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Columnists

Sources of Inspiration: Action During Dialogue

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The very first thing which comes to me in a story is the dialogue. Perhaps it’s just a single line uttered by one of my characters and a response to this. Once that pops into my head, an entire scene blossoms around it. Most of my stories have a lot of dialogue, but there’s a wealth of action around character convesation I have yet to explore. The movements, the interactions of the characters with the setting; I’m too easily distracted from this when I’m writing. Seeing effective use of them, a character playing with a statue similar to a creature … Read more

Sources of Inspiration: Seeing What I Want

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I just saw a series which is no longer on the air (you can see what it is from the picture). It gave me something I’m always looking for, yearning for in my stories and writing. Intimacy within adversity and conflict, offered up with all the raw power that two enemies find themselves within as they become something more. I’m not certain if Hannibal is a love story or not. I like the uncertainty of not knowing exactly what it is, the mystery. This love of mystery in such matters may be one of the reasons I’ve avoided classifying myself … Read more

Jeff Baker, Boogieman In lavender: Halloween Reading; Clive Barker

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        By Jeff Baker    The year was 1993 (or pretty close.) I was running a delivery route in-town and on my lunch hour I ran into a used bookstore and grabbed a horror anthology I hadn’t heard of. “Masters of Darkness,” edited by Dennis Etchison. In three volumes, the books feature horror stories selected and introduced by their authors, stories they think may not have gotten the exposure they deserved on first publication. Robert Bloch, Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell. And Clive Barker.             I’d heard the name, but this was where I first encountered Barker. His selection was “In the Hills, … Read more

Sources of Inspiration: Change

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It’s easy for me to fall into a rut. I wear the same clothes and accessories. I watch certain shows. I listen to the same playlists of music over and over. It’s comforting, especially when I’m troubled by something or doubled over with pain from one of those wonderful sinus headaches which make the back of my head throb, upsetting my stomach. (I’m being sarcastic.) Only that cycle of comfortable familiarity can make my imagination sleepy. Sometimes I need to do something different to wake it up. I’ll stop reaching for the same pair of earrings I’ve been wearing for … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Beast

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I think my favorite part of science is finding something expected that isn’t quite what we expected. This particular discovery is no different and I’m giggling over it. Astronomers have found galaxies 11 billion light years from Earth. We knew they were there, we’ve seen a sizable number but were always looking for more. Higher numbers mean more we can pull data from. No surprises. Everything’s normal. We keep looking. A cluster of 39 galaxies come to astronomers’ attention. These old behemoths are tightly pack and massive on a scale unknown for the early Universe until now. It’s hard to … Read more

Sources of Inspiration: Blogs

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crystal - KS trenten - sources of inspiration

At times I worry that I’m spending too much time on my blogs, time that takes me away from my many works in progress. The Cauldrons, however, have been a vital source of inspiration, creativity, and energy since becoming a professional writer. They give me an idea of what direction I want to take my stories in. They’ve given my characters a spot to express themselves, bringing to my attention matters I need to focus on. Quartz has taken on a life of his own in Secondary Characters Speak Out, refusing to let himself fade away, even when I’m concentrating … Read more

Sources of Inspiration: Space and Company

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I’ve been thinking about this a lot during Camp NaNoWriMo. To write, I find I require space and company at different times. I need a place where I can write, be alone with my thoughts, or at least be allowed to work. It would be nice for that location to be quiet, but that’s not always possible. I’m getting better at blocking out distractions, like background noise (even though it still irritates me), but sometimes a family member wants something or needs attention. They’re determined to be heard, so I must be equally determined to sneak away. To go to … Read more

A Loaf of Bread, A Jug of Urine and Thou – Jeff Baker

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Writers have day jobs. It’s a plain fact of economics, writing doesn’t pay that much unless the writer is very lucky. We supplant our creative careers with a nine-to-five (or six to three, or some such.) A lot of writers have been teachers. Stephen King taught high school English. Jeffrey Marks juggles teaching and editing, the British ghost story writer M. R. James was a Provost of King’s College, Cambridge and Eaton. Some writers, like Steve Berman, have worked in publishing. And others, like me, have jobs that have nothing to do with writing at all. For the last 25 … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Ferocity

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Ferocity

There’s some weird opinions floating around the science intelligentsia all the time. It’s common knowledge and it usually comes down to ideas about how the universe works, until that idea is put to rigorous tests. That’s just the proper way to science. Sometimes though, someone gets a really weird opinion on a topic and this particular one honestly made me scratch my head. One geneticist says we should stop human evolution. This scientist states that evolution is a scourge on our species and we have to stop feeding our children to this evil monster of natural force. They go on … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Imminent

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As I read this article, I didn’t realize all the pieces had started coming together. That humanity was really on the brink of finding life outside of our little half-evolved mudball. A dream so many have and labored toward about to come to fruition. The real interesting information, the bit that sucked me down the biological rabbit hole, was the many many ways life might manifest. Yes, science fiction has explored a wide variety of alien lifeforms, but I think, when it’s all said and done, the life we do find won’t be anything like we imagined. As a science … Read more