then I’ll get back to writing I swear.

I don’t think you have to get messed up to write. Or make music. Or paint. I mean, yes, it worked for Hemmingway and Hendrix, but it didn’t turn out so well in the rest of their lives, did it?

If you enjoy drinking and writing, or just drinking in general, more power to you. I have no opinion either way, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. But, for those of us who don’t partake for whatever reason, be it a religious belief or a lifestyle choice or a problem with abuse and addiction, there is a very simple work around for Mr. Hemmingway’s “Write drunk; edit sober” credo. Simple, but hard to swallow.

Here it is, my best piece of writing advice:

Understand that you suck.

You. Suck.

This is antithetical to the mindset of most artists. Think about the ego we must have. The ego I have. I believe, actually believe, that the bullshit rolling around in my head is not only worth your time, it’s also worth your money. That my thoughts, my stories, my philosophies, even this damn blog post, hold value. More value than those of others. It’s egomaniacal and absolutely necessary to be a professional artist.

It can kindly be called confidence. I am not feeling kind.

So that’s why this bit of advice can be hard to take. I simply stunned a teenaged boy at the Phoenix Film Festival when I told him this. But I truly wish someone had told me the same when I was his age.

Here’s the skinny. No matter who you are, your first draft is going to be a piece of shit.

I’m going to repeat that a few times.

Your first draft is going to be a piece of shit.

“But Chad, I worked really—“

YOUR FIRST DRAFT IS GOING TO BE A PIECE OF SHIT.

It just is. Novel, screenplay, copy for the Sears catalog (do they still have a Sears catalog?), it’s going to suck.

Hear this. Accept this. Embrace this.

And let it free you.

“No, I get it. Of course in later drafts I’ll make it better. That’s the point of—“

No, no. Stop right there.

A. Piece. Of. Shit.

If you can embrace that, internalize it, then you will actually get things done. It will silence your inner critic better than the finest Scotch. It will allow you to lay down word after word, scene after scene, chapter after chapter without a care in the world. Why? Because you know it sucks. There’s no sense fretting if you know it’s not any good. Just write a sentence and then write the next one. Write whatever comes to mind, even if you think it’s dumb. Why? Because it’s all dumb. Overwrite. Repeat yourself. Beat that clay into whatever lopsided shape you want like an angry third grader would.

And don’t look back.

One thing I’ve done since I started writing novels is make sure to contain each chapter in its own document file. When the first draft of that chapter is done, I put it in a folder marked ‘completed chapters’ and I don’t look at it again until I’m done with the whole draft.

If I come up with something in a later chapter that I want to implement into an already-written one, I don’t go back and dive into the original Word file. I make a note of it, something to do when I do my pass between my rough and “first” drafts. But I don’t look back. If I did, if I’m in Chapter 12 and just casually look at Chapter 8, I’ll see a million things I want to change. I’ll want to tinker. I’ll think “This is bad. I need to fix it.” But tinkering doesn’t move you forward. Tinkering doesn’t get that all-important first draft done.

Tinkering is stalling. It gets you no closer to your goal.

Just accept that what you’re writing is bad and trust that you will make it better when you edit and revise.

I know this sounds simple and rudimentary and maybe pessimistic but I’m telling you the sooner you embrace it the better. I didn’t understand this for a long time. I spent days on two-page scenes. I took ten minutes to write a sentence. I wanted every single thing to be perfect and it took forever to get anything done.

And the things I got done were still lousy. Because they were still the first draft. And first drafts are lousy. And I wasted so much time writing them.

I truly do believe this. The first step in being at all productive as a writer is embracing the fact that you’re not going to get it right the first time so there’s no reason to try.

This is what “Write drunk; edit sober” means. Some people are fundamentalist about this and think the only way to greatness is through the bottle. But there is a less literal way to interpret this that requires ingesting absolutely no ethanol:

Your first draft is going to suck.

There is nothing you can do about this, so don’t let it bother you.

Just. Get. It. Down.

And fix it later.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go. This shitty chapter I’m working on isn’t going to write itself.

Slaying the Beast

By John McGuire writing

This week I wanted to write a blog about my favorite love stories (romantic moments) from comic books. A sort of companion piece to Chad’s post yesterday. But I hit the wall hard on that idea, shelved it, and moved on.

I thought about writing specifically on Spider-Man and his “former” marriage to Mary Jane, but it’s still not anywhere near where I would like it to be (it’s coming at some point, I’m sure). So I moved on.

