David

I wanted to take a short break to stop by here and thank all of you who have been reading my tips and pointers and advice as the month progresses. There are a lot of short essays here, and there are others over at http://vintagesoul.macabreink.com/?p=278 Everything is harder this year…the book is coming along, and it’s getting some good notice, but already the read-along crew have found glitches I must fix (actually Steve must fix…that’s his job, I am doing the FIRST draft…now I feel better).

If you have time, and want to see how my process is working out, drop on by at the Hallowed Ground Read Along Blog - sign up and follow the story as I write it. One fifth of the way there..

-DNW

Anyway, if you are signed up alread, head on over for the third installment - if not - go sign up and read along! First prize drawing will be tomorrow night.

David

Day two is complete. Come sign up and read along to join the fun. First prize drawing will be Monday or Tuesday!

Dave & Steve

http://nanobook.macabreink.com

Sign in and read along.  Win prizes.  Use me as an excuse to procrastinate.

-David

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your novel.

It ain’t over until after it’s started…

20,000 plus novelists enter… how many leave?

If you write a novel in the wilderness and there is no one around to read it…

What if your first review says “There are too many pages between the covers…”

You may guess from this post that I am anxious to start. I have words popping out the seams of my skull…and I’m particularly excited at the number of folks who signed up over at:

The Hallowed Ground Read Along Blog Spread the word! The More the merrier…

Anyway…there is little I can say at this point but good luck to you all. Pop back in and let me know how it’s going - here or at Macabre Ink I probably will not post here much until after November. One blog, plus writing the novel and finishing my other two projects will keep me pretty busy…

See you on the other side!

-DNW

Some people believe that the Earth is criss-crossed with hidden lines of power that run beneath the surface of soil and stone. They call these “Ley Lines,” and they believe that certain things are more likely, or possible, when they occur at points where these lines cross. I’ve run across this theory in texts on Ritual Magic, Native American spiritualism, Wicca, and dozens of other schools of thought. There are a lot of variations on the central them, but the crux of the matter, to make a point, is the crossing lines.

The reason I’m bringing this up is that I’ve come to believe that stories – the best stories, anyway – may come into being in the same fashion. Everything around us is potentially a part of some great epic or enigmatic poem; the world is a garden of imagination blossoms waiting to be plucked. The problem is that they don’t always fit. You can’t necessarily look at the first thing that comes along and press it into service to plot your next novel – it doesn’t work that way. You have to wait until the right elements cross.

It can happen at any point in any day. What you discover may or may not be germane to what you are currently working on, or the deadline looming over your head. The difference between the Ley Lines of fiction and those of the planet is a simple one. The lines in the planet are in place and stationary. They don’t grow, shift, or change. The Ley Lines of the mind shift constantly. They shoot off one way, then another, and there’s no good way to predict or control them; all you can do is follow.

Here’s an example from my own life. I drive to work pretty much the same way every day. I take the same roads, and half the time I find myself stuck in traffic between the same vehicles, because we are all caught in that commuter’s rut. I listen to audio books, take in Garrison Keillor and his “Writer’s Almanac” at 7:15 AM, fight to reach the draw bridge before it opens and prevents me from reaching work on time, and I watch the world.

most of those days are pretty much mirror images of one another, but not always. One morning, for instance, I had a simple chance encounter with a truck. The truck in question was a flat bed transporting the compacted remains of automobiles. I’ve seen trucks and squashed cars a million times, and I’m sure I would have thought nothing of it under normal circumstances. This time, though, I was trying to get the tape changed in the portable tape player I use to listen to audio books. The case slid off the seat and onto the floor, and I had to lean down, barely able to see over the dash, to get it. The truck hit its brakes suddenly, and for no apparent reason. I’m sure something ran in front of it, or I missed some other bit of traffic insanity, but at the time all I saw was the red flash of lights.

I hit my brakes, skidded to a halt about half an inch from the rear of that truck, and found myself gazing up into the wrecked, smashed cube of parts that had once been a Cadillac. The lines snapped into place. I saw things in that crushed heap, things I could ALMOST recognize. I thought about what might have been on the floor behind the seats and in the glove box. I thought about the rear view mirror and wondered what the last thing it had reflected might have been. My mind was off and running, and before my heart could even recover from the near collision, the lines in my head were weaving a cocoon around that idea, that set of images and thoughts, and attaching it firmly to my mind. In other words, I’m stuck with it until I excise it onto paper. Things like this happen to me every day. I try to tell people about them. Trish is very patient with me, but after a while even she gives me the “smile and wave, boys, smile and wave” expression of incomprehension. The lines only connect for a single moment. They don’t hang there in the air for me to point at and say, “see? Right there?”

