Luke Walker's Blog: https://lukewalkerwriter.wordpress.com, page 20
August 12, 2015
Pull that trigger (warning)
A week or so ago, a great article was posted on Ginger Nuts of Horror regarding trigger warnings. You can read it here. It's got me thinking about my own view on triggers and warnings - an issue I've mulled over for the last couple of years since I first encountered the term.
As a horror writer, I obviously cover violent and unpleasant subjects. Nasty things happen in my fiction; it doesn't end well for a lot of the characters, and even with those who do make it through...well, shit happens before the end of the of the tale. Does that sound familiar? Does it sound a bit like. . .life?
You're probably guessing I'm not too much of a fan of trigger warnings and I have to admit (and maybe because we're all so concerned with causing offence, I should apologise beforehand) you'd be right. Of course, it's easy as hell for me to dismiss them from my position of privilege. I've never been abused, attacked or hurt by someone who wanted to do so because of my gender, sexuality or their authority over me. The chances are, I never will so what gives me the right to get stroppy over the subject of trigger warnings? Simply because when I write what I write, there's a good chance someone will read one of my books or stories and have a highly negative reaction to a scene or character (and this happened with a writer friend who read and critiqued The Red Girl for me). With writing horror, I open myself up to hurting a reader with my words, but I'm still not a fan of trigger warnings. No person who's undergone horrific events in their past wants to relive them or come across a reminder of them by accident. At the same time, avoiding those issues can be next to impossible unless you cut yourself off from all fiction or news or other people which is obviously not going to happen. With that in mind, it might not seem too much to ask that a book comes with a warning. We didn't have trigger warnings twenty or so years ago but we do now because we want to be better than the past, don't we? We just left people to risk reliving their hurts by accident back then, didn't we? But we're better than that now. We want to keep people happy. We want to celebrate the importance and happiness of everybody. Overdo it, though, and you risk blanketing people from one of life's big truths.
It's shit. It's hard and ugly and bad things happens to good people for no reason at all. We can't pretend otherwise or overlook this just as we shouldn't overlook the good stuff. We need to incorporate both into our lives as much as we can. Sometimes, we fail on both, but we have to keep trying. Warning people that a piece of fiction will cause them hurt, stress, misery or any other negative reaction is to cheapen something that makes us human.
We keep going. Life and all its shittiness doesn't get to win. We do when we keep going.
So, no, count me out of supporting warnings. Count me in for facing all the monsters in the world and doing whatever it takes to cut their heads off...while always facing them.
As a horror writer, I obviously cover violent and unpleasant subjects. Nasty things happen in my fiction; it doesn't end well for a lot of the characters, and even with those who do make it through...well, shit happens before the end of the of the tale. Does that sound familiar? Does it sound a bit like. . .life?
You're probably guessing I'm not too much of a fan of trigger warnings and I have to admit (and maybe because we're all so concerned with causing offence, I should apologise beforehand) you'd be right. Of course, it's easy as hell for me to dismiss them from my position of privilege. I've never been abused, attacked or hurt by someone who wanted to do so because of my gender, sexuality or their authority over me. The chances are, I never will so what gives me the right to get stroppy over the subject of trigger warnings? Simply because when I write what I write, there's a good chance someone will read one of my books or stories and have a highly negative reaction to a scene or character (and this happened with a writer friend who read and critiqued The Red Girl for me). With writing horror, I open myself up to hurting a reader with my words, but I'm still not a fan of trigger warnings. No person who's undergone horrific events in their past wants to relive them or come across a reminder of them by accident. At the same time, avoiding those issues can be next to impossible unless you cut yourself off from all fiction or news or other people which is obviously not going to happen. With that in mind, it might not seem too much to ask that a book comes with a warning. We didn't have trigger warnings twenty or so years ago but we do now because we want to be better than the past, don't we? We just left people to risk reliving their hurts by accident back then, didn't we? But we're better than that now. We want to keep people happy. We want to celebrate the importance and happiness of everybody. Overdo it, though, and you risk blanketing people from one of life's big truths.
It's shit. It's hard and ugly and bad things happens to good people for no reason at all. We can't pretend otherwise or overlook this just as we shouldn't overlook the good stuff. We need to incorporate both into our lives as much as we can. Sometimes, we fail on both, but we have to keep trying. Warning people that a piece of fiction will cause them hurt, stress, misery or any other negative reaction is to cheapen something that makes us human.
