Richard Shury On Motivation : Guest Post

My friend Richard Shury recently got his awesome holocaust/fantasy book  Laid Hold the Dragon (UK link) up as an e-book for us e-book fans. The Amazon.com link for readers outside the UK is here.

(Can I just say I wish I'd thought of that title? It just pushes all my buttons. Don't judge me.)

Of course, far from satisfied, I bugged the poor boy until he agreed to do the blog post below for me; which I hope you enjoy - I think whether you write or not, you'll identify with what Richard says.

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Motivation comes and goes, so I try and grab on to it when it does swing by. It has been a while since Laid Hold The Dragon was written, let alone published. 

It began as other pieces of my writing have, with an idea from another book, merged with a scene in my head. In my mind’s eye it plays out as a scene in a movie, vivid, colourful, but initially without context. The swirling mists of the story gradually coalesce and take solid form, and the thing comes together. For me, the process is often chaotic, which lends it a certain energy, but also means I have to write a lot of notes in order to ensure that the final product will make some kind of sense. It’s a balance between precision and emotion, or between patience and the desire to blurt out as much of the imagery in my head as possible before it fades away.

I have been thinking back to the original motivation for the book, besides being sick of thinking about writing one for some time and actually wanting to get on with it. I had been interested in (but not a believer of) Christian Apocalypse theory, or whatever it is called, and I remember thinking ‘what if the End of Days didn’t go according to plan?’ That was where it all started. Actually, thinking about it, that would make a fairly good movie tagline. Ok, maybe not. In any case, I liked the idea of drawing on this warped vision of the future, and warping it even further, whilst being able to tell very human stories through my characters and through their visions. Incorporating the science fiction elements into the book was just another fun, though challenging, aspect of what I wanted to achieve.

The impetus for creation, as mentioned earlier, is often drawn from other works, or from the seeds of concepts expressed in these works, be they works of fiction or otherwise. I often find that my best ideas for science fiction (or the ones which seem so to me) have sprung from today’s science or ways of thinking. Translating the excitement and fascination of these concepts into something readable and equally as exciting is the challenge I have taken on; if I have not completely succeeded, perhaps it will not be too much excuse-making to say that it is a struggle to truly express these concepts; and indeed, the struggle itself has its own rewards.

It would seem the ultimate test is always how readers feel once they have finished reading (and, indeed, whether they do finish reading), and whether they come to the end with a sense of satisfaction and time well spent; if you are one of those who has been intrigued enough to pick up a copy, I hope I do not disappoint. If you would like to give me feedback, I’d love it, but please be gentle; it’s my first time.

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Follow Richard on twitter - @RichardShury, or say hi to him on GoodReads -  and of course you can still pick up the tree version of Laid Hold on Amazon.com here.
Laid Hold the Dragon is also up at Smashwords, the Sony reader e-bookstore, and Barnes & Noble has stock of both the paperback and e-book.

Joseph Garraty - Guest Blog

A couple of months ago I made excited fan-girl noises over Voice, a great little horror I picked up on kindle.


Joseph Garraty has since become a twitter buddy and pen-pal of sorts, and if you aren't following his blog yet you really should be. He's a busy guy, so when he agreed to a guest post for me I made more excited fan-girl noises.


You can find Voice here:
Amazon – Kindle format

Amazon – Paperback

Barnes and Noble ebook

Smashwords

Follow Joseph's blog at : http://www.josephgarraty.com 
Take it away, Joe!

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I'm a quiet, low key kind of guy. People at work joke that, if i'm talking, you'd better listen up, because if  I've expended all that effort to open my mouth, it must be because I have something important to say. I wouldn't go that far, but I would say I go through life in a pleasant state of calm equilibrium. I'm not loud or aggressive, I get along with most people, and I tend to take a lot of care in my daily actions. I drive the speed limit, for Christ's sake.


On the other hand, I recently released a horror novel full of bloody and horrible events, and this is me on stage (head blurred, due to banging):

It would be reasonable for the casual observer to ask just what the hell is going on here. How in the world do horror fiction and loud rock and roll music fit into the life of a man who breaks out into a nervous sweat if it  looks like he's going to be a couple of minutes late to an appointment?


