Month: January 2020

#75 – Alison Littlewood – Write Through The Roof

Interview with ‘dark and weird’ writer, Alison Littlewood

‘History, folklore, ghosts and spooky things.’

Episode 75 – Alison Littlewood – Show Notes

  • Plot beginnings and endings and pants it all the rest of the way
  • Word count spreadsheet – 1000 words per day
  • Obsessive about edits
  • Satisfies the canine overlords before she begins a writing session
  • Dark and weird genre – on the edges of horror
  • Themes – loss and death and love – various aspects of being human- twisted fairytales and folklore
  • Perceptions of horror writers
  • ‘Reading a lot. Writing a lot.’
  • The benefits of working with a good editor
  • Writing in the middle of the night – inspired by HP Lovecraft
  • Michelle Paver, Jason Arnop, Paul Tremblay, Joe Hill, Katrina Ward, Andrew Michael Hurley, Nathan Ballingrud, Priya Sharma, Angela Slatter, Graham Joyce
  • Mistletoe – ghost stories at Christmas – MR James, Victorian times – folklore and history of the plant and the season
  • Historical research
  • Cottingley faeries and changelings

‘Plot beginnings and endings and pants it all the rest of the way.’

‘People back away when I say I’m a horror writer.’

Links

Giveaway – The Antics of Evangeline – paperback

To celebrate the Australia Day long weekend (or commiserate Invasion Day), I’m giving away three (3) signed paperback copies of The Antics of Evangeline.

Mystery and mayhem.

Gadgets and ginger biscuits. High kicks and high tea.

Mesmerism and monsters in steampunk Melbourne.

Join Evangeline on her first four adventures with the Alchemist, the Bunyip, the Spiritualist and the Mysterious Lights.

Four fun and delightful novellas together in one collection.

All you need to do is comment below or RT on Twitter (@madeleine_deste).

The offer is worldwide.

#74 – Jon Black – Write Through The Roof

Interview with author and music journalist, Jon Black

“You can’t do a one-to-one transition of role-playing to fiction.”

Episode 74 – Jon Black

  • No preference for medium but a natural geography and cluster in terms of word counts
  • Mix of a plotter and pantser. Influenced by role-playing games
  • Environment is important – quirky 24-hour coffee house and writes throughout the night
  • A music journalist but does not actively listen to music while writing
  • Supernatural, historical fiction with a twist
  • Themes of power of human curiosity, music, exploring the interplay between folklore, mythology and history
  • Cultivating a sensate writing style: all five senses to bring the reader into the scene
  • Benefits of role playing in writing fiction and pitfalls
  • Experimenting with less exposition and background for characters
  • Caleb Carr, Harry Turtledove, Stephen King, Garrison Keilor, Daniel Pinkwater
  • Gabriel’s Trumpet – second wave of spiritualism and Jazz Age
  • Expanding short stories into novel-length
  • Currently editing an anthology about searches for lost books

“I’m not sure whether I have a genuine love for it or whether it’s a Stockholm syndrome thing.”

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