We keep going. Life and all its shittiness doesn't get to win. We do when we keep going.
So, no, count me out of supporting warnings. Count me in for facing all the monsters in the world and doing whatever it takes to cut their heads off...while always facing them.
July 29, 2015
I've got nothing to say
A quiet month blogging wise. To be honest, it only dawned on me yesterday I'd blogged all of once this month. Usually, I've got something to say two or three times a month whether that's about whatever I'm working on, a film or book I've enjoyed or something non writerly. But right now? Nope. Not a sausage. And there's a good reason for that.
Because to people outside it, being a writer is boring. You sit alone in front of a blank page and you hope the thin idea you've been sitting on for a week or a month or years can be peeled out of your brain and stuck to that blank page. You hope the outline you have for characters will turn into people as much flesh and blood as anyone in the real world. You hope that idea and those outlines will come together into something good, something a publisher or agent will like and see as saleable to the market and then they'll come together into something the public will want to spend money on. You hope all that and you do the only thing you can in order to try and make this mad, fucked up idea happen.
You write.
That's it. You write, and when it's done, you don't stop. Oh, no. You have to fix all the horrific cock ups you made whether they're simple mistakes or lines that should be banished to the blackest pits of Hell because they're just so fucking awful (and then you wonder how the hell you missed their sheer shittiness when you wrote them); then you let a few people give you their thoughts on what you've created and you listen to them and you go back to the book and fix the stuff you missed the second time around.
You write because that's all you can do to try and make your little idea and pretend-people into a book. And, for anyone outside this, it's dull. It's as boring as someone you don't care about telling you the details of their soul-crushingly pointless job. You don't give a toss what they do 9-5 just as you don't care about the writer wading through the third attempt of their latest book and wondering if this one is going to be good enough, long enough, too long, scary enough, funny enough, readable enough to sell or are they just going round in circles with every new story and every new submission. Why would you care?
It's boring.
So, yeah. I've got nothing to say.
Because to people outside it, being a writer is boring. You sit alone in front of a blank page and you hope the thin idea you've been sitting on for a week or a month or years can be peeled out of your brain and stuck to that blank page. You hope the outline you have for characters will turn into people as much flesh and blood as anyone in the real world. You hope that idea and those outlines will come together into something good, something a publisher or agent will like and see as saleable to the market and then they'll come together into something the public will want to spend money on. You hope all that and you do the only thing you can in order to try and make this mad, fucked up idea happen.
You write.
That's it. You write, and when it's done, you don't stop. Oh, no. You have to fix all the horrific cock ups you made whether they're simple mistakes or lines that should be banished to the blackest pits of Hell because they're just so fucking awful (and then you wonder how the hell you missed their sheer shittiness when you wrote them); then you let a few people give you their thoughts on what you've created and you listen to them and you go back to the book and fix the stuff you missed the second time around.
You write because that's all you can do to try and make your little idea and pretend-people into a book. And, for anyone outside this, it's dull. It's as boring as someone you don't care about telling you the details of their soul-crushingly pointless job. You don't give a toss what they do 9-5 just as you don't care about the writer wading through the third attempt of their latest book and wondering if this one is going to be good enough, long enough, too long, scary enough, funny enough, readable enough to sell or are they just going round in circles with every new story and every new submission. Why would you care?
It's boring.
So, yeah. I've got nothing to say.
July 15, 2015
On Stephen King's IT.
When I was eleven pushing twelve, I got hold of a copy of Stephen King's It. Too many years have passed for me to say with any certainty if that copy belonged to either my dad or my eldest brother (it was definitely one of them). What I can remember is the pretty garish cover of a drain with a monster's eyes peering out, and the back cover copy all about a town called Derry and how safe and familiar it was, how known, how horrible below the surface because something haunted Derry; something killed kids there.
Well, count me in for digging into this one, I thought. The fact that it was 900 odd pages didn't factor into it. I wanted to see just what lived in the sewers and what haunted this town I'd never heard of and, until I was at least fifteen, thought was a real place. Within a hundred or so pages, I'd fallen in love with the entire Losers' Club. Stuttering Bill, Ben, Stan the Man, Eddie, Richie the Mouth, Mike and (of course) Beverly. They were kids I could have been friends with; they were kids I wanted to be friends with even if meant facing off against a killer clown who could turn into anyone's worst fear. And while I had no chance of verbalising it-or even really given it serious consideration at that age-I knew there was magic in that story. Magic of being a kid; magic of belief in monsters and the weapons to fight those monsters; and magic of friendship.