I've spent a bunch of time thinking about that, and I don't think its a contradiction at all. I think it's actually healthy (but then I would think that, wouldn't I?). Here's why:


Modern life is essentially a contest between the higher functions and the lower, between long-term goals and immediate needs - or, if you're into literary criticism, between the Apollonian and Dionysian. I am not into literary criticism, so I'll call it a contest between being a social animal and just being an animal. One the one hand, for society to function we need to cooperate, to make accommodations for each other, and, yes, to drive the speed limit. On the other hand, our ancestors (and I'm talking ancestors back to friggin' protozoa here) did not survive by driving the speed limit. They survived because basic animal biology is driven by what my brother's bio professor called "The four F's:fighting, feeding, fleeing and ... reproduction." That shit is wired in to our biology—we wouldn’t be here if it weren't.

If there’s a contradiction, that’s it. The human animal is wired with tension at the very foundation. Coping with that basic tension, though—there’s nothing contradictory about that, and that’s where the horror fiction and loud music come in. At first glance, the works of Stephen King and, say, Mötorhead don’t seem to have a lot in common. But if we peel back the surface layer, what do we find?

The four F’s. Everywhere. Rock and roll at its core is a celebration of the fourth F, the music of reckless abandon and pure sexual energy. Done right, there’s nothing cerebral about it—it all comes straight from the gut, or maybe the pelvis. Horror fiction is a different animal, much more concerned with fighting and fleeing—and feeding.

The way I look at it, the two complement each other perfectly, and indeed have been enthusiastic partners for a long time. Go back and dust off the legend of Robert Johnson, the blues player, and right there you have the roots of rock and roll coupled with a deal with the devil. Later, of course, Black Sabbath came along and married the dark themes of horror to rock music in a more explicit way, and in doing so spawned an entire genre dedicated to that marriage. Nearly all heavy metal imagery is laden with horror themes—just walk into the music store (does anybody do that anymore?) and grab any metal CD at random, and you can’t miss it. Hell, Metallica’s got at least one song based on a Lovecraft story, and it doesn’t get more obvious than that.

I believe we get balance in our lives from experiencing these things. The human brain is an immensely complex and powerful simulation engine, and by channeling your favorite Dionysian art form (oops, that slipped through) through it periodically, you keep the humors in balance—absorbing the art is, in fact, neurologically similar to having had those experiences yourself to some degree. And you get it without the vast social and personal disruption of satisfying your four F’s the hard way.

I don’t think this is a catharsis thing, either. It’s not that we go through life and then one day need some rock music and a bloody story to keep us from exploding, any more than we go through life eating only steak and then one day need to eat some asparagus to keep from exploding. It’s balance.

And, as an animal that basically wants to fuck and eat, and wants it right now, living life in a society that wishes we’d all obey the speed limit, a little balance goes a long way.

That’s my story, anyway, and I’m sticking to it. 

Thea Atkinson Guest Blog: Already Home

One of the things that has consistently floored me since getting into the Indie writing side is just how nice a lot of the folks in this community are.


Case in point: Thea Atkinson guest blogs for me today, and not only does she come up with a blow-your-socks-off post, she's outing a darn good musical talent at the same time. (Of course I checked it out. Major talent - great lyrics and a voice that gives me goosebumps in very good ways. I'm already stalking him on twitter.)


Enjoy!


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Already Home: the tale of a lowly musician

By Thea Atkinson

A series of thoughts flood Julian Babin's mind, churning over themselves like storm waves curling onto a jagged shoreline. Get out.  Hide.  Run home. 

He drags in a breath from the cramped backstage room as though it were the same air an overboard sailor would be pulling in (Get out.  Hide.  Run home), and he steals looks at the others with him.  Larry Hattie, Matt Hemeon, Jamie Surette, Andre Surette: they all act as though playing TH' YARC is an everyday occurrence.  No biggie.  Let’s get it on.  But there's a crick in Larry's usual long line of confidence, a tension in the way Matt clutches his drumstick that makes Julian think it’s made of lead rather than lightweight ash. Jamie has pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose one time too many to just be considered habit.

Yes.  There's electricity here--a weather of electricity.  But there's something else too, or rather, someone else.  If Julian turns his head, focuses on just the right spot, he can imagine this someone: this 12-year-old boy.  His brown hair will be shaggy like most his age from running bases, his hazel eyes glint with excitement as his dad passes him a hot-red electric guitar.

“If you don’t do this for yourself,” he tells himself. “Do it for the boy.” Julian manages to take a deeper, more calming breath, and moves to the backstage curtain to pull it aside.

