Sources of Inspiration.

For myself, music is a powerful source of inspiration for my imagination. Often when I find a new piece of music that I love, I will play it over and over again. Whilst I’m listening to it, a new scene will pop into my head. The more times I replay that same track, the more I flesh out this scene. Finally, I end up listening to this track so much that I get sick of it, and end up dropping it from my playlist.

What I’m left with, in my mind, is a fantastically rendered set-piece. I can then expand on it and add it to whatever I’m currently writing about, or I can use it as the seed for a new story.

I also keep a little moleskin notebook in my jacket pocket. I’ve scribbled down some interesting characters I’ve observed on my train journeys to and from work.

Then there are times when you stumble upon something completely out of the blue. Take this house I nearly walked passed without noticing; I simply had to stop and take a photo of it:

Got an idea for a story?

How could you not come up with the premise for a scary story from one glance at this house? I know I have! I’ve once again had to bump my full-length novel down the priority list as my muse suddenly appears on my shoulder and begins stomping up and down, shouting ideas in my ear for a new scary story.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Force of Will: a short ghost story

Folks,

I’d like for you to consider the short ghost story I recently published: Force of Will.

 

 What if the last emotion you feel, moments before you die, is the only thing that defines you in the afterlife?

 Force of Will is a short ghost story that tells the first-hand account of one young man and what happens on his fateful last day in the magical land he inhabits. Little does he know that someone has been watching him from afar and has great plans for his future, although not in the way he would want. A spooky tale set in a paranormal, fantasy world and featuring the horrors of necromancy.

I first started writing this short story, earlier in January, in order to enter a writing competition with my fellow writing group friends. But once the deadline for the competition passed, I wanted to spend more time editing it until I was completely happy with it.

This story features the same antagonist that will be in the full-length novel that I will publish later this year. So subscribe to my newsletter on the left to find out when it comes out, along with any other promotions.

I hope you enjoy this short story and if you could leave a review on Amazon that would be appreciated. If you leave a great review, I would be over-the-moon.

Jack

Why, and when, did you start writing?

The summer of 1997 was when I started writing. I’ve always loved going to the movies and I’d regularly visit my local cinema at the weekends. On this particular Saturday in 1997, I bought my ticket, grabbed my usual coke and popcorn, then sat down to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster. The curtain parted, the lights went out, and the opening scene of this movie kicked off with an explosive set-piece.

Several minutes later, I’m sat there dumb-founded. What the hell is this crap? It’s the only movie I’ve ever wanted to walk out on. I didn’t though since I reasoned I paid enough for the ticket and refreshments. After the film finished, I trudged home shaking my head in disbelief at what I just had to sit through.

When I got back home I immediately fired up my computer, opened up Wordpad, and started writing. I knew diddly-squat about writing back then: three-act structure, protagonist/antagonist, character arc, all these terms were unknown to me at that time. Once I finished those first two pages, I read them and thought, “What the hell am I writing about?”

Eighteen years later, after devouring dozens of books on screenwriting and how to write a novel, I’m not far off from self-publishing that original screenplay as a novel. I can’t really self-publish a screenplay, but I can if I convert it, or even better, expand it into a novel.

It’s been tough, as most of you can attest to, having to flesh out those one hundred and twenty pages of a screenplay into a full-length novel. But on the plus side, it gave me the opportunity to add scenes into the novel that I had earlier removed from the screenplay in order for it to get under the one hundred and twenty-page limit.

Looking back down the mountain I’m about to reach the summit of, I can smile. I don’t care if this debut novel fails to sell outside my circle of family and friends; I DID IT! I also know that I’ve got many more stories bubbling inside my head that are bursting to get down onto the page.

How about you?