S.R. Everett's Blog, page 2
October 5, 2012
Coming Soon…
If you have been following me on facebook, you know I have a little surprise in store for my fans. It is taking a bit longer than I had thought but it will be done in a few days. I promise.
September 21, 2012
True Love
While I spend most of my time plotting clever ways to off people using some gruesome monster as a murder weapon. Writing a book does cover a wide range of topics and emotions. This is probably more true about horror than any other genre.
I was struck earlier by the sacrifice someone was willing to make in the name of loving me. It is not always easy to love someone, and anyone who has ever been truly in love knows that you must be willing to sacrifice in order to preserve it. You must sometimes wade into uncharted territory to keep the ship from sinking.
Do you want to know how much someone loves you? Ask them to what length they would go to keep that love. The answer to my question was a surprising one and it truly made me happy to know someone would risk their own happiness to be with me. Because ultimately what made this person happy was to be with me and everything else was secondary.
September 20, 2012
A Big Speech or Something Like That…
What do you do when you are preparing to give a big speech? I don’t mean right before (that’s when you are puking). I mean how do you prepare for it? Writing an important chapter in a book is a lot like giving a big important speech. Sometimes you sit down and things just flow. You know what you want to do and it just works. However, there are other times when you know you need to deliver, but you don’t know how to do that. So what do you do? You prepare, just like you would if you had to give a speech. You research. You spend all day thinking about it. You obsess over it until you find the solution. And actually, that solution is a great fix for most things in your life.
September 7, 2012
How do you Know If You Are A Good Writer?
When I finished writing Devoured and went back to read it, I discovered that it was actually a good book. You probably think I am just blowing my own horn here, but really I am not.
With it being by debut novel, I had no idea when I was writing it if it would be any good or not. In fact, I often teetered between hope and despair on a daily basis. At times I thought it was truly great and at other times I thought it was truly terrible. I guess the truth lies somewhere in between those two things, but when I actually took the time to read the book, just as novel, I truly liked it. It was exactly what I wanted to read.
August 28, 2012
Public Figures and Politics
One thing I’ve always disliked is when public figures (like actors, musicians, and authors) try to use their fame to push a political agenda or some ideology. I may love your acting, music, or book but that don’t mean your opinion has any more value than anyone else’s. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have opinions, of course. They are people too, but nothing irks me more than seeing some famous person going out of his/her way to shout their personal beliefs from the rooftops. The whole thing smacks of condescendence and manipulation.
August 25, 2012
Sleepless Nights…
I often find myself lying awake in bed at night, unable to sleep. My thoughts get the better of me and I spend hours turning ideas, hopes, dreams, and memories around in my head endlessly. While it’s not the best thing for my my physical body, it is a form a meditation. (No, I don’t usually chant.) It’s at these times some of my best ideas and most profound thoughts on life and love come to me.
Last night, I don’t think I slept a wink. I lied there thinking of the future all night. Well to be honest, it was not the only thing that was on my mind. But those other thoughts lead me to think about what the future holds for me. I played out my greatest hopes and worst fears in a torrent of every changing emotional moods.
The thing that stuck me though was that hope for the future is mostly a frivolous venture. Your own hope will not have any affect on the outcome in the future. And still, it is so important to have hope. Without it life seems pointless, hollow, and just generally drab. It’s the thing that helps you cope with challenges in your life. I realize this is hardly a groundbreaking idea but it really shook me to my core last night.
Grabbing onto the hope that things will end up exactly the way I want them to be is what kept me from going insane last night and, without even thinking about it, keeps me from going insane any other day too.
August 23, 2012
Experience is Key
When I started writing Devoured, I knew right away that it was something I *should* do. I’ve always had a vivid imagination. It’s something that I never really lost from my childhood, and I’m very grateful to have it.
As I was writing I kept thinking “Why didn’t I start doing this years ago?” I have so many story ideas. I could have 20 more books by now if had I started 15 years ago. I think though that I could not have written Devoured back then. Not because I wasn’t intelligent enough, but because I didn’t have enough life experiences to pour into a story. With time comes wisdom and that wisdom is essential to my writing.
Every experience in your life (the good, the bad, the strange) leaves something with you. Those somethings are exactly what I call upon to be able to create a story, any story. Without them, the stories would just be words with no meaning or emotion.
So, everything in my life has lead up to this point. The time my home was destroyed by a tornado. The time my big crush finally told me she liked me too and we kissed for the first time. The time when I was kid, riding a red wagon down a giant hill, heading straight towards a tree completely out of control and it suddenly veered off at the last second for no apparent reason.
It doesn’t stop there though. I, like everyone else, am still experiencing life. So whether it be an unexpected hug from someone I barely know or I happen to find myself longing for something I know I will never be able to have. Those things give me the wisdom to write stories that I love to read.
August 15, 2012
Book 2 Started!
I have officially begun writing the next book in the Cold Grove Trilogy. I’m only about 1,000 words in so don’t get your hopes up too much. [image error] I’ve not decided on a name yet and I may just run a contest and let the fans decide. We’ll see….
August 13, 2012
Who’s Looking Into Your Mind?
Perhaps one of the greatest fears any writer faces is that the people he knows will read his work and think to themselves, “So that’s how that b**tard thinks!” It is one thing when it is your friends reading it; they have made a choice to hang out with you. But it’s even worse when a family member does.
What are they taking away from it? A story is, in many ways, a window into the soul of the writer. I’m often asked if I based any of the characters on anyone I know. I didn’t because they are really all just different sides of myself. How else could I write it? I had to become each character in order to write them. So that makes me the good Sheriff Ingle and the evil Howard Mann both!
One can only hope that the readers, whoever they are, look past the superfiscal and see the core of the story.
August 9, 2012
Devoured Available Free Friday and Saturday
Find out why Devoured is quickly becoming a must-read for horror and thriller fans everywhere. Get the first novel in the Cold Grove Trilogy completely free of charge on Friday, August 10th and Saturday August 11th!
