Original Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Anurag Agnihotri

Today we tackle the next letter in our Writer Acrostic. Thus far, we’ve covered: V is for Voluntarily Submit. Anticipate trials and challenges and understand there is far more strength in bending than breaking. I was for Identify Problem Areas. We can’t fix what we fail to acknowledge. Our profession hinges on us writing better today than we did yesterday. C was for Change Your Mind. We can only achieve what we can first conceive. Make your mind and set it and keep it set. T was for Turn Over our Future. When we let go of things we can’t control, we’re far more powerful to drive and direct that which we can.

R—Remember Writers Are Magicians. Words are powerful and those with the skills to use them masterfully hold the power of the universe. Our art is unlike any other. Writing is the only art form with the ability to evoke all senses. By using limited combinations of black letters on a white page, we can create new worlds more real than the one we live in, worlds people love so much it inspires them to rise and change the one where they’re trapped.

Original image via Flickr Creative Commons courtesy of Sodanie Chea

We breathe life into immortal creatures, characters so rich that others don’t want to let them go, “people” who survive centuries. I write “Odysseus” or “Hamlet” or “Huckleberry Finn” and though these people never existed in the corporeal, they live on. We cannot help but miss Narnia, Hogwart’s or The Shire.

And, because these are written stories, we know that so long as books (and literacy) remain, our great-great-grandchildren can visit those same places long after we’ve passed on. Our great-great-grandkids can also push through the wardrobe and take up arms against the White Witch.

Writers are sorcerers who change the world. We see what others don’t or can’t see. That is our gift. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Jungle, Frankenstein, Brave New World, 1984 all changed perception and then, later, reality.

No Words No Magic

I’ve traveled to some pretty terrifying places. When one comes from the US, it feels like visiting another planet. I’ve lived places where no one joked. Jokes could get you arrested, tortured or shot (and yes, it is amazing I lived to tell the tale). Everyone was somber, serious and afraid. In these lands, no one debates, questions or dares to think beyond what the government approves.

Without hope, the heart hardens and the soul withers. Places with no heart or soul are extremely dangerous. Places with no heart or soul can never prosper. It’s like a body wandering around not yet realizing it’s already dead.

Trust me when I tell you there’s a reason dictators don’t want education and literacy. There is a reason they censor and burn books. There is a reason they shut down or control the Internet. There’s a reason that when tyrants take over, they shoot writers, teachers and librarians first.

Writers are the foundation for moral, social, economic, technological and scientific innovation. In fact, show me a country that doesn’t value creativity and imagination and I’ll show you a country limited in how far it can advance. Often the only advancements come from stealing ideas and technologies from places where imagination is encouraged.

Innovation can only come from imagination.

Sure, math might be a universal “language” but formulas with no context aren’t worth much. Additionally, many scientists and engineers piggyback off ideas first proposed by “crazy” novelists.

Jules Verne extrapolated with amazing accuracy how man would eventually reach the moon.

Proust knew the senses of smell and taste were uniquely tied to memory long before neuroscientists proved these are the only two senses that connect directly to the hippocampus (the brain’s center for long-term memory).

Mary Shelley extrapolated that the body was a bioelectric system when the idea was nothing short of heresy…and now every ambulance is equipped with charged paddles to restart a heart.

From smart phones to space travel to the Internet to cybernetics to equality to children and women’s rights, it all began with a crazy writer.

And here’s the scary part. This is why I believe we’re so often discouraged and mocked and made to feel what we do is silly and doesn’t matter.

Jonathan Maberry has a powerful quote in his fabulous book Rot and Ruin:

“…the only thing more powerful than fear is routine. Once people are in a rut, it’s sometimes the hardest thing in the world to get them out of it. They defend routine, too. They say that it’s a simpler life, less stressful and complicated, more predictable.”

This is WHY no one will throw us a parade when we decide we want to be writers. Humans love the routine and the world they believe they know, even if they sense it needs to change or evolve (or is changing anyway, despite protests). I believe there is a kernel of envy and jealousy for those who don’t feel the magic in their DNA or who feel it and yet are afraid to pursue it.

Remember the word spelling includes the word spell (maybe why typos break the magic, LOL).

So take heart and keep pressing. Keep writing and making magic. Stories change the world and changes minds. It’s the only thing that ever has.

What are your thoughts? Have a new perspective on what it is we do? Does the resistance and pushback you’re feeling now make more sense?

I LOVE hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of MAY, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

If you need help building a brand, social media platform, please check out my latest best-selling book, Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World.

The post Writer Victory!—Remember Writers are Magicians appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Image via Flickr Creative Commons courtesy of Mr. Muggles.

Today is our final segment from AMAZING author and WANA International Instructor Kevin Lucia. Why horror? If you’ve followed this series, you now know many of the books you might already love are actually horror, but tend to be classified under different names—science fiction, dark fantasy, noir, etc. So for us to shiver and say, “Oh, I don’t like horror” is funny because most of us have been enjoying horror for a long time.