God knows how many times I've returned to those characters, to Derry and the Barrens. A dozen? More, perhaps. In any case, while unpacking my books a few weeks ago, I found my two copies of It. One fairly pristine hardback I picked up in the mid 90s, and a battered to hell and back paperback that I would love to say is the original book from my first read in the summer before I turned twelve, but is actually one I bought a year or two later. While my To Be Read pile is about thirty feet tall and growing by the week, I decided to return to the Losers' Club and see how my old friends were doing. Turns out, they're doing pretty good more than twenty-five years after we first met. It also turns out I'm now the same age as the adult versions of Bill and all the rest.
Would the sleeping eleven year old in me be pleased to know the book's lasted this long for me? You bet your fur he would.
Because, sometimes, you do get to beat the devil.
Well, count me in for digging into this one, I thought. The fact that it was 900 odd pages didn't factor into it. I wanted to see just what lived in the sewers and what haunted this town I'd never heard of and, until I was at least fifteen, thought was a real place. Within a hundred or so pages, I'd fallen in love with the entire Losers' Club. Stuttering Bill, Ben, Stan the Man, Eddie, Richie the Mouth, Mike and (of course) Beverly. They were kids I could have been friends with; they were kids I wanted to be friends with even if meant facing off against a killer clown who could turn into anyone's worst fear. And while I had no chance of verbalising it-or even really given it serious consideration at that age-I knew there was magic in that story. Magic of being a kid; magic of belief in monsters and the weapons to fight those monsters; and magic of friendship.
God knows how many times I've returned to those characters, to Derry and the Barrens. A dozen? More, perhaps. In any case, while unpacking my books a few weeks ago, I found my two copies of It. One fairly pristine hardback I picked up in the mid 90s, and a battered to hell and back paperback that I would love to say is the original book from my first read in the summer before I turned twelve, but is actually one I bought a year or two later. While my To Be Read pile is about thirty feet tall and growing by the week, I decided to return to the Losers' Club and see how my old friends were doing. Turns out, they're doing pretty good more than twenty-five years after we first met. It also turns out I'm now the same age as the adult versions of Bill and all the rest.
Would the sleeping eleven year old in me be pleased to know the book's lasted this long for me? You bet your fur he would.
Because, sometimes, you do get to beat the devil.
June 30, 2015
The Red Girl is coming back
Now that the contract is signed, I can announce my first book, The Red Girl, published almost four years ago and unavailable since about this time last year due to a few things (the main one being the publisher closing) is coming back. Caffeine Nights Publishing, home to the mighty Shaun Hutson, among a lot of other great writers, will release the book at some point next year. There's a chance it'll have a new title although it's obviously still early days on that front. In any case, the door between worlds is opening again.
Geri Paulson is coming home.
Geri Paulson is coming home.
June 20, 2015
A fresh start
My wife and I have been in our new place for three weeks and we're beginning to get the place sorted. Still a bit to do and new furniture to buy (mainly so the cats will have something new to scratch) but we're comfortable now that it no longer feels as if we're staying in someone else's house or on holiday.
I've been lucky enough to have my own writing space wherever we've lived and it's the same in this house. I know some writers have no choice but to write at the kitchen table or on the sofa while their family argue over what to watch, and I'd do that if I had no choice. Thankfully, though, I can shut out the world and go looking for the words. All that leads me to this post - a fresh start. It's no secret that the last year or two has been up and down in terms of publishing for me with my first two books going down the pan before the company did, a lot of rejections and even more no replies at all which almost every writer hates more than being told to stick their book up their arse. All that wasn't helped by us being stuck in a house we no longer wanted to live in and couldn't sell for toffee.
It's a fresh start now, though. A new view out the window while I work (which actually isn't saying a lot since I had to turn around for the last view and this one is the side of our neighbour's house but hey, you take what you can); new sounds and a new space. While I'm not going to become complacent and expect miracles with writing just because we've moved, I do think a happier environment will lead to better work. On that note, it's time to head into the last few scenes of a new outline for Ascent, and then start work on what will hopefully be the final version of a book that has been kicking the shit out of me for over a year.
