WILLIE MEIKLE: Five Things I Learned Writing THE EXILED

By darkheroicfantasy

 

 

 

 

 

When several young girls are abducted from various locations in Edinburgh, Detective John Granger and his brother Alan, a reporter, investigate the cases from different directions. The abductor is cunning, always one step ahead, and the only clue he leaves behind at each scene are the brutalized corpses of black swans.

 

When the brothers' investigations finally converge at a farmhouse in Central Scotland, they catch a glimpse of where the girls have been taken, a place both far away yet close enough to touch. A land known throughout Scottish history with many names: Faerie, Elfheim, and the Astral Plane. It is a place of legend and horror, a myth. But the brothers soon discover it's real, and, to catch the abductor, they will have to cross over themselves.

 

To catch a killer, John and Alan Granger will have to battle the Cobbe, a strange and enigmatic creature that guards the realm, a creature of horrific power that demands a heavy price for entry into its world. The fate of both realms hangs in the balance…and time is running out...

 

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1. The black bird isn't going away.

I've been having a dream off and on since I was a boy. It's of a bird - a huge, black, bird. The stuff that dreams are made of.

 

In the nightmare I'm on the edge of a high sea cliff. I feel the wind on my face, taste salt spray, smell cut grass and flowers. I feel like if I could just give myself to the wind I could fly. Then it comes, from blue, snow covered mountains way to the north, a black speck at first, getting bigger fast. Before I know it it is on me, enfolding me in feathers. It lowers its head, almost like a dragon, and puts its beak near my ear. It whispers.

 

I had the dream many times, and always woke up at this point.

 

Then, in 1991, I heard what it said.

 

"Will we talk about the black bird?"

 

The next morning, for the first time since 1976, I wrote a story. It wasn't a very good story, but something had been woken up, and the day after that I wrote another, a wee ghost story. It didn't have a black bird in it, but it did have some jazz, and a sultry broad, a murder and some dancing. When that one made me 100 pounds in a ghost story competition, I was on my way.

 

The bird comes back and whispers to me every couple of years - I've come to think of it as my spirit guide. Although it terrifies me, it also reassures me in a weird kind of way. As long as it's around, I'll still be a writer and not just a drunk with weird ideas he can't express.

 

The bird's most recent appeareance was last year, and the next morning I had an idea. THE EXILED, my Darkfuse novel is a way of making sense of that dream - I think I got close to the heart of it.

 

2. Scotland is seared into my soul.

I moved to Newfoundland in 2007, but my writing keeps circling back to my homeland. A lot of my work, long and short form, has been set in Scotland, and much of it uses the history and folklore. There’s just something about the misty landscapes and old buildings that speaks straight to my soul. Bloody Celts… we get all sentimental at the least wee thing.

 

I've been writing 'away'a lot in recent years, picking up stories in my new environment here. But as soon as I started THE EXILED and got the sights and sounds of Edinburgh in my head, it felt like coming home.

 

So, although there will be many tales to come set in the New World, it is in the old one where my heart truly lies. I don't think that'll ever change.

3. Shite happens.

I've tried writing outlines, both for short stories and novels, but I've never stuck to one yet. My fingers get a direct line to the muse and I continually find myself being surprised at the outcome. Thanks to South Park, I call them my "Oh shit, I've killed Kenny" moments, and when they happen, I know I'm doing the right thing. It happened again in THE EXILED, at a pivotal point in the story. A character was taking form, staring to get a voice and grow real - and then a sentence later, they'd gone. I don't question it - I've learned to trust my subconscious on these things, but it was still a jolt at the time it happened.

4. The pulp is seared into my soul.

It's all about the struggle of the dark against the light. The time and place, and the way it plays out is in some ways secondary to that. And when you're dealing with archetypes, there's only so many to go around, and it's not surprising that the same concepts of death and betrayal, love and loss, turn up wherever, and whenever, the story is placed.

 

And in my case, it's almost all pulp. Big beasties, swordplay, sorcery, ghosts, guns, aliens, werewolves, vampires, eldritch things from beyond and slime. Lots of slime.

 

I think you have to have grown up with pulp to -get- it. A lot of writers have been told that pulp=bad plotting and that you have to have deep psychological insight in your work for it to be valid. They've also been told that pulp=bad writing, and they believe it. Whereas I remember the joy I got from early Moorcock, from Mickey Spillane and further back, A E Merritt and H Rider Haggard. I'd love to have a chance to write a Tarzan, John Carter, Allan Quartermain, Mike Hammer or Conan novel, whereas a lot of writers I know would sniff and turn their noses up at the very thought of it.

 

So here's to the pulp. I may long for literary recognition, fancy awards and bookish respectability, but in the end it's the story that's the important thing. I hope I don't forget it.

