Seven Things You Didn't Know About My Writing (Expanded Edition)

Last night I was tagged in a Facebook post by friend Kevin Lucia (www.kevinlucia.com), author of THINGS SLIP THROUGH, DEVOURER OF SOULS, and the upcoming THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY (which I'll be reading and reviewing shortly), and in this post I was to list seven things about my writing that you probably didn't know. I had fun with the list and decided it made for a cool blog entry. So here we are.

And because this is also appearing here, I've gone ahead and elaborated on some of my responses.

Seven Things You Didn't Know About My Writing:

1. I wrote my first novel in a span of about three months back in the spring/summer of 2007. It was a 109,000 word mashup called SIGNAL that consisted of all things Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Stephen King, and George Romero's zombie films. To be blunt, the book sucks. I self-pubbed it because I didn't know better at the time. Don't bother looking for it or buying it. Not worth it. (I also sent a copy to Kevin Lucia to review for the Press & Sun all those years ago. Thank God he never did.) If you look it up there's a copy somewhere going for well over $100. I find that laughable.

2. Before SEEING I wrote two full manuscripts (HAUNTED, UNWRITTEN) and plotted a third (SIGHTINGS) with teenage protagonists. I knew I wanted to have a young main character because I had been working with children and loved seeing the world from their perspective - innocence and an open-minded willingness to believe.

3. It was my Creative Writing professor in college who pushed me to be a writer. She praised my work in class and said I should try to get published. She loved a story I wrote called "The Lottery Begins" that served as a prequel to my favorite short story by Shirley Jackson ("The Lottery"). It was also this same teacher who read a book of mine after I graduated and tore it to pieces. This was back in 2008 and, needless to say, because of her scathing review, I wouldn't write again for two years.

4. My wife was the one who convinced me to start writing again. When we were dating, I told her my dream had always been to be an author, so, for our anniversary that month, she bought me a green-covered notebook and some pens. This was in the fall of 2010. The first draft of the novel I hand-wrote in that notebook was titled RUN TO ME. Later, I renamed the book SEEING. I still have the notebook and the pen I wrote it with.

5. My writing is largely inspired by The Twilight Zone, mostly in the show's concept of ordinary people facing "What if..." situations.

6. I don't write long novels, yet, because my style - for the first three books anyway - is to follow one character through life-changing events and only focus on what's important in the story. In SEEING, this year's THE PAINTED LADY, and next year's AN UNEXPECTED VISIT, the action follows one character's experiences over a short period of time, never splitting off to follow another character and subplots are kept to a minimum. I have larger ideas for longer stories but want to build up to them. I don't think I've earned writing a long novel just yet. Right now I am very comfortable doing quieter, shorter stories that get in your head and live there. I also believe that many long books tend to contain a lot of filler that is unnecessary and more people tend to get bored with a story if they sense the author dragging their heels. I don't want readers to set my books down so I keep the story moving best I can with only what is most important.

7. Many times before I begin a writing/editing session I will read a few pages from my favorite book, A MONSTER CALLS. The author, Patrick Ness, crafted such a lovely, tragic novel that I can't help but be inspired by his creation. Reading his work always makes me strive to make my own work better.

And there you have it.