Ryne Douglas Pearson's Blog, page 24

You may not know what that is, but you've probably experienced it. It's what I call that state of mind I get in when everything is clicking. The writing engine is firing on all cylinders. Pages are flying from my fingertips and appearing on the screen.

I don't know what triggers this state of almost euphoric creation. It doesn't always make itself known. Often the pages and paragraphs and sentences and words have to be dragged from dark hiding places, which is no surprise to me. Writing is struggle at times. Maybe even most of the time. That's probably a reality fueled by the inner critic. A refusal to believe that anything is good enough.

So when I find myself in that magic groove, man, I ride it. And I don't look back.

I wrote my first novel by hand, printing in a series of notebooks. After completing it I entered it into a 'word processor', which was a monstrosity that consisted of a keyboard/cpu unit and a separate printer connected by a cable as thick as a garden hose. My novel filled 15 (fifteen!) data cartridges, and to get everything to fit and print right I had to end pages precisely so they would start correctly on the next cartridge.

When I could afford my first real computer (a Zeos--remember them?), I paid my sister-in-law $500 to enter it into WordPerfect, giving her chapters in reverse order. She was the first person to read my book, just backwards. It was stored on the hard drive (20 whole megabytes!) and backed up on a single hard floppy.

When agents I had queried requested the manuscript, I had to pay for copies and then UPS them across the country to New York. To receive a response meant waiting for the mailman to bring a letter.

And now...

I'm writing this on a tiny netbook that cost less than $300. If needed I can send an electronic copy of a manuscript or screenplay to anyone with an e-mail address in seconds. I haven't printed a book or screenplay in years.

My needs have contracted as the world has expanded. That's a wonderful thing.

 

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My collection of short stories, Dark and Darker, is available through Amazon HERE for just .99. Yes,ninety-nine cents! eBook distribution is a lovely thing for readers and writers alike.

From the Amazon product description:

'Four tales of suspense and horror.

Beholder... Two police officers step inside a suspect's personal hell, and discover just how close they are to the real thing.

Creation... What is art? Derek Devine thinks he knows. But a visit from a dangerous stranger, who looks uncannily like a subject in one of Derek's older paintings, leads the young artist to a place where the line between life and art seems not to exist at all.

The Key... Jason Riley's wife was brutally murdered. When he comes across evidence that the police missed, he plans his own unique brand of justice for the killer.

Shark... A lawyer learns there are consequences to winning in court when he accepts a dinner invitation from the party he successfully sued.'

This can be read on Kindle, iPad, PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. If you need information on the free reading app for devices other than the Kindle, please see HERE.

And in the next few days it, and my other eBooks, will be available through Barnes & Noble for their Nook eReader.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy!

Today's fiction recommendation is Bonechiller by Graham McNamee, a young adult novel that transcends that label with truly effective characters and horror.



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My film recommendation for this week is Dolores Claiborne, a disturbing and creepy adaptation of the Stephen King novel. One of Kathy Bates' best performances.



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One of my Tweeps, Brenda Mantz, said something in a Tweet that I had never considered, but that is absolutely spot on true.

Writers are scavengers.

We soak in the world around us, ingest what we fancy, and regurgitate some form of it back onto the page or screen. Whatever we don't like we leave.

We're vultures.

Inspiration is important to writers. At least to this writer. Add to that being a major space geek, and, well, THIS is about as inspiring as it gets.

Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.

The new cover for Dark and Darker , coming soon for Kindle through Amazon.

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I've been lucky. My job has allowed me the opportunity to meet and work with some pretty cool people. Famous people. Icons.

But the person who most impressed me was a five foot nothing engineer in the engine shop at Kennedy Space Center. His responsibility was a facility that serviced engines, just like some Mercedes dealer. Except the engines that filled the service bays in his shop could suck enough fuel every few seconds to empty an Olympic-size swimming pool. Space Shuttle Main Engines. If something goes wrong in the Mercedes shop, your S class may end up on the side of the freeway. If something goes wrong in his shop, astronauts go BOOM.

I was at NASA researching a film project for Fox, and they provided us access to their top engineers. The men and women who actually make rockets fly and bring astronauts home safe. During this I was posing a question to the engineers, basically asking them if something would be possible--turning a Shuttle around in 72 hours for an emergency flight to rescue crew members on the International Space Station.

All we heard was no. No because of this, because of that, because this rule said no, because that's impossible. But the overriding reason was this--you can't recondition the main engines that fast. It takes six weeks minimum. Bummer. There goes realism in the project.

Then we got a tour of the engine shop. The guy in charge showed us around, and just for kicks I told him what the engineers above him had told us. His reaction.

Bull^&$#.

Then he proceeded to tell and show me over the next hour just how he would make it happen. He described how he'd jackhammer ten ton machines from their mountings and drag them out to work on the shuttle outside. He said that he would do whatever it took to save the lives of astronauts 'up there'.

And I believed him.

The next day when we met the engineers again, I told them what their engine guy had said. Their reaction? 'Well, sure, yeah, I guess we could do that. That would probably work.'

Engine shop guy, short, bald, and geeky, blows Dos Equis guy outta the water.

 

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My new mystery/suspense novel, All For One, is now available through Amazon HERE for just $3.99. From the Amazon Description:

'Mary Austin is the kind of teacher that parents adore and children wish for. Firm and compassionate, a guiding light in their lives, she would do anything to protect her students.

But that loyalty is tested when the school bully is found dead on campus, and suspicion falls on six children in her class. None willing to talk. To point the finger.

To reveal the killer.

Faced with this, Mary finds herself confronted with dark memories from her own childhood. Fragmentary flashes from the past that test the bounds of her reality, the onslaught worsening when a tenacious detective is brought in to close the case.

On loan from the Seattle Police Department, Detective Dooley Ashe is plagued by his own demons, but focuses on breaking through the wall of silence the children have erected. Up against a town indifferent toward the crime and suspects virtually untouchable by the law, Dooley turns to Mary as an avenue to the truth.

As an unlikely closeness develops between Dooley and Mary, the suspected children close ranks, worried that one of their own is ready to break and give the detective what he wants.

But when unseen adversaries push back, with both damaging and deadly results, Dooley and Mary are forced to face their personal limits as they each discover the unthinkable identity of the real killer.'

This can be read on Kindle, iPad, PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. If you need information on the free reading app for devices other than the Kindle, please see HERE.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy!

I've done the following highly enjoyable things during my career--

Written 100 pages during a 22 hour marathon to meet a soft deadline (agents really wanted script, like, now).

Written 55 pages in 5 hours to meet a hard deadline (messenger coming to pick up manuscript).

Received notes on and revised screenplay during vacation with family (they loved that).

Driven 3 hours to a meeting only to learn that, oops, it was rescheduled and no one told me.

Been hired to write a screenplay, and learn the next day I would need back surgery, making the next six weeks in the office chair...interesting.

Been lectured to by an executive about how Nixon refused to confront Castro during the Bay of Pigs debacle. Yes, really.

But.....I wouldn't trade this job for any. Except astronaut.