5. I'm a long way from done.

I started writing in '92, so the twenty five year mark isn't that far off. I've written 25 novels, ten novellas and over 300 short stories. And they just keep on coming - faster now if anything. Ideas continually vie for attention - and just this week the nightmare paid me another visit... Will we talk about the black bird?

 

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William Meikle is a Scottish genre writer now living in Newfoundland.

He has 20 novels and several hundred short stories in genre presses, anthologies and magazines. His current top seller is the sci-fi novel THE INVASION with 20,000 copies sold and counting.

His work covers several genres including:

Creature Features Occult Detectives Lovecraftian stories Vampires

Sword and Sorcery Scottish Fiction Science Fiction

When he's not writing Willie drinks beer, plays guitar and dreams of fortune and glory.

 

Links:

 

The Exiled

AMAZON http://www.amazon.com/The-Exiled-William-Meikle/dp/1940544211/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1406908788&sr=8-4&keywords=william+meikle

B&N http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-exiled-william-meikle/1119898482?ean=9781940544212

Website www.williammeikle.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/williemeikle

Twitter https://twitter.com/williemeikle

Bob Freeman: Five Things I Learned Writing SHADOWS OVER SOMERSET

by darkheroicfantasy

 

 

What evil lurks in the heart of Cairnwood Manor?

 

Michael Somers is brought to Cairnwood, an isolated manor in rural Indiana, to sit at the deathbed of a grandfather he never knew existed. He soon finds himself drawn into a strange and esoteric world filled with werewolves, vampires, witches… and a family curse that dates back to fourteenth century Scotland.

 

In the sleepy little town of Somerset, an ancient evil awakens, hungering for blood and vengeance… and if Michael is to survive he must face his inner demons and embrace his family’s dark past.

 

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What are the five things I learned from writing Shadows Over Somerset? Good question, and one not easily answered. Shadows was my first novel, written under both the best and worst of circumstances. Let's take a look at how that unfolded.

 

1. I was married on the first day of Autumn in the year 2000. As luck would have it, I walked out on my job as manager of a retail chain bookstore just a week prior. So there I was, newly married, without meaningful employment, and a job search that was getting me nowhere.

 

My new bride suggested I use the time to write a novel, something I always talked about doing but never got around to. Call it a lack of motivation, or the fear of failure, or what have you. Regardless, it was something I aspired to, and she damn well knew it.

 

She saw this as my opportunity and inspired me to drum my fingers on the keyboard while she went off to make ends meet. And that's what I did.

 

Each night after she left for work, I sat down at my computer, armed with a pack of smokes and a head full of ideas, and I wrote, feverishly. When she got home, she read what I'd spent the night writing.

 

This was my motivation — to have something worthwhile to share with her when she got home. It was a magical, bonding experience for us.

 

Three months passed and the first novel in the Cairnwood Manor saga was a reality.

 

Ummm, yeah, I'd be getting the heck out of there too.

 

2. The setting for Shadows — The Mississinewa Reservoir and surrounding State Forest, the town of Somerset, et al — was (and is) my old stomping grounds. I spent years combing that area, and I'd had a long fascination with its local history.

 

It was a natural fit for that location to find its way into the novel.

 

As they say, write what you know, and I knew Somerset and its environs like the back of my hand.

 

3. Speaking of writing what you know.

 

Shadows is littered with actual events, culled from my personal history. The names were changed to protect the guilty, of course. If you're looking to add verisimilitude to your stories, there's no better way than to keep it real. That means bleeding on the page. Your pain is your audience's gain.

 

 

4. The genesis for this tale about a clan of werewolves living in the backwoods of Somerset was born from a real enough event.

 

My brother, a couple of our friends, and I were out along an old stretch of abandoned road near Goose Creek in the late '80s when we heard the low growls of something fierce. Several somethings actually. We could see the glow of their eyes in the deep woods, moving toward us.

 

Needless to say, we were each gripped by an unnatural fear. Suddenly, one of our companions bolted, racing up the fractured road, hellbent for the safety of our car parked at the top of the hill.

 

That's when the beasts came at us, fast and furious. We fled like we had hellhounds on our trail.

 

It's certainly a night I'll never forget.

5. The truest thing I learned from writing Shadows was that the old adage about putting your ass in the chair and doing the work was gospel.

 

Writing was something I knew that I was born to do, but the thing that was holding me back was the motivation to do the actual work.

 

And it is work. Don't kid yourself.

 

The thing is, it's satisfying, and once you bite the bullet and park yourself in front of the keyboard and just let it go, you'll wonder what took you so god damn long.

 

Anyway, that's how it played out. If you'd like to hear me ramble more on the subject, you can find me at occultdetective.com or on twitter/occultdetective.

 

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Shadows Over Somerset (The Cairnwood Manor Series Book 1) can be ordered through your favorite bookseller (you know, the ones you actually physically walk through the door), or found here:

 

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

 

The Occult Detective himself: Bob Freeman