What I bring from these moments are bits and pieces of insight, questions born of a moment’s crossed lines that must be answered, and so I write. I write, and more often than not what I write is so far removed from the initial inspiration that the crossed lines are obscured, but for the most part it gets them out of my head. After being distilled in my mind, re-arranged, and battered with “what ifs” the ideas take on lives of their own.

Imagine my horror when someone comes up to me and asks, “Where do you GET this stuff?” I always glance down then to make sure they aren’t standing on any lines.

DNW

CURIOUS READER: “Where do you get your ideas?”

DAVE: “I buy them at estate auctions.”

And it’s true. History is one of the literary playgrounds I frequent most often. What if something happened just a little differently than history recorded it? What if there is something in the story we weren’t told? What is the story behind a book, or a packet of postcards, tied in a faded ribbon? Who wore that old dress, now a limp pile of faded velvet and soiled lace?

I wrote a story titled “Bloody Knife & Morning Star” that I’ve recently had cause to revise. This story takes the battle of Little Bighorn and turns it on its ear. It fills in the cracks in history that historians are so fond of leaving untouched, and you’d be surprised how little filling it takes to shift the flow of events, like tossing stones into a river. What if Custer hired a guide who seemed perfect, but that guide only agreed to help because – in a vision – he saw that Custer would bring about the end of his people? What if the spirits of those who have passed from this life returned to prevent Custer’s reinforcements from arriving when, and where they said they’d be? What if someone wrote it down?

This story came about because of a combination of several events. The first was that, at an auction, I purchased a book titled “Son of the Morning Star,” which was a historic recounting of Custer’s life. I read it and then I researched, chasing lines of history across the Internet, and through libraries, until I found some things that just seemed to have been ignored. Accounts of strange visions. Events that felt out of place, all becoming puzzle pieces that, in the end, led to the destruction of General George, Armstrong Custer and all of his men. This battle, of all the battles of history, I count as the single greatest monument to stupid, bull-headed prejudice. Still…there is always more to the story.

I recently bought a book of folklore at another estate auction. This book covers the beliefs and myths of the “Gullah” folk – slaves on the cotton plantations of South Carolina, and immediately images sprang to mind – stories revised themselves, and I started wanting to write about them. At that same auction I bought a grandfather clock with a dial face done in Roman numerals, except that the IV is IIII – and I thought of alternate universes. I bought a lamp with intricately carved designs – like metal lace – all over the base, which is also inset with diamond shaped prisms. I thought of mysterious places and incense and gypsies…I thought of odd space lounges on planets far away…and I put that lamp in my parlor so that I can light it one evening, sit in that room, listen to Trish play the piano and dream of something that never happened outside my mind – all so I can share it with my readers.

I bought a box full of odds and ends, and in that box is a tiny advertising bottle opener – Lou’s Bar & Grill – Chicago Illinois. The place no longer exists…how did it get to North Carolina? Why was it saved? What happened at Lou’s?

I could go on and on, but the truth is this. I never know where I’ll get my ideas, whether the ideas will have a thing to do with what inspired them, once all is said and done, or how I’ll handle those ideas once I actually start writing. It’s a fluid, magical process that thrills me each and every time.

So for those of you claiming writer’s block, or who claim to have nothing interesting to write about, pull out your local classified ads and dig through the estate sales, auctions, and miscellaneous items for sale. I’ll see you on the far side of the story…

DNW

ENNUI: The website

If you buy it now through me between now and the 1st, I’ll make it worth your while.  The trade paperback will be $18 with free shipping.  That’s a four or five dollar savings.  I’ve also added discounts with a foreign shipping price for overseas buyers.  The limited will be $40 with free shipping.  This is my gift in the hope I can introduce more of you to my writing.

The collection includes a novella (35,000 words) previously unpublished that is an excerpt from myh Nanowrimo novel GIDEON’S CURSE.

Buy the collection now!  If you don’t want to use Paypal… e-mail me at david@macabreink.com

Editions / Country

Paperback US $18.00 Paperback Foreign $25.00 HC Limited US $40.00 HC Limited Foreign $50.00