Craig Terlson's Blog, page 4

It's back - the return of Bent Highway

So, I've been in a bit of a writerly funk lately. If you're a writer, you've been there too. It isn't what I'd call writer's block - it's more like I can't write because I don't want to. The words have been dripping out of my brain like something that drips out slowly. Honey? Molasses? Cold blood?

You get the picture.

So I have decided to re-launch something... something I started quite some time ago and always meant to finish. Yep, Bent Highway is coming back.

When I first launched this s...

Dormancy

Time to fire up the old blog machine again - it's been dormant too long.

I'd be curious to know what you might want to read here. I am open to suggestions, here are some possibilities:

Publishing tales - traditional and self-pub - agents and all that stuff

Writer's craft - just how do I write that suspense scene?

Book review stuff - writers I like

Excerpts of my work - old, new, something borrowed, something blue

Drop me a comment, or send me a note on twitter. I'll see if I can crawl out of m...

A conversation on James Lee Burke

A few years back—I think it was years—I struck up a conversation with a writer from New York, Mark Conard, which turned into a friendship. We joke that the two of us are across-the-border dopplegangers, as we have so much in common. It is uncanny at times.

We've shared work back and forth, as well as introduced each other to writers that inspire us. One of those was the great literary crime writer, James Lee Burke. 
Mark put one of our conversations into a wonderful blog entry.

Here is the start...

A formula for suspense

Last year I was interviewed by someone who asked me how I went about creating suspense. They complimented me on my ability to crank up the tension in a scene, thus driving the reader forward.
I’m guessing they didn’t say “thus”, but hey, my memory is what it is.

I appreciated the kind words about the writing – but then had to wonder, well how do I do that? I won’t keep you in suspense (I kill me), so here goes...

Simplest suspense formula ever:

Writer knows something + holds back something...

Champion Mojo Storyteller - Joe R. Lansdale

“But to lose my idealism, to quit believing in the ability of human beings to rise above their baser instincts, was to become old and bitter and of no service to anyone, not even myself.”
― Joe R. Lansdale, Savage Season

About a dozen or more years ago I was working on my first novel, Correction Line, and I was swapping chapters with a friend from Rhode Island. My story was a combination of a lot of things I loved, literary fiction, the prairies, baseball, bad guys with guns, and oh yeah M...

OK, let’s talk about this knight errant thing

In thinking about a follow-up to my “why I write this stuff”, I kept circling back to the idea of the knight errant.

I’d certainly heard the term, maybe even as a kid when I was geeking out on all things Arthurian – as in Mary Stewart’s the Crystal Cave, which served as kind of a touchstone when I finally was old enough to understand (and laugh my ass off at) Monty Python’s Holy Grail. So I figured this knight errant thing had something to do with that, though it always seemed like a weird t...

Why do you write crime fiction? Isn't it all just guns, blood, and violence?

 

Over breakfast, I was chatting with my wife saying how I was dealing with more dead bodies in that morning's writing session.

Her: Why do you write stuff like that?
Me (after I got over my defensiveness): Um, uh… well, cuz… FLANNERY O’CONNOR.

I didn’t even try to explain the blurted remark. She’s heard me wax on about O’Connor before. She is a wonderful patient woman (my wife I mean. Reading her correspondence, I got the sense that Flannery didn’t suffer fools, or critics, much... and would...

Okay, so apparently I am now a crime fiction writer…

 

 

It happened so fast that my unfocused eyes barely picked it up, but somehow Sam got a knee up and slammed it under his chin. Then she sprang up like a slinky on acid and gave one of the prettiest spin kicks I’d ever seen. Like a jolt of the best coffee, my world sharpened, and when Mr. Freight Train turned to give me another swing I came up and gave him one of my Montreal specials. I don’t think I broke his jaw, though back in my sparring partner days in Belle Province, I’d been known t...

OPBA Interview - Truth Through Scandal and Conspiracy

Over at the Open Book website, catch me talking about truth, scandal, and conspiracy.

Here is a taste:

Open Book:

Tell us about your new book and how it came to be.

Craig Terlson:

The impetus of Fall in One Day began with the idea of hidden truths. I have always been fascinated by stories of conspiracy and intrigue, as well as the paranoia that comes out of not knowing who is telling the truth, and what remains unknown. Growing up in the 1970s, I knew that Watergate was a watershed moment no...

Shhh... writing

Yes, the old woofreakinhoo is taking a bit of a hiatus - I am busy working on a new novel, and I only have so much time to commit. Feel free to poke around. There's 10 years of stuff here!

And yes indeed, Luke Fischer is coming back.