Sidney Williams's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"

My novel, Blood Hunter, which blends thriller and supernatural suspense elements, is now available in e-book form from Crossroad Press. While I'm working on new projects, it's exciting to have previous work available in this new, digital era.

BH, the story of a young reporter drawn into the investigation of strange disappearances and stranger creatures, can be found on Amazon for the Kindle, on Smashwords in multiple formats with an excerpt and also on the Crossroad Press Site.

Read a post about the creation of the original story with a few notes about the new edition on my blog.

A brief interview with me is up on Kip Poe's blog. It's a discussion on writing habits.

You can check it out here.

Kip has a book of short horror fiction called Closing My Eyes Helps Me See Clearly that's available as an e-book.

I hate self promotion.

I'm a shy, retiring and modest type, so I don't like having to proclaim my own virtues, but for the new e-book editions of my novels, such as Blood Hunter and the upcoming Gnelfs, I'm mustering my courage and tenacity and doing interviews and what I can to get the word out.

It's pretty much a necessity. I've noticed about a million books out there. Most are written by James Patterson, but not all, so you've kinda gotta wave your arms and shout.

All of this is making me recall a lesson in self promotion I got at the opening session of a science fiction convention a few years ago.

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Now and then a novel comes along that's so subtly eerie it generates fear that seems to affect your central nervous system. The Haunting of Hill House is that way, as are some of the novels of Charles L. Grant.

To me, The Red Tree achieves similar results, with its sense of unease and its gradual, ambiguous journey into the supernatural. It's a true don't-read-this-too-late-at-night experience.

As I followed Sarah Crowe, the protagonist and chief narrator, through her strange experiences, the little creaks and groans of my house, and the sounds of insects or pine needles thumping the window made me look twice or turn on an extra light.

It's the kind of terror that's hard to achieve, but The Red Tree author Caitlin R. Kiernan does it so well Crowe's journal seems like the real chronicle of experiences--both mundane and incredible--hammered out on a battered manual typewriter.

Read the full post.

I put a free sample .pdf of the first chapter of Blood Hunter on my website.

Blood Hunter is the first of my early books to be brought into the e-universe by Crossroad Press and it's available on Kindle from Amazon.

I'm in what I find to be an awkward phase. It's time to write the jacket copy for Midnight Eyes, a thriller I just turned in to Crossroad Press for copy editing. Summing up 100,000 words in a few paragraphs that capture the relevant points isn't as challenging as, I don't know, math, but it's not just dashing off a few lines either.

I thought I'd toss out the first pass here.

Author Gary Kriss did a nice interview with me about my first thriller Midnight Eyes.

It was for The Big Thrill Website and newsletter for The International Thriller Writers.

Check it out and pass it on if you get a chance. Interview

Doug Dorow's recent blog post on the research he did for his novel The Ninth District jogged my memory about the original writing of Midnight Eyes.

Although I did an extensive re-write recently, I set down the first draft a few years ago while I was working as a librarian. Handy inter-library loan tools were at my fingertips.

While I'd worked for years before that as a newspaper reporter, often shouldering police beat duties that included late-night visits to crime scenes, I spent a lot of time reading books and references about serial killers and pouring over police training textbooks and FBI journals. Read more

With the burgeoning number of self-published success stories, and the discovery of new writers going full force in traditional and indy publishing, it's clear the world is filled with people with the discipline to put in the time at the keyboard required for producing finished work.

Yet "Backside in Chair" is always the challenge for writers. The allure of not writing is fierce.

I do pretty good in getting myself to the keyboard at a fixed time every day, but making things meaningful is still a challenge. I thought some techniques and thoughts I've picked up from a variety of sources might be useful as everyone is setting goals for 2012.

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I never thought I'd have to run from the sun. Not these days.

But I have a new writing schedule.

It's up with my wife Christine when the alarm sounds. She's working from home, but she still starts at 8 a.m. and follows her usual morning routine of getting dressed and ready.

I write and do other work a while then stop for breakfast with her. Then I work out with You Tube videos or some days go for a walk--Emi Wong's a tough taskmaster.

Then...

well, Christine and I moved into our current location in 2019. It was planned as temporary while we looked for a house in Williamsburg. I first set my desk up facing a wall in my office, which on the blueprints is a second bedroom.

After lockdown had been going on a while, I decided it'd be better if it faced a window. There's more inspiration out a window. Right?

Except there seems to be very little movement out this window. Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock would've been out of luck.

Occasionally, a neighbor across the way takes her kids somewhere or a guy who looks like Michael Ansara goes for a coffee, but otherwise it's a static view of the space with a couple of trees.

Even so, the spot has been fine since May or so. When did we start this?

Except now, with the coming of fall shortly after I return to my desk post-workout and shower--kind of my peak productive time for writing since I shift gears into creative writing teacher after lunch--the sun's boring right into my eyes.

The blinds don't stop it. Sol sends rays in through the cracks like spears.

So, when that happens, I pick up my coffee mug and head down to the sofa to work there on a laptop. I sneaker net my WIP on a jump drive--Long Waltz at the moment, the next Si Reardon novel.

I'm finding the process is maybe a bit helpful with the creativity. It's a matter of shifting gears a bit and it jostles the brain.

So maybe the hassle's not so bad.

Gotta go. The sun's just rising over the next building now. See you soon.