Sort of like how Mom hides the green veggies in a cheesy casserole ;).

Oh, what vegetables? Look at all the CHEESE!*whistles innocently*

Horror is a very important, but often misunderstood and overlooked genre. Yet, it is one of the most powerful. Much of the literature that has endured for generations and even altered society and science can thank horror. A great example? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (every ambulance now has chest paddles to use electricity to restart a heart). It took a horror author to wonder about death and what constituted life. Could it be prolonged? Should it be? Horror authors are known for asking the tough questions and are unafraid to give real answers sans candy-coating.

Take it away, Kevin!

****

There are some writers’ whose work transcends the horror genre. And then there are some writers who can literally write whatever they please, virtual “jacks of all traders.” That’s the focus of today’s blog, a handful of writers who have written just about everything, and then some, “horror” being only one aspect of their talents.

Everyone should know Robert E. Howard. Hopefully, many folks reading this blog are nodding, thinking: “Of COURSE we do. He invented Conan the Barbarian. Solomon Kane. He wrote horror, sword and sorcery, Lovecraftian tales, weird fiction.  He wrote fabulous westerns, and probably helped invent the weird western. He’s ROBERT E. HOWARD, for Pete’s Sake.”

However, if you DON’T know Robert E. Howard, you need to rectify that situation as quickly as possible. His bibliography is staggering, considering his career came to an abrupt end with his suicide at age thirty. And his prose his something behold. It drives with this rhythmic, pulsing power that, in anyone’s else’s hands would sound ridiculous and overwrought, but somehow, coming from Howard sounds powerful and unrelenting.

A caution: like Lovecraft, he did unfortunately indulge in racial caricatures at times. We don’t have the space to debate that here; but those who want to investigate his work should know that up front. That being said, “Black Canaan” and “Pigeons From Hell” are two of my all time favorite stories. For his westerns, I recommend The End of the Trail. For an eclectic mix of his fiction, The Black Stranger. For his Solomon Kane tales, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane  and for a collection of his horror stories, The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard.

Who would I consider the contemporary equivalent of Solomon Kane? Well, even though he’s never neared the same kind of output, the obvious choice would be Norman Partridge.  First of all, Norman’s blog is one of the few author blogs I actually read on a regular basis. Never pretentious, though he sometimes writes about writing and offers advice, most of the time he writes about what he loves: Universal horror films, pulp and Noir fiction, cars…you name it, be he blogs about. His fiction is not to be missed, either. It offers that same hard driving, rhythmic pulse that Howard’s does…but Partridge has his own unique voice.

And his tales vary. He’s written some of the best Halloween-themed fiction I’ve read in recent years, and his Stoker Award Winning Novel Dark Harvest should become an annual Halloween read, along with his short collection that’s linked to the world of Dark Harvest, Johnny Halloween: Tales of the Dark Season. His collection Lesser Demons was like a crazy mix of Bradbury, Howard, Lovecraft and King, all in one volume. Slippin Into Darkness is a crazy-fun Noir/Crime/Horror/Ghost Story mix, and I’m not sure WHAT genre his Jack Baddalach novels Saguaro Riptide and The Ten-Ounce Siesta fit into, but that doesn’t matter, because they’re adrenaline-laced crime/noir/mystery craziness that read faster than greased lightning.

Another writer whose reach extends past the horror genre is Al Sarrantonio. He’s written westerns and science fiction, but honestly, his horror fiction is the best. And, like a lot of the masters, his work has been re-released in ebook format, though used copies of  the paperbacks are still readily available.

His “Orangefield” cycle (Horrorween, Halloweenland, Hallow’s Eve) novels invoke all the cider and autumn spice of Bradbury andare entertaining and lyrical. Totentanz, (think Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, but with bite) October and The Boy With Penny Eyes offer some fine, fine reading, and his short fiction collection, Toybox, offers short fiction that maybe outshines his novel-length work. And the best part? So much more Sarrantonio out there.

So we’re at the end of our journey, for now. I hope I’ve turned your attention on toward a group of horror writers who are (or, in some cases, were) among the best in the business. Again, I can’t claim I’ve read everyone, and there are still so many that I need to read myself, but these are the ones I’ve discovered and read over the past five years that have impacted me deeply, as I hope they impact you.

THANK YOU, KEVIN!!!! *stands and applauds*

Horror Author Kevin Lucia

Kevin Lucia has worked as an Editor for Shroud Magazine and a Submissions Reader for Cemetery Dance Magazine, and is now an Associate Fiction Editor for The Horror Channel. His podcast “Horror 101” is featured monthly on Tales to Terrify and his short fiction has appeared in several venues. He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English at Seton Catholic Central High School and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles and his first short story collection, Things Slip Through is NOW AVAILABLE from Crystal Lake Publishing.

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of December, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less). Comments for guests get extra POINTS!

The post The Best Horror Writers You’ve Probably Never Read (But Should): Part 5 appeared first on Kristen Lamb.