It's time to start again. It's time to kick back.
I've been lucky enough to have my own writing space wherever we've lived and it's the same in this house. I know some writers have no choice but to write at the kitchen table or on the sofa while their family argue over what to watch, and I'd do that if I had no choice. Thankfully, though, I can shut out the world and go looking for the words. All that leads me to this post - a fresh start. It's no secret that the last year or two has been up and down in terms of publishing for me with my first two books going down the pan before the company did, a lot of rejections and even more no replies at all which almost every writer hates more than being told to stick their book up their arse. All that wasn't helped by us being stuck in a house we no longer wanted to live in and couldn't sell for toffee.
It's a fresh start now, though. A new view out the window while I work (which actually isn't saying a lot since I had to turn around for the last view and this one is the side of our neighbour's house but hey, you take what you can); new sounds and a new space. While I'm not going to become complacent and expect miracles with writing just because we've moved, I do think a happier environment will lead to better work. On that note, it's time to head into the last few scenes of a new outline for Ascent, and then start work on what will hopefully be the final version of a book that has been kicking the shit out of me for over a year.
It's time to start again. It's time to kick back.
June 12, 2015
Sir Christopher Lee
(Well, this isn't the post I wanted to return with after a few weeks off for the house move, unpacking and wondering where the hell everything is, but sometimes life doesn't give a monkey's about your plans. Actually, that's a lie. It never gives a monkey's).
Throw away the garlic flowers. Open the curtains to let the sunlight in. Put your Cross back in the drawer. Use your sharpened stakes as fence posts. Because Sir Christopher has left us.
I was about nine when I saw my first Hammer Horror. From what I recall, BBC2 had a brief season of Hammer films, opening with 1958's Dracula or Horror Of Dracula as it was known in the US. It was dramatic, exciting, creepy (something about the on location shots and how isolated they appear even though I know they were filmed in the Berkshire woods), and populated by frightfully posh people. I loved every minute of it, and within seconds of seeing the man descend the stairs and announce himself to Harker, I loved Christopher Lee as the Count. Roughly nineteen feet tall with a voice deeper than the oceans, he filled the screen, and was impossible to look away from. And when Harker foolishly stakes Dracula's bride first instead of going straight to the big man, I loved the delicious fear of knowing it would all go wrong in seconds. Sure enough, we have night coming in fast and...oh shit Dracula's not in his coffin anymore where the hell is he oh shit it's dark and the door's open and the camera's on the door long enough to shout that something's coming through it and oh God he's here he's at the top of the stairs and Harker's got no way out he's stuck he's stuck oh shit.
The film might have been the best part of thirty years old when I first watched it (which makes it almost sixty years old now) and the world of repressed Victorians and comely serving wenches might have been alien to a nine year old kid in the eighties, but none of that mattered. Good going up against evil, a bad guy who made Darth Vader look like a wanker in a silly helmet, and people who would do whatever it took in order to save the day...that's what spoke to me and still does.
Obviously, Sir Christopher had hundreds of other roles outside Dracula and let's not overlook the man's life beyond film. I could spend the next week writing about both. For now though, I'll mourn my Dracula and I'll celebrate one of the great actors who gave me - and countless other kids watching films that belonged to their parents - a new fear and a reason to love that fear.
Throw away the garlic flowers. Open the curtains to let the sunlight in. Put your Cross back in the drawer. Use your sharpened stakes as fence posts. Because Sir Christopher has left us.
I was about nine when I saw my first Hammer Horror. From what I recall, BBC2 had a brief season of Hammer films, opening with 1958's Dracula or Horror Of Dracula as it was known in the US. It was dramatic, exciting, creepy (something about the on location shots and how isolated they appear even though I know they were filmed in the Berkshire woods), and populated by frightfully posh people. I loved every minute of it, and within seconds of seeing the man descend the stairs and announce himself to Harker, I loved Christopher Lee as the Count. Roughly nineteen feet tall with a voice deeper than the oceans, he filled the screen, and was impossible to look away from. And when Harker foolishly stakes Dracula's bride first instead of going straight to the big man, I loved the delicious fear of knowing it would all go wrong in seconds. Sure enough, we have night coming in fast and...oh shit Dracula's not in his coffin anymore where the hell is he oh shit it's dark and the door's open and the camera's on the door long enough to shout that something's coming through it and oh God he's here he's at the top of the stairs and Harker's got no way out he's stuck he's stuck oh shit.
