Joseph Devon's Blog, page 3

The Trappings of Power and How to Write It

Power. Its trappings ruin people, love of it corrupts them, attempts to seize it destroy them.

And yet I don’t seem capable of writing about it without sounding like a moron.

The undead characters in my current urban fantasy series have a ruling council of sorts. And it has come time for me to explore this idea more fully…which as me pretty flummoxed.

See, power has tocomefrom somewhere. You have to have some way of holding sway over or influencing people: you can have a persuasive personality,...

I, Robot Voyeur

Late last week my computer began to have some major malfunctions. I would turn it on and it would tell me that it had to configure the latest Windows updates and to wait. Then it would tell me that it had to restart to let the updates go through. Then it would shut down, restart, and tell me that the updates had failed, so it had to roll back to previous system settings. Then it would shut down, and restart, supposedly to be all better only it would then try to download the newest Windows upd...

In Which I Freak Out a Bit

I’ve written a lot about writing on here. And I’ve written a lot about the dangers of holding too fast to one type of writing. Now, in general, I do think that a slow and steady stream of words is the best way to go. Writing every day, for a moderate amount of words, is vastly superior than trying to force out a huge amount of words when you possibly have time later.

This is just a plain psychological truth. It’s very easy to say, “Ah, I have to write 500 words today, but I’ll do that on Satur...

Zombies and the Undead Throughout History

When writing books about zombies and stories containing all kinds of monsters, I often find it valuable to go back and read about the original forms of the creatures I’ve become obsessed with. Too often I find myself wanting to write a zombie just by using the freshest version in my head, which usually comes from recent movies or TV shows like The Walking Dead.

This is a shame, because there is so much more to your average monster than what’s popular today. Plus, I get the feeling that a lot o...

New Year; Old Thoughts

I’m not entirely sure what to write here. A pause to reflect upon the holiday season and the start of a new year seems in order. Although something overly sentimental and corny sounding that’s really mostly filler also seems in order.

It is currently New Year’s Eve Day Morning and my feet are sore from all the walking about New York I’ve been doing with my family. Nieces and nephews apparently run on some sort of nuclear reactor that gives them the energy to bounce around while walking while a...

Balance in Writing

I’m sitting here in my apartment and I’ve got balance on my mind.

This is partly to do with my current project of writing an Urban Fantasy series, and partly to do with the temperature in my building.

See, in New York, most apartments take advantage of radiator heating. With so many apartments crammed together it’s cheap and efficient. Also most apartment buildings are pretty old, especially where I live, and they sort of got stuck in the olden times in some odd ways. For example, I don’t have...

My Holiday Guide to New York

Hi all. You know me as the author of some of your favorite urban fantasy books (available now for your holiday shopping!). But I am also one of the seven stewards of the city of New York, a title I just made up five minutes ago.

This title requires that I occasionally offer up my wisdom concerning this city. Sometimes it’s to reflect upon it as a veteran resident. And sometimes, like now, it’s to offer my wisdom to those newcomers visiting my fair town.

See, over the weekend I tried to go somew...

The Five Why’s of Writing

This week I’ve decided to trot out one of my favorite writing tools that I use whenever I find myself stuck while writing a book. This tool originated in Japan in the 1930′s, but it’s been on my mind recently for other reasons entirely.

A few episodes ago on The Human Echoes Podcast, Albert and Tony somehow came up with a hook for a story. They run a lot of writing contests based on their hooks, in fact they’re running one right now, but this wasn’t part of a contest. It just sort of popped ou...

Cargo Cult Writing

I had a shakeup recently due to some personal stuff and I broke the gigantic writing streak I had going. I skipped writing for a number of days and lost my discipline in a number of other habits that I have been cultivating. I was amazed to find, though, that my streak was all that broke. My book didn’t break. The world didn’t end. My need to write didn’t extinguish immediately. My love of words didn’t crumble to dust.

I had come to rely so completely on my routine to push this book out that I...

Top Reasons Why We Love Zombies

Let’s face it: as a culture, we are obsessed with the undead. From top zombie books to current popular television shows, the nation almost seems to dream of a time where we can run free in a collapsed society. Let’s take a look at some potential reasons for their popularity, and the impact it has on both written and visual media.

Reason #1: We Love the Idea of No Laws

In a world where there is basically no ruling government, the law of the land is in the hands of those who have the most power....