When Characters Go Rogue

I had such high hopes when I met Natalie Griffiths for the first time. She had just died (Stroke. Felled her like a tree.) without finishing her cigarette and she was bent on having another, however long it took. While she argued her case with her account manager Natalie managed to cause the death of her husband and antagonise said manager so much that she, the manager, bungled the procedure of preparing two deceased for the after life. On top of it all, Natalie — and her husband — escaped from the waiting room of the Great Beyond setting the stage for many ghost adventures. And a cigarette, obviously.

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The Beta Reader Conundrum

How do you know your book is good? You ask someone to read it and tell you what they think. Or several someones, if you’re feeling brave.

An idea. A face.

Yesterday, I sat in the kitchen with my notebook and my pen with the rubber zombie head cap, jotting down notes for the next chapter in the second draft of what I’m tentatively calling A Hunter of Dreams. it sounds a bit cheesy, I know. Possibly a lot. But as I sat there and made my main character stuff herself with fried chicken and garlic bread in anticipation of a torturous death I realised I was thinking about her as a real person. I thought about all of them as real people.

So I Wrote This Book…

… and now I’m supposed to promote it. That would not be problem at all for someone who knows a thing or two about marketing, or who is bursting with the confidence that they’ve written a timeless classic/bestseller. Unfortunately, I’m neither.

Have Plot. Will Write.

A couple of days after my realisation I was a plane spotter I made a decision. It was a decision prompted by strong emotions and the feelings I have harboured for planes for many years, and it was this: I simply have to write a book with a plane it it. A book about a plane. A book about a flight with a problem because I’m now two seasons into Air Crash Investigation and it looks like I’m going to binge my way through the whole thing before I return to all-time classics such as Passenger 57.

I Want To Write a Book

A Twitter friend said a few days ago he wanted to write a book. “Any direction?” he said. My first impulse was to say “Forward and up!” but then I thought this person wasn’t a professional writer. He had an idea but he had never written a book before. How do you do something you’ve never done before? So I told him I’ll blog about it, try to explain to myself how someone writes a book and hopefully help with my friend’s book. 

That One Book

You know how we all have some questions we’d rather never be asked? Not because the answer is embarrassing or anything but because it is impossible. Or is it just me? There is one question I really, really dread and I was recently faced with it. What is my favorite book of all time? 

The Road So Far

One day, about ten years ago, someone called me a lamiastriga. He was a news writer at the company I was working for at the time and I was an editor. He was an excellent writer and he was also a really funny and smart guy. We chatted about all sorts of supernatural stuff (we were both fans) and it was during one of these chats that he invented the word. Later he left the job and moved to Germany. We lost contact but the word stuck in my memory.