Ryne Douglas Pearson's Blog, page 26

First up is a fiction recommendation that has stuck with me from my youth, I Am The Cheese by Robert Cormier. Considered a classic young adult novel, it is part psychological thriller and part family mystery. [image error] Next up is a non-fiction favorite, and should be read by any World War II history buff, At Dawn We Slept by Gordon W. Prange. This compelling, detailed look at the events of December 7, 1941 goes beyond the bombs falling to explore all faces of that fateful day. [image error] Finally a movie suggestion ...

After the cover, this is your first chance to convince the reader that they weren't an idiot for picking up your book. Your first chance to hook them. To let them know something about the story, and something about you--the writer. About how precise you are. How succinct. How sick. How entertaining.

Let me share the opening lines of my novels, from oldest to newest.

From Cloudburst: The calf-high, black leather boots hit the carpet with a muffled thud. Now, this was my first novel, and I might ...

Okay, pictures are necessary. And if you're a writer and have to take an author photo, publicity still, or whatever, pose anyway you want. Seated. Standing. Looking serious. Happy. Aloof. Over the shoulder. Away from the camera. Leaning against a palm tree. Elbows on a wall. With a hat. Scarf draped around neck. Dog at your side. Tiger in the background.

I just can't do that. Any of those. I can't pose. I look like an idiot.

Brief true story--I was having my photo taken for a story in

If you write one page a day you will complete a shortish novel in one year.

If you write two pages a day, Monday through Friday, you will complete an average length novel in a year.

If you write three pages a day, Monday through Friday, you will complete a pretty good sized novel or an average novel and two screenplays.

If you write four pages a day, Monday through Friday, you will complete a crazy long book, two average novels, or a novel, two screenplays, and a boatload of short stories.

Whethe...

D&D = Dungeons and Dragons for those of insufficient nerditude. Now, just through cultural osmosis you should know something of what that is--a game that allows virgin males to gather in their parents' garage and throw polygonal dice in hopes of beheading marauding orcs. At least that's how it was for me a looong time ago.

But one interesting thing about D&D that came to mind today was how it involved storytelling, particularly if you were the Dungeon Master--the guy running the show...

My first novel was rejected 139 times before it found a home at William Morrow eighteen years ago. From that pile of rejection letters (which I cherish and keep in a crushed box in the garage) there is one that I remember vividly. I will not name the agent who tossed this critique my way, but here it is:

'You are not talented enough to compete with the thousands of professional writers out there.'

Ouch. Not just a 'not for me' or a 'I wish you luck'. But a dagger dipped in venom plunged deep...

I have a lot. I mean A LOT. Most won't amount to anything. Some, in fact, read like I was drunk when they came to me--and I don't drink.

But bad or not, I write them down. I used to put things in a big spiral notebook, and still do on occasion, but even those ideas now do an electronic boomerang out onto the internet and back to me. What I do for every idea, or alteration/addition to an existing idea, is write an e-mail to myself with the subject line IDEA. My e-mail box is set up to mark...

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My new supernatural mystery, The Donzerly Light, is now available through Amazon HERE for just $3.99. From the Amazon description:

'With a destitute childhood and the tragic loss of his parents a distant but constant memory, Jay Grady has come to Wall Street to make a name, and a fortune, for himself. But the success he'd imagined is frustratingly elusive.

Until he meets the bum. An enigmatic transient who occupies a Manhattan corner, offering puzzling morsels of wisdom on a sign he changes...

I've done this before, so let's see what my gaze grabs. Ready?

Go!

Duel by Richard Matheson. Blackhawk Down by Mark Bowden. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler.

 

I firmly believe that. What this 'condition' actually is is an inability, for whatever reason, to produce nothing but crap on the page.

So produce crap on the page until something uncrappy reveals itself.

This understanding comes from one of my favorite sayings: 'Don't get it right--get it written.'