The film might have been the best part of thirty years old when I first watched it (which makes it almost sixty years old now) and the world of repressed Victorians and comely serving wenches might have been alien to a nine year old kid in the eighties, but none of that mattered. Good going up against evil, a bad guy who made Darth Vader look like a wanker in a silly helmet, and people who would do whatever it took in order to save the day...that's what spoke to me and still does.
Obviously, Sir Christopher had hundreds of other roles outside Dracula and let's not overlook the man's life beyond film. I could spend the next week writing about both. For now though, I'll mourn my Dracula and I'll celebrate one of the great actors who gave me - and countless other kids watching films that belonged to their parents - a new fear and a reason to love that fear.
May 21, 2015
It's all going quiet
Moving day is set for next Friday so my online stuff is going quiet for a week or two especially as I won't have any internet access for a few days at least. In the meantime, wish me luck as my wife and I pack our house into a van and deal with two extremely pissed off cats.
Back soon.
Back soon.
May 9, 2015
Die Laughing - new review
Pretty sweet review for Die Laughing to make up for yesterday's pretty crap news (unless you're rich and posh, of course). Head this way for a gander.
May 2, 2015
Publishing, short stories and all those ups and downs
Early last year, one of my short stories, Faces Made Of Glue, was published in a collection. While there was no huge wads of cash involved, I was pleased to have the story out in the world as I considered it one of my best (and let's be honest, there aren't many writers who make a lot of money from short stories alone). However, I discovered purely by accident about a week ago that the collection was no longer on Amazon or anywhere online for that matter. The publisher's site went nowhere; the collection was AWOL and all I had was the contract for it from January last year - with no indication as far as I could see of what happens to the story if the publisher folds.
However, after a bit of Googling for an email address that actually works, I got hold of the publisher and am pleased to say the rights for the story are all mine again so I'm free to sub it elsewhere, which presents another problem in that the market for reprints of short stories is about the same for novels: bugger all. But at least I can aim on getting the story back out in the world which is definitely what I'm going for. I know plenty of people would figure it's just a short piece and as the monetary gain will be negligible, then why bother, but I don't see it like that. Yes, I expect some payment for what I do (and I won't be sending any of my stuff to a 'for the love' market); sometimes, though, knowing a little tale will be read is almost enough. Not totally enough by any means, but almost.
So, fingers crossed Faces Made Of Glue finds a new home soon.
However, after a bit of Googling for an email address that actually works, I got hold of the publisher and am pleased to say the rights for the story are all mine again so I'm free to sub it elsewhere, which presents another problem in that the market for reprints of short stories is about the same for novels: bugger all. But at least I can aim on getting the story back out in the world which is definitely what I'm going for. I know plenty of people would figure it's just a short piece and as the monetary gain will be negligible, then why bother, but I don't see it like that. Yes, I expect some payment for what I do (and I won't be sending any of my stuff to a 'for the love' market); sometimes, though, knowing a little tale will be read is almost enough. Not totally enough by any means, but almost.
So, fingers crossed Faces Made Of Glue finds a new home soon.
April 19, 2015
A few lagers and some nibbles
I've been working my bum off this week on outlining my next book and I'm happy to say I finished the plan yesterday. I'm even happier to say I think this one will be pretty straightforward to write as I've got a very clear idea of the story I want to tell. (The opening involves a guy walking into a violent and bloody child murder and then...I'm not telling you). Of course, it'll laugh at me 20k in and head off another direction, but I still think it'll be a smooth write as and when I get to it. First things first, though. Ascent still needs sorting into a decent draft and the house move will obviously take up a lot of time. We're aiming for the third week or so of May, so everyone round the new gaff for a few lagers and some nibbles.
I've also just finished the notes for a new short story that's got a bit of a HP Lovecraft meets Neil Gaiman thing going on. Working title - The Mouth At The Edge Of The World. Not always the case the title comes along before I've written a single word of a piece, but I like that one quite a bit.
Enjoy your Sunday afternoon, people.
I've also just finished the notes for a new short story that's got a bit of a HP Lovecraft meets Neil Gaiman thing going on. Working title - The Mouth At The Edge Of The World. Not always the case the title comes along before I've written a single word of a piece, but I like that one quite a bit.
Enjoy your Sunday afternoon, people.