He's looked out a half-dozen times already.  The fog from the machine at the back of the stage is creeping along the boards, rising slowly into the red lights, diffusing them, amplifying the stage’s sense of isolation.  He can hear the murmur of voices in the theater as the crowd takes their seats.  Stephanie Hardy has been caught in the early November weather.  Cancellation is a must for her, an added anxiety for Julian.

He swallows down the thoughts that come upon him again. Get out. Hide. Run on home. He can manage. He’s done this sort of thing before. He and the boy. Maybe not TH' YARC, but backyard sheds, backyard gigs, festivals where he and a group of likeminded rock star teens played on flatbeds, behind the school, SARMU, anywhere that would let them bang out music.

By the time he was 22, he even played a semi-produced show: Tune-A-Fest, where he strummed out a Bryan Adams tune, and where for the first time people started telling him, “You should start doing your own stuff.”

He’d been nervous then too, but each time he adjusted the mic for himself during a performance and strapped on his guitar, he had calmed down.

He was home.

He thinks of that first electric guitar and how it had pulled some wonderful music from his fingers: nice, melodic heavy metal. Yes. Those early days when Metallica was the band that fueled his fantasies. Doesn’t matter that the dream evolved, like all good dreams do, or that the music in him changed.

He remembers coming home from summer music camp and a short grin steals his face for a moment. He’d arrived playing RunDMC and breakdancing to rap. Strange behavior from a young Wedgeport boy, but then, he’d always enjoyed things that were different.

He’s come a long way from there, a long, winding, but ultimately circular way. His mind picks up another shadow from those summers. A lanky teen with long hair, a cheap old mic, and a four track machine that recorded Neil Young inspired music. Dark.  Melancholy. Acoustic.  There were the cool kids, like there are everywhere teenagers gather, and then there was him.  The outcast.  He was doing things that no one else was.

Julian pulled toward him like Europa does Jupiter.

It had been a frustrating go, that summer.  Writing, playing, singing for an instructor that couldn't be appeased.  No one could impress him.  Long Hair seemed to take it in stride. 

"It doesn't matter what he thinks,"  Julian remembers him saying during one of their nightly hangouts.  "There's no right way to write a song.  It's what you like that matters."

What I like. Julian hadn’t really understood that till he was in his mid twenties. Up till then he destroyed most of what he wrote. His music, his lyrics, were eccentric then, fragmented in a way, but it had something, a feel, that seemed right, an ambassador for who he was. There are times, now, when he catches a glimpse of that feel, and so there’s hope that his music can evolve into what’s it’s meant to be.

He shutters his eyelids, peering into the corner, trying to imagine the boy again among his bandmates, who by now have become more relaxed. They stretch in their seats, legs crooked and crossed. Larry grins. Julian has this opportunity, really, because of Larry.

“Come on over, Jules,” he’d said when Julian feared he’d lose the melodies sprinting through his mind, “I’ll track you.” It’s how he’d ended up with a CD, why he’s doing this concert now. Still, he’s unnerved. These are songs that have survived for some reason and they want to be shared.

Julian fidgets.  Andre is out on stage, warming up the audience, and their responsive laughter filters its way back through the heavy black curtains.  They're attentive, this audience, quick.  They're here to listen; they want a show. The panic boils up again.

Get out.  Hide.  Run home. 

Julian’s mind darts about.  His heart picks up a tempo that has his breath skipping, but this time, the 12-year-old boy cozies up to him.  It's not time to run or hide. 

It's time to go onstage. 

With a determined breath, he steps into the lights, feels the heat of the orange and blue strobes strike his arms where the T-shirt sleeves end.  The roar that erupts from the packed house vibrates in his chest.  He straps on his guitar, adjusts the mic, and a sense of calm envelops him. He feels the boy next to him, imagines him smiling.  There's no need to run or hide.

He’s already home.

-30-

Thea writes psychological thriller novels and she tries to help out struggling musicians in some small way. If you enjoyed Julian's story, please find him on Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/210497085)

Or follow him on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/JulianMarcBabin

As for Thea, she does her usual rambling on her blog, sells a few ebooks, and twitters a lot.

Please feel free to follow her on twitter

http://twitter.com/#!/theaatkinson

or like her facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Theas-Writing-Page/122231651163413

or visit her blog for ramblings, guest posts, giveaways, and more

http://theaatkinson.wordpress.com


Check out the book trailer Thea made for Anomaly; using Julian's music: http://www.myspace.com/video/569367271/21-jul-2011/108036321