The Curator is Coming
My brother's new novel, The Curator, is out on March 7th. You can find it in your neighborhood indie bookstore, your nearby Barnes & Noble, or at your favorite online dealer. I read an advance copy last year and was blown away.
You don't want to miss out on the abundant pleasures of this twisty, hilarious, gory, mystery-drenched, cat-filled, ghost-crowded Dickensian epic. And the only experience that could improve your reading of the book would be catching Owen on the road to hear him talk about it! Review the tour dates above and act accordingly.
There's more information about his tour on his website... where you can also sign up for his semi-frequent newsletter, Don't Push That Button. Go on, go check it out now. I'll still be here when you get back.
Don't Hyde Your Love Away
I was honored when Leslie Klinger and the Mysterious Press approached me a while back to see if I'd write an introduction to Leslie's gloriously annotated Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (part of Leslie's ongoing attempt to annotate some of the greatest works in the history of weird fiction -- these books are uncut heroin for fans of mystery, horror, and the fantastic). It was a chance to enthuse, not just about this story, but about a whole range of Victorian horror fiction, what those novels meant to readers then, and what they mean to us now. I think it came out pretty well.
The Mysterious Press produced a beautiful looking hardcover, available at all the usual places. But they also crafted some luxurious autographed limited editions, of which a few are still available. (To be clear: Leslie and I signed them. Stevenson wasn't available, on account of being dead.)
My thanks if you find your way to picking up this one in any of its handsome editions.
How I Begin
Early last year, I crossed paths with a Massachusetts filmmaker named Chas Tewksbury, and we got talking. At some point he asked if he could send me a few questions about my process. He was, I think, trying to find his way into a script. I said okay and eventually he sent his questions along. After a very long while - I'm a spotty correspondent at best - I got back to him.
The things he wanted to know strike me as the sort of thing that might be of interest to anyone trying to tackle a story, so with his permission, I'm reprinting his questions and my answers here. If you ever wanted to know how I start, and what keeps me going, here you go.
Chas's questions are in bold:
How or when do you know or feel the time is right to begin writing? I have heard various timeframes from outlining and full character development to just sitting down and going for it.
I tend not to outline. But after I have a concept I like, I'll daydream on it, for days, or weeks, or, in some cases, years, telling the story to myself when I go to bed at night, or when I'm out for a walk. In this way, a story is often mostly written in my head, before I sit down. I know who I'm writing about and how they feel about themselves and their lives. I usually know the way they talk. I had all of a novella, "Loaded," written in my head for years before I put it on the page. There were still a few scenes that surprised me, but a lot of it I knew already.
I don't think it's a good idea to start until you have clear ideas about your lead character(s). If you can't hear the way they talk, if you don't know how they live, you aren't ready yet -- that might be one decent rule of thumb.
Do you have an end goal with each story? As in having an ending when you begin writing or perhaps a message you are trying to get across?
I generally stay away from message stories. I'm writing fiction, not sermons. But sometimes I'll know the ending when I start writing. Endings and beginnings are the easiest part to imagine. It's the middle that's always tough. Now and then I'll have a good ending in mind before I start -- a shocking twist, a sudden emotional bait-and-switch. This was very much the case when I wrote a short story called "All I Care About Is You," which appears in Full Throttle.
But I don't need to know the ending and sometimes when I think I know the ending, it turns out I'm wrong. To write successfully I only need to know three things: the basic situation or concept, at least one character, and the next scene I'm writing. Any other information is just gravy.
What would you suggest to combat procrastination and staying steadfast to remain productive?
Self-loathing has always worked well for me.
Actually, more seriously, a wife who loves me, encourages me, reads the stories as they develop, and helps to bring out the best in them - I have that and it's priceless. She keeps me focused by making the work feel worth it.
Do you take much inspiration or influences from other writings to make your own or just conjure an idea or story from within?
A lot of my stories are comments on other stories, on books or films that meant a lot to me. The Fireman was a riff on my father's book, The Stand. A story called "Abraham's Boys" was in conversation with Stoker's Dracula. "My Father's Mask" was an attempt to write a story in the style of Kelly Link's short fiction (check out "The Specialist's Hat," a creepy classic). A recent short story, "You Are Released" was my attempt to see if I could tell a story the way David Mitchell tells 'em. And so it goes. I've always liked other people's stories a lot more than I like my own, so probably it was inevitable that a lot of my own writing would be my way of celebrating and investigating the authors who turned me on.
Well, this e-mail has been long enough. Probably time to get back to this, right? ⬆️
Here's wishing you easy days, good company, and happy reading. Thanks for subscribing to Escape Hatch. I hope it's a good thing to discover in your in-box. Catch you again soon?