A couple of other thoughts struck me, but all of them required something, some aspect of the blog, that I am not entirely ready to begin/write/end. I put those in the “To Be Done” folder.

And it occurred to me – I think I’ve encountered Writer’s Block for the first time in a long time.

There is a problem to this sort of thinking, though. I don’t believe in Writer’s Block. Much like Santa and the Easter Bunny, I believe it is a mythical concept used by many as an excuse. An easy out that no one really knows how to conquer. Much like the ancient beasts of old, you’d need a knight in armor to slay this dragon. A non-writer might not understand, but they knew enough to know not to probe too deep.

They might whisper to your other friends, “What’s wrong with John?”

“He’s got Writer’s Block.”

“Oh… I better stay clear.” (as if they could catch it)

Fellow writers would go along with the gag. “Terrible thing, that Writer’s Block. Got me back in ’06 for the better part of a year.”

And you would nod and shake your head, but know in your heart of hearts that it was all a lie.

Writer’s Block doesn’t exist.

I did not know this truth for a long time. I leaned on this idea when what I really wanted to do was play video games or watch a movie or do anything other than sit in front of the computer and type out string after string of words. For me, I knew that Writer’s Block was just an easy out.

Turns out, I had it wrong. Writer’s Block as I think of it doesn’t exist. That much is true. Discipline has long been it’s ancient enemy. But this creature out there lives in the shadows of a writer’s mind. It preys on any possible weakness it can find. It whispers terrible nothings into your ears.

Tired? Don’t worry about those words tonight. There is a new South Park on after all.

Fried from a long day of work? No big deal, Facebook will comfort you in this hour of need.

Got some rough edits back and you don’t even know where to begin? Old WB has got your back and has warmed up the XBOX with your favorite game all prepped.

Last night’s writing session go absolutely nowhere and now you’re afraid that all those words you wrote and will write on the project will be absolute dog shit? Well, you’re right. Don’t bother, you suck.

Calvin has it more right than even he knows.

This is the enemy. Writer’s Block is the thing that squeezes its vice-like grip around my brain and tries to convince me in any and every way possible to not write.

And the sad thing is, IT wins a fair amount of time. Sometimes without even trying.

But… but… but… I have found the best defense for it is a good offense. When I really get going on a project I have far fewer of the nights where Writer’s Block seeps in and prevents words from appearing on the screen. Instead, more ideas begin to flow out from me. My fingers struggle to keep up with my thoughts and I wonder how many more ideas get lost in the shuffle between brain and keyboard. When things are going well there is no such thing as Writer’s Block. It truly does become just another arrow in the excuse quiver. And you forget it even exists at all.

But don’t forget about it. Use it as further fuel for your own creative fire. Before beginning this blog I had not seen that old boy for a few years. Instead my nemesis has been TIME more than anything else. I have about 25 short stories that exist in some form or fashion. I have about 5-6 comic story arcs that could see the light of day someday if only I wrote them (and then convinced someone to actually draw them). And I have about 4-5 novels that I want to write. So Writer’s Block hasn’t had much of a chance to do anything to me. I forgot that it really existed, and in that moment it drew itself back into my soul and waited until there was a perfect time to strike.

Yet, here I am, near the end, and I’m not sure if he really was here at all tonight. The words did come. Maybe, just maybe, I imagined the whole thing.

And then again…

***

John McGuire

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Category: writing

Lemonade on the porch

Summer sucks for writing

Sketchbook for the end of the world

A Little Luck

What if…I rewrote The Lord of the Rings

Grab Bag – June Edition

New Interview with John McGuire over at Smashwords

A New Chapter (sticks and bones)

It’s Not November Yet

Dark Moon Daughter – Softcover Release

My Writing Process (Blog Tour Entry)

New release: Dark Moon Daughter

Triple Bill: A new release, an upcoming release, AND a blog tour

Behind the Comic – The Comic Script

Writing about SEX without being creepy

Free Short Story Time: Piece by Piece

My Top Six Darkest Movie Moments Ever…

How it all began…

Making Monsters

A Long Time Ago… We Used to be Friends…

Cover Reveal – Dark Moon Daughter

How to write Dark Fantasy Novels (and shave decades off your lifespan)

As ever in Shivershore

Behind the Comic – The Gilded Age

Top Five Most Memorable Book Chapters Ever

Strategies for the Obsessive Mind

My Top Six Video Games of All Time

A little something happened on the way to the Convention

No Ethanol Required

Slaying the Beast

Search

New Posts

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Archives

Categories