on writing

I've been doing lots of writing lately, in a wide variety of forms, not least of all creative writing. I go through periods in life where I don't do much creative writing at all, and then it feels like a switch is flipped and the words flow unbroken from my fingertips (that makes sense, when you have a keyboard at your disposal). I've been tackling a rewrite of my 2007-2009 trilogy Dwellers of the Night; so far I've finished rewriting the first book and am preparing to begin on the second. I've also started working on The Procyon Strain: Book Two (I completed Book One late in 2012). These stories all resolve around post-apocalyptic scenarios breast-fed by zombies (yes, I just wrote that). Well, maybe not zombies per se: the "creatures" of Dwellers of the Night are more vampire than zombie, though what I have in The Procyon Strain are as close to zombies as you can get without breaking into the supernatural. 36 Hours, now there's a classic zombie story.

Here's the plan: self-publish all my works over again, this time collecting royalties. I'll also be turning them into E-Books that can be purchased for the Nook, Kindle, and any other eBook software out there (I honestly don't know much about those things). I'm going to be focusing on marketing, the first step of which is creating an "author's website" that spotlights all my writing with links to purchase them. I self-marketed 36 Hours back in high school and five years after publication, I would've made around $70,000 in royalties had I insisted on them. I'm not making that mistake again.

I'll be posting excerpts and Book Pages once the books become available.

Until then, keep reading, and keep your eyes peeled.

In the meanwhile, here's a little something inspired by Cormac McCarthy:

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A few months ago I wrote a post highlighting some of Stephen King's "tips for writing." Recently I've been reading through Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men (one of my favorite books), and I've taken some notes on his narrative style. In the same vein as the previous post (which you can view HERE), here are some of McCarthy's trademark "rules" in No Country for Old Men:

Avoid lots of fluff & frill. 

Embrace clean-cut prose.

Run-on sentences can be used to cover longer sequences of time.

Avoid overusing flat, monotone verbs like "was" and "were" in descriptions.

"Spasmodic Realism": little details give a tone of realism to a description without being overbearing. Immaculate detail with microscopic scenes conveys a sense of gritty realism, but only if told cleanly, precisely, and without the overuse of adjectives.

Embrace fluid movement within scenes. The main character is watching an event from far away, and the next moment he is at the event's geographical location. "When he approached the trucks..."