Ask the Author: Jason J. McCuiston
Answered Questions (10)
Jason J. McCuiston
Sadly, I lead a rather boring life which is why I write so much speculative fiction. I crave the fantastic in all its various genres... Believe me, if I had a plot-inspiring mystery in my own experience, I'd have already turned it into a story.
Jason J. McCuiston
That's a really tough one. I guess the first fictional world I fell in love with was Llloyd Alexander's Prydain, so I'd probably go there. Whatever I chose to do, whether it be a traveling bard or an assistant pig keeper, it would certainly be safer than the worlds of some of my other favorite authors.
Jason J. McCuiston
I don't usually have a "reading list." I just pick up things I think look interesting, and give them a go. If I get ten to twenty pages in and they haven't hooked me, I move on to the next. Life is too short to read books that don't grab you.
Jason J. McCuiston
The heavens opened and Jesus returned. But I wasn't ready.
Jason J. McCuiston
Routine. Routine. Routine. They say that anything you do for 28 days becomes a habit. If that's true, make sure you are in your writing place at your writing time for twenty-eight straight days. Yes, the first half hour or so might be gibberish, but as long as you are putting words down, they will begin to flow and the story will take shape. Don't worry about being perfect; the only writing is re-writing.
That being said, if I find myself in a situation where no ideas are making themselves known, I'll get out my sketchbook and doodle for a few hours, or let my mind wander while I work out. I do a mental end-around to get my creativity flowing again. I think this is what Stephen King would call, "Letting the boys in the basement do their work."
That being said, if I find myself in a situation where no ideas are making themselves known, I'll get out my sketchbook and doodle for a few hours, or let my mind wander while I work out. I do a mental end-around to get my creativity flowing again. I think this is what Stephen King would call, "Letting the boys in the basement do their work."
Jason J. McCuiston
Surprising yourself. I'm a plotter, so I have a pretty good idea what my characters are going to do and how my story is going to get to the end every time I sit down to the keyboard. But then, somewhere between the first and third hour, something amazing happens; a character comes up with a better idea than I did in how to solve a problem, or a villain throws something altogether unexpected at my heroes and we have to scramble to deal with it. That's when writing is magical.
Jason J. McCuiston
Don't quit. Work harder today than you did yesterday. Don't let the negativity pull you down. Yes, you may very well suck right now, but that doesn't mean you will this time next month. I think Ray Bradbury said, "Every good writer has a million bad words in them." Just do the math, if you write a thousand words a day, how long will it take you to get all the bad ones out? It is a finite answer. The flip side to this is, you are never as good as you think you are. I know I'm not. Listen to constructive criticism and get better.
Jason J. McCuiston
Book Three of the Shadow Crusade, currently titled Borderlands. Godric and Robert march to Scotland to place Edgar Probus on the throne of Alba, and get involved in a bloody mystery (naturally).
Jason J. McCuiston
My inspiration usually comes from learning a new fact; something from history or science I didn't know before. I love the show Mystery at the Museum for this reason; I think I was watching an episode when it struck me that the Arnold "Flying Saucer" sighting above Mount Rainier was BEFORE the Roswell incident, and Pow! Project Notebook was born. I like to say that I write in the "cracks of history," the places where we don't know exactly what happened, how, or why.
Jason J. McCuiston
I've had the idea, or the kernel of an idea, for Servants of the Horned God rolling around in my head for nearly twenty years. When I was in college, I saw the movie adaptation of Umberto Echo's The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery, and I loved the idea of having a Sherlock Holmes type of character investigating things in the Middle Ages. Of course, me being me, he would have to be investigating Lovecraftian horrors in the shadows. My initial thought was to make him a bookish introvert paired with a hard-living Crusader knight discovering eldritch secrets in the Holy Land, but as finally got down to do the research and put the book together, I was inspired by what was actually going on in England and Normandy during the First Crusade, and Godric and Robert's relationship just sort of took shape from there.
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